Vol.6, Ch.2, P.6
That something self-evident should evade you so, was the chancellor conveying. Why? Were you not born and bred a Man as we? Taught and instilled this most common of creeds, at the least? Then let this acceptance take.
Nay. I could not let it, nor ever. Ten times over I’d rather die before such evil becomes “self-evident” in my mind.
“Twenty… thirty folk for my person,” I began wringing out of my bosom. “Must you count lives like coins upon the scale, Chancellor? Must you?”
No longer could those words remain encaged in me. Yes, yes, I knew very well: that nor could they ever reach so devoted, so Deiva-loving a lot. Still, I could not deny them their flight. And in seeing them take fruitless wing, sorrow then beset me. Ill-able to bear the chancellor’s glower, I looked aside, and found there the princess sitting…
“…”
…in utter silence. Downwards she stared, pressing—nay, biting her lip as it trembled. This was not a taming of some inner temper, no. A mere glance upon her told it enough, for faintly on her eyes were tears in the starting. Yes, indeed: Her Highness, too, was sunken in sorrow. Could it be, then? That the princess was…?
“Undertake this foremost of terms,” one of our officials began again, “and return to us the enslaved with effectiveness immediate… and we, the Himmel, would both commit to armistice and remit to your realm its four former fiefdoms of Ström, Tallien, Artean, and Isfält.”
This was our hand, cards painstakingly picked well in advance: ones that would see our war-spoils exchanged for emancipation. Of course, the plan was also to present our Mennish citizenry the choice of either returning to Londosius or remaining with the Himmel. It was guessed that no few would refuse the former.
Even so, the remittance of wrested lands ought entice Londosius much. For them, without question, would the kingdom’ve bargained with an armistice. And so had we thought to proffer both all the sooner, and not piecemeal, at that, but in full. A dear price, true, to so expose our desperation, but such was our desire to see all those in Londosian thralldom delivered as soon as may be.
“A return ‘immediate’ lieth beyond Our means,” spoke the sad princess as she mastered her tears. “However, given a grace of some span, or perchance—”
“I beg your pardon, Princess,” whispered the chancellor hastily. “But, a ‘grace’? Surely, you cannot—”
“Of some span, say you?” Alban broke in.
The chancellor then grimaced, whilst beside him Her Highness settled into some meditation. At length, a pained expression passed upon her face, as one surveying the many sacrifices to be made.
“Eight, seven… nay, five,” she uttered. “If five years ye give Us, then for certain may some fruit be borne.”
“Overfar be even five,” refused Alban. “For in that five, our folk unfreed would suffer on, till disease at best, or cruel death at worst. This you know for true. This we cannot abide.” Met with the meeting’s first ultimatum, the princess sat injured and speechless. Indeed, Alban’s reasoning was ringing all too true. “Well, Princess?” he pressed her. “Let us behold the amenability of Londosius.”
“…To upend the apparatus of a society, if even in requite of lands lost— such be’eth terms too stern, I fear,” Her Highness answered at last with an effort. “Would peoples and nations were so simply contrived. Jarl Alban, ye ought know well this sorrow.”
“I do, yes. Still, I can bear not to budge,” was Alban’s grave answer. “Come, Princess. Lay the coin of your discourtesy. It may make good your bargain yet.”
“So be it,” the princess relented. “This ‘coin’, Jarl, recalleth the matter of the War-Chief Rolf’s repatriation.”
Passing persistent, to put that to us again. Though understandably so, I admit. While true that Londosius desired dearest the return of its divested fiefdoms, if it came to cutting a peace deal, then more precious and pressing to its eyes was the diminishment of the Himmel’s might, and withal a ceasing of hostilities. Better to snuff out the embers than risk another blaze, was surely its ever-present thought.
Hence its wish to wedge me off from the Himmel with overtures of “repatriation”. As by this point, though loathing it, Londosius had little choice but to take heed of the hazard that was the “War-Chief Rolf”. What’s more, in light of fellow Men defecting as with the Cutcrowns of Artean, “Rolf Buckmann” was, to the realm, too brazen a banner of rebellion to let fly any longer. To have him torn from the Himmel, therefore, was as sterling an outcome as it could hope for— enough to have spurred the chancellor to spit out that “exchange” rubbish.
But one of our officials would have none of it. “If I may make clear my humble opinion, Princess,” he said, “such repatriation is little-practical.”
Our terms remain unchanged—such was the declaration he was making. Yet, as though having long seen this, the princess merely nodded and said, “Thus We ask ye reconsider with this dear addendum.”
Her Highness then paused, whilst looking solemnly all along those gathered in the chamber. It was clear: something of passing import was to be put forth.
