Chapter Text
"Oh, they have steamed buns!" Jullanar half-turned on Pali's arm, eagerness not just in her voice but in the whole motion.
With anybody else, Pali would have had to fight her instinct to dig her heels in. With Jullanar, it was natural to turn too. As natural as though she was with her sisters, following one of Sardeet's bright inspirations.
More natural, perhaps, because with Sardeet there was always that edge of awareness that Pali was the big sister.
Sardeet didn’t need her protection, any more than Jullanar did. But with Sardeet, she had to remind herself of that. With Jullanar, Pali could just… be.
No doubt that was why Damian had paired them up for the reconnaissance together. He had a keen sense for what looked and felt casual to a careful observer.
Armoon was a garrison town; every third or fourth person they passed was in uniform, and most were visibly tense. Moving a little faster than necessary, gathering in small clusters in doorways, speaking in lowered voices. The chance of observation seemed uncomfortably high.
Faleron and Fitzroy were both better at attracting attention than slipping beneath it, and Pharia had her head down over her portable alembics. That left six of the (apparently infamous) Red Company to gather information, since Damian prudently wouldn't leave Pharia absorbed in her work with nobody level-headed to watch her.
Sardeet was excellent at keeping Ayasha smiling, and Gadarved and Masseo ambled along as comfortably as any two journeymen with matters of trade to discuss and flagons of ale waiting. And here were Jullanar and Pali, arm in arm, wearing the heavy woollen dresses and drab bonnets of middling merchants in a market town, heading directly for a street seller’s stall.
"Do we have time?" Pali regretted her question at once when she saw how Jullanar's face fell.
"Don't we?” Jullanar’s arm squeezed hers. “For verisimilitude. It won't take long."
Pali had always been able to say ‘no’ to Sardeet, even when her baby sister was the little girl with the most pleading eyes anybody had ever seen. Jullanar never even tried to wheedle anything out of her. She just… inspired Pali to give her what she wanted.
Jullanar said she didn’t wheedle because wheedling never worked in her family. That the lesson of her childhood was to put her head down and make her future happen. Pali felt her soul resonate to that determination, iron with iron. She, too, had always held her guard and put out her hand and taken the chance that came to it.
It was impossible to reconcile herself to the light flush of chagrin on Jullanar’s pale cheek, that plaintive disappointment that her friend didn’t want to share. Pali might be the only person watching closely enough to see the subtle signs of disappointment, the way she had watched the desert once, seen turns of the wind in the distant shimmer. But when she saw them, she capitulated at once. She was defenceless, oddly, because Jullanar never once tried to assail her defences.
"Well, if it's for verisimilitude, I suppose…” And so it was Pali who drew the pair of them over to the stall. The custard buns were a Katharmoon speciality, found all over this gentle garden country, different rose-flavour-variants contesting with one another in every valley. They were made in the same way, whatever the flavour, steamed in these woven reed baskets until they were rich without being too heavy on the stomach.
Armoon ran to red roses, crimson as fresh blood or deep sullen colour that was uncannily like the sodden residue of a battle line when the crows came calling.
Pali let Jullanar do the talking. Her sour mood would curdle the the whole batch.
Armoon would seem less sinister if she wasn't alert for any sign of pursuit. Anywhere would. She could, perhaps, enjoy this place if it felt safe.
Nevertheless. She was glad that they would be leaving as soon as Pharia was finished. Better planned and careful than pell-mell sooner, if one of their company were spotted. And far better, one way or another, than seeing any of her friends dragged back to Astandalas to stand trial.
It would be Astandalas the Golden itself, now that the emperor had taken an interest. The rotten heart of this rotting empire, and all the elaborate punishments it could devise. Pali had always been good at living in the moment, but this escapade had grown into something that even she could not entirely set aside. She had little fear for herself, but for her friends...
Travelling through hostile country was harder when she considered the danger to her companions, but company did have its compensations. Pali pretended not to notice how much Jullanar cheered up as she bartered for the buns, but she felt her own heart lift and lighten too.
