“You want pheasant and asparagus, blond boy, you pay for ’em out of your own pocket,” the cook growled. Rollant went off and sat on the ground to eat. The cook snarled at the dark-haired fellow behind him, too.

One of Rollant’s squadmates, a youngster named Smitty, sat down beside him. He ate a spoonful of the stew and made a face. “The crocodile they threw in the stewpot died of old age,” he said.

“Crocodile?” For a heartbeat or two, Rollant thought Smitty meant it. His horizons had expanded enormously since he’d escaped his liege lord, and even more since Norina taught him his letters, but he remained hideously vulnerable to having his leg pulled by men who’d been free to learn since birth. He took another spoonful himself. “Just a dead jackass, I think, or maybe one of the barons who live up here.”

Smitty grinned at him. “Bet you’d like to see every traitor noble from Grand Duke Geoffrey on down boiling in a pot.”

“That’s what we’re here for,” Rollant said simply.

“And to keep the kingdom from breaking in two,” Smitty said. “If Geoffrey gets away with this, Detinans’ll be fighting wars among themselves forever.”

“I suppose so.” But Rollant couldn’t get very excited about the idea. Smashing the nobles who held down serfs like him-that was something he understood in his belly.

He went down to a little stream to rinse his tin plate, then stuck it in the knapsack in which he carried most of his earthly goods. Along with the meager contents of the knapsack, he had a shortsword on his right hip (he always hoped not to have to use it, for he knew nothing of swordplay but hack, swing, and hope for the best), a quiver full of crossbow quarrels, and the crossbow itself.

He patted that crossbow as he took his place in the ranks for the day’s march toward Rising Rock. It was a splendid weapon. All you had to do was pull to cock it, drop in a quarrel, aim, and squeeze the trigger. Thousands of flying crossbow bolts made battlefields very unhealthy places for unicorns-and for the men who rode them. A quarrel would punch right through a shield, right through chain, and right through plate, too.