Colonel Haren’s headquarters were constructed entirely of sawn lumber and once had been painted. Flakes of green paint clung to the weathered timber. The splintery planks that made up its porch were uneven and warping away from one another.

The slum that had sprung up around the fort, the lethargic air of the sickly soldiery, and this final evidence of a commander without ambition filled me with trepidation. Did I want to enlist with such a regiment, under such a command? The rumors I had heard about Farleyton Regiment came back to haunt me: once a top outfit, now fallen on hard times. Desertion and dereliction of duty were rampant here.

What other regiment would take someone like me?

I ascended the two steps, crossed the rough porch, and entered. A sergeant in a faded uniform sat behind the desk. The walls of the room were lined with wooden shelves jumbled with books and stacks of paper at all angles. A gun rack in the corner held two long guns and an empty stock. An unsheathed sword kept them company. The sergeant had taken a saber cut down the face in some distant past. It had healed into a fine seam that pulled down at his left eye and the corner of his mouth. His eyes were a very pale blue, so pale that at first I wondered if he were blinded by cataracts. Gray hair in a wild fringe stuck out around his bald pate. As I entered, he looked up from some bit of sewing. When he set it aside on the corner of his desk to greet me, I saw he was darning a black sock with white yarn.

“Good morning, Sergeant,” I greeted him when he just stared at me.

“You want something?”

I controled my disdain of his sloppy manners. “Yes, Sergeant. I’d like to meet with Colonel Haren.”

“Oh. He’s in there.” He tilted his head toward the single door behind him.

“I see. May I go in?”

“Maybe. Try knocking. If he’s not busy, he’ll answer.”

“Very well. Thank you, Sergeant.”

“Yeah.”

He took up his sock and bent over his work again. I tugged my shirt as straight as it would go, crossed the room, and rapped sharply at the door.

“Come in. Is my sock mended yet?”

I opened the door to a dim room, lit by the fire in an open hearth in the corner. A wave of heat rolled out to greet me as I opened the door. I stood a moment, letting my eyes adjust.

“Well, come in, man! Don’t stand there letting the cold get in. Sergeant! Is my sock mended yet?”

The sergeant called the answer over his shoulder. “I’m working on it!”

“Very well.” He answered as if the delay were anything but “very well.” Then he transferred his gaze to me and said irritably, “Come in, I said, and close the door.”

I did as he bade me. The room confounded me. It was dimly lit and stuffy with heat. I felt as if in one stride, I’d covered hundreds of miles and was back west in Old Thares. Fine carpets covered the floors, and tapestries hid the planks of the wall. An immense desk of polished wood dominated the center of the room. Oak bookcases filled with leather-bound volumes lined one entire wall, floor to ceiling. A marble pedestal supported a statue of a maiden with a basket of flowers. Even the ceiling had been covered with plates of hammered tin. The shock of contrast between this inner sanctuary and the rough building that housed it nearly made me forget why I was there.

The reason for his query about the sock was abundantly clear. One of his feet was bare. The other wore a dark sock and a lambskin slipper. I could see the cuffs of his cavalla trousers. Over them he wore an elaborate silk smoking jacket, belted with a tasseled length of the same fabric. The silk skullcap on his head also had a tassel. He was a pale, bony man, taller than me, with long feet and hands. What hair he had was blond, but his magnificent mustache looked rusty. The ends of it were waxed to points. He looked like a caricature of a country gentlemen rather than the commander of the king’s last outpost.

There was a well-cushioned chair with a footstool before the fire. Colonel Haren ensconced himself there and then demanded of me, “What do you want, then?”

“I wished to speak to you, sir.” I kept my tone extremely civil despite his brusqueness.

“Well, you are. State your master’s business and be quick about it. I’ve other things to do today.”

Two ideas fought to be first out of my mouth. At my realization that he thought I was a servant, I longed to tell him in no uncertain words that I had no master. The second was that I doubted he had anything else to do today. I closed my teeth against expressing either and then replied tightly, “I do not come as a servant with a message from his master. I come as a soldier son, hoping to enlist with your regiment.”

“Then what’s that in your hand, man?” he demanded, pointing to Hitch’s roughly worded letter of recommendation. I understood now, I thought, why Hitch had phrased it so crudely. Even so, I did not want to present it, lest he think the rough sentiments were my own. I kept a firm grip on it, despite his open and waiting palm.

“It’s a recommendation from Lieutenant Buel Hitch. But before I present it, I’d like to tell you a bit about myself and my—”

“Hitch!” He sat up straight in his chair, letting his unshod feet fly off the footstool and slap onto the floor. “He was due back days ago. I could not imagine what detained him! But he’s back at the fort now?”

“Yes, sir, he is. He was badly injured when a big cat attacked him. When I met up with him, he was feverish and weak from blood loss. I’ve been traveling with him for the last five days or so, to be sure that he arrived here safely. I took him straight to the doctors when we arrived.”

He looked agitated at my news. “But…he was carrying a package for me. Did he say nothing of it?”

I instantly recalled the oilskin-wrapped package in Hitch’s saddlebags. “He said nothing of it to me, sir. But his saddlebags are intact. I put them under his bunk in the infirmary. When I came away, Dr. Frye was going in to see him. I have high hopes for his full recovery.”

I could have saved my breath. As soon as Colonel Haren heard that Hitch was in the infirmary, he strode to the door of his office and flung it open. “Sergeant. Stop whatever you’re doing. Go directly to the infirmary. Scout Hitch is there. His saddlebags are under his bed. Bring them directly here.”

The sergeant moved with surprising alacrity to his command. Shutting the door, the commander turned back to me. “Well done, man. Thank you for letting me know Hitch had returned. You have my gratitude.”

The way he spoke and the way he returned to his chair before the fire indicated that our interview was at an end. When I continued to stand there, he glanced back at me, nodded emphatically, and repeated, “Thank you.”

“Sir, letting you know that Lieutenant Hitch had returned to Gettys was not my sole reason for coming here. As I was telling you, I’m a soldier son. I’m interested in enlisting in your regiment.”

He raised one eyebrow. I noticed it had a sort of a tufty twirl. “Impossible, man. Don’t deceive yourself. You’re not fit to be a soldier.” He spoke the words bluntly.

I advanced to him, desperately holding out Hitch’s recommendation. “Sir, you’re my last hope,” I said bluntly. “If you will not take me, I do not know how I will fulfill the good god’s destiny for me. I beg you to consider me. Use me in any capacity. I will take the humblest assignment. All I wish to be able to say is that I serve my king as a soldier.”

He seemed surprised at my vehemence. He took the piece of paper I offered him, and while he read it, either slowly or several times, I considered the offer I’d just made him. Did I mean it? Could I humble myself to serve in any capacity? Was it still so essential to my pride that I be able to call myself a soldier? A few short days ago, I’d been willing to put all that behind me and begin a new life as an innkeeper in a ghost town. Yet here I stood with my pride abandoned and my heart beating like a drum as I hoped by all I held holy that the eccentric man before me would accept me into his dispirited, sloppy regiment.