They separated slightly to eat as they walked, ambling along the main street. The garrison itself was set at the head of the town behind its own grand wall; the rest of Armoon formed a disconcertingly regular grid that spread about it like the setting for a particularly stubborn gem. Most of the wealthier streets were clad in imported golden stone, in self-conscious imitation of old Astandalas itself.
Not that Armoon put her in mind of the capital. It scarcely even felt like the capital of its own kath, or region. Too close to the Border, perhaps, a scarce three day’s travel from the beyond.
Fitzroy was fascinated by the words he had learned here, which had some resonance in ancient Shaian that Pali failed to grasp. Her own linguistic accomplishments were the gift of the legendary Siryul, the outcome of a wish to understand and be understood that had been granted with deceptive lightness. She spoke the same tongue as her friends now, and they spoke hers, and yet she was coming to feel—especially when listening to their bard’s lyric babble—as though its true meaning were as far away as ever.
The pale sun shone down the pale sandstone, filling the wide street. The buns were delicious, and then they were gone. Pali wiped her fingers discreetly on her sleeves. Jullanar was licking stray rose-scented custard off hers, with a brief absorption in enjoyment. Pali looked away, because one of them should be watching the street.
“...That’s what I heard.” A fragment of conversation, hissed in that curious way that made it travel further despite the evident wish for discretion. Pali was aware of her shoulders tightening, let her gaze continue to slide along the crowd, for…
There, at the corner of the street, an unfamiliar stout gentleman with elaborate side whiskers gaped. “No!”
A woman at his side clutched her bag and didn’t bother lowering her voice. “The Red Company? Not here?”
Even at several paces remove, Pali fancied she could feel Jullanar’s shoulders trembling with suppressed amusement. She felt her own lips curl in an answering smile. She didn’t dare look across. If their eyes met, she would want to laugh.
Twenty paces further on, Jullanar took her arm again. “What does she think we’d do, grab her purse?” She said it in the way that attracted the least possible attention, loud and cheerful.
“It looked like a nice purse,” Pali said, straightfaced. That made Jullanar wobble with laughter, and she smiled in triumph.
Both the laughter and the smile faded before they had taken many more paces. It was uncomfortable, the way that all their merriment these days came up short against the strain. Laughter that was fiercer, and less long.
It would be good to get out of the Empire again.
Ser Kiardi had the biggest weapons workshop in this part of Katharmoon, two store fronts wide and the whole building deep. As they stepped blinking out of the sunlight, the dark and cavernous interior resolved itself into racks of blades.
Ser Kiardi was also widely held, or at least held by the citizenry of Armoon, to employ the best swordsmiths this end of the Vale of Astandalas. They worked in the central courtyard between the houses that made up this block of the town’s predictable grid. The shop took up the ground floor of several buildings along one side, open to both the street and the courtyard so that as much light as possible reached the wares on display.
This was a big enough concern to afford a couple of burly guards. Jullanar clutched at her arm and squeaked artistically as the one at the corner flexed and growled at the pair of them. He laughed, met Pali's flat gaze, and the laughter trailed uncomfortably off.
"We're here to meet the Master Smith,” she said coldly.
"Er—that way, Ma'am?" He waved towards the courtyard.
Pali scanned the displays, trying not to show her professional interest. In her recent (and painful) experience, soldiers of Astandalas bought their own weaponry that might or might not meet specifications laid out by the army. Aspiring soldiers could get carried away, to the benefit of their supplier. She disliked killing callow youths with ill-made blades.
The racks closest to the street were evidently designed to catch an amateur's interest—plain daggers and swords of indifferent quality with bindings in colourful cheap leather. They would dye the user's hands purple or yellow when the ink ran. If the user ever worked up enough of a sweat, that was.
Further back the quality of the craftwork was more emphatically on display, and the materials were finer. Blades were spaced out, angled so that their figured or jewelled hilts could catch the light. The leather was better quality, richer in colour, and the eye-catching came from inset stones.
All looked serviceable at first glance. Not that that meant much. She smiled deliberately, because the other expressions her face might make here would be a mistake.
