Chapter Seven
The guards shifted their feet. The one on the left looked down, empty fist clenching and unclenching. Guy leaned against one of the tent support lines, staring off into the night. Staring into the dark was his feeble attempt to hide the 'unbecoming to an officer' mixture of boredom and frustration on his face. It wasn't like he feared demotion for thinking Cole was behaving recklessly, but the men didn't need to see it. They treated Guy like a weather vane for their General's behavior.
Mighty Guy! Adjutant to the great General Cole and camp mascot.
The guard on the right sighed. “Just give it rest, Lo'; it doesn't matter, you didn't really get in trouble.”
Lo unclenched his fist for the thousandth time, fortunate the dark kept the flush on his face from showing. “Shut up.”
The other guard shifted, but seemed to take this advice seriously, as he turned his head away and scanned the forest off to their side. The only thing that would come from there would be the blighted monkeys. Guy yawned.
“What do you think, Lieutenant?”
Lo ignored his watch partner’s look of annoyance, fixated on Guy. Guy blinked the half-asleep daze from his eyes. “What do you mean?”
The two guards exchanged a look. His partner’s sniff told Lo that he was on his own. Lo, controlling his voice rather than outright whispering, spoke again. “There's all kinds of talk.”
“Talk.” Guy said, voice flat. The guards looked at each other again; with reluctance, Lo went on.
“Talk.”
Guy didn’t move.
The partner cleared his throat. “Like, talk about this surrender.”
Lo nodded. “Weird surrender.”
“Talk about the prisoners.”
“Very odd.”
His partner elbowed him, and Lo sulked. “Heary…”
The partner – apparently named Heary – had, however, committed to the conversation now. “Talk about taking over for General Hammerlyn, and moving everybody away so quickly, and how weird it is the Comid general and General Cole seem like old buddies…”
“So weird,” Lo agreed.
But Guy had not moved, and said nothing, and seemed not to be breathing, though they could see the glare of his eyeballs fixed on them in the dark. They fell silent, the sounds of the night suddenly overpowering. Over the myriad frogs and crickets, they could still hear muffled talk coming out of the tent, but none of them bothered to listen. As long as it wasn't the fighting they had heard before – at which they had agonized, every nerve screaming they were failing in their duty but obedient to the order to stay out of it – there was no cause to listen.
Guy stood up from the tent support, strolling closer to the guards. They waited, as he walked into the sparse light filtering through the fabric, exchanging another glance when he didn't stop.
Slowly Guy walked, until he could bring his face up inches away from Lo's, staring at him with a steadiness more frequently attributed to the dead.
“Are you saying that you think General Cole is a traitor?”
Heary jumped, Lo shaking his head vigorously, “Sir... no, sir, not at all, not that, sir...”
Guy waited.
“It... it's just that...” Lo said.
“It's just what, soldier?” Guy asked.
Lo stuttered, shifting his weight. “It’s weird.” Even Heary was glaring at him, so Lo went on. “It just doesn't seem right. It seems off. It seems…”
“This is supposed to be the Comid General, right?” Heary picked up the trail. “But it’s… it’s not like you’d expect. It’s not what I expected [“Not me, neither,” Lo added] It’s like… no even the prisoners treat him like he the general, and General Cole... well, we don’t know General Cole, but it would seem like neither does General Cole. But it's not just that, just him... It doesn't seem like the General's even mad at them – like [“Yeah, yeah,” Lo said, unhelpfully] it’s hard to make sense of what’s happening – it doesn’t have to make sense [“We don’t expect no sense from anyone anyway,” Lo said, and finally caught a glare for it] I’m not saying it’s like he's on their side... it.... it just...”
He looked at Lo, who nodded, but said nothing.
Heary sighed, disappointed. “It doesn't seem like he's been on our side.”
Guy said nothing. His gaze didn't stray, only inches away from Lo’s increasingly sweaty face.
Finally, Guy stepped back, putting a hand up over his mouth. They, and anyone else who had ever gambled with Guy, knew that meant he was thinking and didn't want to give any of his emotions away (which meant, usually, he had a good hand and was going to try to convince them he didn’t). Still, the guards didn't quite yet breathe a sigh of relief.
Guy seemed to come to a decision over what to say just as the tent flap rustled behind them. They all came to attention.
