Ceidwad wrote a long message that night, which Glacien had a runner convey to the docks, whereupon it was loaded onto a ship bearing goods headed, ultimately, back to Tir Cyfoethog, to be taken along with them. It was sealed under Ceidwad’s sigil, for Glacien’s sigil was not one that could safely be used for correspondence.

Glacien had not asked Ceidwad what the contents of the letter might be, and she was quite thankful for that. She was sure that by the time the ground had been prepared for him to take his throne, he would be happy to do so; all the same, he might not be willing to applaud the steps she was taking to get that way.

As far as Glacien was concerned this was simply a letter that would buy more time before she was expected home, before the Empress would pay more attention to the Duchy and the threat of something worse darkened the horizon.

Ceidwad was happy that she had that freedom to act. A part of her simply wondered if she should do.

*

Tundryl,

Glacien is preparing himself to return and reclaim his throne. I know you will be interested in this, if it can be done without war.

I believe the greatest service you can provide here is to investigate and neutralise your colleague, Captain Paffiwr of the House of Rubies. She has the determination, the bias, and the political weight that means her opposition would mean fights in the capital. And, of course, her regiment of the guard is the strongest and best-equipped, with many members having seen combat on the frontiers. There are few detectives; they are a weapon.

This weapon must rest easy on its scabbard, and I believe you to be the person to do it. I base this belief on two things.

Firstly, I am aware of your personal beliefs. I should say that before I recently came to understand my folly I had kept your name on a list of enemies of the Throne; I will say I now understand better who should be seated on the said Throne. For this reason I know there is an incentive for you to deal with Captain Paffiwr.

Secondly, I am aware of the curious stories that surround your uncle. I would hope you are astute enough to recognise that your connection to these events is known, without my needing to tell you; your record for efficiency has meant that we have not, yet, set our plans in motion.

I am sure your uncle’s method is known to your family, if not already to you. I am also sure it could apply here.

I will not order you to do any such thing. That would be foolhardy. You must commit to the cause of your own volition, if you do.

But I hope a patriot such as yourself will do your duty.

Lady Ceidwad of the House of Sapphires

Attendant in waiting at the Court-in-Exile

*

Captain Tundryl read and reread the sheet enclosed in the letter which, his name being on the top, had been passed onto him by its original recipient, a woman he did not know from the House of Jade.

He did know the sender.

He hadn’t previously thought the sender and he had anything in common, except that different pieces of the protection of the Empire had been passed into their hands. The Lady Ceidwad was not a woman for direct action, and did not concern herself with the moments where direct action were most important; Tundryl, on the other hand, was much more concerned with action.

Ceidwad could order the arrest of someone before they had actually acted against the Empire, and if she did so she would receive no criticism. Were Tundryl to do the same, even if he were correct it was likely he would be in more trouble than the suspect. His was to act after - or, better, during - a threat.

He was not at all sure how he was meant to react to this letter. On the one hand, here was news: news of the fled heir to the House of Onyx, a man Tundryl still regarded as the rightful ruler of the Empire (though Tundryl was, too, a man not of noble birth, and he was very aware thereby that his political opinions counted for nothing).

On the other hand, the sender was someone who seemed deeply committed to the new regime.

Had he misread her? Was this a test? If it was a test, was she testing his capabilities or his loyalty?

What ramifications did it have for the answer to any of those questions that the message to him had been sealed within the message to the Jade noblewoman?

Only one message was entirely certain. With a deep sigh, he rose from the bench where he had sat and took himself off, a gross dereliction of duty, to lunch at his father’s estate, in a small garret of which his uncle still found housing, even if he had no control over who entered or left that building.

*

Everything in Tir Cyfoethog, Captain Paffiwr had learned, was political in some way. Even with the backing of her House, it made her job much harder than it had been on her time earning her ranks, when she’d been out and about in the provinces.

There, politics rarely entered the picture, and when it did it was usually part of the motive, not a new shape to the facts that could change what was true. Here, one couldn’t even be told gossip without wondering what hidden agenda was just beyond you at the time.

The invitation she’d been delivered, for example…

Officially it was a gift. A gesture from a less-well-connected officer. It might be prelude to some other approach - Paffiwr assumed it must be - but it was the nature of the chosen gift that confused her.

