Rainy Marching


by llamajoy


Our gayness and our gilt are all besmirched
with rainy marching in the painful fields.
but, by the mass, our hearts are in the trim!

--Henry V, IV.iii


Oswin stands in the opening of the tent, his heavily armored feet sinking slowly into the mire that once was hard-packed earth. With gauntleted fingers he holds back the tent flap, watching the clouds burst over the grassy expanse of field-- unaware that he's letting in the rain.

In the far corner of their hastily-pitched tent, Hector shifts his weight beneath his cloak, broad shoulders moving in what might be a shrug, or a half-uttered laugh. "Oswin! What troubles you, man? It's not as though we're trying to stay dry in here."

The general chuckles, but doesn't let fall the tentcloth in his hand. "And you must be the driest of us all, Hector, sitting all the way over there."

Hector lifts his travel waterpouch as though it were full of finest mead, makes a show of toasting his friend. "You have the right of it! I'm not made for fighting in this weather. My axe'll rust."

"If you don't fight, your arm might get rusty, too." This from Lowen, whose head is bent low over his javelin handle as he oils the smooth-sanded wood. Before Hector has finished voicing the predictable protest-- "I don't see you out there in the rain--" Lowen smiles wryly at his hands, not looking up at the others. "Though he does make the rest of us look bad, don't he?"

Eliwood, crosslegged on Merlinus' trunk of vulneraries, rests his head on his knees. "Marcus said he wanted to work on his maneuverability. In the rain, I mean. Since his horse gave him a hard time last time we got caught in a shower."

"Hmph. Last time he got caught in a shower. Some of us had the sense to stay in bed that morning."

"But Hector," Eliwood chides, blowing his bangs up out of his eyes, "...you stay abed every morning."

Lowen is laughing underneath his breath but only Oswin sees it, Hector too busy pretending to spill his waterpouch over Eliwood's head; Eliwood too busy protesting that he'd been careful to stay out of the rain and would rather skip the bath, thank you.

Usually unflappable, Oswin laughs at the lordlings from Ostia and Pherae, Wolf Beil and rapier carefully polished but unused at their sides. "Ah, dammit, the both of you! You shouldn't let the paladin show you up. You've not moved from that spot all morning."

"...Nor have you, Os." Hector smirks, his arm around Eliwood's neck in what might have been mistaken for a wrestling grip, between any other two men. "Afraid Eliwood's captain will melt, out there? Or are you more concerned about his-- maneuverability?"

"Hector!" Eliwood fails to disguise his scandalized smile, wriggling his way free.

Used to Hector's flippancy, Oswin only smiles-- a tightening of the skin around his eyes more than any movement of the mouth. "Perhaps I am, at that."


Even in the rain Marcus' horse is proud, flicking his tail as though taking the lead in a grand procession, all the rest of the company falling in line behind.

Perhaps it's his pride that makes him stubborn, too, though Marcus drives him on with an encouraging heel to his flank and the beast is slowly learning. He may never be so agile as a wild horse from the plains-- but then, Marcus is unlikely to pick up a bow and arrow and ride bareback, for that matter.

The same rainwater that makes a sheen on his horse's mane, turning his tail bright like hammered gold, turns Marcus' own hair the color of unplucked plums, or of sodden waterlilies. Not that Oswin is the sort of man to notice such things.

"Never been the sort to wear a helmet, have you?"

"Oswin?" Marcus blinks rain from his eyes, grinning down at the general, who, even unhorsed, stands taller than his horse's shoulder. "Letting Hector out of your sight?"

"I'm no man's keeper, least of all that lout's." Oswin glowers, if fondly. "But what of you? didn't the Lady of Pherae entrust her son to your keeping?"

"I think the rain will keep him out of trouble." Marcus tilts his head toward the sky, and rivulets of chilly rain trickle from his hair. He weighs the silence, and the unmoving stance of the man before him, and aims his voice for teasing. "Not so a general! Careful, man, you might rust."

"Ah, the old armor needs an oiling tonight, at any rate. It won't begrudge me an afternoon. Watch!" And quicker than Oswin can crack a smile, his lance is at the ready-- meeting the spear held yet loosely in Marcus' gloved hands, wood on wood, metal on metal, with a crack like muted thunder.

