After two days on the march, mud, squalls and cold let up, providing a blessed lull. We set our camp at a leisurely pace that night, and Ondrey invited me for a cup of tea. 

Before going, I crouched before my soldier's chest to find a gift for him. 

How could I not? His gray eyes were the only ones that looked upon me with joy, rather than a demand or scorn. Sunshine added a bit of blue to their shade. They reminded me of melting ice and it was a beautiful thing to behold, particularly with the spring so far away.

The lid banged when it flipped open. What I wanted hid on the very bottom. A smile tugged at the corners of my lips, the kind that hides for years at a time, then sneaks upon you with a half-forgotten memory. I hefted the culprit out of the chest and paused, still smiling, still remembering, until the wistful acknowledgment of the past gave way to today's dreams.

I pushed to numb feet and went to Ondrey's tent. Its fur-padded interior stayed the drafts and defied the annoyances of the winter march. So cozy, so out of touch with the frozen world outside... He spent a lot of energy setting it up nightly, not just on the day he had expected my officers and me. It wasn't to impress. It was what he wanted, comfort, even at the price of extra work.

Rubbing my hands over the flickering fire—pork fat helped a little, but it wasn't a panacea—I wondered how he reconciled his sybarite habits with his abstinence vow.

He placed an almost conical earthenware cup into my hands, and my questions evaporated. Blessed be those who love comfort and share it with a stranger on the road! The cup had no handle and a very wide top, almost like a bowl. One had to cradle it. I lowered my face over the tea, inhaled the steam curling over it. My nose filled with the scent of mint, steeped with some other herb, slightly bitter, more so astringent, unfamiliar. But, again, blessed be those who share their comforts with strangers.

"Do you like to read, Ondrey?" I asked. "My husband doesn't go a day without leafing a spiritual book to give him solace." Involuntarily, I heaved a sigh. Hopefully, Kozima was warm and cozy right now in Palmyr. So far away from me.

He saluted me with his own cup. The anxiety that made me take pity on him when Phedoxia asked nearly the same question was not there. Instead, his eyes twinkled under his brow—the sable's brow they called it here.

"A peculiar choice to soothe the sorrows." In the firelight, there was even more blue in his eyes. Their gaze lingered on my lips. "Or to even have sorrows when married to a woman like you. But who am I to judge?"

I took a sip out of my cup and winced. Mint has never been my favorite flavor, but I could have endured mint. It was the additional bitter note that promised to grow more disgusting with every swallow. Pity this land for it produces firs and pines instead of our beautiful lemon trees. I wiggled my toes, letting the soft pelt under my soles tickle me. Yes, every place had its gifts. The trick was to find and appreciate them.

"You didn't answer my question, Ondrey," I said.

He rubbed his neck with a large hand. He had callouses. His nails were bitten off to the meat to stop them from getting in the way of his daily toils. Those weren't the hands of a virtuous husband, but I was ready to bet they were warm. More gifts of this unforgiving land...

"I've tried devotional texts, Your Grandissima, but three verses in—and I'm fast asleep. All those strange ancient words... There always seems to be more than they need to say what they want to say."

I felt my eyes crinkle at the corners. "And what's that, Ondrey?"

"The Divines are good. Obey the Princesses and your wives. Beget and raise the Divine-loving children." He scratched his beard, then the neck and throat under the chin, also overgrown. "Am I forgetting anything?"

I fished the book that I had brought along out of the pocket of my woolen mantle. It lived on the bottom of my chest for far too long. It was time for its pages to see the light again.

"Try this book instead. It kept me awake until the wee hours when I was little."

Yes, his hands were warm, almost hot, when he took the book from me. "Accounts of Conquests and Defense for the Throne of Splendor."

Curiosity and resentment passed over his face. Curiosity—in his mouth sucking a tiny breath of air in. Resentment—in the way his lovely brows furrowed.

Between us, the fire licked the coals in a sensual fashion. Smoke rose sinuously to the opening in the roof by the central pole holding up the tent. Tonight, we had time for a lazy conversation. We had time to sit in silence too, waiting on a conversation to happen.

