Chapter Ten: Cross and Double Cross; nothing is ever what it seems
A/N: (date:20th June 2008): dear everybody who is reviewing…thank you all for your feedback…however I am sorry to say that I have had a computer related disaster and have lost all access to my email etc (and in fact the computer in general…stupid hard-drive virus). So I am borrowing another computer to make this update but will not be able to reply individually to your reviews or see any PM's. Please do review as I hope to be back up and running some time next week (fingers crossed) and bear with me, I promise when I am back up and running I will reply to you all!
In light of this calamity I am giving you a double upload ;)
P.S: Zaz9 Zaa0….I still intend to review Eschatos chpt 3, but obviously my computer difficulties have delayed this…please bear with me! ;)
P.P.S: Hello Lotus (I am shortening your name, hope you don't mind!) nice to hear from you…sorry I haven't replied to any of your reviews….once I am back up and running I will answer your 'Quidion' query…because, amazingly, there is an answer and it's not just random gibberish words!
The children were in lessons or, more likely, going to great lengths to evade their tutors, and for once Dalmasca appeared happy to run its own affairs. Thus Ashe found herself alone with little respite but to sit quietly in her private quarters feeling both listless and obscurely anxious.
The last four years had been some of the best she had ever known. A certain peace and tranquillity had found Ivalice; Ashe did not possess the naivety any longer to believe that it would reign eternal but she hoped that she, and Dalmasca, might see out the rest of their days in peace.
Ashe settled in the large wingback chair with the tasselled cushions and matching footrest that had been her father's and had somehow survived the war and occupation.
She had royal decrees to read and affix her signature too, she had legislation to approve, petitions to consider, a request from the treasury to approve a rise in interest rates. In short she had much to do but little inclination to do it.
Instead she sat facing the frankly enormous portrait that filled almost the entire back wall of her private parlour.
The portrait was a masterpiece, the artist a true master of his craft, the figures portrayed upon the canvas in oils and acrylics both exquisitely life-like and at the same time possessing that ethereal quality all good portraits possessed.
Painted in lavish shades and sumptuous primary hues the portrait depicted the royal family of Dalmasca in its current incarnation.
Ashe herself was depicted seated in the very chair she curled up in now, regally attired in a saffron and sunset orange gown and fitted bodice of the most exquisite silks. Heios, looking dark and adorably grave, nestled on her lap in a suit of dark blue silk with a white collar and bib. He looked up from the book in his hands, his darker features contrasting with Ashe's light colouring, the eyes inherited from his father staring boldly out of the picture.
Across the painted room the golden, embroidered draperies were detailed in extravagant, almost touchable, perfection, creating a perfect partition between Ashe and her son and Hallie and her father.
Ashe smiled ruefully as she remembered the chore it had been to entice, cajole and eventually bribe Halina into her best finery, a silver and white gown and delicate tiara, but ultimately they might as well not have bothered. Even in a formal portrait that had taken six hours of sitting for the artist to be satisfied, Hallie still managed to look both bored and almost over-flowing with boundless energy.
Ashe's daughter all but sprawled at her father's feet on the mosaic tiled floor, her face tilted up to look up at the father she worshipped as that father, looking saturnine and distant, sat rigidly and uncomfortably in the other wingback chair gazing straight out of the picture without expression, yet somehow managing to express his immense displeasure with the whole process.
For a man who had made personal vanity an art form, Balthier was extraordinarily resistant to sitting for portraits; his own sulks made Hallie appear sweet and biddable in comparison.
The portrait was a masterpiece of artistic realism; Ashe had no doubt in her mind that this picture would be admired for decades, maybe even centuries to come, and as a reflection of a royal dynasty it did its job beautifully.
As a portrait of an intimate family setting it failed abysmally, but Ashe knew this was not the artists fault; there was no way to capture in the medium of canvas and oils the multitude of secrets hidden behind the façade of family.
Ashe rubbed her fingers across her bottom lip, nibbling her inner lip as she rose from the chair and walked over to the massive canvas. She looked up into Balthier's face, as framed in acrylics and oil paint.
