“You may keep your servants, baroness,” Recha said to the cowering, homely woman before her. “Your cooks, your nurses, your maids, everyone necessary to look after your family and home. I’m afraid your guards are already being disarmed.”
Baroness Sa Manta shot nervous glances at Recha’s soldiers posted around her foyer. All the household servants were cramped together on the bronze tiles, the maids and nurses to one side and the gardeners, butlers, cooks, and handymen on the other. In all, forty-six people were employed to keep the three-story house and fifteen-acre grounds in order.
That didn’t count the guards or the sioneroses.
“Thank you,” the baroness said with a hush, “La Dama.”
The woman was a few inches shorter than Recha. Her woolen dress was fine, light blue with a high collar, long sleeves, and smooth skirts. Not something one of her station would wear meeting a marquesa. However, Recha and her armies hadn’t announced they were coming beforehand. She held her head down, her light brown hair spun and held up in a tight bun, though stray strands stuck out of it, as if made in haste. Her round, plain face showed signs of going fat, along with her hips and waist.
Although, that could have been from having six children, all of which stood behind their mother along the wall, arranged by age. The eldest son, probably a boy around fifteen, stood as tall as he could with his chest out, scowling at everything that moved. His siblings, though, were less defiant. The youngest, two girls no older than five, huddled together, clutching each other’s hands, and their chins wobbled as both were on the verge of tears.
Recha tore her attention away from them to finish her little speech. “I’m afraid we are going to have to commandeer your home for a night or two while we move through the area. We shouldn’t be long. Just enough to take in the lay of the land before we continue our march. Only my senior staff and I, along with our guards, will be taking up any form of residence.”
The baroness jerked her head up, eyes wide, and gasped, on the verge of speaking.
“We won’t take anything,” Recha assured her, throwing her hands up to try to calm the woman. “We’ll be bringing our own servants to not take away from yours. You have your hands full as it is, don’t you?” She motioned to the children behind her while forcing a small smile and gently put a hand on the baroness’s shoulder.
The baroness’s shoulders seized up. Her breath hissed sharply between her teeth at Recha’s touch alone.
Recha snatched her hand away. She caught the eldest son fixing his scowl on her out of the corner of her eye.
“Apologies,” she said.
“No, no,” Baroness Sa Manta stammered, shaking and lowering her head. “Nothing to . . . apologies for . . . La Dama. Nothing at all! Thank you for your . . . for your understanding and generosity.”
Recha put her practiced mask on, though the corners of her lips strained from the pressure. “There’s no cause to be upset.” She made her voice as calming as possible. “We only request—”
“We will not give aid to an enemy of our marc!” the eldest son yelled. “When our father hears you’ve invaded our home, he’ll return and drive your curs out! Sa Manta has the finest calleroses of Orsembar, and you will rue the day you trespassed!”
Baroness Sa Manta wailed and rushed to the boy in a panic, throwing her arms around him and lowering his head.
“Forgive him, La Dama!” she cried, pleading eyes on the verge of tears. “He’s only a boy who’s trying to be strong while his father away. Please! He didn’t mean any offense!” The baroness pulled the boy’s head closer to her chest, shaking as those tears finally gave way.
Despite her mother’s pleas, the boy peered daggers at Recha through his mother’s embrace.
Being strong indeed. Recha held back a pleased smile. And with any luck, that’s exactly the same reaction your husband will have when you send him a message that we’ve marched through here. Pity those calleroses won’t find an easy fight when they come.
“This is a very stressful situation,” she replied understandingly. “His outburst is natural for the eldest to defend his family when the father is away. I would only warn him to be more tactful in the future. It’s especially unwise to make threats like that in a room full of enemy calleroses.” She glanced at her guard, all of which watched the mother and son pair intently.
The distant boom of volley fire drifted through the air.
Recha spun to stare down the long, north-facing corridor to her right. The last remaining echoes bounced off the varnished wood paneling to the open balcony, the gleaming speck of light beckoning to her.
I’m missing everything again!
“That will be all, Baroness,” she said hurriedly, backpedaling toward the corridor. “Tend to your children and household. If you have any concerns you need to speak with me about, send word to my secretary. Take care of the rest, Cornelos!”
Cornelos had been standing at the entrance with a rank of her guards behind him. Recha was sure he was trying to make her look imposing, yet now he gawked at her as she sped down the corridor.
“La Dama!” he protested after her.
It was too late. Recha took to her heels after her fourth step, the hard leather of her riding boots thumped against the floor tiles. She hadn’t bothered dressing formally by any stretch of the imagination today. She’d had her fill of riding dresses and instead had a pair of sensible trousers made for her. They, along with the boots and light blue blouse, gave her the appearance of a camp worker instead of the marquesa of a marc. She didn’t care. Not since she had three armies at her command. Running was also easier without having to worry about tripping over skirts.
The balcony’s patio table came into view first, covered in maps and papers, followed by Baltazar’s cutting figure, standing next to the balcony’s railing and looking through a thin, brass spyglass and down into the valley.
“What’s happening?” she demanded, bursting out onto the balcony.
The guards flanking both sides of the exit jumped, startled from their posts. Sevesco sat in unform with his boots propped on the table. He nursed a glass of wine in one hand while fingering though several leaves of parchment in the other.
“Are we retreating?” he asked, peering worriedly over his messages.
“What?” Recha gave him a confused look as she rounded the table. She rolled her eyes when Sevesco slipped behind his messages, chuckling with his shoulders shaking up and down. “I’m sure if we have to retreat, you’ll be the first to hear about it, Sevesco.”
She slipped up beside Baltazar, who was still gazing through the spyglass intently.
“We’re not retreating, right?” She kept her voice low to avoid Sevesco eavesdropping. “I heard musket fire.”
A gust of dry wind swept up from the cliff drop below. The air flung her hair, tightly woven in a thick braid, upward with its draft. Feeling the air brush her misshapen earlobe, she hastily tugged her braid back over her shoulder.
