On the outskirts of the city, she stood. To the handful of onlookers, her reason for doing so appeared clear enough with how she held herself, how her gaze sought the horizon. None in the city did not know of how the prince took a small force to aid the Greeks. Letters had been written there, dutifully delivered back to the city, read aloud and widely gossiped.

  She knew well every intricacy of the war that could be put into words. Her husband had been thorough in his reports, the detail excruciating at times. Although no stranger to death, there had crystallised in her thoughts a certain irony at how the battlefield could be so close and yet the farthest place from heaven, vastly different to the clean executions she had observed.

  No, the Poles had apparently spent too much time fighting the Tatars. Or rather, the Polish King had entirely embraced warfare in all its aspects, that he had every intention to destroy his enemies so completely that they would not dare oppose him again.

  In other words, a fool.

  She stood on the outskirts of the city and, when a lone figure on horseback crossed the horizon, she took a step forward, only to hold herself there. The horse going at a walk, it took a while to cross the distance, but it eventually did.

  “Welcome home, dear.”

  A joyous time.

  Although much needed to be done, for this day, a celebration was held, one for the officers and another for the rest of the army. Of course, nothing extravagant given how tiring the journey must have been. A warm place with good food and drink; for the officers, fine wine and gentle music.

  So it was some days later, after her husband had thoroughly rested, that she took him out, their carriage making a leisurely journey to the set of buildings where the cannons were maintained and tested and their crews trained.

  “What surprise has darling for me?” he asked, his smile still tired.

  “A surprise, no, a curiosity, nothing more,” she said.

  The importance of this place showed in how it altogether rather resembled a castle. Tall, thick walls surrounded it, complete with a gatehouse, as well as guards stationed both inside and out. However, it was not here but the field behind it that they went.

  “This is… certainly curious?” he said, eyes wide with genuine surprise.

  She gave a tittering laugh, then brought her hand down to hold his. “It is, supposedly, a design of Archimedes, or at least a thought of his. Among a works I purchased, there included some notes I have had some certain people look over. Pray do not have high hopes, though, that the works is more a work of fancy than factual, at least without the author to correct us.”

  While she spoke, he observed the mess of metal. It was awkwardly familiar, a giant tube of brown metal; however, it differed from the cannons he knew by having four legs to hold it up, no wheeled carriage, and it had a thin pipe that fed into it.

  What also left an impression was where exactly it was. On three sides, an earthen wall surrounded it, and there was even a large sheet of metal above it. If that wasn’t queer enough, that wall and sheet of metal had clear signs of something having happened to them.

  “Truly curious. Pray indulge me,” he said, so sure and yet completely lost regarding what he regarded.

  “As I am sure dear has noticed, it is indeed a cannon. What makes it of particular interest is that the shot is pushed out by steam.”

  Everything clicked into place, other oddities he could see now coming into focus—the soot underneath, an empty tub, why the cannon didn’t sit flush on the ground. “Fascinating. Darling thinks it only a curiosity, though?”

  “An example speaks clearer than I ever could.”

  To make good on that, while they walked back to a safe distance, a group of workers moved in to prepare the steam cannon. It was not quite as quick as the cannons he had grown used to, that for a time they simply chatted of inconsequential matters as harsh smoke rose from the cannon’s enclosure.

  He asked her about that. “Charcoal may burn hot, but we wish to try hotter for a greater steam.”

  Although not an entire answer, he nodded along, confident he could ask a better question after witnessing the device in action. Soon enough, it came time to be that witness.

  “Ready!”

  At the distant shout, she turned to him and, seeing his nod, she raised her hand.

  Like mice fleeing from a cat, the workers ran from the cannon. A moment later, one last man sprinted away and dove over a low earthen wall, almost comical how exaggerated it all looked in the morning’s quiet.

  Then—

  Barely louder than a breeze, a puff of steam burst out from the cannon’s enclosure, shot launched all of a stride away.