She was holding a small, pearly plaque that had been imprinted with the mark of one of the more exclusive businesses in the Tir. Patronised almost exclusively by the nobility, with the only other customers being extremely wealthy Imperial citizens, the Baths of Maldod drew on ancient spa waters mixed with modern alchemical refinements. The Baths were housed in a sprawling, beautiful marble building that abutted onto the side of a small hill on what had, a century or more ago, been open land, feared for the fact that it had once given forth lava, and which now held a number of small caverns, many of which held hot springs within.

They were known to be the height of luxury, with the Imperial Perfumer, who had become one of the most important citizens in the Empire after the Empress’ ascent to the throne, being willing to moonlight and work there (and with that work being considered acceptable by the Empress, into the bargain.)

Paffiwr had never visited the Baths of Maldod. She had spent much of her career away from the capital and, on her return, she had taken up the attitude of many of her fellow soldiers: she rejected the sybaritic opportunities available to her.

It might, she thought, not be a prelude to something else. Or a bribe. It might be an insult.

If she knew the sender better she might have some clearer idea…

She turned the glossy plaque over in her hands, tapping it against her knuckles. It was a beautiful thing, in and of itself, she thought, and that doubtless said something about the Baths themselves.

Eventually she set it aside, tucking it into the small closet in the barracks where she stowed her personal possessions while working.

These civilian distractions were not for her.

*

Lleidr,

Glacien is preparing himself to return and reclaim his throne. I have been able to gather enough intelligence to confirm this, but not to prove it, nor to know what shape the threat will take.

I believe the greatest service you can provide here is to visit him in Bugail, but to do so incognito. Find a way to surveil him, and you will I’m sure be able to secure the intelligence I lack. That done, please report to me through letter, like this, and I will act accordingly.

Lady Ceidwad of the House of Sapphires

*

Lleidr squinted at the letter suspiciously, and jealously calculated the potential cost to the House of Jade inherent in her being absent for a time and, therefore, not overseeing her arm of the House’s interests.

Officially, the House of Jade dealt entirely and exclusively in information; everything from verified fact to the rumour of hearsay passed through their hands. It was often remarked upon that the skills needed to obtain such information were very similar to the skills needed to steal, and that the true source of the House of Jade’s wealth might be more obvious in nature.

The truth was, of course, a little more complicated. The House of Jade was known for its prowess in crime long before it ascended to the nobility. At first, these crimes had been thefts and muggings alone. With these had come information, and from there a habit had been formed of blackmail.

Lleidr took particular responsibility for a large number of cat burglars, cracksmen, cutpurses and other such deftly-fingered criminals. At the heart of her team's operations was the financial foundation of the House of Jade.

Thousands of crowns flowed through the coffers of the House of Jade on a daily basis. It was her role to ensure that the criminals who brought in this money chose the right targets: that is to say, wealthy citizens, nobles who were not in line with the interests of the House of Jade, visiting ambassadors (from certain countries of course), and the occasional ally who needed to be taught a thing or two.

To take time out from her busy schedule simply on the request of the House of Sapphires was to abandon the oversight of her team. To her at least, this was akin to lighting a fuse of unknown length on a bomb. Sooner or later one of her braver boys would get cocky, or would simply strike without a full understanding of the situation, and the House of Jade would then find itself embroiled in a frustrating pantomime of responsibility.

However, it was not wise to turn down a request from someone like the lady. The fact of the matter was that the House of Sapphires had become one of the biggest purchasers of information from the House of Jade. They added to this information from their own sources - sources that she envied on a personal and professional level - and it was this that allowed them the power that they held within the empire.

Accordingly, she instructed her maid to pack a valise containing her disguise kit, a number of expensive dresses and a few items of inexpensive gowning in the current servants' cut of the empire. This done, she sent a runner to the dock to reserve a place on an outgoing ship.

*

It was almost a month after the gift that Captain Paffiwr finally decided to take up the plaque and take advantage of its promise. It had been a constant temptation in the back of her mind, which she had resisted through simply dismissing it as civilian pampering unneeded by anyone of her standing.

Perhaps it had been inevitable that there would come a day when the captain had dealt with simply too much not to feel frustrated and overwhelmed. On the first of those occasions, she had gone home with an amphora of wine and had buried her frustrations using alcohol, in the most militarily-approved manner.

Yet Captain Paffiwr was beginning to find that this solution brings consequences of its own, and that these consequences become more severe the farther we march away from adolescence. A day's duty carried out while hungover and while still nursing some of the larger frustrations of the previous day was not, she decided, at all appropriate.

