“Yes. And select good men to be part of the ten we’ll bring in. You, me, my son, seven others.

A sudden notion, about bringing the boy, but it felt a good thought. Guiart had much to learn, and the presence of his son would show good faith. Roch, who was clever, might even intend to bring the prince. Both of them in the one place? A temptation.

He teased the matter in his mind through the evening, working out, as over a game board, what he most wanted, what might be next best, what he would accept if offered. He watched the two moons rise, waxing towards full, and the progression of his thoughts seemed good to him.

They continued west in the morning. The supplies and craftsmen had gone ahead, with wagons, before sunrise and the morning rites.

—

Every army travels with a substantial supply of wood. You couldn’t always find enough for what you needed, depending on where you were. It was needed for cooking fires, and for warmth in evenings if a campaign extended into autumn. Cut planks were for scaffolds if formal executions were required, or for a burning you wanted people to see, as it had served for this Maiden who had somehow restored the king. Planks were required to help carts, wagons, carriages through muddy or sodden roads, or rivulets, for bracing or repairing siege engines or towers. And you needed carpenters and woodcutters to handle all this, and more.

He had the wood, and the carpenters. He’d never marched along this road leading an army against Orane before, but he’d campaigned often, with his father at first (as Guiart was doing now), and then against insurrections within his own cities, and dangerously ambitious forces to the south and east.

You learned in the field, and you kept people around you who knew what was necessary. Sometimes you learned because of the absence of what you needed, and those lessons, if they didn’t kill you, never went away.

—

The meeting that took place at the ancient river crossing, an arched stone bridge along a road that had been used for well past a thousand years, became known as the Encounter at the Aven.

The bridge had seen much, the river even more, of course. This became another moment among many. Time can stretch back a long way in some places, and much is lost, forgotten.

Wait long enough, most things are.

—