Vol.3, Ch.7, P.2
The sharpness in Juholt’s mien dulled in that moment.
“…Pity,” he yielded in a low voice, before letting fall his gaze. He seemed for a while greyed asudden by age or trouble, as though reminded of an old sorrow. A life more than half-spent in war ought’ve numbed his heart to the uncounted, untimely demises of his juniors. But looking at him, I knew then that no number of years, no hardness of will, could ever prepare one for so solemn a tiding.
The chancellor sighed. “Yet ere their fall, the margrave had entrusted to the Östbergs total command of his Fiefguard,” his briefing continued. “As for why, most certainly had he a mind to steal away to the safety of neighbouring Tallien… were it not for his foul luck. Our agents discovered him a corpse—cloven, cold, and concealed in the wine cellar beneath his manor.”
“The death of a lord vassal. The seizing of Londosian land. ‘Ill and utter defeat’, indeed,” concluded Her Highness. And though she stressed much the gravity of the loss, not once did her mien seem even warmed by either wrath or shame. “It was our original mind to send for you all today, that we might take counsel touching twofold the fall of Balasthea and the answer necessary thereof. But too fickle be the whims of the fates, for Londosius was yet whole when our couriers first took to the road with your summonses,” she explained most deliberately, an effort to impress upon us the exigency of this situation. “Seven, mine honoured knights. Seven be’eth the sum of days betwixt the march on Hensen and the fall of Arbel. For such foesome speed must we account, lest we suffer too-soon again another crisis never seen in centuries past.”
This was but the prelude, simply put. Not soon would this mad tide recede. Or perhaps, its waters were already at our feet. Perhaps we were none the wiser, oblivious to the flood now rising to engulf us all.
A flood by the name of “strife”.
An era to scar our history.
“Of one seed do we know that has quickened into this foul growth: treachery,” the chancellor spoke emphatically. “A Londosian soldier; Balasthea’s acting commandant himself; a Man who has full-fraternised with the Nafílim.”
Astonishment swept through the forgathered. In truth, we’d all been apprised of a likely treacher behind this chaos, yet of the Orderly knights here, ‘twas only Felicia and I who were privy to the chancellor’s last detail Indeed, never could any of the others have imagined so complete a betrayal. To turn against Man, to walk with the Nafílim—the mere thought twisted their faces in disbelief.
An inkling was in me, wishing that I were amongst that collective astonishment, for uncertainty seemed then a comforting veil from so haunting a reality.
“Eldest son he is, and cadet to a baron-house,” the chancellor continued, almost spitting. “And now, a wolven withersake withal—one by the name of Rolf Buckmann.”
The assembled’s unease was riled at once. Though my three fellow mareschals sustained their composure as they stayed sat in deep thought, the same could hardly be said for the great many of our subordinates, whose indignance whipped the air itself into a bluster.
“Rolf the wretch! I know his stench! The filth of the 5th! The ungraced himself!”
“Ah! The pieces fit, then!”
“He would spurn all of Man, is it!? All because our Deiva has spurned him!? How rotted be this rebel!?”
‘That miserable malefactor’, ‘let justice stab him full-through’; biting words, writhing into our ears, one after another. Amidst the tumult, Cronheim began his own words—quietly, as though the crowd were never there at all.
“What of proof?” he propounded. “Have we any? Some token that tells true the treachery of this Rolf Buckmann?”
At once, the incensed leadership were becalmed. A pause, and the chancellor gave an answer.
“We have, indeed. ‘Living proof’, as it were, here in the flesh: his blood-sister, against whom he has brandished arms,” he said, before turning his eyes my way. “Mareschal Valenius. Her account, if you will.”
My stomach turned. “…Yes, Excellency.”
I looked to Felicia. Tenseness invested her as she quivered with dread. Never would I have dared drag her here in such a state, but ‘twas not a thing to be helped. Only she could full-attest to her brother’s crime, and as a dame of Londosius, she was beholden to oblige.
