Chapter Nineteen
I
"Marquise-love?"
Zechs groaned and his eyes began to flutter open. Beside him Lucrezia stirred, while outside Rhyn continued to summon them through the door.
"Come on, Marquise, you said you had to be up early."
He pressed his face into the pillow, trying to drown out the Brit's voice.
A moment later Rhyn burst into the room, stumbling, eyes half-closed and arms extended in a melodramatic tableau of sleepwalking. He jumped up onto the bed and began, in mockery of his own nocturnal habits, to sing loudly, and although his voice, especially at so projected a volume was utterly beautiful, Zechs found himself wishing there were a weapon close at hand.
Rhyn fell onto the bed, nestling in between him and Lucrezia. He threw his arm across Zechs's shoulders and delivered a hard, smacking kiss to his cheek.
"Time to get up, loves," Rhyn said, quietly for once. He gave a more tender kiss to Lucrezia's face and rose from the bed. "If I'm not terribly mistaken you said last night, Marquise-love, that you wanted to be leaving for Luxembourg by dawn, which comes in another hour, by the way, and I'm assuming you've no intention of storming into the Council session wearing what you presently are, though I must admit that you, Miss Noin, look quite delectable wearing Marquise-love's shirt, so you might want to get up now."
Zechs rose from the bed and ushered the boy out of the room, out of the parlor, and back out into the corridor.
"You might want to lock your door this time, love," Rhyn said as he was pushed through the doorway. "Makes it a bit harder for me to burst in, you know."
Zechs merely grunted and shut the door on the boy's smiling face.
II
"Miss Dorothy?"
There was no answer on the other side of the door.
He rapped his knuckles against it again, still to no avail.
He turned and was about to leave when behind him the door opened and her face, freshened by a shower and a full night's rest, peered out at him.
"Yes?"
"I'd come to wake you but you're already awake, aren't you?"
"It would appear that way, yes."
"You know, you're much prettier after you've slept. Not to say that you weren't pretty yesterday, love, but you're even more striking without the circles under your eyes and a bit of color in your cheeks."
"Thank you."
"Since you're already up, love, is there anything I can do for you?"
She stepped out into the hall. He studied her face more fully, studied the outfit she had chosen to wear when she interrupted the Council to claim her own power within its ranks. It was quite a semblance to the clothes she had been wearing the previous morning: a simple black blouse atop a simple black skirt, with not the slightest bit of extravagance he knew the Queen would have chosen in her place.
"No offense or anything, Miss, but you look like you're going to a funeral."
"None taken." She stepped closer to him so that he might hear her when she whispered, although there was no one else in the hall with them. "Thank you."
"For what? Complimenting you? Well it's true, love, you look positively ravishing. You're quite a seductress, you are."
"You know what I mean," she said softly.
Indeed he did know. The previous night, after Marquise and Miss Noin had retired to their bedroom, at Miss Dorothy's begrudged request he had found for her some sedatives to aid her sleep.
"No need to thank me," he said, speaking almost as quietly as she was. "It was no problem, really."
She nodded, stepped away from him. "Thank you," she said again, and she disappeared back into her room.
"Very well then," he said in her wake and he left the corridor her room was on, destined now for his own chambers and his own bed, in which he hoped to spend the rest of the pre-noon hours.
III
They left the palace as the sun rose over the kingdom, three solemn, almost tragic figures with hands concealed in coat pockets and heads lowered as though they were indeed mourning on their way to the funeral of a dear friend. Pagan waited for them in the black limousine that would take them to the palace's private airport and he, too, seemed as though consumed by some great inner darkness, merely nodding in greeting as they each got into the back of the car.
Zechs slipped his arm about Lucrezia's shoulders after they were settled and the car had departed from the palace's gates. She looked at him strangely for a moment, then offered the weakest of smiles and laid her head against him.
He had not wanted her to come with them, but she had insisted upon it, and he had yielded to her. He at last admitted to himself that in his incessant weakness, he had not truly desired to go without her.
Rhyn had agreed to stay at the palace in the event that Relena should return. Zechs had not told him any of the specifics of what had happened the night of his disappearance after the Queen's own that morning, but it had seemed that he didn't need to. His suspicions were almost fully confirmed that Rhyn knew much more on the subject of the solemn Queen that he freely admitted.
Dorothy sat across from them, eyes closed and hands folded in her lap. Zechs needed not imagine what she must have been thinking as they neared the airport, of how much it must have pained her to go back on her vows to never again enter a war. He knew the feeling all too well himself.
