Chapter#218

His father grunted and looked back at his cutlet in a disappointed way. Commander Stanies' daughters had given him three bouncing grandchildren, Lord Esha was envious and the regional council were starting to annoy him about the matter, pointing out that having all three members of the family in the military put the succession at considerable risk. They had become additionally anxious because Tashka had gone and thrown her glove at some idiot who made a drunken comment about how they missed Clair's lovely eyes in the staff officers' mess nearly as much as they missed his management of the lines of supply, although he had of course immediately offered her an abject apology. This was the real reason his father asked for Vadya to be kept home that summer. He was hoping Tashka would be negligent for once, although considering how well he knew and admired the absolute precision with which she managed his army, he must be getting desperate to rely on such a vain hope.

After lunch Vadya's Captains wanted him to come and sort out disciplines for the soldiers who had committed silly faults but he made an evasive excuse, pushing it off on Basra, and sneaked off to have a nap with Tashka.

She was sitting on their bed, Batren tugging off her boots, and complaining about how she had taken Batren's advice and bet on a dog in a race that morning which had come last. "I saw it all," she grumbled. By some unspecified underhand means (probably involving high play at cards), she had secured an office which overlooked the dog tracks. "The bitch clearly had some foul disease, it ran like a three-legged toad."

"I cannot understand," Batren said apologetically. "Her parentage and previous record are immaculate."

Tashka unbuttoned her double-breasted heavy cotton summer tunic and handed it to Batren to hang up over a chair. Vadya sat down by her to drag off his boots and tunic, he chucked them on the floor, took his lucky filigree button out of his pocket and put it carefully on his bedside table beside a watercolour sketch of himself and Tashka and his father fishing in the harbour, a picture of his mother and a group of small cheap gold-sequined ornaments she had bought for him years ago in P'shan.

On Tashka's table there was a Hyaline sketch of Clair, Arianna, Hanyan and Arkyllan enjoying a picnic in their orchard, a set of Sietter Lieutenants' buttons in a glass case and Vadya pretended he did not know of it that in her drawer she kept an elaborate gold earring with the el V'lair insignia in it - together with some bloodstained bits of paper that had a letter and some scribbles outlining a battle strategy. He understood that the earring was not in fond memory of el V'lair but a sort of trophy.

He climbed between the sheets in his shirt and breeches. Tashka climbed in beside him, pulled the sheet over them, put her head on his shoulder and was asleep as if she had been dropped like a stone in a well. Vadya sighed. He had wanted to tell her about the practice attack he was planning and his father going on about the succession - again. Alternatively they might have made love, that would have been better fun.

He looked affectionately at her tanned face on his shoulder, putting one hand up to cradle her head in his big fingers. Her long black lashes lay on her lean cheeks, her rose-petal lips were parted a crack. She breathed lightly in the enclosing circle of his arm, lying with her arm flung across his chest and one knee between his knees.

Vadya looked drowsily round as Batren picked up his tunic, hung it in the wardrobe, drew the curtains and left the room.

When he woke up, he pulled her closer without thinking about it and so she woke up too, looking at him hazily at first and then with a focussed grin. He put his head out for her kiss and she licked his lip, making him giggle.

"What is it you are about this afternoon?" she asked, stretching her muscular long body out beside him.

"I ought to get the Lieutenants together for a lesson on manoeuvres I suppose," he said. "I have made Basra do all the disciplines, tee hee! Oh! I have this excellent idea for a practice attack on First."

When he had explained it to her, she laughed and said: "Stanies will be furious."

"Will you not come and help me with the Lieutenants' lesson?" he asked. "They are always on at me to use my influence with General-Lord el Maien to explain the Maien star to them."

"What?! You are jesting with me! Come and teach your scummy Lieutenants," she said in disgust. "What a cheek, too, do you tell me they are hoping you will seduce your senior officer into showing them preference?" She bent her head to his with a snigger and they had a long and giggly kiss. "If you want to seduce me, you had better do it for something much more fun than giving your Lieutenants a lesson in strategy. Tell them to come to the lectures like all the other Lieutenants. I am going to practice my rapier-work!" Her eyes gleamed in the dim light of their room.

"You are already renowned as the finest rapier-swordsman in Trossia," he protested. "You do not need the practice and surely they do need the lesson."

"Yes but I enjoy it," she said. "Come and practice with me, forget the baby Lieutenants."

"This is no way to encourage your junior officers!" he teased.

She turned her head and grinned at him. "I am the General," she said, puffing her cheeks out and pretending to be very fat. "I can do as I like!"

"Yes sir!" he said.

"And what I like," she added, "is kissing!" She seized his chin and pushed his head back, pressing kisses into his neck and chin and all over his face while he laughed and tried to catch her head and pull her in to his mouth.

They heard the door opening and Batren coming in and they pulled apart, out of mercy for him. He was always deeply embarrassed if he caught them kissing and cuddling. Batren went over to the wardrobe. Tashka sprang out of bed to continue an argument she was having with him about a suit she wanted made. "Cloth all of silver!" Batren said indignantly. "That is a girl's cloth!"