At least it was bright again in the courtyard, if much noisier. The man they had come to find was sitting at the corner bench polishing something bright and curved.
"Can I help you, sayora? Oh, Saya Joplin!" His narrow face cracked into half a smile. "Didn't expect to see you again. And your friend...?"
Jullanar dipped another of those flustered little bows that her admirers seemed to find so devastating. It was working on Ser Kiardi, and he wasn't being foolish about it either, so Pali favoured him with a stern smile. "Chaperone."
"Don't be silly." Jullanar nudged her side and dimpled up at the smith. "Saya Green is very interested in weapons."
Pali raised her brows coolly, neither agreeing nor disagreeing with this statement. Jullanar's interest in weaponry was what had got them this far, not hers. Her friend’s exclamations over the dagger Ser Kiardi was wearing in the tavern last night had won a long technical discussion. Gadarved swore the pair of them had been speaking another language, nearly, they chattered so fast. That spark of shared excitement was evidently kindling again. Ser Kiardi acknowledged Pali with a bright smile and turned back to Jullanar at once. “Saya Joplin, look at this!”
Pali, aware that Jullanar's enthusiasms could be as absorbing as Pharia's, set herself to watch and listen. This was a good place for that; the background din of the other smiths in the courtyard created an illusion of auditory cover.
They needed a way out. In the next few days, before the wounded remnants of the army crawled back from the border and flooded Katharmoon with angry people who might be inconveniently motivated and equipped to recognise stray members of the Red Company.
If Pharia could replenish her stock of disguising concoctions... If Gadarved and Sardeet had finished buying supplies... If one of them, somehow, could find better maps of the back routes to the border, and any insight at all into the garrison commander's patrol plans.
After the last few months, preparation seemed more attractive than hope and serendipity. Even Fitzroy agreed, with a weariness that was disconcerting on his usually expressive face.
There were five smiths working in the courtyard today, each with an assistant. Two were mages, marked by the bright silver tassels that the Empire used to indicate an initiate. All seemed entirely absorbed in their work, although Ser Kiardi had stepped aside from his to show Jullanar something on the tang of a part-finished blade at the other end of his bench.
A group of young men came in, all swagger and scowls at the guards. Pali studied the racks and listened to their conversation. They were bragging about how they would defeat the Red Company single-handed, and none of them spared a glance for her.
Jullanar had shifted into a fencing form, her hand moving to sketch out an imaginary move, a potential opponent. She had managed to suggest, last night, that she trained as a hobby and had never experienced combat. Ser Kiardi didn’t seem to catch the discrepancy, at any rate. He was animated, setting out more of his works beside her and making gestures of his own.
Pali had never known Jullanar to misjudge her story, or to be swept away by any man’s interest in her person—or woman’s—or fae prince’s either. But her friend was susceptible to a shared enthusiasm. She drifted back towards them. The gossip here wasn’t proving useful, and it might be wisest to retreat.
On the way she passed a more decorative counter where a sales assistant was making an apologetic bow to an irate customer.
The customer had the clean-shaven, close-cropped look of a garrison man. "Tomorrow? Not good enough!"
“I can only apologise to the commander,” the sales assistant made a small bow. “Ser Kiardi said—”
“Show me.” The customer folded his arms.
The assistant led him across towards the courtyard. Pali drifted after them, listening.
“The entire sword is done,” the assistant said, and stopped at the end of the row of shelves. “Here.” They lifted a hand, looking pained. “Please don’t touch it. Ser Kiardi said the hilt needs to cure.”
The customer made a disgruntled kind of sound and leaned over the block at the end of the row. Between them, he and the assistant were blocking her path. Pali was happy to hover discreetly; beyond them she could see Jullanar laughing at something Ser Kiardi had said, weighing two different daggers on her palm.
“Hrmph.” The customer straightened. “It’s as described,” he admitted, sounding a little grudging about it. “Can it be delivered tonight?”
“I am sorry, sir.” The assistant didn’t sound particularly sorry, but they gave another of those small bows. “If it’s moved before the glue’s cured, the whole hilt will be weakened—the ceramic needs to bond fully to the metal. Tomorrow morning…?”
