Westrons Pt. 21

When I arrived with my bodyguards, I found the Command tent empty, except for the Penchen liaison, Isaal.

- “Tallia and Senau are with General Leydz.” he said. It said. Isaal.

Damn. A week away, and I was back to finding it odd, speaking with a Penchen. And I liked Isaal. But it was still disconcerting, to speak to a person without gender.

Know it or not - believe it or not - you behave differently with males and females. It’s problematic, when you can’t tell their gender: you start searching for clues, tiny features or micro-expressions which might help identify their sex.

Then you get self-conscious, and end up feeling awkward.

I liked Isaal, because among other qualities, he/it tried to put me at ease. He also got along with my bodyguards - no mean feat, when they were tired and dirty from travel.

- “I need a bath.” said Nasta.

- “Yes, you do.” said Koroba.

- “You do, too.” said Nasta.

- “Not denying it.”

- “Go, then.” I said.

I started going through the correspondence that had arrived while I was away. It was Tallia’s concern, really, but I liked to know what was going on. My heart wasn’t really in it, though - I was still trying to grasp the idea of 80,000 Crolians coming our way in the spring.

- “You seem to have the weight of the world on your shoulders.” said Isaal.

I nodded. “Feels that way, sometimes.”

- “There’s a Penchen saying.” he said - in Penchen. “Tell a friend. When two share the load, the weight is easier to bear.” And then he tilted his head.

- “We have a similar saying - in Pylos. Thank you for offering.” I was pleased, really, that Isaal would use that expression. I thought of him as a friend, already. It was nice to think that he felt the same way.

- “You haven’t said what troubles you.”

- “Ah ... state secrets, for the most part. Things I can’t change ...” I said. “You know - you sound a bit different, too. Weight of the world? Or are you a little under the weather?”

I should have known better than to use an idiomatic expression in another language. Isaal had no idea what I was trying to say.

- “Under weather? You mean ... rain?”

- “No - I was asking if you were feeling a bit ill.”

- “Ah? No. I’m not ill.”

- “Tired? Perhaps you should go and lie down.”

- “I’m fine.” said Isaal. “But you must be exhausted. I’ll let you rest. See you tomorrow.”

Almost every conversation I had with a Penchen was unusual. But that little exchange with Isaal was odd, too.

***

Tallia was happy to have me back, in a personal as well as in a professional capacity.

- “I missed you.” she said, with her head resting on my chest.

I brought her up to date with the news from the capital, and with reports about her family, our son and her niece.

Tallia had been fiercely insistent that she wanted a child with me; only while pregnant had she begun to question her ‘ maternal instincts’. Almost immediately after giving birth to Talley (junior), she discovered that she was not quite so motherly as she’d expected to be.

Esyle had enough maternal instinct for two people, though; all three of us joked that she’d somehow gotten Tallia’s share. The sisters were very different, in that regard.

Esyle was delighted to run our household, and raise two children, with her mother’s help. Tallia was happier being with me, employing her amazing talents as Chief of Staff of the New Model Army.

- “Penchens alright?” I asked her.

- “Fussy about their food, the quality of the powder ... you name it.” she said. “I got most of it straightened out with Leydz, today.”

- “I noticed that you took Senau with you.”

- “Yes.”

- “I would’ve thought that Isaal would be more helpful, for the ... diplomatic stuff.” I had to be careful how I said that: Isaal was my favourite. Tallia claimed to prefer Senau’s calm. What I saw as moodiness, she called reserve and steadiness.

- “Isaal’s been ... a bit off, for the past little while.”

- “Off?”

- “Quiet. Distracted. Like she was brooding about something.”

- “Hmm.” I made a mental note to ask him about it.

***

While the autumn weather remained fine, I decided to use the information Kanitz had gotten from Lebuc and the Woles.

Since I could pinpoint the location of the Crolians’ northern supply depot, it wasn’t hard to predict their possible lines of advance. They could come directly towards us, along the main road, or they could swing south, and seek to get around us, to threaten our supply lines.

