"No," Mouse shook her head, "no, it cannot be. He cannot be."

But if Ulrich's face told her anything, it was that he had spoken no word of a lie.

"How did it happen?" Mouse asked, staring up into the Captain's face. "When?"

"He passed during the night," Ulrich said. "I received word this morning." He did not meet Mouse's gaze; his hazel eyes were busy scanning the horizon, looking out from where he stood on the wall.

Mouse dropped her eyes and shook her head again. It was not right. It was not fair. Osgar had been a good man. He had been a good guard and a good captain, and, Mouse could only imagine, a good friend. And now he was dead. He had been poisoned, mind and body, stripped of his dignity and made to pay with his life for a crime he did not commit. Mouse looked to the Captain, searching for that outrage she knew he must feel, but he only stood quietly, maintaining his silent vigil of the fields.

"I am sorry," Mouse said. She huffed a sigh of resolution. "We will find the person responsible, and we will see that they are given their justice."

Still, Ulrich made no reply. He was mourning, Mouse realized, not just Osgar but the justice which had been robbed him. He had failed his captain, had failed his friend, and even if Mouse did not subscribe to such nonsense, she knew that that was what Ulrich believed.

In the distance, the sun glinted off the Ho Varde. A row of clouds had moved in from the west earlier, threatening to delay the pageant, but any promise of rain had long been rescinded, leaving behind a day that was bright and warm. In the camp below, knights and their squires were already drawing up in lines as crowds gathered en masse along the streets.

She should leave the Captain in peace, Mouse decided, allow him to grieve in solitude. With one last glance at the man, she turned to go; however, she had not gone more than a few steps when the Captain called out to her.

"Will you not stay a while longer?" he said. Mouse stopped, surprised by the invitation, though not unpleasantly, and retreated from whence she had come, resuming her place at the Captain's side. The two stood quietly for some while, watching a hawk make lazy circles in the sky, and when the silence was at last broken, it was Ulrich who spoke.

"The Western Isles are not what they used to be," he said. "The uprisings have long died down, and there is a peace among the people and their lords."

Mouse blinked, unsure of how to respond to such an unexpected overture.

"Peace is a good thing," she said.

"There's plenty of work to be had," Ulrich continued, looking up at the sky, "and I hear that the weather is fine."

Mouse allowed herself a smile.

"Fine weather is certainly something," she said. "It is my favorite kind of weather, actually."

The corner of the Captain's mouth twitched.

"It would be a good place to start anew," he said, "for someone who understands the meaning of hard work."

Mouse blinked again, turning to Ulrich and opening her lips to speak. She hesitated

"You are not considering a change of career, are you?" she asked.

"No," said Ulrich, turning an amused gaze toward Mouse. "But I will tell you this: if I was a young man seeking to flee the Empire, I would go the Western Isles."

Mouse looked up into the Captain's face, searching it. He was trying to tell her something, but what?

"If you were a young man," she repeated. "But why—" And then, it dawned on her. "If you were a young man," she said, seizing the Captain's arm, her heart pounding in expectant hope. "What if you had a family? A mother?"

The Captain nodded his head.

"Mothers are permitted in the Western Isles," he said. "And men are paid fairly enough that they might support their families." The tears were welling in Mouse's eyes. "There is a ship that leaves every two weeks from Lehman Point. It docks at Errin, not far from Garth, where there is a castle and plenty of stables. Or at least that is what I hear."

"Can I tell her?" Mouse asked, a single quiet tear running down her cheek. "His mother. Can I tell her?"

The Captain inclined his head.

"If you trust her judgement," he said, "I trust yours."

Mouse could no longer contain her joy and threw her arms around the Captain.

"Thank you," she breathed into his shoulder. "Thank you, thank you, thank you."

Ulrich did not exactly return her embrace, but nor did he resist it, not that Mouse would have minded either way. He had saved her friend, even if he had not managed to save his own. She did not mind that he had taken so long to tell her. She did not mind that he was solemn and stern and a hair too close to stubborn. He was the best man that she had ever known.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

Mouse stood, leaning over the ledge of the window, watching the knights who paraded below. The streets were a sea of color; men in rich, vibrant hues astride their mounts winding and weaving their way through the crowd, narrowly avoiding the children who ran barefoot past them, reaching up to try and touch the hem of their caparisons or the fringe of their horses' tails. Banners waved, and shields were lifted in greeting. and caparisons flapped in the breeze. Freshly painted lances decorated with ribbons were lifted high into the air as sunlight gleamed on polished plate, bringing to life crested helms and articulate bosses. Music was playing somewhere, but the melody was drowned out by the sound of cheers and jeers and shouts and laughter.

As usual, the ladies of the court had been given use of the gatehouse for the occasion, and it was from here that they watched the pageant, waving their kerchiefs from large, rough-hewn windows and calling out to the knights, tossing flowers at the ones they especially liked.

Katla was there, and Mathilde, at the window adjacent, and further down were Ladies Sahsa and Iren, but Agatha, Mouse had noted, was conspicuously absent.

"There," said Mouse, nudging the red-haired girl beside her and pointing. "Do you see the man with the black caparison and baton sinister? That is Axel Himmelbjerg."

Val Hector stood up on her toes, straining to catch sight of the man Mouse indicated.

"The one in the darkened plate?" she asked. "He does look rather menacing, doesn't he?

