Chapter 14: 14 - Memorial Day

“Memorial Day is tomorrow,” Councilman Legatus reminded the court at the end of their meeting, and Callida felt an electric pang twinge through her chest. How she had overlooked that bitter anniversary, she wasn’t sure, but she was wholly unprepared for it. “The committee reports that the commemorative feast has been planned as you requested, Your Majesty.”

“Ah,” Verum nodded. “General Yudha, I’ve been meaning to inform you that your presence at the feast tomorrow is expected, and you will undoubtedly be required to give a speech or a toast of some sort.”

“Thanks for the warning,” Callida acknowledged tersely. Just one more presentation to prepare. At least this one could be brief.

“Sorry to put you on the spot,” came the return snicker.

Callida rolled her eyes, her departure brisk as the council was dismissed. Habit drove her to the training arena, an enormous amphitheater reserved for the senior officers of the military and the rare competitive events or military displays. This was her job: appear wholly unconcerned and maintain a rigorously boring schedule. If she was relaxed, the conspirators would be relaxed, making it that much easier for Squad 14 to catch them with their pants down.

And yet, it had been three weeks, and she hadn’t heard a single word from her team nor seen any of them besides Spahen in council meetings since she’d briefed them on the assignment. She wasn’t even sure that they’d all successfully found covers. Which is how it should be, she reminded herself again. They were doing their jobs; these men were masters of their craft; she trusted their competence and integrity. They were intentionally playing the long game; she just had to be patient.

“General Yudha?” She stopped in her tracks, turning to the unfamiliar voice and finding a young soldier approaching her awkwardly.

“Yes, soldier?”

“Your horse is ready.”

“My horse?” Callida frowned, lifting a brow.

“You… requested one?” he faltered.

Maybe this was a ploy to draw her into a meeting? Or perhaps the ploy was nefarious: an effort to get her alone and relatively vulnerable. She felt for the steel at her hip and plastered on a false smile. “Oh, of course! My horse! I forgot I had some errands to run this afternoon. ‘Good thing I requested the horse when I still remembered. Thank you for the reminder.”

The soldier chuckled awkwardly but relaxed. “The stables are this way.”

She followed him along the familiar path, wary of what may be hidden among the trees, but there weren’t any jump scares. Instead, the stable came into view where a disembodied hand was watering a horse already fitted with a saddle and bridle, the owner of that hand obscured by the silky chestnut mare. She could hear gentle humming as she drew closer, the voice familiar and comfortable if a little out of tune. She smiled.

“Ah, General,” Erkunden bowed slightly and passed her the reins. “Her name’s Serica.”

“Serica,” Callida repeated, looking the horse over. “Thank you.”

“May I offer you a hand into the saddle?”

She looked up, caramel brown meeting blue, something subtle passing from the latter to the former. “Thank you, yes.” She got a foot in the stirrup and took his hand, accepting the rolled parchment that passed effortlessly between them by the time she’d made it into the saddle. “I’ll return the horse in a few hours."

“Very good, General,” Erkunden said with another bow, though his eyes never left hers.

“Ta!” Callida urged the horse forward, riding her to and through the base gates toward Astu Centralis and finding a very empty stretch of road before opening her palm to read the note there.

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All positioned. Shield took samples. Tested. No hit. Seeking alt delivery. Parrot talking to docs/ seen records. No hit yet.

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Callida frowned, mulling the report over. She would need to find a fire source in town to burn the message. Breaking it down, “Shield took samples” meant that Ablenkung was positioned somewhere in the palace and had accessed all the consumable products in Flore’s room to test — the agreed upon first step. “Tested” meant that someone, probably Erkunden, had exposed pregnant rabbits to those products (also discussed). Working in the stables, Erkunden had likely set up a rabbit farm in the near area, probably convinced Steward Pax to allow him to artificially inflate the rabbit population for hunting. “No hit. Seeking alt delivery.” None of the sampled products appeared poisoned, so now they would be looking into the kitchen staff as food was the next most likely poison delivery method.

“Parrot talking to docs/ seen records” meant that Buhne was working the medical angle: chatting up doctors, rifling through Flore’s medical records, keeping an eye out for suspicious interactions between hospital staff and seemingly unrelated players. “No hit yet” meant nothing had turned up, but there was more to be done so the report wasn’t final.

She sighed, relief of old stress in conflict with a flood of new stress. Everyone had successfully been positioned, and they were running through the checklist they’d discussed. But they weren’t finding anything. Unless Spahen discovered something amongst the councilmen, they were back at square one.

“Crap,” she muttered to herself before slipping the note into her pocket and slapping the reins. “Ta!”

***

Callida had been especially eager to escape the throne room and its stifling company. It wasn’t exactly a coincidence that Memorial Day was observed on the anniversary of her father’s death, but that only served to add to the grief of an otherwise bitter holiday. Memorial Day: the day commemorated by the Lion Tribe for the remembrance of soldiers lost to war, and there were so, so many men (and some women) to remember.

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The morning’s meetings had passed in a blur of immaterial matters that had been difficult to care much about, and the walk to the military graveyard northeast of the palace base was spent in contemplative silence as her fingers mindlessly toyed with the necklace of family crest rings she always wore beneath her uniform. She had many, many friends, family members, and comrades to honor on such a day as this, only an intimate fraction of whom were represented on her chain.

