They came upon us with such force that we were unable to hold them back …

Force commander Cyran, the day of the Invasion.

11th-day 6th month 579th year of the 8th era

Akuchi rocked as the triple-masted ship creaked and groaned on the ocean. His stomach twisted and heaved. Her sails full of wind, the clipper ship Fleur de Lis cut through the ocean, slicing through the waves. Akuchi grabbed the rail as the ship swayed on the water, tipping violently. Akuchi’s stomach heaved and he dry retched, silently thanking Tareem, the God of Farmers, that he hadn’t eaten in two days. The journey from Crece had been intolerable. Moments after setting off, Akuchi had been sick. The smell of warm ale brought his head up from hanging over the side of the ship. Akuchi stepped forward and tottered towards the open main hatch. Another creak and the ship teetered in the other direction, making Akuchi wobble and then steady himself.

A chuckle came from the forecastle as Hiwot descended to the main deck. Hiwot, the captain of the ship, was dressed in baggy white trousers that tapered at the ankles, her blouse a blue silk number that conformed to her body, revealing ample cleavage. Her raven-black hair was tied up in a top knot, indicating that she was a member of a high clan. She had piercing grey eyes. At the wrists were four gold stripes of rank.

Akuchi attempted a bow, but the ship swayed on a swell, and he stumbled, careening forward into Hiwot. She caught him. Akuchi blushed as he attempted to right himself.

The ship swayed, and he stumbled.

Hiwot reached out and caught him, her arm steadying him.

“Steady on,” she said, her voice soft. “I see you haven’t gotten your sea legs yet.”

“They didn’t issue them during training,” Akuchi quipped. Why is this member of one of the high clans speaking to me? I am a simple lowly farmer. I have no right to even be going on this journey let alone speaking to this high clan woman.

Hiwot’s laughter pulled him out of his reverie. He lifted his head and looked up at her in surprise.

“That’s good,” she said. “Perhaps they should have issued them during training.”

Crew members stopped at their tasks and looked at them.

Hiwot steadied Akuchi as another swell rocked the boat. Hiwot noticed the sailors watching them. A scowl crossed her face. She turned and barked, “Get back to work, ya thundering harbour hogs!”

She turned back to Akuchi and smiled warmly at him.

“Sorry to have disturbed you.” He bowed, stepping towards the main hatch.

The ship pitched to the side on another swell again, and Akuchi stumbled. Hiwot caught him.

“It’s no problem,” she soothed as she half-carried him down the steps to the second deck and Akuchi’s bunk.

Akuchi blushed as he looked at her.

“When you find your sea legs, come let me know,” she instructed. “I would like your company, and it can be a long journey to Fort Northern Wiles.”

Akuchi climbed into his bunk and closed his eyes. The queasiness eased.

Hiwot left and ascended to the top deck of the clipper ship.

***

Akuchi’s dreams were restless, as he fought with his stomach over the impulse to throw up with each lurch of the ship.

A woman wept in a corner. He tried to reach her. Everything went black.

He stood on a hill where the wind whipped at his hair as he raised a greatsword above his head; in front of him stood a large army. He raced down into the army and swung the sword, and everything went black.

After another day, his stomach settled down and hunger drove him into the galley. The third watch was taking their dinner at the same time. The men were laughing and talking amongst themselves. The cook, a large man with a missing arm and a wooden foot, wore an apron stained with grease and various sauces. He looked up when Akuchi approached smiling; he had a few of his front teeth missing.

“Can I get something?” Akuchi asked, picking up a bowl from the stack.

“Sorry, son, the captain left explicit orders that you are to report to her as soon as you can stomach some food,” the cook replied smiling at him.

“Oh.” Akuchi looked down at his hand on the benchtop. “Is the Captain going to be eating soon?” His stomach growled.

The ship rolled to the side again, and the chatter died down as the crew caught their plates, holding them to the table. A plate hit the floor with a clatter, followed by a roar of laughter, then the talking resumed. The smell of roast beef and potatoes caused Akuchi’s stomach to growl. He walked back out of the galley. Coming out of the hatch, he looked around, getting his bearings on where he was. Standing in the middle of the ship he had a great view of the surroundings. As the ship rolled a little on the waves, Akuchi teetered and swayed.

