Greeting and thanks to all the readers. I daresay this chapter had my fingers aching: it was typed in one sitting. It makes one appreciate the work typists and secretaries do, and even then only marginally. I imagine my typist found me terribly irritating back then, as I used to ask someone to type for me—mostly when my carpal tunnel seizes me. Imagine having someone say, while pacing restlessly before you, "Quote it is a most difficult thing comma end quote she said full stop. She looked at the other woman and winced because her friend had again drifted off to sleep full stop. Edit—omit 'because' and replace it with a colon, would you?"
Vocabulaire:
1. Contubernalis (L.) – A military cadet. Most (wealthy or prominent) Romans sent their children to fill this position come time for their requisite military service. The contubernalis was expected to serve his superior, whether legate or general, in the capacity of an attendant, gaining experience from observation and exposure.
2. Dann and Dagda – Ancient gods; part of Celtic lore.
3. Dis, "To Dis with it!" – Dis being Pluto, this would be something similar to the modern expression, "To hell with it!"
4. "Gerrae!" (L.) – "Rubbish!" or "Nonsense!"
5. Insulae (pl. L.), insula (s. L.) – The ancient equivalent of our modern apartment buildings.
6. Meum mel (L.) – Literally "my honey"; a Latin endearment.
7. Octet – Yet another division for the Roman military. The men of a century were divided into groups of eight or octets, with each octet having its own leader.
8. Pilum (s.), pila (pl.) – The name of the Roman military spear.
9. Pilus prior, primipilus– Names for the highest-ranking centurions in the legion. There were actually many grades of centurions, from first-spear centurions to second-spear centurions, and even now there is much ambiguity about the number of ranks. The primipilus can also be called the primus pilus.
10. Praefectus (specifically praefectus fabrum) – The official supplier of the army; in this story, the role is occupied by Tokiha Takumi.
Inter Nos
par ethnewinter
Winter sunlight crept into an otherwise dark room, differentiated into slanting rays by fretted shutters. They crept across the room and over a rumpled bed-sheet, painting the body on the bed with bars of light. Glittering under one of those stripes was an eye that would have been unmistakeable to anyone from Hime's Ninth Legion: an eye of the tangiest, most acerbic green. It was the eye of their most decorated (and probably most redheaded) primipilus centurion.
This very eye was now moving, rolling from centre to corner, for the primipilus was watching the other person in the room. This other person moved to the window, and the rays of light striping the primipilus's body were interrupted.
"I'll open the window, Nao?" floated the voice of the person blocking the light. It was followed by the sound of sheets being pulled. "Or light a lamp?"
"No, not a lamp. Unless you've some better quality wicks since last I visited. The one you lit last time smoked like a fucking furnace." A self-directed giggle. "Quality wicks, here? Who am I kidding?"
"The window, then."
"Open it, but pull the curtains. It's cold."
The shutters were removed; light flooded the formerly dim room.
"I can get another blanket," came the suggestion. "Something thicker."
"No. To Dis with it! I'll be going out later anyway, and it'll be worse then. This'll do."
"Wine?"
"Always."
The other woman laughed, and her grey eyes turned sideways were full of brightness from the window.
"You Himeans," she said, the laughter lingering in her high and clear voice. "You and your wine."
"You talk as if you don't drink either, Pollonia. Hurry it up." Nao propped herself up on an elbow. "Hey. You do drink, right?"
Pollonia went to the table, drawing from under it an earthen jug and using that to pour the requested wine.
"Sometimes," she said.
"Sometimes!"
"I like water better."
"That's the barbarian in you." Nao laughed in taking the cup from the other woman's hand, downing a large gulp of the beverage immediately. "Shit wine."
The other regarded her unapologetically.
"This is a shit establishment," the woman said. "Our customers don't come here for wine."
"Don't come here to be poisoned by shit wine, I bet."
She made a face at her cup but drank again anyway. Pollonia smiled.
"They don't come here for language lessons either," she told the red-haired woman. "But some customers expect too much."
Yellowish-green eyes met grey ones. They smiled at each other in understanding: primipilus and prostitute.
The room they occupied was part of the sleeping quarters owned by the establishment that owned Pollonia: a respectable, middle-class whorehouse of Argus. It was not the best whorehouse in the city, nor was it the most reasonably priced; but it did turn a fair trade, and had enough uniquely pretty girls to keep on turning.
The reason Nao herself patronised this instead of other, cheaper whorehouses nearer the inn she had been billeted was for one of those uniquely pretty girls: Pollonia, to be precise. Each time Nao visited this brothel, she requested Pollonia. Not once did she waver in the constancy of this choice, and the manager had long learned to stop asking which girl the primipilus wanted when she stopped by.
The reason for choosing Pollonia, however, was not on the merits of prettiness—although Nao had to admit Pollonia had a good deal of value in that aspect. She was dark, so very dark, with bronzed skin that caught your eye immediately in a brothel line-up where the standard was for fairness. Her hair was a rich deep brown, and her eyes an unexpectedly light grey for so dark a woman. She was not beautiful in the classical sense. She was clean and looked it, and her features were intriguingly sharp. Sharpest of all was her great hooked nose, which was Semitic in shape and protruded from her face like a large beak. For all its largeness, it was not unattractive. In fact, it pleased Nao in the way it invoked a bird of prey. Nao thought that Pollonia looked like a hawk—though perhaps not an eagle.
This was all very well, of course. But Nao did not really patronise her for these physical traits, likeable as they were. Nor did the Himean centurion choose Pollonia out of any reputation Pollonia might have for legendary skills in bed—although she was, Nao thought, not bad at all. There was another, far more important reason for visiting Pollonia and it was Pollonia's history and heritage. The Argus prostitute was a Mentulaean born and bred.
Properly speaking, she was a half-breed: part-Mentulaean and part-Jew. Pollonia's mother had been Mentulaean, while her father was an itinerant who happened to pass into Obsidian's empire during his mercantile travels. Shortly after the romance that sired Pollonia, he had left on another of his commercial trips and was never heard from again. Her mother being a slave in a minor noble's household, Pollonia served there as well until she reached the age of fourteen, when yet another misfortune changed her life. The household for which they worked was dissolved, their noble master falling into ruin, and Pollonia found herself with the rest of the former slaves on the auction block.
This was where she was separated from her mother, who went to one bidder while she went to another—one who happened to be a travelling merchant, not unlike the father who had vanished from her life early on. If Pollonia had expected to serve this new owner as a life-servant, however, she turned out mistaken: for the man took her to Argus, whereupon he sold her yet again to the recruiter of a local whorehouse. This was the establishment in which she and Nao currently were.
Pollonia had divulged bits and parts of this to Nao once the latter began frequenting the brothel as a regular client, but Nao actually knew it all before that. Long on the lookout for someone with a history like the prostitute's, she had been delighted to find her first candidate as tailor-made to her needs as possible. Pollonia was shrewd yet tractable, not wanting in courage, and possessed of a detestation for Mentulaeans that made her agree to Nao's demands—which she very well knew might aid in the killing of Mentulaeans.
Pollonia had lived in Obsidian's lands half her life thus far, which put her in an excellent position to satisfy the centurion's requests on various things. She was able to provide various pieces of information the centurion required, from local customs to cartography in the lands across the border. At present, she was helping Nao perfect her grasp of the Mentulaean version of the Himean tongue. This was the language spoken between the many Mentulaean peoples. It was a bastardised version of the original, spoken in a broad and slangy accent full of what native Himeans would perceive as syncope. It was thus in this version of Himean that the primipilus and Pollonia conversed now, as they often did with each other.
"One of my usual customers passed by earlier," Pollonia was telling her most loyal customer. "He's one of the local centurions. I think he was at the general muster too, actually."
Nao's accent was just right: "That's why it's called a general muster."
"He met your commander." An uncertain pause. "He wasn't too happy."
"Oh? Why is that?"
"He didn't like her."
