It was well after dark by the time Maria and Katarina returned to where the other knights were camped. The encampment was illuminated by a mix of prism stones, bonfires—complete with old swords stuck into them as was traditional to mark the camp as a safe place for any passersby—and crude torches. The sight was a welcome one, although the dead bodies of hanging by their necks from a nearby tree slightly poisoned that feeling. The bodies were wearing cheap and lightweight armor, of the sort worn by messengers or archers not expected to get too close to melee wore, but these were clearly not well cared for. The armor was rusting in some spots, enough that he shirt and gambesons beneath it had rust stains blooming outward from them, which provided a mildly aesthetic contrast to the bloodstains that the wearer had either recently inflicted on the garment or couldn't be bothered to clean off.

After the day they'd had, even Katarina could only give the hanging bodies a tired, vaguely resigned look instead of the concerned distress she would normally have exhibited. One of the corpses was even starting to twitch as the Dark Soul within fitfully tried to come back to life. Either it wasn't trying all that hard or it felt like waiting until its body had recovered a bit more.

"Are they going to be all right?" Katarina asked, sounding almost rote and out of habit rather than out of her more usual genuine concern.

Maria was tempted to say something like 'do you really care?', but thankfully managed to bludgeon that urge to death before it reached her mouth. "I'm sure they will recover in time, if they feel like it," she said instead, and Katarina gave a nod that was as much a somatic sigh as a gesture of relief. "Ah, by the way…"

Reaching into her pocket, Maria pulled out the coin purse—today she had learned that Katarina's personal coin pure was decorated to look like a tomato because of course it was—that had contained Katarina's pocket money that she had confiscated first to keep her squire from buying any suspicious food, and then later to keep it from being pickpocketed, and handed it back to her squire. Her squire blinked, and started patting her belt pouch—which had long since been slashed open by cutpurses—before letting out a sigh of relief. "Pochi! There you are! Ah, you had it the whole time, Maria-chan?"

Maria momentarily debated the merits of reminding her squire where they were and decided she'd let it slip just this once. It had a long, trying day. "It must have slipped your mind," she said instead.

Katarina happily took the tomato back and slipped it into her belt pouch, where it promptly fell out the bottom because of all the cuts. "Oh. Right." Her squire sighed.

"Perhaps you can use the one that comes with your armor until you can have that replaced," Maria said.

"Eh?" Katarina paused in picking up the tomato. "But Keith got me that belt pouch! I can't just throw it away!"

"My squire, if it is of sentiment, you need not throw it away to get a new one."

"Oh, right!"

"It was nothing," Dame Matthew said with some exasperated annoyance when Maria inquired about the men hanging from the tree. "La Sable's mercenaries, to no one's surprise, are not friendly with each other. They came to steal horses and tried to extort us. Apparently they thought that simply because they outnumbered us, that would be sufficient to extort a set of armor or two. Don't worry, no one came to investigate the disturbance." She sighed. "I swear, it's like the whole country thinks it's still the time of myth, when you could get away with ganking someone for their fashion souls."

Maria nodded grimly. Her own foray into the city had shown no evidence to contradict that statement.

After dinner, she called together the various knights who represented and for all intents and purposes led their nation's forces on this expedition. There were Sir Achtman and Dame Witherspoon, who were the only ones from Etran; Dame Siegabe, of New Catarina; Sir Xu of Xiarmah; Sir Achmed of Ethenell, currently heavily cloaked to hide his obvious undeath from any casual passersby since there laws of La Sable declared all undead were property; Dame Millicent Red, representing her sisters, also all known as Dame Red; Sir Laiden of Tasmeria; and Dame Amana of Drang. Dame's Matthew and Lalatina were also present as her second and to assist with coordinating with the other Sorcieri knights. Nearby, Katarina was practicing trying to parry with her greatsword, in case any translations were needed for sir Achmed.

"The city is difficult to navigate," she informed them as they sat around one of the bonfires. Various short phrases had been written in soapstone around it, silly or traditional things like 'praise the sun' or 'fuck Raime'. "Due to the mythic layout of the streets of the city, it was difficult to navigate to the Capitol building, especially since some streets are marked to allow transit in only one direction and the amount of people clogging the streets. Because of this, we were only able to scout the outskirts of the location before we had to try to find out way back to return here."

"Is it some kind of festival?" Sir Xu asked.

Maria shook her head. "No, according to the people my squire spoke to, the streets are always like this, unless when they're worse. It's possible that any scouts we send will need to take up rooms in different parts of the city so that they won't have to worry about returning to camp. Fortunately, we still have time. Not all the senators have arrived."

"What?" Dame Siegabe exclaimed. "But it's been weeks! And they apparently planned to convene even before the attack on the International Assembly to attempt to depose the L—their former ruler."

Maria shrugged. "From what I've seen of La Sable, I'm not surprised."

"Perhaps these are senators who are allied with their former ruler, and they were deliberately delayed to prevent them from interfering?" Dame Lalatina suggested in a voice of gentle optimism.

"If that's so, then wouldn't it be in the best interests of the senators already assembled to have concluded things already?" Dame Amana said. She was wearing a head cloth and black veil that obscured her features. Apparently, it was some sort of family tradition. "Why haven't they?"

"It could be a simple as the former Lord Presider having enough allies in the senate to delay matter, or the senators being unable to decide on who to replace him with," Sir Laiden suggested.

"The latter seems more likely," Dame Millicent said. "Aren't senators equivalent to Marquises and Marchionesses?"

Everyone considered that.

The chattering sounds that Sir Achmed made needed no translation, especially with the way his shoulders were shaking and had a hand on his non-existent belly.

