Gratitude to the readers and reviewers. Yesterday I reread chapter 45 for reference. As the usual reread, it yielded the typical crop of typographical errors... and also the discovery that one wrote Perseus in a line where it should have been Bellerophon, then proceeded to repeat the misattribution like a fool. (Sigh.) My apologies: I truly did not realise it at the time. The only reason of which I can think for the gaffe is that it was the overlap of Pegasus that made me interchange heroes so inanely, although it remains a fault as I should have seen that earlier and rectified it. Again, please pardon me.


Illustration:

An attempt to atone for the relative dearth of Shizuru-Natsuki interaction:

ethnewinter. deviantart art/HTSUAF-1-of-3-169077951

(please remove the spaces after the full stops)


Vocabulaire:

1. Ala (s.), alae (pl.) – A cavalry unit; the estimates on the number of horsemen per ala differ, but for this story, the number shall be set at five hundred. The Lupine division, for instance, has approximately 700 horsemen, and is thus just a little shy of being an ala and a half.

2. Asclepiad – Something that may be familiar to the literature students, the asclepiad is a line in lyric verse and has two sub-classes: the Lesser Asclepiad, with 12 syllables and a caesura; and the Greater Asclepiad, which takes a choriambus both preceded and followed by diaresis.

3. CalendsAlso Kalends; the first of the three named days of a Roman/ Himean month, and the only fixed or unvarying one. The Calends is always on the first day of the month.

4. Campus Martius The area outside the city of Rome/Hime where legions were trained and parked.

5. Capite censi (L.) The Head Count; socially the lowest of all Romans, they did not even deserve a rung on the class ladder. The poorest class was technically the Fifth Class, but these were still a notch above the capite censi, who were classless, property-less, vote-less, yet also the most numerous in Ancient Rome.

6. Cassandra – Prophetess from Greek myth who was doomed to always know the disasters about to happen, yet never have a single word believed once she prophesied them.

7. Comitium (s.), comitia (pl.) Assembly; a gathering called together for the purpose of discussing or settling political or state matters.

8. Contubernalis – The Ancient Roman equivalent of a military cadet. These were nobles or members of the Famous Families, so they were often kept out of the battle and seconded to staff work for the general's office.

9. Domus Publica – The state house in which the head of the State religion and the Vestal Virgins (see note below) lived.

10. "Ecastor!" – An exclamation permissible in high company, and a reference to Castor (of the heavenly twins, Castor and Pollux/Polydeuces). It was used by women, the equivalent for men being "Edepol!"

11. The Eighteen – The most influential knights, these were the original eighteen centuries of the Ordo Equester (see Equites), meaning the original eighteen divisions within that group in its early days of existence. As time passed, more divisions were added to the Ordo Equester to accommodate the expansion of the knight class, but these eighteen centuries were kept untouched and intact.

12. Equites – Members of the Roman Ordo Equester, called "the knights" as opposed to "the senators". Those of knight rank were usually as well-born as those of senatorial rank, but the difference was that they chose not a political career but a commercial one. Recall that there are restrictions on senatorial businesses, which is the reason the knights are generally the richer of the two ranks. One may consider them the equivalents of the modern "business sector" of the community, with the senators being the "government or political sector", for a simplified but convenient categorisation.

13. Glyconic – Like the asclepiad (s.v.), another line in lyric verse, this time having 8 syllables.

14. Head Count – See note for capite censi.

15. Ilium – Troy, of Homer's Iliad and the famous Trojan Horse.

16. Infra dignitatem – A Latin phrase still being used in Modern English: "beneath one's dignity".

17. Knights – See note above, for Equites.

18. Mos maiorum (L.) – The established custom, tradition; the way things had always been done and "should" always be done, according to the arch-conservatives or the "Traditionalists"

19. New Mannovus homo / homo novus; socially, ancestrally, and politically speaking, a parvenu. These were generally looked down upon, as antecedents were very important in highly-stratified Rome.

20. Plebs – The Plebeians; while 'plebeian' referred to all Roman citizens who were not patrician, the sense in which Plebs is used here is more specific to politics. It meant those members of the plebeians who were actively attending and/or influencing meetings of the Plebs, like the Comitia (see note above) called by the tribunes of the plebs.

21. Pomerium – The sacrosanct boundary encircling the city of Rome, which could not be crossed by generals for the duration of their service in a military mission or capacity.

22. Subura – One of Rome's poorer districts, known for its squalor and population density.

23. Urban praetor – Head of the praetors and the city's courts, he dealt with all civil litigation within Rome.

24. Vestal – Also Vestal Virgins, priestesses dedicated to the protection of the sacred flame of the hearth of the goddess Vesta; they were expected to remain chaste for the duration of their service.


Inter Nos II: Inde ira et lacrimae

par ethnewinter


The sessions held outside the pomerium went well into the month of June and the next, with both camps speaking indefatigably—if a little more cautiously, on the part of those opposing Shizuru—for or against the controversial motion. Public interest by this time had peaked for two reasons: first, because of the now-famous events of the first session in the Ogasawara villa; and second, because of the start of campaigning season for the coming elections. As provided by the incumbent consuls at the beginning of their term, the officials for next year would be voted in around mid-October. Thus most of the candidates for those elections began the heavy vote-gathering around June.

Vote-gathering comprised a range of activities going from public works all the way to bribery. High public visibility was necessary; a flurry of speechifying candidates was going about the city at all times, talking to any crowd willing to listen. These speechifying candidates made much of whatever topic was currently seizing the city, for they used their speeches on these topics to clarify on which side of the political fence they stood. That June, Shizuru Fujino's issue happened to be one of the topics most used, as it was such an excellent base for distinguishing political polarisation, aside from being a subject guaranteed to tempt people's ears. There were dangers to this temptation, howeer: those fervently against Shizuru soon learned not to make their speeches within hearing of a rowdy-looking mob of Head Count composition. As demonstrated by several violent but thankfully bloodless occasions, the Head Count stood more or less on the Fujino side of things.

It was said that this sentiment among the lower levels could not be out of any intelligent political opinion or understanding. Even without the scorn with which such statements were oft issued, this was generally true. Even those myriad followers of Shizuru Fujino's ally, Urumi Himemiya-Kanzaki, were not enough to account for the widespread lowly support given her. Indeed, not even those Urumi-followers were all truly aware of all the complexities of the Fujino controversy: against the sheer multitude of people living in Hime, Comitia-goers were still a mere drop in the slop-bucket, especially where the poor were concerned. The humble folk did not actually pay much attention to politics, having plenty of their own worries and controversies to occupy them.

Even so, for some arcane reason that continued to defy her foes' understanding, they seemed to pay attention when it was Shizuru Fujino involved in the politics—and also seemed to assume that, whatever was going on, it was Shizuru Fujino on the right side of things. Which assumption helped make life very difficult for those bent on opposing that side of things, as they already had enough worries among their peers without having public sentiment against them too.

"We're in trouble," Sergay Wang said bluntly to his allies, who had gathered for a strategic meeting in his home. Only those with the greatest clout had been asked to come, which meant the Wang atrium held the leaders of the arch-conservative faction that night, distributed two-each to a nicely plush couch.

"We're struggling," he restated. "We need to decide on a rational strategy to stop her from seeking that motion once and for all. There are more turning to her side every day among the neutrals in Senate. Public opinion is one thing—the People are fickle, we know that—but having the other senators swing against us is a more serious matter."

"Like that prick, Yasuri!" spat Jin Akagi, who was on the couch opposite. "Did you hear him yesterday? He turned right around and said perhaps it wouldn't be so bad if we gave her what she wanted!"

"That's exactly what I mean," Sergay cut in, before Akagi could either work up one of his huffs, or influence the others into working up theirs. He wanted to proceed through this meeting calmly. "You can't say Yasuri's ever been sympathetic to Fujino or any of her allies, but even he has started to consider giving in. We need to face facts, and the fact is that a lot of people are getting worn down. This needs to stop! If it goes on, any vote in the House will see the division going Fujino and Himemiya's way, so much I can promise."

"What do you propose, then?" demanded Haruka Armitage. She shared a couch with her boon companion, the junior consul. "If you can see a solution, say it. And if anyone even suggests something like what Nakao did, I'll strangle him!"

Her red-cheeked face turned redder, virtually mottling.

"Using a New Man to do it," she said through her teeth. "How could he? The man's got no sense."

"Yes, it was a foolish thing to do," the host agreed, willing to be sidetracked by this particular topic. He ignored the flush that rose to Akagi's face, knowing the other man had been a party to that ill-advised scheme to discredit their enemy using the now-discredited Katsu Hitagi. Oh, if only they had told him about it before they put the plan in motion! He might have fixed things to actually work to their advantage. They should have informed at least him or Haruka, anyway, that they had been planning such a move. He always wondered why some of them insisted on acting solo, thus sparing themselves the combined wisdom and resources they would have had with the assistance of the group. He wondered that even more these days as this was a time when he believed they needed all the resources they could put together; the current enemy was proving enormously difficult.

"Mind, I think it would've worked if it'd been someone else," he admitted. "Someone with actual ancestors, of course, and the necessary balls. But there it is: our current tribunes of the plebs are especially weak. What a year for it! At least our bets for next year are better, or so they seem to be."

"They should be," drawled Hikaru Senou, who on had his usual facial expression: a superior look of distaste that some had likened to the grimace a man pulled when you shoved something nasty under his nose. Hikaru now turned that look to Sergay, and spoke in the nasal voice that matched his countenance: "I'm backing one of them, you know."

"Yes, so I heard. He's your client, is he?"

"Quite so."

But Haruka was still fuming over Nakao, who had not been invited to this meeting for the reason that so infuriated her that very moment. Not that they thought he would show had he been invited, either: he had been keeping to his home of late, in a black depression over the outcome of his pawn's failure.

"Why did he do it?" she demanded of the company, which turned her way. "There's no love lost between me and Fujino, but I could strangle Nakao! We've had trouble only since. Most of this that you're complaining about, Sergay, happened after that session. It sent our support sliding down the hill!"

There was an uncomfortable pause after this truthful assessment.

"It's to be expected, to be honest," Sergay said ruefully, his wide shoulders slumping just a little. "Fujino's... speech was impressive, you know. Hitagi gave her all the openings she needed. Even the bit about that foreign lover of hers was well-put: she threw it back in our faces with a vengeance! It really is too bad, since it could have been such good material. She made Hitagi—and by association, our side—look petty."

He shook his head tiredly.

"I detest the woman, but even I have to admit she was formidable... which is probably the reason it was only Nakao who could've got such a fool scheme as that in his head. His hate for her is so deep it robs him of his other senses sometimes. He'd never see anything in her as even remotely admirable. We all know there's bad blood between them."

"That was pretty long ago," someone replied.

"Yes, but it was the sort of thing to be remembered," he said, easily recalling the event that had started Yuzuru Nakao's vendetta against Shizuru Fujino: a non-violent mutiny that had seen an entire army rejecting him and preferring her, who had merely been a subordinate. "It cost Nakao a great deal of dignitas."

"But using a New Man still isn't the sort of thing I had expected of him. I like Fujino no more than you do, but the fact remains she's still one of us! Having that upstart of all people accuse her of that sort of thieving hit the limit for the old-guard patriciate, you know, and that was something I'd have expected Nakao to think of, since he's a patrician as well."

"Though not as old-guard," sniffed Hikaru Senou.

"Well! Still, d'you think he's going senile?"

