It was easy to see that she returned his affections and did not know what to make of any of it. Her fingers drifted from his lips reluctantly, lingering on his chin briefly before coming to rest upon his chest. "If the journey to Freehold is needful... I would very much like it if you would come with me."

"I will stay at a safe distance, if we go," Tob said, his mouth still managing to consider tactical conditions while his heart and mind cast about for some familiar territory like pilgrims lost in fog. This was not a development that he had expected. Tentatively, gently, he brushed his hand down the hair on the back of Yasminna's head. He patted it gently on her shoulder-blade the way men do when they have no idea what else to do when confronted with a woman's sudden display of unexpected emotion. He wanted desperately to do something tender, but he was a man congenitally short on tenderness.

"Thank you," she murmured, evidently satisfied by his response. In truth, that one statement, placed in proper context, now parsed correctly for Yasminna, or at least, in a way she could accept. It didn't mean You're a woman and therefore incapable, but rather I've got your back. In her heart of hearts, she knew there was no one else she'd rather have there. The rest of this -- and Ysyleth knew, there was more of it than Tob could likely imagine -- would have to be taken a step at a time.

"I have a few duties to see to, this evening," Yasminna went on, in the tender voice she normally reserved for Ellyn and Murrad. "I am meeting Atreus after dinner to glean from him what can be known of Freehold and discuss a few matters of state on my sister's behalf. And then I must write her a letter -- the pathmages have provided me with a secure method of delivery and I intend to take full advantage of it to inform her of all that has transpired. After that..."

Her fingers drifted up again, this time touching his cheek softly, no more. "I would like it if you would walk the grounds a bit with me again, before we retire to our rest."

"If the Gods grant us the time, that will be a good way to spend it," Tob replied steadily, his tone softening to match her own, looking down at the woman who could perplex him more than anything else ever could. She was a direct challenge to all of his notions, especially the more pessimistic ones. "We may be in Freehold." Tob had returned his arms to his sides, where they remained somewhat stiffly. He did not know what to do with them, and what he wanted to do with them he knew would have to wait, if the right time ever came at all.

She smiled a little, and stepped back, Her sisters used to tell her (well, scream at her, really) that she was an `impossible brat' and assure her that she deserved every impossible thing that would ever happen to her. And yet not a one of them would understand this, or accept it, she thought wryly. Not even Azhra. It is too impossible. Even for me.

"We may, at that. From a professional standpoint, I would prefer to arrive after nightfall, via the same means Atreus used to leave, whatever they were. It will make some things easier, and certainly confound the enemy's forces." The smile turned into a grin. "I am, however, loathe to leave Murrad behind unless I must."

Now that she had stepped back, Tob felt like he could breathe a little easier. The tension he felt at her touch almost actually made him shake. It was an unsettling sensation, like being on the verge of losing control and wanting more of the same feeling. There was much ahead of them, and it was important enough that control over his own faculties was an essential. What Tob lacked in intellect, he more than made up for in discipline. He let out a small breath of relief, and relaxed his body into a more casual stance. The breath he took in smelled again of grass and trees and dark northern earth on a summer day, and not so encompassingly, mesmerizingly of Yasminna.

"No plan ever survives contact with the enemy," Tob recited. "We aren't planning on trouble, but if it should find us we may need to escape by means that would leave Murrad and Omkiri as food for hounds. I would leave them here, depending on how Atreus's travel works. If we need horses while in Freehold, the Gods may help us improvise." This last, tenuous justification for horse-theft was sound tactical theory, but Tob did not know if he had it in him to steal another man's horse to save his own skin. To save Yasminna's skin, he would eat another man's horse. "In our favor, you and I have spent so much time working together in the dark, Freehold may have its hands full with us."

Yasminna had never seen irrational exuberance or unwarranted boasting from Tob. As far as she could tell, this rosy assessment was his unvarnished opinion. As ever, he had reservations, but the city of Freehold would have to be radically worse than he had expected for it to be too much work for one night.

And though the impossible brat in her wanted to make commentary about `working together in the dark', in the interests of maintaining clear communications, she forbore. This time.

"It shall indeed. Good point about the horses. They are better off here, for now." She gestured him to walk with her toward the main tower, not offering to touch him again, but not resuming her role as Yahim, either.

