Word Count: 12,023
Summary of Events:
Rising before the sun, Étienne went to get a report from the cavaliers who were presently on the watch, starting with the man whom he'd assigned as leader of the group, who reported nothing in the night, not even signs of where the enemy was camping . . .
Excerpt of the Day:
With a succinct nod Étienne rode off to check the rest of the men, none of them had anything to report, and none of them gave him any reason to suspect them to be feeding him falsehoods.
On the east side of the camp, however, Étienne found a cavalier asleep at his post, his spear stabbed into the ground upside down, while he lay curled up and snoring beside it.
Étienne dismounted his horse, wrested the spear out of the ground, and brought it down hard against the cavalier’s tender side.
The cavalier cried out, startling awake. Étienne hit his side twice more before the man drew his sword, looking intent to defend himself against his attacker.
“What good is a guard who sleeps on the watch?” Étienne demanded. “Such a man is a Paresse. Get up!”
Shocked and looking ashamed of himself, the cavalier scrambled to his feet. “It was just a moment’s rest.”
“A moment’s rest could get us all killed!” Étienne shouted. “We have been beaten back and nigh annihilated by a force of unknown number, we are weak, beleaguered, and depleted, we cannot rest, lest we be taken and Beaudroit fall!”
“A kinder commandant would not assign his men to such long watches,” the cavalier whimpered.
“Kinder?” Étienne asked, quietly. “You want kinder?”
“Oui,” the cavalier replied.
“There is no kindness in war,” Étienne spat. “It would not be war if there were kindness. Our enemies are ruthless and monstrous, we must be hardened and ready to fight them with the same ruthlessness, lest the corrupt our land with their heresies! We cannot be coddled and pitied, for it battle there is no pity, no coddling, no honour in giving up and going home. Are you some little boy who still needs to nurse from his maman?”
“You should talk,” the cavalier sneered. “If I am a little boy then you are a baby.”
“No I am not,” Étienne replied. “I am ready, I am alert, and I have proven myself more capable than you in war already. You should be ashamed of yourself for your immature, infantile behaviour, pouting for a kinder commandant so that you can be coddled and comfortable in the throes of war. I am younger than you and I need not such coddling. And yet a man like you who likely has a few children of his own is hardly more mature than his spawn.”
“I am not being immature and infantile,” the cavalier snapped. “You are being cruel, taking things too far, the power is going to your head, boy, it is not power that you should possess, a man with more knowledge and experience should be in control.”
“If there were such a man I would give command to him,” Étienne spat. “But as it stands I have the most knowledge and experience, thus it is mine.”
Pronunciations:
Paresse: pahrehss
Maman: mahmoh
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