Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Of course setting them up according to height was the logical solution. Logical and horrible. As if the day wasn’t scary enough already. As if they weren’t stressed enough by it.

Fair enough, he was the one stressed. Alyss had prudently taken an interest in the whole subject much earlier and made sure she had a clear vision of what was to come on the day. Which didn’t change the fact, that she still had to survive the ceremony. And setting according to height.

They were expecting something like that. Of course it was to be expected. It was almost as certain as the fact that confusion would start at the reading of the names. They hadn’t even got to that yet, and Will already felt that he was seconds away from escaping not just from here, but from Castle Redmont in general.

Horace was the tallest, of course. So much for that, though. The moment of hesitation between Alyss and George was so brief that the Baron and the others gathered probably didn’t even catch it. Will, for his part, saw it clearly. He also caught the blink of an eye when Alyss made her decision. She stood in line next to Horace. Hiding the height difference between her and George would have been impossible.

And yet Will was as grateful to George for this hesitation as he was in awe of the calmness with which Alyss stood before the Baron and the Craftmasters.

He wished he could have had that much composure, endured with such dignity the stares that were directed at her, assessing the slender figure, the long blond hair, and the countenance devoid of a trace of nervousness. It was as if nothing could confuse, surprise, or frighten her.

He remembered himself only after meeting Jenny’s gaze. There were only the two of them left. They hesitated. Jenny indicated his place behind George with a brief movement of her head. She was taller. She should be standing next to George. Yet she knew what a nightmare day Will had had since the morning and how afraid he was of what was yet to come.

They were stopped by Martin’s shout. Will took his place at the very end of the row. He raised his head, trying to maintain at least a modicum of similar composure to Alyss. One last time all five of them looked at each other.

They wouldn’t say a word. Even Horace won’t speak up if they ask. Whatever the Baron, Martin or any of the masters say, no one but Alyss and Will were going to speak on their behalf.

The first laugh rolled through the room as Alyss introduced herself. It was short and broke off abruptly. Will then noticed that, seated with a dignified calmness on her face, Lady Pauline glanced only once in the direction from which the uninvited sound had come.

Even Baron Arald moved slightly nervously. Alyss was the only one who did not seem to hear this. She continued speaking, without a trace of hesitation in her voice, without a hint of confusion.

“I request an appointment to the Diplomatic Service, please, my lord.”

The silence did not last long. The Baron looked at Lady Pauline, in whose eyes the menacing promise of a bloody trial had vanished. Instead, she had the same unbroken calm on her face as the young girl who wished to be her pupil.

Although Will was sure that Alyss would be accepted, he was pleased to hear Lady Pauline’s response. Factual, clear. With emphasis on the name and on the word ‘she’. No one dared speak up.

Baron Arald nodded again, and it was the answer everyone else would have given if asked. Will even dared a weak smile when he met Alyss’s gaze, returning to the row. She didn’t even bat an eyelid.

In her place, he would have died of fright there already.

It took Will a moment to remember that his turn to take that very place was imminent. Specifically, he realised it anew when everyone took notice of George’s nervousness.

Even the way Jenny was behaving didn’t help him any. With every word his friend said, they were inevitably approaching the moment when he too would have to come out ahead. That moment came too soon not by a few minutes, but by a few years, in Will’s opinion.

Although he felt as if he was about to topple over and merge into unity with the floor of the hall, if he was going to continue to stand and stare like that, feeling the stares of those gathered on him, he would have preferred to keep standing like that. Another whole day, a whole week, maybe even into the new year. As long as he didn’t have to step out in front. As long as he didn’t have to speak up.

He had to. And they watched him hunch over, step forward. They saw the crooked haircut; they saw the sloping shoulders that made him appear even shorter. They saw a petite, scrawny figure. And the terrified eyes of a boy who knew full well they didn’t want him here even before he spoke.

“Will, sir. My name is Will.”

There was no laughter in the reply. No one asked if they had heard him correctly or whether he had mispronounced himself. He expected laughter, in response to which no one would silence them with a look. There was no one among the Craftmasters who might want to stand up for him.

He understood why they didn’t laugh or ask when Martin asked him who he actually was. What was his family name. Will, and what next?

They didn’t know. They paid no attention to him. He was just one of many scrawny orphans of war heroes. There were many like him hanging around the ward. The fact that this one made it to the age of fifteen didn’t make him stand out.

Alyss drew attention to herself. They knew about her because they knew her. Will was a completely strange child to them. And that thought lifted his spirits enough that he straightened up a little.

He wanted to explain on his own, but Baron Arald preceded him.

“Will is a special case, Martin.”

He meant the lack of a family name, of course. However, looking at the Baron, Will was sure that he knew. The Baron knew how special a case he actually was. A kid who had taken too long to understand himself to know how to deal with it even a little bit. To have an idea of what to do with himself now. Where to go. What to ask for. Who to ask. Who to be.

“Every knight father would want a knight son...” Horace once pronounced when, as little children, they shared visions of who they wanted to be in the future.

At the time, Will was too horrified by how much he disagreed with the world around him to think about what the next few years would bring. The next few days were too far away, too terrifying a prospect.

Horace wanted to be a knight, believing that this was what his father, who had fallen in the war like so many others, would have wanted of him. Horace had a broken off piece of an arm-piece left after his father, which he never threw away. He also had his last name and a real chance of becoming a knight, a son his parents would have been proud of if only they had lived to see what he had become.

Will was just under the illusion that if he tried very hard, no one from the Craftmasters would realise what a special case he was. He said what he had decided to say to himself. Even as he spoke, he knew they would refuse.

Sir Rodney didn’t want him as an apprentice.

“I’m afraid he’s too small, my lord,” he said. Will simultaneously wanted to run from the hall, but also to look Sir Rodney straight in the face and thank him.

He just did not dare to do so. He spoke up again, however, trying to convince them that he was stronger than he looked. He was. They had no idea how strong he could be, how much he could endure. If only they gave him the chance he would work to the bitter end. If only someone was willing to take a risk and see what Will could become.

But he couldn’t help it if they didn’t want him. And he understood. He really did understand them so much, and that’s why it hurt so much.

“You’re the only one who thinks of yourself as worthless!” Alyss told him once, with that impossible calm in her eyes. “Only you and no one else, Will.”

And yet... and yet she was wrong this one time.

It was a good thing, though, that it was about him, not her. Since he was about to lose this chance himself, he was glad at least that she had succeeded. She’ll be able to prove to them all what an amazing girl she is, how much she can do. And no one will dare to laugh anymore. She will terrify and amaze everyone.

And he may one day forgive himself for never having mustered the same courage, the same calm and the same strength to find a place for himself in the world.

“Is there any one of you who could use this boy?” Baron Arald asked, and it was his last win that day, even if bitter from grief.

Though everyone shook their heads in turn. Though no one wanted him.

He seemed to see a second of hesitation in Lady Pauline, who looked at him somehow differently from the others. And this time it was he, hating himself wholeheartedly for it, who shook his head minimally. The Head of the Diplomatic Service did not say a word. She knew.

Perhaps she also knew that Will would not be able to.... even if the alternative was to work on the farm until he died, he wouldn’t be able to do it... he couldn’t stand it.

And here he was left, the only one, needed by no one.

And then Ranger Halt and the mysterious paper started to change the course of Will’s life forever.

* * *

He was wrong. The legendary Ranger, who probably had at least something to do with black magic after all, and who was held in high esteem by everyone in the kingdom, with Baron Arald ahead, was wrong. So terribly wrong.

He didn’t know him. He had no idea who Will was. He couldn’t have known him, otherwise he certainly wouldn’t have approached it this way. He didn’t know him; he didn’t know who he had come across. Had he chosen him by chance, or simply because there was no one else left to choose from? Was he that desperate to find a journeyman for the Corps?

It didn’t matter anymore why did he do it. He had made a mistake.

Will didn’t understand it the moment he read the message. Not until Baron Arald tried to explain it all to him somehow. When he said that it looked like Will’s talents were much more suited to him becoming a Ranger rather than a knight.

Ranger Halt thought so, hence the letter, and that wandering, ominous look he kept on Will. He thought Will was fit to be his apprentice.

And at the same time he knew absolutely nothing about him. He couldn’t know anything about him. If he had known, he would not have written what he wrote.

“The boy Will has the potential to be trained as a Ranger. I will accept him as my apprentice.”

For a moment, Will didn’t care what the Rangers actually were, or how terrifying they could turn out to be. Someone wanted him, someone was willing to train him. He would have been so happy if only it had been true.

If only Halt, knowing everything, still believed that. Him or anyone else.

Meanwhile, Halt was wrong, or maybe Baron Arald hadn’t told him the truth for some reason. Maybe he expected Will to do it himself. Or maybe he simply forgot. There could also have been collusion, it could have all been for some purpose.

Will himself didn’t know which fears sounded most likely. Hiding them all deep, he turned up despite them at the appointed time outside the Ranger’s cabin. Not for a moment ridding himself of them, he looked at Halt and listened to him....

And for the first day he counted every time Halt called him ‘boy’. He did so, wondering how this man was supposed to be an excellent Ranger if he couldn’t see the obvious things Will was being pointed out by the kids in the yard. He didn’t see, though. He didn’t know.

To Will’s confession that he couldn’t cook, Halt just said that boys didn’t usually know how to do that. If he had even a mediocre sense of observation, he would have noticed how Will was staring at him at the time, unable to utter a word. If he had watched carefully, he would have realised long ago. Meanwhile, one day passed… and then a second and a third, and before Will knew it, a whole week had gone by. And then the next one.

And Halt still didn’t know.

* * *

“That’s Will there!” Halt snapped.

His anger should have terrified Will. Yet the insistence with which the menacing Ranger uttered those words, preventing Salt Peter from saying a single word more was… pleasant.

Salt Peter did not insult Will once, instead he put on a truly embarrassing display of belittling Halt. Yet Halt only cut off the conversation when the issue became about his apprentice.

“That’s Will!” he growled, and that was the end of the discussion.

And for one heartbeat Will looked at him, amazed by the force with which the words had been spoken. It came so easily to him to imagine that Halt had said them under different circumstances. In front of people who used to point fingers at him, in front of children who laughed, in front of all that doubt-filled smiles as he introduced himself.

“This is Will!” And no one would dare argue.

Halt would silence them all, with his tone alone, with his gaze. This was Will, the kid he was training. And no one had the right to question that.

“This is Will!” Will shouted to himself in a spirit so strong that if he had done it out loud, the birds would have leapt from the trees, frightened.

It was Will, it was him, and the whole world might not believe him, but so what. The world was wrong. Halt was prepared to argue about it.

This was Will, Ranger Halt’s apprentice, who was either totally blind or the greatest man in the world and just.... knew…

It had started to get to Will even before the boar hunt. Halt knew. Halt knew from the very beginning. He knew... and he just didn’t care.

Will had spent hours trying to push this conclusion away from himself, so full of illusory, naive hope that could do him no good. He tried to find arguments to the contrary. Halt did not know, could not know. He’d been wrong, and that was the only reason he’d still let Will pretend he was his apprentice.

Halt didn’t know, otherwise he wouldn’t have wanted him. But could he not have known? Could he really?

Will thought about it, growing tired of the uncertainty. He recalled all the lessons when he had never received a single strange look, a single moment of hesitation before calling him ‘Will’. Not a single doubt in his voice when Halt called him ‘boy’, which he eventually stopped doing. He called him Will, as if his apprentice had never had any other name and as if no other name could ever be his.

That was Will. Halt acted from the start as if this matter was not up for discussion. Maybe because he didn’t know... or maybe it was because he knew.

He knew, it got to Will when Halt wouldn’t let anyone see the tears in his eyes. He knew, Will was already sure of it, feeling a strong hand on his shoulder even as he turned to speak to Horace. He knew, as he saved Will’s life. He knew when he chose him for the first time and every single one after that. He knew what he was doing all this time.

Halt knew, a rumble in his temples as he shakily approached Tug. They were due back after the hunt. He didn’t need to be afraid anymore. The boars lay slain, and Halt knew what was to be known. There was nothing in the world worth worrying about, nothing terrifying.

Yet it was only then that his hands began to shake. Crushing his lip with his teeth, he tried to conceal it’s trembling, which he had no way of controlling. He stopped by the horse, reached into the saddle. And he didn’t have the strength to get up, to jump on it, to ride away.

Though he didn’t need to disappear anywhere anymore.

A heavy, strong hand was back on his shoulder. Halt asked him nothing, as if he also knew about the tears and maybe even about all the fears Will had.

“Let’s take a walk...” he spoke up as simply as if he saw nothing unusual around him. Or as if he understood everything he saw. “The horses are tired, nervous. A little walk will do them good.”

Will nodded, not daring to lift his gaze to him. His hood slid off his face as he tried to reach into the saddle. Halt must have seen... and yet he said nothing. Nor did he take his hand from the boy’s shoulder.

They set off through the forest, unhurriedly, wading through the snow. Gradually they moved away from the hunting tracks. The snow became higher, clear, not scraped by boots or hooves. They had quite a distance to the Ranger’s cabin.

And Halt had not taken his hand from his apprentice’s shoulder all this time, had not asked him anything or made him explain anything. As if nothing needed to be explained to him. As if he already knew and understood everything.

For a moment Will wanted to ask him about it. Just finally ask if he knew, and if so, how, and why he hadn’t said anything all this time. To ask if he had been waiting for Will to dare to say it, if this was all some kind of test too, or what this was actually about. He wanted to ask why, if names weren’t important in his opinion, Halt cared so much about Will’s name.

Halt couldn’t understand it that well. No one had ever understood. Just him, just Alyss.

Eventually he just asked him if they would often hunt like this, assisted by knights. Halt looked at him then and scowled.

“I hope not,” he said in such a serious tone that Will thought it was funny.

Or maybe he was just laughing because it had been a long time since he had felt so strangely right. And since Halt hadn’t asked, Will hadn’t said anything to him. Maybe he didn’t need to say anything. Since Halt already knew anyway, there was no point in saying that.

For Halt it seemed to make no difference at all. Will believed in it even before the Ranger saved him again, and this time helping Horace as well.

* * *

Gilan knew from the very first moment he saw Will.

He didn’t hesitate when Halt introduced them to each other. He didn’t furrow his eyebrows and wonder if he had definitely heard correctly, as these less mean people sometimes did anyway. He looked briefly at Halt and Will heard the genuine concern in his voice, so the words hit much harder.

“So you’re the boy everyone’s talking about!”

Will was unaware that anyone outside the Redmont residents were talking about him. And Halt knew that too, for he sent his former pupil a sharp look. Gilan’s reflexes were instantaneous, but not quick enough for Will to be fully fooled. Although it sounded plausible, he had to honestly admit when Gilan laughed.

“Don’t get that look on your face! It’s not your fault we’re all talking about you, no. It’s just that this one here,” he waved his hand at Halt with a laugh, “insisted for many years that he wouldn’t take any apprentice. And when he took me on, the old guard of the Corps wouldn’t let it go. And here what, he’s barely enjoyed a couple of years of peace and quiet and he’s reported again that he’s taking an apprentice. Such a poser!”

Halt muttered menacingly, measuring Gilan with a frightening gaze. Gilan, however, did not seem frightened. He must have been used to Halt and his facial expressions, mumbling, sighing, and glaring. It was actually quite amusing, given that Halt never stopped trying to make a suitable impression on the young Ranger, and Gilan accepted all these efforts cheerfully and unapologetically.

He was also living proof that it was possible to survive training with Halt. On top of that, Will had never met someone like Gilan before. Imagining how unbelievably Gilan must have got on Halt’s nerves was quite amusing. As a child he was certainly unbearable. As an adult… well, Halt had the look of a sufferer, and with a few moments of their conversations, Will couldn’t say he was surprised by that.

But Gilan knew. And he didn’t say anything about it. Did the others know as well? Did they actually talk about it? Halt might have broken some Rangers’ laws this way, or somehow compromised his superiors, might have caused a sensation. And they were just going to their Gathering.

There was nothing in Gilan’s demeanour to suggest that they might be in danger there because of it. But Gilan didn’t understand, he didn’t know that feeling of constant fear and unceasingly looking around, whether someone whose sole purpose was to destroy his life was about to appear. Gilan had nothing to fear. He had his weapon, a bow and a sword, his official title of Ranger, his father’s knighthood, and the whole world ready for his jokes.

Will only had a horse on which he could ride off into the distance and hope no one tried to chase him. They had all known Halt many years, he even less than a year. Maybe Halt didn’t have a problem with him, but would he risk his familiarity with others or the way they would look at him? People didn’t take risks for Will. The top of their sacrifice was silence.

Maybe Halt wasn’t planning to say anything, but since everyone was already talking about Will anyway, it would make little difference.

Will felt that he had every right to fear what awaited him at the Gathering, and not at all because he was afraid of the tests. That, in fact, was the least of his worries. The whole crowd of Rangers, who already knew something about him, were there to get to know him, to judge him, to somehow check whether… whether he suited them, or whether Halt had made a mistake… that was terrifying.

Therefore, on his first instinct, instead of being worried by the confusion that had erupted, he breathed a sigh of relief. It was unclear whether the Gathering would take place at all. This was good news. If it did take place, but quickly and briefly, that wasn’t bad either. They would have plenty of other, more important matters to deal with than one frightened boy.

Only Halt’s growing concern brought him to his senses. Gilan’s unexpected seriousness only made it worse. Since they were worried about something, it would be reasonable to join in these concerns.

And yet, he couldn’t help but to be relieved as he looked at the commotion around him, becoming more and more convinced that the Rangers had rolled up camp and weren’t going to have any Gathering. And nobody cared about them. No one cared about Will, or whether he deserved to be here with them.

“Tell Crowley hello from me!” Gilan called out as Halt turned to the Corps Commander’s tent where the meeting was taking place.

He cheered up by saying this and Will couldn’t tame his curiosity. He glanced questioningly at his companion before he could remember that he was not supposed to draw attention.

“Long story,” Gilan replied, though no question was asked. “But what it all comes down to is that you will surely understand everything yourself when Halt introduces you to Crowley.”

“To the Master... your boss... ours, yes?” Will hazarded, for the name of the Ranger commander had already come up in earlier conversation about the Gathering.

“The one and only.” Gilan smiled broadly, which Will thought could mean one of two things, either he genuinely liked the Crowley in question, or he was just joking in a way that was completely incomprehensible to Will.

He decided not to ask. The less they told him about themselves, the less they should also expect him to tell them. Glad about the cloak that hid his face and blurred his figure, Will watched the folding encampment for a long moment in silence.

Many of the Rangers had already departed, others had not even had time to unpack. A few, like them, had only just arrived. They were waiting for news to be delivered by their commanders. Those commanders included Halt, as Will deduced from what was happening. A few senior Rangers had gathered in the commander’s tent and were discussing what had thwarted the Gathering’s plans. The others waited but seemed to keep their guard up. They gathered in groups, chatting, greeting each other when someone new came in and asked what all the fuss was about. Many took the opportunity to clean their horses and have something quick to eat. A great many complained in passing about not being sure whether a fire could be lit to make some coffee.

Will followed their figures with curiosity, blending in with the green of the trees as they happened to pass closer to the scrub. The horses all looked similar to Tug and Abelard. They all had the same cloaks. He even spotted a couple of rather short Rangers. One had a gitarra with him. Gilan waved at him and for a moment it looked like the Ranger with the gitarra was going to approach them, but immediately someone called him to talk.

Looking at it, Will furrowed his brow. Some Rangers had their hoods on, and some didn’t. This particular one didn’t. Will hesitated, and soon became confused. His staring was noted. A Ranger with long, fair hair glanced directly at him.

He immediately looked away, not wanting to get into trouble. Gilan instead waved once more, greeting another acquaintance. He called her Beatrice. Will raised his gaze, surprised at the confirmation of his suspicions.

“Gilan...?” he tried quietly, and his companion’s attention immediately shifted to him. A friendly smile encouraged him to ask whatever was in his mind. Will really wanted to believe him that he had the right to do so. “I thought... I thought women couldn’t be Rangers...”

Gilan didn’t get indignant about the words, didn’t reproach Will for the stupidity he must have displayed, after all, seeing with his own eyes that his words were wrong. Instead, he nodded with understanding.

“It’s been that way for many years. Lots of people believe it still is.” He must have perceived that this explained absolutely nothing to Will because he continued speaking immediately. And he still wasn’t angry that Will didn’t know that and asked about it. “For many years, the Corps was governed by almost the same laws as other military units. That changed with our leadership a few years ago. Many of the laws turned out not to make sense, others were never meant to work. A handful of us put the Corps back on its feet literally from scratch. A lot has changed since then... and a lot we’re still trying to change, but it doesn’t always go as easily as we’d like.”

Will mused for a moment. He was tempted to ask if Gilan counted himself among that handful. Later, however, he looked at the commander’s tent and, reminded of the meeting, came to a different conclusion.

Halt was there for sure when it all happened. But he probably wouldn’t tell about it either if Will asked. He didn’t care about his own name, only about Will’s.

“Why can’t you change what you want to change? The King forbids it?” Will hesitated, for he already knew so much from Halt that the Rangers were answering to the King, not to lords or barons.

“The King is the least of our worries,” Gilan almost laughed. The horror in Will’s eyes amused him sincerely. “Seriously. The problem is the council… and the law, changes to which cause great uproar and even greater outrage from the great lords behind the desk.”

“The barons...?” Will guessed, though he couldn’t believe that Baron Arald would count himself among them.

“Among others. The King has already had some problems around changing the law. Many expected and still expect him to have a son to inherit the crown. The vision of a woman on the throne terrified the great lords of the mighty so much that it almost ended in a next civil war.”

Will looked at him once more with undying horror. Gilan nodded grimly.

“And that’s why women aren't allowed...?”

“Well, they think they’re not allowed. A few years ago Crowley decided he didn’t give a damn. Him and a few of the old guard. We voted our own laws. Some just a lot of the baron lords don’t know about yet...” Gilan smiled with undisguised pride. “The worst thing is that because of it, people who would like to become Rangers don’t know about the changes either...”

If what Gilan was talking about was at least partly true, then Will could probably breathe easy. Even if they wouldn’t be able to understand, even if they resented Halt for understanding, there was a chance, a terrible and painful one, but it existed. He could still be wanted here, though not as himself. But perhaps they wouldn’t make Halt give him away.

“Change is terrible in how slowly it’s progressing,” Gilan went on. “Crowley has been trying for many years and sometimes it seems to us that the only ones who notice it are his enemies.”

Again, Will was curious about this and looked at Gilan, waiting to see if the latter would tell him more. He wouldn’t have to; Will hadn’t been officially accepted into the Corps yet, after all. He couldn’t yet say he belonged to them.

“His designs kind of pissed off a lot of influential people. But you know, somehow no one who tried to get rid of him lived to see the trial...” Gilan smiled somehow sinisterly.

Will reflexively looked once more at the Rangers, patiently and vigilantly awaiting news, knowing each other perfectly well. They didn’t seem like a group worth annoying. If they were half as good as Halt, he would never want to have enemies in them.

“Someone tried?” he hesitated disbelievingly.

“Oh yes, first they wanted to get rid of him officially. They formed a grouping to force the King to acknowledge to the council that the lordship public didn’t trust the Ranger commander. Well, and the King kind of ... um... laughed at them.” Gilan beamed at the thought. Will nodded his head very weakly and wasn’t sure if it was inspiring or frightening.

“And did they fight about it?”

“Sort of. Crowley turned up to the next council meeting and represented himself, eventually sending them all to hell. But the case went public. They wanted him out of Corps, even if it meant attacking him… and imagine their bad luck that they happened to try it at our tiny family reunion…” Gilan laughed, and it wasn’t until Will’s confused look on his face that he realised the boy simply didn’t understand what he was supposed to be laughing about. “I was Halt’s apprentice at the time. We just happened to drop by Araluen Castle in, um, officially on organisational matters, unofficially to visit Crowley.”

“Oh...” Will could at least partially imagine what Halt would be capable of doing in defence of his friends. It was inspiring, yes. And encouraging to become Halt’s friend.

“Exactly! And you know, the most ironic thing about all this is that the lords’ efforts to spoil the plans literally put a seal on it. Crowley said there’s no discussion, Beatrice is one of us and she’s staying in the Corps and if anyone has a problem with that they can go and fu…-” Gilan frowned a tad, belatedly remembering that, after all, he was talking to a teenager, not an adult. “Huh, he said he didn’t care about it, just, you know, in a less polite way. He told them they can go and get lost; no one cares.”

“And they… um… listened to him?” Will wasn’t sure if he should ask about it as well.

“They had no choice. Crowley stopped asking for permissions. Beatrice stayed in the Corps, the law was changed, and then a few more women joined us. There are eight in total as of today. But it started with the war about Beatrice, as they called it unofficially. King Duncan got a paper on it, but he’s a reasonable man and didn’t argue-”

Gilan went on, but Will stopped listening to him when the unexpected conclusion came to him with the force of an axe blow to the head. With a feverish glance, he found the fair-haired Ranger among the others. She was no longer looking in his direction, she was busy talking.

She was... she was just like Alyss. Just like him.

And the Ranger commander had very inelegantly told the lords to get lost when they wanted to kill him because he didn’t want her out of the Corps. Because she was just like him. Just like Alyss. And they wanted her to stay with them.

“Since then, Crowley has systematically found out that some lord wishes him ill, but usually somehow that lord soon finds out that it’s better for his own good if he shuts his mouth,” Gilan finished the story as if he hadn’t noticed the change in his interlocutor.

Perhaps he hadn’t. Or maybe he had told him all this precisely because he had noticed. Because he knew.

Having no idea what to say, Will just nodded. He searched with his gaze for others like him, looking around at the Rangers gathered around him. He couldn’t find them. But maybe they were here… maybe this was where they ran away, as he had once wanted to run away, far to the end of the world. And maybe, and from what Gilan was saying it even sounded like that for sure, here was a place where they didn’t have to fear that.

Maybe he just found his end of the world.

He found nothing to confirm this. He didn’t see a face that could be his own. Maybe there were no others like him among the Rangers. Or it could have been any of them…

Will had never felt so lightheaded before that he almost cried. He only mastered himself because Gilan was still standing next to him, and he would surely have noticed.

He must have noticed anyway. He said nothing for a long moment, letting Will cool down. He must have seen the boy looking around curiously, much more boldly than before, almost hopeful. He probably also knew what this hope was about.

For a moment Will even felt confident enough to hesitate at the idea of asking Gilan to introduce him to Beatrice. He had so many questions about how much he could hope for the Corps. She might have known. She could have told him the truth. And then he would do anything to earn a place among them, if his hopes could even partially be fulfilled.

But then he was overwhelmed with shame at the thought that he would try to question a complete stranger about it. She had no reason to help him. He might have offended her by the very fact that he thought he had the right to ask her anything. She could also get angry with Gilan for telling Will so much.

Suddenly he caught himself regretting that the Gathering could not take place after all. If he had passed the exams and been accepted, he could have asked Gilan or Halt to help him get to know the people here. And then he would have found out for himself how much truth there was in that.

The Gathering was indeed called off, as was soon announced to them. A few Rangers came out of the commander’s tent, immediately heading for certain groups gathered to await news. Halt, however, did not leave the tent with them.

Will’s concern at this sight did not escape Gilan. He received a broad smile in response to the unasked question.

“He won’t leave us, rest assured. He’s probably saying goodbye to Crowley, or… oh, look, that means you’ll meet Crowley after all!” Gilan pointed out the tent to him with an even happier face.

Halt came out to join them, accompanied by a Ranger who Will had not seen before. At the sight of him the others became visibly animated. However, they did not inquire about the news and orders they had already received. A few of them simply greeted him, with a raise of the hand or a short shout.

Crowley was smiling almost as broadly as Gilan. He seemed very concerned about something, though, and Will would never have dared to bother him if it had been left to him to make that choice. Whatever happened, the Rangers’ commander now had too many problems on his mind to care about one boy who was embarrassed to speak in front of people and didn’t want to be kicked out of here.

“Easy,” Gilan whispered, leaning over his ear unexpectedly. “That’s the last person you should be afraid of here. Well, unless you make Halt miserable…”

Will wasn’t about to do that, as he assured immediately. He didn’t understand why Gilan reacted to this with another casual laugh. He only got a bit more serious when Halt and the Corps Commandant came close enough to them so that he didn’t have to shout at them.

“Crowley!” Gilan called out anyway, even though he could have just said and would have been heard anyway.

“My favourite Ranger-knight!” Crowley replied with a broader smile, for a moment even losing the expression of grim thoughtfulness from his eyes.

Will wasn’t sure if there were any other Ranger-knights in the Corps.

Either way, Gilan seemed a really good friend to their commander. Instead of shaking his hand or saluting him, he gave him a warm hug and exchanged a few words with him. He regretted that they could not have spoken longer. So did Crowley.

Halt muttered something about them having talked enough. But even Halt seemed somehow more cheerful as he glanced again at their commander and, Will had already guessed, his friend.

“So…,” he muttered quietly and meaningfully pointed to a cloaked figure standing a step away.

