Electra Rose
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Diplomacy at Swordpoint Book 1, Part 1/2
🕑 Added 2023-02-13 10:42:37 +0000 UTCDiplomacy by Swordpoint
The twins took their first hard look at war from a flowering hilltop.
"It seems cruel," Etienne said in an undertone. In his discomfort he shifted, lowering his head. The sunlight glinted as it caught on the distinctive golden hair that their family was known for. "And it'll take a long time. There's no other way to do this?" He raised a hand to play with the chain of the golden locket he wore around his neck. “I would much rather be home with Esperance. She will be furious with us for staying away so long.” He turned a slow circle on the hilltop, surveying their army behind. “Oh, look at that,” he mused. “The Duke is arriving, see those colors?”
She didn’t turn to see what he was looking at. Rose grabbed his bicep and pulled him away. She didn't understand what her intuition was screaming at her until after she'd done it.
A second later, an arrow thumped into the ground, passing through the air where her brother had been standing. Rose raised her shield to protect her face, squinting around it to find the archer.
She could barely make out human figures on the wall.
'We should have been out of archer range. What did I get wrong?'
Rose privately recalculated her army lines, trying to figure if it was a clever use of wind and angle or if her enemies had a better bow than her people did. After a few moments, her eye caught on one figure in particular.
'A better bow,' she decided, basing it off her intuition and the fact that only one person had shot at them. 'How charitable of them to tell me now.'
Between her and Etienne, Rose had the ostentatious armor. That implied she was important. Therefore, she should have been the more tempting target to most archers. Why on earth would anyone pick out Etienne as a target? He wasn’t a very good soldier or tactician, nor was he the heir. She twisted her lips, dissatisfied with the information that she had. “Any ideas?” she murmured to her brother.
At this distance, she couldn't guess if it was a man or a woman. But there was a figure on the battlement who seemed to be looking straight at them. They didn't duck back behind the archer crenellations.
Etienne hummed back. “One shot isn’t on orders, but they’re not getting scolded either,” he mused. “That’s someone important, above reproach.”
They still hadn’t moved into cover. That was interesting. They wanted to be seen, then.
If they were in the heat of battle, she'd say it was thoughtlessness. But here and now, it seemed like a greeting. It was a potentially deadly one, mind. But that was someone who either knew the twins personally or knew of them well enough to know they'd be sent out together and be able to spot them on a crowded field.
Rose inclined her head at the archer in acknowledgement. Her intuition told her that that was her former fiance, the Southern Crown Prince Marcel. He was known as a bowman and he'd have seen paintings of both of the twins. Did this count as a first meeting? Maybe he was under the misconception that Etienne must be in favor now.
The distant archer raised a hand in a definite greeting. How polite of him.
'Romance isn't dead yet,' she thought, privately amused at life's sick sense of humor. 'But give it a month and one of us probably will be.'
A bit late, she remembered that technically the engagement hadn't been canceled yet. It was difficult to do that when lines of communication had been cut off.
'I could ask while I'm here, but I suspect he probably doesn't want to marry me anymore.'
"Oh, hello," Etienne said vaguely, ruffling his hair. His bemused calm cut through her black humor. He was squinting up at the same person, one hand raised to protect his eyes against the sun. It might pass for a salute. "That was a little forward, don't you think?"
"We should move a little further back, is what I think," she murmured to her brother. She put her hilariously doomed love life out of mind to focus on surviving. "I don't think they like you here."
"Me?" Etienne asked exaggeratedly, putting a hand to his chest. He looked between her and the arrow with a wounded mien, but he followed when she began to move down the crest of the hill, where they had cover but less visibility. "Is it really me they're mad at?"
Unspoken was the ugly burning thing no one could say- that their Father was the only one who wanted this war. He was also the only adult royal who wasn't going to bleed for it. His adult children, his sister, and her only heir were all out on the field while he kept the throne warm. Rose aside, none of them were happy with him for it. None of them were willing to say anything to him about that. It was dangerous business, disagreeing with the king. Historically, it didn’t end well, not even for his family.
"Yes," she lied easily. They were getting too close to camp to speak candidly. No one was immune from the danger of publicly criticizing the king. "Everyone knows that you used to collect toads and kill them."
"I didn't know that they would die," he argued, as passionately as he had the first time she'd teased him for this 12 years ago. "I wrapped them up in leaves to keep them wet. I didn't know that they needed to stay in the river."
"River toads, Etienne," she said. She patted his shoulder as they reached the command tent. "It's in the name. Celestin, do we have the engineers?"
