Replace the spaces with full stops et replace the 3 X's with "C-O-M" absent the hyphens.

ethnewinter deviantart XXX/art/I-N-II-Draft-of-Map-N-Campaign-547286150

Vocabulaire:

1. Ala, alae – The singular and plural forms for a cavalry unit. For this story, an ala is set at 500 horse troopers.

2. Boom (Eng.) – A cable used to prevent naval vessels from passing through a portion of water.

3. Denarius, denarii (L.) – The singular and plural terms for one of the more common Ancient Roman coins. Like today's coinage, denarii could (and often did) bear different designs based on the issue.

4. Dioscuri (L.), dioskouroi (Gk.) – Refers to the twins Castor and Pollux, who were revered by Ancient Romans and Greeks alike.

5. Gemini pro geminis (L.) – "The twins for the twinned."

6. Nausea (L., also Eng.) – English takes this word from Latin, where it originally signified "seasickness".

7. Our Sea (Eng.) – A literal translation of the Latin term for the Mediterranean, "Mare Nostrum".

8. Sagi (L., pl.) – The singular form is "sagum". It is the standard cloak legionaries used for foul weather, described as thick and water-repellent.

9. Tirocinium fori (L.) – a term of apprenticeship at the Roman/Himean legal courts, undertaken by budding politicians.

Inter Nos II: Inde ira et lacrimae

par ethnewinter

Prince Calchis passed through the Ruviccan.

This was significant. It was not because the task involved epic effort, nor even epic persistence. It would have required both had his army been any other, for the Ruviccan was no small grove to cross with a mere intention. Beyond its breadth was the other obstacle: its holiness and all that came with it.

This was the most sacred of Mentulaean forests. In it Esus had strolled in the days before men, leaving behind as proof a footprint the size of a hut. Taranis's presence was more current: the god still plucked the woods with his fingers. In this forest an oak could be immolated all of a sudden, entirely sans warning and with cloudless sky. Even those trees' remains betrayed the magic afterwards, their blasted forms the silhouettes of horned man-things reaching for the sun...

Easy to believe the trees were the stag men and the green people. Easy, at least in the Ruviccan. It had preceded the empire in its establishment and flourished alongside it afterwards. The first druids were drawn there, enraptured by the myths already woven into its being. Later the druids also came from it, many of their leading members having established homes in its environs.

From this arose the settlement that would become the centre of druidic influence: Tasgetia, where the first "learned" people of the land congregated. This began as a small community of druids on the Ruviccan side of the River Harene. As the druids had been the specialists of knowledge back then, it took no time for it to turn into a town, and later still into a city of great education.

Though druids now established themselves far and wide, this city remained the seat of the fraternity. Every druid spent some years of his life there as part of his training. He could take instruction on a speciality from various elders living elsewhere. Yet only in Tasgetia could he learn the core knowledge that had always been reserved for him and his like.

The forest had a critical role to play in druidic production. It was a fundamental part of their training to perform ritual incursions into the Ruviccan. There the young druid visited the secret groves and sites of lore. He touched the trees of Taranis and Esus's footprint, and scented the fecundity of Toutatis around him.

Empowering to the druid, who established his connections to the gods in this experience. Hair-raising to the layman, who had learned to avoid the place for fear of being consumed by it. For druidic stewardship of the forest had ensured its unstinted growth, its regular obscuration of tracks with fresh greenery and savage assertion. Getting lost in the Ruviccan was all too easy. Who knew what followed after that?

The young druids themselves only managed to enter and exit with the help of the elders. These men, the foremost druidic minds, knew every path and sacred tree in the forest. No trouble for them to lead a few priestlings through its shaded depths.

Calchis's old tutor, Hiempnos, had once performed such duties for the apprentices. For him to do it with an army was more complex, but certainly not outside of his considerable resources—which included the support of his fellow priests when he sent ahead to tell them what he was doing.

"It may have been a nuisance to us at first," Calchis confided in him. "But now I think the hands of the gods in it. If we had managed to cross the River Holmys, who knows what might've taken place? We might've been caught between two or more of their armies before we'd found our feet on the other side of the river. Instead we get to gather ourselves before meeting them. Even the men's spirits are higher for having passed through the Holy Forest, though they were wary enough of entering initially."

"All to the good," Hiempnos said. "Your men will not make light of their accomplishment, despite having had little trouble in doing it. It enlarges your reputation that you managed to come through the Ruviccan with an entire army. People will be talking, and it will be good."

"They'll know you and the other druids were helping me."

"Not all will think of us as the makers of the achievement. The conclusion is the same—that the gods and their stewards favour the Prince Calchis, who is thus worthiest of this war's command and of the throne."

"We've a ways to go for that yet."

"We will go wherever necessary, My Prince. Are you certain you prefer to camp at Vedio? Tasgetia would be willing to take us for longer than a simple resupply. You know you have the support of all my brothers."

"I don't want to burden you for too long. Besides, Vedio is nearer where I want to go. If I camp the army there, I can't be accused of anything."

Hiempnos harrumphed thoughtfully: "Vedio is nearer the Himean positions than Kereia, where the king is."

"Harder to call me a coward if I'm standing between them and him."

So out of the Ruviccan went Calchis and his army, towards druidic Tasgetia for restocking before heading on to Vedio.

It was in the latter leg of the journey that Calchis parted ways with his troops, although only temporarily. He charged his officers with conveying the men to their target and detached a regiment of riders to accompany him on his detour. His intention was Kereia to the west, where he would have been called later anyway as word spread of his return.

Both Kereia and Vedio were very far into the empire's northwest. This was not the purview of the western warlords, whose territories covered only part of that boundary. Their part was referred to as the "Western Frontier" because it was bordered by a periodically-hostile state: the Kingdom of the Nervii, which abutted the south-western half of the empire's.

The northern half of the western boundary, though, was next to a less contrary neighbour. Celsor was ruled by a young king who had married one of the Mentulaean king's daughters. The Celsorian sovereign was friendly with the empire and occasionally aided it in its military ventures. The only reason he had not joined his father-in-law this time was that his troops were already engaged in conflict with another neighbour. Had they not been committed elsewhere, he would have sent Obsidian more than the five thousand Celsorian swordsmen currently with the latter's army.

So no-one called the northwest of the empire a "frontier" because it did not fit the situation. The word suggested an element of danger lurking just behind a very near line. Not the case for that area, which was more or less secure and reliably loyal.

Prince Calchis, in fact, considered it especially loyal. The lands of Kereia and Vedio were populated by the Mentulaean tribe known as the Ganni. Calchis's mother was a Gannian noble. The prince therefore had no fear of foreigners being in the area without his knowledge. He knew the people and knew he could rely on their fidelity to him.

Yet he was still a product of the court and the dangers it bred. He knew that there were other threats against his person besides foreign armies. Thus he appeared at Kereia garbed like the rest of his escort: in the drab woollens and green cloaks so common to warriors of the Ganni.

He found the city in a lather of concern, though his sister looked untroubled when she appeared. Then again, that was Faris. She could pretend a gale a breeze if it was more politic. It was a happy faculty given the general storminess of royal living.

"Gorgo's loss was bad enough," she told him, pulling off her own disguise as she inspected the room he had rented. It was on the ramshackle side and none too airy, but that suited their purposes.

"Then defection of Firens and its allies," she continued, subsiding into the chair he pulled out for her. "Everyone's biting fingernails. You heard about this?"

He fell into his seat and pulled a harsh breath.

"How couldn't I?" he demanded. "The druids were gabbling about it in Tasgetia. A terrible business. Word has it they slaughtered half the nobles of the Western Frontier."

"Let's remember the nobles of the Western Frontier have been raring to do that to each other for years. Should I call for food and drink?"

"No—but while that's true, it's a different thing. To think I'd been hoping to rely on them!"

Her eyes showed true but measured sympathy.

"We could have," she said, emphasizing the second word. "The grievances between them and our father would have made them more likely to favour an alternative. But we were too slow on it, I'm afraid. The Himeans must have made them an offer first, and I can imagine how attractive it must have been. What a pity! I know we could have used their armies."

"Yes, we could. But we can't count on those anymore."

"Not for now."

He stared an inquisition, a line asserting itself between his mouth and one cheek.

