Against the Empire: The Dominion and Michian by Jeffrey Quyle Page A

and the Goldenfields cavalry. What a trip that had been! They’d lived in their saddles for several days as the horses carried them on the longest ride she’d ever made. And those cavalry riders had been superb riders. They were men and women who felt at home in a saddle.
    But this was a gentler ride, and after a few hours they returned from their picnic, pleasantly drowsy from the pleasures of one another’s company. The hugged and kissed, and Bethany promised to write, then they were apart. Bethany had packing to do to prepare for the evening’s departure on board one of Natha Millershome’s ships.
    Her journey was an uneventful four days traveling on the river. She enjoyed the travel on the water. It was her element, and she lay in her small bunkroom, listening to the sounds made by the hull moving through the river. An occasional smitten boathand came by to see if she needed anything, but other than that she had nothing to interrupt the communion with the water.
    When she arrived at Frame, she had a porter bring her bag to the Golden Bough Inn, a residence often used by ingenairii. Frame felt different from Oyster Bay, or from Goldenfields, for that matter. There was no tension here, she reflected. Is that something a spiritual ingenaire would say, she wondered? The city had not been threatened with patricidal revolt, death of a monarch, civil war among its powers, or potential invasion by lacertii. It was different from Oyster Bay and Goldenfields in that sense, she realized. Frame was a town that hadn’t lost resources, or people, or innocence or trust.
    The Council of the city would meet in two days, and she would officially begin working after that meeting. The City Council was very likely to approve paying for all of Bethany’s work, but propriety still required her to wait for contract approval before beginning the work.
    The following day, still waiting for the Council to meet, Bethany spent the day roaming the city. She received directions to the part of town where she would be working, and dressed in ingenaire robes to ward off over-friendly men, she walked through the streets to see where she was going to spend time creating improvements in public health. Despite the increasing summer temperatures, she wore an extra layer of clothes under her robes, giving her a bulkier appearance than usual, another way of reducing the likelihood of men making advances.
    The ingenaire found the slums of the city where she was to work. She wrinkled her nose and coughed as the unpleasant odor of the stream she observed wafted to her. This would be an unhappy place to live, and even worse in the summer she reflected. A movement caught her attention, as a furtive rat scurried from one cranny on the bank of the stream to another.
    “What are the likes of you doing in this part of town?” a hand grabbed hold of her elbow, and she jumped in startlement.
    Turning, she saw an elderly man next to her, looking closely at her face. She could smell his breathe, rancid with organic fragrances, and held her breath. “I was just walking around the city today,” she said, preparing to call upon her powers to dump gallons of water upon the man if his intentions appeared to turn hostile.
    “Well, I’ll walk you back a bit to a nicer place, and recommend that you not come back down here without a man or two next time,” her apparent protector said. He turned slightly away from her to indicate the direction they needed to go, and she exhaled deeply. “Especially stay away in the evening. Most of the troublemakers around here are still asleep this time of day, but they’d be awake and love to have a chance to meet you after sunset,” he warned as they started to walk.
    Eliot was her escort’s name, and Bethany listened in amusement as he spoke without pause about the many everyday things that rose to the surface of his consciousness as they passed roads, houses, shops, wells, and people. Soon they were at a corner where he stopped.