At length, her lips parted again, and with calm and clarity she declared, “Upon his repatriation, the War-Chief Rolf shall be made lord and master of House Buckmann, and withal his betrothal to the Lady Emilie Valenius restored entirely. Once wedded, theirs shall be Houses merged and of peerage promoted, which—respecting both the breadth of their combined fiefs and their domestic eminence—We expect shall see them as marquis and marquise of House Buckmann-Valenius.”
The air changed asudden. A “Heavens…!” echoed gaspingly through it. From the chancellor it was, yet he was scarce alone in his incredulity: Emilie and the remaining legate, too, were stunned whence they sat. But of course they would be; for what the princess just proffered was utter preposterousness.
Her regal gaze fixed square upon me; a nervous bead crept down her porcelain cheek—the look of one in anguish, of one who dares such a decision with full knowledge of what ire it would tempt from her subjects. Forsooth; I, too, am determined to see Londosius changed, her eyes grave and grey seemed to say.
Without a doubt had Her Highness scribed and secretted this card all along. My thoughts then ran.
Londosius, still now an enemy in whose great shadow we were but quivering creatures, would deign have us return its four taken territories in exchange for agreeing to an armistice. And as it cannot immediately mend the malice of its people, nor just as swiftly release its enslaved as we demanded, it would offer also many a coffer of coin to compensate, though with nary a pretense of “reparations”, of course. And to add to that the proposal just now: land, love, and lordly stature for the War-Chief Rolf should he return to the realm. This, I could but deem, were all the cards in the princess’s play. Yet the rub remained.
“To be clear,” I said, “Your Highness’s terms seek to separate me from the Himmel, yes?”
No use beating around the bush now. I was a commander of the Himmel’s Decke, after all, and therefore an errant ember in the eyes of Londosius. If its true intent was to put me out one way or another, then best to let that out in the open for all to consider.
“That I shall not deny. Nevertheless, thou and thine Himmel ought see plain the virtue in them,” the princess insisted, pained and yet with spirit. Indeed, despite all her royal decorum, Her Highness, I saw, was yet an ordinary soul: one susceptible to the sway of her heart; one who may whet sharp her words if incited enough. “War-Chief Rolf,” she beseeched on, “if seekest thou a changed Londosius, then pray, walk with Londosius. With prestige and power invested, appease its people, sow in them acceptance; that wilfully might they make neighbours of an enemy race, and lay to rest at last their swords for centuries swung. Many winters, indeed, may pass ere cometh that spring; but with thine hands and thy feet—and withal those of the Lady Emilie’s and mine both—its ushering may yet be assured.”
And so at last did it come to this: the princess proposing now to lend her own hand in help, even as she heeded the amazement of the chancellor beside her. “Help” was key here: were I to accept the task of bettering the realm from within, the brunt of that burden would be most of mine to bear. The princess, meanwhile, would stay at the side, offering succour when and where she may. Such was her position: a bird free only to flit and fret within her cage. For usurping the throne, if even to remedy the realm it so ruled, was nary in her will to do. And if I had to guess… there lived other reasons yet as to why her cage remained closed.
“Alas, doubtless would there be those delivered too-late, this being an endeavour long in the doing,” the princess conceded. “Yet, better too-late than never at all. Such is change, bought dear with time. Time—and resolve, which I ask thee and thine to harden in your hearts.”
“…Your Highness,” the chancellor nigh-groaned, angered and yet in grief, and withal as though to beseech that his princess restrain herself. Only, no ear was lent him.
“Why, suppose no armistice is signed here,” Her Highness continued. “Then the quill untaken shall become a spade, hollowing holes and burying the numberless dead so idly doomed by us today. Is that not so?”
Now did her words appear in plea; the present and supreme authority in all of Londosius—now practically begging on her knees for our understanding. It was then that she looked back to me.
“Of thee, Chief Rolf, may this wish of mine require much that is unwelcome, this I know,” she pleaded. “For no longer in Londosius liveth thine heart for Home. Yet in faith, Chief Rolf. If for Peace, then thy shoulders, and withal that very same heart, I deem, doth possess strength enough to bear the so-unwelcome weight.”
Then, perhaps awed by the quiet intensity of her young sovereign—“Ah…”—Emilie’s voice gave as she listened to the princess’s words. Wonder was upon her; but soon, her eyes turned to mine—azure eyes filled with expectation, with hope. And taking it, I sat in silence for a moment before looking myself to Lise beside me. But ever as I did, I sensed to my other side Alban staring upon me, wordless but teeming with intent. It very well seemed he trusted me to answer as I would. I felt, too, the expectant eyes of the princess, and those of the chancellor’s and legate’s. Indeed, all here in the chamber sat now waiting for my next words.
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