Vocabulaire:

1. Censor (L.) – An office responsible for monitoring the list of senators as well as the public's "morality". They also had the power (technically the duty) to eject senators from the House if they failed to meet some legal requirement, e.g. if a senator was in arrears, which one law said no senator could be.

2. Eiichi Kiyosaki – A character in this story. He was a tribune of the plebs when Chikane's antipiracy commission was created, and it was due to his agitation of the people then that said commission even came to be. See Chikane's letter to Shizuru in Chapter 73: hit Ctrl+F and search for "Eiichi Kiyosaki".

3. Lustrum (L.) – The five-year term to which censors (s.v.) were elected. For the historians: A lustrum can end prematurely if one censor dies or resigns in this story, since it takes place well after the 393 BCE lustrum that made censor replacement nefas (sacrilegious).

4. Mare nostrum (L.) – Literally Our Sea, the Ancient Roman term for the Mediterranean.

5. Talent (L.) – The amount of silver/gold a man can carry. The standard here is for each talent to be equal to 6,250 denarii or 25,000 sesterces.

6. Tuatha – The druidic gods/pantheon.

Inter Nos II: Inde ira et lacrimae

When Haruka Armitage was elected a censor, it sent shivers throughout the Senate. Everyone knew she had powerful crotchets about the inappropriate and immoral. Since she also had the constricted perceptions of a true conservative, this spelled catastrophe for all the senators less than Platonic of character.

Most worrying of all was her stance on indebted senators. As many expected, the woman cracked down on these with a vengeance. High time, she announced at the start of her lustrum, that someone finally enforced the law banning senators from being in arrears. If she was aware how many of her own faction's allies broke that rule, she gave no indication. Only natural that her investigations should begin—and for the most part, proceed—with those who were not her associates.

"So you won't see any stout conservatives in the list of ejected senators," Chie Harada told Shizuru when she came to Ravenna. "She would've dearly loved to kick out people like you or Himemiya's cousin. You're the ones she thinks are the real dangers to public morality! But since you're both debt-free and scrupulous about your assets, she couldn't very well impeach either of you during her lustrum."

Shizuru suppressed a grin as she imagined her nemesis raging over being unable to strike at her.

"I imagine she conducted an investigation, nevertheless," she posited, "to ensure all our businesses were ones legally allowed for senators."

"I'm sure she did! As it is, mostly radicals or moderates've been getting stripped of their senatorial status. Oh, there've been one or two names from conservative families, but only disreputable members of those clans. You might say she picked out the black sheep of each herd, so she wasn't really going against her Traditionalist grain."

"Wonderful, is it not?" was Shizuru's reply. "For all her noisy insistence on legal fairness, Armitage still has a discretionary view of justice. I doubt she would ever eject your father-in-law for his debts, for instance, given that he and she are in the same faction."

"As I already paid off those debts, she wouldn't have reason to."

Shizuru stifled a grin at the wry reminder.

"Anyway, there's been plenty of other targets for her to light upon," continued the other senator. "For some reason or other, the number of senators deep in debt has gone up sharply in recent time. In fact, it's not even limited to the senators. A lot of people seem to have fallen into dramatic arrears in just the past three or four years!"

Shizuru withheld another chuckle at these words. "For some reason or other" indeed! The rising number of bankrupts in past years was far from a mystery.

It all began with the lasting drought. Its onset had driven up the cost of grain as merchants prepared for shorter supplies than usual. But then it had persisted through another harvest and yet another, turning into a full-blown famine. This sent already-escalated grain prices skyrocketing—to over twenty times the normal price in some places.

These particular outcomes of the famine were not difficult to understand. Low supply married to unchanged demand birthed terrible grain prices. That in turn led to starvation in the lower classes. But that was not the end of the famine's devastation. To make matters worse, few of the people in charge understood that.

Shizuru's senatorial fellows were either members of the richest class or fiscal dunces. Thus they often failed to appreciate how far a food shortage went. They only saw the lower classes agitating about hunger and the rabble rousers like Eiichi Kiyosaki who stirred them up. They saw the poor complaining about having only turnips and millet, and thought that was the end of the matter.

A short-sighted view. Shizuru knew a famine was an economic disaster for the entirety of Hime.

It started with those most ubiquitous of vendors, the grain millers and the bakers. Many of the lower classes did not have their own ovens, so they asked bakers to bake their bread. They lacked mills too and relied on the millers to grind their grain. As payment for the trouble, the millers took a portion of what they ground and resold it for an income. The bakers did the same, taking a portion of the flour people asked them to bake. They took this payment of flour and used it to make loaves they could then sell for a profit.

When people could not afford to bring grain to them, the millers' grinders stilled. When there was no one bringing in flour, the bakers' ovens quieted. Even if the latter did manage to find enough flour to bake loaves, the bread would be so costly that no one could afford to buy them.

Few ate well during a famine; this had an impact on all the other tradesmen. The common labourers and porters started working less and less. Building foremen saw workers faint in the middle of construction. Manufactory workers slowed to a crawl from hunger.

Projects were delayed at great cost, as a result. Goods' prices shot up due to the increasing expense and inefficiency of production. Shops for inedible items closed because people saved what they had to spend on foodstuff. People sold their slaves because they could no longer afford to feed them. Wages went down as employers factored in both lowered profits and worker productivity. Apartment owners and estate landlords could no longer collect rents because tenants had no money.

And the crime rate went soaring, further upsetting what little commerce still proceeded.

With most of the population suddenly dealing with higher costs and thinner revenue streams, the moneylenders of the city made a killing. Many Himeans, including senators, did not cut back on their expenses even when flirting with bankruptcy. They solved the problem of money by borrowing it, simply trusting to the gods that they would find a way to pay it back in the future.