"Well, he ought to," said Mouse, following the man with her eyes. "He's the son of Widukind."

"Widukind the Black?" the Val turned to look at Mouse, raising her brow. "Maybe I should marry him. A warrior husband might be a useful thing to have." The women watched as the dark-clad knight continued on through the gate without casting so much as a single glance up at them. The crowd continued to pulse and throb in his wake, a living thing making itself one with the pageantry.

The next man of note to ride through was Sir Thiemo, a young, dark-complected knight from the Ipsan Peninsula decked in shades of brilliant blue. The ladies at the window adjacent went wild with excitement as he drew near, waving their kerchiefs and draping themselves ostentatiously across the window ledge.

"She's going to fall," murmured Val Hector, watching Lady Mathilde lean so far over the ledge to wave an arm at the knight that her feet nearly left the floor. "Maybe I should go and help her." She gave Mouse a wicked smile. By this time, everyone in Kriftel had heard of the engagement between Lady Mathilde and Prince Carl of Umbrec, and though most could not care less about which of the Empress's ladies would wed the awkward young prince, the announcement had managed to ruffle a few feathers, including Val Hector's. "Honestly," she said, eyeing the girl with a glower, "I've half a mind to go over there and give her a nice little push."

Mouse followed the Val's glare.

"Well, if you do," she said, "pray, wait until I am faced the other way so that I might at least plead ignorance."

The Val laughed and returned her attention to her own window. The next few knights who rode through were less impressive than the last, consisting mostly of aging men in ill-fitting plate and country knights on skinny chargers.

"Would you not consider marrying an Arosian?" Mouse asked. "There's hardly any princes, but maybe some young lord controlling his father's estate. Or some old lord whose son you could marry once he dies."

The Val shook her head and sighed, leaning forward to rest her elbows on the ledge.

"As wonderfully simple as that sounds," she sighed, "I need to find someone without strong ties to the Empire, someone who would not betray us at the first opportunity." She puzzled her brow at a knight who looked nearly as old as Ludger and had apparently forgotten to tie his jack. "And it might be nice if they had a degree of politic," she said.

Mouse chewed her lip in thought. Below them, the crowd was thronging, throwing flowers and juniper at a party of knights who rode together bearing the colors of a famed house of the Westerlands.

"What about someone from Ahnderland?" Mouse suggested. "They might be Arosian by law, but most of them don't consider themselves any more Arosian than the Chatti do. You might find you have a good deal in common as regards your views of the Empire."

"That might be an idea," the Val said absently, but Mouse could tell that she was not impressed. The two women continued to watch the parade, the sounds of the crowd punctuated by the laughs of Katla and Mathilde. Among the pageantry, Mouse noticed the blue and yellow of Tuilidge and Falk and leaned forward out of the window to wave at Sir Gerold as he passed below. The knight looked up and returned her wave with a raise of his shield. He had lost one of his squires to the negotiation of dreg cakes, Mouse noticed, and another to idle talk with some handsome dark-haired girl, but had not yet noticed the absence of either.

Behind Sir Gerold came a young Caldiffan with a small, round face and narrow shoulders. He could not have been more than one and twenty, thought Mouse, and even that was being generous. He looked startled by the crowd and uneasy in the saddle; he was by no means a proper knight. No, his knighthood had been bought for him. In all likelihood, he was royalty, some fledgling prince sent to make a show of his worldliness. But in Caldiff, princes were worth little. Mouse watched the young man disappear beneath the gate. It was all for show.

Suddenly, an idea suddenly struck her.

"Alastair Seregov," she said. The Val, who had once again raised herself up on her toes to try and gain a better view of the pageant below, glanced at Mouse over shoulder.

"I beg your pardon?" she said.

"Alastair Seregov," Mouse repeated. "He is not Arosian, not in the least, and furthermore, he has connections that could help establish the Chatti as an independent nation."

The Val dropped to her feet and cocked her head curiously. Mouse's eyes went to the ladies at the other window before continuing. She had no wish to be overheard, but there seemed little risk of that under the current circumstance.

"Now, a lot of people will not approve of his background," said Mouse, "but just as many will like him more because of it."

"And that is?" asked the Val.

"Alastair is the bastard son of King Persephus and a Caldiffan duchess," said Mouse. "Most of his siblings are members of the Caldiffan court, but he has a half-sister, Signy, who is the ward of Lord Ralist and Lady Margarethe, Lady Margarethe's cousin actually."

Val Hector gave a slow nod of her head.

"And I am given to believe that this is a good thing?"

Mouse shrugged.

"It might be," she said. "Ralist has a private army of at least three thousand, and for whatever it is worth, he is no friend of the Empress."

A glimmer entered the Val's eyes. Now she had her interest, thought Mouse.

"Do you think he would agree to such a proposition?" the Val asked, her sea glass eyes twinkling with intrigue.

"I've no idea," said Mouse. "I have never met the man, and I know little more than nothing about him. But I do think that he would be a fool not to at least consider it." It was true; even Mouse was not entirely convinced of the idea, but there was something in it, she thought.

The Val nodded thoughtfully.

"What about money?" she asked. "Has he got any? Or men?"

Mouse considered this question.

"I'm not certain whether he has much of either," she admitted. "But his real value lies elsewhere, primarily in that he has strong connections in two separate courts." She paused. "That and the fact that he is about to fight a war he is going to lose."

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