Some believe that justice means fair treatment to all - but what does that say for itself, when the action to begin with wasn't just?
The French and Indian War was done, so why, on God's great green earth, was there a soldier standing on his porch step?
Dressed in official red and white and standing as proper as one could possibly stand while about to intrude on a stranger's life, the British soldier presented himself. Alfred had always thought that redcoats were scornful and arrogant and plain rude, but that wasn't the way the other seemed to act. No, even though his face was impassive and he did not look about to shine Alfred's feet and ramble apologies, he did not exactly fit that stereotype.
"I'm sure you've received the letter of my staying here," the soldier stated, not at all asking a question or suggesting to a question but being rather sure of himself that Alfred had received a letter and no matter what, the soldier would be staying there. Alfred could not decide whether or not he liked that.
"I have," Alfred said briefly, looking back over his shoulder to spot his wife, Elizaveta, running a rag through her hands and squinting curiously at him. She was standing at the corner of the bar table, looking unsure of whether to dash through the door around back, where the liquor was all kept, or to stay and see what was the sudden fuss. There was no one new that required anyone having to go and meet them at the door. It was, well, a tavern, after all.
"Is there a problem?" she finally said, walking up to the door, and Alfred pressed the door back in order to allow her room to get a good look at the stranger.
The redcoat was good looking, that was an immediate understanding. He had large eyebrows that were attractive on his angular face and calloused features, pale skin that ran the rain off like porcelain, and dangerously glinting green eyes. His lips were pale, probably from the cold and having had to walk to the tavern without any sort of cover. He nodded respectfully towards Elizaveta and held out a hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Jones," the British soldier greeted.
Elizaveta gave him a suspicious once over and did not take his hand. "And you are?" she said, blatantly ignoring the way the man seemed to obviously sense her hostility and didn't even look as if it were something new when he dropped his hand.
"Arthur Kirkland, of the royal British Army, at your service," Arthur said, still keeping his emotionless demeanor and offering the slight bow of his head.
Alfred shot his wife a glance, one that she returned with the slightest hint of confusion. Looking over Arthur again, she stood back. "I assume you're here to remain?"
"Yes, if you will have me," Arthur answered back without hesitance.
Elizaveta tilted her chin up the most miniscule amount, turning around to return to her bar table and stiffly wiping it down. "As if our consent was given," she muttered bitterly under her breath, but it seemed to be only Alfred that heard.
Alfred's attention darted back to the British officer, and while he was looking the man up and down for any signs of ill intent or telltale clues of his character, it seemed that Arthur was doing the same. It was an interesting new discovery for him to note. Often, the stereotypical redcoats he had come across – he had to get his stereotypes from somewhere, after all – examined him as inconspicuously as possible, but it appeared as if Arthur did not believe in that rule. In reality, he had seen Alfred view him with open suspicion, and to that Arthur considered it fair to return the favour. When he looked back up from eyeing Alfred's brown vest and long sleeved button-down, Alfred was staring at him with the smallest gesture of surprise.
"Well, come in," Alfred finally said, standing back and watching as Arthur slowly made his way inside. Apart from a drunkard displayed on a cushion in the corner and Elizaveta sorting out various bottles on the shelves beneath the table, there wasn't much to see. It was an average tavern, with average owners.
Alfred walked away from the door, shutting it softly closed and approached the staircase mounted against the fair right wall. Arthur's eyes darted towards Alfred's moving body, and for a moment it looked as if Alfred were going upstairs, but instead, he veered away. Alfred began walking around the staircase, to the back of it, and opened a door. Arthur went to join him.
"An old shed," Alfred explained as he held the door open once more and the two of them walked into the dimly lit room. The only light was given from the various cracks in wooden boards serving as walls, letting in the daylight, yet for some odd reason not letting in the rain. There, however, was a right chill presented. "We don't use much of it anymore, since the liquor is kept downstairs, so this is where you'll be staying. Elizaveta will provide you with blankets and supplies."
Arthur frowned, the first expression Alfred had seen on him. "And winter?"
