In the ensuing days, we put up a notice on the town bulletin board. It’s short and to the point; Lord Snollis passed away, and the Manor is under the leadership of his young widow, the Lady Lyselle. Avendale collectively shrugs and carries on. I suppose that’s what happens when your subjects don’t care for you very much. But then again, if he were the sort of man they did care for, we wouldn’t be in a predicament like this in the first place.

Arcadia and Lyselle are spending a good deal of time together lately, the peasant girl taking to her lessons in Ladyship like a fish to water. I feel as though Arcadia is, at last, happy to have had such an education. She’s been quite the enthusiastic teacher. One rural Manor is a far cry from the largest empire in the world, but the basic principles are the same. Lyselle is learning how to manage money, keep the peasants happy, and, perhaps most importantly, how to conduct herself around her new peers.

Her first act as the Lady of Avendale is to relax the considerable tax burden on her subjects. Lord Snollis was squeezing them for every coin he could, as it turns out, and when word of the change spread, the farmers, tradesmen and fishermen all breathed a great big sigh of relief. Merchants begin to come through town. People purchase nicer clothes, spend money on baubles and improvements to their homes. In mere days, the little town of Avendale begins to look like a much nicer place to live in.

Lyselle’s next move raises a few eyebrows. She abolishes serfdom throughout her domain, granting all of them a share of her farmland under land-tenure contracts, the same as freemen. A few of the existing freemen grow a little quarrelsome about it. But she handles their objections with such grace and humility that even the loudest of them end up wearing themselves out. Feeling foolish afterward, I expect.

Her third act is by far the best received. Since the harvest is coming in a few weeks time, she announces Avendale’s first annual harvest festival. Notice is served to all the towns and farmsteads in the area, the word making it all the way to the neighboring provinces as well. A call goes out to any passing bards, troupes of acrobats, entertainers of whatever kind that can be found and hired. Arcadia and Lyselle put their heads together to come up with all manner of games and activities. They’re having far too much fun, if you ask me. Especially when Lyselle sends for a dressmaker.

One afternoon, perhaps two weeks from when we first landed in this town to resupply, I sit on the lawn of the manor house with Arcadia on my lap, she and I sharing a decanter of wine as we watch the sun set over a sea of golden wheat.

“Don’t you think we’ve dawdled a bit?” I ask. “We were supposed to be heading to Aleria, if I remember right.”

Arcadia shakes her head, and presses tighter against me. "No. I'm doing what Sigrun told me to do. This place will be an example to everyone else, that there's a better way."

I notice her cup is a little low, so I set down my own and take the decanter to top her off. “So we have to change the world for the better, everywhere we go?” I say, as I’m pouring. Then I sneak a kiss on her while she isn’t paying attention.

She squeaks, a lopsided grin on her face when she turns to look at me. “Wherever we can, at least.”

I grin down at her, which makes her blush a bit, but before she can look away I’ve pressed my lips to hers. She tastes like wine, and the sigh she lets out is such a heart-wrenchingly pretty sound…

We don’t converse anymore, at least for the rest of the evening.

Preparations for the festival ramp up over the next few days, and since I don’t have much else to do, I volunteer to help set everything up. The common pasture is our chosen site, so we temporarily corral the livestock, build a stage for the minstrels and long tables for all the food and drink, and set aside an area for games. We go out looking for big, heavy rocks for contests of strength, and somebody brings along a length of sturdy rope for tug-of-war. I’m sort of looking forward to competing in those.

The morning of the festival comes at last. I’m out in the pasture before dawn with the men, making the final preparations, hanging colorful streamers from tall poles, hauling barrels of ale and mead off of wagons. A group of ladies comes up from the village next, to set out all the food, and they’re about as organized as the Ecean legions, if not moreso. They’re followed by the minstrels, who make their way up onto the low stage we built for them, and begin to tune their instruments.

The sun rises late, as if reluctant, like it wanted to sleep in. But as it peeks over the horizon, painting the fields of wheat in glowing yellow as it goes, throngs of people begin to pour over the hillside path toward the pasture. At a glance I wonder where they all came from, I didn’t think there were even this many people in the town of Avendale, but then again word has spread far and wide.

When I look back toward the manor, I see Arcadia strolling down the gentle hillside with Lyselle and the others, framed by the . A breeze blows her hair over her face, and when she brushes it back our eyes meet from afar. She blushes and glances away, grinning. She's wearing one of the dresses made by that tailor Lyselle called for a few days ago, it has a white frilly blouse with sleeves down to her elbows, under a dark green corset that pushes her breasts up in an eye-catching kind of way. A series of bright green folds make up the skirt of her dress, hanging down to her knees. The color complements her eyes.

I drop what I’m doing and head straight for her. She’s watching me approach, a great big smile on her face. I break into a jog when I’m close, reaching out and taking her by the waist and hoisting her, laughing, into the air. I spin her around before bringing her back down to earth. And a flurry of kisses.

