Vol.3, Ch.7, P.3
“…‘Rabble’ might ruffle one feather too many, mademoiselle,” whisper a leader sat anear Tiselius. Though his words expressed displeasure for his mistress, the tone behind them seemed tepid with resignation. All the other leaders shared in his futility, unable to rebuke the mareschal even as many of their faces were twisted with annoyance.
For how could they? Tiselius was the finest blade in all the realm, never to abide an out-of-hand scolding. Not least from myself, for although the both of us were hero-dames, from her portance alone did I measure her far more worthy of the title.
But met with the sewn lips of the Orderly knights, the chancellor frowned as he then aired their unease.
“How now, fair Mareschal,” he said, his voice a stony echo. “An explanation is well in order, I should think.”
“Explanation, Excellency?” asked Tiselius, cocking her head. “‘Strong be our foe’. Might that suffice?”
“Strong enough to earn even your fear, I gather?” the chancellor began disputing. “Need I remind you that he is a man unmagicked? A waif unworthy of Her strength?”
“Need I remind you, Excellency, of the words spoken mere moments ago?” the hero-dame softly returned. “That ‘unmagicked’ man vied with the best magicks of our brigadier—and won.”
—Ggkkhrr.
Jolting back: a chair. Standing asudden: another Orderly knight, fuming at the cheeks. “Mareschal Tiselius!” he cried. “With all due respect, I cannot for the life of me share your fear of that foundling ungraced!”
“Aye to that,” agreed yet another leader. “And what of that weapon of his? Reports reveal little of its nature, and we can guess even less. But one thing sticks true: that black blade of his is but a borrowed power. What might it prove against so mighty a grace as Yoná’s? Hmph! Naught, I say!”
“Aha haha!” Tiselius laughed, earning baffled looks from the leadership, and especially from the knight who’d so gloated of our superiority.
“You hear a jest in my conjecture, madame?” he asked, shrill and offended.
“Jest? Why yes. Yes, I do. And naked mummery besides,” the hero-dame said. “For ‘tis we who brandish a borrowed power, is it not?”
“Upon my word…!” so riled the leaders, but no sooner did they then fall into a hush afore the pressing aura of the 1st’s mareschal, their faces sallowing from the ire congesting in their veins.
“His borrowed power trounces ours,” Tiselius asserted, “leaving us to fight back with naught but fist and foot—and to quail in confounded counsel as we do now.”
In the course of her words was Tiselius most serene, her hands gingerly clasped upon the high table, her smile gently glowing upon her mien. And after glancing through the speechless leaders, she spoke again, lightly, but lowly.
“Hm. Jest, indeed.”
“Mareschal Tiselius!” the chancellor thundered. “Have it clear! For whom is your borrowed power brandished!?” The lord’s voice, frayed with hoarseness—’twas rather jarring to see him so heated, as ever did he carry himself with measured patience.
“Why, for Londosius, of course,” Tiselius answered. “As should any knight of this realm.”
“Then act the part, will you!?” the chancellor barked.
“‘Part’? Is making light of an opponent the part of a proud Londosian knight?” Tiselius rebutted. “My dear Excellency, I but warn against gauging a foe more frail than he is.”
This none could argue. And indeed, none chanced it. The indignance of some amongst our leaders was such that they boiled in their seats, grinding their teeth and baring in full their animosity. Tiselius surely perceived the sight, but continued on as though it were but a passing breeze.
“Back to the straight, shall we?” she proposed. “To begin with, Balasthea was dealt a delivering hand by none other than this Rolf Buckmann. ‘Acting Commandant’—the day he assumed that very post was the day the sluice of victory was lifted.”
This, too, none debated. For to do so was to speak against the piles of reports attesting to this nigh-miracle.
“But come the day he flew a different flag did that sluice fall shut,” Tiselius went on. “Londosian might: routed at Hensen, humiliated at Balasthea. And now above all, broken at Arbel and bereft of Ström. Oh, how dread, indeed, the hand that mans the sluice.”
Like silk was her expression, her demeanour a portrait, her voice a melody. And yet was there an awe to Tiselius, looming and inimitable. Any here who had a mind for dissent well-felt this pressure, and looked silently upon the mareschal as a sailor looks upon black clouds towering over a yet-calm sea. Indeed, none dared stir as the hero-dame continued.
