Love and Sacrifice: Book Two of the Prophecy Series Read online

  Hemmett was Katrin’s closest friend and companion. He would take the role of her older brother during the family’s tour of the Middle Continent and Artreya. He’d attended the Mordanian Military Academy and graduated with highest honors only that year, taking his long coveted role as the head of Katrin’s Personal Guard, which had been assigned to her when she turned sixteen.

  The wild little boy had grown into a radiantly handsome giant of a man. Possessed of an antic sense of humor and a quick and active mind, he was going to be very successful in his chosen profession. His choices of members for the military Guard to be assigned to Katrin were excellent – so far.

  “Why does the exception make me think I’m not going to like this?” Menders asked warily. Most of the men Hemmett had chosen were tried and true. Many were members of the unofficial unit known as Lucen’s Men, which had been assembled by Menders years ago when it became obvious that the single Guard assigned to the household would not be sufficient security for the Princess. Hemmett had also requested a couple of young men he’d known at the Royal Military Academy. They had excellent references and records.

  “Because I want Villison,” Hemmett answered calmly.

  “No.” Menders shook his head. During the years Hemmett was at the Academy there had been far too many off-color stories about Villison and his antics. He had taken six years to get through the five year course and graduated at the absolute bottom of the class, squeaking through with one point above a failing grade.

  “I disagree. I’d like to present my reasons for wanting him.” Hemmett’s handsome face was impervious beneath his curling, russet-brown hair.

  “I imagine it’s because you were friends,” Menders said.

  “Not entirely, though that is a factor in my reasoning,” Hemmett answered with blunt honesty. “A summary refusal is not like you, Menders. You can’t think that I want him here simply because we were friends, because if I thought like that, I’d request half a dozen fellows who wouldn’t be suited for the job at all.”

  Menders thought for a moment.

  “All right. State your case, but that doesn’t mean I’ll change my answer,” he ordered briskly.

  “Villison is not stupid, though his terrible grades would make you think he is,” Hemmett began, uncrossing his legs and sitting forward on his chair. “He doesn’t have a military mind. Given his own choice, he would never have gone to the Academy.”

  “And you want him for a military unit?” Menders said sarcastically.

  “Yes.”

  “Hemmett…”

  “Indulge me, Menders,” Hemmett interrupted, a cold edge on his voice that made Menders blink. He nodded, deciding to let Hemmett speak his piece.

  “Villison has an originality of mind that keeps him from being a good, obedient military man,” Hemmett continued. “This very originality makes him incredibly valuable to me, considering we are not dealing with a typical military situation here.”

  “Specify,” Menders prompted, curiosity pushing his misgivings aside.

  “Menders, he can find out anything, procure anything, bribe anyone. If you want to know who’s gambling, ask Villison – because he’s running the games. Want contraband? Villison knows how to get it. Need to know gossip or dirt on anyone – he’s your man. Need someone bribed? Ask Villison to do it. He’s a slimy little weasel in a lot of ways, but he’s a damn loyal slimy little weasel.”

  “Now I’m interested, but not entirely sold on the idea,” Menders admitted.

  “I’m not finished. If I were in a situation where I needed help, I would want him there,” Hemmett continued. “He’s a not a model soldier but he’s a staunch ally and friend.

  “We got sent on manuevers once with one of the wonder boys from the latest war – some commissioned prat who never went through the Academy at all. Pappa bought his commission. He had the luck to get a good battalion. They won a battle, he got all the credit. They’d send these bastards to teach the cadets.”

  “I remember that type of thing well,” Menders nodded.

  “So here comes Mister Fancy Pants Lieutenant to lead us on an exercise,” Hemmett went on. “He’s holding the map upside down half the time. We’re tromping around in circles in a pine forest, where the trees all look alike. I’m trying to intercede a bit before we end up marching to the next town ninety miles away, at least to get him to hold the map right side up. He keeps telling me that the land isn’t right, when it’s obvious he can’t read a map.

