The minor employees of the Montisferro family shall forever have my sympathy and a proper modicum of mathematical respect from me. The task of distributing tables, seating, and of course food, through the palace’s grand hall is among the most tedious of problems that can only be accomplished through trial and error. No algorithm can be applied to their overgrown tradition.

The hall itself dates back to the age of the gods, though historians disagree on how often it was repaired. Regardless, it–to this very day–provides ample space for assembly across the marble mosaic floor. Several centuries ago, it was decided that the seating for such holidays would be determined by cartography, that tables would be positioned according to the territories managed by the respective houses.

At first, this could be done quite literally. The workmen pulled out a map of the kingdom and scaled it out to the regular grid beneath their feet, and marked out a replica of Vassermark. However, the borders of Vassermark continued to grow and the walls around them did not. Tables once far apart were pressed together as diplomats crowded the exterior. Wars led to fracturing of certain regions, which demanded more tables in turn. By the time of Lucius, there simply was not room to represent the different regions. Certainly, Jarnmark could not be given an entire quarter of the hall to itself.

Thus, the workment deduced a more mathematical approach and set about preserving topology rather than size. They twisted and pulled and shrank, treating the sea like a great swath of freedom. Because floor space had become a premium, it was decided that various ranks and honors would be decided by serving order and the quality of the furniture(1). This, unfortunately, left a sticky problem of fitting tables around the existing support pillars, but that in no way diminishes the effort exerted to appease so many egos in one room.

I explain this all because Lucius, Aisha, and Lupa were seated first at a table and yet had no particular notion which fief it corresponded to. They had three pieces of evidence. First, it sat near the king’s table. Second, the livery matched across no less than three tables–one of which was clearly for preferred servants such as squires and, in the boy’s case, Lupa. Third, the woodworking befitted a master craftsman.

These three facts were enough for Lucius to deduce who had invited him, and it made his hand shake.

Aisha, seated beside him, put her hand to his and tried to squeeze the tremor out of him. “Are you sick?”

“Never been healthier,” he said, murmuring into a wine goblet.

“You won a war and now you’re… scared? Lu, what’s going on?”

He snorted. “I get scared in war too. Also, to change the subject, given the amount of people who died this year, I’m surprised how many people have arrived. Many promotions I figure.”

Aisha fixed him with a half-lidded stare. While it would have been scandalous to say, he understood well enough that she was reminding him he had done his share of reducing the noble population.

Lucius cleared his throat. “Do you think a stigmata census would ever be possible? It seems completely obvious that most people don’t know how best to use their divine gifts. It’s fundamentally a failure of general education. For example, that fellow I assigned to the smelting factory in the Misty Isles. He had no idea how gold refinement worked. He had no concept of what he could have been doing with it except what he had already seen in his life. I had to tell him.”

Aisha sighed and wetted her throat(2). “You’re still mad about that ambush, aren’t you?”

“I am still mad about that, yes.”

The incident in question happened shortly after Lucius marched out of the city. At this time, he was still compiling information and I had just taken my departure for the north. He was working on parceling out the land into strategic territories, but that’s a detail I will explain another time. What matters is that he did not follow the paladin’s army directly.

That would have been foolish to do, because the rebels were scooping up every free pound of food. Be it by steel or by gold, that which doesn’t exist cannot be acquired. He had to march his three thousand soldiers, along with the squires, the followers, the baggage train, and so on, along a parallel path, reconnoitering the rebels from a distance and managing their own position. The rebel’s size was in constant flux at this time, as some men deserted and others joined ranks. Most vanished to their home, became vagrant bandits, or something of the like. At this point in the war, neither side had the resources to catch such men.

Some tried to turn their cloaks.

The majority of wars have such things occur, and these deserters buy their good graces through intelligence in a manner that few spy networks can compete with. The man who caused this story tried to sell himself instead. More precisely, his stigmata.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Night had draped across a crossroads town more suited for shepherd flock trading. The granaries were so small–due to the expectation of meat–that Lucius was able to arrange a rather straightforward exchange of obligations. He took their storehouse and left their fields, rather than harvest too early. As far as he was concerned, they would feel the war the least and should have no hard feelings about his presence.

Seemingly unstressed, he deigned to hear out one such deserter. He was a skinny fellow, armed with a spear upon arrival, and while he was missing several teeth was not afraid to smile. Standing midway between the armed guards and Lucius, he entreated the young commander. “I can help you. That’s right, I assure it. I can do something that nobody else can. You understand? I’ll be a wonderful asset to a smart fellow like you. You just have to know how to use me. I’ll be like your right hand man, ready to use my power. I can make your messages invisible!”

