III
“This... This is so much worse than I imagined.”
The words slipped from Claudia unbidden as she took in the awful scene that met them at Canalia. The wooden barricades that surrounded the town had almost all collapsed. A number of burly men carried logs to and fro as they made repairs in solemn silence, but their progress was slow. Anger towards those who had done this burned inside Claudia as she crossed the bridge and passed through the splintered gates to where an even more gruesome sight awaited them. Smashed windows. Fallen bricks. Almost every building was in ruins, and everywhere they looked was stained with lurid splatters of blood. It wasn’t hard to imagine what had happened. The town might have been reclaimed by Fernest, but now it was shrouded in sorrow.
“Ugh, that smell...” Claudia said, her face twisting. The wind carried with it the stench of decay, like corpses had been left out to rot somewhere nearby. She’d grown used to that stench on the battlefield, but she didn’t like it. Ashton frowned, covering his nose with a handkerchief. Olivia, meanwhile, appeared unfazed. She gazed around with interest at the ruined town. Claudia wondered if the townspeople were accustomed to the smell. They didn’t react to it at all; they only stood watching the Independent Cavalry Regiment with empty eyes, keeping their distance.
“The restoration efforts are making even less progress than reports indicated,” Ashton muttered darkly. His voice was hard.
“It seems that way,” Claudia replied. Built along a bend in the river, Canalia was known throughout the south for its stunning scenery. There was no trace of that now. Claudia tried but couldn’t begin to imagine how long it would take to return the town to what it had been.
Ashton and the others arrived at the military outpost in the center of the town. They dismounted to greet the captain of the platoon stationed there. As they did so, several children who’d been watching them ran up and gathered around Olivia. A girl and boy of six or seven years old, and another boy who was perhaps ten. They all looked up at Olivia in amazement. Apparently even children couldn’t help but be drawn to her extraordinary beauty.
“You’re so pretty, miss! You look like my doll,” said the girl. She proudly held up the tattered doll to show Olivia.
“Really?” said Olivia, patting her cheeks as though to check the shape of her own face. “I’ve never paid that much attention to how I look.” Beside her, the smaller boy’s nose twitched as he breathed in her scent.
“Does something smell?” she asked.
“Yeah. Something smells really good,” he said.
“Aha, I bet it’s this,” said Olivia with a grin. With an air of showing off, she pulled a cookie out of her bag. At once, the children’s eyes lit up, sparkling like a starry sky.
“Wow, miss! That’s a cookie, right?”
“That’s right.” Olivia paused. “Have you never had a cookie?” The boy’s eyes widened in surprise at the question, and he shook his head vigorously.
“No way. Only rich nobles eat stuff like that. My ma said so.”
Olivia looked at Ashton, mystified. “Is that true?” she asked.
“I mean, in the capital they aren’t as rare as that, but they’re still what you’d call a luxury good. Not the sort of thing commoners can eat on a whim.”
“But you’re a commoner, right? And you said you’ve eaten cake before. On the way to Fort Lamburke, you definitely said ‘Yes, obviously I know what cake is. I’ve eaten it,’” Olivia said, in a small display of her incredible memory.
“I come from a decently successful merchant family,” Ashton explained.
“What does that mean?”
“We’re relatively wealthy and...well, simply put, my family has money.” This was yet another example of Olivia’s terrifying ignorance of everyday life. Raised in the middle of a forest or not, when Ashton first learned that she hadn’t known what money was until she enlisted in the royal army it had made his head spin.
“Huh, and that’s why you’ve eaten cake even though you’re a commoner...” mused Olivia, gazing at the cookie in her hand. Then, she turned back to the children.
“Want to try one?” she asked. The children blinked at her. Their hands reached out, then pulled back. Clearly, they were unsure whether they were allowed to say yes.
“R...Really, miss? We haven’t any money, you know,” said the older boy, pulling his pockets inside out to show her. A few scraps scattered to the ground.
“Oh no, I don’t need money. And even though it said in my book that they’re tooth-rottingly delicious, they don’t really rot your teeth, so you don’t have to worry,” said Olivia, then handed a cookie to each of the children. The three of them looked at one another, then crammed the cookies into their mouths with smiles of joy.
“This is the best thing ever, miss!”
“The best!”
