Throughout the afternoon the rest of the Cadre trickled in, in groups or alone. Brian, concerned about their youngest warriors, watched the door and patrolled the street and alleys around the doss. Cade shrugged and said they'd find the way when they got tired of exploration.
    Thinking about the groups of more experienced soldiers he'd seen wandering the streets, Brian rejected her solution and sent Arish and two of his rugged men to search for them. The Lost Boys stumbled in, laughing and reeking of beer, shepherded by Arish who held a crockery mug of the stuff.
    "Found 'em in an oasis. Two streets down and through an alley," he said in explanation.
    "Oasis?" Brian asked.
    One of the twins laughed as he plopped down on his mattress. "Food. Beer."
    The other smirked. "And other stuff." He clapped one of the other youths, who blushed, on the shoulder.
    The first brother continued, either ignoring the teasing or oblivious to it, "And it's all free."
    Cyn, who'd been watching with no particular expression, leapt up and, with her bare feet slapping out an urgent warning against the parquet floor, strode toward the group. She yanked the boy up, jerking his shirt and grabbing everyone's attention with her callous roughness.
    With her nose almost touching his, she growled, "Nothing here is ever free. You will pay in blood, with pain. Yours or, if lucky, someone else's." With a flash and jangle, her dagger sliced a path through the meat of the boy's chin on its way to his Adam's apple, which jumped and shivered as the tip tickled his skin. "A paydown on that debt. A token for your next beer." Her knife tip dimpled his flesh.
    No one breathed as Brian stepped closer. He reached between them and tilted her dagger away from the youth's throat, swearing mentally as the blade nicked his knuckle. "Back off, Cade," he whispered, softly enough for the words to remain within the triangle of him, her, and the boy. "He's just a kid and you saved him once."
    He could see the ice melt from her eyes and the stone from her jaw. "Give him a little time," he urged, wondering if referee was one of his duties or just part of his nature.
    She tossed her chin and scowled. "I gave him some time. He spent it playing fish and bunging barrels." Releasing the boy's shirt, she stood upright. Talking to Brian but addressing the room, Cade said, "If he is to have more time - if any of us are - it is at the mercy of the Lords and with the skill of our swords." Some of the men nodded and turned away. They were the ones that had been on Atvar longest.
    She twirled the dagger but, before replacing it in its sheath, tapped Brian's chest with the hilt. "You want him spared? Do you want to live out a month? Can you learn and teach them enough that so, when the call comes, you'll have an adequate answer for the question."
    "What question?"
    She snorted. "Did you learn enough? Did they?"
    "How long 'til the call?" Cade shrugged indifferently and looked down at the teenager, who crab-walked out of her arm's reach. "It isn't free... Remember that." He nodded, his head bobbing like one of those dog figurines that sat in the back windows of cars. She sighed and scratched her head, looking at her nails in disgust. "I don't suppose you found the bathhouse, too?"
    Bart, the bolder twin, answered, "Yeah. Across the street from the oasis."
    Cyn cast her eyes around the doss, curled her lip and said, "How convenient for all of you." When Brian would have said something, she gestured him away. "Go."

    The oasis was one of the two storied buildings. Across the street plumes of steam puffed out of tightly laced canvas curtains of a squat structure similar to the doss. Brian was torn. His stomach demanded food but the remnants of his capture, journey, and battle stained his hands and arms. The ocean had been saltier than he expected and the water had stung in his various scratches, discouraging any earnest effort toward cleanliness. A coating of brine covered the down on his legs and had turned his hair into a sticky slab glued to his neck and forehead.
    Bath first, he decided, and then return to the doss to invite Cade to join the captains in the oasis. She set herself apart too often.

    Brian found Kennan loitering at the entrance of the bathhouse. "Problem?" he asked. The archer captain shook his head.
    "Saw you coming. Thought you might need stuff explained."
    Brian laughed as he pushed on the saloon-style doors. "I've been bathing myself since I was seven. I think I can manage…" And he might have if not confronted by the unexpected scene within.

    The first thing Brian noticed was the steamy heat. The interior was dark and restful. It smelled of metal and soap and damp wood. He liked the scent. As his eyes adjusted he noticed more.
    The bathhouse was, indeed, shaped like a doss but the resemblance ended there. The main floor was sunken into the ground by a few feet. Boarded paths edged the periphery. Serpentine waist high walls ran parallel courses across the room. Canvas curtains dangled like banners, not breaking the space into sections but providing an illusion of privacy. Large copper pipes hung in pairs from the ceiling. At regular intervals the large conduits had smaller tubes branching off. Along one side of each half-wall were rows of copper tubs, fitted by twos into the curves. Many of the tubs were occupied, though only the tops of heads could be seen from the doorway.

