The Heroes

you could be prevailed upon to spare them some food?’
    Meed turned his watery eyes on the miserable file with the scorn onemight have for a trail of ants. ‘I am afraid the welfare of my soldiers must come first.’
    ‘Surely these strapping fellows could afford to miss a meal in a good cause?’ She thumped Colonel Brint’s breastplate and made him give a nervous laugh.
    ‘I have assured Marshal Kroy that we will be in position outside Osrung by midnight. We cannot stop.’
    ‘It could be done in—’
    Meed turned rudely away from her. ‘Ladies and their charitable projects, mmm?’ he tossed to his officers, provoking a round of sycophantic laughter.
    Finree cut through it with a shrill titter of her own. ‘Men and their playing at war, mmm?’ She slapped Captain Hardrick on the shoulder with her gloves, hard enough to make him wince. ‘What
silly, womanly nonsense,
to try to save a life or two. Now I see it! We should be letting them drop like flies by the roadside, spreading fire and pestilence wherever possible and leaving their country a blasted wasteland. That will teach them the proper respect for the Union and its ways, I am sure!
There’s
soldiering!’ She looked around at the officers, eyebrows raised. At least they had stopped laughing. Meed, in particular, had never looked more humourless, which took some doing.
    ‘Colonel Brock,’ he forced through tight lips. ‘I think your wife might be more comfortable riding with the other ladies.’
    ‘I was about to suggest it,’ said Hal, pulling his horse in front of hers and bringing them both to a sharp halt while Meed’s party carried on up the track. ‘What the
hell
are you doing?’ he hissed under his breath.
    ‘The man’s a callous idiot! A farmer playing at soldiers!’
    ‘We have to work with what we have, Fin! Please, don’t bait him. For me! My bloody nerves won’t stand it!’
    ‘I’m sorry.’ Impatience back to guilt, yet again. Not for Meed, of course, but for Hal, who had to be twice as good, twice as brave and twice as hardworking as anyone else simply to stay free of his father’s suffocating shadow. ‘But I hate to see things done badly on account of some old fool’s pride when they could just as easily be done well.’
    ‘Did you consider that it’s bad enough having an amateur general without having one who’s a bloody laughing stock besides? Maybe with some support he’d do better.’
    ‘Maybe,’ she muttered, unconvinced.
    ‘Can’t you stay with the other wives?’ he wheedled. ‘Please, just for now?’
    ‘That prattling coven?’ She screwed up her face. ‘All they talk about is who’s barren, who’s unfaithful, and what the queen’s wearing. They’re idiots.’
    ‘Have you ever noticed that everyone’s an idiot but you?’
    She opened her eyes wide. ‘You see it too?’
    Hal took a hard breath. ‘I love you. You know I do. But think about who you’re actually helping. You could have fed those people if you’d trodden softly.’ He rubbed at the bridge of his nose. ‘I’ll talk to the quartermaster, try to arrange something.’
    ‘Aren’t you a hero.’
    ‘I try, but bloody hell, you don’t make it easy. Next time, for me, please, think about saying something bland. Talk about the weather, maybe!’ As he rode off back towards the head of the column.
    ‘Shit on the weather,’ she muttered at his back, ‘and Meed too.’ She had to admit Hal had a point, though. She wasn’t doing herself, or her husband, or the Union cause, or even the refugees any good by irritating Lord Governor Meed.
    She had to destroy him.

Give and Take

    ‘U p you get, old man.’
    Craw was half in a dream still. At home, wherever that was. A young man, or retired. Was it Colwen smiling at him from the corner? Turning wood on the lathe, curled shavings scattering, crunching under his feet. He grunted, rolled over, pain flaring up his side, stinging him with panic. He tried to rip back his blanket.
    ‘What’s the—’
    ‘It’s all right.’ Wonderful had a hand on his shoulder. ‘Thought I’d let you sleep in.’ She had a long scab down the other side of her head now, stubble hair clumped with dried blood. ‘Thought you could use it.’
    ‘I could use a few hours yet.’ Craw gritted his teeth against ten different aches as he tried to sit up, first fast then very, very slow. ‘Bloody hell, but war’s a young man’s business.’
    ‘What’s to do?’
    ‘Not much.’ She handed him a flask