The Harvest Celebration of Vassermark might seem like an odd holiday for a maritime civilization to so prize, but they face the same challenges that any pocket of humanity has faced. Indeed, until recently the icing of the sea was akin to walling them into their cities, a siege by nature upon life itself. While much of their diet was harvested from the sea, taken as the blessings of their goddess, that changes when it is too dangerous for immature fishermen to take to the waves. They too must rely on their stores of food and those primarily come from the earth.

This makes the harvest festival a frenzy of farmers. They bring their crops in by the wagonful, piled to the point of bursting with cereals and gourds, with bunds of dried herbs the size of haystacks. They enter into an economic orgy with the brewers and bakers. They render down the least edible foodstuffs and nearly shove it into the throats of their livestocks. The streets, for a time, flow with the perfumes of cooking and preserving as the season’s first beer and wine kegs are tapped.

This of course is soon to end. It only takes a week for the canals and gutters to be clogged with waste both from kitchens and from bodies as the serfs flock into the city for the holiday. They celebrate until their filth spews from their body and the guards have to throw them into stinking heaps where the good people of the city don’t have to set eyes upon them. Nothing can be done for the smell. That is what attracts the vermin.

It is for this reason that I think of the Harvest Festival not as a celebration of food or survival, or some co-opted religious ceremony. It is a euphoria of cats. The rat hunters are brought into the city in cages and unleashed. The furry critters spread out, claiming households for their own and devouring mice and birds alike. The people think little of how important to their health this is, that the spread of plague be kept in check by their feline protectors. They only understand that to be visited by a cat during the Harvest Festival is a sign of good luck.

So, when dozens of people had gathered about the grounds and walls of the castle training grounds, it was fair to say that the most prestigious viewer was the ivory-furred cat sitting upon the princesses lap. It was a gift to her from the angel, Acheliah, and just about the only creature that wasn’t watching the repeated melees that had drawn so much attention.(1)

Lucius and Prince Gabriel had begun a queer sort of sparring, each taking advantage of their stigmata while the feast was cooked. When minds should have been enraptured with smoking meats and sneaking wine, there was instead a most unnatural melee keeping the attention of the young nobles.

Each fought with no armor, not even shirts, which undoubtedly brought less than moral intentions up in the minds of the myriad women watching. To wear anything upon their chests would have been a waste however, because they fought with true steel and the drew real blood. Or rather, Lucius bled real blood. Prince Gabriel’s doppelganger shattered whenever his flesh was parted, but he had stripped down perhaps out of a sort of chivalry, or perhaps to not be outdone for the attention of the women.

Princess Kassandra watched with one hand stroking her feline, her head askew and frowning. “This doesn’t seem fair, but I can’t tell who it favors.”

Aisha reclined beside her, struggling to find a comfortable way to sit despite her belly. Her distress was quite offset by the platter of chocolate coated fruits shared between them, even if Lupa kept sneaking a hand in to filch the best pieces. “The one it favors is over there. Next to Friedrich who has made himself into a betting bookie apparently. That northman is guessing right on nearly every bout between them.” Leomund Tolzi had a better eye than any present, and was putting it to good use.

“And good for him,” Lupa said, leaning on the back of Aisha’s chair. “I’ll have to tell him that he’s taking me out to dinner after this whole festival mess.”

Aisha laughed. “Lu would never take you as a mistress if you did that.”

“Does he…” Kassie trailed off as her cat bristled. Then there was a roar as swords caught one another. Lucius pivoted, grabbing the tip of his blade in one hand and swinging the pommel around to break the face of the fake Gabriel. The princess whispered beneath the crowd, covering her mouth with a paper fan imported from Aillesterra. “Take many mistresses?”

“No,” Lupa said. “I swear, he acts like a grandfather, but that’s what makes me want him.”

Lupa was positioned behind the two women because she was officially Aisha’s bodyguard. That meant she stood beside Kassie’s trollkin bodyguard. The giant woman’s patience reached its end as Lupa stood there, bent over and swaying her hips without paying any attention to the crowds. The trollkin grabbed the wastelander by the neck and pulled her back into position. “You are here to protect. Be a mistress of your own blade, not of a man’s lance.”

Aisha laughed. “With you here, I’m sure we’re quite alright.”

The trollkin grunted and let go of Lupa, who darted around the shadowed viewing box to get out of her grasp. “The Lynnfield girl was better.”

“Not very womanly though,” Kassie noted as Sera darted out of the sidelines to speak with Lucius. If Leomund had not been so busy making money, he would have raised a fuss that she was consulting with his student, but if he had said a single word to the boy, he would have been blacklisted from any gambling for the rest of the holiday.

“Don’t let Sammy hear that. He’s quite defensive of her,” Aisha said.

“The doctor lad?” Kassie asked. “Did he really amputate Lucius’ foot?”

“Everything below the knee,” Aisha said, and everyone looked back to the fight, where my pupil was expertly dancing upon two healthy legs. “We never did find the poisoner.”

The preparations to leave Puerto Vida and march north were allowed seven days after the order came from Lord Raymi. This was largely spent organizing the troops and combining them with auxiliary forces lent by the southern lord. They provided indispensable, because he provided Lucius with a core of officers that could all read and writing Vassish, as well as supplementary scribes. This revolutionized his ability to manage supplies, as well as have the Giordanan recruits sign official enlistment contracts. These papers were made in triplicate, notarized by the local temple to Shepherd. Most of the soldiers couldn’t read Vassish, even if they had a passing fluency when spoken, so the priestesses gave the men confidence that the terms and pay were translated accurately. After thumbprints were used for signatures–using ink, as a blood print would have caused a riot–one copy was given to the soldier, one to the temple, and one sent back to Rackvidd.