Crowley immediately looked at Will. His smile had not faded, as so far many people had reacted to him. It occurred to Will that perhaps he should remove his hood in the presence of the commander. With a nervous movement, he uncovered his face, concentrating on not immediately lowering his head or hunching too much.

“It’s great to finally meet you, my only regret is that we can’t talk longer.” Crowley held out his hand to him, and though he looked him in the face, he didn’t seem to be looking for anything in it to exclude Will from their midst. “I’ve heard a lot about you and was hoping to learn even more.”

And once again he was told to his face that everyone already knew something about him and had discussed it. They all associated him as… as whom, they did not want to say.

The Corps Commandant had a strong grip that he didn’t try to hurt Will with. He seemed nice, as far as commanders could be.

“Sir,” Will merely murmured, not sure if a reply was expected of him.

Crowley shook his head but did not seem surprised that he had yet to be told this.

“There are no ‘sirs’ here. More like bunch of unrefined siblings, well, and a few other family ties we have here, all right.” He laughed briefly, accompanied by a rather moderately secretive snort from Gilan. “It’s a shame, hell, it’s a real shame we won’t be able to get to know each other now. You’d love it here…”

Something in his smile simultaneously heartened Will, but also troubled him. For Crowley had no way of knowing unless Halt told him, and yet he seemed to know everything. Will tried to answer with at least a weak nod, but he didn’t want to come off as rude. In the end he said nothing and did not move at all.

Crowley had plenty of people here who knew him and acted comfortable around him. Since he had already met Will, there was no reason for him to spend any more time with him. Even more so since Will didn’t even spout a single syntactic sentence in response.

“Halt wrote to me about how you fought the boar,” Crowley said a little quieter, and the smile did not disappear from his face. He just somehow looked at the boy more seriously, studying how his words would be received. “And also that you have an excellent horse.”

Will nodded, satisfied that it wasn’t just him who thought that, but also Halt and that he had passed it on to others as well.

“His name is Tug,” he explained, moving to the side so Crowley could see the horse. “And he nearly ripped my arm off.”

Crowley chuckled with understanding, nodding. He also greeted Tug, who approached him in a very friendly manner. Will looked at the Rangers commander a little more confidently when he was assessed as ‘cool’ by Tug.

“Mine once tried to eat my cloak… and some of the us almost got their hair eaten.”

“Crowley, and don’t you have your own tasks to attend?” Halt unexpectedly got into his word, in a threatening tone.

Gilan tried very desperately not to laugh, until tears shone in his eyes, and he had to turn away, coughing loudly. The Rangers commander looked at Halt, undaunted and still smiling. He nodded his head almost solemnly.

“You’re right… there will be time for tales of the adventures of completely random people when we meet again… in a more peaceful time.”

Will looked at him with a mixture of admiration and disbelief. Someone knowing Halt as well as he assumed Crowley knew him, after what he’d heard from Gilan, shouldn’t be teasing him so carelessly. He should have a trace of self-preservation instinct. How on earth would he have survived for so many years if he did that more often?

“Then I’ll see you soon, I hope. Goodbye, Will.” The brief nod was addressed specifically to him. Gilan hugged Crowley again, neither of them thinking to stick to formality. “I’m still waiting for a report from you...”

Gilan grinned with no trace of a remorse.

“You’ll get one, promise, I’ve just been a bit busy with, well, with what, I’ll describe, perhaps you’d better read it in peace.”

Crowley sighed with theatrical weariness but continued to smile.

“You’re to take care of yourself and each other.” A firm gaze rested in turn on Will, then on Gilan and finally on Halt. “All three of you. I swear, if I get another letter that starts with ‘hey, don’t get upset, but…’, we’ll need to have a serious talk.”

Gilan nodded solemnly, and Will hesitated as to whether he should take this as an order and respond to it in some official way. He didn’t have time to think about it any longer. Halt muttered something about how he wasn’t always the one getting into trouble here.

Crowley’s gaze stayed on him for a long moment.

“Sure,” he stated quietly. And then he leaned over and kissed Halt briefly.

He kissed Halt. Kissed. Him.

Will opened his eyes way too wide.

No one but him was surprised by this. Not even Halt. For a brief blink of an eye, Halt even seemed to smile a little. Crowley squeezed his hands quickly in his own. They looked at each other briefly but intense.

Then Crowley waved to the other two Rangers beside them and this time he had already moved away, towards the tent again.

“Let me know from the castle!” Halt called out after him.

“As always!”

Will only realised, that he was staring with his mouth open when Gilan politely coughed, drawing his attention back to him. With a small gesture, he instructed the boy to close his mouth.

Will did so just in time because Halt turned and looked at them. Nothing in his demeanour suggested that he was surprised by recklessness of his friend… well, in fact Will probably shouldn’t call them that anymore. Stumped by a sudden thought, he looked at Gilan abruptly.

He met his broad smile.

“Yes,” he nodded with satisfaction. “We are changing such laws too. And some other as well. Crowley meant what he said. You’ll love it here...”

“Yeah, unless, at the next gathering, someone gives amplified coffee to Berrigan again and that damn competition of jumping over bonfires starts,” Halt muttered, in his usual grave voice. “But about that later... now we’re off. You’re about to find out what the plan is.”

Will nodded, not saying anything yet, as long as only inarticulate cries of disbelief and joy came to his mind. He jumped on the Tug’s saddle briskly, ready to move on.

He caught himself thinking that he personally wouldn’t mind jumping over a campfire. With saying that he had to wait until Gilan had waved goodbye to the groups of Rangers who were moving away.

Beatrice was in one of them. As Gilan waved to her, Will felt the gaze of the first woman in the Corps find him and rest specifically on him.

He waved to her, with a slightly trembling hand. She smiled as she waved back.

Chapter Text

“Honestly? To me it still sounds a bit like a joke…”

It was probably the fifth time Crowley had said something like that since they’d left. The only reason Halt still didn’t reproach him for it was that he sympathised with him a little. Perhaps even more than a little, however, to that little bit he was willing to admit.

“I doubt if King Duncan is so bored as to play such jokes on you,” Lady Pauline gently remarked, sticking to the facts. This, too, she had already said. Three times, if Halt remembered correctly. He didn’t comment on that either. She was riding too close and could easily kick him if she wanted to. “Besides, you saw the report yourself...”

Crowley sighed, because it was really hard to argue with that. He had seen the report, and he also remembered well the stack of letters waiting for him in his study. Most had been written by the same person. The same baron had also produced a whole series of official letters to the King. And so frankly, Crowley was bitterly amused in a way. Someone here had far too much free time on their hands if they managed to write a voluminous book on the one and only complaint they had against the Corps Commandant.

“It’s insanely nice of them, considering I’ve been living at Castle Araluen for a couple of years, to pick just this one week while I was away to get their council together and accuse me.”

Pauline made a face with far less elegance than she did on a daily basis.

“We should be glad to hear about it from Duncan,” Halt interjected into the conversation for the first time in a long while. “And he even gave us their names…”

Crowley smiled faintly, because even despite the fact that threats couldn’t help him, they were nonetheless somewhat comforting. At least he wasn’t the only one so angry about it.

“Damn Norgate,” he muttered under his breath, not for the first time that day. “I said give it back to the Scotti. Burn the ground and cover it with salt. Cursed, useless Norgate.”

“Start talking like that when you get into the castle, you won’t even have to prepare notes for yourself,” Pauline interrupted him in a cooler tone. “You’ll get kicked out faster than you can say where you’d get so much salt.”

He looked at her, resigned, and shrugged his shoulders almost helplessly.

“And what the hell am I supposed to do, apologise to them? Send flowers for attacking one of us?”

“Certainly not to speak spontaneously and impetuously.” This time Pauline’s matter-of-fact tone had an effect. Both she and Halt noticed it.

Crowley furrowed his eyebrows thoughtfully, finally breaking out of the gloomy reverie into which he had fallen earlier. Since they had set off from the former Gorlan Fief, immediately after receiving the news by carrier pigeon from King Duncan, Crowley had alternately joked bitterly about the whole affair, or simply worried. It took him almost two hours before he finally began to think about it in terms of solving the problem. Pauline let him wail and curse for those two hours, waiting for him to cool down. Now she was able to talk to him at a crisis planning level.

She and Halt exchanged glances as Crowley shook himself off enough to switch to action. He looked at the Head of the Diplomatic School.

“What should I tell them?”

“And what would you like to tell them, because surely not to apologise...?” Pauline raised her eyebrows questioningly.

“That they shouldn’t care at all who lets in the arrow that saves their worthless noble asses and-”

“Crowley...”

Halt squinted at the bosom of his own saddle, knowing that if he showed even a shadow of amusement, Pauline would never forgive him. He listened, not looking at them, but able to imagine both their faces.

“I know, I know...” Crowley nodded his head slightly nervously. “But well... then I’d like to tell them that they shouldn’t care who the Ranger is who protects their fiefdom. Man, woman, neither. It’s none of their business. And just as they don’t choose by name who gets assigned where, they have no reason or right to interfere with what colour hair or gender the person I send there has. It’s none of their business and that’s the end of it. And accusing the Ranger of spying, trying to attack… assembling a damn army and trying to invade the cabin just because that Ranger is a woman is just… unbelievable rudeness, a sign of lack of even a trace of thought, and let them be glad that they have not been accused of treason themselves. That’s right! Perhaps I should be the one to sue them? They attacked a Ranger on duty! Beatrice had every right to stuff their dumb heads with arrows! They should be fucking thankful that she didn’t and shut their mouths. It’s none of their business where anyone is stationed and-”

“You know it’s not about assigning posts,” Pauline interrupted him, barely catching the start of another tirade full of anger.

Crowley snorted so disdainfully that Halt felt a tad threatened at this point. It was his job to snort like that.

“Well, that’s why I don’t know what I’m supposed to tell them. Whatever I say, they’ll know their own. They’re not concerned about the safety of Norgate or the country. It’s about Beatrice, and that’s something I’m not going to negotiate with them. They don’t have a voice in the discussion about what colour tunics Rangers wear, so why would they say anything here?”

Pauline hesitated, before, with less certainty than before, she asked.

“Do you want my honest opinion on this?”

“As honest as possible,” Crowley nodded without hesitation.

“They’ll talk because it’s about a woman. It doesn’t matter what you say. They won’t accept it. And if you talk too much, they’ll find something on you and get rid of you one way or another.” Pauline’s gaze iced over, though both Rangers knew she held no grudge against either of them about it. “They will make your life so difficult until you give up. They’ll do everything they can to make you stop believing it’s worth fighting. They will make you exhausted by the very thought of talking to them. And in the end you will be considered a victim of your own delusions.”

Crowley listened with a furrowed brow, growing more and more sullen. Finally, he sent her a look heavy with bitterness.

“This is sick.”

“Enjoy it while you’re not used to it. The illusion of having any influence or control is a nice thing, isn’t it?”

“There is some influence there probably…” Halt spoke up, no less grimly as they approached it, but also unable to agree on a pessimistic conclusion. Ironically. “You are in charge of the Diplomatic School. Against all this and all those who made it difficult for you...”

“As long as Baron Arald rules the Redmont Fief, and our king has a daughter instead of a son as heir to the crown.” Pauline nodded briefly, without a moment’s thought. It was as if she had expected exactly such a remark. “How long will that last if it changes? I got a chance, yes. For how long... we’ll see.”

Crowley cursed again, a little quieter this time. Halt nodded grimly as a sign that he understood and looked away again.

“Sick, just sick...” Crowley repeated, not hiding a hint of his irritation. “I don’t comprehend what arguments I have to argue with them at all. Beatrice fought in the war against Morgarath. She has an impeccable reputation, she fought for this country while they sat in their castles and waited to see what would happen. They have no right to question her credibility just because-”

“Actually, they’re questioning your credibility for today,” it was Halt who interrupted him this time.

Pauline glanced at him and nodded.

“Exactly. The council didn’t raise a vote of no confidence in her, but it’s about you. And they’re not even specifically explaining it by her case.... just that you changed the rules of the Corps behind their backs.”

“Behind their backs, my ass!” Crowley was once again at a loss with the anger growing within him. “I’ve been saying for a couple of months what I was changing, and no one took me seriously. Putting it off every now and then because there are more important things to do, and then we debate the colour of the parade flags at the fair! How much can you do, I don’t have that much time or that many Rangers to ask for gracious approval. And I repeat, what does it matter to them who walks under which cloak?”

Pauline did not speak for the first moment of silence that fell. She waited until he himself realised how loudly and with what infuriation he had spoken. He clouded over again, and she nodded calmly again.

“Yes. But you can’t tell them that… you’ll get rid of yourself much more effectively than they try.”

Crowley slightly lowered his shoulders. This time the silence dragged on for a long moment. Long enough for Halt to glance at Pauline again. The same thing must have occurred to him that Crowley only came across a moment later. He nodded slightly as soon as the Corps commander became animated again.

“Maybe that’s why you’re the one who should be talking to them, and not me?”

“You’re the one who was accused,” Pauline reminded, though at the same time she smiled slightly. “Besides, I don’t think you could annoy them any more than if I represented you...”

“And that’s why I’m asking for your help!” Crowley had already fully committed to the idea.

“Because I’ll be useful? Not because I’m your friend?” Pauline raised an eyebrow and held that expression for a whole few seconds as Crowley lost all certainty.

“What? No, it’s… no! Of course it’s not-”

He was interrupted by a snort from the direction where Halt, who was watching them intently, was riding.

“Even I got that right, that Pauline’s joking,” he muttered, with pride in himself and a dig to Crowley’s perceptiveness at the same time.

A little confused, the Ranger commander looked at Pauline again. He shook his head with resignation, seeing her small smile, satisfied by the effect.

“Have mercy...”

“I do,” Pauline replied with a smile, nodding as an expression containing something other than fatigue and resignation returned to Crowley’s face. “And of course I’ll help you. Since I’m already going with you the complete opposite way than I was supposed to,” she remarked with a slight wince. “By the way...”

“You’re an invaluable support, by the way.” Crowley bowed as much as he was able to do while sitting in the saddle.

Halt snorted, which was ignored.

Pauline accepted the appreciation with a polite lack of agitation. She nodded her head and, with no loss of composure or understanding in her voice, went on.

“But I won’t represent you. I will prepare you, but you will speak for yourself because-” she suspended her voice, but Crowley did not interrupt her this time, waiting for her to explain fully. “Because your main line of defensive attack is going to be the approach that Rangers are meddling in Rangers affairs and no one else, so what is this conversation actually about.”

Crowley considered this for a brief moment before nodding.

“Rightly so. We have laws that prove it. And many years of such tradition and... hell, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m going to invoke tradition in this dispute!”

His subsequent heavy sigh was met with slight amusement from Pauline. She made no secret of her satisfaction, nodding.

“And very well, too. They will accuse you of being subversive. You will come out of your position as a traditionalist. Rangers have always been governed by their own rules. Why does it suddenly bother anyone?”

“Because it’s a woman...”

“Let them say it,” Pauline got into his words calmly. “Let one of them forget themselves and say in the council, in front of the King, that they are bothered by Beatrice. And then you’ll tear them apart, and Duncan will hold your cloak in the process.”

Halt snorted with amusement and this time they all exchanged glances. Clearly uplifted, Crowley smiled at the vision of such an end to the debate. Pauline didn’t want to spoil the mood, but she had to mention something else.

“Only up to this point you must not lose your temper. No ‘asses’, no ‘fucks’, no lazy lords, no ‘damns’ and no salt...” She paused as Crowley muttered something under his breath, not particularly thrilled about it. Pauline then patiently moved on to a broader explanation. “If you give them a reason to attack, they’ll take advantage of it. You seem emotional to them? You’re dead. Lose the facts, swear, dispose of the subject, tell them to get lost? They’ll destroy you. You’ll end up with a charge of treason and Duncan will have to consider the council’s arguments, even if he has a different opinion. You don’t need that if you want to change the laws, do you?”

“Well I know, I know... I understand...” he muttered in a very sombre tone.

“Emotions in check. They’ll try to get them out of you by any means possible and if you let them, they’ll run you over with a version that you yelled at them and you’re impulsive and unfit and probably about to attack the king with your band of renegades.”

Halt nodded in passing because he could see the sense in such reasoning. Or because he wouldn’t mind invading someone at the head of said band if all negotiations and such failed.

“I’ll do my best...” Crowley promised, not so much to Pauline, but to himself and everyone who counted on him.

He was fully aware of how much depended on what happened after this conversation. Deprived of a commander, the Corps could once again lose its way and get lost. Things had only just started to change for the better. Dismantling it with the Commander’s lawsuit would be the last thing that could help them.

And it certainly wouldn’t have helped Beatrice that way. In fact, he would ultimately lose the only chance she might have had. Expelling her from the Corps would then be a mere formality. Admittedly, he suspected that he could have counted on the other Rangers to support her, but on the other hand, such a collective involvement in the matter would only have publicised it. Chaos would have crept in; several other Rangers could have been brought to the courtroom. The Barons would stop cooperating with Rangers in their fiefdoms.

And then Duncan might no longer side with them, but, fearing for the safety of the country, put the fate of a few individuals versus the whole country on the line. Crowley would not have surprised him one bit.

“You are not legally accused,” Pauline reminded gently, for it had not escaped her notice how he had again lost himself in grim reverie. “The King has refused to take the complaint seriously. This will not be an interrogation. You’re not going to stand before the council, you’re just going to confront them with what they did when you left for a while. It won’t be a trial...”

“But if I fail it, it’s a short way to make it a trial,” Crowley remarked, and with that it was hard to disagree, even to raise his spirits.

“Can you have someone who knows the law by your side?” Halt interjected with a new idea.

His several earlier ones had been dismissed when, on first instinct, he suggested that he just tidy it up in a slightly unofficial way. Pauline ruled that officially she hadn’t heard a word of what he’d said, and Crowley thanked him for his good intentions at least, but couldn’t agree either. Apprehension or other aggressive negotiations could not help them here.

“You can, you even should,” Pauline replied for Crowley. “You could ask someone from the School of Scribes… or a diplomat.” He looked at her abruptly, stumped by a thought that gave immense encouragement. Pauline replied with a smile. “I already said I will help you, didn’t I?”

* * *

“Well, and why exactly is there such an interest in what Rangers do, who they are and what rules they are recruited on?” Crowley suspended his voice, at the same time lifting his spoon from above his dish with a rather dramatic gesture.

Pauline threw him a haughty look and, without missing a beat, asked politely.

“Besides the fact that you are the most important and dangerous formation in this country that decides war and peace?”

Crowley sent her a tired look and avoided answering, busying himself with his food. His grim face, however, was enough to prove that he understood.

For a moment, only the rustling of grasses in the wind disturbed the silence in the tiny encampment they had set up at the edge of the forest and the road. They should have reached Castle Araluen sometime before noon the next day, provided they set off at dawn. They could travel through the night and be there in a few hours, but Pauline felt it would be much better to prepare them in peace by spending the night outside the castle.

Crowley was still very nervous about all this.

“They’ll destroy me with this…” he muttered.

“Answer me.” Pauline took the opportunity to have some dinner too. “I am a mean, lazy lord who has just asked you such a question. And now I’m listening, Mr Meratyn, what do you have to say to me?”

Crowley took a moment to chew with a little more commitment than the situation demanded. He furrowed his brow and looked at the campfire, gathering his thoughts. After talking to Pauline all day about the rules and tactics of debating, he already had a much better grasp of the subject than even the morning of the same day. Even so, she still invented questions, which he answered with silence at first.

“We are the most powerful and dangerous formation in the country, because that is exactly what you needed us to be,” he replied, slowly and in a matter-of-fact tone. “Somehow you didn’t mind what we are when we pulled this country out from under the rule that Morgarath tried to impose. I understand that in peacetime you fear us… should we therefore wait for war so that you will come crying to us again for help?”

For the first moment he received no feedback. Pauline finished her dinner and only then looked at him.

“Are you sure you want to go with this?”

“It convinced me,” Halt muttered, a little too late hiding a satisfied grin. “Though of course I’m not impartial… but well they’re not either.”

Crowley thanked him with a slight smile, but then looked at Pauline with concern.

“Too aggressive?”

“A bit yes, in my opinion,” she admitted, nodding slowly. “But on the other hand, playing it off so that it’s you who’s offended and annoyed here isn’t a bad idea.”

“I’m both offended and annoyed… and a couple of other things,” Crowley nodded.

“You just can’t tell them too bluntly.”

“I don’t think they expect me to come there happy and grateful for making my life difficult.” He sighed again with resignation, bit by bit preparing to continue his gloomy musings.

He was interrupted by a sound that both he and Halt had picked up seconds before Pauline. They both grabbed their weapons, turning their gazes to the road whose curve hid behind the forest.

They had taken the shortest possible route to the capital and had only met other travellers a few times along the way. The main route led slightly below the wooded hillsides, which the Rangers decided to follow to make it quicker. They had no fear of attack along the way, for the obvious reason of being Rangers.

Judging by the noise that soon rang through the area, whoever was approaching them was unlikely to be trying to surprise anyone. The clatter of iron and wood carried far away.

“A carriage...”

“And some horsemen...”

“Well, there you have your lazy lords,” Pauline muttered, without much concern. She didn’t move from her place by the fire. She only pulled the hood of her coat tighter, hiding her face and hair in its shadow.

The two Rangers stood up, stepping out in front of the encampment a few paces apart. They did not blend into the background, in fact they cut themselves off in the falling darkness of the evening. Crowley was the first to remove his hood, Halt hesitated over it, but after a moment did the same.

They had no intention of hiding from the carriage. If anything, they could frighten him more quickly by revealing their profession.

And this idea came to nothing, however. In the increasingly dense darkness of the night, Halt spotted the crest on the ensign as the carriage horses approached within bow-shot distance.

“Is this world too small, or what?” he snorted.

To make things funnier, Baron Arald greeted them with an equally surprised, though pleased, snort.

“Out of all the people in the area I had to run into my own who have taken a holiday… and on the Corps Commandant, of course,” he added with a grin in Crowley’s direction.

Halt wanted to reflexively correct the hurtful accusation of ‘taking a holiday’, but didn’t have time, because Crowley muttered something about the fact that he might soon stop being the commander. For this he was kicked in the ankle by Pauline.

“You can question your competence, go ahead,” she hissed firmly as he looked at her resentfully. “You can feel sorry for yourself if it helps you. But don’t question my competence. I said I’ll prepare you, and I will. Clear?”

Crowley nodded with a bit of a shaken look on his face. Baron Arald raised his eyebrows high, confused. And instead of commenting on anything, Halt just waved his hand.

“Where are you going?” he asked, for so far he had always been one of the first to find out about any planned travels by the Baron of the Redmont Fief.

Meanwhile, here they met by chance in the total wilderness. In addition, in the carriage, instead of Lady Sandra, there was a stack of papers. They found this out when Arald stopped the soldiers and decided that, in view of the happy meeting with old friends, they would drop in with their camp to them.

Fortunately, the soldiers were not too many. In fact, not enough. Halt looked at the Baron with concern.

“To Araluen Castle,” Arald explained, a little puzzled by his surprise. “I received an urgent summons. I didn’t even take my coat with me; we left as we were found by a pigeon.”

“Something happened?” Halt exchanged concerned glances with Crowley.

“Well, there’s supposed to be some kind of official quarrel!” Baron Arald furrowed his brow. “I don’t know the details; the King only wrote to come because I’ll be useful. The council is meeting. To be honest, I was hoping you guys would tell me more now that you’re here. Apparently the matter concerns you...” His gaze stopped on Crowley.

“Ah, yes.” The Corps Commandant waved his hand. “The Baron of Norgate is offended that I have the gall not to enjoy having him attack a Ranger in his fiefdom and I dare to accept women into the Corps. I will most likely scold them if I see them, so they will probably accuse me of treason...”

“Again?” Baron Arald muttered, thinking little of it.

Halt sent him a dark look, ready to end up in a cell next to the Ranger commander, but before that to make the Baron of Redmont realise that he really wasn’t amused by his jokes.

He would certainly have done so had it not been for the fact that he heard Crowley’s laughter. And not the bitter, joyless laughter. The real one. Halt turned around immediately to make sure.

Crowley was laughing, genuinely amused. He nodded his head with great conviction.

“May I use this tomorrow?” he asked and started laughing again.

Baron Arald nodded, but still seemed a tad confused as he glanced first at Halt, then at Pauline. She had been silent since the greeting, watching everything carefully. Especially how Crowley was behaving.

Seeing now exactly what she had expected, Pauline headed towards the campfire again.

“You are welcome to join us, my lord,” she encouraged, and the transition to the formal nature of the conversation came to her without a hint of difficulty. “Even more than welcome, you’re practically a godsent.”

The arrival of their potential ally at the council for the duration of the talks was excellent news in itself. And the possibility of Lady Pauline and Baron Arald joining forces in preparing Crowley for the talks was even better. Halt grasped this instantly and immediately took on the role of dealing with the handing over of orders. The escorts were to take charge of the encampment. The Baron sat with them. They needed some of those papers, whatever useful things Arald could bring. And plenty of coffee.

Crowley’s expression faded a little as he was seated on the box in front of the Baron and Pauline. He looked at them with a shadow of incomprehension, shrugging his shoulders a little nervously.

“What am I, to say anything to you now?”

Baron Arald sent him a visiting look full of dignity.

“It would even be advisable, Commandant, for we do not intend to spend the whole day here. Lunch will be served shortly. The royal council doesn’t care about your opinion, it cares about lunch though.”

This time Crowley stifled a laugh at the last moment. He nodded more animatedly than before and mastered himself enough to adopt a serious expression.

“I congratulate you on your uncomplicated plans for the future,” he replied rather quickly, this time without thinking about the answer.

Lady Pauline hid a smile. She only allowed herself one when, a few minutes later, Crowley straightened his shoulders considerably, his composure costing him less and less effort.

Halt, watching this from the shadows, smiled secretly. Maybe that rat poison won’t be of much use after all? It will stay for another occasion.

* * *

It was well past midnight when Pauline ordered the end of the talks. Everyone needed to get some sleep if they weren’t going to fall asleep at tomorrow’s debate.

Baron Arald tried to joke that such snoozing might make the atmosphere less edgy and more numbing, and no one tended to have anything against numbing debates, but Halt sent him a threatening look and that settled the matter. There would no doubt be a time for jokes about this at some point, but it was not yet that night, nor the day that was to follow.

Crowley was admittedly less nervous by now, but when the reason for going to bed was given, he scowled and started mumbling something. He said only a few words before Halt and Pauline had time to consult with each other.

“Your turn,” she conveyed to him with a meaningful look and a nod.

He nodded briefly and immediately muttered something about checking the security around the camp. Crowley seemed a little surprised, and no one could blame him for that, given that there were several soldiers watching over the encampment. He did not protest, used to relying on Halt’s assessment of the situation.

They set off on their rounds, disappearing into a patch of darkness. As soon as the glow of the campfire ceased to reach them, Halt grabbed Crowley’s hand and pulled him to march a little faster. He met no resistance, only a slightly surprised look as he found a suitably secluded spot in the gloom of the trees and turned to face him.

“Listen to me very carefully now, okay?” Halt lowered his tone, fixing him with a strong gaze under whose power the whole world could tremble. Crowley nodded his head without thinking. He absorbed his every word as strongly as the touch of the hands that framed his face. “No matter what happens tomorrow, we can handle it. You will destroy them there without any problem. You won’t be left alone for a moment. Pauline won’t let them pull anything out that could harm you…”

“Like us being us…?” Crowley muttered quietly, clouding up.

He was tired of seeing it that way. Being wary of their every move, distrustful and fearful of whether they would bring doom upon themselves with a careless gesture. The most beautiful thing in his life was stained by the bitterness he felt whenever the possibility arose that it would be used against them. Like now, in this debate, on this issue.

“Like your lack of composure when the issue affects you too much,” Halt calmly replied. “And the reasons why you care so much. Why we all need you so badly to be the one in charge. Because no one else will fight for us. For me, for you, for Beatrice… for everyone you’re going to fight for tomorrow. Pauline will not let this become a matter of debate.”

“Our whole fate in her hands… of that I would be at peace.” He croaked grimly. “But I’ll have to be the one to talk.”

Halt shook his head, neither thinking to agree with his gloomy musings. He pressed his head against his, bringing them into contact with each other. In a surprisingly gentle motion for him, he moved his fingers across Crowley’s cheek. With his other hand he stroked the nap of his neck.

“You’ve done an excellent job of talking so far.”

“It’s a bit different, persuading a bunch of people to fight someone who wants to destroy them.”

“All right, but your greatest achievement would be something else anyway,” Halt couldn’t be persuaded.

“What is it then?”

“Convincing me… to many, many things.”

Crowley smiled palely.

“Fair enough, it is indeed a feat.”

“Worthy of a monument,” Halt muttered, and his usual sombre voice softened as he added even more quietly. “Whatever happens, remember that they’re just a bunch of moronic, childishly easy-to-beat nobles. If they kick you out the door, I’ll personally help you in through the window so you can spit in their faces.”

