Soap Virgin #2
When the goodbyes were final, Balthazar watched the siblings ride back into town.
Beyond, people stood with hands tight on their baskets, fingers worrying their hair.
All of Prelyn, anxious for their beloved general.
Esme had a feeling they’d line up for hugs too if they thought he’d let them.
Instead, they gathered in the street as Esme and Urias led Balthazar and his men from the city.
People reached out to touch his forearms, kiss his hand.
Inra’s hooves practically splashed in the love spilling out in the streets.
Esme looked back and caught the general leaning down to kiss the head of a child just as the sun rose behind him.
A halo of golden light crowned his black hair.
His skin shone like polished wood, obsidian eyes glimmering, like the royal sculpture had come to life right before her eyes.
Balthazar the Redeemer.
* * *
Balthazar’s horses were too fast.
In fact, there were a few times on the first day when they kept perfect pace with Inra and Ode, slowing only when their riders told them to. Their bodies were storms, hooves louder than the dread beat of hail. They weren’t for travel, but war.
What did the Good General need warhorses for?
They traveled three days’ riding in two, and Esme watched the general and his men for the whole time. So far, she’d come up with a duo of facts that made no sense.
Firstly, Balthazar Joh’el had been drenched in blood several times.
It was even in his weapons. They’d been cleaned, but Esme could smell it baked into the metal and wood. All of him reeked of it, even his skin.
Secondly, his soldiers were too well-trained.
It made sense for Maranna to be a mountain of a woman with perfect reflexes.
But the rest of them, some young enough not to have fought in the coup at the Lake sixteen years ago at all, had the eyes and ears of warriors.
One had pulled out his bow and shot a deer from horseback without even slowing down.
He hadn’t aimed, and yet his arrow had sliced clean through the animal’s heart.
Esme roasted that deer now while Balthazar’s band of overqualified youngsters sat in a huddle on the other side of a large clearing they’d found, having stopped only so that they would arrive in Amaris in the morning.
Isobel would probably have court then. Word from Tagas said she was gathering up the courtiers every morning to pray for hours until the ceiling un-fucked itself.
“Weird group,” Urias said, kneeling down where Esme was cooking.
She’d offered to do it because she wanted to watch those soldiers from afar.
They kept close, speaking so low a human wouldn’t normally hear it, not realizing that Esme and Urias could hear a rat shit in a basement in Amaris from here.
They were talking about shifts for when they got to the royal city, who’d guard Balthazar at what times, and who’d follow him around when.
Balthazar butted in to tell them that they didn’t need to be so militant, and Maranna gave him a look so dry that he shut up and began talking to a younger fighter about what shadow horses ate.
“Too good,” Esme said back. They knew well enough what each other meant. “Why, I wonder. I’ll find out when I get to Amaris.”
“Bet you thirty talons I’ll find out first,” Urias challenged her, smirking.
Esme scoffed. “You think a destitute old man like you would be more prudent with his money, but fine.”
Urias snorted as he got up, cupping his hands around his mouth. “Deer’s done!” he yelled. Lured by the smell of the spices Esme had packed with her, the camp came over, each holding a little bowl.
Balthazar counted his soldiers like ducklings as they lined up.
Esme tore off generous chunks for each person as the general watched.
He even asked Esme to give a younger fighter a bit more.
The older guards passed the Wraiths withering looks, like they’d flay Esme and Urias alive for the horrid crime of looking at Balthazar too long.
“Thank you,” he said, smiling at the Wraiths as Esme served him last, then turned back to his protection squad. “Now, you all go eat. We have a big day tomorrow.” Maranna opened her mouth, and he raised a brow. Conversation was put to rest.
When his men finally trudged back across camp, Balthazar turned to Esme and Urias, the former tearing off a strip of tenderloin with her bare hands.
“Are your fingers so strong that the hot meat doesn’t burn them?” Balthazar asked, clearly trying to make conversation.
“She’s too hungry to have feeling in her hands,” Urias said.
“Unlike you, I’ve been on the road for days—you know, working,” Esme said, pulling off another strip of meat. She was monstrously hungry. “Not all of us can live in a big pretty castle and make being useless our life’s mission.”
Urias opened his mouth to say something equally evil back, but stopped when Balthazar laughed down at them. “Do you mind if I eat with you two?”
The Wraiths looked at each other, daring themselves not to gloat at having laid the bait so well, before gesturing to a spot by the fire.
“I didn’t know Wraiths told jokes,” Balthazar said, taking a small bite of venison.
“When you’re our age, everything is a joke,” Urias said, leaning back and trying to make eye contact. Balthazar refused to look at him. “You know, I heard you were a decent general, but I must say, your men are a force. You’ve obviously trained them for war.”
Balthazar’s mouth flattened into a thin line, and he stared deep into the fire. “We are in an army.”
“You’re completely stationary.”
“We still hunt.”
“The hogs must be fierce opponents,” Esme mused, tilting her head.
Bal’s face tightened into a mask of grief.
He was good, but Esme could see through it.
“War is never as far away as you’d wish it was.
When Turiel sent us to the Lake, the men weren’t prepared.
We lost many. I remember the trek out to the ocean.
We could only afford one boat, so all the bodies had to be piled up and pushed off together.
Men I loved like brothers and fathers and uncles, sent off like strangers.
” Real emotion slipped into his voice, but he swallowed it and continued.
“All because we got comfortable. We’d been stationary then, too.
Battle came anyway. So now, as soon as a new recruit comes in, we train them as hard as they’ll take.
Just in case.” He glanced over his shoulder to his chuckling soldiers.
Esme could feel the love gushing off him.
“They seem fond of you,” she said.
“Shouldn’t they be?” Balthazar asked, turning back to Esme and taking another bite.
Urias shrugged, pulling off a sliver of meat for himself and hacking off a big flap for Esme. “Lots of generals are hated by their men. Pretty sure the Wail would quarter their General Gustoe if they got the chance.”
Well, that wasn’t saying much, Esme thought. The Wail, Micrea’s largest army, was a pride of beasts just barely kept at bay by Micrean law.
Bal let out a harsh, sharp sound, like a growl wrangled into a laugh. “I’m not trying to be Gustoe. If anything, I’ve always looked up to General Dahl,” he said, lips quirked into a small smile. “Her men wouldn’t kill her.”
“No man in that army could kill Jaerah Dahl,” Esme cut in through a mouth full of venison. “She once beat me in an arm-wrestling match.” She’d asked a million times, but Jaerah had never agreed to a rematch.
“A human beat you?” Bal asked, smiling over at her.
“Unfortunately,” she said. The young general raised his brow, smirking. “I’d beat you easily,” she said, narrowing her eyes.
“I don’t know if it’d be easy,” Bal said, leaning back to puff up his chest and flex his arms. His muscles pulled at his shirt seams. “I’m not as weak as your lily lords up in Amaris.”
Esme rolled her eyes but had to smile. “You know, that reminds me.” She sat her chunk of meat in her bowl and stood.
Bal watched her, neck straining so he could keep staring at her face as she disappeared over to her horse and grabbed a stack of clothing out of a pack.
Ode chomped at the ground, but the poor thing didn’t understand that he wasn’t real.
Blades of grass just fell through his phantom mouth when he tried to chew.
Esme came back to the fire and sat down again with the clothes in her lap. Bal wiped his hands and mouth on a rag, staring at the pile.