The timbre of the rainy quiet changes, and Marcus finds his smile has sharpened. The call to battle is familiar, any springtime plain a field of war. Marcus' horse marks the noise as well as the paladin himself does, spurring around to circle his adversary. Too well-trained to rear against a footsoldier, he beats the ground with his front hooves, shaking his head and whinnying eagerly.

Oswin's blood rushes at the sound; always invigorating, taking on a larger opponent. His heavy lance is ready in his hands, the length of it like an extension of his own arm, balanced and taut. The hooves that pound the earth around him are less of less tempered steel than purest quicksilver, but Oswin does not let on that his footing is unfirm on the slippery terrain, does not flinch at the approach.

When their weapons meet again-- lance arcing up to meet reaching mounted spear-- neither is relenting, and the clash strikes sparks in their eyes, if not in the rain.


Eliwood gets up first, peering from the tentflap, his smaller feet dwarfed in the muddy prints that Oswin left there. "Now they're both at it," he says, more wondering than reproving. "Are we really in so poor a shape that we must train in such foul weather as this?"

The other horseman reclines on the trunk that Eliwood vacated, his own spear and his javelin well-tended, standing crossed against the wall. "That's our Marcus," Lowen says, with an eloquent shrug. With a long-fingered hand he rakes the hair from his eyes. "I don't much feel like stopping them, 'f that's what you mean."

Outside, Marcus is half-on and half-off of his horse, and Oswin down on one knee-- and then with a sweet unfurling of horse muscle and a shout, Marcus is leaping over Oswin, though the general regains his feet in tim to match him spear for spear.

Standing at Eliwood's elbow, Hector makes an appreciative noise. "Not sure you could, Lowen. ...Oswin's in rare form today."

"Oswin? Just look at Marcus!" Eliwood leans good-naturedly against Hector, twisting his neck to speak to the man behind him. "I do think Pherae might yet win the day, my friend."

Hector's face lights up with a suprisingly boyish grin, as he rests a hand on the other's shoulder. "Not sure the day is what Ostia is aiming for. Now c'mon, Eliwood, quit letting in the rain."


Left leg still loose of its stirrup, Marcus catches his breath. "Do you yield?"

As the head of Marcus' spear is embedded two handsbreadth's deep into the mud at Oswin's knee, he considers the prospect for a moment. But then again, his own lance is taut at the end of its reach, the iron-forged chain wrapped twice around Marcus' left calf. Besides the shush of rain through wind-lashed grass, the only audible sound is that of Marcus' horse breathing.

Oswin's smile is unrepentant. "...If you do."

Later, neither of them will be able to say just who had started laughing. But laughing they are, their weapons lowered, the bout concluding without a victor.

With apparent effortlessness, Marcus vaults from the back of his horse. He lands deftly, perhaps favoring the one leg, but his spear is upright in his throwing hand and the reins are caught neatly in his left. His horse, too trained to balk when Marcus winds his hands tightly around the reins, stays still-- making the animal seem twice as powerful as when he moves. Like his master, the horse seems weightless, almost mythical, in his restraint.

Oswin shakes his head, feeling himself heavy enough for two men and a horse. Pulling off his helmet, his hair warm and already damp with exertion, he feels the fall of rain as a blessed coolness on his head. Failing utterly to find any suitable comment, he says, "Damn."

"Indeed." At ease, with the fluid grace of a man long used to combat, Marcus buries the point of his spear in the ground, and leans upon the pole, lifting his chin that he might taste the rain and slake the thirst that battle brings. "Glad I am that Hector has entreated you to join us."

Oswin notes, with no small satisfaction, that Marcus is still slightly winded, though the man stands as steadily as ever. "Haven't had training as good as that, in Pherae?"

And Marcus laughs aloud. "Small wonder all Ostians are as hearty as you and Hector, if you call that training! Nay, good general-- I meant to say how pleased I am that you fight at our side. For truly, I would not lay odds on us were we to fight against you."


~o~





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