“And so are we settled on the keenness of Rolf Buckmann’s ken. But what of his mettle? His own might? Well, beyond any doubt, ‘tis a dear blunder to deem that black blade of his the only peril worth our worry. For dogged practice has honed its wielder to a wonder of deftness, that even could the Kōkūtós be cloven by him, the Slihthund sundered. Fellow sword-devout as I am, I say this: still the tongue that scoffs his skill, lest he mark you another ‘magick’ to be unmade.”
All of this.
Aught and all of this did I myself wish to declare. That Rolf Buckmann is a man of amazement, a marvel of myriad valour. Oh, how long I’ve yearned to reveal such worth to the world, for more than any other did I know of it, and just the same, rued that it should remain so reviled a secret.
Yet… yet on this day was I overtaken.
For ‘twas by Tiselius’ lips that Rolf was heeded at last.
…By lips that were none of mine.
What bitterness I knew then. For uncountable were the occasions when I proclaimed Rolf the better of us all, that much debt did we owe to his courage and counsel. Yet none in either Order or Central deigned to lend any ear. No matter how loudly I lauded him, how incessantly I insisted of him. No; Tallien, the Owlcranes, all of them—the one whom they championed instead was myself. As I was his superior and he my swain, so should Rolf’s valour be as mine. Such was ever their argument.
Even after my promotion to mareschal did I persist. Whether it be suing for his rightful investiture, mandating against discrimination meted upon him, these and more I had endeavoured with all authority available to me.
Indeed, never did I abandon him.
Yet…
On and on, I went unheard. On and on, Rolf suffered.
And so, sat here as I was, in the citadel of Redelberne, in the very beating heart of the realm, I could not help but feel inferior as the Crown, the Cabinet, and the lions of Londosius heeded the hero-dame’s every word and could bear no fang against them.
“Why, the Östbergs themselves fell in like fashion,” Tiselius reckoned. “Wager on it; your purse shall fatten with profit, I assure you.”
“Th-the Östbergs…!” stammered a leader. “On what basis stands your claim…!?”
“My ken,” was Tiselius’ reply, terse, yet more steeled than any armour… and more keen than any dagger, as in hearing it, my very heart felt smarted by some edge. For ‘twas my ken that knew more of Rolf than any other. As it should. As it… should…
“Stamp and scoff as you like,” Tiselius said, “but the fool who baulks the fury of Rolf Buckmann merely speeds the mercy stroke unto Londosius’s nape.”
“Kh… nng…!” so grumbled many of our leaders. They were all of them accomplished personages of the Order, knights and dames whose portraits could hang along royal walls without shame. And thus to be chastened so nakedly must be a first for them, not least afore so illustrious an audience as Her Highness, who watched on with all stoicism.
“…Your point is made well enough, Mareschal,” the chancellor said, grimacing. “But think next to soften its sting, will you?”
“Why, I’ve blunted the barb as best I could, Excellency,” returned Tiselius with a light gesture. “The Buckmanns themselves suffered a sharper sting, you ought know, when I met them on this selfsame matter. Indeed, I very well left the lord and lady a little too sore, though it shames me to say. But today ought find me better behaved, wouldn’t you agree?”
“That, the jury yet debates, I’m afraid,” the chancellor quipped. “Though grim seems the verdict; ‘jest’, Mareschal? ‘Fool’? You would do well to watch your words, at the very least. Such vitriol ill-becomes you.”
“Apologies, Chancellor,” Tiselius said passingly, before looking through the rest of us along the high table. “Now, then. What say my fellow Mareschals?”
The spotlight shifted asudden. Long distracted as I was, I could but inly fluster as I scrambled together a response.
“I am agreed,” Cromheim answered first. “If a wolf prowls the pasture, why, we ought slip every hound and hunter upon it, no?”
“For my part…” Juholt carefully spoke next. “Yes. We should indeed watch this wolf closely—just as we should shiver not in our boots. Stolid caution is but cowardice under cloak. No; we brace… and strike.”
With all the other mareschals spoken for, I felt then every eye in the great hall converge upon me. The weight of it could very well sink a ship, yet even then I managed to move my lips.
“Rolf…” I began, “…Rolf Buckmann is a man brilliant in both book and blade. A warrior wealthy of wit and wide of sight, he wields a will of steel.”