"Any human settlement is just another kind of wilderness, dangerous to those who do not understand its rules. We will be playing by those rules tonight, and carefully breaking a few, if I do not miss my guess. The enemy has operatives in Freehold, they may well be looking for us by now, after our performance in Per. I intend to find out who they are," she concluded, glancing up at Tob to gauge his reaction. "And decide what is to be done with them, once I -- we -- know."

Tob's face was creased with regret, but tempered with determination. "If they sow darkness, they'll reap it, too." It shocked him that men could work so murderously against other men, even against the race of man entirely. He had seen it first hand in the wars, but still it shocked him that they could poison the well of their own souls so carelessly.

Yasminna's eyes were not quite as keen as her ears, but they'd been trained to notice much. And much is easier to notice without blinders on, she admitted to herself privately. That the man beside her whose blade dealt death so easily to dolfanc could still retain any amount of naivete about his fellow man stirred something in the depths of her heart -- something she irrationally wanted to protect.

"The city is a wilderness of its own, you say. I'm used to soft ground and soft shadows, easy hiding, easy climbing, easy tracking. The forest will give everything to them that love her." He walked alongside Yasminna comfortably, feeling lighter than he had in some time. "What are these rules of the city? What must I do to let you work, and keep an eye out for you at the same time? We should have practiced this before now."

She laughed softly, shaking her head. "Perhaps, but the need has been for wilderness skills, not urban skills. So now we will do what we can, and work with what we have." Her eyes cast back to the green grass under their boots, not really seeing it. Instead, her mind was mulling over what she knew of Tob's skills, personality, wits (Luckbringer, be gracious if you favor me at all...), and background.

"In all honesty, Tob, I do believe you would serve best as distraction. I believe you are familiar with it as a military tactic?"

"The General and the Jester," Tob replied, referring to an allegorical tale told in military schools about the very subject. "I spent all my time in the wars outnumbered, it was my trade. Without distractions my skin would have been a dolfanc banner years ago."

Yasminna nodded in acknowledgment, having gotten him to talk a bit about his time in the High King's service during their watches together. Tob sounded a little proud of this fact, and he was. He had never been regarded as especially smart, and knowing ways to outwit an opponent made him feel a bit more competent, a bit more like a man and a bit less like a beast of burden. "What sort of distraction do you have in mind? I'm a large target, easy to see, but less likely because of it."

"Not a military distraction, to be sure," she responded, smiling up at him. "The idea in this kind of operation is not to have to fight. Nothing more than a thrown punch or two, at most. Generally speaking, your part would be to capture the eyes of our opponents while I slip away to do what must be done, then out again before the situation escalates."

"I can talk may way into a fight with a third party if the field is public, like a tavern or some such," Tob said. His mouth was perfect for starting fights when he wasn't trying: with a little effort he could start a war. "If the field is more private, what should I do? Putting holes in people is easy enough, but it seems you have a different idea."

She chuckled again. "Putting holes in people is generally frowned on in cities, officially speaking. If it is a woman, you might try groping her. Or seducing her. Or you might pretend to be staggeringly drunk to draw attention off me. I never know what will happen, exactly. That is why I do not make plans."

They were approaching the tower; Yasminna touched his hand and turned slightly to signal a change in direction, pleased that he followed so easily. "Dinner is not for some time yet. I had thought to partake of another bath beforehand, but I believe I would rather spend the time talking with you." She chuckled briefly. "Were we in Sundarya I would simply invite you to join me there, but I have learned that bathing is not necessarily a thing shared between the sexes, for northerners."

"I, uh, it, well," Tob stammered. Clearly he had some thoughts about the idea, but the articulation of them was, as ever, a challenge. "If I'd known that I would have gone south years ago."

Yasminna laughed at that, a full-throated, glorious sound. Tob rolled his eyes in chagrin at his own oafishness. It was as if his own tongue truly hated him. He raised a finger to keep the floor of conversation, and took a step back to brace himself and collect his words. "I'd love to, and I wouldn't dare." he listened to what he'd just said, and determined that it wasn't far off from right, so he let it go.