Up shot one of the ridiculously red eyebrows.
"Ho! Now that's unusual!"
Pollonia threw her hair over one shoulder.
"He said she was snooty," she told the centurion. "Was it snooty? Or snotty?"
"They mean the same damn thing," Nao interrupted with a snooty snort of her own. "Back to the topic! You said he's a centurion?"
"Yes."
"They're letting just anyone become a centurion these days, seems like," the decorated centurion said. "I can't believe it. The general's never snooty. Unless it's to people she dislikes, anyway, and even that rarely. Did she dislike him on first contact or something? That's even rarer."
"I wouldn't know," Pollonia said. "He called her 'one of those stuck up nobles who think their shit don't stink', I think was what he said." She frowned and tapped the fingers of her right hand on her temple. "I'm pretty sure I got that part down right. He said she was one of those who looked down and liked to do it—look down on people, I mean."
"Gerrae!"
"He said it." Pollonia suddenly giggled, drawing closer to Nao like a gossipy schoolgirl. "It was funny, you know. I know the real reason he didn't like her. He said it himself."
"You're supposed to tell me that first!"
Pollonia was coquette enough to pretend hurt: Nao was sceptic enough to ignore it.
"Tell me," she demanded, effectively clearing the stung expression on the other woman's face. Pollonia recognised an order when she heard it, and Nao was not someone whose orders you could take lightly.
Unlike some of my other customers, she thought before checking herself. Nao was definitely unlike all of her other customers.
"I think it was when he went with the other centurions—our lads, that is," she clarified, meaning the local officers. "They went to see her after the parade thing. You don't know?"
"I know she talked to the local officers, but I wasn't with her when this thing you're talking about happened, obviously. I wouldn't be asking otherwise."
"Fine. So, I was saying, this centurion who didn't like your general—"
"What's his name?"
Pollonia stopped, mouth still slightly parted. Nao raised her brows, mutely repeating the question. When that did not work, she decided to speak.
"Well, who's he?" she asked.
The other woman licked her lips.
"I don't suppose you want it for a reason, do you?" she said slowly and with great circumspection. "I mean, well, you won't go after him, will you?"
The redhead laughed: "Is he more than a customer after all?"
"No. He's not even one of the customers I like." The other shook her head. "I'd just not like to have his death hanging over my head for something so little. Though you could find out his name easy enough from others even without me, I guess."
"True, I could, so you can save your noble act. And I agree it's 'little', so don't be an idiot. I'm not about to go killing people just because they don't like the general," Nao said dryly, finishing with a mutter: "Was in that business, I would've assassinated half the Senate by now."
"So why do you want to know his name?"
"Plenty of reasons, but here's the basic one: random information can someday come in handy."
Pollonia smiled at that.
"You and your handy information," she said, before divulging the intelligence. "His name is Itou. Kentaro Itou."
"Another Taro. That explains it."
"What?"
"Nothing," Nao sniggered. "Go on with your story."
Pollonia sighed.
"I was saying some of them met with your general," she began. "And Itou-san was with them. He said she was talking to the others when he suddenly got an itch in his throat. The really bad kind, he said, so he had to hawk and spit it out, because it was so bad. And then—"
"No, don't tell me, let me guess!" Nao interjected, shaking with laughter. "He looked up to find the general staring him down so coolly he got the uncontrollable urge to piss in his pants?"
"I think so, though he didn't say it that way," Pollonia laughed merrily with her. "Does she do that often?"
"No! Or, maybe," she said, pausing to think about it. "Huh. I think it depends."
She harrumphed and went on: "But it's not often some fool has the bumped-up balls to spit in front of her, you know. It's rude in front of a general, especially during inspection. And it doesn't help his stupidity that the general herself has spotless manners."
"He didn't think so."
"What would he know about manners? He practically spat in her face."
The grey-eyed woman smiled.
"Not couth, is it?" she asked.
"Damned right it isn't. Even I can behave pretty when I know it's needed, and I'm as bloody couth as the most vulgar ranker to ever cuss his con–stee–pay–ted way to a latrine pit," she cooed.
Pollonia whooped with laughter and fell in a swoop onto the sheets.
"Oh, you're uncouth, all right," she giggled, rolling over. "Uncouth centurion who spends her time in a whorehouse instead of the barracks."
"And having a very productive time of it, so bugger off." Nao took a few seconds to sneer at nothing in particular, reaching out to drag her fingers through the other woman's hair. It was surprisingly well-kept.
Later, she murmured: "Happens often, that. Stupid."
"Who's stupid? What're you muttering about?"
The centurion shifted on the bed, changing her seat so that she could look at the other woman's face as she talked.
"What that idiot centurion did," she explained, staring straight into the light grey eyes, which seemed more intense because they were so deep-set. "More people than you'd expect make that kind of mistake, sort of, the first time they meet the general. She's so daunting it's hard not to get your guard up, you know."
"Daunting?"
"Crisp, like," Nao uttered. "Incredibly crisp with, I don't know, poise, and just oozing all kinds of power and confidence that it threatens you sometimes—especially when you think you're full of piss and vinegar yourself, just like your customer probably did. Standing in front of the general is like standing in front of a lion and suddenly realising all you are is a scrappy alley cat with an attitude too big for your claws, Poll. She shows up everyone just by being herself." Her shoulders lifted ever so slightly. "You build yourself up, trying to fight that. People like this Itou go overboard."
The brunette next to her frowned.
"I'm not sure I understand," she said.
"Just think of confidence and how building it up defensively can turn it into arrogance," Nao returned. "That's just a step away from disrespect."
"Oh. That's a little easier to understand." She looked at Nao a little more closely. "You know her well, your general."
But Shizuru's veteran centurion laughed.
"Know her?" she said with incredulity. "Now there's an arrogant thought, all right! No one really knows that woman, Poll. Or if someone does, it's surely not me."
Her eyes narrowed into slanted, piercing slits of green.
"But I'll tell you something," she continued. "All you need to know about Shizuru Fujino is in her eyes."
As Pollonia uttered an exclamation about those selfsame eyes, Nao found herself being visited by a corresponding image of crimson cut with scarlet: circular shards cut from a bloodied mirror. It was all reflected there, she thought with a grimace, realising the memory was from the first time she had seen Shizuru up close. Everything had been in the woman's eyes then, and still was now. Hungry eyes, keen and ravenous as a fire. They put to mind a tiny world up in flames, entire globes eaten up by a carnal flare that could never be doused. Many thought of them as representing blood, and that was why they thought them terrible. But Nao had always thought that was a mistaken attribution. The terror was in the blaze, not the blood.
Everything's blood, she thought, but not everything's fire.
This was because Nao had the fear of fire ingrained into her. She had it from living in the big cauldron that hosted the stews of Hime: the section of the city known as the Subura. She had her own place in the province, and it was a freer, more open space than the one in the city by far. But ever since her entry into the spying—and later, military—elite, she had come to spend less and less time in her provincial home and more in the urban one. The latter was a set of rooms in one of the better Suburan insulae. It was here that she lived when not away on campaign.
As far as rooms in the Subura went, hers were fairly good ones. They were clean and well-furbished, structurally-sound. The only problem, perhaps, was the one that every tenant of the Subura suffered and eventually learned to overlook: the suffocating lack of space in general. Subura-dwellers lacked aural space, having to put up with endless cacophonies of gossip being shouted from one building to another, shrieking babies, and wailing drunkards. They lacked social space, having to endure the curiosity of others thrusting their private miseries out before the whole world as well as having others' privations thrust on them.
Most of all, however, they lacked physical space. As with all other slums in large cities, the Subura was packed so full that, as the joke went, you could barely stretch your hand out of your window without touching your neighbour's arse. As with all other slums in large cities too, this necessitated a communal awareness and terror of the worst possible blight that could come upon so densely-packed a physical community: something that would hurt the Subura, buildings and residents alike, worse than an actual war, storm, or earthquake.