I didn't hurry either. Both of us were called upon to speak up, to decide right here, right now, immediately often enough. We earned this break.

"The triumphs of the long-dead women," he concluded after some consideration. The leather-bound covers remained sealed with a small bronze lock. Yet, he didn't let go of the book.

If his heart was as similar to mine as I suspected, he wouldn't. He would bite his lips and open it in solitude, muttering how stupid it was, shifting his weight from one foot to another, checking over his shoulder to make sure he wasn't caught. Well, maybe he wouldn't act quite like me when I first found this book on a dusty shelf. He wasn't an orphan in the off-limits section of the library after curfew. He was refreshingly set in life for a bachelor.

The memory-smile touched my lips again, when I thought of my discovery of the book.

He noticed and took notice. And another moment passed filled only by the crackling of the fire and the smell of smoke and mint. All the words seemed to hide in the locked book.

"I didn't create the Knowable World, Ondrey," I said. "But I live in it. And when it does not offer me something I want, I claim the next best thing."

He turned the knob on the side of the book, releasing the lock. A dozen pages spilled out of the binding, startling him. He put the book on the pelt, gently, and knelt to gather them. "A much loved tome."

"My fault. It came into my possession in a virginal shape. I could barely crack it open and separate the pages at first. For years and years, the poor thing stood squeezed in the back of a far shelf in the forgotten corner of Gala's Temple."

"You're much like your husband then, a bookworm? An explorer of libraries? A hunter of scrolls?"

I shrugged, staring at a single mint leaves floating in my mug. It soaked in so much moisture that it unrolled to its full length. As if it were summer, and it grew on its stem....

"Kozima and I grew up together, but we had read different books as children. We still do."

"It must be hard."

"Some days are harder than others."

The gray-blue eyes darted from the pages the big hand was turning—not awkwardly.

"You write in your books?"

I pointed at the icepard's fur. It was a beast as vicious as they came, yet soft to touch. "You sleep on the skins of the beats you've killed. That's my book. I do what I wish."

"It's not the ownership I question, Your Grandissima, though you've mentioned that the book belonged to the Temple's library..."

"They didn't need it for a hundred years. They wouldn't miss it for a hundred more."

He threw his head back and laughed heartily. "Fair enough! But look. You wrote here that an illustrious Commander was all wrong a thousand years ago. Then you added what you would have done instead."

"I was young."

"But she won that battle!"

"And I was young."

"And that's why you scratched through it later and added, 'the old shrew was right'?"

I repeated, "I was young."

Older and wiser, I still did it. Books are the way to have an argument with the daughters of our daughters and so on. Otherwise, what's the point of writing it down? Tell what you want to say to a woman's face if they're still alive. Or kill them. Whatever is more convincing and at hand.

Ondrey no longer looked down at the open page, only at me. The smile touched his face along with the flickering firelight. Silence grew sweeter, while I searched for a way to disarm the tension without losing it for good.

"The vow you had sworn," I asked softly, "life devoid of joy, is there an end to this penance?"

"I hope so."

"Getting tired and tempted?"

He let the smile bloom to its fullest extent. His gaze lingered at my lips again. "Some days are harder than others."

I peered inside my cup. "Why I've asked... Ondrey, is honey one of the prohibited pleasures for you? Or is it like the furs, a gray area justified by necessity?"

He jumped up to his feet, hunching at the last moment to not tear a hole through the tent's top. "I should have guessed you had a sweet tooth! Let me get you some."

I wasn't destined to get a taste of his honey.

There was a drumming of footfalls outside, and Phedoxia burst into the tent. Her eyes popped out of their sockets, whites showing, like on a horse in a burning stable. The sable hat went missing, letting the flyaway hair haunt her spotted skull in a wobbly nimbus.

In one hand, she held a small lantern with a tendril of violet smoke spiraling over its top. The other hand pointed a shaking yet damning finger at the hunched, wide-eyed Ondrey.

"This... this son of a Bhuta!" she screeched, then took a whistling breath in and out. "He had betrayed you, Your Grandissima. He had betrayed us all."