Lucius had been studying maps for hours, until fatigue pressed on his mind. Even in such a wearisome state, he could imagine such uses. “Show me,” he said, and moved to dash out a trivial message upon a bit of parchment like he might send a missive on.

The deserter ignored his attempt and slapped his hand upon the nearest map. “Behold!” And lo his power spread across the unfurled map. It twisted the stains of ink and transformed them. Pigment twisted into the parchment and shunned the light until none of the markings remained. Not one road, valley, town, or river. The scroll appeared as fresh as a cartographer’s canvas.

Lucius put down the scrap parchment and examined what had been the map he had been using to project Rodrick’s movements on. “Alright, well that’s quite invisible. How do you see it?”

“Heat,” the man said, rather to my pupil’s dismay. Such invisible inks were mundanely available.

Restraining his emotions, he cleared off the flags and nobs representing the various elements of war. Holding the scroll above an oil lamp, the markings did indeed return to their original forms. “You make a good case for yourself, Mister…”

“You can call me Mac, m’lord,” the man said as Lucius put the map back down.

Then the ink once more vanished from sight. Lucius stared at it, then stared at the man. “It stays invisible?”

“Yes, sir.”

“For how long?”

“I’m not sure. A good long while at the least. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it go back to the way it was, sir.”

Lucius put his finger on the near useless scroll. “That was my map.”

Before he could assign a punishment for the turncloak (although his subordinates decided for themselves and later had him flogged), a runner arrived. The burgomaster, for that was allegedly his lofty title, had leapt from a window and escaped into the night. By itself, this hardly mattered, but Lucius had to make a snap decision. It would be a propaganda loss if the man were to be rescued. Reasonable judgment would be painted as foreign despotism.

Better that the man die.

Lucius barked swift orders and marched out. Scouts were needed. Three dozen Vassish soldiers soon mounted up with either lanterns or torches. They snapped up what was at hand and one man set about with his stigmata to imitate a howling pack of hounds. Lucius had then spread out and charged after the fleeing official. Stirring horses in the night can be a dangerous affair, but the city’s chief clerk was a fat little bastard who could as much keep up a stern flight as he could rise from a table without needing to push off of it. The horses weren’t pushed so much that they hurt themselves in the rocky loam.

Soon, through a combination of evidence, they sighted the man struggling over a hill to get out of sight from the road. The Vassish hollered and pursued, flanking and enveloping his escape like they were trapping venison.

Then metal clanged in the night and spears emerged from the dark.

One hundred rebels, with their cloaks smeared black by mud, rose up around the horsemen. They plunged into the bellies of the horses and the night filled with screams both human and animal.

Lucius understood the disaster at once. “Fabia!” he shouted, swinging his sword from side to side until a spear caught the straining throat of his panicked steed. “Fabia!” he roared even as he had to throw himself from the beast. He hit the rooted slope, rolling across rocks and rotting deadfall, then sprang up. “Fabia!”

Sadly, his troops had not yet had it forced into their very bodies what his command meant. It couldn’t pierce the sudden fear. Had he brought wastelander thralls, perhaps all would have survived. But only a very few of the Vassish kept their wits enough to understand a partial retreat had been ordered. I say partial because the code ‘Fabia’ did not mean to to running with tail between their legs back to the town. He had instructed all the sub-commanders of his army to waterfall down to the most common of troops that the ‘Fabia’ command meant to extract one’s self from the fight and then follow the enemy. If the enemy chased, run more. If the enemy retreated, keep them in sight.

And most importantly, if the enemy was trying to use overwhelming numbers, a hundred to one even, to overwhelm Lucius in combat, then they simply had to sit and wait. They were supposed to use their bows and arrows to kill anyone fleeing the melee, and if they had listened to his command properly; perhaps they might have.

Instead, beneath the lesser light of the heavens, Lucius eventually pulled a broken speartip from his shoulder and stood atop eighty corpses. One of them was the burgomaster, which meant he was unable to question the man about the specific technique, but he at least had not been allowed escape. Unfortunately, many of the enemy ambushers escaped with their lives.

They brought word to Rodrick that the boy’s martial prowess had been underestimated. Fortunately, he had been fighting without his foot the whole time, so even their fear-filled tale telling was slightly insufficient, and a feast of horse flesh–while less appetizing than other farm animals–was enough to fully regenerate Lucius’ body.

For more information on the intricacies of woodworking among the nobility, see Act 1. A pitcher of cleansed water had actually been provided by the princess, courtesy of her stigmata. Alcohol being disallowed for her.