"Not for now?" he echoed. "You think a time will ever come when it's otherwise?"

"Why shouldn't it?"

"They've slain their neighbours and made a pact with the enemy. No greater betrayal's possible here."

"We may be accused of betrayal in our own way, Brother Dear."

"On more than one count! But we aren't handing over our dominions to foreign rulers, are we?"

"I doubt the Baron Entei will be doing that either. Or should we now call him 'King'?" Her eyes came up and registered the surprise in his. "Oh, I don't know if that's the way the wind is actually blowing. I just think that's what he'd have bargained for with the Himeans, knowing him."

Calchis folded his arms and pulled his big head to his chest. He said nothing for a while, which she allowed comfortably. Theirs was a companionship that did not always demand speech.

A chair creaked: his heft was straining it. He planted his feet on the ground firmly and looked at Faris.

"You're right, damn it," he grunted. "That's what he'd have negotiated, and they'd have agreed. He's a far craftier man than most people think him. A partial kingship—they'd not have promised him all of it. Rule of Firens and nearby territory, probably."

"Exactly what I think."

She tapped the table with her finger and looked at the dust she picked up that way.

"Anyone who betrays an ally once can do it again, I think."

"Of course they can," he said for reply. "But doesn't that just make them cursed unattractive allies to everybody?"

"We'll see. Anyway, it's only an option and may even cease to be that eventually."

He knew that tone. "Tell me."

"The throne has sent Prince Nagi on more diplomatic duty," she said, her tone mocking. "This time, to the Kingdom of the Nervii."

This produced a change on the masculine face, a new colour and interest breathing life into it. The Prince Calchis was as dark of eye as the Princess Faris: where animation showed in hers as a gleam, however, it broke into a fetching sparkle in his.

"He was sent to spur them into attacking their old foes," he guessed, voice hoarser than usual from excitement. "The western warlords and their fiefs, which have divorced themselves from his authority."

"And his 'protection', or so he puts it."

His laugh hurled across the table and nearly displaced the dust on top of it.

"What a devious old goat!" he guffawed, chair creaking afresh with each convulsion of hilarity. "I wouldn't have thought he still had it in him. Inviting another player into the game! You must admit it's wicked—in the best way possible, I mean."

Her answering laugh let him know exactly how wicked she thought it.

"Father had one of his strokes of inspiration," she mused. "You know he only gets them whenever he feels his position in danger, like some animal instinct. Maybe it's necessary for anyone who would be king of a land such as this? I would admire it if it were more controllable, but I see no evidence of the same genius when his status seems safe to him."

Up shot his eyebrows: "Faris, wait. What did Nagi do to trigger this instinct?"

"That old thing." The pleasant, oddly sincere smile turned to him. "You already know. Nagi's success in retarding Himean action at the start of the war was a little too successful for our sire. I suppose it's been stewing in his mind for some time. He was just slow in acting on it."

"Still, Nagi?" He snorted his opinion of their half-sibling. "That lily couldn't threaten a virgin if you armed him with a phallus at the ready."

"Maybe not, but that part of him isn't what our father fears. He always fears plotters more than soldiers. It's a reflection of how he himself gained the throne. Why do you think the most favoured members of the court aren't related to him? He'd clap all his family members in irons if he thought them capable of plotting successfully."

"I thank the gods he doesn't see how much of a plotter you are then."

"That's exactly how much of a plotter I am, actually," she shot back. "The move is inspired, isn't it? We both know the Nervii will still be nervous about his invitation to attack the empire's Western Frontier. They'll take the deputation hostage as leverage for the future because of it. They'll think it a particularly attractive hostage party, in fact, since one of the members is a son of the king. What they won't know is that the king wouldn't want them to return said son to him. If the war did end with our side winning and father still in power, I think he'd provoke the Nervii just to ensure an execution takes place."

Calchis whistled with grim humour.

"He'll run out of sons at this rate," he quipped.

"I hope not, or he'll go through the daughters next." She waited for him to finish sniggering. "What are your plans, Calchis?"

Calchis felt the beard curling on his jaw and scratched at it. It had added to his disguise, but he was already tired of the way it felt on his skin. I plan to shave, he thought, before giving her the answer she was really seeking.

"It depends. What's the attitude here? Do they want him to meet the foreigners or aren't they worked up enough for that yet?"

"They're definitely worked up enough for it. I told you earlier – no nails left to chew here. And then there's the fact that we've nearly eaten Kereia out because of all the troops. This drought hasn't been forgiving on the crops."

"No, it hasn't. The harvest was thin even where I've been. Luckily that means it's thin too for the Himeans. Will he actually fight them soon, you think?"

"He's been thinking of it. Mind you, I use that appropriately: thinking." She looked rueful. "All their successes have been making him pause, along with the winter's onset. I think he thought that the Baron Terrigos at least would triumph against them, even if the others didn't. Before the baron's defeat he was talking about uprooting the army and sacking their bases. Gorgo took the wind out of him. But now that your army's here..."

"He'll want to take over it." Calchis sucked in his lips and blew them out angrily. "I can't give it to him."

"I think it's more like he'll have you accompany his army while still commanding yours, as a subordinate force."

"Either way, I can't do it. It's not just that I don't want to fight again under him. It would be folly to sally out with two of the royal armies in the same field."

He got to his feet, a big and impressive man with big and impressive energy that needed release. In that much at least, he and his sister differed: self-control did not come naturally to him. He paced to a shuttered window on the wall and stopped just short of reaching it.

"We've seen the quality of their leadership these past months," he said quietly. "This commander of theirs is no idiot, is she?"

Faris's expression told him she thought that person very far from it. He strode back but did not sit.

"So she knows how difficult it would be for us to keep both armies together," he concluded. "They're right in our heartlands, they saw the same drought and harvest we did. If their general's half as canny as she's shown herself, she'd just walk her little armies round ours until we ran out of stuff to eat. Never mind fighting. They'd just focus on our supply lines and leave us to starve ourselves with our own stupidity. I don't even know if we could run them down since they march at inhuman speeds. It's beyond belief! The druids said they took an army from Gorgo to Bitur in one day. You've seen our armies in motion, Faris. Could we do the same?"

"No. It's amazing."

"You mean frustrating."

"Also that. So what should we do?"

"Wrest back our rural lands swiftly," he determined. "We need to send the druids out to drum up trouble, especially in the areas the Himeans now count as their territories. I need to raise a fresh levy." A pause, during which there was a flash in his eyes that hinted of inevitability. "We also need to drive the king into facing the enemy."

She wrinkled her forehead.

"I thought you said you couldn't give your army and self to him."

"And I won't, I promise." He pushed a hand through his thickly curling mane. "But I will have to give him a part of it if I'm to avoid getting sent off like Nagi. That's why we'll need a fresh levy, aside from all the troops we've already lost. If anything's been made clear to me in the past months of this war, it's that he's a hopeless war leader. All that time worrying about threats to his crown have dulled the man. Sending his sons and barons and whomever to do all the commanding! It was different when he was the one on the offence. He seemed so vigorous then. But now that he's on defence, he's useless. Look at how much we've lost in territories while he sat here terrorising his council."

The chair creaked again: he was back in it.

"We'll lose the war if he stays in command. You and I will lose everything. Now, when we're so close! That would be the worst way, don't you think?"

"It would be," she agreed soberly.

"We have to get him out of the way now, Faris. And I think I actually know how to make the Himeans do it. They've been doing a lot for our cause this whole war. I think it's time we harnessed their menace for our ends one last time. Once he's gone the war effort will be entirely in my hands. Then we'll finally have the proper leadership for repelling these foreigners."

"But about father. You mean—finally?"

"Yes—finally."

He watched the dark vitality of her gaze reflecting his. He had missed her, he felt, as he did whenever they were parted for a while. One needed a conspirator in this deceitful world of theirs; that was what their mother had taught them.

"How lovely," she said. "I was sick of waiting!"

Shizuru thought waiting a perilous activity.

The trouble with invasive operations was that they bred an illness that took time manifesting. It was an itch that started under the skin, turning into a boil and then a carbuncle, growing more purulent under pressure, storing up ever more force until its outbreak. When it finally erupted it was always beyond simple remedy. Yet dealing with it before that required huge skill, lest the act of lancing turn the early boil into a wound of even greater infective quality.