  “Did something go wrong?” he asked lightly.

  “Thankfully not. When it does, we have to prepare a new boiler and that rather takes some time,” she said, matching his lightness even as her tone remained serious.

  He thought it over for a moment, then a chill ran down his spine when he considered what she had mentioned sounded similar to when a cannon tore itself apart. With how she had spoken of it, this was not too uncommon; perhaps—if anything—those men hadn’t run fast enough.

  “We have made great progress. One aspect, we made the cannon thicker so that, when the water is added, it keeps its heat better. Another, we heat the water before adding it so it requires less heat to boil. The last, we have tried charcoaling peat, which does seem to burn hotter,” she said, then sighed. “If only any of that made this more than a curiosity.”

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  To that, he had to give an ironic chuckle, something endearing about his wife’s unusual failure. “Is there any reason to think this work is real? There is no shortage of men with great inventions that merely exist within the mind,” he said.

  “Well, it is that, given a siege, fuel is much easier stockpiled and water is in abundance. Not only that, but it seems that steam would work better with another certain curiosity I hold close. That aside, I would demand iron quicker than it returns to the earth, so it may come that the mines need draining to dig deeper. Given that, I wondered if we may use the principles of a steam cannon to expel water.”

  After he listened close, he mulled over what she had said, a while since he had last entertained her entertaining thoughts. “I suppose it is a good thing darling would attract brilliant minds here. Surely one of them would, if suitably asked, understand this problem.”

  Her lips curled. “Dear is right, how fortunate fate is. Still, until that day comes, we will make what progress we may. What we have learned is interesting enough anyway.”

  “Pray tell, what have we learned?”

  A single laugh slipped out her lips, albeit only after her hand had covered her mouth, and she then lowered that hand to his, took his hand in hers. “It is quite odd. We may seal water inside metal, then heat it into steam, and it would hold together. However, if heated more vigorously, it then explodes with tremendous force. That is the principle which gives me faith to continue these attempts.”

  “Curious,” he muttered.

  She paused a moment before continuing. “There is, of particular interest to dear, some little improvements to how we would make cannons too. With how easily the steam escapes, we have made the bore… more regular? That there is less necessary windage. I have seen fit to have the army’s cannons refined in this manner, albeit a few were unsuitable and so replaced. This does mean our stockpile of shot is slightly smaller than ideal, yet that will naturally correct itself.”

  Her words brought an immense weight upon him. Not that he had been relaxed before, but he now stood so still, tense, his hand in hers imperceptibly retreating so as not to crush hers.

  “Is something the matter, dear?”

  Her question hung in the air for a good minute before he answered it. “As thorough as my letters were, there is much I cannot capture in words.”

  Silence followed again, long, yet unhurried, she as if content to stand there all day. In the end, he found at least a few more words.

  “Sigismund really is a devil. I admit, I had my doubts. I thought this all merely a test of some kind. After all, you are not the kind to gamble. It is reasonable to begin with smaller tasks and work upwards….”

  As he trailed off, the silence did not have time to settle.

  “Dear should remember where I grew up,” she whispered.

  Far from uncommon in their conversations, she had a way of bringing him to a stop with a single line, from which he then had to pick himself up. Indeed, the once queen-apparent did not need him to tell her of the Polish King.

  Yet he still needed to speak of the Polish King. “I know well the difference we made; however, he still won the war in the end, and we lost some good men.”

  “It is a justified frustration. Alas, it is not our war. We cannot make the Greeks continue to fight when their will is broken. Their levy is not something suited to drawn-out wars where they face loss after loss, especially when so many able men are already in their navy.”

  He drew in a long breath, then let it out, his tension finally breaking. “At the least, Sigismund is not without failure. How hard he fought to reach the sea, only to come under bombardment from that very sea the next day,” he said, the satisfaction in his voice undisguised.

