Most beloved Zann,

I didn’t sleep well. I didn’t dream; I just kept waking up. Which makes sense because of all the sleep I had had the day before. And when I woke I was sore and muzzy and in low spirits. But things did seem mostly normal other than that.

Wande and Jhus had already left by the time I woke. Wande had left some breakfast for me in the cold bin. Jaunelle preserves on the good bread. I ate that and bathed and dressed–and shaved!–and plotted out what to do today. I still wanted to track down Srix.

If Srix wasn’t working for Nangolt anymore, there was only one place I could go to look for him. And, like most sensible humans, I didn’t want to go there. It was the temple of Valx, out on Birch Spit. I trotted over to Enjar’s Street and caught a longcoach going that way.

So here’s the explanation of Srix and why he’s like that. He made me listen to it once and this is the part I couldn’t avoid paying attention to. A long time ago, the Crideon lands were ruled by the Vafelig family. Then the king died, whatever his name was. And he didn’t leave any heirs. So they had to have a grand council to decide who got to be king next. There were other Vafeligs around, but they weren’t closely related enough to the king to have a very good claim. Other families, because of intermarriages and whatnot, also had candidates with good claims. Eventually, and to hear Srix tell it there was a lot of sexy bribery and other kinds of corruption involved, the council settled on Ponesh, the first Talistag king.

But the Vafeligs weren’t happy, and didn’t just go away. They might have started a war to take the throne back, but they didn’t have enough support. So they started a religion. The remaining Vafeligs, and their few loyal supporters, became worshippers of Valx, the Lord of Rightful Rule. The god of being in charge by birthright, essentially. And since then they’ve been a fringe presence in Crideon society, trying to win as many people as possible over to the idea that the Vafeligs should be in charge because their piss has just the right smell to it, or something. Unsuccessfully, of course; nobody else has the slightest amount of time for them. Valx isn’t even a real god! You put his shrine in a fountainroom, it doesn’t glow no matter how many offerings you make to him.

(The Vafeligs have an explanation for this. It’s not worth the time it would take to repeat it.)

Srix, obviously, is a Vafelig, and he can’t shut up about his rights and how he and his family don’t get the proper respect. Especially now that the laurans rule and the Talistags are nowhere to be found.

This is why I wanted Srix: I know he’s not mixed up with any other criminal faction because he’s so committed to his own smackarse faction that nobody else would touch him. (Plus, he’s too proud.) I know he could watch my back against most regular danger because he’s a tall dark well-built fellow who’s quick with his sword. And I know he could shake me up if I needed it because he was always doing that. Not a fool, Srix, and a very uncomfortable man to talk to.

I climbed out of the longcoach about a block from Birch Spit, and walked out on Birch Road. The Spit was a sad little rocky point that stuck out a couple of hundred feet into the Crideon River. You couldn’t build much on it, but the Vafeligs had cleared some of the rocks and built a temple in green and yellow stone, the family colours.

There was a wide path through the rocks, but it was overgrown. I picked my way through, and ascended into the temple. Clean but dusty, and quite airy inside. Someone had put a bowl of flowers on the green altar. A man in yellow robes came out from a back room.

“Do you accept King Onyxal as your true sovereign?” he demanded.

Technically I could get in trouble for answering this, but nobody takes these people seriously, and you have to go along with it if you want anything from them. “Aye,” I said.

He was still suspicious, having been lied to about this thousands of times, but he was stuck with me as much as I was stuck with him. “Have you come to join us?” he asked. “Have you come to aid us in throwing off the cruel yoke of the Talistag’s lauran puppets?”

That was one I hadn’t heard before. “Not today, cousin,” I said. (One thing I learned from Srix: the Valxans call each other ‘cousin’. It’s significant to them somehow.) “I’m looking for Cousin Srix. I used to work with him.”

He glared at me.

“Cousin?” I said.

“We have a lot of people coming here, looking for information about our cousins. Sometimes it isn’t to their advantage. Creditors, things like that. Often they pretend sympathy to our views.”

“Oh, but I wouldn’t do that,” I lied. “Anyway, I’m here to offer Srix a job. Very much to his advantage.”

“As may be. We must be careful, though. I wouldn’t dream of telling you how to find Srix unless I was satisfied you were one of the faithful.”

“All right,” I said. “How can I satisfy you?”

“You must feed our Sacred Aunt,” he said. “She will be able to taste your intentions in your offering.”

“I don’t know what you mean by that.”

