* * *

She stepped closer, and Elena smelled a subtle woody scent. The perfume was exquisite. It emphasized the wealth of the mistress more vividly than any clothes. A long cloak enveloped the aristocrat's athletic figure, a cap covered her head, and her face was hidden behind a half-mask. But the voice gave away the "duchess." It was velvety, perfectly pitched, confidential, and at the same time soaked with arrogance, like a festive pastry with sweet wine.

"But fortunately, I like adventures," the uninvited guest reported. "Especially unusual ones. Especially intriguing ones."

The guards, obeying the slight movement of his hand, backed away, turning around, forming a ring that covered the two women securely. Elena sighed and moved away from the wall, taking her hand off the knife. It seemed no one was going to kill or kidnap her. But... what next? She had no idea how to deal with highborns. The real aristocracy dwelt not even in another world but in another universe, securely walled off by steel guards, high walls, and closed stretchers.

"Yesterday's bandit," Elena asked. "Your work?"

"Mistress," Mourier commanded sternly in a half-turn, never ceasing to track the passersby.

"Your work... Mistress?" Elena couldn't resist the irony.

"Yes," the woman in black replied without a shadow of embarrassment. She didn't understand the sarcasm, or she ignored it.

"He could have killed me," Elena said, and she winced at how weak and helpless that sounded.

"He could," the Duchess agreed calmly. She did not seem to have hidden her embarrassment, and her eyes flashed with the flames of arrogant superiority and, it seemed, a fraction of disappointment. It was as if the hunting falcon she had bought at great expense had turned out to be a vegetarian.

Elena clenched her fists and... no, she didn't shout, though she was tempted to give in to her anger. Draftsman's science came in handy. The swordswoman imagined that the heart - the receptacle of the soul, as everyone knew - was covered by a shield of purest and indestructible ice. It transmits images, allows her to see everything in the true light, and clears the eyes and intellect from fear and doubts.

"Then I guess you owe me."

That sounded good, correct. Without defiant defiance, with a cold calm, as if the words came from the heart, through that same icy armor chilled to absolute zero. The words of a brether who does not bare his blade first but is always ready to kill - without hesitation, without thought, without fear.

The Duchess's thin, yet clear, inked eyebrow rose. The disdainful light in her blue eyes flickered like a candle in the wind. Elena realized that she was no longer walking, but jumping up and down on very thin ice, or, to use Ecumene's comparisons, pulling a taguar's whiskers. After all, the woman in front of her represented the Power and Wealth of the world. To play, to show what could be construed as disrespect, was quite dangerous, with the prefix "deadly". Milvess, of course, not the southern cities with their lawlessness of local princes-dukes, where almost every village goes under the ruler of the vassal, who himself is his own lord and judge. But the class society always remains so. It would be more sensible to faithfully play off a shallow and stupid fool, depriving the Duchess of a reason to be interested in an unusual healer...

But Elena was in a state of excitement again, as she had been during the fight. Her body vibrated with fervor, energy, and a strange feeling. It traveled up along her abdomen to her solar plexus, tickling her muscles from the inside to run up her nerves to her fingertips. The healer, in turn, approached the duchess and looked into her eyes. She noted with her peripheral vision how the "rodent" named Mourier moved restlessly. Lovag gestured to the cloak, releasing the hilt of his sword.

Blue eyes, not chrysolite. Rather even blue, a very bright, saturated color, but at the same time transparent, as if carved from a fairy topaz.....

"I'm not your adventure," Elena said clearly and plainly.

Now, the Duchess took a step. The two women stood opposite each other, almost side by side, chest to chest. At such a distance, the perfume of the aristocrat made her head spin and tickled her nostrils like the scent of good (really good!) rum. It made her fingers tingle more and made her want to close her eyes so that... Elena shook her head stubbornly, breaking out of the second captivity of aroma magick. She thought she didn't smell like roses but like a man who'd spent hours jumping around a dark gym with exercise equipment.

"I allow you to address me as 'you' and drop the 'mistress,'" the Duchess said calmly, with crystal clarity. "But you must remember that it is my permission."