The ride to the port was silent, and likewise in that silence they boarded the plane that would take them to Luxembourg. Dorothy, though she had looked much healthier when he had first seen her that morning, was regaining her former pallor, and several times in the minutes immediately following the plane's takeoff he thought she was going to be sick.
"Are you all right, Miss Dorothy?" Lucrezia asked her finally.
Dorothy glanced up from her clasped hands. "Yes, Miss Noin. I'm fine, thank you."
Despite the thoughts that threatened to break through his defenses as the plane glided northward, thoughts of his sister, of Heero, of a certain scar snaking across his hand, of two gundams that still had yet a battle to finish, Zechs was able to keep his mind blessedly empty throughout the flight.
The plane touched down in Luxembourg sooner than expected, and as it slid down the length of the runway he saw an expression of utter dread upon Dorothy's face. In less than a moment, however, that expression faded into a much harder one, quite like one of her constant expressions from her days as a lover of war.
No one in Luxembourg had been notified that they were coming. They departed from the port without an escort and on foot and needed walk only a few blocks before they reached the grand chateau that served as the headquarters of the Supreme Earthsphere Council.
Dorothy hesitated outside the main entrance.
"Are you certain you want to do this?" he asked, placing a reassuring hand upon her shoulder.
She swallowed and nodded. Zechs himself would never be fully aware of what it was that drove her so adamantly on in this mission she had no desire to engage in, but he would never ask. Her mere presence, her acceptance of the proposal, was enough.
As they proceeded down the grand marble corridor, Zechs's mind was haunted by memories of a grinning soldier and Treize's willingness to do anything to further his organization.
They were at last halted outside of the auditorium, where the Council conducted its sessions. The only clearance they needed, however, was for Dorothy to identify herself, and with almost-awed expressions, the guards allowed them to enter.
The auditorium was enormous and fashioned so elegantly that one would, upon first seeing it, find it hard to believe that it was used as the primary room for hearings conducted by the supreme governing force of the Earth. The wide floor was white marble, smooth as a woman's flesh, and the very architecture of the room was something more suiting of a great Roman cathedral than any governmental facility. Tapestries, images of notable crests, hung from each wall, yet most impressive were the great rows of seats, starting from the floor and not ending until the second level of balconies, all these hundreds of seats almost completely filled with governors, with spectators, with those who would work to decide the Earth's fate.
It truly is the Romefeller Foundation all over again, he thought.
The doors had been opened as a speaker, one of the High Councilmen, it appeared from his uniform, was in the middle of some greatly important sentence. He halted upon seeing the three intruders and as his gaze turned to them so did the heads of everyone in the room.
The silence that fell over the auditorium at their entrance was almost palpable.
The Councilman cleared his throat and, almost nervously, straightened his collar. "Honorary Councilwoman Catalonia," he said after a moment, and he offered a cordial smile to the girl who stood before these watchful, silent masses.
Dorothy, with all the nobility of a monarch, nodded.
The Councilman raised a single hand and gestured to her. "Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Honorary Councilwoman Dorothy Catalonia."
There sounded a great, screeching-stamping clamor as seats were pushed back and every man and woman in the room rose to their feet.
Again, Dorothy nodded. "Thank you."
The crowd, one-by-one, resumed their seats. Again the room fell silent, with the exceptions of the nervous coughs uttered all throughout the balconies, until the speaking Councilman gave a hard, brief tap of his gavel to the grand podium at which he stood.
"Have you a matter of business to bring before us, Honorary Councilwoman?"
Dorothy gave no sign of her distress. "I have."
The Councilman turned to address the other members. "Ladies and gentlemen of the Supreme Earthsphere Council, I would like to move that the order of business be turned over to Honorary Councilwoman Catalonia."
There was a unanimous pounding of thirty-nine gavels against the tables, and with another warm smile the Councilman motioned for Dorothy to take his place at the podium. She did so with all the grace and dignity her grandfather, in whose memory she had been given a place in the Council, would have desired to see in her.
Zechs and Lucrezia followed and took two of the seats behind her.
One of the High Council members leaned forward, looking directly at Dorothy. "Honorary Councilwoman, would you, for the record, identify those who have accompanied you on your matter of business?"
"I am accompanied by Prince Milliardo Peacecraft of the Sanq Kingdom and former Captain of the Imperial Guard of the Sanq Kingdom Lucrezia Noin."
"Honorary Councilwoman, what is your matter of business?"