I catch glimpses of things. Lyselle’s amused smile. Posca rolling his eyes. Village ladies here and there, looking scandalized at the sight of two women kissing. I couldn’t care less about any of it.

Arcadia and I leave the group behind, hand in hand, making our way into the pasture-turned-fairground by ourselves. We nibble at some fruit laid out on a long table. We wander by the minstrels and I dance with her, taking the lead, filling the man’s place even though I’m not a man. For a moment I consider the irony that Arcadia’s journey began as Arcadius, and I’m in the man’s place and she’s the woman now. But that isn’t right. She was a woman. A woman unjustly imprisoned, who’s finally broken free.

And I get to witness the beauty of it. I couldn’t be luckier.

I’ve been there for her highs and lows, and I realize today she’s as happy as I’ve ever seen her. She can’t wipe the smile off her face. She’s quick to laugh, to talk on and on about unimportant things, just for the simple joy of talking. Again I notice people gawking at us as we wander the fair, men and women alike, and though it doesn’t trouble me, it makes me remember that we’ve come a very long way from Ecea. There’s no way we could have stayed there, but it’s a shame we had to run toward the company of the provincial, the unenlightened. The Norgardians didn’t look at us that way. Maybe that’s the place to settle down.

We pass by a cluster of folk, all gathered around a pair of burly men hurling large stones for distance. I stop, turn a smirk at Arcadia and nod my head sideways.

“Should I?”

The guilty smile on her face tells me her answer. She sort of wiggles in place and looks away, yet another blush coloring her cheeks. “Y-yes…”

So I wait my turn to participate, and when it’s time I step into the ring. My opponent is a man named Rundorig, a fellow about as tall as I am, with broad shoulders, a barrel chest and a thick neck, the musculature of a farmer born and raised. He goes first, bending at the waist to lift his boulder with both hands. Then he flips it up onto his shoulder, strides a pace or two forward and heaves with all his might.

The stone lands with a heavy thud in the grass, a goodly distance away, and the crowd breaks into cheering and shouting their praise. My stone is about the same size as his was, a little more jagged, and oblong. But I can pick it up with one hand and pitch it anyways, and it lands half again as far away as his.

The crowd is silent. Rundorig stares, like the rest of them, wide eyed and open mouthed. Then he turns that astonished look on me.

“What do they feed ya, where yer from?”

I smirk. “Exotic substances. Even I don’t know the recipe.”

There’s one person in the gathering who isn’t awestruck. It’s Arcadia. She’s standing right in front, wearing a smile that’s an equal mixture of embarrassment and pride and… Something else. Something that makes me think our evening is going to be spectacular. I give Rundorig a pat on the shoulder before leaving him behind, returning to my woman to sweep her into an embrace. Kissing ensues, but I don’t get carried away.

Maybe a little carried away. But who cares, let them gawk.

When we’re done making a scene, she slips her hand into mine and we return to wandering. We pass by a group of children playing with a baby goat, a juggler cracking jokes while he performs for a pair of young ladies, and a long table where Posca has suckered a few farmers into his dice game. Arcadia seems a little less talkative. Her fingers and mine are loosely interlaced, and as we walk along I notice her staring off at the waving fields of wheat in the distance.

Without warning she stops, turns to face me and comes up onto her tiptoes to kiss me again. When she pulls away her eyes are closed, a serene smile on her lips.

“I needed this. It’s wonderful,” she says.

“You’re wonderful.”

Her eyes don’t open, but the smile becomes a silly grin. She pushes her face into my chest to hide it.

“Shut up,” she mumbles.

I’m grinning too now, I can’t help it. “No,” I say, leaning in close to half-whisper it in her ear. “You’re wonderful. Beautiful. Unforgettable. I could keep going. I haven’t even mentioned how lovely you look in that dress…”

Arcadia slaps my shoulder, and burrows her face in against me harder. She mutters something again, muffled by my tunic. I’m pretty certain it’s another ‘Shut up.’ Eventually she composes herself enough to pull away, and when she does so there’s a wry, self-mocking kind of smile on her face.

"I'm a screw up,” she says. “I'm here because you're there to catch me when I fall."

I frown a little, slide my hands up to her shoulders to give them a reassuring squeeze.

“I’m here to make sure you change the world. One little town at a time.”

Arcadia lifts her chin to gaze up into my eyes. The look on her face is plaintive, forlorn, full of love, but also a questioning. As if she were asking herself how this came to be. A silent, desperate plea for all of this to be real. I’m ready to reassure her, if only she would ask. But she doesn’t. Instead she lunges, hopping up onto her tiptoes, her arms looping around my neck as she kisses me with surprising ferocity.

Some questions can be answered without saying anything at all.