This great, supremely destructive terror was fire.
To residents of the Subura—or residents of Hime, for that matter—the mere hint of an unruly spark was enough to set about general panic. Fire was destruction of the house and home; fire was destruction of livelihood and life; fire was, simply put, destruction in its purest form. Nao, a long-time city dweller, understood this. Thus she understood what was so disturbing to those who found her general's eyes eerie: they hinted at a fire that was utterly rapacious in its ambition.
"Fire," she murmured now, to her companion. "It's the way they look afire."
"Itou said that they're bloody, actually," said Pollonia, twisting a lock of her long brown hair. "Said that was a bad omen, it was."
"Doubt that. She's famous for her luck." Nao suddenly smiled. "Well, maybe it's bad only for the people who cross her."
"He really didn't like her."
"I'm sure she's not in love with him either. Imagine spitting your fucking phlegm in front of Shizuru Fujino and then having the balls to say she's snooty and has bad manners. Hollow balls. Bollocks!"
"That's what he thinks of her, though."
"Pah! What d'you think of her?"
The dark lashes fluttered in a dreamy sigh.
"Oh, I think she's just wonderful!" Pollonia said.
Nao laughed good-naturedly.
"I expected that," she sniggered, placing her back against the pillows. Her arms crossed behind her head. "Dames love a woman in uniform. Met her yet?"
"No! How can I?" The grey eyes were wide with scandal. "She comes to whorehouses?"
"No. Juno's cunt, that'd be something if she did." Nao laughed at the ludicrous thought. "But she walks around a lot and talks to a lot of people, so there's always a chance. Not uppity, the general. Shit, she's so up she can afford to get as low-brow as she wants. It's pretty easy to talk to her."
"I'd like to. Can I?"
"We'll see," Nao replied, snuggling into the pillows. "Don't get your hopes up though, Sweetheart. She's a girl of her own already."
Pollonia's gaze turned dreamy again.
"The Otomeian Natsuki-san," she identified, to which Nao nodded. Again she released a wistful sigh. "Oh, she's wonderful too!"
Nao smirked.
"Guess I expected that too. And her, you've met her yet, Poll?" She caught herself abruptly and cackled out a laugh at her own question. "Who am I kidding? It's even less likely you've met her!"
Pollonia looked at her with great interest.
"Why, is she more unreachable than even your general?" she asked.
"Sure," Nao said. "Because she's blessed unsociable."
"Really?" Pollonia wrinkled her nose. "Now that you say, she does seem awful cold. Aloof, like."
"She is."
The other woman winced. "So she's hard to talk to, after all?"
"Pretty much. She's not rude-hard, or really rude at all. Just... she's a surly wretch, I'll say that." The white, brown-scarred hands came together and the sound of knuckles popping crackled in the room. "That doesn't matter, though. She's her own points working in her favour. By god, I'd love to get my hands on her."
Pollonia looked positively giddy at that little confession—until Nao went on to explain it.
"Make a perfect assassin and intelligencer. She'd be a trainer's wet dream."
"Oh, not that!" the other woman exclaimed, startling the centurion a little. "I didn't think for that!"
Nao made a funny face.
"Well, for what then?" she said. "Jupiter! You thought I meant to fuck her?"
"Why not? You mean you wouldn't want to?" Pollonia retorted with a wide grin.
"What for? I already fuck you."
The other woman hit her lightly but continued to smile anyway.
"She's beautiful," she said with feeling.
Nao snorted in response.
"Of course she is," she said, with a parody of sweetness on her face. "And of course the general thinks so, because every time she looks at the girl, all she'd need is a wash-basin and a plate to eat the kid up on the spot. Aaah, forgo the plate. She always looks as though she'd eat her up without setting her down."
"But not," Pollonia chuckled out, "the wash-basin?"
"Trust me, the general'd wash her hands first."
"She's a clean person then, your general." Pollonia looked thoughtful. "I guess nobles are like that."
The reply was contemptuous: "No, some of there are right dirty, I'd say."
"But not Shizuru Fujino?"
"No, not her." The light green eyes gleamed. "She doesn't like to get her hands dirty, in some ways."
"Does she like to get your hands dirty?"
Nao laughed. She liked Pollonia's intelligent sense of humour.
"You know, or you don't—in which case you'll know soon," she answered. "Depends on what I decide to do too, 'course. Then we'll find out if you like to get your hands dirty."
Her apprentice conspirator nodded at that, understanding what the centurion meant. She wondered what Nao would eventually decide here. She was anxious about it! The exchange for all the information and services she had given and would continue to give Nao was significant: the centurion had promised to buy her from this brothel and take Pollonia into her household, as a loyal and well-treated slave to eventually be freed after the usual years of servitude had been finished. Whether that meant she would be shipped overseas to Hime by the centurion as soon as their lessons had been concluded or perhaps kept here in Argus until the end of the centurion's military duties in the region, she did not yet know.
A good, practical part of her preferred to be shipped overseas, as she desired very much to see the greatest city on earth and begin life anew as someone not a prostitute. Yet a smaller, still insistent part of her was starting to make its desire known: it wanted to stay with the woman who would be her new mistress and serve said woman here, in the about-to-erupt-north.
"Hey. What's the matter?"
She snapped out of her contemplation to find lime-green eyes turned her way.
"Sorry," she apologised. "Did you say something?"
The centurion's pretty face—Surprisingly pretty for a soldier, thought Pollonia—frowned a little.
"Asked if you could get me more wine. You all right, then?"
Pollonia sprang from the bed and took the cup.
"Yes, I'm sorry. I just didn't hear you," she said, sparing a smile for the redhead. "I'll get it now. Should I refill the cup or get the whole jug?"
The Himean laughed: "You're catching on."
Pollonia laughed back. She liked hearing the centurion laugh. There was something infectious about it.
"For someone who thinks it's shit wine, you down it like a fish," she told her.
"It doesn't change the fact that I think it's shit wine. And whoever said fish down wine? Never seen a drinking fish yet. Never seen a fish swimming drunk yet, either."
"I don't know, it's something people say. Besides, how can you tell if a fish is swimming drunk?"
The centurion offered: "Maybe it swims backwards."
"That's stupid."
They laughed together.
"Anyway, I don't think fish can drink wine," Nao insisted light-heartedly. "They can eat shit, though."
That made Pollonia pause.
"What?" she said to the odd statement.
"In Hime, there's this thing we call the licker-fish. Delicacy for the rich. It gets fat on shit from the sewers. And I mean shit, Poll: what comes out of an arse and gets chucked down the sewage system every day."
"And the rich eat it?"
"They love it."
"But why, if it eats shit?! What's it like?"
"About this big..."
Pollonia listened to the centurion, and while listening, found her anxieties slowly slipping away. To think of a place where rich people fell over themselves to dine on a fish that ate shit—why, what place could possibly be more interesting? If Hime was a place where shit-eating fish could turn into delicacies, then it was surely also where a former prostitute could turn into a respectable household servant. Or maybe a respectable assistant intelligencer, even. What possibilities! She really should not be worrying.
I'd be stupid to let my fright get to me, she thought with newfound resolve, handing over the centurion's wine. She laughed and smiled when the other woman made a joke, not doing it entirely out of mere play-acting—even though both of them knew she could play-act very well. Twelve years as a whore taught you tricks, and Pollonia knew all of them by heart. How else could she have lasted this long?
She knew men and she knew women. She knew how to act according to their express desires, how to tap into and model herself after their private fetishes. She knew too how they perceived her as exactly that, no more and no less than an approximate concretisation or outlet of their fantasies. Not quite human.
That was why she liked Nao, really, even beyond the bargain between them. The centurion might be using Pollonia too, but at least she used her beyond the sexual respect. All her other custom treated her well—Pollonia was good at charming people that way—but always held a subtle derision for her at the back of it, the silent appreciation many prostitutes were given. It said, "Poor you who aren't good for anything else."
