Chapter 12

I sat in the tent and pouted for an hour or so, then realized that was just plain stupid. If Cayden wasn’t going to cooperate, I’d just have to do it myself.

I checked out the guards at the front of the tent. Guess I’d made more of an impression than I should have with all the showing off. Yes, one of the guards was standing at the door looking out over the camp, but there was another who was about 10 yards away watching the door. I could take the guy standing with his back to me, but the other one would have plenty of time to pull out an arrow and put it right through me. Ok, fine. Not leaving that way.

Out the back, then. I got down on the ground and lifted the edge of the tent just a bit. Sonofabitch. There was another guy out there. I’d have to give Cayden his props when this was all over. If he ever spoke to me again, that is.

I sat back down and pouted for a little longer. Fine. He wanted me to train his man, I’d train his man. At worst it would get me out of the tent and at best it would give me a chance to take off if I couldn’t get Cayden to work with me on this.

I walked out and, just as I expected, both guards raised weapons. I did my best to look non-threatening and asked if someone could go get O’Greer for me. I needed to set up a training schedule with him per His Majesty.

A few minutes later, O’Greer entered, looking just about as happy as I was about this arrangement.

“Cayden tell you what’s going on?”

“His Majesty told me I was to learn some of your battle techniques.”

“Right. I’m on a deadline so we better get start right away. You ready?”

“Always.”

He led me out of the tent and we walked to an area by the stables. Ah, fresh country air. I took my coat off and hung it over one of the fence posts. He wasn’t wearing a coat, but he did have his sword strapped on.

“You might want to get rid of that.” I pointed to the weapon.

“When I go into battle, I wear my sword. It would seem I should learn your techniques with the blade in place.”

It did make sense, but I was determined to be far too pissy to acknowledge that. “Fine. But it’s going to get in your way when you’re first learning.”

“I’ll deal with the inconvenience.”

Ok, fine, so it was going to be like that, huh? Boy, I was just making friends all over this camp today.

The first thing we covered was defense. I taught him the beginning stance, showed him how to react to blows with his forearms and knees, rather than by punching or swinging the sword. He batted at me at first, thinking of nothing more than pushing me away. That left him vulnerable every time. I swear I did my very best to explain where he was making mistakes. And to give him credit, he didn’t give up. He actually started asking me questions and asking if he could try different things. Considering that he was probably 40 kilos heavier than I was and would always be wearing considerably more armor than I did, I let him do whatever he needed to in order to adjust the technique.

And after about an hour, he could defend himself from about 75% of my jabs. Not bad, considering I was pretty damn fast.

By then it was high noon and the sun was plenty warm overhead. I wiped a little sweat off my forehead. He was sweating a little more profusely.

“If you’re tired, we can take a break.” I swear, I really was trying to be nice.

He narrowed his eyes at me. “I’m not tired in the least, but I need water.”

I smiled. “I wasn’t criticizing. It’s hot out here. I could use some water, too. Maybe a little snack?” At his blank stare, “Food”.

He nodded and we went over to a barrel where they kept the fresh water.

That’s when I realized I might be able to ask a small favor of him.

“My stuff…what did you guys do with it?”

He just stared blankly.

“The bag I had with me the night you brought me in. It had some medicine and some food and a few other things in it. What did you do with it?”

He thought about it for a minute. “O’Conor probably threw it in the garbage. I don’t remember anything of value in there.”

I finished off another cup of water. “Maybe not to you, but there were some things in there I really need.” Water sterilizer being first among them. I could practically feel the little critters swimming in the water as I drank it.

He nodded in a direction on the far end of where the animals were kept. “It should be in the compost.”

Oh, now didn’t that sound like fun?

I sighed and put down the tin cup I’d been using. “I’ll be back”.

“You’ll go nowhere. My lord’s orders.”

“I need my – “

O’Greer had already turned and shouted. A skinny, prepubescent boy appeared. O’Greer told him to go look for my bag. The boy made a less than happy face at me, for which he got a smack to the back of his head from O’Greer.

“Hey, that’s not necessary!” I protested. Then O’Greer looked like he was going to smack me in the back of the head.

“It’s the boy’s job. If he doesn’t want to work, he can go back to his mother and learn to sew with his sisters.”

The boy had taken off.

O’Greer turned to face me. I must admit I was a little surprised to see that he wasn’t really angry, just tired of my crap. “I know you’re from another country, but you would do well to respect the customs of this one. You continue to offer disrespect to the prince in front of his men, you correct me in front of the boy. And you can’t understand why no one is anxious to offer you any freedoms here.”

Oh, sure, make sense. What am I supposed to do with that?

“I’m sorry. I just don’t like to see children abused.”

“He’s fed better than anyone in his family. He works hard and in return, he receives lessons in soldiering. When we lived at the castle, Prince Cayden had teachers brought in to educate the boys in matters of science and religion. You would call that abuse?”

