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Titus and a half dozen of the faster boys and girls run toward us from the highlands. Opposite, a golden shape rises from the distant river fortress and flies toward us. A beautiful woman with short-cropped hair settles next to Fitchner in the air. The Proctor of House Ceres. She carries a bottle of wine and two glasses.
“Mars! A picnic!” she calls, referring to him by his House’s deity.
“So who arranged for this drama, Ceres?” Fitchner asks.
“Oh, Apollo, I suppose. He’s lonely up in his mountain estates. Here, this is zinfandel from his vines. Much better than last year’s varietal.”
“Delicious!” Fitchner proclaims. “But your boys were squatting in the grass. Almost as if they expected the picnic to spontaneously manifest. Suspicious, no?”
“Details!” Proctor Ceres laughs. “Pedantic details!”
“Well, here’s a detail. It seems two of mine are worth five of yours this year, my dear.”
“These pretty boys?” Ceres snickers. “I thought the vain ones went to Apollo and Venus.”
“Oho! Well, yours certainly fight like housewives and farmers. Well placed, they were.”
“Don’t judge them yet, you cad. They are midDraft picks. My highDrafts are elsewhere, earning their first calluses!”
“Learning the ovens? Huzzah,” Fitchner declares ironically. “Bakers do make the best rulers, so I’ve heard.”
She nudges him. “Oh, you devil. No wonder you interviewed for the Rage Knight post. Such a scoundrel!”
They clink their glasses together as we watch from the ground.
“How I love orientation day,” Ceres titters. “Mercury just let a hundred thousand rats loose in Jupiter’s citadel. But Jupiter was ready because Diana tattled and arranged the delivery of a thousand cats. Jupiter’s boys won’t go hungry like last year. Cats will be as fat as Bacchus.”
“Diana is a harlot,” Fitchner declares.
“Be kind!”
“I was. I sent her a great phallic cake filled with live woodpeckers.”
“You didn’t.”
“I did.”
“You beast!” Ceres caresses his arm and I note the free-loving demeanor these people have. I wonder if other Proctors are lovers as well. “Her fortress will be riddled with holes. Oh, the sound must be horrible. Well played, Mars. They say Mercury is the trickster, but your japes always have a certain … flair!”
“Flair, eh? Well, I’m sure I could rustle up some tricks for you on Olympus …”
“Huzzah,” she coos suggestively.
They toast again, floating above their sweating and bloody students. I can’t help but laugh. These people are mad. Bloodydamn crazy in their empty Golden heads. How are they my rulers?
“Oy! Fitch! If you don’t mind. What are we supposed to do with these farmers?” Cassius calls up. He pokes one of our injured captives on the nose. “What are the rules?”
“Eat them!” Fitchner cries. “And Darrow, put down that gory scythe. You look like a grain reaper.”
I don’t drop it. It is close to the shape of my slingBlade from home. Not as sharp, because it isn’t meant to kill, but the balance is no different.
“You know you could let my children go and give them back the reaping scythe,” Ceres suggests to us.
“Give me a kiss and you have a deal,” Cassius calls up.
“The Imperator’s boy?” she asks Fitchner. He nods. “Come ask for one when you’re Scarred, little prince.” She looks over her shoulder. “Until then, I would advise you and the reaper to run.”
We hear the hooves before we see the painted horses galloping at us across the plain. They come from the opened gates of House Ceres’s castle. The girls on the horses’ backs carry nets.