"Annexations of this size drain you even as you win," the Septentrian province's governor-general said to Natsuki. The latter had just asked if she expected trouble from their foes during the winter. "Yes, I am expecting trouble. Not just from the royal armies and allies but from the areas we already 'control'—I use the word with reservation, to be clear."

The polemarch played with one of the coins she had taken from a purse, flipping the circular piece of metal into the air and letting it fall onto her palm.

"This one has two men on chariots," she informed Shizuru. "Who are these men?"

"I think that's the one with the Dioscuri. Let me see."

"Dioskouroi?" Natsuki showed her. "Dioscuri. Hm."

"Yes. They struck a denarius with Dioscuri that year. Astonishing you did not recognise them."

"It is a long time since we met," the other said archly. "But this trouble of yours, Shizuru. It is not really about the poor harvest?"

"It is—oh, is it ever!"

Shizuru sighed, letting her chin fall onto her palm. She had an elbow on the table and assumed a pose of contemplation as she reviewed her problem.

"The accursed drought halved the harvest from here to all sides of Our Sea, Natsuki. The far south and east has fared slightly better—your trade ally Rheia and parts of our own Asia Province—but little good that is to us over here, a whole world away! Besides, whatever food can be spared in those parts is better sent to Fuuka, most especially to Hime. After all... Sicilia."

After all indeed—Sicilia. One of Hime's chief grain sources on Our Sea. The servile revolt it hosted was still raging, the year's hopes of harvest consigned to the flames. Add the widespread drought and a conclusion was clear: much of Hime would go hungry.

The added difficulty the governor of Septentria faced was directly related to her war. It had siphoned able-bodied men and women from many Mentulaean farms into the armies, drafted as offerings from local aristocrats to the cause of the king. Even those who remained had been disrupted in their regular routines. Agricultural activities became harder when armies strode the land and clashed with each other for mastery.

"So there was really nothing else for it but to spread them out further than before," she sighed again.

She referred now to the new winter positions she had assigned her twelve legions. The ever-dwindling amount of grain the buyers brought in had triggered it. Winter had not even set in properly before Shizuru saw the necessity of reorganising.

"I would rather have them in trios or quartets at this stage. You know how understrength my legions are, Natsuki. Alas, that would be insupportable with this grain shortage. Concentrating too many of them in one place would starve them in tandem with the local populace. It is not even a question of money, as we can pay for all we need. The problem is the shortness of the supply itself!"

Natsuki dropped the denarius with the Dioscuri back into the leather purse. She flipped over on the bed and made for the edge.

"Do you want your—"

"No." The Otomeian rose and simply hopped the few steps to the other chair, the purse jangling noisily as she went. She dropped it in front of her lover and got into the free seat. "See."

Shizuru shook her head. "You look like a demented rabbit."

"I like."

"That?"

"Rabbits."

Natsuki was rummaging through the scrolls in a rack next to them. It was one of the many Shizuru's army carried and assembled or disassembled as needed. She reached into its top shelf, which was not segmented into several smaller shelves like the others. The scrolls kept in it were the widest, so they needed the most space.

She put a scroll on the table between them. It was a map of the empire and Shizuru helped her unroll it.

"Show me again," Natsuki demanded. "Where now?"

Shizuru knew exactly what the other was asking. She took up the purse the Otomeian had brought and spilled its contents.

"It always looks better with tokens," she explained, picking up one of the denarii and setting it down on a small square on the map that had been labelled 'Gorgo'. "We are here, of course, with the Ninth and the Eleventh as well as the bulk of the baggage."

The coin she put down was the one with the Dioscuri, and Natsuki seemed amused.

"Gemini pro geminis," she said, eliciting a grin.

"Quite so, mea vita."

Shizuru still slipped another denarius under the Dioscuri one, though.

"Just to ensure we remember there are two legions here," she winked, plucking yet another coin from the purse. "Then we have Maiza-han and the Fifth, all the way across the Atinu again. They sit on the westernmost tip of Sosia Province."

Down went the coin right of the line representing the River Atinu. To the coin's own right was a square labelled 'Sosia', a thumb and a half away. This was the city itself, where the governor and all the major offices and establishments stood. Though the province and city had the same name—as was the case for Argus—they were not reducible to each other.

"They may be best-fed of us this winter given that they have both the cities Argus and Sosia near them. They may also be sufficiently far east to get whatever grain comes in from further lands."

Then another coin, this time left of the River Atinu and north of a series of contiguous triangles. The triangles were labelled 'Caledonian Alps' and they stretched horizontally over a significant portion of the map.

Shizuru put the coin on a square right above them. The square was titled 'Trogum'.

"Here we have Keigo-han and the Fourteenth." A tap on the coin on Trogum. "A bit distant from the other legions, but with an excellent position for defence. Kenji-han previously held his place in Trogum's citadel for weeks without trouble. Some of our first allies are also not far from there. Asterion itself is just a few days' march away."

"A month's, for everyone not Shizuru Fujino," Natsuki mimicked so convincingly that Shizuru stared.

"That was uncanny!" the latter said. She was pink with enjoyment. "You should do it in front of her."

Natsuki's was pink too—naturally—but her smirk was plain: "She says it so often, Shizuru."

"Along with everyone else in the army, I wager. Speaking of her, though..."

She picked out two denarii, one to set east of the Dioscuri coin; another northeast of it. The second coin covered part of the thick line labelled 'River Holmys'.

"Shizuma is at Lanius with the Third and Zanki-han is north of her with the Eighth, at Heluvio. They can support each other against the Carsinii, as indeed I intended even before the reassignments. These people need to be brought to heel, at least if we want to take away a critical component of the imperial soldiery."

The Carsinii were among the more numerous of the original tribal groups of the empire. Horse warriors and breeders, they were a huge source of cavalry troops for imperial levies. Their nobles ruled the fertile flatlands running from the city of Berentum—where Shizuru had defeated the Baron Terrigos—all the way to a long section of the Holmys near its confluence with the Atinu.

Lanius and Heluvio were two of their key cities. They had only surrendered reluctantly after successive Himean victories cut their areas off from the rest of the extant Mentulaean armies. Their reluctance remained after surrender, even though they had already signed treaties with their new masters.

Shizuru was wary of them, calling them the horse in her stable that had yet to be broken in. It was why she had kept the senior legate and the cavalry-experienced Zanki in their territory. The Otomeian cataphracti and light horse troops were there as well.

She put down another coin, this time at the convergence of the empire's two big rivers.

"Not too far away is our old Atinu base. There sits the Fourth, helping to rebuild Argentum. Miyuki-han has command there."

She picked up more denarii.

"Shohei-han should also be relatively near them by now," she continued. "Here, at Fregum."

A pair of coins went to the square labelled thus, situated west of Heluvio. Like Heluvio, it was positioned beside a line denoting a river. This was a smaller river than the great Holmys, however, and in fact a tributary of it. The Mentulaeans called it the River Dulio, and the town of Fregum controlled a part of this stream.

"Fregum is on the very edge of the Carsinian territories," she pointed out to Natsuki. "Shohei-han can keep an eye on the next territory as well as on them. With him are the Tenth and the Twelfth."

"Two."

"What?"

"Two legions you gave him." Natsuki squinted thoughtfully. "Where do you send him next?"

A puff escaped Shizuru's nose.

"I would be finished if my enemies predicted me that easily," she said. "I would actually like him further northwest than Fregum, but that will have to wait until spring and more grain."

Back to the River Holmys she went, pointing to a square nearly at its headwaters. It was just south of another cluster of triangles. These represented a range, although a smaller one than the Caledonian Alps lower down the map.

"Here is the Mentulaean city of Arvern. Are you familiar with it?"

Natsuki answered negatively.

"It is a place of smithies," Shizuru said. "Near it are most of the empire's big mines. It is a town grown around an agglomeration of manufactories for metalworking."

"Ah!" the Otomeian breathed. "Armour and weapons. The source?"

"Yes, or one of the main ones anyway."

"We must take it."

Shizuru picked up another coin from her purse, rubbing its face. She knew all too well the figure on it: a winged Victory.

