His confusion must have shown, for a quiet smile stole over Sego’s face a moment. “You’ll grow accustomed to the palace soon enough, General.” He turned to the left and started walking.
Darius trailed along, but found that he had to shorten his stride a little to keep in pace with the other man. Hmmm. I need to remember this pace, he cautioned himself. Whenever Sego is walking with me, this is the fastest that I should walk. I’ve been running this man off his legs since yesterday and he didn’t say a word to me. His pride is strong, perhaps too strong.
They took a right into another hallway that looked like an exact replica of the one they’d just left. The sole difference that Darius could detect was the sound of water splashing in the gardens outside the window and the stronger scent of jasmine. How did people navigate this place?
“General.”
Darius turned his head slightly. Sego had a very serious look on his face, almost a frown. “Yes?”
“You do not need to be considerate of me.” Sego’s voice had an unnatural neutrality to it, a tone leached of all emotion. “My leg was damaged when I was a child. I am used to it.”
A very strong sense of pride indeed. Pride developed, perhaps, because of that lifetime of proving to people that Sego was just as capable as anyone else in spite of the leg? Darius took care with how he answered. “I do not believe in pushing men past their physical limits. No good comes from that.”
Sego stopped dead, a retort ready to fly.
Darius held up a hand to stop him. “I do not know you well enough yet to know where your limits are. You do not know me well enough to ask for a reprieve when you need it. I will not break a man who is working so hard for me by making careless assumptions.”
Sego regarded him for a long moment, dark eyes unreadable. Darius met him look for look and waited.
“Permission to speak frankly, General?” Sego asked quietly.
Finally! “Please do.”
“You’re supposed to be a monstrous man who is driven solely by ambition, someone who has no regard for others. Your reputation describes you as such, anyway.” Sego’s stern expression relaxed and his eyes crinkled up into a half-smile. “I do not know how to react to this thoughtful, considerate man.”
Ahhh. So that was the problem?
“Think of my reputation as mental warfare,” Darius suggested in amusement. “After all, which would you rather face on a battlefield: a monstrous general or a kind one?”
Sego shook his head and continued walking. “Point made, General. A point very well made.”
~~~
Darius let the coolness of the stone seep into his back and legs as he sat on the windowsill. The night air was a wealth of sounds, both from insects and the splashes of water fountains. To his right and just out of sight, the women’s open bath apparently had visitors, as he could hear several women singing and giggling. He found it…soothing to listen to. A woman’s laughter was the best music, to his mind.
His bed sat not five feet from him, silently promising rest, but it did not really tempt him. He felt…out of place here. Strangely so. Despite the oath he had made to the queen, despite all of the work he had done in the past two days to protect this country, it did not feel like home to him. He silently prayed that this feeling would not last long. The odds of ever being able to return to Arape were, after all, very slim.
Bohme appeared in the shadow of his doorway, entering soundlessly. “Should shleep, shir,” he said softly.
Darius spared him a glance before turning his eyes toward the open window. The moonlight splaying across the gardens and reflecting off the moving water captivated his eyes and he stared downwards as he answered. “I’ve been running for so long I don’t know how to relax anymore.”
“Lying on bed will help you remember,” Bohme suggested dryly.
Caught a little off guard, Darius chuckled. “Bohme, I didn’t know you had a sense of humor.”
“I try,” he responded with false modestly.
Darius’s laughter faded into a sigh. “Too much has changed too quickly, I think. It all caught up to me just now. I don’t know how to react to some of it.”
Bohme eased further in, coming to stand beside the same window. “Regretting oath?”
“No.” Darius didn’t even have to think about that. “No, Brindisi has to be stopped. I think helping save Niotan is the best way to accomplish that. Tresea is a good queen, too. I have no qualms in serving her.” He let his head fall back against the windowsill, eyes still mesmerized by the light on the water. “I just feel like an unwelcome interloper. While I understand why, it’s not a comfortable feeling.”
