Forgetting where she was, she drafted directly from the yellow glow of the wall. Drafting from yellow luxin had once been pursued as the perfect source of light—at least for yellows—but it had never panned out. Something was always lost, it was always inefficient. But with an entire wall, leagues long, inefficiency didn’t matter. Liv drew a little torch of solid luxin into her hand to better see the wall when illuminated by a second source of light. Sometimes drafters hid things in their construction that—
“Hey! Mistress! What are you doing out here? All drafters are supposed to be inside the walls already.”
Startled, Liv saw a grizzled old soldier coming toward her, wearing the uniform of a Tyrean sergeant, a brace of nice wheellock pistols at his belt and an empty scabbard. His face was smudged with gunpowder or smoke and there were light bandages wrapped around his hands. He glanced at Liv’s forearms as he approached.
“I, uh—” She tried desperately to remember the lie she’d prepared in case someone asked her about her lack of the colored vambraces.
“You’re dazzled by Brightwater Wall. I know, all the drafters is. Where’re your arms?”
Arms? Liv guessed he meant the color vambraces all the other drafters wore. “I, ahem, was invited to the color lords’ party last night and I had a bit much to drink, I’m afraid. I fell asleep behind a bush and my unit either didn’t find me or thought it would be funny to leave me there mostly, ahem…”
“Naked?”
Liv blushed as much from the brazenness of her lie as anything. “I’m lucky I still have my specs,” she said, showing him her yellow spectacles tucked in a pocket.
“I’d probably drink a lot if I were asked to that party myself. Put on your specs and go to the gate. They’ll let you through. Then go to Quartermaster Zid. He’s a real bastard and he’ll give you all sorts of trouble, but… Ah, hell. Come with me, I’ll take you. That’s me, Master Sergeant Galan Delelo, sucker for a pouty lip and a clueless gaze.”
“Hey!” Liv said.
“Joking, joking,” Galan said. “You actually remind me of my daughter. And if she’s clueless, she got it all from her father. Come on.” He turned. “And you, all you damned fools, it ain’t real. It’s just a show. Stop piddling yourselves.” He slapped the wall to emphasize his point and half the crowd ducked at the sharp sound.
Mumbling to himself, he took her to the gate. Even the soldiers continued to march through. They’d left a narrow two lanes on one side for messengers and nobles and drafters to pass, and the guards there knew the master sergeant and let him right through.
Inside the wall, he weaved quickly between tents, walking fast, and cut to the front of a line of lower-ranking soldiers to speak with the quartermaster. “Need yellow rags for this girl here,” Galan announced to the quartermaster’s back as the big, hunchbacked man was collecting half a dozen swords to give to some young soldier.
Quartermaster Zid turned. “I don’t recognize her. She’s not with the units I supply. Forget it.”
“You’re going to give me hell? Tonight? You crazy old ninny, do I need to put my foot up your arse?”
“Ninny? You come harping on me like a harridan and you expect roses and wine? I ought to pound that ugly nose of yours flat,” the hunchbacked man said.
Galan laughed, rubbing a nose that had obviously been broken many times. “I seem to recall you trying that a time or two.”
The quartermaster grinned, and Liv’s terror faded as she realized the two were good friends.
“I know you’re happy to see I’m alive,” Galan said. “So just do me a favor and give the girl the rags.”
“Yellow?” Zid asked. He poured the swords onto the counter, ignoring the young soldier who tried and failed to grab all of them and almost skewered himself trying—unsuccessfully—to keep them on the counter.
“Yes,” Liv said.
He grabbed a list. “Name?”
“Liv.”
He scanned quickly. “No Livs, sorry. There’s not a yellow drafter named Liv in the entire army.”
Liv’s mouth went dry.
“You and you,” Zid said, pointing to some soldiers waiting, irritated, in line. “Arrest this woman. We’ll need to report an impostor—”
“Oh for Orholam’s sake, Zid, whaddaya think she is, a spy? She’s probably barely sixteen! What kind of a swiving fool would send a baby to spy on us?”
At the word “spy” Liv’s knees turned to water.
“Maybe a very cunning fool, who thought we would discount her for that very reason,” Zid said, suspicion leaking out of his very pores. “They say Gavin Guile did. They say some boy over in the chirurgeons’ tents is his own bastard. Who’d send a child? Those wily bastards, that’s who.” He nodded vaguely toward Garriston.