    "Oh," Brian said, his statement about bathing himself interrupted by the industrious quiet.
    "You might be able to manage bathing alone but I don't think they're going to let you," Kennan replied. Up and down the aisles, several dozen women moved purposefully. Some carried towels, some carted trays with mugs, and others simply meandered without a burden, stopping to converse with the bathers.
    An older woman, the first to notice Brian and Kennan at the door, left her aisle and approached them. "Company?"
    "Crimson," Kennan said.
    "Cade's Cadre," Brian said at the same moment.
    "How many?"
    "A double, give or take. Some went to eat first," Kennan said.
    She glanced across the walls. "Rank five." Brian followed as the woman led the way along a narrow catwalk and left them on a slightly wider deck with benches. A curtained stairway descended into the lower level.
    Almost immediately, Tricie slipped around the canvas. "Greetin's, suhs," she said and introduced herself. Her dress - more a linen slip - clung to every round curve and had a translucent quality that inspired Brian's imagination to see more than his eyes really could. The fabric made a slurping sound as she plucked it away from one thigh. The toes on her bare feet were wrinkled and pruny as were her fingers. Her dark hair, tangled and curly, covered one shoulder and curled around her face, dripping. Whatever braid she'd put it in had collapsed into a few knotted twists held together with a bedraggled purple ribbon.
    She gave orders and, with bemused arousal, Brian obeyed reluctantly. She touched him constantly, if not patting or stroking Kennan's chest or chin.
    "That ain't the way it's done, honey," Tricie argued when Brian would have kept his underwear on longer. "Dey's dirty and stay heyuh."

    The plump girl waved her hand in the water and said, "Gettin' chill." She pulled down the copper-colored spout and Brian bent his knees. He'd learned the hard way that the water she was adding was scalding. She caressed his jaw. "Good. Softa now." She hunkered down on the short-legged stool at the head of the tub and stirred the little pot of suds into a creamy lather.
    "Ah'm a thinking," she said, spreading the soap on his chin and neck, "that if Ah wuh a Yankee fella Ah might jes grow a full set of whiskas rather than let some Rebel gal put a knife to mah gullet."
    It had been her Scarlett O'Hara accent that had cajoled him into letting her bathe him. Kennan simply stripped off his clothes without an argument and stepped into the tub when she pointed. Though he never openly laughed, the slender archer's amusement at Brian's discomfiture was patently apparent in the way his lips twitched and the timing of his sinking beneath the surface of his shoulder-deep bath.
    Tricie tested the razor on the back of her wrist, before tilting Brian's chin up with her forefinger. "But, suh, Ah vow Ah never nicked a chin that come to me." Brian sensed her grin and caught an oblique glance toward Kennan whom she'd shaved first. "Even when dey wriggle."
    Her dark hair, damp with steam and sweat, fell in her face and she pushed it back with the back of one hand, leaving a streak of white lather in the tangles. "Y'all set?" Her bright blue eyes twinkled as she cushioned his head on her ample bosom. "Built in head rest, ya know."
    "Ah reckon he does now, m'am," Kennan drawled in a fair imitation of her delightful accent.
    "Why yuh mockin' me? Yuh jes hesh-up, suh," she said tartly. He chuckled and slid deeper in his tub. Tricie whispered to Brian, "You comfortable, Baycoo?"
    Not really but, since his discomfort was centered in another part of his anatomy, he said, "Just waiting to wake up from this very nice dream." The girl giggled and held the straight razor where he could see it.
    "You ever bin shaved afore?" she asked with a little flash of a smile. He shook his head and felt the jounce of her breasts. "Close yuh eyes and be easy. Yuh is safe heyuh." She ran her hand down his shoulder to rinse her fingers. Brian closed his eyes and let a stranger put a blade to his throat.
    She rubbed her cheek on his. "Smooth. Ah do good work." She tickled his lips with the tip of her tongue. "Ah do fine work," she whispered against his mouth. Brian knew that she was waiting for him to make a move. It would have been the most natural thing in the world.
    "I have a question," he said, leaning forward to rinse his face.
    "What?" Her voice was cooler than it had been.
    "Is it possible to have a private bath?"
    "You're thinking of Cade?" Kennan asked.
    Brian nodded.
    "He kin bath like e'er one else does," she said, washing the cup and drying the razor before returning them to their places.
    "Cade's not a he," Brian said, reaching for a towel.
    Tricie snatched it out of his hand. "Ain't done yet." She motioned for him to stand and let a stream of cold water douse him. "Yuh cain't bring yer fancy gal in here."
    "Shit." He snagged the towel, snaked it, and snapped her rump for the mean trick of cold water. "Don't pout. Cade isn't a fancy girl. She's our commander."
    "There ain't no companies heyuh with gals," Tricie said.
    "There is now," Kennan said, wrapping his towel around his waist.
    Tricie's eyes widened. "Yer new in camp?" They nodded. "Come 'er."
    She led them to the other end of the rank and into a dry sunny courtyard. "Set here awhile. I'll git yer duds."

