Chapter Twenty-One: Midwinter

Val hadn't known what a standard bearer was - why would she have? So she'd asked Mrs. Eatherfine, who had the lord-general tell her.

A standard bearer was the person who carried the duke's flag and who announced him when he came into the room or on the field. It was a very important role, usually reserved for young men in noble families with military pedigree, because it insinuated closeness with the ducal family that most of the noble houses would kill for - and sometimes literally did. That’s what they wanted Val to do, because she was related to a long-dead queen.

"You can't be the duke's standard," Ginn told her. "It's too dangerous - if there's a war, you'd be right alongside him."

"On the other hand," Ette said. "Being next to the duke is one of the safest places to be in an actual battle. He'll be surrounded by good people and far from the worst of the fighting."

In any case, Val hadn't given her answer to Mrs. Eatherfine then and there, even though the dowager duchess had wanted her to. The request of a duchess was not a request - Val knew that, obviously. But when it involved the fate of the rest of her life, Val was going to insist on some time to think on it, even if she was the duke's subject.

She didn't much care for the notion of being a subject… it rubbed Val the wrong way to think that powerful people held the fate of the citizens of a nation in their hands whether they wanted to be ruled or not. The Pale Order did it… the Regency Council did it… and Duke Ansibald and his mom did it, even if they were much better than those other two.

Ette sighed. "If the duke wants her to be his standard, I don't know that there's much we can do about it…"

"You're probably right."

"Maybe…" Val said, because just then she had an idea.

Being the duke's standard bearer was an important position - and the duke already had a bearer, obviously. The boy was sixteen - practically an adult - and a squire from the Zollens, an important noble family with holdings in the East Marches. The plan was to advance him to knight-companion a year early, because anything else would be seen as a demotion and would upset his father, the Baron of Vale's Reach. But, Val was keen to point out, even a regular squire, let alone the duke's own standard bearer, had lots of experience under their belt. Val might not be a squire - it was pretty unusual, though not unheard of, for girls to be squires - but she would need the training of one if she was to be a proper standard bearer.

"Nonsense," Mrs. Eatherfine replied. "All you need to do is wave the little flag around and shout to everybody that my son is the duke. You don't need to know a sabre from a scimitar."

"She's got a point, mother," Ansibald said. "The battle standard is a fighting position, and I will not have myself look foolish on the battlefield by having an untrained girl carrying my pennant…"

"Our pennant…"

"The pennant," Ansibald said. "I've already promised Tobbin Zollen the promotion, but I'll keep him on as an attaché until he says Val is ready. Until then, Val will carry my standard only at non-military functions and then Tobbin will ride into battle with me."

That was perhaps the best compromise that Val could have arrived at. Since there was no war going on, there wasn't a whole lot of battle standard-ing to do, but everybody said war was coming. Already, there had been skirmishes at the border between Aurilicht and Boleares, and between the knights of several orders within the Pale Order and the militias of the border villages. A border village on the Boleares side had, seemingly spontaneously, raided a logging camp right across the border. There was no formal declaration of war on either side, but everybody waited with bated breath for the other shoe to drop.

The priests of the Pale Order were out in force. They were out decrying the duke's 'unprovoked acts of aggression and numerous decrees of religious intolerance'… which, insofar as Val was aware, consisted of fighting back when folks from Boleares marched over the border with weapons, some of whom happened to be church militants and brother-knights. Good riddance, Val thought. Every one of them killed now was one they wouldn't have to kill later if there was outright war.

One of them was a wild-eyed preacher in dirty robes. He looked like he'd rolled down a dusty hill with a briar patch… but some folks mistook that for religious authenticity. He stood atop the gleaming white dais in front of the St. Abulard's Temple and shouted to the crowds below. "Brothers and sisters of the faith, how much longer will you tolerate the oppressive boot of the heathen? Your own duke sits in his palace unbaptized! All the balms of Ostrogrod and tinctures of Bolzili will not purify the impure until they cleanse themselves in the righteous waters of the almighty! Bolzili… from whence our dear departed brother bishop hailed. Executed on this very spot for the audacity of piety in an impious land…"

That got Val's blood boiling, because she knew exactly why the duke had beheaded the bishop and she'd been shouting for him to do it. The bishop, if he'd been a holy man, had been a holy man with a penchant for children in a very unchaste way. That was being as euphemistically charitable as Val could be. He'd buggered orphans. A few had died, and a dozen more were scarred for life. Val could hear her pulse thump in her ears. Her fingers and toes tingled. Probably, some of the others orphans were scarred and just better at hiding it. If there was a hell, Val hoped he was burning there right now…

"He killed kids and he got what he deserved!" Val shouted. "Don't you make him into a hero!"

"Yeah, that kid is right!" a passing pedestrian shouted. "Your bishop was a rapist!"

"Do not speak of a holy man thus, heathens!" the priest shouted back. He leapt up and down on the lectern as if he was trying to squash a particularly large and energetic insect.

"He wasn't holy! He got what he was coming to him!" a man shouted.