How small she seemed. Seeing her shrunken so, I could but recall fairer days faraway, when Felicia was yet little and toddled happily after her brother’s every step.
♰
“…And there was I forced unto retreat.”
So ended Felicia’s account, greyly told bit by bit. In that entire span did her gaze remain half-fallen, whilst her hands were pressed into her lap, whitely clenched. Myriad expressions coloured the faces of the knightly leadership as they gave her their collective ear. Some seemed green with suspicion, others red with displeasure.
After a brief hush, one amongst them spoke. “’Sundered spells’, you said. How certain is this?”
“…Very,” Felicia answered.
“We have taken testimony enough from witnesses of the treacher’s mettle,” the chancellor added. “The Brigadier speaks true.”
And so was it known. A thunderbolt of a fact, attested by many eyes: Rolf, seen cleaving through palings, cutting through magicks.
“I doubt not your account, Brigadier Buckmann, yet…” Cronheim asked carefully, “…your eyes deceived you not, I trust? When they saw the Igniēns Ĭcendō, of all spells, severed and snuffed?”
“…Yes,” Felicia answered again. “They saw true.”
Eyewitness testimony, a first-person account; slowly did the truth sink in as any remnant doubt faded. The mareschals, the leadership, all fell silent for a long while, frozen in rumination. But when a voice broke the quiet at last, it spoke of another matter entirely.
“Well, certainly shall we set all thought upon this man and his new ‘friends’. But one thing demands sooner clarity,” broached one of our subordinates. “House Buckmann. What shall be their fate?”
A cascade of nods swept through the Order leadership. Indeed, as justice ought be meted upon a withersake, so ought the fate of his associates, kin or no, be deliberated upon—mine included.
“Irrelevant,” snapped Juholt. “We meet upon matters of the military, let us not forget.”
The mareschal had the right of it. Domestic affairs deserved another day, not when the realm’s highest echelons were so gathered. But the leadership were not so easily convinced.
“Yet we have here with us the very sister to that sicarius,” the dissenter resisted. “So let us clear the air, I say, first and foremost; discuss the course of House Buckmann and all others familiar to the treacher. Evil runs deep; we must uproot it whilst we can.”
Assent crescendoed from all ‘round. Felicia remained sat utterly still, lips pursed shut. Before long, the commotion settled as all eyes turned to Her Highness, begging her voice in this matter.
“Yet deeper runneth the wisdom of our forebears,” she began, unhurried. “My granduncle… our prior sovereign hath, in his time, pardoned the kindred of a patricidal conspirator. Such precedent the former King then did enshrine, and so were stricken from the land all laws charging kin on grounds of association.” With those words, the princess then turned her iron-sea eyes our way. “As then, so today: a pardon, therefore, ought be given to the House of Buckmann.”
“Your Highness,” the chancellor started, giving scarce time for our relief. “It is as you say. Indeed, no such law is listed in our legislation. No longer, anyhow. Yet if I may, we must needs mistake not the absence of law for an absolving hand. We reckon here flagrant rebellion against the realm; pardon even the thought of perfidy, and I fear we shall stoke the distaste of the noble houses.”
The chancellor’s words were as a chill air hissing into our ears. His reputation as a shrewd and callous politician was baring itself full afore us all.
“That, we know well,” returned the princess. “Hence shall the lord and lady of House Buckmann be confined to their estate, the governance whereof to be assumed by appointed consuls pro tempore. Such shall be the full burden for the Buckmanns to bear, and aught heavier we shall not brook, for their house is to endure…” she declared, then turning to Felicia, “…and their daughter withal. Hers be a strength certain to succour our future assays; dispensing with her now shall be but to our dear detriment.”
“With all due respect, Your Highness, a bitter remedy bites the malady all the more mightily,” debated the chancellor. “We lose little to swallow it here, for a blight does fester beneath the unwitting watch, does it not? Let us search out the worms of sin, my Princess, and withal the soil that did give rise to such rot as Rolf Buckmann.”
