Sven gave Mabel a disdainful glance, his eyes going down from her face to the neckline of her dress. "You should fix that." He pointed at her cleavage with his head. "They're coming out."
As fast as the embarrassment rose to her face, Mabel tried to fix her cleavage though it had not made it better on a square-shaped neckline, which was made to draw attention to feminine attributes.
"So, Mabel," Vilanis said, speaking with his mouth full. "I suppose you can cook something as good as this." He pointed to his plate.
Navi was laughing modestly, head down. "She does not know how to cook." He said, as if it were something unusual and wrong. He shook his head, shocked. "I've never heard of a woman who doesn't know how to cook."
She abruptly looked at Navi, and caught him looking down at her with his head down and eyes up, in a clueless way. "Just because I'm a girl does not mean I have to know how to cook. You're being judgmental."
She looked away from his hair, shaped up with his fingers, that kind of hair that made her want to touch endlessly. He was wearing an outfit that made Mabel feel ashamed of the rags she was wearing and made her wish she was wearing a better dress. And he certainly smelled better than she did. She was not a match for him, as a shoe that was not his size.
"To prove I'm not judgmental," Navi said, his voice sounding like velvet, managing to get Mabel to look at him again. "Tell them what you told me about Shai's band. Tell them also about the expa...?"
"Expatriates." Mabel helped him. "That's how they named themselves. They are good people. They are stubborn, but they can be kind to a girl."
"Are you saying we're not good to you?" Sven said, acidly.
"That's not what I'm saying. But I would not expect that from you, Sven." She said in a light and defiant tone. "Blacksmiths cannot be kind to girls even if they tried hard."
Yelsew laughed so fiercely that he slammed his glass on the table, and even as Sven looked at him, he did not stop. As it turns out, Yelsew's origin was the only enigmatic one. He was discreet about himself, and no one was able to say what his role was before joining the king's army. But unlike everyone else, Yelsew was the only one who enlisted in the army out of free will. He was there because he wanted to, and that was as curious as his past.
"What about the artists?" Aury asked with interest. "Specifically the painters. Are they good with girls?"
"The best of them, definitely."
"What about the craftsmen?" Vilanis wanted to know.
"The craftsmen?" She smiled so widely that her face could have been smashed out. "I heard the girls say they're good with their hands."
Tomorrow she would probably regret all those things she was saying.
"We should go back to what Mabel was talking about earlier." Navi said, uncomfortable with the direction the conversation was heading.
"That's right," She said in response to him. "Did I mention that I killed someone?"
Navi was particularly interested in what Mabel had to say. He heard her as if each sound she made, whether it was a word or not, mattered.
"Tell us about it." He said, looking at her with bright eyes, without any modesty or inhibition. "Tell us about the man you killed."
"He was an animal, and even though he was Balthasar's soldier, I felt like the worst person in the world." Mabel was looking at Navi as if she waited for understanding; redemption. "I do not want to kill again; I do not want to feel that again."
His instant response was grief. "You want to be in the army, right? So, this will often happen, Mabel, and if you do not do it again, it will happen to you. In war, you kill or die. In any case, it is impossible to escape unharmed. There are sacrifices." He said quietly, folding his hands on the table. "The sooner you understand this, the better it will be for you."
"I know there are sacrifices." She said, lightly. "I know better than anyone else."
"Did you kill one of Balthasar's men?" Sven did not sound convinced. "You are a female, and very weak in my thoughts to kill someone, even more so to kill a man of Balthasar."
"Female?" Mabel scratched her nose in irritation. "I'm sorry I'm throwing this in your face, but I did not look weak that day when I fought against you."
"Forget about that day, it's in the past. What about yesterday?"
"Yesterday you cheated."
"You know I did not."
Mabel suddenly felt dizzy, her head spinning and her eyes losing focus, and she did not understand what was happening to her. She got worried about it, but nobody at the table cared about it anyway. Everyone already knew what her problem was.
Sitting next to her, Vilanis started to look from Mabel's face to the table and from the table to her face, and pulled a bowl of food right in from of her. But it was not for her to eat it, as she was only a few inches away from it.
After a while, Mabel wasn't able to hold on any longer. "Sorry, I... don't feel good."
Then, her body swayed down and her head fell perfectly into the bowl filled with food. She felt part of her face dirty and sticky, but she was powerless to move and too lazy to open her eyes. For now, all she wanted to do was sleep.
XXIV
"On her return, she is summoned
to see the Emperor."
The Ballad of Mulan
◊
That was the problem of being the only woman among men; whatever they did, they would notice. As Mabel walked through the training camp, the soldiers would laugh, mock, some would be discreet, others wouldn't. She must have put on a show the night before as they were acting so strange that morning.
Luckily, whoever she was looking for showed up right in front of her.
Yelsew's face brightened up when he saw her. "Are you feeling better?"
"Yes. Yes, I am. Look, Yelsew..." She looked embarrassed. "Do you know what happened to me last night?"
