by AM Kirkby
***
The next morning Master went in to see the general as soon as the sun was up. It would be better to help him up privately, before his majordomo found out the state he was in. He got sworn at for his kindness, between bouts of puking; thin bile, stained purple with what wine the general hadn't quite digested, and stinking.
“I'm getting too old for it.” He retched again, brought up nothing but a string of spit.
Master saw the general's arm, thin dry skin like the skin on boiled and cooling milk, wrinkling softly. For the first time he noticed the liver spots on the general's wrist, and thought; this is no longer a man in his prime.
“You were tactful last night,” the general said.
“It's nothing,” Master said. “You needed your bed. I got you there. Any good man would do the same.”
“I didn't mean that. I meant with Ramtha. You don't agree with her ideas.”
I don't, he thought, but I'm not going to say it. I did what you asked; I humoured her, I listened, I remembered.
“I'm not sure I do, either. Not much place for me in her little world of noblemen.”
That was news; the general wasn't noble? He'd always assumed anyone of his prominence would be a member of one of the great families.
“Can't tell how much of it she means, though,” the general went on. “Strikes me as a woman who likes to make an effect. Likes to dazzle her men. Doesn't work on me, though, and she knows damn well it doesn't. Did she say anything worth telling me about, though?”
She hadn't. Not this time. But Master knew she would, eventually. And if she did, the general would hear about it.
“You're tactful this morning, too. I know I drank too much. Doesn't agree with me any more. I used to be able to drink any of my men under the table; not any more.” He retched again; nothing came out but a foul smelling, bubbling belch.
Master wiped the general's mouth. “There'll be a few more people who have heads on them this morning,” he said.
After that, things changed between them; it was as if Master had passed some kind of test. Yet he was still doing the same things; training, running errands, riding his horses out when he had the time. Something, though, had changed. It was like one of those winter days when a cloud passes across the face of the sun and suddenly, where you're standing is in shadow, but across the valley you can see a hill slope prickly with bright sun. And then there was Ramtha; glorious, infuriating, opinionated, grandstanding, beautiful, implacable Ramtha, who became his regular banquet companion but still never yet his lover. She filled his dreams, and when he did find the time to visit the augur's valet, which was less and less often as spring came, and early summer succeeded, he found himself wondering what it would be like with her.