Captain of the Guard: The Difference Between One and Many

It had been a long night. There had been some disagreement among the men about where they would be sleeping in proximity to one woman with artificially red hair. In the end Ceric had Whisper designate where the men were going to be sleeping, to much grumbling.

Raven had been particularly distraught when Autumn had made a point of shunning him. The hound had watched all the activity with interest, and Cedric got the distinct impression that Pookie was enjoying himself.

There was a saying among the northerners that many women make nation, but one woman makes a war. He was discovering that the northerners were wiser than they seemed. Outside the earshot of Autumn, he had instructed all of his men that they were not to have any physical contact with her in any way, and that if he caught any of them attempting to do so, let alone actually succeeding he would have them flogged.

He was not one for corporal punishment as a way of maintaining discipline. He preferred punishments that were more group oriented, led to group pressure to enforce discipline, and made the men stronger either physically or mentally or both.
In this matter, he made an exception.

Even so, despite his admonitions, in the middle of the night one of the guards “fell” and sprained his wrist near Autumn. Considering how prone the princess was to take offense at any slight, real or imagined, and her go to response was to attack, either verbally or physically, the man was lucky that she didn’t stab him.

After a cold breakfast, they had headed in the direction of the ones that had killed Ro and toward the cursed place of Desestasu.

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