“We’re not retreating,” Baltazar grumbled, unmoved from the wind, save for the tufts of his mustache flaring up. “We didn’t push into the Crudeas fast enough, and now there’s a barricade in the city center. Someone ordered their muskets forward. Either Hiraldo got down there and ordered it or another First Army officer’s trying to put pressure on them before this becomes a real fight.”
Crudeas sprawled out below, taking up the valley center. From her elevated view, Recha could see the intersecting highways running southwest by northeast and south by northwest through the brick- and clay-slated rooves of the city. Columns of the First Army were marching up from the south. The drummers beat in quick time to make them hurry. Calleroses circled the outskirts toward the southwest highway through cotton fields that stretched on for miles westward.
The city’s old walls facing the southern highways had buildings and outlaying districts grown up around them, with seemingly no regard for the city’s defense. While, in contrast, no houses or buildings had been built out along the northeast highway.
Musket fire erupted below again.
Recha pressed herself against the balcony, clutching and pushing up on the railing. She lifted herself up on her tiptoes.
A gray cloud of smoke drifted up from several city blocks below the center of the city. Despite the roads widening in the center of the crossroads around a bronze statue in the middle of the city square, the taller buildings obscured Recha from getting a clear view of what was happening.
She shaded her eyes against the Easterly Sun, yet all she could make out were the tiny figures scrambling through the streets and diving behind large obstructions thrown across them. There were banners flapping in the wind around the statue but, again, the distance made it impossible to see what was depicted on them.
“What are those banners?” she asked. “Did we catch a relief force in the city? What’s happening?”
She glanced at Baltazar who, instead of watching the fighting, was slowly sweeping his looking glass around it, focusing on the cotton fields to the west, the vineyards stretched over the hills northwest of the city, then back around to the dense trees east of the city.
Recha tracked his eyeglass’s every movement, squinting to see what he was looking at, but the distance was just too great.
“Do you see something?” she asked.
Baltazar let a reserved, deep growl rumble from the back of his throat. He lowered his eyeglass to grimace over his shoulder.
Recha let out a sharp sniff, realizing she had slipped up behind him to follow his gaze. She jumped away with a bashful and apologetic smile.
Baltazar’s grimace melted away with a sigh. “Time for a lesson.”
Recha’s shoulders sagged at his tone. It was his teaching voice. She had heard it many times growing up. Mostly from overhearing him using it with Sebastian and the others, but she had received it a fair number of times personally.
Please don’t be long, she prayed.
“Patience and calm,” Baltazar said, looking back into the valley. “These are the two hardest and most important things to have while in command. If a commander has no patience, you will run into situations without thinking. And if you behave excitedly, you will be constantly reacting to situations rather than anticipating and planning for them. Take the information you get as you receive it and make the most rational decision you can. Be patient and have faith in your field officers. Let them react and respond quickly to the enemy they are facing.
“In the meantime,” he brought his spyglass up again, “you look for the enemy they’re not . . . if they’re out there.”
Recha rubbed the back of her hand with the other’s thumb while holding them in front of her. She cautiously checked over her shoulder. Sevesco had slid deeper into his chair, hiding under his messages, the papers too close to his face for him to be reading them. The guards by the doors stood stone-faced, and the few dispatchers crowding together off to the side didn’t dare meet her eyes.
Terrific. They just watched their field marshal lecture their marquesa. No telling what’s going on through their heads.
She drew herself up then cleared her throat. “Field Marshal, I wish to be informed on what’s going on. How goes the battle?”
“More of a skirmish than a battle, La Dama.” Baltazar remained focused through his eyeglass. “However, contingents of the First Army have it controlled to the center of the city. The rest of the army is sweeping through the rest while the Second Army is moving to the west to secure the cotton fields and the hills north of the city. No sign of any other enemy force. Hiraldo needs to send a company of calleroses to check those woods to the east.
“Dispatch!”
“Sir!” one of the dispatchers yelled, running up to him.
“Send word to General Galvez to order calleroses to clear those woods east of the city.” Baltazar never broke contact with the eyeglass.
“Yes, sir!” The dispatcher raced off the next second.
That left the balcony uncomfortably quiet afterward. Baltazar kept watching everything unfold, the guards stood silently, and Sevesco occasionally sipped his wine.
Recha thought she caught movement in the city and clenched her hands tighter to hold back her irritation of not being able to see it all clearly.
“Do you have another one of those?” she whispered.
“Sorry,” Baltazar whispered back. “No.”
Recha pressed her lips tightly together, and her right leg began to shake, tapping her foot.
Someone cleared their throat.
She looked sharply over her shoulder to see Sevesco holding a brass cylinder in the air, his uniform jacket flapping open.
You’ve had that this whole time?
She gave him a dry look, which didn’t deter him from setting the spyglass on the table then rolling it across with a flick of a finger. She caught it before it neared the edge and mouthed ‘Thank you’ as she twisted and extended it. Sevesco gave her a big smile and nod before tossing his messages away to mull solely on his wine.
Recha spun back around and raised the spyglass. She twisted the lenses back and forth until the city came into view. The southern outskirts were densely packed with her soldiers, companies, mostly swordsmen broken up into squads and filtered off the main road and into the side streets, sweeping toward the east.
She followed the highway up, finding the derelict old city wall. Her banners were already mounted and waving on the battlements. She grinned at that.
Another volley made her jump. Her vision through the glass waved and bounced, blurring from the speed until she came to rest at the city center. She sniffed sharply, twisting the lens out for a wider view.
This new volley had come from the northeast highway. Two lines of her musketeers were pulling back behind a column of pikemen, struggling to form a hedge with their polearms to claim the road. Fortunately, enemy soldiers didn’t come pouring through the musket smoke. Instead, townspeople and soldiers alike were scrambling back to the nearest barricade in the city center. Not until the dense smoke dissipated did the bodies littering the street between the two groups become visible.