By this time, a weak laugh shook Crowley’s shoulders. He wrapped his arms around Halt and hugged him tightly. Turning his head, he kissed first his cheek, his temple, his forehead, briefly brought their lips together, and then rested his head on Halt’s collarbone. Halt hid him in an embrace, never ceasing to soothingly stroke him with his fingers.

For a moment only the night’s cool stillness surrounded them, gentle enough for them to at least pretend to forget their worries. For a moment there was nothing to worry about.

They could disappear like that, that night, ride away into the darkness.

They would cover their tracks behind them, and no one would be able to find them. They would move on, to the end of the world if only, never having to fear anything again. They would fight for nothing but each other. And they would never again have to choose what was more important. No longer would anyone threaten them with knowing about their love. There would no longer be anyone to lie to, anyone to run from. They could hide in that night and find a new, wonderful home in that night somewhere far away on the other side of the horizon.

They could just walk away… Crowley thought about it with sorrow but couldn’t even seriously consider it. They could, but they certainly wouldn’t. Not as long as there was something to fight for here and as long as there were people here he couldn’t leave.

If he left, who would go to fight?

* * *

“Oh, thank gods,” Duncan muttered as Lady Pauline was the first to enter his office. It was only in the next moment that one of the patches of shadow took human shape. The other stayed near the door and he only realised its presence when he received three greetings.

He immediately got up from the table, at first unsure even what he should say in this situation. He would not have been surprised if Crowley had rushed into the castle, furious in a quite justified way. In fact, he had considered almost every reaction, including sending a threatening message to the council or Halt to talk to them differently. Crowley might as well have ignored the whole situation and not turned up at all, not taking the council’s opinion seriously enough to bother with it.

What he didn’t foresee was Lady Pauline’s involvement in the whole affair. He only realised this when, after Crowley had removed his hood, he saw the unwavering calm on his face. He was greeted formally, but also all too surprisingly simply.

The last time he had seen Crowley so unruffled was during the war. And it was terrifying.

“I wish I could send them to all the devils...” Duncan asserted despite this calmness, or perhaps because of it. Barely had they sat down, he directed an apologetic glance at Crowley. “I tried. However, official arrangements have been invoked, and there is no way to silence a dozen lords without causing a scandal.”

“I see,” Crowley nodded calmly. “Actually, perhaps it’s for the best? Let certain things be clarified and established. It will be less work next time.”

Duncan only mastered raising his eyebrows due to his already considerable experience of talking to lords and others who sometimes made it a point of honour to get him off balance.

“The accusations are downright ridiculous,” he went on, and he still couldn’t hide his regret at not being able to do much about it if the matter was to die down. “I’m sure none of the actually important people in the country will take them seriously.”

Crowley nodded with unruffled composure.

“The council has a right to expect talks. I only wish they had seen fit to ask me for them first, but I won’t change that now. It is fortune that today is the meeting. We will explain everything that needs explaining.”

By now Duncan didn’t care for the informal face he had betrayed himself with. He raised his eyebrows high and assessed the Ranger commander with a somewhat confused look. He got no new reaction with it. He looked at Lady Pauline instead.

“What have you done to him?” he asked quietly.

Crowley allowed himself a slight smile and exchanged a quick glance with the Head of Diplomatic Services. Pauline nodded minimally. A quiet snort sounded from somewhere near the door.

“She spoke to me. A lot.” Crowley’s smile took on an unsettling note. “And now I’m going to talk to them.”

Had it not been for the circumstances, Duncan would have felt sorry for the lords, who were not yet aware that they would have to listen to this. He was aware of the circumstances, however, so he merely nodded, carefully concealing a small smile.

“I assume, then, that you have it planned out what you will say. Can I count on you to initiate me into these plans?” It was a little illusory to hope so, but he still preferred to express it rather than regret his scepticism later.

“I have a few pieces of paper that I’ll possibly toss to Crowley should the conversation tracks go awry.” Lady Pauline sidestepped any explanations along the lines of ‘when Crowley forgets himself and yells at them’ or ‘when they stop talking about the actual topic’ and Duncan was sure she had done so deliberately. “Beyond that, however, it will simply be a conversation about why the Rangers are only trusted by the barons and lords when they save them from wars and problems in their own fiefdoms, while on the daily basis their attitude is worryingly close to treating Rangers as enemies of the country.”

Which is to say, they will argue to the death and probably end up in one big brawl. Duncan nodded with understanding, reconciling himself to the vision of utter chaos that was approaching his council.

“It’s also possible that we could use a few sheets of paper and something to write on,” Crowley added, and nothing in his calmness heralded the destruction he was about to wreak in less than an hour.

And that was why Duncan feared there would be no survivors.

“Of course,” he nodded because he understood that vision too. “Halt, will you be attending the debate?” he asked, turning his gaze to the patch of shadow by the door.

“Officially, no.” Only for a moment did he see the outline of his figure. If it had been anyone else, Duncan would have assumed he’d stepped out of the gloom, as it seemed rude to him to speak to the King when he couldn’t see him.

“And unofficially...?”

“If you don’t want me there, you’ll have to lock me in the dungeons.”

King Duncan nodded once more, still not surprised by what he was hearing. For he had officially heard nothing of what he had been told.

He was beginning to feel a little afraid of what he was about to hear officially.

“One more thing...” he reminded himself before he was about to move on to the formal arrangements. “I’m guessing you’re the only ones here. Although it’s mostly about her, Beatrice-”

“She is safe,” Crowley got into his words and Duncan immediately fell silent. That was the reaction he had hoped for. By not asking the question, he could not resent being denied an answer. Crowley must have understood the move but explained further anyway. “I can’t reveal anything more, your majesty.”

Once again, he was only met with a nod. For the time being, Duncan was surprised only by Crowley’s calmness. All the rest he understood.

* * *

This time, more people showed up at the council than usually gathered when circumstances did not require a set to hold discussions. Since the end of the war with Morgarath, only a few times has the council met as a whole, as it took a while for all the lords to come together, and the situation rarely called for it. In addition, changes in the law complicated the situation instead of making it easier.

Shortly after assuming the reign, King Duncan allowed anyone who wished to have comments on domestic policy to appear at the meetings. This was a diplomatic solution after, despite King Oswald’s official disclosure of the truth, not all lords were convinced of Duncan. Dissolving the old council and allowing some supporters of the recently accused Prince Regent into the new one made matters even worse. Although Duncan actually had no choice, which Morgarath had previously made sure of by changing several people in important positions. The Council had to be reappointed and one of the first new people on it was Baron Arald, whose participation in the Tournament and support for Duncan was remembered by all.

To curb the confusion that had begun to form at the least opportune time, Duncan decided that if the situation called for it, anyone who wished could sit on the council, provided they had the support of at least half the council. So far, such a situation has only occurred once, when the lack of a male descendant was discussed with the King. At that time, in addition to the barons, lords, magnates, relatives of the barons, even a few of the more important knights had descended on the capital.

Duncan regretted allowing this but did not change the law. He coped under the new rules and was aware that the council would partly never forgive him because of that. They may have been even more numerous than ever, but their objections mattered little as long as they concerned private matters.

This time, however, they issued legal justifications for their concerns. A group of a dozen or so lords formed in the council and unanimously concluded that the Ranger Commandant was not a trustworthy person. At their urging, a few more followed, and as a result, a number of surplus people turned up at the council that day.

They had been arriving to the capital in advance, news of which reached Duncan shortly before the council made accusations against the then absent Crowley. He knew that the news would not make it to Caraway, where he could count on the support of Baron Fergus and Sir David, but he hoped that Arald would arrive from Redmont in time. Since the lords had begun to rally their own men against those of his, Duncan also did not rule out that when the situation took an alarmingly close turn to a brawl, he would postpone the next deliberations enough to convene the full council. And then they would argue their way through an official, judicial route worthy of being written in the chronicles.

Arald turned up several minutes before Lady Pauline and the Rangers. Thinking about it on the way to the council chamber, Duncan decided that, in view of this, it was most likely that the Baron of Redmont had met the three of them as they were returning from the Gorlan Fief area. Where Gorlan Fief used to be, he corrected himself. Why, in fact, that was where his news had found them, he was not sure. However, he could ask about it once they had dealt with the problem.

Clearly Baron Arald had met Lady Pauline beforehand and had agreed a plan of action with her. While awaiting the King’s arrival, she spoke to him, and it was beside him that she sat at the table. Thus, to all assembled, she gave the impression that she had arrived here as the Baron’s advisor.

Duncan allowed himself to be slightly amused in passing. The Rangers were planning a dramatic start with the reveal of why Lady Pauline had come here. Or rather, Crowley was planning to. Duncan could not rule out that Halt was already in the meeting room. There were quite a few patches of shadow cast by the curtains beneath the great windows, so that even the Ranger’s apprentice could hide in them. Halt had no problem with this.

The table set opposite the council benches was for the king. Often Lord Anthony sat with him, occasionally one of the councillors, so a few extra chairs did not arouse suspicion.

Duncan made sure that the council remained unaware for a few more minutes. He began the meeting formally, standing behind the table and pulling several folders of papers onto it. Lord Anthony, already aware of the main elements of the plan for the debate, also did nothing to deviate from the norm.

The King welcomed all those gathered and thanked them for coming in such large numbers. Baron Arald then struggled to contain the expression on his face, which had frozen somewhere between mischievous smile and a grimace of resentment towards the rest of those gathered.

It wasn’t until they started rustling pages and glancing after each other, waiting to see who would speak first on the main issue that had brought them together, that the King looked at Lady Pauline.

“To avoid unnecessary legal conundrums and the subsequent need to clarify them, the deliberations will be held under the direction of the Head of the Redmont School of Diplomatic Services,” he announced, nodding to her.

Lady Pauline rose from her seat and with a suitably slow step, full of unforced elegance, walked across the room to Duncan’s table. A few murmurs rang out even then. A slightly vindictive glint crossed Pauline’s eyes, but her face remained impassive. She thanked him and took a seat at the table, pulling out her own notes and a few thicker books.

Duncan doubted that she had brought them with her all the way from Gorlan, and added this as another argument for his thesis that Arald was more of an insider than he seemed.

The King only spoke further when he was sure that the stares had turned on him, most of them reluctant and a some of them beginning to grow suspicious. He glanced at the hourglass set by the table, then ostentatiously looked out of the window.

In his mind he counted down to twenty, now unable to pretend he hadn’t seen their anticipation.

“Forgive me, ladies and gentlemen, but the haste with which the meeting was expected got a little-”

He was interrupted by the opening of the front door. Duncan turned over his shoulder and did not hide a smile, to which a good number of the lords reacted with even more dislike.

“Your majesty.” Crowley bowed and only in the hall did he remove his bow from his shoulder.

“So you made it, excellent!” The King nodded and immediately brushed off the moment of hesitation with his hand when Crowley realised a little after the fact that no weapons were allowed at the council meeting. “It’s okay, don’t worry about it. The important thing is that you’ve arrived. Say, are you ready to talk now, or are we going to take a break for a while and reconvene in a quarter of an hour for example?”

Crowley pretended to hesitate for a few seconds. Then he bowed his head and replied.

“That won’t be necessary.” His gaze briefly fled to Lady Pauline, and seeing her calmness, he himself also mastered any trace of nervousness. He hesitated briefly once more and, lowering his tone slightly, asked. “Solely, if I could get some water...?”

Lord Anthony sent one of the sentries at the door for it. Crowley thanked him, put his bow down on the bench behind the King’s table, then his quiver. Only then did the King look at the council, as if to remind himself that they didn’t know what was going on here.

“It was fortunate that the main stakeholder in the whole issue was close enough to come to talk to you. I think having a debate through intermediaries is superfluous here… Crowley, start when you are ready.” With these words, he moved away from the table, taking a seat at the bench.

He was separated from the rest of the lords by Lord Anthony, among others, and then by Baron Arald. And somewhere in the shadows Halt was hiding. Duncan did not fear for his safety.

Instead, he was pleased to catch the growing murmurings in the council, with the absence of any questions or comments. All eyes turned to Crowley, who thanked the King, and then also took some papers out of his bag. He put the bag down next to his weapon, adjusted his cloak and sat down at the table, next to Lady Pauline.

Water was brought in. Duncan seemed to catch the blink of an eye when Lady Pauline looked at Crowley, making him take his time. He drank some water, shifted the papers, and only then looked at the council gathered in front of him.

He raised his eyebrows, as if he expected them to speak first after all.

“I heard the news that you, gentlemen, had some business with me.”

For the first moment, no one spoke. The unexpected calmness of the supposedly accused Corps Commandant was a moderately expected reaction. His apparent fatigue after the journey and his complete lack of agitation about the matter knocked even those who were about to start talking out of rhythm as soon as he appeared.

The silence lasted too long. Crowley glanced at the notes on his desk.

‘SLOWLY’ was written on a note from Pauline, placed on them.

He furrowed his eyebrows, sweeping his gaze around the assembled group.

“I’m listening then. What’s the matter?” he repeated, still without impatience, but also without artificial politeness. “I have quite a lot to do. And I’d like to change and rest after my journey. But since it’s so urgent, here I am. I’m listening, what do you want from me?”

He noticed a stir on the side of the bench where Baron of the Norgate Fief sat. He, too, seemed to be the first to find his way on the new ground of conversation. He rustled up his papers and grunted. He took just enough time for no one to be surprised when Lady Pauline took the floor. She ran him off by a second at most, as Baron Norgate already had his mouth open to begin speaking.

“Let me remind you then. A group of lords on the council found your intervention excessive, Commandant Meratyn, which led them to draw conclusions about the relative distrust they have of you.”

Crowley furrowed his brow, looked first at Lady Pauline, then at the council. He seemed quite surprised by such an explanation.

“Are we talking about the Norgate intervention?”

“Yes...-” The baron of that fief spoke up, taking the opportunity.

Crowley’s gaze rested on him, impassive and calm, and yet with some note of disbelief sounded his voice.

“Are we talking about that intervention when a group of soldiers incited the villagers to attack one of the Rangers? About the intervention I made to the fiefdom authorities after it came to light that the soldiers were acting on top-down orders. About the intervention that took that Ranger out of there. About the intervention that involved not allowing a self-righteous trial around one of my people.” Crowley didn’t allow him to speak until he had finished telling it all.

“Yes, it’s about that intervention,” Lady Pauline said as no one else spoke.

Crowley hesitated, furrowed his brow, and nodded.

“I understand that in view of my failure to issue punishments to the soldiers, you have assumed that I cannot be relied upon. There has been a misunderstanding. I did not intend to punish your men, lord Gladwin. I assumed you would do it yourself. If you didn’t feel it was your jurisdiction, all you had to do was write a report to me so I would deal with the matter.”

King Duncan only mastered a stunned expression through strong willpower. Baron Arald was a fraction of a second late and had to look at the tabletop to hide it. The Baron of Norgate’s face, on the other hand, was priceless. He opened his eyes wide, staring at Crowley as if the latter, at the very least, had grown a second head on his shoulder, endowed with a set of furiously purple teeth and a pair of horns with pom-poms on the ends.

“What?” he mouthed, perplexed. Crowley raised his eyebrows expectantly. The Baron of Norgate shook his head chaotically, struggling to collect his thoughts. “No, it’s not that. It’s not about you not punishing them!”

“Then what is it about?” Crowley wondered. “I didn’t do anything else.”

“It’s not about that, and you know it perfectly well!”

“Lord Gladwin,” Crowley said so calmly that, juxtaposed with the Baron’s indignant hiss, it sounded almost caricatural, considering who was here to accuse whom. “I don’t know what you feel resentment towards me for, as I have done nothing more in relation to this matter. I had intended to do so, but my duties called me to the field. I have just returned because I have received a message that my presence here is necessary and something has happened in the council that concerns me. I am therefore listening… explain to me what specifically bothers you about me.”

For a blink of an eye Duncan thought that the Baron of Norgate would not stand it any longer and say that specifically it was Crowley himself who was bothering him. However, he mastered himself, clenched his jaws and measured him with a sharp look.

“This whole thing is not just about this one incident. We have gathered a group of people who do not like the arbitrary changing of the law that you have been practising for some time.”

Crowley glanced at Lady Pauline in an overt manner, and she returned the gaze, titling her head questioningly.

“But I… I cannot change the law in Norgate’s fief, lord Gladwin. Not even you can do that. Only the King has that ability. Am I right?”

Lady Pauline nodded, glancing at the documents.

“Concretely, his majesty with the support of the council,” she added calmly. “For the sake of clarity.”

At the same time, she slid a piece of paper to Crowley. ‘KEEP IT UP’

King Duncan looked at the baron of the Norgate Fief with incomprehension.

“That’s right, that’s the law. So how on earth would Crowley change anything for you?”

“It’s not about changing anything in my fief!” Baron Gladwin rumbled and the murmur of horror that rolled through the assembled people made him realise that instead of the Ranger annoying him, he had in a way shouted at the King. “I mean… no, that’s not the point, your majesty. And I’m sure the Corps Commandant is well aware of that…” his tone shifted to a hostile hiss, and his gaze returned to Crowley.

“I’m not, and I’d like to find out eventually,” Crowley muttered with slight impatience. “If you’re not going to tell me today, why don’t I come back when I’ve had some sleep?”

“It’s about the changes you’ve made to the Ranger Corps!” One of the allied lords preceded the Baron of Norgate, seeing that the man was barely holding back his fury.

Crowley then looked at him. He raised his eyebrows high; his surprise had no hint of exaggeration in it.

“What’s it to you?” he asked, genuinely puzzled.

“What’s it to us?” Indignation rose from the other side of the bench. Crowley’s gaze shifted there too.

“We have a right to know what it looks like…” Baron Gladwin took over the role of interlocutor with Ranger again, having managed to cool down enough not to be threatened with disciplinary ejection. “Since you became commander, you’ve changed a lot of laws in the Corps. It also changes the arrangement in the country, it changes the situation for all of us. We have the right to know when the changes are so serious. And we have a right not to trust you when, instead of focusing on the problems in the country, you’re changing the law that has worked for many years!”

Crowley’s face petrified, a stronger, almost menacing gleam appeared in his eyes.

“What are the problems I’m not solving, lord Gladwin?” he asked so calmly that his shout would have been far less frightening.

Silence answered him and he waited, looking at the assembled lords one by one. For a moment he even looked at the King. Duncan’s brow furrowed and he too looked at the assembled lords, waiting for an explanation.

“I’m waiting. Tell me. What matters am I neglecting? What needs my attention? What is it that is happening that I am not caring enough about?”

If only the circumstances were less serious, Baron Arald would surely have thrown in some joke about the price of grain or salt at this point. Aware that this would ruin the mood Crowley was carefully creating, he fought the urge to speak up.

“I don’t know what specific…” the Baron of Norgate replied, almost hissing those words. “I’m sure there are some, though.”

“Sure,” Crowley retorted. “When you know them, please write. Is that all?”

“Are you in a hurry to get somewhere?” Gladwin almost snorted.

Crowley scowled in such a way surely he’d picked up from Halt. Duncan had no doubts that no one else would have been able to do that.

“A little. You see, I happen to know my duties and I have quite a few. If you don’t have anything specific to say to me, why did I actually come here?”

“We have. We have some questions even.”

“I’m listening then. Let’s finally find out…” Crowley encouraged him with a movement of his hand, and when the silence fell again, he croaked almost drily. “Come on, gentlemen, you have some sort of dislike club set up for me, I’m listening. Speak up. If you’re uncomfortable, I’ll close my eyes so I can’t see who’s asking. Don’t worry, I don’t know you all. Quite a few of you I’m seeing for the first time…” he hesitated, as if he only now noticed that.

Playing on Baron Norgate’s nerves had paid off. His voice trembled with exasperation as he spoke again.

“How is it that we know nothing about the system of recruiting, training and assigning Rangers to the fiefdoms?”

Crowley smiled in an almost sincere manner.

“I guess that’s a question for King Herbert, may he have a peaceful sleep. I did not invent these rules. I merely continue the work of my predecessors.”

“Well, that’s the thing: you’re not!” Finally, the accusation sounded. “You’ve trampled on them and you’re trying to rewrite the rules, you’ve changed the rules, you’ve changed the laws and you’re still arguing that-”

“What laws and what trampling, lord Gladwin?” Crowley interrupted him in an impatient tone. “Please start being specific. I have changed the law by re-incorporating the Rangers who were dismissed because of Morgarath’s intrigues. Is that what this is about?”

“That’s not it!”

“So what, I’m supposed to keep guessing until I hit it?” Crowley was already openly annoyed by them. “I don’t have all day, really. Tell me what’s going on, or I’m off.”

The council hummed with indignation, though a few barely suppressed laughter. Baron Arald held on bravely, gritting his teeth, and only wandered with a pleased look from the table and Crowley to Gladwin of Norgate, who was getting increasingly blue with anger. King Duncan sat unmoved and calm, following the conversation.

In his mind, he had already presented Lady Pauline with at least three orders, a title of nobility and the right to address him by name in public. What she had accomplished was downright incredible. Crowley did not throw himself at the barons’ throats, furious, instead he sliced them piece by piece, determined, calculated and ruthless. A beautiful piece of work. Duncan decided that he should start fearing Lady Pauline or give her a post at Araluen Castle.

“Aren’t you somehow strangely reluctant to talk to us, Commandant,” the Baron of Norgate spoke up more calmly than before, regaining ground a little. “Are you afraid of questions?”

“What questions, because so far you haven’t told me anything?” Crowley wasn’t confused one bit. “And if I were afraid of questions, I wouldn’t report to a secret organisation that not only gets a lot of them, but also asks a lot of them. Are you afraid of some, lord Gladwin?”

The silence that fell, though barely for a few seconds, was so thick that if someone had shouted or even sneezed now, at least a few people would have to their hearts checked after that.

“How dare you, Meratyn?” The baron lowered his voice so much that his words were barely intelligible.

“Me?” Crowley raised an eyebrow, though they had not heard of another Meratyn being in the area. “How dare you, Gladwin?”

The room was in turmoil and only a glance from the King silenced everyone. Duncan turned an expectant gaze to the commander of the Rangers, who, without losing his cool, waited for the lords to calm down.

“You gave the order to attack a Ranger. You are incredibly fortunate that I have yet to accuse you of treason, and none of your men have been shot with an arrow. Instead of fearing what I will do when the matter comes to light, you are using this to accuse me of what exactly? Because I still haven’t heard anything from your mouth that makes any sense. Do you want me to leave the room for you to be able to make your point? I hear you spoke quite coherently last time. I apologise for the misfortune of appearing to speak to you face to face. Why don’t I turn around? I don’t know, put my hood up, go out into the corridor? Since you can only accuse me of something when I’m not here...”

For a long few dozen seconds, absolutely no one spoke. Crowley was looking at Baron Gladwin, but out of the corner of his eye he could also see the other lords, their faces and their gazes lowered further and further to the top of the benches.

King Duncan was silent, taking pleasure in the silence that had fallen in the council. He didn’t think it was possible to do such a thing without murdering the people gathered in it.

Crowley waited for almost two minutes, not taking his eyes off Baron Gladwin. At one point even he began to doubt whether he would hear anything at all. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the note that Lady Pauline had placed on the papers. ‘WAIT’

So he remained silent. With an almost stony countenance and a menacing calm in his eyes, he remained silent until all eyes, instead of on him, turned on Gladwin of Norgate. And the man finally spoke up, quieter than before, strenuously not looking around him.

“Why didn’t you tell me that the Ranger I got assigned was a woman?”

“Why did you have her attacked?” Crowley answered with a question. “What did she do besides being a woman? Was she suspicious in any way?”

“She was a woman!” Baron Gladwin almost shouted, unable to stand the tension that was accumulating on him. “There are no female Rangers!”

“As you can see, there are. And I understand that instead of talking to her about it, or if, I don’t know, you are afraid of it, writing to me about it, you had the Ranger attacked on duty-”

“The woman in the cloak!” interrupted the Baron.

“She’s a Ranger like me and everyone else!” Crowley raised his voice a touch, which was enough to drown out the lord without difficulty. “She wears a cloak, a bow, a silver oakleaf, she has fought in war and defended the kingdom. By attacking her, you have attacked the Corps. You might as well swing a knife at me now. And what is the threat to you for that, are you aware?”

Duncan thought that it was probably a few arrows from Halt, but he didn’t say a word. The other barons whispered only among themselves, but somehow none dared to take the trouble to speak to the Ranger Commandant.

Crowley had made one small mistake, however, which he realised when Baron Gladwin spoke again.

“She fought in the war?” he repeated, puzzled. “Then how long has she been in the Corps?”

Pauline glanced at Crowley, having no time to hand him the appropriate piece of paper. The Rangers commander, however, kept his cool.

“Everyone has fought at the war, lord Gladwin. That’s what war is all about.”

“Where did she fight?” the Baron of Norgate inquired. “That was years ago! How long has she been in the Corps if she was already fighting then? There were barely a handful of you then! Where has she been?”

“I won’t divulge that information about her or any other Rangers,” Crowley replied seemingly calmly, though his voice sounded with less indifference. He was beginning to lose patience.

“Which army did you entrust to a woman in the Civil War? Where did she fight?”

“The question is, where did you fight?” Crowley measured the baron with an already much sharper gaze. As when he was accused of dereliction of duty. “Where were you? You were not fighting on the heaths. I would have remembered you. Where have you been? Ah, right… you were fighting at your own fiefdom. You got rid of your brother, didn’t you? Or rather, you tried to get rid of him because someone reminded you in time that there was a damn Civil War going on and we needed people on the heaths, eh?”

Pauline coughed softly. Crowley heard it clearly, but the others did not. He mastered himself almost at the last moment, having already heard how his voice had lost the calm he had tried to maintain earlier.

Baron Gladwin must have been at least partially aware of this. He croaked, not caring about the accusations that were directed at him. Instead, he took up the subject that interested him more.

“There were what, twenty of you then? Checking the names, who fought where, it’s not a problem. We looked for her… in the documents, among the lords who want to know what is it what you’re doing here, Meratyn. And we found nothing. Do you know what that made us think of?”

‘WAIT’ Pauline warned him immediately and Crowley didn’t speak. He didn’t give them ideas. He waited to see what they would say. Duncan’s concerned gaze rested on him instead of Baron Gladwin.

“We decided that, in view of this, she is probably new to the Corps. Such a little experiment, eh? But since you say she fought in the war… the case is much simpler. There were no women there.”

Pauline tapped her finger on the piece of paper once more, seeing out of the corner of her eye how Crowley clenched his jaws tightly. He kept his composure but barely managed it.

“You hid her,” Baron Gladwin finished, smiling mischievously. “You lied to us, disguised her as a man and sent her to war. Because you knew we would never agree to have a woman in charge of the security of this country.”

“I’m not asking for your permission,” Crowley replied, and anger clearly sounded in his voice.

Pauline tapped her finger once more. This time, however, the attention of those gathered was focused on the King himself. He had already been staring at the Baron of Norgate for a long while with an increasingly strong anger. He seized the moment as it came.

“In a few years you’ll have no choice, Gladwin,” he spoke up, and at the sound of his voice a lot of those gathered twitched. Duncan rarely sounded with such unconcealed anger. “If you live to see it, of course. Which is doubtful. Speak in that tone again and you’ll be charged with treason not by Crowley, but by me.”

Having already lost one legal war over the fact that Duncan was to be succeeded on the throne by his daughter and not his son, the lords were silent. A few of them weakly nodded their heads. A few others desperately avoided looking at the King.

Baron Gladwin, with great difficulty, contained the rage from which he was beginning to turn blue again. He nodded, gaining a moment to calm himself.

“That is not what I meant, your majesty,” he said, bowing his head once more. “I am in no way speaking of her highness, Princess Cassandra. My protest is solely about our intelligence services, which have been famous for many things over the years among them the fact that only men serve in them.”

“And you consider that their main advantage?” Duncan asked, still looking threateningly at him.

“I do not know, your majesty. All I know is that so far this arrangement has worked. Being a Ranger is hard, dangerous work. The inclusion of women in the Corps is a huge change… and commander Meratyn, as it seems, made it a long time ago and now that the issue has come to light, he is wriggling out of responsibility.”

‘SIT’ Pauline fixed her gaze on Crowley for a brief moment, hard enough, however, that he didn’t break off on his feet. She knew him too well to be taken by surprise.

He breathed deeply, trying to hold his anger enough to speak slowly and calmly. Nothing else could save him at the moment. And it wasn’t just himself he was protecting. He chose his words carefully.

“Lord Gladwin, I appreciate your concern for the plight of the Corps. However, the events of a few years ago proved that even the men chosen for it, if chosen badly, are simply not up to the job. The issue here is not about gender, height, eye colour, preference for coffee or anything else. It is purely and simply about personal aptitude for the profession. And I assure you that there is no one in the Corps who does not meet these requirements.”

“In your opinion,” the Baron added, nodding meaningfully.

“Mine, and the masters who devote years to training the right people to defend this country,” Crowley replied without hesitation.

“And which of these masters trained a woman and for so many years none of you saw fit to mention it?”

“To whom would we mention it?” Crowley raised an eyebrow. “To you specifically, lord Gladwin? The council? The fair merchants? Should I announce a list of names of people who belong to a secret organisation?”

