After the two officers had left, Quaeryt turned back to Vaelora. “I believe you were going to explain.”
“Dearest … I really am a mess.” She gestured to her soiled garb. “I’ll explain, but I don’t want to look like this for you and for the other officers. Besides, you need to take care of that poor mare.”
Quaeryt sighed. Loudly.
“Dearest … you don’t want to be disrespectful…” She offered a warm smile.
He shook his head.
“I’ll be ready for dinner.” With another smile, she hurried across the courtyard.
Quaeryt watched her for a moment, then untied the mare and walked her to the stable. While he turned her over to one of the ostlers to be unsaddled and groomed, he didn’t get more than a few yards from the stable before Major Heireg requested more of his time, both to update him on the supplies they had received from Aramyn and Chaffetz, and to talk about coal, the supplies requested by the engineers, and provisions for the rest of the regiment. Then Quaeryt quickly checked the ledger entries posted by Jhalyt.
By the time Quaeryt finished with Jhalyt, Skarpa was leading Third Regiment through the post gates. Settling the additional battalions in took the remainder of the time before the evening meal, and Quaeryt barely had time to wash up himself and then escort Vaelora to the officers’ mess.
After everyone finished eating, Vaelora excused herself quickly, leaving Skarpa and Quaeryt alone so that the commander could brief Quaeryt on what had occurred on the remainder of the ride to Extela. Quaeryt did wonder why she was being so accommodating, but suspected that she knew he was upset about the anomen and didn’t want to cause any more friction, especially in public.
He couldn’t help but wonder, then realized he’d missed what Skarpa had been saying. “Excuse me. Would you say that again?”
“Governor…” Skarpa said gently, “I asked if you wanted to wait until tomorrow.”
“Oh, no … you might as well go over it now.”
“You got the dispatch about the problems with the bridge at Gahenyara?”
“I did. I didn’t mean to leave you with that much.”
“You couldn’t have done anything more there, sir. From what we saw coming in here, you’ve had plenty to deal with.”
“We have indeed. Do you think the engineers can improve the east bridge?”
“They were already talking about that,” said Skarpa with a laugh. “They’ll manage. Anyway, we had more trouble with the wagons coming into Montagne. The rain we got flooded everything. Between the rain and the wagons, we lost two days.…”
Quaeryt nodded and kept listening as the commander briefed him on all that had happened to the bulk of the regiment.
When Skarpa finished, he looked directly at Quaeryt. “Like I said earlier, sir, looks like you’ve got your hands full.”
“They’re like that everywhere, most of them, it seems.”
“Oh … do you have any other problems I need to deal with? Ones that I can do something about?” Quaeryt kept his voice light, trying to be humorous.
“Well … there is one,” mused Skarpa. “And it’s something you could do easily, sir, seeing as tomorrow is Solayi … and there’s an anomen in good repair right here on the post.”
“Some of the officers, and a lot of the men … well … they saw all the destruction … They’d like a little reassurance.”
“Comfort from the Nameless,” Quaeryt managed to say.
“Yes, sir. I know it’s not something you like to make a practice of, sir…”
“I don’t know the service that well, but if they’ll all bear with me…” Quaeryt shrugged helplessly. “I’m not a chorister.”
“Everyone would appreciate it, sir.”
“So long as they understand…”
“Sir … they understand.”
Quaeryt took a long, last swallow of the bitter lager from his mug. “I suppose I’d better let you get to your officers and get some sleep in a decent bed.” He stood.
So did Skarpa. “That’d be good. Really good.”
Quaeryt walked slowly across the darkness of the courtyard to the officers’ quarters and then up the staircase and along the balcony. The door bolt on their quarters was not thrown, and he opened the door, stepped inside, and slid the bolt. Vaelora rose from where she’d been sitting at the writing desk. Although her portable inkwell and a pen were on the desk, the single sheet of paper was blank.
“You’re upset, dearest. What happened? Did Commander Skarpa lose men in another flood? Did another bridge go out?”
“You had to clean up the anomen, didn’t you?” he asked quietly.
“It needed to be done,” she replied.
“Why? Was it another vision?”
Vaelora stiffened ever so slightly. “Yes. If you must know. I saw you standing at the pulpit. Why do you ask?”
“Because Skarpa asked if I’d conduct services tomorrow.” He shook his head.
Vaelora was silent.
“If the anomen were still locked…”
She nodded gently.
“But it’s not … You
“Then don’t do it.”
“I can’t not do it. They need the services. There’s no one else who can do it. Some of them, maybe a lot of them, are likely to die for Bhayar if it comes to war with Bovaria. And I’m going to complain about having to talk and inspire them?”
“I’m sorry, dearest.”
“I don’t want to talk about it right now.”
“Try not to be too angry…”
Her voice was so woeful that he stopped short, then realized that she was exaggerating the tone to excess, and he found himself grinning, even as he recognized the blatantness of her words and expressions. He shook his head. “No wonder…”
“Not another word, dearest.”
He decided that was probably for the best-for the moment.
27
Quaeryt didn’t sleep well on Samedi evening, between being upset over being maneuvered into acting as a chorister once more and worrying about how he was ever going to restore order and function to Extela, not to mention his unease about whether he had been unfairly angry at Vaelora, although he’d tried not to show it. Then too, he’d always been uncomfortable acting as a chorister for the Nameless when he had no idea whether there even was a Nameless.
On Solayi morning, his first thought upon wakening was,
