Dearest Zann,

I spent a lot of time, far too much time, trying to figure out what to do about that little pissard who was throwing rocks at me. I thought, maybe I could get a spell from Ambe to paste him to the wall and humiliate him. Maybe I could throw rocks back. Maybe I could pummel him up with the stick Srix is trying to teach me to use. I thought for a long time about things like that.

And then later I thought, what am I doing here. It’s a kid. The real answer is both easier and harder.

So on my way home today I came by Council Street again. It was about the same time of day. The boy was on the steps again, with a friend this time.

“See, I told you,” he said to his friend. “Watch this.” And he whipped another rock at me. I tried to step neatly out of the way but it caught me right on the cheekbone and hurt a whole lot. I stayed on my feet and pressed a handkerchief to the wound.

“Fuck!” the friend said. “Let’s get out of here!”

“No,” the boy said, laughing. “You don’t have to run. He’s not going to do anything except fart some more.”

I stepped toward them. “Are your parents home?”

“Are your parents home?” he repeated in a nasal voice.

I looked at the friend but he was silent.

“Well, then,” I said, and trotted up the steps into the roost-tower.

“You can’t go in there!” the kid said. “That’s my tower!”

“Which roost is yours?” I asked.

“Which roost is yours?” he answered.

“I’ll just ask everybody,” I said, and knocked on the first door I came to.

“Get out!” he yelled, and started pelting me with rocks. His aim failed him; only a couple hit me, not seriously.

The door opened. A woman answered it. “Hoy,” I said. “I’m Corporal Ybel of the Rosolla Guards. Do you know which roost this boy lives in? I’d like to talk to his parents.”

“You pissard!” the boy yelled. “Are you trying to get me in trouble?”

“Him,” the woman said. “He lives on the fourth floor at the front. His name’s Ran. I don’t think his father’s home; he works late.”

“That’s not where I live! She’s lying! I don’t have a father! My name’s Wolf!”

“Thank you very much,” I said, and turned to go upstairs. Ran ran off.

Nobody answered when I knocked at four-front. So I settled down to wait. The kind of situation that being a guard is good training for.

Every now and then Ran poked his head around the corner to see if I was still there. I glanced at him but made no effort to catch his eye or anything. I waited there for hours. That was fine. I knew this was going to be a long process. Nobody else passed by. I guess the people on five and in four-back had different schedules.

Finally I heard voices below. Ran was saying, “No, Pa, he’s a robber! He’s waiting until you open the door and then he’ll bust you over the head and take all our things!” And then a deeper voice responding, “Is that what he said?” “He didn’t say anything! He’s crazy!”

When they came around the corner, Ran was with a man, older than me, in work clothes. I could see the resemblance between the two. Same cheeks and brows. Ran looked panicky. His father wasn’t angry, but he didn’t look friendly either.

“Day. My name’s Ybel,” I said. “I’m a corporal in the Rosolla Guards. I’d like to talk about Ran here.”

He didn’t tell me his name. “He’s my son, so he’s my concern, and none of yours.”

“No, sir. That was true until he started throwing rocks at me.” I indicated my cheek and my chin. “Now he’s my concern too.”

“I didn’t throw rocks at him! He did that himself!”

“I’ll see to it,” the man said. “Now move away from my door.”

I didn’t move. “I’m not here to see that he gets thrashed. I could have done that myself–“

“No you couldn’t! I’d kill you!”

“–could have done that myself, but I didn’t think it would help. He’s been thrashed before in his life, right?”

“See here, I don’t know who you are,” the father said. “And I don’t know what want. But he’s my son–“

“I’m Corporal Ybel of the Rosolla Guard. What I wanted yesterday was to walk down the street without anyone bothering me–“

“He’s lying! He’s creepy! He said he’d pay me five pennies if I farted on him! Don’t listen!”

“–and what I want today is for you and me and anybody else who’s concerned to help Ran so he doesn’t want to do things like that anymore.” The man was taking his time responding, so I said, “Might make things a little easier for you, too. I work these kinds of hours too, sometimes. Hard to keep everything in your life arranged when you don’t have help.” I stood away from the wall. “Think about it. I’ll come back tomorrow and we’ll see if we can agree on a plan. Will you be here around this time?”

He gave me a slow nod. “No, Pa!” Ran said. “Don’t let him! He wants to sell me!”

“I’ll see you tomorrow, then. Ran, you too.” And I left.

Love,

Ybel

Beloved Zann,

Things have quieted down. I don’t know what the greenkind are doing about trying to find the chancellor’s killers, but whatever it is, it’s subtle. And the killers are lying low. Or maybe they’ve already done everything they wanted to do; I don’t know.

It’s easy to expect an entire revolution to happen at once. Sometimes that’s not how it works, though. Sometimes it comes in drips and draps before reaching its full flood. I ought to know.

