“We really do not need to borrow more trouble on this mission.” Dafi shook her head and began to sort out the damp clothing she had hidden. From the looks of the room, her guess was someone had slipped in here to straighten up while they were at supper. She was glad Dal had insisted on keeping the papers with them.
Dal grunted, “No need to borrow, zinze it came to uz anyvay. De vun name dot Toma could giff me vaz ‘Chancy’. Too cloze to de name in de letterz for it to be coinzidenze.” He handed her one of the documents she had spirited away from the courier. “Read dot - Hy tink de Duke dhey talk about haffing in dheir pocket might be de young Ierboaze-Movila.”
She read the letter, and covered her mouth in shock. “Oh, no... I think you are right. Wait...” She handed him the letter and pulled her document tube out of her blouse. “...something about having several hooks in him...” She shuffled through, and found the letter she remembered, “Here, where they talk about his gambling debts - he was already in some debt before they set him up for more.”
“Ja, Hy mizzed dis vun...” Dal frowned, “Dheze are de only mentionz of him, Hy tink. Bot schtill - it makez travelling in de area more dangerouz. If any of de t’ree are local, oddz are dheir heaviez know vot hyu look like."
Dafi frowned, “I am torn - we need to get these papers to the Baron as quickly as possible, but if we were able to gather any more information....”
Dalibor cut her off sharply, “No! Nut if ve put hyu at rizk. Ve need hyu to schtay alive, zo dhey dun’t get de fortrezz. Hy juzt dun’t know how ve are going to get hyu to de next duchy ofer, in zecret, und get to de air courier schtation before de next run.”
“I have an idea.” It had hurt to be put back in her role of Dama so quickly, but she did understand the need. “When we leave here in the morning, I want to take a look at the map at the station. I do not want to say anything more about it until I can see that.” She gave a little jerk of her head to the door.
He shook his head, and murmured, “Dhere’z nobody nearby, bot goot idea on keeping it qviet. Dun’t vant any of de youn’unz to dezide to be heroez before dhey’re ready.”
“Following in the footsteps of their hero, Third Son?” At his grimace, she said, “I am sorry, I did not realize you did not care for grand tales of heroism.”
“Pfui. Load of codzvallop, dot.” The sergeant began packing the documents away. “At leazt dot vaz vun of de schlightly beliefable vunz.”
Dafi perked up, “There are more tales with this hero?”
“Ja, und dhey are about az veird az de Hetrodyne Boyz talez. At leazt de Boyz vere Schparkz.” Dal made a face, “De Thord Zon talez make him out to be a zaint.”
“You know better, I take it?” she said casually, hanging her damp clothing near the fire.
“Dafi, madboyz und monzterz are all men onder de schkin. Dis idiot getz put op on a pedeschtal for helping out a village, und zuddenly he’z tvelve feet tall vith a sword of flamez.” Dal was clearly uncomfortable with this subject. “Juzt unnat’ral, it iz.”
“I am just glad the story they told here does not have the Third Son as the monster that ate the madboy.” Dafi giggled.
“Heh, nah - madboyz ain’t koscher.” He stretched, and said, “Hyu vant de bed? Hy can take de floor if hyu like.”
“There is only one bed?” Dafi blushed slightly, “I-I suppose they think we are shield-mates, or that we would sleep in shifts...” She stopped to arch an eyebrow at him, “You were about to keep watch all night again.” The set of her mouth was not quite a frown.
He smiled crookedly, and shrugged, “Zort of. Ve haff a zecure location, und de chair iz goot for dozing. Dot’s goot enough for tonight, ja?”
“As long as I am not putting you out.” Dafi paused at the door to the bedroom, “Do you have everything you need?”
He looked as if he were about to say something, then shook his head, “Hy’ll be hokay. Rezt vell, Dafi.”
There was no window in the inner sleeping room, and the cupboard bed was built onto the back of the fireplace. A small night-lamp had been left on a shelf beside the bed with a carafe of water and a small plate of sugar biscuits. The bed had been turned down, and looked very inviting. A portion of her mind suggested the bed was just big enough for the two of them to share, but she sighed and resolutely put that thought away. The sergeant had been friendly, but apparently knew where the limits were. Darn it.
Not that she was going to cross the lines, either. The rules for girls were stricter, and even more so as Dama. It was stupid, but she was expected to be inexperienced when presented to her future husband. Whoever he might be. She really hoped the Baron would not need her for an alliance marriage to some stupid twit in the noble set, at least not right away.