Thus the sharp increase in indebted senators recently. Shizuru knew that many of these debtors would even have borrowed from less-than-respectable creditors. That meant short payback terms on compound interest, which usually began a cycle that only worsened an account already on negative equity. It was debt of this sort that had driven Banri Ueda to her last year.

"Anyway, that's how it's been," Chie sighed about the situation. "It's worked out for you, as I said—and even me, given the terms of my marriage—but I do think it's been an ill wind for many others."

"I can see that," Shizuru agreed.

She would have said more, had it not been for the woman coming to join them. She put the conversation on hold to reintroduce Princess Natsuki to her old friend. Mere formality, of course: the two were not strangers, even if they had not clapped eyes on each other for years.

The appearance of the Otomeian was not a surprise to Chie: Shizuru had said beforehand that they would dine with her mistress. Chie knew too that said mistress had suffered certain bodily changes, including but not limited to an amputation.

So when the foreigner presented herself, Chie was able to react without shock or suspicion. In its place she had a hushed enthralment as she studied the changes of half a decade. What had she expected? Something like this, yes, but also something so much less. Even in a light but fine dress and leaning on an ivory-topped cane, Shizuru's mistress emanated more of her formidable austerity than ever.

When the foreigner had settled herself into the third couch—sitting up instead of reclining as Chie and Shizuru were—Chie addressed the young woman.

"How do you find Fuuka, Natsuki-san?" she ventured, striving to sound casual because she sensed Shizuru preferred that. Whether the foreigner would or not… Well, that was beyond her senses. "Do you like Ravenna, now you finally see it?"

The densely-fringed eyes lit up at the question.

"Yes," Natsuki said.

Then, because it was obvious she did not want to be considered impolite by being curt with her lover's friend, she added, "It is quiet, but I like that too."

"Well, it's a popular holiday place for that reason, although usually in the summers," Chie told her, silently cataloguing the changes even in this conversation. She had not spoken that much to the Otomeian in her time as senior legate to Shizuru, but she could still remember the foreigner's barely concealed anxiety during all those instances. Now she could discern no such apprehension. Oh, the girl was still closed up! A riddle locked away. But not an uncertain one, it seemed, or not any longer.

"Most people come here for peace and quiet," she told this more certain Natsuki. "As well as the cool northern weather."

A pause as all three of them thought the same thing.

"Well," Chie said with a laugh, "northern for us, you know."

"I know," Natsuki said. "As this is southern for me."

The Himeans grinned.

Then, because the only true northerner seemed to sense that she had interrupted their conversation, she drew them back into it: "You were talking of Shizuru's new senators?"

Chie said they were, if she was referring to the ones Shizuru had bought. More specifically, she explained, they had been speaking of the conditions that made it possible to buy them.

"It's worked out so well because the creditors have all been calling in debts," Chie told the room. She had been asked beforehand to conduct this discussion normally even after the Otomeian joined them. Further, Shizuru had even asked that Chie expect the foreigner's occasional participation. A change from their old situation, when the Otomeian had still been the woman's bodyguard: while privy to Shizuru's private talks then, the girl had not been expected to be a contributor in them. This was a whole new power for someone who was an alien paramour.

What Shizuru was granting her mistress here was the confidence one gave an esteemed partner of senatorial blood. Chie herself had just spent a year wedded to such a partner. Yet there were vital dissimilarities. Chie's partner was not only a wife, but also a senatorial and Himean one. How much could Shizuru truly expect her northern foreigner to understand, even given all their time together?

She did as her friend had requested anyway, and went on as though she faced two Himeans instead of her current hybrid audience.

"There's been a rash of usurers demanding full repayment of arrears in the last few months," she revealed. "At the same time, there's been a sudden difficulty in getting any more loans. I know, because some of our fellows have been trying that old trick—you know, borrowing money from someone else to pay off yet another someone else—but no such luck. Most people aren't lending anymore, just collecting. And doing it rabidly, of late!"

Shizuru smiled and said that was to be expected. Chie withheld the sigh.

"At the risk of sounding repetitive, Shizuru-san, I have to reiterate that most people don't see how you get your expectations," she said. "I don't know about Natsuki-san here, but I'd really appreciate a clarification of how you foresaw this state of affairs before it even came about."

"It has been coming about for a while now."

"So you keep saying! Now explain how and what led to it, I do beg you!"

The other held up her hands, laughing.

"Very well, if you insist on it," Shizuru said with a swift glance at her mistress.

The foreigner's eyes gleamed; Chie read excitement in them. But excitement over what? Over an explanation of fiscal movements? Stranger and stranger still!

"As you observed earlier, Chie-han, many persons fell into arrears very recently," Shizuru started. "This was because the drought and ensuing famine had caused an economic downturn. If people cannot afford to eat, they cannot afford much of anything else. Too little profit for everybody, too many expenses still going. This much is clear, is it not?"

"It is," Chie agreed.

"The usual recourse for most in such a situation is to sell what they can to supplement a suddenly thin income stream. The problem with that is—well, you know the problem with such a solution, do you not, Princess?"

Natsuki sounded to Chie like a youngster answering her pedagogue: "Few have money or interest to buy during a downturn."

Shizuru's pleasure in the answer was also just like a pedagogue's.

"Precisely that," she said, red eyes alight. "There are exceptions, of course, but these are usually only interested in large assets like houses. Even then, those buying such properties know they can bargain for lower prices since the sellers' needs are pressing. So, whatever is sold goes too cheap and many things are not sold at all. Just as an example, I know you will have noticed all the property being put up for sale in Hime last year. More than half of it remains unsold, my banker tells me."

