Chapter 12 — Strong Reasons

Chapter 12: Chapter 12 — Strong Reasons

Chapter 12 — Strong Reasons

Northgate’s merchants opened before sunrise.

Christopher reached the grain market with Bennet and Walter while frost still clung to the edges of the roofs. They were not the first buyers. Soldiers stood beside army carts at one end of the street, and the servants of three northern nobles argued over sacks at the other, while men carried grain out of the warehouses almost as quickly as the merchants could count it.

Bennet spoke to the first seller and came back shaking his head.

"He will give us twenty sacks."

"We asked for fifty."

"The army asked for two hundred."

Inside the warehouse, bare floor showed between the remaining stacks. The next merchant had less, and a third offered old barley that smelled damp through the sack.

He bought the twenty good sacks and left the spoiled grain where it was.

The rest of the morning went much the same way. They found lamp oil at twice the price Bennet had written in Griffin City, leather in pieces too small for wagon covers, and only six bolts of thick winter cloth. Medicine was worse — the military healers had first claim, and the apothecary would sell them little more than fever powder, clean bandages, and two jars of salve.

Christopher paid. He had money, but the warehouses had little left to sell.

"How long will this last us?" he asked when the purchases had been gathered beside their wagons.

Bennet rubbed his thumb over the edge of his slate. "The grain depends on what we find at Dragonwatch. If its storehouses are empty, not long enough."

Christopher almost told them to buy more of everything, then stopped before the order left his mouth. They had already visited every seller Bennet trusted, and spending more would only fill the wagons with bad grain and cracked tools.

"Keep enough silver for tomorrow," Christopher said. "We may find private sellers."

Bennet nodded and covered the purchased supplies with canvas.

Finding people proved harder.

Northgate had no proper hiring square. Anyone who wanted work could find it without standing around to advertise. Breaches still scarred the fortress walls, houses needed new roofs, and the surviving estates sent agents through the gates every morning looking for hands.

Christopher tried two taverns near the southern yard. Walter spoke with discharged soldiers while Bennet asked after builders and herdsmen, and by midday they had found one limping spearman who wanted a permanent wage fit for a Bronze Knight and three laborers willing to travel only as far as the nearest village.

The spearman looked Christopher’s age twice over. His left knee bent poorly, but his arms were thick and scarred.

"Dragonwatch, my lord?" the man asked. "The ruin past the old watch road?"

"That’s where we are going."

"Then I would ask twice the usual wage, my lord. A man may never find another road back from there."

"You named a smaller wage before you heard the destination."

"Yes, my lord. Dragonwatch changes the price."

Christopher dismissed him and continued searching.

The reaction followed them through the fortress. Men who had lost homes wanted walls around them. Men with families wanted fields that had already been cleared. Even those willing to gamble on a new settlement preferred the protected lands south of Northgate.

Christopher could not blame them; he was asking people to follow him somewhere he had never seen, into a colder country that had only recently stopped sending orc armies south.

Money persuaded some people. Most still refused.

They ate meat pies beside a blacksmith’s yard while Walter counted the morning’s results.

"No knights, apprentices, or craftsmen, my lord. Only three laborers, and none will pass the northern gate."

"You forgot the expensive spearman."

"I was trying to forget him, my lord."

Bennet had gone to ask a merchant about seed grain, leaving Christopher with Walter, who watched soldiers passing along the street.

"There may be men among the garrison who want to leave," Christopher said.

"The Lord Marshal won’t release useful soldiers while the walls are undermanned."

"What of men who have already deserted?"

Walter’s eyebrows rose.

"I wasn’t suggesting we hire them."

"Good. Desperate men are not always dependable men."

Christopher finished the pie and wiped grease from his fingers. He had hoped the fortress would hold people desperate enough to take his wages. It held thousands of desperate people, but most of them had already measured the danger beyond the walls and chosen to remain.

Bennet returned empty-handed from his search for seed grain.

A rider in green and white was waiting outside the tavern, the Harcourt badge fastened to his cloak.

"Baron Drake," he said. "Lord Roland Harcourt requests your company."

Roland had taken rooms in a merchant’s stone house near the western wall. He was a lean man in his late twenties, with the Harcourt badge at his collar and good wine already poured when Christopher entered.

"Sit," Roland said. "Unless Baldwin kept you standing long enough last night."

Christopher sat but left the wine alone.

Roland noticed. "Godfrey Hales taught you caution?"

"The road did."

"It teaches everyone eventually." Roland turned the map on the table. Several claims south and west of Dragonwatch had been circled in green. "These men travelled under my banner. We plan to keep helping one another once we settle. News, trade, soldiers when there is trouble. You should join us."

Not I would like you to. Christopher traced the road north with his eyes; Dragonwatch stood alone beyond every green circle.

"Your nearest settlement is days from mine."

"Then you need friends more than they do."

"And when two friends disagree?"

Roland leaned back. "Is that your polite way of asking who gives the orders?"

"Yes."

Roland’s smile reached his eyes. "Harcourt brought the largest force. Harcourt pays the messengers. Men usually listen to the house carrying the burden."

"Usually."

The smile faded a little.

Roland touched the mark for Dragonwatch. "You have fifty families in a ruin beyond regular patrols. I have men, supplies and names that open doors. You have Sir Godfrey."

"He rides beside me. His choices are his own."

"Every Silver Knight makes his own choices. His sword is still useful."

Christopher felt the pressure beneath the courteous words. Refusing a duke’s second cousin could create an enemy before he possessed a roof; accepting would put Harcourt’s hand around Dragonwatch before Christopher had even seen it.

"I will exchange news," he said. "And trade, if either of us has something the other needs. I won’t promise soldiers today."

Roland picked up his cup. "Not even Hales?"