She clearly emphasized "mine." Elena wondered if it was a score of one-on-one in the verbal duel or if the lowborn townswoman had been put in her place.

"What do you want?" Elena asked

The Duchess sighed, tilting her head slightly to the side. In these moments, she looked less like a cat than like an exotic bird. Tall, slender, and full of the predatory beauty of youth and strength. Extremely dangerous.

"Shall we walk?" suggested the visitor unexpectedly, turning slightly and making a gesture with her hand at the same time as if both pointing and opening the way. "Milvess is fabulously good today, and the most interesting things are ahead. I've never seen a Remembrance here before, have you?"

"No," Elena answered automatically.

"Then we shall be interested," the Duchess moved easily and casually to "we." The smile on her pale, pearlescent lips seemed very sweet, almost friendly.

For a moment, Lena felt like Pol (or was it Paul?) Muad'Dib in Dune. A point in the center of the universe, from which countless myriads of threads and connections diverged in all directions. A second of absolute equilibrium, when nothing has been decided yet when all paths are open. But touch one, make a choice, and the world changes, crossing out all other probabilities, at least for one person. And you can do nothing because procrastination is also a choice.

And why not, after all?

"How should I address you?"

"Flessa."

"Just Flessa?"

"Yes."

"And them...?" Elena swung her chin toward the bodyguards.

"They don't need to be addressed, why?" Flessa was surprised.

"They're coming with us?"

"Of course," Flessa was even more surprised. "This is my retinue."

Elena took a breath. Everything was turning out kind of... weird. Wrong. Or vice versa, everything was going as it should, except that she didn't understand it. She couldn't let go of the strange feeling that right now a truly fateful choice had been made, and something had become predetermined. And something on the contrary would never come true. Like that hour when she changed her mind and took the noose off her neck.

"Let's go."

It was interesting and unusual to walk side by side with a real countess. The tall, blue-eyed brunette stepped exactly in the middle of the street, not caring a bit about who or what was ahead and behind. The five bodyguards shifted to form a compact horseshoe formation, the lovag named Mourier walking in front, elbows outstretched as if he were an icebreaker or a battering ram. He hung his cloak over his left shoulder, passing the double cord under the arm of his right hand. In this way the sword was concealed from outside eyes, and the long dagger, on the contrary, in full view. Encounters were dispersed on the sides, pressing against the walls, also no one was in a hurry to overtake the small procession.

"And I remember you," Elena said in surprise. "A year ago, you rode through here on your warhorse."

Flessa thought for a few moments and smiled with the words:

"Yes, indeed. Pantocrator brings people together in bizarre ways."

"What do you want?" Elena repeated the question.

"You," the Duchess answered ingenuously.

"Me," the healer said, because... what else was there to say here?

"See," Flessa adjusted her black cloak, which, upon closer inspection, appeared to be trimmed with some sort of smooth glossy fur. The boots tread softly and lightly on the stones. Elena felt like a human walking hand in hand with an alien. Even their language was different, the Duchess pronounced the "s" with an emphasized hiss and regularly dropped the last consonants. Elena had heard something like this before in bits and pieces when the prison had been visited by high-born bonoms. Apparently, it was not a regional accent but some kind of speech tradition. [1]

"When I want people, I buy them," informed Flessa with a charming and creepy casualness. "I wanted you, but you didn't take the money."

Elena smiled sparingly, with just the fringes of her lips. It was a beautiful bowing scene that could have been made into a movie.

"Are they all for sale?"

"Of course you do. Everyone needs something. Everyone has desires that they can't satisfy. Different wants have different prices. Money, favors, opportunities."

Elena thought it best to remain silent.

"It was silly," continued the Duchess. "But you didn't seem stupid. It was unusual. And that interested me."

They moved leisurely toward the river. The sidewalk treaded the place of older masonry, not stone, but wood. Many thick cuts of the strongest wood had been laid on a bed of sand and gravel, varnished and filled with resin, and the result was a floor, strong and comfortable. A memory of bygone ages when magic was as much a working tool as the hands of laborers or the blueprints of architects. And construction timber was not yet in short supply.

Flessa turned right toward one of the bridges. She saw more and more people on the way, people leaving their homes to attend the Memorial. Elena knew roughly what it would be like, but it was the first time she had ever attended one.