"That's so."

"So selling off assets is not always useful. A lot of people take the other recourse then, which is to borrow money. That is how I knew a lot of people would be running up big debts over the past two years. Since the lenders have the upper hand in the transaction, by the way, they can also impose even worse terms than usual."

Chie snorted aloud as she remembered something at this statement.

"You can say that again!" she exclaimed. "Some of the really horrible cases rumoured recently had debts set at over forty percent compound interest!"

Shizuru was familiar with the way moneylenders worked, but was still disgusted.

"That is manifestly felonious!" she said to Chie, who concurred first, and then asked what all this had to do with Shizuru's forecast that the creditors would call in all of those debts aggressively this winter season.

"Is it because you thought the moneylenders would finally be running out of cash themselves?" she guessed, making no attempt to conceal her hesitation even as she spoke. She did not want to make too many conjectural sallies in this conversation because she was acutely aware of her deficiencies in the topic. Nor did it help that Shizuru's mistress was present: Chie was starting to suspect that the girl understood economics better than she did!

"Something like that, but not exactly," Shizuru told her, before expounding further.

She said the decisive factor on which she had gambled her predictions had been Chikane Himemiya's appointment to rid Mare Nostrum of pirates.

"This is especially since her command is a strong one," she detailed. "I doubt my predictions would have come true so dramatically had the Senate strapped Chikane with an underfunded and weak campaign. She would still have trounced whatever pirates she met, but she would not have cleared Our Sea the way she is currently doing, so exhaustively."

When Chikane had revealed to her the resources of the antipiracy command, Shizuru had seen the future immediately. She saw a Mare Nostrum safer than it had been in more than a hundred years. Ships would again be free to sail to and from every corner of it without fear of seizure. Sea travel as well as trade would undergo a revival.

All of which Shizuru and the other mercantile-minded Himeans saw as imminent opportunities. The Himemiya Campaign might not have completed its objective yet, but it was obvious to all, as early as last autumn, that it would do so presently.

The business community started preparations for it.

"The eradication of the pirates makes overseas investment possible again," Shizuru explained. "Do you realise that in the last hundred years, the presence of these seafaring thieves has prevented our businessmen from sending their money out of the country? This has kept Himean money concentrated in Fuuka and Hime for virtually a century! The only exceptions have been the nearer provinces with overland routes, like the Spains. Even then, businessmen have still been moderate, wary of sinking too much money into places far away."

"But now, thanks to Chikane, everything has changed," she continued. "Suddenly the sea routes are open again. Capital has other places it can now go. And like water, it shall go, believe me. Streams flow from a dam whenever you open a channel."

She met Chie's narrowed eyes and said, "This is what led to the economic crisis we are seeing, which is also the fulfilment of my predictions. I knew Chikane would have enough victories by this time to show everyone she would complete her undertaking to clear the seas. I knew many would see the opportunities that would present in the foreign markets as a consequence. I knew those who want to invest would have to gather up their capital. That includes capital many of them may have originally lent out to others at profitable rates during the famine."

Chie stared at her, brow wrinkled, and more than a little daunted by what Shizuru had just exposed.

"So you mean," she started slowly, "you started planning this as soon as Himemiya got her commission? That you knew, as early as then, that a lot of our peers would end up in hock up to their necks after the famine and her activities?"

"Not precisely," Shizuru said, with a look at the youngest woman in the room.

Chie looked that way too and noted the ruddy cheeks.

"I see you suspect the truth, Princess," Shizuru teased. "Out with it, if you care to hazard another of your suspicions."

Chie saw that whatever the foreigner thought was so exciting that she could barely keep it in. The Otomeian's next words came out very swiftly.

"You started planning as soon as you conquered Septentria, soon after Terantrum," she deduced.

Shizuru laughed, applauding. Chie gaped at both of them.

"That couldn't be!" Chie said. "How could you have known that early that something like this would happen? I mean, Himemiya's campaign hadn't even been thought up yet when you fought King Obsidian at Terantrum! And you'd not have heard of it until much later. Why should you think the creditors would be on a collections rush to shore up capital before that?"

"Because," Shizuru responded, "if the Himemiya Campaign had never happened, capital would still be flowing or preparing to flow out of Hime this moment. You see, I myself have played a part in changing the economic situation as I described it. By conquering the Mentulaean Empire, I opened up yet another playground for our many knight-businessmen."

The breath left Chie loudly as she realized what her friend was saying.

Shizuru forged on: "It might not be 'overseas' any longer, especially with the establishment of the via Fujino as an overland route, but Septentria remains a foreign playground with a lot of opportunities for the smart investor."

"Which means many 'smart investors' would have been dying to invest in it," Chie concluded with amazement. She was finally processing all this fiscal elucidation, all further proof of the oddity of her colleague. Who could predict things like this in the middle of taming a new province? How magical was the Fujino mind!

"There would still have been a lot of them calling in debts," she went on, still marvelling at her friend's foresight. "Yes, I see! That's why you'd still have been able to count on some of our fellows falling headlong into bankruptcy recently."

Shizuru said that was right.

"I am still pleased Chikane's command happened," she qualified. "Otherwise, I might never have had such a wide array of choices for buying senators. With both of our campaigns unlocking so many prospects abroad, the business community has been in a bigger panic than ever about settling accounts outstanding. The result has been scads of bankrupts in the House… all of whom, incidentally, are hugely afraid of being stripped of senatorial rank by Dear Censor Armitage. Thank goodness for her aggressiveness, as well as the knights' efficiency at collecting their capital."

