Vol.6, Ch.4, P.2
It was quite the impression this Praetorian had made at the meeting. There had he failed where Emilie had succeeded: giving in to anger, he’d let his hand grasp full his hostile hilt; an action incited by Lise’s repeated provocations, truth be told. But rules being rules, it’d earned him a stern dismissal from his sovereign nonetheless.
That absence, however, hadn’t lasted long: roused by Myrd’s screaming loss of a hand by my blade, Björn had barged right back in, only to bolt away downstairs after Her Highness bade him bring help for his bleeding colleague. And the rest was history, blast and all.
“Hmph. A pity thou livest yet…” muttered Björn as he glowered my way. Indeed, now free from the formalities of the meeting, this Praetorian no longer even pretended at courtesy for this ungraced sicarius.
“Aye, strangely enough,” I replied. “Your Deiva must’ve missed damning my luck, I think.”
I withstood that searing stare of his, searching and studying its depths all the while. Now did the “grim guessing game” begin. Was he to be trusted? Hostile to these unconscious Quiremen though he’d been? It begged much thought. Conspiracy works in wily ways, after all. And yet… it is very true that he’d crossly pressed one of these men for the princess’s well-being, and before he’d found me, notably. Are you truly not brothers with these mad bombers, then? I wondered, as I then glanced between him and his fallen foes.
“What drivel,” he snarled, before barking: “Hark! Our Yoná is nary one to wield wickedness, not even upon withersakes—nor wayside stains such as thou.”
“So you say,” I half-humoured him.
Upon inspection, the Praetorian truly was weaponless—and had remained so ever since his dismissal, I should imagine. Or better to say, he was weaponless and fearless, for even as he faced this sword-girt ungraced, his defiance dithered not. No, indeed… he did not strike me as a mincer of words, nor some mummer with a motive. He seemed too “honest”, if that’s the word. Yes; he might very well be innocent in this conspiracy all along. But even so…
“Anyway, what’s this about?” I asked him, gesturing to the limp bodies lying about. “Fellow lambs and Londosians they are, yet you seemed none too soft in setting them straight.”
“Does that drivel never dry?” snapped Björn. “These scum forsook the flag of Londosius the day they dared harm Her Highness.”
…Well, there we have it. Not a wisp of guile was to be gleaned from that grating tone of his—meaning that the set-to earlier was neither some performance. Fine, then: I’ll assume him clean-handed henceforth, I decided at last. Still, that hardly allayed that enmity of his. And so long as it burnt for me, so must he remain an enemy in my eyes.
“Now, speak thou, sicarius,” he then pressed me. “What’s been thy business hitherto?”
“The blast—I was blown away by it, straight out of the steeple,” I answered honestly. “Since then, I’ve acted alone, and have yet to meet my comrades.”
Björn scoffed, but said no more. Enquiring further was needless. After all, what clergy would consort with an ungraced, even in intrigue? This Praetorian seemed to have thought and thus concluded the same: that like him, I was neither party to this conspiracy.
“What about you?” I asked. “And the princess, for that matter?”
Björn quickly shook his head. “That’s nary for thee to know.”
“Nay, I must,” I insisted. “Despite the… warm interruption up there, the princess and I are yet in talks; her plight is important to me.”
The Praetorian captain fell quiet. His brows bent more deeply, if that was possible, whilst a frown fretted beneath his bristly moustache. Yet, this topic ultimately concerned the safety of his royal charge; and as though understanding this—that apprising me might do her some good in the end—he sullenly relented.
“…Her Highness is in the mareschal’s keeping,” Björn revealed. “Together, they fled the lectitōrium. Howbeit, this I only saw faintly through much dust and debris.”
“You did not follow them?”
“I could not.”
“…Aggressors, I take it?”
Björn nodded. “I answered the assault, of course, that Her Highness might escape unseen,” he explained. “Yoná was merciful: the princess was gone ere she could glimpse much of the struggle—let alone my… incapacitation by an enemy mace,” he added very bitterly.
I then saw all at once why he was here, and why his silver sallet lay anear upon the ground, dinted and amidst repair, whilst improvised bandages wrapped about his pate. He’d been huddling here, I imagined, healing his hurts and beating his helm back into shape, only to be ambushed by these men that’d been hunting after him.
Indeed, the pieces were coming together. This was how things fell out for him at the steeple, as far as I understood it: Björn, racing down the stairs to fetch a surgien, hears the bomb-blast far above and straightway dashes back up again, to return to his princess’s side. But no sooner did he begin than does the tower rubble—stone, timber, and spire—fall upon and lay waste to the lectitōrium. And as the stairwell, too, rains with ember and rubbish, so do belligerent voices thunder from the lectitōrium. At once, the Praetorian guesses some attack is underway, and then judges it best to leave the princess to Emilie and do aught he could to keep the assault below at bay. Into the fog and fray he then flings himself, despite his weaponlessness, lasting long enough to see his princess escape through the stairwell exit. And then, amidst the chaos, he is cudgelled unconscious.