  To which she tittered. “These men confuse competence with arrogance,” she said softly. “So limited by what they do know that they cannot consider what it is they do not know.”

  Another curious thing to hear, something which he intensely wanted her to answer for him. However, once that urge passed, he felt the answer coming to him. “The Baltic Sea is certainly a much calmer place these recent years.”

  “Indeed,” she said with a small smile.

  Given their lands, he had little considered naval matters, no doubt would have made similar mistakes to the Polish King. Perhaps, he still would. His doubts plentiful these recent months, his thoughts turned to the next campaign against Venice, that therein he again glimpsed her greatness. Their first discussion on the matter where she had subtly guided him to answers.

  It would not be trivial to blockade Venice.

  Still, so keenly now, he understood why she had so emphasised other points. Just as he had learned much from leading his men against Sigismund, he would learn more still against the Venetians. A force ten times the size at his disposal, that his men would be the ones at the centre of any battles—that he would have the ability to influence when and where those battles happened.

  And again, he was reminded of something she had asked him so long ago.

  “Victory would, to me, be the safe return of my men.” He said it aloud, knowing she would remember that conversation as clearly as he did.

  It seemed she did. “These are small matters with little gain paired with little risked, so such a victory is indeed suitable. However, I would caution that dear does not become docile, for there shall come a time when sacrifices must be made.”

  His hands clenched—until he felt her hand flinch in his. Brought out of dark memories, he once more released his tension with a sigh, only that he was then left with little else to keep him standing as tall as he ought to.

  “We had good reason to be in Greece. Honestly, I worry that, when asked why we are in Italy, I shall have no good answer. It is much easier to motivate men to fight when resisting an aggressor than when being the aggressor.”

  She hummed a note, and he thought that a suitable answer. In truth, he vented, not for a solution, but to humble himself. For all the talent he had thought he possessed, little of it had shown. Even when it had come time to give speeches, something he had thought ingrained into him from all the awfully dull lessons at the academy, the results left much to be desired.

  Humbled, no, humiliated. That she had clearly spent her childhood working towards her place in the world, whereas he had constantly sulked and avoided any responsibility. That she was already a worthy ruler. That, despite how delicately his comrades had treated his ego, he was lacking as a general.

  It was not for her sake that he wished to better himself. It was not to seek his father’s respect. It was selfish, nothing more. He would give this feeling no laudable coating. Its ugliness was its beauty.

  “I understand, which is why I do not expect much from the campaign. It is enough to cause a disturbance and be a nuisance. Still, if dear thinks us no better than King Sigismund, one should carefully consider our respective aims. He seeks to conquer, that it is in his interest to kill, both to break the Greeks’ will and to clear the land for his people to settle. If anything, it is against our interests to kill anyone. That is, I do not seek to crush an enemy, but to forge greater alliances still.”

  Pausing there, she stepped over so that she could stand in front of him. Although she was tall for a woman, that not too unusual for noble ladies, he was far from short. Yet, in this moment, he felt as if the one looking up at her—as if before that queen apparent.

  “To call this a war is to misunderstand. Rather, this is politics by other means. Dear should know that my politics does not include senseless violence. Dear’s politics should not include senseless violence either. It is not just acceptable if the army is the last resort, it ought to be the last resort. To continue that, as the last resort, it ought to be capable of politics that cannot otherwise be done.”

  Silence, silence but for the laughter that bubbled up in his throat, his throat so tightly closed he could not breathe, yet the laughter came out anyway. His free hand rose, for a moment cupped her cheek. Not out of any kind of love, but ambition, desperate to close the distance between them.

  Of course, she reinforced how far he still had to go with how naturally she leant into his touch.

  “Dear should take some time to rest and put his thoughts in order. There is nothing so urgent that it would be better to do wrong now than right later,” she said, her voice soft. Not tender, just soft.

  “Darling is right, as always,” he said lightly.

  To which she smiled and said no more.