Chapter Thirteen
Wardes wasn't entirely sure what to make of matters.
"If your fingers should find themselves anywhere improper, Guiche de Gramont, I'll remove them." Little Louise warned, with a sort of stern harshness that was... not entirely unfamiliar to her, he must admit, but at the same time would have fit her mother far better.
Still, he can't say he disapproves, as it turns the trick of making certain that the boy is very, very mindful of what he is and is not touching. He would prefer that he not share Louise's mount at all, but at the same time he isn't willing to force his Griffin into carrying another rider and it doesn't seem like he can yet take enough control of the little mission to simply leave the boy behind somewhere.
Somewhere he would likely make it to safety, even. It wasn't as though he had much against the boy, except that he was currently in the way.
Even so, despite his expectations, little Louise had not gratefully handed over the reigns and all responsibility to him upon his arrival, instead just grumbling and adjusting her sword, sword, did little Louise fancy herself a swordswoman now? Well, it had been something of a long shot in any case, and even if he couldn't take charge of everything, simplifying any number of things for his goals, Wardes reflected that he could still act as an experienced advisor.
A hero, even, should the opportunity to save their lives from threats they hadn't imagined would be present, even. He had no doubt that such opportunities would occur. It was important that he have that measure of gratitude and good will to play upon, after all, and so he had gone ahead and made arrangements for them.
Arrangements for Louise, at least. The boy almost doesn't seem to need such swaying, and has already made a few quiet noises about how, really, this was all well and good but in the end they probably weren't really required for something like this, and that the Griffin Knight Wardes was more than capable of handling matters without their assistance, and likely more capable without them there to get in the way.
Which was, he supposed, true, if he was interested in collecting letters for the Princess of Tristain just at the moment. It would be loud, of course, and hardly subtle, as there was little to be done to conceal a Griffin charging through the skies toward its target, but he could collect it and be back in... oh, in a day, most likely, if he pressed his griffin to exhaustion and was willing to risk it collapsing and dying, or leave it to recover for a fortnight or so after the effort if it did not. Of course, by the next day, speculation about why he'd gone charging out on a flight to Albion and back would have spread far and wide, and almost everyone important would know that he had just done something, if not what it was, exactly.
No, he had business in Albion, but he had business with little Louise as well, and the best way to deal with both was by subtly linking those two goals together and achieving them both with, if not the same stroke, then nearly so.
The Void, after all, was a powerful draw. It wasn't as though he didn't hold some affection for the girl, either. No, he'd been willing for a marriage even before he'd been informed of her importance by other parties. Now, of course, it was simply critical that arrangements became irrevocable before anyone else discovered it. Power-hungry fools would claw their way from the far corners of the world to bind their futures to that of a Void mage, and he would be a fool, himself, not to realize that Karin would sever their current understanding without hesitation if a suitably impressive enough replacement made themselves available.
He could not afford to let her slip away, now. The Void needed to be in capable hands, to guide it properly.
His hands.
His Void, even if he might not be the one to cast the spells himself, for as long as he was the one giving the commands, and little Louise carried them out as a dutiful wife, the forgotten element was close enough to being his own that little details such as that hardly mattered.
He had, of course, doubted. At least to some level. It was hard, to take an adorable little failure and then try to explain that those failures came from the fact that she was trying to compress, as it were, ten thousand tons of power beyond imagining into a wagon meant only to carry a half ton at the most generous estimates. It had been a rational explanation, and there was certain corroborating evidence, but even so... he had not, before today, been completely convinced, though he had decided to go along with things just in case it was true. After all, if it were, a Void mage... it could, naturally, be construed as treason against the crown. But with leverage like that, it wasn't at all unlikely that the crown might find its way onto his head, and he could hardly commit treason against himself...
And then he had seen the familiar.
Not the wolf, nobly savage beast that it might be, and suitable enough for some other mage, were it to be summoned in that capacity. No, the familiar...
He wasn't quite sure what to make of that, either.
Just being in its presence sent finely honed senses of danger into a cacophonic furor. Hairs on the back of his neck rose, and his palms itched to draw... blade or wand, whichever was closer to hand. His skin crawled, every carefully cultivated instinct of self preservation urging him to flee, like a deer having pranced into a field of clover only to find it occupied by a patiently waiting and ancient dragon.
He couldn't quite bring himself to let it out of his range of vision, and subtly as he could, had made sure to never have his back to it for even the briefest moment.
Barbarian magic, they had suggested. Heathen arts, possibly heretical to allude to existing, much less practicing, in any proper and upright country, if anyone cared enough to pursue the matter.
He wasn't sure of that.
But in any case, just looking at it... that space which it claimed, fallen into the darkness of night even in the direct light of the sun, dim form shrouded in a deep fog of blackness, of night, of that empty, shapeless, and formless void between the stars and moons...
It had done more to convince him, somehow, than if it had introduced itself as the Gandalfr and proceeded to defeat someone in a duel with a teaspoon.
Not that this was out of the question. It had, as yet, not bothered to introduce itself at all.
Even now, he could imagine it staring fixedly at him from its place in that expanse of night in the day.
He wasn't wrong, of course. Rumia was watching him closely, for a couple of reasons. First, due to a very interesting darkness that seemed to glimmer in his eyes, when none seemed to be watching, affable smile fixed in place as an afterthought. Second, as any predator, she had to size up the new prey and judge whether it were worth the energy that might be expended on it. Ignoring, naturally, that she would not really suffer as a more normal predator might, if prey escaped her maw, and did not actually need to fill her stomach to survive. It wasn't as though she would become sated, either... there wasn't really any extreme on either end, 'Full', or 'Starving to death', though things would very nearly approach one or the other on occasion. In general, there was simply 'more' or 'less' Hungry.
Results were, to this point, inconclusive.
Sir Guiche, she knew, was going to be too much trouble to be worth the reward, given his lovely brass maidens. Louise, the little mistress, was for one reason and another out of the question, and had claimed the wolf, so that was right out as well.
She would probably be upset, come to think of it, if her fiance were to go missing.
But he was a Knight, was he not?
It was expected that he make war in the name of his mistress, that Princess, the title itself making her far beyond the level of effort that was generally acceptable for these matters. But in so doing, he would have made enemies, was that not so? Done things that would inspire others to do horrible things back to him in turn, if they could get away with it.
People would be upset if he just disappeared, one day.
But they wouldn't be surprised. That it had been attempted, at least, though they might be surprised that someone had managed it.
And she, Rumia, would certainly not be high on the list of suspects.
This, however, was beginning to veer dangerously close to 'planning', however, and the ribbon sealed in her hair did not hesitate to immediately voice its displeasure with this unfortunate and unwanted trend of thinking, and did so at length.
Maybe. Maybe not.
She would have to get back to it later, decide one way or another, Rumia decided as the stink of burned hair faded from around her. There would probably be something to sway things by then anyway.
But for now, the griffin.
Big beast. Sort of like a cat, and sort of like a bird.
... It would probably taste just like chicken~