How doggedly he stood his ground, this chancellor, even aface the decree of Her Highness—an effort perhaps attempted purely to fulfil the expectation of his office. Even still, none of what he’s said sat right with me.
“How now, Lord Chancellor,” drummed Juholt’s voice. “Too deep a dosage and even a remedy might prove a poison. Why, set to wind your very words, and swiftly would you find yourself flocked by our more… fanatic fowl, who should like naught more than to upheave the whole of the 5th, all to peck out those ‘worms’ of yours. For verily it was the 5th’s ‘sin’ to have sent the man to Ström firstly, was it not? Nay, disturb not that nest, I say.”
“My fellow Mareschal makes a fair point,” agreed Cronheim, before glancing my way. “The Lady Emilie is a lioness invaluable to Londosius, and a lodestar besides to its folk, high and lowborn both. The realm would plunge into uproar were this scandal sown against her regard.”
“…It would, indeed,” the chancellor relented at last.
Naught more of this matter was heard from him on this council, and as his was the most prominent voice of dissent, so, too, were all other malcontents silenced. And with them, any mind that so saw criminality in past association with Rolf.
Thus were Felicia and I pardoned. As for her parents… their lot was not to be helped. Truth be told, I paid them small concern, for by this time, they were scarce more than a lukewarm relation to me. Certainly had they treated me gently during my years in the Buckmann barony, but never did I forgive nor forget their cold hand in disinheriting Rolf and annulling our betrothal.
“Your understanding solaces us all, Excellency,” said Cronheim. “Now, shall we delve into the crux of this council?”
What ought be our answer to this new threat, how might the Nafílim be confronted and Rolf vanquished—such was the “crux” of which Cronheim spoke, and the one matter I dreaded most, far and above the potential charges against Felicia and myself.
“Very well,” answered the chancellor. “But to the quick of it, we shall bestir the Orders to stem this tide. That much is certain. Rolf Buckmann is a mark best caught alive… but we shall welcome his breathless body no less gladly.”
I inly gasped.
In such circumstance as we were, the chancellor’s words ought not be strange to any ear. Yet to mine, they were as a stab to the belly. Rolf’s “breathless body”—the mere sound of those words chilled all the blood in my own.
“Yes, caught! And given to the gallows!”
“Slip the smallfolk upon him, why not! Let him savour a good stoning! That he might sore-rue every sin of his committal!”
“The hubris of this heretic! Whip him till he whimpers like the whelp that he is!”
Now were the leaders more raucous than before. My subordinates, too, were joined in the commotion, as though Rolf were to them no less a stranger. On and on they lashed themselves to greater frenzy, spewing words I wished never to hear.
Yet how familiar it seemed.
The hearing from months ago.
In remembering it, I saw again Rolf standing alone in a storm of spite.
…A storm he’s endured for five long years.
“Yet who would sooner whimper? The rebel? Or you rabble?”
Ringing clear through the air now was a voice, bell-like and pristine. A voice hitherto unlet during this entire council. All attention followed it to its source, sighting first undulating locks of lavender—and eyes keener than any blade.
There was she sat, unmoved by the sudden scrutiny: Estelle Tiselius, Dame Mareschal to the 1st.
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Notes
Igniēns Ĭcendō
(Language: Latin; original name: “Ignite Stab”) Levin-elemental battle magick. A spell formed as a stream of red-black radiation. In the blink of an eye, speeds unto and pierces a marked target, never ceasing until it has struck home. Absolutely unavoidable, this spell is considered as much a death sentence as it is an arcane and nigh-unmasterable art.
Pro Tempore
(Language: Latin) “Temporary”; “for the time being”.
Thanks for the chapter.
Wow, a lot of the people in the meeting have the whiff of being both warlike and incompetent. Not a good mix.
It is odd that they close the book on a meeting like this, since a scene like that usually works better as an opener, to catch the reader up to events so far.