Luce set a brisk pace as we walked along the verge, heading south. She had filled out, as tall as me now and with broader shoulders. With her black hair cropped short and a scar across one cheek, she had a piratical look that would have been at home on the airship with Nick Blade and the Hyena Queen. Carrying rifle and kit, she looked every bit the soldier, but I could not shake the girl from my mind. I could not stop myself from scolding her.
“How could you break your family’s heart by running off?”
“Yee reckon yee get to have a heartsome beloved and run off to rescue him while the rest of us shall bide at home waiting? And meanwhile yee tell yee brother not to touch me so he say no to me while he go off with other folk? I’s of age! Free to act as I wish! Especially after yee just left like that, just vanished, telling not a single person goodbye!”
“The opia stole Rory! I had to go after him!”
“’Tis always yee, Cat.” She punched me so hard on the shoulder I staggered sideways as her comrades laughed. I was startled by how strong she was. “Yee punch sharks. Yee escape from Salt Island. Yee have a fine man to court yee despite the two-faced way yee treated him. Yee attract the notice of the commissioner of the wardens and of the infamous general, too! Young men came to drink at the boardinghouse because yee was waiting tables and they all loved to flirt with yee, and women likewise, not that yee ever noticed Diantha’s attentions in that way, did yee? Always, ’tis about yee! What was left for the likes of me? Yee know I love yee, Cat. Yee know I love me family. But I reckon I wasn’ about to spend the rest of me life in me grandma’s boardinghouse! Now I shall not!”
“Is this the sweetheart yee left behind?” asked one of the gals. To my surprise she indicated me.
“I’m Luce’s sweetheart,” cried Rory indignantly. “Aren’t I, Luce?”
Luce sighed as at an old jest. Her comrades laughed.
“Rory,” I said, “I believe that when a woman signs up to join the Amazon Corps, she swears an oath to engage in no sexual congress with a man for the term of her service.”
“Oh!” He favored Luce with a sad smile that made her laugh with her old girlish delight, but a bolder, wiser look creased her smile now. “Well, then, Cat, that means you can’t join the general’s army, can you? For I’m certain you are not willing to give up—”
“Yes, yes, Rory. That’s enough of that.”
“If yee got Vai back, where is he, Cat?”
“He’s being held prisoner by his mage House.” I hated to lie to her, but I could not risk the truth. “That’s why we’ve come. But tell me your story, Luce!”
The chance to tell her tale distracted her from my own. This grand and horrifying narrative beguiled me for several hours as we walked south. Files of infantry passed us in good order, mixed with cannon pulled by horses and the occasional baggage wagon. A column of Expeditioners called out to the gals in a familiar way. A company of Taino soldiers marched in silence. Iberians strode along with a fierce demeanor, armed with rifles and their famous falcatas, the short swords that had driven back the first Roman invasion of Iberia two thousand years ago. Many tipped their caps to Luce and her cadre as a sign of respect.
We passed a lively column of pale Celts with lime-whitened short-spiked hair and their cousins and brothers of mixed and Mande blood wearing their dark hair in the same spiky style. “Here’s to the heroines of Burdigala!” they called. “The drink’s on us next time! And Rufus here wants his balls back!”
“We ate them already!” retorted one of the gals, to general shouts of laughter.
“Cooked or raw?” asked Rory, and they hooted and whistled in approval.
“What happened at Burdigala?” I asked.
“I must tell the tale in the order it happened so yee can comprehend the whole!” Luce said with a laugh, enjoying my rapt attention.
At a humble crossroads we turned east. Luce was finally telling me about the tumultuous siege of Burdigala. She had just related the thrilling episode of how Elephant Barca’s skirmishers had arrived in the dark of night to take the Coalition from the rear—a source of crude joking among the gals that even made Rory blush—when we came into sight of the town of Stampae.
The town crawled with soldiers. What a flood of cannon and rifles and troops! A large encampment was coming down even though it was very late afternoon. Out beyond the camp lay freshly dug graves. Wounded soldiers leaning on crutches or with bandages wrapped around chests or heads waited stoically outside canvas tents marked with a caduceus.
Luce led us past an inn crowded with soldiers taking a drink or a piss, for the smell of urine penetrated everywhere. The town market hall had a marble façade and Roman-style pillars, while a low wall set off a dusty area where an outdoor market could be held. This expanse boiled with young women at exercises conducted with sticks the length of rifles.
Local men loitered at the fence. No one uttered a single teasing word or taunting call, although now and again a comment brushed up between them.
“Look at those shoulders! She must have wrestled bulls back on the farm!”
“Everyone knows women are a cursed sight meaner than men. I heard at Lemovis they plowed down a division of the crack Arverni militia, just crushed ’em. Cut their balls right off.”
“We go around back,” said Luce, rolling her eyes as her cadre hurried ahead. “If I shall have to hear one more idiot babbling about Amazons cutting off men’s balls, I shall cut off his eggs just to prove ’tis no empty tale! I have heard that story a hundred times since I joined up! I wish they would just leave it be.”
“It sounds very painful,” observed Rory.
“’Tis not true!” she cried.
He frowned. “You don’t love me like you used to, Luce. You used to purr at the sight of me.”
She patted his arm. “That was a long time ago, Rory, and don’ think yee kisses weren’t delicious. But I’ve a sweetheart now, and anyway no time for men.”
“How can anyone have no time for men?” he muttered, looking a bit peevish.
“Where is the general?” I asked.
“Why, this is the headquarters. The Amazon Corps is seconded to the command division. We’s not regular army like the rest.”
A woman dressed in the Amazon uniform and armed with sword and pistol emerged from the market hall with a brisk gait I recognized. Captain Tira changed course to intercept us. Luce and her cadre halted to salute.
“Washed up, did yee?” Captain Tira looked me up and down. She was a maku even by Europan standards, with sun-worn skin, hair as black as my own, and eyes that spoke of ancestors in far Cathay where, legend had it, a dragon emperor ruled. Maybe the stories were true! Whatever her origins, she was Camjiata’s loyal soldier through and through. “Is the gal brought as a prisoner, or of she own wish?” she said to Luce.
“Of my own wish,” I said.
“Yee shall come with me, then. Trooper, yee lot shall return to yee company. Dismissed.”
Just like that, we were parted. Under Captain Tira’s stern eye we dared not even embrace.
“Take care, Luce,” I said, hoping my look spoke my heart.
“I shall find yee,” she promised. They loped off, settling into a brisk jog.
The captain led us into the long, lofty market hall. By a tiled stove, the general sat in a chair receiving reports and visitors. Five clerks occupied a table, writing busily without looking up. A striking group they were: a Taino woman, a feathered person, an old Iberian man, a thin Celt, and a curly-haired Kena’ani scribe.
Seeing me, Camjiata rose in surprise. “Catherine Bell Barahal! One account had you eaten by wolves, while another said the opia had stolen you. Yet here you are, looking hale and hearty and in company with your mysterious brother. I am glad of it, for I would be sorry to know you were gone. But I see no cold mage, as I had thought to do. Nor is Beatrice with you.” He examined me with a compassionate gaze that made me want to punch him. “Be sure you will always have a home with me if you are lost or bereaved or abandoned.”