"Maybe, but who knows?" Sergay sighed and frowned. "I think we're straying from the point."

He raked a hand through his sandy-yellow hair.

"Look, as I was saying, I do have a solution. It would actually work so much better if we had a good tribune of the plebs to do it for us, in truth," he told them. "The way it is now, we'll all just have to pull a good share of the weight."

"What is it? Out with it already, Man!" Akagi said, eager to leave the topic of Nakao's failure.

"Delay the vote," Sergay replied. "If we can keep delaying a division on the motion, Fujino will see her term of office end without having ever been inaugurated into it, and see the issue come to nothing. I was actually leaning the other way before—pushing the House into an early division on it before her camp started getting its stride, I mean—but the debacle at Ogasawara's villa changed that. Would that I'd pushed for it earlier! We've already gone into the latter part of the year. If we can just delay it long enough to the end, the motion will be moot."

"There's half of the year to go yet," spoke up the junior consul. "That seems like a lot of time."

"A mere few months—it'll fly by," Sergay rebutted. "All we need to do is have our tribunes of the plebs veto when needed, with us supporting them by giving blocking speeches to Fujino and her allies. We will actually depend on you heavily for this, Yukino."

He nodded to the woman who looked like a tiny mouse perched next to the dauntingly bright-coloured Haruka Armitage. For a moment he pictured how she looked when she was on the curule platform with her consular colleague, then felt malicious for doing so.

"If you can offset Himemiya, it would be a great help," he told her, hiding the irritation he was feeling: weak tribunes of the plebs and an unimpressive consul at a time when the enemy had one so stellar—or should it be lunar, given that one's atmosphere?—she need only sit beside you to make you look pitiful. What a year indeed for the conservatives! "Worse comes to worst, you might even have to cut some sessions short when you're the officiating consul, in case they suddenly raise the issue of a division and we're unable to block them. That shouldn't be too hard, given your position."

No one heard the woman's sigh of despair. She was thinking of her fellow consul, who was not someone so easily "offset". Not too hard indeed! For a moment the retort that Sergay should do it himself hovered, but she bit it back and listened to him.

"This is just about the only thing I can think of that could work right now. It will work—it has to! This is the only logical recourse to us at this point. After all, we can't even intimidate that cousin of Himemiya's into retracting her veto on Fujino's triumph, nor can we intimidate her into pulling back the damned motion."

"There's one I'd love to get my hands on!" Akagi suddenly burst out, jerking so convulsively he splashed some of his wine on the couch and on his annoyed couch-mate too. "Stirring up trouble with the Plebs—do you know she talks to them nearly every day? She spends more time wooing voters than the actual candidates! I piss on Nemura!"

That provoked a timid reply from the quietest and most uncomfortable member of the gathering. Kazuya Kurauchi's discomfort was due to his awareness that his presence was mere formality, since even he was painfully conscious of his own shortcomings. He knew he had neither the touch nor the mind for his political heritage, and was only suffered by the current group because of his name and his august, fanatically arch-conservative family history.

That family history still demanded that he contribute his mite, though, which he did now.

"It's actually Himemiya-Kanzaki again, Akagi-san," he reminded the older man punctiliously. "Not Nemura."

In this Kazuya was actually correct. That this was again the proper name for that notorious patrician-turned-plebeian was since the plebeian who had consented to adopt her—her childhood friend, Tomoko Nemura—had finished the rites that legally released Urumi from her authority. Although this meant Urumi no longer needed to use Nemura for her last name, it could not change back her status to patrician. Thus, Urumi Himemiya-Kanzaki was essentially establishing a new family of her own, a branch from the famous families Himemiya and Kanzaki, albeit a plebeian one.

All of which Akagi knew very well, but did not really care about.

"Nemura or not, I still piss on her!" he snapped at the younger man, goaded. "I piss, I piss, I piss!"

He received a glare from the immensely haughty-looking man to his right: "We've better things to do than talk about latrine activities, Akagi."

"Why not talk about them, Senou, given how deep in shit we already are?"

"Oh, stop bickering, the two of you!" Sergay cried, exasperated. "We're here to talk about how to beat Fujino. If that's clear, let's hear the opinions on what I just proposed. What do you think of my plan?"

"Sensible," Haruka said.

"I agree," said Senou. "I say we adopt Wang's plan for now."

The rest also voiced agreement.

"So it's decided," Sergay said, heaving a sigh of immense satisfaction. "We use delaying tactics to prevent them ever seeing a division... at least, until we're sure that we have more support for our side than they do on theirs. In the meantime, we can keep working on the problem and swinging more people our way."

"If by 'people' you mean senators and senior equites," Haruka said through her teeth. "The actual People look to be more on her side, even more the Plebs. Idiots! How they fail to see her for what she is, I'll never understand."

A lift of her clenched hands, to be shaken in the air.

"Why is it," she cried, "that she's so wretched popular?"

It was a good question. Why was Shizuru Fujino so wretched popular? Far beyond all the others who were also famous, in fact, which was why Haruka Armitage had felt the need to append the ironic adjective wretched. It was a question very few members of their class could answer, because the answer required a perceptual depth not normal to them. Or, more simply, it required a willingness to talk to those of far lower station in order to find the answer. But what member of the First or Second Class would ever credit a response given by someone so far beneath theirs? Or would even spare time to ask such lowly beings a question?

Better they would have, because most of the lowly beings actually knew the correct answer. Yes, they loved all those who were great and beautiful and worthy of admiration... but that was a fickle love, and not the kind they held for Shizuru Fujino. She had all the traits every Himean admired in his superiors and officials, to be sure, but the adoration they gave her was still special. It was because, of all the great and powerful people who had ever swept around the streets of Hime nodding and smiling their way, only Shizuru really talked to them.

There were others who took the time to smile and exchange pleasantries, it was admitted, but almost never so warmly and never to every class including the capite censi. Whereas Shizuru talked to even the capite censi. Furthermore, she showed unusual interest in their situations, often remembering them by face or even sometimes by name. How strange was that? A patrician of the patricians, remembering capite censi names! Names that would never matter to a politician because they had no electoral worth, could not even count as a vote to move her into office. Why would any patrician give time of day to a member of a group so low it was classless, talk to them as though they mattered? What politician would speak with them without any apparent demagoguery of purpose, right there on the street and on their level instead of from the elevation of a rostrum? Oh, it was definitely a weird quirk to do such things—and a wildly flattering one too. What could possibly have engendered it in Shizuru Fujino?

Perhaps it was her upbringing, some people suggested. Her parents had been of the unusual type who considered slaves and everyone below their station worthy nonetheless of personhood. Unlike their fellows, they sent them away from the rooms for private situations. Not because the slaves offended them. Rather, because they understood that even slaves had thoughts and ideas, had feelings and reactions they could not always control. Shizuru had been reared to think the same, which was why she never treated slaves as mere house furnishings. People of lower station could think. They could feel and even love. And Shizuru, ever a creature out to charm the world, had always liked to inspire love.

Those who knew her better also thought, it is not merely in the upbringing. That alone could not have explained why Shizuru was loved not just by her household servants but also by the populace. The answer to this was in Shizuru's character itself, and her boundless thirst for knowledge.

From the time she had been taught that even lesser people could think and feel, Shizuru had been seized by the question of what they thought and felt. Human like us, her father used to say, yet not like us. So from the precocious child she had been to the woman she became, she continued to take an interest in them as she wanted to understand the differences among humans, all the time learning that she cared less about those differences than about that which made them human.

Those who had known her since infancy knew the trouble this interest had given her parents. She earned many a scolding for herself and her servant girl as a child because, after lessons at the pedagogue's, she would detour on the way home and run off to some part of the city or out of it. Not that they were truly troublemaking adventures, her parents would always learn: she was simply a naturally curious creature, as interested in the doings of the Vestals within the Domus Publica as she was in the filthy squabbles of the Subura. At first there was a genuine worry when the Fujino learned their only daughter passed through even that pit, but it was soon solved by striking a deal that she would take a capable bodyguard with her to such places—at least, until she came of age.

The compromise was necessary because, no matter the prevention, the Fujino found they truly could not stop their child from going where she wanted. If they assigned a stricter servant to watch over her, she charmed him into giving in to what she desired. If they threw a hurdle her way, she would devise a way to leap it. The wretched child was too wilful and too wily! Many another parent advised them to turn to a good spanking, or perhaps to imprisonment in her room for some days, but the Fujino were philosophically progressive and disliked such crude remedies. They had taught her to be free in mingling with those lesser, said her father ruefully to those advisors; therefore, they now had to live with a daughter who had learned the lesson well.

The only other provision they made in the compromise was that, upon returning from her detours, Shizuru would have to recount to either of them something that indicated she had truly profited by the adventure. If it passed that she failed to produce anything during these reports, she would have to cease visiting the place where she had found nothing at all worth knowing.

Thus Shizuru as a child came to know things her peers had no opportunity to learn. She learned to speak the commoner's cant perfectly within a month of her adventures, which knowledge she later used among her soldiers as a grown woman, pleasantly surprising them. She learned a dozen other argots and tongues, some of which would boggle many foreign rulers and enemies in the future, when she would use their own languages to either intimidate or negotiate terms of their surrender. She also learned how best to deal with people of diverse backgrounds and status, as she had to overcome the brand of being an intruder during her excursions.

This last was perhaps the most difficult, although still something she overcame with typical smoothness. Most people liked her from the first meeting, as she had a natural charm that loosened the most grudging of tongues. It helped that she was breathtakingly good-looking. Her smile was sufficient to thaw the most frigid, and she smiled often. Even her dignity was friendly, a relaxed air that somehow managed to avoid the cooling puff of high-handedness.

This last was another crucial trait in understanding her. All the rest who gave the populace attention always seemed just a tad aloof, as if subtly but constantly aware of the difference in their stations. Shizuru never gave that impression: precisely because she had no need for it. A Fujino born of a Hanazono was so high up the ladder that she need never fear the indignity of any association and could afford to be humble because nothing could ever make her situation humble.

There were few others whose lineages permitted the same possibilities, but most of them were too in love with their aristocracies to act as Shizuru did. Her dearest friend, another top-of-the-tree patrician, might have been closer than these others if not for a limiting temperament: Chikane Himemiya, while bearing much the same philosophical humanity Shizuru carried, was nonetheless a far more reserved person by nature and intensely private. Chikane's sympathy for others was sincere and, Shizuru suspected, actually the greater between the two of them; the degree to which she permitted that innate warmth to seep through her shell, however, was lacking.

So it was Shizuru the people adored and believed to always be right because of it. They had known her for so long that they believed she was theirs, a sort of special heroine, a living mythology that belonged more to them than to the elites who were her peers. Was it not she who had once lobbied so strongly to give them grain so cheap it was practically free? Was she not the one who had given those magnificent week-long games years back, in honour of her ancestors and the deaths of her parents? Was she not the beloved of Fortuna, who continued to give her reason for added celebrations by showering her with victories? And—most importantly to the long-time residents of the city—was she not the girl who had once and still passed among them, always willing to entertain questions from the curious and having her own questions in return, always to be put forth with easy friendliness?

All very real things to them and worthy measures of her value, as they neither knew nor cared about the disapproval these same things had gained for her amongst her peers. Those who did know only thought her peers were the typical stiff snobs, people who treated their darling Fujino very shabbily indeed. Well, what would the snobs know, anyway? These were people terrified of even sticking a toe in the Subura!

