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"I would suggest that you speak to my commanding officer, ma'am," Valentine suggested.
Lambert heard Mrs. O'Coombe out and invited her to enjoy what hospitality Fort Seng could provide while she considered the matter. Could she perhaps return this evening, for dinner, and there they could discuss the matter in detail?
Mrs. O'Coombe was much obliged and said she'd be delighted.
Valentine was curious, a little aggravated, and anything but delighted at Lambert's response.
"You're not considering sending me across Kentucky as a tour guide for that stack of grief, I hope, sir," he said once Mrs. O'Coombe had left the building.
"I'm certainly inclined to let her have you," Lambert said. "Apart from wanting our wounded back and safe, the gratitude of the Hooked O-C is well worth having. I expect she'll be as influential with the new president as the old."
"I didn't even know her son was with us," Valentine said. "Usually Southern Command tells us when we have to deal with a scion of the carriage trade. Quietly, but they tell us."
"Someone slipped up," Lambert agreed. "Noble of him to volunteer. Mom passed down something besides Texas sand."
Valentine didn't have a number one uniform worthy of a formal dinner with Lambert and their important guest. His least-patched ensemble was the militia corporal's uniform he wore when traveling in Southern Command, but that had bloodstains on it now, and no effort of soap or will could eradicate them.
He settled for the Moondagger robes he'd worn the night he knocked the young Kurian out of its tree, with his leaf clipped on the collar and a Southern Command tricolor pinned to the shoulder.
David Valentine wasn't one to stand in front of a mirror admiring himself, but he had to admit the Moondagger robe-uniform suited him. The various shades of black complemented his skin and dark hair and made his perfectly ordinary brown eyes look a little more striking when set in all that black. His old legworm boots gave him some dash and swagger with their silver accents. The scars on the left side of his face had healed down to not much more than big wrinkles and a pockmark, and the old companion descending his right cheek looked more like the romantic scarring of a dread pirate than the stupid souvenir of nearly having his head blown off.
The dinner was held in the conference room, complete with a white lace tablecloth and candlesticks.
It turned out he needn't have worried about his appearance. Colonel Lambert had invited an eclectic company to her dinner.
Mrs. O'Coombe was there in her same field skirt and little lace-up boots, only now garbed in a silken blouse and a-Valentine couldn't find the word for it. Stole? It was a leather half vest that went around behind her neck and hung down in two narrow pleats in front with bright brass emblems. All Valentine could think of was sleigh bells on a horse.
Fort Seng's three Logistic Commando wagon masters were there as well, two western Kentucky specialists and one more they'd hauled all the way to the Appalachians and back. They smelled faintly of stock animals and sweat, but they'd combed their hair and flattened it with oil. Patel wore his new legion-style captain's uniform and had polished his two canes. That was a bit unlike Nilay Patel; he was more the type to grit his teeth through an evening of aching knees and retire with a bottle of aspirin. Lambert looked trim and neat as one would expect, her hair brushed and shaped by a dress clip for the use of female officers. And finally Alessa Duvalier stood next to the fire, warming her backside and dressed in a little black outfit that must have been liberated from the basement, perhaps from some formal ball of the great man's daughter. A red bra peeked from behind the low-cut front. Valentine vaguely thought it was a sartorial faux pas, but Duvalier's red hair, spiky and disarrayed as usual, made it work.
Odd assortment. If Lambert wanted to impress Mrs. O'Coombe, why not invite Captain Ediyak with her model-cheekbone looks and polished Eastern manners? Why not Gamecock, who had a courtliness all his own behind the braids and scars, smooth as his rolling accent, that showed off some collective unconscious vestige of the grace of old South Carolina?
Brother Mark, the other obvious candidate, was off on a junket with the Agenda from the late Assembly. Or, more correctly, the soon-to-be-late Agenda. They were arranging for the establishment of a temporary government in Kentucky, and the ex-churchman wanted to plead for an office devoted to relations with allies in the Cause.
Valentine joined Duvalier at the fire.
"What the hell is that, Val?" she asked, fingering the finely patterned knit trim on the top robe.
"It's the nicest thing I have that fits me. Some Moondagger's dress-up outfit."
"I've seen those before," she said, her voice hardly more than a whisper. "That's what they wear when they have a date with a Reaper. They treat it like a wedding."
Valentine searched her eyes for some hint of a joke. She did sometimes put him on.
"No joke," she supplied.
"Well, it's still an attractive ensemble," Valentine said. "I like how it looks, so what the hell."
"Your funeral," Duvalier said.
Lambert finished making her introductions, and everyone sat. Valentine sat opposite Lambert with Patel on one side and Duvalier on the other, with the Logistics Commandoes near them. Mrs. O'Coombe was in the place of honor to Lambert's right.
Patel fiddled with his array of silverware. "Which is the one to clean the grease from one's lips, Major?" he asked quietly.
"You can dip your fingers in the fingerbowl and touch them to your lips when you're done eating," Valentine said under his breath.
Lambert, as host, got the Logistics Commandoes talking about their difficulty finding even food staples, with Southern Command currency worthless here and what was left of Colonel Bloom's booty pile diminishing rapidly.
"They want gold, or Kurian bank guarantees, or valuables for trade," one of the Kentuckians said. "We're out of all the usual stuff we trade. Our depots don't have dynamite or two-way radios; not even paper and ink or razor blades."
