"Merchant – you go with them. Both as a prisoner, and as an overseer. I trust that you will ensure there and no problems, mm? What with the weight that you already have hanging over your neck," Lombard said.
Greeves looked regretfully toward Charlotte after the order he was given, and then he rose to his feet, and nodded towards the Captain. But even as he moved, Loriel still did not budge. She tightly grasped Charlotte's hand, crying a seemingly endless stream of tears.
"C'mon, Loriel, let's go," Greeves said quietly. "We'll bury her later. First, we need to make it out alive ourselves, right? Charlotte wouldn't want to see you die alongside her – I can't say she'd think the same about me, but that's the way it goes."
He attempted a grim joke even as he consoled her, but Loriel did crack even the slightest hint of a smile. She clung to Charlotte even tighter, as she cried out her pain.
A party of soldiers had stepped forth, sympathetic looks on their faces. They looked to Greeves for confirmation, apparently not sure whether they should pry the grieving girl away. With a pained look, Greeves nodded his permission, as the soldiers slowly and carefully pulled her away.
But Loriel resisted all the while. Like an abused puppy, she cried out, even as they attempted to treat her tenderly. Beam's heart felt a pang at the sight, and his fist clenched once more.
The man who had killed Charlotte was dead, yet he didn't feel the slightest ounce of satisfaction. The girl was still dead, after all – they had merely added to the pool of blood that had been spilt.
With Loriel screaming out curses, and the soldiers dragging her away, and Greeves walking with his head hung behind them, the party disappeared in the distance, towards the other side of camp.
"Now then – this needs cleaning up," Lombard said. "Tolsey, see to it. Have the girl's corpse kept for the villagers to bury. We'll burn out dead on the pyre tonight."
"I still do not know why you would take the risk," Beam said.
"You seek to blame me, boy?" Lombard asked, noting how intense Beam's line of questioning had gotten. "There is an emotionalness to you today, one that I did not expect. Do you not recall the magnitude of enemy that we are facing? I do not deny that I blundered – that I likely should not have let the prostitutes back inside the camp, even as my men asked for it.
But do you truly think the night would have been an uneventful one if I had not, mm?"
Being accused of being emotional, Beam was once more forced to reevaluate himself. He twisted his lips in annoyance. He could not deny the anger that coursed through him. It was more than it normally might be. More than he really knew what to deal with. He couldn't bear to set it aside.
"No... I don't blame you. If I had been more alert, I could have stopped it from happening. I should have been awake," Beam said bitterly.
"That too is unhelpful," Lombard told him. "I'm afraid, in battle, just because you make a single mistake, the war does not suddenly pause. It does not offer you due time to reflect. That comes when the battle is over – or when you're dead. You're forced to fight against what is in front of you.
If you continue to wallow in this mistake of yours, and curse your weakness – then you will indeed become weaker, and more people will die."
"...I guess so," Beam could do nothing but agree.
"You will not forget the people that died on your watch – and nor should you. Do what you can to ensure no one else dies," Lombard said, unashamedly putting that kind of pressure on a boy that was less than half his age. And he did so with confidence – knowing that this here was the pupil of Dominus Patrick. Great things were to be expected of him.
They arrived at the battlefront, and already the soldiers were engaged in fierce fighting. The changing of shifts had not occurred yet. In other words, they were late.