Oh, the past, the past. I never asked to leave it. The Great Nap pulled me out of the past, though, and now here I am in Crideon. I’m not the person I was when Acea and I tried to lead a rising against Master Gratteck. I can still feel what I felt then, though. The anger.

There’s never yet been a greenkind as cruel or as rapacious as Gratteck. But then when Gratteck looked at you, you knew he saw you. Most of the greenkind I’ve met never even looked at me. They took our country without looking at us. Of course I still feel the anger.

It makes me want to seek out the chancellor’s killers. Join them. Help them, guide them, lead them against the laurans. Strike a blow myself, force the pissards to look at me, tell them your name.

But I can’t. That’s just not who I am anymore. There are things I want more, and if I’m very cautious and very patient and very daring and very cunning, I just might get one of those things.

And I’ll be very sorry if all the people fighting back against the greenkind, the laurans, are defeated and executed. But I can’t help them. I can’t help you either.

Your always loving,

Ybel

Dearest Zann,

First, Wande and Jhus were fine. They hadn’t seen any trouble all day, although they had heard stories from people who had. I hugged them both and Jhus kicked me. Wande seemed to be taking it all very calmly, and she said she wasn’t worried about what was going to happen, but that night I felt her shuddering as she tried to go to sleep.

I’ve since seen Quoon and Fafafa at Kayar’s Tavern. They’re well. Their people too. Ostavon didn’t happen to be around, but Quoon said that he had seen him and he was well too.

There was some damage, though. I saw five burned-out buildings just in our neighbourhood. Some overturned carriages. A dead Qualison Guard in an alley.

We had some crowds clustering around the palace, trying to get in. They didn’t get anywhere; they kept trying to come in between the towers and wandering off confused by all the defensive spells around. A couple of people tried so hard that they ended up walking erratically in circles and had to be rescued from getting flattened by an incoming longcoach in the middle of the road. Candur and I watched some of this from a high parapet and we both felt pretty useless afterwards.

Everybody has questions. Who killed the chancellor? How many of them are there? Where are they now? What are they going to do next? All the crowds rioting–are they part of it? Or are they just people?

Quoon has lived in Crideon for a long time. He says that if something like this happened under the Talistags, the King would come out of Cas Crid and face the crowd and say something. It might have been something unwise or ineffectual, but he’d make some kind of speech. He’d look at his people’s faces. The Valnelatars don’t do that. They haven’t exactly pretended it didn’t happen, but they certes didn’t talk to any humans about it. They just appointed a new chancellor and sat quiet.

(The new chancellor is somebody named Kerinweth. Never heard of him or her.)

Love,

Ybel

Cherished Zann,

My longcoach was just leaving Blackfloors Square this morning when I heard a loud crack! behind me.

I looked out the window. My angle was bad, but I could see a lot of people running around a carriage that had fallen over on the other side of the square. Something was smoking. I tried sticking my head out the window but by the time it was open wide enough, we had turned a corner.

I didn’t find out what had happened until I got to the palace. Everybody was talking about it. Of course they’ve got magic that can send information back and forth to the city; that’s well known. It turns out that some fellows, humans, at least one of them a wizard, had ambushed Chancellor Shonalea’s carriage, hauled her out, and executed her.

You see, the city is run out of Blackfloors. That’s where the mayor and all the councillors are. But now that the laurans, or I suppose the greenfolk, rule Crideon, the Valnelatar family has appointed a chancellor to watch over the mayor and make sure everything goes according to how the Valnelatars want it to. But now the chancellor is dead.

Not only dead. She was killed with a soldier’s spear, and her mantle of office was torn in half and scuffed into the mud. I’ve heard guards and greenfolk saying that this was to signal that humans are at war with laurans, and that humans reject the palace’s authority over Crideon. Which seems obvious, but I suppose they would have done it differently if it was just a matter of intrigue or a dislike of Shonalea’s specific policies.

Candur called us guards together and told us that this doesn’t change anything as far as we’re concerned. We still have the same job to do and we still have to do it the same way. There were a lot of expressions on people’s faces wishing he had said more than that.

We heard rumours of riots and other calamities throughout the city but none of them sounded true. I hoped Wande and Jhus were all right.

Love,

Ybel

Dearest Zann,

Today I was standing at my locker, changing out of my Rosolla pajazuse into my street clothes, when Trall and Carsuaduam swaggered by. I nodded a greeting at them, wondering what options I had.

“Corp,” Trall said, grinning, and tapped his temple like we were sharing a joke.

Carsa clapped me on the shoulder and they continued on to their lockers.

And that was it.

What was that all about?

Love,

Ybel

Most cherished Zann,

Today I was leading a formation of Rosolla Guards, some regular guards and some of Daust’s people, in a ceremony where a young lauran woman was to inherit a title. This was in a large chamber at the top of Comet Halls. If I understood it right, her parents, the Lord and Lady of Spicyway, weren’t dead, but there were other titles that the family owned. And now that Pixiana was old enough, she could have one of them.

