Irina revealed the Prince of Blue Thieves to the table from the top of her card deck and showed it to the other players before leaving it in the center of the table face-up. The card depicted a man in a brocaded navy coat flicking his wrist with the belt of a woman’s robe in his hand, the end of which was whisking the dressing gown off of a very-surprised looking woman. Arlo clicked his tongue, but not because he was shocked by the lascivious nature of the cards anymore. Now he was just annoyed that he was saddled with another card from the Thieves suit when the entire round had passed thus far and not a single Knights or Mages card had entered his possession.
“Thieves and Scholars are all you seem to be getting this morning,” chuckled the softspoken man in the embroidered satin and velvet robe to Arlo’s left as he reached forward with a hand of nearly-transparent skin in dark goldenrod with barely-visible violet formations flowing through the golden fog within. It being Arlo’s third time breakfasting with the wallrunner, the man’s otherworldly skin and ethereal, aquamarine marble eyes no longer disturbed him. Instead, it was the way he always seemed to win when the three of them played Attack and Defend. Perhaps it was also the way that Arlo was never sure when the mutant was looking at him, or maybe even that he suspected the wallrunner could look right through his cards. In fact, in moments like these Arlo had to try and focus on the things he did like about the man in order to keep from letting these games of cards ruin a budding friendship. His fine manner of dress, for instance.
Most ships on the Ten Thousand Seas did not carry a member of the Gilded Ice Society in direct company and at all times like the Sunseeker did, but there were a few exceptions. The Divine Orderhood had a secretive cloister of loyal Imperial wallrunners called the Emerald Frost Order who would accompany Imperial Navy ships on their highest priority missions. Then there were the more successful clans. Great Houses of a certain size made such extensive use of the Gilded Ice Society that they were often leant a few individual wallrunners on retainer to live aboard their most important ships.
The man sitting to Arlo’s left at one of the simple wooden tables in the sunlit stern gallery that acted as the officer’s mess was one of the latter variety. His hair, or what seemed to be his hair, was a long thick braid almost entirely white at the moment, but it had been a pinkish hue when he had first arrived. It always seemed to match the shade of the sky or more precisely the shade of the particular watch session of the day.
“So you’re still sitting on defenders only? I take it you pass on attacking again, then, hey princeling?” asked Irina, looking somewhat irritated herself. She reached into the greatcoat hanging over the chair behind her and rifled through her pockets before returning with a brass lighter covered in geometric patterns. One more impatient glance at Arlo and then she was sticking her arm out to the amber-skinned mutant, the upturned hand her lighter was on flipping up and down in a beckoning motion. “C’mon Satai, gi’us a fag, will ya?”
The mutant smirked at her and held up a gilt cigarette case with a questioning look. He was clearly toying with her. “Are you talking about these, Rina? Aren’t you worried it might ruin your ladylike complexion if you smoke too much?”
The Tribune made a show of tapping the tattoo on her left cheek while tugging at the collar on the right side of her neck, as though the huge burn scar overlapping her jaw and temple wasn’t obvious enough without her exposing the wrinkly, melted together scar tissue that ran down her neck and onto her collar bone. “I think I’ll be alright, mate, don’t you?”
Chuckling, Satai cracked open the case and produced two slender red-tipped cigarettes with dark violet paper and a thin foil ring. They looked like the kind of thing that Arlo had seen Limiters smoking in exclusive clubs near the city where he’d gone to school. The sort of thing one usually had a servant carry around for them. Although his family was well-off even without his mother’s connection to a great house, Arlo had been raised not to dabble in such wild ostentation. It was considered downright un-Imperial. But then, a member of the Gilded Ice Society was no Imperial. Arlo suspected this was Irina’s real reason for soliciting the things, her rampant craving for the persecution and reduction of wealth in any place she could find it. Though with that said, the woman also seemed to smoke anything that she could lay fingers on. Arlo had just witnessed her the day before using the notch in her boarding axe to cut the chewed end off a used cigar that had no discernable provenance. For himself, Arlo would typically smoke what was offered to him and nothing else, and despite his curiosity about the red-tipped cigarettes that Satai was smoking Arlo was happy that he hadn’t been offered one as he discarded his Knave of Blue Thieves to make room for the Prince.
“I pass on my attack.” Arlo said to nobody’s surprise and then reached into the deck to draw another card. The Maiden of Red Scholars presented herself: a bespectacled, dark-skinned, and busty woman who was being forced to hide her shame with nothing but red-bound books and failing fairly spectacularly. Arlo showed the card to the table and put it down. Satai picked it up and, it being of the lowest value in his color he tossed it immediately onto the discard pile before playing The King of Red Mages. Although Arlo was by now somewhat prepared for most of the cards, he still found himself blushing slightly at how His Majesty was using the end of his mystical staff in quite a rude way on the girl from the Maiden of Red Thieves card.
