A knight in full harness on a tall horse is an image to lift the heart of any soldier. If his armour glistens in the afternoon sunlight and his banner snaps bravely in the light summer breeze, and he’s accompanied by a further thirty men and their retainers who all looked well arrayed and neat, well an old campaigner could be forgiven for forgetting the knight was just a stripling of sixteen with only a thimble full of experience under his belt.

Sir Edward rode into the camp on the fields outside Lucca at the head of his newly minted company. A brilliantly black silk half cloak over his shoulder and all his harness polished to a shine. The squires of the company had cursed and spat all the night before as they had polished and oiled every piece of armour and every sword blade to ensure that it all looked as good as new when they rode into the waiting arms of the Duke’s army.

The camp was much more organised than the last time Sir Edward had seen it. Duke Felix had clearly reestablished order now that the people of Lucca were more or less a part of the Empire. A camp steward rode out to meet Edward’s column before they made it to the first line of hovels and pavilions, and he gave the men an appraising look before showing Edward on a rough sketched map on a sheet of parchment where he could pitch his own tents, as well as directions to where the horse herds were being sent. Seeing as Edward had almost four hundred horses in his train, it was a good idea to send the majority of them to the pastures. It was also patently obvious that the steward did not think much of a sixteen year old boy playing at being a captain.

All the same, Edward was efficient in his orders, turning his good riding horse with a simple laying of the reins against the fiery mare’s neck, to face his column of march. His eyes met his officers’, “Sir Thomas, please escort the column to our designated camp and oversee the raising of our tents, organise work details for everything we’ll need for the night, I doubt we’ll be here much longer than that, Sir Gerald, you’re to assist,” the two newly minted knights slapped a fist to their new breastplates in salute as Edward turned his attention to his newest officer, “Sir Guillaume, you’re with me, let’s go see the good Duke.”

The column split like they practiced on the journey to Lucca, with the majority following Sir Thomas into the camp while Guillaume and two picked knights followed Edward and his squires into the city proper for their meeting with the Ober-Captain, Duke Felix. The great man himself was as busy as Edward had ever seen him. The young knight and his entourage cooled their heels in an antechamber of the Duke’s office for nearly two hours as they watched men and women of all kinds called into the office to petition for some reason or another. Some were land rights disputes while others were pleas for assistance with roving bands of brigands, while at least one man begged for the Duke to put an army in the field now that Rhun, to the south had begun to acknowledge the threat of the Imperial Emperor’s avarice.

The last one drew Edward’s full attention as he was finally called in himself. The office had changed since Edward had last been in the Duke’s presence. Camp furniture had been replaced with more permanent woodwork and his desk had a beautifully, and quite artistically, rendered map of the northern half of Vallar pinned to it with expertly crafted bronze weights. Edward went down on one knee in a full reverence as he entered, the satisfying thud of steel on wood behind him let Edward know his men had followed suit.

Felix smiled as he raised his head and saw his next appointment, and he rose quickly to lift Edward to his feet with his own hands, “welcome back sir Edward,” he began warmly, “couldn’t have picked a better time to arrive,” he continued, but then the older knight caught himself and gestured to the bearded older man in a long black cote embroidered with silver stars about the collar behind him, who Edward had largely ignored. Felix looked sheepish, like a schoolboy caught stealing a sweet, “forgive me, this is Master Rohdrich of the University, he's an Imperial Magister who has been attached to my staff to aid the war effort,” Felix introduced the man who dipped his head politely, eyes searching over Edward as the young man bowed.

Edward hissed as a sharp stake of pain lanced through his skull behind his right eye, Felix’s eyes widened in shock as he braced the young knight’s shoulders, “are you okay?” Edward nodded as he pressed a hand to his face.

“Fine your grace, sudden headache, took me by surprise, too many blows to the head I’m sure,” Edward offered weakly, and Felix laughed, while Master Rohdrich frowned deeply at them both, but kept his mouth firmly closed. As quickly as it arrived the pain vanished, leaving only a dull ache to say it was ever there at all, “so what can my lances and I assist with?” Edward continued.

“I’m having some trouble with a southern knight, he’s got a camp somewhere in here,” Felix gestured to an area on the map that was covered in artfully rendered green trees and labelled in good gothic script as the Deepwald, “it’s not named for nothing, in fact it’s rather unimaginative when you think about it, the woods are thick and there’s only one road through, so far we’ve lost two out of three convoys we’ve sent through, my main force is on the other side securing our border with the southern cities and I haven’t been able to get word through, Sir Clement likely has no idea there’s a force behind him, I want you to take your lances in and remove the threat, before joining up with Clem,” Edward nodded along.

“My archers can pick through that no problem, any idea what sort of force is in there?” He asked.

“Not much, I know he has at least twenty lances, reports I’ve gotten aren’t the best in terms of reliability, men who come back, come back terrified, talks of insects and torture, gruesome stuff, don’t take this one for ransom, if you understand my meaning,” Felix said and Edward nodded again.

“I’ll leave at first light,” Edward asserted, and the meeting was closed. As the young knight turned to leave, he was stopped by a wizened hand on his elbow.