    Tricie returned quickly with 'duds' and another bathhouse girl. The second woman was older and, maybe, the southern girl's boss by her manner and attitude of competent superiority. She wore the same style of linen shift that - barely - covered Tricie's abundant charms and was almost as damp. Her light brown hair had darkened with the steam and was drawn into a tidy ponytail. Little nets of lines around her eyes winked into and out of existence depending on whether she smiled.
    "Tricie says that you're new in Nippon Camp?" She didn't wait for a nod but continued to talk while holding a tan shirt up to the cracks of light between two canvas curtains. "You a captain or deputy?" she asked Kennan.
    "Captain, I suppose, though specific designation hasn't been discussed by the commander."
    "How's your deputy? Good man?" she asked, shaking out the shirt and gathering the fabric before dumping the bundle over Kennan's head. She held the sleeves until he got them sorted out with his arms.
    Brian was listening but Tricie was attempting the same maneuver on him with another shirt. "That's not my shirt," he objected. The towels hadn't been particularly absorbent and the fabric stuck to his skin.
    "It is now, honey." The pants were worse, but Brian intercepted and got them on without her help.
    Tricie gestured for him to raise his foot, which she measured with her fingers.
    "Brand new and sitting beside me," Kennan said, grabbing Brian's attention.
    The older woman appraised him in an experienced glance. "Have you the say-so for your doss? Britches." She grabbed a pair while Kennan lifted a foot for her. "Or you a fershow front-man bunk bunny?"
    "Say-so. Commander's a born again virgin," Kennan said while Brian was still sorting out the question.
    "Ah!" The woman knelt and adjusted Kennan's footwear. Brian watched as Tricie fitted his. The boots started as hunks of leather with several oddly shaped appendages. His foot went down in the middle, where the leather was doubled. The front section was folded up over his toes and the top of his foot. The sides were lapped over and laced to the toe piece. The last two pieces were long and laced up the back and front. They covered his calf and Tricie just let the tops fold over the laces.
    Tricie sat back on her bare heels and let the older woman examine her work. "Comfortable?" she asked. Brian wiggled his toes, wished for his socks, and nodded. "Good." She patted his knee and sat down beside him.
    "I have ten girls. Good workers. None as pretty as Tricie here." Brian looked at Tricie, who was a lot of nice things, buxom, vivacious, sweet, but not pretty. "I don't pick pretty ones. Don't care to work. 'Sides, they get snatched up quick as fancy girls."
    She waited for him to say something. Kennan kept his face neutral and gave him no help.
    "I guess they would."
    "We're used to working together and would set you up real nice."
    "Set us up."
    "No problems with favorites and jealousy."
    "I see," he said, though he didn't.
    "So, what do you say?"
    "About what?"
    The woman heaved a sigh. "About us coming to be your doss girls?"
    Finally, a synapse formed and the idea clicked. Her girls. Doss girls. The old man in the palazzo telling Cade, "Just pick a doss, girl."
    "Just the ten?" Seventy men. But then again, Brian hadn't seen that many women in the streets.
    "Eleven." She placed her hand on her chest.
    How in the hell did he get stuck with this decision? "What do you think?" Brian asked, looking at Kennan.
    "There's something to be said for pretty." But there was a hint of mischief in his eyes that the bath-boss-lady missed or failed to recognize as teasing.
    "Yeah, I'd say trouble," she replied with an arched brow. "Fights and worse."