I opened my mouth. Then, shockingly, I closed my mouth. O’Greer noticed my deference.

“I only slapped him to teach him to respect his elders, even if it was you. I don’t beat the lad unless he deserves it. And he rarely deserves it, if that’s any comfort.”

I couldn’t help but smile. The guy was not only a quick learner and a good fighter, but he was actually turning out to be a pretty decent guy.

Another minute later and the boy came back, my bag in his hand. I smelled it well before he handed it to me. Gingerly, I looked inside. The food was still in there, but I couldn’t bear the thought of trying to eat it, not with the stench wafting off of it. My lightweight armor was gone. I’d search for that later. The other supplies seemed to be pretty much there. I’d do a more thorough check later, when I wasn’t being watched.

“Everything in place?”

“Most of the important stuff.” I started to close the bag up. I didn’t relish the thought of carrying it, but…

Then O’Greer surprised me just a little bit more. To the boy: “Go get another bag for milady. Something clean. Run!”

“Thanks.”

O’Greer merely grunted. He started heading back over to where we’d been working. “Will you teach me how to throw punches at you now?”

I couldn’t see his face, but I swear he was smiling.

O’Greer and I worked for another couple of hours. It was just like Cayden said; he was a damn fine soldier. He not only learned what I showed him, but adapted it to his own needs, considering his size and the weaponry he’d be facing. By the time we were at the end of the first day’s lesson, he was able to disarm me a couple of times when I came at him with a sword.

As we walked back to my “guest tent”, I realized I needed to come off the high horse I’d been riding. I needed to quit looking at these guys as if they were uneducated goons. Sure, I’d been training in martial arts in a nice clean safe environment for more than twenty years. But O’Greer, and the men like him, had trained in the trenches and on the battlefield just as long. And their lives were actually on the line every time, even back when they were teenagers. No safe little ring with rubber pads and a nice soft place to land, no trainer giving you second and third chances to get it right. They faced do or die, every time.

“You did really well. You picked it up a lot faster than I would have thought possible. Certainly a lot faster than I learned it.”

“You aren’t completely incompetent as a teacher” was all O’Greer had to say. But as he left me with the guards, he looked back at me and had just the cutest little smirk on his face.

I sat down and took advantage of the alone time to check my supplies. I had hidden a couple of nifty things in various parts of the now stinky bag and I was very relieved to see that they were all still there. Nothing that would have been catastrophic to the timeline if it had been discovered, but things that you wouldn’t find in the local market, to be sure. I moved them over to the new bag O’Greer had the boy get for me. What I couldn’t hide in the bag, I managed to find a place for in my clothes.

I’d no sooner finished my little inventory when the tent opened again and Cayden walked in. He stopped at the door and just stared.

“What? I’m teaching O’Greer, just like I promised.”

“I know, he told me you were a fine teacher.”

“He’s a pretty good student. I’m sorry I was disrespectful about him before. You’re right; he’s a hell of a soldier.”

Cayden sat down near me, still staring. I’m not real big on meaningful looks, but I kept my mouth shut, waiting for him to tell me what was on his mind.

“Why are you in such a hurry? You keep saying you don’t have time to waste. Why the urgency?”

In for a penny…

“I only have so many days I can spend back here. I have to find San Martin, figure out how to get to him, execute the plan and send him back to his time within five days.”

“Why only five?”

“Because the longer I’m here the sicker I get. I’ve already been here one day. After five days, I’m not going to have enough strength left to fight my way to him, much less handle the fight I imagine he’ll put up when I try to send him back. He has a serum he can use to stay back here, unharmed. I can’t use it, it’ll kill me. So I can only stay back here for a limited amount of time before being in the wrong timeline starts to take its toll on my body.”

“And in five days, you’ll be too weak to capture him?”

“Any more than that, I’ll be dead or darn close. The permanent kind of dead. Each day I’m here, I lose a little bit of my strength. That’s why I’m in such a hurry. The sooner I do it, the better shape I’m in to take care of any obstacles.”

Cayden seemed to consider this for a minute. Then he rose and headed toward the door. Without turning: “O’Greer has pled your case. He will go with you tonight, show you where we know their soldiers are stationed, what areas we’ve attempted to overtake. He believes that the two of you may have more luck infiltrating the grounds than we’ve had with prior attempts.”

I jumped up before he walked out the door. “Cayden, that’s great! If I can track my way in there –“

Just before he got to the door, he turned. “Know that this is against my better judgment. O’Greer has been my friend since we were boys. If anything happens to him, or you, I’ll never forgive myself.

“I promise, I’ll bring us both back safe.”

I started to walk toward him, but he turned and walked out the door. As glad as I was that I could get on with my mission, I also realized I’d lost something I really wanted, Cayden’s friendship.