The Cost of Love

A Fantasy-Romance One Shot

A Knight and his Lady by William G. Mackenzie

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I was inspired by

The Man Behind the Screen

’s excellent romance story White Curls to try my hand at writing my own. To my recollection I have not written romance before so this is new waters for me. Enjoy!

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                                                              CASPARIAN

'Your coin-lord of a father will never allow it,' Casparian said.

'My father? Your mother more like,' Irilina replied, though she knew his mother could be swayed, eventually, she entwined her fingers through his and nestled against his chest. The couple stared up at the night sky, the stars blistering across the cosmos in blues and whites. 'And refrain from calling my father a coin-lord.'

Casparian chuckled and kissed Irilina on the top of her head, 'Alright so neither of our families will allow our union and it's not as if we can use a portal to traverse the cosmos, so what are we going to do?'

'Marry those our family requires and be bitter about it all of our lives,' she snorted as she said it.

'Like your sister?'

'Exactly. What other choice is there?' she sat up, her hand entwined with his, and scrunched her face up at him. Her golden hair fell in curls about her face. Casparian cupped her cheek in his hand, stared into her green eyes, and pressed his lips to hers.

That had been three weeks ago.

'Casparian, ArcKnight of Khasro,' a grizzled voice barked. 'Casparian!' the man barked again, his black iron boots crashing in rhythm against the deck.

Casparian shook himself from his memory, pure as it was, and said, 'Here!'

'ArcKnight!' the grizzled bear of a general pounded before him. Shorter than Casparian by a foot but with a thickness of neck and liturgy of scars that more than made up for it. The man was built like a dwarf but would have been a giant amongst their kind. 'Keep your ears open, never know when it might save your life. I need you to gather twelve good men, you know this lot better than I. You're going to be the scouts, my eyes and ears. Whatever you do, don't fucking die,' General Garo prodded Casparian in the chest with half a finger, the other half lay rotted on some distant battlefield most like.

Casparian struggled to his feet and thought of his first two, his only friends aboard the plane crosser, Jemitt and Lan. They would know ten others capable of scouting the other side of a portal. He marched to the stern of the ship watching the stars coil in the infinite sky above and below the wooden ship. The sails were tied up and the wheel left to spin where it wanted, but if they crossed over to another plane and landed in water the whole crew would leap to action. If they crashed onto land, well that was a problem for the shipwrights and sorcerers. The pair were seated at the back of the ship playing a game of cards and dice, they were forever inventing new games to teach to the other ArcKnights and, inevitably, win big from their comrades lack of knowledge. 'Jemitt, Lan, find me ten men you trust and who are good scouts.'

'HAHA, that's a six. That means I can play this and strike that and take the win!' Lan declared with a flurry of hand moves moving cards and counters.

'Scouting, how droll,' Jemitt said. 'No, it doesn't mean you win because I can play this, which negates that and means that,' he snatched a card back from Lan. 'Is still in play.'

'Now,' Casparian growled.

'I hear you, Cas,' Lan slid the cards, coins, counters, and dice into a wooden box, locked it, and stuffed it between him and his breastplate. 'Ten men, I know ten good men.'

'Twenty mytra says you don't,' Jemitt said. 'I know ten good men.'

'Well between you I expect ten good scouting men.'

'Scouting...' Jemitt sucked his teeth.

'Go!' Casparian barked.

The pair saluted and ran off to find the ten.

Casparian leaned over the rear of the ship. The rudder swayed from port to starboard with a creaking laziness, like Irilina's hair in the summer breeze. He shook his head. It was no good thinking of her now. He was between planes and she... was probably being matched up to some oligarch for her father or mother's benefit... no it would be the family benefit. It always was. Perhaps if he hadn't snuck into her room the night before leaving her parents would have remained ignorant of their affair but Casparian was reckless, a fool, and madly in love. Risk was all he knew. Who knew how many years he'd be campaigning. The only benefit was the chance to make a name for himself, the best chance a third son of lowly aristocrat could hope for.

Casparian stood before the portal to another plane. The plane crosser held steady beside it, the plank out straight into what looked to be the void but beyond that was a pale green shimmer around forty feet in diameter. Beyond was a whole other world of mortals and monsters. His twelve stood behind him, armed and armoured. They'd have ten days to scout out the immediate area and by then the main host would arrive and invasion, colonisation, subjugation, or all three would begin. General Garo and the rest of the crew had gathered to watch.

