At dinner, Chris thought Molly might have a point about the empty dining room. It was early enough in the year that the sky was already growing dark, and the single candelabra that stood at her end of the table was not bright enough to bring out the warm lines of the wood paneling. The fine tablecloth that would glow in the morning sun was bone-white where the candlelight touched it, and the empty chairs were emphatically so. The hot food cheered her somewhat, but her mind kept returning to the Council, and it would have been nice to have someone to discuss the matter with now, while it was fresh in her mind.

Why did they balk at admitting this was an actual war? she wondered, frowning at a spoonful of potatoes au gratin. The cheese oozing off the edge of the spoon offered no insight. Only one of the Council was up for re-election within the guild any time soon, so it couldn't be concern over public opinion.

Councilman Urran's argument about respecting foreign sovereignty was nonsense when it was Tinto doing the invading and the armies were fighting largely within Zexen's borders. Granted, the numbers they faced weren't indicative of a full-scale invasion. She took another spoonful and chewed thoughtfully. At three times – or even twice – the current muster, Zexen would have little difficulty driving them back, and there would be men to spare to protect the trade caravans. Not that she expected the Council would care – they were top men in the guild, all able to afford Grassland guides and Dunan tariffs for the more northern continental routes. It was the smaller-scale merchants and traders from outside of Zexen who were feeling the pinch, with their main artery of trade cut off.

But it still didn't make any sense to insist she fight them with such a small force. More lives would be lost that way, and it would cost Zexen more to maintain a smaller border force for an indeterminate number of years than a large one for the month they ought to be able to finish things in.

It was almost as if they wanted to prolong the fighting.

By the time she finished dinner, she'd turned everything over in her head twice, but despite a nagging suspicion there was something obvious she'd missed, she was no better off than when she'd started. Maybe Salome would be able to make something of it, when she got back to the front.

She retired to the sitting room with a volume of poetry, and was finally granted her wish of hot tea. The first sip scalded her tongue; with a grimace, she returned the cup to its saucer on the table.

The leather cover was still shiny and stiff, the gold leaf decorating the binding hardly dimmed. She'd received the book as a Winterstide gift from Leo of all people, several years back, but had only read it once before repeatedly misplacing it. Now she thumbed through the still-crisp pages, skimming the printed text for a poem to suit her mood. The majority seemed to be about beauty and its brevity, death and its permanence, or love having either quality. At another time, this would have been fine, but tonight the second drew her mind back to the war she'd be shortly returning to, and she felt impatient with the sentimentality of the others.

A snatch of verse caught her eye. What could have made her peaceful with a mind/That nobleness made simple as a fire. That was intriguing, but to her dismay, the opening lines proved it was just another variation on the inescapable poetic trio.

The title of the following poem seemed much more in the vein of what she was looking for – "The Lake Isle Of Innisfree."

Chris sank back into the pile of decorative pillows on the stiff-backed sofa, book in one hand and her teacup, pleasantly warm against her fingers, in the other.

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the mourning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

It was too early for crickets or cicadas, so in the silence of the evening Chris found it easy to draw up memories from three years ago. The ship had been most firmly aground, and even at high tide the lake reached nowhere near the wrecked hull. They wouldn't have quartered even the lowest soldiers there otherwise, let alone the Captain of the Zexen Knights. But sometimes, as she lay half-awake in her stiff bed, she'd almost thought she could hear the soft slap of wave against wood, and felt, as sleep came for her, a gentle sway like a rocking-horse that she dreamed was the ship at sea.

Footsteps creaking on the settled wood of the hall floor broke her reverie. The characteristic crisp knock of her butler was unexpected at this time of evening, so Chris bid him enter with more curiosity than irritation at the interruption.

"There's visitor here to see you, milady," the aging man informed her. "A young lady. I know you did not wish to be disturbed, but I did not wish to simply send her away at this hour. She begs an audience with you."

So much for the rest of the evening being quiet. "Send her here; there's no need to have Molly turn out the parlor if it's not business. Did she say what she wanted?"

"Merely that she wished to speak with you."

Chris frowned, trying to think who would even know she was back in Vinay del Zexay. "Bring her here, then."

