Free Two to Conquer by Marion Zimmer Bradley Page B

would want her unless he could first hide her face with a horse bag? Why the pretty Mirella? Master Gareth was still smiling amiably, but Bard had the uncanny sudden sense that the old man was actually reading his mind.
    “Come, come, sir,” said Master Gareth with a good-natured grin, “you are handfasted to the princess Carlina. It’s not worthy of you to look to a simple leronis . Lie alone tonight, and perhaps you will dream of the high-born woman who waits at home for you. After all, you can’t have every woman on whom you cast your roving eyes. Don’t show such ugly temper!”
    Bard ripped out a curse and turned away. He knew enough not to anger a laranzu , on whom the fate of the campaign might rest, but the old man’s voice, as if he spoke to the greenest of boys, infuriated him.
    What business was it of Master Gareth’s?
    The servant who rode to attend on the officers had made a small third camp for them, apart from the others. Bard went to taste the food cooked for the men—he had learned never to eat his own meal until horses and men were safely settled for the night—and to inspect the picket lines of the horses, then came back to find Beltran awaiting him. “You look ill-tempered, Bard. What ails you?”
    “Damned old bird of prey,” Bard growled. “Afraid I should touch his precious maiden leroni , when I did no more than offer the young one a bit of tinderl”
    Beltran chuckled. “Well, it’s a compliment, Bard. He knows you have a way with the womenl Your
    reputation, after all, has simply preceded you, that is all, and he is afraid no maiden could resist you, nor retain her maidenhood in your presence!”
    Put like that, Bard began to recover a little of his self-esteem, to feel less like a reprimanded schoolboy.
    “As for me,” Beltran said, “I feel it’s wrong to bring women on campaign—good women, that is. I
    suppose any army should have camp followers, though I’ve no taste for them myself. If I must have women about, I prefer the kind who look as if they washed more often than when they got caught out of doors during the fall rains! But good women with a campaign are a temptation to the unchaste, and an annoyance to the chaste whose mind is on their business of fighting!”
    Bard nodded, admitting the justice of what Beltran said.
    “And what’s more, if they’re available, the men will fight over ’em; and if they’re not, they’ll moon about over them,” he said.
    Beltran said, “Should the day come when I command my father’s armies, I will forbid any leronis to ride with the army; there are laranzu’in enough, and myself I think men better at that kind of skill; women are too squeamish and have no place with an army, no more than Carlina or one of our baby
    brothers! How old is your little brother now?”
    “He must be eight now,” Bard said. “Nine at midwinter. I wonder if he has forgotten me? I have not been home since my father sent me here for fostering.”
    Beltran patted his shoulder in sympathy. He said, “Well, well, no doubt you can have leave to go home before midwinter.”
    “If the fighting in Hammerfell is over before the snow closes the roads,” Bard said, “I will do so. My foster mother does not love me, but she cannot keep me from home. It would be good to see if Alaric still holds me in affection.” To himself he thought that perhaps he would ask his father to come to his wedding. It was not every one of the king’s fosterlings who would be joined in catenas marriage by King Ardrin himself!
    They sat late talking, and when at last they slept, Bard was well content. He thought briefly and with regret of the pretty Mirella, but after all, what Master Gareth had said was true: he had Carlina, and soon enough they would be married. Beltran was right, after all. Virtuous women had no place with the king’s armies.

    The next morning, after a brief conference with Master Gareth and Beltran, they turned their steps toward the ford of Moray’s