Vol.6, Ch.4, P.6
My brows raised. “I’m all ears,” I urged her.
“The… the lectitōrium, it was filled with fighting. Here, there, everywhere,” she unsteadily said. It must’ve been awfully frightful for her, to cough and cower in a corner as combat raged behind screens of dust. Yet shrinking from the skirmish must’ve put her hard-by the stairwell… enough to let her spot what’d gone on inside it. “But, even after Her Highness escaped, still it went on.”
I nodded. “So, our ‘hunters’ kept at it,” I thought aloud, “never realising that their royal mark had fled.”
Naturally; for had they done, doubtless they would’ve forsaken the place to pursue her. But thanks to the poor visibility, they were locked in battle till their last fell, being too caught up in the chaos of their own creation. Indeed, they had not prevised that Myrd would botch the bombing, and thus fill the lectitōrium with dust and rubbish, making their erstwhile task—that being confirming the “fruits” of Myrd’s martyrdom, I imagined—a mite more difficult than they’d planned. As a matter of fact, I reckoned that everything must’ve gone quite awry for these conspirators: not only had they missed the princess, but also all the others at the meeting—myself included. And now were they left to hunt down us harts and hares in hiding.
“And during the fighting,” continued the lass, “I… I spotted another party in flight. They slew some of the enemy as they went. And strange raiments were upon them; maybe they were the Nafílim?”
“Was the slaying swift?” I quickly enquired. “Faster than your eyes could follow?”
“Y-yes. It very much was,” she answered. “But from what I did see, there was someone in that party; someone who moved like… like the wind.”
“No mistake, then,” I said with relief. “Now pray tell: did you see which direction they went?”
“Yes. To yonder, methinks.”
The lass then pointed southwards. There, far beyond this coppice, beneath a haze of smoke, stood the studitōrium. But it couldn’t be there. No; it must be further south: to the grounds and gardens that greeted us when we’d first entered Merkulov.
So it was, then, that Emilie had led the princess outside via the side-door in the stairwell. But last I was there, I’d found its walls pocked with scars and craters. Like as not, magicks must’ve destroyed the doorway very soon after the princess’s escape, leaving Lise no choice but to escort her father and his officials through the lectitōrium and out of its southern postern.
“I see. That’s just what I needed to hear,” I said. “Thank you.”
The lady-in-waiting shook her head—“N-not at all”—and shrinking back a bit, bent her eyes down again. Poor thing.
“Well, sicarius?” said Björn. “Mean you now to follow your friends?”
To that, I stared to the south. But in the end, I answered, “Nay. I shall wend westwards. There may our paths sooner cross.”
If to this very moment were Lise and company, too, yet stealthily on the move, then it was a fool’s errand to follow after them. After all, what more hope had I got than the many enemy eyes they were dodging? Besides, Merkulov was too vast for it; better to anticipate where they were headed and meet them there.
Question is: where was “there”? I couldn’t imagine Lise looping back to the lectitōrium, much less risking the central sprawl whence the studitōrium lay, not with all the Quiremen crawling about there. That left only the west. Well, so much the better, at any rate. It was two birds with one stone, for at the west was another college, large and looming—and likely whence lay both the enemy’s nest and the secret to their conspiracy. Whether that secret was “something” or “someone” I should have to see for myself.
“And I would have you come with me, Björn,” I added. “Might find some means of saving your princess along the way, I suspect.”
At that, the Praetorian captain scowled, and his whiskers bristled in annoyance. “Incorrigible cullion, thou,” he snarled at me, and then erupted, “Hark! Another peep of impawning the princess, and I’ll make certain that tongue of thine shall wag ne’er again!” He looked at me with eyes that could impale a horse and back again. Then, moiling with animosity, he howled on, “’Tis infernal enough that I must suffer thy misuse of my fealty! Though thou mightst be forgiven, being so unlearned in loyalty as thou art!”
Despite his searing displeasure, Björn had got a point, thinking on it. “Apologies, truly,” I replied. “But at least allow me this: kingless though I am, not yet is loyalty lost to me.” Björn narrowed his eyes but returned nothing. “And yes; put your way, perhaps I am leveraging your loyalty,” I added. “But say rather that I wish to test it, and you would speak the naked truth.”