He found the locket hanging round his neck and fiddled with the silver clasp until it popped open. Inside was a coin sized portrait of Irilina, he smiled sealed it, kissed it, slid it back down his undershirt and took a deep breath. Casparian headed across the plank. The wood did not bend, did not move at all, even when Casparian stood on the very edge of it. He reached out to the pale green portal and risked death for glory. He sank through the haze and stepped through into a new world, he reached back through the portal with one hand and ushered in his twelve good men. The crew would be cheering at initial success but Casparian could not hear them. Instead he walked forward across a dry and desolate land with mushrooms as tall as mountains, four winged birds, a purple lake, and pockets of what looked like bushes and trees but almost certainly were not. Three mountain mushrooms towered over the lake, their white stalks as wide as a city with brown and red caps piercing the sky. Snow gathered on their peaks and clouds were caught beneath their canopies. Other winged creatures nested on the stalks, plucking and pecking nooks for themselves.

Lan appeared first, 'By Tessaran's Polished Fist what is this?'

'A new world.'

'Least it isn't infested with demons,' Jemitt said.

'Careful, demons can cross the planes as well as we can,' Casparian reminded his friend. He peered back at the portal, barely four foot wide and ten foot tall. The ship was never passing through to this world which meant arduous disembarktions and monotonous back and forth to set up camp. That was all after he'd scouted out the region. 'We best be on our way. Lan, take half the men and head that way, Jemmit with me and the remainder. Use your flares if you encounter resistance.'

'Will do, Cas,' Lan saluted and picked his men with a flurry of pointing. He led his men out towards the purple lake singing marching songs.

                                                                           *

Casparian, ArcKnight of Khasro, wandered a strange land keeping himself to silence while thoughts of Irilina plagued him. Her hair, her vibrant eyes, the sheen of her skin, the cinnamon of her breath, it was a plague of bliss but a plague nonetheless given he was tens of thousands of miles away, or further. Jemitt, ArcKnight of Khasro, natted with the grunts making bets on what they'd find and when. They passed beneath the canopy of a mushroom tree the height of a watchtower and Casparian, in an effort to think about anything other his lost beloved, contemplated climbing it. Instead he ordered one of the men to do it.

                                                                    IRILINA

Irilina cast an eye across the silverware for the seventh time in her hunt for a blemish. A blemish on a knife or spoon in the wrong hands could be interpretted as an insult and that was most assuredly something the family could not afford at such a critical hour. She paced down one length of the dining table set for one hundred and thirty guests. One long table with bouquets every fourth seat, candelabras every third, name cards upon each placemat leaning against a napkin swan or turtle or lion or fan or whatever other shape the maids and servants had learned. The variety kept the setting from going stale, Irilina was sure. She passed by her mothers place at one end of the long table, the chair slightly taller, slightly thicker wood, more ornately carved with lions paws for feet and subtle wings up the back. The fireplace, a marble mantle supported by two red marble statues of forgotten gods, was already burning to warm the room in preparation for the guests arrival. A host of Khasro's critical men and women, from old nobility to new money merchants, from foreign diplomats to guild masters. Amongst the power and money were what her mother liked to call “conversation starters”, the people of the week, or hour, those famed for some event or performance, artists, actors, craftsmen, or simply those who were gossiped about that week. This small set were insurance against dullness, against lulls in conversation, or for when the hired dancers and musicians failed to perform to their expected standard.

Irlina passed by her own seat, too close to the fire for her liking but there was little she could do now so late in the day. Her father had done a last minute rearrangement of the seating plan, not much had changed beyond Irilina being seated between and opposite a plethora of the old and senile, not that she minded. It was easy to fend off suitors when she wasn't sat beside them. Her ears still rang from the berating her mother, then father, then mother again, gave when they discovered her “affair” with Casparian. Affair was such an extreme word, and not at all accurate. Her and Casparian were sweethearts not some summer romance. Had been, at least. Now he was beyond the portal sailing the planes to gods knew where. Irilina wondered if that was her father's doing or if Casparian had yet to tell her something. She supposed it didn't matter anymore and let out a sigh as she reached her father's chair at the opposite end to her mother's. It was less a chair and more a throne, ebony wood cracking with age. Sections had been highlighted in gold leaf, around a cherubims wings, the spear tip of some ancient hero, the claws of the dragon claw feet. Her father had purchased it from an aristocrat down on his luck years prior, not that he admitted it. Instead he told a tale of finding it in a distant relative's stable or some such nonsense. Money alone did not keep the family name polished.