“No. Come with me.” He led me out the back door of the temple, through the grass down to the river, where there was an overgrown brick circle with a large trap door in the centre. He kissed me on the forehead (and, unlike me, he hadn’t bathed or shaved recently) and said, “Go with Valx.”

“What’s down there? Are you feeding me to a monster?”

He laughed. “Of course not. What kind of a way is that to grow a congregation? We’d never get anywhere! You’ll be fine.”

Good answer, I supposed. I opened the trap door, revealing a crude staircase winding around downwards. It smelled like the river down there, but also like something else. I wanted to turn around and just get the piss out of there. I was going through this so I could spend more time with Srix? Ridiculous. But I had to admit I was curious just what the Valxians were up to out here.

I climbed down, gingerly, my ribs and legs complaining the whole way. At the bottom of the stairs was a stone room, lit by a sunglass that must have been wired to the temple. There was a pool in the middle of the room, full of water. That was all that was here.

The priest hadn’t given me any food, and I wasn’t carrying any with me. How was I supposed to feed… their aunt? Nobody was here.

I looked to see if I could walk around the edge of the pool, but there wasn’t enough of an edge to balance on all the way around. I tried touching the water in the pool.

It wasn’t water! It was some other curst thing, and it rose up out of the poolbed in huge globs and glorps at me. “Aaah!” I said, and fell back on my chuff.

The giant watery blob wrapped one flollop around me and held me. I screamed for help. It extended another smorp of glup towards my face and I just screamed.

Cold and slippery, it forced its way into my mouth, and down my throat. I choked, tasting river slime, and tried to vomit, but couldn’t. My head and arms were held tight. The coldness of the scummy floop of blup moved all the way down my throat and into my heaving stomach, where it absorbed all the food that was in there.

Once it was sated, just as quickly as it had invaded my mouth and neck, it withdrew. I could once again taste the jaunelle preserves it had eaten in my belly. The thing, the Sacred Aunt, settled back into its poolbed and released my shoulders.

I fell back, scrambling and gasping. Climbed the stairs on all fours. The trap door was shut above me, and I hammered on it. The Valxian priest opened it.

“I see you were telling the truth,” he said. “The Sacred Aunt always knows! I’ll see what I can find about Cousin Srix.”

“Fuh… puh…”

“And you’ve now been accepted into our little family! I hope to see you here much more often, as we try to reclaim these holy lands from those who would defile them for our own purposes.”

I crawled back to the temple behind him.

“Lucky you had been telling the truth,” he continued. “If you had had ill intentions toward Srix, you wouldn’t have come back up! Poor Srix, it’s not often that someone wishes him well.”

I sat on the temple’s back stairs, breathing hard, enjoying the sunshine between lavender clouds. (I’d have to get inside early this afternoon, or the mists would make my hair fall out.) I made plans to stop at a fountainroom soon, so I could wash the Sacred Aunt’s taste out of my mouth.

The priest told me how I could find the villa where Srix was working as a guard and footman. I thanked him and went on my way.

Love,

Ybel

Dearest Zann,

I wasn’t exactly scared about being thrown off the bridge. The only bridge in that neighbourhood was the one over the Lafeas, a couple of blocks away. The Lafeas is a middle-sized river that joins the Crideon here in town, and it’s deep enough that you’re not going to dash your brains out. Even at that height, which is about forty feet. I imagine some people have died from being thrown in, but it wasn’t winter, and, unlike most of these city sorts, I can swim.

Still, it’s a pretty dirty river, and being thrown in wasn’t going to do my wounds any good, so I struggled as much as I could, until one of Nangolt’s men gave me a slap across the mouth that quieted me down. As we neared the bridge, I let them know what their wives and girlfriends were doing while they were at work, and they didn’t seem to appreciate it. When they threw me over the side, I was actually still rising as I cleared the railing.

In the middle of the day! Dozens of people were watching. None of the pissards did a thing to help me as I swam to the bank. Nobody called for the Qualison Guard. Nangolt’s brutes trotted back to his workshop satisfied with their morning’s work. I would too, I suppose; I never got to do anything as fun as that when I worked for Nangolt. Gods knew there were times I wanted to throw Srix off a bridge, if I had a bridge.

My problem now was that I was about thirty feet below the rest of the city, and needed to find a way up the stone embankments. Oh, I guess I could have just let the current carry me downstream until I was in the Crideon River, and then I’d be able to find some kind of wharf or something. But that would take forever, and nobody swims in the filthy Lafeas for fun. I spied a staircase set into one section of embankment, and swam toward it.

