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Going without sex for a few days wasn’t as bad as Andras had feared it might be. Obviously he went without sex now and again, like anyone did. But it was pretty unusual for him to turn it down when it was blatantly and openly available. It made him feel virtuous, and to celebrate, he had a glass of whiskey with breakfast, much to Rada’s annoyance.
They were eating in a tiny private parlor upstairs in the Cedar Bough Inn, and she had spread a map of the whole Bridweld Forest on the table. He tried to set his drink on it, and she smacked his hand until he took it away.
“Now there are rebel groups still holding out here, here, and here,” she said, pointing at seemingly random spots in the middle of nowhere. “And of course the border smugglers at the River Bewerian. But I’ve gotten the assurance of my superiors that none of them will try to stop us.”
He nodded at the map for a moment, sipping his drink, until the deeper significance of her words hit him. “Wait a minute. What do you mean, you have the assurance of your superiors? Who are your superiors, and how exactly do they know what the bandits on this side of the border are doing?”
“Oh...well, you see...um. Look here, Lord Andras, I work for a special bureau of the Sahasran government, and we...well, there are certain arrangements in place that—”
“Ah, ha!” he cried, slapping his knee. “I knew it! You people are supplying the bandits, aren’t you? Your government is supporting the Sigor rebels! We always suspected, but we could never find proof.”
She leaned forward. “And you never will. Not to mention, has it occurred to you that you’re on the Sigors’ side now?”
“Well, yes, fine. Fair point,” he said with a shrug. “But it’s still interesting to know, all the same.”
Shaking her head, she slumped back in her booth. “Honestly, you’d better keep that to yourself. Now, the next item on my agenda: your clothes.”
He looked down at his slashed doublet of blue velvet with gold embroidery. “What about them? I just bought this thing.”
“Yes, and it will be lovely for when you see Princess Elwyn. For now, however, you should get something a little more sedate. Something that doesn’t present such a perfect target. The bandits are really only loyal to themselves, and we don’t want to give them too much temptation.”
“Fine, whatever. Very well, then.”
A few minutes later, they parted at the side door of the inn, and he headed off through the streets with his cloak pulled low over his face, the way she had told him to. He walked down the hill, past rickety tinkers’ shops and sagging old cabins that tried pathetically to look like stone townhouses. And as he walked, he pondered the mystery of Lady Rada.
She was really quite attractive. Her looks weren’t classically beautiful by Myrcian standards—her cheeks a little too rounded, her eyes set a little too close together. But somehow it all worked for her, and when she smiled, there was something so pure and hopeful in her look, something almost religious. Not that she smiled often. And that was the real mystery. She couldn’t have been much older than him, and yet, there was clearly anger boiling away below the surface. Some deep, bitter wound still festered and threatened to make her lash out at any time with sharp, poisonous fury.
As he pondered, his feet seemed to take charge of their own accord, and he turned this way and that through the Overcourse District and down toward the River Kelwinn, where the best shops were located. If his head had been a bit clearer, he might not have gone that way, but he was full of whiskey and he simply went where he always had gone when he was in Pinburg and needed new clothes.
Before he knew it, he was at the big blue door of Yates and Parminder, the finest tailors in the city. And as he stepped inside, without even thinking, he pushed his hood back and turned to look at the long racks of gorgeous new laces and cottons and silk brocades and wool tartans.
He barely had time to start considering his options, though, before a voice hailed him from across the room. “Holy Finster, Andras! What are you doing here?” He looked up, and his heart froze as he saw his former commander, Crown Prince Broderick, approaching.
Andras and Broderick the Younger (as he was also known) were actually the same age, but it had always seemed as if the prince was older by four or five years. Where Andras had spent his army days mainly in camps and barrooms, the prince was already a military legend. There were incredible tales of his bravery and steely nerve in battle. Saving the right flank at Yusipova’s Fields and the awesome charge at Gleade Hill, just to name two. And there were other rumors, as well. Stranger rumors about how he had been there when the sorcerers of the Empire, Legate Faustinus and Prefect Darrow, had put down the fearsome dark hillichmagnar Daryna Olekovna.
His royal highness was a quiet man much of the time—shy and withdrawn, except among his very closest friends. Andras liked him, though he generally didn’t like quiet people. They made him feel he was being silently judged. Broderick was different, though. He seemed like the sort who gave people the benefit of the doubt, even if they didn’t deserve it.
The prince and Andras shook hands and talked a little about their families. Andras was happy to report that Broderick’s mother and little sister were well.