"Bwahahahahahaha!" Katarina helpfully translated from off to the side.

"Thank you, my squire."

"You're welcome! Heigh-ho! Heave—"

"Quietly, my squire."

"Oops! Sorry!"

Maria let out a sigh, then turned back to the other knights. "We need a way into the Capitol, as well as information as to what forces are garrisoned in the city, what security the Capitol has, and ways to prevent the garrison and security from interfering and capturing us. Does anyone have any suggestions? Yes, Dame Siegabe?"

"I can check with the local Catarinatown," she suggested. "A lot of nobles employ Catarini cooks or import Catarini spirits. I suspect the kitchens of the Capitol will be no different." She made a distasteful face. "While it pains me to suggest it, if we can identify their supplier of foodstuffs, we might be able to use that to sneak inside, or perhaps tamper with the food to weaken security or make the senate more pliable."

Maria was about to nod in approval when she was suddenly filled with a premonition of impending danger the likes of which she hadn't felt in a long time. She looked about sharply, but did not catch sight of Mary Hunt, who should have remained in Sorcier. Yet the sensation, the sheer intention of danger wouldn't go away, and she turned to order her squire to safety—

To find Katarina staring straight at her. She had stopped in her parry drills, and her greatsword was resting on her shoulder, the hilt grasped in a deathgrip. Her squire's face was blank but… was that a red glow in her eyes?

Maria carefully looked away to face the other knights once more. "Perhaps we should stay well away from poisoned food," she said carefully. "It is far too easy to harm the innocent with such a careless tactic, and while I do not doubt that the Xiarmen have a perfume suited to non-lethal incapacitation, I doubt they have enough to affect the entire senate and anyone else who might accidentally consume the food."

The premonition of danger abruptly vanished, and it was all Maria could do to not let out a sigh of relief. Still, she didn't relax until she heard the sound of the greatsword moving through the air once more.

"Heigh-ho! Heave—"

"Quietly, my squire."

"Sorry!"

The discussion went on, and tasks were identified, assignments given out. Straws were drawn, and unfortunately, Maria picked the burnt one.

Everyone else breathed a sigh of relief at the sight, even as Maria resigned herself to the odious task she would have to perform. "Very well. Then this meeting is dismissed. Rest well, everyone, and someone please find a wash basin we can use. Yes?"

Sir Xu had approached her, his face impassive, and handed her a small, secured stoppered perfume bottle. "You might find this useful," he said. "It is a perfume to deaden one's nose. Open, sniff with each nostril, seal tightly. With care, it should last for several uses."

Maria took the bottle gratefully, then performed the bow that had been prescribed in their lectures to convey thankfulness. "This one thanks you, Sir Xu."

The Xiarmen nodded, and some of the formality left his face. "Better you than me," he said.

She strongly disagreed, but…well, it had to be done.

Maria slept fitfully that night as she sat on the driver's seat of her carriage and tried to make do with using Katarina's borrowed shield as a seat back. The knight had briefly debated whether or not to bring Katarina with her on this foray, and had come to the reasonable conclusion that this would be the perfect time to take her squire out to experience the sorts of things a knight would experience.

Vindictiveness? How dare you accuse her of such a thing! She was only doing her duty as a knight!

"My squire, I need you to wear something besides the dress you used yesterday," Maria said over breakfast. "We shall be searching for a hidden means of entry into the Capitol, and the set you wore would not be appropriate."

"Eh? You mean my perfect not-a-noble disguise?"

"… yes, that one. Please don your practice armor. Do not bring any food."

There was a shocked gasped. "N-not even a little?"

"No."

"Just a sandwich?"

"No, my squire."

"But what if I get hungry!?"

"You will not grow hungry."

There was a sound like the growl of a blood-starved beast.

"My squire, you are currently eating breakfast. Stop being hungry."

"I can't help it! Just a cookie?"

"It would be a waste of a cookie."

As Katarina started to shake at the thought of not having food on her person, Dame Matthew and Dame Lalatina gave Maria very flat expressions, silently judging her even as their shoulders shook with the faintest of tremors.

"Sadako, please ensure that Katarina has no food on her person when we leave."

"Hai, Lady Maria-dono."

"Uragirimono!"

Maria was fairly sure Katarina still left the camp with some food on her person, mostly because her squire kept glancing at Maria, smiling, and patting the small of her back, which had an obvious bulge. Well, on her mouth be it…

"We will be entering here," Maria said.

Katarina stared at the open sewer entrance, full of odious water that was flowing into the river. Even as they watched, floating brown… things… drifted by, carried by the current, and joined the odorful pile beneath the pipe, which grew and shrank according to the whims of the … call it water. She stared at Maria as the latter took out Sir Xu's perfume bottle and sniffed with each nostril. After a moment of a cool, minty smell, the olfactory organ grew blessedly numb.

Her squire turned to stare at the sewer again and sighed. "I'm sorry for bringing food," she said in a small voice.

Despite this words, Katarina held her nose, pulled two sandwiches from under her clothes, and quickly ate them , her face contorted into an expression of distaste the whole time. At Maria's raised eyebrow, her squire said, "Well, I didn't want them to go to waste."

Maria nodded. "Watch your footing my squire, lest you lose it."

Katarina shuddered. "Yes, Dame Campbell," she said, voice very small and very respectful. "Uh, how are we going to do this? Because I don't see a ledge we can walk on…?"

Maria gave her a flat, level stare. Slowly, a look of dawning horror rose in Katarina's face. She whimpered.

Nodding in satisfaction, Maria turned away. "Come, there's a dry entrance we can use."

"Oh, THANK YOU!"