"So you decided to kill me?"

"No, of course not," Flessa was genuinely surprised. "Why? I found out you're taking fencing lessons."

They were silent for a moment. The Duchess loosened the ties of her cloak and threw it into the arms of one of the guards without warning or even a glance at him. The latter took the garment for granted and, in turn, handed it to some individual who had emerged from the crowd. Beneath the cloak was a gray jacket, a wide silvered belt, and the familiar dark stockings. Only there was no gold chain this time, and the boots were less poncy and more utilitarian. On Flessa's belt hung a broad dagger, the weapon richly decorated - the hilt was wrapped with gold or gilded wire, and the dagger did not look like a ceremonial decoration. A beautiful but practical thing. Evaluating her companion's style with her side-eye, Elena felt painfully the shabbiness of her clothes, the stubbornness of her boots, and the crooked, homemade haircut. The fact that the medicine woman dressed better and more expensively than a good half of Milvessa's citizens was no consolation at the moment. Elena felt the usual jealousy, and she wasn't ashamed of it.

"And I decided to see what you were worth," Flessa continued as if nothing had happened.

"Why? For fun?"

"That too. Not only that, however."

The bridge was approaching. The crowd was already quite dense. Unlike on a normal day off, the people seemed unusually quiet. Solemn. The sun had finally disappeared behind the roofs, with only a red streak along the horizon, invisible behind the tiles, and the multicolored glow of the dome of the Temple of Sixty-Six. It was one of the tallest buildings in the City, and it caught the sunlight with its prismatic domes when the streets were already dusk.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

The windows in the houses glowed with lights much brighter than usual. According to tradition, on the Night of Stars on the Water, even the poorest people lit at least a poor candle or a few grease-soaked cords. In general, according to tradition, it was supposed to light each room with a "long" candle in the form of a spiral, which was unwound by hand as it burned. If the candle burns out from the last to the first ray of the sun, it is considered a good sign. On fences, poles, and right in the middle of the streets smoked "fire bowls" - clay vessels in which rags were laid in a spiral, then everything was poured with third-rate wax and set on fire. The result was not so much a lamp as a smoky fire. Milvess seemed preoccupied with lighting itself as brightly as possible.

"I thought I'd see it all from the roof of the house. Or the deck," said the duchess. "But from the house, you can hardly see the river, and I've been told that the most important thing will happen here. They have already prepared a place for us on the bridge."

Boys were scurrying among the townspeople. Small vendors beckoned to the stalls with cheap food. Monks spoke of piety, shaking their traditional dreadlocks or, on the contrary, shining their bald heads. Musicians played as if for the last time, and, it seems, for free. Some monks used hurdy-gurdy, extracting piercing notes with the keys. It seems that only men of God could collect donations; the rest of the public entertainment went free.

Flessa and Elena passed a particularly loud and expressive member of the cult. He was tall and skinny, very swarthy, with a thick mop of dark pigtails, and he strummed his lyre like Jimmy Hendrix, singing penitential verses and chants about the parting of the soul from the body:

"Люди добрые, люди вольные,

Благочинные, сердобольные!

Мы возвестники благославия,

Открывайте дверь, быть вам в здравии.

Мы не ухари-куролесники,

А скитальцы мы, благовестники.

Вы, хозяева, кем бы ни были,

Быть сегодня вам с честью-прибылью!" [2]

However, street actors and acrobats had completely disappeared. The prostitutes and astrologers were not to be seen either. Apparently, the entertainment at the Memorial was strictly ranked.

"We stopped when you decided to have some fun," Elena reminded her.

"No!" Flessa shrugged annoyingly. "Not only that. Oh, look!"

Usually, the moon rolled into the sky at the same time as the sun set, so in the mornings and evenings, the earth was illuminated by the two luminaries at the same time, as if they were passing the baton to each other. But this evening, the silvery disk was perceptibly late and was only now showing itself as darkness descended on the City. Usually, the moon seemed white, with a yellow or reddish tint, but now the huge disk was a somber, solemn blue. It was like the night on the Wastelands when the brigade had set out on its last march.