The passersby, seeing that I wasn’t going to die anytime soon, had continued with their errands, so nobody was there to watch me haul myself out of the murky water onto these stairs. I knew I looked like a muskrat’s orphan, but I was too far from home to change my clothes. My wounds didn’t seem any worse, and I hadn’t lost any of my belongings.

At the top of the stairs was a door, into a building that looked like any other Crideon building. I didn’t really want to go into it. But the only other thing to do was to try to climb across the embankment to an alley or something, and if I tried it I’d probably avalanche back down into the river and rough myself up pretty good while I was at it. So I tried the door.

It was locked, of course, and I was wondering what to do next when it opened from the inside. There was a lauran woman there. “Oh,” she said. “You’re all wet.”

“Yes, some men just–“

“It doesn’t matter. Come this way.”

And she led me inside, to a room where four other men were lying in bed asleep, with racks of mushrooms hung over their heads. “I just want to–“

“You can come to the front door next time. It’s easier. Are you sleepy?” she asked me.

“Am I what? No, I–“

“Then here,” she said, and breathed in my face. Smelled like honey.

“Uhh.” Suddenly I was very sleepy, and just wanted to lie down and close my eyes. “What… what…”

“That’s right,” she said, and helped me to an empty bed. I was asleep before my head touched the strawbag.

A lot of what happened after that I don’t remember well. I had to put it together myself from images and feelings. But here’s my best try at it.

While I was sleeping I dreamed about beauty. I didn’t see or hear anything beautiful in my dreams; I was looking for it. But wherever I went, it was always gone by the time I got there. I kept finding empty rooms and dug-up gardens. I think I felt sad about it, like I should have been able to find them, but they had been taken from me. I don’t know how long this lasted.

When the lauran woman woke me up, she moved a rack of mushrooms from above my head. I caught a glimpse of them. They weren’t grey or brown or white; they were swirled with all kinds of delicate rainbow colours that seemed deeply familiar to me. “Up you get,” she said, and helped me to my feet. The other beds were all empty, except for one, where another lauran was helping an old man in shabby clothes wake up. The mushrooms in his rack were all dynamic mixtures of black and gold, with red stars. She pressed a silver cup into my hand. “There you are. Now, don’t come back here until next swing; it isn’t good for you to give too often.” The old man was crying and I think I was too.

I must have stumbled out the front door of the place, wherever she led me, and into the streets. I know I gave the silver cup to the first beggar I saw. I remember wishing I had smashed all the mushrooms, but there’s no way I could have formed that intention at the time.

It took me forever to get back to the roost. I should have caught a longcoach, but I wasn’t thinking clearly enough to actually do it. So I walked the whole way, which put a big strain on my healing wounds. Also, it was late afternoon, so the mists were thickening, and I couldn’t stay out of them. They were yellow today, which meant that by the time I was home I had a thick coating of golden moss on most parts of my skin.

I did wake up suddenly from my doziness when I realized I hadn’t dreamed about trying to taste anything beautiful, and drenched myself in cold sweat when I realized what a narrow escape it had been. My heart has never pounded so hard.

But it was a strange experience walking through Crideon after whatever had happened to me. Everything felt unfamiliar. Things I had seen before, I still remembered, but I didn’t remember them seeming like that. Only the new black spires were as stark and inevitable as they had been. The towers of Blackfloors, had they always been proportioned like that? The carvings around the windows, always just so? The statue of Queen Modra, her arm curving so compassionately?

And then when I got home, and staggered into our roost, it was a great shock seeing Wande and Jhus. Had I ever really known them before? Had they always been this beautiful and I never knew it? Where had I been all this time?

I burst into tears and fell down and I guess Wande must have scraped my moss off and dragged me to bed.

Love,

Ybel

Beloved Zann,

Candur had told me to recruit some more Rosolla Guards while my wounds were healing. I intended to! But I got sidetracked almost immediately, and then I got sidetracked from being sidetracked.

It happened like this. I was in the roost alone, lying in bed and pretending I could feel my ribs growing uncracked. I thought, do I know a group of people who would make good Guards? So I could just bring in a whole passel at once? And I didn’t. I thought of some people I knew on the docks, but mostly they didn’t seem like they were what Candur was looking for. Maybe a couple.

Then I thought, Candur brought me in because he liked working with me and I could do things for him that he needed. Maybe I should bring in someone who could do things for me that I need. So what do I need, and who do I know who could do that?

