Elise wasn’t certain what she thought working for Raul would be like, but… that wasn’t it.
Finn had lead her to a spot on the outskirts of camp, where a group of women sat in a circle with piles of clothes and buckets full of soapy water in front of them. All of them were chatting and laughing with one another, seemingly unaware of what was going on just beyond the camp. He passed her along to an older woman he called Mrs. Bauer. And then left. Without even making sure that one of them spoke Caithian.
Mrs. Bauer immediately set her in front of a bucket and gave her a pile of clothes. General Flesicher’s, she could only assume.
“Wash,” she said. She guessed that it was the only word Mrs. Bauer knew in Caithian.
And so, that’s what she did. She washed. And she washed. And she washed. And she listened to what the women were saying, though she didn’t exactly understand any of it.
Even though she didn’t know how to speak Gisken, she knew when they were talking about her. As it turned out, Gisken women weren’t all that different from the girls around the town. Whenever they talked about her, they’d look up at her with that knowing look that all gossips shared.
Gods, she wished she understood Gisken: maybe this wouldn’t be as lonely as it was if she could understand what everyone around her was saying.
“Name?” Mrs. Bauer asked her after about ten minutes of scrubbing.
Elise looked up at her, a little surprised.
“Name?” She asked, again.
“Elise.”
“Elise,” Mrs. Bauer repeated.
“Do you speak Caithian?”
“… Little,” Mrs. Bauer said. “Finn… speaks.”
Finn. Elise wasn’t certain how she felt about him. He seemed kind, and he helped Ulrick back at the tavern. Sort of. But, he was still a Gisken. Not just a Gisken, either: he was General Fleischer’s aide-de-camps. His right-hand man, as far as she could tell. She doubted that people got to that place in life if they weren’t on the same page. He knew exactly what was happening around town, probably everywhere else the Giskens were, but he was okay with it. Okay with it, and perfectly willing for it to happen.
“Finn is good,” Mrs. Bauer said, certain.
Elise looks back at the pile of clothes and picks up the next set of clothes-
And stops, staring at the tunic in her hand.
It wasn’t another Gisken uniform. In fact, it was a Caithian uniform. Deep blue, with a silver band surrounded by two gold bands on the cuffs of each sleeve. The matching pants were still in the pile, sticking out from the Gisken uniforms around it like a sore thumb. So much so that she wondered how she hadn’t seen it in the first place.
“Where did this come from?” Elise asked, looking up at Mrs. Bauer.
Mrs. Bauer looked up. She had a blank look on her face: clearly, she didn’t understand what she was trying to say.
She held up the uniform to her. “Whose is this?”
Mrs. Bauer squinted.
“Who wears this?” Elise said, slower.
She perked up. “Finn.”
“Finn wears this?” Elise asked.
Mrs. Bauer nodded.
She looked back down at the uniform as realization dawned on her. How had she not recognized him, earlier? The messenger who came to warn them about the attack wasn’t a messenger, at all.
It was Finn.
So, she was right about him being just another Gisken. For all of his kindness, he was still an enemy soldier. And instead of telling them where the Giskens really were, he tricked them. Made sure that the garrison wouldn’t be prepared for them.
Why was she so surprised and hurt about it? She should’ve known better than to give a Gisken the benefit of the doubt.
She began to wash the uniform, wondering what happened to the man it had once belonged to.
***
Elise sighed in relief as she finished washing the last piece of clothing in her pile. Her hands were more wrinkled than prunes, and so much as the thought of water on her skin made her squirm. The other women had taken all the newly-washed clothes and hung them up on clotheslines, the uniforms dancing in the breeze like a sea of green flags.
She wiped her hands off on her apron, all the good it did. She’d been washing clothes long enough, the clothes she’d washed at the beginning were probably dry.
“Good job,” Mrs. Bauer said. “Is done today.”
“Are any of the clothes dry?” Elise asked.
Mrs. Bauer nodded and held out the clothes basket on her hip. “General Fleischer.”
Elise’s heart shriveled up in her chest. General Fleischer. It hadn’t been long enough since she last saw him. And frankly, a very large part of her hoped she’d never have to see him again.
She stood up and took the basket.
“You know how to go?” Mrs. Bauer asked.
Elise nodded and headed off into the camp.
Run, she thought to herself as she walked through the camp with the laundry on her hip. It would be easy: just walk through camp and keep walking. Walk right out of town until… well, she didn’t know. Until she hit Airde, she guessed. Try and make a life for herself. Start over and pretend like none of this had ever happened.
Even as that thought crossed her mind, she knew that it wasn’t possible. Even if she could get all the way to Airde without getting stopped, she couldn’t ignore what was happening. She wouldn’t be able to ignore the fact that people like Ulrick were being torutured, or that people’s lives were being ruined with each passing second.
She knew she had to stay. Knew that she had to do something. But, she still didn’t know if she had the strength to do it.
She was keenly aware of the knife in her apron pocket. Keenly aware of the fact that the weight of the world rested on that tiny knife. Gods: she wasn’t even certain that it was sharp.
She prayed that she’d have the strength to use it when the time came.
Elise was able to find General Fleischer’s tent with ease. Two different men from before guarded the tent, and none of them gave her so much as a second thought as she walked through the tent’s flap.
General Fleischer was sitting at his desk, reading a letter with a scowl on his face. He didn’t even look up from his letter.