“I attack Irina.” Satai announced with a broad grin on his face as he pushed the card forward. Irina shuffled through her cards and brought out the King of Green Knights who was in the boudoir of the Queen of Green Mages doing something that made necessitated cartoon sweat drops be drawn above his bucking head. They each swept their card off the table and into the draw pile mechanically while Arlo waved the smoke away. He was on the verge of backing out altogether when the pounding of feet came from the galley and the swinging doors at the head of the chamber ejaculated a dazed-looking Placelle Lamella into the room. The Oathkeeper was not, thankfully, tromping around the ship in her shift the way she tromped around their cabin; but her armor was not present. Pragmatically, she had taken to wearing only a sleeveless tunic, her baggy linen trousers, and her worn thin-soled boots around the Sunseeker. Of course, the case-hardened grip of the Oath in its holster and the warhammer in its frog were still ever-present on the woman’s person, lingering like a subtle threat.
She let her detached, bovine gaze lazily pan around the room, though it was mostly empty. The scattered round wooden tables had been occupied by officers and even a few of the senior enlisted men not long before, but unlike the layabouts who had no work on the ship and could play cards all morning, they had been forced to vacate sooner. Placelle Lamella waved idly at the one startled warrant officer left by himself at a table, a man who had come off his night watch and was too busy writing a letter to go to bed quite yet. She then let her gaze drift to Arlo and padded up to him with her customary gentle smile.
“Good morning, Arlo.” she greeted him first softly with an affectionate squeeze of his shoulder before turning to the others, “Madame Rathbone, Master Mirana.”
“You hear that, Rina?” chuckled Satai with a clear derision in his voice, “She’s on a first name basis with the boy, but us grownups have to make do with formalities.”
Irina was likewise sneering, having never really disguised her distaste for Placelle Lamella. She flicked the braid from one side of her neck to the other and unconsciously double-checked to make sure she had returned her collar to cover herself after showing the scar before while her penetrating eye seemed to traverse the Oathkeeper from head-to-toe. “I don’t mind a bit of respect from the likes of her, if you ask me, Satai.” she remarked with her eyes still on the larger woman, “I doubt Arlo enjoys getting fed on all day while she’s following him around, so maybe we’re the lucky ones.”
“Unless it’s as you said,” panned Satai cattily while looking playful mischief at Arlo, “And she’s sucking off him in more ways than one.”
Placelle Lamella surprisingly colored upon hearing the comment, but she did not react in any other substantial way. Her smile shrunk only slightly and her eyes continued their dull, half-lidded stare. Arlo, on the other hand, merely threw his cards down with a sigh and made ready to get to his feet.
Over the last three days he had slowly gotten used to the little hate-triangle developing between the Tribune, the wallrunner, and the Oathkeeper. Placelle Lamella seemed unable to feed off Satai Mirana; which was fine enough for her on a ship full of perpetually anxious, excited, lonely, or joyful sailors– only, it also meant she was unable to read his emotions like she was everybody else; which seemed to leave her feeling uncharacteristically distrusting of the mutant. Meanwhile, the mutant himself seemed to be a lodestone of snark and ill-will. He seemed to always dote on Arlo despite his jabs, yet rankle at the women except when he could unite with Irina to bully Placelle Lamella. And Irina; for all her glowing parts as a Tribune, clearly held some disdain towards any heartleech, even one as highly-placed as their own. So, after the first disastrous breakfast with the three of them at once, Arlo had elected to give Placelle Lamella busy work before he sat down in an attempt to chill the table somewhat the following two mornings.
This explained why the Oathkeeper had a pair of freshly darned stockings tucked into her belt next to her hammer. Arlo leaned back in his chair and took them from her with a very genial lie, “Thank you, Lady Oathkeeper, they look great.”
The seam was crooked as with all the seams she’d sewn, but Arlo mollified himself by noting that the stitch was at least very strong. Of course, no sooner did he have his stockings back in hand than Satai was yanking them away from him with an oddly effeminate squeal of revulsion. “Are you really wearing these threadbare things, Arlo? Why don’t you come to my quarters and let me give you one or two of my spares, princeling? Men of our station should be well-appointed.”
“The station I was appointed to was as Warrant Agent for House Haradin,” Arlo panned back with a wry smirk of his own. He pushed his chair into a set of grooves cut into the bottom of the table to hold onto its armrests and said, “But maybe after lunch I could stop by.”
“Aw,” Whined Satai while he shuffled Irina’s cards in preparation to play her head-on, “I’m afraid I’ll be busy after lunch, little prince. Or did you forget I’m actually going to have to do my job for a change today?”
The entire reason why Satai Mirana was even aboard the Sunseeker was that without him in the engine room attuned to the lifestone in the engine, the ship wouldn’t be able to wallrun. It was the man’s only purpose; and if the rumors were to be believed about his Society, it was in fact what he had been bred for. Without mutants to wallrun them, lifestone engines were not much different from methsel engines at twice the price. Arlo had forgotten this of course. Captain Hardwick had explained on his first day aboard that they would be wallrunning on the third or fourth day, but in Arlo’s mind Satai was just a fabulous man living leisurely aboard the destroyer; a sort of well-to-do version of himself on the Lemur.
“Right, it slipped my mind.” said Arlo apologetically with a quick half-bow. “But you must forgive me, I did promise to practice swordsmanship with the commander of the Sunseeker’s House Guards.”