I’d like having someone around who could stop me from being attacked. Someone I wasn’t worried if they were secretly working with criminals or anything. And someone who could shake my head up if I insisted on being wrong about something. That was a lot like Ambe, really. But she was already in the Guard and had her own responsibilities. Who else did I know who could do that?

“Pfff,” I said, and closed my eyes. Srix, that’s who. Srix was perfect for this. I hated it. Imagine inviting Srix into your life.

I told myself to forget about it and go back to finding regular guards. But I couldn’t leave it alone. And the more I considered it, the more advantages I started seeing. I stood up.

“Curse all,” I said, and dressed to go out and find Srix.

I’ll describe Srix later. For now, it’s enough to say that before I was a dockworker, I had other jobs, and at one of these other places, I met Srix. The two of us disliked each other immediately, which made it all the more maddening when he saved my life. So I did owe him something.

Walking across town was out of the question, so I limped up to a corner where I could catch a longcoach. The place where Srix and I had met was an old dark workshop. At one point there were dozens of artisans in there making all kinds of things, but the owner, Nangolt, was an old pissard who eventually drove everyone away until he was the only one left. He made cages for rich people to keep magical creatures in, and he needed help with heavy lifting and with guarding all the gold and silver and gems he needed for the wards on his cages.

Inevitably some of his guards betrayed him, and Srix and I had to fend them off, and it was a big mess, and when it was over Nangolt was safe and I didn’t work there anymore. (Which was good.) I had hoped never to set foot in that workshop again, but here I went.

It was a few streets away from where the longcoach let me off. I could handle a few streets. Even in this neighbourhood. I could see a guard standing outside the workshop as I approached. She looked bored. It confirmed for me that Nangolt was still in business, though, which was convenient.

I nodded at the guard and moved to walk past her. She held me up with a gesture. “I don’t know you.”

“I’m looking for Srix,” I said.

“Who the hell is Srix?”

“No? He used to work here with me. I’ll talk to Nangolt, then. I’m Ybel.”

She shrugged, opened the door, and called inside. “Nang! Fellow named Ybel here.”

“Hold him there!”

She looked back at me, but I wasn’t going anywhere, so she didn’t do anything.

Nangolt came out with a couple of guards, looking older than ever. He was all bent over. “Grab him!” he told them, and they did.

“Gentle!” I said. “I got thrashed a few days ago.”

“What do you want? Robber. Thief. You’re lucky I don’t have them kill you.”

“Nangolt, I never robbed you. I’m just not a fighter, that’s all. I was helping to protect you and your crap.”

“You’re a liar. I saw you holding Srix back. You had an easy shot on that Darde and you didn’t take it.”

“I’m here looking for Srix. Tell me what you know about where he is and I’ll go away.”

“Hasn’t worked here since the winter. I don’t know where he is and I don’t care.” Nangolt turned to his guards. “Throw him off the bridge.”

“Wait, what? No, don’t! Nangolt!”

Then the two guards took me away and threw me off the bridge.

Love,

Ybel

Beloved Zann,

Candur started arranging papers on the table before me. “Sit down, sit down, I can’t stand looking at you hanging off all your bones in pain like that.”

I sat. With some gratitude.

“You’re quite right about the Guard. Everything you said.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me?” I asked.

“Because I wanted you to see it. And if you couldn’t see it, then you weren’t the man I wanted anyhap.”

I nodded slowly. “And now?”

“As I told you. I’m promoting you to corporal now. Promoting a lot of people. I’ve been hiring new guards and building up our numbers.”

“You have?”

“You haven’t noticed because you’ve always been paired with veterans. But yes, I have.” There had been more names around Sergeant Vasro’s wheel, it was true. “One thing you can do while your wounds are healing is to find more for us. You know what we need.”

I nodded again. “I can do that. I think. But…” It took me a moment to understand what I was trying to ask. “With everything we’ve been talking about, I don’t know what you’re planning. Do you know why the laurans keep us here?”

“I’ve thought about it. It’s hard to know what they’re thinking. I wondered if they wanted to keep some continuity with the Talistags… but they don’t seem to be worrying about that in any other way. My only guess is, they like having some humans nearby that they can order around.”

He then asked me about the people I had worked with. I went through them all, talking about whether I trusted them and what their strengths were. He took notes. “What about… well, what about Trall and Carsaduam and…” I asked.

He smiled. “What do you think?”

I didn’t know. I didn’t think anything.

Candur stood and grandly gestured for me to piss off out of his office. I felt like I knew less than I did when I went in there.