  “What happens then but I step in a hole and sprain my ankle. I’m afraid it’s broken, it looks it, and I absolutely can’t walk on it, not even with my boot on. The rule is, if a boy gets injured on maneuvers, he’s sent back to the Academy. If the injury is severe enough, the maneuver is called off entirely. So I’m thinking thank gods, I’m out of this now. For the sake of the others, maybe the Lieutenant will use this as an excuse to stop.

  “Next thing I know, he’s ordering the rest of them to leave me there alone.”

  “What?” Menders nearly shouted. Hemmett nodded.

  “Yes – leave me there alone. They’ll pick me up on their way back. We’re so lost at that point that I know he’ll never find me again. I can’t walk and don’t any idea where the hells we are.

  “So even though the rule is ‘never leave a man behind’, our brave leader is just about to do that, as if the enemy is lurking right behind the horizon and it really matters that a bunch of twelve and thirteen year old boys pretend they’re in a war. He doesn’t even arrange for them to rig a litter and haul me along. He’s just going to leave me there by myself with a leg that looks broken.”

  “Hemmett, why didn’t you let me know this happened?” Menders said angrily.

  “Because I can take care of myself – and I had help,” Hemmett replied. “Now, stop interrupting me, Papa.

  “What do all the militarily trained cadets do? They line up and proceed to start following this fool, leaving me lying there, no water, no food, my leg probably busted all to hells. Ready to march along like nice little sheep – except for Villison. He steps out of line, comes over and stands by me.

  “Idiot Boy Lieutenant comes storming over, starts screaming at him to get back in line. ‘Never leave a man behind, sir,’ Villison says very respectfully. Now, this was the Loot’s chance to remember the rule and do something, correct? Nothing doing. He’s an officer! He can’t be wrong. He screams and screams at Villison to get back in line. Every time he squawks, Villison just says ‘Never leave a man behind, sir’.

  “So the bastard pulls out this riding crop he’s carrying around, even though it’s not uniform issue, and starts belting Villison with it. It’s one of those Surelian racing crops, something I wouldn’t hit a grundar with. It’s cutting right through Villison’s jacket. At the time, Villison is still just a little fellow but he stands there with tears running down his face at the pain and keeps saying ‘Never leave a man behind, sir’ every time this bastard hits him.”

  Menders stood abruptly and started pacing the room, clenching and unclenching his hands.

  “Finally the Lieutenant slashes Villison across the face with the crop. It lays his cheek wide open. The Lieutenant is screaming about how he’s going to have Villison flogged, court martialed, all sorts of grundar shit. Villison stands firm and says ‘Never leave a man behind, sir’ one more time.

  “Off goes the Lieutenant with all the little sheep following in his wake while Villison stays behind with me.”

  “He left you there? He abused a cadet with a riding crop and then he walked off and left you there?” Menders said furiously.

  “As sure as I’m sitting here in all my bigness,” Hemmett grinned. “Villison used his shirt to wrap up his face and then he got his shoulder under my arm. He pulled out his compass and somehow we limp along, him bleeding and me howling with every step because my damn ankle hurts so much, until we come to a road. Pretty soon a wagon comes along. The people in it see our uniforms and wounds and are horrified t
hat a war has started up in their own backyard. They heave me into the wagon, Villison cuts my boot off and it’s back to the Academy with both of us.”

  “What the hells did the Commandant say about this?” Menders seethed, settling in his chair again, his face stony.

  “Menders, he yelled for hours,” Hemmett grinned. “Turns out the Lieutenant got everyone completely lost. They were out in the woods overnight because he wouldn’t just settle down and stay put. When they were finally found by the real Army platoon that had to be sent after them, turns out the Lieutenant had hit several of the other boys when they got scared and started crying. Some of them were only eleven, after all. They all confirmed my story.

