September 1069
Apparently, 'time allowing' meant ten minutes to check and twenty minutes to get ready, because half an hour later I was once again in the middle of a group of armed men as we headed off to the forest. Robert was there, and Tim, and a few familiar faces whose names I did not know.
I wonder what they thought about all this.
We went into the woods, kept walking, kept walking, kept walking, and then eventually ran into the centaurs again in their human glamour. I went forward with Robert, Roland went forth with another centaur, and halfway to the halfway point Robert started to draw a scroll from a pouch at his waist and paused.
"Can they read?" he asked quietly.
Great question to be asking then of all times. Really helped build my confidence in Robert.
"We'll find out," I said dryly, then kept moving.
We met in the middle and looked up at Roland, who looked down at the scroll in Robert's hands. "And what is that?" the centaur asked.
"The writ and agreement declaring Berkhamsted Forest a Kingswood with its own order of foresters," Robert said gruffly.
Roland gave him a quick glance, then looked my way. "Read it aloud, please."
Guess that answered that question.
Ignoring Robert's look of irritation, I carefully took the scroll from him, unfurled it, cleared my throat, and started reading. I'll spare you the legalese and just summarize: the forest is a chartered Kingswood, the new Berkhamsted Foresters have the responsibility of looking after the woods, the warden of the forest is elected by the foresters, et cetera et cetera. Dry stuff, really. All in French, too. It took me a few minutes to get through it, at which point Roland stared off into the distance for a few minutes, occasionally asking me to repeat a segment to make sure he heard it right. Finally, after about seven minutes of this, Roland finally, grudgingly, nodded.
"Very well. The terms of the agreement are acceptable. Our chosen representative will present himself to you within the month."
"Have him introduce himself as the warden of the forest," Robert said gruffly, taking the scroll back and stuffing it back in the pouch.
And that was that. No pleasantries, no niceties, just business. Just get in, talk, and get out.
Once we were out of the woods and heading back to town, Tim sidled up to me, not too close but still kind of infringing on my personal space, and asked, "Say, Sir Harry, could I treat you to a drink? I didn't get the opportunity last time."
I eyed Tim kind of warily, wondering what his goal here was, but ultimately nodded. I figured it was a roundabout way of getting me somewhere private-ish so we could talk, which I wasn't really against. It was a good opportunity to set ground rules, in any case.
"Still not a knight, but sure," I said. "Now?"
"And why not?" Tim asked with a shrug.
I glanced at Robert, who gave a dismissive shrug after a few moments. I completed the trifecta of shrugging, then nodded to Tim. We continued as a group all the way to the town gates, and it was only once we were in Berkhamsted proper that Tim and I split off from the rest. The moment we were mostly alone, save the other people on the street, I lowered my voice and asked, "So, is this an actual barhopping invitation, or is there some ulterior motive?"
"My sister should be present in the tavern," he said. "If that's alright?"
Going to meet a pair of Raiths at a chosen venue of their choice. Gee, what a great idea. Still, I'd taken to packing a twig enchanted with the mental influence breaking spell I'd used when I'd first met Tim, and I had all of my foci on me, so it wasn't like I was going unprepared.
"Do I have your word that we're just going to talk and there will be no duplicity, or coercion?" I asked.
"You have my word," Tim said.
I eyed him, nodded, and kept following him. The worth of one's word was pretty important in the supernatural scene. People with power and opportunity were sometimes less than interested in keeping their word, but I didn't think Tim and Lucille were loaded enough to survive the consequences of screwing me over in this way, unlike Ortega, or Nicodemus, or…
Huh. Come to think of it, people that broke their word and screwed me over never really ended up profiting from it. I mean, it sucked in the moment, but… huh.
Anyway. Tim led me to an upscale-looking wooden tavern-slash-restaurant kind of place, the inside of which was well lit and arranged in an interesting way: the left side was fairly open and laid out in the standard format of round tables surrounded by chairs spaced out to be comfortable for everyone, while the right side was a more me-modern array of booths, separated from the rest of the tavern by curtains.
Yeah. This was definitely a place I couldn't afford.
"Nice digs," I said, taking a look around.
"Privacy is a service," Tim said, leading me towards the booth at the back, which had one knight-looking guy standing outside it. His appearance made me frown; the haggard face, vaguely vacuous look, and less than fluid reactions all made me peg him as a thrall. Wonderful third attempt at a first impression; these vampires were just killing it.