When they were in the passageway on their way out of the officers’ mess, Arlo wrapped the stockings up and tucked them into one pocket of his waistcoat while telling Placelle Lamella, “I don’t know why you three can’t get along. Every time I’m in the same room with all of you at once, it’s like I’ve accidentally sat down to eat in the middle of a firefight.”
“I’m sorry, Arlo. I’ll try to be better.” argued the Oathkeeper following close behind him, and when he glanced over his shoulder she did seem genuinely remorseful. Something in him hated the indignity of it, this woman who could probably crush his head until he died acting so pitiful under his criticism. Not that he felt he was wrong, but she could’ve stood to wield a small share of grace in the face of his complaints instead of folding immediately into guilt and regret.
“What troubles me,” Arlo went on with his hands crossed behind his back while they walked through the corridor, “Is that you’re the best among the three. Those two have no problem showing their teeth to you, but I can tell you’re still agitated.”
“It’s because Master Mirana said The Goddess was not really divine.” protested Placelle Lamella, looking and sounding like a crushed kitten. “He said she was probably just some kind of mutant like he is, or beastfolk are, or maybe even that she was fake. And nobody said anything to him, they just let him say that about Her Most Divine Majesty.”
They walked to the hatch that would take them outside and Arlo rested one hand on its handle at a half-turn, keeping his eyes firm on the Oathkeeper so she could see the firm, but kind nature of his expression while he told her, “He is not Corovokian, Placelle Lamella. He is not like us, and his people have their own way of looking at things. I know your cathedral was far to the east, so you probably don’t have much experience with foreigners; but I was raised in the frontier and I should tell you that there are even some islands in the empire that do not worship Her Majesty the same way as you or even me– I, who am already so different from you.”
He looked into the Oathkeeper’s eyes for a long moment, trying to decipher her reaction. Her half-lidded gaze always seemed so empty, but she had demonstrated more than once she was paying attention to complicated things. Now she stared back at him with that same almost-reptilian remoteness, her mouth nothing more than a flat line with no expression to it whatsoever. Arlo quirked an eyebrow at her expectantly in hopes of prompting her to some kind of response. When he was stood there holding onto the hatch for long enough, he pressed his back to it and tried, “How do you think it feels for most citizens to never even see their ruler? We have Her works to know Her by, and for some of us that is enough. But it is already so much to tell people that they must believe She is there, She watches, She cares; when most of us have never even been to the mainland. Have you even been?”
It felt like she wasn’t going to respond to that one either, but after a slow upturning of her eyes, Placelle Lamella considered the space above the hatch and then nodded once. “When it was time for me to take my Oaths, I was sent to Corovos. I met with the head of my order, and a High Priestess from the Allchurch.”
Arlo nodded back at her and respectfully crossed his arms over his stomach, spurring her on with, “That must’ve been a tremendous honor.”
Placelle Lamella couldn’t help but blush thinking about it, and it was the first time Arlo had seen her looking bashful. The expression, even with her perpetually-drained eyes, was incredibly fetching on her, and something in him melted when she even raised her hands and delicately fiddled with the fingertips on each one before gushing, goofily, “Yes, it was. I never really felt true pride before or since, and I did not think I could until then.”
“So, you got to see the mainland,” Arlo finished, then turned up one palm to her while he started pulling the handle on the hatch again, “But most people do not.”
“Even better than that, I was permitted to sit on the street outside the Imperial Palace.” Placelle Lamella said next, ducking outside behind Arlo as the chilly wind took both of their ponytails and flicked their hair away from the churning sea on the other side of the taffrail. Arlo wrapped his arms around himself and pulled his bolero tight, wishing he had gone back to his quarters for the ladies’ overcoat, but at least salved himself with the reminder he would soon be sweaty no matter the chill. Placelle Lamella following behind him did not seem to notice the cold at all, and were it not for a certain pair of physiological clues she had prodded him from behind with in her sleep during the previous night, he would’ve thought cold was another one of the many things a heartleech could not feel.
This close to the icewall, it was unlikely that even she would be able to ignore the chill for much longer. However, for the moment her only concession to the wind was to raise her voice and speak over it, “I sat on my knees every night for the entirety of the Life Watch and basked in the light Her Most Divine Majesty puts out! The glow from the windows at the top of the tower is so bright, it lights up the whole city! I’ve never seen anything so bright except for the sun! Praise be to the Jade Queen.”
There was no response from Arlo other than to mutter a quick and comforting ‘she watches’ to himself, though mainly this was because he was sure that whatever he said wouldn’t be heard as he was walking in front. They walked together huddled against the hull with gusts flicking the occasional pebble of ice in the foam coming over the deck until they got to the break between the fore tower and the stern gallery where the buzzers and the Huber Bell were kept. There, Arlo checked over his shoulder as though fearing Placelle Lamella may jump off the ship before hesitating with his hand over the handle to another hatch in the main tower.
This was the worst part of going between the two structures on the weather deck at these latitudes, but Arlo was still deciding whether he preferred it to going up and down shipladders amidships and navigating around the citadel inside. Considering he only had until the end of the next day to really make up his mind about it before things started to get warmer again, Arlo decided to just grasp the handle and turn.