The butler soon returned, followed by a woman who seemed a little older than Chris, blond hair visible under her lappet cap. Strong eyes and a high forehead gave her figure character rather than conventional beauty; her face would have been slightly hawkish if not for her round nose and the gentle curve of her mouth. Her clothes were fine, with subtle lace trim and full skirts. They were clothes made of good material, but not overly ornate, nor stylishly fitted; the woman was extremely pregnant.

"Lady Rachel Harras," Andrew announced.

Chris's eyebrows flew up, but she hastily composed her expression. Or tried to. It was difficult; embarrassment and guilt pricked at her like needles, and she couldn't quite bring herself to meet the eyes of the other woman. Salome Harras, her right arm, friend, and closest confident for the past three years, was a married man.

And she'd had absolutely no idea.

She'd never even thought to ask, simply assumed he was unmarried, because he'd never spoken of a fiancée or wife in the eight years she'd known him, and no one else had referred to him having one. She'd never noticed him wear a wedding band either, although of course now she couldn't remember how often she'd actually seen him with his gloves off.

Well, courtesy demanded she say something, and, "I'm sorry, I wasn't aware you existed" was hardly acceptable. Thankfully the appropriate manners were more or less automatic, even after months in a war camp. "Please sit down, Lady Harras. I'll ring for more tea, if you like. What can I do for you?"

"Oh, no tea, thank you, Lady Lightfellow." The woman sat down carefully. Her bearing remained dignified despite her awkward stature. "I'll be brief. It's about my husband."

Her husband. Chris nodded in what she hoped was an encouraging manner.

"Perhaps it's in appropriate of me, but might I ask you a personal favor?" Rachel's voice was soft and unpleading.

Personal favors. Chris's mind stumbled past the awkward notion of Salome being married to the social niceties one owed a friend's spouse. She'd have to get a christening gift somehow; it was bad enough she'd already slighted the woman – and Salome – by leaving her out of invitations and holiday greetings, never mind simply failing to occasionally ask her second-in-command how his wife was doing.

The question needed more than a nod as an answer. Social manners came to the rescue again; Chris hoped any stiffness would be construed as formality. "I can't promise anything without knowing what the favor is, but you may certainly ask, Lady Harras."

The other woman nodded. "Despite what the Council is telling everyone, I do know there's a war going on, and that you need every man you have, from blacksmith to commander. But would you be able to spare him for a short time? Just long enough to return home for a week or so." She put a hand on her belly. "I know it's perhaps a bit unfair of me to expect it; there are plenty of other women, I'm sure, in my same situation. And I wouldn't ask if I thought you wouldn't be fair." She spoke evenly, her expression neutral but not hopeful.

Chris closed her eyes and sipped her tea mechanically, not really tasting it. It felt like the bottom of her stomach had dropped out and the tea was just spilling down into some empty, endless pit. Of course this would be about sending him home to welcome his child into the world; the only reason she hadn't been deluged with such requests from other soldiers' wives was because no one knew she was in the city today, besides the Council. And Salome's wife, it seemed.

Salome's lady wife.

"…Captain Lightfellow?"

Chris set down her teacup with a decisive clatter of china. "Of course, Lady Harras. I'll see to it that your husband takes some of his leave-time to visit you, if I have to order him away from his books to do it."

Rachel looked momentarily stunned, then her face lit up. Her eyebrows lifted and her mouth spread into a small smile; Chris was put very much in mind of Salome in one of his amiable moods. "Oh, thank you, Captain. Bless you."

"Think nothing of it, Lady Harras. Your… your husband has served Zexen above and beyond the call of duty; it's time we gave something back to him." She glanced up at the window, willing the last stains of orange and red from the blackening sky. "It's getting quite dark. Shall I have someone see you home?"

It seemed Rachel didn't hear any impatience in her voice, or else forgave it; her smile was too sincere. "I appreciate that, but I brought my own escort. I believe he's in the kitchen doing some visiting of his own."

Chris called for Andrew to bring Rachel her coat and bonnet, and to retrieve the woman's footman. As he went to retrieve the other woman's things, Chris decided to take her leave.

"Take care, Lady Harras," she said, rising. "I'll be sure to congratulate Salome, and order him back home when I see him next."

"I beg your pardon?"

Chris shrugged awkwardly; she owed the woman an explanation for her inadvertent rudeness over the years. "My vice-captain has always been rather reticent on the subject of his family, but I must confess I had no idea that he was married, or going to be a father."