The last four years had been good ones, without question. Ashe had finally begun to believe that she could plan for a future without bloodshed and pain. She had become accustomed to a life of luxury (though she still trained with sword, shield and sometimes gun, every other day for no less than three hours straight).
Dalmasca's population had almost tripled since the time of the occupation and most of that growth had come since the dismantling of the former Empire of Rozzaria, many of those people had fled to Dalmasca during the Rozzarian civil war and simply chosen to remain; the west of Dalmasca on the border of the sandsea was now a densely populated patchwork of inter-connected villages and towns.
Under the rule of Ashelia Queen Dynast, as she was widely known among her people, Dalmasca had entered into a new era of productivity, wealth, growth and innovation. Her people loved her, Dalmasca's borders had never been more secure, and she had two beautiful, talented children to ensure Dalmasca's future for many years to come.
Yet all was not well with Ashe and had not been for some time.
'Dear, highness, I am taking a quick sojourn to Archadia to exhume the body of Aeneas, should be back sometime tomorrow………
When you had achieved everything you had ever fought for what was there to truly live for? When you had come into your own in the heat of battle and lived by the sword for so long, how did one maintain a sense of excitement and passion in times of peace and plenty?
….to that end I would appreciate it if you would hold onto this Quidion relic for me; I have a lead I would like to follow up on in Archadia and suspect that if my summations bare fruit I will have need of the particular magick possessed within the coin…..
Ashe would argue vociferously if anyone should be so audacious as to suggest to her that she was in any way dissatisfied with her state of being; she would think it despicable that anyone should be 'bored' with peace after so long at war and angrily refute that accusation against her.
Yet the truth could not be avoided; deep down inside, in a tiny part of her being that could for the most part be ignored, Ashe was drowning in an apathetic malaise that quietly ate at her.
She was twenty-eight years old, was this all that was left for her; to merely govern a country that no longer needed a protector and wait for the time she could abdicate her rule to her grown children?
Ashe studied the two painted images of the Dalmascan monarch and her consort, poles apart in acrylics and oils, and very carefully, while facing the painting, slipped a hand under the neckline of her gown and removed the flesh-warmed old coin from the padding of her undergarment.
……if It should be the case that I return in a certain state of disrepair, I would ask that you use the coin in the manner I will relay below. I am sure you will have questions but I assure you, Highness, that everything is very much under control….
Ashe let her gaze slip from the painting to the coin previously hidden in her cleavage, studying the worn, tarnished silver and the faded picture of a tall tower that was, for some reason she did not quite understand, supposed to represent the vice of 'Artifice'.
…..I have already contacted Penelo should my suspicions prove correct and she will be on-hand in Archades should I need any assistance. I am not expecting any insurmountable obstacles but I will not deny a certain risk involved in this endeavour...
Absently as she waited for something to happen, and of course, it would, something always did, Ashe tapped the warm coin against her lips.
They did not even argue anymore.
Married six years, give or take, and the passion, conflict and exuberance that had existed between she and Balthier and had culminated in the creation of two children they both loved more than life itself had slowly, gradually, almost gracefully, eroded into a sense of detached familiarity and affection that did nothing for either of them.
……P.S kiss the children goodnight for me, would you?
They had become functional; Balthier resided most of the time in Nalbina where he was absorbed (with his usual myopic intensity) with his Aerodrome renovation project, and Ashe remained in Rabanastre with the children flitting between the two. When she had need of him Balthier supported her either politically or merely with his presence and she, in turn, allowed him his freedom.
Ashe thought that Balthier was not unhappy any more so than she could claim to be unhappy. She thought that he was content with his engineering projects and with the company of Moogles, engineers, and inventors, that clustered about him looking either for a patron or a colleague to make their inventive dreams come true.
Still it was a far cry from the life of a wanted and notorious sky pirate. Sometimes Ashe wondered if it would not have been better to have loved him and let him go than to have acquired him and still lost him in the end.
Of course, all this introspection was merely something to do while she waited. Diplomacy required a great deal of acting…..a certain artifice….she and Balthier had also perfected an act within their marriage; an act that disguised the true nature of their relationship, even to each other.