Before Val could quite register the change in her surroundings, a dozen people… twenty people… thirty surged up the white marble of the temple steps. The mendicant priest's manic expression dropped as he realized what was happening, and two seconds later, the crowd had surrounded him and brother-knights were charging out from the temple to rescue the man.

Val didn't bother to stick around long enough to see if they managed to. She dashed away toward the Riverway, where she'd been headed anyway. It had been her plan to go down there and join Iselde and Nikoli for streetball, which they usually played on Twinsday afternoons, assuming they could scrounge up a ball - and sometimes, if they didn't, they used a particularly resilient cabbage.

+++++

During each of Val's twice-weekly finishing sessions in the palace, one of the girls took a turn being the hostess. Since there were five girls in the class, Val ended up hosting once every two and a half weeks - about twice a month. When Val was hosting, she had to arrive an hour early (completely disrupting her daily schedule!) and head down to the kitchen, where she would give the palace tea maid (but not the ducal tea maid) her request for tea and appetizers.

A lady didn't make her own tea or appetizers, obviously, but she did order them. Lady Nevine had a standing order for the appetizers, so they didn't have to be baked to order. They just had to be requisitioned and plated and the tea served. A lady then had to request which tea set to use, which varied based upon the time of the year and the formality of the tea. Lady Nevine would specify both of these the week before-hand, though by now she expected the girls to know it.

The first half-hour of class would be a light tea (even if Lady Nevine specified a high tea, or even a royal tea, for the place settings, they only served enough for a light tea), followed by lessons, dancing, and then either speech or poise, depending on which Lady Nevine thought the hostess needed more work on. Finally, the hostess was expected to report back to the tea maid on what had gone well and what needed improvement so the hostess could avoid any unfortunate faux pas next time.

As a result, Val had become well-acquainted with the palace layout. Or at least the layout between the entrance, the tea room, the dance hall, and the kitchen. She also explored around whenever time permitted, and the guards only ever stopped her if she got too close to the ducal suites, which were less than a quarter of the palace.

As she returned from streetball, the courtyard in front of the temple was strangely empty - even the Flame of the Almighty, which was usually set in a brazier by the doorway, was dark and inert. The dark spots Val spotted up the steps might have been blood but were probably mud - crowds in Verdenlecht sometimes liked to throw mud when they were agitated. Whatever had happened, it was long since over.

Val forewent her usual combat class and study session that evening, and not just because it was Mittvanter, the midwinter holiday. She also had a security gig with Ette and Ginn on account of all of the travelers coming into town for the holiday.

Ette and Ginn went out to do security jobs in the evenings two or three days a week, usually as a pair and sometimes with Sabine. However, most of the time, Val was not invited on these outings because they were at bordellos.

"I don't see why I can't help with security at a brothel," Val said. "I know what they do at bordellos. Everybody does."

At least Val thought she knew. Lots of sex and lots of partying. And, though she would never admit it to Ginn or especially Ette, Val was very interested in learning more about both.

"You can't go because I'm not comfortable with it," Ette said diplomatically. "If the head of an operation isn't comfortable with you being on an op, you don't belong on the op."

That was an infuriating answer because it put the blame squarely on Ette while getting Val no closer to assisting in security at bordellos. But they weren't going to a bordello tonight - they were going to the Pilgrim's Passage Hotel to the south of the city.

The Pilgrim's Passage was a large and ancient structure - it had once served as the lord's manse back when Verdenlecht was a barony and not the capital of Aurilicht. Its dark and imperious stone face had once been the façade of a castle, but now it was surrounded by boutiques and upper-crust housing. The inside was a hotel now, obviously, with a great big central courtyard that could be canopied in bad weather.

The evening, though, was clear and crisp with twin full moons overhead and an atmosphere of merriment pervading the city. Val counted four raucous parties as they walked the city toward the hotel - one of them was at a bordello that she hadn't been invited to help with security for. She wondered what was happening inside.

+++++

They rounded the corner of the old castle and approached the front entrance of the Pilgrim's Passage Hotel. Music and mulled cider wafted in the air.

"Here, this is yours," Ginn said. She handed Val something made of firm, black felt.

"What is it?"

"A mask. The hotel staff will all be wearing ones like this… actually, I made that one for you since they only gave us two."

It was a black felt mask that covered the top half of the face. It featured, in copper and silver leaf, the flower-flourished square of the hotel's symbol, along with a smattering of little silvery flower petals. It was quite good - Ginn had probably bought the plain mask, but she'd applied more than a bit of artistic talent in making the thing. It looked a lot like the hotel-issued mask that Ginn had just tied on. With only a bit of reluctance, Val tied the thing around her head, finding that it didn't restrict her vision as much as she'd feared it would.

"Why are the hotel staff wearing masks?" Val asked.

"Mittvanter," Ette said. "Haven't you ever celebrated Mittvanter?"