  “Villison had fifteen stitches in his face and I spent a week on my back and most of the rest of the term on crutches. You could hear Sir screaming at the Lieutenant for half a morning. Not long after that the Lieutenant got sent off to the next skirmish with Artreya and ended up where a bunch of shells hit him.”

  Menders drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly.

  “I wish you had let me know about this, Hemmett,” he said.

  “No point. It would have stirred everyone up here to no avail and Sir took care of it. My point here is not an incompetent fool of an officer, Menders. It’s Villison. He’s not one to march along behind an officer no matter what. He questions the military mentality. I don’t consider that a bad thing. If I were in combat, yes, I would want people who wouldn’t question my orders because I would give the best orders I could. But in the situation we have here, mingling an official Guard with covert operations, I want men with me who can think on their own and who will be unswervingly loyal to the point where they will question me if they think I’m wrong.

  “If Villison could take what that fool dealt out when he was only fifteen and puny because he knew he was doing the right thing, I’ll trust him with my life, with Katrin’s life – with anyone’s.”

  Menders sat there, contemplating what he’d been told.

  “You’ve convinced me of his loyalty to you,” he eventually said. “But you must admit some of the stories you’ve related about him are not enticing. A lot of them were about pranks. I don’t want endless practical jokes going on here.”

  “A lot of that came from boredom and because he liked getting Sir riled,” Hemmett answered.

  “If he was bored in Erdahn, what makes you think he won’t be bored here?”

  “He hated school,” Hemmett answered, unperturbed. “He doesn’t like living in a city either. He’s a second son, Menders. He would have loved to stay on the family estate but big brother got that and has produced a total of four sons. Vil will never inherit the old family sod. So his Mamma got it into her head that he had to follow in his Pappa’s footsteps in the military, ignoring the fact that Pappa got his head blown off in battle. Vil didn’t belong at the Academy, but every time he got sent down or Sir would try to tell Vil’s Mamma he didn’t belong there, she’d sob and carry on and kiss his fingers for all I know. Sir finally just relented and kept him on.”

  “Ah.” Menders remembered how that same Sir had arranged it so he could stay at school during recesses while his father was still alive, so he didn’t have to go home. Most of the time it had been as the guest of Sir himself. “Your letters always made it sound as if Villison caused so much trouble at home that his mother didn’t want him there.”

  “I think one thing fed another, truthfully,” Hemmett shrugged. “She couldn’t cope with him and he played up because he knew it. He’s a loving son and she dotes on him. He didn’t have any choice about being in the Army, Menders.”

  “Yes,” Menders sighed. “Some of us didn’t.” He turned his chair to the window for a few moments and looked out at the orchard.

  “Let me tell you why his scores were so low,” Hemmett said. “It wasn’t that he didn’t know the answers – he did. He’s very bright. But he just wouldn’t spit them back, because he could see other ways to do things. Very often his solutions for the test problems weren’t orthodox, but they made a lot of sense. Once there was a test question about invading an island – how big the island was, how many people were on it, what defenses they had, where the towns were, yakety yakety. You were supposed to diagram your invasion. Well, everyone drew merrily away, arrows pointing everywhere, but Villison wrote one line and went on to the next question. Come to find out, he’s put ‘I would not invade, I would blockade the island and starve them into submission at a great saving of the lives of my men.’

  “Well, Sir threw a fit, called him into his office and ordered him to explain. Villison said that it would be the most efficient way to obtain the goal of taking the island, with the least loss of life. Sir asked, ‘What if the island is self sufficient – would you just bob around on the ocean like a bunch of corks indefinitely?’ Villison told him that from the size of the island and the population figure given, there was no way it could be self-sufficient, that it would be a matter of a couple of weeks before they would have to surrender.

  “He’d applied what he knew about farming and his family estate, you see, instead of just spitting back an answer he learned in tactics class – and it was the most correct answer of all, Menders. That’s how he thinks. I need that, because I do not and cannot think that way. To protect Katrin, I will need men who can think in all sorts of ways.”