“No, but a woman-”

“Yes, I understood that this is a great concern to you. But it doesn’t change anything. She is a Ranger. She answers as a Ranger, she’s subject to the laws of the Rangers. And you are not affected by this, so what is your point?”

“But I am!” Baron Gladwin shook his head emphatically. “You sent her to my fief without asking my opinion!”

“And what did she do wrong?” Crowley asked, this time without having to control himself. The growing hatred he felt towards the Baron was helping him to remain calm. He wanted them to hear every word he said, so he made sure to keep his composure. “What did she do that you had her attacked?"

“I thought she was spying or... or something...!”

“Or something,” Crowley repeated slowly, straining the letters through his teeth. “And that’s why you sent soldiers on someone who was there to protect you from everything you can’t handle.”

“Exactly! How is she supposed to handle it if we-”

“She can handle your soldiers,” Crowley interrupted him without hesitation. “Without wasting a single arrow on you. Do you really think she’d have any problem with killing every last one of you? She or any of us, Rangers?”

“Those are threats!” A shout went up in the council. “For something like that… Meratyn, for such a thing you could easily be charged with treason!”

Crowley smiled in a frighteningly calm manner.

“Oh dear,” he said slowly. “Again?”

Baron Arald had to lower his gaze to the table again. King Duncan closed his eyes for a brief moment so as not to reveal anything he would have to explain if noticed.

Crowley waited until the barons had cooled down. He no longer cared whether he had outraged or infuriated them more with his words. He didn’t even care about Baron Gladwin and his approach. When he spoke again, he sounded calm, fully aware of his words.

“You have no right to decide where any Ranger is assigned. For decades, we save you every step of the way, doing the work of you and the army, we fight wars for you and then you praise us. But on a daily basis, we die for you in the forests, and you mostly don’t even know our names. You don’t care if we have families if anyone is grieving us. You wait for the next man in a cloak to take care of the order in the fiefdom for you. Why do you need knights, why do you need gendarmes or hunters. Rangers are sent everywhere. And nobody cares. You ask me all this just because there’s a woman among us… and I tell you, I give you my word and I can swear by any gods you know… I won’t tell you anything about her or anyone else. As long as I’m alive, you won’t find out who is training us, who we are, where we’re from or what our family names are. For our own safety. We take care of yours and we must also take care of our own… sometimes, unfortunately, because of the barons of our own country.”

He heard murmurs, the name of the former Baron of Gorlan repeated a few times. Crowley allowed them to elaborate and continued speaking, calmly, with unwavering certainty.

“The Rangers have chosen me as their commander. I stand guard over our safety and will not allow it to be compromised because someone is afraid to trust a woman. This is not about you specifically, lord Gladwin, but about all of you gathered here. You have flocked like flies over a corpse because somewhere in one of the fifty fiefs a woman wears a silver oakleaf. And what’s it to you? Are you really going to protest about who is supposed to save you during the war?” He suspended his voice for a moment and scowled. He nodded his head emphatically. “Well, no. During the war you will see us as heroes. Today I am a potential traitor to you because there is a woman in the Corps. Terrifying. Truly… it takes my breath away that you are so bored in life that you have to be hysterical about it.”

Lady Pauline watched intently as most of the barons furrowed their brows or looked away. One Baron Gladwin did not become confused or indignant. He shook his head as seriously as Crowley.

“Change the law as you wish, Meratyn. But don’t expect any of us to be happy about it. I for one will not accept a female Ranger into my fief. Not while I live.”

Crowley accepted this with a stony face. His gaze was briefly caught by movement on the desk. Pauline put the last piece of paper to him.

‘DESTROY THEM’

He nodded briefly, to her and to all those gathered. He looked in turn into the eyes of those who did not lower their gaze.

“I take it this position is shared by your entire group?” he asked so calmly that King Duncan furrowed his brow. He had much more expected an outburst of anger. And then he would know how to behave. Now he had no idea what Crowley was planning to do.

A few barons nodded; a few others were openly hesitant.

“Yes, Commandant... and what will you do about it?” Baron Gladwin raised his eyebrows expectantly.

“Nothing. I can’t force you.” Crowley picked up a blank sheet of paper and reached for a pen. He placed it on the edge of the table where he and Pauline were sitting. “I ask you to make a list of those who would refuse entry to their fiefdom to a Ranger who is a woman.”

Lady Pauline had already tucked the cards away. Without taking her eyes off the assembled people, out of the corner of her eye she still made sure that Crowley kept his composure. She no longer had to worry about that, however.

He did not move, stony-faced as he watched Baron Gladwin of Norgate Fief rise from the bench first. He was followed by others. They approached the table, wrote their names on a piece of paper, and came back to their seats.

In turn, he looked into the face of each of them as they bent over the paper. He remembered each one. A few were unable to bear his gaze. A few others even stared defiantly at him, waiting to see what he would do in the face of such an end to the matter.

Crowley waited. The last lord rose, signed his name, and returned to his seat. And there was still a silence, which the Corps Commandant did not break for some time yet.

He reached for the list when he was sure all those assembled were looking at him, uncertain what he would do now. If he was able to do anything at all.

He ran his eyes over the list. There were a total of eighteen names on it. Eighteen fiefdoms out of fifty. One of them was his own, his homeland fief. He searched with his gaze for the baron who administered it. The latter lowered his gaze to the bench top as soon as he noticed movement.

Crowley nodded once more.

“Well then… your majesty,” he turned to the King, rising from the table. “Here is the list of fiefdoms where the Rangers will cease to be stationed. I have done my best to prevent that. If anyone in the assembly has any other ideas, I’m listening.”

Duncan did not speak up, unsure of what specifically they expected him to say at this point. Instead, almost all of the other attendees spoke up. At the same time. Baron Arald muttered something about a shift in power, but quietly enough for the King to pretend he hadn’t heard it.

The others pelted Crowley with expressions of astonishment, which seamlessly passed into indignation. He couldn’t do it. He had no right. It was not allowed to change in this way. He didn’t have the power to do so. He listened as they shouted, repeated in disbelief, and explained to him why he had significantly forgotten himself. He listened and remained silent, waiting to see if they would silence themselves or if it would take a shout from the King.

They shouted for a long time. Long enough for Duncan to nod at Crowley and the latter sat back down. With an indifferent face and a calm gaze, he waited for them to shout out everything they wanted to say.

“Silence!” Baron Gladwin was the first to realise that the commotion was working against him. “You have no right to do that! Do you have any idea how much you would endanger the kingdom?”

“Me?” Crowley raised an eyebrow. “You are the ones who refused the Rangers entry to your lands. What am I supposed to do, kill you to protect the kingdom?”

“You have no right-!”

“To kill you? Yes, not yet at least. So I just won’t send them there. What’s the problem?” Crowley shrugged his shoulders, completely not sharing their approach. “I’m not going to take the chance that you’ll have them attacked, locked up in dungeons or banished. You don’t want us, no problem. There are enough fiefdoms in this country, enough people who need to be helped. Your choice.”

“No!” Gladwin shook his head, making no attempt to contain his anger. “We said we don’t want a female Ranger! It’s only about her!”

“But you will accept a man, yes?” Crowley smiled once more in that unsettling way. “Well, it’s not your choice who you get. I’m the one who decides that. Not you and not even his majesty the King. I do. And any of you on this list could get an assigned Ranger, who happens to be a woman. And if you don’t want…-”

“We don’t want her, and we-”

“You don’t get to choose,” Crowley interrupted him in a ruthlessly calm tone. “We’re not some pretty fabrics on a market where you can pick and choose what’s more colourful and suits you better. You don’t choose who you get. And if it doesn’t suit you that you could get a woman, you won’t get anyone.”

“You don’t have the right. And you won’t,” Gladwin had great certainty in his voice. He looked at King Duncan sharply. “He has no such right. He can’t do it.”

And now Duncan understood what they wanted from him. He feigned hesitation and looked at the table in the middle of the room.

“Lady Pauline, if I remember correctly, the Commandant of the Corps has the right to manage his own people, yes?”

“By all means,” Pauline nodded, and although she had not yet quoted the law, everyone was more or less aware that she had the relevant paragraph prepared. “He has the right to dispose of them because he knows them best. He is the one who decides on assignments, changes in positions and rotations.”

“They are the King’s Rangers! Not Crowley Meratyn’s!”

“And this is a law written a hundred years ago, not yesterday…” Pauline nodded without a second’s hesitation. “The law of the Ranger Corps guarantees it several principles of independence, subject to service to the kingdom.”

“And what about that? You take people away, you put the country at risk! You have no such right!”

“I didn’t say I’d send them to Hibernia or Gallica,” Crowley’s voice was almost amused as he countered the accusation. “They will be at my command. They will protect the kingdom. They simply won’t care about you anymore. Since you don’t want them… you will have to worry about the fiefdoms yourselves… if it doesn’t work out for you, well, we’ll all know whose fault it is if we get invaded by Skandians or Scotti.”

Dead silence fell in the meeting room. Silent were the barons, shocked and outraged. Crowley was silent, calm, and unforgiving. Silent, too, was King Duncan, causing the hopes of more barons to begin to fade. There was no sign that Duncan would intervene in the matter.

“But the people in the fiefs...” someone spoke up.

“You’re the ones who took the Rangers away from them. I’d advise you to think about how you’re going to explain it to them when you get back.” Crowley smiled again, which came off almost wolfishly. “You can say that the mean commander of the Rangers won’t send them where they’re in danger of being attacked by the Baron’s soldiers… no problem, worse things have been said about me before. Go ahead, I don’t care.”

“You’re going to regret this, Meratyn.”

He found Baron Gladwin’s gaze with his eyes. He nodded to him, and the disturbing smile did not disappear from his face.

“Good luck with that. Just a reminder that because of where I live, any attack on Araluen Castle will be treated as a potential attack on the King. Who am I to care about me, come on.”

“You didn’t have to do that...” Gladwin looked at him with such extreme dislike, almost disgust, that Crowley was close to laughter. Knowing so little about him, the Baron had no idea even how much he would have hated him had he found out more. “All we had to do was get rid of her from the Corps.”

Crowley nodded in reply.

“That’s where it starts… a few years ago, that’s how we got first one Ranger expelled from the Corps, then another… and then we went to war. No. You will not be removing any of us. You have no reason to do that. That is not a reason.”

The Baron of Norgate casted a hostile glance at Crowley and, after a brief hesitation, asked him, curving his lips in an insincere smile.

“Why do you care so much? Who is she, eh?”

“She’s a Ranger,” Crowley answered him calmly. “You aim at one of us, expect the others to aim at you, Gladwin. You should have paid attention in history class.”

“Who is she to you?” The Baron did not relent. “Why do you defend her so? What do you care? Who is she, I ask?”

“I hear you. And I will not answer.” Crowley nodded with dignity and did not lose his composure despite what Gladwin was already openly thinking and in a moment said.

“That’s what you need the women in the Corps for, eh? So that you don’t have to bang with each other and-”

“Your majesty, is it possible to ask Baron Gladwin out of here, or will it be a tremendous crime if I hit him in the face with this water jug?” Crowley turned his gaze on Duncan with apparent calm, but his jaw trembled dangerously.

Lady Pauline showed him the note again. ‘DESTROY THEM’

King Duncan did not look at the Baron of Norgate, he merely nodded to the Commandant of the Corps.

“I just happen to have to leave for a while. There’s no crime if there are no witnesses.”

Horror ran in a murmur. They did not have time to shout. Baron Arald saw an opportunity to be of some use.

“Look what a beautiful day outside the window!”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute!” Baron Gladwin realised that it had all been said seriously when King Duncan rose from his seat and started for the door.

Lord Anthony followed him, with a brief nod to Crowley. Baron Arald stood by the sill of the great window and pointed to the horizon with the setting sun. Lots of barons took their cue from him.

“Oh, it’s a hawk!”

Fortunately, he had chosen a window away from where Halt stood hidden in the shadows. Crowley and Lady Pauline looked at each other. In a way he was waiting to see if she would forbid him to carry out his threat, beside that he was making sure that he could already move on to the point.

“Finish this shithead and let’s get out of here,” she muttered quietly.

Crowley then looked at Baron Gladwin and rose from the table. Most of the barons moved, seeing this. And most of them moved aside to get further away from the Baron of Norgate. This one stopped protesting. He stared at the Ranger commander, confused, and increasingly frightened.

Crowley drank some water. He circled the table and leaned against it. He turned his gaze to Baron Gladwin and had kept it there. He was no longer smiling. He was looking at an old, unhappy man whose head was closed and for whom there was no hope of his understanding anything that was said to him. And who was trying to offend him, but Crowley had heard and experienced too much to be afraid of such words and such people as Gladwin.

He had no intention of beating him. Frankly, he felt it was not worth getting his hand dirty with the blood from his broken nose. He got far more satisfaction out of seeing how less and less arrogance was in that pathetic little man crammed into shiny robes. A little shell, quivering with fear. He wouldn’t have to hit him; he could just step on him, and it would be over.

He was not an enemy worth getting his hands dirty over.

“You can come back...” Crowley spoke up, and when not everyone listened, he added. “I will not stoop to the level you are trying to impose on me. I don’t have time for that, I don’t have any more time for you.”

They returned to their seats, mostly carried away by Arald’s sharp glances and the silence that fell again as soon as Crowley suspended his voice for a moment.

“Enough of my time was taken up by your arguing whether a woman could be a Ranger. I don’t care what you think. You don’t care for us. You don’t train Rangers, you’re not responsible for them, you don’t cry when they die. It is none of your business. Since you don’t understand that it is no longer my problem but yours and your unguarded fiefdoms from which I will take my people. I take care of them. I don’t have to take care of any of you.”

No one dared to speak up. Crowley looked once more at their faces. Then he reached behind him and took again the list they had made.

“So... gentlemen,” he suspended his voice once more and began to read out the names one by one, starting with Lord Gladwin. Each one of the eighteen. He looked at their faces as he finished reading. He smiled, bitterly and mercilessly. “I have just one humble request to all of you. Standing here, as a man who is at the forefront of the security of this country and who is hampered by the likes of you, I just have to ask you… go fuck yourselves.”

He then turned, took his weapon and his papers, nodded to Pauline, and left the room. She left at the next moment.

And only silence was the answer they received.

* * *

Duncan had never seen a smiling Halt before. No, damn that, Halt wasn’t smiling, he was laughing. Soundlessly, yes, but he was definitively laughing. Leaning in half, hugging his chest with his arm, he was choking on his laughter.

“You alive?” Crowley sent him a faintly weary look.

A hoarse, wheezing sound answered him. Halt straightened up, rubbed the corners of his eyes, and nodded rather chaotically. The sincerest admiration shone in his eyes.

“That… was incredible!”

And he started laughing soundlessly again. Crowley bestowed another tired look on him but did not seem sincerely offended by this approach. Instead, he was clearly tired, and the full stress of the situation was just beginning to get to him.

Lady Pauline, for her part, sat with a proud smile, and as soon as Crowley’s breathing became calmer, she placed a hand on his shoulder.

“You did well,” she pronounced, to which he replied with a smile.

“I really thought I was going to die out there…” Crowley muttered weakly.

“You looked exactly like that when you left…” Duncan spoke up at last.

He got scared a little when, barely a moment after him, Crowley left the room. The Ranger Commandant walked out into the corridor, looked at him, turned pale and drew in a deep breath. He only managed to speak up when he reached the King’s study, where Duncan directed him without a moment’s thought.

Lady Pauline came out immediately afterwards, with a strangely broad smile. She was a little worried to see Crowley’s pale face, so she immediately endorsed the idea of hiding with in the King’s chambers.

The devil only knew where Halt had come from. Probably Pauline had left the door ajar on purpose, leaving the proceedings. He slipped out of the shadows, took off his hood and immediately ran after them, called out by Pauline. And then he began to laugh, with which he frightened Lord Anthony even before the cautious question was asked.

“Did you hit him or not?”

“No,” Crowley said, frankly. “There was no point in adding to our problems. But it was beautiful…”

“Baron Arald has done well here as well,” Pauline tried to remain serious, which didn’t necessarily work out for her.

To the surprise of everyone gathered, with Crowley himself in the first place, Halt rested his hand on his shoulder, standing beside him and pronounced with solemnity.

“You were great.” And again he struggled to contain his laughter. “Their faces… oh, to see again their faces after you left…”

In truth, King Duncan was a little sorry that he had missed it. He guessed, however, that without him leaving, the conversations might have continued for a while. And Crowley might not have said what he said.

“Just out of curiosity… how many more of those cards did you have?” Crowley looked at Pauline, not hiding his amusement, but also his immense relief that the conversations were over. And of the fact that he wasn’t there alone.

“For every occasion.” Lady Pauline nodded calmly.

“You are amazing…” Crowley bowed his head in front of her.

And there was no one to argue with that.

“I’ll see if they’re still sitting there...” Lord Anthony seemed the most confused by the whole incident of all those gathered. Which was quite amusing, given that sitting next to him was the King, who was trying not to join Halt in enjoying the reactions of the barons.

Natural colours slowly returned to Crowley’s face. Halt was still standing next to him, keeping a hand on his shoulder and didn’t seem to care about Duncan’s presence in the room. Lady Pauline waited to speak until she felt enough time had passed for them to at least partially cool down.

“Now what?”

Crowley immediately looked at the King.

“If they accuse you of treason, I will order an investigation about Gladwin,” Duncan decided. “He has said more than once that he ordered the Ranger attacked on duty. He has demanded the release of classified information that doesn’t concern him and accused you of acting against the country. There are enough reasons, even if we won’t mention his rudeness.”

“It will in a way rob him of his personality,” Halt muttered, but he had already become serious enough to sound threatening again. He, too, was the first to consider what must inevitably have been said. “How much trouble can he make for us?”

“Unfortunately, quite a few,” Duncan nodded his head hesitantly. “He’s been a baron for a few years, knows quite a few people… he can give us some more trouble. Luckily, his brother seems to be a better man, more reasonable. Let’s hope something will change there. I would much rather entrust the North to his brother, Syron. Although there’s nothing we can do about it for now.”

For the time being they had to deal with what had just been decided. Crowley looked at the King with seriousness, a little grim even.

“I’m not taking the Rangers out of the fiefdoms. Damn the barons. The people need them. I will order them to hide and treat the barons as a potential threat. Temporarily. And then... I don’t know, your majesty, then something will have to be done about it long-term.”

Reassured by this, Duncan had to admit that while he had expected something along those lines, he was glad that the idea had come fully from Crowley and had not been imposed.

“We’ll worry about that in a while. Although my guess is that Gladwin's grouping may wane. The barons rely on Rangers too much to manage without you. If I were you, I’d set my sights on a mountain of apology letters...”

“Or a visit from the assassins,” Halt added grimly.

Crowley smiled in response.

“I’d like to see them try-”

“You wouldn’t. And you won’t. You’ve got surplus Rangers now. Take one here so you have someone to count on for security.” Halt interrupted him in a relentless tone, speaking a little quieter than before. He still didn’t seem to care about King’s presence nearby. He just looked at Crowley, focused and sure.

The Rangers commander’s smile grew more reassuring, a bit softer too. He fleetingly rested his fingers on the hand still holding his shoulder.

“I promise, I’ll be careful. And I’ll think about extra protection. Might come in handy, at least for the time being. If they come up with something stupid.”

Duncan looked away when it occurred to him that Lady Pauline was looking at him somehow more sharply than usual. He took a step back, to the cupboards behind his desk.

“Coffee?” he asked and only laughed in spirit.

Not that he was afraid of Pauline. But he wasn’t going to argue with her. None of the three people were worth getting in the way of. He had a feeling that a certain lord would find that out, and soon.

The Rangers became animated at the magic word he said. Pauline hid a smile. They moved over to the table. Halt sat quite close to Crowley, separating him with himself from the front door of the study.

“And, if you don’t mind me asking. What about Beatrice now? Where will you assign her?” Duncan wondered after a brief moment.

Crowley mused on this, and also exchanged glances first with Halt, then with Pauline. He hesitated and it dawned on the King why, even before he could hear anything.

“There was no question,” he assured them. “I understand.”

“For now, she will probably stay where she’s safe. Then I’ll find her an assignment. In a few fiefdoms, that shouldn’t be a problem. I’ll probably assign someone with her, just to be safe…” Crowley explained vaguely what he intended and smiled a little apologetically. “I can’t give you details, parts of it I don’t know myself yet.”

Duncan nodded and smiled a little.

“I understand, I really do. Let me know if there’s anything I can help with. In this, or in security. Sometimes I’m useful for something..."

He got the impression that Halt’s sharp gaze softened a little after those words. And then he couldn’t stand it and laughed, as the grim Ranger nodded rather indulgently.

“There, there,” he muttered reassuringly. “You did well today too, your majesty,.”

No doubt he would have countered him with something, had it not been that just then Lord Anthony returned to the study. With Baron Arald trampling on his heels.

“What a beautiful action!” Arald rumbled from the threshold.

Crowley sighed with resignation.

“If you all enjoyed it so much, why don’t you go and talk to them next time yourselves, huh?”

“I can,” Halt muttered with a menacing half-smile.

“Not you.” Crowley immediately looked at him.

And again Halt’s gaze softened, and this time Duncan was sure it was sincere. And Pauline was watching him again, so he turned his gaze to the others who had located themselves in his office.

“Coffee?”

Sometimes it was wiser to be blind about certain things, he knew that already. This, too, was already beginning to amuse him.

He just sort of started to hope that they would invite him for a wedding. Provided Crowley changes that law too. Could he? If he made it secret and only internal, for the Corps, then maybe? Duncan wasn’t sure and he made a mental note to ask Lady Pauline about that on some occasion.

* * *

The council digested all that was said for the next few hours. In the evening it was announced that they had a request to the King to prepare a vote for the next day on further discussions about the Corps Commandant. Duncan sent word back to them that both he and Crowley could attend, it was no problem at all for them. He did not receive any more news.

Baron Arald began to float visions of joining the talks the next day, since the vote would also give the initiative to others. Crowley was heartily sick of the subject but refused to be exempt of coming to the meeting.

“They know I’m here… if I don’t come, they’ll think they’ve won,” he said, when Duncan assured him that somehow they would surely manage to clear it up if Crowley didn’t turn up. “Besides, I want to see their faces.”

“Ask them tomorrow if they’ve done their homework,” Halt muttered and quickly regretted it, as Baron Arald was sitting close enough to hear and found it a great joke.

It had been a long time since Duncan had seen such an unhappy look in Halt, full of regret for his faults. So much good had come of it that at least Crowley had stopped being nervous and was following their one-sided conversation with visible amusement.

He also made tentative resolutions about the new situation. He had not yet dismissed the Rangers from their posts in the eighteen fiefdoms on the list, but he wanted to pass on news of what had just happened. However, he refused to send the message by pigeon or post.

Instead, towards evening, he passed on the message through one of the sentinels.

“There is a minstrel hanging around in the courtyard or by the gardens. Invite him to join us, he is a great singer,” he asked to the astonishment of everyone except Halt and Pauline.

They had agreed beforehand that it was better for Crowley not to hang around the castle for the rest of the day. The barons needed to cool down, and he needed to set himself up for more conversations with them. The deliberations in the King’s study also took a while. But calling a minstrel to them was a bit unusual, even by the standards of what Duncan had already seen the Rangers come up with.

He understood everything, however, when a familiar face peeked out from under the hood of a coloured cloak.

“Evening,” an amused voice greeted them at the chamber’s threshold just moments later. Apparently the sentry had no problem finding the minstrel.

Duncan looked at Crowley with both weariness but also respect for thinking through such options for possible support.

“How many Rangers do you have hidden somewhere in my castle?”

Crowley pretended to hesitate and had to count, and Berrigan grinned.

“I just so happened to be passing by. What a small world, eh?”

Baron Arald endorsed this view with enthusiasm and immediately took up the tale, but Berrigan could not stay, to listen. Crowley apologised a little awkwardly, as it would have been a bit rude of him to ask the King out of his own office, but certain orders he did not want to give in front of the others gathered. They were not offended, however. All the assembled people had become accustomed to what rules the Rangers were governed by.

Halt also apologised to those gathered for a moment, disappearing right behind Crowley.

“For the sake of international security, I hope whatever Gladwin comes up with doesn’t include an attack from across the border…” Duncan muttered, escorting Halt to the first patch of shadow with his gaze.

It bothered him a little at times that, wondering how far this Ranger would go to in order to protect his loved ones, he invariably came to the conclusion that there could be absolutely no boundaries or exceptions here. But on the other hand, it was very encouraging to have Halt on his side.

“I’d be more concerned that they went to throw Gladwin off the tower,” Baron Arald added just as quietly, and everyone nodded in understanding.

Except for Pauline, who was sure that if Halt had such plans, he would have consulted her beforehand, as he would need a good alibi. Or the keys to the chamber at the top of the tower.

They did not, however, go to throw anyone off anywhere. They found a hiding spot in an empty chamber nearby and talk a little. Crowley explained to Berrigan in a few words what the current situation was. He also handed him a report bearing the seal of the oakleaf and a second, privately written letter.

“To Beatrice,” he explained, as there was no addressee. Just to be safe.

Berrigan tucked the letter neatly into a secret pocket under the lining of his bag. He immediately had to dig into it again as Halt handed him his letter.

“And to Gilan.”

He muttered something about the honourable role of replacement of the royal post, but they ignored him. Instead, he saw rather pale but sincere smiles when he asked.

“So I take it that we can consider the war on paper and ink to have begun?”

They exchanged glances and Crowley nodded in agreement.

“Everything points to that...”

Berrigan smiled broadly at them.

“Well, it’s been awfully quiet lately. We were all wondering when you were going to start something again.”

Chapter Text

He arrived as soon as he heard. If she had set off even a moment later, they would still have met in the Norgate fiefdom. And then it could have come to hand-to-hand, so Beatrice was glad they were half a day’s journey from the border. Half a day should be enough to talk some sense into Crowley, if necessary, should he come up with the idiotic idea of invading Castle Macindaw to talk to Baron Gladwin.

He was surprisingly calm when they met. Probably because he was exhausted, both he and Cropper.

“You rode here straight from Araluen?” she greeted him as he jumped off his horse near an encampment hidden in the forest. So he had to find the tracks by the roadside and truthfully read the clues.

He nodded, at first not caring either way, or even about the things she assumed he would ask.

“Are you all right?”

“There were so twenty too few of them…” Beatrice smiled a little bitterly, but immediately shook her head. Another look at the tired commander reassured her that Crowley was going to have a hard time reading any hidden messages and she would either tell him straight or he will ask again the same thing over and over. “I’m fine.”

He didn’t ask what he should have asked straight away until an hour had passed, then another. He joined her in the small encampment, they drank coffee and had lunch together, and he still didn’t ask about it. He apologised for not foreseeing that something like this could happen. She told him to shut up under threat of being thrown out of the camp. Only then did he smile slightly.

“Gladwin is an old scoundrel… I should have guessed he could come up with something like this.”

“And did you have a spare fief to send me somewhere else? Or someone to send to Norgate?”

“Well I didn’t. Which doesn’t change the fact that-” He paused, because Beatrice’s menacing gaze said clearly that he was coming very dangerously close to testing whether her threat was serious.

And he still didn’t ask. As if he was not going to ask at all. That’s why she told him herself.

“I didn’t kill any of them.”

Crowley seemed neither surprised nor reassured by this. He nodded grimly. He didn’t say it was a good thing, but he also didn’t say anything along the lines that maybe a few should have just been killed for the sake of example, it would have given the case another dimension.

“What happens now?” she asked, when he didn’t bring up that subject of his own accord either.

“I’m going to have to talk to Gladwin. I’ve been trying for months to get my reforms recognised. It’s not my fault they haven’t read the drafts…”

They were silent for a moment, as if neither of them wanted to be the first to say aloud that talking to the Baron alone might not do much here. She had a feeling that she had to say it again because Crowley would insist on an optimism that strangely hadn’t killed him yet.

“Right now, we’ve got to get out of here,” he decided before Beatrice had time to decide whether saying obvious, depressing facts would help anyone here. “We’ll go to Caraway. It’ll be safe there. Halt’s taking Gilan back to his father’s for a few days because he was supposed to be escorting Lady Pauline…”

“He was supposed to?” Beatrice furrowed her brow.

“We’re going to reassign people a bit. If we are to avoid a war with the council, I would prefer not to return to Araluen Castle alone.” Crowley answered her with a small, very unhappy smile.

"And Halt is supposedly going to help you avoid a brawl?”

“Fair enough,” Crowley made no attempt to argue with how absurd that sounded. “No, but he’ll take some of the responsibility.”

It still didn’t convince her that this was supposed to be in any way a more pacifist solution. However, she understood that there were other reasons underneath the official reasons for involving Halt, and she really wasn’t surprised by this. Though at the same time, in her opinion, Crowley was putting his own head under the knife by taking Halt with him.

“I’ll do my best to talk to the King first, then Gladwin, and the council at the very end,” he decided, which neither he nor she found particularly uplifting. But he tried. It was already something. “We don’t want an official war, lawsuits and all that.”

In less than a week the words were to take on a particularly ironic tone.

