Vol.4, Ch.3, P.7
“Bloody all o’ ‘ell fits in ‘alf this place,” grumbled Sigmund as he raced down the opulent passages.
In his youth had he stolen into many a noble’s estate. Not that it was an easy feat by any means, especially for a raggedy little boy. No, it was pure spite that had driven him, for to tiny Sigmund, a guttersnipe of an urchin who oft had to gag down mud and muck just to fill his belly, the nobility—with their daily platters of honeyed fruits and fat-encrusted cuts of hen and hog—were naught but crooks to earn his every curse. Indeed, with their larders locked and butteries barred, it was certainly easier, say, to have cheated a morsel or three from the market stalls instead, but nay; little Sigmund’s stomach starved too much for sustenance of a different sort, and naught sated it like stealing from the aristocracy.
Yet, compared to the numberless manors he had thieved in the past, this estate of House Tallien was a clear colossus. Most expected; after all, it was the lair of the landlord himself: Bartt Tallien, the object of Sigmund’s enmity and deep-pocketed ringleader to the viscounty’s circus of silver-spoons. Since his childhood days had Sigmund waged this war of his, to take from the rich and drink deep their despair. Infiltrating this byzantine abode, therefore, might very well have been the capstone to his lonely campaign.
Had it all inflicted as festering a wound as he would have liked, wondered Sigmund, as he left his wake of bloodied guards and continued his stampede through the furnished halls and filigreed rooms. Before long, he found it: double-doors, dizzyingly decorated. With a sudden kick, Sig exploded into the chamber beyond, howling as he went, and discovered inside a man couched and surprised, but scowling back nonetheless. And though girt with a sword, the rest of his garb was clearly aristocratic.
“Hah! Struck gold!” Sigmund smirked as he let himself in, stamping over rug after lavish rug with his dirt-laden boots. But as he did, from beside the displeased man stood up a young woman, herself looking just as livid.
“So, the intruder is come at last,” she snarled. “Yet yours seems not the semblance of Rolf Buckmann. Name yourself, knave!”
“Hmph. Name this, name that. Bugger all…” Sigmund grumbled again before sticking forth his chin. “…All right, then. ‘Sig’—that’s me name. An’ the name o’ Rolf’s mate ‘isself.”
“…Sophie Tallien,” returned the damsel, as with deliberate and theatrical flair, she freed her own sword from its scabbard. And training its needle-point upon the interloper, proclaimed herself clear and cold: “Issue to this high house, daughter to the lord of this land. Mark well the name—as will your headstone, you cullion of a turncoat!”
Sigmund raised a brow. “Wot? Takin’ me on? All on ya lonesome?” he said with a snort. “Come on, Missus, where’s the fun, aye? That there fop; ’ow ‘bout ’im? ’E were a mareschal once, innit? Be nice an’ ’ave ’im join the joust, why not?”
“I need not humour you, whoreson,” the man hissed from his high seat. “The finest fruit from this mareschal’s garden shall prove your final opponent.”
“So my lord father says,” cooed Sophie. “Fret not. I will vouchsafe you a lesson on the subtleties of the sword; a parting gift for you to ponder on your slow ferry to hell.”
The former mercenary squinted with suspicion. Was this some feint? A farce? For by his reckoning, Sigmund could but deem this damsel naught more than a mere amateur: surely yet unsteadily she stood, all sides open to all attack, a naked pincushion ready for the pricking. But all fine and well. Trap or no, he had only to overmaster the overlords afore him.
Sophie scoffed at the doubt in his eyes. “…Scared speechless, I see,” she jeered. “Poor creature… Have at you!”
Bliaut billowed as blade and body broke forth. Nearing with her sword hoven high, Sophie next drave the edge down upon the traitorous intruder. A clash of metals clapped the air—the damsel’s attack was turned away. And with it: her weapon, twirling out of her hands and skipping as it landed far behind.
Sophie stood stunned for a second. With a gasp, she then scrambled back to fetch her blade. Sigmund gave no chase.
“…A-a fluke, that!” she stammered along the way. “Oh, snuff that smirk of yours! I shan’t hold back from here on!”
“An’ neither will I, Missus,” Sigmund returned. “Ya takes up the sword, then I gives no quarter. Not to mareschals—not to cocksure covesses like yaself.”
“Mind your mouth, scum!!” the flustered daughter screamed. There, with weapon retrieved, she poised herself for another charge, and then—
“Sophie,” called her father asudden. “Perhaps I will humour him, after all.” With a bothered bend in his brows, the Lord Bartt Tallien drew up his stout body and bared his blade in approach. “The eyes of Yoná, and indeed of all Londosius, are watching; let us together show them a most certain and sating death of a withersake.”