Alfred paused, rolling his bottom lip in. "We'll cross that bridge when we get there," he offered briefly, watching as Arthur walked around, toeing odd objects that had been neglected but without them the room would be eerily empty. Alfred then, without another word, left the shed connected to the house and entered the main tavern room. He was given the sight of a very displeased wife.
"And when, exactly, were you going to tell me we'd be housing a redcoat?" she demanded, expression of oppressed livid emotion and words a harsh whisper in case the man in question could hear.
"I never found it a good time to bring the subject up!" Alfred offered in defence, lifting his hands as if to shield himself from Elizaveta's anger and speaking in the same intense whisper as she had. She narrowed her eyes and turned her head to look at the wall.
"Right, well, any time would have been better than now – being spontaneously presented with a strange man that I'm told I should provide for isn't my idea of a good evening," Elizaveta said, posture stiff and guarded. "I haven't gotten anything prepared for his living here, either."
"Call it the hospitality of a patriot," Alfred retorted, being shot a nasty look for his comment. He rolled his eyes and ran a hand through his hair, cowlick peeking between his ring finger and pinky. "It might be a good idea to become prepared a little quicker; he's sort of just waiting over there for the blankets and supplies I told him you'd bring."
Elizaveta's eyes widened momentarily as she shot off the counter and glared at him, running up the stairs to find said blankets and supplies. "What even made you think that a shed was an ideal place?" she shouted back down at him from the top floor. "It's ice in the winter!"
"What is up with everyone already thinking about winter? It's September!" Alfred shouted back, slouching his shoulders dejectedly.
God damn redcoats.
Alfred eyed his friend from his seat on the bar stool.
The albino Prussian had his hands in the air, and had it been another time, Alfred would have been quick to point out how Italian those gestures could have been passed off as. However, it was not the time, as the man, named Gilbert, had come with another story fetched from his house in the rumoured New York City. Tensions there with the British soldiers had been mounted high, and to think that Gilbert was against being with the British before that brought perspective into the pigment-lacking man's plight.
"I'll say!" exclaimed a feminine voice, and Alfred's eyes darted over the table to see Elizaveta throw down Gilbert's requested, as per usual, beer. It was a surprise the drink did not break, considering that Alfred was aware of the woman's shocking amount of strength. "Not so much as a consent asked for, or a, "May I please be quartered here for something or another because my superiors are oppressing little bastards?" No! They simply march in, and let me tell you, had I been asked beforehand, my hospitality would be much more hospitable!"
Alfred's teeth grit. He could feel the frustration radiate off of his wife and the drunken anger of Gilbert himself. Even Francis, a Frenchman who had made his living in Boston a few years before and became fast friends with the three, who was still mostly sober, could be seen with his eyes narrowed. It was less anger at the act than it was at what they all felt to be unjust treatment, a precedent for what could come. Yet, as much as Francis seemed unsettled, he lifted his chin and spoke. "It isn't as if they're kicking us from our bedchambers, though. All I hear of is the soldiers living in their own tents, or in inns and occasionally barns. What private home houses a soldier at this moment?"
"Oh?" retorted Elizaveta immediately, "and this is a tavern; what say you of that?"
Before Francis could respond, or even so much as register what the woman had said, Gilbert had practically fallen off of his stool and raised one arm in the air holding his glass of liquor. "There is a redcoat in this building?" he shouted, perhaps too loudly for a Thursday night. Some more sober customers stilled at Gilbert's outburst. "I say we show him the meaning of just!"
There were a few shouts of acknowledgement and agreement from the formerly stilled crowd, but before Gilbert could get out another word, Elizaveta barked. "I say you don't stir up trouble!"
"He's found his comfort in this tavern, and you tell me you want no trouble? We haven't given him any trouble, only him to you," Gilbert roared.
"He has given me no trouble, only discontent and frustration!" Elizaveta told back at a matching volume, silencing the stirring people before them and causing Gilbert to crash back onto his stool. Clearing her throat, she continued, "you sit right there and quit it. I don't like having to be forced to provide, but I won't shed any blood for something so mundane. You hear?"