“Lord, if you would but wait a moment,” the voice was soft, and Edward’s brow rose when he saw it was the Magister whose bony hand gripped his arm like a vice.

“Can I assist you Magister?” Edward asked. The old man’s eyes searched the knight’s.

“When were you tested?” The question hit Edward like a slap.

“We don’t do that in Arturia,” Edward spat back through his teeth. Felix was on his feet as well and he was already reaching for the Magister.

“You are a citizen of the Empire my lord,” the Magister insisted, “you must travel to the University at once,” Edward wrenched his arm out of the man’s grip just as Sir Felix interposed his own arm between them.

“I have more need of a Captain of Lances than the Empire has of a new Magister in training, leave him be Rohdrich,” the Duke’s voice was dangerous in a way Edward had seldom heard before. The magister drew himself up with the full effrontery of a man used to getting his own way.

“You have no authority over the magistery your grace,” he all but spat back. Felix turned his sloe black eyes on Edward.

“Sir Edward, you have your orders, see to your men, and leave this to me.” Edward bowed low as he watched his commander grip the magister by the elbow and forcefully turn him from the door so that the younger man might escape. Edward saw his chance and turned on his heel, he smirked when he saw Sir Guillaume’s sword was six inches free of its scabbard.

That evening a stranger came into the camp of Sir Edward’s lances, a thick cloak of brown wool so plain as to be of little notice, over his head. It was, of course, Duke Felix, and his face was a storm cloud of anger so dark that men parted and the duty squire all but ran to warn his lord of the great man’s coming.

Edward rose quickly, the tall young man all but knocking over the folding camp stool he’d been sat in as his squire helped remove his leg harness. He bowed low as Felix swept into the room and tossed off his hood with a certain dramatic flair, “Your grace to wha-,” the younger knight began before he was immediately cut off.

“Are you always so foolish and I just haven’t seen it or is this a first?” the Duke spat, “are you trying to get yourself and me killed?” He continued, allowing no time for Edward to respond, although he reeled back as if he’d been slapped, “you just cost me years of political good will just so I could prevent the Magisters from storming your camp and taking you by force, why did you not warn me that you have a talent?”

Edward’s head spun from the assault of questions and the fury evident in his commander’s tone, but some words hit home through the confusion, “I don’t have any talent, I’ve never had it, I just get headaches around them sometimes, they can’t take me, I’m Arturian!” He shouted in shock, not always the best response to questioning by a social superior.

“You idiot boy, you took the lands and title the Emperor granted you, that makes you a citizen of the Empire, they don’t care where you were born!” Felix’s hand rose like he planned to strike Edward, but his fist closed and with a look of herculean effort, the fist was brought back to his side with a deep in take of breath, “leave tonight before they change their minds, deal with the mission I gave you and continue on to Clem, send a runner with any communications, don’t come back in person,” the Duke spun on his heel, “watch yourself boy,” he said over his shoulder on the way out.

A confused and insulted Edward fell back onto his stool, his face a shattered parody of the confident knight he had been only moments before.

Sir Guillaume had the entire column repacked in an hour and wagons were rolling out of the mercenary camp on the southern road before anyone had left the confines of the city’s walls. The veteran knight took control of the small company as soon as he saw the look on his young master’s face, and a hushed conversation with the newest squire; William, had a rather angry Sir Guillaume writing out a letter to his liege, Duke Eric of Bordeaux, in the failing light of a lit taper.

The letter itself was handed to a column heading back to the pass and the company was on its way into the dark eaves of the woods, their target set and their captain a tired and broken young boy. Sir Gerald approached the standard bearer even as they passed the border, “does the captain want me ‘n the boys out on the flanks?’ he asked.

Guillaume cursed internally as he eyed the deep undergrowth, “captain’s a little unwell, but yes get some prickers out on the edges, don’t want anything within a league taking us by surprise,” Gerald nodded and turned his light riding horse off to the left, giving a sharp whistle to the archers as he told off three in each direction plus a pair who kicked their mounts into a gallop to get ahead of the main column.

After three hours of travel and Edward still in a near torpor on his horse, Sir Guillaume knew it was time to make a camp, the moon was high and the darkness in the wald was impossible to pierce with a torch, he raised an arm and told the night watch off to begin preparing as much of a camp as they could in a small cleared patch beside the rode that bore the unmistakable signs of a wagon circle.

“Get the captain’s tent up and put him to bed young William, Murk I want you to cover him, no one sees the captain, all queries come to me, understood?” both boys nodded and ran to their tasks as the company’s wagons were circled and men began finding dry spaces to roll up in their cloaks, even the knights who had their own pavilions were too tired to bother with the unwieldy structures tonight.

Edward was wrapped in his blankets and was asleep after a cup of wine had been all but dripped down his throat. William stood by his lord, his face a contorted mask of worry and fear. While less than two years separated him from Edward, the boy looked on his knight as a fearless and implacable hero, to see him brought so low confused and terrified him. Murk placed a comforting hand on William’s shoulder and steered him towards the door of the tent, his grip gentle but firm, “Let him sleep, sir Guillaume will see us right while he recovers,” the older squire said with what he hoped was a confident note of command.