She cleared her throat quietly, hesitated, gripping the sides of the podium. For a moment Zechs thought she was not going to able to bring herself to say it, and in that moment he realized how foolish he had been to place all of this upon her shoulders.
"I have come here," she said finally, her voice conveying nothing of what she felt, "to petition that the Supreme Earthsphere Council withdraw its support of Treize Kushrenada and his army."
A unanimous gasp, like a wave, rolled through the spectators and several members of the Council coughed into their elegantly gloved hands. There was another pounding of a gavel behind them, as the same man who had been speaking earlier ordered silence for Dorothy to speak.
"Honorary Councilwoman, have you gone mad?" one of the others called to her, and, Zechs noted, his shock was too sincere, and he continued to scan their rows, searching for the one who looked as if he knew all too well what the Honorary Councilwoman was speaking of.
"Honorary Councilwoman, explain yourself."
Dorothy straightened her posture and spoke clearly, assuredly, into the microphone. "Treize Kushrenada, my cousin and the nephew of Duke Dermail, is responsible for the production of the mobile suits that were discovered in Austria. He and his army are funded by one of the members of this Council. I petition that this benefactor step forward and withdraw support of him."
"But Treize Kushrenada is dead," one woman called out, and despite the commotion Dorothy maintained her royal composure.
"My cousin did not die in the Eve Wars as was believed," she continued. "He has survived and is responsible for the rising of the army in Germany. I ask that support be withdrawn from him at once."
As if cued by her words, there arose, above the commotion of the crowd gathered in the room, a great, shrill cry, seeming to come from above them, and as the cry grew louder Lucrezia motioned for Zechs to look up at one of the High Councilmen, who, panicked it seemed, had risen to his feet and was trying furiously to push his way through the perplexed masses.
Zechs nodded and drew his gun, and as he fixed it upon the man's moving figure he again was hit by another image of the guard in Spain, the treacherous smile, of how easily that man could have waited for him to leave the base and followed him to his next destination, which, once reported, would have given Treize every reason to believe this would happen…
His finger tightened on the trigger—
The explosion rocked the great building, shaking its foundations as though the very earth was being rent beneath them. The gun was knocked from his hand and he fell back as another explosion sounded, and the walls surrounding the auditorium shook violently, giving way as it was believed almost nothing could make them do.
The screams that echoed throughout the room were disorienting, deafening, and as the crowds pushed against each other in a futile attempt to escape the room while the walls collapsed upon them he was pushed away from Lucrezia.
Another cry, another great, resonating blast. The chandelier on the ceiling overhead quivered, and Zechs rolled out of the way just as it fell to the floor, crushing a man beneath it.
"Lucrezia!"
Whether she heard him or not over the roar of the crowd he didn't know, but likewise he heard no response. He fought through them all, pushing them aside when he needed to as though they were nothing more than rag dolls.
The upper balcony on the eastern wall collapsed. God only knew how many people had been left standing on it, fighting to get off.
He could not think about these things, could hardly see them. He was too disoriented to think of anything but finding her.
At last he did. She was by the podium, half-lying and half-sitting, holding her arms protectively over her abdomen as others, without even truly being aware that she was there, all but trampled her.
"Lucrezia!"
Her half-conscious eyes rolled toward him and she tried to get to her feet. He reached her finally, pulled her up from the floor only to see that she was on the verge of passing out.
Something warm ran down her neck onto his hand. He saw but his mind did not register that she was bleeding, perhaps from some injury to the head as the ceiling even now continued to collapse in upon them all.
"Where's Dorothy?" she asked, struggling to maintain consciousness. She pulled away from him, only barely able to stand on her own. "Where is she?"
Zechs surveyed the room while holding onto her arm with one hand, and finally spotted her almost ten yards away from the podium, where she had been before the blast.
She was not moving.
He pulled Lucrezia with him as he fought to get to her, hoping, praying against all hope that she was not dead, that she wasn't going to die for this cause she wanted nothing to do with.
Her body was limp when he found her and her eyes were mercifully closed, but she was alive still.
"We've got to get her out of here," he said, too monotonously, to Lucrezia.
She nodded and through her own disorientation seemed to understand what he meant. They could not remain here, to struggle through the exits with the others. Treize would not be content with merely destroying the place and hoping they were killed in the assault; if they were not gone from here soon, they would be apprehended by his own officers. Lucrezia cursed under her breath, recognizing the futility of what they needed to do, as the crowd was pushed back from the doors by a battalion of men, armed soldiers wearing the uniforms of Treize's organization.