Love,

Ybel

Dearest Zann,

Here’s the report I gave to Candur.

—

Sir.

Last we met, you charged me informally with gathering information about the problems currently faced by the Rosolla Guard. I have not completed my searches, but events have made it necessary for me to present you with some preliminary results.

The Guard is currently understrength. Our guards work an average of sixty-five hours per swing. Some shift sets have guards working twenty-four hours out of thirty and then twenty out of thirty later in the swing. I found records of two guards who went fifty-one days without a day off.

Most guards are competent at their duties, but there’s a long-established culture of corruption among many of the old-time guards. I suspect the existence of at least one criminal ring in the Guard and maybe more. I judge it was men from such a faction who gave me these wounds (gesture up and down self) and threatened my life, to keep me, a known friend of yours, from finding them out.

The Guard is currently not attempting to discover or counter any external threats to our mission of keeping safe the seat of government for the Crideon lands. Such threats must exist, because the Valnelatar family took power here so fast that it disrupted all the politics in Crideon, and some of the politics outside Crideon, and we still don’t know what anybody’s doing about that.

Finally, Valnelatar Towers itself presents the Guard with two big, difficult problems.

First, the palace’s main protections are magical. They are very strong, we don’t understand them, and they are under the control of the retainers of the Valnelatar family. This means that the Rosolla Guard has no effective role in the actual protection of the Palace, even though that’s our mission.

Second, the Valnelatars must know we don’t control the Palace’s protection. If they’re keeping us at our posts anyway, it must be for some other reason, and we don’t know what that is or what other plans they may have for us.

Thank you.

—

To which Candur said, “That’s what I hoped you’d say. Good. Now we can really get to work.”

Love,

Ybel

My beloved Zann,

Ellewen’s poultices and other devices helped me some great. I lay in bed for a day, and felt so much better by the end of it. Sergeant Vasro’s guard-shift wheel sometimes gave days off, so it wasn’t like I hadn’t had any rest at all. But a sudden day where I couldn’t possibly be expected to do anything was specially pleasant, even with all the pain I knew was hiding underneath all the healing magic.

Wande couldn’t believe her eyes when she saw me, and couldn’t say anything. She kept starting and stopping, looking away from me and then back at me. I think she just couldn’t believe that anything like this could happen to me, and couldn’t think of what to do now that it had. I told her it was all right and she went into the other room.

When Jhus saw me with all my bandages and bruises, she glared at me and sighed loudly. Then she ignored me the way she usually does.

I had a lot of time to think about what I was doing. Ambe had shocked me with what she had said. She was right. Why did I want this, being a Rosolla Guard, to be an ordeal for myself? Why was I so committed to the Guard, to the point of risking my life?

They were hard questions. And then I thought of some answers, and they were even harder. Oh, Zann.

—

Wande came in just a minute ago and lay down next to me. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“Sorry? Why, what for?”

“Because somebody thrashed you and I wasn’t there to help you or to comfort you. I don’t even know who to stab.”

I stroked her hair. “Nobody’s getting stabbed. We’ll handle it another way. It’s my fault for not being strong enough.”

“No. Don’t… I don’t do enough for you. You don’t ask enough of me. It shouldn’t be good enough that I’m just here.”

I knew what she meant. Acea… well. “We can both try harder,” I said. “You and I always knew it would be strange for us to pair. But it’s good. We’re still trying.”

I felt her nod against my shoulder. “How about I bring you a cheesefry? You haven’t eaten recently.”

“I’d like that.”

And she did. And it was good.

Love,

Ybel

My dearest Zann,

Instead of going straight home I went to see Ambe. I wanted some kind of protection against Trall and Carsaduam, and whoever else they had. Nobody saw me on the way there, except a couple of lauran courtiers at a distance.

“Sru and Srumarin!” she said when she saw me. “What happened to you?”

“A couple of our brother guards beat the piss out of me.”

“You look like you got dragged around the inside of a quarry. Who was it? Anybody I know?”

She helped me over the twisted roots to her parlor and pointed me at a chair. I sat, and exhaled. “Trall and Carsaduam.”

“Those two bloodfarts. Right, I’m going to call forth a spirit that’ll set fire to the lining of their lungs. They can–“

“No, don’t,” I said, and she looked back at me, surprised.

“Why not?”

“They’re Rosolla Guards.”

“Not when I’m done with them they won’t be.”

“Ambe. Do you know how old the Rosolla Guard is?”

“No. Why?”