“Oh, so you spoke to Donella, then?” said Broderick. “Very good. She kept asking about you in her letters to me.”
Andras found that notion curiously alarming. “Oh? Why was she asking about me?”
“No idea,” said the prince, looking away with a smirk. “But I’m glad you saw her, anyway. If you find the time, you might send her a note. She’d love to hear from you.”
“Yes, um...why not,” said Andras, feeling a bit adrift.
Broderick smacked his arm. “Listen, since you’re here, my father has asked me to put together a column to go west and help him with the Sigor rebels in the Dunkelberge around Drohen. What would you say to a company of royal guards? Your own command in the regular army?”
“The...the regular army?” A few months earlier, this appointment would have been everything he could have wished for. Well, not quite everything. If he could have made Geert his second-in-command, that would have fulfilled all his ambitions, at least at that moment. But now...oh, Earstien. How could he say no? And yet, there was no way he could say yes, either. What could he do?
“You’re a good officer, Andras. I know my parents are giving your people a hard time at the moment. It would please me to be able to give you this appointment. You’d be doing me a favor, in fact.”
Oh, Finster’s balls. Why did he have to be on this stupid mission to marry the Sigor princess? He had thought he was bored of soldiering, but leading royal guards would be something new and exciting. Something worthy of his talents. Blast and damn it all, it was so frustrating. Still, he knew his duty, so he gritted his teeth and said, “I’m sorry, sir, but I’ll have to decline.”
The prince gave him a quizzical look. “Then, no offense, but what are you doing here, if you’re not looking for a new job? When I release a man from duty, I don’t expect to see him back a few weeks later, shopping for clothes.”
Now that was a good question, and Andras had no answer at all. Not even a really bad, stupid answer. He literally couldn’t think what to tell the prince. The only thing that occurred to him was the truth, and that was so dangerous, not to mention improbable, that he couldn’t very well say it. For a few agonizing moments, he floundered, babbling incoherently about the marvelously unpredictable weather in Pinburg. And weren’t the trees lovely?
Then, out of nowhere, a short Sahasran man with long, lank black hair and a stringy goatee wandered up in the red robes of a Zraddhan monk. “Ah, Lord Andras,” the man cried, “there you are!” He turned to Broderick and bowed three times. “Your royal highness, I do apologize most profoundly, but I was looking for his lordship, and we must be leaving soon.”
“Leaving?” said Broderick, looking bemusedly from Andras to the strange man and back again.
“Um...yes,” said Andras. He had no idea who the monk was, but this seemed like a perfect opportunity to get away from the prince. “Yes, we were...um, going to that...thing...weren’t we?”
The monk nodded and laughed. “You tease me, sir.” To Broderick, he said, “We are here to inspect the holdings of the Byrne family in the Bridweld, now that the problem of banditry is mostly solved.”
“Ah, I see!” said the prince, nodding. “Excellent idea. I don’t suppose you need a military escort, do you? I’d be happy to supply one.”
“No need, my prince,” said the monk, bowing two more times. “I have engaged two dozen Annenstruker knights.”
His royal highness agreed that this was more than enough force to meet any likely opponent in the forest. And soon thereafter, the prince was gone from the shop, taking with him several staff officers, as well.
Andras turned toward the monk. “Alright, then. Who are—?”
The question halted mid-sentence when the monk grabbed him by the earlobe and dragged him sideways out a door and into the nearest alley. There, the odd little man turned a jeweled ring on his hand, and his facial features began to bubble and sway. The jaw receded slightly, the brow lowered, and the thin goatee vanished, leaving the face of Lady Rada.
“Holy fuck!” cried Andras. His knees clapped together, and he was hardly able to control his bladder. “Are you a hillichmagnar?”
“No,” she said. “I’m...well, there’s not a word for it in Myrcian. We call it a ‘Yotha’—an ordinary person who’s trained to use magysk weapons. That’s what I do for a living. I work for the Vizierate of Magy.”
He gaped at her. “I...I have no idea what that even means.”
“It’s not important right now. Why did you go to that shop?”
“Yates and Parminder?” He looked around. “They’re the best tailors in Pinburg.”
She put her head in her hands and shook it. “Are you trying to get caught? Honestly, Andras, are you? Is this your notion of being inconspicuous? Hanging about shops the crown prince frequents?”
Once again, she had a good point there. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”
“Try it for once. With some practice, I’m sure you can get the hang of it.” She took him by the sleeve and pulled him up the alleyway, like he was a small child. “Now come with me. We’ll get you new clothes from some people I know. And whatever you do, let me do the talking, will you?”