"We understand each other," she agreed, still chortling, "as remarkable as that seems. Given our history, it is best to proceed with caution." Another subtle gesture, and they resumed their path around the tower and toward the formal gardens. Yasminna headed in that direction -- they reminded her of her sister's palace in Kughdad, and even from their remove the scent of the roses on the breeze was glorious.

"You say true. If you think I'd keep you caged now..." Tob let the conclusions remain unsaid, mostly because he was short on decent words. He was as aware of his desires and expectations as he was aware of the fact that they might be in opposition to the requirements of the current conflict. As always, what Tob wanted came after what the battle needed.

As it turned out, his circumspection was well-placed -- her hackles had come up a bit at his use of the word `caged', though for her own reasons, she chose to let it pass. "We were discussing distractions -- so naturally, I offered one," Yasminna added with a flickering smile. "What kinds of distractions did you use in your work as a Justifier?"

"The battlefield is a fearsome place," Tob said, not as lightly as he'd intended. "Men and dolfanc alike are easily distracted unless they have been well trained to keep focused. A burning haycart can flank an entire dolfanc war party, sending a hundred goblins off to do combat with a frightened pony. It buys time the way no amount of gold can. I might have distracted those slavers if Ellynn could be taught to cry on command. Which might have gotten her eaten by an ogre, so I guess it's best for her that she can't. Can a spy create a distraction alone?"

"Of course. In much the same manner as you just described, given time to prepare," Yasminna agreed, bending over to inhale deeply of a ruby-red rose. "A smoking fire, clattering pots and pans, breaking glass. Depending on my opposition, a pin dropping in an otherwise silent room can be sufficient. For animals, I've used raw meat, or the preserved estrus of a female in heat..."

She glanced at him and flushed a little, but did not otherwise lose her stride. "I try to tailor my distractions to the circumstance, when I can. When I'm working against other spies, distraction can achieve the level of art."

"Weak hunters use a doe's piss to attract a buck," Tob said. "Dinner bought with lies never fills a belly, and wearing a doe's piss is just ... well it's disgusting, isn't it?" He smiled at Yasminna, noting her momentary flush of embarrassment at the mention of using borrowed sex to distract a male of another species. Courtship among animals was an area where he was more comfortable than he was with human affairs, and her unease seemed uncharacteristically girlish to him. It left him feeling more manly by contrast, and whether it was a glimpse of the woman hiding in the spy's disguise or just an artifact of their mutual attraction, he enjoyed the sight very much.

"But using something like it to distract a guard dog or a scent hound makes good sense," Tob added. He didn't want Yasminna to think he thought the tricks of her trade were disgusting. "It might stop a stallion in mid run as well, and make your target hold still for a crucial second. Hell, it might work with an ogre, but I'd hate to get it!"

Yasminna stared at him for a long, awful moment, unable to stop the flow of truly repulsive mental imagery his jest had evoked. Many replies flitted through her mind and remained unspoken out of concern they might infuriate him beyond all reason. While infuriating him had proven entertaining in the past, it wasn't high on her list of things to achieve for that day.

Depending on what he meant by 'caged' though, it might become so again in future.

"You do realize that is likely the most repulsive thing anyone has ever said to me," she remarked, smile flickering at the corners of her mouth. "I mean, ever. Really."

Tob attempted to smile gamely, but as he looked around him, he saw that he was in a well tended rose garden on a beautiful, warm, blue-sky day, in the company of a gorgeous, exotic princess who was interested in his company. He was talking about ogre menses.

"I'll say something worse eventually." Tob sighed. "I have some talents, I swear, just not for speaking. I wish I could catch you with words prettier than you are, like Giacomo. I just don't know any."

He gestured to the garden and the sky, and attempted to turn the topic away from his tongue. "Nice day we've been given."

She was still smiling, though she didn't know why, really. It hadn't felt this good to smile in a very long time. "Yes, it is."

Just down the path, a vining rose tumbled over an arbor; just beyond was a rock formation with a fountain and tiny waterfall. The small pink blossoms were nearly bursting with fragrance in the last of the far northern summer. The slender Sundar headed for it, fairly certain Tob would follow -- these were some of the most pleasant minutes they'd ever spent together and neither of them were wise enough to stop while they were ahead. She gathered two handsful of blossoms to inhale again, then knelt to watch the tiny golden fish darting about in the fountain until she heard him approach.