At the time, however, neither of them expected what Baron Gladwin would do. Crowley intended to hide Beatrice for some time and talk more privately about the matter. He would reminisce about his projects that they were ignoring and pretend to be unaware of the complaints about his innovations that were coming down by letter. Perhaps he would even try to make a deal with Gladwin without the King’s help.

These were the visions he having then, though at the same time he apologised to Beatrice at the start for not yet planning anything suitably loud and aggressive in response to what had happened. Because he should. He should publicise the matter, get outraged, officially confront Baron Gladwin, maybe even siege his damn castle, run for Gladwin’s expulsion from the council, maybe even make accusations of treason.

Beatrice watched as he explained why, for the time being – he stressed it several times – he had no intention of doing so, preferring to keep things quiet and not let it drag out in the forum. He reiterated that it was about safety, and she was aware that he felt responsible not only for the Corps, not only for her as a Ranger, but for the whole situation, that it had occurred at all.

Because it had all started with him.

Even though several years had passed and, apart from Crowley, she already trusted the entire Corps, none of them had forgotten that it had started with him. And to him it clearly meant a lot. Which was both sadly nice, but also uplifting.

Someone cared so much that it was she who finally had to hiss for him to stop talking. Getting into a war with the council, a scandal, or a lawsuit against one of the councillors was the last thing that could help her. And she really didn’t expect him to do any such thing. He would have done if it was about anyone else. And he tried very hard not to make her feel it that way.

Once again, she told him to stop. He could worry, go ahead, that was already his function in their battalion of risk-takers with bows. But he should remember that she was fully aware of the situation. And she knew that he couldn’t help it by setting off noisily and angrily for Macindaw Castle to drag Gladwin back to Araluen by his hair and bring him to justice.

But he wished he could do it. And the very fact of that willingness was nice.

It all started with Crowley and that willingness of his to make a difference. Even if some things seemed impossible, to manage to change anything about them.

It took a long time for her to believe this. Crowley had made up his mind even before he fully understood. At least that’s how she remembered it.

This was even before the battle of Hackham Heath. After that damn barricades. After she was sure she was about to die.

Coming back for her then was extreme idiocy. And she hoped someone would tell the Corps Commandant that if she didn’t live to tell him. Because that might have been the case too. The thought of it came to her with trepidation, but also some sense of the coming of a just rest. It was already over. Too early, too late? It didn’t matter now. It was already over...

And there was only one thing left to do and one man she could ask to do it. Crowley heard her words and didn’t understand them. He didn’t need to. It was enough for him to do what she asked, losing consciousness. He gave her his word.

And then she began to regret it from the first moment she opened her eyes in the medical tent, and it occurred to her that she probably wasn’t dead yet after all.

She had lost a lot of blood and they had used a lot of sutures, bandages, pain-soothing herbs, and hot water on her, but the medic felt that since she was awake, she would come out of it. It would most likely be a long time before she would fight again and be useful to them for anything, but she would survive. Crowley was most interested in that, although he definitely didn’t have people to spare. She would survive, that was important. Tough, they’d get by without her in the war, but they hadn’t lost her.

He had to change some command arrangements and for the first day after she woke up, they didn’t have a chance to talk. And then he came, on the morning of the second day. He was next to her when she woke up. She was strong enough to talk, though he firmly forbade her to sit up, let alone get up.

Crowley sat beside her and had that look on his face that betrayed that he was worried as hell but didn’t quite know how to put it into words yet. He kept looking at her with so much concern that she felt bad just for making him worry.

“Never do that again,” he finally said.

She really hoped that he won’t say anything else. So she made a really weak attempt of a joke.

“Stealing all the noble sacrifices for yourself, huh?”

Crowley was completely serious.

“No, just really don’t want to lose any of my people.”

He didn’t say ‘men’. He remembered. She realized that for sure as she looked at his completely serious, yet still concerned face.

“The name,” he started after a while of complete silence between them. “The name you told me when you thought, you’re going to die...”

She only nodded, not sure if saying anything could help her now.

“You told me to bury you under that name,” Crowley said so quietly, that even if someone entered the tent right now, they wouldn’t hear it.

She nodded once again and still didn’t say anything.

“Do you want me to forget about it? Or am I supposed to remember it only in case of you dying before me and then see it as your final wish?”

There was that silence again, and she hated it. Crowley clearly didn’t say all he wanted to say. He waited. He wanted to know, and she knew he had a right to get some explanation now. She would trust him in her time of dying again. But she was still hesitant to do so as she was about to live longer than she assumed.

“You say that as if there were other options,” she finally replied without looking at him.

Crowley nodded slowly, still gazing at her.

“I can forget if you want me to. I will never tell anyone if you don’t want me to. I will remember and do as you asked, if you want me to, and if there will be a situation like that. But…” He didn’t hesitate, she was sure. He just waited if she would look at him. She did. Crowley smiled to her, and it was a sincere, warm smile that one friend could give to another in a hard time. “But I can also remember that while you’re still here. You could live with that name.”

She looked away from him and said nothing. He didn’t understand what he was saying. He couldn’t because if he had a slightest idea…

“I’m not convincing you. That’s not for me to decide. But I can promise you that as long as I can do anything, I will. If you want me to. If you don’t, I promise that I won’t.”

“It’s way more complicated that you think it is,” she finally spoke out, unable to look him in the eye. “It’d be better for you, if you just forgot that ever happened, Crowley.”

Ranger commander should agree, but her friend couldn’t. He nodded and sounded even more worried than before.

“Perhaps. But what would be better for you?”

She knew him enough to be sure he meant it. He cared. He cared way more than he was obligated to care.

“That name,” he went on as she didn’t say anything. “It must be very important to you. I don’t want you to think I don’t understand that just because I don’t know what it’s like. I understand that it means a lot. That’s enough for me to care about it.”

She smiled, an unhappy and pale smile that made Crowley even sadder than her.

“That’s the name my mother told me. We were never close. There were so many things about me that didn’t make sense for her. She cared. But she was too scared to let me know that. So she only told me that when she was dying…” Her voice faded as she reminded that. “She told me that was the name she would give her daughter if she ever had one. Beatrice. The one who brings joy. I was more of a scream-bringer, difficult child, who lost a battle about being someone else… and yet…”

Crowley understood.

“And yet it’s you. Beatrice. It’s a beautiful name.”

She met his smile once she raised her head. He meant it as well. She tried to smile in response and this time it worked, only a little, but it did.

“It wouldn’t be easy…” she warned quietly, though they didn’t make any decision yet.

Crowley’s smile became wider, more sure.

“Huh,” he said, looking at his friend with no trace of fear or hesitation. “I wonder what it’s like to have something uneasy in life.”

He never forgot. Even when she acted like she did. He never told anyone. She was to tell if she wanted to.

For the first weeks she still wrote her letters under the name that wasn’t hers. Crowley called her by her last name, and he signed the letters the same.

After some time she wrote the first letter signed ‘Beatrice’ at the end.

And for the next forty years of her life, Crowley Meratyn never called her anything different. Not even in front of that damn council. Not by the interrogation and another battles, not in front of the King.

At some point she became almost sure that most of the people didn’t even realize that she ever had any other name. Crowley made sure of that. Even if that meant starting a paper war with the council.

* * *

Gilan turned out to be an energetic kid who was first told to become a soldier and then reminded that he was actually still a kid, so he lost himself in the latter aspect. And he had no idea what boundaries were.

She was very grateful to his family for their discretion and hospitality around Castle Caraway, but he really surprised her by turning up right on the first morning at the door of the cottage where she was staying. He had grown considerably over the last six months since she had seen him at the Gathering. He had grown tall, lean as a pole and even more talkative, if that was possible. Halt must have been delighted.

“What brings you here?” she asked, as dawn had just broken and he was already waiting, in full Ranger’s garb, with bow, quiver and even sword.

“I thought you could train me for this time, since we’re supposed to be here together watching over security.”

Beatrice appraised him with a glance. Probably any other seventeen-year-old in Gilan’s place would have taken immediate advantage of their day off and been partying in a nearby village since yesterday. She couldn’t hold back a smile when he completely didn’t frown at her words.

“Poor kid, Halt hasn’t told you what a holiday is, has he?”

“That concept is probably unfamiliar to him,” Gilan admitted after some thought. He also pondered the inference that came from her reaction. “So should I go? I didn’t mean to bother you or anything.”

She had no reason to chase him away. From what she remembered; he was a friendly kid. It also bothered her a little that instead of sitting with his family, since he wasn’t partying, he had come to see her.

They had met the previous day and hadn’t exchanged too many words. Crowley explained the situation, which led Halt to agree with Sir David that, in view of this, Gilan would probably stay here for longer. Master McNeil was not in the area at the time, but Gilan promised to find something useful to do and not to neglect his training for the next few days. In the meantime, Lady Pauline visited the castle and Baron Fergus, from where she sent word of the change in her travel plans.

All three set off for Araluen Castle later in the evening of the same day, taking the shortest route through the former Gorlan Fief. Gilan spent time with his family, and Beatrice lodged in a forester’s hut at the edge of the forest that had been given to her. It was not much different to the Ranger’s cabin.

The dense, cool woods of Caraway stretched for miles barely a few hundred paces from the cottage. Sir David had warned her that if she came across wolf tracks, she should notify them immediately, not out of concern for herself, but for the nearby village and the animals in it.

Gilan wandering alone in this area would be worrying if he was not a Ranger. However, Beatrice had the vague impression that Halt’s apprentice might have done likewise as a child. She knew that as a twelve-year-old Gilan had taken part in a battle on the heaths. He had not fought in the front ranks, but they had given him a sword anyway and he had seen the carnage that had taken place there. Halt had his opinion about it, and although Beatrice had no apprentices or children, she couldn’t disagree with him.

“Come in,” she decided, inviting him inside. “I assume Halt taught you how to drink coffee?”

“Oh yes, and he probably regrets it now, because he has to share his supply with me!”

Gilan casually looked around the main room. He had left his weapons on the rack, but he had stayed in his cloak. He thought about it and looked at her questioningly.

“So should I set my mind to going somewhere, or rather not? I’m not going to ask or bore you, just tell me once.”

Now Beatrice was the one thinking. It was nice that this kid still saw her as a Ranger, even when she was wearing civilian attire for the purpose of hiding here. He also didn’t seem terrified or unhealthily curious about her scars that stuck out from under her sleeves and collar. He didn’t treat her any differently from what she remembered of the Gathering.

“And would you actually like me to teach you, or do you just feel it’s expected of you?”

Gilan wasn’t confused and didn’t hesitate.

“Halt says that each Ranger, despite receiving the same training, fights in their own distinctive style. I know his style and probably emulate it in my own. I’m a bit familiar with Crowley’s style because I happened to train with him. But I haven’t had the opportunity to train with any other Ranger.”

She nodded seriously. The kid’s reasoning was very adult, although from his personality he still seemed like a kid. An interesting case.

“Besides, I need to find something to do,” he added and became visibly more serious. “I don’t want to neglect my training. And we’d better not hang around the village and the castle too much if we’re going to keep it a secret that we’re here.”

“Your presence here is no surprise to anyone…” Beatrice remarked slowly.

“Possibly.” Gilan scowled in a very Halt-ish way. “But I’ve got a few aunts and cousins I’m not very fond of, who’ll flock here immediately if they find out I’ve been here for more than two days.”

Funny kid.

“And you want to sit with me instead?”

Gilan nodded without hesitation.

“You’re a Ranger,” he pronounced, and then there was a note close to childlike, gobbledygook amusement in his eyes. “And you’ve known Halt for years. I’m sure you remember quite a few anecdotes he’ll never tell me about.”

Clever and funny, Beatrice considered. It worried her less and less that she wouldn’t be sitting alone in peace and quiet for the next few days.

“Not a bad way to think of it.”

He grinned, more than a bit pleased with himself, damn it.

“Do you sweeten your coffee?”

“I’ll drink both ways,” Gilan hesitated. “Though I prefer it with honey.”

Halt’s influence was undeniable. And, she soon realized, Gilan was very proud of this fact. He literally adored his master.

They sat together by the open windows on the forest side, drinking coffee. Gilan remembered that he had brought his breakfast with him in a basket as a bribe. Eventually they took to talking about the subject after a while.

“You were talking about fighting styles,” Beatrice began. “How would you define your own?”

Gilan pondered for a moment.

“Halt says I’m too impulsive. I often move into action before I recognise the situation sufficiently.”

Typical for his age, she acknowledged without the harshness of judgement he surprisingly displayed.

“And how does Halt fight?” she tried a different approach.

“Halt thinks more before fighting so that he doesn’t have to afterwards.”

She couldn’t help laughing, though at the same time he impressed her with this conclusion.

“Definitely,” she conceded, and decided to stick to that fact, without brooding over the possibility of where Halt had gotten such a habit from. “Strategic thinking has always been his forte.”

“And yours?” he asked, though he was supposedly about to inquire about his master’s past.

“Cartography,” Beatrice replied honestly. She decided not to tell the kid that, ever since that torch burn, holding a pen or stylus in her hand for any longer caused her too much pain to continue doing so. Gilan hadn’t come here to hear about her scars. He had come to learn something, possibly have a few laughs. It had been a long time since Beatrice had spent time with anyone with such intentions. “And yours?”

Gilan pondered for much longer than on Halt.

“I’m good at sneaking. And at sword fighting. Well, and people like me.”

He was more like Crowley than Halt. And yet the influence of the latter could not be missed when talking to Gilan. If only by the fact that he did sweeten the coffee. He was also very perspective.

They talked for a long moment before deciding that they could walk around the edge of the forest to look for some convenient place for a shooting range. Since they were going to keep the arrival of more Rangers here a secret, it was unlikely they should arrange to train in plain sight. Gilan knew the area very well, although as he said, a lot had changed since he had last run in these woods. However, he promised to show her some scenic spots and knew a few options where they could spread out their targets and be able to shoot from a distance, unseen from the road leading through the forest.

They left for the day. The next day he returned again at dawn, with breakfast, a broad smile, and a series of questions on almost every subject. Things were the same on the third day, and the fourth.

On the fifth, he explained that her father had asked her to come to the castle for lunch. The aunts and cousins had not arrived, so their presence here should still remain a mystery. Beatrice had some reluctance to go there, but she didn’t want to disappoint the kid. Hell, it only took a few days for her to fully understand why Halt would go absolutely wild if his student disappeared somewhere for a while.

For a fortnight Gilan only ventured into the village a couple of times. He spent the nights and theoretically lived in the Battleschool buildings. However, he spent his whole days with Beatrice, riding through the woods with her, shooting a bow, racing a bit, and talking a lot. She had to admit that it had been a long time since she had had such a happy travelling companion, and that her stay in Caraway had turned out to be a much better time than she had previously anticipated.

In the woods behind the village they found one wonderful vantage point from where they could see the crossroads leading from the castle to all sides of the fief. They spent quite a bit of time there, setting up camp, shooting a bit, but also watching the travellers.

Gilan insisted on building himself a platform in a tree, and after two days Beatrice let herself be persuaded to build one too. The view from under the crowns of the great trees was incredible. Even without the effort of blending into the background, they were invisible to the travellers they could see from a distance.

They were guessing where they were coming from and why. Gilan had many crazy theories, which he defended to the hilt. Beatrice did not remember such enthusiasm in young people. Maybe they missed it because of the coming war, or maybe she herself was too lost at the time and life was too difficult to enjoy it. Gilan clearly knew how to both enjoy it and pass it on others.

Two weeks passed without news and Beatrice was already beginning to worry about it. When they left, there was no indication that Crowley was going to spend so much time talking. Distant from Araluen Castle, they had not heard of what was happening there.

Therefore, the worst thoughts immediately came to her mind when, on their sixteenth day here, Gilan spotted a rider in a green cloak from their hiding place.

“A Ranger!” he pronounced without hesitation.

Beatrice also glanced at the road. It was definitely a Ranger and the fact that they had seen him from so far away was worrying. He wasn’t hiding, he wasn’t travelling through the woods. He was in a hurry.

“Which one do you think it is?” Gilan hesitated, glancing at her between the tree branches.

Beatrice watched the rider for a moment, squinting to see better.

“Berrigan.”

“How do you know?” Gilan immediately asked.

“You tell me...” Despite her growing concerns, Beatrice forced herself to be composed. She smiled at the kid. “Well, why is it Berrigan?”

Gilan pondered for a moment, watching the Ranger carefully on the road. It didn’t even take a minute before he announced.

“I know! He’s got one too many bags. It’s the gitarra.”

Beatrice nodded proudly, as if he was almost her own pupil.

“Excellent. And what does the fact that Berrigan came here mean?”

The kid was close with Halt and Crowley. He might have known more than mere training knowledge. He thought intently for another brief moment, which only reinforced her point.

“Berrigan sometimes works undercover. He’s coming from the South, a route he could have taken to get here from the capital. He has news for us.”

“Exactly… do you think you can catch him before he reaches the castle?” Beatrice hadn’t finished speaking yet, and Gilan was already sliding down the tree, jumping off branch after branch onto the ground.

He ran to the horses, and she was still sitting on the platform. She shook her head with a slight smile. Halt was definitely going to start turning grey because of this kid and soon, but he’s also definitely not going to give him away to anyone.

She thought about it again, a few weeks later, although Gilan had left Caraway by then. She stayed. She was safest here. Few days later when Halt came to fetch Gilan, he spoke to Sir David in Crowley’s behalf about the matter, urging extreme caution. Her commandment this time was to not ask and shoot if anyone deserved it. She understood and shared this approach.

Crowley stayed at the Castle Araluen. He sent her a letter, apologising and explaining. She sent back a reply via Halt, who was heading back to the capital. He was taking Gilan with him and Beatrice was genuinely surprised, catching herself disappointed at this. The talkative kid had something terribly likeable about him.

The peace and quiet that fell after his departure was all too strangely empty. For the first few days, she even forgot that she was supposed to be worried about the new situation. Then she found herself occupied, slowly making maps of the forests through which she and Gilan had wandered.

Properly covered with linen gloves, her fingers ached less. They also helped to forget the scars when she wore them on a daily basis. Nervous or annoyed, instead of plucking them until they bled, she hooked her fingers into the fabric. The gloves had to become a permanent part of her outfit, whether Ranger or civilian. Thinking anxiously about the future, Beatrice sewed a supply of them.

“A Ranger was seen in the village outside the castle,” Sir David reported to her one day, when she happened to be sitting in the castle library instead of in the hut.

For a moment she clearly saw his resemblance to his son. She even felt it was worth asking for specifics.

“Which one, don’t you know?”

“We haven’t talked to him yet. But he’s coming from the south. A piebald horse, but mostly black,” Sir David added after some thought and Beatrice was sure he understood the importance of horses to Rangers precisely because of Gilan.

She didn’t think for long.

“Lewin.”

“Is that good or bad?”

“Depends on what news he has… or orders…” Beatrice hesitated. “Hopefully it’s about an assignment or something.”

The Battleschool Master nodded with understanding. Then he stopped, clearly seeing that Beatrice was gathering her things to leave the castle. Gilan looked the same way as he hesitated over saying something, so she raised her eyebrows questioningly.

“I don’t know how this affects your assignment to any fief,” Sir David began in a thoughtful tone. “But if it has any bearing, please know that we would be very glad to keep you in Caraway. It is the opinion of both me and Baron Fergus.”

She hadn’t expected that. The iron training had kicked in and it was the only thing that kept her fully calm. She nodded to him a few times before allowing herself to smile, already confident that she would not betray the fullness of her agitation.

“I would also be honoured. If Lewin hasn’t brought me orders on the matter, I’ll let Crowley know.”

Instead of an assignment to the fiefdom, Lewin brought orders for the arrest of Baron Gladwin for the assassination attempt of the Rangers Commandant. Beatrice was too shocked by the news to remember at first that Lewin’s presence was also important to her for private reasons.

He only reminded her by smiling broadly as she removed her hood. His gaze slid over her face and hair that was even more curly than last time. He didn’t say anything about it, but he was smiling too much with his eyes not to return the smile.

* * *

That day before the battle, while walking out of the medical tent, Crowley almost collided with Lewin, who really shouldn’t be here. He was on night watch; he should be sleeping. And he looked like someone who could use a lot of sleep.

He looked at Crowley with undisguised concern.

“Could I-“

“Resting,” Crowley replied, not wanting to use names, and not yet knowing how to put it all together so as not to add to anyone’s pain while still keeping the secret.

Lewin hesitated and his gaze returned to the unclosed entrance to the tent. He didn’t seem ready to leave here any soon. Crowley, however, was honestly unsure whether it would be wise to let him in.

“The medic said that-”

“Let him in,” came the voice from inside the tent and Crowley stepped aside.

Lewin sent him a weak smile and immediately came inside. And although he had no right to interfere, Crowley found it difficult to step aside enough not to stand by the tent. He knew they were close friends. Lewin was also a sensible man, trustworthy. Besides, there was a good chance he wouldn’t learn anything new at all.

Nevertheless, Crowley reluctantly walked far enough away to avoid listening to the conversation in the tent. Not far enough, however, to not hear if she called out to him. Just in case.

She didn’t call out.

Lewin looked at her with ill-concealed fear. For a moment he was almost as pale as she was. The bandages, stained with blood and herbal decoctions, were indeed a lot. A faint smile greeted him, however.

“It’s better than it looks…”

“I hope so,” he muttered, approaching the bunk. “You gave us a scare.”

Her right hand was all burned, from the torch that had replaced her weapon at the time of the fight. Now covered in bandages, it was too sore to touch. Lewin hesitated and withdrew his hand. Instead, he rested his fingers on her elbow, in one of the few places where bandages did not cover it.

“A damn big scare…” he repeated quietly.

The pale smile widened slightly.

“Sorry. I’ll be fine. It’s just the war you have to win without me.”

“You need to rest,” Lewin nodded immediately. “Will you stay with the army, or not?”

“For now, yes, then I’ll go somewhere… I need to… I need to recover, get stronger and… and get a few things sorted out.”

Lewin seemed at least partially aware of the fact that he was one of those things. But he didn’t ask about it. He only smiled weakly and pressed his fingers a little harder against her skin.

“The most important thing is that you recover. We will wait.”

They did. He waited, even though she had not written him back at first.

The first letter came immediately after the battle, finding her still in the castle infirmary where she was taken when her condition stabilised. Lewin described the battle but was mainly glad it was over and asked how she was, whether she was gaining strength and how she was feeling.

Crowley wrote a similar letter, though without details about the battle. He did not write a longer one until a few weeks later, apologising for the delay. Halt got lost somewhere after the second battle and added to all the confusion was this one problem. Fortunately, he was found quite quickly and even had a good excuse as to why he had disappeared.

As soon as her health allowed her to do so, she left the Araluen Fief. There, a second letter from Lewin arrived, did not find her, and was forwarded on. By Crowley. Only to him she told where she was going.

Lewin must have found out, because further letters from him came sent by Crowley, who first asked if she wanted to receive them. He did not inquire as to the reason when she said she did, but she never sent her own back.

Several months passed, during which she recovered in an isolated village by the woods, where no one knew her or associated her with the Ranger Corps. There she met a healer who helped her a lot. She also had time to think about everything that needed thinking.

And finally, she wrote a letter to Crowley, signing it as Beatrice.

Then she also wrote back to Lewin. No signature yet, with an illegible scribble of the first letter of her last name. Instead of taking offence at the previous lack of correspondence, he was only glad that she had recovered and was getting better. He did not ask where she was staying. Crowley had to tell him that, for the time being, no one should know about it.

He waited, though nowhere did she give him hope that there was anything to look wait for.

A year had passed since the battle in which she had not taken part. Crowley visited her then, invited after a lots of thoughts about it. Beatrice greeted him in civilian clothes, with longer than ever, fair hair. Since she had stopped dyeing it and tying it up carelessly, it had lightened considerably, even beginning to curl at the ends.

The Corps Commander noticed this change as well, and how differently she looked at him, at the world in general. She was smiling. He even told her so.

And that was probably when the final decision was made. Beatrice wrote Lewin a very long letter, explaining a lot to him in it. She didn’t send it by post but asked Crowley to deliver it to him and then burn it when Lewin read it. No matter how he would take it, the letter needed to be destroyed.

After a week she received a reply. The letter began ‘Dear Beatrice’, and none ever began any other way again.

The next person to find out was Halt, as Crowley told her about how much had changed between them. Later Samdash, pissed off at the whole world about finding out belatedly where one of his friends was hiding. When she told him, he simply scolded her using her correct name.

After that, it went easier. Berrigan visited next and recognised her by her eyes, even before she explained what was going on. None of their former unit saw any reason to blame her or treat her as a different person.

It was a little awkward with Lewin at first. They both remembered that evening before going to that battle and what was almost said between them then. Neither of them, however, tried to return to it in any way. They didn’t know how; they didn’t have the right words or time for it.

And then Beatrice went back into service and ended up in Norgate. And the war with the council began. Baron Gladwin, although he guessed absolutely nothing, made her life more difficult again. It wasn’t until she was in Caraway, living nearby Gilan’s family, that Beatrice felt at peace again.

Only to be found there by news of an assassination attempt on Crowley. Thwarted rather dramatically by Halt, but still an assassination attempt. King Duncan had given orders for the arrest of Baron Gladwin. With the orders came Lewin, whom Crowley had diverted to Caraway for the time. Letters were addressed to both of them.

They drove to Macindaw Castle, for the first time in a long time feeling comfortable enough with each other to talk the whole way.

Baron Gladwin, in keeping with their quiet wishes, resisted and a lot. Lewin looked at her then and smiled broadly.

“He’s all yours…” he pronounced and went to guard the door.

Gladwin arrived at Araluen Castle with a broken nose that had almost healed on the way. Crowley didn’t ask about it or the fact that Beatrice and Lewin had started spending every spare moment with each other again.

He would certainly have noticed, because he had been displaying a highly protective attitude towards Beatrice for some time now and she was well aware of it. He just happened to have much more difficult matters on his, achingly, mind.

When they met him at the castle, several days had passed since the assassination attempt, and his face still looked nasty. When they told him this, he laughed. And it was apparently not the first time since the attack, as they found out from a still nervous Halt.

The attack occurred early in the night. Halt got to one assassin quickly enough to save Crowley’s life, who by this time had dealt with the second, but the third still managed to reach him with a blow. This attacker did not survive the fight. One of them was kept alive to be questioned, which gave them evidence clearly pointing to Baron Gladwin.

When Crowley saw the contract for his murder, laced with the beautiful signature of a Baron of the Norgate Fief, he began to laugh until the medic told him to stop. His slit eyebrow was bleeding profusely, his temple and cheek were covered in a dark bruise and his eye was engorged.

“You were incredibly lucky not to have lost an eye…” the medic pronounced, after suturing the wound thoroughly.

Crowley frowned, as if it didn’t particularly bother him.

“The effect would have been greater if I had led the interrogation of Gladwin with an eye patch.” He caught up in time to see what was threatening him and cast a glance at the people gathered around him in the infirmary. “Pauline, no, please, you wouldn’t kick a wounded man, would you?”

The look on her face said that this could easily become a subject for negotiation. Halt still looked like he wanted to rip someone's throat out with his bare hands. Faced with this, Crowley changed the argument.

“You would not kick me in the presence of the King.”

Duncan sent him almost as dark a look as the other two.

“You’ll get a few days off. I don’t want to see you until you’ve recovered…” he interrupted, seeing the sad look on the Corps Commandant’s face. “You know very well what I mean!”

“I’m fine,” Crowley assured, smiling slightly. “I really am. I feel better than I look. It’s just a bit of blood…”

Halt turned around and started mumbling something under his breath that everyone thought it would be safer for them not to officially hear.

“You could stop being so happy about getting your face beaten, could you?” Pauline was the first that couldn’t stand it any longer, to King Duncan’s mild surprise.

Crowley looked at her, not losing his smile. It looked slightly ghastly on his bruised face, especially as his left eye had almost completely disappeared under the swelling and its white was filled with blood. He was lucky to have retained it at all.

“But I’m glad. Gladwin lost. We won. One bruised face is a small price to pay for that-” he paused, realising that Pauline was staring over eloquently at the motionless figure of Halt, his back turned to them. Crowley became more serious and by now much more calmly added. “Nothing happened to me. I’m glad, I survived. I’ll get myself together quickly and we’ll get on with Gladwin’s trial. I want to question him in person… We need a hype win and an unmasking of the fact that he sent assassins to the capital.”

Duncan was under the impression that it would be wisest to get out of here as soon as possible. There was only one thing left to determine.

“I’ll give the order to arrest Gladwin. Do you want the Rangers to arrest him?”

“Exactly, your majesty, if that’s not a problem,” Crowley nodded, smiling again, at which Pauline furrowed her brow, making no secret of her own annoyance.

“I won’t tell anyone if you kick him,” Duncan decided unexpectedly.

“How about a little sympathy?” Crowley feigned indignation and was shouted down for it by both Lady Pauline and the medic. And then some more by Halt. And he was no longer laughing.

They did not return to the subject of arrest until a long while later.

“Who are you going to send? Halt?” Duncan hesitated, because personally he saw this solution as not the best and safest in the world.

Crowley pondered for a moment before he stated with a worrying smile still wandering across his face.

