We hadn’t eaten in two days, and we were all sullenly denying it. As I’ve said, King Poritifahr the Fourth was an ascetic man. He had thin lips that parted only reluctantly in the presence of food, and he tended to prefer thin gruels, bland broths, and the most dry and saltless crackers. I never ate in his presence, nor was there when he enjoyed, or I should say, tolerated, a meal, but his reputation for parsimoniousness was well known. There was a famous story of a chef in his kitchens who went mad, and began to cook banquets for the poor. The king learned of it and chose to do nothing, and so this chef became emboldened. Beggars ate teikenbura stuffed with fibrous mushrooms and poached in the rarest of wines. They ate tiny pastries, each no larger than a signet ring and so intricate that they took three days to assemble from ingredients that could not be seen with the naked eye. They ate the roasted flesh of the great sarahnapi snake, which had been fed with gingered door mice that had themselves been fattened on butter made from the milk of a virgin cow. And how, you ask, can a virgin cow give milk? There are mysteries of the kitchen that I do not pretend to know.

  It wasn’t the king who took issue with these displays of culinary delight, but his starving court, especially the Abandoned Maidens, those old ladies who had been sent to beguile him in their youths and then spent a lifetime watching him sip soup. Their anger grew and grew, and one of them finally murdered the chef. She was sent into exile after that, but the joke is that she grew very fat in the far off city where she lived as a pauper. The rest of the court went back to pretending that hunger didn’t bother them. We pretended the same as we followed the captain and her two scraggly soldiers through the orchards that surround Nhadtereyba. This is the real power of kings. They set an example that everyone must live by. Although why we must it’s hard to tell. Thaeto says that it’s because a king rules due to a kind of social agreement, and that this agreement authorizes all other agreements, and one becomes afraid to question anything, lest the whole edifice come tumbling down.

  Iyedraeka, bless her heart, was indifferent to this well-established tradition of stoicism. As we walked through an orchard she stopped and picked a ripe peach. I watched her split its flesh with her fine hands. She handed half to Martiveht, who was so ghost-ridden by this point that she didn’t know to eat until the princess started tearing the peach apart and putting pieces in her mouth. I looked at Vaenahma and Vaenahma looked at me. Then we both shrugged and started picking fruit.

  Malshaki, the captain of our meager escort, didn’t like it. “These are Naukuhohna orchards,” she said, referring to one of the First Families of Nhadtereyba.

  The princess looked around and made an attempt at a gracious smile. “No one’s here.”

  Malshaki looked nervous. She licked a palm and used it to try to slick down her unruly hair. “It’s not natural,” she said. “It’s harvest time. *Everyone* should be here, picking fruit.”

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  “My uncle is a Naukuhohna client,” one of the gangly youths said, backing her up. “He says that the whole family comes out at harvest time, and all the clients and their families, and all of the slaves and servants and such like.”

  “Well,” Yaendrid said, availing herself of a large peach, “we’ll pick a bushel or so and take it with us, to earn our keep.”

  Malshaki made a second attempt at smoothing her hair. She obviously wanted to eat, and was distracting herself by fussing at her appearance. “It’s not natural,” she repeated. She glanced at me. “I suppose they must know about events down south.” I offered her a peach. She took it with a distracted air, as if she were too busy with her thoughts to notice its warm round shape in her hands. “The Duke must have mustered everyone who can hold a spear or sword. Bad for the harvest. And some’s already left for Rahasabahst, to join in the corvee.”

  “That happens every year,” I commented.

  “Does,” she agreed. “Got to build that tow path, I suppose. But the people don’t like it, that’s the trouble. At least, the people around here.”

  I took alarm at that. It hadn’t occurred to me that the insurrection might be widespread. “But the tow path will let Naukuhohna peaches go north, to Taokeihla and beyond. Maybe all the way to Hasra.”

  She stared at me as if I were insane. “Nah,” she said. Then she laughed. “Taokeihla people don’t know how to eat Naukuhohna peaches.”

  Her two henchmen chortled in imitation. It annoyed me. “It really isn’t hard to learn how to eat a peach,” I said. “You seem to have mastered the art.”

  She looked down at her juice stained hands. She had devoured the peach I’d given her, and the pit stared up at her from her palm. She flushed with embarrassment and tugged at her armor. “Best get going,” she said. “Can’t loiter.”

  “Martiveht,” Iyedraeka said to her friend. She was kneeling in front of her, her fine skirts ragged with dirt and peach stains. “Martiveht, can you move? It isn’t far now. I remember this orchard. Don’t you remember it? The city is right over that hill.”

  The Sasturi’s head was lolling. Her robes were very white. It almost hurt to look at them. Iyedraeka stood and tried to pull Martiveht up, but to no avail. She looked around wildly for help and I stepped forward, regretting the stickiness of my hands. But I felt better for eating. Stronger. I heaved the Sasturi up and settled her over my shoulder. I caught Vaenahma’s eye. My lieutenant grimaced at me, unimpressed by my feat of strength. But I was thinking of my children. How I had carried them home when they were little boys and we had gone out to a festival by the river. Carried them through the dark city streets, one in each arm, both with their faces nestled in my shoulders. Their sleeping breaths had been warm on my cheeks. I carried Martiveht tenderly because I thought of them, and I walked quickly, because I wanted to be home again.

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  Copyright KPB Stevens, 2025

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