"Mundane?" Gilbert spat, "mundane, my ass! You sound just like the fucking loyalists."
Elizaveta's eyes flared, but before she could go on, Alfred intercepted, and his voice was low and almost quiet compared to the noise around them. "There are no loyalists in this group, and you are well aware. She is the woman of this place and you will treat her wishes with respect," he said, and before Gilbert could protest added, "I want him out. I want nothing more than him to be out, as he is an unwelcome addition. He is a stranger, and I only know of his name and his place, but he has risen for us no extra trouble."
"Maybe he hasn't, but others have," Gilbert growled in return. It almost appeared as if his slight drunken effects had gone away by the forced thought and sudden conflict.
"Give trouble to those who give trouble," quipped Francis, but Gilbert only glared.
"You're all idiots," he spat, rising from his seat and stumbling off a few steps. "If we wait for conflict in order to show them who's boss, then no matter what - they always get the first shot."
The door swung closed behind him, but it did nothing to seal Alfred's own inner conflicts, for Gilbert was right - so what was Alfred doing just sitting there and allowing a British soldier access to only their 'finest' hospitality and for nothing in return? Maybe it was Parliament's fault, but it must have been the soldier's too, right? After all - the soldiers were the ones who must have been enforcing it.
But what of justice? What of it?
And what was Alfred doing, thinking of justice?
For what justice was there in the British man's actions?
Gilbert was right; that deserved no justice in return. And they were not going to get the first shot.
A/N: After starting a multi-chapter fan fiction with my girlfriend, I was plunged in a writing mood that would not leave. Unfortunately, it created this terrible first chapter of an unsure and not fully planned fic.
In any case, I plan on finishing it, whether it's bad or not! But not today. The heat outside is killing me, and it's time to go get killed by raging World Cup fans.
NOTE: Yes, Hungary is America's wife, but this is not America x Hungary. I just love Hungary, and this is in a time where planned marriages were a must, and Alfred is past the age where he would normally get a planned marriage shoved his way.
I want to see what you guys think and look forward to, so as always, please read and review!
EDIT:
I should really stop assuming everyone knows about this part in history. Gah. For those non-Americans out there, in 1765, the British Parliament passed a law saying that British soldiers in the colonies were to be given shelter in barracks provided by the colonies. IF in the case that the barracks ran out of space, then the British soldiers were to be held in inns. If inns ran out, then they were to be held in other public places, and in some cases, that stretched to having them live in barns. In Boston, they set up tents to live in. This was called the Quartering Act.
New York refused to put up with the Quartering Act, and so Parliament put extra pressure on them to accept it with various laws restricting what New York could do until they did. Tension was especially high between colonists and soldiers there and mostly in Boston, where street brawls commonly broke out. The brawls eventually led to the Boston Massacre, where five colonists were killed because British soldiers misunderstood orders and shot into a gathering crowd (that was throwing rocks and such at them and insulting them).
In common American understanding, there are images of colonists being practically thrown out of their beds by redcoats (which was a nickname for British soldiers) in order to make room for British soldiers - however, that isn't true! During the time, American colonists were mostly mad about the fact that they weren't being asked in any way if they could provide for a soldier, which led to frustration and in turn exaggeration of the events and only made colonist anger with Great Britain grow. After the Boston Massacre, it was the point of no return.
Francis = After a handful of years, the Quartering Act was enforced and for different reasons, and laws such as the Stamp Act forced colonies to pay taxes for every day things. The colonists called these taxes and laws the Intolerable Acts. However, this was a new deal for the colonists because they had not been made to pay such taxes before. Being so far away from Great Britain, they were pretty much left to their own lifestyles, and had learned to be self independent from the government (letters took months to reach Great Britain). Therefore, these taxes were, in their eyes, intolerable - just as the name. BUT over in Europe, taxes on citizens living in mainland Great Britain paid FAR /MORE/ taxes than the colonists did. Therefore, Francis - being from France, clearly, and used to the taxes on British citizens - doesn't believe that these laws and taxes are such a big deal.
