Yohann is given a commission (RPF smut crew)

[guardiansverse]

"Don't worry, lad," the general said with great grin. "I'm a fan of your work."

It alarmed Yohann that, despite the saber laid plainly on the table between them, he believed it. Gustav Basholme has a reputation for flagrant honesty. That, along with his reputation as a fierce and terrifying cavalryman, Festus Detrich's strong left arm in the revolution, veteran of half a dozen wars. Basholme was nearing seventy now, gone all gray and no longer commissioned in the army, but it reduced his presence not one whit.

Frankly, it alarmed Yohann that Gustav Basholme read his work at all.

He swallowed hard. Really he was doing that all too often these days. "I'm, ah, not sure I understand your complaint, General."

"It isn't that you write," Basholme said, all amicability over the glint of his saber. "You've published this filth about Festus, well enough. Sun knows he believed in a free press, and in honest work - and this is some damned honest work, I think."

"We pride ourselves on a good business ethic."

"And I'd take you over every politician in Parliament. No, that isn't it. It's what you don't write that bothers me." He tapped light fingers on the saber's hilt. "You've written him take the Rogue Guardian in every orifice and that's perfectly grand, and I can't begrudge your tasteful take on his and Kirschen's bed. But you haven't written him plow the one arse that every man and woman in the country wanted him to go balls-deep into for the past twenty years."

"Do you mean -"

"Duke Stattenholme, obviously."

"The - the lord regent?"

"It needn't be the specific hole, Stattenholme's an arse all over."

Yohann swallowed again, and wondered for the hundredth time how his life as a happy and humble peddler of pleasurable instruments had come to this.

"But, General - the Duke - "

"Retired to his estates."

"The Kaiser - "

"Married to your own countrywoman. You underestimate his breadth of mind."

"The Land's Own - "

"Sun's blood, man, you write her ride a great barbed cock, but her father is off limits?"

"It won't sell," Yohann said in a desperate little breath.

Basholme gave a snort like a warhorse.

"You sweet little Lansikaan," he said. "Do you know where you are? Hyem is a military nation. We may not be half the godless perverts you are, but we like steel our bedroom rags." He reached across the table with a hand wrinkled but still alarmingly large, and patted Yohann once, fondly, on the head. "Don't beg trouble, Fro Rinken, just do as I order. It will sell." He picked his saber up to sheath it; it sent a glint into his eye. "It had better."