Chapter 157 Jump Rope

For Windsor Yves's death neither house had a new thread, and there the matter hung.

Leon's people were laying their nets out wide — but the archer Hugh Kestrel was still unfound, and that kept every heart from its ease.

"Second brother — add a brigade to the watch on the General's mansion, in two shifts round the clock; and Lora is not to leave the house either. The killer's not found — friend or foe, there's no knowing; whether it's chance pure and simple, or a frame laid on our house on purpose, nothing shows clear yet...

Less than a month to the rotation. The eldest goes to the frontier at Falconberg. The marcher duke there, old Chancellor Doyle, is an old acquaintance of your father's — he won't make it hard for Alvin. If it weren't for his health failing him, the man would never have asked for a deputy commander added at all. Leon wants Alvin there..."

"Alvin at Falconberg — that's a post of weight on the frontier. Even without battle-merit to show, the experience alone will let him stand on his own foot the sooner. Father — how goes your thinking on Roland?"

"Who knows what's in Leon's head — he wants Roland in the War Office. The Office now is a hollow shell: it can't shift a marcher-domain soldier, nor a man of the Silver Shield either. Can it be — just because the post carries no weight — that it's easily gotten for Roland?"

They had laid their plans for the night of Harvest Home; once Roland had his merit, the Count would be the one to work him out a master's post in the War Office.

Roland had come up through the university; entering the War Office would be no hard thing for him. Young as he was, starting in at director already counted as no low rung to start from.

Leon's true aim he could not see — but the third son leaving the barracks for the Privy Council: that was the very purpose he had carried, years gone, when he sent the boy from home so small, off to Augustburg for schooling and the university.

"The eldest and the third both have their places. You stay at your father's side — and no grumbling over it."

Gareth grinned: "I'm the one coming out ahead — what grumbling? At your side everything's long since gone smooth under my hand; those two are starting over clean, and it's bound to be harder by far than mine. Only — put the fourth and the fifth to work. The fifth is seventeen already; he's not made of sugar-frost, that a little rain would melt him."

"Mm — my own very thought. Once they're back, no more of that slouching slack-gadding: one day's patrol in ten, and nine days lolling about the house!"

"Father — wasn't that a rule of your own making? Who are you scolding now?"

Gareth ducked, arms over his head, from the book the Count threw at him, and went off with a heh-heh: "Father — I'm away! Out the gate to meet Mother. As for telling Yvonne she can't leave the house — that one you'll have to say to her yourself; if she turns her quarrel loose on me, I can't stand up under it..."

"Can't manage his own sister — he'll be a henpecked man one day, see if he isn't!" the Count grumbled:

"Let her mother come back and be the one to tell her."

Before ever leaving the camp, Gareth had set Corin's brigade over the watch of the General's mansion.

Corin was glad of it, of course. Day on day of drill was a dry grind; a change to cut it with, and even the temper came up.

"Corin — is it because you'll be seeing the young lady, that you're grinning all teeth and no eyes?"

"Drop dead! Are my eyes that small?"

"You've got a single lid. Certainly not so big as the young lady's double-lidded pair."

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"I'm going on watch, not going over to hold a whose-eyes-are-bigger contest. I'd say you lot are asking for a thrashing — daring to crack jokes on your brigade captain." Corin tied his neckcloth off neat, and asked, grinning:

"How's that?"

"Ooh-ho — too handsome for words! All hands — applaud!"

"Nansen — you have a death wish, I think."

A whole rank of Grey Wolf lads, happy as market-day, marched in their file into the General's mansion.

It had been a good while since Corin had set eyes on Lora, and his heart was honestly going pit-a-pat.

In his time at the barracks he had taken to the Heartland army's training quick as anything. His brigade — clumsy only in their first handling of weapons — carried off first place in every contest after.

By degrees Gareth had come to like Corin too. After the trouble among the guards, the inner guard was largely reshuffled, and Morn's brigade was brought in.

The patrol of the mansion went by twos-and-tens to a party; Corin followed them into the rear courtyard.