For some reason she could not fathom, however, Pollonia never sensed this underestimation from the Ninth's primipilus. She was not silly enough to think it due to some infatuation or love from the other woman, knowing both things well enough to recognise this situation had neither. She could not attribute it to the culture of Himeans from the mainland, since she had serviced enough of them to know it was not that. Nor could she attribute it to the manner of soldiers, since she had known enough of them the same way. Could it be a point of education? Or even nature?
Ah, who knew? Perhaps one day she would understand, when she was no longer in this blighted brothel. Perhaps she would get to know the primipilus more and understand why, beneath all the bluff and bluster, the centurion was actually quite nice to her.
At the very same time this was happening, a letter a little over two months old was reaching its destination in the land of the Mentulaeans. It had been sent with specific instructions for speed, but human instructions were not proof against the constraints of nature. Most of the passes were blocked and the letter had had a long route to go before reaching the Mentulaean king's winter palace. At least the missive bore the seal of the ruling house, and that was enough for the party carrying it to be sped through most of the man-made constraints along the way: the checkpoints and guard stations throughout the empire. Once past the final point, it found its way to none other than the king's chief advisor, Lysander. He delivered it to the king.
Who is crusty today, Lysander thought during his task. Indeed, the king had been crusty the whole winter. The best way to tell the king's temperament was by the number of executions he ordered in a season, and this season had been a veritable winter harvest of heads. Unfortunate, especially to the former owners of those heads. Unfortunate too to those put in charge of the bodies, since winter meant everything was either too waterlogged or iced up to facilitate proper disposal: burning was impossible with damp wood; burial, difficult with icy ground. The only ones who seemed to find anything fortunate in the number of headless, gutted bodies seemed to be the great fish in the empire's rivers. Those aquatic animals had learned to rise gobbling to the surface whenever the king's executioners stood poised at the banks, the only ones to grow fat this wicked winter. Then again, perhaps they were not the only ones to grow fat off the accounts of the beheaded. After all, more dead courtiers meant more openings to be filled, and there was no shortage of social climbers ready to jump into the latest vacancy.
Though they'll be jumping out of it soon enough—headless into the nearest river, Lysander thought, well-aware of the king's continuing bad temper. He would know it best, being near the king at all times and privy to the continuing throb of the royal pride—a throb caused by a galling thorn in the empire's paw.
Or put in the words of the king himself, by the thieves in the empire's backyard.
Now, seeing that the letter he had just handed to His Majesty was from the heart of those foreign thieves' lands, Lysander prepared himself for whatever spurt of rage might issue from his lord's mouth. One good thing about being the virtual sounding board of the king, he thought, was that he could immediately tell what was in royal missives simply by listening to his lord's outbursts. He took position now next to the great gold and jewel-encrusted throne, watching the purple-clad figure break the seal.
The first outburst came even before the king began reading.
"He certainly took long enough to write me!" said the king, frowning as he looked over the thick roll of paper. Lysander knew, however, that it was not merely because of the delay in correspondence that the king looked so disturbed: the King of the Mentulae was a slow, difficult reader. Long letters were the bane of his existence. "Accursed boy. He's become lax."
"Your Majesty."
"He better not have been taking it easy over there. What's he been up to that he's forgotten to write to me?"
"Majesty."
"Nagi's my smartest boy, Lysander. But he'd better not be getting too smart for his own good."
Again the mindless repetition: "Your Highest Majesty."
And so on. When finally the king resolved to read the letter, it was all Lysander could do not to breathe a sigh of relief. One could only get by with "Majesty " so many times, after all.
As the king mumbled his way through the perfectly lined, even writing of his son's scribe, Lysander waited patiently, hoping that the prince had kept the pleasantries to a minimum this time. Prince Nagi was, as his father had observed, possibly the smartest of the royal princes as well as the most polished. Where most of the royal family waded through court, he glided. He had perfect courtly manners, did the prince. This meant he greeted everyone with the usual and expected pleasantries, went the carefully circuitous way with his speech, and was mindful of the usual courtesies in even the most trifling occasion or letter. Unfortunately, the king hated having to slog through what he considered meaningless courtesies. Which was a problem, since the king also found all courtesies meaningless. A coarse old cynic, was the king.
Not that Lysander would ever say that aloud. He rather liked his head and thought it looked best on this current perch.
Listening to his king mumble and mutter over the letter, he knew his hopes had been dashed. The king was taking a long time dissecting the first part of the letter and seemed to grow crustier after each deciphered line. That could only mean he was slogging yet again through the prince's pleasantries. Oh, his feet! Lysander had to stand to attention while waiting for the king to finish reading, for he had been given permission neither to sit nor to go. A lifetime seemed to pass before the grumbles turned into articulate words again. And Lysander's poor feet already felt like stone.
"Tchah! Keep on marshalling—it's for the best, he says, as though I couldn't think of it myself!"
He made a murmur of agreement, careful to keep a look of studied faithfulness on his countenance. If his feet could be stone, so could his face.
"I know well enough they're a damned problem, by Dagda! He might be there currying favour with their politicians but I'm here trying not to butt heads with their generals."
Yet another murmur of agreement from the chief advisor.
"Of course they should be told to keep to their territories and leave the North to us—I'm not the one expected to tell them that, am I? He's the one all the way there, fool of a boy."
Lysander could not stand it anymore: he shifted his weight and walked one step backwards, just to ease some feeling back into his heels. The king did not seem to notice.
"Ah!"
Lysander jumped.
"Uh." He looked at the ostentatiously dressed figure on the throne. "Your Majesty?"
The king did not look up from the letter. A few more seconds later, however, Lysander received his answer.
"He's leaving."
Who's leaving? The prince? Leaving where? For what? Seeing that the king's response begged more questions than it answered, Lysander felt a little tingle of irritation. Nonetheless, he hid it and waited for any clarifications, which he hoped were soon to come.
They came shortly, though in rather pared-down form.
"He's coming back."
That piqued his interest.
"Prince Nagi, Your Majesty?" he ventured.
"Hrm!"
That was the most he could get to clarify that particular statement. The king continued to read for what seemed to be an age, the only balm to Lysander's aching feet being that his lord looked progressively better-humoured as time went on. What could that mean?
Lysander mulled it over, thinking deeply on the matter. He had expected the prince to return sometime soon from his ambassadorial mission to the detested Himeans' city, of course, but he had not expected it to be this soon. Sometime after spring, had been his estimate. But this letter was dated two months ago, which meant the prince would most likely be returning around the commencement of spring itself. Was the reception to their suit among the foreign city's powers so bad, then? Or, even—somehow Lysander could not imagine this—had it been so good?
It was so hard to guess. And now the king was smiling.
When he had finally gone through the entirety of the letter, the man on the throne addressed Lysander again, even if only as a conduit for speaking to himself.
"Well, well, there's something," said Obsidian, reclining deeper against the royal cushions. "There's something indeed. That's a fine thing, I must say."
Lysander bowed, consumed by curiosity.
"Your Highness?" he said.
"It's not a bad winter, after all." The sound of paper being rolled up. "Continue preparations for the army, Lysander. And... and summon Calchis from his post to return here with his own army in time to greet spring. Yes, that would be perfect."
"Your Majesty, if I may: the raids against the lands under Prince Calchis's position—"
"Tell him to leave a contingent on guard duty there. It's not as though he's only a handful of men in his command."
"Of course, Sire."
"Have Faris send the summons to him. She'll know what to tell her brother."
"Straightaway, Sire."
"Make sure to send a missive to Hanu too, who's in Gorgo. Summon him as well."
"Yes, Sire."
The king said no more after that, and Lysander was left wondering if he should leave already to carry out the orders. Just as he was invoking permission to go, though, the king's voice rose again—this time more pensive and a little softer than usual.
"Nagi's a smart boy, eh, Lysander?"
Lysander hesitated only the briefest instant, weighing his choices for a correct answer.
"As you say, My Most Beloved King," he replied.