That was what she found so strange about her parents shock toward Casparian. Third son of a genuine blue blood with a lineage tracing back centuries, she thought that was good but apparently his was a lower family and she deserved better. Likely some wealthy merchants son, fat and slovenly from having the servants do all the work and leisure. Rosefel had filled with the sort in recent weeks, on account of the Harvest Festival. Fat sons rolled from men's club to men's club drinking, eating, belching while the fat daughters were carried in litters from patisserie to patisserie stopping only to acquire wine from street stalls. If that was how the children of oligarchs behaved then Irilina preferred to remain single.

One of the dining rooms numerous doors opened with a sigh. 'Still pining for that boy?' Irilina's mother said from across the room. She glid across the carpet towards Irilina.

'No,' though Irilina wondered how she had been so readable, she was better at maintaining her mask than that, she thought.

'Liar,' her mother gave a curt grin. Her greying hair was coiled at the nape of neck like a pastry. 'Don't worry Iri your father and I have narrowed down the potential suitors, after this festival we'll have all sorts of balls and dinners and before the years end we'll have found your man. A good man, wealthy, landed, from a strong family with good financial interests. No soldiers, no glorified farmers, no landlords, no sailors, just decent businessmen and merchants.'

Irilina sighed. That meant the fat son of an iron mine owner or the fat son of some industrialist or worse, the fat son of a fat merchant. A lowly soldier at least knew his manners and didn't get grease down his shirt. Now she regretted not running away with Casparian, she could of snuck aboard the ship he was on or they could have stolen one and travelled to another plane and lived a happy life together. Irilina sighed.

'I mean it, you have to purge your mind of that soldier. So crass, I bet his hands were rough from swordplay.'

'I liked his rough hands, it meant he did something other than gallivant from party to party.'

Her mother's lips pursed until they were white, 'And what would you have done when you find he was killed on some dim and distant plane? What then?'

Irilina knew there was no point playing that game with her mother, but she did anyway, if only for the sport. 'There's no war. Very few die nowadays, you know that. Besides, Casparian is an ArcKnight, he wouldn't be put into harms way on a whim.'

'I told you to never utter his name again. Soldiers die. The military covers up the true number so fools like him sign up,' her mother smoothed a loose hair. 'Go and ready yourself, the guests will be here in a few hours and I know how long you take in the bath. Go!'

'Yes, mother,' Irilina composed herself, curtsied, and retreated to her rooms. Once out of the dining room she allowed herself a smile, clearly the stress of a hundred odd guests was taking its toll.

                                                                CASPARIAN

Casparian ducked, dove, and rolled under the demon's hammer swing. He'd been right to be cautious but with two men dead and a third injured he wished he hadn't split his cohort. Jemitt had launched a flare but there was no guarantee Lan had seen it. The demon, twelve foot tall with two heads, staggered around, a dozen wounds weeping from its legs and side. Casparian raised his sword and charged the monstrous oaf plunging the length of his slim blade into soft hind flesh. The demon raged, smacking the ground with its hammer left and right. Casparian pressed his whole weight against the hilt of his sword and tore a bloody maw into the creature. A great gush of blood and flesh came away. The demon swayed and fell on its front. It wasn't dead but it was immobilised. Casparian rounded the beast, panting and aching. He placed his silver against the monster's throat and cut deep, he repeated it against the demon's second throat. As the two heads bled out he wondered if that was the only one here. He hoped so.

'Jemitt, we'll have to carry Har and leave the dead. Make sure to claim anything useful from the corpses. We're returning to the portal,' Casparian sheathed his blood drenched sword, something he'd regret back at base, and limped back across the sparse landscape.

                                                                            *

Lan appeared at the head of his five men, sweat beading on his forehead. 'Cas! We saw the flare. What happened?' two men rushed forth to relieve Jemitt and the other soldier carrying Har.

'Attacked by a demon, or at least some monster. Didn't see it coming,' Casparian scanned the gently rolling landscape around him. Nothing but four-winged birds and odd looking bat-like things darting round the gargantuan mushrooms. 'Find anything?'

'Nothing. Portals a short walk from here, you okay?' Lan pointed to Casparian's leg.