“Push them!” Recha said excitedly under her breath. “Take the barricade before they—”
A strong hand gently pulled her back by the shoulder.
“Careful,” Baltazar warned. “Don’t lean too far.”
Recha stepped back, swallowing after realizing she had pressed herself against the balcony railing and had been leaning further and further over.
“Thanks,” she said then brought her spyglass back up.
Her soldiers hadn’t taken the initiative. The hedge of pikes held the road, yet all the city’s soldiers had gotten to safety behind the barricade of hastily overturned wagons, tables, chairs, and whatever else could be dragged out from the nearby buildings.
“Narvae’s taken the vineyard,” Baltazar said.
“Huh?”
Recha pulled back then focused her spyglass on the hills north of the city. She picked up calleroses galloping through the long lanes of grapevines. She followed the lanes up to the top of the hill where her banner flew from the top of the large winery there.
“You sent Narvae to personally take a winery?”
“No,” Baltazar replied. “I gave Ramon personal command to secure the highest point north of the city and cut off the northwest highway.”
“But . . .” Recha lowered her spyglass and gave him an uneasy look, “you sent him to capture a winery.”
Baltazar exhaled deeply from his nose. “He hasn’t had a drop of hard liquor in the past ten days. And he needed time in the field. He was antsy just riding with the command officers and nothing to do but sort dispatches. Taking a forward hill and cutting off one of the important highways was just what he needed. He should be about to . . .. Calleroses are already moving down the hill, taking the highway.”
Recha quickly looked to see squadrons of calleroses riding down the hill, three columns of horsemen flowing downward to the winding highway below. Her hair stood on end at seeing the road crowded with people on horseback, in wagons, and on foot, fleeing the city. Many fled before her calleroses in every direction, but most were corralled by the horsemen back toward the city. Following the road back, she saw a fight breaking out over the northwestern gate as her soldiers inside the city moved in to secure it.
“Crudeas should be secured”—Baltazar closed up his spyglass with several twisting clicks—“within the next couple of hours.”
Recha tore her attention away from everything going on below to watch Baltazar step away from the balcony. He stood his spyglass straight up on its lens on the table then frowned at Sevesco. Or rather, his boots on the table.
Sevesco caught his expression, winced apologetically, then took his feet off.
Baltazar grunted in approval before sliding his chair back and sitting down, instantly going back to his waiting reports.
“That’s it?” Recha asked, feeling her heart sink from her excitement draining out. She looked back and forth between the ongoing struggle below and Baltazar’s back. “There’s still a battle going on down there.”
“The battle’s already over,” Baltazar said with an assuring tone, flipping through a couple of hastily drawn maps. “We’d have found any hiding force already if there was any hiding in wait. Ramon wouldn’t have divided his force to secure both the northern high ground and the road if there was something waiting beyond. The Second Army will face anything from the west. And, last I looked, my dispatcher finally reached Hiraldo.”
Recha angled her spyglass south of the city. She caught the tail end of a column of calleroses, trailed by three columns of pikes from the rear of the First Army, heading for the thick grove of trees east of the city.
She lowered her spyglass and took in the valley below, now knowing her soldiers’ movements and knowing where everyone was. The outline of the cotton fields, the lanes of the vineyards, the layout of Crudeas’s buildings, and the two highways dividing it, all laid out in front of her. It all felt . . . clear.
“It’s like a jedraz board.”
Baltazar chuckled. “Better. No jedraz board could ever be as detailed or a replacement for the real thing.”
Drawn in by everything going on below, Recha took a final look through the spyglass, focusing on the city. The fight for the northwestern gate was over, her banners flapping proudly over them. That highway was completely secured with a long trail of city-dwellers being marched back inside. The road inside the city was theirs, as well. Though clogged with people, her soldiers were trickling around toward the eastern side, closing in the northeast main street from both sides.
“The barricades around the city center don’t matter,” she said. “As soon as we take the last main street, they’ll be utterly surrounded.”
“And if they break,” Baltazar added approvingly, “they’ll have no defenses whatsoever when our troops give chase. If they wanted to try an escape, they should have tried at least thirty minutes ago. They’ll either make some small fight of it or perhaps whoever is in command down there will surrender. Either way”—there was a brief pause. and Recha’s ear twitched at a gulping sound—“the city will be ours within the next couple of hours.”
Recha lowered the spyglass, twisting and clicking it closed while giving the city one more look. More musket volleys rang out, from both the north and southward roads. Even from her distance, she saw the columns of pikes begin to gradually inch forward.
Hiraldo’s tightening the noose now.
Hurrying footsteps came from behind her. She turned around to see Cornelos marching out onto the balcony. In a brief flash, she caught him replacing a scowl with a cold, expressionless look. He tossed a dispatch pouch around the arm of a chair then sat down without a word or courtesy to anyone.
“Cornelos,” Recha said warily, arching an eyebrow as she came up behind the chair next to him. “Has something happened?”
“No, La Dama,” Cornelos sourly replied as he pulled more dispatches and letters from his pouch. “Everything is well.”
Recha noticed how set his jaw was and his lips pressed into a thin line. He shuffled the papers in his hand without giving her a glance. She looked at Sevesco, who was watching him over his cup.
“Guards,” she said, “leave us. Messengers, too. Wait inside, please.”
“Yes, La Dama!” the guards said in unison. The messengers snapped to attention then hurriedly followed the guards off the balcony and into the corridor beyond, out of sight.
Recha waited a few moments longer to be sure they were out of earshot to speak. “Cornelos, what is it?”
Cornelos paused sorting through his papers, hands holding them in the air between two piles. He briefly held them there, unmoved. Then, he dropped them, letting them flutter down without a care where they landed as he rounded to look up at her.