“People will come to trusht you shoon enough,” Bohme promised and clearly meant every word. “Ash we did. When you capshured us.”
Darius snorted. “Bohme, the only reason why you four trusted me is because you didn’t have any other option.”
“You treated ush well. Even me,” he pointed out as if this were a perfectly logical argument.
“Because there’s no merit in letting three defenseless women be ill-used!” Darius retorted in exasperation. “And I wasn’t about to let the one man loyal enough to protect them be mistreated as a reward for that loyalty. Heavens, man, that’s common decency.”
Bohme snorted, head shaking in disagreement. “Common deshenshy not common in war.”
“It should be,” Darius grumbled, almost to himself.
“But ishn’t. You are good man. Othersh will shee thish shoon too.”
Fed up with the whole situation, Darius raised both hands and rubbed at his tired eyes. “Trust is not won overnight. I know. My father taught me that. I can be patient.” Hopefully. But speaking of earning trust…. “Bohme, I do have a question.”
“Shir?”
“I feel like I should somehow thank Raja Tailli for giving you to me.” He scratched at his cheek with one finger. “I know the proper gift to send if we were in Arape, but I have a feeling it would be different here in Niotan. Especially since she’s married, I don’t want her husband to get the wrong idea. What would be a good gift to send?”
“Errr…” caught flat-footed, the bodyguard hesitated strongly before admitting, “Shego would be better pershon to ashk.”
“Ahhh, that’s a good idea. I’ll do so.” But he couldn’t do that in the dead of night.
Tired of being restless and antsy, Darius searched for something to do. This room, while beautiful, was oddly generic. It felt like any other guest room. Perhaps if he put some personal stamp on it, he would be able to feel more connected to this place.
With a flash, it came to him. Darius snapped his fingers in realization. “Of course. Why didn’t I think of this earlier?”
Bohme’s eyebrows quirked in surprise. “Shir?”
“Bohme, do we have any candles in this room? Long white ones with holders.”
“I believe sho, shir.” Turning, he went out of the bedroom and into the study, where Darius could hear him rummaging around. He came back quickly, hands curled around two candelabra. They’d obviously been meant for reading, as they were a hand’s length tall, with little engraving in the metal. The white candles in them were unused with the wick still pure. Excellent.
Darius quickly rose to his feet and took them from Bohme’s hands. “Perfect, thank you.”
“Need them for reading?” Bohme asked in open confusion.
“No, prayer.”
Bohme stared at him for a long moment in surprise. “Prayer?”
Darius flashed him a quick smile as he went to an open corner in the room and starting placing the candles on the floor. He never prayed in the open, always within the sanctity of his own bedroom, so he wasn’t surprised that Bohme didn’t know of his religious beliefs. “I don’t know about the god or gods you worship here in Niotan, but we of Arape believe in two gods. The one that I pray to is Shaa, the creator of all that is good.”
Bohme watched as he put the candles down in alignment with each other, form
ing a large square. “Why candlesh?”
“You must always pray in the presence of fire, no matter how small,” Darius explained as he stepped inside and sank down in between the candles. He crossed his legs comfortably and stretched out his hands experimentally. Good, that was the right distance. Close enough to feel the heat, but far enough away to avoid being burned. “Can you hand me that flint—yes, thanks. You see, Shaa is the creator of all that is good, including fire. It is from fire that we are able to gain insight, and through fire that she is able to communicate with us.”
The bodyguard listened closely as Darius explained, each candle being lit in turn. “You shaid two godsh, though.”
“Well, we don’t pray to the other god. Just curse him. Darr is the god of chaos and is the source of all evil. He tries to destroy anything that is good. If anything bad happens, it’s always Darr’s fault.”
Bohme thought on that for a moment and then stepped a little closer. “Can two people pray there?”
Darius didn’t quite understand why he asked and twisted around enough to look at him in askance. The candlelight was not strong enough to completely illuminate the bodyguard’s face, though, which left him guessing. “Yes, there’s no limit to how many people can sit within a prayer circle. Why?”
