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*****

If Lieutenant Chitterleigh noticed that I had spent a completely sleepless night, he was too polite to mention it. Very unusual behaviour for an officer toward a private, but then again, I had seen much unusual behaviour from officers of late.

Of course, the fact that he was stirring his morning tea with a letter opener, and attempting to deal with his correspondence by opening it with a spoon was indicative of something else, especially when combined with a rather off-kilter smile and an absent look on his face.

A gentle attempt to get orders for the day was waved off with a languid paw, and a gentle desire that I go to blazes. It was hard to take offence at the statement, since he might as well have been addressing the tea-pot, for all the focus he was showing.

I did take advantage of this to get him to scrawl his signature on a written pass giving me the day off. No sense in letting his current mental state go to waste.

There wasn't any particular plan for the day, so I headed off to the Parade Ground on general principle. As it turned out, there was some entertainment on offer.

There was a lieutenant, a stallion, at the head of the ground. Given that I could see the somewhat rumpled form of Schweink nearby, I had to assume that this was his officer, Wicker. Assembled before him was a group of about 100 squaddies, mixed with one or two apprehensive sergeants.

Now, there was no question that Wicker cut a fine figure as an officer. He was well-turned out, both from the point of view of his tunic, and his mane and tail. Added to this was the fact that he was a very tall horse, with broad shoulders. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that a pawful of elven fillies, underneath parasols, had gathered to watch. There was much chatting and giggling; I was fairly certain that they were not looking at his shoulders.

The problems became apparent when he gave his first order to the assembly to stand 'shun. For one thing, Wicker had a high-pitched voice, not at all what you'd expect from a stallion of his size. For another, it soon developed that he had a nervous stammer.

My expertise in drill was limited to that which I'd obtained in training, but I could see this was going to cause some problems, and so it proved. In short order, one half of the company was marching one way, the other half was marching the other way, and three individual squaddies were marching off at oblique angles to everyone else and each other. One squaddie, with perhaps more sense than he knew, was standing stock-still amidst the chaos.

The sergeants vainly tried to impose some kind of order, but Wicker, in his confusion and nervousness, began to sing out orders that were internally contradictory and in direct contradiction to the bawled-out orders of the sergeants.

Just at the point where things looked like they were going to descend into complete, total and embarrassing confusion, a booming voice ordered the entire company to halt and come to attention.

Wicker turned, and even with his hat on, you could see his ears completely flatten. The fur who had given the order was the Marshal. The stallion came to attention in expectation of the awful storm to follow.

Which, surprisingly, did not erupt. The Marshal strode up to Wicker, after a brief glance at the company, and said something to him that didn't carry. Wicker swallowed, took a deep breath, and called out an order for one half of the company to 'bout face, take ten steps, left turn, and halt. A few more suggested orders, and seemingly 99 of the squaddies were lined up, once again, neatly in serried ranks. One of the privates on oblique was about thirty yards away, with his back to everyone else. The Marshal pointed him out with his baton.

"That fur is the only one who had it right."

I think the squaddie was probably more surprised than anyone else.

The Marshal had Wicker run through some of the basic drill steps a few times, and even if Wicker still gave the orders in a quavering voice, the whole thing came off without a hitch, this time.

A deeply chagrined stallion was the recipient of some more quiet words before the Marshal strode off. I could see Wicker look around to where the fillies had been. Alas, they had moved on. It might have been my imagination, but I would have sworn that I could have heard the sigh from far off.

On a private's pay ("twenty one silver a day, once a month" as the old Army joke goes), most of my shopping was done with the eyes, and not the paws. Being the summer capital and all, Albric Tor got the best of nearly everything, whether it was food, clothing, spices, or what have you. At least the entertainment was free, if you stood in the back of the crowd surrounding the buskers. There were some very good castanet and flute players.

My attention was diverted by a plucking at my sleeve. I turned, and looked down slightly. The fur who had been trying to get my attention was a small mouse-femme (and if she was smaller than me, she was quite small indeed). She was dressed in a somewhat expensive servant's uniform of very starched white and blue cotton. Also being worn was a very pleasant smile, not something you'd expect from a servant of her station.

"I'm very sorry, soldier, but could I please trouble you for some assistance?"

There were multiple reasons why I touched my hat and nodded. For one thing, I was raised to be a polite buck. For another thing, if any squaddie had seen me turn down a request from a blonde mouse-femme in a tight, starched uniform, I would never have heard the end of it.

In point of fact, a sergeant with a very tight, starched moustache strutted up, and with a lightly tossed "on yer way, lad," grinned, waved his swagger stick and proclaimed himself at the servant's service.

The mouse-femme's smile was switched off in an instant, to be met with a brutally cold glare, and a torrent of something or other in a dialect of Elvish that I didn't know. I don't think the sergeant did, either, but he got the gist pretty quickly. He turned tail just before the crowd started to get wise as to what was happening, so he escaped with most of his dignity intact.

The servant stuck her small pink nose in the air, gave a disdainful sniff that sounded like a long length of silk being ripped, and requested (mark you, requested, not ordered) me to follow.

For the next hour or so, an increasingly large pile of boxes and wrapped packages were thrust into my paws, until the only way I could move was by taking direction from the servant. Luckily for me, she seemed to have a good sense of direction, as well as good stacking ability.

After a while, and a number of turns, the sounds of the shops and the markets faded. The only things I could sense were that the pavement under my hooves was very well tended, the area was quite quiet, and there was a constant smell of blooming flowers, which made my stomachs growl.

Eventually, there was a sound of something being unlocked, and I was directed to turn into a place that was blessedly cool. A few more steps, and finally, I was told to halt, and the pile in my arms was quickly disassembled and placed on a long table. I had just started to rub my aching arms when a voice called from nearby.

"Meadow? Is that you?"

"Yes'm, I have returned."

"Were you successful?"

"Yes'm."

"Wonderful!" The owner of the voice padded into the room. It was the squirrel-femme from the luncheon party the day before. She was in a white linen dress with a truesilver torc and matching truesilver armlets.

I removed my hat and came to attention, at which she chittered pleasantly.

"Well, it's nice to see good manners. I suppose I have to keep up. Meadow, has this buck been given something to eat?"

"No'm, not yet."

"Well, see if there is any more of the acorn frittata from lunch still in the pantry. And perhaps some pressed pear juice. I know it's quite warm out there."

I bowed to the mistress of the house, who smiled and turned tail, striding off.

I was served lunch at a small stone table in the corner of the garden by Meadow. The view there was quite distracting. Oh, yes, and the flowers were very pretty, too. The frittata was also excellent, and I didn't have to request that my glass be refilled.

After I had finished, the squirrel-femme returned, bearing both a small, sealed piece of parchment and a few silver coins.

"This," she indicated the letter, "is for your officer. This is for you," indicating the coins.

I took the letter, but politely declined the coins.

"I don't think my officer would approve, ma'am. He'd say that I'm supposed to do this. His name is Chitterleigh."

A slowly raised eyebrow, and an equally slow smile.

"You don't have to tell me that. I know."

With that somewhat cryptic statement, she moved off to another part of the garden.

I was escorted to the street door by Meadow.

"See you soon."

She seemed very confident of that.