“No. There is one Ranger in Caraway. Lewin should be arriving here tomorrow; he’ll ride with orders. Beatrice will join him on the way. Let them arrest him.”

Lady Pauline sent him a quick glance, which, however, ceased in surprise when she ascertained that Crowley had been entirely deliberate in so selecting men for the task. She patted him on the shoulder with exaggeration.

“You are learning. Slowly, but you are learning.”

Crowley replied with as wide a smile as was possible with a beaten face. Duncan was increasingly convinced that he should go. Just one more point and he wouldn’t bother them for the next few days, he decided.

“So Gladwin will be arrested. We must appoint a new baron to Macindaw Castle, and I will write a letter to Syron, Gladwin’s brother,” he hesitated as he remembered something. It mattered little, however. “As far as I know, Gladwin has a son, but he’s still a kid. We won’t entrust the North to a child. And it will be easier to negotiate with Syron.”

“Will he accept a female Ranger?” Crowley asked simply.

“I will ask before I appoint him,” Duncan promised, though he personally suspected that once the latest events were revealed, most of the lords on the infamous list of eighteen fiefs would change their minds.

However, that was something they could talk about when Crowley had at least recovered a little. For now, Duncan had to get away from here, as another glance at Halt reassured him that the latter was just waiting to speak up until the King had gone.

He left them alone and made sure that all three of them had peace and quiet for the next few days. A lot of this was helped by Gilan, who, although not involved in the fight against the assassins, later became involved in the interrogation, security procedures and even helped send out reports.

By the time Beatrice and Lewin arrived at Araluen Castle, with Baron Gladwin under arrest, it was already clear that Crowley was in no danger of losing his sight. His eye was not seriously damaged, his face was healing well, but the bruises were still visible.

Beatrice looked at it with a furrowed brow.

“Did the assassin survive?” she asked when they had ascertained that the commander’s condition was not life-threatening.

“Yes, he came in handy.” Crowley didn’t go into detail about what the assassin would now face from the attack on the King’s castle itself. Instead, he nodded at the Baron, who was tied to his horse and staring at him with a face expressing hundreds of words. “This one here will also be very useful. He will be an example. You couldn’t have made things any easier for us, my lord, thank you so much for your service.” He nodded mockingly.

“I swear I’ll strangle him…” Halt growled, appearing out of nowhere, a step behind Crowley.

“Which one?” Lewin muttered, quietly enough for him to reply that he didn’t say anything when Halt asked.

Crowley’s approach to the whole affair also had to be talked over. Halt and Pauline had very radical views on the matter and eventually, horror of horrors, Crowley was persuaded by them to fundamentally change his views. It took them a while. And by the way, there was a trial going on, with many barons descending, many others sending letters, a baron changed in Norgate, and Beatrice was able to return to duty. Crowley had his hands full.

Also, he didn’t really have time to think about how pleased they were when he said that, for the time being, Beatrice would be staying at Caraway, with Lewin assigned to her. Or maybe he did notice, he just didn’t say it.

Either way, it didn’t come out fully until the Gathering, a few months later.

It was a rather ridiculous, chaotic Gathering. They came together in the traditional way, organised tests for the students and a sit-down by the fire.

And at one point it occurred to Beatrice that Crowley, for lack of other crises or activities, was focused on hers again.

Berrigan was lamenting the rhymes, Halt was teaching and frightening the freshmen with his facial expressions, and Crowley was sitting and staring at her as if she was supposed to know what he was about from somewhere.

Fair enough, she knew. It could only have been about the fact that she and Lewin had been rather awkward around each other. Again. They had shared the Caraway Fief with each other for the last few months and it had brought them much closer together. So much so that they reached the border again where the war had stopped them a few years before. And neither of them had done anything to try to get beyond it.

Crowley noticed it quickly and asked her if anything had happened. And she, in a fit of stupidity, told him everything. And he latched on, as if he didn’t have enough responsibilities or even hobbies.

He sat and stared, and even had the audacity to nod significantly in the direction where Lewin was teaching the other group of students. She knew perfectly well what he meant. However, taking advantage of the fact that they were separated by a campfire and Crowley often didn’t understand her jokes, she furrowed her eyebrows with incomprehension. She raised them then when he waved his head slightly again.

“What?” she asked with a mere movement of her lips.

“Go!” he also replied voicelessly, but clearly enough for anyone to understand.

A few Rangers nearby began to surreptitiously watch. Others, like Berrigan and Egon, didn’t even bother to hide it. Samdash pronounced that he had had enough of them all and went to prepare the practice track for the next day.

“Go!” Crowley repeated. “Talk to him!”

“What?”

“GODDAMN IT BEATRICE.”

It was somehow really amusing that a man so perceptive and intelligent often belatedly realised when they were making fun of him.

She replied at length and unintelligibly. Crowley looked at her with furrowed brows. He waved his hand, asking her to repeat herself. She did. And he still failed to catch what she was saying with the mere movement of her mouth.

“What?”

“For gods’ sake!” Norris growled, being almost as fed up with them as Samdash. “He says you should go and talk to Lewin. She says she doesn’t remember asking you for that particular advice, you specialist.”

“Oi!” Crowley felt offended, to the amusement of those standing closest to him.

Beatrice smiled slightly apologetically. The fact that Norris had read the message was quite impressive, she noticed by the way.

“Not enough responsibilities for you, Crowley?” Berrigan concealed his amusement very carelessly. “Still playing mediator, matchmaker, or what exactly?”

Crowley muttered something under his breath and raised his hands defensively.

“Okay, I'm not saying anything anymore.” Hearing their noises of scepticism, he shifted an offended glance around them. “What?”

Beatrice took this very moment to get up from the fire and head towards the exercise yards. She may have teased him, but she really valued Crowley’s opinion. And here he seemed to be right…

He led her away with a proud look.

“Told you so.”

“Specialist…”

“Well what? In a way… maybe so. I managed quite well,” he pronounced with dignity.

“Sure thing,” Egon snorted.

He sounded very much like Pritchard would. Crowley sent him an offended look and said nothing more about how he’d succeeded in confessing his feelings to Halt. Sometimes he knew how to withdraw in advance.

Luckily for him, they could not prey too long on laughing at this one aspect. At least that's what it looked like when Halt appeared in the slowly falling twilight a moment later, with a very disgruntled look on his face. One more disgruntled than usual.

“Can someone tell me why the hell Lewin dropped his group off for me to look after them too? What am I, a babysitter?”

The wave of laughter was, in Crowley’s opinion, exaggerated. Berrigan, as a good friend, kindly pointed out the culprit to Halt.

“That one’s on Crowley!”

“What, why?” The Corps Commandant protested, to the delight of the others.

Now their conversation drew the undisguised curiosity and attention of everyone around them.

“Well you started it,” Berrigan could not be persuaded that he was making it up. “You motivated them. You assigned them together in Caraway. It was and still is your responsibility.”

Crowley scowled, offended.

“All right, but why is it always ‘on Crowley’ and never ‘thanks to Crowley’, huh?”

Egon preceded Berrigan by a blink.

“Fine, Halt, you got a surplus of kids in your care thanks to Crowley.”

He didn’t have time to protest the slander. Halt recognized the situation and snorted, looking at him almost in frankly menacing way.

“Thanks, Crowley.”

The surroundings shook from the very badly inhibited laughter of the Rangers, who had found eminently immature entertainment. At least in Crowley’s opinion.

“Get lost, all of you,” he muttered, forcing himself into a tone full of superiority. “Who takes care of the students now?”

“I dropped them off at Farrel’s.”

“And what did Farrel ever do to you?” Berrigan laughed and felt no guilt about it.

“He was just passing by.”

Sympathy for Farrel was expressed collectively in an understanding voice. Crowley decided that he had better not say anything more, or they would make fun of him again. Halt sat down by the fire and for a moment the conversation fell silent.

“Well, only I still don’t know why Lewin has gone…” Halt recalled after a moment.

“He and Beatrice needed to have a little talk with each other,” Berrigan explained, in a satisfied tone.

Halt made an almost impossibly pleased face by his standards. He smiled out of the corner of his mouth and nodded.

“Finally!”

Crowley saw an opportunity to change the object of jokes and wasn’t about to miss it.

“Right?”

Halt nodded once more, very seriously.

“They were unbearable!”

At these words, the gazes of all those gathered turned on them, stony and very meaningful. Halt furrowed his brow. Until a moment ago he had been sort of on the opposite side of the barricade. Crowley was the first to understand why everyone was staring at them with such reproach.

“Oh, come on, we weren’t that bad…”

Silence that answered him was louder than any words.

Chapter Text

An icy wind tugged at the cloak. It was this movement that caught his eye. Even, gentle. So at odds with the image before him, forever etched in the boy’s memory.

Slowly he lowered his bow. He must have done so, because when he looked to the side, he held it already lowered. His hands were heavy, strangely soft, as if they did not belong to him at all. He looked from far away at his own fingers and his own bow, at the fire burning loud and high. At the sickening heap of burning flesh and fur that had been a living being only moments before.

The condemning howl of the beast still rumbled in his head. Though it had fallen silent forever.

The cloak. The wind swayed its edge, lifting it over the motionless figure by the rocks. Will looked there only because out of the corner of his eye he saw the movement.

Out of all the nightmare he’d seen and heard, this one movement seemed so peaceful that he had to think about it. He focused his gaze. And then he saw the figure under the cloak. And he revived, snapping out of his catatonia of fear and disgust.

The stench of burnt flesh carried around the area. Nothing, however, screamed anymore. Only the wind blew, with a dawn and a groan, slapping against the ruins of Gorlan. Will broke off into a run, wasting not a moment in wondering what he would do when he reached the site.

It was so far away. It seemed to him before that he had seen it up close, very close. As if Halt had been standing only a step away when Kalkara’s paw reached him. And now he was lying so far away that Will, running, had lost all breath. He caught up with him, motionless, among the tall grasses and rocky debris. The edge of his cloak floated in the wind, obscuring his face, blood-drenched and motionless.

No. No.

He lay in a pool of blood, not moving, not breathing perhaps.... Will saw his own hands, heavy and soft, extending towards Halt’s head. Carefully. He must have been in such terrible pain. If he felt pain at all still.

No.

He had to feel it.

He couldn’t be…

His heart was pounding. Will felt one beat, then a second and a third. He moved his hand to his neck, where it was easier for him to check, to measure. A trickle of blood ran down from the cut, reaching Halt’s beard, dripping onto his neck and collarbone.

He was breathing. Will’s hands moved on, carefully lifting Halt’s head so that it wasn’t lying on the ground. He already had his cloak in them. He didn’t know when he had taken it off. Why he did it. When had Halt told him how the wounded should be dressed? Had he done it at all?

Someone shouted his name, but Will didn’t turn around. He was unable to take his eyes off Halt’s face. The blood was still flowing from his head. He had to stop it. He had to help him… somehow…

“Abelard!” he heard his own shout and did not understand at first why he was calling the horse exactly. He called out again, and again, and again. He was too close to the verge of crying to whistle. He only had enough strength to shout. “Abelard!”

The horse came up, as Will knew from somewhere that it would come. Frightened, tired. Will took only a step away from Halt to run to Abelard. A large pannier by his saddle, always a side pocket. And a canteen of water.

Again he sank to his knees beside Halt. He had to push aside Abelard’s head, who, snorting quietly, tried to nudge the injured Ranger with his muzzle. Will felt like he was dreaming as he opened the canteen and poured water over Halt’s head, trying to wipe the blood off, at least clean the wound a little. There was so much blood that his hands were already all red.

In the pouch he found bandages. Clean cloth to stop the bleeding. He did not know how to sew. He didn’t know how to help him… he could only stop the blood…

He pressed the wet cloth to the wound, tight and strong. Halt did not move, did not scream. He didn’t wake up. Maybe he didn’t feel the pain anymore. Maybe it was too late…

Will only choked back tears when he already had his hands clamped tightly on his head, taming the blood flowing out of the wound.

Again someone called out to him and again he didn’t hear it enough to pay attention.

He did not see Sir Rodney recover after Kalkar’s death. At first he settled to his knees, pressing his heart with his hands, barely catching his breath. Then duty prevailed and the knight rose, shakily running to the wounded Baron Arald. Torn by the beast’s claws, his back was bleeding profusely. However, the Baron was conscious enough to be the first to notice that Will had already run to Halt.

“Go…” he urged Rodney as soon as the knight had managed to stem the flow of blood. “Halt... see what’s with him, go!”

“Will! How is he?” At first Sir Rodney disobeyed. His personal acquaintance with Halt had nothing to do here. Priority had to be given to the baron and that was expected of him as well as any other knight.

“Go!” Arald repeated. “It’s nothing serious. Go, see!”

The boy was already kneeling beside his master, helping him. He could, however, have no idea what to do. And he did not respond to the cries. Still in shock, terrified, a child juxtaposed with an abomination, he could not cope.

Rodney was unable to help them both at the same time. He made sure that Baron Arald’s life was not in danger, stopped the bleeding and only then ran towards the two Rangers near the rocks. It wasn’t far away, but still stupefied from the hypnosis, Rodney was barely on his feet.

Will didn’t see him, didn’t hear him, though the call came closer. Only the touch of a hand on his shoulder woke him up, so strongly that he winced with a silent scream, shielding not himself but Halt’s bloodied head with his arms.

“Let me see… let me, wait…” Rodney realised he wasn’t going to push him away with any persuasions or requests.

He leaned over Halt, carefully lifting the cloth to see the wound. Will’s trembling hands were still clutching the bloody cloth. Rodney spotted the first aid pouch and, not relying on the boy’s participation, found more dressings in it. Ointment to stop the bleeding. He had no way of stitching the wounds up now. Luckily, they were not large. The impact had done most of the damage.

He didn’t get clawed in the neck. Rodney was relieved to find that although there was a lot of blood, Halt only had two small claw wounds on his head. He had stopped the bleeding and applied a bandage, and Will was still right beside him, motionless and silent, clutching the cloth in his hands. With wide-open eyes he stared at Halt. He did not hear Sir Rodney’s voice, his questions and subsequent reassurance.

Instead, he heard the quiet groan of pain that sounded between them. Not caring for anything, he leaned over, almost pushing Rodney aside.

Halt barely managed to lift his eyelids, but he looked up and saw above him the boy’s face, blue with fear, wet with tears, who had his hands all in blood and was now whispering something, recovering from his shock, wanting something from him, asking something…

“Will… you… alone…?” Halt managed to whisper.

“Alone?” Will breathed hard, glanced sideways. He spotted the knight beside him. “No... I... no, not alone...”

Sir Rodney began to persuade him, calmly and slowly, to let him help Halt and step back a little to the side. His voice reached Halt, reassuring him. Someone was here, with Will.

He gave in to weakness. His eyelids closed.

A stifled scream carried into the silence. Will clutched his motionless master by the shoulders, unable to get the words out, trying to call out to him, pleading, begging him not to…

“No… Will, Will, look at me…” Sir Rodney pushed him away with a gentle movement. He reached for Halt’s neck and, feeling for a pulse, calmed himself. He looked at the boy with a gentleness that no one would have suspected him of. “Will, he’s not dead. He didn’t die. He lost consciousness. He didn’t die. He’s going to wake up. We just need to help him. Okay? You have to help me.”

This time his voice reached; his words were understood. Will breathed a little deeper, nodded his head. He also checked himself if Halt was still breathing if his heart was still beating. He stepped back a little, letting Sir Rodney help him.

The dream was over. He glanced around. The flames were still beating in the sky. The horses stood far away, frightened. Abelard moved around them, nervous, helplessly waiting for others to help Halt. Will understood him so well that instead of looking away, he fixed his gaze on the horse.

“Will?” Sir Rodney spoke up again. He also dressed the wound on Halt’s leg, looked at his head and made sure the biggest threat had been dealt with. “Will, I need you to go and check on Baron Arald. Is he well? I need-”

“No.” The boy spoke up at last, quietly and with great force. “No. No. No. I’m not going. No.” Still kneeling by Halt’s side, hands on his shoulders, he repeated, shaking his head with such desperate insistence that Sir Rodney, at first, had no idea what he could say to him.

“Let him be!” Arald called out, which he immediately regretted, as a stronger movement pierced him anew with pain.

Sir Rodney heard the hiss of pain, looked again at the Baron’s pale face. He had no way of being here and there at the same time.

“Put pressure on the wound on his head. Don’t go anywhere. Sit here. I’ll be right back.”

He got to his feet again and ran to the other wounded man. Will didn’t move an inch from Halt. Neither then, nor several minutes later when Rodney returned again, having treated Baron Arald’s wounds thoroughly.

He did not move away even when Sir Rodney helped the Baron move closer to them so that they were barely a step apart. He could attend to both injured men without running. He did not risk lifting Halt for the time being. The wounds had been dressed, Rodney had finally come to full consciousness after the hypnosis, and Baron Arald was still conscious, cursing at the pain but quite reasonably talking to them.

Will was still kneeling, looking at his master’s motionless face and the blood that had gradually coagulated in his hair, on his cheek and on his clothes. The one covering his hands had also dried.

He turned over his shoulder, remaining still, but only under the strain of Baron Arald’s gentle voice another moment later. Sir Rodney had gone to fetch their horses so they could prepare the encampment around the wounded.

“Will, boy, what you’ve done here was…-” Baron Arald broke off as Will’s gaze immediately shifted to Halt again, barely realising that nothing important was about to be said to him. “He’ll be fine. Halt’s not going to die. It’s all right now... he’ll be alright, do you understand?”

It was only then that Will nodded, but his gaze was again only on Halt.

Indifferent for all the world, he didn’t listen to them, didn’t look at them and didn’t respond when they called him. Sir Rodney only managed to persuade him to drink some water once the camp was ready.

Halt did not regain consciousness for a long time yet. They moved him carefully onto a blanket and Will still did not want to leave him even for a moment. It wasn’t until Gilan arrived that anything changed.

“We’re all alive!” Sir Rodney called out as the Ranger found their encampment and, at first glance, his face expressed only immense fear.

He saw the burnt carcass of a monster; he saw the blood stains on the grass. Baron Arald was asleep, sore and slightly feverish already from his wounds. Halt was still unconscious, and Will sat beside him, hunched over, shaken.

Gilan knelt by him quietly, carefully first checking for himself that Halt was breathing. The movement woke Will. Turning his head, he saw a familiar face beside him, tired and worried, but at the same time so peaceful compared to his own.

“Will,” Gilan began quietly and said nothing more.

One look at the boy was enough for him. He just put his arm around him tightly and held him close. He let him tremble for a long moment, not saying a word, nor expecting anything to be said. He rested his hand on the boy’s back and only after a long moment did he speak up, in a tone so calm that Will never thought anyone was capable of it.

“It’s all right now... we’re fine now.”

He still held him with his arm, though Will had already calmed down and was breathing more deeply. He even managed to speak quietly, barely audible.

“You’re here.”

“I am, I managed to find a horse on the way. I’m here. It’s all right now. We’re okay now, right?” He stepped back just enough to look him in the eye. “Come. You’re going to wash your hands and eat something, okay? And Sir Rodney will be here the whole time. We’re not leaving Halt. We’ll be right back to him. Just come... don’t look there, there’s...-” he interrupted, not wanting to blandly speak of the beast whose corpse lay nearby.

Will, however, looked in that direction without fear, much more calmly than Gilan had expected.

“Killed,” he muttered quietly, and allowed Gilan to move them a little away from Halt.

He listened to further requests to wash the blood off him, to sit down, eat and drink a little, and then returned to Halt. Gilan sat down next to him. They were silent for a while, and then he began to persuade the boy to lie down for a while at least, to rest. He must have been exhausted.

“You need to get going, don’t you?” Sir Rodney asked once everyone had cooled down.

Gilan nodded grimly.

“And as soon as possible…”

Will lifted his gaze at him immediately.

“You’re going to leave?” he asked quietly and Gilan knew he had only the blink of an eye to answer. Although it was hard to make such a decision in the blink of an eye, he had to.

“No. I will not leave you here. I meant I have to move as soon as possible once I help you get to the Castle Redmont. We’re going back together. I won’t disappear anywhere. I’m certainly not leaving you here alone, okay?”

Will nodded, still looking at him, and it wasn’t until he saw no trace of a lie in Gilan’s eyes that he calmed down. He was still shaken. Gilan covered him with his own cloak as Will lay down at last, on the blanket, next to Halt. The kid’s cloak was covered in blood, having previously supported the injured Ranger’s head.

A kid. Gilan looked at the still pale face of the boy, who was finally overcome by fatigue. He was just a kid who had to watch this beast, the bloodshed and near death of someone who had become closer to him than everyone expected. A poor, terrified child who should never have witnessed this massacre.

More than a witness, he found out when Will fell asleep and Gilan managed to speak to Sir Rodney. Will had killed the Kalkara. On learning this, Gilan looked at the huddled, small figure in disbelief. He was in no condition to leave him, to move as ordered immediately to his own fiefdom. He couldn’t look Will in the eye and tell him he was going away, leaving him behind.

Now Will slept, reassured by him, trusting him. The smallest monster slayer Gilan had ever seen. A child with so much courage to fight and such a terrible fear of being left all alone again. Gilan could make no other decision.

Halt awoke only hours later, sore and weakened by the flow of blood. Opening his eyes, he saw Will sleeping next to him, who, even in his sleep, was clutching his forearm tightly. His fingers were pressed firmly against Halt’s wrist. He could feel his heart beating and he was asleep.

“I should never have brought him here…” That was the first thing Halt said as Gilan gave him water and helped him carefully rise to sit up.

Gilan smiled pale, with extreme bitterness.

“If it wasn’t for Will, you’d be dead. We would all be dead.”

Instead of brightening with pride, Halt’s eyes betrayed immense grief when he heard what had happened during the battle, when he had already fallen, badly wounded. He looked at Will, who was sleeping next to him. He said nothing. He just closed his hand around the boy’s and that calmed Will down enough for him to sleep for a while longer, gathering his strength.

Calm, he felt all the time that he was not left alone.

When he woke up, Halt was sitting next to him, leaning with his back against a rock. Together with Gilan and Sir Rodney, they were planning the return to Redmont. Baron Arald’s wounds should be seen by a medic as soon as possible, and news of the killing the Kalkaras and the dangers expected had to be passed on. Although the journey with two wounded men had to be difficult, they had to set off the same day. All the more reason for Gilan to move to his fief, which he firmly refused to do as long as they needed help.

“I know the rules,” he replied when Halt seemed ready to argue on the subject. “And in accordance with them, I will not leave you here alone. I’ll send a pigeon from Redmont and take off as soon as you reach the castle.”

Will was awakened by the conversation, which did not become an argument, but his name was mentioned several times in it. Opening his eyes, he saw Halt, still pale, but sitting and talking quite calmly. His gaze fell on him before he was awake enough to say anything at all.

Halt looked at him with the same concern as when he had saved him from the boar. He probably wanted to say something, but Will overtook him. He pulled himself up to sit down, with unimaginable relief to see that Halt was not only awake but must have been much better off than they thought.

“Halt!” he called out quietly, and that was all he managed to say.

The Ranger smiled with the mere look in his eyes and remained silent for another moment. When he finally nodded and spoke, Will heard something in his voice that he didn’t yet understand at the time.

“It’s all right now, my boy. Everything is all right now.”

It was. Halt was alive, awake and even talking to him. He had survived. Will hadn’t believe before that heroes were capable of surviving battles. And yet Halt still stayed with him…

The boy was smiling, though apparently trying not to have tears in his eyes, he was smiling. He looked at him, nodding only in reassurance. He laughed weakly when Halt remarked quietly that he had been extremely brave and had done an excellent job.

“Luckily I remembered something about how to shoot,” he merely muttered, and immediately began to ask if Halt had a bad headache, if he would like something to drink, how he felt and what he planned to do now.

For the time of this conversation, Gilan stepped slightly aside with Sir Rodney, allowing them to privately enjoy how happily the gruesome battle had ended.

Baron Arald was still sitting nearby and looked at them once or twice. He remembered well that somewhere beyond these ruins, at the edge of the woods, in someone else’s grave lay some part of Halt that he had lost too quickly and too brutally. Now, as the Ranger looked at the boy, reassuring him and smiling with the sheer sadness of his eyes, Arald got the impression that Halt had finally let that part of himself go.

He had survived. And it meant the world to someone.

* * *

“Lady Pauline,” Gilan said it such a voice, that Will immediately understood it was a completely serious matter. “Do you know who I’m talking about? Do you know her?”

“Sort of,” Will hesitated, and seeing Gilan’s questioning look, he had already explained specifically. “I’ve never spoken to her privately, but I know who you’re talking about. A friend of mine is a student of hers.”

Gilan nodded, then looked around to the side. Admittedly, they had already been standing alone outside the castle for some time, but he wanted to make sure anyway. He broached the subject at the last moment before he rode off, hesitating before jumping on his horse.

“So, Lady Pauline. If anything were to happen, something going on… with Halt,” he explained, as Will furrowed his brow. “If he wasn’t about to be following the medic’s advice, if he gets worse but doesn’t want to notice it, if there is anything going on that you need help with, you’re to turn to her. To Lady Pauline.”

“And tell her what?” Will stared at him with a complete lack of understanding.

“Everything,” Gilan replied simply. “Whatever happens, if you need help, go to her and tell her everything.”

“And she’ll do what?” Will continued unconvinced by this. The vision of reporting Halt to anyone didn’t really appeal to him, let alone someone he knew almost nothing about. “Will she write to Crowley?” An explanation came to his mind.

“That too, sure. But she’ll deal with it. She’ll persuade Halt, she’ll shout at him or explain that he’s supposed to let himself be helped. Whatever happens, she’ll deal with it. Don’t hesitate to go to her. Really. This is not a polite suggestion. Lady Pauline will help you, whatever happens.”

Gilan seemed serious, so Will promised not to forget it. Later, he bid him farewell and returned to the castle as Gilan left. He headed for the infirmary, as Halt had said the visit to the medic probably wouldn’t last long and they would be back at the cabin together by now.

He hadn’t met anyone familiar anywhere in the area, so there wasn’t even anyone to talk to. Not wanting to irritate Halt, he did not enter the infirmary. It was clear from Gilan’s earlier warnings and also from the Rangers’ own behaviour that Halt was rather touchy when he was injured. Will didn’t want to impede his recovery and irritate him just yet. He simply waited.

Similarly, at first he hoped to wait it out as Halt approached his recovery. Gilan appeared not to be exaggerating one bit. Halt only rested for the first day, mainly because he fell asleep soon after they arrived at the cabin. Will cleaned up, made dinner, took care of the horses and then fell asleep himself, still tired both from the fight with Kalkara and the earlier trip to the castle.

When he awoke in the middle of the night, Halt was sitting in the kitchen and writing something. Letters, he explained when Will looked out of the room, rubbing his sleepy eyes. Halt needed to describe what had happened to the Kalkaras, what they had seen, what they feared now. He had to do it as soon as possible. And Will was told to sleep and rest.

And then Will still listened to him. He was used to taking Halt’s every word without thinking, because too many times he had been proved right. This time, however, it all began to seem more and more out of place with every hour of the day that went by.

Halt had decided that he had rested enough. As well as writing off letters, he busied himself preparing reports, ordered knife-throwing training, and even wanted to venture out to the castle, but a wound on his leg prevented him from doing so. Limping, cursing under his breath and stubbornly gritting his teeth, he went about his day as normal. Ironically, this time, instead of letting Will do more, he took on most of the work around the house. Feeling rather uncomfortable, Will followed him around for half the day, mumbling uncertainly that maybe he’d better do it, maybe he could help after all, maybe he could be of some use, and let Halt rest.

Halt was not going to rest. That got to Will on the evening of that day, when he had already gone to bed, and Halt was again sitting up late over reports. In the morning Will found him in the kitchen, busy making breakfast. He was clearly not able to stand on his injured leg, but he walked around the cabin anyway. He was also planning a training day, as usual.

It wasn’t going to change. Will understood this and slowly accepted it. Gilan’s advice proved useful much sooner than he had anticipated. Will’s offers of help were mostly dismissed by Halt, and while he was no more abrasive or sullen than usual, he was clearly not interested that Will disapproved of his approach.

“I was thinking…” Will started and broke off, but Halt said nothing, focused on slowly walking from his room to the kitchen with another pile of papers. He was clearly limping, unable to get a good support on his injured leg. But he kept walking and didn’t allow himself to be helped. “I wanted to ask if I could go to the castle today. I wanted to meet up with my friends… they were worried, and I promised to ask if I could come for a while, talk to them?”

Halt looked at him and hesitated only a moment before nodding.

“You’ll give a report to the Baron by the way, okay? I… you don’t have to rush back,” he unexpectedly added, in a sort of gentler than usual way. “Get some rest today. Come back for dinner or have some with them. Tomorrow you will train. Today, meet them and get some rest.”

How understandingly he approached him made it difficult for Will to look him in the face. He felt terrible at the thought of how he had taken advantage of Halt’s trust and his unexpected amicability. In the next moment, however, Halt visibly wobbled on his feet, catching himself on the table at the last moment. A pile of papers slipped out of his hands and banged on the floor. As Will broke off to help collect them, Halt stopped him with a sharp look.