The knight-guy pulled back the curtain at a nod from Tim, revealing a Lucille. The succubus was wearing fairly bulky clothes, not exactly standard court dress, replete with large hood. Her 'stealth' outfit, presumably. Kind of obvious, but I guess a necessity when it came to vampires.
I slid in across from her and went all the way to the end of the booth, so as to have the most warning and reaction time if anything was attempted. My staff I rested against the wall, held in the crook of my arm with the butt pressed against my boot, while my sword just hung kind of awkwardly off my waist. My blasting rod stayed in my duster.
"Nice thrall," I said dryly as I got as comfortable as I could, "real great advertisement for the benefits of working with you. You should teach marketing classes."
Lucille's expression twisted with irritation, and I could hear Tim sigh as he slid in next to his sister.
"Renault is a trusted aide," she said, her voice steady and calm.
"Suuure," I drawled. "Him and how many others?"
Weird thing was, despite the obvious wrongness and horror of the act, it was also reassuring, somewhat. It told me I had an information advantage on the siblings, that they weren't all that experienced or good at the subtle manipulations thing as Lara had been, or even her father. It did mean things were more likely to fall apart, but I stood a better chance of weathering the aftermath if they did.
"Are you actually interesting in talking, wizard, or are you just here to be annoying?" she said, her tone growing slightly terse.
"I'm interested in talking, but less so every time you show you're not that different from the rest of your extended family," I said. "So here's the deal. If you don't want to be annoyed by me any longer, then you stay out of my way and keep yourselves restrained, and we never interact again. Or you just leave, and get the same result. That's option one. Now, option two, where you get my help with whatever schemes you might be planning… yeah, that's going to involve a lot of me 'annoying' you."
Lucille folded her hands together, and almost seemed to be clenching them. She took a small, almost imperceptible breath, and then stared at me.
"How do you know so much?" she asked.
I tapped the fingers of my left hand against the table, since my right was in one of my pockets, brushing the twig I'd enchanted. Right now, with her hood down, Lucille just looked shockingly beautiful, not sex-idol gorgeous like normal Lara or practically irresistible goddess-in-human-flesh like Lara drawing on her Hunger. Lucille's eyes were also fairly normal looking, grayish eyes flecked with blue, in a kind of inverse to her brother's. So, either Lucille wasn't drawing on her Hunger at all at the time, or was only drawing a little. Either way, it didn't have much effect on me. Collectively, Lara, Mab, and Lash had set pretty high bars for seductresses, and Lucille just didn't measure up.
Getting back on track though, I considered how to answer her. And really, it came down to just one question: was I interested in an attempt at good faith cooperation? Or did I just want a détente where they stayed out of my way?
In the end, I sighed. "One of your kin was a close friend of mine. You could even call him family." Hah. "He taught me a lot about the inner workings of the White Court. Your traditions, how you operate, how it feels."
"And what made him so different, that you would call him family and insult us?" she asked.
"He didn't make or use thralls, for one," I said. Though Justine was sort of debatable. The age difference was wide enough to make things weird, and Justine's attachment to Thomas had been, let's call it intense, but love had bloomed there. True, genuine love, enough to burn him. And that can't be manufactured.
"He also didn't feed in your usual, ravaging fashion," I went on, "and he didn't try to manipulate me." Well, a little at the start, more when he tried to rope me into getting rid of his father for him, but I guess I can't really blame him for that last bit, especially considering the then Lord Raith had killed our mother. Really, it was half-revenge at that point.
"How did he manage that?" Tim asked, sounding somewhat curious.
"He worked as a barber to rich women," I said.
Yeah, that's the sum total of the gay barber story.
Tim's face, once he processed what I said, looked like a cartwheel that had hit a rock and stopped moving properly, repeatedly trying to get over it and failing. Lucille looked only moderately less surprised.
"That's… certainly unique," Tim finally said.
I grunted, then looked at the curtain. "So, are you actually going to order drinks?" I asked.
"I though it might be more appreciated as a closing argument rather than an opening one," Tim said, glancing at his sister. She kept staring at me, then momentarily turned her head to him and nodded. He got up, pushed back the curtain, and left to talk with the bartender – a woman, I'd noticed on the way in – leaving me alone with Lucille.
"Since you seem to be the brains of this operation, I'm going to repeat myself for the third and last time. I don't like the White Court. I've had bad experiences with them in general. If you're attached to your lifestyle and your way of doing things, the best you can hope for with me is a fragile truce, and that involves you not stepping out of line. If you actually want my help, that's going to involve compromises, on your end."