Surety gushed from the lord’s very lips. Only, his own stance seemed just as “masterful” as his daughter’s. And there, Sigmund realised it at last: fools they were, a father and his child ill-enlightened as to the shallowness of their strength. An eyesore to say the least, but hardly a seldom one. No; acknowledged, accommodated, acclaimed, and accorded all adoration, theirs was one of many egos grown fat beyond form; princes wallowing in a world brought to heel afore the knifepoint of their noble prerogative. And so, steeped in self-love, they appraise themselves priceless and powerful, admiring their pretty portraits whilst leaving their mirrors to tarnish in the dark.
That Bartt had been made mareschal, too, was rather more the contrivance of chance, circumstance, and status. And with his tenure having spanned through the more tepid years of the great war, in truth had his been naught but a hollow hegemony.
“Pit’ful pups, you lot,” spat Sigmund, shaking his head. “But ya nettles me nerves proper, ya does. An’ for that—”
As one who had hitherto hewn his foes on sight, quite peculiar it was what Sigmund did next: indeed, “nettled” was no jest, as with a rush of action, his angry boot blasted right into Bartt’s belly.
“Bwegh!?” the lord wheezed, his sword yet unswung as he tumbled violently across the room. Witness to it was his daughter, dumbstruck. This could not be. An infallible hero her father was, not some soiled rag to be tossed out of hand. Yet reality was not so kind, as into her own belly flew Sigmund’s other foot.
“Khwah!?” Down the dishevelled rugs she rolled. And there, she laid coughing and shivering, as beside her rose her defiant father, brandishing his blade aloft.
“Whoreson…! Whoreson, yee───eu!!” he shrieked, shooting his sword down upon Sigmund, who, with but a swivel of the body, eluded the lord’s wrath and wrested the offending wrist right out of the air, twisting it till joint and tendon snapped. “Hng!? Nnghaa—!!” Bartt wailed, releasing his weapon and crumpling to his knees in agony—pathetic, tearful agony.
“Yaa—ah!!”
There: a cry from the side as Sophie, back on her feet, rushed back in with her sword bent on revenge. Sigmund swiftly freed the lord, swatted away the blade with his own, and drave a fist into Sophie’s stomach.
“Ohwobh!?” retched the daughter, who then fell as her father did: to her knees, drenched in dribble and tears. There, the Talliens tarried, couched in excruciating pain, gagging, grumbling, groaning. At length, their torment turned to simmering ire.
“Filthy fiend…!” Bartt seethed from between his teeth. “Irredeemable wretch…! Base tyke…! Shameless, pus-sucking… cesspool-dreg, you! Upon the lord of this land have you laid your heathen hand!”
“How dare you…!?” joined Sophie. “How… dare you…!! This crime… this sin of yours has all the heavens wailing!!” The first to find foothold, Sophie stood, tottering as she twisted her face in fury. “Hmph! Rolf Buckmann’s mate, indeed…!”
“Mngh?” Sigmund grunted, glaring back. “Wot’s me mate gots to do with this, aye?”
“Whom can he avail? None!” hissed Sophie. “What battle can he brave!? What people, what pride can he protect!? None! Rolf Buckmann! An evil, vacuous coistril! A rat in his rot-gutter grudging all the world ‘round him! And you! What’re you but the flea hitched to his hide! The filth hanging from his hind! If his mate you name yourself, then I name you cur! Discourteous devil-cur, you!”
“…Ah?”
Sigmund’s temples flared. His patience for this princess was sputtering dry. Flea, filth, discourteous cur—these he took small exception to. It was near enough the mark, to be sure: he never did have half the faintest care for customs and courtesy. What, then, could explain his convulsing veins? Sigmund himself knew not. Only, for whatever reason, Sophie’s words stayed stuck in his ears like stubborn wax. And that was enough to turn his stomach, to inflame in him an aimless anger.
“Know this, knave!” Sophie cursed on. “That to your filth-forged blade bows not my sword of splendour! Good as gone is that head of yours! As once I’ve hewn retribution from your wretched bosom, I’ll bring this edge to your nape next!”
“…Now see ‘ere, Missus,” said Sigmund, cold as steel, and shouldering his sword, began circling the nobles interrogatively. “This ‘ere blade, it’s lost to your ‘rat’ once—two ‘gainst one. So wot thinks ya now ‘bout your odds ‘gainst ‘im, if you an’ your jack-a-dandy mareschal ‘ere can’t bare one bloody fang ‘gainst me?”