General Cole stepped half out, rubbing a split in his lip. The visible injury threw them all into very obediently still and respectful chaos. The General was very specific about his privacy, and the guard trusted Guy (at least, they trusted that Guy would take the fall, if they had done wrong). Cole's eyes met each in turn.
“Thank you,” he said, “for your discretion.”
The guards stood further to attention. Guy didn't, pretty sure his good hand was about to get kicked to shit.
“You're dismissed.”
The guards exchanged a glance.
“Sir, we can’t...”
“Sir, it isn't safe...”
Cole held up a hand. “You are dismissed.” He looked at them, never ungenial, but certain to rain hard vengeance for disobedience. “You have done your duty well. Goodnight.”
He stepped back into the tent. The guards looked at each other. Slowly, they turned to Guy.
Guy quickly quit biting his lip, brushing a despairing concern from his expression and replacing it with solemn officiousness.
“You heard him. Go on back to your tents. I'll take care of it from here.”
Cole listened for the guards’ retreating footsteps. He wasn’t worried about eavesdropping; having stood many a steward duty to General Durante, he knew how difficult it was to hear through the first fabric wall that made up the divider between personal and public areas of the tent, much less inside and outside. Fetching water and food and maps and ink for the General had been a straining mix between trying to hear the General order what he needed, and trying not to look like he was eavesdropping on important secret planning sessions. Which was difficult, because it meant trying not to look like he was doing exactly what he was doing, a grand tradition for all protégé cadets.
He preferred, though, to know they had left.
He shook out his hands. Nerves. He hadn't felt nerves in ages. At least, these nerves. Sure, everyone got nervous on the battlefield. Officers worried about their plans. He had once spent days of campaigning running outside every half-hour to check for road-destroying rain. Facing failure and death was one thing. This was much worse.
He stepped back through the inner tent wall, and saw that Nika was, as usual, destructively calm. Perhaps Nika couldn’t hide or lie, but he had a fearsome ability to control his passions when he felt he needed to. And his ability to do so threw Cole's similar competencies into rout, conquering until Cole's cool demeanor became like a city overrun.
That was if 'passions' was the word for what Nika had; once he was convinced to show them, it certainly was, but Cole was the passionate one with the cool demeanor. Nika was the outward hothead, who he had calm under pressure like the mountains had glaciers.
At least Nika’s calm meant he was feeling pressured. Cole wasn't alone in that.
Nika held one of the wine glasses up by the bowl, looking down at a map of the Capitol Cole usually kept on his table to remind himself of home. He didn't look up when Cole came back in. His finger traced familiar routes through the streets, as if walking them again: ‘round the Academy gates, down to Cole’s father’s house, out to the festival streets, back ‘round to Servan’s for lunch…
Cole walked to the table and sat again. “Planning an invasion?”
Nika took a sip of wine. “I already had my invasion planned. Grati’s Dehus, I didn't have to use it.”
He looked up, and Cole felt jolted, as always. Suddenly he needed to pour poetry on him, to drown him in words, or affection, or anything that would bring him closer. By Honor and Glory! Though he thought it beneath him, he would have offered rank, money and privilege if that was what it took. It didn't matter whether he had acted first, or Nika had acted first, or whether they had begun on a mutual track. Cole always felt as if he was in pursuit.
So Cole pursued.
Nika put the glass down carefully, away from the edge, sliding the map back to safety. He marked his own movements with scrutiny, feeling, as always, as if his own self-criticisms were begin funneled out and returned upon him by Cole's gaze. He hated the weakness he saw in himself, while hating also the disgust for himself it made him feel. It was a wall, something he built, that always needed to come down first.
Cole battered on that wall with his very gaze. Cole never looked away, never flinched. Nika couldn't stay behind the wall with that steadiness tearing it down. He couldn't believe in his self-disgust with someone that steadfast, someone that beautiful, staring it down.
Nika felt sudden embarrassment and swallowed, reaching for his glass again. He wished that somehow, in the last five years, he had managed to grow up.
Cole smiled. “You're bad at this. Isn’t that a ‘thanks’ to god? Hardly a traitorous thing to say.”
Nika shrugged. “I hate the idea of invading cities. I would have hated doing it.” He paused, frowning at his own hands. “I would have won. Not even you could have stopped that plan.”