Although they would have an unpleasant surprise waiting for them when they tried to use that capital to flood the Septentrian market, she told her lover later. This was when they were changing for the night in their bedroom; Chie herself had retired to the suite they had given her.

"Why?" Natsuki asked with interest. "You will stop them?"

"Well, I do not want them overwhelming all the local businesses."

Natsuki was at the foot of their bed: she had just removed her prosthetic and now worked on the bandages protecting the stump.

"But," she said, "I thought investment from outside would be good. Even for Septentria."

"It is," Shizuru agreed. "But only insofar as the investors would not try to edge out nearly all local competition. They would, you know. Hime's plutocrats are merciless about that sort of thing. Plutocrats are generally that, I suppose."

A speaking look from Natsuki. Shizuru smirked and put a finger beside her nose.

"Shh, most people think I am only a senator," she quipped.

Natsuki shook her head playfully: "But how can you stop them? The Himean plutocrats?"

Shizuru had finished donning her sleeping tunic. She now brought a wash basin to Natsuki and crouched before the young woman, offering to wash the exposed stump in her place. Natsuki accepted.

"I can impose regulations on new businesses, for one," Shizuru said as she ran a wet cloth over the stub's smooth skin. "I can also be careful about the concessions and grants I give. The problem with our other conqueror-governors, when they founded our provinces, is that they were more interested in enhancing their popularity or purses than with ensuring the Republic's future. This led to entirely free markets for Himean businessmen in the provinces. The natives had rather less leeway in their commercial activities."

Natsuki noted that the natives were the conquered. Therefore, they were naturally expected to have the shorter end of the stick after having lost their wars.

"Yes, of course," Shizuru agreed. "But not to the point that a province is mired in an economic morass. Most of its revenues are siphoned off to another country's private individuals ever after. A bad thing, Natsuki. The provinces have to be self-sufficient, not milked dry. They and Hime's dominance of them cannot last otherwise."

"Many of your people would disagree," Natsuki pointed out.

"Many of my people are certifiable cretins," Shizuru answered. "Look at our Senate, which is stuffed full of nincompoops. No, I long ago ceased paying attention to what The Many think or desire, at least insofar as my own opinions are made."

"What do you think of that Greek idea, 'democracy'?" the girl asked all of a sudden.

Shizuru looked up from her task, intrigued.

"I think it like many other things the Greeks came up with," she said honestly. "A dream, a beautiful fiction that works on paper and nowhere else. That is because, in the vast majority of gatherings, there will still be more fools or middling minds than actual intelligent persons. How can the rule of The Many be wise when wisdom is in scarce supply throughout humanity?"

"Yet your senators pass decisions based on the vote of The Many."

"Indeed, and they often pass stupid decisions. Even so, I still think our implementation of majority rule better than the Greek 'democracy'. Hime is government of The Many by The Few. Of course, I still wish The Few were more rational, but no system is perfect."

The polemarch laughingly told her she was "so Himean".

"I take it as a compliment," she replied.

She had finished washing the shortened limb and now dried it with another cloth. She put away the washbasin and rags after and headed to a table where more of her tools for personal hygiene waited.

There was a jug of water and a saucer of salt, as well as a twig that had been frayed at the end. She picked up the jug first and poured water into a cup to rinse her mouth. The fluid was spat into a small bowl she used for that purpose.

She took up the twig and began in earnest, picking between teeth and rinsing her mouth at regular intervals. After that there was the square of clean cloth waiting on the table. There was only one square because Natsuki had used the other earlier. Now Shizuru wrapped the remaining one around a finger and dipped it in the cup to dampen. Next it went into the saucer of salt. This was rubbed against her teeth.

Shizuru knew not everyone went through as meticulous a regime of dental hygiene as she did. Many Himeans made do with only a quick rinse, even, or an occasional tooth-picking. She herself was both vain and practical enough to do more: she wanted to keep all of her teeth for as long as fortune permitted.

This had actually led to another of the Fujino legions' quirks. Their officers were instructed to drill the basics of dental care into the legionaries. To those who accused her of imposing her personal eccentricities on the troops, Shizuru insisted that carious soldiers fought less efficiently.

"The pain can distract them in the middle of battle, if it gets bad enough," she would say. "More than that, it tends to make them weak, because they either eat less food or consume too much of addling substances like liquor in an effort to avoid the ache of it. Decayed teeth are a disease! I want my army to be healthy. So what if, in the process, they also happen to boast whiter smiles than the rest of Hime?"

To finish tending to her own white smile, she rinsed the salt out of her mouth again with more water. This accomplished, she settled down to sit at the foot of the bed with Natsuki.

"I do hope," she sighed, "that some enterprising apothecary shall eventually invent a substance for cleaning teeth that does not leave one so thirsty."

Her companion chuckled, busily running a comb through jet hair. It was a nightly ritual that Shizuru loved: the sight of the comb raking those black locks in ripples delighted her.

She leaned closer as she watched. This way she could enjoy too the pine-dusted, snow-on-skin scent of her mistress's body.

"But Shizuru," Natsuki said suddenly. "Tell me."

"Yes?"

"When you planned this, what you said earlier—to expect many of your people to be in debt."

"What of it?"

"Did you think of it too when you told Fumi Katou to prosecute Sumio Fujimoto in an Assembly?"

Shizuru's brightest smile came out at this.

"What makes you ask that?" she said, knowing it was as good as a confirmation.

Natsuki explained: if the people had been suffering so badly through an economic downturn that they could barely feed themselves, they would have been even more eager to see a rich man convicted. She said it was human nature to be inflamed by envy.

"You really would make a fine philosopher, Love," said the woman besotted with her, earning an unphilosophical snort.

