Part 1 (2/2)
Vree lay back in the warm water and tried not to listen to the appreciative murmurs of the bath attendants as they scrubbed her brother. It made no difference that they'd murmur the same nonsense over her had she not made it very clear that she preferred to wash herself. Fingers puckering, she sighed and dragged herself out of the tub.
”You're too skinny, sister-mine. You should eat more.”
Vree snorted and straightened, reaching for one of the soft cloths hanging on the line beside her. ”I'll remind you of that at the next wall we have to go over.”
”And I'll deny every word.” He lifted an arm and tried to snake it around the slender waist of the departing attendant. She twisted lithely away, damp braid flicking a practiced dismissal as she left. Bannon turned to her companion who backed up a step.
”Forget it, Bannon,” the young man declared, tossing a cloth at the tub and covering a yawn. ”You're finished, and we're closing.”
A few moments later, as the lamps went out behind them, Bannon rubbed a dribble of water off the back of his sister's neck and asked, ”Coming with me?”
Vree shook her head. ”No.” He always asked. The answer never changed. After a kill, he needed distraction, but she needed quiet. ”You going to Teemo's?”
The wh.o.r.es at Teemo's were regularly inspected by the army healers. An empire had not been won by either ignoring the needs of its soldiers or the consequences of disease.
”I thought I might.”
”Remember we're working tomorrow night. Don't stay too late.”
His sigh lifted the damp hair off her forehead as he leaned forward and smacked a kiss down on the crease between her brows. ”Don't fuss, sister-mine. I'm old enough to take care of myself.”
Old enough. As she watched him stride away, Vree heard the echo of a piping voice demanding to know why she always had to be older and when would it be his turn. Sometimes that one year difference stretched impossibly far. The one year between six and seven; the corporal had brought the news of their mother's battlefield death to her, she'd had to tell Bannon. The one year between fourteen and fifteen; Neegan had wanted them both in his command, had been able to pull enough strings to get them there, so she'd been held back for further training until army regulations said Bannon was old enough to be posted. The one year between twenty and twenty-one... Old enough.
Except he'd always be her little brother.
And that's the problem, isn't it? she asked herself as he disappeared into the night. Spitting the taste of self-pity out of her mouth, Vree started back to camp. Mooning about it wouldn't change anything. There wasn't anything she could change___ The baths, the brothels, all the extras, were officially outside the patrolled perimeter-although the marshal had been heard to remark on more than one occasion that she knew what the Sixth Army would rush to defend if it came to an attack. Vree slipped unseen past a sentry grown bored near the end of an uneventful watch and picked her way carefully around snoring bodies until she came to the place where the Fourth Squad, Second Unit, First Company, First Division, Sixth Army had been ordered to sleep. The weather had been hot and dry, so hardly anyone had bothered unfolding the tiny, oiled-canvas tents the army issued as shelter to the common soldiers, and she found her gear right where she'd left it, piled next to Bannon's. Others might lose possessions to petty pilfering, but no one messed with an a.s.sa.s.sin's kit.
She nodded to Corporal Emo hunched over his wineskin, then glanced up at the sky. The Road to Glory arced overhead and The Archer continued to aim away from the heart of the Empire. A priest of a.s.sot, G.o.d of Music and Prophecy, had long ago declared that the Empire would endure until The Archer turned his bow. Vree, inclined to believe that the priest had been sucking back too much sacramental wine, checked anyway-just to be certain.
Head pillowed on her arms, she closed her eyes and listened to the sound of the army. It was like being in the belly of a great benevolent beast, wrapped in protection, secure in the knowledge that if death came in the night, it would have to come a long way and through many lives to get to her.
Tensions the bath had been unable to touch leached out of her muscles. Slowly, her breathing slid into the cadence of those breathing all around her, and it was as a part of the greater whole that she finally slept.