Rachel laughed. "He's not."

Chris stared at her. "He's not?"

"No, he's not. Salome's my brother. I'm sorry, I thought you knew! No wonder you seemed so... surprised when I was announced." She smiled gently, and Chris felt her face grow red. The other woman hadn't missed her reaction at all.

Rachel went on. "My husband's from a lesser merchant family, and by the time we were engaged it was clear Salome wasn't going to be continuing the family line, so Theo took my last name when we married."

Chris sat back down, shaking her head. "I'm sorry, can we start over? Your husband is...?"

"Theodore Harras. He's a clerk, keeping books for the quartermaster."

"Hmm..." Chris tried to summon a mental image of the quartermaster's staff. "Theodore…Theodore… tall, thin, gives you sour looks if you come in for replacement equipment more than once in a month if the quartermaster's not there to do it for you? That Theodore?" Chris shook her head in wonder. "No wonder Salome gets along with him better than I do, if they're brothers-in-law."

"Yes, that would be my husband," Rachel said fondly; she didn't seem at all offended by Chris's less-than-flattering description. "Theo's actually got a better sense of humor than you've probably had a chance to encounter from him. Or would be able to trace back to him. He's pretty careful about that sort of thing."

"…wait, don't tell me he was the one responsible for those ridiculous plumed helms last year?" Chris asked. A smile twitched at the corners of her lips. "The entire third infantry looked like chickens. We all thought someone had made a mistake in placing an order or two."

Rachel smiled proudly. "That's my Theo."

"Well, Lady Harras-"

"Please, just Rachel is fine. Lady Harras is my mother. Or a title that belongs to the wife my brother doesn't have."

Chris coughed, and she was almost certain there was a gleam in the other woman's eye. "As I was saying, Lady Rachel, I'll have to check with the quartermaster, but I'll see what I can do about sending him home to you in time. Although, to be honest… I wish I could send your brother home for a bit, as well." Rachel grinned openly at this, and Chris returned the smile tentatively. "I meant it when I said Zexen owes him some time off. I don't believe Salome's taken more than a day of rest since he left Vinay del Zexay, and that only because there was nothing to do except for wait for word from the front. I can't afford to do without him at this point… although I can't afford to have him collapse on me either."

"What about yourself, Lady Chris? From my brother's letters, I get the impression you don't take much time for yourself, either. I doubt Zexen can afford to lose you."

"Hah." Chris snorted. "Early on in my captaincy, I pushed myself a bit too hard and collapsed on the way to a Council meeting." She looked faintly irritated "I know better than to let that happen now, but even if I didn't, no one would even give me the chance. Borus hovers. The maids drown me in herbal tea if I so much as sneeze, Louis is a knight now but still acts like he's my attendant, and Salome... well, he's actually the best of them all, but he does fuss sometimes. Well, not precisely fuss –he's Salome, after all-"

Rachel looked amused. "But he does have a tendency to quietly arrange things so that you wind up taking a break, or doing whatever else it is that he wants you to do. And by the time you realize that's what he's doing, he's already talked you into it."

Chris nodded. "Yes, exactly. And the worst part is, he's always right in the end. I probably wouldn't have gone off to look for my father if he hadn't encouraged me, and, well…"

"That was during the last war, wasn't it? Just after you'd become captain?"

The 'last war'. Has it really been so long? "I see Salome keeps you well informed."

"Well..." Rachel shrugged a little. "The Harras family motto is practically that. 'Be Informed.' It's in the blood. And while most of Zexen paid little mind to that conflict once Durram resigned, my brother was directly involved. Naturally I was curious."

Footsteps and a knock signaled the return of the butler. Rachel's footman and outdoor things were ready, if she would be so good as to come to the foyer?

"Please give my regards to my brother," Rachel as Chris saw her to the door. "And thank you ever so much for granting Theo some leave."

"That's still up to the quartermaster, but I'll do what I can," Chris assured her. "Take care, Lady Rachel."

The isolated lines of poetry come from "No Second Troy," by William Butler Yeats; "The Lake Isle Of Innisfree" printed in full is by the same. Text obtained from www dot online-literature dot com; to my knowledge both works are in the public domain.