Thank Dann! The king seemed satisfied with that. And then he said something Lysander, deep in his courtier's heart, had been expecting.
"When he returns, have him watched very carefully."
Lysander bowed. Oh, the menace of kings! Satisfied with your machinations on their behalf one second, suspecting you of machination against them the next!
"But this is something." The king waved the scroll at his advisor, who watched it like a well-trained dog. "This letter is something, Lysander."
He smiled hugely as he said that, his great horse teeth flashing in the light, and Lysander saw that he was no longer as crusty as before. What in the world was that 'something' he kept talking about?
Despite the curiosity, all he said was: "I am glad you are pleased, Sire."
The hairs on his arms rose: the King of the Mentulaeans laughed.
Back in the Himean province of Argus, a sizeable carriage was rolling its way down the road, its occupants jolted and jigged unmercifully. Uneven roads were the curse of wheeled transport. There was nothing to absorb the shock of each troublesome little jag the wheels encountered, which meant a most disturbing—and, for the sensitive, nauseating—conveyance for those within it. Most people preferred to walk. But there were also occasions when the wheeled carriage was necessary, as for instance when speed was a consideration or the size of the party being transported in a hurry was considerable, as was the case with this particular carriage's inhabitants. Certainly the consideration could not currently be comfort.
"It's only when you take a nice carriage-ride down a road that you really see if it's in tip-top condition or not," exclaimed one of the persons in the coach. "And by all the gods, this is not! Oh, Midori-san needs to fix her roads!"
The woman sitting across her smiled tolerantly.
"My apologies for the discomfort, Chie-han," she said, turning twinkling red eyes to the window and the man poking his head out of it to vomit. "It seems Aisuka-han is faring no better, either."
Chie looked at the hapless Aisuka, just another of the motley scribes Shizuru employed for her purposes. She herself might be the official, personal secretary taking down notes for Senate's edification in this campaign, but the scribal duties she handled were few and particular—the composition of the official dispatches, for instance. For nearly everything else, Shizuru used the large gang she often had tagging along with her: a crew of as many as a dozen personal scribes per campaign, ceaselessly taking notes whenever she wanted and wherever she went.
At present, two of them were in the carriage: Aisuka and Imari. These two were among the best of her scribes and were paid very well for their work, but they were also worked in proportion to their pay. During instances such as this, for example, they were expected to keep up with Shizuru's flow of speech while jolted to sickening vertigo by the carriage. Each had to struggle not to vomit in tandem with the other so that at least one would be on hand to continue note-taking. Already Chie could see the still-working scribe, Imari, slowly turning pale as Aisuka continued to decorate Argus' icy streets with the contents of his gut. And still a relentless Shizuru ploughed on.
"As regards, however, the matter of directing units, one cannot deny the utility of universal familiarity with the essentials of the plan. This translates, naturally, to the importance of general addresses carried out by the commander to the entire army. It is each octet leader's task to remind his men of the fundamental scheme; the centurion's task to remind each octet leader; the pilus prior and primipilus centurions to remind the other centurions; the legates to remind each primipilus; and, of necessity, the commander's task to inform and update the whole."
Chie took deep breaths to stave off her own nausea. She was amazed that her friend could continue untroubled, speaking with that fascinating ability to distil words immediately from the mind into coherent and stylised speech. Out of the corner of an eye, the senior legate could see Imari scrabbling to keep up. Out of the corner of her other eye was Aisuka, wiping his mouth and still greenish of face. Shizuru was sitting across Chie herself, and next to Shizuru was the only silent member of the party: Shizuru's Otomeian.
Who looks her usual cool self, Chie thought, considering the girl's expression. Cool as ever—which meant she was not experiencing the same discomfort every other person in the carriage except Shizuru was having. Chie guessed she was likely to have good sea-legs. Which should please Shizuru, come to think of it, come time to go through with what the patrician seemed to be planning for the two of them.
Said patrician was still talking: "Moving on, the recent alterations."
Shizuru stopped a moment to cast a brief smile at her bodyguard.
"One alteration concerns our traditional military-issue spear, the pilum," she continued, unconsciously softening her voice when Natsuki smiled shyly back. "I had my weapon-designers working on alterations I requested in the first part of this campaign, and they have now produced a final, test-validated product in accord with my instructions. Modification of the army's other pila shall be undertaken as soon as possible, ideally within another week."
Chie tapped the tiny travelling table to get her attention.
"Sometimes your changes make me believe you're mad," the senior legate told Shizuru. "I heard, but was of half a mind to disbelieve it. Altering the pilum? Good gods!"
Shizuru was unrepentant: "Oh, I daresay you shall fancy the changes to the design an improvement, Chie-han, if I do say so myself."
"So long as the changes aren't just for decoration."
"To what, strike the enemy dead with a superior sense of fashion?" Shizuru asked, making Chie forget the conveyance's clunking enough to laugh. "No, I assure you I have very practical reasons. Although I do think the spear looks better too. I shall show it to you tomorrow."
"Good. I'm dying to see it."
"For now, however..."
The general's words trailed off as she regarded the two scribes on both sides of Chie, both of them visibly changing colour again. She ordered the carriage to be stopped, to general relief. Turning an amused eye to Aisuka and Imari, she relieved them for the day and invited them to step out of the carriage, which offer they took up immediately.
"I shall have someone bring your implements to your offices later. Take care then, and until tomorrow," she said to the pair walking down the road, her head out of the car. "Mind the ice, the road is slip—ah. Tsk. Well, there you go."
Chie's head appeared beside hers.
"I feel sorry for them, you know," she told Shizuru, as the two of them watched the pair on the street pick themselves up, tottering on unsteady legs. "You're a tyrant."
"I am not," Shizuru retorted, eyes twinkling. "I merely expect efficiency from my employees."
"Unfortunately, you also expect iron stomachs to go with it. Even I'm feeling a little ill with all that jolting and jarring, so don't you dare tell the coachman to start on yet."
"How queer that you should suffer so! Why, I never feel anything."
"That's because you never feel anything, has always gone the common talk about you. Well, unless it's those passionately, disturbingly, devastatingly amorous feelings for—ow!" Chie glared at her commander. "My foot!"
Shizuru smiled: "Is still attached to your ankle. For now."
"Tyrant."
"Tattler."
"Huh. Oh, look at Aisuka go."
"That is certainly an efficient way to travel. Look at the distance he covered."
"I guess—oh! Seems the stopping's a problem. Your scribe might have the makings of an Egyptian dancer yet, Shizuru-san."
"Hmm. The arrangement hints more at the Syrian to me."
"That's evil."
"Why? I happen to like Syrian dancers."
They were laughing so hard that they failed to mark the approach of their fellow senators, Suou and Kenji, until the latter hailed them in his gravelly voice.
"Didn't expect to catch up with you, General," he called, turning both of the heads poking out of the carriage. "Your group left the grounds before us."
It was Chie who answered him: "Detours, Kenji-san. Where are you two headed?"
"I'd like to go to my billet and hide under a nice woolly blanket."
"And I am trying to persuade him to seek comfort in a nice warm drink instead," said the young woman at his side. She had not been at the inspection of the local garrison earlier, and so she explained how she came to be walking with her fellow legate, who had been there.
"I ran into Kenji-san on my way back from my meeting with our praefectus. All is well with both accounts and supplies. Now the only supply with which I find difficulty is that of drinking companions. Perhaps you'd like to humour me in that regard, Shizuru-san, while I humour you by delivering a figure-by-figure report from my task? That is, if you're not too busy now."
Shizuru, who had pushed open the carriage drapes completely, leaned towards the opening and was already halfway into dismount. She spoke to her other friend first, however, who brushed away her apology as well as the invitation to join them. The senior legate was no fool, and only a fool would intrude on what was obviously intended to be a private invitation from the young Himemiya.
