Chapter ten

Taia and Whitestar were holed up in Shonar for at least another two moons; it was now winter. Hardornen winters were somewhat more formidable than Valdemaran winters; Taia was grateful for the fact that they weren't required to attempt to reach the Eastern Empire in this weather, but she worried that they may have to set out earlier than planned. Skirmishes on the border had gotten more intense, and actual war was expected to break out when the weather cleared. That had to be balanced, however, with perfecting their Eastern Empire personas; if they could not properly impersonate someone from that culture, the mission would be over before it began. There was no sense at all in setting off before they were ready; that would just invite failure, and war would break out anyway, and possibly sooner. So they practiced. And waited. And hoped.

They put various random illusions on themselves and appeared in court as Eastern Empire refugees, presenting invented requests to Tremane. Tremane met with them afterwards and critiqued their performance; use this phrase, not that phrase. This body posture is interpreted in the Empire as hostile; do not turn your back on your 'better' in the Empire. Emphasize this syllable in the word for 'horse', not that one; Taia was having a hard time learning the language. It was also hard to remember to act like a servant; she had been a leader of this, a teacher of that, for most of her life. Whitestar was having an easier time, which was good; they had decided that they would not both be stablehands. Whitestar would be a scullery cook, and Taia would be the stablehand; Juren would be a house servant, as he showed absolutely no ability at all to be anything…..dirtier. As a scullery cook, Whitestar would likely have more contact with people of rank than Taia would in the stables. Taia would only have contact if and when the people came to the stables for a horse, and she would be expected to have somewhat coarser speech; but it still had to be accurate, and her manner still had to be perfect.

Juren, surprisingly, had no difficulty at all. He had an advantage, however; he was allowed to use his Gift to read Tremane's surface thoughts and adjust his behavior accordingly. Tremane accepted his word as a Herald that he would not 'look' any deeper than the surface. Taia decided at that point that instead of placing Juren as a stable servant, it might be better to try and get him a position inside the castle. It would probably be an easier placement than trying to pass him off as a stablehand. It may also be beneficial; he could perhaps give Taia warning that Melles was about to come to the stable, so that she could be ready with his horse – and a knife. She would have to come up with a way to make sure that she, as a new stablehand, was the one chosen to prepare the Emperor's mount. Generally speaking it was not the new hire that had the privilege of attending the ruler of a country; that was usually given to the most senior member of the staff. The new hire got to muck the stables and exercise some of the less important mounts. Taia could certainly do that, but it wasn't her purpose for being there.

They went out periodically to place more magical 'tags' on more inns, trying to make them as randomly placed as possible. They used a variety of different illusions; mostly the characters they would be masquerading as in the Empire, but also occasionally the characters they impersonated in Court. They wanted these 'tags' to be as confusing as possible. They also spent more evenings placing the tags on inns in various countries; one evening when Taia decided it would be her sole location, she made it all the way to Seejay. She couldn't place more than a few tags there, however; it was a long distance to 'travel', and when she had done it her energy was almost exhausted.

They attended Court dinners, both as themselves as well as in their various personas. It was getting a bit confusing; when were they Taia, Whitestar and Juren, and when were they Ruk, Saria, and Lyek? As the winter wore on, they appeared more frequently as their alter egos and less as themselves; one evening, they had an official 'farewell dinner' for their real selves and maintained one illusion or another for the remainder of the season. Lyesa at that point was housed at a nearby guardpost instead of the castle, so that it appeared she had left; she was confined to the stable as much as she could tolerate in order to reduce the number of people who saw her. She presented as a Companion on Search to anyone who noticed, and behaved as if the weather was preventing her from her travels; Hardornens were less familiar with Companions than Valdemarans, for obvious reasons, and therefore the story was believable. In reality, no Companion on Search could be stopped by, well, anything.

The birds were enjoying their time, however. They went out every day and brought back winter prey – foxes and rabbits with their white winter coats, ermines, even deer with thicker coats. Elk and moose were possible in this region, and they brought back a few of those. Wolves of different colors than Valdemar offered. Whitestar enjoyed the option of making furs of different colors than they usually had available; Taia enjoyed using the moose and elk antlers to make tools and decorations. She decided to carve functional, but largely decorative, bows from the moose and elk antlers; one out of each. She would decide when they were finished which one she liked better, and that would be a belated wedding gift to Andrien and Jarik; likely, she would give them both and let them decide which they each liked better.