“You shouldn’t have handled Baroness Sa Manta like that,” he snapped.
Recha blinked at him. “Excuse you?”
“She had more questions,” Cornelos added. “And you ran out of there the first chance you got. It was . . . unbecoming.”
Recha propped her right hand on her hip while leaning against her chair with the other. She matched Cornelos’s brave stare, yet he held without blinking.
Everything grew quiet. Strangely quiet. Then she realized she couldn’t hear Baltazar’s pen scratches anymore.
She broke from the staring contest to look over her shoulder. Her field marshal had tossed his pen aside and was leaning back in his chair while folding his arms. An inquisitive look gleamed in his eyes.
“Don’t stop now,” Baltazar encouraged. “As her commandant de marquesa, it’s your duty to advise and inform her on matters you believe are being overlooked or not being given their full due.”
Recha pursed her lips at the return of his “teaching voice.”
This feels coordinated.
She straightened back up then turned back to Cornelos. “Well?”
Cornelos hadn’t moved a muscle. Lines of sweat had run down the sides of his face. “Recha,” he said, letting out a deep sigh, “with all due respect, you’re giving all your attention to the campaign and avoiding your other duties. Ever since the battle at the Compuert Road Junction, you’ve seized every chance to get out of answering these dispatches.”
“My armies were going into battle,” Recha retorted, gesturing out toward the valley behind her. “They’re still engaged. I had to know what was happening.”
Cornelos slammed his hand down on a stack of papers, shaking the table. “You have requests and letters weeks old! If you answer them today, it will take weeks to get back to Lazorna. Situations could be worsening, and Esquire Valto is not able to answer them all. You’re the only one with the authority to answer these.
“Lazorna needs its marquesa. You don’t need to watch the war. You have the rest of us for that.” He nodded at Baltazar and Sevesco in turn.
Recha dug her fingernails into the headrest of the chair in front of her. She couldn’t deny she found the daily actions of the armies more interesting and exciting than answering requests and writs. The movements of the troops, waking up every morning to hear where they were heading, if anyone had found the enemy, if Puerlato had surrendered, it all thrilled her unlike anything had for the past three years.
She gazed at the two piles of papers with trepidation, knowing exactly what they held. Long lists of requests. Long descriptions, stories, and pleas for aid for one thing or, in most cases, multiple things. Long platitudes in hopes of flattering her ego that she would agree to them. One after the other. And, most likely, she would have to deny most of them or allow a compromise, yet not give the petitioner exactly what they wanted.
Cornelos kept his firm look, the fading remnants of his boyish features pushed away by a stoic seriousness and determined expectations.
He’s not going to let this slide. Recha dropped her shoulders, studying the stacks again. And they’re not going to get any smaller.
She looked over her shoulder again. Baltazar still sat with his arms folded, but with an approving smile and soft look in his eyes, for both her and Cornelos. A fatherly look.
“I thought you trained them to be calleroses,” she quipped. “Ride horses. Wield swords. Take orders. Not demanding, overzealous secretaries.”
Baltazar lifted one hand back in gesture that was half-wave and half-shrug. “He’s good at both.”
Recha couldn’t help but grin. She looked back the stacks and sighed. “Come on then.” She pushed away from the chair then started around the table. “Let’s see if there’s a room I can take over and get those done.”
“Yes, La Dama!” Cornelos said excitedly, hurriedly gathering up the stacks with a mass ruffle of papers.
“Not going to stay out here?” Sevesco quipped.
Recha paused at the mansion’s threshold then longingly looked back. She felt the draw of the maps on the table, the curiosity of how the battle was going below. She turned back, shaking her head. “I’ll just be distracted.”
She beckoned back to Cornelos to follow. “Come along, Cornelos.”
Cornelos followed behind her as she walked into the corridor, her bootheels instantly echoing off the close, wooden panel walls. The guards snapped to attention as soon as she passed.
“Dispatch!” Baltazar yelled, sending a shiver across her shoulders.
A messenger respectfully waited for her pass before running to take the field marshal’s message.
Recha pushed down the last bit curiosity and put more determination into her stride, away from the balcony.
I better find a room on the other side of the mansion; otherwise, I won’t get anything done. She rolled her shoulders, getting them ready for what she knew was coming. This is going to be a long day.
~~~
Strands of hair hung loosely between Recha’s fingers. The braid she had spent nearly an hour on that morning had long unspooled, and now her hair fanned across her left shoulder and clung to the back of her neck. There was undoubtedly a bright palmprint on her forehead from her propping her head against her left hand as she struggled to scribble her signature, answering another petition.
She sat hunched over a small table that barely reached above her knees while she sat in one of the room’s armchairs. Propping herself up on one arm and writing with the other were the only things keeping her balanced. She had gotten used to the dull pain in the curve of her back, combining it with the throbbing between her temples and the numbness of her left arm, which was asleep.
Her entire body was clammy. She had loosened her blouse’s sleeves and slipped her boots off under the table, yet those offered little comforts in the humid room.
Recha wasn’t sure if it was intended to be a sitting room or waiting room for the Sa Mantas’ guests. It was too small to be a reception room, and a few armchairs and one long, short oak table running down the center of the room were originally the only pieces of furniture. Nothing to say this was a room the family regularly used.
She slid the latest petition aside, the sheet of paper fluttering across the tabletop to the waiting staffer at the foot of the table. Then her eyes fluttered at the sight of another waiting for her.
“You’re punishing me, aren’t you?” she said with a groan. “You’re making me sign the same petitions twice.” She angled her head to the side to keep her head propped against her hand and to look up across the table at Cornelos.
Another button of his uniform had been undone since she had last looked. It hung open, revealing his tan undershirt with light damp spots around its collar, as he leaned against one of the arms of his chair. He squinted through his spectacles at the petitions he held up in the air, angling them in the light from the room’s oil lamps. That was making the bags forming under his eyes grow.