In many ways this most recent crisis only served to prove this fact. Quietly and deftly Ashe slipped the coin back into its safe hiding place amid the tight boning of her corset.
She was just in time as the door to her chambers opened without the person entering bothering to knock.
Ashe turned towards the door, hand reaching for the small dagger she still kept on her person at all times. She dropped her hand when she recognised the man who entered.
'Majesty, we must talk,'
Ashe's welcoming smile slipped from her face at Basch's abstracted expression, enhanced by the fact that he had forgotten to knock upon entry which, for Basch who still treated her with the deference she insisted he did not need to observe, this one oversight spoke volumes.
'What has happened?' she demanded.
Fran had told her that she had dispatched Basch to follow Balthier, and Ashe, though less than pleased with the whole affair, had nevertheless felt somewhat mollified by this news, now however ice filled her veins in dread.
Basch walked over to her and placed both hands on her shoulders, Ashe felt her heart clench as she looked into his serious eyes.
'He is alive and physically unharmed.' Basch told her without preamble; his straight forward speech had always been one of the things she appreciated most about her former protector.
'Physically?' she queried sharply as Basch's eyes were drawn to the grand portrait he had never before seen.
Basch looked it over and shook his head with a slight smile upon his lips, 'A beautiful portrait; the artist has rendered your likeness well, Highness.'
'Basch,' that one word was enough, the old knight's eyes turned to her, a certain weary consternation the only visible emotion she could detect. She did not know whether to be relieved or even more concerned by that.
'I do not claim to understand it myself, but Balthier is the victim of some Magickal malady, the result of which appears to be a near total loss of memory,' Basch's expression bled from careful neutrality to genuine compassion, 'I am sorry Ashe.'
Ashe blinked, struggling to conceive his meaning, 'A near total loss of memory? I don't understand, what do you mean; are you saying he does not know who he is?'
Basch winced, eyes seeking refuge in the painting once more, 'That's the rub, Ashe,' he murmured grimly, 'He has some memory of his name and has lost none of his….character…..but it is the details of his life that he no longer recalls with any clarity beyond the vaguest sense of familiarity to certain people and objects.'
Ashe was acutely aware of the disk of old silver pressing against her heart. It had happened precisely as Balthier had predicted then?
Ashe could feel her breath leave her body in one gasping exhale, as she concentrated on acting the way one would if told her husband no longer remembered her or much of anything in particular. She found it quite easy, all things considered.
'How, Basch, how is such a thing possible? What manner of magick could cause such a thing and why?'
Basch sighed and gently rubbed with rough, calloused hands, her arms as he had never let go of her since taking her shoulders to break the news. 'We don't know for sure Ashe but I will tell you our suspicions.'
Ashe listened then as Basch, clearly not relishing the unpleasant duty of retelling the convoluted and uncertain details of the events of the last two days to Ashe, including the visit to Larsa and Penelo, and explained to her everything he knew and suspected about the Quidion of Aspera and the pirate Aeneas.
All the while Ashe maintained her expression of quiet, stunned shock while inside her thoughts whirled and churned.
It has all fallen out precisely as Balthier predicted; at least I must assume that from this letter….but what in the name of the gods was he thinking? How could he have let such a thing happen?
Ashe was startled from her thoughts by Basch deep, rumbling bass tones.
'Balthier is with Fran now; he cannot remember their years together but has enough recollection to know that she is friend and ally to him. I had thought it best to bring him quietly into the palace, it seems imprudent to make Balthier's current affliction common knowledge.'
'Yes, that is good,' Ashe agreed vaguely, barely hearing him as her mind raced over the possibilities and impossibilities of what she had been told and how she must now behave in these next, pivotal moments.
Damn you Balthier; you and your convoluted, elaborate schemes. Why can you not do anything simply?
She was appalled and quietly furious; this was not an act. She did not enjoy deception and she did not like using her friends and allies in such a way; especially when she herself was barely any more informed than Basch himself.
Ultimately, though she loathed to admit it, she had never known Balthier to act unless the ends justified the means and so she would merely have to content herself by ripping a strip from his hide once this whole mess had been resolved.
'I want to see him; bring him to me.' Ashe told Basch firmly, keen to get things over with and not enjoying this farcical act at all.