Shizuru was aware of these sentiments, as well as the other sentiments for or against her. She soon had more cause to be glad for the people's support. In the latter part of June, she got Natsuki's answer to her first letter, which she had sent when she and the Fourteenth docked at the ports of Fuuka after their sea-passage. This second letter was delightfully longer than the first, and thus afforded Shizuru a great deal of anticipatory pleasure when she handled it. Yet the pleasure faded once she unrolled the paper: the Otomeian had composed the reply on the very day she received Shizuru's first missive, not sleeping just to finish because, she said,

I must write this tonight and send it tomorrow. The Mentulae request a diplomatic meeting for a treaty and we are to march at dawn to Argentum for it.

Shizuru's breath snagged that very instant. After which her eyes raced through the paper with lightning speed, reading at the pace only she could manage, and which was one of the reasons she was called a prodigy. Thus she found out about the invitation from the Mentulae and Takeda's acceptance of it, as well as his resolve to meet them at Argentum. Shizuru could barely believe he intended to humour them by meeting there, and with only the number of soldiers Natsuki specified. Five cohorts and the Lupine division? Oh, what an ill-advised plan, not to mention a weak show of over-acquiescence to an arrogant king! Pray nothing harmful came of it!

She went through the letter she had intended to savour with her heart racing, teeth rounding on her lower lip. The scroll was dated about a month old, which only worsened the storm she could see brewing. What was happening over there? What had already happened? Would the Mentulae have dared it? Would they actually have the gall and ready manpower at this time?

She disciplined herself into considering the matter coolly and found she had difficulty crediting it as a likelihood—more likely they had begun to set up an operation in Argentum with shades of Ilium for the future—but then she would waver and remind herself that what was not a likelihood could nevertheless be a possibility.

On the other hand, it was still difficult to believe any nation could have the daring to launch an offensive against Hime itself, especially if that nation had been recently paddled over Hime's knee. But all this aside, she would scream inwardly, what was actually happening? If only she had had the time to finish setting up the intelligence network she had been making when she was still in the field! Good as she was at guesswork, Shizuru knew there was nothing like an actual verified piece of information.

So which was it, she wondered. Trap for you, Takeda, or Treaty? Perhaps both, with one coming before the other: she could easily imagine the Mentulaean embassy in Argentum as an intelligence mission, aimed at scouting enemy forces before a possible attack in the future. They would attack eventually—perhaps soon, perhaps only after some years—but inevitably, eventually. The Mentulae were not peaceful neighbours, so much was clear. A sooner attack would most likely be in late summer, giving the Mentulae sufficient time to muster all their forces this spring: two months would be enough for that. Unlikely they could launch anything worth considering just yet. Or was it that unlikely?

The General in her screamed out the various things she would do had she still been the Northern army's commander—demand to be met at a different place, for instance, and take more than a mere five cohorts if she wanted to march—but all those thoughts were impotent. Was that idiot of a substitute taking every possible precaution on this march, thinking of every single care? She had thought him militarily capable enough to at least do some of the things she had in mind, but perhaps she had overestimated him there? The thought was enough to drive anyone crazy! She surfaced from that first reading in a welter of sweat, her skin cold and her lover's words swimming before her eyes.

Shizuru, I am very worried.

Remembering that line made her hair rise. She who had never spent too much time on prayer before—because she believed the gods favoured people who spent less time on prayer than on action—would from then on spend her nights praying to the arcane powers over the various aspects of mortal life. She did not waste her time merely pleading with them: to do that was Greek. Shizuru was Himean, and Himeans approached everything, including religion, with supreme legalism.

She made contracts with her gods, promising all manner of honour and offering if they only kept her army safe and—most importantly—sheltered from harm her Natsuki. Donations were sent to various temples, focusing on those most relevant to the aim: half a million to your temple, Salus, you who can ensure her health; half a million to you, Bona Dea, protector of all women; half a million, Juno Moneta, giver of timely warnings in extremity; half a million, Jupiter Optimus Maximus, embodiment of all forces and divinities; and so on.

The largest donation went to the temple of Venus Victrix, Shizuru's ancestress. To her did the worried woman pray hardest, invoking the power of their blood-link and the pertinence of her worries to the goddess's province: for Venus Victrix was the ruler of the life force in victory, the goddess of love conquering. Venus the Victorious, I shall give you all honours you find pleasing: only let not my love come to harm or defeat!

She agonised over the legionaries and her friends in the North, of course, but it was the girl she loved who caused the most hurt. If any fighting did happen, what would happen to Natsuki? Who was a brilliant warrior and leader, yes, but also too dangerously brave for Shizuru's comfort. Oh, no, better not to go down that track! Better to think of the capable double-agent she had left, the one who was also looking over the girl. Better to recall, too, the power sheathed in that wonderful body she missed each night.

Her Natsuki was strong. Her Natsuki was smart and skilled, and would be fine. But every time Shizuru tried to convince herself of this, the letter she had received along with the girl's would be the one to revisit. It was the missive from her double-agent, who had detailed much the same worries and news as had Natsuki... but with an added problem the Otomeian had not mentioned.

There are more problems here than you can shake a stick at, so to speak. I've already written about the ones concerning the army and Masashi, and I have no doubt you're already shaking that oh-so-long stick of yours, not least because of my little joke here. But for this next one, you might want to put down that stick for a second, because it has to do with Natsuki.

Let me say first that your girl is faithful. I do not think there can be any more doubt that she truly loves you, for what I see gives every appearance of confirming it. But the confirmation might be coming at a price that is a touch too steep for comfort, and that is the next—or rather, last—problem I have to write. See, your Natsuki is not well.

Before your imagination plunges into the pits, Shizuru-san, rest assured it is not actually life-threatening, the physicians assure me. Of course, if she keeps going on like this, they admit there may then be space to despair—for, as it is, your girl seems bent on relinquishing all the space she herself occupies! She has become quite reduced, enough to merit commentary from nearly everyone. As this reduction happened only after you left and there is naught else I can find to serve as reason for it, I think I can say with certainty that your absence is the cause. But I'm rushing to the conclusion, and you must forgive me; I should start from the symptom rather than the diagnosis.

We noted it first from her eating habits. Or should I say lack of them, rather? She can barely eat. She neither looks forward to taking in food, nor seems capable of retaining all she does admit. Most solids are vomited within an hour of ingestion, often earlier. Liquids seem to be fine, but—if we believe in our Attic friends—not even the gods subsist on liquids alone, do they? It was only natural that, after a few weeks of this, your girl's weight dropped drastically. I shall not describe it to you because I am sure you can imagine it for yourself, so unsettling is it. She has always been thin, after all. Remember as cause for optimism, however: not life-threatening.

I summoned the physicians, both from the army and the city. They said only what I expected, which I think is both cause for relief as well as consternation: she is suffering from an acute malaise of the spirit, which influences adversely, among other things, her digestive processes. The physicians claim that such black humours, when guarded as jealously as does your Natsuki, create a constant unease of the belly, similar to the anxiety that makes one incapable of eating or ignorant of hunger during dire or extremely grievous moments. They said a great many other things, but I am afraid that I was not much impressed by the rest of the babble, finding the one I have just stated as the only worthy note. To put things in brief, your girl is simply too depressed to eat properly.

The physicians made recommendations, and all seemed sensible to me: save for one fool who wanted to make some class of poultice or gloop to put on her chest, so as to draw out any "noxious poisons" through the skin. The trouble with physicians—unless they are our good, trusty army ones—is that you have to take what they say with a healthy dose of suspicion: they are as likely to kill you with their cures as to heal you, depending on the practitioner. When that particular man suggested the business with a poultice, I was irked: you know as well as I do that his proposition was sheer claptrap. Barring the unlikelihood of her suffering from such toxins, what poultice has ever successfully drawn out toxin through the skin? I am sure you shall excuse me for having chucked both that quack and his recommendation out the door. Besides, I did not think you would like the thought of anyone putting anything on her bare chest—which prospect our girl did not view with anticipation either, I noticed. She looked ready to pull a dagger on him.

The other, far more reasonable practitioners prescribed much the same things: chopped fruit and also very small but regular helpings of whatever light stews or broths are available, the solids in them kept to a bare minimum. All liquids should be warmed if possible to avoid upsetting the stomach's balance. Fish or fowl is preferred to meats like pork and beef. It's quite like feeding a chick, although no chick every looked as haughty as yours does when being given its sustenance. I'm afraid I actually have to pull rank on her sometimes to make her eat, although I try to do it very nicely. No doubt she would be far more tractable were you here to order it, but then again, that's a non sequitur: were you here, no doubt either that she wouldn't be like this. So perhaps you could just write a tidy little line in your next letter to her about eating properly? It should help, I think.

According to recommendation, I also have her drinking a blend of thickly-honeyed milk with raw egg and a bit of wine, apparently to fortify her spirits. While I do believe she needs all the fortification of spirit she can get, I am uncertain the concoction actually serves the stated purpose—unless, perhaps, I were to make her drink enough of it to be intoxicated. Rather, it is simply added nutrition, and as she seems not to dislike the taste of it, then it is as well I should keep her drinking the blend. Be assured I mete it out carefully, so as not to put her in the undesirable spirit-saturation aforementioned. It even took a bit of persuasion to make her drink it at all... for which difficulty I fear the culpability must now be laid at your feet. See, I didn't know you told her to stay away from wine. I understand perfectly, just so you know, but perhaps if you were to write something on that as well, she would look a little less guilty when she drinks it? The drink does its good, I assure you, and there are days when it seems she can be prevailed upon to take nothing else.

I truly wish it were this alone, for I know this is quite enough bad news already. But there is more. She does not sleep. How do I know that? Oh, it shows; trust me.

Ah, no! thought Shizuru when she reached that section, her already darkened imagination running mad with images of a ravaged-looking Natsuki. Her poor girl was going through nearly all the same things she was, it seemed. Difficulty eating—although the way Suou described it sounded far worse than her own case—difficulty sleeping, difficulty living again... all of which was far more difficulty than she could genuinely stand to have her girl undergo. It was true she had felt a splash of vindication in finding out about it, because it told her what it told her friend: that Natsuki loved her indubitably. Even so, the strength of that vindication enhanced her guilt afterwards, when she managed to read through the rest.

She fervently hoped Suou was only being literary in describing the girl's state. It sounded so bad! When she read about the concoction of wine and milk, she felt even more horrid for having drunk herself into a stupor for so many evenings, using wine as a conduit to the realms of slumber when she had forbidden the same prospective conduit to Natsuki. Who seemed to be so bent on following Shizuru's parting edicts that she had nearly refused a prescription intended to preserve her own well-being. Poor Natsuki! How wretched was she that Suou would skimp further description, saying imagination could handle it? It must be wretched indeed, if Suou would leave such a thing to a lover's paranoid imaginings.

How then could she complain when Suou recounted her deceptions of Natsuki? At the very least, they seemed to serve the purpose fairly, and also provided good reminders of Shizuru's love. Shizuru was actually annoyed by the scheme at first, but realised later that the feeling was more directed to herself than to her friend. Why had she not thought of arranging gifts herself? Granted, she had arranged for their room to be filled with flowers the first night she went away, but that was it. Her heart cried out that she should have done properly what Suou had done through deceit.

Not that Suou had felt all that sorry for said deceit, however: the other patrician had insisted very strongly on the justice of her actions, explaining that they were done not merely for Shizuru's sake.