A shirtless sailor dressed in rough hemp trousers scrubbed the deck with soapy water and a hard-bristled brush. His muscled body flexed with each scrub. Several other crew members were scattered around the deck; some spooling rope, others tying it off and climbing the masts. All sailors wore rough-cut hemp trousers and went barefoot and shirtless. Akuchi turned to the quarterdeck. A man held a large wheel, cut and polished a deep bronze; behind him stood a young man wearing finely cut trousers, a tight-fitting white shirt, and a blue jacket.

“Where are the captain’s quarters?” he asked the sailor scrubbing the deck.

The sailor looked up at him and pointed to the bow of the ship, then returned to his work.

Akuchi walked past the mainmast and ascended a set of stairs up to the quarterdeck. There he spied a solid ornate wooden door set into the ship’s poop deck. The door was carved by design to fit perfectly into the frame, made from a rich dark wood that had been varnished to give it a rich, ruddy-brown colour. The door handles were a matching pair, though they were not identical. The left handle was the symbol of Ambrose; it featured a long handle that came out of the door and ended in a rounded top. The right handle was the symbol of Venus; a rounded handle close to the door frame that was painted with a flower.

A member of the high clan has invited me to dinner; through this door would be the place to go. The ship rolled on the waves and he rolled with the ship. Akuchi smiled. I have found my sea legs. His stomach growled, and he stepped inside. The room was lit only by candles in the next room.

“The captain is expecting you,” a man said. “Follow me please.” The man’s tone was that of a humble house slave, but his frame spoke of a man that had spent long years working the fields.

Akuchi followed him down the corridor. Arriving at the light source, Akuchi stepped past the house slave and entered a room that was richly furnished. A crimson sofa sat against the left wall. It was plump and soft, a purple silk sheet draped over it like a toga. The walls were varnished to a high polish. The door on the opposite side of the room was closed, identical in every way to the door Akuchi had first come through.

“Please wait here, the captain will be out shortly.” The slave turned and left, closing the door behind him.

Akuchi stepped further into the room and sat on the edge of the sofa. He was a poor farmer’s son, dressed in practical leather trousers that were worn from use. He had a flimsy white shirt that was stained with sweat and mud. He sat on the seat, his back rigid. This sofa has got to be worth more than what I will need to buy my own farm. The door opened, and light cascaded into the room, framing Hiwot. As Akuchi’s eyes adjusted, he noticed that Hiwot was clutching a thin silk robe under her breasts. The robe was spidery thin and shimmered in the candlelight. She smiled at him.

“Good to see you are not lurching around my ship anymore.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Akuchi said, looking down at his feet.

“There is no need to stand on ceremony.” Hiwot stepped forward and extended her hand to him. “Please come in and let’s have dinner.”

Akuchi stood and took her outstretched hand. It would have been rude to ignore the offer. Hiwot led him into the adjoining room and closed the door behind them.

“We won’t be bothered here.” She sighed, letting go of the robe.

“Why am I here?” Akuchi asked, looking around the room in wonder. He had thought the furnishings in the last room were extravagant; here they were palatial. The room was wallpapered in a rendition of the birth of time as per the Codex. The roof was whitewashed to a gleaming shine and in the centre of the roof a crystal chandelier held several flickering candles. The floor was covered in a soft royal blue carpet. Beneath the chandelier was a small intimate table, set for two, made from carved wood and brought to a shine from polish.

“My name is Hiwot Naru. I desired your company,” Hiwot stated blandly. She shrugged out of the robe she had been wearing and it fell to the floor with a slight whoosh. “I am going to have a bath. Please join me. These routine journeys can get very boring without stimulating company.”

Akuchi blushed crimson, averting his gaze as Hiwot stepped into the bath.

“Why did you pick me?”

“You were sick and still able to amuse me,” she replied, sinking with a sigh into the hot water. “If you could do that, then you would be very entertaining when you are well.”

“Oh, thank you for the compliment, my lady.” Akuchi bowed to Hiwot. “I am just a farmer’s son from outside Rolf.”

Hiwot looked up at Akuchi, a blank expression on her serene face. Akuchi shifted uncomfortably under her gaze.

