* * *
Ufalla had just taken a beating from an inferior fighter and she walked over and landed in the dirt sitting next to Jestia making a little cloud as she did so. Jestia coughed and waved the dust away. She leaned over and whispered in Ufalla's ear. "Ufalla, you must let your brother go with me tonight. You need some real sleep."
"I've told you, Jestia, Tarius is already holding so many secrets he's about to bust." She then thought,
Besides, I don't trust him to guard you as I do.
"Jestia it's been over a week now and you're no closer are you?"
Jestia looked defeated. "No, not one bit, but I can't give up now, Ufalla, I won't," she said with conviction.
"I'm not saying you should Jestia, but a good night's sleep would do us both a lot of good. Maybe if you got some good rest you'd be closer to remembering the spell."
Jestia nodded and rested her head on Ufalla's shoulder. "You're right. I'll take some powders to help keep the nightmares away and try to get some real sleep."
* * *
Kasiria watched them. They were both on the brink of exhaustion as well they should be. She'd caught them coming in very late three of the last five nights. She didn't hear them leave because it was at the beginning of the night when she slept hardest and she was sure they didn't always wake her when they came back.
"So, is this the way it is with all swords women, are all of you queer?" Thomas asked at her shoulder. Shen she turned and saw Eric standing just behind him it was all she could do not to expose her.
"Yes, yes that's it exactly," Kasiria said. "We're all queer. Isn't that right, Eric? I mean you do always have to copy everything your stupid friend says." The other woman looked at her feet and said nothing.
"So, what's it like in your barracks, just a big orgy with all the queers just kissing and . . . "
"You ignorant savages act as if being queer is the worst thing a person can be." Jabone had been standing quietly at her side watching the fight and ignoring the exchange but apparently he'd heard enough and could hold his tongue no longer. "Among my people we do not worry so much about who other people love. We worry only about who we love and judge people only on how they treat other people. You are a man without honor who respects no one but himself. If you so much as look at my friends again, if I hear you so much as speak of them, if you even talk to my sergeant again, there will be none alive who will be able to find your bones." Then he turned on Eric and said, "And you are as bad as your friend because you condone everything he does with your silence or with your own hateful words. Now go before I grow any more tired of you." And then he growled.
To Kasiria's amazement, Thomas left without another word and Eric followed looking over her shoulder at them an unspoken apology in her eyes.
Kasiria looked up at Jabone and she smiled a smile that must have told everyone just exactly how she felt about him. In that moment she knew it was more than just lust and before she could stop herself she said, "I grow more fond of you by the day."
He smiled back, "Because I can strike fear into the heart of men with only my words?"
"And because I believed you when you said none alive would be able to find his bones," she said with a smile.
"You are if possible even more beautiful when you smile," he said, and then he was gone into the practice ring to fight.
* * *
Kasiria was bound and determined to find out what Jestia and Ufalla were up to so that night she pretended to be asleep 'til it was the middle of the night and the two girls were still in their beds and her faking sleep turned to her really sleeping.
The next night they woke her up again when they came back from wherever they'd been and whatever they'd been doing. So the next night she feigned sleep again and this time she caught them sneaking out, waited 'til they were well outside, then got up, put her boots on, and followed far enough back that she couldn't be detected. Being able to see in the dark and her increased hearing ability made the job of following them without being spotted easy and she began to really appreciate her Katabull senses.
The girls went to the old infirmary and since she half expected that they were meeting in secret away from the group to enjoy each other she was more than a little surprised to see Jestia go inside as Ufalla took up what was obviously a guard's stance. She even cleared her sword handle of her cloak.
What in hell's name are they doing?
She moved in a little closer. She listened as hard as she could but could hear no sound coming from inside the building so she moved even closer and listened even harder and still no sound. It was then that she noticed that the windows were still dark.
She's in there alone with no light and if she is meeting some boy for sex, well I would hear it. I can hear the creek running right now and that's a mile or more from here. But there is nothing.
She moved still closer, but still saw no light and heard no sound. It just didn't make any sense. Then she started to remember things, like how much Jestia had known about plants, how she'd wound up pulling a medicinal plant that even Kasiria had to look up, how she seemed more educated than the others.
She's a witch, there is no other explanation. What does that mean and is that what they're all hiding? The fact that Jestia is a witch? Jabone changes his family history daily, his mother is a Kartik fighter, his mother is Jethrikian. His mother is a smaller woman, his mother was a woman larger than me. His father is as big as he is, his father is a thin wiry man of average height. His father was Jethrikian. His parents had both fought in the war, but if his mother is a Jethrikian woman well that isn't bloody likely is it? Tarius . . . Well he is always telling things that make the others glare at him and then taking them back or stumbling over things and then saying that isn't what he means. And they are still speaking in Kartik all the time, and damn . . . Why didn't I listen more in my language classes? Why didn't I apply myself? Are all of these deceptions just to cover up the fact that Jestia's a witch? What are they really here for?
She kept watching the building for what she was sure was hours. Finally Jestia walked out looking like she'd been beaten and then they started back towards the barracks. Kasiria listened carefully as she followed them at a distance and for once they were actually speaking in her tongue so they were using their Jethrickian enough that it came as easy as their own tongue so when they were speaking in their language in front of her it really was to keep her out.
"You'll learn the spell, Jestia," Ufalla said. "I think you are trying too hard and worrying too much."
"And maybe all my life I've not tried hard enough and worried too little."
Kasiria couldn't stick around to hear more of their conversation. She knew now that she was right about Jestia and she had to beat them back to the barracks.