“A connivence all the same!” Björn barked back, making no effort to cloak his rancour. The subtlety here, however, was that he wasn’t bursting at the seams with it so much as he was declaring it clear to me.
“And a necessary one,” I said. “Else, you would’ve never lent me your aid.”
“Hmph! Now there’s a naked truth!” he spat back speedily. And with arms folded more fiercely than before, he fixed a sour stare at me.
“We’re agreed regardless, then?” I asked for certainty. “I know not what awaits me there, nor what must I do… but you would come along and see, at the least. Would you not?”
Much ear-ringing had he wrought over this while, but as a matter of fact, not once had Björn declined. Indeed, it seemed he would give me a chance—though very begrudgingly, as his grinding brows and more-burning gaze would attest.
∵
After advising them on whither best to go and hide, Björn and I left the siblings, put the coppices behind us, and began our way south-westwards. And every now and again, timid words would echo in my mind.
‘…Pray… pray be safe…’
They were the little lady-in-waiting’s, aired just before we’d turned and went off, and unquestionably meant for the ears of the captain; but as she uttered them, so had she sent my way a momentary look.
Younger than fifteen summers she was, by the look of her; meaning she had yet to receive the Rounic rites. I therefore went away with something astir in my bosom—for her conscience yet uncontaminated; for her candle of innocence yet unsnuffed.
∵
“A matter. ‘Myrd’, you said?”
Through fen-sedges were we faring, ears pricked and eyes peeled, when Björn broke that question. The air had grown damp. Noon was getting on.
“Aye. Myrd, your fellow legate… and the saboteur atop the steeple,” I confirmed. “Though you ought know more of him than I.”
Björn paused for a moment, as if perusing through many pages of memory. “…Myrd mongered war,” he said at length, “and ill-welcomed any conception of conciliation. Yet, he was but of a chorus.”
Rather lightly put. But if by “chorus”, Björn meant the larger part of Londosius, then true enough: the realm absolutely did brim with abettors of war. That naturally owed to the overarching thought amongst the commons: that fighting the Nafílim is a divine duty, a holy war. Albeit with the recent upsets of late—the loss of Déu Tsellin and the death of Cronheim, namely—that sentiment ought’ve soured somewhat, for naught sows a weariness for war like a few decisive defeats. Thus had this council for reconciliation been convened in the first place. Still, sentiments soured or no, that the realm more-comprised cravers of war remained unchanged.
“Nothing new,” I thus noted. “But why ponder him?”
“I ponder his price,” Björn muttered. “Rather princely for a petard, a legate like him.”
“Very true…”
To think, that so high-seated an official of Central could be turned into a tool of assassination; that one so close to the princess could be curried and convinced to commit fiery sacrifice. Indeed, we faced now a foe with hands reaching far— and very deep.
“He ever did seem a fanner of flames; but never a living fuel for them,” Björn went on. “Nay… something moved him to martyrdom, I suspect, as strings above a puppet. ’Twould much beseem a lot that so dares make prey of even the princess.”
“Strings?” I said. “The work of some magick, you mean?”
Björn shook his head. “That I cannot say,” he answered. “Howbeit, whispers do speak of the Church hiding no few fey magicks in its sanctums.”
“Aye. But I should wonder,” I said. “Myrd… maybe he was under no spell all along.”
‘…I ssee… It has come to it, has it…?
Yess, ah…! Gloriouss…! How gloriouss…!
The gleamm… of Dutyy…!
…Aaah…! G-g-gloriousss…!!’
Such were Myrd’s last words, his last mind, right before he’d imblazed himself. Neither were contrived; both were genuine—for in life he was, through and through, a wilful thrall of Yoná. Whosoever it was that lured him into such schemes and sacrifice had lifted nary a finger in the effort, much less tugged at his strings.
Björn gave a hoarse huff. “Be that as it may, the blade of conspiracy has been drawn,” he hissed. “Only time will tell if Myrd’s was the only hand at the treacherous hilt.”
With that, the captain clenched his teeth; and his face was utterly grim, as one who has forgotten all memory of mirth.
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