See, I like your girl terribly, even more now that I've had the opportunity to see more of her. She's so very nice, Shizuru-san, almost surprisingly so. Do you know I caught her moping to herself the other day and found it was because several of her men were—and I quote this directly—"too young to be kept away so long without battle to keep busy"? This, from the girl who happens to be younger than every last one of her subordinates! I taxed her with it: it transpires she was talking about those of her troopers who had just recently married. Some were expecting their first babies at home, it appears.

I understood the concern and said that if there were only a few of these, I would be willing to give them a short leave. As it happens, they were all too touched by their leader's thoughtfulness to actually take advantage of her bid, and opted for simply sending packages from Argus to their families. I understand she distributed her full share of the booty among her men after our battles, by the way. I'd have thought that was you teaching her how to politick were it not that I learned she's always done it. Seems you're not the only one with a knack for building a fanatical following.

Now then, that was quite a lengthy side-story. But all I wanted to say is that your girl has a very likeable character that appeals greatly to me, and that, aside from being her current chaperone, I genuinely wish to be her friend. That having been said, I repeat that I did what I did as much for her sake as for yours. I hope you can agree with me that the false gifts from you were necessary lies, in the interests of getting her just a touch closer to being healthy. She needs so much to get closer to being healthy, Shizuru-san! If you agree with me, then please mention something about the Catullus books in your next letter to her—do you know she actually knows to identify asclepiad and glyconic? Ye gods!—and ask her how she liked them. No doubt she shall subject you to the dissertation she actually gave me!

I am exhausted and my hand is just about cramping. This letter has been newsy enough, I think, for it is beginning to look as though I should divide it into separate volumes. I shall stop here, and hope to have an hour or so of sleep before rising. We march to Argentum on the morrow, and I wonder if sleep is actually possible given my worries. Would that the man who led our march were worth only even half of you! But if that were the case, we probably wouldn't even be marching at an invitation from the enemy—or not with only five cohorts and about an ala of cavalry, at least. Still, I suppose there are ways to get through this, and I also suppose I just might be indulging in unnecessary worries... but I fear what could happen if they prove validated, as I keep telling Masashi. Playing Cassandra was never one of my aspirations.

I promise to do what I can to protect both your girl and your army, so please try to conclude quickly that Forum war you're still fighting. We need you here, little though I like having to add to your many worries in saying it. I am truly sorry to have to trouble you with so much and so quickly. But there is nothing else to be done save to admit the trouble's necessity. We need you very badly.

Which had Shizuru jumping to her feet and calling for Hermias in the middle of the evening. With the aid of her capable steward, several letters were soon carried to various locations, the most important being those to the senior consul of Hime; to Sosius, her banker who was also one of most senior among The Eighteen; and to the two legates responsible for building the new highway connecting Argus to Fuuka, finished a day before the Calends of July.

The arrangement in those letters was to permit her to send out the Ninth and the Eleventh legions again, even if they had only just put in at the Campus Martius. Under the legate Shouhei Nagayama's care—Chie Harada had returned to the Senate—those legions would march back up the same highway they had recently built, under pretext of addressing a security threat in Upper Fuuka by bandit tribes living nearby. As the ruse was supported by allegations and sudden complaints from several of the most powerful equites (courtesy of Shizuru's banker and other knightly confederates) as well as by the edict of the senior consul herself, there was little for the Senate to do but carp and groan belatedly after learning what Shizuru had done.

The truth, however, was that several of them were slightly relieved. The more legions Shizuru Fujino had on hand, the more nervous some of the more timid senators became. To these mice, having a disgruntled Shizuru Fujino outside the city walls was like living next-door to some mythical beast biding its time: if prodded enough—and gods knew how the Traditionalists were prodding it!—it just might come roaring through the door. Had it not roared in their faces only recently?

Only after both legions had marched away again was the mythical beast able to sit back and rumble a breath. There! Those fifty thousand soldiers could be a faster help if ever Suou's worries came to anything. While another of the legates who had returned with her to Hime, Taro, had ventured that any offensive made by the Mentulae at this point might actually help with their aim, she disagreed sorely. When he pressed the point, arguing that such an outright attack from them would push the Senate into a faster decision now that they had a sense of her aims, she disagreed even more sorely.

Gathering her patience to explain, she told him that she had been hoping to beat them to first move from the beginning because of simple logistics. The greatest advantage the Mentulae had was in their numbers. If she could attack them before they started mustering their scattered armies properly, she could take on each fraction of that enormous whole one-by-one, instead of having to contend with a unified enemy. Shizuru knew this to be an enemy so massive she should more often think in terms of legions rather than cohorts for her strategic units, which idea her replacement was at that very instant spiting.

That was truly one of the reasons she preferred to steal a march on the Mentulae. But far more important, which she did not bother explaining to Taro, was the worry of unnecessary casualties. Those were good soldiers she had left with Masashi! And good auxiliaries. And a good girl, a wonderful girl, one she could not have thought to exist but in dreams. That dream-girl was very worried. Her blood ran cold whenever she thought of that, knowing the seriousness with which her girl spoke everything, and the seriousness of any situation that permitted the girl to actually speak of worries. It made her uneasy each time she thought of that second letter from Natsuki. Yet she could not stop rereading it.

There was a faint concern too at what was obviously a burgeoning like between the girl and her new chaperone, but Shizuru's anxieties over their well-being were too great and prevented her from imagining anything unhealthy. Besides, she would tell herself, it was well that Natsuki and Suou should get along: they had to depend on each other in an extremity. And Natsuki needed friends more than ever, when it seemed she was so lonely. Her Natsuki was once again lonely. Ah, poor child! Why was it that fate conspired to have her lonely so often? Of course she should have her friends.

Provided she does not love them more than me, the green-eyed monster in her heart would condition, hissing. Provided that when she calls them by their name, so familiarly, her voice does not love their names the way it loves mine.

But then she would remember the part of the letter where Natsuki had admitted to missing her, and the monster would subside with a purr. Natsuki loved and missed her... and going from Suou's letter, not even the presence of a new friend could substitute. Would that there had been a less painful way to ascertain it, of course! Still, it hardened her determination to get what she wanted, and quickly. There was a girl and an army that missed her sorely.

So when the Traditionalist and current junior consul, Yukino Kikukawa, came to see her and put forth the concession the arch-conservative faction was proposing, the answer was clear to Shizuru from the outset.

"We can give you a plebiscite," Yukino said, as the two of them talked over a drink in Shizuru's study. "It will allow you to run for praetor again in the next elections, unopposed by us. Your candidature will be uncontested, so much can we promise."

Shizuru nodded.

"You will be returned as urban praetor again, most likely," the junior consul continued, knowing that was practically a certainty: Shizuru Fujino had yet to enter an election where her name did not come out at the top of the poll. "And probably in a far better climate, not to mention with a full year of office before you. As it is now, Fujino-san, the year has almost turned over to the second half without you seeing inauguration yet. Think on it, please! If you run again for praetor next year, you can occupy your seat for the proper length of time, without interruption to your duties. Half a year is not that long a wait for such a thing, I think."

Shizuru hummed quietly. Yukino persevered, hoping the other woman was at least thinking about it. Oh, why did she think this really was going to fail? And why did she feel as though those queer red eyes were laughing?

"You've also only turned twenty-five," the short-haired woman continued. "Which makes you far below the usual age for... everything you've achieved. You're far younger than most of us, Fujino-san, which means you can afford to wait. Neither the position of praetor nor any of the provinces currently being used as praetorian provinces, such as those in the North, say—" She cleared her throat here, telling Shizuru subtly that she had believed the talk about her intentions to annex the lands of the Mentulae. "—shall be going anywhere."

Shizuru hummed again and raised her goblet to drink.

"Fujino-san," Yukino prodded. "What do you say?"

The blonde stopped halfway through her sip.

"I say... no," Shizuru said gently.

"Why not?" Yukino asked, finding she was not too surprised by this. "What we offer is a fair trade, and perhaps more than fair, given how we are actually guaranteeing your election as a praetor again. If it's command of an army you want, it would be easier to achieve it once you took on the praetorian governorship of a province—perhaps even one of the Northern ones, if that is where your preferences lie! Merely a few months, Fujino-san. And far more legally."

"'Far more traditionally', you mean!" Shizuru exclaimed amiably, laughing but somehow managing to keep it from sounding like an insult. "After all, the legalism is not in question here. You know no law expressly forbids what I am asking, Kikukawa-han, whereas a law expressly permitting it can actually be created, which is what Urumi Himemiya-Kanzaki intends to do. Or so I hear."

Mouth going dry, Yukino reached for a sip of her own drink.

"It's unconstitutional," was the only thing she thing she could come up with just then.

"Is it?" Shizuru replied, having grown used to this old refrain. "Perhaps and perhaps not. The interesting thing about having an unwritten constitution is that so many things can be tested as a point of law. For my part, of course, I shall argue that it is if any would be willing to indulge me in a little legal examination."

Yukino's lips parted from her cup. She regarded the other woman appraisingly, sparing a moment for a renewed consideration. Hard to believe she's so young! she thought, recalling exactly how many times she had already thought this, and feeling chagrined at the number. She, the elder of them, had reached the consulship earlier, as was right and proper. Yet, she also knew she had achieved little else that could compare to the younger woman's accomplishments: from the time she won the corona obsidionalis in her first battle, Shizuru had entered the realms of legend, and continued to win an ever ascending prominence in that realm with every military victory she generaled. Shizuru was already assured of a lasting memory among their people no matter if she never ascended to the top of the political ladder, the sort of enduring repute not even a consul could immediately have. How could that not make one feel just a little bitter, wondered the junior consul of the year.

The worst of it perhaps was that she deserved her repute. Had it been otherwise, it would have been so much easier to ignore or topple her. But she was no easy foe, this one! She was too large, too dangerous, too threateningly great. That was why she should be knocked down, in Yukino's opinion: she was a titan, and this was no longer an age where titans walked the earth.

Little though Haruka-chan would like to hear me say that, she admitted, knowing her metaphor had just accorded a superior praise to their enemy. But she was not talking to Haruka now, and so she could say to herself what she truly felt. And she felt so much as though they were giants going up against something even larger. It could fall for all that height, Yukino was sure. But she could not imagine it falling easily. It was a titan sprung from Mars and Venus: an archaic divinity infused with the newer Olympic blood. Not a thing that could be forced into retreat or dropped into some deep pit, left to moulder slowly and die the death of the forgotten. This was a creature bent on fighting to the end, and that thought brought back to Yukino the sinking feeling she had experienced when deputed by her friends for this interview. Why did she really feel as though this mission was doomed to fail?

"You know neither Haruka nor I put up Katsu Hitagi to it," she said, suddenly veering into other territory.

The other woman looked faintly astonished by the confession.

"Of course I knew!" Shizuru said warmly. "I never even thought it. It hardly bespoke the Armitagian style—or the Kikukawan, for that matter."

Yukino smiled a little. "I'm glad of that, at least."

"So who was it really?"

"I don't know."

The crimson eyes gleamed. Both of them knew she was lying.

"A pity," Shizuru said. "But not for long."

Yukino very wisely chose not to comment.

"Returning to our discussion earlier," she said smoothly. "We're doing this because we want the unrest to stop, Fujino-san. The people are getting restive, as are the other senators. Some orders of business are being put on hold because of this issue—and that's a shame, I know you will agree. Why, even the civil courts are backed up with cases yet to be resolved, because there's still no urban praetor! We need to resolve this quickly, and we want to do it in peaceful way! So please do consider what we are offering. If you agree to it, we can all go on with our lives without the strife this matter has been causing in our sphere. Surely you want that as much as we do."