I wanted to see the lay of the land for myself, to locate some possible battlefields and study the terrain in advance.

There was no way that my bodyguards would let us go alone, of course. Langoret gave me her rifle company as an escort. Tallia would have liked to come along, but her skills were administrative, not military.

I’d already asked Tudino to go with me. Two pairs of eyes are better than one, when it comes to finding a good spot to give battle. That made solid sense, even if she insisted on bringing her rifle company along, too.

I would have been happy to take Captain Isaal with me as well, but the Penchen liaison was unavailable.

- “Captain Isaal is indisposed.” said Senau.

- “Ill?”

- “Indisposed.”

We had a wonderful time of it. The northern borderlands, back in Westron hands for the first time in decades, were composed of rolling hills, with wooded slopes and stretches of pastureland.

Tudino wanted to see Limset, so we passed through the area. There was no way that we could repeat that battle, though: the narrowness of the open fields would have limited the size of the engagement.

Langoret’s and the Anelis had performed wonders there, until Avette arrived to assist us. But we needed much larger open spaces now, with 14 regiments under my command, instead of two.

It was Tudino who spotted the ridge, just east of the village of Kesmansha. The settlement was on the low ground, near a fast-running stream and plentiful sources of firewood. But they did use the heights to graze their oxen.

Tudino convinced me to climb the ridge.

- “Beautiful.” she said. “You could stop an army twice our size here.”

- “But we need a decisive battle.” I said to her. “Scoring a minor tactical victory does us no good if we’re busy losing on the central front.” Or the south - even if the Woles’ intelligence suggested that the Crolians didn’t seriously intend to attack there again, neither of us had any faith in General Brune.

Still, I filed away the ridge at Kesmansha in my memory. The place had potential.

- “Thank you for bringing me.” said Tudino, when we camped for the night.

- “I’m glad you’re here. For more than just your military skills.”

- “I wish that I was in hemmer, though. It would be wonderful to make love on this ridge, under the moons.”

- “You’re so Westron, Tudino - talking about sex all the time.”

- “Even when it will be months before I can do it again.” she said, wistfully.

We talked about a number of things that night.

“How are you getting along with the Penchens?” she asked.

- “Quite well. I still don’t know how to talk to them, but ...”

- “I know what you mean. I’m glad that we have them along - they’re fine soldiers. But you’d best make sure that nothing happens to you, Cook. Langoret has her qualities .. I just don’t know if they’d follow her ... not the way they follow you.”

- “I’m not sure that they ‘follow’ me. They’re mercenaries, after all.” I said.

- “There’s a big difference between following orders, and loving your work.”

- “Agreed.”

- “Take that Captain Isaal.” said Tudino. “She hangs on your every word.”

- “She? You mean ‘he’.”

Tudino and I had a long - much too long - discussion of Penchen gender traits.

- “You’re used to dealing with an army of females.” she said. “When you meet someone who obviously isn’t female, you automatically assume that they’re male.”

I couldn’t shake her out of that conviction. In the end, I didn’t even believe some of my own arguments.

- “Maybe it’s just that the Penchens defy description.” I suggested.

- “Sure, Cook. Keep telling yourself that.” she said, with a grin. Tudino knew me too well by now. She knew that I’d continue to defend a hopeless position.

Finally, she asked if she could try sleeping next to me, even though her hemmer wouldn’t return for months.

- “This is nice.” said Tudino, squirming as she tried to position her backside squarely against my crotch. “It’s not all about sex, is it? I love being here with you.”

- “So do I.” I admitted.

***

We found two or three more locations that would make decent battlefields, on the southern side of our front - if the Crolians tried to maneuver against our lines of communication, there were several places where we could stop them.

Except that I didn’t want to just stop them. I had to defeat them, in detail. A victory wasn’t enough; Kanitz needed more. For that reason, my mind kept returning to the ridge at Kesmansha.

The heavens opened up, and the rain came pelting down. It poured so hard that the raindrops actually hurt when they hit us. We tried to find shelter in the woods.