She therefore presented herself at the Baths of Maldod and showed the plaque to one of the attendants on the door.

The look of delight in the attendant's eyes came as a deep surprise to the captain. The respectful bow was nothing less than she deserved, not merely for her rank and accomplishments but also as a member of the House of Rubies. She was used to such deference from civilians, but it was comparatively rare for her to deal with noncombatants who did not treat the guard as a necessity at best and an inconvenience at worst.

“How may we help you, Captain?” asked the attendant. “It is always a pleasure to welcome a newcomer into the Baths for the first time.”

“I am... frustrated,” she said. “They tell me that here, all manner of effort is dedicated to a cure for such frustrations. With this information, I hope you can furnish me with the services I need in order to feel refreshed, confident, and ready to do my job once again.”

The attendant bowed low and, after straightening again, turned slightly and extended an arm, ushering the captain inside. “I am sure we can accommodate you, Captain,” she said.

*

Captain Paffiwr found herself in a secluded part of the baths. The sounds of other bathers echoed through the halls from the larger bathing hall, and the aromatic scents of the perfumes used in the Baths of Maldod seemed to have shaded, as she progressed through the building, from something piquant and exciting to something gentler, warmer, something redolent of the night.

With her was still the attendant who had first ushered her into the baths and who had been joined now by two others, each of them wrapped in cream linen robes. The impression was almost religious, except that it could not be said to be virginal in nature, and the captain found herself sure that these attendants would dedicate themselves to any requested pleasure.

Yet even now, the Baths of Maldod did not appear as if they were in fact the front for some common brothel. The captain was seized by an inexplicable certainty that the plaque which granted her membership did not pay for the favours of the attendants. If it had done, she might have felt somewhat more at home. A soldier could always understand the call of a brothel.

“Would you prefer to undress yourself, or to simply relax as we undress you?” The first attendant asked. Captain Paffiwr hesitated, and in that moment of hesitation, the other two attendants stepped forward in unison. They raised their hands toward her, reaching for the clasps that linked her cloak to the breastplate of her armour.

Captain Paffiwr realised that her hesitation had placed her firmly on the back foot. She could now choose to say she would undress herself, and she was sure that if she did so the attendants would pause and step back, and simply watch and wait. This, though, would in effect be to show a strange kind of fear, and this she simply was not willing to do.

Instead she stood, stock still and almost perfectly straight upright, as the two attendants divested her in short order of her cloak, her helm, sword belt, her back-and-breast, and the metal-studded leather skirt that armoured her thighs. She stepped out of her sandals for herself, but the two silent attendants, one on each side, knelt to unbuckle her greaves.

She stood now not fully exposed, but in the simple white cotton shift that was the habitual undergarment of all soldiers in the guard. Captain Paffiwr was of the House of Rubies and held a rank of respect, so her shifts were rarely worn for more than two days at a time before being replaced with freshly-washed ones.

Standing before the other three in their flawless cream robes, Paffiwr was struck by the difference in how clean and how relaxed they appeared. The two kneeling attendants rose but stayed close by her, while the lead attendant asked, “We would usually suggest a massage before bathing, but if you will forgive me saying so, I believe we should wash you first, then provide a massage with the appropriately perfumed unguents, and lastly you wash you a second time so that you may return to society properly cleansed. Would you agree?”

The initiative in the situation had passed into hands that were not hers. Drawing in a deep breath, she looked between the three attendants and found herself feeling somehow devoid of authority. She blinked. “I believe that would be... acceptable.”

“Then if you would walk this way, Captain?” The lead attendant turned and walked away, deeper into the twists and turns of the Baths of Maldod. It was easy to forget, when you looked at the edifice from the outside, that the baths extended deep into the mountain itself.

Paffiwr followed along, a distinct discomfort at her loss of authority balanced by her curiosity at what would follow. At no point so far had the baths been what she had expected they would be. She did not feel able to predict, with any accuracy, what was yet to come.

The scents around her had continued to change, and she began to wonder how it was that the architects of the baths were able to do this. There seemed to be no braziers, no censers, and there was nobody stationed at any given corner with a large fan who might strategically direct the perfumes of the baths.

The effect of the aroma set her scalp tingling with something that was almost euphoria. Something about it was grounding, as if it somehow linked the guidance of the attendant and the way she felt. She turned that thought over in her head slowly and concluded that it made no sense, but she was nonetheless struck by the conviction that this was so.