The older man inclined his head at her. "Not yet," he said. He had a very low, gravelly voice, as far back as she could remember. He couldn't raise his voice to shout, which was a serious inconvenience for a military commander. Her private theory was that it had something to do with the ugly scar on his neck.
She relaxed in his presence. For all that she was the highest authority on this mission, it was a comfort to have one of her old mentors present.
"Let me know when they arrive," her brother said, switching flawlessly to the more dignified version of his self. "I saw Harrod's men. Still pretty far off, but did he send a messenger ahead?"
"Yes," Celestin reported. He grimaced. The expression pulled on his scars, drawing the pale tissue taut in between the brown of healthy wrinkled skin. "He sent more swords than expected. 800, about 300 of which are inexperienced."
Rose had to bite down a grimace herself. Numbers were good, numbers were needed. But feeding a siege army was very expensive. It was the crown's responsibility to provide for the troops, not each individual Lord who had sent them.
She glanced at her brother to see what he was thinking. He was looking outside the open tent doors with a glazed expression. She didn’t have to look to know that some pretty maid must have walked by. She gave him a mean elbow jab to the ribs and leaned over to confirm. Yes, a slender maiden in a blue dress and white apron was talking to a soldier outside.
The general pretended not to see the interaction. "If we can take the city in less than a month, we'll be in good shape." He put both his palms on the war table. “If we cannot make progress quickly, we are in significant trouble.”
Rose nodded with Celestin's assessment. The timeline was a wishlist, really. Public sentiment about this war could go either way- patriotism and pride, or anger at wasted lives and resources.
It couldn't be helped. None of the Western kings had ever managed to conquer the South. Her Father had decided he was going to do what his grandfather and great grandmother had failed to do, and he would only be satisfied by taking it through force. This walled city 13 km past the border was the first step. If they succeeded, it would be a huge source of national pride and momentum. If they failed, her Father would be humiliated and furious. It simply wouldn't be possible to take the country without taking this fortification. If they marched past it, they'd be facing knights at their rear.
'I didn't want to get sent away, but trying to unify the Kingdoms by marrying in would have been a lot less wasteful of life.'
That still didn’t make sense. She still wanted to get Father alone and ask him what she’d done to displease him that he had considered sending her away. She was the Crown Princess. There had never been any competition between her and Etienne for the role. How had she disappointed him so? Was he training Esperance to replace her? She was still only a page. Had Rose stagnated too much in her training? Were her social deficiencies outweighing her academic and martial prowess?
Rose pushed down the childish hurt. It was a bad thing that the marriage would not go forward, she reminded herself, unenthusiastically. Being the Queen of the Southern kingdom would not have been such a terrible fate. It was an intelligent way to bind their kingdoms together, really. And it would have averted the invasion.
She wasn't the one who had changed her mind about a diplomatic resolution to the tensions, Rose reminded herself. The idea of being married out was a mortifying punishment, but she would have endured it if her Father asked her to. She couldn't have prevented this. That wasn’t her path.
What she could do would be to end this quickly. She didn’t say it aloud, because she knew it would sound arrogant and childish. But Rose knew that she was the right person for her role. She could crush the resistance and march over this country in time for the Southland king to sue for surrender and let them all go home before the first snowfall.
~~~
They began encircling the city the next day. By her calculations, they did have enough soldiers to do it, but it was a close thing. The tactic spread her army thinner than she wanted, but there was no way around that. This was one of the largest walled cities on the continent. The biggest gap in the maneuver was the forest that came nearly up to the western side of the walled city.
The biggest saving grace was that the city had no access to the sea for resupplying and troop movement. Rose wasn't optimistic enough to think that the city had no secret tunnels for resupply. If she was lucky, they'd be too small for the city defenders to take horses through.
‘What if they open up behind our lines? They could attack from behind. And the forest- we can’t clear it well enough to settle or patrol it thoroughly.’
The stress kept her up at night grinding her teeth. Odds were good that the Castellan had plans to attack the invaders from behind. Even if she didn't, Rose couldn't let go of what her intuition had told her the day that she arrived on the field: she was certain that Prince Marcel was in the castle. He had a mean reputation. He wouldn't be quietly starved out into surrender.
She didn't convey that suspicion to anyone because she couldn't defend it. Tactically, it didn't make much sense. Castellan Yvette LaGown was known to be perfectly capable. She wouldn't have the charge of a border city's defenses if she didn't have the confidence of her king. And it would be ridiculous to put your only heir in the line of fire on the first volley of a war. If Marcel died, there would be a succession crisis and in-fighting.