The searing cold bit through his hand until he could get into the door and it felt like he had to peel his skin off to let go of it. Once he was inside again, however, Arlo was at least able to jam his hands under his arms and stamp his feet a little in the empty corridor.
Even better, Placelle Lamella helpfully closed the door behind her and then wrapped her arms around him from behind. Despite how cold the wind was outside and how cold she had to be, she felt incredibly warm against him and around him.
“You’re so cold!” she told him as though he didn’t already know, pressing her cheek against his ear and squeezing him even more tightly.
“Yes, yes, thank you, I am.” he said pitifully yet patiently in her grasp, simultaneously ashamed to be doted on and grateful for her warmth.
They descended a shorter ship ladder into a small gymnasium and common area of sorts that the House Guards called a ‘ready room’, which abutted one wall of the ship’s citadel. It was a tall room with narrow slit windows just beneath the pipeworks and hanging lights that acted as its ceiling. The floor was jet black rubber with a dull sheen and occasional grates for drains unlike the rest of the ship which was either heavy wooden beams or thin steel plating. Spartan, doorless lockers lined starboard and larboard walls, twenty-two to a side filled with a soldier’s full battle kit each. A long bench would normally be placed in front of each bank of lockers, but now those benches were upside-down on top of the lockers. Doors on either side of the forward wall, where the compartment met the Sunseeker’s citadel, led to passageways to the ship’s forecastle where the ratings berthed. Arlo had passed through the rooms on his first day aboard, and found himself surprised at both how unpleasant the banks of bunks seemed and how happy the crewmen who were issued them seemed to be. One had even, upon hearing his misgivings, taken the time to show Arlo that there were many clever cubbies and boxes inside each bunk and that seamen treasured such things especially when the Imperial Navy often allotted only one small bin and stacked their bunks in threes.
Between the doors leading to where Arlo had failed to appreciate this revelation was, functionally, the wall of the ship’s citadel. It was heavy and thick, substantially armored. In the forecastle, the hatches that actually led into it were akin to vault doors. The thick armor inside protected all of the most sensitive parts of the ship: a radiography suite, the magazine where its ammunition was stored, backup lifestone engines mated to the ship’s twin screws which could also be daisy-chained to the primary engines for extra speed in combat, and what modern shipwrights called ‘The Wallrunning Suite’.
The rear wall of the room being of this structure, it seemed to differ from the smooth surfaces of the other walls in the ship. Layered plates and rivets had been required to give it the thickness it desired. They had been primed and painted a flat grey like the rest of the ship, and then out of some desire to further obscure the irregularity a massive House Haradin coat-of-arms had been painted along the surface. The white wolfhound on a field of green in the lower right corner sniffed at a golden hellebore while in the upper-left a crescent Jade Moon appeared over a field of grey. The other two corners were taken up entirely with golden laurel leaf and beneath the shield an approximation of a banner had been drawn with the family name written upon it in a flowing, careful scrawl. Arlo stopped at the entrance, then considered the coat-of-arms while he lowered himself slowly down the last two or three steps of the stubby little shipladder that went into the room.
This was who he was supposed to be, now.
Not to say that he had not been a Haradin before; but he certainly had not been what he would consider a ‘family man’. In the quiet, with crepuscular beams of light pouring in from through the slitted windows above, Arlo removed his bolero and cravat. He thought of his mother while he unbuttoned his waistcoat. She had been a true Haradin in that she took pride in her family and when he was a boy had taken him around the world to meet many of them. The entire reason he even knew his Uncle Treistan at all was his mother’s insistence that he understand what it meant to be part of a Great House. At the same time, Leliana Haradin-Harkon had always warned Arlo of falling into the trap of avarice that led clans into corruption– had steered him towards a life in the arts.
Little good it had done him in the end.
And still, now, House Haradin was the benefactor for his continued shelter. House Haradin paid for his schooling. House Haradin had gotten him the job he had royally fumbled. House Haradin prevented him from being executed for his failures. He wanted so desperately to feel like he was able to serve the clan and give thanks; to be the brave Corovokian from recruitment posters and novels about exploration and adventure on the Ten-Thousand Seas.
“I love you, Arlo.” Placelle Lamella’s gentle affection startled the young man and he whipped around on her with wide eyes. She had picked up the clothes he’d tossed on the floor, folded them neatly, and placed them on the rubber floor in a stack. She had been tasting that feeling again, the one she’d called ‘how hard you’re trying’ before.
“But of course, you could never be in love with me.” he shot back with a flat face while rolling up his sleeves.
Placelle Lamella bashfully traced a semi-circle in the floor with the toe of her boot as though this was pointing out some sort of misbehavior on her part, but she did at least defend herself in the most shocking way. “If you wanted, I would let you take me as your wife. We could work together to help your family, and you could have me as your lover any time you wanted. But no matter what, I wouldn’t be able to love you the way people usually love each other. But maybe you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference, and then you wouldn’t have to be so lonely.”