One moment she was asleep, the next she knelt on the shoulders of a young recruit, her dagger point hovering over the wildly rolling surface of his left eye. As her brain caught up with the responses trained into her body, Vree could hear Corporal Emo and several others howling with laughter, could see the terror on the boy's face, and could smell the result of his fear.
She flipped the knife in the air, caught it, sheathed it, and stood. ”You joined us just before we left the garrison, didn't you?”
The boy stuttered out an affirmative as he scrambled to his feet.
”What's your name?”
”Avotic.” He noticed the moisture spreading over the front of his kilt, realized suddenly what it meant, and flushed a deep red. Although he had to be at least fifteen to have been posted, embarra.s.sment dropped his age a good four years. ”Th-they call me Tic.”
Vree shook her head. ”Let me give you some advice. Tic. When a corporal orders you to shake someone awake who wears a black sunburst...”
Tic swiveled his head to stare down at her pack. Scuffed and faded from years of use, the six sunbursts stamped into the worn leather still showed they had once been dyed black. His eyes widened and he swallowed, hard.
”... you tell that corporal to stick his head up his a.s.s and salute it.” She had to raise her voice to be heard over the laughter. ”Do you understand what I'm telling you, Tic?”
”Y-yes.” It didn't seem to matter that he was at least a foot taller than the woman he faced.
”What?”
”If I wake you up again, you'll kill me.”
Watching from his bedroll, Bannon snickered and Vree tried not to smile in response. ”Close enough. Go clean up, you stink.” As the kid ran off, she turned on Emo. ”One of these day, I will kill one.”
”Not a chance.” Wiping streaming eyes, the corporal heaved a satisfied sigh. ”You're too good. And now the little s.h.i.+t knows he can die. Thanks to me, he's a better soldier.”
”Thanks to you?” Vree snorted, bending and dragging her kilt out of her pack. ”Which brings up another question,” she continued, buckling the limp, blue pleats around her waist. ”Why am I always chosen to give these little lessons of yours?”
”Because you look so sweet when you're asleep,” Emo told her, secure in his rank. Those of the Fourth Squad standing closest to him made exaggerated movements away. ”That pointy little face of yours goes all soft and you have the cutest habit of cupping your cheek with one hand.” His voice lost its false, syrupy tone, and he snorted. ”Your brother, on the other hand, looks dangerous only while he sleeps.”
”That's because I'm dreaming of you, Emo.” Bannon stood and scratched at the triangle of brown hair in the center of his chest. His nose wrinkled at the smell of unwashed bodies, latrine trenches, and great vats of boiling mush. ”Life in the army,” he murmured. ”Gotta love it.”
” 'Cause you can't do s.h.i.+t about it,' ” several voices answered in unison.
”Vree? You going out tonight?”
Vree turned her head and stared incredulously at the woman standing just beyond weapons' reach. ”No, Shonna. I was feeling bloated and I thought I'd check if my black breeches, my black tunic, and my black ankle boots still fit.”
Shonna shrugged and rubbed the back of her neck with one hand while the other traced circles in the night air. ”Yeah, well, I mean...” She sighed deeply and started again. ”Look, do you think that maybe, on your way back you could pick up a chicken or something?”
”I'm on target, Shonna.”
The other woman looked uncomfortable but dragged up half a grin. ”So kill a chicken, too.”
The food provided by the seven armies was nouris.h.i.+ng but monotonous. A number of establishments outside the perimeter took advantage of that and for a price no one had to live on mush, black bread, and sausages.
”You lost at dice again.” Vree knew her too well for it to be a question.
”Yeah, but I'll come around. It's just...”
”It's just more of the same. And the answer's no.”
”Then lend me a crescent.” Shonna took a step forward, hand outstretched. ”Until payday.”
”No.”
Shonna's hand dropped under the weight of Vree's response and she wiped her palm against her kilt. ”I thought I meant something to you.”
A few hours of pleasure, an attempt to raise a barricade around other desires... ”Not after you tried losing my money at dice.”
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