"Of course, but as I am not the one making so much of the issue, I am confused that it is to me this speech has been directed," Shizuru said, smiling.

Yukino persevered. "Because only you can cede in this matter, Fujino-san."

"Untrue. Those blocking the motion can cede just as well, perhaps even better. I fear I must refuse the offer, Kikukawa-han."

"Please think about it."

"If you wish, but never in consideration."

"Please, Fujino-san! It is no harm to your dignitas to cede this fight and take the right way!"

Shizuru put down her goblet on the table, exactly on a place where a beam of light from outside caught it. The sparkle of its crystalline facets was dazzling, and Yukino wondered idly from where the other woman had purchased so handsomely cut a piece.

"Do you remember what I said in my speech answering Hitagi?" Shizuru asked very softly. "What I said at the end of it?"

Yukino fought down a shiver: still light outside, yes, yet the room seemed to have grown so cool.

"Yes," she said. How could anyone forget?

The woman before her nodded.

"I meant every word, Kikukawa-han," she said, still very softly. "I believe that too is part of what makes up dignitas. The words we speak. We must carry out the promises we make, or else suffer the irreparable harm to dignitas if we fail."

"But not," interjected the woman who had once been called The Timid, "if the promise is wrong or immoral."

"Irrelevant, I fear," Shizuru answered. "The moral worth of the promise does not matter to our subject, Kikukawa-han. What matters to dignitas is the delivery of the promise, no matter how wrong or immoral the act promised would be. And, even if the morality did matter, who exactly would deserve to be an authority on it? No, the point is simply irrelevant. That just then sounded more like Haruka-han speaking."

The barb lodged. Yukino stiffened dangerously.

"She has sworn to oppose you if you press this," she warned. "As have the rest of us sworn. I ask you again to consider our offer, Fujino-san. You cannot win this."

Shizuru angled her head.

"I respect you, Kikukawa-han, so I shall recognise that challenge," she said. "And shall hold you to your word, then, as you should learn to hold me to mine: I shall expect all of the Traditionalists to do all within their honour to see that pledge come true. I do, however, have a light request to make."

"I can listen to it, but can't promise," the woman before her said, eyes narrowing.

Shizuru leaned forward slightly and smiled.

"Give me your best," she said. "Give me the best fight you can give, that I may say afterwards that the opposition I faced was truly worth facing. The harder you fight, the stronger I must be; the smarter your attempts, the smarter I must be at returning. Your opposition enhances me, Kikukawa-han. I am—I say this with no sarcasm—genuinely thankful for it."

Try as Yukino did, she could not dispel the chill from her body.

"You're assuming you'll win," she managed, getting up quickly to her feet; the jerky movements helped hide the shivers still passing through her. "It's dangerous to assume, Fujino-san."

"Especially if you assume against me," came the cheerful rejoinder. "Remember what I said to Katsu Hitagi and to the rest of the House, please. I meant it! And not you, nor Haruka-han, nor the rest of the Traditionalists together can stop me. If to win this means I must crush all of you together, crush you I shall."

Her hand came out with typical elegance, yet caused a flinch.

"My compliments to my adversaries," Shizuru said, urbane smile still in place as they shook hands and parted. "Please tell them I have heard the challenge and acknowledge it. As for the offer, I must very politely refuse. Although it does bring to mind Hector bargaining with Achilles over what to do with the loser's body."

A lift of the eyebrows from the far shorter woman, who had to step back to look at Shizuru properly.

She asked, "Are you saying you'd drag us through the sand by our heels if you win?"

"Oh, no! That is where Achilles fell afoul of the gods, after all, and I would not tempt Fortuna to turn from me with such disrespect to my worthy foes," was the answer. "No, merely his words to Hector's first offer. Perhaps you should bring that to the others as my answer."

So when Yukino returned to her comrades, she bore the answer direct from Homer: There are no binding oaths between men and lions; wolves and lambs can enjoy no meeting of the minds. An answer that chagrined them so much—Whom did Fujino think she was calling "lambs", exactly?—that they decided they were fools to think such a woman could be approached with the civility of an outstretched hand. They resolved to escalate their efforts in destroying her purpose. Which was exactly what Shizuru wanted, as a matter of fact, because the sooner the struggle reached the highest point, the sooner she believed she could break the enemy's hold... not knowing the enemy was dedicating itself to a battle of delay and indirect confrontation.

Thus the tug of war in Hime raged on, neither side willing now to give ground nor believing it could possibly lose. The standoff split Hime right down the middle, with most of the senators ranging on the Traditionalist side and the populace, plutocrats and progressives on Shizuru Fujino's. Work as either side would, nothing seemed capable of ending the deadlock. What the situation needed was a catalyst, a spark to send their impasse up in flames.

The spark would not come until August.


When Takeda Masashi received the invitation to hold diplomatic talks with the Mentulae at Argentum, he had the idea of taking with him one legate, and settled upon Suou Himemiya. Ironically, she had been the one most against the march; after he made clear that he would brook no argument, however, she suddenly changed her mind and insisted on accompanying him. Thinking her turnaround complete, he was thus quite glad to take her along, and so expected his trip to Argentum to be a pleasant one. Unfortunately, it turned out to be anything but... especially because of Suou Himemiya.

The differences between them showed from the start. Takeda had soldiered only under commanders who insisted on going by the book, which meant he insisted on a proper baggage train even if they were carrying only half a legion and seven hundred cavalry. Not Suou's style, for the only two commanders under whom she had soldiered before had both been obsessed with travelling light. The first was her elder sister, for whom she had been a contubernalis: Chikane Himemiya, although she had a baggage train, had always preferred a highly shortened one, so short most bandits blinked at seeing it and refrained from ambushing what looked so baggage-poor a cavalcade. Chikane also liked to use mules for her baggage, disliked the trouble of the standard and slower—if more powerful—oxen. Nor did she like encumbering her armies with its spoils when more battles would be necessary: she often sent all booty ahead to Hime under a separate but heavy guard, leaving her fighting legions free to manoeuvre as they wished.

The second commander of Suou's experience was even more unusual of tactic, having taken Chikane's example of mules-over-oxen and adding a stunning variation to it. Often eschewing the baggage train itself, Shizuru Fujino just strapped the gear on the legionaries themselves and marched them off willy-nilly. This style had actually contributed greatly to her legend, provoking many a joke amongst the men who had had to carry those extra thirty-pound packs for miles on end: not for anyone else, they swore, would they ever do it! They slogged through dust and drizzle, through snow and sleet—just about anywhere with the burden always on their shoulders, and always with the same dizzying speed. But never complained. Quite impossible to complain when their general took her share of weight and also went on foot, even going double the normal paces because she was always going up and down the ranks to chat with the legionaries and praise them as they walked. Making them merry enough to forget the packs and the fact that they were marching enough to cover at least thirty miles a day, on the slow days. You've not marched, went the joke among those who had served with her, until you've done a Fujino march.

Having in mind such commanders, Suou thus insisted that there should be either a very small baggage train or none at all for their march to Argentum. Takeda being of the opposite opinion, as well as cautious enough to want to buy more cheap grain than they would need—he intended to save money by not having to buy grain in Argentum, where the prices were higher—an argument ensued over the issue. Unfortunately for Suou's case, she was the subordinate, and thus the foregone loser. She ceded the argument and persuaded him to at least bring the artillery if they were to have a baggage train.

"Why?" he asked at the time, genuinely surprised by the request. "We're not going to lay siege to our own allies, you know! Sometimes, Suou-kun, you really are peculiar."

"Go ahead and call me peculiar," she told him with smooth laughter. "I'd just like to be good and whole when you do say it."

She insisted so strongly on the point that he gave in to the request as a concession, thinking her truly odd. Artillery without a possibility of impending siege? He had no idea she was thinking of her previous general's words on the subject.

Artillery should become a staple in the battlefield, I think, Shizuru had told her once, as they inspected the latest pieces developed by the engineers. I do not mean merely for siege. I want artillery to be used regularly, even in pure field encounters. What is the point of restricting ourselves in the use of technology, if the technology can be made to adapt to more than one purpose? Take these scorpions, for instance. Handy little things! Do you know how to use them, Suou-chan?

Shizuru had shown her, using one of the scorpion ballistae to plug several trees in the distance, each bolt going right through the middle of the trunk. Suou learned how to do it... and absorbed the rest of the lesson. Artillery in the midst of battle might not be too standard, but that would be the advantage—and when the possible enemy had such an overwhelming lead in numbers, all other advantages would be necessary.

So when the little army set out from the port city, it was baggage-heavy and bringing its own artillery. It also proceeded at a much slower velocity than Suou and the five cohorts of the Seventh would have liked, even if their current commander thought they would be grateful to him for the easy pace. Muddy ground is hard on the ankles, he said benevolently, seated high atop his general's horse.

What he said was true, as the earth was spongy, and not very good for walking. Even so, the men he had with him were too apprehensive to rest easy in his indulgence. They disliked the reason for their trip as much as Takeda's accompanying legate did. Said legate also bickered with the commander so regularly that he soon regretted his decision in having taken her along with him.

Six days away from their destination, she brought up her arguments again while the legionaries made camp.

"I don't like this," Suou told him. "I really don't like this."

"Oh, Suou-kun, stop being so negative, please!" Takeda cried, exasperated beyond belief. How many times had she already flogged this argument? Oh, when he set out so cheerfully from Argus with Argentum and a nice peace treaty waiting for him, he had not expected to be travelling with someone so contrary!

"Then perhaps you should stop being so romantic," she sighed, her drowsy eyes blinking slowly. "I hate to belabour the point, Takeda-kun, but you should know I'm not the sort of person to pester without reason for it. At least grant there is reason to be suspicious, considering the ones we go to meet are the very same ones I and the rest of this army were fighting only some time ago. Added to which is the fact that we have yet to hear from our scouts sent weeks into the past, and that no messages from Argentum seem to be forthcoming. Especially suspicious, when you consider that even Yamada-san's agents have been tardy in their cross-border business—or so he claimed last I spoke to him."

"That Greek trafficker!" he exclaimed, finding the name worthy of nothing but a scowl. He had not been impressed by the man when they met, deeming the man an un-Himean pretender seeking only money or elevation for his supposed information—an opinion that worsened even more after Takeda learned his predecessor had promised said un-Himean pretender the citizenship.

"Well," Suou sighed. "If you don't want to take him at his word, then think of our scouts, please."

He sucked on his teeth.

"There's that, true," he said patiently. "But there must be some reason for it. I imagine the paths are much more difficult up ahead, or something. The thaw must be worse near Argentum."

She shook her head. "They should still have returned by now, if that were the case."

"Banditry thrives in these parts," he proposed, gesturing to the forest thick about them. "It might be, you know, though it would be unfortunate if that's the case."

"All the more reason, at the very least, that we should be making a stronger camp than this."

"Oh, not again!"

"Yes, again. Just think of it as caution," she replied coolly, her extraordinary light eyes on the orderly activity of camp-making taking place. "You said it yourself. We're walking into highly-forested area, where an ambush grows more and more possible. Our scouts not only have yet to return, but the available number of men we can afford to send out is drastically dwindling. We have barely two alae of horse with us—and we can't afford to keep losing more of them to scouting since they're of the Lupine division! A good number of these are Otomeian nobles, mind, and the most elite of their soldiers besides. They're matchless auxiliary. Both horses and their riders are too precious, especially when you consider we have only five cohorts for infantry. Needs must conserve forces."