“I want to pray to Shaa ash well,” he responded quietly. “To thank her for shending you to ush.”
Tears prickled the back of Darius’s eyes and he had to blink twice to keep them at bay. Huskily he invited, “Come, sit at my back.”
In order to do anything in the desert land of Niotan without sweating bullets, a person had to either work very early in the morning or very late in the evening. The brutally hot sun would scorch a man’s skin otherwise. With that in mind, Darius rose early the next morning, well before his breakfast tray was due to arrive, and dressed in the loosest pants he had. He actually had something to choose from now, after Sego’s shopping spree. His concept of a wardrobe and Sego’s were apparently worlds apart. For Darius, five outfits or so were enough for a man to get on with. For Sego, if there was still room in the wardrobe, you were obviously missing something essential.
Darius had managed to cram all of his acquisitions into the wardrobe, somehow, but it had been a near thing. He had half a mind to bring another wardrobe in here, but it might encourage bad habits.
After dressing, Darius went through the open glass doors to the garden beyond. This space was not solely his own—actually he shared it with three other suites—but at this time of the morning, no one else could be found. Darius paused in the doorway and took a good look around, trying to decide where he wanted to start. The center of the square courtyard had a very dominating fountain of natural stones that spilled artfully into a small pond. There were benches of marble around the pond, with little pots of flowers here and there, but not much else in the way of vegetation. Well, that shouldn’t come as a surprise, really. For Arape, this place would look like a bare winter garden. But for Niotan, this was quite nice.
Best yet, it suited his purposes. With this vast area of open tile, he could stretch out as he wished.
Snatching his new sword off the desk, he moved into the courtyard proper and placed the sword on the bench. Then he walked several paces away and took in a deep breath. As he slowly released that breath, he extended his legs into a wide stance and flowed into the first stance of The Rising Sun.
His muscles slowly unknotted as his hands rose and fell in the patterns, feet gliding from one stance to the next. He kept his breathing deep and even, putting more focus into each movement of the form than he normally did, partially because it had been far too long since he’d done this and he wanted to do it perfectly.
When he finished the first movement of the Rising Sun, he moved onto the second movement, The Setting Sun. This movement didn’t have the smooth flow to it as the first part did: instead, it demanded absolute balance and power. Each stance, once made, had to be held for at least ten seconds before going to the next stance. The Rising Sun might warm up the muscles and quicken the blood, but the Setting Sun always made him sweat from the effort.
When he released from the last stance, he let out a puff of air and his hands dangled at his sides. “Do you need something, Bohme?”
The bodyguard grinned, the expression a little mischievous. “Didn’t think you notished me.”
“How could I miss you?” Darius responded dryly, finally turning to face the bodyguard who was still lurking inside the doorway. “I’ve seen elephants smaller than you.”
The bodyguard let out a delighted chuckle. “Breakfasht jusht came.”
Had he been out there that long? Darius lifted his head to squint at the sun. Yes, he really had. “Give me fifteen more minutes. I want to finish the set.”
Bohme watched with interest as he snagged his sword from the bench. “Thish shtyle ish the Xhii, ishn’t it?”
“That’s right.” Darius shot him a look as he retreated back to his previous position. “I’m surprised you know it. Few outside of Arape do.”
“I shaw it once, ash a boy.” Bohme leaned his right side against the doorjamb, making it obvious that he had no intention of leaving and every intention of watching.
An audience didn’t bother Darius. With a shrug, he settled into the first stance and slowly drew the sword.
This sword hadn’t exactly been what Darius wanted. But then, the style he used had practically nothing in common with what Niotan soldiers preferred. Really, he’d been lucky to find anything similar at all. The swordsmith had sworn he would make a custom blade at once but that would take a solid week at the very least. Until then, this blade would have to do.