This made Lucius the commander of a foreign legion, rather than the leader of a rabble. Very important for maintaining one’s noble status.

Necessarily, however, the process was tedious and more than one man had to be caught in the middle of the night by the Blanks for desertion after initial pay. The deserters were crucified, and the silver they had absconded with given to the wastelanders publicly.

While there was much occurring in this time that could only interest a military scholar, as well as another matter I shall return to, it provided time for certain countermeasures to be attempted against my pupil. This was entirely expected. One does not point a knife at a lion and expect it to cow away like a beaten dog. One expects it to swipe back, for it is a lion and lions do not understand when they have been bested by wisdom.

One of the many provisions given to Lucius for his campaign to the north, officially to bring peace to the allied city of Jeameaux, was a herd of one hundred horses in addition to necessary pack animals. This was his first proper cavalry, and he had to refamiliarize himself with the art of riding. All this was entirely mundane and would barely have been worth mentioning except to explain that a local cobbler had been called upon to fashion the boy a proper pair of riding boots(2).

It was the three days prior to his departure when, in the morning, he quietly slipped his boots on. The sun had only barely risen and Aisha still slumbered in the bed behind him. He moved with the grace of an upperstory burglar until his bare toe pushed against something hard and sharp within the boot. Then the stinger bit into the flesh of his largest knuckle.

His howl woke the entire villa. Guards scrambled. Maids fainted. Aisha fell out of the bed and it was Lupa her threw open the door. She found Lucius sat on the ground, face boiling red as he gritted his teeth against the pain. He only screamed the one time, and bottled everything else up so as to keep his body under control.

“What happened?” Lupa asked, scanning the room but finding no intruders. The windows had but a crack open to circulate air that barely even stirred the curtains.

“Is someone dead?” Aisha asked.

Lucius could provide no answer. All of his attention was focused on the trembling in his hands as venom ate through his leg. Carefully, he turned over the boot and out dropped a scorpion no larger than his thumb. It tried to dart away, but one of its legs had been crushed by his foot, and it could only hobble. Lucius snagged it by the tail, pinching hard enough that he broke the shell. He held it up to Lupa.

Her face drained of color. “Redhead, get the doctor,” she ordered as she dropped to her knees beside Lucius. She pulled out her dagger(3) and motioned for Lucius to set the creature down. The moment it was against the tiles, she pierced it through the back then set the blade aside.

“What has happened?” Aisha demanded as she gathered her night gown around herself and ran over.

Lupa’s head flashed up at her, snarling. “Get the doctor!” she roared.

Aisha didn’t press the issue and ran past the two of them, where guards were already swarming to the hall. Sammy and Sera had been given a guest room in the villa, but there wasn’t even time for that short run.

Lupa had to apply what knowledge she had of treatment. She stripped off her belt and cinched it around Lucius’ leg. Then she fetched his own dagger from his dressing table and turned it toward the wound. Already the venom had necrotized his toe. Swelling made the digit double in size, turning purple with every passing moment. “You might want to bite onto something.”

“It’s just pain,” he said, but when the steel cut into what had been his toe, he howled. The agony sped Sammy’s arrival a moment, while Lupa treated the wound like she was digging to find a prize.

The consolation, “It’ll grow back,” did little to assuage Lucius as she bled him like an animal for slaughter out through his toe. Despite her attempts to contain and bleed it, no matter how much venom she spilled upon the tiles she could still see tendrils of black necrosis creeping up his calf.

“Oh, joy,” Sammy said as he dumped his medical bag beside the two of them. “It’s been months since I’ve done one of these.”

Lucius asked, “One what?” before the bone saw came out. A bottle of purified spirits came out of the bag as well, strong enough to disinfect, as well as to dull Lucius’ mind. The ensuing screaming gave no less than a dozen servants nightmares for the next week, particularly those poor maids that had to mop up the blood of a field amputation.

Half a day later, Lucius was still coming to his senses while Leomund tracked down the would-be assassin. Here, I shall insert my first of many historical addendums. While the people of the time accepted that it was a fluke accident that a wild, venomous scorpion made it into the White Halls Villa, the fact was that the scorpion was indigenous to Aillesterra. Nothing in Giordana was venomous enough to threaten Lucius, given his stigmata [Undying]. The beast had to be brought in and put there.

We had a number of potential suspects, and after confirming by prying apart their memories–the second person we apprehended was confirmed to be the culprit–we cut off their head. There was quite a stir in the temple of Helios, but I felt it important to let the angel know that we knew who had tried to kill Lucius.

The truly unfortunate matter was that the assassin was a handmaiden of the other problem I alluded to earlier. Our unwanted guest arrived to check on Lucius’ recovery and tutted her tongue. She shook her head. And she asked, “How will we ever explain to Mother how you lost a leg?”

Aria vi Solhart, heir of the Solhart family and the younger sister of the true Lucius von Solhart, had slipped free of the Raymis and forced herself into my pupil’s company.

The cat was in fact enchanted with certain magics of remote viewing. I had the thing killed as soon as it was in my posession. At this time, the primary purpose of the boot was to interface with the stirrup. There is a new fashion spreading around the countrysides now that has the leg of the boot flare out widely, for any of a variety of dubious reasons, but despite the alleged age of this new design, Lucius wore a laced boot. She had a gorgeous dagger meant as an oath blade and given to her by an unsuccessful suitor. She only learned the intended importance of the gift much later.