But how now, a surprise mace directly to the pate? That must’ve been a stern paling, indeed, that Björn had up, if a swollen head and a loss of wits were all he’d got away with. Verily; he was skilled, this captain, in arts both martial and odyllic, though the scuffle earlier avouched that enough already.
Still, not even the sternest paling could protect him from the sheer shame he showed now. Small wonder there; he was a Praetorian, the princess’s shield. But along the course of this dire day, she was nary in his shelter when it counted most; and that to him seemed as barbs thrust into his heart. A very grim and sincere soul he plainly was—precisely as one would expect from a bodyguard.
And so did his impropriety at the meeting seem all the more out of place. But the fact remained that he’d fast admitted his fault and wilfully relinquished his sword before exiting the chamber. What’s more, that latter act: no doubt was it a token of his intent to retire from the Guard with what little grace was left him. Not in protest, mind, but in penance.
All told, not yet had his princess acknowledged the gesture, officially or otherwise, as far as I knew. And so was Björn yet her bodyguard. A forlorn and self-bitter bodyguard, to be sure; but by the look of him, one yet determined to protect his princess, with or without the symbol of his service.
“…Oy…! Who goes there…!?”
“…It’s him…! The rebel…! And the princess’s pet-hound…!”
Distant voices sundered the silence. They echoed from ahigh; some Quiremen, suspicious of the prior noises, must’ve spotted us from the rooftops. And in a moment, the rumour of many feet could be heard galloping hither down the alleyways. I turned back to Björn, finding him strapping his sallet back on as he strode at once to the courtyard entrance.
Strong he was, this wizened warrior. Being a captain of the Praetorians, one should expect no less of him. That said, being yet unarmed, not even he could expect to repeat his victories for long. A paling may only endure so much; the next mace might give him more than a knock to the head.
“Björn,” I urged him, “arm yourself!”
There were weapons aplenty about us; namely, the maces lying with the unconscious Quiremen. But Björn spared them hardly a look. “Those are not apt to my hand,” he said back quickly.
Swords were more his speciality, it seemed. Like as not, even were he to wield a mace, he’d be hard-put to bolster it with the odyl needed to challenge the opposing palings. Nay; against such numbers now coming nigh, he perhaps deemed two fists more fit than an unfamiliar weapon.
“Then this ought,” I said. And pulling it from my belt, I offered the captain the Quire-dagger from the studitōrium. I’d snatched it for Lise, of course, in case she’d been left weaponless herself; but with enemies now scrambling hither, Björn required it more.
Though to frustrate that, he merely frowned at the gesture. “I am no churl,” he risingly growled, “to accept charity from a traitor!”
Livid as a lion, Björn’s face fumed and his moustache bristled. Not the most unexpected response, but there was no other way: I had to convince him, lest the princess lose her shield in vain.
“No,” I said, “but you’ve got your duty; take this and see it done.”
“Duty, indeed! Yes, I ought take that blade, perhaps! And do my ‘duty’ of slitting thy throat!”
“Think first of your princess, Björn. She wouldn’t wish you to fight so unarmed.”
“Do not dare impawn her compassion, perfidist!!”
Björn gnashed his teeth and stared scorchingly at me. At that moment, down the alley behind him, there appeared the Quiremen in hot haste, heeding not the debate between us. Six they were; few enough for me to handle alone, I judged. And yet the dagger remained offered in my hand. I knew this to be the right choice. It had to be. “An enemy’s enemy may prove a friend,” so the soldiery books say, and surrounded by secrets and conspiracy as I was, I needed all the friends I could get.
Albeit, this particular “friend” wore all the animosity of an enemy. Never in my memory had I attempted so strange an alliance. Even Sig paled in comparison. But determined as stone, I insisted.
“Come, Björn! Battle’s at hand! Take it!”
“I will not!”
Stubborn as a mule this moustached stoic. But then I recalled the parley between myself and the princess; how I’d insisted upon “non-negotiables”, and how she’d lamented it. Nary a man walks this earth without something he would rather perish for than part with. And for Björn, I began to suspect what it could be.
“…I see. Newly avowed now, are you?” I said to him. “To for ever refuse a blade, after parting with one in shame.” Björn gave no answer. “Or so you would swear to the princess, I don’t doubt,” I quickly continued. “Yet Her Highness begs now for blades, Björn; blades that might shield and strike where she cannot.”
Barking and shouting filled the air as the Quiremen came upon our midst. And yet, the stares between Björn and myself remained unmoved.
“Choose, Björn!” I pressed the captain. “Befoul your faith and fight? Or consign your princess to this conspiracy?”
But too late; clamouring into the courtyard, the enemy swiftly surrounded us. “You can prattle aplenty in Hell, you heathen hounds!” they angrily screamed at us. Nevertheless, Björn stood ever silent, staring with the intent of a statue. And I stood there with him, enduring it in full.
“No further for you! Die!”
The air flashed as maces were raised. But amidst the brightness—
—there was Björn, snatching the dagger out of my hand and brandishing it quick upon the Quiremen as they came.
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