The vine-draped palisade of Fort Jaliyl, several logs thick, reached out on either side of the prosaically named Gravel Road like green arms, leaves fluttering in the breeze and giving the fortress a sense of being alive.

And, indeed it was a living structure, each layer of logs resting on those before, giving in to the vines of the logs underneath. They were angled to deflect cannon shot, but also to absorb its velocity in the softness of the older logs.

The fort had resisted attacks by Fredericksburg before it was the capital of Orange. It had resisted a militia uprising during the Fayruzi Convention. It had resisted Louisa during the County Wars, although The Louisa Company did manage to raise their red-and-blue flag over one of the bastions before being driven out.

A woman in rough leather trail gear walked up the Gravel Road toward the gates, followed by two men comparing each other’s hands and arguing about something. Soldiers glared at them from atop the palisade.

“That doesn’t count,” said the taller man, shaking a head of red curls. “You’ve had that scar for years.”

“I had a scar there,” the shorter, bald man said. “This is a new cut in the same place.”

“Kath,” the redhead said, grabbing the other man’s wrist.

The woman stopped, drooped her head, and turned.

“Beamish,” she growled. “Do you see the men with long guns staring?”

His shoulders sank and he looked up at the soldiers on the palisade. The other man yanked his wrist free and stumbled backward.

“Yeah, Beamish!” he said. “Do you see the men staring at you?”

“At us,” Kath said. “At us, Yan. You and Beamish and me.”

The bald man’s face scrunched. He kicked the ground and held out his hand.

“He says this isn’t a new cut. Tell him it’s a new cut, Kath.”

“No, no, no!” Beamish said, eyes wide, waving his hands. “If that’s a new cut, he wins! Please, Kath.”

She lowered her eyes on him. “Wins what?”

“Twenty gold,” Yan said with a wide grin.

“Bots!” she swore. “You two don’t earn enough to be making twenty-gold bets.”

“Like you always say,” Beamish grinned. “Done is done.”

“I told you two not to embarrass me here,” she growled. They both looked at the ground and shrank.

She grabbed Yan’s wrist and pulled him toward her. She turned his hand palm up. With a shocking swiftness, she drew a knife and slashed Yan’s hand, right along the scar.

“It’s new,” she said to Beamish and released Yan with a shove. “Pay the man, and behave yourselves from now on.”

Yan was holding his bleeding hand, his teeth grinding in pain. He looked up the redhead and chuckled.

“Hurts?” Beamish said, nodding and grinning.

“Like a snake,” Yan said. He looked up at the woman’s back as she walked toward the gate. “Kath, that wasn’t poisoned was it?”

She shook her head without looking back, white-streaked black hair carrying the wave down to her lower back.

Beamish shrugged and shoved a hand into his pocket with a jingle.

“Pay him inside,” Kath shouted. “Right now, just follow me.”

Beamish and Yan glanced at each other sheepishly and nodded. Beamish gestured for Yan to go first. Yan gestured for Beamish to go first, then grimaced at the blood dripping from the hand. Beamish chuckled and started walking. Yan jogged to catch up.

The men on the palisade glared down at them. One of them handed his long gun to the soldier on his left, then mockingly aimed an “air gun” at the Yan and Beamish. “Pow,” the man mouthed. The soldier on his left laughed and handed the long gun back.

Beamish rolled his eyes to Yan and yanked the silk scarf from his neck.

“Here,” he said. “Wrap this around it.”

Yan took it and wrapped his bleeding hand.

“Thanks!”

“That’s one more gold you owe me.”

“What?”

Kath walked through the wood-and-iron gates. Two guards stepped forward with long guns to stop her, but a sergeant behind them snapped his fingers. They retreated back into their posts.

“This is Kathleen Franklin,” the sergeant said. “Trades with the family. She’s always allowed in, two assistants, no firearms.”

One of the men nodded toward her.

“Search her for firearms?”

The sergeant put a hand on the man’s shoulder and shook his head solemnly.

Kath smiled at the soldiers over her shoulder and disappeared into the crowds thronging the market stalls of Fort Jaliyl.

Beamish and Yan walked through the gate, chuckling. The bald man’s hand was wrapped in silk and dripping blood.

“It’s so much bleeding,” Beamish laughed.

“I know,” Yan grinned. “She gave me a much better scar, I bet.”

“Search them?” the soldier said.

The sergeant shook his head dismissively.

“How much you want to bet?” Beamish said to Yan.

∋∈

Kath weaved through the crowds, making her way toward the house. All around her were locals, gold badges strung around their necks pressed with the seal of Orange. Kath instinctively drew her copper merchant’s badge from under her shirt and let it drop between her breasts.

A white-haired girl burst through the crowd and wrapped her arms around Kath’s waist.

“Aunt Kath!”

She wrapped her arms over the girl’s back and glanced around at the locals staring. Looking over her shoulder, she saw Beamish and Yan approaching and waved them off. They shrugged and disappeared into the crowd.

Kath pushed the girl back by the shoulders.

“You’ve grown.”

The girl’s face fell, disappointed.

“That’s a facile observation. Everybody grows.”

Kath chuckled and nodded.

“How’s your work?” the girl said.

