The Prince’s Boy: 41

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(Continuing the weekly serial by Cecilia Tan! Need to start at the beginning? Click here.)

41: Kenet

The next morning I opened my eyes expecting to find Marksin lying next to the pallet, but he was already up and about. The general stirred the moment I moved, and seemed much revived, claiming it had been the best night’s sleep he’d had since before the war had begun. His leg was stronger, and in the afternoon he and three commanders rode up onto a nearby ridge to survey the army from there. I stayed behind with Marksin. Neither he, nor the general, said a word about what had happened the night before, but Marksin and I acknowledged each other with a shared glance from time to time.

While the surveying was going on, Marksin enlisted my aid in paperwork, for I could read, write, and figure sums. “Each battalion will eat two bullocks a day, right down to the hooves,” he told me, “so figure for me how many head of cattle we shall need to feed the entire encampment for two more weeks.”

The missing part of the equation, of course, was how many battalions we were, with more arriving every few days, but it was easy enough to estimate based on expectations. The number I arrived at, though, seemed impossibly high. I did it again to be sure.

“Why so quiet, Page?” he asked, from where he was figuring something else, feed for the horses, perhaps.

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