For a moment, Lucille's ingenue impression… didn't slip, exactly. It wasn't like she made a mistake, or was caught off guard by my statement. Instead, it was more like her real emotions showed through for a brief moment. Frustration, irritation, annoyance, and the tiniest, tiniest bit of contempt.
Tim came back soon after with a platter full of drinks, one for all of us. I took one at random and then, just to be sure, muttered, "Devocatus," under my breath.
There isn't really a way to pull off a Detect Poison spell – or if there is, I don't know it. The range of harmful chemicals, bacteria, parasites, and so on is just so long and varied that making a spell that can detect even a useful fraction of that range is pretty difficult. I could make spells to determine some of the most common forms of poison, like arsenic and cyanide and nightshade, but that's about it. Maybe someone with a lesser, more simplistic understanding of the world could manifest an approximation of a Detect Poison spell, but I couldn't.
What I could do, though, was make a Detect Alcohol spell, with some extra additions. Or, rather, Detect the Composition of Alcohol. If things looked right: water, alcohol, right proportions, so on, then it was good. If something else was there in more-than-minuscule quantities, I could tell.
The beer was clean though, if heavier on the alcohol content, so I took a sip. For maybe the first fucking time, my aura spiked cold rather than hot, which meant the beer actually tasted good. Which was great, because it was actually really good beer.
"What are your terms, wizard?" Lucille asked after a long silence.
"For working together?" I clarified.
She nodded.
"Cut it out with the thralls, wean off the ones you have now." I took another sip. "I'd prefer it if you cut it out with the sex-feeding entirely, but acknowledge that may not exactly be practical or safe. You never use your allure on me, or anyone else. It's not like you need it. You don't lie to me, or try to control me. You tell me what you're doing here, in England. And in return, I help you."
"Ah. How generous," Lucille said blandly.
I nodded, then sighed. "Yeah. I know." I drummed my fingers against the side of my flagon. "I've got strong beliefs and principles, and no interest in compromising on them. The price of my assistance is a similar adherence. But I don't trust you, and you don't trust me. For good reason on my end, and presumably good reason on your end, too. I mean, you don't know me, after all."
"Is this going somewhere?" she asked. "Or are you just wasting time stating the obvious?"
Well, that was different. And indicative of the fact that she was almost checking out of the conversation. Not that I could really blame her; I probably would feel the same way when presented with an ultimatum like that.
It's just… I'm so fucking tired of compromising and tolerating.
"Do you know… what a soulgaze is?" I asked. Originally, I started out asking 'why I've never looked you in the eyes' as a lead-in, but that question might have led them to suspect Elfleda in some fashion, so I had to pivot on the spot.
"No," she said.
"It's one of the powers that marks a wizard, or a witch. When they look into someone else's eyes, there's a connection. A bridge. The wizard looks upon the other's soul, and vice versa." I clicked my teeth at the Latin vernacular that they probably didn't recognize and corrected, "Uh, the reverse. It shows the truth of a person."
Lucille arched an eyebrow.
"If you want a gesture of trust, on both our ends, we can have one right now. It only takes a few seconds. We just look into each other's eyes, and that's it. But you don't forget what you see in a soulgaze. Ever. It sticks with you." I brought my flagon to my lips and drank deeply. There are some things a person should just never See, with the Sight or through a soulgaze. Like a naagloshi. "And speaking bluntly, I don't think my soul's a very nice place. People have never reacted well to seeing it, and that was before the latest mountains of shit that were piled on me. If you do it, it's probably going to scar you. But if you want a gesture of my commitment, of my goodwill, of the extent I'll go to back you up if you're genuine, and the lengths I'll go to if you aren't…" I shrugged.
Lucille didn't respond, verbally at least. She just kept staring at me, her posture deceptively relaxed. Tim was less circumspect about it; while he wasn't outright tensing, I could tell he was ready in the event anything went down. Frankly, so was I. This meeting had quickly gone sideways, and there was a nonzero chance I'd add to my tally of arsons.
After about half a minute of silent staring, her eyes roaming over my face and posture, Lucille sat back and slowly lifted her eyes to look into mine.
I took a deep breath. "Alright," I said. Then I reciprocated.
The soulgaze started a few seconds later.
Author's Note: This wasn't exactly where I expected this part to go, the soulgaze was originally planned for much, much later, but… well, these things happened. Characters talk, they clash, and plans get spoiled.