“That is in the past.” She beamed. “You are a free man volunteering to fight at Forth Northern Wiles. I think you are crazy for going; very few people come back, which is why the pay is so high.”

“I contracted on for a year,” Akuchi stammered out.

“When was the last time you had a bath?” Hiwot asked, changing the subject. A sparkle in her eyes, flicking her hands at Akuchi.

“Don’t recall, your ladyship,” Akuchi replied.

“Enough,” she cut him off, slamming a clenched fist onto the edge of the porcelain bathtub. “For Venus’s sake stop calling me ‘your ladyship.’ Call me Hiwot or captain … please, I gave up all that bowing and scraping when I joined the Navy. Now climb in with me and wash. I will not have you dirty for dinner.”

She picked up a block of soap from a silver tray that was nailed into the wall and began to scrub herself with it.

Akuchi was torn. He could break tradition, as she obviously had done so—and climb into the tub with her or he could break tradition by not following her orders. Akuchi kicked off his boots. He undid the fastener of his trousers and peeled them off. He pulled off his shirt and gingerly climbed into the water with her.

Akuchi sank into the steaming water and sighed as the water began its work, seeping into his worn muscles. He looked across the bath. Hiwot’s deep grey eyes looked back at him. As their gaze met, a deep longing stirred within him. Akuchi felt a spark course back through his body and felt his body tingle. This is not appropriate, he chided himself as the sensation flowed through his body, tingling as it went. He took the soap from her hands and a flash of pleasure rippled down from his hand, mingling with the spark in his groin. Then the contact broke. He began scrubbing his body, lathering the soap to remove the grime from his body. They sat in silence for a few moments, busy with washing themselves.

“Could you wash my back, please?” Akuchi asked, reaching out with the soap towards Hiwot.

Hiwot looked him in the eye. Colour rose in her cheeks. She slipped the soap from his hand, sending another wave of pleasure through him. He turned without a word so she could wash his back.

“Why did you join the army?” she asked as she gently massaged his back with the soap.

The question startled Akuchi. He looked down at the side of the white porcelain bath and gripped the side. “I am the oldest of my father’s children and there was not enough food to go around, now that my father has the new baby to feed,” he stammered out.

“How many siblings do you have?” she inquired.

“I have six brothers and seven sisters.”

Hiwot scrubbed his back and waves of pleasure seared through him again, radiating out from where she touched him.

“What about you?” he asked.

“I am the youngest of three.”

“Done,” she said, sitting back in the bathwater. Akuchi turned back to face her. Colour rose in her cheeks a deep crimson.

“Let me wash your back,” Akuchi offered, stretching out his hand for the soap.

Hiwot placed the soap in his hand without taking her eyes off him. She turned her back to Akuchi.

Akuchi took the soap and placed it gently on the smooth skin of her back, slowly building up a soapy lather.

She gripped the porcelain.

“Done,” Akuchi declared settling down into the water.

She turned in the water and looked down at herself.

He followed her gaze and his eyes wandered over her bosom. Her breasts were perfect, majestic, and sitting gloriously just above the waterline. His gaze caressed her body, drinking in what could be seen over the soapy water. He reached out and held the soap under her eyes. Akuchi leaned back against the bathtub, soaking in the now-tepid water. Through his lashes, he measured up the woman that had triggered such a wild response in him. She was beautiful, that was a given, but her lack of respect for the old ways was disturbing. These waves of pleasure that had torn through his body were quite another thing. Why am I even here? She said that I am here because she was amused by me, but what does that mean? He was grateful for the bath; it was amazing. What else was in store for him tonight?

Hiwot raised her hands and clapped sharply three times. The action startled Akuchi as the door opened, and in walked the house slave. The bald slave walked in, gracefully picked up the clothes on the floor, and left.

Akuchi stood in the bath, trying to protest the removal of his clothes.

Hiwot laughed as she drank in the sight of him. His body was rippled with muscles. She stood next to him and stepped out of the bath.

Her movement drew his eyes and he watched her step from the bath. Her silky-smooth skin glistened from the water.

She stepped to the side of the bath and drew out two towels from a small compartment hidden between the wall and the bathtub. She threw one at him and he caught the soft towel with one hand and stepped out onto the carpeted floor.