Val hadn't, obviously. Not only was it a relatively minor holiday in Wayfair, she'd never been in a position to celebrate it. On Mittvanter, Mrs. Lavoie forewent her one-chit charge and gave the orphans a little chunk of chocolate and a quarter-glass of honey-mulled wine. The only thing she'd ever been to that resembled a party was the Taagsnit celebration, when she'd been initiated into the sept and got her Gift. Based on the sounds coming from inside the hotel, Val was about two minutes away from her first actual party… and she'd be helping with security.

They entered the hotel, approached the lobby, and immediately encountered problems. The hotel manager scurried over to Ginn and Ette to issue them specifics before finally noticing Val.

"Who's she?"

"My apprentice," Ette said. "She knows enough to be a help with security."

The manager's eyebrows furrowed, disappearing beneath his little mask. "I'm not paying you more than our agreed-upon price. I requested two security personnel."

"So you'll be getting one for free."

"She's a child," the manager said.

"I'm not a child," Val replied. "I can help plenty. I have combat training from the duke's guard."

That was true, of course. She'd been to about six training sessions to bring her up to speed to be the duke's standard bearer, part of which had been how to fight in the sorts of battle where the duke and his standard came under attack. You weren't supposed to ever let the standard drop - you dropped your weapon before you dropped the standard. Which Val absolutely was not going to do - if it came down to it, the duke's pennant could get trampled in the mud. It wasn't worth dying over.

Val had far more fighting experience from Ette and Ginn's fighting classes, where she often 'volunteered' for one of them to demonstrate techniques on her.

"See to it that she doesn't cause any trouble," the manager said. "Otherwise, I'll deduct the damage from your fee."

"Fair enough," Ette said.

They proceeded to the courtyard, where the holiday celebrations were already underway… not that they would be partaking. This was a job. The hotel already had a security staff, but they liked to add extra protection at busy times, and Mittvanter was among the busiest. They'd contacted Sabine, who then recommended Ette's operation.

"We're stuck with babysitting duty," Sabine told them. "There are a lot of people from out of town, some of them from countries and religions who are disagreeable with one another."

"Keep people from engaging in centuries-old vendettas. Got it," Ette said. "All right, Val. You've got eyes."

Val had eyes, obviously. But when you said that in security-speak, that meant you were the one to look out for danger. As the person with the sharpest eyes, that usually fell on her. Plus, Val suspected, Ette liked to keep Val out of danger, too. But she'd lived twelve years without anybody specifically looking out for her, so she figured she'd be fine, regardless. Val climbed up one of the classical-style pillars as easily as a monkey and hopped onto the second-story courtyard balcony.

"They have stairs, Val!" Ginn shouted from down below, but she didn't seem too upset.

How could you be upset? There were at least a hundred people in the big courtyard chatting and dancing. Live music and acrobats played and tumbled in one corner and food and drink were for sale at the opposite end. When a staggering drunk man ambled toward the dancers, Val whistled and pointed, spurring Ginn into dashing out and redirecting the man out of the courtyard and back to his hotel room. Sabine shot her a thumbs-up.

There were people up on the balcony, too, but there were a lot less of them because they didn't have music and food up there. A group of men speaking Peliac passed behind her, one of them musing whether he should push the girl off the railing.

"You'd better not," Val said back to them. Peliac was what they spoke in Wayfair, so she understood them perfectly well.

"Er… sorry… joke bad," the man replied in broken Arleng.

Val remained perched up there for a while, whistling warnings on occasion… but, mostly, she just watched. Between Ette, Sabine, and Ginn, they could spot anything she could within a few seconds of her spotting it. When she whistled that three men were fixing to brawl, Sabine had already taken note of the trio and didn't even have to check with Val to know where to go.

The attendees milled about in the courtyard - mostly, they appeared to be upper- and middle-crust mercantile types, though others were townsfolk and travelers, some of them from faraway lands. They chatted and danced in the courtyard, warmed by the fires of a dozen big braziers and lit golden by the light of gas lamps overhead. The smell of mulled mead, seared meat, and sticky pudding made her stomach grumble - she'd skipped supper to squeeze in extra study time that evening.

Val warmed her hands by the gas lamp next to her perch - wherever all the heat down below was going to, it wasn't going to her. She wondered whether the fingers of the musicians were getting numb, too.

The musicians weren't hotel employees, so they were collecting money, coins dropping chit-chit-chit into their ornate wooden box. The acrobats, too. They seemed to be part of the same troupe - also travelers from out of town, gauging from their strange dress. They had warm jackets, but below that they had the robes and wrappings of people more acclimated to a desert culture and all of them had skin at least as dark as Val's. A woman and a man each played dueling fiddles while another droned on in the background with his accordion, the drone rising up and down according to the part. One of the acrobats, clad in streaming green and blue, had bells on his feet, and they chattered whenever he leapt and spun with the music.

Periodically, new musicians would switch in or one of the tumblers would take up an instrument - they were multi-talented, apparently. One of the tumblers, a girl not much bigger than Val decked in an array of glittering bracelets and bangles, leapt up to the stage with a flying tumble. She was lithe and sinuous… Val couldn't keep her eyes off the girl. She removed a silvery fife from its case and removed her mask.

Jasil! The girl was Jasil!