The appearance of the night luminary caused a rumbling sound as if a wave had struck an indestructible cliff and echoed endlessly. The crowd of thousands exhaled as a single organism. Men lifted children and women in their arms, lifting them closer to the sky as if willing to sacrifice them to the moon. After a second's delay, the musicians struck the strings and turned the wheels with renewed vigor.

"I didn't mean to kill you," the Duchess explained. "Why? You can serve me in other ways."

"I serve no one!"

"Really?" Flessa arched an eyebrow skeptically. "So it wasn't you I saw with a knife in your hand over the corpse?"

"That's different," the healer muttered. "It's work."

"Well, then work for me."

Elena looked at the duchess with a hard stare. The words were drowned in the noise that was growing. The girl felt... strange. Not good and not bad. Fatigue from her training at Draftsmen's had collided with the adrenaline kick and generated a swirling mixture of feelings. Anticipation, apprehension, readiness for a verbal duel, nervous excitement. Her breath caught, and her fingers twitched like a child who couldn't open a present. Consciousness was stirred by the subtle scent of the duchess's perfume. The crowd around electrified the air with anticipation, and the woman felt herself part of a single organism, driven to the extreme by the anticipation of something wonderful. It all made her dizzy, like a good sip of wine.

And - my God! - so much Flessa looked like Shena. Yes, a completely different type of face, a different voice, even height, but still... In the curve of her pale lips, in the squint of the corners of her eyes, there was a ghost of the past. Those brief hours were the only ones in the past two years when Elena had felt completely happy.

Flessa fell silent and looked at her companion strangely.

"What?" the alien from the other world asked rather aggressively.

"You," the duchess said quietly, almost inaudible amid the hum of people, and Elena sensed a note of uncertainty in her voice. "You're strange. And somehow I feel like I know you. Like we've met once before. A long time ago..."

"We used to date," Elena found it hard to speak, her throat a hot loop, the hum of blood in her ears deafening. "Back then. You were on horseback. With guards."

"No," Flessa almost whispered, leaning toward Elena. "No. Much earlier. And your gaze..."

A moment later the Duchess straightened up sharply, like a soldier on a drill ground at the sight of a general. On her face - as if an armored flap had been lowered - there was an expression of detached calm. The way in which the young noblewoman controlled herself, how quickly and completely she regained the self-control she had lost for a moment, was impressive.

"Tonight seems to be the night when everyone remembers something," Elena did her best to steer the conversation in a neutral, noncommittal direction.

"Yes," the duchess agreed laconically, but Elena noted that her companion had lost a little of her arrogant superiority.

The wooden sidewalk ended. The embankment near the bridge was paved with wide slabs, forming a square. Hundreds, thousands of feet tapped and shuffled on the stone with leather, wooden soles, or even bare feet. A vast stream of people gathered from the streets like tributaries of a great river to spill out onto the wide bridge. Unlike on Earth, no houses were built on the bridges here, but semicircular balconies with low railings stood out at regular intervals above the piers. On ordinary days, they were occupied by merchants, and on holidays reserved for aristocrats or the wealthy.

Bonomes with their retinues or merchants from the guilds and craftsmen were more frequent. Some of them were greeted by Flessa herself, but most were greeted with a nod or ignored, taking the signs of attention for granted. Elena followed the example of the other attendants, who did not interfere in the brief talks of their hosts and behaved as if they were not even here. Apparently this was the etiquette - not to show their presence, not to distract the gentlemen on mundane trifles.

"It's about to begin," the Duchess noted as the small group took up "their" balcony. A river flowed below, its waters reflecting the light of the moon like obsidian glass. Elena breathed in the cool air, feeling the flow of cool freshness. Usually the river reeked of the waste of a metropolis of thousands, but that night it seemed as if the waterway had been miraculously cleansed.

"So, about work," Flessa said, fixing her short hair that had gotten disheveled from under her cap. It was a funny hat, with hipster earmuffs that lacked cat ears. Silver beads and tiny grains of pearls sparkled in the moonlight.

"I have a work," Elena said. "I like it."

And in a coffin, I've actually seen that work, she continued to think to herself.