“I’m not that petty,” he replied. “Or cruel.” He shook his head and set both aside.
Another staff member was there to scoop them up and rush them back to the others. Seven women sat in a circle, scribing out draft responses on writing planks, filling the room with sounds of their pen scratches. Most of the draft responses were denials. After three years working together, Cornelos was able to pick out the ones that shouldn’t come to her because of some reason or ones he knew she would deny off-hand. Simply setting those aside helped speed things along.
And still, there were so many for her to address personally.
“I’m not so sure about that.” She snickered.
She rolled her head back down, and her eyes instantly lost focus in the swirling script. Her shoulders slumped, suddenly too heavy to keep straight. She lost strength in her fingers. The spine-like quill of a mellcresa rolled back into her hand as her fingers loosened their grip. Her eyelids began to drift.
“Does anybody around here stop working?”
Recha lulled her head up. The skin of her forehead peeled away from her palm, and strands of hair fell over her face, making it even more difficult to see through her half-lidded eyes.
Her vision cleared to find Sevesco waltzing into the room, uniform jacket thrown over his shoulder, undershirt collar soaked with sweat, and rubbing a towel around his neck. He saw her then jerked back, grimacing.
“You definitely should stop working,” he said.
“Huh?” Recha grunted, realizing her mouth was lazily hanging open. Holding her head up was suddenly too much, and she let out a low, pleading groan as she rolled her neck in a circular motion.
She took one more look at the papers in front of her and couldn’t make sense of the words. Her eyes and brain were either conspiring or warring with each other, but the results were the same as she couldn’t read the letter before her.
“Oh!” she weakly protested, slamming her hands down on the table. Her arms spasmed as she flung herself back into the chair. The curve of her back popped instantly. She gasped from an icy spark shooting through her body, forcing her to arch forward until it ran its course and allowed her to collapse back into the chair.
“No more,” she begged. She waved her left hand in the air, trying to be dismissive, but her limb dangled limply. “Send them all away. I’m finished for the day.”
“Day?” Sevesco said, pausing from pulling up another chair for himself to look toward the windows. “The Easterly Sun set two hours ago.”
Recha rolled her head to her left, craning her neck to see the room’s two windowpanes blackened by darkness. She rolled back around, sighing deeply before settling back into the corner of the armchair. “Oh, absolutely! No more for today.”
“You’re being dramatic,” Cornelos said, giving her a dry look over the rim of his spectacles.
“No, I’m not.” She shook her head, rubbing her hair against the cushion in chair’s back. “That will be all, ladies. We can finish this tomorrow.”
“Yes, La Dama,” a few of them said.
“Thank you, La Dama,” a couple of the others said, sighing.
Recha indulged in the several minutes the staffers took stretching, sorting, then shuffling to leave on stiff legs that many obviously were struggling to awaken and walk on after sitting for so long.
Recha let her eyelids drift closed and enjoyed a moment to simply not think about anything.
Her bliss was shattered when Sevesco let out an obnoxiously loud groan, followed by two thumps against hard wood. She cracked an eyelid to see him stretched out in his commandeered chair, slumping down in it and propping his feet on the table. There was no sign of his boots. Instead, he wiggled his toes underneath his clinging black socks.
“Must you do that?” Cornelos demanded, pointedly glaring at him.
Sevesco snorted. “I’ve had to sit for hours in the hot sun going over every report, every rumor, every whisper of news I’ve received since we invaded Orsembar. I don’t care whose table this is, whose house this is, or if Baltazar comes through that door scowling at me some more, I am going to relax!”
Both Recha and Cornelos stared unflinching at him.
Sevesco squirmed deeper into the chair, briefly folded then unfolded his arms before finally letting them hang over the chair arms.
“That bad?” Recha asked.
Sevesco rolled his eyes. “He’s getting anxious. He thinks we should have met some resistance by now. He wants every espi I have looking for an Orsembian army and refuses to accept that I haven’t heard anything from my agents in Borbin’s camp. If Borbin has sent an army our way, one of them would have gotten a message to me by now.”
“Are you certain?” Cornelos asked while sorting more papers again, despite Recha declaring the day’s work to be over and dismissing the staff.
Sevesco’s eyes narrowed, and his lips twisted. “I know my people. One of them would have gotten word to us. If my agents in Puerlato can keep getting messages out to me, then those outside Compuert should—”
Heavy thuds from bootheels out in the hallway announced Hiraldo’s approach before he loudly requested the guards outside, “Is La Dama available for an audience? If she’s not—”
“Come in and join us, Hiraldo!” Recha called then giggled. “We’re not doing anything important.”
The door creaked open as Hiraldo stepped into the room. He looked around in a wide sweep, checking the corners and behind the door when he pushed it back. It swung around but didn’t latch, standing slightly ajar. He strode up to the end of the table with a perplexed look on his face.
“I thought you were still working?” he asked.
Another tired giggle crawled up Recha’s throat, and she smiled. “I’m refusing to do any more tonight, Cornelos is refusing to stop working, and Sevesco is refusing to stop complaining.”
Sevesco grunted. “I’m not complaining.”
“No,” Cornelos cooed mockingly without looking up from his sorting. “You’re just . . . lamenting over your toils in life. Isn’t that how you put it?”
“I didn’t sound like that,” Sevesco objected. “I was discovering my eloquence and wanted to practice.”
“Then Baltazar added fifteen minutes to all your exercises,” Hiraldo said, hooking his thumbs under his sword belt and shifting his weight to one leg, “then made you clean out the stables.”
A soft hiss escaped through Sevesco’s gritted teeth. “Who knew horses could shit so much?”
Cornelos snapped his head around and loudly cleared his throat.
“What?” Sevesco raised his hands, as if to shrug, but he was too deep in the chair to lift them high.
Recha caught their eye movements as something unspoken passed between them. Finally, Sevesco looked at her.