Zechs lifted Dorothy's limp body from the floor and fled with her, guiding Lucrezia at his side, toward a chasm where a wall had once been that revealed the light outside.
The officers, without hesitation to confirm that these people were indeed those they had been sent to find, followed after them.
IV
Rhyn waited a few minutes after sending the third message of the evening to Marguerite, knowing that if she were currently using her computer — which she almost always was — she would reply immediately. This had been their sole form of communication for the past six months.
When ten minutes had passed and still there had been no response, he shut down the computer and left the room.
The halls, he found, were dark and quiet. He first went to Marquise's room, listened outside the door. He heard nothing on the other side. He hadn't expected to, not yet.
On another corridor, he stopped again outside the entrance of Relena's royal suite. Nothing there, either.
He journeyed down to the first floor, looking for nothing, thinking of nothing. For a while he merely wondered why he had come down here, not realizing until now how very tired he was. He was about to give in to the British voice of reason and return to his warm, tempting, albeit empty bed when, as he passed by the grand ballroom, two hands shot out of the softly-lit room and, clutching his arm, pulled him through the doorway.
"Your Majesty?"
"I'm sorry," she said, still grasping his arm so tightly that it sent a harp ache all the way up into his shoulder. "I'm sorry. It's just that I…that I…"
Awakened now, he guided her to sit in a chair by the nearest corner. She mumbled incoherently for several minutes, her fingers rending the skirt of the dress she wore, the same dress, he realized, she had been wearing when she disappeared two days ago.
He was finally able to calm her. She collapsed against the chair, sobbing tearlessly, and allowed him to take both her hands into his.
"Milliardo," she said finally, staring at him with wild, almost frightened eyes. "Is my brother here?"
He shook his head. "No. He left this morning with Miss Noin and Miss Catalonia for Luxembourg."
Her eyes widened. "Dorothy? Luxembourg? I don't understand."
"He arrived here last night with Miss Catalonia. They left to cause a commotion with the Council right after breakfast. Miss Catalonia's quite a cute one, you know."
"The Council?"
"You're about five seconds behind me, love. The Supreme Earthsphere Council called an emergency session the day after you left, Your Majesty. They're still debating to my knowledge. Your brother and your brother's impregnated lover and your brother's cute little childhood-friend-slash-former-comrade have gone to interrupt. But considering the time, they've probably already done their interrupting, I suppose."
She sighed and slumped against the arm of the chair. Her eyes drifted down to her torn, dirty dress and she seemed only now to realize her disheveled appearance. She gave a small, disgusted cry and leapt from the chair.
He rose with her, linked his arm gently through hers. "I'll escort you to your chambers, Your Majesty."
She allowed him to do so, and at her door she asked him to come in.
"I can't, Your Majesty. You need your rest."
"I've no intention of resting yet," she said, and she pulled him through the doorway, guiding him through her rooms until she reached her royal bedroom, where she made him sit upon the edge of her bed. "Please, stay here. I need to talk to you but…stay here."
He gave a dumb nod and she disappeared into an adjacent room.
Rhyn doubted he had ever felt so confused in all his life.
No, that wasn't true, not entirely, he realized, thinking of the scars on Marguerite's wrists, thinking of how happy she had seemed just before she had tried to take her own life. He had been so much more confused then.
The memory of it, the barest mental glimpse of her, her arms drenched and stained with blood, made him shudder.
The Queen reappeared in the wide doorway. She was much calmer than she had been before, no longer trembling or sobbing, and her face had been washed, her hair brushed and pulled back. She had changed out of her ruined white dress and into a black evening gown, and her usually gloved hands were bare, delicately white and elegant, as those of a Queen should be.
"I couldn't let Milliardo see me like this," she explained, walking toward him. The gown pulled tight against her hips as she moved in a way that he couldn't help but notice. "In case he returns this evening, I couldn't let him see that…couldn't let him know…I couldn't…"
"It's okay, Your Majesty," he said, making a point not to look at anything below her shoulders. Was she consciously aware of what she was wearing, of how she was walking in it? "I understand."
She raised an eyebrow. "Do you?" She at last reached him and he looked up into her eyes. "Did my brother say anything to you?" she asked carefully, almost timidly. "Did he tell you what happened?"
"No. He didn't tell me that he found out about you and Treize, no."
Her eyes widened into the same expression they had held before and she took a step back. "Then how do you–" She fell onto the bed beside him.