"It takes more than pretty words to catch me anyway," Yasminna murmured, trailing her fingertips in the water thoughtfully. "I grew up in an imperial court full of pretty words and those who knew how to use them to get what they wanted. I would not claim to be fully immune to them, necessarily," she went on, watching the curious fish attempt to nibble at her fingertips, "but a man has to use up a lot of them to convince me of anything, to be sure."

"Damn, I don't think I know more than four," Tob joked. He could not remember the last time he had joked so casually. He wasn't putting on a brave face for a world that thought him too dour, wasn't trying to boost anyone's morale, wasn't trying to coax an unwilling farmer to defend his own land. He was just feeling more or less comfortable, which he almost never was in anyone's company, especially not a woman's company, and frequently most especially not Yasminna's company. They had once had a few moments of emotional openness in the wee small hours of the morning, but these had as much to do with exhaustion and necessity as a growing sense of familiarity between them.

Tob stood, his shadow on the small fish pond showing himself as an undefined blackness with a bright green halo. His attention was, however, focused on Yasminna. He looked down at her lithe form, almost elfin in shape. Dressed as a slight man but moving and acting as a woman of considerable personal resources, she looked to Tob like something that fit almost nowhere, a creature both wild and magical, fit to rule the faerie kingdoms or to simply vanish at dawn, or keep him captive for in the woods for seven years of lost paradise. The way her fingers caressed the surface of the pond and the way she squinted up at him, her eyes unchallenged by the soft northern sun, captivated him entirely.

The garden around him buzzed with insects. Flowers waived softly in the breeze on their stalks, playing hard to get with dancing, eager butterflies. Around them, small songbirds dueled for the attention of their own ladies fare, singing louder and more eloquently than their neighbors. The gentle breeze carried smells of gardens, flowers, distant smoke from the tower, and the gentle leafy rot of the forest floor.

Farther off, a lark sang out a territorial greeting, a song of complicated beauty to human ears, but not so beautiful as his mating song. Tob pursed his lips and whistled out the return, calling the bird to come and see him. Larks were social creatures, and found that the safety numbers provide was company well kept as long as it wasn't courting season. The bird called back, and Tob whistled again, pausing afterwards to shrug innocently at Yasminna, a shrug that insisted he wasn't showing off, even if he was in part. Tob's affinity for birds had been lifelong, and he found it easier to talk to them than any furred creature of the woods, or people some days.

She laughed softly and stood, eyes scanning the foliage around them for the little lark. "You were one of the Justifers," she said, standing beside him with easy confidence, actually enjoying the feeling of his physical nearness. Tob was a tall, solid man. There was something comforting -- and more than comforting -- in that. "If you have an objective and one tactic obviously is not working, what do you do?"

"Shhh," Tob said gently, putting his hand up automatically to signal silence as all Justifiers learned to do. He whistled more greetings to the lark, who was coming slowly closer. The bird folk spoke quickly but approached slowly. "Hatchet your coracle," Tob said to Yasminna, in a stage whisper.

Tob slowly reached into the pouch at his waist and drew out a small bunch of poke-berries he had found in his morning peregrinations through the woods close to the tower. He had originally intended to use them as fletch dye, but this purpose seemed a better one at the moment. He held them in the palm of his hand, outstretched with fingers splayed and aimed away from Yasminna, and whistled again for the lark.

Since she had no idea what a coracle was or under what circumstances it would need anything from a hatchet, Yasminna simply remained quiet, watchful, dimming her presence down as far as she could so the bird wouldn't be frightened of her. It was a trick one of the older spies had taught her, and if she was good enough, he'd said, one day she'd be able to hide in plain sight.

She didn't think she was that good at it yet, but it gave her something to do while she waited for Tob to explain.