He knew where Lora's tower chamber lay; coming near it, Corin put everyone on their mettle:

"Look sharp! Don't have the young lady rating us cheap. No laughing — you hear me?"

Before they ever reached the little court's gate, waves of laughter came over the wall — and Lora's voice asking:

"Who's next? Who else is next? Faye — one more turn?"

"No, no, no — I'd never out-do him."

Corin couldn't help turning his face in for a look — and just then Lora's eye caught him. She laughed and beckoned:

"Corin? Is that you? Come in, come in — you try it!"

"Me? I'm on patrol..."

"Oh come — what's there to fear? If you can jump more than Shawn, you'll have had my revenge for me — and then back you go to your patrol."

Revenge, was it... Corin, quick with the fighting spirit, felt himself a little tempted.

"Go on, then! Corin!"

"Warrior of the Askar — charge!"

The whole pack of his fellows were egging him on. Corin squared his belt away and walked in.

The way of it was this: Faye had come over this morning to play, and there was nothing to play; so Lora had had Aiden fetch a hemp rope, thick and long, and set everyone to jumping the big rope. After a while, too few people made thin sport of it, and she had called Shawn and his fellows over too.

Shawn had thought some trouble was up, and come running with Channing and Conan — only to find the young lady had dreamed up yet another new game.

Lora led one team, Shawn led the other; but once the guards had the trick of it, how were the women ever to out-jump them?

Shawn had beaten her several times over even at a slowed pace — so she had said Corin must "avenge" her.

Corin stood by, fists on hips, watching Shawn give the demonstration; then he turned and waved two of his own men in, pulled his futou cap off and tossed it out to the guards to hold, and stepped up to Shawn:

"You and me, one on one — how about it?"

"One on one it is, then. My lady sets the time." Shawn was not so solid as Corin, but a body light as a swallow might be its own advantage.

The young lady's sand-glass was fetched — the small sort; one turning of it ran about a quarter hour.

The Grey Wolf lads tried their hands at swinging the rope and found the knack of the force in no time. The big rope is a game for three working together — all in the fitting of one to another.

Channing and Conan, brothers, swung the better-matched pair, seemingly.

Never mind the jumpers — to keep a rope going a quarter hour on end tires the swingers out plenty.

"Corin — Shawn beat me three rounds. You're on my side of it, and you have to win."

"Right! Corin — we're all of us out of the Yorvik march. You have to beat him!" Faye hopped and bounced at the side of it, and went on, offhand: "Oh, Yvonne — I saw two Redmane men at your street corner just now."

"Redmane?"

"Mm — I knew them by their accent."

Before Lora could think it through, Lilac had given the word:

"One — two — go!"

Aiden turned the sand-glass, and two hemp ropes went cracking down on the flagstones — slap, slap. At the start the two rhythms held even; by degrees a gap opened between them.

Both men had their stops midway — the rope catching a foot — but seeing the sand not yet run out, they took up the jumping again.

Starting up again was no small matter either. The two swingers' hands had gone sore; the rhythm ran quick-and-slow; the ropes went limp, writhing in the air — and the jumpers, desperate, kept hurrying them on.

"Time!"

"How many was it?"

"Fifteen hundred... what was the rest?"

"I counted by the hundred — fourteen hundred sixty..."

Lilac and Lucy were the two who knew their figures — but this was past all counting. Before the men had it argued out, Lora had picked up a short rope and begun jumping on her own.

She hadn't put her hair up today. Her waist-length hair lay in one long plait down her back, like the grassland women wear it — and as she jumped, the plait went bouncing along behind her.

Then, all at once, she shifted her form: two back-hand crossovers running, one hop on the left foot, one on the right — and the rope, too soft, wound itself into her skirt-hem before it stopped.

And it was then she suddenly found the whole yard gone crow-quiet, sparrow-silent.

She turned to follow every eye — then flung the rope from her hand, threw her arms wide, and flew at the figure in a rush of joy:

"Mother! You're back!"