“It’s so good?! How’s it so good?!” The children cried out one after another in delight. Ashton glanced at Olivia, and saw her with her arms folded and a proud expression.
“Hey,” he said, exasperated, “What are you doing carrying cookies around? And do you have any left in there?”
“Ummm...” Olivia peered into her bag. “About ten, I think?” Ashton turned to the line of red-roofed buildings in the west of the town, where another group of children stood watching them, unsure whether to approach.
“One, two, three... Would you look at that, the perfect number,” he said. “Well? Aren’t you going to give them their cookies too?”
“Wha—?!” Olivia made a shocked noise. “But...my cookies... What about...” Ashton had never seen her look so despairing. She then threw a succession of childish insults at him—“ogre,” “meanie,” the list went on.
“Call me all the names you like. Surely you agree it’s unfair to give these children cookies and not the others?”
“But then...then isn’t it unfair to take all my cookies too?” Olivia said desperately, puffing out her cheeks with a great huff. Ashton patted her twice on the shoulder.
“You’ll get more cake later. And no ordinary cake either!” said Ashton with a conspiratorial chuckle.
“Wait, what?” Olivia swallowed hungrily, her anger all forgotten.
“As it happens, I’m acquainted with a cake maker in the capital. I hear one bite of their cake, and you’ll never be satisfied with anything else.”
“‘One bite of their cakes and you’ll never be satisfied with anything else...’” echoed Olivia, entranced. Ashton pressed his advantage.
“That’s right. You know what that means? Cake that’s more delicious than anything you’ve had before.”
Although that was just what the rumors said.
“S-Seriously? You... You mean you’ll take me to this cake shop?!”
“I swear it on the Senefelder name,” replied Ashton. He put his hand to his chest and gave a gentlemanly bow.
“Then it’s a promise!” Olivia cried, bearing down on him with fervor in her eyes. She had taken the bait hook, line and sinker. Ashton took this as consent and, snickering internally, beckoned the other children. They approached timidly.
“Right. This nice lady is going to give you all a tasty treat,” Ashton announced. “You don’t have to pay anything, of course. Got it? Okay, now line up in front of her and—” Before Ashton could finish his sentence, the children had formed a line with the efficiency of well-drilled soldiers. He smiled to himself, then looked pointedly at Olivia. She forced a smile onto her face, and began handing her cookies out to the children one by one. Ashton decided to write off the tremor in her hands as she parted with the final cookie as a trick of the light.
“That was very sweet,” said a dignified voice from behind him. He turned and saw Claudia standing there. Her smile was as soft as a ray of sunlight in spring. Ashton, suddenly feeling a little bashful, scratched his nose and tried to brush her off.
“I mean, it’s something, at least. After that, all we can do is pray for the recovery to go quickly.”
“Indeed,” said Claudia, after a pause. The two of them looked over at Olivia, where she stood surrounded by children and laughing innocently.
The next morning during breakfast, the platoon captain came to see Olivia and her companions in their makeshift lodging. They looked unhappy.
“Has something happened?” asked Claudia. “We’re supposed to leave after breakfast.” The captain scratched their head.
“Very sorry to bother you during breakfast, sers. The thing is—”
“Please!” From behind the captain, a man cried out, then threw himself at Olivia’s feet. “I beg you, please save Lieutenant General Sara!” He was covered in grime, but on his epaulets were six purple stars. A messenger from the Sixth Legion, then.
“What are you doing here? Isn’t the Sixth Legion defending Fort Peshitta?” Ashton asked him. The man, who introduced himself as Berhard, nodded fervently in response.
Ashton recalled that the Sixth Legion had been defeated by the Steel Chargers on the southern front, but had narrowly avoided total annihilation. They were now, he was sure, assigned to defense at Fort Peshitta in the west of the central lands.
“Berhard, was it? First, let go of the major. Then we’ll hear what you have to say.” Claudia had leapt up from her chair and now glowered down at the man.
“F-F-Forgive me!” he spluttered, backing away from Olivia and pressing his face flat to the ground. Claudia exhaled loudly through her nose, then sat back down. Olivia herself seemed unbothered.
“What’s up, then?” she asked casually. “You said something about saving Lieutenant General Sara?”
“Y-Yes, ser! The Sixth Legion is currently under siege by the Swaran army! I have come to beg for your aid!”
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