“Oh,” he grunted. “Excuse me, Recha.”
Recha rolled her eyes. “I’ve heard you all say worse.”
She spotted Hiraldo still standing and sighed. “Find a chair, Hiraldo! You’re making me more exhausted just looking at you.”
“I’m . . .” Hiraldo hesitated, “not sure—”
“Sit. Your marquesa demands it.” She chuckled.
Hiraldo didn’t say another word. He took a chair from the corner, a servant’s chair with a high, wooden framed back, no arms, and a round cushioned seat.
“You’ve been waiting a long time to use that one, haven’t you?” Sevesco asked, a crooked smile on his lips.
Recha snickered. “Waiting? I started ordering I wanted things done because I’m the marquesa the day after I took over the marc.”
“Even at times when it wasn’t appropriate,” Cornelos commented dryly.
“Hush,” she shushed him then rolled her shoulders against the back of the chair. “Spoiling my fun.”
Cornelos gave her at telling look, peering up between his eyebrows and spectacles without lifting his head. She smiled teasingly back at him.
In hindsight, some of those things he warned her weren’t appropriate or argued against were correct. The sting of not always getting what she wanted was there, though they did fade over time. And, while she would never openly admit it, some of his advice on those matters were the better course of action. She couldn’t risk him getting too big of an ego. He would drive her crazy with more of his recommendations and the prospect of possibly having to find someone else to take over for him so she could get some peace was a nightmare she didn’t want to have. She couldn’t do that to one of her Companions.
Hiraldo sat in his chair at the end of the table. He unbuckled then wrapped his sword belt on the back of the chair. A low groan escaped him as he stiffly sat down, rubbing his legs before doing his best to sit up straight.
With him no longer towering over them, Recha could see that his uniform was wrinkled, pressed into his body with sweat patches and marks outlining where his armor had been strapped over his legs, shoulders, and arms. His hair was matted, dried, and flattened against his head from his helmet. Sprinkles of dust still coated his cheeks, reddened by the Easterly Sun. His eyebrows drooped wearily.
“You’re as exhausted as us,” Recha commented.
“It was a long day,” Hiraldo replied then nodded. “But good.”
The corners of her lips slipped at his response. “Did we lose many?”
“Casualties were light.” Hiraldo rubbed his legs once more before folding his arms and sitting up straight. “On both sides, casualties were light. They probably would have been lighter if that group of calleroses weren’t there to rally the city garrison. Reports from our vanguard state they rode into the outlying city and through the southern gate before garrison had even realized what was happening. If they’d only just moved quicker.”
“At the rate of our march, that’s impossible,” Cornelos commented.
Sevesco snorted. “We’d outrun our rumors. My agents are starting to complain to our outriders that they’re moving too fast. Some are saying they’re getting into towns and hearing rumors about our march they haven’t even made up yet!”
“It adds to the fire,” Recha said then snickered. “Keeps everybody on their toes.”
Sevesco rolled his head toward Hiraldo and asked, “How many interrogations do I need to plan for?”
“Hmm?” Hiraldo grunted.
“The calleroses you captured,” Sevesco clarified. “I assume you took some prisoner. How many interrogations am I looking at for tomorrow?” An intense, dark expression crossed his face.
“None,” Hiraldo replied offhandedly.
“Oh?” Sevesco’s eyebrows raised, his expression softening.
“They surrendered unconditionally. Their commander—Oh yes!”
Hiraldo snapped around and pointed at Recha, startling her. “I was going to tell you,” he said excitedly. “Fuert Ribera’s grandson was the calleroses’ commanding officer.”
The White Sword.
Recha raised her head at the name, suddenly finding a well of energy deep inside her. “Is the White Sword here?”
Hiraldo shook his head. “I”—”he bashfully lowered his head—“asked him the same question. But he said he hasn’t seen or talked to his grandfather in months. Hard to believe he was leading a squadron of calleroses; he looks barely old enough to shave. Luziro’s got the White Sword’s height, though.” He suddenly winced. He seized his upper right leg, wrapping his hands around and under the lower muscle, squeezing it while sticking his leg out as straight as he could. His face darkened red from the grimace. His body shook. Finally, after a torturous minute, Hiraldo gasped and let go. His leg throbbed, but the rest of his body had stopped shaking. He leaned back with lines of sweat running down his forehead.
“That was a bad one,” Sevesco commented first, naturally. “Hadn’t had one those in a while.”
“Cobblestones don’t have any give to them,” Hiraldo said haggardly, sucking air through his teeth. “It makes those bounces in the saddle hurt that much more.”
“Well, at least you didn’t have to worry about your saddle sliding out from under you,” Cornelos said, shooting an accusing glance at Sevesco.
Sevesco flung up his hands. “Of course he doesn’t have to worry about his saddle sliding out from under him.” He slid his own accusing look at Hiraldo. “He’s always been an expert at saddling horses.”
“Yes!” Hiraldo boomed proudly. “And I’ve always saddled them properly. Now, if someone didn’t come along behind me, critical of everything, and mess with straps he wasn’t supposed to”—he glared burning spearheads at Cornelos—“then nothing would have happened!”
“I didn’t do any such thing!” Cornelos tossed the papers in his hands aside, spilling them across the tabletop. “We all know playing with someone’s saddle straps is just the sort of practical joke Sevesco would do.”
Sevesco grabbed the arms of his chair then pulled himself up with a frustrated growl. “Not when Baltazar was drilling us on how to ride. I was never that stupid! If something happened with the straps, then the logical fault lies with the person who saddled them.” He swung his head around toward Hiraldo.
“And I did them right.” Hiraldo folded his arms again and held his chin in the air. “Although, not everybody believed I was doing most things right then.”
The scene dissolved before her after that. Recha bounced her eyes back and forth between her three Companions, trying to follow the strange triangle of accusations and twisted logic the best she could. Her jaw dropped as her head started to swirl and their voices grew louder.