Sophie would not have any of it. “Silence!” she cried, “silence!!” and in her tantrum, stamped her foot upon the fine rugs over and again. Hunched anear was her father, wide-eyed and gape-mouthed at Sigmund’s revelation. “Die! Die!!” screamed Sophie. “You cu—r!!”
Aflame with furor, the lord’s daughter dashed straight upon Sigmund, her sword swaying high above her head. Not yet had she shed her own delusions of strength, of the Deiva-ordained right to slay the weak at will. No; such a dream she bore right upon her very blade.
Yet, such a blade never reached the skin of Sigmund.
For his had found hers first.
“Hhagh…!?” Sophie sanguinely spewed. As the flash of a sword subsided from her eyes, her bosom bloomed red. Pitching forwards, she foundered unto the floor, and there laid limp and baffled as to what had befallen her own flesh.
“Bites bitter, innit, battle,” Sigmund said over her trembling body. “Too bad they ain’t done bugger all for ya, eh? ’Em gems, ’em jewels set in ya sword—all paid for by the blood o’ us smallfolk.”
Sophie’s fading faculties strained to hearken Sigmund’s every word. Questions curdled in her mind.
I am… lost? Defeated?
But… how? Why?
Why like this?
Am I not mighty?
Am I not majestic?
…Why?
Sophie’s eyes quivered, desperately seeking answers. But fruitless in their effort, they stopped still, and there the light of life was forever lost from them. Twenty winters this woman had lived, and till its very last knew little more than spars with wooden wasters, her every victory earned more by the sway of her status than the swing of her sword. A tragedy, then, to have sooner left this world than her cloister of self-deceit.
“H-h-heee—eee…!”
A pathetic peal of a voice next wormed into Sigmund’s ears. Turning to its source, the former mercenary then found the former mareschal on all fours, scrambling in escape. A second, and he was gone.
“…Bloody kiddin’ me?” Sigmund huffed, standing so stunned at the cowardice on display that too late had the epiphany of pursuit dawned on him. Indeed, even being a hard-boiled butcher of many heads, never could he have foreseen so flagrant a father’s flight from the death of his own daughter.
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Having split off from Sig, I stole through the manor, minding every corner and cranny. Light waned as my way wended deeper. Guards were suspiciously sparse, servants nowhere to be seen. Was the viscount elsewhere? If so, likely he’d secluded himself in some corner chamber of this haunt. With that thought, I slinked further, and was soon staring down a long gallery, at the end whereof loomed a door. Gaining it and cracking it open, I peeked through.
Not a soul in sight… yet still my instincts tingled. Better to make certain.
Decided, I slipped through the doorway and into the dimness. Hard-seeing though it was, I well-sensed the space to be cavernous. Many pillars lined the perimeter, crowned with vaults fanning up to an arched ceiling. At the walls, ranks of stained glass windows watched the inky night beyond. There was scant furniture; a yawning hollow sat silent at the centre. A ballhall this was, perhaps? It certainly seemed spacious enough, if at least to host an intimate soirée.
The air shuddered.
Chandeliers shone alive.
The chamber brimmed with light.
And sound.
At once I stood at guard, readying my blade as a racket increased in my ears. Clanking, quaking—the roar of armour springing from behind the pillars where they were hid. Scarce more than a few seconds, and I found myself fast encircled by scintillating figures of silver: the fierce knights of the 3rd.
“…A dung pile I’ve struck,” grumbled I, scanning and counting the waylayers. Ten knights… and only one of me. Odds graver again than the fight down at the grand foyer. Hunching ready, I re-poised my weapon.
“Rolf Buckmann! Sinner and sicarius!” exclaimed one of the knights. “We have you surrounded! Surrender forthwith!”
Not always a welcome thing, a preceding reputation. No matter. Less will know of me by night’s end. But in the midst of that thought, there played a new set of footfalls: the eleventh enemy, arriving from behind the knightly ranks.
“A happiness to see you so hale,” sang a voice. “Oh, how I have missed you so, my silly, silly little swain.”
Lilting laughter, a demure mien, an elegant regard—all earning but a knot in my stomach. A fine mantelet draped this woman’s shoulders, as did the dress of silver over her buxom body. Fashioned from a nun’s habit, the graceful garb veritably announced her profession: a surgien of the Order, and a formidable one, at that. Of all the menders I’ve met in my life, without question did she tower supreme, whether in skill or odyllic capacity.
“…And I, you,” I said, “…Sheila Larsen.”
A rosary of silver and emerald shone bright upon her breast. And above it, a soft smile unbeseeming for the battle soon to break.
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Chapter 3 ─ End
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