Kath shrugged. “The Bush Hart Gang are still skimping on goods. Trading with the Union. Playing them against the Burnt Shack. Playing them both against the free lands. You really want to talk politics?”

“I thought we were talking business.”

“Same thing, kid,” Kath said. “How’s your work?”

Alexandra straightened her green dress and mugged an arrogant expression. “I am now the chief maid, in charge of all house staff.”

Kath raised her brows. “All of them?’

The girl shrugged. “Except the footmen and tradesmen. Those are under the butler.”

Kath grinned. “Still, that’s quite a move for someone your age.”

A boy approached from the crowds. Black, unkempt hair. Gray eyes. Rough clothes covered in soot. He smiled warmly at Alexandra and nodded respectfully at Kath.

Kath returned his nod and gave her niece at disapproving look. The girl squinted back defiantly and wrapped an arm around the boy’s waist, which made him frown.

“Benjamin,” Kath said.

“Miss Kathleen,” he said.

“You needn’t remind me I’m unmarried,” she said. “Kath will do.”

He nodded with lowered eyes.

“Still cleaning chimneys?” she said.

“And fixing clocks,” he said.

“And tending the lightning rods,” Alexandra said, smiling. “He prevented four fires this year alone.”

Kath let her eyebrows lift in spite of herself.

“That true, boy?”

Benjamin shrugged.

“There’s no way to know if a lightning strike will cause a fire.”

He was honest and humble. Kath admired that. Still, her niece was moving up while he was only moving side-to-side.

“What else have you been up to lately, Ben?”

“Hiding up in the Meeting Room chimney,” a man’s voice interrupted. Kath looked up. A soldier in a mustard uniform, a captain by his collar. Dark hair, dark skin, dark eyes. She knew him.

Harun shook Kath’s hand with a grin. “He was spying on my report to my grandparents.”

“No sir,” Benjamin said.

“It’s alright, though,” Harun said to Kath, ignoring the boy. “Ridvan vouched for him.”

“Oh?” Kath grinned and nodded at Ben. “You’ve caught the Jeddy’s eye? Maybe you’re not so bad for my niece after all.”

Alexandra blushed. “Auntie.”

Harun and Kath laughed.

“In fact,” Harun said. “Jeddy Ridvan put young Ben and my section on the same secret Overmission. He’s moving up.”

Ben glanced at Alexandra again with a shrug. She smirked at Kath and leaned in to kiss Ben on the cheek.

“You two go catch up,” Kath said. “You’re making me jealous.”

Ben and Alexandra wandered off into the crowd, arm in arm. Harun slapped him on the shoulder as he walked away.

“Harun Truslow,” Kath said. “How’s Marina?”

He shrugged. “As beautiful and coveted as ever.”

She pointed at him. “You beat those assholes off with a stick.”

“Don’t have to. She wields a mean stick on her own.”

“Good gal.” She nodded.

“How’s trade, Kath?”

“I was just telling Alexandra,” she looked around. The girl was gone. She turned to Harun and shrugged. “I was just telling her that the Bush Hart Gang are still dealing with the Union and Burnt Shack on better terms than with us.”

Harun spat on the ground.

“But, I have saltpeter from Shenandoah. Traded on the down-low through Bush Hart.”

Harun laughed. “King Barladine would love to know that. He’d hunt down the Bush Hart Gang like dogs. How much?”

“A few carts. Is the powdermill still working? I heard there was an incident.”

Harun raised his eyebrows. “Some careless idiot got blown to pieces.” He glanced at Beamish and Yan, who were fumbling through a nearby vegetable stand, shoving each other and dropping carrots and tomatoes on the ground. “An idiot like those.”

She chuckled. “They’re good in a fight.”

“But,” he said, “the mill still stands. What are you asking for? You looking for an exclusive contract?”

Kath sized him up. “Harun Truslow. Are you speaking for Aadam and Huwaa’ now?”

He waved his hands in the air. “No, no, you’re right. That’s just between you and my grandparents.”

“Oh, I’m sure Jeddy Ridvan will have his say, even though he’s in widowed retirement.”

Harun sniffed and looked at his boots. He nodded with tight lips.

“Teta Ivanka would’ve taken the deal. She was always the military mind of the two.”

“I miss her.” She put a hand on his shoulder. “And not just because she always gave me a good price.”

He looked up at her with a chuckle. “We all miss her. The two of them, Ivanka and Ridvan, were…”

“Like a king and queen,” Kath said, glancing around.

Harun huffed and grinned. “Don’t say that too loud. Orange men are pretty adamant against the language of monarchy. Especially since the war with Shenandoah.”

“It is what it is,” she said with a shrug. “Orange doesn’t call itself a league, or a republic, or a confederation. Just Orange. It’s a monarchy in all but name.”

“King Aadam,” he said with an air of dignity. “Queen Huwaa’.”

“Not a match for Ridvan and Ivanka.”

“No,” Harun said, suddenly glum. “But it’s what we have until…”

“Let’s not think of that,” she said. “Let’s focus on keeping Orange alive and working around Shenandoah. And against the Union.”

“Bring your goods in.” He looked her in the eye and nodded. “I can authorize that.”