The smooth, marbled walls of the Baths of Maldod remained smooth as they took the last couple of turns, but they did not seem any longer to be the results of craftsmanship. Instead, they seemed to have penetrated into what had once been a natural fissure or cavern in the rock, with the walls and floors worn smooth through centuries of water.

One of the silent attendants collected a torch, while the lead attendant paused outside a natural archway just a little shorter than the captain and turned to face her. “Here is where our most valued customers often begin their experience,” she gestured for fear to answer. “It is not exactly a secret of the Baths of Maldod, but it is reserved for our best customers and for their guests.”

“And which am I?” The captain asked, genuinely curious. This was her first visit, but the plaque she had brought to gain entry did not admit her as a guest, and she was beginning to understand how expensive it must have been for the giver to send her. She would have to speak to Captain Tundryl in private at some point in the future; nothing could be clearer at this point than that this gift - and she realised now that it must be a gift - was of a size that always invited negotiations.

She stepped into the small natural hollow at the centre of the floor of which was a deep pool of water that steamed faintly and seemed to glow a soft red as if from some luminescent plant before she had been answered. The silent attendant without the torch stepped in directly behind her, placing her hand on the small of her back and another on her near her shoulder and guided her to a particular point at the edge of the pool and then on into the pool itself.

The skin of her feet tingled as they touched the water and slid farther in. Her toes quickly found a step concealed within the water, and she realised she had been guided to this point so that she could more easily descend into the pool. It was as simple as walking in, and yet the tingling that she had first felt continued to rise up her body as her body descended into the water. She found herself immediately distracted... no, she found herself immediately more aware of her own sensuality than of her mentality.

It had already escaped the captain's notice that her question had gone unanswered. As the water level rose above the bottom of her shift, the material began to cling to her figure. This was something that occasionally happened when on patrol, during the worst of downpours, and which in that context she found deeply frustrating.

The warmth of the Baths of Maldod, which had surprised her even though she knew of the volcanic spring within, changed everything; what had been deeply frustrating was instead strangely comfortable. Looking down upon herself, Paffiwr saw the shift cling to her muscles, to her strong thighs and to her taught, muscular belly, even to her ample bosom.

The way the cloth clung against her thighs she could see the raised band of scar tissue from a battle a year or more ago showing pale against the warmly flushed skin warmed by the baths. She reached out slowly and wonderingly, and ran her fingers along the ridge, feeling an unusual level of sensitivity from a mark of her combat experience.

Scars were dead flesh, in her experience, and if anything their presence in a mental map of her body was marked as points where sensuality ended before beginning again on the other side. Instead it was if anything the most wonderful contact she made with her own body. She lifted her hand free, staring thoughtfully at her fingers, and wondered how it was the current touch could feel so good.

By now the water was up to the level of her shoulders, her shift soaked through and the wonderful, warming, healing properties of the waters seeping into her body through every pore.

Captain Paffiwr's mind was swimming. She felt hands on her shoulders, fingers gently caressing in slow, upward strokes from where the water had reached to the top of her shoulder and along her collarbones. She felt a shiver of pleasure run through her body from the base of her spine coming to rest just below her skull, tingling and sizzling through her mind and body.

It was a heady experience. It was not one for which her military training nor years of campaigning had prepared her. It was, in fact, an entirely new experience for Paffiwr. Had you asked her before she visited the Baths of Maldod, she would have said that like every soldier with any history in a regiment, she was no stranger to sensuality or sexuality, to pleasure or to pain, two experiences of the body.

She understood now, and with that understanding was filled with regret for the time lost, that her education in these matters had barely begun.

With her chin just above the surface of the water, she could drink in the aromas both of the Baths of Maldod's perfume and the heady, heated water vapours as they rose to her.

Her entire body was tingling with sensation; her entire self was suffused with an understanding of sensuality, of pleasure, and, it seemed to her, a sudden clarity on what it was that civilians embraced instead of the satisfaction of honour and duty.

The Baths of Maldod, she decided, were marvellous, and she would have to see to it that Captain Tundryl was properly rewarded for introducing her to this privilege. In a way she felt she now understood temptations as she had not done before; with this knowledge she believed she would be more effective in future in carrying out the investigations expected of her guard regiment, as well as when leading them in combat.

