Bright Swords of Serena

Chapter 8

Nine days after taking Amrala, Prince Calvan moved several more companies over the dunes and down the valley, to camp forward of the little market town. On the next day, the thirteenth of April, he started his forward ten companies marching down the valley again, and for the first time met some serious resistance. Someone must have warned the villages southwest of Amrala: people had had time to drag rusty swords out of attics and storehouses, oil them clean, put them to the grindstone, to sharpen the blades of their axes and set their pitchforks ready to hand. Two footsoldiers from the Imbray Second were killed in a set-to with some farmers in a field, and another, a sergeant in the Losindar Fourth, was speared in the belly by a broken hoe. His squadmates carried him back to camp, but he died a few hours later. Hollander heard about it and went looking for Fanning. She was in their tent.

"Nicky, I heard..."

"Yes." She was terser, harder than usual. "I suppose it was bound to happen."

"I'm sorry."

"I meant you were bound to come looking for me."

He raised his eyebrows. "I shouldn't have?"

She looked stonily at the floor of the tent for a long time, then got up and said, "Can you help me get my jacket off? Damn arm won't let me."

"What happened to your arm?"

"Got sliced by a damnfool woman with a carving knife, defending her home," Fanning said. "I wasn't going to hurt anyone, but there was me and my sword and I can't blame her. I just wasn't careful enough. Maybe I shouldn't have felt so sorry for her."

Fanning feeling sorry for anyone was such a novel idea that Hollander blinked before he said, "You didn't tell me you were hurt."

"I'm telling you now!" she snapped. "And it barely broke the skin. The medics already bandaged it for me. Shouldn't have put my jacket back on."

Not wanting to be asked again, Hollander carefully slid the uniform jacket down Fanning's arms. She hissed as it came off, but hung it up as usual before saying, "Helmet."

Hollander obliged. She said gruffly, "Thank you," and then, without thinking, reached up to start taking the pins out of her hair. She promptly swore. "Ouch!"

"Don't you think ahead?" Hollander said, trying not to offend her further by laughing at her. "Let me do that."

She held still, facing away from him, straight and upright, as he removed pin after pin and draped the long waves down her back. After a long moment, she said, "You do that well."

"I grew up playing with my mothers' hair. Mama Signy, anyway. Mama Nell had short hair because she said it got in the way at deliveries. You should see Caro's when it's all let out."

"And she doesn't find it gets in the way on a fisherboat?"

"She pins it up, same as you."

"Huh."

Hollander reached for Fanning's hairbrush. She said, "I never—I've never met Caroline."

"I think you'd get along well," Hollander said. "Sailors to the heart, both of you."

"I think I can manage now, Anders. Thank you."

"Don't hurt yourself," Hollander said with a shrug. He was used to Fanning's ways, political and personal. But she didn't banish him outright. To his surprise, she continued the conversation about Caroline.

"You two really met at the Northcounty Ball?"

"You know that. And a fine scandal it was when people realized who she was, and that she'd been let in anyway. Of course, that didn't happen till the next morning, and by then it was too late to do anything about it." It had also been too late to do anything about his heart, lost the moment he saw her.