He shook his head at the criticism in the words, barely hanging on to his unravelling patience.

"Well, what do you want me to do, then?" he demanded, holding out both hands in supplication. "I'd like to point out that, for all your doomsaying, we've got this far without meeting a single bit of trouble! Except for the scouts, everything's gone pretty much as I expected... and can we really be blamed if a few foreign auxiliaries defect or take a side-trip somewhere because they're getting closer to their home territories?"

"Try saying that to Natsuki-san," she retorted, growing even more frigid; she was very like her older sister in displeasure, which always showed in them as a sudden frost. "Because she's been fidgeting all this time at the loss of some of her best scouts without their absence being taken as a warning."

He bit the inside of his cheek angrily.

"We should make the camp stronger," she repeated.

Takeda gave up. "If it will make you feel better, why not?"

"Good! I can handle it, then?"

He threw up his hands: "Do whatever you want!"

A quick nod to him, and she was already walking away.

"Takashi!" she yelled. "Kintarou!"

Meanwhile, Takeda ran a hand through his hair in the classic gesture of exasperation and shook his head ruefully at his legate. The two senior primipilii Suou had called were already approaching, and he decided to leave her to instruct them as to whatever it was she wanted. Perhaps, he hoped, if he let her have his way here then she would finally calm enough for them to make the few days' march left. They were so very close to the destination, barely a week's worth of travel remaining. Barely a week of easy walking, if Suou would only stop being so contrary.

He slipped away, his mind fixing suddenly on the prospect of a nice, un-contrary drink of wine. How he needed it!

"We want a stronger camp," his legate was telling the centurions when he left them. "Too perilous not to have a fall-back position in case something goes awry. I'm not saying something will go wrong, but we need to be on a higher alert than usual, especially given that our scouts haven't returned after all this time." She frowned shortly while glancing to the woods nearby. "And this is more forest than I would like."

The centurions nodded, eyeing the fair patrician with greater respect; they had been feeling prickly for a while, almost as though they could sense eyes in the trees about them.

"Double the towers for this camp and add four more metres to the walls," she ordered, brisk in her commands because she had devoted much thought to them the past few days, and had also seen a truly great general go through these motions already: her crimson-eyed friend had given her an object lesson before in how to set up a strong camp, and Suou still remembered what the woman had drilled into her head.

"We've got plenty of trees around," one of the centurions told Suou, indicating the woods. "They'll do fine for what we want."

"Shall have to," Suou answered, scuffing the toe of her boot on the muddy ground. She looked up and beckoned to one of the noncombatant servants attached to the troops before returning her attention to the centurions. "Yes, definitely more logs. Pare down that forest."

"I'll send them felling again. What we hauled in already is just enough for the usual."

"Get all the added lumber now. I want the breastworks raised by tonight—and make no mistake, Centurions, that when I say tonight, I mean tonight! We'll all work until dark if necessary."

The men grinned and said they understood.

"And keep the branches for scorpion bolts when you get to lopping off from the logs. What a good thing I insisted on bringing artillery! I'd like several of the engineers assigned to that, although we can get to shaping and sharpening the bolts inside the camp when it's finished. Can we get rocks?"

"The stream."

"Get some men to it, and have the engineers work on diverting a good, usable channel of water, just in case." A wry smile appeared. "Perhaps it's as well our commander insisted on bringing far more food than necessary, after all, though I'd not like to say anything for certain."

The servant she had called was waiting.

"Find me the Otomeian princess," she said simply, knowing everyone knew by now who that was—even Takeda, for whom it was a recurrent private slap in the face. He had once presumed to try and purchase her from someone, after all, as though she were no more than a slave. It was so mortifying! Cast off their royalty Himeans might have, but many of them could still be impressed by existing, if foreign specimens of it. And the particular foreign specimen in question had to be one of the most impressive, if anything.

"What about the trenches?" Kintarou asked when the servant went away. "Can't dig any more, can't deepen what's already there." He pointed an eyebrow at the mud Suou had just dug up with her boot. "Ground's either mushy or still iced up."

Takashi finished the thought: "More stakes in them?"

Suou flashed her lazy smile at him.

"Enough to stick a legion's worth of pigs," she said. "I'm praying it shan't come to anything, boys, but if it does—I daresay we'll have ourselves a roast!"

The centurions ran off to execute the orders, happy that they were actually doing something about their unease. How nice to find that at least one of the people in the command tent understood it! For they were quite impressed by the young legate's grip of the situation, and the businesslike efficiency with which she rapped out the directives. She had worked with Shizuru Fujino, after all: no matter what others might say, experience told there.

Natsuki arrived on the scene.

"Thank you for coming so quickly," Suou said in greeting, noting with a wince the blue-black shade extending from the bottom of the Otomeian's eyes: it could no longer be hidden by the thickened ring of blackNatsuki was applying around her lashes these days. Suou allowed herself a moment to muse on this other one of her problems. Thank the gods for Shizuru's letter that arrived last month! It had seemed to cheer up the girl a little before they marched, and Suou knew for a fact that Natsuki reread it whenever they stopped for the night. The girl also seemed to be on slightly better terms with her food after it arrived, which told Suou one of the Otomeian's anxieties had truly been that Shizuru would not write. Foolish girl! Was she really so unaware of how soundly she had conquered Shizuru?

Even with the good effects of the letter, though, there were new chaperoning difficulties with which Suou had to contend these days. It was no longer possible to use the 'gifts from Shizuru' to help the Otomeian with depression, as they were on the march and not in a city. Nor was it easy to find milk for the girl's prescribed drink, for that matter. Oh, what legate ever had so many things go wrong in her first shift, and so quickly?

She covered the personal queries first.

"How are you feeling and when did you last eat? You did not get too much rest last night, I think."

That earned a long-suffering grimace. Well, what do you expect me to say when you look like that, thought the frustrated Himemiya, who set it aside for the moment; she would have all the time to earn all the grimaces she wanted later, once they were in a properly fortified camp.

"All right," was all Natsuki said, and with one of her weariest shrugs. "My men... not yet returned."

"I know. And yes, I am worried. I tried to talk to Masashi about it, but you know how he is."

"Thick," the girl rumbled mutinously. "Very."

Suou nodded in agreement.

"I called you over because we need help building, Natsuki," she said. "There aren't enough men, as you know, and I feel more anxious the closer we get to Argentum. I've managed to persuade our commander, at least, that we should build a really heavy camp, since we're so close already. I want a defensible fallback position in case something does go wrong. Can you see your way to sparing half of your men to help us set up the main camp? The other half can keep working on the cavalry's stables and section."

Some of the haggardness went out of Natsuki's face. So she had been feeling the unease too, thought the legate.

"Our servants and grooms, they can do most of the work," the girl said. "Not half. I can—I will—have all my men help you, but for some. I want to keep some. Not more than maybe one hundred?"

She turned her head to stare at the forest hedging them, and then turned to Suou again. "If your men have to go there again, some of us will keep watch. Or if they have to go farther than there."

Suou smiled, pleased by the Otomeian's quickness.

"Excellent," she said, and meant it.

They finished the fortified camp that day, and it was to all appearances a camp sturdy enough to withstand a siege, its construction having been carried out to Suou's exacting satisfaction. Surely it was worthy of satisfaction, thought the general of the mission, who believed his legate would no longer protest to his desires of marching on. Unfortunately, he found even two days after that she refused to march again, once more citing the scouts and messengers who had failed to return. And yet again, the general found himself in another debate with his legate, who was proving to be so opposing these days that he suspected it to be some manner of ailment.

"Either we stay put and send for reinforcements, or we march backwards and go to Sosia," she said.

"We've already passed Sosia!" he exclaimed, bewildered by so much stiff resistance from someone he had always known to be so laid-back. "We're so close to Argentum, Suou-kun! Five, six days at most! At the very least, we should march to know exactly why the scouts are not returning! The sooner we put into Argentum, the sooner we should be able to reorganise, not to mention have our men in a much safer place. You keep saying you're concerned. There is a legion of our soldiers sitting right in that city we're headed to, you know."

That earned him a level stare.

"I do know," she said flatly. "And yes, I believe we should eventually march to Argentum to find out why the scouts are not returning. But I do not believe we should march to it like this, so blindly. Do try to see it, Takeda-kun—you could be leading all of us into peril. I know you want to get a peace treaty very badly, but try to remember, please, what all the rest of us do: the people you want to meet are the same ones who killed some of our comrades in battle, very recently."

But that reminded him too much of the things said to him by the woman he had replaced, whose ghost he had been feeling more and more of late. This was perhaps where Suou made a mistake, for whatever part of him might have been willing to listen to her protests was stoppered up by all the feelings he had been trying to hide: all the resentment and uncertainty and hate. Was this really his army? Why was it that he felt dogged, every step he took, by whispers of comparison? His legate and old friend was becoming a curmudgeon who echoed of her, his legionaries restless and not as friendly as the ones he had known on his other campaigns. Even the girl he pined for refused to say more than one word to him when they spoke, and seemed to be wasting away—and, he very well knew, not for his sake. All because of the spectre of a woman that seemed bent on haunting him!

He glared at Suou, all patience exhausted.

"We march tomorrow," he told her curtly. "And that's it! No, I don't want to hear it—not another word, damn it! Tell the men to be ready to leave by dawn. That's the least you can do. You've been so bloody uncooperative!"

Her eyes flickered and communicated a faint contempt he could read.

"You're bent on being a fool, it seems," she said, ignoring the fresh rush of blood flooding into his face. "Remember that I warned you, if it ever comes to it! Though I'd rather be proven a liar, in this case: scant comfort I'd have in any of it ever becoming."

"Oh, go away!" he cried, tried beyond all endurance. "Let me have some peace, I beg of you!"

"If that's what you wanted, you should never have taken over this army," she retorted, after which Parthian shot she left him in his tent. But not to brood as he did: she went to inform the centurions and other officers of the march, and then went to sit at her desk and send for Natsuki. Who materialised with her usual superhuman alacrity.

"He insists we march tomorrow and nothing can persuade him otherwise," she told the Otomeian calmly; the two of them were alone. "I've done all I can here. I am sending letters to both Ushida-san in Argus and our old comrade who's still based in Sosia, Toshi-san. I plan on informing them of the situation and all the markers supporting my suspicions. Both of them will know what needs to be done and will do it."

The large eyes stayed upon her.

"Secrecy?" the girl suddenly said, which brought a smile to Suou's face.

"Yes," the legate admitted. "He doesn't want to send to them and bring up reinforcements. Probably thinks it's too much trouble, you know. So he's not going to know I'm already doing it for him as a favour—or, say, an act of good will."

"The messenger will know?"

"Better they do, I think. One who knows, at least. Another can just act as safety, accompaniment."

"We must choose well."

"I have already chosen someone." Suou came out with it: "I want it to be you."

"No."

A pause followed the word. Suou blinked as if to reassure herself she was awake, then spoke again.

"That was an order," she said.

"No," Natsuki answered.

Pale blue clashed with green, and had anyone else been in the room, they might have frozen solid from the drop in ambient temperature. As it was, only the two women took the measure of each other, both creatures used to having their orders followed, and now radiating the awesome aura of their respective aristocracies.

"I'm your superior officer, Natsuki," the blonde woman said, her very pale brows rising. "If I say you should go, then you should."

The beautiful, prone-to-pout lips set and thinned.