A week passed and Jabone had neither kissed her again nor was she any closer to figuring out what to do with the knowledge that Jestia was a witch desperately working on some elusive spell. And for what reason did she need the spell? She was also only a few words closer to learning Kartik. She had learned the words for food, water and sword. That was it, the whole of her Kartik vocabulary. It wasn't very helpful in trying to figure out more about them or their secrets.
It was the third Tuesday of the month. They had just all been paid and they opened the gates to allow the whole of the garrison—except those that pulled guard duty—to go into the village for the day. Kasiria imagined that for the villagers these days when most of the population of the garrison was running around the village must seem both a blessing and a curse. With the men spending their money all over town as fast as they could being the blessing and having to deal with their drunken asses fighting and tearing things apart being the curse.
She had half hoped that she and her unit would draw gate duty. She wasn't really looking forward to having the four Kartik youths turned loose on the unsuspecting village. She decided she would have to go with them and try to keep them in line, though all she really wanted was a day to herself away from the garrison that seemed more like a prison to her every day now.
They walked out the gates together and she immediately ordered them, "Stay together and stay with me." They all just looked at her as if to say they hadn't been planning to do anything else. They always did everything together and although she wondered just how much more they were actually hiding from her she also knew that they considered her to be part of their group now, not that she had any idea just exactly what that meant. She'd never been part of a group before and certainly not such a strange one.
Growing up her sisters and brothers had wanted nothing to do with her and their mothers had made sure of it. Her mother was dead so there was no one to protect her from their open disdain. She was the child of the king's favorite wife who had tragically died. Her father's undying love and devotion to her had been both a blessing and a curse. Without it she might have grown up cold and unfeeling never knowing love. Because of it her siblings hated her so that she might as well have been an only child. She remembered a lonely childhood of grand privilege where her only playmates were her nanny and her invisible foes. Her father had thought it was cute when she dressed in play armor and took up a toy sword and fought off the forces trying to take over her play room.
It stopped being funny when she was putting on real armor and grabbing real swords and running off across the country to fight real battles.
Her "unit" was the joke of the garrison, a unit made up of only five people. The other sergeants cackled and pointed and made fun until they had to face any of her unit in the practice ring and then they stopped laughing and just tried to keep from being beaten to pieces. Still it was a bit of an embarrassment for her as the king's own daughter to be in charge of the "misfit" unit as the men had come to call them.
She turned to look at them carefully avoiding making eye contact with Jabone who always smiled at her in a way that she found disarming because she half expected that what he was thinking was that he would just wait for her not to be able to stand it anymore and come to him, and she wasn't at all sure that wasn't exactly what was going to happen.
"Now listen up." They all looked right at her, except Jestia, who was looking at her nails and making a face as if the worst thing that had ever happened to her was that she had a broken nail when Kasiria knew for a fact that the girl's nails were as ragged and rough as her own. She sighed and went on. "I'm not expecting any sort of trouble and I don't want you to make any." They all nodded except Jestia who was still looking at her nails. "Did you hear me, Jestia?"
Her head snapped up as if she couldn't believe she was being called out and she said in a voice that dragged, "Yes I heard you, behave and whatever we do don't have any fun. Quite clear. As if going into a village that reeks of crap is any more exciting than staying in the garrison. Why not take our horses and ride to some place less dirty if you have such a place in this gods forsaken country."
"Absolutely not, we can't leave Pearson," Kasiria said.
"Have you got some clever way to keep from stepping in shit here?" Jestia asked, and the other three nodded.
Kasiria made a face. She had noticed the stench when she road in. "In the Jethrik we don't throw our own waste into the gutters. It's an Amalite thing I guess, and it is pretty disgusting. I suggest you walk on the wooden walkways," Kasiria said and then threw up her hands turned and started walking. It wasn't a big village but it wasn't exactly small either. She was sure that these four would have no difficulty finding trouble wherever it might hide without much effort on their parts. She'd listened to them tell stories of tavern jumping in one Kartik village or another. The stories all started with one of them stating that the other one had gotten so drunk and then done some unbelievably stupid thing. That made Kasiria cringe as she now took them into a village where she was sure if she didn't keep a very tight rein on them she would be hearing a story soon about when they were in Pearson one or more of them got really drunk and did some incredibly stupid thing.
They started down the street and Kasiria found herself looking for an herb shop, someplace where she might get some salt for herself and her unit. She wasn't thinking about the others, just walking single minded looking for just what she was looking for and nothing else. She had grown up in the castle with servants and all the finest clothes and in spite of or maybe because of it she didn't really have a frivolous bone in her body. If she was doing something she wanted to do it and have it over with and then move on to the next task. She had never understood the lure of shopping maybe because she'd never had to actually do it. As the king's daughter she was brought everything she might ever need and choose from a dozen outfits. Now a soldier, she wore a uniform and was fed what she was given in the mess hall. Her gear and horse were provided by the kingdom, so what was the point of staring into shop windows or going through the wares in a cart?
Not too surprisingly it was Jestia who complained first. "Can we go in anywhere or would our horrid out-country ways just be altogether too embarrassing for you? I mean what's the point of being in town if we aren't even going to look at anything? We could just walk around all day trying not to step in shit but I don't think that's any more fun than doing nothing back at the garrison," she said, indicating the shops they were just marching past. "I haven't been shopping in so long I'm not sure I still know how to spend money."
"Oh, I'm sure you haven't forgotten that," Ufalla teased.
"Ah yeah sure," Kasiria said.
Without asking any further questions Jestia walked into the nearest shop, dragging Ufalla by the hand after her. The others followed her inside. It was a textiles shop and Jestia fell on a length of brightly-colored Kartik silk, holding it up as she said excitedly, "Oh, look Ufalla, wouldn't this just make the most gorgeous gown?"