  Menders barely kept from smiling. Villison’s answer would have been his own. He was beginning to understand a bit more about the famous Villison.

  “If you will personally guarantee his behavior I’ll allow it,” Menders said. “On trial, mind you. If buckets of paint start falling off doors onto people’s heads, or pillows start exploding, he goes.”

  Hemmett nodded and stood.

  “Thank you. I’ll need you to pull a string or two to get him released from his posting but it shouldn’t be difficult if you contact Commandant Komroff. And I’m very glad I was able to present the case to you convincingly, without giving you his letter of recommendation for Vil.”

  Menders glared at him.

  “You had a letter from the Commandant recommending him and you didn’t just give it to me?”

  Hemmett grinned.

  “Menders – I wanted you to take my word on it,” he said. “You’ve been a very good father to me since I was three and I appreciate everything you’ve ever done for me – but if we’re to work together, I need to know you accept me as a man. That means respecting my opinions and judgment. I’m able to state my reasons for wanting Villison in Katrin’s Guard without a note from the teacher.”

  Menders blinked at the rebuke. Hemmett was absolutely right.

  “All right,” he said, rising also and extending a hand to Hemmett. “I’ll have him released from his posting to be reassigned here. And if you would, I would appreciate seeing the Commandant’s letter, though I did base my decision on your words alone.”

  Hemmett shook his hand furiously and dropped a letter on the desk. He then looked at the clock.

  “My turn on the roof,” he said. “Thank you, Papa.” He saluted and turned with beautiful precision and strode out the door with comical effect, as he was dressed in casual clothing and barefoot.

  Menders picked up the letter, shaking his head.

  My dear Menders,

  It is with some amusement I write this recommendation for Corporal Villison to be included in the Guard of Princess Katrin. Captain Greinholz has conferred with me at some length about his choice of Corporal Villison for this post, as at first appearances, it is an extremely eccentric one.

  Though Corporal Villison has a most dismal school record and a reputation for being a prankster and rebel, I can personally attest that he is a young man of considerable courage and character. As Captain Greinholz will doubtless tell you, Villison has both an original turn of mind and an enormous capacity for loyalty. He would have been a candidate for Special Services if it had not been for the interference of his mother and his academic performance, which to fir
st appearances is poor, though his low marks are more the result of consistently offering original solutions to problems rather than the standard answers that are expected on exams.

  It is my belief that Villison would be a valuable addition to the Princess’ Guard. He is steadfastly loyal to Captain Greinholz and will keep his less desirable qualities in check if asked to do so by that same officer. He has my highest recommendation for this very unusual posting, as he is in every way, a very unusual man.

  Your “father”,

  Morschal Komraf, Commandant

  N.B. – As Hemmett would say, if you were up to your eyeballs in shit with bullets flying all around, would you want someone who worries about keeping his uniform up to standard or someone who would help you to safety and not worry about protocol? Villison has never worried too much about spit and polish, Menders, but he has never left a man behind and never would. He will be considered cannon fodder by the regular Army. I hope you will be able to make use of him. He is, in many ways, very like the young man you used to be.

  ***

  A week later, the infamous Corporal Villison was standing in Menders’ office.

  He was absolutely not what Menders had expected. He’d had a notion of Villison being a Hemmett double, big and brash. Instead, he was small, wiry and very unprepossessing. A long, tight scar, courtesy of the riding crop in Hemmett’s story, puckered his left cheek, giving his face a wry asymmetry and perpetual squint. His eyes and hair were dark and his skin was swarthy.

  How the hells does he ever carry a soldier’s pack, Menders thought. It would weigh more than he does. But this same young man had heaved Hemmett out of a pine forest when Hemmett was a mammoth fourteen year old. Small men could have enormous strength, as Kaymar Shvalz and Borsen could both testify.

  “Have a seat, Corporal,” Menders invited cordially, indicating the chair across from his desk. “We don’t stand on a lot of ceremony here.”