“Sir, I have your laundry,” Elise said.
He looked up at her. “Excellent! Set it down by the trunk.”
Elise set it down-
And noticed the book on the desk.
She frowned, confused. Why would he be reading a book of Caithian fairy tales?
“I suppose you probably know most of these stories, don’t you?” General Fleischer asked as he realized what she was looking at. He picked up the book and looked at the cover. “I was rather hoping to find some hints as to the whereabouts of the Godswater in this, or maybe some explanation on how it affects the human body. So far, nothing.”
“The… Godswater?”
“Are you familiar with the story?”
Of course, she was. The story. It wasn’t real: why couldn’t General Raul grasp something that even children understood?
“I-I’m sorry, general, but… those are fairy tales,” Elise said. “Those stories aren’t real. The Godswater isn’t real, and neither is the Blight.”
The look on his face darkened. “The Blight is real, Miss Brewer. And I plan on finding out just why it’s stayed away from Caithia for so long.”
A chill went down Elise’s spine. He really believed all of those stories. Believed there were monsters springing up from the darkest shadows, which dragged people away in the middle of the night. Believed that there was some wellspring somewhere endowed with all the power of the Gods, one that killed those who weren’t worthy to drink from it and bestowed those who were worthy with power.
It still didn’t make sense: why would he want the power to defeat the Blight when it didn’t exist? Why was he chasing down this myth?
Before she could collect herself, another man walked into the tent.
Finn saluted and said something in Gisken. Raul nodded and looked to Elise. “If you would please wait outside the tent: the Captain - sorry, Major - and I have something we must discuss.”
Elise bowed slightly and left.
She couldn’t get out of that tent fast enough.
***
“Forgive me, sir, but… is something troubling you?”
Raul looked up from the letter in his hands. It was from Major General Sterne, who was coming in from the north, from the Kurzhian-Caithian border. They’d been delayed by nearly three days by snowstorms in the passes and relentless attacks by Blights and riders from Kurzhian tribes. And Major General Becker’s contingent was nearly a day behind to the south, thanks to pirates. His contingent was the only one that wasn’t behind. Meaning that they would have to hang tight, unless they wanted to make it easier for the Caithians to cut them off from their resupply route through the Gisken-Caithian border.
“A messenger from Major General Sterne just arrived,” Raul said. “He’s behind. By three days. Damn the snow, damn the Blight, and most of all, damn the Kurzhians.”
Finn’s eyes grew wide. “I… guess you probably have bigger things to worry about than the promotions you wanted me to work on, then.”
“I’ll still take those,” Raul said.
“Yes, sir.” Finn set the files in his hands on the table.
Raul sighed and pulled out his flask.
Finn shifted his weight between his feet.
Raul raised an eyebrow. “Do you have something on your mind, Major? You may speak freely.”
“I’m… worried about your health, sir.”
Raul sighed and rubbed his temples. Here came the lecture about his drinking.
“I’m fine,” Raul said. “I’m not drinking much: just enough to get to sleep at night. Besides: it’s better than that damned Laudanum Dr. Braun would want to put me on.”
“Sir, you’ve drank a bottle of bourbon since the invasion began.”
That couldn’t be right: he’d only had…
Oh.
“… Do I still have permission to speak freely?”
Raul nodded. “For the record, Major, you have my permission to speak freely whenever we’re in private.”
“Well, sir… does this have anything to do with… her?”
Her. Chaya. The woman whose photo sat on his desk, always smiling at him. His wife. The woman he’d buried five years ago. Finn had asked about her a few times, but Raul never said much about her: even the happy memories brought pain, made him remember the day the Blight killed her. Made him remember why he started on this quest of his in the first place. Even just hearing her mentioned made his fingers itch for the flask.
“What makes you think that?” Raul finally asked.
“You don’t have to, but if you ever want to talk about it, I’m here.”
Talk. No, he didn’t plan on talking. Finn was the closest thing he had to a friend: he’d been his aide-de-camps since the Siege of Idyaskoe, had proven himself to be the most loyal of soldiers. Raul knew most of his family, had shared a bourbon or two with his father. Even then, he didn’t trust himself to talk about what was on his mind to him. No matter how familiar he got with Finn or any of his other men, he was still the general, and they were still his men: He couldn’t let any of them see any part of him other than the strong, unshakable man they expected from their leader. If he didn’t, he could lose control of his army.
Raul shook his head. “We shouldn’t be talking about this, not when we have so much to do. I’ll take a look at your recommendations for promotion. In the mean time, we need to settle in until we get word that Sterne and Becker are at their objectives. Did you see anywhere in town that might serve as a basecamp?”
“The tavern would serve you well, sir,” Finn said. “Lieutenant… Sergeant al’Heida killed the owner of the tavern, and Miss Brewer was the only other person living there.”
“Excellent,” Raul said. “Take Miss Brewer and prepare the tavern for us. Once that’s done, send a team to take stock of where we might quarter some men. Make certain that the men you ask aren’t… the abrasive type.”
“Yes, sir. Anything else?”
“You’re dismissed.”
Finn saluted and left the tent.
Raul looked down at the flask in his hand. Part of him knew that Finn was right. But he also knew what the alternative was.
He took a swig. Rather be an alcoholic than a Laudanum addict.
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