Warmth Tonight

Ciaran raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I mean no harm.”

The woman narrowed her eyes at him, and Ciaran saw something like recognition flash in her eyes. But then it was gone, and she let her hand fall to her side.

“You startled me,” she said. She glanced up at the bird, and then she whistled.


Ciaran could only stare as the thing settled on her shoulder. She reached up, stroked its crest absently.

“I don’t think your father would like you talking to me,” she said. “But I am still looking for a little warmth tonight.”

Lure

Ciaran checked over his shoulder for his father once more, but Eoghan was on his hands and knees, cutting peat neatly with his knife. He wouldn’t be able to see if Ciaran, say, went to talk to the lady. Ciaran set down his spade and rose slowly, ducked around the side of the hut.

“I have some chicken lungs, if you think those will lure your pet down,” he said.

The woman turned to him, and Ciaran saw that her eyes were bright golden. And then he saw that she’d reached beneath her cloak - for the hilt of a sword.

Wide-Eyed and Lovely

Ciaran knew her voice - it was the woman who had come seeking peat, the woman her father had turned away. He’d tried to ask Fingula about the ‘holy men’, but she’d just shuddered and shook her head and asked him to help her build a fence to pen in her goats. Ciaran glanced at his father, but Eoghan hadn’t noticed.

Ciaran rose to his feet, started toward the hut, and then he paused, for the woman was standing beside his window, and she’d flung back her hood, raised her arms as if she could catch the bird.

She was lovely.

Memory

Dawn off the horizon turned the sea pale lavender tinged with gold. Ciaran looked up from his work and dragged a hand over his brow. Heat came early in the summer, and he’d been working hard for an hour already.

A harsh cry broke the morning stillness above the sound of his father’s labor, and Ciaran turned, saw a massive black bird swoop across the sky and settled on the roof of the hut. Ciaran thought it looked at him, but then he’d been imagining a lot of that lately.

And then a woman called out, “Machnamh! Return to me!”

And Her Eyes Were Golden

Ciaran started, shocked at his father’s rudeness, but then he saw it - blue ink curling up the woman’s wrist and vanishing into her sleeve.

“My kind?” the woman asked.

“We don’t serve the holy men in this house,” Eoghan said.

“I am no holy man - just a traveler looking to have some warmth for the night.” The woman sounded amused.

“You wear blue,” Eoghan said.

“Some days I wear red,” the woman said.

Eoghan shook his head. “Please leave.”

The woman inclined her head beneath the cloak. “As you wish.”

Ciaran swore that as she left, she looked at him.

Your Kind (Reprise)

Ciaran twisted around to see who had caused confusion in his father, who was endlessly polite, and he saw a shadow in the doorway. Or rather, a person, short, dressed in a long cloak, cowl obscuring features.

“Eoghan?” a woman asked.

“I am he. What can I do for you?”

The woman extended a fist, and Ciaran tensed, reaching for his father’s cutting shovel, but then the woman turned her hand over and revealed a fistful of coins, more money than most people saw in a lifetime.

“Peat, please.”

Eoghan reached for it, then stopped. “No. Not for your kind.”

But Someone

Ciaran knew it was strange, that is father wouldn’t let him do something as simple as start a fire, especially since they were peat cutters and their peat burned well, but he knew his father had become a bit...strange after his mother’s death, and Aoife and Fingula and the other women in the village warned him to let it go, so he did.

Aoife’s creaking voice faded, and hope lunged in Ciaran’s chest - food time!

But someone knocked at the door.

Eoghan, who’d been halfway across the hut, turned and opened the door.

“Can I help you sir...ma’am?”

For Himself

“Da, ‘m hungry,” Ciaran said. He hunched next to the hearthstone, flint in hand, and stared despondently at the cauldron full of stew waiting to cook.

“In a moment, son - Aoife and I will be done in a moment.” Eoghan was especially nice to widows.

Most days Ciaran would join in his father’s sympathy, but today he was too hungry to care.