“I looked it up. It was founded almost two hundred years ago. It means something to people. It’s not just a red cape. It has, well, honour. If we start killing each other we’ll never be able to preserve that.”

She looked at me like I had just turned into a giant anteater. “Those two beat you into a puddle just today! Wearing their capes!”

“Still.”

“Well, at least tell the captain. Those pissards shouldn’t be Rosollas.”

I sighed and leaned back in the chair. “I’ll present my report to the captain when he’s ready for it.”

She looked me up and down and picked a sore place on my arm to punch me, just hard enough for the agony to be indescribable. “It’s not my job to be stupid, you know. It’s my job to know things. To understand things.”

“Owww! What–“

“I don’t know why you think you have to pile everything on your shoulders. I don’t know why you think this all has to hurt. But I do know that’s what you’re doing. And I know it’s not going to help the Guards, not that I give a cube of frozen piss about that, and it’s not going to help the next stupid kid who gets trapped in the wrong corridor with Trall and Carsa. So, you don’t want me to do my plans? Give me a better one.”

“I’m too tired for this,” I said, because I was, and went to get up.

She snapped her fingers and ghostly arms held me back in the chair. “No again. You’re not taking this seriously. It’s not something for you to pout about. The captain has some kind of idea for you to be an officer in the Rosollas. Give me an officer’s plan. Or quit and I’ll take care of it.”

We glared at each other. Then I sighed.

“All right,” I said. “Thanks. Sorry. Yes. I should go home and heal up. Can you tell the captain what happened? And I’m not going to come in tomorrow? But I’ll give him an interim report the day after?”

“Of course. Easy.”

“And do you have anything I can use to protect myself from anyone who wants to finish what Trall and Carsaduam started?”

“Probably,” Ambe said. “What’s your preference? Enchant your sword? Strength of ten? I can conjure spirits to do anything like that.”

I laughed, and showed her my sword. It was just an empty hilt attached to the scabbard. “If I don’t have it, I’ll never be tempted to use it,” I said. “Nothing where I’d actually have to fight. You know I don’t fight.”

She snorted. “How well did that work out for you today?”

“Pretty well,” I said. “I was never tempted to use my sword on them.”

She rolled her eyes. “Something tricky then. Wait here. Here, something to read,” she said, and tossed me a broadsheet.

I heard her clanking around in her workroom. Occasionally wafts of spiced smoke drifted into the parlor. I had finished the broadsheet when she came back, holding a long grey scarf with pink patches on it. I raised my curious eyebrows.

“Best I could do,” Ambe said. “It is actually kind of blackpiss. But it has limitations. What you do is, you wear it, and you tie it with a slipknot, see? Like this?”

I saw.

“If you do that,” she continued, “Trall and Carsaduam and everyone in their faction won’t bother you. They’ll see you. They’ll know you’re there. But they’ll always have something better to do than harass you. They’ll leave you alone.”

“Really?”

“Of course really. Some problems. First, it won’t work longer than one or two swings. Second, it only works indoors. Third, you have to take it off to eat or drink. And for Sru’s sake don’t fall asleep wearing it. Happy with that?”

I wrapped it around myself the way she showed me. “Yes. Thanks, Ambe. I’ll see you in a couple of days.”

“I hope so. Maybe work on being less of an arsehead while you’re resting up.”

Love,

Ybel

Dearest Zann,

I’m not really sure where I went after that. I crawled as best I could, and sometimes tried to pull myself up to walk, but one of my legs wasn’t working right, and one of my arms was useless, and my other hand was useless, and I hurt all over, and I couldn’t really see through the tears and blood. I know I went up at least one flight of stairs. Nobody was around. Why was nobody around.

And then someone was there. “Oh,” he said. “What happened–well, never mind. Here, let me help.” It was a lauran voice, and one I had heard before. He guided me to my feet, with my better arm over his shoulders, and walked me up the corridor. “You’re… Ybel, that’s right? The new guard?”

“Ay, lord,” I said. Talking wasn’t too bad. “Thank you.”

“No, no. Here, there’s a chamber here we can use.” He opened a door and in a moment I was lying on one of the day-bed kinds of divans that the laurans favour. “What do we have… oh well. Master Ybel, pray remain at your ease here while I fetch a few things. None but I will ope the door.” And he was gone.