Distantly, she noted that someone might think Father was doing the same thing by sending her out here, but it really wasn’t the same situation. He was trusting his heir with an army. She wasn’t going to fail.
Even if she did fall, however, Father was still being much more sensible about this. Even though he’d sent two of his children to the war, his line was still secure. If she and Etienne both died, there was still Esperance back home in the Capital city. And perhaps the youngest was truly the best of them.
Thoughts of her little sister became a recurring pleasant day dream. When Rose woke up, she remembered that Esperance was probably still sleeping another hour before she would get her breakfast. When they met for the day, she glanced at the chain of the locket that Etienne wore around his throat. Her matching jewelry was under her clothes, clasped around her waist where it couldn’t be used to choke her.
"37 days," Etienne said to her, so quietly that none of the soldiers nearby would be able to hear it. There wasn't much point- every one of them would be counting down the same number.
"I know," Rose answered, just as softly. They needed to take the city in less than 37 days. A royal soldier was only pressed into service for 40 days. If they didn't succeed in that time, they'd have to wait for troop transfer and for new recruits to be drummed up. There were career soldiers who would sign again for another pay cycle, but most of them would rather be home.
Rose could sympathize with that. If this wasn’t such an opportunity to make a name for herself, she would probably wish for the comforts of home as well.
She and Etienne both took off their head pieces before morning was over, for sheer survival under the punishing sun. A squire of about 14 years followed each of them carrying the damn things. She’d forgotten the poor boy’s name as soon as she’d been introduced, but he was one of the Duke’s children. At least he was quiet.
They split up, talking with various minor nobles and checking in on supplies, on the engineers, on the distribution of beer and bread. She saw a stunning young woman about her age with a massive chatelaine around her trim waist overseeing the storage of essentials. The woman’s face tugged at her memory. Rose ducked out of sight on reflex when the other woman’s face turned her way. It would be awkward to introduce herself if they were already supposedly acquainted.
She mulled over the mystery. The girl was in a full gown, not armor, so she was no one’s first or secondborn. She must have belonged to an important family to nonetheless be in charge of anything at all.
‘I’ll find out later, I’m certain.’
She kept at her tasks, and kept her poor squire laden with supplies for her own comfort and his training. She needed to start making time for that.
When she saw her brother again, Rose had to smirk.
Etienne's expression went flat when he saw the look on her face. "Don't," he sulked.
"Don't what?" She asked innocently. "That looks painful, brother mine. Do you need someone to kiss it better?"
The squire gave a wide-eyed glance between the two of them. His timidity annoyed her a little, so she dismissed him with a wave.
Etienne scowled at her and then winced as his poor pink skin stretched. He had their mother's complexion and he burnt every summer. In contrast, Rose was nearly as dark as the brown eyes the twins shared. She'd never had a visible burn in her life, and she was fully prepared to pretend that she'd never felt the painful tightness of sunburnt skin if it annoyed her twin. She floated around on a smug cloud of genetic superiority until Etienne finally lost his temper and kicked her under the lunch table.
There was a hitch in her voice from pain, but she continued the conversation.
"I'll be the one to stay here," Rose decided. "If you don't mind."
Etienne tore off a mouthful of bread and nodded. "That's fine," he said, muffled by his food. "Do you need the good map?"
"You'll need it more," Rose shook her head, ignoring his slovenly behavior. "I don't want that river flooding over here. I want the engineers to have the topical map on hand."
"They already have a plan," Etienne said mildly. But he didn't disagree.
Doubtless the city already had stores of water and food. But it would just be foolish to let the river keep pouring in, bringing freshwater and fish to the city.
By redirecting it, her army would lose access to where it flowed back out of the city, and that was a shame. But she didn't trust it anyway. There would be no loss for the defenders in poisoning the water on the way out of the city. There was only one Southern village relying on it downriver-most commanders would consider it acceptable collateral damage.
Diverting the river had been Etienne’s idea, but Rose had thought over every tactical angle of the river in excruciating detail.
Poisoning the river on the way in had been one of the first plans that her Father's military advisors had suggested, after all. It would be a lot less labor intensive than digging a huge ditch to redirect the water away onto the plains. Rose hated the thought. She'd much rather that the city leadership saw their supplies run low and surrendered. The idea of poisoning the water made her feel sick to her stomach. Even if it wasn't a cowardly way to kill, it was a terrible thing to do to a city full of non-combatant residents. She was better than that. She didn’t need to resort to such pathetic tactics, especially not ones that would probably poison her own people.