"I would like that, but it is quite far in. Winter forays are hard enough without a grain shortage. We need more information too about the forces near it, one of which is reportedly a full royal army at Vedio. Allegedly the Prince Calchis finally come out of hiding." She eyed the positions of the coins already on the map. "Either way, Shohei-han can be useful where he is. Fregum is not a bad start on that."

The next coin went to a square in the southwest. It was southeast of Massae, the town where the western warlords had executed their defection.

"And as for Seigo-han and the Seventh, they should even now be approaching Xidia, a city of the Roscii."

This was the name for another of the nation's original tribes. They were known for their footsoldiers, unlike the Carsinii.

"The envoys sent to Xidia said they were surrendering peacefully. Seigo-han can settle down with them for the winter and get those people used to us."

Seeing the laugh in the girl's eyes, she hastened to admit the objection.

"I know the man is stuck-up xenophobe, but he shall do nothing too stupid for fear of me. So I trust, as I made it clear that his purpose is to help me build a peaceful province, not a Hime-hating one. At any rate, on the other side of the river north of him are our western friends. He will have help if he needs it. Kenji-han is also with the Sixth and Thirteenth in Firens for the season."

Two stacked coins were placed on the appropriate square to denote Kenji and his troops. It was her finger's length northwest of Xidia.

"There are still a few feudal armies remaining," she said. "Here and here, for instance. But most have already moved back up to join with the two remaining royal armies. This tells us their command is genuinely concentrated there for the moment. A good thing, in a way. What do you think of the rumours that Prince Calchis crossed that sacred forest of theirs, to the northeast? The one they call the Ruviccan?"

The Otomeian seemed mystified by the query.

"Why think if he crossed it?" she asked.

"The locals believe it mystical and claim it has no paths for an army. They say what he did is wondrous."

"With a guide anyone can cross a forest. It is no wonder."

Shizuru chuckled: "Says a forest princess."

"And a mountain princess—you forget it."

"And a mountain princess, and a cavalry princess, and a Fujino princess—or soon, anyway." She suppressed a giggle at the other's cheeks. "At any rate, the prince's feat might cause problems for us in the spring. If they place enough stock in that petty wonder of his more of the locals might get up enough wind to join his army. I do not want them getting more recruits to replace the ones they lost already. I myself need a new levy, given that many of my legions are under four thousand!"

Natsuki smiled at this because she knew their foes would not credit it even if told the figures. It was difficult to believe, especially if you were Mentulaean, that such an outnumbered force could so often win.

"At least they are all blooded now," she said in her native tongue. "This is more important."

Shizuru agreed wholeheartedly.

"But I still need more, my bones tell me," she persisted.

"You sent for them already, no?"

"Yes, I did send Taro-han back home for it. Or back to the more northern parts of Fuuka, at least, since they are nearer. He can drum up enough fresh recruits from there." She scowled all of a sudden. "The Senate shall be certain to give me grief once they learn of it."

Natsuki was confused.

"I thought they said—you have a minimum of ten legions?" she recounted. "When they authorised this war?"

"So they did. But that was when they were still feeling our losses." There was a brief pause to shake off her own sense of loss, far more sincere than the fickle public's and Senate's. "Now that is a distant thing, as they have concerns looming larger in their eyes. Sicilia and its servile revolt, the scarcity of grain and the mutterings of the populace. The nearer concerns always rub out distant ones. They shall say I am depriving the land of its able-bodied."

"Of... soldiers? To fight in Sicilia?"

"Yes, and of farmers too. No matter that the thin harvest is primarily caused by an act of the gods, or that most of the farms are in fact run on slave labour already—to which I have contributed greatly, by the way. They shall try to pin some of the blame on me even so. Besides, I already have twelve legions on the field. More than their stated minimum, is it not?"

The shadow-banked eyes squinted again, the black lashes fluttering so close they shadowed the green behind them.

"But as you say, your legions are so understrength," Natsuki observed. "If not, all your soldiers would make only ten."

Shizuru said this was true: were anyone to reorganise her troops using the standard minimum of men per legion, the legions thus produced would number only ten.

"But the day the Senate allows logic to precede legalese may be the day it crowns a king again," she said.

The Otomeian had an expression Shizuru was tempted to classify as disgust, or perhaps as disbelief.

"How your people became great with such attitudes is beyond me," she said, again in her language.

"Sometimes it is beyond us as well," Shizuru confessed.

She leaned back and crossed her legs.

"There we have it, my spread-out legions. Most of them sitting in what is still largely hostile if currently-subdued land. All of the areas we 'control' are still brimming with problems. Often they are aristocratic loyalists afraid of their status under a Himean government. Others are not-quite-loyalists who just happen to be incurable dissidents. Considering how we are imposing on their meagre stocks of grain at the moment, that dissidence just might boil over soon. Although I wonder if any of them realise it would be so much easier to just seize all the contents of their granaries. It would be my right, technically, as the conqueror of their lands. Instead I requisition only part of their grain and even pay for what I take. Resentment flourishes for the moderate conqueror as it does for the extreme."

Natsuki's large eyes fluttered open.

"Such is war," was her response.

"And such is conquest. It takes time, a lot of time, because true conquest happens in the mind."

Shizuru narrowed her own eyes at the map with denarii.

"The task of my command means that I must take the war beyond the actual battlefield. Beyond the flesh. What we need to finish is the thought of uprising, of a Mentulaean Empire or people, definitively. That is the true goal, I think, and not actually elimination of all their armies."

Natsuki frowned, although it was not so much in displeasure as in consideration.

"You are saying," she ventured, "we must finish their... their spirit, is it?"

"Oh no, not quite that, for that would be savagery. Their spirit they can keep. But it will need to be a new spirit, one with first allegiance to Hime."

A pause.

"I am saying we must finish their cause, as it currently is. Fighting and defeating their armies – even holding their cities – are only parts of this greater thing."

Natsuki spent a few seconds taking that in.

"How does one accomplish this greater thing?" she asked.

"With time, certainly." Shizuru exhaled and let her chin fall to her palm again. "Among other necessities. I believe we can also make a good start on it by ensuring they have nothing around which to rally. Excepting Firens, which we can use as a buffer between us and the Nervii, there must only be Septentria after this. There must be a province, not an empire. No realm and no kings."

"Difficult," the princess said, "when their king will not even meet us in battle."

"He shall," Shizuru promised. "It is inevitable for his rule, you see."

Until then there were other fights that chill season, just as she had thought there would be. The first was begun by Seigo Ushida when he marched the Seventh through the lands of the Roscii. He was on his way to Xidia, which said it was willing and ready to host the legionaries.

It was a mostly uneventful march. Seigo also conducted it with little urgency. If he had his druthers he would have stayed north, for that was where most of the empire's wealth lay. He thought of the empire's mines more than Shizuru did, but that was the difference between a would-be mine owner and an actual one. Oh, for a post near one of the big mining towns to the north of the country! Even Shohei Nagayama's draughty camp at Fregum would suit him better than Xidia.

Still he knew his place and followed the orders he was given. He doubted there would be a complete absence of pickings in the south anyway. Booty was like that: always there to be had in some form or other. Sometimes it just took more effort to find or even recognise it.

Seigo's need for money had been enlarged recently. The eldest of his younger siblings had written that he was commencing his tirocinium fori; it would not be long before the next one came of age to serve in the army. Then there was his own career, which was on the up now he was attached to this campaign, but still had yet to peak. All of them needed money! They would not get far without it, even with all their good qualities—of which he knew there were many. Their ancestry and looks were at the top of the list.

Lucky that he had been posted previously with the senior legate and among the Carsinii. They were an unruly people, but their villages had held ample loot to confiscate. And with such would-be-rebels as governed them, it had never been difficult to find a pretext for confiscation.

But now his place was Xidia. Not entirely a Nowhere, but in it. Supposedly one of the chief cities of the Roscii, which was why it mattered: the Roscii were the only numerous southern people to have some affection for their imperial rulers. So he was there to show them that the legions were—what, also loveable in their turn? That Hime was both powerful and preferable to the alternative? To display the attractive reasonability of the nation conquering them?

Fine, then. That was doable. He could display reason, he decided. Even if his idea of reason was equivocal, as it was in everyone else.

The first reasonable thing was to actually get there. He had scouts along with the navigators the commander had hired from some Argus-based and firmly-Himean establishment. But when he entered the lands of the Roscii, several horsemen still came to meet him.