“I can handle it. Go.”

Will really felt that he just had no other choice. He didn’t know how he was supposed to argue with Halt. He had no idea if anyone would know how to. And he was really very worried.

He took the report to the castle and then headed straight for the Diplomatic Service School.

The building was smaller than the Battleschool but could still be recognised from a distance. Two storeys high, long and wide, it was surrounded by a courtyard on one side and a well-kept garden on the other. At first Will wasn’t sure where he should leave Tug.

Fortunately, he was seen from a window near the door.

“Ranger!” he heard the voice of a woman he didn’t know. She waved at him from the window as he looked around, searching for who had shouted. “Do you want to come inside?”

He wasn’t expecting this conversation and didn’t know at first what to say. He nodded, forgetting the hooded cloak that effectively hid the movement. With his throat compressed with nerves, he jumped off his horse. He would have preferred not to remove his hood at all, but then he would probably have offended someone.

Trying to control his own tone enough not to betray his nervousness, he replied that yes, he would be very grateful if they let him in. He was directed to the posts a little to the side, by the fence. There he left Tug.

The woman from the window was already expecting him at the door. She introduced herself to him, but Will was too focused on repeating in his mind what he must say to remember what she said. He recited what he had prepared for himself.

“My name is Will. I am an apprentice of Ranger Halt and I bring a message to Lady Pauline.”

The diplomat must have noticed his nervousness and probably understood it as a sign that the message was urgent or bad. She asked nothing further. Will was grateful for that. As he entered the Diplomatic Service School, all he could think about was what he had to say to Lady Pauline. The vision of escape was gone as he explained who he was. With each step through the corridor, however, he doubted more and more whether this was a good idea.

Gilan might not have been serious. Although he assured that he was as serious as possible. Perhaps Will should have written to him first? However, by the time the letter would have reached Gilan, and then a possible reply came to Will, Halt might have got even worse. Or maybe he didn’t need help at all? Will had never been attacked by a Kalkara, never had his leg or head cut, and wasn’t sure how long to rest afterwards.

The memory of Halt’s pale, bloody face kept coming back in front of his eyes whenever he saw Halt limping stubbornly, ignoring his own pain.

At most, he would apologise. But what if that’s not enough for Halt and he tells Will to get out? Then he will walk away. He’ll go back to the castle or straight to some farm, to work. But someone will make sure Halt doesn’t die in the meantime. He’d be a poor Ranger anyway, since he had trouble talking back to a stranger and couldn’t assess the situation. No difference, not so much of a loss anyway, so never mind.

“Lady Pauline will be finishing her lessons in a few minutes… is the message very urgent or will you wait for her?”

He realised the question was to him when the diplomat’s gaze rested on him a little too long. He hesitated for just a moment. The vision of barging into a crowd of complete strangers in class was far too overwhelming. And he still had to have the strength later to speak to Lady Pauline and explain to her why he had come at all.

“I’ll wait,” he muttered quietly. Too quiet probably, but he received no more questions.

The diplomat pointed him to a bench against the wall, next to the doors to several different rooms. She said something again, and Will looked around the school for the first time and missed the first words.

It wasn’t until she nodded to him and started back down the corridor they’d come here that Will realised his mistake. He muttered his thanks and an apology all in one. Most likely she didn’t hear because she didn’t react. Or he had managed to offend her already.

He sat down on the bench, sloping his shoulders for the first time in months. Hunched against the wall, he no longer looked around. From what he could see, the Diplomatic Service had a modestly decorated school building, many doors to various rooms and almost complete silence all around. Nothing else Will had managed to notice. He was too preoccupied with what he had to do.

All the way from Halt’s cabin he had been preparing in his mind what he was going to say. And now all those words seemed too rude, too vague, maybe even exaggerated. Maybe he really had done the wrong thing by coming down here. He should have just asked Halt about it. Or do nothing at all. Halt was a much smarter man than he was, surely he knew what he was doing.

But why would Gilan warn him if it wasn’t a problem that Will wasn’t the only one to notice?

The rustling of chairs being pushed back reached him from behind the wall so unexpectedly that he twitched in his seat, raising his head immediately. A dozen voices sounded almost simultaneously. The lessons behind the wall were over, and he had run out of time to think. If he was going to escape, he had to do it right now… maybe they didn’t remember him enough to look for him… if he was going to retreat, he had maybe a moment left, then people would come out and…

They started to leave. He didn’t look, not wanting them to notice him. All the footsteps were moving away down the corridor. No one looked in his direction. He still had a few seconds. Maybe he really shouldn’t had come here.

“Will?” a familiar voice sounded barely a few steps ahead of him.

He lifted his head instantly, surprised by the calm that descended upon him at the very sound of that voice.

“Alyss,” he muttered and felt his own smile, bright and wide, as if he hadn’t been nervous about anything at all lately.

“What are you doing here?”

Alyss wasn’t walking down the corridor alone, looking for a place to hide, which was why she had spotted him. She was walking in a group, with three other girls, who she now quickly excused and moved towards her friend, not hiding her surprise at seeing him. She was wearing her Diplomatic Services student outfit and was still smiling warmly a moment ago.

He couldn’t remember the last time he had been so reassured when he didn’t even know he was worried about something. Alyss was doing very well at this school, maybe even great. He was so happy that he didn’t say a word at first.

She didn’t mind. She knew him so well. She sat down next to him and waited a short while until he spoke.

“I have to… I have a message, I have to deliver a message to Lady Pauline,” he explained, but immediately asked, much more concerned about it. “How are doing you here? How are you at all?”

Alyss replied with a smile that seemed completely sincere. Will was too worried to fully know if he had judged it correctly. However, he believed she wouldn’t lie to him about such a thing.

“Great. I have to tell you sometime, everything that goes on here… there’s so much going on,” she hesitated and grew serious, as she always did, knowing when it was time to focus on what. “But we’ll talk about it when we meet after classes. One day. We’ll pick a day, we’ll all have to meet, talk. Now tell me, this message, is it something urgent? I don’t want to keep you. I’m very happy to see you, but you look like something’s wrong.”

He smiled, though he definitely felt exactly as bad as he looked. There was something hearteningly familiar, though, in the way Alyss was perfectly able to read his expression and the mood that evoked it.

“I have to go, yeah… I just don’t know how to-”

“Come on,” Alyss smoothly picked up the thread when he broke off, not wanting to explain out loud why he was still sitting there. She got up from the bench first and moved first to the ajar door to the hall they all had just left. Will followed her, she made sure he was standing next to her before she knocked on the door, immediately looking inside. “Lady Pauline?”

He’d heard several conversations with the Head of the Diplomatic School before, so he knew she had a pleasant, smooth voice. Still, he was sure that if it hadn’t been for Alyss's presence, he would have found it a bit frightening how emotionless Lady Pauline’s tone seemed to be.

It sounded more pleasantly surprised when Alyss stepped forward into the hall, pulling Will with her by the forearm. He went a little awkwardly, trying to control the urge to hide a little behind her. When they were little children, he sometimes used to do that. Alyss always knew what to say and who to say it to, she had carried her head raised proudly for many years and never let anyone intimidate her.

Lady Pauline, however, did not try to frighten anyone. She invited them inside and lifted her gaze from the stack of papers she had just folded on the desk against the wall. They skirted the rows of chairs to get there.

“You remember my friend Will, Lady Pauline. He came with news.”

He knew Alyss wanted to help him, for which he was eternally grateful. But she had just stolen the beginning of his pre-determined speech, causing him to just look at Lady Pauline, bow his head and not get a word out.

Alyss hesitated visibly as to whether she should leave the room, as the information was not meant for her ears, or rather stay to support Will. Will himself was unsure whether he could talk about it in front of anyone else.

He looked at Lady Pauline cautiously and met her gaze, investigative, reaching to the very bottom of his thoughts. Just like Halt’s, only calmer, yet just as powerful. He would have been burned to ashes if she had ever looked at him as menacingly as she had then, on the Choosing Day, at the one who had laughed.

At Will, however, she was not angry, and her gaze softened the next moment. She must have understood something, guessed or maybe noticed something.

“Is it about Halt?” she asked when he remained silent.

This unlocked him. He nodded nervously and began to speak, himself not knowing when he said the first word. It went on more easily.

“Yes. He won’t rest. I need help. Gilan told me to let you know if anything was going on, Lady Pauline. I don’t know what to do, I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” the Head of Redmont Diplomatic Services assured, though she did not yet know what exactly had happened. She looked at Alyss, still not angry, though she seemed concerned. “Go, break the news to Chris. I need to leave the school for a while. It won’t take long, but have them take the class for me, okay?”

Alyss nodded, said goodbye and left. Will glanced behind her reflexively. And then he realised that he hadn’t actually explained anything yet. Lady Pauline stopped him, however, putting down on the countertop all the papers she had been collecting earlier.

“Let’s go. You’ll explain on the way, won’t you?”

“Where?” Will asked, surprised at the calm rush he caused.

Lady Pauline looked at him without a trace of hesitation or reflection on whether this was something that should have been considered beforehand.

“To Halt’s cabin.”

At about that moment, even before he had told her everything, Will realised that he had done a very good thing by coming to her for help.

They found Halt outside the hut. He was coming out of the stable, limping visibly and crooked with pain, which he hid immediately, however, barely having heard the clatter of the horse’s hooves.

At the sight of them, he first raised an eyebrow and then looked directly at Will. The stony face seemed to have clouded even more than before. Will hunched his shoulders reflexively, which did not escape Lady Pauline’s attention.

She turned to him immediately, barely they dismounted of their horses.

“Will, would you be so good as to brew us some coffee?”

He realised on the fly that this was a very gentle suggestion that he should get out of here immediately and wait for them in the cabin. He took advantage of this, grateful to be removed from an extremely awkward conversation. He preferred not to think about, how angry Halt would get later.

He walked into the cabin, trying not to look at him. Halt led him away with a glance, and then turned his eyes only to Pauline. Just in time to encounter an extremely menacing gaze, fixed only on him. He did not speak for a very long moment.

It was Lady Pauline who spoke, as Will could see from the window of the cabin. At first she stood facing Halt, calm, only her gaze was scary. She spoke at length and without anger, looking at him incessantly. Halt listened, with an impenetrable face.

He spoke at last but did not say much. They sat down on the verandah steps. Halt hid the grimace of pain on his face too late. There was concern in Lady Pauline’s eyes instead of anger and Will moved away from the window, not wanting to risk being seen.

He didn’t know how long he would have to wait, and he wasn’t sure if he wanted them to finish talking as soon as possible and he would finally find out how angry Halt was, or if he wanted them to talk for as long as possible, delaying the moment of confrontation. He also wasn’t sure how much time had finally passed. Surely the coffee was ready.

Halt looked no more sullen than usual. Lady Pauline again had a calm, almost gentle look in her eyes. And he didn’t know what he should say to either of them.

“I’m not angry,” Halt spoke up unexpectedly, sitting down at the table. “Calm down.”

Will trusted him. Because Halt knew so much and still wanted him as his apprentice. And he had never done anything to make Will afraid of him. And he saved his life.

He also calmed down, seeing that Lady Pauline sent him a gentle smile.

Nevertheless, they drank their coffee in rather awkward silence. Therefore, almost certainly they both heard his broken introduction to the weak protest when Halt spoke up again.

“Will, you ride back with Lady Pauline to school, okay?”

He nodded, even though he didn’t like it very much. Left to himself, Halt would surely go back to work again. All this action and Lady Pauline’s intervention would be for nothing. He could even get fired from the Corps just for having Halt rested barely a quarter of an hour. Could a quarter have helped him enough to make it worth it?

“And I’m going to sleep…” Halt finished, and Will fixed his eyes at him, confused.

They must have noticed this but said nothing. Lady Pauline asked if he could get the horses ready. Will left, looking once more at Halt, bewildered to the point of recognising this as an absurd joke.

Halt clouded visibly as soon as the boy left.

“Did you see?” Pauline asked, though the response was clear.

“I did,” Halt nodded grimly. “He’s bloody stressed. I must have missed it. I didn’t intend to worry him.”

“Tell him that. When he gets back and you get some sleep,” Pauline suspended her voice, and although she’d said it once before, she decided it wouldn’t hurt Halt to hear the same message again, in different words. “He’s terribly worried about you. You almost died in front of him. He’s shaken and he needs you to reassure him that you’re still here and won’t leave him alone. And not to watch you get even worse day by day. Remember… you’re all he has. You know how that feels. Don’t do this to him…”

Halt nodded firmly. The grim reverie on his face deepened further.

“I’ll rest,” he promised, though he had said that before, too.

She rested her hands on his shoulders, stopping beside him for a moment. He lifted his gaze, hiding neither how grimly he was contemplating, nor the fatigue and pain still very much within him.

“I know, and I will wait for the pigeon today, tomorrow morning at the latest. I will also try to see you in the coming days.”

He could only thank her for abandoning her own duties for such a trivial reason. Pauline gave him a sharper look, kissed him on the forehead and told him to go to bed immediately.

Halt did not dream of negotiating this with her.

When Will returned to the cabin sometime later, Halt was indeed asleep. He did not wake up until a few hours later, already when dinner was ready, the dishes washed, as were the floors and windows. Will had discovered some time ago, not entirely of his own accord, that keeping busy when he was worried was effective in helping to occupy his thoughts with something. Cleaning and working on the house was very good for that and didn’t arouse much suspicion. Although Halt would certainly have noticed if he had just left the room.

Instead, he called Will to him.

He hesitated at the threshold, for although he had heard the call clearly, he had no confidence that it could really have fallen. He hadn’t been in Halt’s room before, and Halt in general seemed to almost never stay in that room. It was as if he only lay down hours after Will had fallen asleep and got up long before the boy woke up.

Now he was sitting on the bed, with a blanket over his shoulders and no cloak or weapon. He seemed tired, though at the same time stronger than he was in the morning. He rested his injured leg so as not to stretch the muscle. At the sight of Will he did not get up, he only nodded to him. He indicated a chair by the window, not far from the door.

“I’m not mad at you,” he repeated the assurance when there was still silence between them. “Really. I’m not going to get angry or reprimand you for anything. You don’t need to be afraid.”

There was something so heartbreakingly sad in his eyes when he said this that Will failed to silence the words that came to mind.

“I’m not afraid of you. I just didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to make you angry. You weren’t listening.”

Halt took it calmly, nodded and just looked at him for a moment. Although it sounded unbelievable, for a moment less than a blink of an eye it seemed to Will as if Halt was hesitating in exactly the same way that he himself sometimes did. When the thoughts were too many and the words too few and he knew that no matter how much he explained, people wouldn’t understand him anyway. Or in the process someone would interrupt him, and he would never manage to explain himself.

“You did the right thing,” Halt spoke up and the impression was gone. He was confident again, though less sullen and spoke much more calmly. “I’m guessing Gilan gave you advice on what to do.”

Will didn’t answer and decided to himself that he wouldn’t, even if the question was repeated. Getting help for his wounded master was one thing, reporting someone who might become his friend was another. Halt seemed to read his concern. He shook his head emphatically.

“I’m not angry with Gilan either. I understand why you acted the way you did… I’m sorry that you had to, and I’ll do my best to make sure you never have to do it again.”

For a moment Will just looked at him, unsure of what to say or how to act. Halt’s fatigue was still clear, just like his weakness. It was incomprehensible to Will how someone so intelligent, so wise, could fail to see it and need someone to explain to him that he needed to rest after nearly dying.

“Why…?” Will heard his own voice at once and fell silent in time, never quite asking the question.

Yet Halt knew from somewhere what it would have sounded like if it had been allowed to fall. He scowled, and his gaze turned to the wall for a moment.

“Well, the explanation is long and sad, and the problem is older than you. But as I said, I’ll make sure you never have to face it again. It wasn’t my intention to burden you with it.”

He shrugged his shoulder weakly and just tried to keep quiet, not wanting it to sound rude, but also honestly having no other words to say to him at the moment.

“I was just worried…”

“Still,” Halt didn’t take it as something trivial, and it kind of lifted Will’s spirits.

Most people didn’t see worry as an actual problem. But Halt wasn’t like most people, after all. And that’s why Will, after a short thought, began to speak, quietly and without looking Halt in the eye, but without regretting his words either.

“When I’m really worried about something, I can’t sleep. I know everyone has that problem sometimes. But I have… kind of more so… I used to stay up a lot of nights until I fell asleep during the day. And because I was skinny and pale, they would carry me to the infirmary every now and then. I would wake up, hear that I should go to bed earlier… and in two days I was there again, again they told me I couldn’t do that… and I’d go back to them…” He realised that Halt was looking at him intently and immediately added, so as not to sound like he was complaining about something or expecting a concessionary fare. “But that was a long time ago, a few years. I don’t have that much of a problem with it anymore. It’s only when something important happens when I’m really scared about something… like the Choosing Day. After that I only fell asleep here, after the first day, because I was so tired I forgot I was supposed to be worried.”

Halt said nothing for a long moment. When he lifted his gaze to him, Will saw more sadness in his eyes than ever. For he had been asleep the moment Halt had learned that Will had saved their lives by killing the Kalkara by setting it on fire alive. He did not know how Halt had looked at him then. He’d only seen the look in the moment and moved awkwardly.

“But as I say, I’m better with it now…”

“Did you sleep anything last night?” Halt asked, quieter than ever.

“Yeah, I was too tired to worry about you at night too,” he admitted, a little apologetically. “I fell asleep and forgot. And before that, Gilan helped me. Because he stayed with us.”

“I see... meaning it helps when someone is near...?” Halt tried so carefully that once again Will seemed to sense his own hesitation in his voice.

“Yes. That’s why I always felt a bit better on the anniversary of the Battle of Hackham Heath. We were all awake then. Always,” he explained as Halt furrowed his brow. “We’ve never been to that festival they hold every year. Never. Jenny actually could because her mum died when Jenny was five. She even remembers her. Her and some of her recipes, she told us.” He smiled faintly and immediately returned to his main thought. “But she was sitting with us anyway. Every year. Everyone was going to celebrate the anniversary of the end of the war, and somehow… we didn’t know how to. But we sat together, we talked. Horace was telling us what he knew about his father. I was making up my own story… as time went on I stuck more and more to one version, at one time I even had several.” Will quietly laughed, bitterly, but with some warmth as well. “Alyss doesn’t know how her father died. She knows her mother had been taken by illness. The one after the war… they told us. George knows exactly how his parents died because his aunt had given him away. She couldn’t afford to bring up another child. So all in all, we all always knew something. And we talked to each other. When we were little, we didn’t manage to sit up all night, but recently… almost a year ago… then we sat up until the morning. Everyone always celebrates this day, and for us it’s so sad at the same time, but also nice… no one but Jenny knows when their birthday is. So we celebrate that day, together. That’s what we know about ourselves for sure. This one day.”

Halt said nothing for a very long moment. Finally, he nodded and looked away for a moment, and when he looked at Will again, the sadness still hadn’t faded from his eyes.

“I don’t know if it would lift your spirits, but on this day very many people cannot celebrate, just like you. For the first years after the war, there were no festivals or holidays. It’s a very sad day for very many of us.”

In a way it comforted him, but he also completely didn’t understand something here.

“Then why hold such festivals at all?”

Halt shrugged his shoulder weakly.

“I have no idea. I’ve never been to one.”

For a moment Will wasn’t sure whether he should take this as an admission that Halt didn’t particularly enjoy parties as such, or perhaps, just like them, he couldn’t celebrate the anniversary for personal reasons. Something else occurred to him. He looked at Halt hesitantly, unsure whether it was appropriate to ask at all.

“You fought there, didn’t you?”

Halt nodded.

“Everyone who could hold any weapon in their hands fought there.”

Will wanted to mention his father but remembered that he had already done so once. So he said nothing, not wanting to torment Halt with the dreams of a child who somehow had to deal with the fact that he was left alone in the world before he even understood what parents and home were.

“You said you used to make up stories… did that help?” Halt asked him, and it was something Will hadn’t expected to ever be asked. Especially by Halt.

“At first, no. It just made me really sad,” he confessed honestly. “But then it got easier and easier. Like with sleeping. Eventually I learned… worry never really goes away, I just learned over time to sleep in spite of it. Same here. It never stopped hurting, but over time it made sense.”

“What sense?” Halt asked this in a different way from before, as if he really wanted to know rather than test him as to what Will would answer too.

The boy shrugged his shoulders.

“I have something to remember. A sticking point in the past. Even if it’s not true… it’s better than having nothing.”

Halt mused for a long moment, so deep that Will didn’t dare blandly interrupt him. The Ranger’s gaze fixed on the wall, and his tired face grew grim. Will began to regret having started the subject at all, and that’s when Halt spoke up again.

“If you had the choice to know the truth, would you want to?”

“Of course,” he replied without hesitation.

“But what if it was completely different to your expectations?”

At this Will mused for only a brief moment. He smiled bitterly, once again, however, unable to fully rid himself of the strangely soothing sensation in that sadness.

“That’d… be alright, I guess. I think we’d fit together then, me and that truth. I’m also very different to the expectations my parents probably had of me… them or anyone… the whole world…. and yet… I think what I am is better than what they might have ever wanted.”

It was the first time he’d said it, the first time he’d alluded to it so directly, and for a moment he feared Halt would push the subject away, never wanting to come back to it again. He would understand that. Silence about it might have been the only thing Halt could offer him and Will would accept it, not hoping for more. Even what he had received from him so far, he had never counted on.

Instead of remaining silent or dismissing the subject, Halt looked at him again. He smiled and nodded briefly, very firmly.

“Indeed, you are,” he stated.

Will had been waiting for those words all his life. And for a moment it seemed to him that Halt had also waited so long to finally give them to him.

And that feeling, though laced with sadness and loss, was better than anything he could have imagined even a year earlier, as if it could be, to feel that someone understood.

* * *

He was surrounded by so many people. Everyone was looking at him. No one was laughing, no one was surprised. They clapped so much that the Baron had to silence them. And no one even thought to look at him suspiciously and ask him anything when he was introduced to the crowd.

Nor did anyone expect any reaction from him other than gratitude for the second chance he was granted. A well-deserved one, they all claimed, but a chance, nonetheless. Despite how unsuitable they thought he was, after all, he hadn’t changed much since the Choosing Day. He hasn’t grown up a foot, his shoulders haven’t broadened so much that he could lift a horse.

Nothing had changed and at the same time everything had changed. Although he felt the absence of his cloak, Will did not hunch over as he walked through the crowded hall. He felt every single gaze on him. And yet he walked on.

He felt them all on him further as he remained silent, having listened to Baron Arald and Sir Rodney. He was silent as he eyed the beautiful sword and shield. Having no name, he would be given the crest on the shield. He could not remember any baron ever having done so to anyone, and certainly not to anyone like him.

People waited, knowing full well what his answer would be. Anyone in his position would have done the same. Will in his own position would have done exactly what was expected of him had he been given that choice less than a year ago… maybe even after the fight with the boar… maybe he would have only hesitated then. He hesitated even now. Although actually he felt like he did not hesitate at all. He was silent, searching for good words he could say and not become an enemy to them. But speaking up, he already knew that this decision had been made even before he looked at the sword.

He had never really thought about it. He just needed time to know how to tell it to those who asked. He had confessed it to himself a long time ago. And it was difficult enough that the reaction of the world no longer bothered him. He had won over his own delusion, he had made a choice that had shaped him as a person and his whole life, and everyone he was about to meet on his path. It was far harder than all the laughs, all the shouts of disbelief and the stares he had encountered and felt he would encounter more than once.

“I am a Ranger,” he said, and he felt it sincerely.

He felt it as strongly as he had once, a few years ago, whispering to first Alyss and then the rest of his friends. ‘I am a boy.’ He was afraid of what they would say, and yet, once the words were out, a peace so deep in his mind that Will felt brave enough to face the wrath of the whole world.

“I am a Ranger,” he said, for the choice had been made long ago.

It sounded true; it sounded exactly like everything was finally on the right place. As if, at last, there was not a hint of a lie, not a trace of fear and flight from spoiling the illusion they had of him.

The opposite of what they had expected. Though they were finally supposed to be glad that someone like him existed in their midst, Will turned away from it. It wouldn’t be real.

He had chosen something had chosen him. Someone. And himself. For the second time in his life, Will faced the world and said that he was choosing himself, against everything they could want and expect from him. It was easier this time.

And he wasn’t the only one to understand this. The first applause rang out again from the rows where he had spotted Jenny earlier. And Alyss. And George. The students of the Battleschool took up the cheers that had been initiated by a familiar voice. Horace.

This time, on his way out of the hall, Will walked upright, head raised up, in the face of all the stares being thrown at him. And for the first time, he didn’t care what they thought when they looked at him.

He told them what he was thinking, and now he felt strong enough to stand up to them all.

Halt looked like he understood it all. Again. And he was smiling. Not with his eyes, as had happened to him a few times before. Not as wide as other people smiled. He smiled genuinely, without saying a word at first.

Will stared at him, confused by this sight far more than by anything that had just happened. Halt couldn’t miss it, of course.

“Finished staring?” he asked, and although his tone was almost casually grim, there was a hint of amusement in it that Will had not heard before.

He allowed himself a broad smile in response. Somehow Halt was not surprised by this. He turned first, tapping Will on the shoulder to urge him to leave.

“Let’s go,” he said, though they were already heading for the exit. He repeated it already before the castle, glancing at Will, which the boy noticed immediately, keeping his eyes on Halt the whole time. “Let’s go home.”

He didn’t reply, but he nodded his head vigorously enough that it was probably enough for Halt to understand how happy Will was.

The words didn’t reach him until the next moment, when he remembered that Halt wasn’t someone who would choose his words carelessly or use the big ones without meaning them. Will looked straight at him, stopping in front of the gate.

Halt had seen it coming, of course he had. Yet he acted as if nothing had happened. Nothing that needed to be disputed or objected to. As if he meant exactly what he said.

“One thing is for sure; they will remember you. You made sure of this,” he muttered, and it seemed to Will again that his tone was downright amused. “You’ll be the topic of conversation for the rest of the week. At least.”

“Again…” Will muttered in a grave tone and Halt glanced at him quickly, as if surprised. Immediately, however, he noticed that Will continued to smile, amused by this more with each passing moment. “But Baron Arald took me aside and said he understood…” he added clarifyingly.

“Oh yes, he understands.”

“I don’t care what thinks the crowd of people whose names I don’t even know,” Will pronounced and Halt nodded emphatically.

“Correct approach. One would think-” he was interrupted by a shout behind their backs.

A very familiar shout, although the word was still fairly new in terms of describing him. Will smiled even wider.

“Rangers!” Jenny called out, running after them out of the castle. A few steps behind her, without so much agitation, but also in a hurry, Alyss came out of the castle.

Will looked at them, surprised. Then he spotted George, who, unlike the two girls, still had his book bag and was having a hard time running. He let go of the fight when he noticed that Jenny had already stopped Halt and Will. He moved towards them more calmly, correcting his bag.

Jenny, though she ran first, looked immediately at Alyss. They always looked at her that way when they had to sort something out. Will would knock on the door or Jenny would call out, sometimes they’d send Horace in, and Alyss would then say what they meant. Actually, since he wasn’t stressing and stammering so much anymore, they could start sending George too.

Halt raised an eyebrow as he watched a garland of kids line up in front of him, looking at him with concern, not yet explaining anything. Will’s facial expression, though he didn’t know what it was about either, quickly joined them.

Alyss was the only one who remained calm and bowed her head to the Ranger without hesitation or fear.

“Ranger Halt, we wanted to ask if we could kidnap Will for a while. We didn’t get to meet the full group last time because George was on duty.”

“Horace is negotiating this with Sir Rodney,” Jenny added clarifyingly, more to Will than to Halt.

Hopeful glances turned to Halt, and he almost took a step back under their pressure. A bunch of kids were waiting for his almost divine judgment on the matter.

“Just for a few hours… not for the whole day,” Alyss clarified further.

Will looked at him, waiting for him to agree, and even if he had reasons to say no, Halt would probably let them then anyway. However, he saw no counterarguments. He nodded gravely and before he could say anything, they thanked him, grinning at him. So much for his reputation.

“Just stay out of trouble,” he muttered in passing, once again nodding to Will.

The boy smiled even wider.

“Of course!” he promised, and for a moment he had the impression that Halt had muttered something under his breath about how he didn’t believe in miracles yet and wasn’t likely to start any time soon.

He moved on alone, towards the horses left by the wall. They stayed, as they were still waiting for Horace. Will looked back, after his receding master and something came to his mind.

“Halt!” he called out and the Ranger turned towards him over his shoulder, stopping. “I’ll be home for dinner!”

Halt nodded. The shadow of that smile was still on his face. As he left them, he still saw that Will was smiling back at him.

Chapter Text

It wasn’t that Halt was somehow particularly prioritising some of the things he had to teach his apprentices. Nor did he judge them or the other Rangers in terms of which of them focused on what. Well, maybe Berrigan a little, but only because he liked to swing his gitarra instead of his bow. Nothing to do with the training itself, purely personal.