Whitestar was making white fur gloves, scarves, even a cape out of white foxfur and lined with rabbit. She hadn't determined yet whether, or what, would become gifts and what they would keep; the cape, however, would almost certainly become a gift. For whom, it was even less certain; maybe Andrien, if she could get enough furs to make a cape also for Jarik. If not, maybe Kero, maybe even Selenay. The gloves and scarves – they would each keep a pair, and the rest would be gifts. She started making hats and boots as well, but they didn't really need any hats and boots took more time, so they weren't the primary project.

:Have bear.: said Syen.

:White bear.: added Ryki.

:Good fur, make good cape for Jarik.: said Sera.

Well, that settled it. Jarik would get a bear cape to match Andrien's fox. Apparently, the birds had been paying attention to what Whitestar had been making and went hunting specifically for something appropriate.

:Had planned on getting white wolf, more common. White bear, rare.: explained Syen.

:Thank you.: said Whitestar. :Thank you all, and excellent work!:

:Welcome.: said Ryki and Sera.

Syen just grunted; she thought it was her responsibility to provide whatever the little family needed by way of meat and furs, and was somewhat insulted by being thanked for doing what she saw as her job. Raptors.

"I almost feel guilty using a white bear fur," said Whitestar. "They're rare, I would prefer to use animals that are more common. But on the other hand, I didn't actually ask for it!"

"And they're rare," said Taia. "Not nonexistent. It's not like they took down the last one."

"Also an excellent point," agreed Whitestar.

The birds brought the bear in where Whitestar and Taia dressed it and gave the meat to the kitchen. The birds ate the innards that they enjoyed and disposed of the rest where it wouldn't rot where people could smell it, or the wild animals could eat the rest. Whitestar and Taia cleaned the skin and set about preparing it; when they were finished, they set their illusion for the day and headed out to an inn a few towns away. They had already set a tag on this one, but wanted to solidify their characters there. This was something they were doing completely randomly; they wanted to have their trail be as confusing as possible. So they set a stronger tag on some inns, but completely randomly. Some were in Hardorn, some in Valdemar, and some in inns in other countries. When the Empire mages tried to trace them, a completely even random pattern would be an obvious effort to deceive, and they might take a closer look; if there were some obvious stronger tags, it would delay those mages as they focused on trying to discern the pattern in them. By the time they discovered there was no pattern, Taia hoped they would be long gone, and that the Empire would be so frustrated they would give up. She had her doubts that they would, but either way their attempt would take a lot of time, and every day they were delayed in their counterattack was another day the Valdemaran and Hardornen armies could grow and prepare.

It took two candlemarks at a canter to arrive at the inn of choice that evening; it was a good thing that Tremane insisted on road maintenance in the winter, or it might have taken all day. Taia was glad, though; the ride was short enough that she didn't get too cold, and the horses needed a good run anyway. When they arrived, they made sure the horses were comfortable and walked into the inn. Where they were met with a surprise.

"That's him!" someone yelled, and it took Taia a minute to realize the speaker was pointing in their direction.

At Juren. This did not look promising.

"He's the guy who lied to my Rosie!" the speaker yelled.

Taia looked at Juren questioningly.

:I, uh, may have flirted with a girl.: he said.

:Flirted?: asked Taia with a note of doubt.

:She…..may or may not have been led to believe I was going to marry her.: said Juren sheepishly.

Taia glared at Juren.

:Great. Now, not only are we going to have to defend ourselves in a barfight without actually killing anyone, but these personas are finished. Thanks for that.:

:Sorry. You want me to take left flank or right?: Juren asked.

:Neither. I want you to leave, and Whitestar and I will take care of it. Take the horses, and we'll meet you at the south intersection. Now get.: said Taia.

:But - : started Juren.

:GET.: said Taia, nearly 'loud' enough for the entire bar to hear. Juren winced and ran out the door.

Taia and Whitestar each drew their bootknives – neither ever went anywhere unarmed, although unless someone knew where to look they would never see the weapon – but neither were in possession of swords. Carrying a sword didn't exactly fit their personas of rough and tumble middle-aged men. They would be fighting in a different style than they were used to, but this was why they trained in more than one weapon. Barfights were dirty; not that any kind of fighting outside the practice ring was clean, but in a bar, anything could and would be used as a weapon. The chairs, the beer mugs, the boiling hot soup….anything. Taia and Whitestar had a lot of training and a lot of experience, but none of that was a guarantee; and they would be trying not to cause permanent injury, let alone death. The rest of the patrons wouldn't be so careful.

