"You've got a quick mouth on you, Perks, I'll grant you that." "Thank you, sarge!"
"But I see you're not standing in a bleedin' shadow, Perks, nor have you done anything to change your bleedin' shape, you're silhouetted against the bleedin' light and your sabre's shining like a diamond in a chimney-sweep's bleedin' ear'ole! Explain!"
"It's because of the one C, sarge!" said Polly, still staring straight ahead.
"And that is?"
"Colour, sarge! I'm wearing bleedin' red and white in a bleedin' grey forest, sarge!"
She risked a sideways glance. In Jackrum's little piggy eyes there gleamed a gleam. It was the one you got when he was secretly pleased.
"Ashamed of your lovely, lovely uniform, Perks?" he said.
"Don't want to be seen dead in it, sarge," said Polly.
"Hah. As you were, Perks."
Polly smiled, straight ahead.
When she came off guard for a bowl of game casserole, Jackrum was teaching basic swordcraft to Lofty and Tonker, using hazel sticks as swords. By the time Polly had finished he was teaching Wazzer some of the finer points of using a high-performance pistol crossbow, especially the one about not turning round with it cocked and saying "W-what is this bit for, sarge?" Wazzer handled weapons like a houseproud woman disposing of a dead mouse - at arm's length and trying not to look. But even she was better with them than Igor, who just didn't seem at home with the idea of what was, to him, d surgery.
Jade was dozing. Maladict was hanging by his knees under the roof of one of the sheds, with his arms folded across his chest; he must have been telling the truth when he said there were some aspects of being a vampire that were hard to give up.
Igor and Maladict...
She still wasn't sure about Maladict, but Igor had to be a boy, with those stitches around the head, and that face that could only be called homely.4 He was quiet, and neat, but maybe that's how Igors behaved...
She woke up with Shufti shaking her.
"We're moving! Better go and see to the rupert!"
"What? Huh? Oh... right!"
There was a bustle all around her. Polly staggered to her feet and hurried over to Lieutenant Blouse's shed, where he was standing in front of his wretched horse and holding the bridle with a lost expression.
"Ah, Perks," he said. "I'm not at all sure I'm doing this right..."
"No, sir. You've got the waffles twisted and the snoffles are upside down," said Polly, who'd often helped in the inn's yard.
"Ah, that would be why he was so difficult last night," said Blouse. "I suppose I ought to know this sort of thing, but at home we had a man to do it..."
"Let me, sir," said Polly. She untwisted the bridle with a few careful movements. "What's his name, sir?"
"Thalacephalos," said Blouse sheepishly. "That was the legendary stallion of General Tacticus, you know."
"I didn't know that, sir," said Polly. She leaned back and glanced between the horse's rear legs. Wow, Blouse really was short-sighted, wasn't he...
The mare looked at her partly with its eyes, which were small and evil, but mostly with its yellowing teeth, of which it had an enormous amount. She had the impression that it was thinking about sniggering.
"I'll hold him for you while you mount, sir," she said.
"Thank you. He certainly moves about a bit when I try!"
"I expect he does, sir," said Polly. She knew about difficult horses; this one had all the hallmarks of a right bastard, one of those not cowed at all by the obvious superiority of the human race.
The mare eyeballed and yellowtoothed her as Blouse mounted, but Polly had positioned herself carefully away from the uprights of the shelter. Thalacephalos wasn't the sort to buck and kick. She was the sneaky kind, Polly could see, the sort that stepped on your foot -
She moved her foot just as the hoof came down. But Thalacephalos, angry at being thwarted, turned, twisted, lowered her head, and bit Polly sharply on the rolled-up socks.