"Especially not Hales."

Silence held between them for a breath. Then Roland laughed and drank.

"Very well. Think about the rest. Wentworth and Fairfax are still on the road, but they will make their own offers when they arrive."

At the door, Christopher paused. "Was that advice or a warning?"

"Whichever makes you remember it."

They took a different street back toward the convoy. Northgate had been built in layers, newer houses crowded against older stone, some leaning into one another, others burned down and turned into storage yards, kitchens, or rows of tents.

Near a small temple, children in gray coats lined up with wooden bowls. Christopher recognized them from the previous evening, and in daylight he could see how many there were.

More than forty waited beside the outdoor kitchen. The oldest helped serve the youngest, one girl holding a toddler on her hip while balancing her own bowl in her free hand.

Christopher slowed.

"War orphans," Walter said. "The temple took in as many as it could."

"Who pays for them?"

"The temple. Donations. The fortress when it has food to spare."

The pot at the head of the line held thin porridge. A woman in a brown robe scraped its bottom while several children still waited.

Christopher considered the twenty sacks of grain on the wagon behind them. They were not enough for Dragonwatch, and giving any away made that problem worse.

He remembered the little girl holding the toddler.

"Two sacks," he said.

Bennet looked from him to the wagon. "My lord?"

"Give the temple two sacks and five silver marks."

"We paid Northgate prices for that grain."

"I know."

Bennet waited, perhaps expecting him to reconsider.

Christopher nodded toward the children. "They will eat it."

Walter unloaded the sacks himself. The woman in brown introduced herself as Sister Agnes and thanked Christopher without making a ceremony of it; her tired expression changed more at the sight of the grain than at the coins.

"This will carry us several days," she said.

"It is only two sacks. How can that last several days?"

"We make the porridge thin."

That explained what he had seen in the pot.

While Bennet spoke with her about buying food from the same merchants supplying the temple, Christopher watched the children. He had used the Dragon Eyes only twice since Griffin City. Both times left a pressure behind his eyes, but he needed fighters, and the orphanage was filled with children who would someday need work.

He let Essence move toward his eyes. Sounds dulled, colors faded, and faint lights appeared around the children. Gray dominated the line. White appeared often enough that he stopped counting. Four of the older children shone Green.

Christopher released the bloodline before the ache could grow. They were still children waiting for food, whatever color surrounded them.

A crash sounded from behind the temple.

Several children flinched. One dropped his bowl. Sister Agnes turned at once.

"Bram, what happened back there?"

Christopher followed her around the building. A woodpile occupied most of the rear yard, and beside it stood a boy carrying a split log beneath each arm.

Boy was not the first word Christopher would have chosen.

Bram was taller than Walter and nearly as broad through the shoulders. His gray coat had been patched at both elbows and did not close across his chest. Thick brown hair hung over his forehead. A broken handcart lay at his feet with one wheel turned sideways.

He stared down at the cart, looking for all the world like a man betrayed.

"I didn’t kick it," Bram said.

"Nobody said you did," Sister Agnes replied.

"It broke."

"I can see that. Put down the wood first."

Bram obeyed. He placed both logs carefully on the pile, then stood with his hands hanging at his sides, his knuckles scraped raw.

Two smaller boys watched from the doorway.

"Ox-blood broke it," one whispered.

Bram’s head snapped toward him. The child vanished inside.

"What did he call him?" Christopher asked.

Sister Agnes sighed. "Some people say Bram’s father was an orc. Others say he was simply a large man. Nobody who knew his mother is still alive to answer."

Bram looked human to Christopher, though heavier in the jaw and shoulders than most men, a pale scar running from his temple into his hair. He watched Sister Agnes rather than the strangers, waiting for another instruction.

"How old is he?" Walter asked.

"Sixteen."

Walter’s surprise showed for only a moment.

"He was found after the western villages burned," Sister Agnes continued. "He remembers his name and little else clearly. He is slow with some things, but he works if the task is shown to him."

"I don’t like swords," Bram said.

"You don’t have to explain," she told him.

Christopher felt the first warning throb behind his eyes. He should have left the bloodline alone. Instead, he looked at Bram and called upon it once more.

Purple filled his vision.

It was deeper than Edwin Harland’s light had been at the wake. Christopher held the sight for a heartbeat before the burning behind his eyes forced him to release it.

The Dragon Eyes began to burn. Christopher shut them and pressed two fingers against the bridge of his nose.

"My lord?" Walter asked.

"The cold air."

Walter frowned and let the matter rest.

Bram lifted the broken cart, turned it over, studied the wheel, then tried to force the wooden peg back through the split axle.

"Leave it," Sister Agnes said. "Brother Matthew will mend it."

Bram immediately set it down.

Christopher watched him return to the woodpile. Whatever the Dragon Eyes had seen in Bram, strength alone would not make the boy a knight.

Taking Bram north made Christopher responsible for him.

"Has anyone offered him work?" Christopher asked.

"A mason tried, but Bram had trouble following everything he was told. Two officers tested him for the army. He would not hold the practice sword."

Walter folded his arms. "And you keep him here with children."

"He is gentle with them. They aren’t always gentle with him."

Bram stacked another log, taking care to make its end level with the others.

Christopher had come looking for knights and found a frightened boy who might one day become greater than any fighter in House Drake. He still needed Godfrey’s judgment before offering anything.

"What’s his full name?" Christopher asked.

"Only Bram," Sister Agnes said. "That’s all he remembers."

Bram’s head turned at the sound of his name.

Christopher stepped toward him. "I’m Christopher. May I speak with you?"

Bram glanced at Sister Agnes. When she nodded, he faced Christopher again.

"About what?"

"Work," Christopher said. "But first, I want to know what you want."