"No," Natsuki repeated.

"What do you mean 'no'?"

"I refuse."

"You refuse?"

"I refuse."

The Himean leaned back in her seat, frowning direly at the girl standing before her.

"You do know to refuse this is technically insubordination?" she asked. A faint twinkle was in her eyes. "Punishable offence, for which no one would blame me no matter what I did. Although that could work out well for the purpose too, in a way: I could have excuse to send you packing home to Otomeia."

As the girl was no fool, she did not find the statement at all surprising: she had understood Suou's reason for wanting to send her from the beginning.

"Will not be well for your purpose," she said. "If I go, my men go with me."

"Are you threatening mass defection of the auxiliaries?"

"Not threaten," said the dark-haired troublemaker. "I tell."

"Worse than a threat then!" Suou said, finding it in herself to keep her face stern. But how difficult it was, when the girl on the other side of the desk was eyeing her with such haughty dignity, aloof-yet-sympathetic like a court advocate for the defence. What a perfect Himean she would have made, thought the actual Himean, wishing she were not so hugely amused by what was happening.

"That would be unpardonable, Natsuki, and a breach of the treaty between our countries," she told the mutineer dangerously. "You know Hime does not take abandonment or fickle actions by its allies so lightly."

"Neither do we," said the young woman, switching abruptly into her beautiful Greek; Suou quieted to listen, quite appreciating the sound of the Otomeian's mellifluous dark voice even as it argued against her will.

"I refuse your decision as it is made lightly," Natsuki reasoned, articulating her thoughts with the scholarly precision she had in that language. "I am part of this army and leader of the auxiliary you carry. If I leave now, I abandon them, and you, and my duty. Such an act is not the representation of what you mean by 'fickle'? Such is not abandonment, an act a true leader calls infra dignitatem?"

"Shizuru-san was a true leader," Suou countered to this. "And yet she had to leave behind her army at the behest of her commanding officer—which, in her case, would be the Senate and People of Hime. Would you then consider what she did so worthy of scorn?"

"I find the analogy... inapt," the girl returned gravely. "Her recall required her specifically. No other could substitute, as no other was elected urban praetor. The task you want does not require me specifically. Another can substitute as messenger without harm to the task. The analogy collapses."

The Himean's lips were trembling.

"So it seems," she growled softly.

Natsuki plodded on, determined to push her argument further while she was still being allowed to speak; she had noticed the changes in the legate's demeanour and interpreted them as signs of rapidly mounting irritability with her defiance. Squaring her shoulders, she drew enough breath for a good final speech.

"Hypothetically," she pronounced, drawing a muffled sound from the now-shaking woman behind the desk. "Let us say that—that the analogy is apt, if you wish. But we still find a flaw in the reasoning. The analogy returns to the original problem: we find ourselves in this situation because of what happened tuh–tuh–to Shizuru."

She slowed her pace after the stutter, but by dint of strict concentration managed to say the rest clearly.

"The true leader was removed for a reason counter to the interests of the many. No one could substitute for her, so we are led here... where one who pretends to substitute places us in danger. I am the true leader of the auxiliary. No one could substitute for me exactly. If you send me away for a task not requiring me and only me, you place my men and yours in more danger unnecessarily. So considered, your analogy destroys your reason."

She rasped a deep breath, relieved to be finished and thoroughly pink in the cheeks.

"I refuse you only because it is logical for me to refuse," she concluded. "As you see."

Bracing herself for the rejoinder that was undoubtedly coming, she set her jaw again and looked at the blonde with a combination of apprehension and obstinacy. To her surprise, she found herself on the receiving end of an odd look that had in it something so inapt she had difficulty identifying it.

Until the Himean helped her by bursting into hilarity.

"Ecastor!" the blonde cried in between whoops. "Ecastor!"

Natsuki gaped at the laughing woman, flabbergasted. Of all the possible retorts she had imagined, none had certainly contained laughter.

"Oh, all right already!" Suou said later to her, wiping away genuine tears. "By the gods, what a patrician you would have been! Go and find someone you can trust to do it, then come back here so I can hear you argue with me again in that lovely Greek. Jupiter, it truly is a pity!"

Shaking her head in bewilderment at the Himean she left still hooting, Natsuki went off to do as directed, wondering exactly what had just happened and unable to make either heads or tails of Suou's utterances. She was a practical girl, however, and had a great many things on her mind besides trying to understand some Himean's humours. She turned her thoughts to resolving the most immediate of her problems, for the time being.

She went to find her cousin.

"Nina," she called to the young woman, whom she found with two of her own subordinate officers: they all bowed respectfully to her. "Come with me."

The girl got up immediately and followed her until they were out of the others' range.

"An order," Natsuki said, proceeding to inform her of the command Suou had given. Once she had finished, it became clear that her cousin found the task as disagreeable an order as had she.

"But why not someone else?" demanded the younger Otomeian. "Why me?"

"Why ask this?" Natsuki squinted, seemingly indifferent to her relative's distress. "You dither. Speed is important."

"But Natsuki, I don't—"

"Belong in my unit," the older Otomeian finished in her low voice. "You came only to assist me. Assist me now."

"But I can also assist here!"

Natsuki disagreed: "Better you go. Once you go, I shall not think about you or the letters."

Hurt swam to Nina's eyes, was met only by an impregnable breadth of green.

"You want to send me away when we know there may be trouble," Nina said with bitterness, too tired and on edge from their situation to withhold it as she would normally. Her face crumpled, and she scowled fiercely at her gaunt but nonetheless intimidating cousin. "I can't keep up with you, so you have to think of me all the time as a burden? Leaving is the only way I can help?"

The slender black brows slanted, and Natsuki's sunken eyes narrowed within their orbits.

"You talk like a fool," she said severely, fuelling the resentment in Nina's heart before smothering it unexpectedly: "I chose you because I trust you for this."

Nina looked up at the statement, her eyes wide and heart racing.

"I need one fast on the saddle," the other continued with a frown. "And able to stay on it for a day without stopping. I need one skilled at evasion too, if evasion is needed. There are worries enough here. I want not to worry about the letters too when the one I send leaves. I want not to think about the one who goes because I trust them to finish the task completely. Nina. You understand me?"

The girl nodded eagerly, quite overwhelmed by this flattering expression of belief from her admired cousin. It took a while for her to realise Natsuki was waiting for her to speak.

"When do I go?" she breathed, attitude having completed a full turnabout. "Now? Immediately?"

The other woman looked away to tilt her head at another Otomeian passing.

"You will wait," she said simply. "The legate must finish writing. Today, soon."

The slender brows slanted again, although they relaxed quickly as she added: "You will reach Sosia in a week, then Argus a little over two weeks."

"I can make it in less."

Natsuki looked down at the younger woman without expression, then smiled rather suddenly to reveal that what had robbed her of flesh the past few months had not robbed her smile of its magic. Her smile was still the same one that had bowled over half of Shizuru's army without its owner even realising, although the deeply sunken cheeks and eyes did give it a new pathetic feel.

"Could be," she said, her tone making it clear she spoke a tribute. Between that and the smile, her cousin's cheeks flared. Natsuki looked away to save the girl from any possible embarrassment and folded her arms over her chest, using them to press the pearl that was under her uniform. Her eyes veiled instinctively at the familiar weight of it, but she fought the urge to close them.

"Argus..." she muttered as if without any thought to it, before her companion could move away. "There should be new mail in Argus now, I think."

"I'll be sure to get it," said the younger woman, obviously thinking they were talking about Natsuki's next letter from her Himean.

The look she received told her she had to reconsider that thought.

"Nina," said the elder girl evenly, as a further hint. "Also the regular mail."

And that word shed light upon the meaning. Nina knew that Shizuru Fujino's letters to her cousin were not carried by the normal couriers but by one of the Himean's own servants, loaded with money for the change of horses and papers of introduction should he encounter any difficulties. This man was tasked with riding at a furious gallop through the length of his journey: no stopovers save to sleep and change horses, no other purpose other than the delivery of the two letters in his pocket, one for Suou and the other for Natsuki. By the time he delivered them, he was usually so exhausted he either came down with a fever or slept away the entirety of the next day.

The rest of the mail was borne by the usual carriers, which meant it had more stopovers and less urgency. As was undoubtedly the case for any letters from the young woman who should have by now had time for writing, a young woman travelling with the legion that had been building a road while on the march. How hard Nina had been trying not to think about her! Apparently not hard enough, if Natsuki had still noticed.

"Ride fast, change horses often," Natsuki instructed. "Take caution."

Nina nodded meekly.

"I think you will be safe," Natsuki continued, her long neck craning as she tilted her head and sniffed at the air. Nina took a few discreet sniffs too and smelled nothing but the usual odours of camp, wondered for an instant if her cousin was actually scenting anything whenever she did this. Who knew when it came to one with such strange senses as Natsuki? Perhaps she smelled something no one else could? Like a coming enemy?

"Even if the missing scouts were sent in the other direction, to Argentum," the elder added, no longer sniffing but still looking up, towards the sky. "You will always take caution."

"I understand," Nina answered.

"You will take provisions and weapons. I will arrange with the legate the money and papers."

"I understand," Nina repeated.

"You will remember," Natsuki followed suddenly, her imperious syntax softened by the gentleness of her voice. "That you go is not running away. So you do not run away."

Poised to repeat the same words as before, Nina's lips fell apart soundlessly for an instant. Natsuki seemed to know she had taken the meaning immediately this time, because the older girl said no more and simply waited, furtively pressing the pearl under her shirt further into skin.

"I understand," Nina said quietly.

Natsuki nodded. She turned to go, even while leaving a parting directive.

"Prepare."

But Nina stopped her before she could leave. Acting purely by impulse, the younger Otomeian had reached out and gripped the older girl's arm. And almost wept when her fingers closed and overlapped markedly: how thin Natsuki had become!

The skeleton wrapped in her cousin's beautiful skin waited, seeming unfazed by the contact.

"I'll be quick, Natsuki," Nina blurted out, unable to remember what she had truly wanted to say. "I promise I'll be quick. And have your letter too, for you, when we next see each other."

The taller Otomeian said nothing, merely tipping her head. Nina struggled for a few seconds over what more to say, feeling awkward because she was still holding her cousin's arm, yet feeling somehow that she could not remedy the awkwardness by letting go of it. She rarely touched Natsuki, and although most of those times were kept cool by either the situation or Natsuki herself, there were also a few she remembered because of the clumsiness she was now feeling. It was always a struggle, and not because she did not like to touch Natsuki: it was because Natsuki hardly ever touched back.

"Take care," she eventually managed, choking.

The arm shrugged off her hand, and she relinquished her grip nervously. But then she felt her cousin's palm on the top of her head, giving it a brief pat.

"You will see Shizuki for me," the husky voice told her. "You will see she is fed properly?"

Nina nodded, scalp tingling from her cousin's touch. Natsuki smiled again, very briefly.

"Prepare now. Wait in your tent."

Again Nina stopped her from leaving. "Wait—Natsuki?"

"Mm?"

"If—I just thought—if you write a letter fast, I can carry it too," Nina suggested, visited by inspiration. "I can send it to Hime from Argus, if you want."

For a moment Nina tried to probe the cool eyes of her cousin. Whatever she imagined she saw there was lost quickly as Natsuki hummed again and left without a word.

Nina was able to leave shortly afterwards, still an hour or so before dark. She carried with her all the provisions and papers she would need to hasten her journey, along with several sealed letters—none of which was from Natsuki.