Her brother marched off in the afternoon, with a full battalion and a whole lot of shovels. They were doing this quick and dirty- the river was going to be redirected far enough away that it wouldn't come to drown the invaders, and what happened next wasn't her business.
It didn't sit well with Rose. Not for the first time, she looked over a middling quality map and wondered which enemy village might get flooded. She wasn’t sure why it was her business, except that the peasants would probably end up citizens of her kingdom once this was all done. Ah, yes, that was it. Her squire jumped to his feet when she entered.
"Princess, the meeting is in ten minutes," Celestin reminded her in his dark rasp. His hawk-eyed gaze had followed the anxious movement of the squire as well. He looked unimpressed.
Rose nodded. She straightened her back and checked that everything in the tent was orderly enough to receive visitors. “Leave us,” she dismissed her squire. He bowed the correct depth and backed away. She watched him go, eyes glazed over in thought. The poor boy wasn't done for the day, because he still needed to help mentor the pages in their daily lessons. It seemed ridiculously confident to her that nobles had decided to send their children along with the army to continue training, but she couldn't deny that it helped everyone feel that the situation was under control.
It was a dark thought, but she thought that her Father would consider the potential losses worth the show of confidence. If she had still been a page, would she be here? …Probably not. Esperance had been kept home.
Rose put on an air of confidence and greeted her guests as they arrived. The pretty noble was among them- Trevail, Rose realized, she was one of those Trevails. They were two of only three women in the leadership tent, and the other was the much-venerated Lady LaMotte.
At first, she sat back and let Celestin summarize what she already knew- troop numbers, estimated arrivals, reports on enemy movement. Duke Harrod looked as unhappy as she felt about the sightings of movement in the woods off to their left. The treeline was close enough that it wouldn't give much reaction time for her people if a raiding party emerged.
Rose hardened her heart and ordered for patrols to be sent into the woodlands. Either they'd come back with news, or they wouldn't come back. That would be news itself. Grimly, she mentally marked off the numbers of people at her disposal.
'With increased patrols and all the troops redirecting the river, we are spread too thin. We either need to move fast and hope the defenders can't move against us before Etienne returns, or make a recalculation. Should we temporarily pull back from the encirclement? Do we need to be more aggressive?'
She didn't voice the thought. She wouldn't say that and introduce doubt. She'd only say it if she made up her mind and gave it as an order.
"Your lady Aunt sent word," Lord Drepam reported.
"Oh?" Rose gave him her full attention. Why had he heard news before she had?
"Princess Aime estimates that she will leave with troops in 20 days, but the destination is still undecided." Drepam puffed up with his own importance, red nose shining as brightly as Etienne's would be right about now. "She awaits orders from the capital and your assessment of this situation."
"Thank you," Rose said, covering up her unhappiness. "I'll contact her."
'I don't like that someone reported to him before me. That's not proper chain of command. I know he's well-respected but this is supposed to be my operation.'
Drepam hesitated, thought better of whatever he was about to say, and then bowed.
Not much else of note happened. She confirmed the numbers and postings for the evening watch, and she paced around to watch the lights gradually go off around camp at night.
Rose went to bed feeling uneasy. She woke up to a draft of cold air and a certainty that someone else was in her tent.
She moved away from the blade directly above her. There was no conscious thought involved, only her desire to survive and the heightened instincts that her family was known for. The assassin adjusted quickly, lunging around her cot after her. Light glinted off a strange, short blade.
Rose rolled under the cot. In the same motion, she grabbed the sword that had been left by the side of her cot.
“Good morning,” said her hopeful assassin, in a pleasant low voice. Then he darted forward as quickly as a snake. “You’re a light sleeper, Princess. I hope I didn’t wake you up.”
She danced backwards, buying time to pull the blade out of the scabbard. She let the sheath fall, since it wouldn't serve as any kind of shield. “You’re loud,” she lied airily as she whipped the blade forward. Rose smirked at him and took a sidestep. He’d stopped his movement once her sword was out, looking at her with caution. “How gracious of you to come and play.”
“I live to serve. This was nothing personal, lovely.” He cocked his head to the side. She saw a glint on hair that must be somewhat light to catch the dim moonlight. He was enemy nobility, then, with that distinctive silver hair. Marcel even, perhaps.
“This won’t be personal either,” Rose promised sweetly.
Her would-be-killer took a step sideways mirroring her movement- and then turned away.
No.