"I do think I'll take this rattle-trap on for a bit, though," she told Shizuru while gesturing at the carriage, which the other woman's bodyguard exited too. "If you don't mind. I think the road gets better soon, and it's really too cold for me too. I'll take Kenji-san along so needn't walk. That's if he doesn't mind having to endure a little rattling until we reach the better roads."
"Excellent," Shizuru replied, looking up at her friend. "It would set my mind at ease if I knew the two of you were safely warm and indoors as soon as possible. Kenji-han?"
Kenji mounted the car with a word of thanks and settled himself into the cushioned seats. After exchanging farewells, they ordered the driver to get on and the car began moving again, with Chie calling out a few final words to the women left behind.
"I'll send it back for you," she said, having been told by Suou the directions to their destination. "And try not to dance to a Syrian tune!"
Suou looked away from the carriage going down the street.
"Dance to what?" she asked Shizuru.
"Oh, nothing," the other woman laughed in return, following her as they started to walk. "That is merely Chie-han's way of saying we should try not to slip. Though I doubt it, for I am wearing my boots."
She trailed off and suddenly turned her head to look at the girl walking behind her.
"Natsuki, what about you?" she asked, stopping and thus halting her fellow Himean's steps as well. "Forgive me, I forgot to ask. Are you all right? If you are having trouble with ice, you can hold on to—"
She was cut off by a sharply upraised brow.
"Ice, Shizuru?" the girl said. "I was born of this."
Both Himeans in front of her took in the words, then broke out in smiles. Suou's smile was one of amusement with interest, while Shizuru's was one of amusement with surrendering affection. Natsuki tipped her head to indicate that they should keep walking and they set off again, the youngest female keeping slightly behind them.
"Fool that I am indeed," Shizuru murmured with self-mockery. "Of all the people for whom to be worried, I choose the one who would be most accustomed to the hazards of winter. I suppose it serves me right to be dismantled in one blow. What a retort!"
"She won that one," Suou agreed. "What could you say against that?"
"Nothing at all, which is why it would have been silly to try."
"It's so nice to see you lose a battle of words." The fairer, blue-eyed blonde grinned at Shizuru's wry glance. "See, it's so rare."
"Ah, I think not ill of it, especially if it is to Natsuki."
"Or more accurately, only then."
"Perhaps," Shizuru said with a shrug, refusing to argue it with a charming smile. "How about you, Suou-chan? You seem to be on steady footing as well."
Suou lifted her feet: she was wearing her army boots too.
"The advantage to wearing our boots," Shizuru observed while they walked. "It is difficult to lose footing on a fine set of hobnails."
"True—I'm glad I thought to wear mine as well," said Suou, before shooting a cursory glance at the other patrician's heavily-cloaked and armour-clad form. "Why are you in full parade gear, by the way? I have to admit I didn't think it was necessary for an inspection and it would be easier to get around without all of that on."
"Yes, it would be, and no, it is not necessary," Shizuru replied. "But it helps for inspirational purposes, especially during the muster. Besides which, the soldiers being inspected are compelled to go about with twenty pounds of mail-shirts and cuirasses on their backs while putting on a show. It would be quite poor of me to simply plead comfort to avoid doing the same."
"I see. I never thought of it that way." Suou's hand cuddled a fold of her own thick, heavy cloak. "Your new armour looks lovely on you, by the way."
Shizuru's pleasure gleamed in her eyes.
"Thank you," she said, obviously thinking the same. "The maker is, oh, a genius."
"A regular Vulcan of the forge. I might look him up too."
"I can recommend you."
"Thank you. Seeing you in it had me dreaming about my own, you know." She smiled pensively as she outlined the design she wanted in her mind. "Something similar in style, though with our crest, of course. And silver instead of gold."
Shizuru nodded, breathing out a puff of air.
"Silver and midnight blue," she recited, referring to the fact that it was in Suou's family tradition to wear silver armour instead of standard brass and a blue-black cloak instead of the standard red. They retained the scarlet plumes of Hime on their helmets in battle, however—although she knew they also sometimes wore midnight blue ones for pure parade or display purposes.
"I wonder if your family began wearing blue and silver before the tendency for fair looks in the line was established or vice versa," she told her friend, who pondered the question.
"I'm not sure, to be honest," Suou answered. "Why?"
"Because it is such a nicely appropriate vanity," Shizuru sniggered. "The deep blues of your cloaks and gear look wonderful paired with blondes of your type, you know."
"How kind of you to say so." She looked up. "Here we are. This is a nice little tavern. Good wine, brought all the way across the sea and from the south."
"It fascinates me how well you navigate this city now," Shizuru said as the two of them entered the deserted shop and gave a terrible shock to the dozing-off owner. He blinked once, twice, and only then finally found the image behind him convincing enough to precipitate a skip towards the impressive-looking intruders of his cosy, amber-lit domain.
"Because I've been spending time with Sugiura-san," Suou returned, loosening the folds of her cloak but not removing the garment. She nodded and smiled to the barkeep as he bowed and scraped before them, using his hands to point out a table.
"Awfully educational, really, watching her handle the never-ending feuds between the minorities in the city," the Himemiya went on. "And, of course, she knows all the pubs with decent wine. We stopped at half a dozen in a day and—and I'm sorry, but what's she doing, Shizuru-san?"
Having been on the verge of walking towards the table indicated by the owner of the pub, she had stopped short at the sight of Shizuru's bodyguard overtaking her to the destination and doing various peculiar things, all of which had the air of a most critical inspection. The two Himeans and the barkeep watched with puzzled reverence as the dark-haired girl went about her business, ending by nodding at what was to be her companions' table in apparent satisfaction. The two Himeans settled there afterwards, and Natsuki herself went to stand at the entrance to the tavern.
"My, my," Suou began, peering at her friend's bodyguard leaning against a side of the doorway. "Natsuki-san seems more thorough than usual."
"Natsuki." Shizuru was looking at the girl. "You may sit with us, you know. You need not position yourself there."
Natsuki shook her head at Shizuru, flicking a quick, curious glance at the other woman with them. It was only when Shizuru persisted in cajoling her to return that she answered with her regular succinct finality.
"Here is fine," she told them. "I like. Wind."
Suou kept her face composed, only a near-invisible lift of her pale brows letting on her surprise. The truth was that she had been hoping to talk to Shizuru without the girl listening to them. Part of her intended talk touched on matters related to the Otomeian, after all. Thus she had hoped but not actually expected to be granted a little time with Shizuru separate from the cavalry captain. She had been trying her wits for a way to bring this about during the brief walk here, but had not come up with a suitably polite solution. Now here it was being presented to her like a gift. Had the enigmatic Natsuki guessed it, or was this mere coincidence? For, by standing at the doorway, the young woman would not be able to make out their words inside the pub: whatever sounds she heard would be garbled by the strong wind blowing outdoors and gusting in instead of out.
How perceptive of her, Suou thought. It was charmingly civil too, of course. She could not help but be impressed by the realisation that, even in this act of consideration, the dark-haired girl had kept in mind her primary duties: the distance from the doorway to the Himean pair's table was something one of her agility could easily cover in a few seconds. Oh, "The General's Girl" was a formidable one! Suou rather liked that.
"Some of your finest wine, if you please, and three cups," she told the hovering pub owner, who rushed off to fulfil the order. Suou redirected her sky-light gaze to Shizuru. "She's half-outside. The wine would help keep her warm, right?"
"Yes," said the other woman, still looking at the girl. "Yes, that is very good of you, Suou-chan. My thanks on her behalf."
"My pleasure. It's the least I can do for her thoughtfulness."
"Ah, yes." Shizuru finally tore away her attention from the doorway. "I gather you wished to speak to me alone, then?"
"Yes, if possible."
"Quite possible, as you see. You might have simply asked me, Suou-chan. Natsuki is most considerate in such things. She would not mind."
No, but you would, Suou thought. Instead she said, "Then forgive me for not thinking to do that. Natsuki-san is considerate, as you say. She's proven it now."