"But this," Natsuki persisted. "You thought of all this? What if—if something went wrong? You did not fear it? With your intention to buy bankrupt senators for your cause?"

Shizuru said she had not.

"There was a constant in my favour," she answered. "No matter what obstacles could have arisen, one thing would not have changed: there would still have been senators in debt. There always are. There just happened to be a lot more this time. I also still have other allies. Banri-han, the President of the Plebeian Tribunate, is obviously one of them. I would have pulled him, along with every other string I could find. And I think you know by now that I always find strings when I go looking for them."

"Yes, it—it is Ulyssean."

Shizuru heard the depth of her tone and noted her colour, recognising it all of a sudden.

"I think you must admire me a bit, Polemarch," she said quietly. "Did my schemes impress?"

Natsuki looked away. Still her skin telegraphed the answer. Shizuru studied the flagrant colour and knew she had read right. The success of her scheming had excited her lover.

It was no surprise, she considered. People in her occupation always had their triumphs—their power—woven into their attraction. She recognised when the stare given her held a fantasy of being subject to her strength. And there had long been many such stares, even before she came to North and put down an empire with her boot to its neck.

She took the comb from Natsuki and set it beside them.

"If I impressed you so much, grant me a reward," she coaxed, fingers describing the concave small of Natsuki's back. Even the girl's shift was hot from the skin beneath it and she called herself a fool for not noticing quicker.

She pressed down with her palm.

"A little incentive to continue being impressive, perhaps?" she asked, smiling at the other's gasp.

"But your friend…"

"Chie-han already went to bed."

"But—no, still."

"You saw how much wine she drank at dinner. I wager she is already asleep."

"She may wake!" Natsuki hissed.

She followed the hands guiding her onto the sheets, all the same.

"The sitting room is between her room and ours." Shizuru crept over her mistress. "Now lift your hips. Just so. And your arms?"

Again the other obeyed and they helped each other out of their clothes. The younger woman pushed at Shizuru when the latter tried to lie atop her, however.

"Wait," she panted. "Stay up?"

Shizuru stared. "I thought I was getting a reward."

"You will… if you stay so."

"An odd reward, to be denied your body," Shizuru pretended to grumble as she stilled. In truth, she was interested to see what her lover wanted. An examination, it turned out: her eyes widened as Natsuki's gaze roamed like a proprietor assessing territory. It was a surprisingly forthright visual caress from a girl who could still blush if the subject's eyes met hers. Not that the girl was pale of cheek even now.

Then it was not just the green eyes ogling but also the scarred fingers. From trim flanks to slender waist, raking to her hips and the tender flesh of her bottom. Shizuru fought down a shiver when they scraped the soft skin of her thighs. Then they found her and she inhaled, but mastered the urge and permitted herself no greater relief, even at the torture they started.

Her composure pulled black brows together, to her amusement.

"Do you know what you are doing?" she challenged.

The next touch wiped away her smugness. She blinked rapidly but got no reprieve, especially when a hand cupped her rear in encouragement.

"Tell, Shizuru," Natsuki told her, going so far as to smirk. "Do I?"

Shizuru glared as another splash of pleasure streaked her vision. She would have answered, but Natsuki's hands persisted. It did not take long before she sensed herself beaten.

"I will make you pay for this, you know," she still got out, arms shaking.

"Yes," Natsuki agreed.

She lipped Shizuru's ear when the latter finally fell, a toppled idol moaning into her hair and clutching at the sheets. She added a tongue and Shizuru lost all restraint, hips plunging uncontrollably. Soon the older woman was whimpering her finish against one of Natsuki's cheeks. Natsuki swiped her palms over the wetness on the strong shoulders and back afterwards; Shizuru twitched helplessly, huffing.

"Does it please you to have power over me?" the Himean asked after she recovered.

She had to lift herself again to see the answer in the flushed face. Yet Natsuki was not meeting her gaze: the green eyes were on the older woman's body again.

It seemed the Otomeian had not been satisfied by her earlier assessment. Now one of the hands on Shizuru's shoulders slipped its way to a bicep. Thumb and digits caught the swell of the muscle, dipped into the dint of the septum and over the slimmer swell at the back of the arm. Natsuki's eyes were on the inspection and Shizuru watched her in return.

Suddenly the girl withdrew her questing hand and tongued the tips of her fingers. Shizuru drew a breath at the sight and Natsuki's eyes darted up, as if in alarm. Shizuru wondered if the girl had actually forgotten her for an instant.

"I am, ah—" Natsuki began, looking strangely embarrassed. "Um, I…"

Shizuru said it for her: "You like my sweat."

Brilliant eyes shut away even in admission: "Yes."

Shizuru sighed. She turned Natsuki onto her stomach, to hold the girl captive in her turn. Especially after what she had just experienced, there was a gnawing desire to have it done: to see every knob of the princess's spine strained, scapulae flapping like the wings of a bird held down.

"Your sweat," Shizuru said while spreading her lover's legs. "I love yours."

She loved too that this creature kindled from her strength as much as her love. So she gave Natsuki both, branded a writ of ownership and adoration on the fevered nape. She trapped the smaller body with her shoulders so it could not flee; pinned the slender hips with hers so they could only follow her rhythm. And she exacted vengeance until the other was reduced to submission so fine it left Shizuru as breathless as the girl broken beneath her.

Back in Septentria, Calchis was a satisfied man. His allies among the Arvetii had performed a great deal of canvassing on his behalf. Not only could they now assure him of perfect loyalty from their own folk, but they also reported the addition of many Carsinian lords to their side.

