The Faintest Ink (Watty Winner 2015)

Chapter Forty-Six

Hawth wasn't exactly sure what she had expected, but it certainly wasn't this. The city was much as she remembered. The shops were still open, selling all manner of goods from teas to fine wines. She paused outside one building proclaiming itself to be silver merchants to the royal family of Serrador and peered through the window. Inside she could just about make out the shape of two ladies draped in furs, despite the unusual warmth of season, examining a monstrous pair of candlesticks being held up by a small child wearing a badly-fitting wig.

It was as if nothing had happened. While the members of the court may have fled out to the country, it seemed there were enough members left of the upper classes in the capital to buy trinkets and keep the merchants of Serrador busy.

Almost without thinking she drifted towards the poorer areas of the city, hoping to at least catch a glimpse of the promised revolution.

As the beautifully kept stores thinned and transformed into workshops, Hawth began to notice that it was she who was the subject of study. Men standing in doorways as they smoked their pipes and kept watch for passing trade followed her with their eyes and bowed low as she passed them. Women were quick to scurry out of her way with a nervous bobbing curtsey.

It was the dress, of course. The maids in the Citadel could not be convinced to replace her britches.

She had asked for a plainer gown, something that wouldn't threaten to fall off every time she dared turn a corner, and maybe, if it wasn't too much of an imposition, something in the brown family. What they furnished her with, was a dress composed of acres of russet coloured silk, which whispered as she walked, and caught the light in extraordinary ways as the fabric moved with her. The maid who had brought it had looked so proud of her find that Hawth hadn't the heart to tell her that while it did fulfil her criteria in every way, the spirit of her request had been somewhat misunderstood.

In the wide streets close to the Citadel, she had been nothing more than a lady taking her morning stroll, but out here, miles from the tall houses and well-groomed parks, she was an interloper. A strange woman walking by herself, in a place where she did not belong.

Hawth almost laughed at the thought that the only thing that it took to transform her from a nameless printer's daughter to a lady of breeding, was the discarded finery of some duke's wife. It all seemed so perfectly ridiculous to her.

That was, until she heard the drum.

She'd heard it before. Whenever the soldiers came. Always beaten by some poor new recruit as he stepped forth in front of his superiors into a strange town.

She followed the sound, picking up her skirts so that she could keep pace, her wooden heels tapping on the cobblestones as she rushed down the street. As she turned the corner, she almost barrelled into a young lad who looked at her with such fear and trepidation she was forced to scuttle away before he did himself an injury.

There weren't many places to turn though, as everywhere she looked were groups of young men scuffing their feet on the ground, their hands in their pockets, and their eyes fixed to the floor.

She'd seen that before too. These were the new recruits, who were to be sent to fight for the honour of Serrador. Hawth felt her heart lurch. They all looked so impossibly young. Some of them were little better than children. A few of the more brash looking lads clapped each other around the back and swaggered about as if their were already wearing their uniforms, but for every one of them was another four whose faces were tinged with green, and whose knees shook beneath their britches.

No one refused the call of the recruiting officer when he knocked on their door.

There was no conscription in Serrador. They didn't need it. Every lad who was fit and able would put on the red and march for the King as soon as he was asked. For Serrador had the finest military in the world. Everyone knew that. Hawth's lip curled just at the thought of what they had all been told. It was hard to believe such talk when you saw what the raw materials were.