“Can I just -”

“No,” Eoghan said. “I’ll start the fire. In a moment.”

Ciaran sighed and sat back on his haunches. He’d seen the fear in his father’s eyes the first time he’d started a fire for himself.

Ciaran

Everyone knew Eoghan had found a four leaf clover in his time or something equally lucky, because he had a hardworking son who hadn’t gotten anyone’s daughters into trouble, and the peat he cut always burnt better than anyone else’s.

The entire village had been sure Ciaran was trouble as a child - it was his cheeky grin and propensity to make things disappear with a slide of his hands - but he worked alongside his father day in, day out, and managed to be decent despite not having a mother.

Ciaran had red hair and eyes the color of the sea.

Interlude 7

He stood on the edge of the field and watched the flames crackle and dance, golden-bright against the black of the sky. His eyes glimmered green, briefly in the glow, before turning sea-blue once more. He’d roamed for several lifetimes before settling here, where he was meant to be, near the sea.

The man stood at the edge of his small farm, clutching his squalling infant son and staring, wet-eyed and terrified, as his home burned down.

The village would know the truth of the man’s wife, the cause of the fire, and always suspect his son.

Each Have

“Nine eagles,” Angel murmured. He sounded proud as he and watched the legions depart.

“Eagle of the ninth,” Ella agreed. “They’ll get lost.”

“Lost how?”

“In time,” Ella said. “But they’ll do well, conquering and fighting and killing.”

Angel huffed, exasperated at the way she spoke her knowledge of the future without warning. “So what now? We return to Old Master?”

“No,” Ella said. “You must travel east. The Sarmatians need help. And the Persians. Also the Hellenes.”

“Why do you always know these things when I don’t?”

“We each have jobs. Mine is to see. Yours is to do.”

Birds and Reptiles

“What’s this?” Angel asked. He leaned in the doorway and watched Ella stitch a complicated pattern into bright red cloth.

“An eagle,” she said, “for the legions.”

“An eagle?”

She’d seen it in a vision. She shrugged. “I think it looks nice. And they’re fierce creatures.”

Angel scooped up the other red pennant she’d made. “And this creature? I don’t think they exist anymore.”

“It’s a dragon,” she said, which she knew he remembered. From Andrev.

“Why a dragon?”

“It will confuse historians,” she said. So many battle leaders, so many dragon standards. “Have you heard from Lucius Artorius yet?”

Treat, Tread

“It’s a good thing you kept your hair short like a boy,” Angel said.

“They all know I’m a girl,” Ella said. She glanced out over the ranks and ranks of men standing in neat formation. Then she considered their spears, wondered at ways to improve accuracy, distance, durability.

“Shame works wonders,” Angel said. “A man’s ego is a fragile thing. Treat it carefully.”

“You mean tread carefully,” Ella said.

Angel glared. “Or don’t tread at all.”

“They won’t learn if they’re proud,” Ella said.

“You speak from experience?”

“You forget General Shanka?”

“Never, my lady.” Angel said, louder, “Attention!”

Changes and Forgettings

“If we keep training random foreign armies to take over the world, won’t that give us a bit of a bother when it comes time for Dagaz and the rest to march southward?” Engel asked.

Jente cast him a look. Didn’t he realize that Dagaz and the rest were dead? But she lowered her head and continued sharpening the short, wide sword he’d been given by the Captain. Gladius, she thought it was called.

“So they call you Angelus,” she said.

“Angel,” he agreed. “What shall we call you?”

“Ella,” Jente said.

“Why Ella?”

“Short for ‘puella’. It means ‘girl’.”

Agreement

“How so?” the Captain asked.

Engel nudged Jente in the elbow with his leg. She rose up slowly, so as not to startle the guards. Then she shrugged off her cloak and lifted her head, squared her shoulders. The Captain gave her a once-over, and his scowl deepened. He’d noticed what his guards hadn’t in the initial fight.

“Why would he train a slave so?”

“To protect his business,” Jente said.

“Your Master could teach my men?”