This was of consequence because Calchis was banking on Carsinian support. Unlike many of the other tribes of the empire, the Carsinii could not be bullied into joining the imperial cause later. The imperial restoration needed their strength from the outset! They were one of the country's primary sources of cavalrymen. Without the Carsinian troopers, the resumption of the Mentulaean-Himean War would have a poorer beginning.

Baron Epodorus was deputed by the Carsinii to attend the clandestine meeting with Calchis. They were joined by deputies from the other tribes of the land's northeast region.

"If you talk to them yourself again, Your Highness, we'll sway all the others too," Epodorus promised. "It's not lack of sympathy for your cause that's causing them to hesitate. It's fear."

"That won't stand them well on the battlefield," Calchis observed disapprovingly.

"They can be broken out of it! The Himeans walloped us heavily during your father's time, I ask you to remember. We took more beatings for longer than the others, thanks to our position near the river border and our fidelity to the king. That tells you we also held out longer than the others! My fellows just need encouragement again… something you can give. You're exactly the tonic they need, Prince Calchis. Our own great general to contend with the enemy's!"

So sharp was fear of their foe that not one protested the baron's indirect praise of her as a "great general". Not even, several noticed, their leader, who also let the "Prince" slip. Insisting on being called "King" could wait until he had gathered enough allied lords together and got Hiempnos to perform the rite before them.

"Very well," Calchis decided. "I'll meet the undecided Carsinian lords as soon as you can arrange it, Epodorus. Other than that, how go your preparations, Barons and Baronesses?"

A heavyset woman spoke up.

"They go well, Your Highness," said the woman, Baroness Sedulia of the Arvetii. "Among us we've been readying our people in secret. We meet only in small groups to avoid notice. Only community leaders and nobles, who manage getting word to their own people after it."

"The same for the allied Carsinii," said Epodorus.

"And the Veromandae," said another man. "The Himeans may have won the last war, but there's still too few of them to cover the land effectively. There are a lot of places we can go to avoid their suspicious eyes."

"The Lenapii and Bellones aren't here, but I saw them not long ago," said Calchis. "They're doing the same and doing well."

The Baroness Sedulia cleared her throat affectedly. Calchis almost dismissed it, as he was so used to people doing that around him—why was it that one man's hoarse voice made another's throat feel ticklish?—but she followed it up by leaning forward in her seat.

"Recruitment isn't our problem," she announced. "People are still eager to throw off the southerners' yoke! They'll rally to a leader who offers them a way to achieve that."

"And the problem is?" Calchis prompted, unintentionally forbidding in his dense-maned and dense-bearded guise.

"The problem is as it was last we met, Your Highness," said the baroness. "It's armaments. Things actually grow worse as our recruitment improves, which has been happening all this time. As things are going, we may indeed be successful in getting nearly all the tribes to resume our fight against the Himeans. Well, with the exception of traitorous rubbish like the Aexelli or the bumpkins of the southeast, anyway."

Someone growled out not to forget the Leucones, a tribe neighbouring the Aexelli and also among the first to go over to the southerners.

"Yes, them too, of course," Sedulia agreed, her broad face twisted by hatred. "I don't even need to mention Firens."

There was a chorus of snarls at that name.

"As I was saying, we'll have more than enough soldiers for our cause," the baroness went on. "We'll even have enough officers, thanks to all those armies that were demobilised instead of being captured at the end of King Obsidian's fight against Hime. The officers of those forces got to come back home. All valuable men and women we can use now! But since it's looking more and more like we'll have a great many of those men and women, we might not have enough gear to arm all of them! Nor all the people they'll be commanding! Tell me, Epodorus, if we got all the Carsinii on our side, how many soldiers could you field?"

"I would say thirty thousand at least," he said. "More if we can train the youngsters somehow. A lot of them are burning to avenge relatives who were in King Obsidian's armies."

"We're training our own youngsters now," Sedulia said. "Just do it in small groups again, wherever it's safe. Do it in basements or warehouses, and cover every window while using lookouts! The Himeans are too few to be able to see everything."

Epodorus revised the quote at this advice: "Forty or fifty thousand, thereabouts, then."

"We Arvetii may produce near forty thousand ourselves. Now let me ask you, if we asked you to muster in the next month, could you arm all of them?"

Here the Carsinian baron made a face.

"No," he told the group. "You're right, Sedulia, it's a problem. We don't have the gear! The first thirty thousand we probably can arm, or just about. Some will have to go with an old blade or patched-up armour, but better than going without. The other twenty, though, will be as naked as new-born babes! We'll be lucky to even find them all decent swords!"

The others in the gathering murmured, realising the same held true for their own peoples.

"We lost a lot of equipment to the Himeans," said a dour-looking man next to Sedulia. He was the baron representing the tribe of the Veromandae in this conference. "I know all of us held some back when we surrendered armaments to them. But even with those secret caches, the bulk of the empire's military paraphernalia is no longer in our hands."

"To make matters worse," someone added, "we no longer have a Comus to go to for mass manufacture of weapons and other equipment. Nor is Arvern available to us."

Calchis spoke up again.

"Actually," he said, "it's time you were told something."

From the outset, Calchis had known armaments would be a concern. Many had been lost during the war, often as a natural outcome of casualties. The victorious army usually stripped armour and weaponry from enemy corpses on the field. Himeans were especially methodical at it, actually: no scrap of salvageable materiel was typically left behind once they finished.

Other things had further attenuated the stockpile of arms the empire had accrued over the years. Decay, which was hardest on shields and composite gear. Cowardice (fleeing soldiers cast off their gear in order to run faster), of which there had been a lot in the empire's last engagements. Then there were the natural gestures of capitulation.