"Indeed." For a moment it seemed that Shizuru would turn again, but did not. "Would I be correct in thinking we shall be talking about recent developments back home? Your sister sent you a letter too in the packet we received nine days ago, I recall."
"She did. I meant to talk to you earlier about that, but haven't been able to find the right time until now, unfortunately. We've all been so busy getting the army primed in time for the spring thaw, plus helping with Midori-san's reinforcement of the province's military. Well, it's been a chore trying to get time alone."
"I understand."
"For my part, I understand that Midori-san believed the probability of foreign incursions into our territories even before this, but never with such conviction," Suou rejoined sombrely. "The way she's treating it now, most people are saying that she thinks it practically an inevitability. Of course, she's not saying anything specific about the direction from which the threat comes, but it's quite clear it's the Mentulaeans on her mind."
Shizuru answered the unspoken query: "I may have sown a seed of warning, but she knows nothing beyond it."
"When do you plan on telling her?"
"When Chikane obtains the affirmative from Senate."
"I see. That's nice and clear." Suou's eyes narrowed in thought. "I say, do you think this will cause a return in her problem with the Mentulaean Murders?"
"I know not, unfortunately, since the peculiar nature of the city's mixed demographic makes its population's temperament unfamiliar to me," Shizuru replied. "So I hope not. I am certain Midori-han would know what to do, in any case. Despite certain opinions to the contrary, she and incompetence are not at all close relations."
The arrival of the pub owner stopped their conversation, and they paused long enough to thank him for the beverages as well as the plate of roast meats he placed before them. Shizuru poured some wine into a cup, diluted it with water, then handed it to him along with some pieces of meat—very carefully picked out from the plate—wrapped in a cloth napkin. He was directed to take it to the dark-haired girl by the door and tell her specifically that 'the general wished her to have them'. He bowed and carried out his errand.
"I suppose our lovely ice princess would not accept it otherwise?" Suou guessed.
The red eyes looked at her.
"Curious you should use that word," said the other woman, who was in the process of divesting herself of her cuirass.
"Which one? Do you need help with that?"
"Yes, please. And 'princess'. Not 'queen'."
"Is it curious to use one instead of the other?"
Suou rose to her feet and helped the other woman remove her shoulder-guards and body armour. These were followed by the pteryges, the skirt of burnt brown leather strips over the breeches. They settled the pieces on the other end of Shizuru's bench and returned to their seats.
"I suppose it may be because she is younger than me—or us. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be indirectly patronising about the age difference."
Shizuru shook her head, a few tawny and fetchingly curled locks waving at the action. Devoid of her armour, she was left wearing the padded black tunic whose sleeves reached her wrists, along with a pair of black breeches up to her knees. It was unconventional, thought Suou, since most generals wore the standard-issue red tunic and breeches under their armour. The woman had unwound her cloak earlier too before removing the cuirass, and now had the great bolt of red cloth over and around her shoulders.
"Not at all," she was saying. "I understand completely, Suou-chan. She looks so—how to put it? Eternally girlish?"
"In face and form, yes." Suou glanced at the ceiling with one of her slow smiles. "I daresay you're right about it being eternal. She will always look that way, I believe, with those bones."
She looked at Shizuru and added: "She will probably hate it one day, you know."
As she had expected, Shizuru's reaction was to produce an expression that was the visual equivalent of a scoff.
"To look so?" the darker blonde asked, her tone making it clear that she thought it ludicrous that anyone with such looks could hate them. "That would be strange indeed. What makes you think so?"
"Most girls and women who look like girls do," was the answer. "I've noticed. See, a girl child often dreams of the day she will mature or 'grow up' in the sense of growing forward, to speak of at least two specific places. The developed body, with its attendant curves. There is the patent maturity, the supposedly womanly face. An image that puts to mind the words 'woman' or 'queen', rather than the former words 'girl' and 'princess'. I suppose we all wish for it and look forward to that, inwardly, when we are children—partly because the adults themselves reinforce that stereotype of mature femininity. Thus it doesn't sit too well with some when they realise they'll never get past teetering on the border. I know quite a few other girlish-looking women who bemoan their misfortune of eternally adolescent appearance to me."
She filled her cup with wine from the jug and guided it to her lips.
"I couldn't speak for them specifically," she finished. "But I suppose it's because even just the façade of youth is a double-edged sword."
Shizuru took a moment to think on it.
"Perhaps so," she eventually ruled. "Still, I suppose it may be difficult for me to speak on it, as I appreciate the looks of youth myself. Besides, 'princess' is technically one of Natsuki's titles, so you are not far off in that much, at least."
"It would have to be," came the rejoinder, to which she replied with an inquisitive look. "From what I have seen and heard, Shizuru-san, it hardly describes her to be called a mere cavalry officer. Granted, their social structures may differ from ours, but no mere cavalry officer could, say, converse with all their high aristocrats and even their king in the most familiar of tones—or quote Juvenal at the drop of a hat. Both of which you assert she can in fact do."
"I suppose that is true," Shizuru averred. "Breeding and birthright tell powerfully in some people. I have been informed that most of their higher military officers are generally high in the social structure too, though. I suppose the easiest way to think of it would be in terms of similarity to your position instead of the centurion's, Suou-chan. A kind of legate. They are nearly all nobles, I gather."
"Ah, now I see. If it's that way, it makes you think of her guardianship of you as a form of apprenticeship, no? Similar to our contubernalis." She smiled at her friend. "The king assigned her to you personally, right?"
"Yes."
"Awful smart of him. Not only did he get to put one of his nobles right up there in the midst of our command tent, but he'd also worked out a way to have her possibly getting an in-depth education in our ways and tactics from it."
"So I have often reflected, myself. Of course, I do not mind at all."
"No, of course not. She's excellent at her work, from what I see, and I for one find little to distrust in her or the arrangement. A warrior princess in training, eh? Well, her carriage speaks for itself. All the damnable arrogance of nobility."
The other, just-as-noble patrician had to smile.
"I wonder what your sister would say to that arraignment of nobility," she said, taking a piece of roast pork between thumb and forefinger. Suou did the same, squeezing the morsel first to test how yielding was the meat.
"Nil, since she's one of the most arrogant nobles and also one of the best at hiding it well," she said once satisfied that it was soft enough for her preferences: she popped it into her mouth, chewed, then swallowed. "As she does most things. In that sense, one could not wish for a better conspirator. I should know, being her sister."
"And I, to a lesser extent, being her friend."
"Not lesser, Shizuru-san. For heaven's sake, there's no need to be so modest—no one can arraign you for damnable arrogance if you admit to great familiarity with her." As the other woman smiled, she leaned forward and lifted one platinum-coloured brow. "We both received letters from her a few days ago, and both sent letters back. We talked then, but only fleetingly, of the content of her letters before writing our own replies."
Shizuru nodded at this recollection.
"Has anything changed since then, Suou-chan?" she enquired.
"I'm not sure. I do have something to confess, though, as well as something to ask."
"In that order?"
"The latter shall precede the former."
"Then ask away, please."
Suou thanked her for the allowance.
"This may be curt, but I hope you'll agree this weather is too cold for beating around the bush," she said, noticing how Shizuru's neck seemed to twitch again at that, as though striving mightily not to twist and turn again to the doorway. Truly the young woman there seemed to exert some form of magnetism! "I wanted to make sure of something. All your interests are against you taking time off from this campaign to go back home, right? That is to say, you'd rather not go just yet, even if only for a short while—as you'd be required to, say, if you were elected one of the praetors and thus had to go home to get your official assignment."
"Yes."
"That hypothetical situation would require, at best, a mere month or so away from here. Would that still be unacceptable? In terms of strict preferences, of course."
Shizuru's face was neutral but her voice was firm: "Yes."
"I see. If that's so, I'm very glad." At her friend's puzzled face, Suou smiled languorously. "I mentioned a confession."
"That you did."
"As well as my sister's missives and our replies to her."