“Stop,” she said but was swallowed up under the men’s overlapping voices.
“What—”
Her question was cut off by Sevesco calling Cornelos something that should never be repeated. Recha’s head fell back against her chair. She bit her lips, jutting her jaw out as her Companions’ voices became noise.
“Shut up!” she screamed, throwing her head forward and her hands in the air. Her hair flailed around her face, and she had pull it back to see all three men had gotten out of their chairs, pointing at each other in a comical display, and now staring down at her.
Recha growled, dropping her hands in her lap and letting her shoulders drop as she tiredly looked up at them. “What, in the Savior’s name, are you three talking about?”
The men drew themselves up. Each went to fussing and straightening their own clothes. None of them looked each other in the eye, or her.
Recha shot looks at all of them. “I’m waiting.”
Sevesco broke first, signing loudly then plopping back into his chair. He leaned forward with his right elbow propped on his leg and hand out. A storytelling pose if ever there was one. “It was about seven . . . or eight years ago now—”
“We shouldn’t let Sevesco tell the story,” Cornelos grumbled.
“Sevesco, tell me the story!” Recha snapped.
Cornelos and Hiraldo groaned simultaneously as they eased themselves slowly back into their chairs.
Sevesco gave each a look then an appreciative one to Recha. “Thank you. Now, where was I?” He snapped his fingers a couple of times. “Oh yes. You remember that brook that ran through the Fareras’ field, right? They were farms on—”
“They’re Papa’s oldest tenants.” Recha nodded her head and waved her hand. “I know the place you’re talking about. Go on.”
The brook came easily to mind. A deep, winding trickle of water with steep banks and lined by thickets and trees. It denied the Fareras from ever plowing straight rows but, to her knowledge, they never complained about it.
“Well,” Sevesco continued, “one day, I think False Fall had just begun because I remember something happened at that year’s Simem Harvest Festival, but . . . I can’t remember what at the moment—”
“Sevesco,” Recha said lowly, warningly as she folded her arms.
“Hmm?” He blinked rapidly then shook his head. “Right. Anyway, it was late. The Easterly Sun was setting, it was getting colder, and we had this field we had to go around to get home. Well, someone—can’t remember who—suggested we cross the brook—”
“Sebastian,” Hiraldo said.
“Right,” Sevesco agreed. “Sebastian’s idea. And immediately, this guy says it wasn’t safe”—he thumbed at Cornelos—“and this guy worries about the horses”—he thumbed at Hiraldo—“and I—”
“Wagered twenty deberes that none of us had the stones, as you put it, to leap across it,” Cornelos interjected.
Sevesco frowned at him. “I didn’t do that.”
Recha joined the other two, giving him a disbelieving look, not being there yet completely believing he would have.
“Yes, you did!” Cornelos shot a finger in the air. “You wagered it, you encouraged it, and when he slipped, you laughed the hardest and was the last to rush to help. More proof you orchestrated the entire thing!”
“I did not!” Seveso’s face started to redden.
“Don’t start that again!” Recha pled, holding out her hands as if to separate the two. “Especially since I don’t know the entire thing. Sevesco, continue.”
“Savior help us,” Hiraldo grumbled.
Sevesco straightened his shirt before continuing, “We finally found a break in the thickets, but the bank on the other side was a bit higher than ours. So, Sebastian decided to go first because . . . he was Sebastian and . . . you know . . .”
Recha nodded. “I know.”
Of course, you would have gone first, she thought of Sebastian, you idiot. You had to go first for these three to follow you.
“Well, he wheeled his horse around us a few times, building up speed, and then charged!” Sevesco shot his arm out. “He leaned down in the saddle, flicking his horse’s reins all the way. He got to the bank, kicked the horse, it jumped”—he held both hands in the air, holding the moment—“and, in the air, Sebastian’s saddle lifted off the horse.” He threw his hands back as he fell back into the chair.
Recha’s eyes shot wide, realizing the full severity of the story’s moment.
“The horse made it to the other side just fine. As for Sebastian”—Sevesco bashfully shrugged—“he landed on the hill of the bank, the saddle hitting first with him still in it and holding on to it. Then he rolled back and toppled into the brook, saddle and all.” He snorted and chuckled, his lips pressed together in a wiggly smile, holding back his laughter.
The room fell quiet. The scene played out in Recha’s mind—Sebastian sailing through the air, hitting the dirt bank still in his saddle, the pain from the impact, then tumbling head over heels backward into the water.
She hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath until she coughed and cracked into laughing, doubling over from where she sat. Her hair fell around her, and she felt her laughs deep in her gut. She was quickly joined by the others, and she sat up, whipping her hair back to see them all laughing.
“Was . . . was . . . Ah!” She had to stop and take deep breaths, whipping her teary eyes to calm herself. “Was he mad?”
“Furious!” Sevesco cheered.
“Wouldn’t even let us help him out of the brook,” Hiraldo said.
“Or check to see if he was hurt,” Cornelos added.
Sevesco let out a loud, exhausted sigh. “And then the accusations started to fly.”
“He blamed all of us, in one way or another.” Hiraldo made a dismissive wave. “His horse had run off to the stables, so he just threw his saddle over his shoulder and said he’d walk the rest of the way home.”
Recha’s heart fluttered as the thought of Sebastian walking home, muddy and wet, carrying his saddle over one shoulder wasn’t something she had to imagine. Instead, a memory blossomed in her mind. Her back went rigid at the flood of memories that poured to the forefront, and things she never knew were missing pieces clicked into place.
“And you three . . . have been arguing with each other about this . . . for eight years?” she said.
“Mmhmm,” Sevesco hummed.
“Yes,” Hiraldo replied.
“Correct,” Cornelos pointedly said.