His eyebrow rose in conviction, and Mabel promptly raised her hand, preventing him from saying anything. "I know you warned me. And the idea of not remembering how I got home is terrifying!"
"The last thing I know… I saw you falling face down on your food." He was laughing. "I'm sorry." He tried to pull himself together. "Well, after that, the general took you home."
Mabel's eyes widened in surprise. "Did the general take me home? I mean..." Her voice failed. "Why?"
Yelsew pointed somewhere behind her. "Why don't you ask him?"
Mabel looked back to see Navi. He would not fight; he would just watch the commander do his job, which was to instruct the soldiers – inspecting, actually. However, Mabel knew there was a place in the castle where he would use for training. He would rather do everything on his own.
She shook her head.
There was no chance she would go there and talk to him. She might be able to punch someone and deal with brutes, but she would not dare to talk to him. Unconsciously, she pinned her feet to the floor. Yelsew noticed, as he pushed her body forward so strongly that made her move. It was not discreet; she looked like someone who had no control of her own body.
Her first impulse was to go back to Yelsew, but Navi saw her. So, she felt like she had to walk towards him.
She needed to know what she did wrong, because she must have done something. She heard people saying that it was normal to do stupid things and act impulsively when they got drunk, and according to her bad luck, she would not be an exception to that at all.
Mabel bowed to Navi, as best as she could. She thought the prince deserved a more enthusiastic greeting from her. But he was agitated, not patient enough to wait for her long greeting. She would take longer than anyone else would to take a bow.
"You should stop that." The prince complained, his face blinking in discomfort. "That doesn't even suit you."
She stopped her reverence halfway, the golden light of the sun brightening up her face as she immediately raised her eyes to him without understanding what was going on. "What should I stop doing?"
"The greeting. It does not suit you. Besides, you would have been my fiancée. Yo
u don't need to act this formal towards me." Navi turned around and kept looking at the soldiers. "Are you here to know what happened last night?"
"Yes," She said in wonder. "How did you guess?"
"You got drunk, and all you did was sleep. But I still do not know if you being unconscious is something good or bad."
Fell asleep? Was that all?
Mabel was relieved when Navi turned abruptly to face her.
"Of course, but before that I had a few issues, like carrying you on my back from the tavern to your house, until I finally threw you on the bed and made sure that you were actually sleeping and not sleepwalking around."
"How did you manage to get into my house?" She asked after clearing her throat. Memories from the night before came to her mind, and she remembered Navi taking the key out of the front pocket of her dress to open the door. "Never mind."
"Why do you do that? Why do you always have to put yourself into trouble so that I can fix it for you?"
He sounded a little irritated. He must have been really annoyed for carrying her on his back all the way to her place, wrinkling his clothes and messing up his stylish hair.
"You shouldn't have done it then. You could have let anyone else do it instead, once you're cursing on it so much now."
"Of course," He said sarcastically. "Why haven't I done it?"
"Did you feel responsible for me, fearing what your soldiers could do to me? Because it's not like you're not a man either..."
"I would never touch a girl who was passed out." Navi shook his head. "Especially if the girl was you."
"I know. Because I am inappropriate for you, and because I do not dress well and I do not speak well and because I am not delicate enough. But…''
The soldiers started to get restless watching Mabel and Navi talking, asking each other "what are they talking about?", "what's going on?" Mabel noticed the soldiers getting agitated, so did Navi, but he did not care what they thought. Navi saw that she was leaning towards him, yet he kept his unshakable posture, making it difficult for her to do whatever she was trying to do.
Mabel then spoke over his shoulder, as she would never be able to reach his ear. "You'd better be careful next time," She said, suggestively. "For them not to think different and ruin your disguise."
"What disguise?"
Mabel dragged herself back to her spot, and she felt an uncomfortable headache, as she began to remember exactly what had happened. Because, as Navi said, before she actually fell asleep a series of things happened. Like, for example, she being put on his back, talking nonsense before she vomited on his favorite jacket and hanging herself on his neck as she finally passed out.
Mabel pressed her head with both hands.
As to suffocate the pain, the memories.
To go back in time.
"What disguise were you talking about?"
Mabel looked at him. "It doesn't matter. In the end, none of this matters."
When she returned to Yelsew, he was laughing. She really wanted to know what was behind that smile.
"So?" He asked, playfully.
Her answer was that he should invite her to celebrate with them again. "Ever again." She reinforced.
Mabel was in the kitchen assisting Epaminondas when she saw Aury get in the canteen and sit in one of the empty tables. He looked like a ghost in clothes, wandering lost and depressed for some reason, and she wondered what could have happened.
Epaminondas left for a convenient moment, and before he returned, Mabel left her service in the kitchen to go to Aury and not be stopped by him on her way. As soon as she sat down next to him, Aury immediately said, as if sitting there was a strategy to make her walk his way.
"I have a girlfriend now."
"Really? Things have changed while I was away. "
Mabel did not find Aury a handsome guy. He was slim and clumsy, but he was still sweet at times. Maybe he was attractive, since he had a person, and she just did not think that about him because she learned to get used to him, although she had lived with Navi all this time and never got tired of him.