She was still preparing to be rushed and her reaction was too slow. The man darted away, flashing a cheeky grin back over his shoulder.
“Come back, lover!” Rose taunted, hoping to make him stop.
She lunged after, but Rose wasn't fast enough to stop the assassin from escaping out of a hole that had not been cut in the tent when she went to bed.
‘That’s how he got in,’ she thought ruefully. She licked her lips.
She nearly rushed out after, before her instincts whispered to her. If it was her creeping in to kill an enemy commander, she would have whipped around and prepared to cut down anyone who followed through the slit cut in the tent, in the instant when they couldn't see.
Rose bolted out the actual entrance of her tent. The guard out front startled, jumping up and turning toward her. She could see the whites of his eyes in the reflected moonlight. "Under attack," Rose bit out. "At least one assassin."
He started shouting behind her. She didn't process the words, only focusing on hunting down the person who had been in her tent.
She sprinted, as safely as she could with a bare blade in hand. Rose caught glimpses of her assassin dodging around tents, jumping over supplies, ducking where a guard wouldn't have a direct line of sight. Frustrated, Rose yelled, willing someone closer to notice and react in time.
The night raider escaped out of the bounds of her encampment. He didn't slow at all, on a direct route for that damn forest she'd feared might have enemy combatants in it.
She ran through her options in an instant-
She could not catch him without going into the woods, which could well be a trap.
She could not shoot him as he ran, because she did not have a bow in hand and he would escape before she could get one.
She could shout for someone to shoot him, but even if someone skilled happened to be in the right side of camp with their bow ready, a normal person wouldn't be able to see in the dark.
Resentfully, practically, Rose stopped running. She lowered her sword. She'd have sheathed it if the scabbard wasn't still in her tent.
The camp was well-roused by that point, and someone ran to stand by her. A tall man, with light hair and a somewhat wiry build. She gave the soldier a brief look of consideration, before he was joined by the guards who had been posted outside her tent. She gave them a scathing look.
That didn't sit right with her. No one should have been able to reach her faster than her personal guards.
'That's not impressive," Rose thought. She frowned. 'Why are they so slow? Incompetent or traitors?'
…She took a deep breath and then relaxed her expression to be less hostile. She watched the two guards only in her peripheral vision.
'If cutting the tent didn't wake me, I can't expect them to have heard it. But I threw the hilt away, it hit the ground. And we were talking! If they were paying attention, they should have heard that. Why didn't they either enter or call out?'
She fixed their faces in her memory, and that of the light-haired soldier for good measure.
"You're one of Harrod's?" Rose asked him, turning to the soldier. The armor looked like what Harrod's troops wore. He was looking off into the forest, as if he'd caught sight of the assassin escaping.
He focused on her and gave a bow. To her eye, it was a bit smooth for an average soldier. She mentally reclassified him as some minor nobility, someone's second son. "I was coming to report," he explained. "I saw you come out of your tent and followed."
Rose decided that he wasn't lying and he wasn't particularly suspicious. She nodded. "Would you tell your Lord that I'd like to meet? And you, bring me Celestin. Return with him."
"My lady," the guard she'd pointed to murmured. Harrod's man echoed him a moment later and jogged off.
"With me," she told the remaining guard. With absolutely zero trust, she kept track of where the man was as she returned to her tent. Someone had roused her poor squire, and he was waiting for her outside. The boy's brown hair was sticking up on the side, but his armor was on properly and his eyes were wide awake. “Good morning!” he blurted out. “Are you alright?”
"Good morning," she greeted him. "I want a full patrol and inspection, now. Have the food stores checked for tampering, and a roll call."
Rose had to cut off abruptly. Cold, white fear had a grip on her lungs. She might not have been the only target. Etienne was much more isolated-
She forced herself to calm down. Her assassin had almost certainly come from the forest that he'd escaped into. Etienne was in the opposite direction, hours of travel away. Even if the castle defenders knew where he'd gone, they hadn't had enough time to physically reach him.
Her squire had bowed, hair flopping over his face. "Yes, princess," he said hastily. His voice was significantly higher than she'd ever heard it before. He didn't dare move until after she'd passed him. Too polite to turn his back on her, she knew.
Rose kept any amusement off her face as she strode past. She heard him start to run.
It didn't take long for the men she'd summoned to reach her tent. They stayed with her in tense silence as reports came in- everyone was accounted for, there were no signs of theft or tampering with the food or water, the horses were undisturbed.