Recha felt the curls of her lips tug, heralding the start of a grin. She clapped her hands in front of her face, burying her nose in them. Yet her grin grew. Laughter bubbled deep in her belly again, and she felt it starting to rise. Her Companions watched with growing curiosity and confusion as she started to snicker and snort into her hands.
Finally, she shook her head excitedly. “None of you messed with his saddle,” she squeaked out. “That was me!” She threw her head back and laughed. She clapped her hands and stomped her feet.
When she looked back, her Companions’ gaping faces made her laugh harder. She drew herself up as she calmed and went into her own story.
“Eight years ago,” she said, “you four snuck out to Lupa.”
All three men’s faces went pale. Their bodies went stiff.
Lupa was a small town, south of the Vigodt estate, known to the farmers around there for having certain places of . . . ill-repute.
“You . . . knew about that?” Sevesco nervously asked. His voice cracked, and he had to clear it.
Recha molded her grin into a knowing smile and folded her arms. “Of course. A woman in love will always learn if her beloved’s snuck off to places he shouldn’t.” She let them chew on that for a second before she continued, “And I let him know that I knew.”
All three of them slowly turned their faces away from her while pushing themselves deeper into their chairs.
“We had a bit of fight,” Recha admitted, describing their shouting match as lightly as possible. “And I didn’t think he got the message. So, I loosened his horse’s saddle straps that day. I mean”—she shook her head—“horse riding training in the evening sounded ridiculous. I figured all of you were sneaking off again, and I knew Papa had instructions that all his horses knew to return to their stables if anything happened to them.
“The idea of the saddle falling off and leaving Sebastian in the road as the horse left him there was the best thing I could think of at the time. It was right there for me to loosen. And when he came back, soaking wet, covered in mud with just his saddle”—her giggle was a little darker sounding than she meant, but it felt good—“I knew I had made my point.”
“Except, he blamed us for it,” Hiraldo said.
She raised an eyebrow at him. “He never went back to Lupa after that, did he?”
Her Companions turned to one another, eyes locking, realization sprouting.
“He knew,” Hiraldo finally said.
“And kept making us argue with each other,” Cornelos added.
“That clever bastard,” Sevesco cursed yet sounded in awe.
Cornelos pointed at her. “He turned your prank against him—”
“—into his own joke against us,” Hiraldo finished.
“I wish he were alive.” Sevesco scratched his chin, his eyes out of focus, clearly in thought. “So I could kill him.”
Her joy in the moment was snapped up, and Recha gave him a narrow-eyed glare.
Sevesco glanced at her. “Too far?”
“Yes,” she growled, joined in concurrence by Cornelos and Hiraldo.
“That’s it.” Sevesco stood up in a long stretch, sticking his arms up above his head and groaning then slapping them against his sides. “I know when it’s time to leave.” He gathered his uniform jacket that had been laying on the floor beside his chair and flung it over his shoulder. “Have a good evening, all,” he said then headed for the door.
They all gave him their goodbyes, but when he reached the door, he stopped and said, “Don’t play any more pranks, Recha. You can start lifelong feuds.”
“Get out of here,” Recha said back, shaking her head.
Hiraldo slapped his knees then grunted as he pushed off them. “I best be going, too. The First Army may still need its general for . . . something.”
“All right,” Recha sighed understandingly, not envying his prospect of having to ride back to his army’s headquarters at all.
Hiraldo gathered his sword belt then put his chair back where he had found it. “One more thing I almost forgot,” he said. “I met that Orsembian hero that those rumors have been talking about.”
Orsembian—?
Recha spun in her chair. “Sir Necrem Oso? He’s recovered?”
Hiraldo nodded.
“What did you think of him?”
“Older than I thought,” Hiraldo replied then thought some more. “Also, he’s . . .”
“Yes?” Recha tilted her head.
“Beaten.” Hiraldo’s tone became somber. “Never thought a man that big would sit like he was about to crumble.”
“He’s been through a lot,” Recha agreed, remembering that terrible story through those dreadful scars. “Thanks for letting me know.”
Hiraldo nodded again then turned for the door. “Pleasant evening, Recha. Cornelos.”
When the door closed, Recha sat back to find Cornelos scooping up the stacks and putting them into different satchels.
“Finally decided to stop working?” she asked.
“Who could work after all that?” Cornelos replied, putting his spectacles in his breast pocket.
Recha snickered, smiling, then leaned her head back against the chair. “First time all three of us were in the same room in what . . . over a year?”
“And look at the mayhem you caused.”
“I caused?”
Cornelos gave her a telling look through his eyebrows again and smirked.
Recha rolled her eyes. “Fine, blame me for everything. Give Sevesco a reprieve.”
Cornelos’s head shot up. “Oh, if it’s like that, then yes, it was all Sevesco’s fault.” He nodded excitedly.
Recha chuckled, grinning broadly. She rubbed her hands together and was reminded of how clammy her body felt by the way her palms stuck together.
“You did work out the details with Baroness Sa Manta of me taking up residence here while we’re in the area, right?”
Cornelos lazily nodded as he picked up the last of the papers. “I did clarify you would be taking rooms here. Assured her you had your own staff and servants, and her household need only keep out of our way. Why? You ready for your rooms?”
“Yes.” Recha exhaled deeply, thinking of finally having a real bed to sleep in and a roof over her head. “I’ve also been thinking about what you said earlier. Maybe there is a way to make up for being . . . what did you say? Unbecoming as a marquesa?”
Cornelos swallowed. “I didn’t mean to be that harsh—”
Recha raised a hand, stopping him from going into a long, apologetic tirade. “I think I know just how to make up for it. Possibly even help the war effort, too. We might also want the invite of Crudeas’s city officials, as well . . .” She groaned and shook her head. “But that can wait for tomorrow. I just need one thing tonight.”
Cornelos straightened, exhausted yet still attentive. “What do you need?”
“Please tell me my rooms have a bath.”