Simon by Rosemary Sutcliff

right to see them, not only in action and on parade, but all the time.’
    Simon stood gazing up at the motionless Standards, especially at the second from the left, the Standard of his own Troop, which one day he would carry into action. His heart beat high with resolve to be worthy of his trust; visions of honour and chivalry and the Glory of Arms rose within him, and pride in the cause for which he would soon be fighting . . . Then he woke to the fact that Barnaby was shouting in his ear that he was blocking up the way; and suddenly he flushed crimson, and turned to follow his new friend up the street.
    Several hours later, Simon was sitting up in his shirt in the pallet bed which had been made up for him on the floor of Lieutenant Colebourne’s chamber. The White Hart was not a fine large inn such as the Garter next door, and with the sixteen officers of Fairfax’s Horse quartered there, space was limited; and there was another pallet in the small room, as well as the narrow truckle-bed on the edge of which Barnaby himself was seated, still half-clad, and tenderly polishing a pair of truly wonderful boots. They were of yellowish leather, very soft, and with turn-down tops so enormous that Simon wondered very much how it was possible to walk in them at all.
    Simon was dog-tired, and the hours since his interview with Fairfax seemed like a crowded dream. In company with Barnaby Colebourne he had gone to report to Major Disbrow, a lean brown little fighting man with an eye of blue steel. The two senior troops or companies of each regiment had no captain, but were under the direct command of the colonel and major, and in them the work of the captains mostly fell to the lieutenants, whowere superior beings to other lieutenants in consequence. This, being the 2nd, was Major Disbrow’s Troop, and Barnaby was its Captain-Lieutenant. Those were two of the few positive facts that Simon had discovered that evening, and he clung to them as to a spar in a sea of chaos. Leaving Major Disbrow, they had repaired to the Quartermaster’s Office farther up the town, and to various magazines and depots to draw his equipment and see about his uniform. The scarlet coat faced with blue which was the uniform of both Fairfax’s Regiments had had to be altered slightly, and would not be ready until next day. But his sleeveless buff coat (second-hand and somewhat worn and weather-stained) and his heavy spurred boots and steel cap were now stacked with Barnaby’s in the corner; and from the back of the one chair which the room possessed hung his new sword in its crimson slings. He had been half-minded, before he left home, to take Balan with him, as Amias had taken Balin; but he had realized that though it was a rapier of the old sort, with a cutting edge as well as a point for thrusting, it would not be a good weapon for fighting on horseback, and he would do better to wait until he reached Windsor. Now he had his heavy Cavalry blade, the real thing, and he sat and hugged his knees, feasting his eyes on it, while Barnaby polished and re-polished those preposterous boots.
    They had collected Scarlet from the Garter stables and brought him here to the White Hart. Then there had been supper in a long room that seemed over-full of loud voices, long legs and tobacco smoke. He had a confused memory of a dark-eyed resentful looking youth a year or two older than himself, who he had gathered was Cornet Wainwright; and of a long ropey Yorkshireman with a merry eye, who Barnaby had whispered to him was Ralf Marjory, one of Cromwell’s old Ironside captains. All the rest had been just faces, grim or merry, ruddy or pale or brown. Simon hoped that one day, perhaps tomorrow, he would get them sorted out. But meanwhile he was thankful the day was over.
    Barnaby gave the left boot a final loving pat, and held the pair out at arm’s length. ‘What d’you think of
that
for a pair of fashionable boots?’ he demanded.
    Simon gave up gazing at his sword, and