Mourning for her father, once this mission was completed, might keep her insulated for a little while, but not forever. She folded that pain away for now, as she took off her boots. As she undressed, she considered her options. There were no contracts for her that she knew of, and if there were no alliances the Baron needed, she could make the argument that a veteran was better suited to the post than an aristocrat. Being in an unfamiliar place, she did not blow out the lamp, but did dim it as much as she could without extinguishing it. Slipping under the covers, a grain of a plan settled in the back of her mind.
~=*=~
He watched the door a few moments after Dafi had gone. She had latched it, but not locked the door. It was not an invitation, no matter what his baser instincts insisted. He toyed with the thought of telling her to lock it, but she might have another nightmare.
When he had returned from leaving the great hall the last time for the evening, his inspection found no untoward surprises. He had checked his pack when he had gotten his parachute, and found that someone had gotten the clothes he had worn before the bath. He hoped the ones who were on laundry duty could get the gear to them before Dafi roused in the morning. Even if there was not a window in her room, he did not expect her to sleep much past sunrise.
He glanced at her delicates hanging by the fire, and chuckled. Much like her, they were functional with a slight nod to being feminine. She seemed unused to blushing, as if she had not had much practice. He thought she probably wasn’t ticklish, or had trained herself out of that as soon as anyone pointed out it was a weakness. The thought made him frown again. It seemed that her father had trained her to be self-sufficient, a patrol member, and a commander, but not that she could have a partner.
Not really his business. But it did make him sad for her future.
~=*=~
Sunlight on the clouds, but now she felt the wind cutting through her jacket. The hand on her wrist was joined by a strong embrace. She could hear screaming... and woke up in Dal’s arms. “Ve’re zafe, Dafi... vake op, iatagandraga...”
“ergh...’m here... did I wake anyone else?” Dafi asked, not quite awake yet, and rubbing her forehead against his chest.
“Nah, hyu voke op before hyu got too loud. Hy tink dhey haff uz by ourzelvez, bezidez.” He held her a few moments more until she straightened up. “Do hyu need to talk about it dis time?”
Dafi shivered, “It begins to feel like a memory, only it is so unreal. I was young enough I wasn’t in uniform, so I was younger than eight. I was not wearing a heavy coat, but the wind was cold...”
He nodded, “Dot zoundz like a high-flying airschhip. It can get bitter coldt abuff de cloudz, zumtimez, efen in high zummer. It vould alzo egzplain de bright zunlight.” He reached behind him and snagged the carafe of water for her.
“That is odd - I don’t remember being on an airship before the one where we met.” She drank a few sips of water until her hands stopped shaking. “What time is it?”
“Hy dunno. Hyu get zum more schleep, Hy’ll vake hyu vhen breakfazt iz cooking.” He replaced the carafe and tucked her under the covers. He paused, as if were going to say more, but turned to leave.
Dafi snaked her hand out quickly to catch his, “Dal? Thank you.”
He smiled and lightly gripped her hand, “Schleep vell, Kommender.” Then he was gone, back to the sitting room.
She had had to suppress the impulse to pull him under the covers with her. Part of her brain told her impulse that she was a big girl now, and could sleep alone. However, the impulse had not been a childish one. Waking up in Dal's embrace was getting to be a habit. True, in the tree, there had been little choice. It was also not an unpleasant way to wake up, but there were other concerns at hand. The nightmares could cause them trouble if they had to bivouac in unsecured territory. She turned the thoughts over in her mind, not realizing she had drifted off to sleep until the sergeant woke her the next morning.
~=*=~
The laundry had been delivered by one of the younger girls, just as they were finishing packing. “Mistress Charlot bids me invite you to join her for breakfast, please, if only to replenish your journey-rations.” She curtsied at Dalibor’s nod of thanks, left the stack of laundry on the chair nearest the door and closed the door after her.
Dal sorted through the clothes, removing his from the stack before taking them into the bedroom. “Hyu heard de invitation?”
“Yes, and after last night, I doubted they would let us go without making sure you were properly taken care of.” Dafi quirked a half-smile up at him, “I suppose I am grateful that their care for you spills over to me.” Her smile faltered at his expression, a fleeting succession of surprise, apprehension and sadness. “It is the same with aunties everywhere, I think.” She took the laundry and finished packing. But they do not name their children after an occasional visitor, she thought.
Breakfast was a much subdued affair, with less than half the people who attended supper in the kitchen. Dafi found the mistress of the house had a table to herself, away from the fire where the old aunties and uncles had gathered with their morning tea. One of the older children, kitted out for kitchen work, brought tea and scones to them as Dafi and Dalibor sat. Another of the kitchen helpers brought jam and butter, and Mistress Charlot murmured, “I was hoping you were able to rise early. Most of the active children are working in the barns before breakfast. In an hour, they will be trooping through the laundry for a wash-up, and you might be able to get away without tag-alongs.”