Blood trickled out over his silver armour, 'I'll be fine.' He began in the direction of the portal, shimmering in the near distance. General Garo would want to start disembarktion soon. A tear flickered in the air beside Casparian, drawing his eye. From nothing came a serrated sword as long as Casparian was tall. He was on the fall. Jemitt and Lan were screaming and the surviving soldiers drew their swords. Casparian was on the ground drowning in a sea of agony, he grabbed hold of that agony and launched a spear of lightning from his hand. The twisted demon that had emerged from nowhere faded into dust and darkness took Casparian.

                                                                             *

'Irilina... Irilina... where are you?' Casparian panted.

'You're aboard the ship, Cas,' Lan whispered. He pressed a cloth to his friend's forehead. 'Cas, the General is here.'

Casparian managed to peel his eyes open for a moment to see the tarred wood of the plane crosser all around him. Lan and Jemitt were nearby, both ashen. General Garo stepped into view, stern and red-faced. 'Always tragic losing a good man, a good soldier,' he clicked his teeth together. 'Surgeons are prepping their tools now, I'm sorry, son,' Garo held Casparian's injured leg by the ankle. He gave it a shake, sucked a breath, and stepped out shaking his head and muttering under his breath.

'What's happening?' Casparian looked to Lan, then Jemitt. Neither spoke. 'What's happening!'

As Lan took a step towards him two surgeons entered, one with a tray of tools and bandages. 'Secure his limbs,' Doctor Ulda said. The one carrying the tray set it down and produced four leather straps. He tightened the first around Casparian's injured leg, securing it to the bed which was itself secured to the deck.

'What's happening?' panic flooded Casparian's mind.

Ulda was a short man with a kind face, the sort that would have made a good grandfather, only Ulda was barely thirty with a head of thick black hair and no family to speak of. Doctor was a good second choice for him so when he sat down beside Casparian and gave a disarming smile the words that came out sounded almost hopeful. 'We're going to have to remove the leg, I'm afraid. The wounds,' he exagerated the 's', 'are deep. To the bone and not all are physical in nature. You will feel as little as possible, so long as you drink this,' Ulda produced a small bottle of a pale liquid. 'You'll be awake still but not once the work starts, okay?' He patted Casparian on the shoulder. 'Bottoms up!' He uncorked the bottle, no bigger than his thumb, and handed it to Casparian.

Casparian took it, 'What?' he drank the liquid. He saw it. His leg. A mess of metal, bone, and flesh, pulsating blood and some ichor not of man. He screamed, his heart quickened, and then he began to go faint. He felt the hairs in his ear bristle but could not feel anything below his neck. 'What's happening?'

'Shh,' Ulda whispered in his ear. 'We're about to begin.' The doctor turned to Jemitt and Lan, 'Stay if you have the stomach, most do not.'

                                                                   IRILINA

Her thoughts drifted to Casparian, it was impossible for them not too after so long apart. She daren't count the days but each dawn only made her heart ache more for her beloved. Her mother wouldn't understand and her father would leave the room if Irilina mentioned Casparian in any capacity. That left her handmaiden who promised that with time her love would wane and that a new suitor would help distract her. If that were so why had her mother sat her between two old crones and opposite someone who was, effectively, The Competition.

Pretty and smart, Madeleine, spending her time slapping away suitors from high and low families alike. Irilina refused to speak to her on principle, not for anything she'd done but for why her mother had placed her there. Irilina was expected to talk and to learn from other prospective women and why not learn from the best. Irilina simply wouldn't. Instead she would listen to the tales of the women beside her, one a widow, the other just old and tired, yet both with an endless litany of stories, some dull, some exciting, almost all about navigating the battlefield of Khasro social life, the only real political game worth involving oneself with.

'I heard your fancy was sent off to some other plane on Commonwealth business?' Madeleine crowed from across the table. She sipped her wine and batted her eyelashes.

Irilina turned to the Lady Hosia in hopes of striking conversation but the old woman was deep in another conversation. Irilina turned to Madeleine who simply smiled away the insult. 'He was.'

'For the better,' she chimed, her voice carrying over at least a dozen others. 'Soldier's make unreliable spouses, and besides, he was practically a commoner compared to you.'

'His family has a lineage ten times as long and illustrious as yours,' Irilina lashed, biting her tongue before she drew either of her parent's ire.

'Yes, well, if that was the case where's all his money? His holdings?' She paused for effect. 'Exactly. If I were you I'd have my sights set on the son of a high-alderman, at the very least. The time for slumming it with any old suitor is over, I have to bat them away. Such pests. All they want is my mother's holdings out in Jantarro and my father's lucrative gemstones trade. Fool's them, I won't see an inch or carat of either. Luckily I have my wits,' she leaned across the table with a conspiratorial glance, 'and my looks.' She widened her eyes as if revealing some great secret.