I wiped out my eyes with my wrist and looked around. It was a small stone room, still in the Comet Halls. There was another day bed opposite me, and a little table with two wooden chairs under the open window, where a few morning glories looked in. A painting hung over the other day bed, which showed a scene from the laur: two laurans eating grapes and snuggling near a pretty river. Who was this lauran that had come to my aid? I had met dozens of them just since coming to the palace.

My breath was coming more easily now. I tried to count my injuries. But I was shattered and bleeding, and my brains were trembling in my skull, I couldn’t count. I was going to need to see a chirurgeon or a healer, no doubt of it, and I might not have the time my body needed.

The door opened, and this time I recognized the lauran. Tall, more weatherbeaten than laurans usually are, green and blue colouring. It was Ellewen. “I know you, Lord,” I said. “Ellewen. You were a clerk at the Public Bureau when I was there.”

He pulled the table and a chair next to me. “Yes. Not exactly a clerk. Still, please, while I do this.” He had a cloth and some water and cleaned blood off of my face. He had some kind of rosemary-smelling stylus in his other hand that he used to… draw symbols on my skin?

When his attentions had moved to my arm, I said, “Lord, what is that that you’re doing?”

He glanced at me in response but didn’t answer. In a minute he said, “Do you know who it was who blooded you?”

“Yes, lord. It was a pair of my comrades in the Rosolla Guard. It looks like there are factions.”

“Ah. Don’t call me ‘lord’, please, it’s not appropriate. ‘Ellewen’ is more meet. Even when more of my kind are present.”

“Ellewen. Thank you for helping me.”

He held up a leaf that had a glowing sigil on it, and touched my lips with his finger. “Chew this leaf, please. I’m happy to help, but will you be all right in the future? Will this attack be repeated?”

I accepted the leaf, and chewed. It just tasted like a leaf. “I don’t know. I have to think about it.”

Ellewen spread a poultice on a painful part of my arm. “An unusual answer.”

“It’s just that I don’t want to make any enemies.”

He stopped what he was doing and looked deep in my eyes.

“I know,” I said. “I already have enemies, is what you’re thinking. But right now they think I’m just a new guard who’s friends with the captain. I don’t want them thinking any different from that.”

“So,” he said, after a pause. “How will you bring them to think as you wish them to?” He moved my torn pajazuse to get at my other arm. His hand brushed the coin around my neck, and jerked away abruptly.

“That’s what I have to decide. The best thing might be to do nothing. But then they can just kill me.”

“It sounds like a problem.”

He continued treating my injuries. I had never touched, or been touched by, a lauran before, and it felt surprising. Soft and gentle, as anyone would expect, but also I could feel the virtue of his superior soul shining into my flesh and nourishing my wounds. To have a man’s hands on me like that… it was the greatest surprise of the day. Brought Acea to my mind, which I try to avoid, but my wits were so scrambled I couldn’t think anyway, so I just closed my eyes and let my pain ebb away.

At length he said, “So. I’ve done what I can. I’m not myself a healer, you understand, but I have had to learn some of the most quickly useful parts of the art. And I’ve stolen a couple of periapts that are doing what I could not.”

“Thank you. I can’t thank you enough for what you’ve done.”

“Silent, please, while I explain what I have done. You have many broken bones. That sphere chained at your ankle is healing them; wear it until sunset tomorrow. Your brains have been put in disorder, but that leaf you were chewing should restore them. My poultices will do for your cuts and bruises. And this ring–” he lay my left, uninjured, hand on his, and slipped an old gray ring onto my finger–“this ring will allow you to stand and walk without pain, but I charge you with taking no vigorous action until you are whole again.”

“I will. I mean I won’t.”

He sat back. “I mislike giving orders to a soldier not under my command, but I also give you this rede, that you should rest here for some hours while these magics do their work. Do you know where you will go from here?”

“Yes. I’ll catch the longcoach for home as soon as I leave the room,” I lied.

“Well. I wish you all fortune, and if it please you, visit me at the Public Bureau when your duties permit and your inclinations agree. Perhaps we can play at border-bridge.” He paused. “And I would be neither annoyed nor offended if you came to me for help in future times of danger.”

I’m a startlingly bad border-bridge player. “I will, all of those things. Thank you again, Ellewen. I don’t like to keep thanking you–“

He stood up, and quieted me with one of those fluid hand-waves that they’re all so blackpiss-good at. “Your gratitude is a measure of the straits you were in, and your entirely sensible knowledge of your plight. It cannot be unseemly.”

“Uh–“

But he was gone.

I lay back against the day bed.

