Chapter 90: Ysolde Marr
The Second Watch trained at the seventh mile every day, and its commander drilled with them.
That was the first thing Encrid learned about Ysolde Marr, and probably the most useful piece of information.
He arrived an hour after dawn and was made to wait. Encrid was a patient man, so he did not mind. He was the one asking for a favor; waiting was something he would simply have to endure.
He waited for two hours in the cold, standing at the edge of a yard where four hundred people were being put through drills that would have exhausted everyone in the Third Office by noon.
Encrid did not mind that either.
Rather, he was thankful.
Because it gave him time to watch her.
Ysolde was somewhere in her forties. Tall, with dark hair cut to her jaw and a face that had clearly been broken at least once around the nose.
She did not shout at anyone.
She walked through the lines with her hands behind her back. Every so often, she stopped and said something quietly to a soldier, and that soldier’s entire posture changed for the rest of the morning.
Encrid tried Appraisal on her once.
[Name: Ysolde Marr]
[Age: ?]
[Realm: ?]
[Star Level: ?]
[Talent: ?]
Every field except the name came back as a question mark.
He had expected that since he already knew what she was.
Someone who had awakened three Stars and cultivated all three to the Grandmaster Realm.
There was only one person on the entire Wall above her-the Lord Commander himself.
And after watching her for a while, Encrid suspected she was probably stronger than Sir Gareth.
She was also the most likely person to become the next Lord Commander once Ulrich Vance finally stepped down. Half the Wall had already decided it was practically set in stone.
So this vote was very important to him.
Encrid watched her for hours, and it was only after the second hour that Ysolde finally came over and took a cup of water from a boy without looking at him.
"Young Master Gannon."
"Commander."
"You have been standing there since dawn."
"I have been waiting since you seemed busy."
"Mm."
She drank.
"Dane would not see you. Ostrand tried to sell you something, and you did not buy it. He is already trying to spread information against you."
Encrid simply smiled.
"You are well informed, Commander."
"I heard Bree stayed up all night with your book and has told nobody what he decided. Kass has already given you both his votes, and judging by his personality, he should have made you promise him something in return."
She handed the cup back.
Encrid said nothing about what she had just said.
"I have four hundred people on this Wall who follow me with trust, and a great many of them have friends. Say your piece."
Encrid did.
He told her why he was trying to take the seat and repeated what he had told Commander Bree.
It took four minutes.
He was getting better at explaining it, as he realized.
Ysolde listened to the entire thing without interrupting.
When he finished, she walked to the edge of the yard and looked out over the killing ground.
"You want a seat so you can prepare this Wall for something you say is coming."
"Yes."
"I have no way of checking any of it. Bree will not tell me what he found. Kass will not tell me what you told him. And the Lord Commander gave you three votes before the rest of us even knew there was a question."
"That is fair."
"So it comes down to whether I trust your judgement."
She turned toward him.
"And I have no reason to trust someone I have known for only a few minutes."
Encrid said nothing.
"You are a fourth son of a noble who arrived here five months ago in disgrace. I have never seen you do anything but paperwork."
"That is also fair."
Encrid agreed.
"Good. Then we understand the problem."
She studied him for a moment.
"Do you know what I do here, my lord?"
"You command the Second Watch."
"I stand between the people of this Wall and the thing that wants to eat them."
She said it as calmly as if she were talking about keeping accounts.
"That is the job. Everything else-the rosters, drills, reports, the Council-is just part of it."
"And the men at that table have all done it."
"Every one of them."
She paused.
"Even Ostrand, who is a thief. Even Fold, who is a fanatic. They have all stood on the wrong side of a parapet with something coming at them."
Encrid understood what she was implying.
She was implying that Encrid himself had never once stood against the Roamers coming at the Wall.
And someone who had never stood to protect the people he claimed he wanted to protect had no right to tell others how they should defend them.
"And I have not."
Encrid nodded.
"You have not."
Ysolde nodded as well.
"So I am not going to vote a man into that room because he has good handwriting. That is not snobbery, and it is not politics. I am simply not going to do it."
It was regretful, but it seemed even the Second Watch commander was against him.
Encrid had already started thinking about how to end the conversation when she spoke again.
"So take one attack from me."
He looked at her.
"Once. One strike. We choose the place and the time."
She folded her arms.
"You take it and stay on your feet, and you have my vote. After that, I will never question whether you belong in that room."
Encrid had not expected that.
He had thought the commander was outright rejecting him. Perhaps she had only wanted to scare him off.
"And if I go down?"
"Then I will still say nothing against you. I will vote no, and we will both know why."
A smile appeared on her face.
"But that would be a concern only if you are alive after you took my attack."
Something crawled up Encrid’s spine when he saw it.
The drill yard behind them had gone quiet.
That was when Encrid realized they had an audience.
He looked at Ysolde.
She had awakened three Stars, all of them cultivated to the Grandmaster Realm.
While he had one Star and was only at the Initiate Realm.
There was no way he would still be standing after the exchange.
There was barely a chance he would still be breathing.
Except there was one.
It was sitting on a shelf above his cot, between a bestiary and a spare boot.
He had never tested it.
All he had were a few lines from a novel he had read years ago, and no idea whether they would work for him.
But there was one problem with Encrid.
When someone challenged him, he was not a man who backed down.
"Commander," Encrid said. "How long do I have?"
Ysolde’s eyebrows rose slightly.
She had clearly expected him to refuse.
Perhaps that had been the entire point-to scare him off.
But then he watched her expression change.
Her eyes narrowed slightly.
And suddenly, her smile widened, as though she had found something very amusing.
"Four days," she said.
"Then in four days, I will take your attack."
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