So we were all there, including old Princess Shonne of the Valnelatars to officiate, and Pixiana’s friends and suitors giggling in the gallery, and a delegation of Amaydyans with their formal masks. I was standing left of the dais, with Chath on the right, and another couple of guards by each of the doors, bored. Lord Spicyway had just begun his speech, when there was a crash from above: someone or something had just broken through the high window.

I pulled my cape over my face to protect against falling glass. A thump: that was a person landing on the floor. “Never!” a lauran voice said. “Pixiana will never be Countess Wanderpath! That title belongs to the Helmcreeks family!”

There was some shouting and chaos, and I dropped my cape to see the intruder, an intrepid lauran man in a hooded mask, facing off with his sword against one of Pixiana’s attendants, her brother or something. The intruder stabbed the attendant in the leg quite neatly, dropping him to the floor.

Chath said, “Try me, you swashbuckling pissbag,” and stepped in the intruder’s way, sword drawn. Before anything else could happen I grabbed Chath by the back of his pajazuse and yanked him to the floor. He fell with a startled “meep”. The intruder bounded over him to the dais.

“How dare you!” shouted Pixiana, and drew her own sword on the intruder. They clashed blades. Pixiana tried a tricky move that I probably should know the name of, and the intruder spun around and parried it. She gasped. “That parry! Elfonso–is it you?”

“Yes!” the intruder said, throwing off his mask and stabbing another of Pixiana’s cousins. “I am revealed! It is I, Elfonso of the Sparkling Isles!”

Pixiana threw her arms around him and kissed him. A trio of Rosolla Guards (including one of Daust’s men–what could he have been thinking?) started forward to seize him, or possibly both of them. I slid a bench across the center aisle and they stumbled against it. A couple of Amaydyans stepped smartly out of the way. There was now a shiny white protective haze around Princess Shonne, who had retreated to the back of the dais.

“I don’t want to be the Countess of Wanderpath! Elfonso, take me away!”

“My love!” Elfonso flipped his cloak inside out and it turned into large yellow-and-blue wings. He punched Lord Spicyway in the nose, embraced Pixiana, and the two of them flew out the high window.

Everyone was still milling around, and Chath grabbed my arm. “Did you do that? I had him!”

“I liked when you called him a pissbag. That was great. Don’t ever do anything like that again. Now could you go get some healers? I think everyone here is still alive. And cleaners!” I told him. There really was a lot of blood on the floor.

The other guards also had some complaints for me. But, later on, Candur slapped me on the back and told me I had done a magnificent job and gave me a five-cup bonus.

Love,

Ybel

[translated from code]
Dearest Zann,

Got a little further ahead today. I’ve mapped and listed all the kitchens and pantries in the palace. Still a long way to go; I don’t know how often they’re supplied, or what other signs to look for. I’ve hidden the map and list. Don’t know how long this is going to take.

Love,

Ybel

Dearest Zann,

I took Ellewen up on his offer to visit him at the Public Bureau. “Ybel!” he said. I thought he seemed genuinely glad to see me. He nodded at his fellow clerks, Ebe and Rodaro. They waved him off, indicating they could handle things. I guessed Ellewen’s participation at the Bureau was voluntary and irregular.

“I’ve brought you back your things,” I said, holding up the sphere and ring that had helped heal me.

“Yes, thank you, come on back,” he answered, leading me to a door around the corner. I followed him. Inside was a small shady room with a large window looking out on a grassy little cranny in the side of the Comet Halls. Chairs and table, some books, some plants, a divan. A border-bridge set. “You’re looking well. You move stiffly, though. Do your wounds still trouble you?”

“Only a little,” I said. “Thanks to you. No, the stiffness is because one of my underlings feels the need to punish me with stick-fighting drills every day.”

“Of course. Please, sit.”

I sat, and put the sphere and ring on the table. “It was lucky for me that you came along when you did. Tell me, please, if you don’t mind, what is your role here at the palace?”

“Ah. No, I don’t mind. Well, perhaps I have no official role. I am something of an embarrassment to my people. You see, I first came to Crideon long before the rest of my kin did. I’ve always been curious about it, you see. The city, and your people, and your ways. Fascinating. It’s not an attitude most of us have. They’d like to pretend I’m not here, but my knowledge is just too useful. Generally my talents are best employed down here at the Bureau, where I can, oh, translate between the needs of the people and the ideas of the Valnelatar court.”

“Oh,” I said. “I didn’t know that. I didn’t know any of you ever came here. You… what should I call your people? You know we call you ‘laurans’.”