"I'm assuming they are related?"
"You are and you would be correct to do so." A flare from one of the torches rendered the pale blue eyes opaque for a moment, covered by a film of pure light. "I stated in my letter something consistent with an earlier dispatch I sent Chikane, which she should have received by now given that it was sent over a month ago. As you can guess, part of that earlier letter concerned you, as did the later letter."
"And that concern was?"
"My intimation that, given certain circumstances, you might prefer to stay in the North without interruption for a while."
The fair brows moved up: Shizuru was regarding her with mild surprise. Suou merely looked back coolly. As if settling the matter, they both reached for their cups and lifted them to their lips. They lowered their cups to the table at the same time.
"Did you really say that in your letters?" Shizuru asked her.
"Yes."
"Why?"
Suou's eyes slid away and to a point behind her.
"Because I thought you enjoyed the local scenery," she said.
Shizuru smirked.
"You are beginning to evince a verbal equivocation that is highly reminiscent of your sibling," she pronounced, drawing a crooked smile from her friend. "And yes, I know, of me as well."
"I am relieved you admitted it."
"Only before you could point it out," Shizuru replied. "How strange that you should think it! It is true, of course. But was it apparent as early as a month ago?"
"I think so. Why should it be strange?"
"Because I came to a resolution only recently."
"Oh. Well, curious, that. Don't you mean 'realisation', then?"
"Was it that apparent?"
"Yes."
Shizuru sighed at her giggling friend, who seemed to be enjoying this mightily. Her eyebrow's ascent only served to further fuel the aforementioned friend's amusement.
"Care to know some of the reasons?" Suou asked with mischief.
Shizuru crossed her arms and lifted her shoulders.
"By all means," she said. "Do illuminate me."
"First and most obviously, you're never apart from each other."
"She is my bodyguard, you know."
"Yes, but then comes the second reason: you've exhausted the stocks of nearly half the shops in Argus that are selling anything remotely attractive to a young lady of her age. I daresay they all love you for the commerce you've been giving them ever since we arrived, as do the gossips for your gift of new material."
"And what is to say I have not been on this spending spree for myself?"
Suou rolled her eyes with a chuckle.
"I know you too well for that, so please spare me," she retorted, her lips forming yet another sly grin. "For instance, I happen to have heard that the latest such spree was with one of the province's most esteemed and expensive tailors. It was a large order for Himean nightdresses in all the latest and popular fashions."
"Himean." The other woman tapped a finger on her cheek coyly. "That seems to support my contention, yes? I am Himean, after all."
"Pfft. Word has it too that the measurements given to the tailors seemed less characteristic of Shizuru Fujino's taller and more endowed form than of her shorter, slimmer bodyguard." She sniggered cheerfully. "Oh, do give it up. Shall you wait for me to catch her wearing them instead of admitting it to me now? And with you calling her 'meum mel' in the background?"
The other woman was not immune to her friend's comical threat: a laugh escaped.
"Oh god," she said at the mental image. "All right, I concede. Planning to pursue a career as an advocate, Suou-chan?"
Suou flicked her fringe away from her eyes. She had not had it trimmed, Shizuru noticed, and it had grown such that the other patrician could now easily tuck away all of it behind her ears, along with the rest of her long and flaxen hair.
"Maybe," she said now. "The witness examination suits my tastes. Anyway, would you care to tell me how that order for nightdresses came about? I'm awfully curious."
"Ah, you see, she suggested that she would like one," Shizuru answered with uncharacteristic hesitation. "And since I knew better than she from which tailors to place such an order, I thought I would save her the trouble by doing it."
"And having a hundred made."
"Merely thirty!" Shizuru corrected swiftly, drawing a series of muffled sounds from the other woman.
"Merely thirty! Good god, you said it: she wanted only one!"
Suou clutched her stomach in a desperate effort to stay the guffaws.
"Oh, you're wonderful. And don't," she said, seeing Shizuru's mouth open, "protest by claiming you were pressed to know what colour or style to get her. Simply, you wished to have as many kinds as possible, am I right? Oh, to where has your much-vaunted subtlety gone, Shizuru-san?"
Shizuru's mouth quirked.
"I suppose that when subtlety feels impossible," she answered with self-directed humour, "one might as well choose the glory of excess."
"In this case, it seems all to the good. As I said, it gives the locals business and you something to do with your scads of money." She looked at her cup, realised it was empty, and began to refill it. "And I daresay our princess likes it."
The note of anxiety in Shizuru's answer did not escape her: "I hope so."
"Of course she does," she told her friend feelingly. "Now, then, tell me something."
She refilled Shizuru's empty beaker as well before going on.
"How does it feel?" she asked. "I asked my sister this before, but you know Chikane—she thinks some things are too abstract for words. It's her personal drama."
"Thank you." Shizuru picked up her cup, as did Suou. She lifted it to her lips but hovered there long enough to ask a further clarifying question. "And how does what feel?"
Suou smiled at Shizuru as the latter drank, then lifted her own cup as well.
"Being in love," she said.
Shizuru choked.
"Oh dear." Suou leaned towards her friend, conscious of the pub owner scurrying towards them at the sound of Shizuru's violent coughs. Natsuki too had been alarmed by the hacks, and she approached as well. "Are you all right, Shizuru-san? Oh, I am sorry!"
One of Shizuru's hands was up, waving away the concern. The pub owner stopped halfway through the room on his trek towards them and returned behind the bar, seeming to look for something. That left Natsuki.
"Shizuru?"
The Otomeian hovered above her charge, who was pressing a cloth handkerchief to her mouth. The latter looked up at her.
"It's all right, Natsuki," she told the girl. "I am fine, really. I merely choked."
The green eyes bored into red ones. As well they should, the watching Suou thought. Shizuru Fujino was not someone who "merely choked".
""You may return to your post, Natsuki. Go on, I am fine."
"Umm."
"Go on."
The pub owner returned at that moment, bringing a new jug of cold water and another cup. They thanked him as Natsuki left to do as Shizuru had told her. One poured cup of water later, and the pub owner returned to his post too.
"Interesting," Suou ventured as Shizuru took the water. "You weren't so keen on having her go all the way there earlier."
Shizuru shot her a quick frown. Suou lifted her brows at the mute attack.
"I'm sorry, Shizuru-san," she reiterated. "I really didn't mean to—I don't know—surprise you that way, I suppose. Was it a surprise?"
Shizuru drank half the contents of the cup. She felt the stab of pain in her head that told her she had done it too quickly, for the water was very cold, but she ignored it and answered Suou instead.
"It was, rather," she admitted. "I should say so."
"May I ask why?"
Shizuru smiled drily.
"I suppose," she said.
"So why?"
Silence.
"Oh dear," Suou said. "I was right. You're just like Chikane."
The other woman shifted, looking slightly uncomfortable. Suou had a thought and said it.
"It's the word 'love', isn't it? Chikane always used to flinch in the early days when I spoke it."
Shizuru looked a little more uncomfortable.
"Does that mean you haven't told her yet?"
Now Shizuru looked extremely uncomfortable.
"Shizuru-san," Suou started, in the face of this stretch of silence from her companion. "I've always regarded you as something of a sister and often an older one, like my own. So I wouldn't presume to give you advice unless you permit me to say something to you. It's something I said to Chikane once that I would like to say now, something I told her at the time she went through a similar situation. Truth be told, I'm not sure this is what I should say politically. It might be rash of me."
A wide, charming grin spread on her face.
"But," she continued, "as I'm not like my older sister and I don't have the constraints she has as the head of our clan, I entertain the thought that I can be rash where she can't, most of the time. All the same, I shall keep my words to myself if you would rather not grant permission."
Shizuru shook her head slowly, trying to regain composure.
"You may say whatever you wish, Suou-chan," she invited.
The pale blue eyes lit up as Suou delivered her advice.
"Tell her, you fool."
That did it: Shizuru flinched.
"Oh dear."