Jente glanced over her shoulder at Engel. “He could teach them to take over the world.”

The captain smiled. So did Engel.

Bare Hands

Engel enjoyed it a little too much when Jente knelt at his feet.

“What says your master?” the captain of the guard asked. He looked bored and skeptical of the entire proceedings.

“Master Angelus says he apologizes for the harm caused but he does not apologize for the incompetence of your men,” Jente said.

The captain scowled, irritated. Engel stood behind Jente, arms folded across his chest. He was smirking.

“Your master thinks he knows combat better?”

Jente translated, listened to Engel’s haughty reply. “Master Angelus says he can train a woman to defeat a man with her bare hands.”

For Years

As there was no war imminent, Engel decided the best way to find himself a spot with the local military was to earn it. By sacrificing Jente, of course. She got into a fight with some local guards, and when other guards showed up to arrest her, their comrades had to confess their humiliation at having been beaten by so delicate a boy. Jente murmured that her master had taught her to fight so as to protect herself while on his business, and then the curiosity came.

“Who is your master?”

She suspected that question would haunt her for years.

Power of Surprise

They ended up finding a house on the edge of the city and crashing there for the night, emerging during the day to learn the language and customs of the locals. Jente had a better knack for learning languages than Engel, so they started the master-slave farce early on and let the locals think Jente was translating for her master out of a sense of duty. When one vendor became difficult, Engel stepped in to prove he did know the language, which left the locals unsettled.

Unsettled was what Engel wanted, but then he enjoyed the power of surprise.

I Think One Day

Engel wasn’t at all amused at winding a sheet around himself as clothing, because he preferred the vanity of the Egyptian kilts, but Jente cottoned on quickly to the fact that the men who went so scandalously shirtless were usually slaves.

No one would listen to them if they looked like slaves.

“You still look like a boy,” Engel pointed out and ran a hand over Jente’s silky cap of dark curls.

“That’s why you’ll have to do the speaking,” Jente said.

“Up there? In that building? What is it?”

“I think, one day, it will be called The Senate.”

City With Seven Hills

They walked for ages. Engel whined and wished they’d kidnapped a camel or two. He declared Jente several different kinds of masochist for just walking in the sun day in and day out. When they finally stood on the edge of the nation Jente had declared as their “one stop” on the way back to do Old Master’s bidding, Engel enjoyed a handful of the little green fruit-vegetables Jente had told him were called “olives”.

“...What’s so important about the city with seven hills?” he asked, and popped an olive into his mouth.

“We’re here to teach their armies.”

Attempted Diplomacy

“Pharaoh won’t be happy with us up and leaving in the middle of a war.” Engel shouldered his pack and stood at the top of a ridge of sand, gazed down at the muted fires of their old camp where medics tended to the wounded and priests tended to the dead.

“Actually, he’ll probably be glad we’re gone,” Jente said. “He wasn’t the Pharaoh who took us on, after all. He never appreciated us as much as his great-grandfather.”

“I think you mistake lack of appreciation for fear,” Engel said drily.

“I was trying to be diplomatic,” Jente said.

On The Way

“What was that out there?” Engel stood over Jente where she was kneeling behind a fallen chariot, trembling, bleeding from a wound in her thigh.

“I saw --” She swallowed hard. “It’s time.”

“Time?” Engel turned to gaze across the battlefield, at the fallen soldiers from both sides.

“I saw him. At least, I think it was him. It was either him or a memory.”

Jente might have been talking to her herself; Engel wasn’t sure.

“So we have to go back to Old Master?” Engel asked.

“No. We move on. But we have to make a stop on the way.”

Past and Present, Tense

Jente danced with her sword, carving destruction and death, painting the air with blood, moving to the song of screaming soldiers. If she closed her eyes, she could remember the first time she clashed with the Hittites in illusion, in dreams, staring down at charioteer with hair like frost and eyes like a fjord at dawn.