"We come from Xidia, General," they said upon introduction. "Our orders are to see you through these lands and safely to the city."

Seigo looked down the length of his sculptural nose at them.

"And why would there be any need," he asked, batting lashes as thick as his general's, "to see us safe? Are we in trouble?"

The riders exchanged glances.

"No, there's no trouble, General," one of them reassured him. "But some of the places around here still owe allegiance to the king. It's best to be on guard and our leaders were worried. We were sent to help you avoid the more dangerous routes on the way."

"I have my own navigators."

"Yes, we see that, General," they persevered. They could see his distrust of them. "But we're still locals and can come in handy. We know this land better than even your scouts."

One of the tribunes in his party leaned over to him.

"They might be right, Ushida-san," he said. "They might know things we don't."

Seigo said nothing, his face empty of feeling. Suddenly a smile came over it, and the smile was a beautiful thing.

"You're right," he said, and nodded at the additions. "You can help us get there faster, you said?"

"We can."

"So show us the way and work with my men."

They thus travelled for some days with the Xidian horsemen. These worked in tandem with the scouts and even gave them helpful advice on their duties. They also agreed unreservedly with the recommendations made by Ushida's navigators. One day, however, they rode far ahead of his scouts and returned dragging them back with difficulty.

"The path we're to take has soldiers hiding near it," they explained when asked what had transpired. "A lot of them, with their own scouts. We only managed to avoid them because these we know these paths better. It's why we dragged your scouts back with us, General—they would have alerted theirs."

Seigo frowned and eyed the faint mist ahead.

"How many?" he demanded.

They said they were uncertain.

"Men in hiding are hard to count," said the Xidians. "But we have other ways to go, General. Around that hill to the east, for instance, is another path. Probio checked it earlier and said it was clear of soldiers. We could just slip past them."

The one named Probio agreed.

"Around that hill, eh?" Seigo murmured, looking from one to the other. Suddenly his lips pulled up at the corners. It was exactly the same smile as the one he had shown the first day, when he finally acquiesced to having them join his party. "You boys really did make yourselves useful in the end."

Later that day he fought an engagement with a band of armed Roscii. He had quietly executed his Xidian guides right before it. That was because he had insisted on sending out his scouts despite their warnings, and thus discovered the scheme.

He had then marched the troops through the path originally intended. They made it through safe—as the army scouts had reported they would—then curved back and towards the hill the Xidians had urged him to round. That was where they found the ambushers and reversed the game.

On reflection later Seigo considered that it might have been better to spare some for questioning. But his legion was the restored Seventh, which had suffered more than its share of anguish from Mentulaean treachery. He would have been hard-pressed to stop their butchery even had he thought of it at the time. The few ambushers who survived had been quick to slip away in the mist.

Three days later he reached Xidia with his army and summoned the leaders for questioning. They professed ignorance of the ambush and asked to see artefacts from the battle in case they could help identify the double-crossers. Seigo produced some items and they confirmed that these were of the Roscii.

"But this still fails to implicate us, Ushida-san," they pleaded with him. "Though we're also Roscii, all of the gear you stripped from the ambushers is for heavy infantry. There are swords and some heavy pikes here but absolutely no javelins. We Xidians are light footmen and we use the throwing spear. You can even check the town armoury. We've never supplied the king with heavy infantry, only light infantry all these years. In fact, we're celebrated for the quality of our spearmen."

Although that doesn't mean they didn't collaborate with our ambushers, Seigo wrote in his report to the commander. They say some renegades from other Roscian cities may've been in Xidia and picked up word of my coming. They say these might've been the ones who took that information with them and approached some other Roscian leaders eager to do us in.

Maybe, I said. But it's too pat for me. For all we know, these Xidian aristocrats are the very ones who plotted with those other cities. They didn't need to send Xidian troops to participate in that attempt. Even those horsemen claiming to be Xidians may have really been Xidians!

I'd like to teach them a lesson. Still, I wouldn't be comfortable doing something without your permitting it. My suggestion is that we arrest and replace all the city's leaders and aristocrats in office post-haste. That would make a striking example and they'd be sure to remember it.

Reading his letter, Shizuru knew that he also intended to seize the leaders' belongings. He was right in saying there was a possibility that the Xidians had conspired with the other Roscii. Still, there was no proof of it. Absent proof better than suspicion, she could not permit what he recommended.

"I told him that would be likelier to foster enmity than peace," she said after being asked by Natsuki what she had written in response to him. "Instead, I just told him to take hostages from all the likely leaders' families. No one has to die or be disgraced—at least not until we have greater certainty of that person meriting it. Why the fool executed the false guides I cannot imagine. Now he has no one to milk for further information supporting his theory. Mistakes come back with a bite, do they not, Natsuki?"

The younger woman chuckled at this.

"Your legate will be disappointed," she said.

"Let him," was the weary response. "The rascal is fortunate he is good at generalling."

Then something more complex developed in the opposite direction, with Shohei Nagayama at Fregum.

Shohei had camped two legions outside the walls of this riverside settlement. As commerce between him and the Fregans was regular, the gates of his camp and the town were always open. One night, however, the Tenth's watchmen heard a lot of unusual noise in the darkness. At first light, they discovered that all the locals outside the walls had either slunk away or slithered into the city.

And Fregum's gates were shut, for the first time since the legions' arrival.

The duty watchmen did not even pause to debate with each other on what had happened. They sent someone to wake the legate. He materialised within minutes of the call, disgruntled but otherwise alert. One look outside and he ordered the most senior centurion on duty to wake everybody.

Not long after, two heralds came up to shouting distance of the Fregan gates. Thrice they demanded these be opened. The first two times there was no response. The third time, however, the heralds were treated to a small warning volley.

The heralds backed their mounts from the arrows in the ground and rode away. Soon they rode back with a third rider. It was Shohei, who asked the Fregans for an explanation. Finally the Fregans deputed a herald of their own, and they called down an answer.

They feel that we've been deceiving them with our levies of grain, his report to the commander said. Apparently, they suspect our real intention to be to have them starve even as we pretend peace. They say they're close to siege rations anyway with what we're leaving them, so they might as well bear a siege rather than see us take the rest eventually.

You may imagine what I wished I could say to this, but I took the calm approach first. I reminded them of the treaty they signed with us, which bore oaths to their gods as well as ours. I recalled all the conditions in our contract, which included the benefits they were poised to receive as thanks for the alliance. I even reminded them of the fact that I have two legions, whereas they have no army in their walls or immediately within reach. To no effect.

I've already begun investment of the town. Zanki-san said she would send up a little spare grain that she managed to find in her territory. Shizuma-san also offered to send her auxiliary cavalry my way.

I declined the latter. Much of the land around Fregum turns out to be wet meadow and I emphasize the "wet" at the moment. It's so soft right now that cavalry won't be a help. It does explain why the more important Carsinian aristocrats are elsewhere. On the bright side, it also means I won't have to reckon with a relief force for the city. After all, the Carsinii are horsemen and they wouldn't be able to do much good here.

I'll write another letter soon and keep you updated.

So Shizuru was content to let events develop at Fregum without her intervention. When three weeks passed without the town falling, though, she went to Fregum herself.

Her first question to her legate was not actually about the progress of the siege.

"How are the legionaries eating?"

Shohei had expected this. One did not soldier for the woman without learning that she worried more about her soldiers' welfare than for her legates'. Her assumption being, he thought, that legates should be more than capable of caring for themselves.

"They're eating, General, though I'm rationing the grain. We're leaving the salt pork since there's fish. Fortunately, there's a lot of it in the river."

"No legionary likes eating mostly fish too long."

"None of them do." He was sick of it himself. Like the soldiers, he was already hankering for more bread to be put on the menu again. "We're also doing heavy foraging aside from the siegework. The entire Twelfth is out on forage duty this second, and some of the Tenth are fishing over there."

She looked at the group he indicated, which was below them.

Fregum was on a long and gently elevated stretch of land next to the River Dulio, but it was far from occupying the entirety of this plateau. There had been sufficient space for Shohei to build his camp on it, although his was farther from the river. Fregum—or part of its walls, anyway—actually appeared to touch the water, by comparison.