Love,

Ybel

Dearest Zann,

Worst day yet as a Rosolla Guard. I was supposed to pass today’s time in one of the vaults under the Comet Halls, guarding some artifact or other, with a fellow named Bharc. When I got there, though, no Bharc. It was a pair of ex-soldier types named Trall and Carsaduam. They watched me approach. I had tasted this kind of situation before. The way they were looking at me.

Nobody else was around.

They were going to thrash me, I could tell. Maybe even kill me. I considered just turning around and fleeing; that’s what I’d normally do. But, no, this was part of what Candur wanted me to find out about the Guard; I had to see more of it.

My obvious first question for them was, “Where’s Bharc?” and I wasn’t going to ask it. I don’t believe in letting my enemy know anything about myself, but these fellows were part of my order of guards, and the sooner everyone got the idea that I knew my way around, the better.

I stopped well in front of them. They didn’t have their swords out, which was good. The truncheons in their hands were less good. “Who sent you two? Shapdar or Crell?”

They were surprised. “Neither of them,” Carsaduam said. “We just don’t like you.”

Trall stepped away from Carsaduam, trying to block me in. “‘Tsright. The Captain likes you though, doesn’t he?”

“Lots of people like me. I’m great.”

“Well, Guards don’t like you. You’re shit. Think you’re better than us. You don’t belong in that uniform.”

I angled myself so I was only facing Trall, with Carsaduam far behind him. “Not your decision.”

“Here’s my decision,” Trall said, lashing out with his truncheon. I jumped back, but he was quick and caught me a smash across the leg. It really hurt, and I fell. I didn’t expect him to attack me so soon.

The two of them darted to stand over me, but I rolled and stood.

“You’ve still got a chance,” Carsaduam said. “You can quit. Just go home. And then you’re out of it.”

“Oh,” I said. “Sure, I’ll quit. I’ll do that right now. If that’s all it is.” And I moved to go.

Carsaduam shoved me with his hands and truncheon, and I couldn’t dodge. “Not yet. Not that easy.”

“You might forget, and show up at the palace again tomorrow,” Trall said, thumping me in the stomach. I doubled over, and they kicked me to the floor, and hit me, and hit me.

It was awful. I covered up as much as I could, and tried to keep them from hurting me while making them think they were hurting me a lot. But they did hurt me a lot. It lasted minutes. At the end of it I was bloody and crying.

“Now go home,” Trall said. “And don’t come back here. If you do, we’ll find you, and then you’ll never go home again.”

I tried to get to my feet, but it hurt too much, even leaning on the wall.

“Look at him crawl,” Carsaduam said. “Didn’t even try to fight back. Who’d make him a Rosolla Guard?”

“Mousepiss weepy little shit.”

I didn’t know what to do, and I was crying tears of pain and frustration and shame, but I knew I couldn’t give up on the Guard, because there was one thing, the one thing I don’t even dare tell you about, that I felt even more strongly. If they beat me every day I would keep coming back, and I just had to hope they wouldn’t kill me.

Love,

Ybel

Dearest Zann,

Wande and I did up the last two snobals last night. We didn’t get the same effect as the first time, but it was nice. The more I think about it, they don’t really taste like bananas at all. Wande browbeat Jhus into helping with the cutting, and she did it perfectly. While Jhus was cutting the fruit, I liked her better than I usually did. I even felt a little protective of her. But I don’t think it was reciprocated.

You’ve never seen a snobal. They’re fruits, big round ones, that grow underground in the fall, and ripen over the winter and early spring. They have a thick, tough brown rind that protects them through all this time. In late spring, once the ground has thawed and the plants have shed their taproots, they can be pulled out of the mud by their stalks. The rinds are red inside, and the flesh is pale, in irregular segments. They stay fresh enough to eat for a few swings; by summer, nobody’s eating them, and you can’t preserve them in any useful way.

It’s easy to make a big mess trying to cut these things up. You learn, when you’re a girl, how to find the lines to cut a snobal properly, so it comes apart into neat segments. If you don’t do it right you end up with a platter of wet pulp that’s very unappetizing.

I talked about the ritual before. Partly it’s to get the boys and men in the right frame of mind for eating the snobals. I’ve heard that if you just try to eat it without the ritual you end up spitting it out. You need the songs and all to get ready for it. But it’s not just about the fruit. It’s about what it means to be a man or a woman in the Crideon lands: women use knives with precision while men withstand burdens with strength. And if it’s done right, well… I guess it doesn’t really matter if it’s done right. Not with the laurans here.

At least I don’t think it matters.

Love,

Ybel