“How am I going to get back to my bunk?” he demanded. “Your slave has just taken my clothes.”

She laughed at his anger. “Don’t worry, by the time we finish dinner he will have cleaned them for you.”

They toweled off then moved to the table set for dinner under the crystal chandelier. Set in each place were two plates of concentric size laid on top of each other. Both plates had an image of a serene garden. The cutlery was a rich gold, woven in filigree. The whole set was arranged on a rich red velvet placemat. In the middle of the table sat two crystal wine glasses and a bottle of dark crimson wine. Akuchi pulled out Hiwot’s chair for her.

Hiwot smiled as Akuchi made her comfortable at the table.

Akuchi walked around the table and sat at the other side of the table. Hiwot clapped: two sharp claps. A door, secreted behind the hammock, opened and a short waif-like girl wearing a simple grey cotton skirt, slipped into the room carrying a silver serving tray. She served Hiwot first. She removed the top plate and covered the plate with several slices of meat, tubers, and legumes. Lastly, she covered the whole lot with a rich, thick gravy and poured the red wine into each glass. A rich, fruity smell tantalized Akuchi’s nose. The girl moved around the table and served Akuchi.

“Thank you,” Akuchi muttered to the girl. She looked up at him in surprise. She fled, exiting the room via the secret door before closing it behind her. Hiwot chuckled. The sound caught Akuchi’s attention. The lilting laugh was infectious, and Akuchi smiled at her mirth.

“I think you startled her,” she said. “Most people normally ignore slaves.”

Akuchi harrumphed. “Just because they are slaves doesn’t make them any less of a person.”

“True,” she reflected. “When did a simple farmer gain such a noble point of view?”

Picking up his knife and fork, and gently cutting the meat into a neat square, he explained:

“One day I was just starting my chores; it was a rainy morning, so I began with the work in the barn. As I started feeding the pigs and chickens, I heard a man snoring; he was slumped against a wall. Going over, I saw a slave. He looked like he had been beaten severely. The bruises and cuts all over his face and whip marks over his back looked like some sort of mad maze. As I approached, he turned to me and begged me to help him. He told me that his master had beaten him, so he had run away when they were shipwrecked. I took him into the house and my mother fixed his cuts. I forget his name now … but I remember he was as short as me … and had a grey beard.”

“He sounds like a dwarf from Pergasus,” Hiwot interjected as she bit down on a fork full of meat and vegetables.

Akuchi nodded as he chewed on a forkful of his own food.

“He was tired from running all night, so we let him sleep in the house while we worked that day. At the end of the day, we came back and found that he had prepared dinner. I will never forget dinner that day. It was the best we had ever tasted. The dwarf recounted his story, saying that he was a cook to his people's ambassadors to the city of Peace Landing. On his trip, his ship was attacked by pirates. Several years from that day he was sold to a man from Amriti; he was a cruel man that enjoyed beating his slaves. The next day, a man from Amriti arrived and asked if we had seen his slave.”

“What did your family do?” Hiwot asked as she sipped on some wine from her glass goblet.

Akuchi took a sip of wine, leaning back against the high chair. The wine warmed his belly, mixing well with the food he had already consumed.

“Well, the man was so polite that we at first didn’t believe the dwarf’s story. As he was recounting how he had been shipwrecked on the rocks near Dragon’s Curse, he called up his dog that was sitting near the door. The dog didn’t hear him; the man got angry in a flash, walked over to his dog, and beat the dog several times. After that, Dad evicted him from our farm. The next day the slave left in the other direction,” Akuchi finished, polishing off his plate.

“Hmm, I see,” Hiwot summarised. “You think, that regardless of a person’s station, we should treat everyone with respect.”

Akuchi nodded in agreement.

A knock resounded on the door. The bald slave came in and bowed low. “Excuse me, Captain, but the third mate sent for you saying that a sail has been spotted to the east, coming fast.”

“Thank you. Inform Mr. Tendai that I will be up shortly.” She put down her food and clapped her hands twice. The secret door opened again, and the serving girl came back in.

“Prepare something for us to wear immediately,” Hiwot instructed. The serving slave bowed and scurried back through the door.

“Trouble?” Akuchi asked.

“Yes,” Hiwot sighed frowning. “Our pleasant evening has been cut short.”