'Honestly, that's more unsettling,' Rose thought. 'I was the only target? Only one person was sent out to infiltrate? They were confident.. and they were really good.' She frowned, almost painfully tense. 'Whoever that was, he made it halfway through the camp without being seen or having to kill anyone, and found my tent on the first try?'
She paced around her tent, feeling like a caged tiger.
Maybe only one person had been sent because only one person was that skilled. Or maybe she just didn't see the other angle yet.
It was a very long day. She'd probably only slept about 4 hours, but she wasn't interested in sleeping again. Especially not before the guard shift changed.
When she woke, it was with a new sense of determination. When her squire met her, she tossed a sword at him. He caught it with more grace than she expected and turned his face up to watch her as she walked past. “Come,” Rose said, stretching her neck to the side. “We’re doing some morning conditioning.”
At dawn, there was no one else in the closest training ring yet. Rose vaulted over the wooden fence and began going through some stretches. She kept an eye on the boy as he cautiously climbed over and then began to copy her. “Running, to warm your muscles,” she said after a while. He moved and she snapped out, “Put the sword on your belt. What’s the point of practicing without the weight?”
He flushed a deep red that reminded her of Lord Drepam’s nose. He shamefacedly muttered a “Yes, your highness,” and obeyed.
Rose led him in circuits around the training area. It was an easy pace for her, but she heard the squire panting before too long. She took pity on him and slowed to a walk when he started stumbling.
It felt a lot like being home. She and her siblings were often the first on the field at the castle.
Once she’d run the boy through his paces and left him dripping with sweat, she released him to the mercy of whatever it was they served for breakfast in the mess tent. Rose was delicately biting the last of her raisin pastries when someone hailed her from outside her tent.
Her expression flattened. She shoved the rest inside her mouth, instantly regretted it, and then washed it down with her coffee. Rose swallowed hard and then shoved her plate out of sight underneath some papers. “Enter,” she snapped. Her voice came out much crankier than intended.
“Ah…” The pretty Trevail girl hesitated for a moment in her door as if regretting her existence. Her big brown eyes were fixed on Rose, looking oddly guilty.
…That made Rose feel a little guilty herself. “Yes?” she prompted, a little gently.
The other woman came a cautious step further in and let the door swing shut behind her. “Good morning, your highness,” she curtsied. A flash of something bright on her shoe caught Rose’s eye, but whatever it was was hidden by her hems the same second. “I have some unfortunate news.” She kept eye contact, but she was obviously nervous. “One of our patrols in the woods is very late to return. The General wants your permission to send someone out to find what happened to them.”
Oh, hells. Rose felt her mouth twist downward. “Does he specify who he intends to send?” she asked. Surely Celestin knew better than to send more troops into the same trap.
“He said that he would send a larger patrol of royal soldiers,” Trevail confirmed. She ducked her face down and glanced up at Rose through her lashes. “The original patrol was 6, from Lord Drepam’s forces.”
Rose hummed. “Thank you,” she said. She leaned back. She didn’t like it, but she liked even less the idea of leaving those soldiers without even trying. “Is there anything else?”
Trevail hesitated. “I was asked to confirm the food stores hadn’t been tampered with,” she said. “To the best of my knowledge, they appear to be as before.”
That was a relief. “Thank you for telling me,” Rose said, a genuine smile coming across. That was one weight off of her shoulders. But the noblewoman didn’t seem like she wanted to leave. Rose tilted her head to the side. “Here, have a seat.” She indicated the only other seat. “Coffee?” She picked up the pot in the correct manner and indicated pouring over the spare cup.
The social ritual seemed to relax the other girl. “Thank you,” she said primly, and sank to a sitting position. “Have you had breakfast?” She accepted her coffee with both hands and a blinding smile.
“I have, and you?” Rose rejoined. “Would you like for me to call for a bite?”
“Oh, no,” the other woman demurred. “I wouldn’t possibly impose.”
They called for more food. What came was cut fruit and thinly sliced cheese.
Over such finger food, Trevail flowered. Rose watched, bemused but charmed at the difference it made. The conversation was an eminently practical explanation of their rationing and supply chain mechanics. The comfort that the other girl showed here and how awkward and miserable she seemed in the camp painted a picture that made Rose pity her, a little. She was clearly too far from her home and her social comforts.
‘I forget that we aren’t all soldiers.’
Rose escorted the other girl out when they were done and then stood, watching her green dress fade away into the crowd. She shook her head to dislodge the lingering interest and then went to find Celestin and clarify his plans to ensure that they’d sent enough people out in pursuit of the missing patrolmen.