“Listen, Oathkeeper, how do you know you can’t love anybody!?” Arlo asked now, feeling a little outraged by the offer and also a little ashamed at how much it tempted him. “I mean to say, you already say you love me, it’s ridiculous, so maybe you just don’t know what your own feelings are.”
Her smile grew slightly, but the tall woman didn’t seem to be too put-off by the interrogation. It certainly wasn’t her first time being asked. “I’m a heartleech, Arlo. I know what everyone is feeling. I know when two people love each other, I know how they’re feeling. And I know I can’t feel that way.”
“I don’t want to think of you as a dog!” protested Arlo, a flash of anger in his eyes while he took a step towards her. She didn’t flinch, so he raised his finger and stuck it in her face. “You are a person. I don’t believe you can possibly be so simple of heart, so astoundingly uncomplicated. You talk like all you can feel is happy, sad, and angry; but you’re a Holy Oathkeeper for Queen’s sake! You took vows of loyalty, you had an education, an upbringing– training, forsooth. Pray, how can you have done those things with the same emotional maturity as a housecat?”
Placelle Lamella shrugged her shoulders, and all she could offer was, “Serving The Goddess makes me feel happy. When I was growing up, helping the monks and the priests in the chapel made me feel happy. Finding Waywards and bringing them to the chapel for succor, punishing those who profane our world with evil deeds– It just makes me feel like I’m being a good girl.”
Arlo imagined a weathered old shrunken priest reaching up to tousle this towering woman’s hair and tell her what a good girl she was, and it was actually quite easy to imagine her liking it. He remembered how much she liked it when he combed her hair. He tried one last time, putting his hands on her shoulders and looking up into her eyes, so light brown that they were nearly pink. He searched them for a long time, and she looked down at him patiently. Arlo held her by the biceps and peered up at her while her eyes focused on him and tried to see beyond her bored, glazed-over stare and gentle smirk.
“And so the reason you follow me around all the time and try to take care of me is it just makes you feel happy? Like helping a grown-up with the chores?” he asked at last.
Something that left Arlo feeling deeply unsettled seemed to appear in her eyes, some colder emotion that seemed somehow dangerous. Her smirk did not move, but some change in the cast of her eyes, a subtle shift in her brow, some miniscule drifting of her features had suddenly cast them in something like a predatory grin. “Think about my offer, Arlo. You probably would not even be able to tell the difference. A strong, obedient wife who doesn’t need anything, who never gets jealous, or makes demands could make a man like you very happy.”
Despite the pit of dread he was getting looking up into her face, Arlo was about to ask her what this arrangement would mean for her life as an Oathkeeper. No sooner had he taken in the breath and formed the words than they were interrupted by the entry of Lieutenant Parsons and the commanding officer of the ship’s House Guards, Commander Lukas Gainstrom. Their entry was marked with raised voices that caused Arlo to startle and jump nearly out of his skin. Briefly, he leaned over to glance at Placelle Lamella and found that she was entirely unmoved other than the diminution of the predatory glee that had been glimmering in her eyes a moment before.
The two men were shouting at one another, and if their words alone were all one heard it would’ve been thought they were bitter enemies in a sincere and hateful argument. But visually they were both grinning broadly as they tramped down the short little steps into the room.
“You are a gutter-dwelling rat who double-ducks his duty, sir, if you will not drill the hands when you drill your men!” Parsons was snarling with his previously youthful face contorted and drawn into a grin between each phrase, like he was trying to stop himself from laughing.
“And you, sir,” batted back Gainstrom, his own features occluded by his scruffy brown moustache and beard so much that only his teeth showed he was smiling, “Are a pinched, slab-sided mainlander whose head is too far up his own arse to know I can’t drill them if you won’t rest them after!”
“Black-hearted weasel that you are, consider that..” Parsons continued for a few paces and then froze wide-eyed as he caught sight of Arlo and the Oathkeeper. Gainstrom bumped into him from behind.
“Oof, make a lane, you silly nob, real men… are…” Now Gainstrom too was stopped and they were both looking back at Arlo with the same face he was looking at them.
The three men stood gawping awkwardly at one another for a full terrible moment, each one not exactly sure what to say to the other. For her part, Placelle Lamella raised a hand and limply waved it from side to side with her usual expression of bovine magnanimity. It was Gainstrom in the end who managed to lower his shrubby eyebrows and clear his throat.
“Ah, young Arlo, hello!”he greeted jovially, stepping around Parsons and giving the other man a gentle pat on the back while he approached, “You arrived early for our sparring!”
Arlo tried clearing his throat as well, but it came out more as a scratchy cough so he instead made a show of checking his watch. “Well, no,” said he, “Not quite so early, as I make it, but I confess I did want to get up from the table. I dine with Master Mirana and Madame Tribune Rathbone in the mornings, which I find to be quite socially potent enough to suffice a smaller dose.”
“Such a polite way to put it!” laughed Gainstrom in his bawdy way. He unbuttoned his uniform and hung it up in his locker before forming a crescent over his chest in Placelle Lamella’s direction. “My Lady Oathkeeper. Do you care to join us today, or shall you prefer to watch again?”
