Dear Diary,

I don't know whether I hate travelling, or just haven't had the chance to travel for any reason other than, y'know, world-shattering emergencies.

Maybe both? Travelling through a place that made the antebellum South look progressive sure as shit didn't help.

Anyhow, according to what Larry said this morning, the farm the rest of the expedition stayed at last night was another Lands farm. This close to Lancaster House proper, it almost certainly had a set of 'women's rooms'. As we advanced down the road, I waved Angel back beside me and asked her how the stay had gone.

"Not too bad, all things considered. Farmer Lands..." She trailed off, glancing at me before continuing. "Didn't seem all that bad. He got real weirded out by how many of us were women, but not, like, bad weirded out."

"Not used to seeing women as anything but brood-mares and slave labor?"

She shook her head, smiling. "Oddly enough, not that. The women came out to serve dinner for the Lands men and us Cadets. I got a bit pissy at that, but before I could say anything Bonnie told me to stand down."

"Bonnie?" The idea of Bonnie Obol taking charge just did not fit with my mental image of her.

The look Angel gave me told me without words that she agreed. "Yeah, I know, right? But I figured maybe she thought Lancaster would do something. Which he didn't. I mean, other than commandeering the master suite for himself, Carruthers, Bill, and Rosen."

"So, don't leave me in suspense, why did Bonnie call you guys off?"

"She didn't tell us until she led us all back to the women's rooms for the night." Angel shook her head. "Weird thing, she's got an eye for details. Same with Raven; she backed Bonnie up, and the rest of us kinda followed at that point, because we all were too weirded out to argue."

I shook my head at Angel, wishing she'd get to the point, but by now I'd gotten intrigued, because I'd be confused at Bonnie and Raven agreeing on anything too. "And?"

"When they pulled us into the big common room in the women's quarters, they asked us to look at the door to the kitchens." She shook her head, clearly still amazed by something. "Rider noticed first. Two deadbolt locks, an wooden bar in steel brackets, hell even a chain that hooked to the frame."

"Okay, yeah, that does sound a little excessive. Were they worried about some kinda slave revolt?"

Angel laughed a little. "Makes me feel a little less stupid since you're not getting it either."

I thought about it for a little bit as we crunched through the snow. When I saw the lead unit stepping to the side, I shook my head and said, "nope. Don't get it. Just tell me."

"All that stuff? On the inside of the door. The women's side." I just stared at her as I let the information sink in.

"Wait, so the women were the ones who controlled access to the women's quarters?"

Angel grinned at me. "Yep."

I thought about it a second, then asked, "how did Bonnie and Raven figure it out, though?"

"Seats at the table. There were enough seats that if we weren't there? Every one of the women would have had a seat at the dinner table."

"But..." I trailed off, then facepalmed. "Y'know, Larry's so arrogant stupid, and Lachlan's such a himbo, that I really forget sometimes they're both their father's sons. I guess some brains run in the family."

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Now it was Angel's turn to look confused. "What do you mean?"

I shrugged. "Lancaster tells me that the 'Lands' are the cadet branches of the Lancaster family. Apparently at least that one doesn't buy into the whole 'women aren't people' thing."

"So why the whole charade?"

"Because they are a cadet branch. Not the ones in charge. If anybody stops by, they look just legit enough that somebody assuming that they've got the women good and cowed isn't going to question it. But I'm gonna bet that anybody short of a Hero that tries to sneak into the women's quarters at night is gonna find out what the underside of the grass looks like."

She thought about that for a bit, then shrugged and added, "from what I heard from the women last night, trying to sneak into the women's rooms is justification for just about any punishment the head of the house chooses to apply, so even if somebody found out they'd offed a visitor for doing something like that, nobody'd bat an eye."

I took a deep breath, then blew it out slowly. "So maybe the Lancasters aren't the high point of morality around here."

"Then why would they hide it at all then?"

I shrugged. "I dunno, but at a guess? They haven't produced a Hero for a generation or three, so there's nobody to argue their side of things if push comes to shove. So they just quietly obey the letter of the law in public, while telling the spirit of the law to go fuck itself sideways. I can kinda get that, y'know?"

"Shit, you don't have to tell me twice. Half of Camden Yards has done shit like that. I mean, nothing quite that extreme, because Phileo isn't quite as ass-backward as these hicks from the sticks, but, y'know, shit like tanners avoiding taxes."

I looked a question at her, but she didn't get it. "Why would tanners avoid taxes?"

"Oh, man, I keep forgetting you didn't grow up in the Yards. Tanners operate on some really shitty margins. Like, if they pay taxes, they might not be able to afford food."

"Why the fuck? Why don't they just, I dunno, charge more for the leather?"

Angel shrugged. "You'd have to ask Raven and Bonnie, but I'd guess nobody'd buy it. But everybody still needs leather shit, and nobody wants to be a tanner, so the folks born into it just bite their tongues, lie about paying their taxes, and everybody supports them on it."

"Don't we have some tanners in our Volunteers?"

Angel nodded. "Yeah. Nobody wants to be a tanner. Maybe they think they can score a Guard job after this."

"Do a lot of tanners become Guards?"

She shrugged again. "Probably more than any other group, yeah."

"Don't the Guards, like, enforce the tax laws?"

"Now you get it."

Funny thing? I totally did. We crunched our way through the snow for a bit, until something struck me. "Wait, ask Bonnie and Raven? Like the two of them aren't at each other's throats?"

"I know, right? Just started last night. The two of them shared a room, and at breakfast the two were thick as thieves. Which is really weird, because they're like, polar opposites."

"Opposites attract?"

She shook her head. "Nah, neither of them swing that way. On top of that? Apparently they're cousins."

"Like, cousin cousins?"

"Yeah. Turns out there's not two big families running Camden Yards' tanneries, but two tanneries run by two branches of the same family."

"Wonder if their margins are really that slim?"

Angel looked at me in surprise. "You think?"

I shrugged. "Maybe. Then again, after the stench that came out of the barns where they did the tanning on our Dragonhide gear? I sure as shit ain't gonna say nothin'."

We walked along in companionable silence for a bit. "What was their body count from the Plague?"

Angel actually smiled at that point. "Only five out of a farmstead of fifty, and three of those were some older hands who came down with it before anybody really caught on."

"Not that I'm upset, because I wouldn't wish this shit on anybody, but how?"

She shot me a crooked grin, and right before she started plowing ahead to rejoin her units, said, "like half the women there are Priestesses of Hestia. They stopped that shit cold once they figured out what was going on."

That evening, we approached the next farm just before sunset, because the roads had been cleared to a distance of about two miles out. All our troops wound up having to rough it in their pup tents, because every bed in the farmstead was already triple bunked with Volunteer units from Lancaster House. When I stepped up and asked Larry, he looked at me with more than a little poorly hidden stress and said, "we're only a day out from Lancaster House proper."

"What's wrong?"

"It's Lachlan. The latest news from Lancaster House is that he's been struck down by the Plague."

I saw on his face how much that hurt him. Between General Lancaster's eternally puckered asshole and Lachlan's basically decent himboness, I could guess where any familial affection he'd gotten had come from. "As long as he's still alive, we can Heal him."

Lancaster nodded, still not copacetic. "If he's not?"

I very pointedly looked back at the ass end of our baggage train where a shit stain in humanoid form still brought up the rear. "That's up to you, but if we need to? We can Heal that too."