As Emil took his contingent towards the stairs, he said over his shoulder, “Garland, I know you’ll make Karis eat, but get her to rest also, will you?”

When they were gone, Karis commented, “Apparently, you’re the one who gets the impossible task, Garland.”

“I beg to differ,” muttered Medric.

Karis kissed Leeba’s head again. “Listen, Leeba! They’re singing the First‑Day song! Let’s go down and watch them put out the candle.‘

Chapter Thirty‑Three

The second day of the new year ended prematurely as the weary sun was engulfed by advancing clouds. In the brief twilight the stars appeared to cast away their light with frantic haste before the clouds smothered them. By this frail, rapidly failing illumination, Clement led the company of soldiers down the hill, into the gently sloped grazeland of a river valley blanketed by faintly glimmering snow. The soldiers’ snow shoes crunched; they walked in a fog breathed out by their weary fellows.

Because Clement’s thoughts were in turmoil, she had given her company no rest that day. The morning’s chatter had long since given way to plodding silence. In the dark valley stood a cluster of buildings: an established, successful farmstead that boasted a huge red cow barn.

A big shaggy dog came out from underneath a porch to bark a sharp alarm, and in a moment the door opened to spill its light. An angular woman with a lantern in her hand examined the company of soldiers bearing down on her, quieted the dog with a command, then turned and spoke into the doorway.

By the time the soldiers had all reached the bottom of the slope, a dozen of the cow farmers had come out onto the porch. Clement stepped into the light.

The level look that the angular farmer gave Clement was a puzzlement. Seth turned and spoke to her family, words Clement could not hear, and then she came down the steps. She said, “Your people can sleep in the barn, in the milking room. There’s a stove, and fuel. Take straw to make beds. You doknow the difference between straw and hay? And light no open flames, of course.” She added, “We’ll bring down some bread and cheese, or we can cook a hot meal if you want to wait for it.”

Clement heard words come out of her mouth: “No, all I ask is shelter and permission to draw from your well.”

“There’s a pump in the milking room.”

Both of them were performing parts. This performance was necessary. But the old illness came over Clement, a self‑loathing that for two days had continually risen like nausea, only to recede in response to the counter‑pressure of panic. The self‑loathing was familiar; it arrived after every battle, and lingered longer every time. The panic, that was new.

Clement spoke some words that were not necessary or part of a performance. “My people will do no harm to your family or your family’s livelihood. I promise you.”

Seth’s right eyebrow raised, very slightly. “This is a rare assurance.” This neutral comment revealed something in Seth that Clement could not clearly see or make sense of. It was not what it should have been: not anger, nor resentment, nor hatred.

There was no reason why even a modicum of trust should exist between them, and Clement was wasting her time looking for it.

Clement’s company was conveying impatience by shuffling their feet, gasping loudly at the cold, and rocking their weight noisily in the snow. Clement said over her shoulder, “Captain Herme, take the company to that big barn, but don’t go in until I get there.”

When she could hear the company’s sledges starting to move behind her, she said to Seth, “We’ll be gone when you come down for the morning milking, and you won’t know we were there.”

“More promises?” Seth took a step forward. “Is Clem your true name?”

“Lieutenant‑General Clement.”

Both Seth’s eyebrows lifted now, but still there was no visible revulsion.

Clement said, “I apologize for deceiving you.”

“Oh, I imagine that you thought honesty was impossible,” said Seth.

“I should have chosen not to pretend my way into your bed.”

A corner of the cow fanner’s mouth curled. “Make amends, then,” she said. “Come to my bed again–without pretense, this time.”

The sound of the soldiers’ snow shoes had become distant. The farmers had begun to go back inside the house, though some lingered to keep an eye on Seth. Clement noticed these things. She also noticed how the cold was seeping upward from her feet, how weariness crushed her earthward, how sounds echoed in the crisp air. But Seth’s words seemed beyond understanding.

“My fire is lit,” Seth said. “My family will let you come in. There is no lock on any door. You only have to find your way to me.”

“It is impossible,” said Clement.

“It seems simple to me.”

Clement heard crunching footsteps. Captain Herme, having complied with Clement’s command, apparently had now taken it upon himself to make sure of her safety. Fortunately, he did not understand Shaftalese. Clement said to Seth, “You’ve asked for an end to pretense. But if I came to you, pretense would be unavoidable. The pretense that we are not enemies.”

Seth said quietly, “You and your people are strangers. I and my people are offering hospitality, according to the traditions of Shaftal. We–I–choose to offer it. Now what will you choose, Clem?”

“Lieutenant‑General?” said Herme tentatively.

She said to him, “Yes, I’m coming.” In Shaftalese, she said to Seth, “There isno choice.”

“There is,” Seth said. “I am giving you the choice.”

But Clement had already forced herself to turn and walk away.

Over thirty years ago, when Clement was first judged mature and skilled enough to go into battle, duty had become the fence that delimited the territory of her life. When she led her rested soldiers up the slope in the morning, leaving the milking room as pristine as it had been when they arrived, that was duty. When she did not raise a hand in farewell to the woman who stood watching from the porch, that was duty. That her heart rebelled was, and always had been, irrelevant.

Ten more nights, at ten more farms, Clement requested shelter for her company. Shelter was freely given, food was generously cooked and served. Clement continued to demand that the soldiers behave courteously, and that they accept this food and shelter as a girt and not a right. The soldiers gradually shifted from resentment to amazement. Clement herself was surprised by the cautious, awkward, but inexplicably friendly conversations initiated with her by their involuntary hosts.

“Is it true your people are refugees?” asked one old man.

“How can you survive without a family?” inquired a shy young woman.

A middle‑aged woman with gnarled, work‑hardened hands declared, “If you soldiers can make flowers bloom you can grow vegetables.” And when Clement and her soldiers were leaving, the woman tucked some packets of vegetable seeds into Clement’s pocket and urged her to plant them.

“What has come over these people!” exclaimed Herme.

Clement was unnerved. When and how had the Shaftali people become so well‑informed? How did the woman know that soldiers grow flowers, for example? The members of Clement’s company, who could not understand these conversations, were mystified enough by the hospitality, but Clement felt that a monstrous disaster loomed just beyond the limits of her ability to see and understand it.

Even though the company slept warm and ate well, it was no easy journey. Clement participated in the rotation of hauling the sledges and sitting the night watch. When a storm blew in, or the wind turned particularly cold, or the trees took it upon themselves to dump loads of snow onto their heads, she cursed the hostile landscape as viciously and sincerely as the rest of them. When they were tired, or fighting their way up a hill, or wanting courage for crossing a frozen river, she joined with them in singing to raise their spirits or keep the pace–a breathless, harsh, and tuneless chorus, perhaps, but sometimes even she felt carried by the sound of it. She sat with them on straw or stone, and ate whatever they ate, and slept wherever they were sleeping, and by the third night of their return journey had acquired two bedfellows. “Should you sleep cold just because you’ve been promoted?” the soldier asked, when she and her partner hauled their blankets over to Clement’s solitary bed, in a very drafty barn.