At the time Natsuki's cousin departed, the little army set about preparing their belongings for a march, then settled to turn in for an early night's sleep. They woke at dawn the following day, a mixture of apprehension and odd pricklings. Their commander, at least, did show them that he was not entirely casual once they marched out from camp. He sent all of the cavalry riding ahead at a distance that permitted them to act as the scouting advance, but still within sufficient reach of the Himean cohorts in case they did encounter opposition. For this his legate was both relieved and again exasperated: she admitted the wisdom of sending a strong reconnaissance force because of what had happened with their previous scouts, yet fidgeted over the thought that the girl she was chaperoning had to lead them.

As it turned out, the legate's fears proved justified: the second day into the march, the advance party came within sight of what seemed a huge army moving slowly their way. They ran nearly headlong into its scouts, but managed to wheel and retrace their tracks. Their captain did not bother seeking contact with them: that, to her, was an army ready for battle! A good thing she made that decision, it appeared. The horde—Mentulaean, judging from the armour—suddenly gave pursuit, sending an enormous detachment of their own horse to try and catch up with the fleeing Otomeians.

The chase was nerve-wracking to the Otomeians because of the suddenness. All those pricklings of the past few days had abruptly taken shape, and the shape was even larger than what they had feared. Even the horse unit sent after them seemed so big it could well swallow them up—and that was not even half of the army they had seen shuffling their way.

The chasers were Mentulaean cavalry, however, and that was a point for the Otomeians. Mentulaean horses were mere ponies next to the Lupine division's splendid chargers, so the pursuers were hard-put to catch up with the Otomeian troopers. Indeed, the Mentulae would have continued to merely trail on the Lupine horsemen's dust, had it not been for an additional consideration borne by the captain of the latter: the Himean cohorts, which she had warned by sending some of her fleetest ahead of the pack.

At first she toyed with the idea of leading the cavalry pursuing them straight to the Himean army; she estimated the pursuers to be six alae strong—what numbers these Mentulae had!—and though that was considerable, she knew that could be still be easily handled by her men with support from the Himean infantry. But then she heard an unmistakeable sound in the distance, mere minutes after the Mentulaean cavalry first began pursuit. Hooves, she thought, and something else. And then she realised that a second detachment of horse had been sent by the foe, most likely one made up of chariots.

The possibility of chariots changed the situation, especially as the ground in this area was still icy enough to support such units. Natsuki knew a standstill with the Himean infantry was no longer an option, because the second wave would undoubtedly catch up during the fight, and possibly extend it enough for the rest of that sluggish Mentulaean army to arrive. She did not know how large that army was, but from the glimpse they had seen, it was more then enough. It was necessary to retreat to the camp! But how to prevent the Himean infantry from being cut down as they retreated, how to protect them and Shizuru's precious artillery against those enemy horses coming closer...

As Natsuki pondered these matters, the Himeans had already begun their retreat, reversing the march with the speed only Himean infantry understood. Suou's cohort, which had been the rear guard, was suddenly the leading cohort as the order turned on its head. Takeda himself was to the middle, near the baggage train, when the sounds of the returning Otomeians first reached them and the warning signal was given. He thought of the same thing the Otomeian captain had: to stand ground. Before he could choose that option, however, he heard sounds louder than the distant marching beat of the infantry army heading towards them. Cavalry coming their way, and not just their own cavalry, from the sound of it! He gave the order to withdraw.

The retreat was executed at a frenzied pace by the energised Seventh, which understood very well from the sounds in the distance that at least one full army was coming. While most of them were actually spoiling for a fight, they were also veteran soldiers with enough experience to know it would be wiser to have that fight from a fortified position. The only worry was whether they would have time to make it before the enemy cavalry caught up. They gave no thought to infantry, since the Mentulaean infantry were shockingly slow, they all knew from experience. Horse, however, beat foot every time. How could they possibly make it in time? Several hours into that gruelling retreat, however, they suddenly heard another noise that hinted to them that they just might.

It was the sound of battle being joined.

The head of the Lupine division had decided to buy the Himeans the time they lacked by engaging the first wave of pursuers. Knowing she could not throw her cavalry into either a full charge or make it fight standstill because of the difference in numbers, she chose to do something that demonstrated again the immense tactical ability she had displayed at Argentum; it took advantage of both the foes' undisciplined-if-numerous ranks and her own troopers' versatility.

First, she ordered all of her men to switch to bows. Trusting that none of the first wave of Mentulae had bows or bowmen even remotely comparable to hers and also that their steeds were far inferior, she then had her men speed their mounts to what she remembered was a slightly inclined section of the road and ranged them on its crest. Once the enemy cavalry came within sight, she had her soldiers shower them with arrows from an impressive distance in a regular and precise hail. Her orders were specific to her troopers: do not bother with the riders, but shoot down all horses.

Her men followed her orders to the letter. As horse after horse fell from the Otomeian shafts, Natsuki's plan became clear: she had been counting on the fallen horses to pile up on each other, creating a ridge at the bottom of the incline that grew increasingly larger as more fell on it. Those following stumbled into the rising hurdle of fallen beasts and men, adding to its heft. By the time the Otomeian arrows ran out, two alae of Mentulaean horse had dropped this way and their huddle was sufficient to act as a wall into which the remaining four alae following crashed, momentum preventing these from turning to the uncluttered sides. Even as those at the very back of the Mentulaean charge began to slow enough to do that, however, the second part of Natsuki's plan was executed: the Lupine division charged down and came pouring through either side of the man-and-horse roadblock, waving their frightful weapons and screaming bloody murder.

The pursuers suddenly found their situation reversed—nay, worse than reversed. While the Otomeians had been able to flee earlier, the Mentulae were blocked by the Lupine warriors enveloping them in a noose, one part of it made up by the wall of Mentulaean dead. They fought back desperately, but the shock of the volte-face was too great. Their horses were also still winded, whereas the Otomeian ones were comparatively fresh given the pause they had moments earlier. All the Otomeians had to do was push them inwards while attacking and their mounts began to crash into each other, the pressure in the jumble escalating as more of the beasts panicked. Those Mentulae closest to the wall of fallen horse had the worst of it, for they were so tightly packed they could barely turn their mounts, nor even draw swords without cutting each other. A death trap closing in: what had started as a chase became a setting for massacre.

The Otomeians were quick to take the opportunity and were also very ably led. Urging on her men, their captain tightened the noose on the trapped foes until there came a point where a good part of the Mentulae dying were actually those being pushed deeper into the human-horse ridge made earlier, falling on those trying to clamber out of it and crushing them and each other. They did not even realise why the Otomeians did not seem to be stumbling on each new ring of Mentulaean dead their killing noose made. By rights this should have happened, since the number of falling Mentulae was sufficient to create fresh humps of dead that could slow the mounted attackers' progress. That it did not was because of the forethought of the Lupine division's captain.

Once the noose of cavalrymen had been thrown around the Mentulaean troopers, Natsuki had ordered her men to do the inverse of what she had told them earlier—that is, that they now had to kill riders and preserve the horse. This way, each time an enemy trooper had his head lopped off by the daos or longsword, one of the free Otomeians would grab the reins of his horse and pull it outside the noose, dead rider still on. The Otomeian leader had given thought to it all, and thus reaped a remarkable upset that would have made her Himean lover unbearably proud.

This bloodbath would have ended with every single one of that first wave of Mentulaean pursuers dead had it not been for the second group, the chariots. Just as the Lupine division had whittled down their trapped enemy to less than a hundred, these finally caught up and began to shoot: not caring whether they hit what remained of their own comrades or the Otomeian troopers. Natsuki gave the signal to withdraw, and the Lupine division was pursued once more.

It was already dark then, and their flight went on into the deep hours when their foes would stop to sleep. It was not until the following day's dawn that they showed up at camp, every Himean soldier up on the ramparts and looking for them. Cheers rang out when the bedraggled Otomeians rode in the gates that had been kept open for their sake, and legionaries ran to their aid.

One of the first to come tearing down from the walls when they returned was Suou, who had been in a fit of anxiety over their situation. Ever since the last of the cohorts had reached camp safely, late in the night, she had been holding her cohort armed and ready to go out should the Otomeians arrive with pursuers still behind them. There had even been a point where she demanded that Takeda send out some of the army with her so she could fetch their missing auxiliary, but he very rightly refused, worried as he also was. If they were safe, they would turn up soon, he told her sensibly enough, and settled instead for posting an all-night watch. Suou chose to be one of those on the towers, and was thus one of the first to see the Lupine division appear with the first golden fingers of dawn.

"Natsuki!" she cried, helping down the young woman over whom she had been so agitated. The girl was filthy with gore, and there was an arrow sticking through one calf, its protruding tip even scratching her horse. The Otomeian stumbled upon dismount, then wobbled before settling all her weight on her unharmed leg and staying there with exquisite balance.

Suou yelled for a medic and led the girl limping to a stool. The other Otomeians were also dismounting, wincing as they were able to rest their feet on ground again. The Himeans rushing to help them, and Suou watched the weary troopers coming down raggedly from their horses. Not a one was without injury, although most seemed capable of standing, and even looked quite cheerful.

"How many?" she asked of their ill-looking captain.

Natsuki showed the faintest hint of a smile.

"Six alae," she said, voice rough with thirst.

"Six?"

"Mmh."

Suou shook her head at the drained girl, her pale eyes shining with anger and emotion.

"They are matchless auxiliaries, damn him!" she growled fiercely, stopping the girl when she attempted to rise. Some of the Otomeian's officers were already headed their way, and the medic had arrived to elevate Natsuki's leg. "No, do not get up yet, please! I'll get some slaves to wash you after the doctor finishes, or all that blood on you shall get your wounds festering. You can get up later."

Natsuki's face moved, her eyes searching her warriors' ranks with patent concern. She was counting her men. Her hand came out to Suou's in mute supplication, and Suou saw that the bandages had been torn off the knuckles of that hand, along with the skin. She whipped to the physician, who was inspecting the arrow in Natsuki's calf.

"Well?" she snapped impatiently.

He continued what he was doing for a few seconds.

"Lucky," he grunted. "It doesn't look to have hit any arteries. Still, it's off to surgery for her."

Suou exhaled loudly with relief, applying pressure to Natsuki's shoulders again. The latter noted the touch was lighter this time.

"Your wounded will be tended to, Natsuki, never fear," Suou told the young woman, handing her a cup of water which a servant had brought. "See, our men already go amongst them! I'll be back to check on you once I've seen the status up there—but please stay here and let them see to your wounds first. Your officers are here to see you, so direct them if you need something to be done. Don't even think of getting up unless the doctor allows it. Gods know you and your men have done more than enough, compared to the rest of us! Oh, you're wonderful!"

After which heartfelt praise she ran off to clamber up a tower once more, calling out orders ceaselessly. She found the men on the ramparts still celebrating, the Seventh's morale having risen considerably after the auxiliary's victorious return. There was darkness tainting the jubilation, however: all of those on the walls could now see the glint of armour in the distance, and hear distinctly the tramp of the Mentulaean army coming ever closer to their little fort. By late afternoon, the elation over the auxiliary's triumph had all but fizzled out as hordes of Mentulae began to line up before their eyes. Thousands of bladed chariots and horse were first, followed by even more foot warriors—and all of these spilled onto the space around the tiny camp like the forecasted spring floods. The grossly understrength legion and its allied cavalry were completely surrounded.

The siege of the Seventh began three days before the Calends of July.