It had a slight curve to it, unlike the perfectly straight blades Darius had always used, and the hilt had a longer length to it than he preferred. Normally, he would explode into the first movement, but the odd feel of the sword in his hands threw him off slightly and he didn’t move with his usual speed. But soon he warmed up enough to where he fought against the speed of his own shadow, the blade whistling through the air so that it almost sounded like it sang in mellow tones.
He stopped abruptly and then drew back into the beginning stance, re-sheathing the blade. All in all, not a bad performance considering this sword didn’t have the slimness necessary to go as fast as he wanted it to. A heavy sheen of sweat covered his skin and the morning sun wasn’t just threatening heat, but pouring it out in gentle waves. Time to stop.
Pivoting on one heel, he turned back for the doors.
Bohme raised his hands and clapped, half-jokingly. “Can we shpar shoon, shir?”
Now there was a thought worth visiting. “This evening, perhaps,” Darius allowed with a rush of anticipation. “Assuming our illustrious queen doesn’t catch me first.” Stepping back inside the relative coolness of his rooms, he went for the washbasin in his bedroom, casually ordering over one shoulder, “Test that food for poisoning.”
“No need,” Bohme assured him. “Have friend in kitchen. She preparesh your food. It’sh shafe.”
Darius retreated a step back into the main room and gave his bodyguard a baffled look. “Is that why no one’s poisoned me yet?”
Bohme flashed him a satisfied smile. “I have your back, shir.”
He did indeed. Tailli had indeed blessed him by sending Bohme. “Bohme…I don’t have to return you, do I?”
The question delighted the bodyguard to no end and he threw back his head and laughed with pure happiness. The deep sound echoed in the room, ringing pleasantly and it infected Darius so that he chuckled as well. Shaking his head, he washed off the sweat before shrugging on one of the informal outfits tailored for him yesterday.
The shirt was in the rich blue of Niotan although the pants were white. But he’d noticed yesterday that most of his new wardrobe had blue in it somewhere. The queen’s way of putting her personal stamp of ownership on him? Sego’s way of silently telling people where Darius’s loyalty lay? He hadn’t quite dared to ask yesterday w
ith the tailor flying around him with scissors in one hand and a dozen lethal pins in the other.
It didn’t really matter, anyway. Darius believed in being neat and presentable and if the clothes allowed him to do that, then he approved. More importantly, if he dawdled too long, Bohme would start eating without him.
He stepped back into the main room. Like yesterday, Bohme had placed the breakfast tray on the low table in the center of the room and had already sat on one of the plush pillows. This time, to Darius’s inner relief, two trays had been sent. Bohme’s kitchen friend’s work?
Regardless, it meant Darius could actually get enough to eat this morning. He settled comfortably on his own cushion across the table and happily dug into the food. In between bites, he said, “This morning I’ll be meeting with my staff and laying out more plans. Go ahead and sleep while they’re here.”
Bohme had his mouth full of bread but he nodded in acceptance.
A swift knock came at the door.
As Bohme still had a mouth full of food, Darius called out, “Who is it?”
“Sego, sir.”
Sego? Already? Did the man not sleep at all? “Enter!”
He did so without ceremony, a stack of scrolls tucked under one arm. He looked a little surprised to see them eating breakfast together, but Darius could guess why. No lead general in court would normally “sink” to eating with a mere bodyguard. Sego, being raised in this court, no doubt had been influenced to think in class distinctions. But Darius didn’t share that view and never would.
Hoping to break a little more past that courteous wall Sego kept up around him, Darius waved him to an empty cushion. “Have bread with us, Sego.”
Sego stopped for a moment, head snapping around to stare at Darius in open surprise. In Arape, inviting a man to eat bread was an offer of friendship. He’d heard that doing so in Niotan meant basically the same thing, but apparently it meant more. At least,judging from Sego’s reaction, it meant more.
Darius didn’t try to retract the offer. He needed every ally he could get and Sego was a good man. They could be friends if the other man would just drop his guard a little.
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