The graveyard itself was difficult to measure, the number of graves seemingly endless, and the number of fields constantly expanding with each year spent at war. Today the graveyard was crowded for the holiday, especially where the newest section of graves stretched across a field marked by a giant monument on behalf of those whose bodies had been dumped into mass battlefield graves during the war against the Griffin Tribe. Callida felt obligated to pay her respects despite the crowd. Yes, visiting her father’s grave would have to wait until she’d honored the men who’d fallen under her command. She steeled herself and entered the throngs. The open whisperings began almost immediately, and Callida groaned internally, wishing in vain to keep her grief private. I should have changed out of my uniform.

“Primordials, isn’t that the Lion General?”

“... actually came herself!”

“Oh my–, I think it is!”

“... visiting personally? Isn’t that her?”

“... General herself! What is…”

“... came for the holiday. I wonder if she’ll say anything…”

“I’m sure she lost a lot of friends…”

On the plus side, her uniform granted her direct access to the monument as the mob parted to let her through.

“General Yudha!” That voice, at least, was familiar and welcome. She turned to the sound, ignoring the crowd, the corners of her lips lifting in recognition.

“Commander Vir, how are you?” The man in question, also in his formal military uniform, snapped into an attentive salute, and Callida’s slight smile became a crooked grin. Vir had always been a stickler for the rules. It made him predictable, and that was comforting. “At ease, Commander.” Vir relaxed, and Callida looked him over. He was short and slender in build, especially for a lion, his looks plain but his eyes kind. Always kind: somehow the years of battles hadn’t hardened him. “How are Ancora and the girls?”

“You are in trouble,” Vir answered cheekily. “Apart from catching a glimpse of you in the homecoming parade, they haven’t seen you since we got back.”

“I haven’t wanted to intrude on your family time.”

“We got back two and a half months ago,” he reminded her brusquely. “Ancora wants to have you over for dinner, but she’s worried about being an imposition by asking.”

She nodded, snorting a little to herself as her hand moved to her popped hip. “Alright, when?”

“I think you could about pick your day, General,” he returned with a toothy smile.

Taking a moment to consider her schedule, Callida landed on “tomorrow?”

“I’ll let Ancora know,” Vir acknowledged and then snapped to attention before bowing deeply. “Happy Memorial Day, General.” Callida returned the bow and turned to once again face the monument.

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Illis qui pro victoria sanguinem dederunt.

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She wasn’t entirely sure what the inscription meant even though she’d been in the room when Verum had decided on the sentiment with her commanders and the council. It had something to do with her victory toast all those months ago, but she wasn’t even certain what she’d said then. That felt like a lifetime ago. Regardless, Callida set her hand against the cool, polished stone and let her fingers lightly trace the letters there.

“Blood. It had something to do with blood,” she muttered to herself, “and victory. Blood for victory?” She frowned, trying to conjure the elusive memory as the cost of that victory hit her incrementally harder. Callida sighed, her head bowing in guilty grief as her first tears of the day were liberated. It was time to move on. Quickly wiping her tears away, she left, the mass of holiday observers replacing the path of physical obstacles with one flooded with gossip — gossip that both her head and her heart were too overwhelmed to absorb.

She turned northwest, following the west edge of the cemetery to pass several fields of graves, eventually entering a quiet part of the graveyard that felt ancient and sleepy when compared to the bustling of the newer plots drawing the crowds. A great, shoestring acacia bowed in protection over the largest monument here.

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Sospes Animo

Salvatoris regis. Amicus fidelis in vita et morte.

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This was her great-great-something-eth-grandfather and the beginning of the noble Animo family line — a line both figurative and literal as the Animo family headstones stretched along the edge of this field, ending with her father, Probus Animo, and a pair of small markers Callida had added just a couple of years ago in honor of her mother, Jineng Bishou Animo, and her brother, Germanus Animo. This way, at least her family could be together in memory.

“Hi, guys,” she greeted them tiredly, and dropped to her knees, preparing for a potential flood by finding the handkerchief in her pocket. “It’s been a while since I was here last.… I guess you’ll be wanting an update on things. Um… another war is over, and with the end of the Lion-Griffin war, Ulakam is finally at peace. I know; it’s a little unreal to me too. Though, it’s not really... at peace, I mean. Not yet. There are still battles to be won on the political front. The difference is, I’m not really sure who the enemies are this time; they don’t exactly wear enemy colors. In fact, they wear the colors of our allies….” She sighed and changed the subject to something less grim.

“I’ve been married for… coming up on two and half years now? I really wish you all could have met him. I mean, I know you met him briefly, Germanus, but I wish you could have really gotten to know him. It hasn’t been what I expected, though — being married. I guess, mom and dad, you guys always made it look so easy. I think it probably helped that you were both soldiers — made things simple. You always had something in common to talk about, and you could train together and just understood each other because you had a lot of similar experiences. Qiangde is… not a soldier. I don’t think he realized when we got married how much time gets stolen by deployments and training and such. He’s figuring it out though. We both are. It’s just been different from what I remember from you guys…. I miss you.”

The breeze was cool and peaceful, rustling through the grasses and gently tangling the loose strands of hair by her face. She closed her eyes, pretending that somehow the breeze had been sent by them to comfort her — like maybe they’d heard her, like maybe they weren’t truly gone. Eyes closed, breathing deeply, a few stray tears drying on her cheeks with the wind still whistling: it was oddly soporific. Her consciousness waffled between abstract dreams and a more intentional meditative state, simply existing in this moment of wishful sorrow.

But it hurt when she opened her eyes to see that their names, etched into the stones in front of her, were all that was left of them. Only a memory — her memory. She was the last of this family line shaded by the shoestring acacia.

So she cried.