"I will get married. Not now; it will take a while. Suri told me she would not have agreed to date me if I wasn't in the army. At least facing training every day brought me a girlfriend. She does not mind the fact that one day I can go to war and not come back. Then I’ve realized that she just wants to marry someone, regardless of who he is or what he does, and yet I'm going to marry her. By now, I'm so deeply in love that I cannot go back."
"And that does not matter in the end." She said in agreement, looking attentively at him. "Because everybody wants to be with someone."
Aury nodded in approval. "Which leads me to the favor I'm going to ask of you." He turned his body to look at her. "Can you ask the general to get me a position in his guard? Or even to be his personal servant? I heard he doesn't have one."
"The general kicked me out of the army, and forbade my entry into the castle. Sorry, but this is not the attitude of someone who would comply with my request, Aury."
"We all know you can influence him, that you would not be here if you did not control him somehow. There has been a rumor that you tried to enlist in the army before and you were not accepted, then the general showed up here and arranged for you to get in. You have to admit that if you were not close enough, you would never be here. This is unusual for someone like you, and somehow you made it."
If she could, she would tell Aury that Navi did not care at all about her, that she had to bargain their marriage to be there, but that explanation would make things even more complicated. Now more than ever, they could not find out about it.
"If I had this influence on him as you say I do, and as everyone thinks, I would be in another position like, let me think… at a higher position in the castle, maybe?"
"And what about last night? You did not see it because you were facing your own food, but I saw the way he took care of you, from the moment he did not let any of those men touch you to the way he carried you on his arms out of the tavern."
"That does not prove anything."
"What about when you disappeared? He went crazy, so crazy that he put an army to find you."
Mabel was still indifferent. "He would act this careful to anyone."
"Maybe. But at least he cares about you, and I'm sure if you tried to be a little more charming he would listen to you. I have already analyzed the situation; Yelsew was there, the general trusts him. Why didn't he tell him to take you home? Why didn't he tell me to do it? I'm your friend, right?" Aury was desperate. "I was not born to fight on the front line. I do not know how to kill; I only know how to paint! I want to experience marriage before I say goodbye to this world, Mabel. I cannot die now."
"No one will die now."
"How can you be so sure? We're at war, I'm almost dead already. We're all dead!"
"All right, Aury." Mabel said, trying to calm him down. "I'll try to talk to him."
But she looked like she didn't know if she could make it, or like she wouldn't be able to do it. She finally understood Navi when he promised something that was out of his reach. In the end, just like everyone else, Aury would defend Navon in the front line. And once it was all over, just like everyone else, maybe no one else would be standing.
The summoning of all the relegated soldiers to the training camp distracted Mabel and Aury. There would be an announcement. She thought she should be there too, even though Epaminondas told her to stay and that that it was none of her business.
Navi was facing the soldiers, just ahead of the commander. The soldiers, who Mabel was so well accustomed to, were forming rows facing both, standing erect, formal and serious, looking like they were another army.
Definitely, another army.
"The princess of Tantam is coming." Navi's voice echoed across the field, and Mabel was trembling every time he shouted. Perhaps it was because of the dark and heavy atmosphere felt when an army was ready for war. "From the moment she passes through our gates, all of you
will be responsible for her."
The soldiers looked like statues. Mabel glanced at them in formation, and stopped at Yelsew. Unlike the others, he looked calm, almost smiling – once he could not in fact be radiant after a military call. She looked for Sven, and found him in the same row as Yelsew, confident and unwavering. For the first time, she allowed herself to see him as the soldier he really was. Then she looked at Vilanis, probably the smallest soldier in the whole regiment. So, Aury... poor Aury.
"Navon depends on it."
The message was delivered. It was their life for hers.
The soldiers dispersed like frightened little animals in a commotion. Yet, in the middle of that mess, Mabel could have spotted Navi, and even if they were in hell, she would still be able to find him. In his usual calm, he was talking to the commander about something urgent, because he had scratched his neck. He never scratched his neck or showed anything. When he lifted his head and saw Mabel, before she had a chance to turn away, he raised his hand to call her.
What must have I done wrong this time?
Mabel did not know how she could have walked towards him. Her legs trembled and her heart danced in a way that made her feel dizzy and nauseated, cold and hot simultaneously, and she felt as if she was going to the slaughterhouse instead of walking towards Navi. Him, and no one else, could make her stomach sick. Somehow, Navi made her nervous, in a way that no other man could, and she had not yet figured out what it meant.
Navi glanced around, as if struggling with himself, and then looked back at Mabel. "You finally got yourself a mission."
Her eyes widened and her mouth opened, but she did not say anything. She couldn't speak.
"The princess and her entourage were robbed on the road. The messenger said they are fine, that they only lost a few loads. The commander suggested that such rescue activity would not be risky for you to attend. He thinks that from time to time we can give you the chance to contribute to the army, since that's what you want so badly."
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