Dafi smiled, “I thank you for your discretion. I did not wish to have to tell a youngster that we cannot slow down for them. That usually leads to them being lost in the woods when they try to prove different.” Dal grunted, and nodded, watching the cook’s helpers warily.
“Not to worry, the ones on duty this morning are apprenti, and well suited to their tasks,” Mistress Charlot said.
“And quite happy to find a place here at the inn that suits us as well,” a lanky young man said as he placed a plate of sausages on the table. Dafi had the impression that the youngster would be a giant by the time he grew into his hands. “Some of us are just homebodies,” he said with a grin, before turning back to assist the cook at the huge iron stove.
“My youngest, Costica,” Mistress Charlot said fondly. “His older brother, Neculai, I told you about last night. We hear from him about once a month unless the Baron has his patrol out on the borders of the Empire.”
Dal grunted again, “Need to teach dot boy how to schtage letterz zo he dun’t giff avay vhen he iz out dhere. Hy’ll write to him about it.”
“Thank you, you are always a great help to the ones in the services,” Mistress smiled into her cup as another apprentice brought out the omelets with a plate of cucumbers and tomatoes. “Now, as this is the end of the season, and we have a store of hunter’s journey rations, more than we generally use over the winter. I do hope you will stock up before you leave.”
~=*=~
Dalibor managed to convince Charlot that they would only need enough supplies for a week, and he hoped they would not need more than that. As it was, it was impossible to get away without the kitchen aunties pressing another sack of provisions on them. Dafi would try to turn down another loaf of bread and one of the others would slip more packages of mortadela & cheese in her pack. He would have laughed if it didn’t slow them down.
Only the fact that Costica was watching the crews headed in from the barn and could warn them that the younger kinder were washing up let them get away in time. The rush to get away before the adventurous sorts got out of the wash house made the auntie’s goodbyes less disturbing - even if it did feel like they were saying goodbye to a pair of newlyweds.
The carriage drive was a little less than a kilometer from the inn to the train station, a nice stroll along the lake. Dafi seemed to be moving much better, and using the train tracks as their path would be faster, but the track went through towns, which they should avoid. This was without dealing with the duchy guards posted in each town. He was still puzzling over it when Dafi studied the map and schedule in the tiny station. There was no ticket booth, only a sign on the wall saying tickets could be purchased from conductors on regular passenger trains.
“Yes, here we go - good timing, we only have to wait ten minutes at the most.” Dafi was reading the fine print of the winter schedule.
“Goot, ve can crozz de bridge after de train, und not get caught in de middle. How ve are getting t’rough de townz, though...” Dalibor made to leave the building when he noticed she was rummaging through the bins. “Dafi, vot are hyu...”
“Aha! Thought they would have these. Now signaling should not be a problem.” She took out two small semaphore plaques from a cabinet. “So we do not excite questions, we signal for a non-urgent message. If they are on an emergency run, they speed on through. If not, they stop and we see if we can negotiate a quiet ride.”
“Hope hyu know how to uze dose tingz. Hy ken zignal airschipz, bot if it iz different for trainz, Hy dun’t know.” Dal shrugged. The Corbettite monks were autonomous, and did not answer to the local authorities. This could be the best way to get around the problem of getting to the border, and at a good speed.
Dafi’s smile was dazzling, and he could not help smiling back at her. She said, “It is close, but there are some differences. We might even get a crew that is willing to get us there without ‘seeing’ us, if we find the right people.” Then she turned, hearing the triple whistle from down the track.
The train was perhaps a half-kilometer away, coming around the bend to meet the lake when she began to signal. It looked a bit like the same sort of signal one would give to an airship to tell the pilot there was a mail pick-up. The answer came as a squeal of brakes and a whistle pattern of one long, one short, and another long whistle. Dafi nodded, signaled “received”, and then stowed the paddles back in their cabinet.
Dal was a bit confused when the locomotive seemed to pass them by, but the precision was aimed at placing the kabuis right in front of the station. The conductor stepped off, blessed them with the sign of the square and began, “How may we assist y- wait, Hynter? What are you doing out of your mountains?”
Dafi sighed, and gave a hand signal that was as old as Dalibor’s days at the academy, “Brother Lucian, my companion and I have Dire Need for Great Assistance, in the Service of Peace.” Dalibor managed to keep his jaw from hitting the floor when the brother gave the return signal. The old clubs were still active at the academy? And Dafi was part of the Bergrisar?
“Get on board, we’ll talk while moving,” Brother Lucian motioned them into the kabuis, and signaled to the driver. The locomotive started pulling away, all within moments of Dafi’s original signal. Dalibor almost could not wait until they were alone to ask her what form the supper clubs had taken in her years there. If the hand signals and verbal cues were still the same, were the goals the same as well?
