The Price Of Command

She put the flask down, and traced little patterns on the table with her wet forefinger. That’s the one thing Tarma never warned me about, she reflected, waving away another puff of sharp-scented smoke. She never told me that rank and holding yourself apart makes for lonely nights. She always had Grandmother for friendship—and she never wanted a lover thanks to that vow of hers. Gods know being Swordsworn would be easier than overhearing some of what goes on in the tents after dark. She could ignore it; I try, but can’t always.

Being Captain didn’t necessarily mean an empty bed, even if you didn’t much care for whores. More than a few of her fellow Captains went through wenches the way a ram goes through a flock of ewes. They tended to pick up country girls bedazzled by the glamour and danger, and abandon them when their lovers got a little too possessive. Kero had never been able to bring herself to just lure off some wide-eyed farmboy as if she was some kind of mate-devouring spider. And besides, more than half the men she met these days seemed overwhelmed by her.

I’ve been awfully circumspect, she thought, with perverse pride, looking back over the years. There were three—no, four minstrels. That worked. All four of them were too cocky to be intimidated by me. The only problem was, while the Skybolts make good song-fodder, they don’t offer much more to a rhymester. So I lost all four of them to soft jobs in noble houses. There were a couple of merchants, but that didn’t last past a couple of nights. And there was that Healer. But every time I went out he was in knots by the time I came back, figuring it would be me that got carried in for him to fix—that alliance was doomed from the start. It’s been cold beds for the past two years now. Unlike Daren.

She had to smile at that, because this campaign against the Karsites had brought her back into personal contact with “the boy,” as she had continued to think of him. Meeting him again had forced her to change that memory, drastically. He’d matured; not his face, which was still boyishly handsome, if a bit more weathered, but in the expression around the eyes and mouth. Not such a boy anymore—

They hadn’t renewed their affair; it would have been a stupid thing to do in the middle of a war for one thing, and for another, while they found themselves better friends than ever, they discovered at that first meeting that they were no longer attracted to each other.

Daren had achieved his dream of becoming the Lord Martial of his brother’s standing army. One thing about him had not changed; he still worshiped his older brother. Kero toyed with the flask, holding its cool surface to her forehead for a moment, and wondered if the King knew what a completely and selflessly loyal treasure he had in his sibling. She hoped so; over the past several years she’d learned that loyalty in the high ranks was hardly something to be taken for granted.

Daren was as randy as Kero was discreet. He hopped in and out of beds as casually as any of the Captains she knew, and there’d even been rumors of betrothal once or twice, but nothing ever came of it.

We’re too much alike. She smiled, thinking about how even their battle plans still meshed after all these years. Far too much alike to ever be lovers again. Just as well, I suppose. He just makes me feel too sisterly to want him.

“Captain?” Her aide-de-camp stuck his head just inside the flap of the tent. “Shallan and Geyr to see you.”

Gods. I forgot I sent for them. Must be the heat. She stifled a yawn. “Good; send them in.” She made certain two special bits of cloth were at hand, and fished one particular map out of the pile and smoothed it out on the table.

“Captain?” Shallan said doubtfully.

“Come on in,” she replied easily. “No formality.”

Her old friend—whom Kero wanted to make Lieutenant of the specialist corps—slipped inside, followed by the man Kero intended to make Shallan’s co-commander.

A year ago Shallan had lost Relli to a chance arrow, and for a while Kero was afraid they were going to lose the surviving partner to melancholy or madness. But given the responsibility of command of a squad, Shallan had made a remarkable recovery. She and Geyr had never actually worked together; Kero had a shrewd notion they’d do fine, not the least because they were both she’chorne. They looked like total opposites; Shallan still a golden blonde as ageless as the mysterious Hawkbrothers, and Geyr, a native of some land so far to the south Kero had never even heard of it before he told her his story, a true black man from his hair to his feet.

The two of them stood a little awkwardly in front of her table. She stayed seated; even though she had said “no formality,” she intended to keep that much distance between them. They were friends, yes—but they had to be Captain and underling first, even now.

“How’s Bel?” Shallan asked immediately. The scout-lieutenant had been taken victim, not by wounds, but by the killer that fighters feared more than battle—fever. That same fever had already struck down one of the co- commanders of the horse-archers.

“I had to send him back, like Dende,” Kero replied regretfully. “The Healers think he’ll be all right, but only if we get him up into the mountains where it’s cool and dry. That’s why I wanted you here. I want to buck Losh over to command the horse-archers, and put you two in charge of the specialists.”

Shallan’s mouth fell open; Geyr looked as if he thought he hadn’t rightly understood what she’d said. He scratched his curly head, as Shallan took a deep breath.