How fortunate that the barons had known to conceal some of their remaining war equipment! Calchis had initially feared that the druids would need to send them messages to do it, and that would have broken his cover early to too many people. But the lords had done it on their own.

So when the Himeans managed disarmament of the fiefdoms, it had been an incomplete job. Most barons hid away a third of what their armouries had left: a few of the more daring hid away half or more. None had really known when they might need those weapons and armour again, yet instinct drove them to risk their conqueror's wrath by keeping them. Instinct, or the Tuatha? Perhaps both were on Calchis's side.

In spite of that, the retained equipment would not be enough. Not when one considered how many feasible soldiers remained. And how many more Mentulaeans had come of age since the start of the war, since all those losses…

So he and Faris had puzzled out early on how they would solve the problem. Arvern was the best place for getting what they needed. Its sister-city Comus was little more than a scar on the ground now, a sore on which their own mother's tribe, the Ganni, focused blazing resentment. Arvern it had to be—if not for Shizuru Fujino's ban on its forges bulk-manufacturing weapons. To enforce her restriction, the woman had installed a garrison in the region, and even a small station within the city itself. The officers in the city station monitored the city's countless smithies and their production.

An insurmountable problem, it had seemed at first. Then Faris had pointed out the weakness of the Himean governor's arrangement. While clever in itself, it would rely nonetheless on people for its execution. People were the same in some ways, regardless of the land that raised them. Himeans could still be as lazy or half-hearted as the next Mentulaean shirking orders.

So the siblings told Arvern to wait and observe the monitors. Which officers were thorough and which just flipped through logs without crosschecking against the warehouses? Which completed their rounds no matter the time and which went off after the first handful of smithies? Who kept their observations to themselves and who could be diverted by a chat with some charming locals?

In short, which officers were dangerous and which were susceptible to deception?

It took some time, but they eventually managed it. Soon they knew when which officers were on duty and which of them were feckless. Given the invaders' complacency, there were more of these than the careful ones. Most Himean officers found the task of monitoring smithies too tedious to do well.

This was how the smithies managed their illegal business. They even devised a system whereby they could warn each other if a break occurred in the officer rotation.

Sometimes other Himeans appeared in an area or a lazy officer bestirred himself for more thorough inspection. To guard against that, lookouts and messengers were stationed at the city's crossroads. An approaching problem saw the messengers run to all the smithies in the area. All said the same words: "My mother's soup ladle is broken." The smiths knew to conceal their contraband work at hearing that.

So only five months after Arvern's surrender, it had already begun its subversive work against its new masters. Still, the work had to be done with care, which slowed production. Even the process of hiding away the new weapons and armour had to be carried out in secret. This made the siblings antsy as it prevented arms from piling up as fast as they wanted. At the rate equipment was coming in, it could be another half-decade before they could get everything together!

The duo and their chief confederate concurred: they needed another source of gear.

When Faris went to the Kingdom of Celsor, it was with the knowledge that the Himeans had already visited. She had even stopped to view the impressive remnants of the bridge they had used to cross the River Flundanus. Talking to the river-folk confirmed the rumour about the construction having taken merely ten days. It gave her something to think about when the same folk conveyed her to the other side on one of their raft-barges. The engineering feat was not good for Faris's needs: she knew such a feat would have awed their brother-by-marriage.

The original intention had been to directly approach Celsor's King Leontes. He had lent soldiers to their father against the Himeans and the siblings hoped he would do the same for them. Faris revised her plans after three days in his kingdom. The Himeans had obviously impressed the Celsorians, who were still big with talk of the southerners. Who had come in peace and even been conscientious enough to avoid arable land in their marches. They had also bought a lot of foodstuff in passing, and paid for it at handsome prices!

The king too, she discovered, had scorned to assault them with his troops. From what Faris could tell, he seemed to be reconciled to their nearby presence. Again, not good for her needs: she suspected Leontes was not inclined to helping her or her brother. So the person she contrived to meet in secret changed from him to his wife: their half-sister, Amanea.

Amanea had never been a friend to Calchis and Faris, but nor was she a particular enemy. Her elevation to Queen of Celsor through marriage to Leontes had meant a lack of clashes between her and those of Obsidian's brood interested in the empire's kingship. Amanea already had her own kingdom, so to speak. Why would she need to tussle with her siblings for another?

So when Faris tapped her for a furtive reunion, she had no problem saying yes to one of her few siblings still at large in the north.

"I don't know what you want me to do," she told Faris. "Leontes won't give you any more of his soldiers, even if I ask for them. He says we've already lost the ones we sent to Father. He'll just see sending more against those southerners as a waste."

"I understand," Faris said. "He needs a reason to believe his men won't be wasted. What I'm asking is, can't you give him that reason? Have you no sway over your husband?"

Amanea's blue, beautifully-opened eyes snapped to Faris's dark ones.

"Sway enough," she said snidely, eyeing her sister with disdain. Faris knew it was because of her current appearance, which had caused Amanea gasp. Her peasant-robed, cropped-maned guise was an affront to someone as vain as the Queen of Celsor.

"I can't work miracles, Faris," Her Majesty now sniffed. "If you want me to convince my husband, you'll have to give me proof for the argument. Maybe Calchis can go and win some battles. Only then might Leontes be persuaded. Because I tell you, that Himean general who trounced Father was very good at persuading him that she'd trounce any and everything going against her."

"Is that what he said?"

"Not in those words, but that's the impression I get." Amanea sighed and rearranged herself in her seat. "I wish I could've seen that foreigner, myself, but I didn't go with him to meet her. Is she really as tall as Leontes? If so, she's a giant of a woman!"

"She's certainly a giant," Faris said. "In more ways than one."