'Quite,' Irilina smothered her rage enough to prevent it showing but that was all she could manage.

'I'm sure your Castro is dead already, best get over him. Besides if a soldier doesn't die they get maimed and that's even worse,' Madeleine rolled her eyes and sipped her wine. 'Where is the pâté?'

Irilina shoved her chair backwards the feet scratching against the waxed floorboards, 'His name is Casparaian!' She stood and stormed off towards the nearest restroom. A hundred eyes tracked her but none said anything, if they had she mightened had the strength to open the door. Irilina stormed through a seating room and then another before disappearing into a boudoir and shut the door. She clung to her bosom and found the locket from Casparian nestled there. Holding it in a clenched fist she began to cry.

                                                                 CASPARIAN

The ArcKnight awoke numb and fragile. His lips were cracked and a headache burrowed between and behind his eyes. 'Water...' he gasped.

'Sir,' a cup was handed to him from a man Casparian did not recognise.

'Thank you,' he wheezed. The water tasted like gold. 'Who are you?'

'Mariander, sir. General Garo assigned me to see you home.'

'Home!' Casparian sat up. A sharp pain lanced down his back and into his wounded leg. Mariander set his hands on his shoulders and eased him back down. 'Why am I home?'

'You've lost a leg,' Mariander said, in an even timbre.

Casparian flinched and looked down. He tore off the blankets and furs to find his right leg gone from above the knee. He screamed and passed out.

                                                                            *

The night greeted Casparian the next time he woke. He was in a new bed in a new room with a view across familiar forests ending in distant mountains, owls hooted in the night. The city of Khasro, capital of the Commonwealth and Interplane Dominions. Equal parts relief and grief swirled inside him, mixing with a heady hangover. He had a room to himself and Mariander was nowhere to be seen. Casparian closed his eyes for a moment and soon found himself drifting off.

                                                                            *

'Morning, Sir. Would breakfast be welcomed?' Mariander said.

'It would,' Casparian sat up against the headboard staring out towards the distant mountains he would never climb again. The thought of how much else he would never do again sullied his already rotten mood.

Mariander entered with a plate piled high with egg and sausage and fried onions. 'Here. Ale with that?'

'Do they have soldier's ale here?'

'They do.'

'Pint of that then.'

'Right away.'

'Mariander,' Casparian caught the grunt before he darted off. 'Why are you still here?'

'I was ordered to attend to you until you were fit enough to go home,' the soldier said. It was the first time Casparian had properly looked at the man. Blisters on his hands spoke of long hours training but not enough to form callouses. The smooth chin and close cropped hair meant recent recruit but the tattoo beneath his eye revealed the most. 'What's your sentence, Mariander?'

'Ten years service with half-pension on completion, so long as I have perfect conduct.'

'You're young for such a sentence, must have been a serious crime.'

'It was, sir.'

'I won't pry. Say, could you do something for me?'

'That's why I'm here,' Mariander stood at ease and gave a shrug of his shoulders.

'Find a way to contact a woman by the name of Irilina of the Takota family, let her know where I am. You won't be able to just go to the family seat though, have to be a bit... secretive,' Casparian said. He scratched at his stump, a tingling pain lingered in his discarded calf.

Mariander nodded knowingly, 'I'll see it done, sir.'

'Very good,' Casparian bit into a peppery sausage, his mood vastly improved.

                                                                            *

The stump itched, the bone ached, and his stomach rumbled. There was not enough food in the hospital, not enough ointment, and Casparian was forbidden anymore of the pale liquid Ulda had given him for the pain. Apparently there were side effects, severe ones that would make him worse than crippled.

It had been three days since he'd asked Mariander to find Irilina and two days since the man charged with his care had communicated with her. He was coy with the details, likely wanting to maintain his perfect record for a half-pension. Casparian supposed anything was good for a man of Mariander's stature. Casparian finished his breakfast ale, a local variety rather than the soldier's kind, and found it a little strong and syrupy. There was a knock at the door.

'Enter.'

The door burst open and a blur of powder blue and orange dashed across the room. The figure threw her arms around Casparian's neck, pecking him with kisses. 'I thought I'd never see you again,' Irilina blabbered through her tears.

Casparian, frozen in shock, managed to lift an arm round her, 'Me neither.' His throat dried up. 'Mariander.'

'Told me everything, though someone needs to teach him calligraphy,' Irilina tutted.