And it wasn’t that he enjoyed it more either because Will preferred archery over other elements of training. He would have been exactly as proud if the boy had focused more on knife throwing, taking cover or the almost acrobatic variations of horse riding. Everything would have been all right with him. Except maybe the sudden discovery of a talent or a passion for music, but again, private reasons. And yet, of all the things Will might have liked, by luck, a twist of fate or heck knows why, he was particularly fond of the very thing his master was best at. To be teaching someone who shared his own passion, curiosity and eagerness to learn, albeit expressed in a completely different way, was indeed a pleasant surprise. With all due respect to Gilan and his ‘but now I’m going to wave my sword around for a while beating my own shadow’ hobby that he had at one time pushed into the already activity-stuffed schedule of their training.

With Gilan, many things were very different. Gilan had a family that pushed him forward so much that sometimes the poor boy could barely keep up with his footwork lest he topple over from the momentum of that push.

Gilan had a home, noisy and crowded, full of people who raised glasses to his luck, sent letters asking about his progress, and proudly recalled what a wonderful child he had been. Halt could quietly share the task of motivating him with others, worrying a little less about whether, if he lacked enthusiasm or skill, the boy would be left alone with the horrifying discovery that he didn’t actually know what to do with his life.

Although Gilan had great difficulty in assessing his own resources and skills, it was nothing that one dramatic saving of his master’s life could not have saved. The only damage remained to the pride of the master in question. It would have remained if Halt had had time to think about it and, on reflection, had chosen that instead of being proud of his apprentice, he would have preferred to feel offended that the apprentice had dared to help him. Halt could accuse himself of quite a lot and he was aware that others would be happy to add many more things to that list. However, he was sure that stupidity would not be on it. He was not offended. He was proud and, in time, Gilan had grown up enough to shake off his youthful moments of doubt and actually believe it.

Will, on the other hand… well, that’s right, with Will the issue of motivation, appreciation and self-belief presented itself very differently. All the family Will had was a group of other lonely children who, of course, were on his side wholeheartedly, but couldn’t provide enough of a background for Will to emotionally cope as he should. And it just so happened to be unfortunate that Halt was neither an expert at creating such support, nor could he himself boast of having received it during his own upbringing. If anything, he had received lessons in what not to do. And that was some support too, all right. No frenzy, but he knew something at least.

Teaching Will things that were difficult for himself was particularly hard. Hypocritical talk about looking after himself, keeping himself safe, eating dinner and other such mundane things. Halt was genuinely glad that he didn’t have to score some branch of training in between, which the boy preferred more than any other. He already had enough topics that he needed to get better on. He was pleased to observe that at least archery they both chose above the rest. On the worst days, it remained as the only safe refuge of conversation, action and motivation. He didn’t think he could have taught Will to become a man unwaveringly confident in his own worth and to put his own life before anyone else’s. But he could have taught him how to put half a quiver of arrows into the face of anyone who wanted to hurt him, quickly enough.

He realised fairly quickly that giving Will advance notice of what they were going to do the next day was one of the better tactics. With Gilan, it didn’t really matter. For Gilan it was all the same, as long as he could wave his sword each and every evening. And make fun of Halt.

Will, on the other hand, was visibly calming down as another day ceased to be an encompassing mystery, an indefinable mass of everything and nothing. Even before Halt had had the chance to see a bloodthirsty boar charge at the boy in his care, there was already an element of that in his training. Each day he would warn him beforehand what they would be doing the next day. When he had predetermined plans for the whole week, and he usually did, he would give them all to Will for review shortly after they were formed. And in the process he was teaching the kid about time management and segregating chores. And drawing time scales. Very useful. No question, he was awesome at teaching.

Archery was Will’s favourite activity. Will knew they would be practising shooting from the back of a horse that day. Tug was Will’s second favourite inhabitant of their hut. Sometimes first, Halt was painfully aware of that. All in all, the plan for the day included all the reasons why Will should be up before dawn, sort of trying not to wake him up, while excitedly preparing breakfast for them.

And he wasn’t.

Halt furrowed his brow when, upon entering the kitchen, he found it empty, even though the sunrise had been going on for some time. Will wasn’t there. The door to his room was locked. The cloak and weapon still hung in their place. He must have overslept. Halt merely shrugged his shoulder in the first instance and set about preparing breakfast, confident that the smell of coffee would effectively lure the boy out of the room.

It didn’t.

Will didn’t even leave when the smell of coffee was joined by that of food. Halt waited for a long moment. This spoilt the argument so far for not waking him up, because young people need a lot of sleep to grow, and Will in particular was hoping for a sudden growing spurt after all. The sun had already risen. Sleep was important, but so was breakfast.

Halt waited a moment longer, finished his coffee and covered their breakfast with a pot to keep it warm for longer. He was careful not to shout, but only to speak loudly. He didn’t want to wake the kid in a violent way. There was no reason to. It was just an ordinary day of training.

“Will? You up?”

A rustling and clattering sound answered him, something Ranger’s skilled ear couldn’t miss. Which was to say, Will has been woken up.

Maybe he did wake him up, but didn’t convince him, because for a long moment the only answer was silence. And that was already unusual. Halt got up from the table and headed for the door to his apprentice’s room. He walked loud enough for Will to hear his footsteps. And he didn’t care how many past generations of Rangers had just cried over it in the hereafter or threatened him with their ghostly fists. He didn’t want to scare the kid.

“Will?” he repeated more cautiously. When he didn’t get an answer to that either, he asked already directly. “Is something wrong?”

“No,” a completely awake and completely unlike Will’s voice answered him.

Halt hesitated but let go of the argumentative comments about why the hell Will wasn’t up as usual. He waited another few moments, but there was still a stubborn silence on the other side of the door.

“Can I come in?”

“No.”

Well that really spoiled the impression that nothing was wrong. And Will should know it, he was a sixteen year old, above average intelligent boy who was being trained as a Ranger. He had to understand.

“So something did happen…”

“No.”

Halt closed his mouth without a word. He took a deep breath. Slowly. Teenagers, he reminded himself.

“If that’s the case, why don’t you go out and have breakfast with-”

“No.”

Teenagers, repeated Halt in his mind. Slowly. Forbearing. This was, after all, a very difficult time in their lives. For both parties, but especially for the teenagers. And he, as the person raising such a teenager, had to deal with it. And as long as Will wasn’t roaming the streets to kill people, or dealing anything illegal, or waking up in a ditch drunk, or having a child before reaching his adult years, Halt was dealing with it just fine.

Halt very much disliked doing ‘just fine’.

Clarity of communication, he reminded himself. Pauline had always pushed for that. Pauline knew how to talk to people. A simple thought process. He had already switched to crisis thinking a little. Until he knew what it was about, he wasn’t going to drop it.

“Will…” he began slowly. “I’m worried that you haven’t left the room…”

“I’m fine!”

“I see,” Halt forced himself to maintain that tone. “In view of that, can you tell me why you haven’t come out?”

“No.”

“I… understand.”

He didn’t understand shit.

But something had to be said. Slowly. Crisis thinking. Yes. Just no breaking down doors and reaching for the bow. The crisis he faced, unfortunately, had no material form that could be filled with arrows. He had to… talk.

“In view of that… Will, could you-”

“Just leave me alone,” Will cut across him. His voice was sharp, angry. And it broke down. On the verge of crying.

Fuck.

“Just tell me if you’re in any danger.”

“No, I said, I’m fine! Can’t you give me one day’s peace?” the accusation in his voice was lined not with anger but with tears. Will fell silent again.

“I can,” Halt stated immediately. “That’s fine. If you feel unwell, we can change plans today. Nothing is happening because of that. But I’d rather know what happened.”

“Nothing,” the boy’s voice was already so weak and so full of sorrow that Halt restrained himself from entering the room with his last strength.

He didn’t want to violate boundaries. He really didn’t. But, standing helplessly in front of the closed door, he listened with increasing apprehension to the silence, which was only broken by really weak attempts to chase him away. There was something wrong with Will. Something had to be wrong. Just why wouldn’t he tell him? Hell, after all, he’d known him for a while now, had enough time to trust him…

“Can we talk?”

“Do we have to?” Will tried very hard not to let him hear the tremor in his voice. And so Halt could hear it perfectly.

“We don’t have to. But I need to know if you’re okay.”

“I told you…”

“Will, please. Put yourself in my shoes. I can hear that something is wrong. And you insist that you’re fine-”

“Because I am fine!”

“Then why-?” Halt fell silent, barely hearing the irritation in his own voice. He had failed fully to sound gentle again. The tension in his voice was perfectly audible, but at this stage it worried him less already. He had to find out what was going on! “Will, I’m serious with you now. We have emerged from several life-threatening situations. And you’re supposed to tell me right now if we’re just facing another one.”

This time the silence was short. Will understood, he was a wise boy.

“No, I’m not in danger.”

Halt breathed a little deeper.

“Great. Not a threat to life, then. Health?”

“Not either.”

“Even better. Does anything hurt you?”

“Yes…”

Finally some facts.

“Did you accidentally hurt yourself?”

“No.”

He really hope for a confirmation this time. Because the alternative was so much worse. He had to ask regardless of how hard it was.

“And not accidentally?”

“Halt, no, it’s really not that. I’m fine…” Finally, in that voice, he recognised his apprentice. Will understood, switched to a mindset similar to his, the mindset of a Ranger in distress. “Seriously. I’m not in danger of anything. It’s just… I feel very, very bad…” His voice trailed off. “I’d better stay here today.”

Good, he had something to work on. Will was talking to him. Slowly, step by step.

“Are you sick?”

“No…” The sadness in his voice was still so damn disturbing.

“Did you do something that made you not want to see anyone today? Are you worried that I’m going to be angry? Will…”

“No.”

“I’m not angry, no matter what happened,” Halt picked up the subject as he heard the tremor in his voice once again. “I want to help you. But I need to know what we’re up against. Give me anything.”

“You can’t help me,” Will muttered and sighed heavily, with sincere sadness.

“Neither I, nor any of the potentially illegally obtained resources I can get, nor people who-?”

A very weak laugh sounded so unhappy.

“Yes. All the army of the world you can get and hundreds of thousands of quivers. You can’t help me.” Will fell silent for a moment. His voice, when it sounded again, was compressed and quieter, as if it came out from under a blanket or as if the boy was clutching his chest very tightly with something. “Leave me alone… please… just for today.”

Something in his voice, that grim resignation in the face of looking helplessly at his own problem… it didn’t sound like Will again. But it also wasn’t something Halt had heard for the first time in his life. He mused for a moment more, summing up in his head all the information he had obtained. His shoulders slumped in a heavy sigh.

In fact, faced with this, he really had nothing to do.

“Tough day, huh?” he asked quietly. “Just a hard day, or even more… with…?” he hesitated as another thing came to mind. He wasn’t entirely sure of how to name it to not make it even worse.

Will answered him first with a grim murmur.

“You said yourself if there’s crisis it’s never one thing at a time.” He still sounded so unhappy, but at least he was talking to him.

Halt squirmed, mastering his reflexive expressions of sympathy at the last moment. The last thing he wanted was to call a spade a spade and get Will to not only stay behind the shut door, but to stop talking again.

“I’ll make you some hot milk with honey. You need to eat something. And drink lots of water.”

“I know,” the exasperated hiss sounded sad again.

Yes, Halt knew that Will knew. Not the first such awful day in Will’s life. The boy knew what to do. Halt shouldn’t make comments on a subject that didn’t concern him. And that would also explain why Will wouldn’t tell him. What was Halt supposed to tell him? What further wisdom to weave, something about natural cycles in nature, something about the beauty of the miracle of life, or whether to panic and stop talking to him at all for the next week. Halt sighed and returned to the kitchen.

In addition to the milk, he had prepared scones, all with honey. He also put a big spoonful of jam on a plate next to the warm pancakes. He set it all on a chair, placed just outside the door to Will’s room.

“I’m going to feed the horses,” he said through the door. “Breakfast is waiting, it’s warm, so eat quickly. I’ll be back in thirty minutes.”

He waited for a murmur to confirm that Will had heard him.

Only then did he step outside the cottage, closing the door behind him. The day was quite cheerful for this time of year, warmly autumnal. For Halt, it seemed the most dreary it could be. With a heavy sigh curling at the bottom of his chest, he set off for the stables.

He didn’t even need half the time he had announced he would spend outside the hut. He fed the horses, poured them fresh water and sat by them on a hay bale in the stable. Will needed that time. Maybe even more? Maybe he should have given him more time to let the boy calmly change his clothes, maybe Will wanted to wash the blood off now, maybe he’ll even come up with the idea of washing the sheets, just to pretend that it all never happened. Halt decided he would come back and ask, and if needed he would leave again. He knew, however, that he wouldn’t agree to be out of the house all day. Will might need him. And he shouldn’t be all alone since he already felt awful anyway. And since, of course, it had to coincide with a painful reminder of how wrong the gods had been in forming his body before he was born.

Poor kid.

Halt turned a grim gaze to the two pairs of gentle horse eyes watching him closely.

“Instead of staring, you could’ve helped somehow.”

Zero ideas. Wonderful, so he was on his own. An emotional troglodyte and a child locked in the same house when the child needed… well, what exactly? Support, a listening ear, maybe some more specific help? Maybe he should send a pigeon to Pauline and ask her for help?

No. He shouldn’t do anything that would lead the boy to the depressing conclusion that only a woman could help him now, knowing his situation. He had to cope on his own. No other way. Even if he had no idea what to do so as not to do more harm than good.

He waited in the stable for forty minutes, but not one more. Will might have needed him back. Returning inside, he tapped with his boots loudly on the verandah. He made enough noise that any idiot would have to guess he was coming home. And his apprentice was no idiot. Not even in the slightest. Only sometimes Will forgot that himself.

The plate and the mug disappeared from the chair. The bucket of water had also disappeared. Good thing, the kid took at least that much.

“I’m back,” Halt announced, in case he wasn’t heard enough after all.

He tended to hear things too much, and it was hard for him sometimes to judge how much his own actions, tone of voice or footsteps could be heard by others.

“I know,” Will replied. He sounded a little clearer. Closer to the door.

Halt took a seat in the chair, but only for a moment. Staring at the closed door was a bit pointless and even more depressing. He pushed the chair aside and sat on the ground, leaning with his back against the door. Since they couldn’t see each other anyway, no difference. And he felt a little less like a commander trying to storm someone barricaded behind a door. More like a friend who just wanted to help.

“And what are you going to do now?” This time it was Will who spoke up first.

“Sit here,” Halt replied without thinking.

“All day…?” The shy voice was very puzzled.

“No,” Halt stated matter-of-factly. “I still have to make dinner. Then I’ll be standing in the kitchen.” He hesitated for a moment and, when he found no reason not to, asked directly. “Unless you don’t want me to sit here… would you be more comfortable if I sat behind the wall rather than the door?”

Will considered this for a moment. His voice sounded more ordinary when he remarked after a moment.

“Not much difference, since either way you’re going to sit and listen to make sure that I’m okay.”

Halt shrugged his shoulders, although he had no one to answer to in this way.

“Just asking.”

“Are you really going to sit here all day?” Will muttered uncertainly after a moment.

“And what else would I do?” Halt answered with a question.

“I don’t know. Don’t you have any responsibilities?”

“My main responsibility is to see to the safety and development of my apprentice. Since he is unwell today, it is my duty to watch over him.”

“And the reports will write themselves?” Will muttered, his voice slightly back to normal again.

“One of us will write them when my hierarchy of responsibilities changes, because you’ll feel better.”

“One of us, meaning me…”

“Not my fault you have nicer handwriting.”

He heard a quiet laugh, short and weak, but genuine. It sounded loud enough that Halt wouldn’t have been surprised if Will was sitting exactly like him at the moment, only on the other side of the door. It lifted his spirits a little. They weren’t so far apart anymore.

“Won’t you get bored?” Will muttered quietly after a moment.

“Excuse me,” Halt snorted. “I’m a Ranger, I can sit in one position for hours and laugh at everyone else’s sore knees and numb asses.”

“I’d like to see that,” Will chuckled quietly in response.

“Sitting for hours? Well, that may be hard. We don’t usually sit in plain sight in the middle of a meadow.”

“I meant laughing at other people’s sore knees…”

“And numb asses,” Halt added because he thought it was an important detail. “Well… you’ll probably get your chance. Sooner or later they’ll assign us to some gathering of knights and we’ll be dragged leg by leg somewhere to the accompaniment of the clatter of iron and the drunken songs of soldiers.”

Will laughed again, briefly and quietly. And then the silence that fell seemed a little heavier again. Will gathered his thoughts and asked quietly, more carefully.

“Halt?” The Ranger replied with a mutter showing that he was listening. “You don’t like knights, do you?”

Instead of answering briefly that he was simply joking, Halt thought for a moment.

“It’s not that I don’t like them. They defend the country like we do. It’s just…” He hesitated again but given the expectation that the boy would be honest with him in such a difficult situation for him, he decided to be honest himself too. “I’m not used to them. I don’t spend much time with them… Mostly during the war. If I do share a journey or a battle with them, we all mind our own business. I’m far from them, so although I have no reason to dislike them, I don’t feel comfortable enough with them to say I like them. They are our total opposite. No… well… let’s just say I‘m not the best in dealing with new things.”

Will listened to him in silence and thought on his words a moment more in silence.

“I used to think there wasn’t a thing you weren’t the best at,” he quietly admitted.

Once it would probably have lifted his spirits and boosted his self-confidence. Halt just smiled bitterly and replied immediately.

“There are no people who are best at everything. Not a single one.”

“I know now… but I used to think so…”

He understood that the lowering of his voice was a sign of abashment. Sometimes he forgot how young his apprentice was. Barely a child. Ashamed of the fact that he was less of a child now than he had been a year ago when they had met. Halt hesitated only for a moment before he confessed quietly.

“And I thought a month ago that you would choose the chance to become a knight.”

“Really?” Will became more animated, though his voice did not sound cheerful. More with concern.

“After all, it was your dream,” Halt replied quietly. There was no greater philosophy here.

Will sighed. He was silent for a long moment, but his voice rang out again. Quietly and with pain.

“It was never about becoming a knight… it was about making my father proud of me.”

Of course. After all, it had been about that all along. He recalled with pain how Will had listened to his story, barely a few weeks ago. Without anger, only with agitation, but without a word of reproach. It would have been so much easier if Will had been angry for fifteen years of keeping him in a lie when the only person who knew the truth lived next door. And then he spent a year with him and didn’t stammer a word…

Will wasn’t angry. Will didn’t hate him. Will was just a boy who sorely lacked someone who would be proud of him.

“Surely he-”

“Don’t,” Will interrupted him grimly. “I don’t want any talk about how he would definitely be. It doesn’t change anything. We can’t know that. And you’re not helping by talking about how you’re sure of something because you can’t be sure.”

Halt listened with a furrowed brow. It did hurt. But he felt he deserved a lot more much harsher words, so the only thing he regretted at the moment was that it didn’t hurt more. Because again, Will didn’t get angry. He bypassed the phases of anger, despair, disbelief. He accepted an unfair fate and lived on. A boy who had no one to come up to him for fifteen years and tell him that he was perfect just the way he was… that he was good at something, that he was smart, brave, clever, or whatever was the quality desired by little boys.

No one to tell him that they wanted him exactly as he was.

“I can be sure,” Halt spoke up quietly.

“You can’t.”

He had no right, yes, he knew.

But there was no one else… in the whole, awful world… there was only him, and only he could tell that boy what other people should be telling him, people who would be his own from the very beginning of his life, through all these years.

“I had a plan that with a heroic life… no matter what his expectations were when I was born… he would have been proud.”

There was such genuine pain in the boy’s voice, such genuine regret. So much acceptance. Halt listened to the voice of a child who had his whole life ahead of him… and sounded as if he had been brought up with the idea that he had wasted it from the very beginning. Chasing the indefinable, he was never going to know peace. No matter how many people he became a hero to, he would never be one in his own eyes.

He would never save enough lives for his own to mean something.

“Will,” Halt spoke up slowly, quietly and thoughtfully saying each word. “Do you really think a man who was wise enough and brave enough to teach the Wargals fear wouldn’t take pride in the fact that his son saved the lives of four people directly and hell knows how many more indirectly by killing a fucking Kalkara? Really? Because as someone who is only here because of what kind of man your father was, I dare to disagree.”

Will was silent for a very long moment. He was silent as if he was never going to speak again. He was silent, as all the people around him had been silent for fifteen years.

No more.

Halt spoke up again, in the face of this silence still speaking calmly, with unwavering certainty.

“I think a man who wouldn’t be proud of you would have to be a complete idiot. Your father was not an idiot. Your father faced monsters that experienced knights trembled in fear of. Knights shackled in armour worth as much as your father’s ten houses. Knights who had long lances, great swords and huge, fast horses. Your father was wearing light infantry armour and holding a spear.” He fell silent for a moment, but Will didn’t say a word. So Halt went on. “Before we got to Hackham, we fought the Wargals. I led our heavy cavalry against them. Do you know what they did when we came, a great army of heavy horses, coming towards them in glory and roar?” Will was silent. Halt went on, quietly but with unflagging sureness. “They did nothing. They didn’t flinch. We thought they would be afraid of us. We hoped. We only taught them to fear horses in the next battle when we attacked them from behind. We slaughtered them in the stumps, with our lances, with our swords, loading hundreds of arrows into them. They were terrified, like animals in the face of the whip. But they did not run away. Morgarath didn’t let them. They did not dare to run away. I fought them for two years of civil war, Will, and only once did I see them afraid of anything. And that someone was one man fighting them with a long, sharp stick.” He heard Will sigh more quickly behind him. He finished the thought softly. “Do you really think your father would have cared whether you became a hero shackled in armour?”

Had they seen each other, he would probably have seen a faint movement of his head. Will remained silent, speaking up belatedly, as if he had just realised his responses would go unnoticed.

“No.” His voice was quiet, agitated.

“Your father was a farmer recruited to defend his homeland. They didn’t ask him if he wanted to go and how many days old his baby son was. Do you think his expectation of you was that you should fight in another war?” Halt heard the pain in his own voice, but didn’t try to shake it off. He didn’t dare. Will deserved that pain. Daniel deserved that pain. That and every other sign of grief he had been denied, which his son had never experienced enough to live on. “Your father would be the happiest father in the world just because you’re alive. You wake up every day and you have a roof over your head, and no one is trying to kill you. He wouldn’t care if people salute you in the streets, if you walk around with a sword or a pen or maps, in a cook’s apron or a jester’s cap. You are alive, Will. For a good father, that is enough. Your father was a good man. And he would have been a good father…”

If he had lived long enough to get a chance to be one.

Halt fell silent. These words did not pass his lips. But Will understood. He had to understand.

For a moment they were both silent, leaning against the door, both with grief stifling further words.

When Will finally spoke, he did so only after taking a few deep breaths.

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you swear before,” he admitted quietly, in a voice aching with sadness but struggling to find any grounding to the present moment rather than grief for the memories he had never had a chance to create.

Halt sighed quietly and followed his lead, searching for something to take them away from this conversation.

“You haven’t heard many things yet. But you will, just a matter of time.”

“Can you tell me something else?” Will laughed, the sadness still in his voice sounding so strong that the laughter almost sounded like a last rescue from tears.

“What would you like to hear about?”

“I don’t know, anything…” Will muttered, his voice breathless and almost broken. “Say anything else.”

Halt listened, remembering every tremor in his voice. Helplessness in the face of this grief was a worse feeling than taking an arrow out of his own leg in the middle of the steppe and with a chase on his neck.

Now that he thought about it…

“Did I ever tell you how Crowley sent me to fetch horses from Temujai?”

“No,” Will stated without thinking. “You never tell me anything about yourself.”

Well, okay, that actually helped with the dilemma of what he had already said. He hadn’t said anything.

“Right,” Halt muttered and sighed. “I don’t really talk about myself much. I’m not used to it. People mostly don’t care who I am. I’m supposed to be saving their lives and then get lost.”

“Why?” Will asked quietly. “You must have a whole lot of interesting stories…”

Halt shrugged his shoulders.

“It’s gathered a bit.”

“Why don’t people want to listen?”

Halt leaned his head against the door.

“Well… you might not have noticed… but I’m very scary.”

Will laughed weakly.

“Very,” he snorted without particularly appreciating that fact.

“Very,” Halt nodded. “Don’t laugh,” he added, hearing his next snort. “That’s the truth. I’ve seen people jumping out of windows at the sight of me…”

“And did you ever happen to help them in this?”

A small smile crept onto Ranger’s face. No matter how hard he tried, there were still moments when the kid’s comments took him completely by surprise.

“A little.”

Will laughed a little harder.

“Well, it doesn’t count then.”

Halt snorted, not hiding his amusement.

“Tell them that.”

He frowned when he heard no reply, only some rustling. Listening, he focused his attention only on what was happening behind the door. And he completely missed the moment when that door disappeared.

Suddenly he felt only air behind him. And he realised that he was falling…

He pulled himself up to sit down belatedly, saving himself only by instinct. He didn’t manage to get up from the ground quickly enough, missing perhaps the blink of an eye he lost in trying not to topple over onto his back.

Looking down at him for a moment his face stretched in a smile.

“Yeah, very scary,” Will stated with amusement.

Halt had already risen to his feet and took a sufficiently official pose to be able to glare at him. It had no effect, but that was hardly even Will’s fault. He just looked at the boy, his face with traces of tears, his back and shoulders wrapped in a thick blanket. An unhappy, nobody’s child who stood in front of him, trying to make fun of him to forget how sad he was and how bad the day had been.

His gaze softened as never before. He didn’t manage to say anything. Will noticed the change, his gaze sweeping over Halt’s concerned face. His chin trembled, all his effort to control himself went to hell.

Halt took the first half step towards him, but it was Will who shortened the distance between them enough to reach him. Halt closed his arms around the shivering back, which was still covered by the blanket. The dishevelled head dropped to his shoulder and there it stayed. Holding the boy in his arms, the Ranger said absolutely nothing for a long moment. He just held him, allowing Will to take as much time as he needed to calm down. Soothingly stroking his back, he held him close enough that with just a slight extension of movement, he could easily lift him off the ground. Wrap him in that blanket and hide him completely in his arms.

Like he once did. Sixteen years ago.

Will was now reaching slightly over his shoulder. He was almost an adult now. And yet it had only been a moment since he had been a little baby crying loudly, refusing to let his finger out of his tiny hand. Then Halt slipped his hand out of his grasp. And left him. On those stairs. At the home of strangers who had never given him a hint of that home Will deserved.

This time Halt didn’t move away first. He held him, not counting how much time passed, stroking his back reassuringly. He didn’t say anything. He had nothing left to say. All he had left was to be. For as long as Will needed him by his side.

The boy didn’t move away even when he stopped crying. He snuggled with his forehead against his shoulder and stayed that way. A child, who never got to remember a moment when he was held in the arms of someone who was proud of him. Who was ready to protect him. Who loved him.

Halt leaned his cheek against his head. He didn’t move away, and he knew he wouldn’t until the evening, until the end of the week, however long Will needed to be held like this.

If only to the last breath in his chest. To the last drop of his blood.

* * *

Sunset found them on the verandah. Wrapped in a blanket and hidden in a thick jumper, Will involuntarily followed with his eyes the waves of yellowed leaves falling from the treetops, rustling in the cool breeze. He warmed his hands against the mug of herbal brew that Halt had insisted on preparing for him. With the addition of honey, it didn’t taste like a grass decoction. They could pretend it was tea. Both of them, because one of Halt’s final arguments was that they would both drink it. And that’s probably why half a jar of honey ended up in an infusion with the original taste sickeningly bitter, the work of birch bark, which turned out to be moderately fond of the company of mint and calendula, not to mention yarrow. How Halt knew so much about mixtures of herbs and flowers, Will had no idea. He decided to save that question for another occasion.

For the time being, resting in the peaceful silence as the chill slid slowly out of the woods, they both shook off the conversation that had consumed them all day. The jumper, a bit too big for him, reached his fingers when he didn’t roll up the sleeves. It wasn’t scratchy, when wore over several other layers of clothing. And it was warm. So warm that he could have sat without the blanket, but Halt persisted.

Will glanced down at the table top where they sat on the verandah with a tiny smile. Halt had prepared all the letters, laid out the training plans for the next few weeks and had even done the Battleschool assessment in advance. But he left the reports for him to rewrite them, as he promised. Halt was a very stubborn man.

In passing Will glanced at him, making sure not to stare. He realised that Halt had always sensed this somehow in his first week living here. He was learning, and in Halt’s opinion, quite quickly. He glanced up just for a moment and out of the corner of his eye. He noted how, with an almost sleepy relaxation, the Ranger looked at the increasingly dark forest in front of their hut. His eyes were almost closed, and yet Will was sure that in a situation of danger, it would be Halt who would spot it first and be the first to be ready to act.

His calmness was reassuring. And his jumper was very warm.

They watched in casual silence as another night fell over Redmont, after which another day would rise. The next day, Halt had planned either an archery or arrow-making workshop with limited materials and time pressure. Will smiled at the thought. He liked archery. And although the Ranger never made it clear, it seemed to him that Halt liked it too.

It was nice, to think that he had something in common with a man like Halt.