The man who had accused Juren yelled and rushed them. Taia dispatched him easily, disarming him of his knife and knocking him on the head with the pommel of her own. He would have a headache when he woke, but nothing more. Whitestar dispatched his friend similarly, but the ease of the battle ended there. The entire bar erupted in violence; apparently, Rosie was something of a favorite in this inn, and every person in the bar personally wanted to avenge her broken heart. Taia was seriously considering avenging that broken heart herself when she caught up with Juren, but before she could do that, she had to survive this fight. At the moment, that ending was not a guarantee. She thought how absurd it would be for her to have survived everything she survived, only to die in a barfight because some incompetent Herald trainee couldn't stop himself from making promises he knew he wouldn't keep….

By the time it was over, both Taia and Whitestar were covered in ale and beef soup. Whitestar had a rather nasty gash on her left cheek as well as a few cuts on her arms; Taia had a stab wound in the left side of her stomach and similar gashes on her arms. Both were limping from slash wounds to their thighs and Whitestar was pretty sure she had a concussion from someone hitting her over the head with a soup bowl. Which was why she was covered in soup. Taia was lucky enough to have had it thrown at her, so she had some minor burns on her face as well. As for the bar patrons, many of them were unconscious, with similar gashes, some with broken bones. None of them had injuries that they would not survive, although two or three might end up with a limp depending on their access to a Healer. Whitestar did what she could for those without giving away their identities, but they had to leave quickly before the Guard arrived. They switched their illusions, just in case, as they left the inn so that if the Guard saw them, they could not be identified as anything other than ordinary customers.

They met Juren at the intersection as Taia had instructed; they mounted their horses and took off at a canter. The horses would not be able to keep up this pace for the entire way, since they had not had any time to recover from their arrival, but they needed to get past the city limits quickly. When they slowed, Juren started to apologize and explain; Taia gave him a look that would have caused anyone else to drop dead where he stood in abject sorrow for his actions. But Juren didn't have that much intelligence, apparently, because he continued to stammer his apologies.

"Shut up!" said Taia. "Shut up! You do not want to discuss this with me until we arrive at the castle, believe me on that!"

When they did arrive, Taia still didn't let him speak until the horses were properly cared for, she and Whitestar had a chance to Heal their wounds, their clothing was soaking and they had had a bath. Only then did Taia and Whitestar approach Juren, and she had only just begun to calm down. First, she slapped him across the face. Hard. Then Whitestar slapped him across the other side of his face. Hard.

"Now," began Taia. "Now I will explain to you exactly why you are an idiot. First, we want our characters to be remembered. But vaguely. You do not get yourself remembered vaguely by making promises to some poor girl in your efforts to get in her breeches. If it's breeches you need to get into, there is a whorehouse down the road that would be more than happy to take your chit."

"Second," continued Whitestar, "How in all the hells did you just forget to mention those promises you made before we went into that inn and proceeded to have to fight for our lives in YOUR defense?! We should have been the ones to walk out, let you settle your own disputes! Not only have you made it impossible for us to use those personas ever again, now we have to go through and remove any trace of their existence in any of the inns we've used them in before. Which is exhausting and difficult work. Which you cannot do for yourself, since you are not a mage."

"Third," said Taia, "We had to fight a bunch of drunk men in a barfight. What if we had killed any of them? Because you made promises you knew you wouldn't keep? Whose head would their deaths be on? What if we had been killed? It isn't impossible, you know. We're good, but we're as mortal as anyone else. One lucky slip of the blade and both of us go down. And then where would Hardorn be? Or Valdemar? At the mercy of the Empire."

"So," said Whitestar, "The next time you go thinking with what's in your pants and not what's in your head, kindly stay home in your room, or visit that whorehouse because none of us need to be killed for your stupidity, least of all those poor men in the bar. By the way, Rosie is the bar owner's daughter. You broke her heart. So good for you, break a perfectly good girl's heart and for no reason at all. I hope you're proud of yourself."

"Now we have to create entirely new personas to replace the ones we can't use anymore, which will take away from the time we could have been spending doing more productive things. Good job, Juren," finished Taia. "I have to go get to work removing all those tags. Good night."

Juren had the decency to look sheepish. He didn't even try to apologize, just squeaked out "Goodnight" in return to Taia and Whitestar's backs as they left the room and slammed the door. Despite what she'd said, Taia did not remove all of the tags that night; she didn't have the energy to do so. She did remove all the tags for those personas in Hardorn, though; the ones in other countries would not be so easily found, so they would wait until morning.

All she knew was Juren better clean up his act, and his presence on this mission had better be damned useful, because so far all he had been for her was extra work and a headache.