"And I need a dummy," Flessa informed her.

Elena froze in bewilderment. After a moment, she realized she had misinterpreted the word "dummy" because of Flessa's pronunciation. The Duchess had used a specific verbal form that also meant "training dummy" or, in a broader sense, a partner for training bouts.

"I'm not a fencer."

"I know," the duchess brushed off. "You're a master's apprentice. And I need an opponent with whom I can regularly hone my skills. Someone strong enough to be a worthy opponent but not too strong; that's what masters are for. You're quite suitable."

Elena was silent for a moment.

"You can buy a whole squad," she finally said. "Why me?"

"First of all, because it's my wish," Flessa said. "Besides, I'm the one who found you."

Despite the obvious fragmentation of logic, this "I found" sounded complete and exhaustive. It was as if it was obvious to Flessa without needing any further elaboration. And Lunф understood what Elena hadn't realized.

"I could be bought too," she remarked melancholically.

"It's possible," Flessa remained calm as if the women were discussing the cost of new shoes. "But the risk is less. And besides, it's harder to buy you."

She looked at Elena and smiled.

"Which I've already made sure of."

Elena lowered her eyes and clenched the stone railing until her fingers, already strained by the training blade, ached. The play of moonlight turned Flessa into Shena's doppelganger again for a moment. The light of the numerous torches played mystical lights in the brunette's eyes, they seemed to be green in color after all, like a giant cat's.

Elena inhaled and exhaled slowly, trying to make it look unnoticeable. She was shivering like she had a fever. Her ears were burning. She wanted to run her fingers through the short curls of Flessa's hair that poked out from under her hat to feel their silky softness. She wanted to wrap her hot palms around her pale, chiseled face and look into her eyes to see what color they were. And why, one moment, the pupils were violet-blue lights, and the next, they seemed pure emeralds.

"What do you want?"

Elena, who had gone to fight her own demons, didn't realize at first that the Duchess was addressing her. And then it began.

The bells on the city towers struck quietly, almost imperceptibly, against the background, but their bronze chime was still heard. And, as if tens of thousands of people had been waiting for it, silence fell. The hum of the dormant Milvess died away like a living thing, like an orchestra, silencing instrument after instrument, note after note, until finally, the conductor laid aside his baton with a final gesture. The music ceased, the voices faded, and the tapping of many soles stopped as if all at once they had stopped, frozen motionless. The whole bridge, the squares at both ends, the surrounding streets, the whole City fell silent in anticipation. Only the bells of all the city's belfries rang without ceasing.

And then Elena noticed that the river waves were faintly glowing. It was so faint that an inattentive eye probably wouldn't have noticed it, but it was clear enough to know that it wasn't the reflected light of the moon. In addition, the moon cast a blue color, and the water exuded a delicate shade of milky white. Elena had never seen a tropical ocean with plankton, but she thought that was probably what it must look like. But the freshwater sea wasn't tropical, and there was no plankton on the shores of Milvess, much less in the river.

Magic? Or some kind of algae, or microorganisms?

Or maybe just an ordinary miracle?

The banks were ablaze with walls of fire from torches and lamps as if there were not one river but three - a black river and two flaming ones. A multitude of watercraft, from tiny boats to small galleys with their masts retracted - to pass under bridges - filled the river surface. The walls of the houses, illuminated red, seemed to glow in the fire of the ghostly conflagration.

"That's it," Flessa raised her hand, pointing into the distance. There, far upstream, a scattering of pale pink dots glowed.

They were approaching along with the course of the river waves. Hundreds of lights that looked like floating candles, no, more like lamps, something like Chinese lanterns that were launched higher up the river. The crowd exhaled, and it sounded like the gust of a hurricane. And then thousands of people erupted into shouts and prayers in unison. The noise spread like a wave through the streets like a tsunami as house after house, person after person, picked up the joyous cry. And, overpowering everything, bells rang desperately as if judgment day had come. Yet not a single magical firework went off; sorcery had no place in the streets of God-fearing Milvess on this night.