“It is better for all if I simply watch.” was her somewhat opaque explanation, though it was delivered sweetly and with a respectful return of the crescent as well as a gentle half-bow.
At this point, Parsons cleared his throat to get Gainstrom’s attention, only to say, “Mister Gainstrom, I do wish you to drill the hands for at least an hour this week. I will arrange the duty roster so it happens to men who have dog-watches that day. Good day, sir.”
“Aye’n’you’self, Leff’tenant.” replied Gainstrom with a loose wave to the Lieutenant’s retreating form.
Gainstrom and Arlo sat cross-legged on the floor, mostly chatting about the cold weather after they’d laid out the training swords. They always seemed to take a few passes over the selection to find ones that most closely matched the weight of their personal blade; something that struck Arlo as particularly irritating since his previous sword had come as a matched pair from the smith who’d forged it for him. But he was nowhere near mad enough to insist upon sparring with his real sword, for the only way he felt satisfied doing so was to wrap the blade in leather and such practices ruined the binding of the metal. In the end, he and Gainstrom both settled on the heaviest two practice swords in the lot. They removed their personal blades and settled the dull training swords with their rolled-over edges into their belts while the conversation dwindled when safe topics were all rapidly consumed and neither man trusted the other enough to discuss more important matters.
“Same as yesterday?” asked Arlo while wriggling his hand into the slightly too-small gauntlet he’d been given from the armorer’s mate upon request. It was a thick thing of brown leather with a quilted diamond pattern from the end of the knuckles down to the wrist, and Arlo suspected that before it had been used to grip tongs it was meant as a falconer’s glove. Now, it was just something for sparring that was only barely thin enough to fit inside the knuckle guard of the training sword.
Gainstrom reached into his locker and produced a pair of fencing masks that each had the white wolfhound of the Haradin House Guards painted on their mesh visors. He tossed one to Arlo and replied, “Aye, first touch, best out of three; then we drill.”
Arlo nodded, and donned his mask.
The two men paced a circle in the center of the rubber floor while Placelle Lamella glided to her customary place in one corner. She drew the hammer from her belt and found an oilcloth in one of her pouches to idly wipe it down with while she watched the two men. They walked in easy circles to each other’s side. Arlo had his hands crossed behind his back, and Lukas with his hands at his sides. At some point, they found the right spot to stand and both men drew their swords. They approached slowly in centered guards with their off-hands pressed to their backs and gently touched blades.
The room was still for a tiny portable eternity, and then Gainstrom lunged forward. The sound of scraping and clanking metal echoed as Arlo swept back the blade and tried to catch the commander in his recovery, but found himself gathered instead. They broke away and this time Arlo swept in, only to find himself getting jabbed in the chest during Gainstrom’s parry. The Commander stepped back even before Arlo called the hit, though he did nod respectfully as Arlo tapped his chest with his free hand.
They paced around in silence again with their swords still out and up. Arlo switched guards, turning his sword inward. In reaction, Lukas turned his down and out. When they met again and tapped blades, Gainstrom put up a strong defense. He knew Arlo’s little trick of flicking his sword to slice the leg after blocking with his false edge, and so as soon as he triggered it he moved to block it. His guard shifted as Arlo recovered and then he was upon him from above. Arlo ducked and parried sideways in a flash, working solely on a sudden burst of adrenaline. He felt his eyes bulging inside his mask as he whipped to his left and then swung with a flick of his wrist under Gainstrom’s recovering arm to slap the blade across the man’s side. It was a loud crack that echoed in the ready room and caused even Arlo to wince inside his mask.
Gainstrom did not announce Arlo’s hit, but he did pat his side and robotically pull away. Sensing that he had somewhat annoyed the man, Arlo lowered his sword and backed away more cautiously. His heart was pounding in his ears, and there was a slight quaver in his voice as he tried to calm the tension in the atmosphere by saying, “I know the two of you were only jesting, but all the same I appreciate it that you don’t talk to me the way you talk to Mister Parsons.”
There was no response from Gainstrom, who simply flourished his sabre while twisting his neck to stretch it. Arlo did not approach him yet, though mainly because he was still trying to calm himself down. “Not that I think you are wrong, exactly, but I am a sensitive man. For me, to hear such words I would think that you mean it as a joke but believe it in your secret heart, and it would wound me.”
Arlo had thought of this as being submissive, as placing himself below Gainstrom. ‘Look’, He imagined himself saying, ‘I’m weaker than you. Isn’t that funny?’
Something in the man’s rigid silence seemed to make him think this was not the effect that his words were having. A brief glance over to Placelle Lamella to see that her face was drawn up in concern seasoned that sense and Arlo decided to just be quiet. He had hit the man too hard, then he had struck a nerve of some sort. It was best to just throw the next bout and then they could move on to drilling and the commander could be in charge again, and everybody could be happy.
Finally, after a torturous moment, Arlo approached Gainstrom again and they tapped blades. This time, Gainstrom laid into him with extremely fast, careful, measured blows. It was the textbook six-cut drill, but it was so well-practiced and perfect that it took every ounce of Arlo’s dexterity to match it with parries. Then, the drill came again, faster and harder. Gainstrom was a stronger man than Arlo. They were both about six paces tall, but Gainstrom was wide and strong with thick arms. He was a professional soldier while Arlo was simply a well-trained dandy.