"I can only imagine how mannishly ugly she must be."

Faris eyed her half-sister dryly. Trust Amanea to be concerned with the woman's looks when all that really mattered was her genius on the battlefield!

"Actually," she said, knowing Amanea would dislike to hear this, "those who've met her say she's one of the most beautiful women they've seen. You should ask your husband… although he probably won't want to admit thinking another woman beautiful to his wife. Or would he?"

The barb struck; Amanea's pretty face turned ugly. Leontes was not short of mistresses, which galled her conceit.

"Anyway, if you really think he can't be persuaded—"

"He can't."

"Then we'll leave it be until things change. There's another thing you can do to help us anyway, and it doesn't need your husband's support."

"What makes you think I'll give you mine?"

"Because you'll get something out of it."

Faris explained that Calchis's armies would need equipment. Celsorian armour and blades would suffice in the absence of traditional Mentulaean ones; anyway, they were not that different. She could not buy them herself, however: nor indeed could she nominate an agent to do it on her behalf. There would still be questions going around about the destination of such an amount of arms as she intended to get. So she needed a local buyer, and one whose motives could not be questioned.

"If you use one of your people and tell him to make it seem like the purchases are for Leontes's own armouries, there'd be less curiosity about their purpose," she told Amanea. "Whatever agents may be sympathetic to the Himeans will also fail to see cause for alarm. Then, I can just have some of my people meet yours to take charge of the equipment."

"You still haven't said what I get from it."

"You get paid for the service. Say, a hundred talents? We'll pay for the equipment too, of course, but only at fair prices, so don't even think about adding a middleman's bonus—we know how much gear costs."

Amanea looked sly. "Interesting that you can afford to pay, Faris. Did some of Father's money find its way to your coffers?"

"Let's just say we preferred to spirit away the contents of some of the northwest Treasuries before the Himeans could. In addition to the hundred talents, let me throw in something else. I have a certain turquoise and jade necklace I'm sure you'd like—"

"How did you get that?!" Amanea cut in, spitting like a cat splashed with water. "That was stolen!"

"Yes, it was, and not by me, before you accuse me of that," Faris answered serenely. The necklace in question had belonged to Amanea's mother, from whose neck it had been taken prior to her interment. Amanea had long grieved its loss, having intended to take it as a keepsake of her parent.

"If you didn't steal it, how do you claim to own it?" the still-grieving daughter now hissed.

"I found it in an old courtier's jewellery chest," Faris said. "I wouldn't worry about it anymore—they're dead now. I made sure of it. You can have the necklace along with the silver I promised. As long as you help us and keep quiet about everything, at least until we need you to talk to Leontes in favour of our cause. The hundred talents buy that too: the promise of a word in our favour."

Thus did Faris secure more of the equipment her brother's armies needed. Calchis told his allies some of this now, promising the imminent arrival of gear from both Celsor and Arvern.

"This is welcome news!" Baroness Sedulia said, brightening. "We'll have to devise a way of getting them to the barons without being noticed, but since trade's started up again, that should be doable. It's not like the Himeans are inspecting carts any longer."

"I agree," said Epodorus. "It's manageable."

"Good. So just worry for now about getting more people on board," Calchis said to them. "The Chief Druid actually made an interesting suggestion on that last we met. The Himeans plan to hold another Septentrian Conference this spring, don't they?"

"The Septentrian Conferences," one of the barons echoed. "A preposterous name, Septentria!"

"And entirely foreign," Calchis agreed, again with a calm that had never been evinced by his father. Obsidian would have visited awful punishment on any man who interrupted him, even in private conference. But then, Obsidian had not been a fugitive prince who needed allies to claim his throne and title.

"Going back to the topic, these conferences could be useful. It makes it easier for the lords allied to us to meet and potentially convince others to throw in their lots with us."

"But… they can do that easily even now, Your Highness," Epodorus said. "Meet other lords to persuade them, that is."

"To some extent. At the moment, only lords from the same region can meet comfortably without arousing suspicion. One coming from a distant region to meet another would get more questions. For example, the Himeans' spies might be wary of a Gannian baron meeting a Trocarian one down south. But if those two met at that Septentrian Conference in Gorgo? Wouldn't lift an eyebrow! It would let our recruitment of people proceed so much faster if we could meet the other lords without worrying about being covert."

The others exchanged glances. What their future king was true, of course, in that it would make far more sense for a distant tribe's baron to meet with another's at that event. Yet it was also far more dangerous to do so, at least if the purpose of the meeting was to invite someone into sedition. One had to assume the Himeans' spies all over the capital city. Besides, what if they made a mistake and revealed too much to a contrary baron with no sense of kinship? There would be no time to correct the mistake! He could walk out of the meeting and head straight to the Himeans for a report!

So much did Baron Epodorus explain to Calchis now, only to have the prince shake his head.

"I don't want our meetings to happen during the conference itself," Calchis explained. "All that needs to happen during the conference is a sounding out, a test of which lords we might be able to tell more. Any we do think trustworthy, we can then invite to another interview. The barons would have to go incognito for that later interview, of course, but not necessarily before that."

That got the faces turned to him loosening as they saw the reason behind his plans. He and his accomplices continued their planning for another hour before they broke up, at which point the barons asked for his instructions on a final matter.

"Is there anything we should do during the Septentrian Conference?" they asked. "Any special grievance or issue we should bring to the Himeans, perhaps to keep them busy while we work?"

"None," he answered. "In fact, be as cooperative as you can! Let them think us as placid and biddable as oxen grown accustomed to the yoke! That way, when our forces rise up, they will be just like those oxen—surprised by the slaughter."