Lorcan woke, stretched, and admired his beautiful wife. Who woke up and saw him and grinned.
“How late were we up last night?” she asked.
“I have no idea. Late.”
“Breakfast is ready,” he heard, from beyond the curtain.
“Coming, Aunt,” he said, and he and Andi dressed and went past the two curtains, and then past another one into a long room that seemed to be kitchen, dining and living all together. Three littlies were playing in the corner.
“I made your favorite, Dear,” his Aunt said, coming up and kissing him. “I didn’t know what you liked so you will have to live with sausage wraps.”
“My aunt makes wonderful sausage wraps,” Lorcan said, reaching forward and snagging one.
“The sausage is my own recipe,” his aunt said to his wife. “I take some dried, salted Crencha, mix it with corn, sage…”
He watched his wife and his aunt discussing the recipe. He thought last night had been good for her. It was hard to feel out of place at Unce Xaviers.
“So what are you going to do this morning, dear?”
“I think we will hang around here, eat sausage wraps, drink lots of water, and try to clear our heads. This afternoon we need to report to the clan transport office. We’ll be on the overnight coach to Army Training.
“Oh, poor dears. I hate those overnight coaches. So bumpy, and so little space.”
“I’ve never been on one,” Andi admitted. Indeed she had hardly even been on a regular coach.
“Well, they are very efficient. And they are normal tech, so they aren’t too expensive. And it is fun to stop at the coach stops.”
“Is there an accepted tech?”
“Oh, yes. But that is expensive, so usually only crystal class use it. It’s got an ‘engine’ in it, and it can go ever so much faster.”
“But it would be silly to send us there in that on the way to Army Training,” Lorcan said. “We are supposed to be being toughened up.”
“That’s true enough, dear. Now you two watch the littlies while I run down the street. I promised cousine Angela a few dozen sausage wraps for her to sell on her cart today, and she should have just about sold the second batch already.”
So saying she hurried off. There wasn’t much to watching these littlies, they just played by themselves in the corner. Lorcan decided to take advantage of the situation and plumped his wife down on his lap.
“You aren’t tired of me yet?” she asked, leaning back against him.
“I’ll never be tired of you,” he said. “I’m tired after last night, my head hurts from the beer, and I wouldn’t mind spending a quiet week somewhere with just a few books… but I’d want you there, too.”
That seemed an OK thing to say, as she leaned against him and didn’t seem to resent his affection at all. And the littlies just kept playing quietly in the corner.
Andi dragged herself after her husband. She was exhausted! She wasn’t good at staying up late, she wasn’t good at strong beer, and her husband had been irrepressible last night and all morning! She was almost glad their honey trip was now officially over. She hoped she was at least increasing!
As it turned out Uncle Xaviers was rather close to the transport office. Which was kind of a madhouse. A whole lot of people coming and going on the outside and, when they got in, even more waiting around in various rooms.
She didn’t even bother to worry about where they were going, she just followed her husband into the main hallway, and then into a room… “Rough night?” she heard, and looked up to see a lass about her age already on the bench they were approaching.
“Last night of our honey trip,” Andi said, plopping herself down while her husband went off to take care of the paperwork. His uncle is street class, navy, and they got their whole block out to drink us into the ground and dance our feet off… and then they serenaded us while my husband…
The other lass laughed, “Oh, my poor darling. Where are you off to?”
“Army training. You?”
“My husband is newly assigned to a far post. He left last week, leaving me here to get the household things finished. Me and…” she patted her abdomen… “are following him. I’ll have to set up a new household there, but the clan has found us a place, so it should be pretty easy. He’ll be home two days in six, rotating.”
“Oh,” Andi said, trying to imagine if this were her husband going to be home two days in six. “What direction?”
“We’ll be going the same direction, unless your husband brought you to the wrong room,” the lass said. “Perhaps we can share a compartment.”
“I’m afraid I have no idea what that means,” Andi confessed.
“Never been on an overnight coach? I can’t really boast, I hadn’t either before basic training. Do you think your husband would mind sharing with me? It’s two couples per compartment,” she added. “That’s the way it is set up. So if we shared…”
“It’s my role per contract,” Andi said. “He isn’t involved, I just don’t know…”
“Come here, lad,” the lass said, and a lad came over. “Watch our things and tell this woman’s husband that she is with me looking at the coach when he returns.”
She handed him a small coin and took Andi by the hand. “I will use him for my baggage, so I have that out of the way anyway. Come, and look.”
There was a coach right outside the door she led Andi to. “You see, there are doors for every two sets of seats,” the lass explained. Each door makes one compartment. During the day these are seats, and at night they fold down… filling the whole compartment. Then there is a curtain that pulls down in the middle of the compartment. And your bags go under or on top…”
“Oh, that’s fine. Is this our coach?”
“Yes, it will be. And so if we want to share we can get that lad started. Make sure you use the necessaries first,” she whispered. “They stop along the way, but it can be a long trip regardless.”
They soon had the lad busy moving bags back and forth and soon after that her husband came back. “We’ll be sharing the compartment with this lass,” Andi said. “I have it all arranged.”
“Very well,” he said, looking surprised. “We leave in twenty minutes if you wish to go to the commissary and purchase traveling food.”
“And we will need to visit the necessaries too,” the woman said, just as the lad came in and took another load of bags. “We need to hurry.”
Twenty-five minutes later they were sitting in the compartment. Bags on a rack above them, bags below them, and practically knee to knee they sat waiting for the coaches to start, when the door opened and a conductor poked his head in. “Female traveling alone?” he asked the lass with them. When she reluctantly nodded and, seconds later, he was helping an older woman with two littlies in. And then he handed up a basket with an infant.
They had barely gotten all settled, and her bags all in, when they heard a shout, a whistle, and felt a series of jerks as the coaches began to move.
“I’m so sorry,” the woman said to her seat partner. “There simply wasn’t a free compartment.”
“That’s all right,” the woman said with a wry grin. “They have to cram everyone in that they can. My name is Carlotta, and I am the wife of a private, newly assigned, sentry. We,” she said, patting her abdomen, “Are traveling to my husband’s new assignment.”
“I am Smeeta, and my husband is going to be a rifle instructor for the Army Training course. He went on ahead two weeks ago for some intensive training and we are just now getting out there.”
“My name is Andreina,” Andi said, “And this is my husband Lorcan. We are going to Army Training. We just finished our honey trip.”
They all talked for another three hours and then the coach stopped. “Time to use the bushes,” Carlotta said. “Lads on this side, Lasses on the far side.”
When they all got back in Carlotta said, “It will take a while to get all set up. What if we arrange things for the night? Then the littlies can eat and go right to sleep.”
Smeeta had been nursing much of the time and still had her baby on her breast, so she basically just kept moving from seat to seat as the various seats folded down into beds, and then Andi’s husband was delegated to reach up and pull down the curtains. And then they were all their own compartments, Andi and her husband undressed but kept the curtains open and watched the scenery go by. Andi got out their travel food and they both enjoyed the quiet.
That is, once the fuss from their neighbors died down. The littlies didn’t seem to settle very easily on this bumpy road. And Andi wasn’t at all sure that Carlotta was asleep. But eventually everything was as quiet as this bumpy carriage permitted.
“Thou art beautiful,” she heard her husband whisper, and she leaned against him, willing herself the energy to be a good wife despite her exhaustion.
—
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Von