The advantage of speed allowed Arlo to keep up his defense with yet another six rapid lashes flung at him, though soon he found himself with his back against a locker on the wall. He juked right, then dodged left to further use his speed– the only thing he really had on the other man. His guard switched, and so too did Gainstrom’s pattern. The commander lowered himself and hammered away with a different form attacking Arlo’s hand and wrist. Arlo barely received each blow above his knuckle bow while he lurched away with his heart pounding again. He risked going on the offensive at the end of the next flurry with a single probing thrust through Gainstrom’s last recovery. The timid little stab was easily diverted.
They had sparred the day before, but this was entirely new. The day before, Lukas had been careful and cautious. He’d won two bouts and then they’d drilled parries. Now, Arlo was finding himself on a razor’s edge, desperate and barely scraping by while the soldier carefully and mechanically devastated him with one form after another. Finally, Gainstrom managed to break through Arlo’s guard (such that it was) and give him a light slash across the chest. Arlo immediately called the hit and tapped his chest, but this did not end the fight.
Gainstrom grabbed the dull blade of Arlo’s training sword in one balled fist and yanked it out of his hand with little ceremony before shoving him on one side to start him turning. Instinctively, Arlo cowered, hunched, and covered the back of his head with both hands while Commander Gainstrom began whipping his training sword across his back. It was searingly painful and it was humiliating, and Gainstrom was laughing at how pitiful Arlo looked.
Arlo for his part just whimpered and surrendered himself to the moment like a child accepting its punishment, deciding he would let it happen and wait to ask what he had done wrong when it was all over. His humiliation ended as abruptly as it had begun, however, when Placelle Lamella appeared at Gainstrom’s side.
It happened in an instant, like the strike of a lightning bolt. The Oathkeeper had her hands on the commander’s sword arm. Her face was completely placid and neutral as she dug her shoulder into the man’s armpit, and then half-turned and shifted her weight. Because she was so big, not just for a woman but for any person, she had already lowered herself and now it was easy for her to swing out her hip and lever the man over her shoulder.
He tumbled onto the rubber floor with a grunt, and the looming woman brought her knee down into his gut, then straddled him and tore off his mask. Arlo could see he was smiling up at her for an instant before she slammed her fist into the bridge of his nose and sent his head rebounding off of the rubber floor. He opened his mouth to speak and Placelle Lamella bashed him again, this time in the solar plexus. The blow caused him to wheeze, and then in the next instant the Oathkeeper’s powerful hands were clenched around either side of the man’s neck and he was snarling up at her wordlessly while he gripped her wrists and pried with all his might.
“Stop now.” she commanded, her voice deeper and more curt that Arlo had ever heard it. “You know that was wrong.”
“Placelle.” Arlo weakly called to her, now that he’d turned over to sit down and catch his breath, “It was probably all my fault, anyway.”
She didn’t say anything in response, just kept her eyes on Gainstrom’s. The man at some point stopped resisting and let his arms fall to his sides. Placelle Lamella’s grip relaxed slightly and he sucked air in through his nose. With his chest rising and falling again she leaned forward and said, “The Goddess commands us to serve her together in harmony. Forgive Arlo in your heart.”
Placelle Lamella eased herself off of Gainstrom and got to her feet. He sat up dazed and nursing the back of his head while she smoothed down the front of her trousers. Arlo was surprised to see her eyelids fully-open and a fiery alert intelligence burning in them like he’d never seen before. She didn’t seem stressed or exhausted, she was not sweating and her heart wasn’t beating in her eyes. The only word Arlo could think of to describe it was ‘activated’. She saw Arlo looking at her and smiled at him sweetly; a full smile broader than usual with her pinkish-amber eyes shining and the two pearlescent rows of slightly crooked little white teeth in her mouth flashing. She looked affectionate, proud of herself, and happy to see him all at once while she made a show of dusting her hands. The effect only lasted for a second or two before her eyelids began to sink again and her mouth drew closed once more into that wide detached smirk.
Then, in her usual tone of child-like kindness, she told Gainstrom, “You have no reason to be angry, anyway. He didn’t even do what you think he did.”
Gainstrom wiped drool from his mouth, darted a skeptical glance Arlo’s way, and then looked up at Placelle Lamella and asked, “How do you figure that, Lady Oathkeeper?”
She smiled back down at him and extended a hand to help him up. Once he was on his feet again, she patted him twice on the back and replied, “I put it together. In case nobody has told you, I am a heartleech. So I could tell you were feeling jealous earlier. I can also feel that you think I’m really pretty. You really like these.”
This was said with a meaningful heave of her breasts in each hand, though the linen wrap she bound them with kept it from being too absurdly lascivious of a show. Placelle Lamella next gestured to Arlo, who was still sitting on the floor. “Also, you think Arlo is rich. I have seen everything he owns, it all fits in one box. He isn’t. But you get mad when you think he is being fancy.”
