Chapter 35 - Night Missives

“Hey, wake up, Golden Eyes,” Mareth said, with all the sweetness of Helga, the Barracks Keeper back at the Academy. When Cadryn refused, a finger flick between the eyes did the trick. Sending him thrashing about into shocked wakefulness.

“Ugh, I’m up, I’m up,” Cadryn muttered, pushing up onto his elbow and rubbing his brow. As he blinked away stars the room resolved around Mareth where she stood leaning down over the mouth of his alcove in a thin cotton sleeping tunic.

“Yeah, I can see that,” she said, eyes sliding further down to Cadryn’s still covered waist.

“Not you too,” he muttered in faux embarrassment, “Is there even one lady in this outfit?”

“If you slept in pants, you wouldn’t be the subject of such comments, Keeper Bence,” called out Bahsa Fen from the door. “Just because you’re on light duty doesn’t mean this is a resort for you to carouse about. Report to the Guard Post for early watch.”

“Yes, Quartermistress,” he yelled out, now genuinely embarrassed.

Covering a laugh, Mareth waited until the door darkened again, “I didn’t come here just to peep on you. I need your help with a task, it’s in the underground levels . . . you know how I feel about all that dark.”

“For you, anything,” Cadryn replied, “If will you let me get dressed that is.”

“I’ll come find you after your early shift is up,” Mareth replied, waving over a shoulder as she turned away to hide the flush in her cheeks.

A week since awaking from his coma and, with its passage, the weather began to change seasons. The night was cool and damp with the lines of storm clouds coming in off the Hoarfrost Sea. Each passing front tore the air with a constant howling and lashed the siding of the toll house with the crack of thunder. The Neeft, unsurprisingly, drew a lot of lightning with its prodigious heights and various stone and metal edifices. Safe within the Guard Post, Cadryn watched the flash-illuminated courtyard fill with the passing rains and drain like a tidal basin. He found it oddly calming, his partner on guard duty felt differently.

“Never cared for the rain, it’s a logistics nightmare,” Bahsa Fen groused from her place at the small room’s table. A sunlight-golden arcane lamp hung from an iron loop above, casting the table in clean daylight. He guessed she had brought it with her, given that the hook was empty during the day shift. Before her, the Quartermistress poured over the supplies and stocking reports of the Neeft, perhaps the whole region from the size of the stacks. Lured away from the storm’s lullaby by the whiff of mystery, Cadryn shook out his legs and ambled over.

“That’s a lot of paperwork for just the Neeft,” he said, leaning over the table to get a better look.

“It’s not just the Neeft, but you knew that,” she replied, glancing at him over her reading glasses. “Are you always so indirect?”

“Only with people whose judgement I fear . . . old habit,” he answered, honestly.

Bahsa chuckled at that, her wide body jiggling beneath its purple silks. “A good habit, for a politician.”

“Or a solider,” Cadryn countered.

“Same thing,” Bahsa said, shaking out her writing hand. Collecting her pipe, she took a long pull before exhaling the sweet blue smoke upward at the lamp. “Only difference is a solider gets to stick the other asshole between the ribs with a sword himself, instead of paying some sneak to do it with knife.”

“What are you in the gradient of stabbing, I wonder,” Cadryn said, watching the smoke curls.

“I’m just the bitch selling the knives, or used to be, I suppose . . . Now I just count swords and handle room and board for undesirables from the capital.”

Cadryn balked, it was like the time he had overheard Silence talking about an orgy at an Assemblage retreat in Throne-home; one assumed such things were so, but never spoke of them aloud to another soul. His eyes fell back to the table, the pages, so many different hands, only half the papers were even Provalian. Most of the languages he could not even identify.

“Code,” Bahsa said, reading his confusion like short-hand. “You need a cypher to translate it, or to have memorized the cypher.” She tapped at her temple, “Always best to keep it up here, if you can.”

Lightning flashed again, as a new wave of rain arrived, pattering heavily on the shutters. Certain aspects and mannerisms of Bahsa’s began to make a lot more sense in light of this new revelation. The way she always seemed a few steps ahead of the room, or anticipated some events before word of them arrived via Sefton.

“Why are you telling me this,” he said, and realized watching her expression for the truth would be a fool’s errand. He did it anyway.

“Honestly Cad, you remind me someone I knew growing up,” she said, nodding once for emphasis. Taking another pull from the pipe she added, eyes lidded, “I didn’t trust him, and I’ve been paying for it since.”

“Uh huh,” Cadryn replied, his skepticism full chested, “I bet he was the Emperor too.”

“Shame,” she said, tapping out her pipe, “that you didn’t bet anything on it.”

Cadryn chuckled, shaking his head, before noticing that Bahsa Fen was not smiling. Watching her re-pack the pipe with a faraway look, Cadryn felt a chill apart from the weather. He was snatched away from that by a new sound from the courtyard, someone yelling up at the guard post.

Hurrying to the windows, Cadryn saw a slight figure in a travelling cloak, boots swamped with draining water, waiving up frantically as they tried to stay upright against the wind. He waved them into the small vestibule below at the base of the stairs and puled the shutters closed against the rain.

“Who was it?” Bahsa said, her attention returned to her pile of missives.

“Probably the Emperor’s long lost daughter,” he grumbled, walking for the stairs.