The hour of Memorial has arrived. It is the time when the souls of the dead leave the world to go to the Pantocrator, where all the deeds of life will be precisely measured, and then each one will have his or her destiny determined. The year used to end on this night, then the calendar changed, but the Memorial remains. It is a strange holiday in which grief and remembrance of the departed are bizarrely combined with merriment and lust for life.

The little ships floated down, carrying lamps, to drift into the bay and disappear into the depths of the sea, reminding the dead that they were not forgotten and the living of the frailty of all things. Flessa threw back her head, closing her eyes as if reveling in the moment. The guards had closed in tighter, the crowd was frenzied, and the storm of the collective explosion was about to burst with riotous merriment. Today, the entire capital, the entire inhabited world, would celebrate the second day of festivities, a time of unbridled celebration, the moment when autumn was considered complete and winter arrived.

Elena bowed her head and gripped the cold railing tighter. The stone, worn down by years, seemed to be crumbling like pumice, scratched her fingers a little, and quickly heated up from the heat that was eating the swordswoman from the inside. The woman remembered that she had never returned her combat gloves to Draftsman.

What's happening to me?

"Buy me a sword," Elena said curtly.

Flessa glanced up at her. The glow of the pink lanterns played devilish lights in her dark pupils. The Duchess only needed horns to play the seductive succubus.

It's all Memorial Day. A night of sadness, a night of death. The hour when something dies, and something comes into the world.

"Buy me a good sword with a brand. And I'll work as your-- dummy."

"Good. I'll be expecting you tomorrow at the beginning of the evening watch. If you're a worthy opponent, I'll let you choose a weapon from my arsenal," the Duchess glanced at the healer. "We're about the same build, so what suits me will be good for you."

Elena inhaled and exhaled according to Brether's skill, but it didn't work. She seemed to inhale pure fire instead of coolness, and the heat gathered at her heart into a burning spark, sending jabs of sharp, on the verge-of pain, excitement through her nerves. Flessa looked at the swordswoman with a perplexed and unhappy curve of her lips, waiting for a respectful response.

"Deck, you said deck," Elena remembered. "Do you have a boat?"

"A boat?" The duchess wrinkled her noble nose as if Elena had said an obscenity. "I have a ship."

"Will you show me?" asked Elena, looking eye to eye, unblinking, in exact accordance with the commandments of Draftsan. "I've never seen the night sea. Always wanted to dive into the moon's path on a wave."

Flessa's neck twitched, giving away the moment when the impenetrable aristocrat was truly knocked out. The answer, however, sounded composed and calm:

"I'll show."

"I know where your house is. I'll be there tomorrow at the beginning of the evening watch."

Flessa looked at the back of Lunna's departing back. She ran her hand along the back of her neck, as if brushing away an invisible cobweb. She shook her head, finally giving her feelings some space.

"Mourier..." the vice-duchess asked thoughtfully, glancing at her faithful bodyguard out of the corner of her eye.

"Yes, Mistress," said the lovag readily.

"Tell me," the woman said, still stretching. "Have you ever wanted to fuck someone hard... But suddenly realized that it was you who was going to be fucked?"

Mourier's cheek twitched, and he swallowed nervously as if choking on an unspoken maxim about words unbecoming a bonom's daughter and future ruler. In the dancing light of the torches, the bodyguard's face flushed.

"Uh... Bleh," Lovag stammered.

"Hmm?" The woman arched an eyebrow.

Mourier moved his caddy again, and in an unexpectedly squeaky voice, he squeezed out painfully:

"To go from hunter to game... That kind of experience... I'm no stranger to it."

"And how did that turn out?"

Lovag was already turning blue, trying not to choke up, keep his face a poker-faced mask, and answer the questions respectfully at the same time. His lips twitched nervously, he was quickly going through the possible answers, and none of them seemed good enough.

"That was... Unusual," he uttered, finally.

Flessa nodded, saying that she had heard what was said. The last lights flickered under the bridge, marking the end of the Memorial. Milvess was turning into a carnival and a brothel. Even the monks were changing their repertoire, singing cheerful praises to Pantocrator, the Father of Life.

"Get my boat ready. Send a stretcher tomorrow to what's-her-name's house..."

"Baala."

"Yes."

"It will be done."

* * *