"We're still in good shape, despite it all," Shohei told his commander. "Even if some Carsinii do get it into their heads to relieve the Fregans—which I doubt, as I said in my letter—we shouldn't be in too much trouble. I reinforced the camp, to be on the safe side. It's also high up enough that we've a good view of what's around us, and I've scouts running tight patrols. That's why I've managed to dedicate more of the men to siege and forage operations than usual. Less worry about maintaining a heavy guard."

Shizuru hummed and started to walk.

"Tell me from the start," she ordered.

He followed her and her order. They did a circuit of the plateau's edge nearest the camp, which he knew was because she was checking what defence measures he had put up. She had agreed with him that the Carsinii were unlikely to try to relieve the Fregans. Still, she was a "just-in-case" sort of general. She naturally expected him to be the same.

"Then the Fregans dragged all of their stores inside with them," he said at the end of his account. "The structures, they left behind. We dismantled everything for materiel, but you can still see the tracks and pits where some bigger structures were outside of their walls."

Shizuru approved of how thoroughly the legions had stripped the plateau. Nearly everything aside from the town and the camp had been torn down.

"That is what you used to build those?" she asked.

She was eyeing the big towers he had put up by the river. There were two pairs of them, with a tower on either bank for each pair.

"Do the city's walls run right to the edge?" she added to her enquiry.

"Yes and yes, but not these main walls. These walls—they're pretty thick, by the way—go around the city on that side, well away from where the plateau slopes toward the water. But there are also smaller walls that start from that big wall and go down to the banks. The space bounded by those smaller ones makes a little protected port for their use."

Which explained why he had not infiltrated the city that way. There would be a second, bigger wall to reckon with even if they managed to land a party on the bank enclosed by the smaller walls.

"We built the towers just where the water enters and exits their stretch of riverside," he went on to say. "We manned them with bowmen and ballistae. They've stopped most of their attempts at sending boats out since they first saw the damage those can throw at them."

"Most?" she echoed.

He looked disconsolate.

"It's one of our problems, Fujino-san."

"Just one of them?" she asked, eyes twinkling. Relief filled him at the sight of it. "Take me around so I can see the work on the siege side. Did you ram the gate?"

"Yes, but they broke the rams' heads off with beams. You can see the winches they were using to drop the beams, at the top of those front walls. I would have tried firing the gate, but—well, you see the weather."

Until then both had been ignoring the weak drizzle. The mist-like spray was ice cold, but neither so much as lifted a hand to shield against it. Besides, they were in winter gear and sagi, both of which had seen many a legionary through torrential rains. A winter drizzle was nothing. Or had to be nothing.

Shohei would personally have preferred to get under a roof already, but was obliged to stay out of doors if the general was. He knew she was slightly off-colour because most of her responses thus far had been short, if polite. Now was not the time for him to betray any thoughts of personal comfort.

"Before you tell me about the river," she said. "I hear you summoned captives from Heluvio?"

She had encountered a courier from Zanki, the legate stationed there, while on her way to him.

"Yes, for use in the siege," he said. "We had some captives billeted there and waiting for their slavers. I asked for two hundred of the oldest or weakest ones and had them conveyed here."

"Go on."

"When they arrived, we forced them towards Fregum. Spread the cohorts in an arc around the place. If they got near the towers by the river or near the soldiers, I said, they would be killed. Their only chance to live was to run towards the town and beg the Fregans to grant them safety."

He smiled broadly at her expression, pleased because she was even just a little pleased.

"And did they let them in?" she asked, knowing the answer.

"They were fellow Carsinii—it was hard to say no."

"How sentimental! But how have these added mouths not made Fregum more anxious about its future?"

His smile dripped away with the rivulet of water running down his face.

"They have, but not enough," he admitted.

"Are you certain they are not holding out hope for a rescue party?"

"We can't discount it, Fujino-san, but I have people posted at the likeliest places. We should know if something's coming, and as of yet, I'm confident nothing is."

"Then there is something else from which they derive optimism."

"There is. It's the boats."

"Ah, so we return to the problem of the river."

She stopped and turned to gaze at it. The day was grey and greasy, with just a few scudding wisps of white. As a result, the river was nearly opaque and it looked a very dark blue from where the pair stood.

"Your towers look good," she assessed. "So do the other entrenchments, even from here."

To dissuade the Fregans from crossing the river for escape, Shohei had constructed three more towers on the opposite bank facing the settlement. These were linked to each other by wooden palisades. Similar palisades also linked them to the taller, paired towers Shizuru had eyed earlier. The effect was a long and walled section of riverside that was guarded by artillery- and archer-manned lookouts.

"They do not try to ferry people across with all that over there, I trust?"

"They don't now. Not after the first failed attempts."

She was walking again, this time towards the river, and he took a double-step to make up the space. He was not a small man, but she was taller.

"What they haven't given up on are the boats and whatnot coming in to help them," Shohei explained. "The little fishing boats they use in these parts can still come in at night. The shooting's tougher then, even if we light every torch we have on the towers. Usually the boats are bringing foodstuff, small amounts to supplement what the Fregans have in there. We think they're bringing weapons too, because there's been an increase in the number of bowmen on the walls lately."

He thrust his chin at the river before them.

"The Dulio flows into the Holmys north of here," he said. "Sometimes, the Fregans try to send boats and people there. We shoot arrows and plug them with as many artillery bolts as we can. The boom helps."

He was pointing to a thick cable floating on the water. It was strung between two of the taller towers, which explained why they were in pairs. Shizuru looked to the other pair, the one upriver of Fregum's port, and saw there was no boom there.

All she had to do was lift her eyebrow.

"There was one yesterday, General," he said. "They cut it down last night. Divers."

"I see. It would be hard to shoot those."

"Especially when it's gone dark, or even if only when the weather's cloudy, like it is now. It's one thing to shoot something on top of the water and another to shoot something actually under it. But we'll rig another boom there soon."

He frowned at the boom-less pair of towers.

"Trouble is, even if they don't cut them off, the booms don't do enough," he admitted. "They can't stop the divers, and there seem to be a lot of them willing to go in even in this cold to aid the Fregans. Oh, I hope their balls freeze and drop off in that water!"

Shizuru looked at him. "And if they are women?"

"Well, I suppose their breasts can go then."

"Fitting," she said. "From what you say, I gather some boats make it past the boom. I suppose the smallest ones can be lifted over or slipped under it?"

He affirmed her supposition.

"I hate naval warfare," he confessed.

A smile broke out on her face.

"You never did duty on a naval mission, did you, Shohei-han?"

"Edepol, no, General! Never!"

"Ah—is it nausea?"

"Something terrible. I can't stand all the bobbing and swaying."

"Bobbing and swaying," she repeated mirthfully. "That seems as good an answer as any, now you mention it."

He turned to look at her, wondering what was going on in that unique mind now. She was looking at the swift waters and still ignoring the rain. Her hair was not plastered to her head but there was already enough wetness for it to be darkened. Even with water rolling down her cheeks she looked perfect.

"Go ahead with the boom," she told him, smoothing her wet fringe back until it vanished. "But before you string it up, bring in the other one too. Then have the length of each cable decorated."

"I... decorated?"

"Decorated. People always did say I liked pretty things." She turned and made for the camp. Again he took a double-step to catch up. "Let us get out of this rain so I can tell you what decorations I fancy."

She fancied longswords and the blades on the Mentulaean falces, it appeared. She had the soldiers string up dozens and dozens of these on each boom with thick rope, taking them from the piles collected from the enemy dead in past battles and skirmishes. These were combined with the sharp and fire-toughened stakes that the legionaries called stimuli.

By the time the booms were fully ornamented, Shohei knew both the boats and divers were finished.

"All that 'bobbing and swaying' will actually make these more effective," his commander told him. "The current will keep those blades waving enough to be dangerous even for the cautious. No swimmer will dare come near them now—and in this cold and with that current, no diver will dare swim where it is low enough to fully avoid them."

She left shortly after the booms went up, but not before giving him another piece of instruction.

"I want this town taken, Shohei-han, and my boys and girls in it for the winter. I want every Fregan in those walls taken prisoner as an example. They broke their oath in broad daylight and my legions have suffered for it."

She walked him to a map of the town and area.