When she opened her eyes, she saw a man standing on the edge of the battlefield, pale-haired, ocean-eyed, white-robed, and her heart stopped, her rhythm stuttered. She didn’t even scream when an enemy stabbed her. She stabbed back, and she fled.

Sides

“What? What is it?” Engel asked.

Jente was kneeling at the mouth of the tent, gasping and choking, coughing.

“I - saw something.” Jente clutched at her throat, eyes wide. Engel scrambled to kneel beside her.

“What did you see?”

“It’s almost time,” Jente said.

“Time to what?” Engel asked.

“Return.”

“To Old Master?”

Jente nodded. She dragged her hand across her mouth and stared out at the golden desert sands, at the thousands of tents arrayed beneath the stars.

“How soon?” Engel asked.

“Not until this battle is won,” Jente said.

“Won by which side?”

“That only time will tell.”

For A Time

“Who taught them how to fight before?” Engel asked.

Jente scrubbed a cool, damp cloth over her face, scrubbed a hand over her short hair. “Who knows. Someone who wasn’t taught by Old Master, obviously.”

“They’re strong and fit,” Engel said. “It’s a question of technique and instinct at this point.”

“It’s an adjustment for us,” Jente said. “When was the last time we fought with troops on this massive a scale? Some ingenuity and wit is sacrificed for the sake of controlling so many men.”

“So we’re just here learning?” Engel asked.

“Not just learning. Waiting. For a time.”

Like That

Jente joined the troops three days later, hair shorn short, fitted in the smallest, cheapest armor the armorer could find. He’d sneered at her and scorned her for her paler skin (which gave her an excuse to wear a tunic for modesty’s sake), but she’d just bobbed her head politely and skittered into place.

She scared the daylights out of the man next to her when she surged into action at Engel’s direction, swinging her sword with practiced ease, dancer’s grace.

At the lunch break, one of the soldiers smiled at her. “Where did you learn to fight like that?”

In a Few Days

“No one’s going to respect me if you loom there in all your girliness,” Engel said between gritted teeth. He and Jente stood at the top of the steps overlooking the courtyard where Pharaoh’s army trained. Engel wore the simple leather armor of Pharaoh’s troops, though it was more ornate as befit a commander.

Jente was dressed like one of Pharaoh’s queens, all silks and linens, head held high, eyes lined with kohl. She admired the neat rows of troops, their gleaming dark skin, their alert faces.

“I’ll cut my hair and dress as a boy in a few days.”

Of The Matter

“Well done,” Jente said. She sat on the edge of her luxurious couch bed, combing out her long, dark curls. “Now his royal holiness has a new general.”

Engel said nothing.

Jente arched an eyebrow. “Not pleased at your success?”

“Pleased, yes,” Engel said. He studied his hands. “Just...I cannot forget my past failures.”

“We’re human - it is human to fail.”

“Are we human? Andrev wasn’t human.”

The heart of the matter. Jente said, “He was a person, wasn’t he?”

“I thought so. He was just a boy.”

“What’s done is done. We have a new job to do.”

Sticky Situations

“How dare you mock the efforts of my soldiers!”

Pharaoh roared, and the guards standing on either side of his throne went to draw their swords.

Jente dipped into a low, graceful bow, one more befitting a dancer than a warrior. Engel wished he knew what her skills were before they got into these sticky situations.

“We do not mean to mock,” Jente said. “We watched the battle, and we sorrowed for your men. We merely wish to help, to prevent as many men dying in the next battle.”

Pharaoh hummed thoughtfully, turned to Engel. “What would you have done?”

Watch and Learn

“Are we just going to watch them slaughter each other?” Engel asked when Jente made no move to draw her weapon and charge down the hill into the fray. Something in her expression was distant, dangerous, unreadable.

“Not just watch - learn,” Jente said. “About how those chariots function in battle, what their typical formations are. And then see how we would do it better.”

“Would we do it better?”

“Pharaoh had better believe we would.”

Engel watched spears and arrows zip through the air. “Pharaoh would be the man dripping in gold jewelry?”

“Yes, that would be him - the Pharoah.”