“It’s not my house any longer,” Theodor retorted. “That’s clear enough. It’s Royalist territory, my father’s stronghold. There’s no room for me there unless we make room.” He bit his lips together. “Damn, but it gets cold out here.”
“For us as well as them,” I murmured. Bodies huddled close to fires, hands outstretched to coax life back into frozen fingers. There was no promise that tomorrow night, or the night after, would prove any more comfortable.
“They’re here because they believe in what we’re doing,” Theodor replied, level. “Anyone who doesn’t want to be here… isn’t.”
“What does that mean?”
Theodor unfurled his blanket roll and draped it around us. “It means that we lost a few men to desertion.”
I started, displacing the thick wool from my shoulders. “How many? Are we—”
“It’s all right,” Theodor said, voice still level in what I now realized was terse control. “Not many. We had some cold nights and one of those skirmishes moving northward—to Sianh I suppose the engagements didn’t mean much, but men were killed, and that was a bit much for some of the lads who hadn’t seen action before.”
“What did they think they were signing up for?” I tugged the blanket back around me, brow creasing with contempt. “Parades and uniforms?”
“Well, you’re of the same mind as most of the fellows out there, then.” Theodor moved closer to me. “They felt rather the same as you. I think—Sianh won’t agree—that it’s been a bit of a good thing. A few running off now, and being ridiculed by the others for their tender feet and delicate constitutions.” He pulled my hand between his, warming my chilled fingertips. “Gave them some solidarity.”
“I’m not sure how I feel about solidarity from vilifying other people. It doesn’t always end well.” I raised an eyebrow, recalling the angry words from broadsides translated into reality on the streets of Galitha City during the Midwinter Revolt.
“Your brother is working on that back in Hazelwhite,” Theodor said. “We figured we could use a pamphlet or two extolling the virtues of the brave fellows sticking it out to direct the momentum a bit. And some celebration of the Council of Country, newly elected, in session currently at Hazelwhite.”
“I’d say I was jealous of their warm beds,” I said as I watched an army unroll blankets, bank fires, and bed down for the night, “but I seem to recall they were tasked with creating enlistment records and procurement policies.”
“Under Alba’s watchful advisement, yes.” Theodor pulled me next to him, welcome warmth against the gathering cold. We layered our blankets against the night’s chill and curled together.
“Whatever happens tomorrow…” I swallowed, burrowing closer to Theodor in search of both warmth and security. “Whatever happens, I know what you’re giving up. Your home. Your family. You already had, but this—”
“I don’t want to talk about it tonight, Sophie.” His voice was heavy and rough, as though he was holding back fear or frustration or, I realized as I heard a few shuddering breaths, tears. I wrapped my arms around him and tried to sleep, ignoring the weight of the next day already pressing against us.
I woke in the pale gray before dawn, stiff and chilled. I slunk out from under the blanket, hoping not to wake Theodor. It was too early to be up; there was no promise of warmth from the dead campfire next to us, and the sun still a good hour from rising enough to make a dent in the frost. I looked over the sleeping camp, and tiptoed away, flexing frozen feet in unforgiving leather shoes.
I climbed a rise, stamping my feet and clapping my hands together to warm them as I got far enough away that I didn’t risk waking anyone. My cloak was still cold, but I knew that if I kept moving, I could work some warmth into the wool. I had been cold plenty of times, running errands in the snow of Galitha City’s winters or huddling next to the stove when we had to stringently ration our coal use. This was different, living in the open as the cold set in, not quite the bitter cold of winter, but unrelenting. There was no warm fire after the errands were finished, no bed piled with down feather mattresses and quilts.
I crested the hill and stood beneath a thick-trunked beech. It was nearly bare of leaves, which lay in a scattered golden carpet around me, the color almost pure enough to feel warm through the frost glistening on each stem and vein. Cold, but beautiful, and I admired the brilliant yellow that would have put the best silks in my collection to shame. Then I looked down at the valley below.
The Rock River sparkled like ice in the first rays of the rising sun. Beyond it were thick forests and, almost obscured by a gently sloping hill, the bend in the river where I knew the military school sat. I squinted—it almost looked as though, against the sparkling brightness of the river, there were people moving, fording the stream.
Drums beat behind me in the camp, not the steady reveille, but the rapid staccato of the call to arms. I looked at the river again. They were people, massing on the riverbank and, if I looked more closely, wearing Royalist army uniforms.
I turned and ran back, the cold forgotten. Theodor was just sitting up from under his rumpled blanket. “Where were you? I didn’t see you, and the drums—”
“They’re forming on the riverbank.” I caught my breath, which formed a white cloud between us.
“The Royalists?” Theodor could be impossible in the morning, I remembered, frowsy and slow to wake completely.
“Yes! Wake up! Find Sianh, I’m sure we’re under attack. Or whatever one would call it—it’s happening, now.”
“Indeed it is.” Sianh strode toward us, purposeful and somehow impeccably dressed already, even his hair combed and clubbed. “They have grown impatient waiting for us and, I would venture, overly confident.”
Theodor raked his fingers through tangled hair and gathered it into a messy queue. “But they’re in position already? Doesn’t that mean they’ve rather chosen the field for their advantage?”
Sianh grinned. “Their advantage was staying behind walls, and they have chosen to forgo that. No, they did not anticipate a quick response from us and we will prevent them from asserting a position on the higher ground.” As if on cue, a volley of musket fire echoed across the morning plains. “The pickets are already supported by several units of the First. I imagine the Royalists did not expect that. You will move the bulk of the Second toward a position on the front side of that hill.”
“And you?” Theodor struggled to button his epaulet over his sword belt, slung across his shoulder. I pried his cold fingers from the strap and buttoned it for him.
“At the front, where else?” He grinned again. “The dragoons will press them from the side so that we can keep them pinned against the river.”
“And me?” I asked.
Theodor’s sharp breath spoke objection, but he knew he couldn’t prevent my participation. Sianh ignored him. “We will be moving swiftly at the beginning—this first part will be a mad shuffle, I imagine, and there is no use your getting caught between two colliding armies. We will be repositioning the artillery pieces on the other side of that ridge.” He pointed to an outcropping. “If you move with them, there is little risk of your getting in the way or coming under fire.”