"As soon as I leave, get the Tenth working on a wall here," she pointed it out to him. "Four metres high, going this way. Work at the double, as though you plan to surround the town in your siege."

He looked at the imaginary lines her finger had ghosted on the parchment, then to her face.

"Only 'as though', Fujino-san?"

"Do it with frenzy enough and they shall surrender before you are four days in," she said to him. "Appearances, Shohei-han—you must appear willing to do anything and everything to win. When they see you going as far as that, they will give in. Then you can occupy the place and take whatever provisions or possessions remain. Time to show these people we take treaties seriously."

She learned later in Gorgo that Fregum surrendered after only two days of vigorous wall-building. Her legate did as instructed and emptied the town of its inhabitants. Unwilling to waste precious resources on their imprisonment, Shizuru sold the Fregans in a single wailing lot to one of the biggest slavers. The town's leaders were not among these, however: suspecting their fates, they had all elected suicide.

Harsh punishment, she told her lover, but just in light of the circumstances. All her work would be jeopardised if she let declared treaty-breakers pass with impunity. Added to which was the fact that Himean treaties were solemn contracts before the deities and spirits. The actions of the Fregans were thus also technically blasphemies. A double-violation had been made and accordingly punished.

Her auditor, who had a way of asking her things others would not, asked such a thing very simply.

"Would you still have sold them all if they had not made a treaty?"

Shizuru considered her lover with fiery eyes.

"No," she admitted. "Only the healthy ones between the ages fifteen and forty-five."

The younger woman hummed and went back to her reading.

"Such is war," she said coolly.

Not long after the episode of Fregum Shizuru got word from the senior legate. She had, the woman wrote, won a battle against the Carsinii. The commander rode for Lanius at once and left Gorgo in the care of her legate, Toshi.

"We trounced them. What did you expect?" Shizuma stated when asked of the happenings.

The commander eyed her cousin tiredly. She had ridden very hard to get to Lanius without any delay.

"I was hoping for rather more detail," she said, refusing the wine a servant offered. Her cousin sent the slave away and she demanded: "What manner of missive was that you sent? You only said there had been a big battle with them and you won, 'basically'!"

"It was the basics! Anyway, I thought you would understand what I left unsaid, which was that I was composing a more detailed account to send as soon as it was finished. That one you got was just the one I scribbled after the fighting was done. If you'd waited a little more, you'd have received this soon."

She dropped two very fat scrolls on the table, where they rolled apart from each other. One came towards Shizuru and she stopped it with a touch.

"Why did it take so long to compose these?" she asked more softly, mollified. "Did other events take place that had to be included in the accounts or are your scribes just especially slow at taking dictation?"

The other woman dropped into the chair opposite, still looking supremely sardonic.

"So long? It's only been a few days, Shizuru," she said disgustedly. "I know your obsession with speed, but you take it a touch far. Nothing could have been lost or was lost in the days of writing these. And I know your obsession with thoroughness as well, so I endeavoured to list every detail I could in these missives. That way you could add whatever you thought pertinent to the records you send the Senate."

She let a moment pass before adding: "Although I will admit that my personal scribe is still a little slow, actually."

Some moments passed before Shizuru caught it.

"Ecastor!" she said under her breath. Then more loudly: "I thought you were planning to seduce that girl, not train her to be a secretary."

"Who says I cannot do both?"

"I do. I am still commander of this army." The red eyes regarded her in exasperation. "I honestly do not mind you seducing her, Shizuma. That was the thought from the beginning. But could you not use someone more accustomed to scribework when it comes to taking down your reports or else scribble them yourself? That way you get letters to me faster. You can still do whatever you like with her outside of that, even if it does give you slightly less excuse to call on her company while discharging your duties. But you hardly need her company then, after all—I thought the point was to use her for something simpler."

It was, I thought it was, Shizuma nearly said, but what came from her mouth instead was this: "Very well, if you like. I have been using more than a few others of late with the simplicity you recommend, though."

A split eyebrow lifted: "Not my recommendation, but your habit, in truth."

"More so than usual, is what I was trying to say."

She thought her younger cousin's eyes could sometimes feel like drills in your brain.

"I see," said younger cousin answered. "This is related to what happened with the Carsinii?"

Shizuma bobbed her head.

"We knew of the Carsinii's resistance to our occupation," she reminded, although there was no need for it. "The trouble was that they seemed content to cooperate even as they grumbled, so we lacked chances to put the most truculent down. All keeping their heads low, the canny wretches."

Shizuru agreed and settled herself more comfortably in her seat.

"I remember I told you I suspected them of doing it to buy time," she replied, folding her hands on her lap. "I thought they were just waiting to get enough of their fighters mustered and armed before unleashing their true protest."

"And I agreed with you. I remember."

The question of the Carsinii had been troubling them all winter. Though calm and obliging on the surface, these people had caused the cousins much misgiving. Ghost wagons making tracks at night, conspicuously armament-free cellars and storehouses. Too many furtive glances behind too much acquiescence, horse herds occasionally doubling overnight at the local pastures. Something big was coming—they just did not know when or how big it would have grown by then.

In their previous discussions of it, both had agreed that it would be better for that thing to come sooner. The longer the Carsinii had to prepare, the more troops they would be able to field for a fight. That they were compelled to do it covertly helped, as it slowed down what might have otherwise been a rapid muster. Even so, it was their land and they had potential recruits always close by. By contrast, the Himean legions were not only far from reinforcements but under standard numbers.

This was the predicament Shizuru had assigned her cousin. Not unwisely, it must be said: she was no blind nepotist to judge her relative's abilities above where they were. Shizuma understood this faith in her and appreciated it enough to give the problem all she had. All she had was a lot—and it included an already notorious talent for seducing women.

"I included in my letters the names and positions of all those I took to bed," she said in telling her story. "Although I do think it would be kinder not to mention them explicitly in the official dispatches. Or do you think that necessary as well?"

"Oh, I think we can preserve their anonymity," Shizuru said with a tone of fascination. "So you focused on the wives and lovers of the Carsinii's leaders, you are saying?"

"Or their near female relatives. In some cases, I even went for the local leaders themselves. But that didn't always work out."

"How so?"

"They had to be the ones I wronged, as opposed to their relations or spouses. Thus I had to be sure to cause great offence afterwards to drive them away and into anger. But not all people turn to rage when their hearts are broken that way. Some just – how do you put it – they just become sad, don't they?"

The younger woman let a moment pass.

"Yes," she concurred. "Some just do that."

Shizuma lifted her hands and took the ribbon she was using to tie back her hair. The silvery mass settled on her shoulders like a cape. She combed it with her fingers, then retied it into the queue she had just undone.

"Well, at least it worked fine on the others, I think," she continued, drawling again. "Though it was a little troublesome. I had to sleep with them while concealing weapons. They could have tried to murder me in bed, for all we know."

Out peeked Shizuru's smile: "That would have been an explosive start to their revolt."

"Not one I would have welcomed, thank you very much." The senior legate looked grim, and in her standard legatal armour, Shizuru thought it made it her look very military. "Anyway, wronged women make excellent mouthpieces for denunciation. That much is the same here as it is back home. Opinions of the foreign legate—and by extension, her legions—plummeted faster than Vulcan cast into the sea."

She reached for her cup on the table and took a sip of water.

"When I judged the time right I sent a disguised rider to Heluvio, one of my best men."

"You were afraid the Carsinii would interrupt your courier? Had they ever done so?"

"No, they hadn't, but I wanted to be sure. In the letter I explained my plan to Zanki-san and asked her to march the Eighth on the double and to a location I indicated. Do it the first day of the week coming up, I said. I also asked her to send back as bedraggled a rider as she could after she got my missive. He had to be in military uniform and had to be carrying a note that he would proclaim to any soldier within hearing to be urgent and for the senior legate. The actual contents of the note I cared nothing about – I said she could draw a dirty picture on it if she wished."

A loud chuckle: "I doubt Zanki-han could draw anything dirty even if I ordered it."

"She's frightfully clean, isn't she?" Shizuma made a face. "Little wonder we'd never met until this."

The commander's grin was bright: "A self-arraignment, if ever there were one."

"I was heading you off on it. But seriously, I cannot get over how... principled she is."

"I think what you cannot get over is that you like her despite that."

