'And tonight,' Halt muttered to himself, 'one of those houses will go up in flames.'

Chapter 4

The three apprentices sat in a quiet glade, their assignment folders and pages of notes on their knees, watching Will expectantly.

'Very well,' he began. He was a little disconcerted by the three unwavering gazes that were trained on him. He realised the boys probably assumed that he had already come up with the perfect solution to the problem they'd been set. But that wasn't his role.

'You've all read the assignment?'

Three heads nodded.

'You understand it fully?'

Again, three heads, three nods.

'So who wants to have first crack at it?'

There was a moment's hesitation, then Nick's hand shot up. Will nodded to himself. He'd known Nick would be first.

'Very well, Nick, let's hear your thoughts,' he said, motioning for the young apprentice to proceed.

Nick cleared his throat several times. He shuffled his pages of notes and then, head down, he began to read in a breakneck gabble of words.

'Verywelltheproblemfacingusisthatwedon'thavesuffi-cientnumbersatourdisposaltoeffectivelymountastandard-siegeoperationsowehaveto – '

'Whoa!' Will interrupted and Nick looked up nervously, sensing that he'd done something wrong.

'Slow down!' Will told him. 'Try to bring it down to a gallop, all right?'

He saw the boy's crestfallen face, realised that he was worried he'd be marked down for the mistake. Nick was an achiever, Will thought to himself. His gabbled words reflected the same intensity that had caused him to hold the bow in such a vice-like grip.

'Just relax, Nick,' he said in a more encouraging tone. 'Let's say you were called upon to submit a plan like this to King Duncan… ' He paused and saw the boy's eyes widen at the enormity of the thought. He added, gently, 'It's not impossible, you know. That's what Rangers do from time to time. But you'd hardly want to go dashing into Castle Araluen's throne room and gabble out, "HulloKingDuncanletmerunthroughafewideasforyouhereandyoucantellmewhatyouthinkofthemallright?"' He managed a pretty good impersonation of Nick's breathless, rattling delivery and the other two boys laughed. Nick, after an uncertain moment, joined in as well.

'No, you wouldn't,' Will answered his own question. 'When you outline a plan you need to speak clearly and precisely, to make sure the people you're talking to have the full picture. You have to have your own thoughts organised and present them in a logical sequence. Now, take a deep breath… '

Nick did so.

'And start again. Slowly.'

'Very well,' said Nick, 'the problem facing us is that we don't have sufficient numbers at our disposal to effectively mount a standard siege operation. So we have to find a way to (a) recruit troops and (b) offset the inferiority in numbers, compared to the garrison.'

He looked up expectantly. Will nodded.

'So far so good. And your solution?'

'I propose to recruit a ship's crew of thirty-five Skandian sea wolves to act as an attacking army, under the command of the mounted knight already at my disposal. The Skandians' prowess in battle would more than compensate for – '

But once again, Will had his hands up in the air, waving them in an effort to stem the flow of words.

'Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!' he cried. 'Back up the ox cart a little! Skandians? Where did these Skandians come from?'

Nick looked at him, a little puzzled by the question.

'Well… Skandia, presumably,' he replied. Will noticed that the other two boys were nodding agreement, frowning slightly at Will's interruption.

'No, no, no,' he began, then a thought struck him and he frowned at the other two boys.

'Did you all decide that you'd recruit a force of Skandians?' he asked and Liam and Stuart nodded wordlessly.

'Well, what made you think you could do that?' he asked. The boys looked at one another, then Liam answered.

'That's what you did.' His tone said that the answer seemed self-evident.

Will made a helpless gesture with his hands.

'But I knew the Skandians,' he said. 'They were friends of mine.'

Liam shrugged. 'Well, yes. But I could get to know them too. I'm told I'm quite a personable type of fellow. I'm sure I could make them my friends.'

Stuart and Nick nodded their support. Will pointed to the Assets and Resources list.

'But there aren't any Skandians here!' he said. 'They don't exist! So what made you think you could just… produce them out of thin air?'

Again, the boys exchanged glances. This time it was Stuart who spoke.

'The exercise says we're to use our initiative and imagination… '

Will made a gesture for him to continue.

'So we used our initiative to imagine that there were Skandians in the area.'

'And that we were their friends,' Liam put in.

Will stood abruptly. For the first time, he had an inkling of what Halt might have gone through in the first year of Will's own apprenticeship. To the young boys, it seemed so logical.

'But you can't do that!' he exclaimed. Then, seeing their worried faces, he calmed down a little, forcing himself to explain. 'The Assets and Resources list tells you what people you can use. You can't just invent others to suit your purposes.'

He looked around the semicircle of crestfallen faces.

'I mean, if you could do that, why not just imagine a dozen or so gigantic trolls who could go galumphing in and smash the walls down for you?'

Nick, Liam and Stuart all nodded dutifully and for one awful moment he thought they might be taking him seriously.

'I'm joking,' he said and they nodded again. He sighed and sat down. They knew they were going to have to go back to the beginning and he could see their disappointment. While he didn't intend to do the assignment for them, he decided there was no harm in pointing them in the right direction.

'All right, first of all, let's look at what you've got. Go through the Resources for me.'

'We've got an acrobat troop,' said Liam.

Will looked quickly at him. 'Can you think of anything they could be used for?'

Liam pursed his lips.

'They could entertain the troops and raise morale,' said Nick.

'If we had any troops,' Stuart put in.

'When we've got troops!' Liam interrupted with more than a hint of anger at Stuart's pedantic tone.

Will thought it was best to intervene before they started squabbling. He threw them a broad hint.

'What's stopping you getting into the castle? What's a castle's principal line of defence?' he asked. The boys considered the question, then Stuart answered, in a tone that indicated the answer was an obvious one.

'The walls, of course.'

'That's right. High walls. Four metres high.' Will paused, looking from one face to another. 'Can you see any connection between high walls and acrobats?'

Suddenly light dawned in the three faces, in Nick's a fraction of a second before the other two.

'They could scale the walls,' he said.

Will pointed a forefinger at him. 'Exactly. But you'll still need troops. Where have the original garrison gone?'

'They're scattered all over the fief, back to their farms and hamlets.' It was Liam this time. He frowned, taking it one step further. 'We'll need someone to move around from place to place, recruiting them… '

'But you don't want the enemy to notice,' Will put in quickly, hoping one of them would get the message.

'The jongleur!' Stuart exclaimed triumphantly. 'Nobody will take any notice of him moving around the countryside!'

Will sat back, smiling at them. 'Now you're beginning to think!' he said. 'Work together on this and come back this afternoon with your ideas.'

The three boys exchanged grins. They were eager now to progress the plan to its next stage. They stood up as Will motioned for them to go, but he stopped them with one more thought.