Gainstrom was paying rapt attention to her now, and Arlo could see clearly that the man was not taking this information very well. He didn’t seem angry or sad, exactly, but suddenly very cautious like a jackal had sauntered into the room. Either she didn’t realize this, or she didn’t care, because Placelle Lamella went on, “So, if I think about all that at once, I think maybe you’re jealous of Arlo. You think he gets everything handed to him, and that he’s weak and you’re better. You think it’s not fair, and you also think he gets me, too.”
“Am I not right?” the other man finally asked, looking at her like she was some kind of infected plague bearer, “You’re bloody-damned close to it, but am I not also right?”
She shook her head with her eyebrows shifting a little bit to cast her smirk into a sadder expression. “No, sir. Arlo will not bed me because I do not love him, or so he says. I think he’s actually scared, but it’s a complicated mess in there, let me tell you.”
At this, she tittered a little and covered her mouth with the tips of her fingers like the dainty woman she certainly was not, then said, “So, I hope you understand, Arlo isn’t in your way, and he doesn’t look down on you either. He actually looked up to you as a swordsman before now. Now…”
Placelle Lamella let her eyes drift over to where Arlo was sitting. He still wore his mask and he was thankful he did because he felt himself flinching slightly under their gaze. Gainstrom was looking at him, too, with something between pity and disgust in his eyes. Arlo felt ashamed on one hand, and then slightly indignant on the other, but it couldn’t wash out Placelle Lamella’s senses– whichever it was she used to sniff out his true emotions.
“Now he just feels regret.” she reported, then blandly hovered back to the corner where she usually waited for this training to end and sat to toy with her warhammer once more.
Gainstrom approached Arlo with a sigh and offered down his hand to the young man. Meekly, Arlo took it and allowed himself to be helped up. He was thrilled that he didn’t get a pat on the back like Lukas had, his back still throbbing from the lashing it had taken with the training sword.
“Sire, you have my apologies for my rotten behavior.” managed the commander tersely. It seemed to take an effort, which itself seemed to shame the man even more. “I was… Gross, and cruel to you. However, I do not think we should spar again. You are not…”
This next comment took a bit more calculation than anything else, but finally Lukas simply said, “You are not a poor swordsman. For your age, you fight well. Practice your forms and drill. That is my recommendation.”
Arlo pulled off his mask at last, but merely looked down at his feet, utterly hang-dog and unsure of what to say other than a pitiful, “Thank you, you are very good, sir.”
Gainstrom grunted at the response and sighed, then returned to his locker to fetch a towel. Arlo sat on the floor with his back against another locker and first pulled his gauntlet off by starting the tip of his middle finger between his teeth, then withdrew his pocket watch. He drew his knees up and just stared down at it, listening to the rigid ticking in his typical way. It calmed him down, but did little to salve the shame and humiliation. Those feelings were quickly replaced with irritation as he heard Placelle Lamella pipe up again to tell Gainstrom, “I’m sorry you’re hurting, Mister Gainstrom.”
It wasn’t this that irritated him, so much as it was Gainstrom’s curt response to her: “Keep you out of my heart and mind, soul-sucker.”
The comment did not seem to affect Placelle Lamella how Arlo thought it might, for the heartleech simply kept placidly wiping her hammer. Its anointment had to have been well and truly done long ago, but she seemed happy to keep at it until Gainstrom had left the room. Once they were alone, she merrily hopped up and moved to sit next to Arlo. He kept his face on the dial of his pocket watch, but did not repel her even when she leaned her head on his shoulder.
“I’m sorry you’re hurting, too, Arlo.” she told him softly.
Instead of thanking her, he asked, “How are you feeling?”
“I’m well.”
They sat in silence a while longer before she commented, “I’m glad I decided to stop wearing my armor while we’re on the ship. I like being able to feel your warmth through my clothes. I’ll enjoy wearing it again when we land, though.”
They said nothing else to each other for a long time. Over the last few nights, Arlo had learned that Placelle Lamella would often be content to just sit in his presence, particularly if the two had some kind of physical contact. She would never seem bored or disconsolate no matter how quiet he was. He had nearly read the entirety of a book on one of the other sects in the Divine Orderhood from hers just seated upright on the bed with her curled around him from behind, and the night before he had awakened to find her sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the washroom booth, her glazed over half-lidded gaze pointed right at him as he slept. She may have been right when she had said his real reason for not allowing himself to have a carnal passion with her was fear; for he often found himself looking at her legs, her breasts, or her neck while she slunk around his cabin in her shift. He looked away when on one occasion she had stripped it off to splash lathered washing powder over her body and then rinse standing in front of the washbasin, but caught himself giving in to curiosity when she stood at the corner of the bed with one foot raised to towel herself off.
When their eyes had met, she smiled and he blushed.
Now, in the confines of the ready room amongst the lockers Arlo fell into silence and tried to just enjoy her presence the way she enjoyed his, but it left his mind restless. With his back aching and his mind in such turmoil, he decided to go ahead and return to his cabin for a whore’s bath of his own before lunch and his chance to see wallrunning first hand.
