“How did you get your scars?” she asked.

Ah.

The question she had asked what seemed so long ago. On their wedding night.

And at hearing it, Mars felt the best he had in weeks, indeed, since the loss of Sofia.

For this question demonstrated to him he finally truly had his Silence back.

“As is custom, my father sent me to Airen to train,” he began. “It is what, over the centuries, after the war that tore our one country into two, has kept the peace. Trajan, and Cassius, trained in Firenze and knew our ways and strategies. And I, as did all princes of Firenze before me, trained in Airen to know theirs.”

Silence nodded.

Mars carried on.

“It was not long after I arrived that Trajan challenged me.”

“Oh no,” she said.

“It is fine, Silence. As you can see, I am here, no worse for the experience.”

“But you have scars.”

He tipped his head on the pillow. “Do you want to hear the story?”

His wife shut her mouth.

He fought another smile and continued.

“Future king to future king, Trajan said. I was younger than him by five years, but Laches men grow fast, and I was his height, if I did not yet have a powerful build. I was also young, and most full of myself, so I accepted.”

“This story isn’t getting better,” she mumbled.

He ignored her and kept telling said story.

“Cassius was alarmed. Not that he didn’t know my skill, and that I could look after myself, but that he knew his brother was a cheat.”

“And still, no better.”

“I unhorsed him, Silence. And when we persisted on our feet, I disarmed him.”

“Oh,” she whispered.

And there was that noise he liked so much.

Mars ignored that too.

“Trajan was not a bad soldier, but he was a terrible loser. I offered to shake hands and embrace, he turned his back on me and walked off the field. Cassius felt this made matters worse. He followed me like a shadow for weeks. He remained so close, the others began to call us lovers, thinking this was an insult, when it was not. They stopped doing that when Cass, nor I, appeared to be offended by these comments.”

“Are the Airenzian not free sexually, like the Firenz are?” she asked.

“No one is quite as free as the Firenz, little monkey,” he told her. “But although it is not hidden and considered debauched, as it is in Wodell, it is not spoken of openly and there are some of a certain bent, bullies and bigots, who attempt to use their antipathy toward it as a weapon.”

“Airen seems a most unpleasant place,” Silence mumbled.