'He's a... soldier, drafting letters is rarely on the duty roster.'

'Still,' Irilina stepped back, her eyes drinking in the sight of her beloved. 'I cannot believe you're here. What happened?'

'Not everything then,' Casparian surmised. He scratched his head and decided to do it fast. He pulled the furs off his leg in a single flurry.

Irilina screamed.

And screamed.

And screamed.

'Your. Your. Your leg! Where is it?' She waved a pointed finger in the direction of his leg while covering her mouth with her other hand.

'Gone.'

'But... your soldiering life? What will you do?'

'Haven't thought that far yet. Father will have me back at the family seat, I'm sure there is work to be done there. I may not be able to hike a mountain but most everything else remains open to me,' Casparian said. He was never one for letters or numbers, nor for geography or music, but he supposed he now had the time to learn all he'd forsaken in his childhood.

Irilina perched herself on the edge of his bed, 'I still love you.' She said it with a pained expression. 'We'll make it work.'

Casparian daren't utter his disbelief. He may have been back in Khasro but that hadn't changed her father or mother's opinion of him and his family. 'But your mother...' he quested knowing he couldn't ignore it completely.

'Her mother still objects,' Irilina's father roared, bounding into the room. 'As do I. Irilina, enough of this childish flit,' he clicked his fingers. 'Home. You have twenty suitors to meet over the next week, starting tonight and I don't want word of this getting out. Nor do you,' he growled, his grey moustache giving the impression of boar tusks.

'Why not? So the entire city, the entire Commonwealth, can know how loyal and loving I am?' Irilina grabbed Casparian's hand.

'Foolish girl! You would have our name mocked, our station questioned, our deals placed in jeopardy all for a crippled soldier! Your mother was right, we should have locked you in your rooms until your wedding day,' the boar of a man paced at the end of Casparian's bed.

Mariander appeared in the doorway, 'Sir.'

'Yes,' both Casparian and Lord Takota said. The coin-lord glowered at the soldier but it was Mariander who broke the silence.

'A herald is here for you, sir,' Mariander said. 'They have an important message.'

'Tell them they can wait,' Irilina's father barked.

Mariander did not move. Casparian did not have to say anything as the herald marched in to the room, sidestepping the grunt with a practiced step. 'Hear this! Casparian of the Edari family!' The herald marched directly into Lord Takota's path forcing the coin-lord to step out of the way. The herald turned, his livery rippling in the late morning light. He held a scroll before him and read, 'For services rendered to the Commonwealth of Khasro, Casparian of the Edari is hereby elevated to the rank of Baron and is to be granted a fiefdom of ten thousand households along with an estate of one thousand acres in order to facilitate administration of said fiefdom.' The herald returned the scroll to its tube.

Casparian sat dumbfounded.

'Where is this fiefdom to be situated?' Irilina asked.

'On this plane, the details will follow in a few days times. Lord, Lady, Baron,' the herald bowed to each in turn and left in the manner he had entered.

'Baron...' Casparian stared out to the distant mountains.

'Ten thousand households...' Irilina's father stared out across the forests below Khasro. 'Irilina, you have your match. Casparian, I expect a formal proposal once you're hale,' he gave a curt smile and marched out.

Irilina beamed at Casparian. He had not yet recovered from the herald when the coin-lord had surprised him even more so. Casparian knew his parent's would have no objections, given his situation. The third son of a rankless noble family had few opportunites, less when missing a leg. Casparian could not believe his luck, he expected a medal or a meager property on the outskirts in recognition of service, not an entire fiefdom. The title too was grander than he had thought wounded received. There were few wounded who survived and fewer still Casparian could have spoken too, but why would he. Few man who signed up expected to be disfigured, even when the chance was high. None expected or even dreamed of their disfigurement would lead to a barony and the wife of their dreams.

Casparian, 'My thanks, Lord Takota, you shall have it forthwith.'

'Good. Now, Irilina, allow the man to recover. You and your mother have a wedding to plan,' Lord Takota smiled and for the first time Irilina could remember it appeared genuine. He stepped outside.

Irilina squoze Casparian's hand, grinned from ear to ear, and slowly left the room, walking backwards and blowing kisses the whole time. She shut the door.

Mariander remained in the corner, breaking his serpentine silence, 'Congratulations, sir.'

'I need to get out of this bed. Get the doctor and find out what I have to do to be well enough to leave,' Casparian felt he was already behind with his new life.

---

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