Basch nodded though he looked uncertain, 'Aye, I thought as much,' he sighed, 'Are you sure you are ready, Highness, do you not wish time to compose yourself?'
Ashe bit her lip on a grim smile, 'Oh, I am very composed.' she murmured quietly. Basch looked over at her somewhat quizzically and Ashe gazed back at her stalwart former protector with genuine affection and not a little sympathy; from pillar to post Basch was trapped by the machinations of a pack of rampant schemers.
'Basch would you please escort Balthier to my chamber, while ensuring that no one from the palaces meets you in transit. I do not want anyone to know about Balthier's….condition…… just yet.'
Ashe was no fool, she knew legend of her temper preceded her throughout Ivalice; she used that very character flaw to her advantage. It did not hurt to have people fear her wrath now and again in order to facilitate the smooth running of a kingdom.
However just as any of the other weapons she had mastered in her time, her anger, righteous or otherwise, was very rarely out of her control; when it did her no good she simply repressed it.
Nevertheless she did not doubt that Basch, and maybe Fran, would expect her to react with anger to the news of Balthier's mishap and would have tacitly warned Balthier of this.
Basch hesitancy to fetch Balthier to face his wife without his wits to defend him was obvious; Ashe tried to keep her expression mild and hoped that Basch would not question her too much.
Finally Basch relented, though she saw the flicker of suspicion in his regard, without a word he nodded once to her and left the room.
Ashe was left alone with her thoughts and her fast beating heart. The coin hidden against her heart felt almost too hot, the rounded, worn edges jagged and sharp as she waited for the door to open and Basch to return bringing her amnesiac husband with him.
Balthier's entrance was almost ridiculously low-key. He stepped into the room on Basch heels and looked about him with keen, sharp eyes. His ramrod straight posture was undiminished and with his head held high he did not behave like a man who has no idea who he is and has found himself adrift amid a sea of supposed allies in the guise of strangers.
However Ashe took in the tired, pale, vaguely wary expression on his face, the slightly dishevelled state of his person and the quiet, half-concealed confusion lurking in the back of his dark eyes as his gaze ticked over the details of a room he should know like the back of his own hand and in those tiny details she saw the truth.
Even though she had been expecting it, even though she had known Balthier intended to walk deliberately into an ambush knowing full well and good that this might be the result and had thus warned in the guise of a badly spelled note, Ashe was unprepared for the rush of emotion that took her as the reality of the situation hit.
She swept up towards him with only a cursory glance and nod of thanks to Basch; Ashe watched Balthier watch her with the wary caution of a man who does not know what to expect and felt her heart contract with a mixture of hurt, fear and anger that he had deliberately allowed this to happen to himself.
So much to gamble; so much to lose. How could he be so reckless with something so important? How could she have allowed him to do this? She should have dispatched Vaan to retrieve her wayward husband or immediately contacted Larsa as soon as she had read that damned letter.
She was as culpable in this mess as he was (maybe more as Balthier was not known for being careful with his own life and wellbeing).
Ashe rocked to a halt right before him; the flowing tail of her long jacket coat brushing against her knee-high boots as she abruptly stopped. She stood silently and allowed Balthier a moment to look at her from the silver embroidered and metal toed black-leather boots to her burnt amber skirt and the russet red of her fitted bodice and tailed coat until he eventually reached her face.
She watched his eyes flick rapidly over the contours and planes of her face, seeking out points of familiarity and, she could tell merely by watching the slight frown of consternation that bunched his brow, finding none.
Ashe bit her lip and smothered the roil of emotion within her, turning to address Basch.
'Basch, could leave Balthier and myself alone? I think this is something best dealt with in private.'
Basch shifted uncomfortably on his feet as Balthier, in an action he would never allow himself if he was in his right mind, turned to look back at Basch almost beseechingly.
Ashe smiled thinly as she noted the action, so impossibly out-of-character for Balthier to look to anyone for support (with the obvious exception of Fran) and for it to be Basch was simply laughable.