“The commander has important business tomorrow.” The customer’s heels snapped together into a soldier’s stance, though he was dressed in ambiguous off-duty robes. An aide of some kind, Pali thought.
“We could arrange delivery…?”
The grimace made the customer seem younger, somehow. “It’s her anniversary,” he said, “but if she can’t give it to her husband first thing—well, she’s expecting an early start, and then to ride—could you get it to the south gate before noon? I can try to bring him there, maybe they could have a moment?”
Both customer and assistant stepped aside as they talked, removing Pali’s excuse to stay lurking and listening. She stopped beside the disputed sword instead, making a show of studying it. The hilt really was ceramic, or clad in ceramic, painted with a flourishing spray of red roses in full bloom.
It was an absurdly lovely thing. Pali hoped there was magic involved, or it would shatter the first time something struck it. Though in a delicate rapier like this perhaps it might last some time, if there was a core of metal underneath and the adhesive was skillfully applied.
“I’ll see what I can do.” The assistant sounded less bored, given a more interesting reason for urgency. “Noon?”
“Not later,” the customer shrugged. “He’s not riding with her, and she won’t be back for—well, as long as it takes.”
Pali waited, studying the painted roses, while the pair of them moved away. The south gate. That implied patrols down towards the border. So perhaps the garrison thought the Company was already gone.
The Company should be heading out, maybe even tomorrow if Pharia’s doctored smokebombs were ready; it would help if they knew exactly where the soldiers were going. But even this was good information, more than Pali had really expected.
She stepped into sunlight, and heat, and though there were no physical barriers there must be some magic muffling the noise of the courtyard from the browsers in the shop. Out here the sound of the two smiths’ hammers made a rhythmic descant that nearly drowned out Jullanar’s impatient, “No, no, the fae balance is fluid—here, let me show you.”
Ser Kiardi obediently shifted his sword arm as Jullanar moved it. “They have greater reach?”
“When they want to.” Jullanar stepped back and studied him. “That feels unbalanced, doesn’t it? But it isn’t for them, not if they choose—”
Pali hid her smile. “Saya Joplin?”
Jullanar jumped a little, and her face was pink. “Saya Green?”
“I believe we should be going.”
“Oh. Oh, yes, of course.”
Ser Kiardi straightened up, cupping the hilt of the dagger in the palm of his hand. “But you will come back? Tomorrow?”
“Oh. Yes.” Jullanar’s nose wrinkled when she lied.
“If we can,” Pali temporised, in the hopes that it would help. “Or the next day.” They didn’t need Ser Kiari sending to the merchant’s guild for his new friend. “Perhaps you could bring your tutor next time?”
“Oh. Yes. My tutor.” If she didn’t know better, Pali might have found this fluster half-convincing herself. That earnest expression, the faint edge of worry and defensiveness, the way Jullanar’s long lashes fluttered when she looked down at her toes. “He really doesn’t like me sharing his stories.” She looked up again, catching Ser Kiardi’s frown. “But they’re so exciting! He’d explain much better than me, Gerry, and he does admire your craft—I’ll ask him.”
Ser Kiardi nodded, “I would be honoured,” he told her, sounding entirely serious, “But do not doubt your own skill, Saya. He has taught you well.”
Jullanar flushed prettily and curtsied her thanks. Pali caught the swordsmith’s eye and hung back a moment.
“She is… taken with her tutor?” Ser Kiardi asked, wistfully.
Pali pursed her lips. “I’m not sure he’s ever noticed,” she said, because it was true that Damian had eyes only for Pharia, and because it was better to be sure the man had some reason to look forward to their return.
A very proper gentleman, to consult the chaperone. And a nice man, too, with a shared enthusiasm. It was a shame that the pair of them were leaving so soon, really. Jullanar might have enjoyed—well, perhaps not, when she couldn’t tell him any part of the truth.
Either way, it was ungenerous of Pali to feel smug about it.
She found Jullanar studying the sword with the ceramic hilt, eyes wide. “What a lovely thing.”
“Isn’t it?”