"It's hard not to. She's principled but somehow not judgmental. Or is it 'honourable'?" Her sometimes-green-sometimes-gold eyes narrowed, but with obvious mirth. "Do you know what she wrote in the note she sent me?"

"Surely not a dirty picture?"

"Surely not. Let me think." She paused to rehearse it in her head before reciting: "'Let me not then die ingloriously and without struggle, but let me first do some great thing that shall be told among men thereafter.'"

Shizuru's grin grew even brighter at this.

"The Iliad," she identified with delight. "How apt. One does find in her the virtues of Hector—but, we pray, none of his fate."

"None of it thus far, as it turned out," the senior legate said in response. "After she sent me that note, I sent the auxiliary cavalry out. I'd already informed them of the plan, so they knew what to do and where to hide and wait."

"Next it was our turn, so I marched out of camp with the Third," she went on. "Helter-skelter we went, as though we were in such a hurry to get somewhere we had forgotten all our discipline. Can you imagine how tempting we must have looked to the rebellious Carsinii, the crests on our helms askew and our formation in apparent disarray? How could they have stood it, goodness me?"

Shizuru laughed at her cousin's lazy sarcasm.

"Going from what you said, they did not."

"No, they truly didn't. The first groups hectored the rear of my column the same day we marched. I ordered the Third to march in a tighter position then, as if frightened. Still they followed in our seeming retreat from Lanius, harassing us all the way. They'd been marshalled together so abruptly, though, that they only ever managed to make short sallies. The rest of them were still catching up to us, so we knew they could hardly supply a coherent attack."

"Soon we made it to the spot I'd marked out for the battle," she said. "There's a tributary of the Holmys a little way up from here. I took the Third there until we had the water on one of our flanks. Then we about-faced and stood ground to face the Carsinii lining up opposite."

Shizuru attempted to fill in the rest: "And when they tried to outflank you by riding for the side not protected by the river, the Otomeian cavalry showed up?"

"Yes, I'd had them behind a nearby ridge." Shizuma smiled in reminiscence, some wayward locks of whitish hair making her look somewhat raffish. "The Carsinii were in such a rush to catch up with us that they never bothered sending out scouts as soon as the first ones saw the Third's tail. The auxiliary cavalry, which they'd thought sent to Heluvio, was a nasty surprise when it appeared out of nowhere."

"Was it a hard battle?"

Shizuma took another sip of water before answering.

"Not at all," she said, and without conceit. "They had no notion that we could possibly be prepared for them. Since they were attacking far earlier than they had planned, they were badly organised. Absolutely no battle plan—the mere sight of the auxiliary threw them into chaos. Then Zanki-san arrived with the Eighth in the last hours of daylight. We rolled them up then, chasing them all the way back here."

"Numbers?"

"The Carsinii fielded four alae of horse and near six thousand foot."

Up went Shizuru's eyebrows. "Good numbers, considering circumstances."

"Very good for winter. Had we waited until spring, there would have been ten times more."

The Carsinii around Lanius would have been able to call on all their kinsmen and fellows in the warmer season, which would indeed have expanded the number of enemy troops drastically. But this latest defeat would make other would-be rebels think twice before orchestrating anything again.

For the near future anyway, the general thought. And a month later—who knows? It depends on so many things. I did tell Natsuki it takes time. At least this means the Carsinii will be lying low for a while. We headed them off before they could work up a good amount of steam.

It pleased her enormously that her cousin should have had such a victory. It had been intelligent and daring and not without Shizuma's brand of rakishness spicing it. It was something that she could write into her dispatches with relish. Such good material for reading out loud, and to such lovers of gossipy stories as the Senate! The senators would learn the quality of the woman they had apostrophised as nothing but an apathetic philanderer fallen by chance into a plum legateship.

Although she did cultivate that opinion herself before this campaign, she shrugged mentally.

"All of it sounds well done, Cousin," she said, before editing herself. "No, forgive me, that sounded as though I were making light of it, and I am not. I think everything was brilliant, from the way you precipitated their premature attack to the way you ensured its miscarriage. I could not have done better myself."

"The highest praise from a Fujino," the other said in good humour. "But thank you, General. Shan't you ask what I did with the ringleaders?"

"I was about to. How did you catch them?"

"Merely in the course of battle," Shizuma answered. "Of course, we cannot be certain they were the true masterminds of this petty insurrection. Those might have slipped away when the battle turned. They might even have elected not to come. But if an aristocrat or someone considered a town leader is found in a battlefield, one may assume with fair reason that he is part of the command, can one not?"

Shizuru concurred.

"So all of those who could claim such high status among our captives I separated," the senior legate concluded. "I clapped them in chains, charged them with treason for conspiring in armed revolt, and shuffled them off to Miyuki's camp in secret. I would have kept them here until you arrived, but I had no idea when that would happen. It was a risk holding them here for any amount of time. Local feeling, you understand."

"Yes, it was wise to send them off." Shizuru angled her head to one side and shut her eyes. "When they signed those treaties with us they became subjects of a Himean general governing a wartime province—one still being carved out, at that. Exact precedents are thin, but if we go from similar ones I can carry out judgment entirely by myself."

"Shan't you?"

"I could. Or I could hold a formal trial."

The senior legate blinked. Then she cackled the laughter of the incredulous.

"Whatever for?" she cried, striving to negotiate the vertiginous heights of her cousin's odd reason. "You said yourself, this is wartime and an annexation! Military rule operates. There is no need for the usual civilian formalities."

"Perhaps, but I am attempting to build faith in a new state and government," Shizuru replied. "Although you are right—military rule is in operation. It is still too early for such things. Only a thought." A lift of her eyebrows. "Did you interrogate them before they went?"

"Yes, but they were stout rebels all. Refused to say much save to inveigh against our 'foreign oppression'."

"Local oppression being so much more preferable," Shizuru grinned.

"I doubt we could have learned anything too useful from them, anyway, that the battle did not already make clear. The upshot being that we were right in being wary of the Carsinii."

The senior legate paused abruptly and threw an indecipherable look at her cousin.

"You saw the wagons being brought in when you arrived?" came her query.

Shizuru had. These were the huge wagons with very tall sides, capable of carrying great loads and expressly made to be pulled by oxen. Mules could not have moved such wagons when they were at full capacity.

"A welcome sight," she said. She knew what was in them since they were fixtures of army campaigns. "Where did you get the grain, Cousin?"

"From the towns and cities of our captured aristocrats," Shizuma replied. "I levied double the amount of grain from these as indemnity, though I deprived none of their homes or liberty given that there was no way of proving their complicity with their leaders' attack. They may well starve, but at least they are alive to do something about it—forage and beg, for instance. Not fight, fortunately. Fighting takes a full stomach."

Shizuru said that was so and commended the senior legate again for her deft resolution. The next day, riding back to Gorgo with her escort, she mulled over her cousin's reply.

It's all temporary, the silver-haired woman had cautioned. These people still have more fight in them, and all I did was tamp it down until it comes shooting up again. You know who else agrees with me in that respect? The frozen salt lick—Natsuki's cousin. She didn't want to just double the amount of grain we were requisitioning. She was for taking all of it and burning down the towns I punished. In fact, she favours the idea of burning down every settlement in this territory.

Princess Alyssa had suggested to the senior legate that the Carsinii be wiped from future history. If they did not exist they would no longer cause problems, whether by supplying troops to the empire or by assaulting the legions themselves. It was true, Shizuru admitted, that it would be simpler: but it was not necessarily the right approach. There were Carsinii in the area who seemed to genuinely want to work with the invaders. There were even some who had suffered from loyalists for their support of the Himean annexation.

These had to be preserved, as far as Shizuru was concerned. They formed the backbone of the new province she was hoping to build. She was not incapable of denuding a land of its people and introducing new ones as replacements. But that was the last resort for dealing with recalcitrance, not the first.

I'd be stupid not to observe that the Carsinian territories are horselands, Shizuma had said. Or not to observe that the Otomeians are a people who love their horses. Or not to observe too, come to it, that the people next to us and on the other side of the Holmys now have treaties with the Otomeian throne. Do you observe these things as well or do I over-read your lover's cousin, Cousin?

As a matter of fact, Shizuru thought the senior legate read that woman perfectly.