Rage and Rebellion (Histories of Havenhearth)

4.6 Yarazhenya

The chancellor's protectorate? Yarazhenya's preparations for her stall at the market were interrupted as she dropped what she was doing to look. Straight ahead of her, stood the commander of the chancellor's protectorate, a tall woman with dark hair tighlty coiffed back from her furrowed, frowning face. She wore a slim fitting v-neckline jacket over top the same white tunics worn by the combattants but hers had a greater number of squares on her shoulders, demarcating her rank.
She had on high boots with a shining silver buckle near the bottom, decorated with small spurs, presumably for licking on her poor dwarf horse. Dark eyes, set shallowly within their sockets, watched over her band.
The combattants themselves, a mix of young men and women, were in lines of four, standing shoulder to shoulder in their uniforms of white tunics, belted at the waist with sashes of fabric in various colors denoting their rank and experience. They had on black caps, and black cloth shoes, and rather than a weapon, each had a parasol tied at their waists, as if it were a sword. A parasol? Was this a training exercise? Were the parasols actually concealed weapons? Seemed strange.
They marched towards the middle of the square, their leader halting them before entering, presumably to allow the combattants to readjust their lines: four widths was too many. But she did not provide any further command, and instead seemed to be waiting for the street to clear in front of them: when it did not, she shouted at those in the street. "Out of the way. Make way for the chancellor's protectorate."
Some made half-hearted attempts to steer wagons out from the centre of the road, muttering as they did so but most people ignored her, standing as they were, or continuing on their way. She screamed again, longer, louder, this time going red in the face. But still the road did not clear. She paused a moment, as if deciding what to do, eventually calling an order to realign the soldiers instead of waiting for peasants.
"Realign! Three abreadth." Only now did some people on the street turn to pay attention as the combattants tried to put themselves into three lines. Some started to laugh, as they fumbled with the task. As the laughter increased so did the chaos among the protectorate forces, who now seemed to be in no lines at all. The commander got redder and redder in the face, and kept screaming at them, to no avail.
"Three. Three abreadth." The small horse under the tall women did nothing to abate the comedy of the situation and Yarazhenya avoided making eye contact with her.
I wonder where they are off to on this fine day. She sniggered to herself. Did the chancellor know about this bunch of misfits? This was no modern protectorate and it was hard to imagine what protection they would offer when pitted against the well-organised well-equipped groups of rebels such as those that had attacked her caravan. The laughter only died down as onlookers lost interest, steering their animals and carts back into the road and into their way getting on their way as if they were not there. By now the commander herself, like the onlookers, also appeared to have lost interest, leaving a lower ranking soldier to conduct the drill. The combattants at least appeared to be taking their roles seriously, and they finally reformed perfectly straight lines of three, ready to march on.
The commander gave the call, and the young men and women swung their arms and in not quite perfect synchrony, kicked out their legs in time to march.
There is something awful about her. Yarazhenya thought.
Yarazhenya shook her head as they walked by. Naturally, the commander turned her head just in time to see Yarazhenya's outward display of disapproval, and returned the look with a threatening stare. Yarazhenya couldn't hide her grin as she returned to organizing her stall.

Later that afternoon, a shout across the square took her by surprise, "Aunty! Aunty!" Localizing the sound, she saw her niece running towards her, flinging herself into her arms. Yarazhenya felt her tears on her cheeks, 'My niece, I cannot believe it is you!" She said in petroviese, " Yes it is Aunty," Cerys replied in Tainish. "You cannot speak petroviese anymore?" She asked. "I have not spoken petroviese in years," she said slowly in the language, bringing even more tears to her eyes. "Let me look at you," she held her back at arm's length. "You look so old!"
"You haven't changed a bit," Cerys hugged her again. Switching to Tainish she said, "allow me to introduce you to Floren Cheshirering," Yarazhenya looked at a beautiful dark-haired man with pale skin, and icy blue eyes, who held out his hand. "And you must be the historian, Chastain, is it?" she said to the young man whose mass of curly chestnut hair fell in a mess around his face. "It's nice to meet you," he gave Yarazhenya a big smile. "I'm so glad you're all safe!" The historian and Floren looked at each other.
"I've had quite the adventure, and am ready for a quiet day or two." Cerys said.
"That is fine with me, I cannot wait to hear about everything, we have so much to catch up on. Thank you both for bringing my niece safely to me."
"I look forward to speaking with you again sometime soon,"
Chastain and Cheshirering left to find their hotels and Yarazhenya left her stall to one of her associates, showing her niece around her new home. The small house had a courtyard, with four rooms circling around it. She had divided the large bedroom, which was meant for a family, into two rooms using screens as dividers.
"Get some coffee," she told her house servant, "quickly please!" It had taken her weeks to train the house servant how to make coffee Petroviese-style.

"I haven't had one of these in years," Cerys said, trying out a language she hadn't spoken in ages. "Neither have I spoken in Petroviese for years," she said.
"My darling niece, tell me, how are you? We have so much to catch up on."
"It has been the most incredible adventure, parties and sword fights and bandits and all that in the last few days, let alone everything I saw on the boat,"
"Sword fights and bandits?"
"Yes! There is so much to tell you,"
"And there are so many people who want to meet you! Callira has already planned a party for you, the other merchants want to have a lunch, we're going to be busy."
"Aunty, I want to do all of these things, but right now, I need a wash and a sleep,"
"Of course my niece."

Yarazhenya showed her niece her bed, the washing facilities and left her to take care of herself. After a half an hour, she noticed she had not heard anything, and peeking over the divider between their rooms, she found her fully dressed and fast asleep on the bed. Her heart swelled with happiness. It was nice to have family around.