“Yes, it’s very funny,” he said, pouring some of that cloying honey drink for us. “Well, our proper name is–” and here he said a word with a lot of Ls and Rs and things in it, and a couple of birdcalls and the scent of peonies “–but you should just say ‘greenkind’. That will never offend.”

“Why ‘greenkind’?”

He sipped. “We pretend a great affinity for plants and trees and other growing things. And, having pretended it, we are very proud of it.”

“Oh. Well, then, greenkind. Thank you. So, you like it here?”

“There is much about the Crideon lands to admire. It’s like our home in many ways. But it isn’t really home.”

“Then…” I could feel him looking at me. And I decided not to ask the next question. He probably wouldn’t answer it. And what if he did? Maybe some other time. Instead, I said, “Some time ago, I met another… greenkind. Down at the docks.”

“Oh, yes?”

“He was having some supplies loaded on his foamcraft. But he seemed sick. And sad. His foamcraft was in bad shape, too; stained with algae and filth. I wouldn’t mind speaking to him again; do you know who he could be?”

“How strange. No, I’ve no idea. Would you like me to see if I can find out?”

“Yes, please, if you can. Is there any service I can do for you, in return for all your kindness?”

“You can tell me what you think,” he said.

“About what?”

“About anything. Whatever’s happening in the palace, in the city, in your life. I think our peoples must begin to know each other. But my kin are stubbornly uninterested in that. Well, perhaps I can remedy it, a little.”

It sounded a lot like spying. But, I thought, I could just not tell him anything sensitive, assuming I knew it in the first place. “Happy to,” I said.

Then we played border-bridge. I lost both games, which is normal, but I thought I put up a better fight than I usually do.

Love,

Zann

Beloved Zann,

My guard shift today at the palace wasn’t until late afternoon. Yes, corporals still have to put in regular guard shifts; we’re on the wheel. So are the lieutenants. Not the captain, though. Anyway, I thought I could sleep late.

So I was surprised when Srix woke me up by kicking me in the leg.

“Ow,” I said.

“Get up,” he said. “We have a lot to do today.”

“No, we don’t.”

He kicked me again. “You want to go back to sleep? Then stop me from kicking you.” And he kicked me again.

I sat up. “Why are you here?” Wande and Jhus were still here. I could hear them out in the other room. They must have let him in.

“Get up and I’ll tell you.”

“I’m a corporal. You’re nothing, you’re just a guard. Stop kicking me.”

He kicked me again. Same spot on my leg every time. It was really starting to hurt. “You’re wasting the morning.”

I got up.

When we came out of the sleeping room Wande was helping Jhus put on her shoes. “Day,” Wande said, as though nothing unusual was happening.

“You’ve met Srix here, I guess?”

“Ay,” she said. “It was a pleasure.”

“I like Srix,” Jhus said. “He has my favour.” I suppose that was inevitable.

“You’re not worthy of these two,” Srix said to me.

“Why are you here?” I asked him again.

“Day, Ybel,” Wande said as she and Jhus left. “Jhus, say day to Ybel.”

“I sha’n’t,” Jhus said, as the door closed behind her.

“Explain,” I said, pouring myself some water. I didn’t offer Srix any. My mother would have been scandalized by that, and so would Wande, but I have my limits.

“I’ve talked to Captain Candur. And Damsel Ambe. They told me what happened to you. You want me to be your guard. Not just a Rosolla guard, but a guard for you.”

“So?”

“I don’t know if I want to spend that much time around you. I don’t know if I want to put all that effort in to preserving your pathetic life.”

“Then don’t. Go home and let me get back to sleep.”

“Oh, no,” he said. “No, I’ll do it. But we’re going to do it my way.”

“I’m still the corporal here!”

He kicked me in the leg again. Same spot! Even though that leg was now on the other side of me. “Oh, you’re a corporal. Impressive. So you ought to be able to make me stop kicking you, yes?” And kicked me again. I tried to dodge and block, but he was too good at it.

“A little better,” he said. “I know you have some kind of religious objection to fighting.”

“It’s not religious.”

“But you’re a guard, and you’re going to be involved with fighting will you or nill you. I’d be a fool if I agreed to guard a man who couldn’t fight but insisted on going into battle anyway. So I’m going to teach you how to protect yourself in a fight. Without cutting or stabbing anyone, yes, I know. It won’t be as good as though you were a real warrior, but at least you won’t be working against me.”

“I can already do that,” I told him. “I came through the entire Sugarside siege without striking a blow.”

“And took a serious leg wound. And, no doubt, put your comrades at greater risk. And enjoyed much good fortune, I’m sure. Well, I’m not some upcountry bumpkin who will share your danger unwitting. You’ve been just barely good enough. You need to be better. I can make you better. It will take a long time, but I can.”

One of the reasons I recruited Srix was that he had a mind of his own. The rest of the day was very unpleasant.

Love,

Ybel