Jullanar reached out, her hand hovering just above the weapon. Those plump fingers would slip easily under the guard; it was the perfect size; for half a moment Pali thought she was going to test that. “The glue’s curing,” she said, “It’s a gift, for the commander’s husband.”
“Oh.” Jullanar’s hand dropped back to her side. “She must be fond of him. What a beautiful gift.”
There it was again, that wistfulness that slipped under all Pali’s defenses. And, as before, it cut sharper for the immediate withdrawal; Jullanar blinked it away in a heartbeat, linking their arms together and smiling brightly at the street as they left the shop.
Pali almost wished that her friend had tried to take the sword.
It wasn’t as if Jullanar needed another blade; she still had the weapon Masseo had forged for her out of starlight, and the daggers that faery prince had sent as a courting-gift, and the plain but elegant blade she had bought for herself when they first set out adventuring, too.
It was only that Pali had seen how her friend’s eyes shone when she broke through from what she ought to want and took up what she loved. It was only that, under all that softness, there was a steel that deserved to shine. It was only that she liked Jullanar, and wanted her to be happy.
Foolish thoughts. Besides, brawling in a sword shop over a blade made for the woman whose soldiers were hunting the hillsides for them would be the height of foolishness. The Company couldn’t afford to be foolish, not this side of the Border.
It was only that she was tired. Not physically, perhaps, or not enough to care about. But somewhere in her soul.
They wandered back through the market place, stopping and examining the wares at three different stalls to allow time to spot any pursuer. Perhaps it was this underlying alarm that had Pali so alert to every shift and change of Jullanar’s expression.
The third stall was a hatter, a great beribboned booth surrounded by stands and stands of brightly coloured confections. The dyes of Ysthar were all fixed by magic, and so were some of these brims and bows and crowns, most likely.
Jullanar laughed over the show hat with the soft feather-birds tucked in and animated by magic so that they chirruped and called to each other. She patted the felt of the cheerful flat caps with an interested air. But she stopped for a heartbeat, eyes wide and wistful, in front of a layered green and gold hat that looked to Pali like a tiered cake with a light froth of icing and sugarwork on top. “How impractical!”
“Very,” Pali agreed. Then, though she knew it was foolish, she found herself asking, “Do you want it?”
Jullanar’s laughter entirely eclipsed her longing look. “Oh, yes. Someday, perhaps. When I don’t have to worry about losing the feathers to sword practice!” She shook her head. “Come on.”
Neither the laughter nor the longing was feigned, as far as Pali could tell. Not the hat, then, she thought, and then caught Jullanar’s eye and looked away, lifting her chin in defiance of her confusion. She had every right to want to give a friend a gift.
They were both thoughtful on the last leg of their walk back to the others. Down a busy side street, up a narrow stair, along the walkway to the third door on the left. Jullanar knocked five times, and they both stood back and waited for Fitzroy to assure Damian that it was them.
In the shadow outside the door Jullanar’s expression was wearier than Pali had ever seen her. Not sad, or not openly so. There was that stubborn smile, inextinguishable by any external threat. But there were worry-lines creasing at the corners of her eyes, and bags under them that the half-light brought out.
Pali was not the kind of person who bothered much with belongings. She had her own light pack, her clothes, her veils, her weapons, and the carpet her sister had woven for her. She was a practical person, Jullanar knew her as a practical person. It would be entirely strange for her to buy a hat for her friend, or a sword. Foolishness.
The fresh delicacy of those painted roses added nothing of use. Perhaps, with Ser Kiardi’s skill, they didn’t detract from the sword’s effectiveness either.
There was no doubt space in Fitzroy’s Bag for another dozen dozens of weapons, should Jullanar want them.
Should Pali give them to her.
“Jullanar?”
Even in the shadows, even pale and drawn, the pink-and-white of her friend’s cheeks still made her think of flowers. The worry-lines eased as Jullanar’s smile dimpled. “Yes?”
The door creaked open, and Fitzroy grinned at them. “You’re back! They’re back! Any news?”
“Oh, yes!” Pali pushed past him. “Where’s Damian?”