Tob said nothing, but stood as still as a tree himself, and occasionally uttered a chirp or tiny whistle of encouragement. After a moment it became apparent that Tob could stand like that, patiently waiting, until moonrise. Thankfully, they did not have to wait that long before a lark, brown with tiny black and white stripes, ascended from beneath the rose arbor and landed somewhat awkwardly on Tob's outstretched index finger. The bird took a dark purple berry daintily in his beak and swallowed it down with a thrusting motion with his tiny neck. He chirped at Tob; Tob chirped back, and chuckled.

"He says you're brown enough for me, but too small," Tob whispered to Yasminna, moving his head ever so slowly to face her halfway. He was smiling like a child at the circus.

She'd never seen him like this before, but then she doubted anyone but Janus had ever seen him like this. How could a man so savage in battle, so dour and graceless in personal matters, be so tender and child-like with one small, helpless bird? It made her heart twist and ache in new ways, ways that felt good in spite of the pain, ways that made her wish to take him in her arms and give him more reasons to smile like that, more often.

His beauty is on the inside, as fierce and gentle as the dawn of a new day, Yasminna mused, smiling back at him tenderly. "Tell him I may be small, but I know how to defend a nest," she whispered, taking the opportunity to rest one hand on the arm that wasn't employed holding one very small bird.

Tob raised an eyebrow in brief thought, and whistled at the lark. It was a staggeringly fast series of trills, and it did not seem possible that a human mouth could make such sounds. Tob had never imagined Yasminna with any sort of "nest," or even an impulse to have one. There was an appealing novelty to the idea, and Tob's mind wandered into a brief idyll, before returning to the present, already pleasant enough for one man.

"Our friend here wants a great big fat wife. He can't see how you could hold enough eggs for me," as the words came out (and Yasminna stifled laughter) Tob heard them, and he blushed at once. It was an odd sight on a man practically carved from oak. He whistled back at the bird, who whistled back, and suddenly they seemed to argue for a moment before the lark set his attention back on the palm full of berries in front of him.

"Stubborn animals," Tob muttered quietly to Yasminna. "Birds are very fixed in their opinions. Loyal friends, but still a bit fickle."

"Are they?" She wanted to reach out and touch the bird, run sensitive fingers over its feathers, feel its tiny racing heartbeat, but she knew that wouldn't be wise. Tob wouldn't thank her for chasing off his little friend. "I suppose a big fat wife makes sense if one is a songbird and has no other tasks to perform than whistling up the sun each morning," she added, remembering the fable from her childhood. "It is the only life he knows and understands. I could envy him that, sometimes."

"For him, we travel to Freehold, to Guardian Isle, to fight at the gates of death itself," Tob said. "For him and whatever fat little wife he can find to fill his nest with eggs." Tob's momentary lightness of spirit was somewhat diminished by this serious turn. He whistled a few trills to the lark, who chirped back and flew off to the spot in the woods where Tob had run across the berries that morning.

"They are far too beautiful to let those bastard dolfanc take the world from them," Tob said, looking at the spot in the air that had held a lark a second earlier. Then his eyes wandered frankly up Yasminna and back down again, before he caught himself and kept his eyes momentarily groundward. His expression was appraising, appreciative, and apprehensive all at once. "We should head in," he said, pointing to the crown of Yasminna's shadow. "Soon we shall sup and plan our incursion."

She nodded, sad to see this interlude end but her instincts screaming at her to conclude it before it all went to hell again. "I would like a few moments to freshen up before we sit down to dine with our friends and plan what is to come." Her hand reluctantly relinquished its place on his upper arm, but then slid into his (much larger) hand rather naturally, the shock of skin-contact tingling pleasantly up her arm. "I have no feminine apparel to wear other than the regalia of state the Conclave provided me, but perhaps I can find something less masculine to wear at dinner."

"Yes. We're out of the woods now, and appearances are more important," Tob said, pondering his limited wardrobe choices. "Perhaps the spirit bound to my room can help with that. I hope he doesn't dress me as a Sundaryan princess too."

For Tob this passed for humor and he permitted himself a smile as he
walked on, hand in hand with a princess, chest puffed out in a manner even a lark would have found remarkable. Aside from the gentle breeze and the crackle of their boots on pea gravel, the world was a quiet chorus of humming bees and singing birds, and the distant clank of a smithy. If the world were not in peril, the moment would have been unblemished perfection.

If the world were not in peril, the moment would never have happened.