Seized at long last: a chance to tell of Rolf, and not afore indifferent souls as before, but the very eminences of Londosius themselves, not least the princess and the other mareschals. Would that this circumstance were different. That beside me sat Rolf, rightly renowned and decorated with all he is due, to be knighted on this day to the full pleasure of both Crown and Kingdom.
But nay. Today found me lauding him instead as…
“…An ‘element’ to be reckoned with,” I slowly said. “Such excellence… makes this of him.”
“Enemy”—the one word perhaps every ear had expected from my lips. And yet, ‘twas a word I dared not air… not in describing Rolf, no. But then did I sense Her Highness searching my eyes. Her leaden-diamond regard, reaching deep down to decipher what inner strife might’ve shaped my answer.
I could but endure the scrutiny, till at last was it broken as the princess turned next to the hero-dame.
“Our Lady of Tiselius,” Her Highness broached. “Thinkest thou vengeance be this man’s bent?”
“Perhaps a question best left to another lady, Your Highness,” answered Tiselius. “One such as the Mareschal Valenius: former superior to Rolf Buckmann… and his once-sworn fiancée.”
Words, pricking like thorns beneath a rose. A tone wringing me taut, as though to tease out of me an answer to a question long unattended:
What’ve you been doing this entire time? Fiancée that you were?
“Lady Emilie?” The princess’ voice struck like a tolling of a bell.
“…I think not, Your Highness,” I replied carefully. “Vengeance veers too far from his compass. I should guess his purpose lies elsewhere.”
That much I could vouch for. Through all the winters of our intimacy, never had I witnessed Rolf moved by aught as frivolous as vindictiveness. Not even during his time in the Order, when any lesser man might’ve given in to rancour and struck back at his offenders.
Offenders, much like one leader in this great hall, whose snorting at my answer stained the air. As for the princess, she but placed a hand upon her chin and pondered deeply of my words. To her side, the chancellor looked to us all and raised his voice.
“Now do we know our enemy,” he said. “Let us hence chart our course against him and his host.”
“To the viscounty of Tallien shall we dispatch the Order,” Her Highness then declared. “Our Lady of Valenius. Mightst thou and thy knights take up this task?”
A request made with eyes firmly upon me again. But in truth, ‘twas more a command. A command to strike down Rolf. A command to prove my loyalty. Just the thought of it twisted knots in my stomach… but there was nothing for it. The princess’ command was not to be disobeyed.
“The Lord Bartt Tallien was himself mareschal to the 5th Order; thou oughtst know him well enough, yes?” Her Highness pressed, sensing my silence. “Such acquaintance may succour. But moreover, with thy number was Rolf Buckmann most intimate; what better Order for the task, then, besides the 5th?”
“‘Tis… as you say, Highness,” I relented slowly. “The task shall be ours, if you so command.”
Here in this great hall, on occasion of this urgent council, was the princess invested with the prerogative of her father, the king of Londosius. And so was her word His Majesty’s, and His Majesty’s the will of the realm itself. Aface such royal imperative could I but oblige.
Just as powerlessness was beginning to numb my very thoughts, there resounded next a voice heard now for the first time.
“Your Royal Highness, Princess Serafina. If I may so humbly speak.”
Whence did those words come than from right beside me; the voice of Sir Edgar, the newly appointed Chief Adjutant to the 5th Order.
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Notes
Kōkūtós
(Language: Ancient Greek; original name: “Cocytus”) Ice-elemental battle magick. A spell in the form of a cubic, ethereal gaol manifested upon a target location. Ceases all biological processes of those caught within, inducing instant death. Considered the mightiest of all freezing-type spells, and consumes an equally mighty amount of odyl to incant.
Slihthund
(Language: Old English; original name: “Ignite Stab”) “Slaught-hound”; “(lightning) strike-hound”. 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.
Thanks for the chapter.
Estelle is great, and easily the best and most decent person in the kingdom. It is also clear she knows what went down in the 5th under Emilie and does not view Emilie in a good light.
“Indeed, never did I abandon him.”
Leaving aside that whole important part of her actually doing so when Emilie exiled Rolf to the frontiers, a generous reading of events cast doubt on this belief of her’s. Her own self-descriptions of her attempt at trying to promote and protect Rolf, as seen from the flashback, show a singular lack of effort, determination, or willingness to actually do ANYTHING substantive. That she believes her own delusion makes her a terrible person.. Being verbally cut by Estelle for what she was responsible for, in front of everyone, was well deserved.