Chapter 11: Into the Depths

We were up at first light. It was the curse of living as we had been. All those mornings on the road had us conditioned for it. I would have liked to stay with Jasmine in bed, but we both knew where that would lead. Having her here was getting to be more difficult but the benefits far outweighed the negatives.

The kids, as I was coming to think of the three of them, were late to arrive. Sneaks and spies needed to do their job late into the night. I knew Chaos, and while I hoped for the best, it was always best to prepare for the worst.

While I was not proud of doing it, I had asked the three of them to learn what they could about the generals last night, and that was just part of their tasks for the evening. The generals would be angry when they found out, but I would rather have them being angry than me dead. So, we were having breakfast with a “getting to know you” morning planned.

It was difficult for me. There was no doubt about the attack that came from those I had chased out. However, trusting these three meant that I needed to be sure of them first. So, any discussion of our surprise for them would need to wait. Wasting precious time we needed, but it was necessary.

We discussed what each of them was responsible for with his troops. Calvin would roam over the southern portions of the Citadel lands keeping order, the cushy job as J.A. called it. J.A. had responsibility of determining the loose knit threats to the north. They were ones that could sneak down, raid looking for slaves and property then whisk back across the mountains. It was common to need to chase them for days. They could melt into the land at one point only to reappear miles away.

Curly had the wilds of the west as he called it. The land was flat there and the men he chased were nomads who had years of experience on horses. They, like the brethren of the north, would seem to appear and disappear at will.

Jasmine quietly took it all in. She was taking a measure of each man, and I knew she would not fail to tell me her feelings about each. They were a gregarious lot and would poke fun at any spot they could to get a rise out of someone. In a way, they were just grown up boys who lived their lives on the edge. You could not help but like them.

I wanted to get some time with the kids but there was no way to accomplish that now. They had come to join us as we were finishing breakfast, and Jane had winked at me when she was out of the line of sight of the three of them. She knew something, and I couldn’t get to know about it with them there.

Jasmine spoke up after the kids sat down. “We’re going to have a holiday at the Citadel: General Hero Samuel day. With Hero John coming to take over now, he thought honoring Samuel was long overdue.”

I sat and watched for the reaction of the Generals. Having an important message delivered by Jasmine was against their beliefs. Women were to be seen but not heard in their lives. Was she an agitation for them? She and I would be able to tell who had an issue, and it could provide cover for me while he concentrated on her, so I could talk with the others.

“When did you decide to do that?” Curly asked.

“Yesterday. Hero John and the Chamberlain agreed it was good to do,” she replied.

“Does she always answer for you?” J.A. asked.

“When I have given her the task of arranging it, she does,” I replied.

“Why would you give a cock burner that task?” Calvin asked.

“I think you might not want to use those words around her. Unless, you’re prepared to defend yourself.”

“I always back up what I say,” Calvin replied.

“That might well be that case, but it is no reason to insult Jasmine.”

“She is one of those Damsels. We have all heard of them over the years. You’re the Hero here to rescue her. They are not a threat to a man, or they wouldn’t need to be rescued by a Hero.”

“She is not a Damsel, she is my Companion, and I would not underestimate her just because you measure her by her looks.”

“She is a woman, a very beautiful woman. But, still a woman and women are subservient to men. That is the way it is and how it will always be,” Curly said.

I had the opening, but I didn’t want to appear overly eager. Jasmine had different ideas and with charm and beauty just reeled them into her web. She made it all happen with the easiest of phrases.

“You’re men?” She had laid it at their feet and then sliced them, where it would hurt the most.

“Since we can’t show you without great pain you might want to try us in combat,” Curly replied.

“Just you Curly, or will Calvin and our dear J.A. join you also?” She was baiting them, and they were fish following the lure.

The discussion became heated then and shortly after that we were walking up to the tower room, I leaned over and said. “Please, don’t hurt them too badly. I am going to need their services soon.”

“I will just give them a dose of humility, my Hero. Nothing more.”

“You can thump them; just try not to break anything.”

That was how we found ourselves in the combat training room. Jasmine had been panting to get there since she had seen it, and having three strong willing opponents made her almost overcome with excitement.

Men of almost any world hold beliefs that they are superior to women. Every iota of information that these men had suggested that she would be beautiful but helpless when it came to fighting. I didn’t want them using anything more than wooden swords. It was Jasmine who upped the stakes.

“Shall we have a wager? What is a contest without one?” J. A. asked thinking he had easy money.

“What would you care to wager J.A.?” Jasmine asked.

“While I can’t ravish you without great pain on my part, I would not mind tanning that rear of yours for insulting me.”

“What say the rest of you?” I asked.

“That sounds acceptable to me, what about you Curly?” Calvin asked.

“I wonder what she would wager against that?” He said.

“Well the citadel is in need of some serious cleaning. Say a week of being assigned to Thomas to do his bidding.”

“A week of hard labor verses a sore rear” Curly scoffed.

“It is just a woman you are fighting after all,” I added baiting them even more.

“How shall we determine a winner?” J.A. asked.

“When you surrender” she replied.

They were not men to fly into an uncontrolled rage, but they had taken quite a bit more verbal abuse from her than they were accustomed to. The question now was how well they would take their beating.

Curly was first and he started out with a bull rush. His plan started out to simply; he would overwhelm her with his bulk, speed and mass. She stepped aside and paddled his ass thrice as she did so. The last one was hard enough to make him yelp; he yielded in less than two minutes.

J.A. was up next and he had learned from watching Curly. He tried to attack her with a sword and overwhelm her with his skill as a swordsman. He was very good, but he was not able to respond when she didn’t do what he obviously expected; he yelped as she paddled his rear. He yielded a short time after that.

Calvin never took his eyes off of her as she fought both times. He had studied what she had done to both. To his credit he was only paddled with two strokes while the others had received three. So he had not yelped, but in the end, he never touched her and yielded when he was on the floor with her sword touching his nose.

These men of Chaos could not accept the idea that a lowly woman was better than they. That she was better at fighting than them was totally unacceptable. But Jasmine would have killed each of them if they had been using real swords and they knew it. They didn’t have to like it, but they knew it all the same.

As we went down the stairs Jasmine was holding on to my arm. She whispered, “Calvin held back.”