'Please Basch, this will only take a few moments and I would appreciate it if you would guard the outer chamber doors.' She spoke softly, meeting Basch's eyes and the quiet emotion in her own was utterly genuine.
Basch nodded, 'Aye, as you wish,' he acquiesced gruffly, deliberately not looking at Balthier, who followed his exit with his eyes, looking both lost and confused.
Ashe waited until she was sure that Basch had left the inner chamber and could not hear what went on between she and Balthier. Then, leashing her ever-present anger to her will with iron control, Ashe raised one hand in lightening speed and slapped an unsuspecting Balthier across the face with some considerable force.
'You gods damned stupid pirate.'
She hissed at him, between her teeth, unleashing her anguish in a blow that staggered the unsuspecting Balthier who half fell against the back of the wingchair. Ashe immediately seized the advantage and dug out the Quidion coin as she advanced on a startled, unprepared Balthier.
Balthier turned towards her, mouth opening to say something, perhaps to question her aggression. Ashe moved in and slipped her foot between his, sweeping his legs out from under him, knocking him off his feet onto the floor.
Balthier fell with a grunt and Ashe riding his back to the mosaic floor. Ashe straddled him on the floor and pushed the body-heated Quidion coin into the centre of Balthier's forehead, slapping her free hand across his mouth.
'Break,' Ashe whispered, repeating the word Balthier had told her, in this badly written missive, to say in order to break the spell of enforced forgetfulness on him.
She watched, riding his bucking body as Balthier's eyes widened impossibly, his pupils dilated into deep, black pits of brilliant pain. Under her restraining hand Balthier gasped in sudden, immediate agony as the coin she kept pressed to his forehead suddenly burst into an intense heat before descending to frigid cold.
Balthier's body instantly became lax, his eyes rolled up and his eyelids fluttered closed as he went still under her.
'Balthier?' Ashe removed the coin from his forehead where she had pressed it in hard enough to leave a red welt upon his brow, with shaking fingers she tapped his face, 'Balthier answer me if you can hear me.'
'Hmmmmm?'
His response was more groan than articulation but it was coupled with the return of animation to his limbs as he shifted against the cold floor tiles; his eyelids fluttered open drowsily.
He smiled faintly, his voice sounding thick, sleepy almost, '…….hm, hello Highness…'
With somnambulant familiarity he reached up with his hands and clasped her waist, eyelids at half mast and body relaxed. Ashe decided that although clearly not at optimum mental alertness, it seemed probable that the coin had worked its magick and Balthier was likely restored.
However to be on the safe side Ashe decided on a test of sorts. She slapped him once more, though not quite so hard. It was more of a love tap, though this laugh had sharp edges.
Balthier's eyes snapped open, pupils contracting to sharp, alert points of darkness in brown eyes filled with a wellspring of cynicism that seemed too deep for a man of one and thirty years; without question Balthier was himself again.
'What was that for?' Balthier pulled one hand from her waist and rubbed at his cheek, struggling to lever himself up on his elbows with Ashe still straddling his lap. He frowned as he glanced about and took in his surroundings.
He turned back to Ashe with a puzzled expression, 'And why am I flat on my back on the parlour floor?'
Ashe, struggling with a mixture of relief and frustrated anger towards him and his mad schemes, said nothing but held up the Quidion coin before his eyes.
Balthier's eyes focused on the coin catching the light before his face and lingering confusion gave way to a completely different expression. A sharp, sly smile of pure, dark triumph scythed across his face.
Balthier's hand darted out and snatched the coin from her hand. As he snagged the coin he began chuckling darkly. Taking Ashe completely by surprise he suddenly bucked underneath her and twisted around, bearing her to the ground.
Ashe found herself, abruptly, with their positions reversed, she with her back on the floor and he above her, a wicked grin of dark glee sparking in his eyes as he bore down on her, the coin held aloft between the thumb and forefinger of one hand. The light caught the coin and quicksilver sparkle flashed in her eyes, momentarily dazzling her.
Ashe squeezed her eyes closed against the glare as Balthier's richly triumphant voice purred above her, his lips dancing against her collarbone as he rolled the coin over the neckline of her gown.
'Ah, so I see my little double cross worked; everything is going precisely as planned.'