Cole shook his head, bringing a hand up to rub his eyes. Why was this so difficult? Of course he knew 'why'; it had never been easy, and he couldn't wish the war away. Stepping out to dismiss the guards had been a mistake, no matter how prudent. Every time each general looked away from one another, they saw the war again. Even now, the thought of it... the thought of the Comids marching on the Capitol riled his anger. “I wouldn't have stuck around to defend it, if it were you. I know better than that.”
Nika nodded, but his eyes were wide, staring at the flickering light from the oil lamp filtering through his wine, casting rubied shadows over the map. 'Rubied' was better than 'bloody'. Better to think of wealth than the wealth of blood they had spent. They had been profligate, careless as children, mockingly flush as the wealthy young nobles he had met at the Academy. They had cast away lives. He didn't know what he' ha been thinking, letting it get this far with Cole tonight. Stupidity. Irreverence.
Hope.
It had also been five fucking years.
He felt Cole's hand on his shoulder as Cole leaned across the table for the glass. Cole picked it up and drained it, setting it back on the edge with hard distaste for having drunk so fast. He met Nika's eyes only to admonish him with his stare. Moving closer, he reached again for the box by the bed and took out a different bottle, this one cloudy and old. Wiping his mouth on his sleeve, he opened it and poured Nika a new glass, this one golden. He finished his own glass of wine and repeated the gesture.
Setting the bottle back down, one hand on Nika's back, elbow on his own bended knee, he raised his glass. “Health.”
Nika reached for his and did the same. “Abhinc, good life.”
They each drank. Cole, knowing what was in the glass, wisely shot his down. Nika sputtered and coughed half way through. “Are you trying to get me drunk?”
“Since when could two glasses of anything get you drunk?” Cole poured another glass doubling up Nika's portion before he could get it out of the way. He refilled his own and raised it again. “To the Dead.”
Nika stared at him. He raised his glass. “The Dead.”
This time Nika emptied his glass with a wince. Cole smiled at him. Nika beat his chest with a fist. “The Comid Army was run by the Old Book. They didn't allow drinking.”
Cole chuckled. “That's not a Midraeic custom I know.”
Nika snorted and shook his head, resorting to the water glass to clear some of his difficulties. “That's because it's not a Midraeic custom anyone wants to know. Nobody listens to the Old Book – we argue with the Old Book, we learn from the Old Book, we take the Old Book with salt,” he made a pinching gesture, which didn’t at all help his phrasing make any sense. “In the Old Book, Tiber didn't allow his armies to drink, so why should we? Because we don't have magical armor or a horn that breaks stones. We have brandy. That's why.”
Cole poked at his bottle but didn't pour another glass. He tried to think of something to say – in the past, he would have been witty, teasing, playing ignorant to tempt Nika to talk more – but was already feeling a little warm. In truth, he wasn't trying that hard – he didn't want to think of something to say, he wanted to think of something to do.
He traced his hand over Nika's shoulder, ignoring the uniform underneath. How many times had they been on opposite sides in exercises? Nika was usually wearing something representing an opponent he had spent time trying to defeat. Actually, Nika was usually something he had spent time trying to defeat. 'Friendly Competition' was their relationship at its most doting.
Nika leaned back, a hand finding Cole's foot behind him. He tugged until Cole scooted forward so Cole’s bent leg could support him. They waited, Cole continuing to trace his soothing circles across Nika’s back. Nika stared at his hands. He clenched his fingers in and out, watching them move.
They needed to decide. They were soldiers, commanders, trained from youth, and they knew – had always known – they would have dead for which they were accountable. Now, Nika needed to know they had paid their dues to the dead between them. Cole needed him to believe the dead didn't stand between them. To both the mantra repeated: doubled together, halved when parted.
Nika look up at Cole, eyes the color of shaded woods taking a hold of Cole entire, in their grasp. Cole's hand stopped its lazy trace, and he looked back, still as an isolate, spring-fed pool. Nika's hand grasped the uniform over his chest, pulling him in as he shifted to lean towards him, and they kissed again. This time, sure. This time, solid. This time, Nika pulled back and their hands were on each other, holding up, and pulling in.
Five years were nothing at all.
They leaned in again, and kissed with the passion of their youth, as if nothing in the whole of the world had ever changed.