- “Still enjoying yourself?” I asked Tudino. As far as I could tell, we were all going to be damp, uncomfortable and cranky by morning.

She shook her head. Tudino grabbed my arm and dragged me to the edge of the forest. We were getting wetter, there - but that was like getting a little more pregnant. It made no difference whatsoever.

- “Listen.” she said.

We stood together, soaked to the skin, listening to the hiss of the rain as it struck the grass, to the drumbeats when it hit tree branches.

“Isn’t it wonderful?” she asked. “Just to be alive?”

I wondered if she might be having some kind of awful premonition. After all, Tudino had been wounded in virtually engagement she’d ever fought in.

When I looked closer, I realized that she was crying. There were raindrops running down her face, but she was adding to the deluge.

- “Tudino?”

- “I wish I was a hybrid.” she said, through her tears.

***

It took us two more days to return to camp. Everyone but Tudino and me was happy to be back, to be able to change clothes, to bathe, or just to finally dry out.

There was no way for Tudino to unsay what she’d said, or for me to pretend that I hadn’t heard it.

She wasn’t jealous of Tallia, or of Esyle. She wanted to be them.

- “I will always love and admire you.” I told her. “And I’ll continue to show up for your hemmers - until you find a younger, better-looking male.”

She hugged me, then, in full view of everyone nearby. It probably wasn’t a great surprise for them: there couldn’t be a single Westron soldier in camp who hadn’t heard the story of Tudino and her 4-day hemmer.

My bodyguards and I returned to my command tent. Tallia was there, with Langoret, and the ever-present Captain Senau.

The moment I stepped inside, they instantly fell silent.

- “I’m ... back.” I said.

Langoret recovered first.

- “Welcome back.” she said. “How did it go?”

- “Fine ... but why do I feel like I just interrupted something?”

Tallia flushed. Langoret looked concerned. I glanced at Senau: he was completely impassive - his default setting. That was when I realized who wasn’t there.

“Where’s Captain Isaal?” I asked.

- “She’s ... indisposed.” said Langoret.

I ignored the pronoun. If Langoret wanted to agree with Tallia, and see Isaal as more female than male, then so be it.

- “If Isaal is sick, have you sent Doctor Boska to look at him? Her?”

- “She’s not ill, Cook.” said Tallia. “She’s indisposed.”

Something about the way she said finally clicked with me. I’m not especially stupid, but when it came to sexual matters, I was almost always going to be the slowest person in the room. Or tent.

- “Oh. You mean ... she’s in hemmer?”

Langoret spoke to my bodyguards. “Could you excuse us, please?”

- “We’ll keep watch outside, Colonel.” said Ishana. Koroba looked at me, but if she was trying to communicate something silently, I completely missed it.

Isaal was changing. Her body was transforming itself - and from the way they were talking, she was becoming female. Maybe Westron women could sense something that I unaware of - some sight, or smell, or even a feeling. Even Tudino had Isaal pegged as a female.

I glanced at Senau again. He didn’t look any different, as far as I could tell.

- “If Isaal is going through the change,” I said, “why isn’t Senau?”

- “Captain Isaal is not changing for me.” said the Captain. He didn’t sound particularly disappointed; he was simply stating a fact.

Penchen hemmers were completely unlike Westrons’. A Penchen could become a male, and then years later, become female - even with the same partner, who might also change to the opposite gender.

They didn’t have the extraordinary heat and secretions that Westrons did, but their ‘change’ could last for an entire year, and in exceptional cases, even longer. But a Penchen might experience the change only 2-4 times in their lifetime.

There was one similarity, though: no one was entirely sure what caused Westrons to go into hemmer, or Penchens to begin the change. It could be a dramatic incident, or a stressful experience, but most people suspected that proximity to an attractive or appealing prospective partner might be enough to set them off.

- “Then who is she changing for?” I asked. “She hasn’t spent much time with anyone else ...”

That’s when I realized that the others were all staring at me. I was the slowest person in the tent once again.

“Oh.” I said.

*****