While her mind wandered onto this topic, she saw the attendant with the torch reach the far side of the small pool in which she now stood. The attendant raised the torch she was carrying two-handed, as if in salute, and then reversed her grip on the torch, inverting it and then plunging it into the pool where the flames were extinguished.

A heartbeat after that, the fingers of another snaked into her close-cropped hair, finding purchase and a good grip against her head, and then pushed forwards, immersing her head under the water to the point that all Paffiwr was aware of was that curious, tingling, dazzling euphoria which had crept over every part of her body immersed beforehand.

*

Lleidr arrived in Bugail scant weeks after the latter had reached her. The letter, she had decided, contained an important summons, but did not constitute in itself any good reason to hurry; rather, there was no reason to think that Glacien would act in any great speed given that he had not acted before now.

She had therefore booked passage quickly, thinking thereby to show that she gave the House of Sapphires' advice genuine respect. The ship she had chosen to travel on, however, had been chosen more for the luxury in which it would transport her than for the speed with which it would do so.

She spent a little time, once she arrived in Bugail, walking the streets of the small duchy's capital city, simply listening to the conversations taking place as people shopped or ate or drank or simply strolled together. At this time, she was wearing the garb of a high-ranking member of the nobility, though there was nothing in how she was dressed to identify the noble house to which she belonged.

It would likely be possible for someone looking at her to identify, if they were a student of fashions, that she must have come from the empire or, at least, have recently visited a tailor's house there at which she had updated her wardrobe. To identify her more precisely as a member of the House of Jade would require insider knowledge and most probably would require the observer to recognise her by face.

Her goal in doing this was to gauge a better sense of the mood of the Duchy, and to pick up any gossip which might be necessary to her before she decided on her actions.

As urgent as the House of Sapphires clearly believed the matter to be, and as much as she wanted to leave her team without oversight for as little time as possible, it was nonetheless important that she chose the best approach before she presented herself.

Ideally, she would be able to leave the Duchy behind, her investigation complete, without anybody having realised that a member of the House of Jade had ever visited the island. The predominant mood in the Duchy seemed to be a very positive one, and one which encouraged peace. There was, it seemed, much more of value for the Duchy of Bugail in a continued peace and trading than there would be in any form of war.

While Bugail maintained both a navy and a standing army, these were essentially in place in order to deter threats of below the level of a nation. That is to say, unfortunately in this time there was a great deal of piracy that might be considered a threat to the economy of a nation.

In the end, Lleidr decided that the only sensible approach was to adopt the role of a distant cousin to a noble of the Court of Bugail. Such a young woman might have been sent to the island to better learn and understand courtly manners before returning to her home nation. These understandings would also lead to greater friendship between the nation from which she claimed to hail and the Duchy of Bugail. After all, Bugail would be the place where she had first cut her teeth, and where she had made her first few alliances.

She selected therefore a dress of a beautiful purple, not unreminiscent of the fashions of Llon Llyrith.

She presented herself to court late that afternoon, bringing with her only one small valise. She had taken the precaution of discarding a number of the other disguises, costumes, and wigs contained within her luggage, secreting them with a loyal sea captain who would return them to the empire ahead of her.

In her opinion, it was always worse to try and justify having belongings on hand which did not fit to the persona you were presenting than it would be instead to not have items that you turn out to need on hand. Necessity, they said, was the mother of invention, but for Lleidr necessity was simply a fact of life. She was adept at improvising to match any situation.

*

In Tir Cyfoethog, at the heart of the empire, Captain Paffiwr walked the streets with a spring in her step, a smile on her lips, and a revitalised sense of purpose.

She was patrolling the city, of course, but her eyes were not looking out for signs of corruption, crime, or any other potential threat to the empire. Instead, she had eyes only for another of her own kind.

When she saw the person she was looking for, the smile on her lips opened much wider, such that she beamed broadly beneath her helmet. While Captain Paffiwr was not particularly well known to the typical citizen of the tier, anyone watching would always remember the way her face seemed to light up, and the contrast it made from the serious military-minded woman the people usually saw when they looked at Captain Paffiwr.

“Captain Tundryl!” she exclaimed, the lightness in her voice surprising the other guardsmen with whom she walked. She broke the ranks of the regimented march with which she patrolled, and hurried across to the other side of the street.

“It is good to see you,” she assured him, “and I wish to thank you for the gift you rendered to me.” She hesitated. “I would like to speak to you in private, if possible,” she told him. “Where does your regiment usually drink after duty?”