Exodus Ch. 6

Raoul sat back in his comfortable office chair and wished, not for the first time, that Kel was still his squire.

"This never ending parade of paper seemed a lot smaller then." He groused, tossing a bound packet of paper into a rejection pile.

It was all wishful thinking. The Knight Commander knew very well that the Lady Knight was still knee deep in mopping up the last of the border raiders that haunted her refugee camp. The Scanran war was over of course, but if anything all the knights of the realm just seemed to be busier. Raoul could count on one hand the number of knights who had stayed in the Palace for more than a week before being sent off again to the far-flung corners of the realm.

Unfortunately, Raoul wasn't one of them. No, he had the tedious job of selecting more men to flesh out the ranks of the Own and replace the ones killed at the Scanran front. Whole squads of the Kings Own had been hewn down to the last man- and unlike the army, who took anyone regardless of lineage or status; Raoul had to be picky when it came to new recruits in order to appease the conservatives.

Raoul growled and threw another portfolio into the rejection bin.

The Crown was desperate to keep a sizeable force at its disposal to discourage any land hungry kings from attempting to cross the Tortallan border. He did not have time to dally with the sensibilities of a dozen old men, too stubborn to see what their tradition was costing their country. Raoul sighed, resting his head in his large hands. There weren't that many nobles, even in the legendarily easy-going Own, who could stand for commoners given command over them, which usually resulted in the man in question leaving the company. Perhaps the only exceptions were the ridiculously rich merchant sons, and mages.

Raoul rubbed his eyes. Gods, mages. He had no desire to hire some green as grass mageling right out of University- but where else was he going to find any this late in the year?

"Raoul, are you in here?"

Raoul immediately perked up. That'd be Buri, then, returning from the Riders barracks.

"In here." He called, allowing a boyish smile to cross his face as his wife poked her dark head into his study. She crossed the room with purposeful strides, plopping down in the comfortable chair situated opposite his own. He noted that she seemed far more relaxed than she had just six months ago- the lines in her face seemed to be fading- and he supposed it was because she retired as the commander of the Queens Riders just this past spring. Instead, she ran the training camps and missions, as post which she claimed had all of the fun, but none of the deskwork.

"Ah." Buri nodded to the stacks on his desk. "Evin just got saddled with his own mountain. " The retired commander allowed herself a little chuckle. "That's the real Malorie's Peak right there."

"I believe you may be right." Raoul said ruefully. "I'm sorry, love, I've been reduced to a desk knight."

"Oh damn." Buri said dryly. "I'll have to run off with a real knight now. You know, one that can keep up with me." She grinned, showing all her teeth.

"I can keep up!" Raoul said, slightly indignant and with a look of wounded male pride on his face.

Buri snorted, giving her husband a wry look until he realized how he sounded and laughed a little himself.

"It's all… this." Raoul said, gesturing to the veritable forest of paper in front of him. "It's making me cranky."

"Evin is having the same problem." Buri said. She leaned forward to snag one of the folders out of the mage pile. She chuckled, and turned the page back towards her husband. He squinted to the read the small print.

"Eighty-four?" Raoul sputtered. "I have a mage candidate who's eighty-four! He'd shake himself to pieces!"

Buri helpfully tossed the folder into the rapidly growing rejection pile.

"There could not be a worse time to try and recruit." Raoul said with disgust. "The younger sons of the court nobles have no desire to join now, not when the War is over and there's no glory to be won." He rolled his eyes. "That's usually not a problem, as court nobles are seldom useful. What's making this so gods-cursed hard is that fact that we get most of our recruits from the large fief's to the north- which are all rebuilding from when they were torched last year. In some cases, the line of succession is in peril- which certainly isn't encouraging anyone into letting their offspring join the Own!"

"I'm glad I never had to deal with it." Buri said. "On recruitment day the Queen's Riders have lines stretching from the barracks all the way to the city gates- we certainly don't want for soldiers."

"I envy you for that." Raoul said grumpily. "Every time I try and make a motion to open up the Own to anyone with less than a title and a government salary, I get shut down. Jon says he understands, but his hands are tied in this."

"The last few time's Thayet's been by, it's all she's talked about. This time I think she almost took me up on my offer to go throw them off of Balor's Needle." Buri said in commiseration.

They sat and talked until supper, laughing and joking with one another as they both worked through Raoul's impressive paper towers. By the time the bell reminded them that they were starving, there were only two tagged mage dossiers and ten applications for the Own left. On the floor to the left of his desk, Raoul's rejection pile reached his thigh.

Raoul sighed happily and reached for one of the men-at-arms folders.

"This one looks promising." Buri said, thumbing through the small questionnaire within the folder that each mage was required to answer. "Trisana Rainwright- a weather witch, obviously. Hm-" Buri squinted, bringing the paper inches from her nose. "She's strong enough magically, but you might have some problems with her keeping up physically." Buri wrinkled her nose. Each applicant upon submission was required to undergo some tests to determine their suitability. This 'Trisana' had scored abysmally on strength and stamina.

"I'm guessing she doesn't have any combat experience then?" Raoul remarked distractedly, stamping the outside of one of his folders with a red ink stamp that read 'Accepted'. He signed his name in a flourish below the stamp and slid it into a smaller pile to his right.

"She did… decently." Buri sounded surprised. Raoul looked up, gesturing for the folder in question with a wiggle of his fingers.

"Hand to hand and… knives." Raoul's eyebrow came up. "Baron Cooper would be proud."

"She also did a passable job with a quarterstaff." Buri pointed out. "Surprising, for a mage." Indeed it was. It wasn't usually until the Kings Own or the Queen's Riders beat the idea into their skull did mages accept the idea of learning to use actual weapons and keep themselves in shape. In Raoul's considerable experience, there was always a time when magic would fail and a powerless mage would have to choose between running and fighting for their lives, or dying out in the field.

"She's foreign." Raoul said. "The scribe scribbled something here about a peculiar accent, but this Trisana didn't offer up any information on where she's from."

"So?" Buri shrugged.

"Spy, perhaps?" This array of skills was a little too convenient.

"Maybe, maybe not- pretty clumsy for a spy to try and get information this way." Buri pointed out. It seemed strange to her that a spy wouldn't have had the accent trained out of them, as to remain unnoticed and unremarked upon. "They had to know we'd be suspicious. Maybe she just needs a job."

"Maybe." Raoul hummed in agreement. "At any rate, we need people too much to just let her go. I'll tell George to keep an eye on her anyway but for now…" Stamp. Signature.

"Welcome to the Kings Own."