He gave her a sympathetic smile. "Because it's the only thing that could've upset him enough to make him leave without explanation like he did and upset you enough to make you come back like this."
A large tear rolled down her cheek. He brushed it away and chastely kissed the side of her face. "Just so you'll know, Your Majesty-love, I won't say I told you so."
She allowed her eyes to meet his and after a moment she gave a weak smile. "It can't be helped, can it? There's nothing I can…nothing I can do to change any of it, is there?"
He evaded her question. She moved closer to him, and as she moved he caught the scent of some sweet perfume that he had never before noticed her wearing.
"I'm sorry," she murmured quietly. Her eyes watered again. "God, I am so sorry."
He placed a hand on her shoulder.
"Not only for this, but for…" She offered him a slight smile. "I'm sorry the way I've treated you. You are a guest in my house, and a friend of my brother and I as your hostess have given you nothing but hostility."
"It's understandable."
"I never meant to treat you so horribly," she continued. "It was only that…you understand, don't you?"
"Of course I do, Majesty-love."
"Thank you," she whispered. She fell suddenly against him.
"Your Majesty? What's wr–"
She silenced him with a kiss.
She pulled away from him, smiled sweetly. Had she truly lost her mind?
"I'm sorry," she said again, brushing her lips against his. "Please accept…this apology."
She kissed him again, pushing him down upon the bed, covering his mouth with hers as he tried to protest. Her hips moved against his in a way he would never have thought her capable of, and, laughing softly, her lips traveled down onto his neck.
"Your Majesty, stop this."
She paid no attention to him. Her kiss became harder, more demanding, and her hands, delicate and seemingly frail, pinned him down to the bed in such a way that he would have to hurt her to make her release him.
"Your Majesty–"
"Don't speak," she whispered, holding him down while her other hand began to work at unbuttoning his shirt.
"I can't…I won't do this, Your Majesty."
She again forced her lips against his.
"Relena!"
He at last shoved her away and she stumbled into the corner, looking disappointed and injured and yet still desirous. Had she truly lost her mind?
She started to rise from the floor, faltered in her steps. She mumbled another useless apology and the moment the words had left her lips, her eyes rolled up into her head and she collapsed.
Rhyn cursed under his breath and picked her up from the floor, laying her gently atop the bed. He could only pray she had recovered from whatever it was that had possessed her to do this by the time she awakened.
He left the room, easing the door shut behind him, and proceeded down to the first floor, stepping off from the grand staircase in time to collide with a frantic Marquise.
"You're back," he said, barely able to breathe from the collision, as he studied Marquise's narrowed eyes and his bruised face. "What the bleeding hell happened?"
"We have to leave," he said, calmly yet harshly, and before Rhyn could react Marquise grabbed his wrist and pulled him down the corridor, into the grand ballroom. "We didn't lose them until we reached the plane, and Treize will be sending them here soon."
"Who?"
Marquise didn't answer. Rhyn looked across the room and saw Miss Noin and Miss Dorothy, the former as bruised as Marquise and the latter barely conscious, held up only with Miss Noin's support.
And suddenly, without receiving the slightest explanation, he understood what had happened.
"Is the car still parked out front?" he asked, and Miss Noin nodded. "Leave Miss Dorothy here."
Marquise flashed him an angry look.
"We can't take her!" he shouted into the Prince's stoic face. "She's useless to us."
"But–"
"She's much safer here. We're leaving her."
Without further protest, Miss Noin carried Dorothy to the nearest chair and set her in it, and as if an actor responding to a cue, Pagan went to her.
"We'll have to go south, to Vólos," Rhyn yelled over the clattering sound of their footsteps as the three of them fled toward the waiting car, and in front of him Marquise responded with a nod.
Marquise started to get in the driver's seat but Rhyn pushed in front of him, motioning for him to join Miss Noin in the back. "Not this time, love," he said, assuming that seat and slamming the door behind him. He started the car and guided it away from the gates. "I can get us there quicker than you, Marquise-love, and with all due respect, I know these officers and what they're willing to do much better than you." He applied the accelerator and the car gave a satisfying response. "And whatever happens, loves, regardless of what specifically, stay in the fucking car."
V
(The Devil and the Angel, Part II)
They reached Vólos without incident, though deep within her heart Lucrezia had a feeling that they had only narrowly averted one. Rhyn was not informed fully of what had happened in Luxembourg until after they had met with Odin within the deep recesses of the base, but Odin needed no explanation, having already heard the public announcement of the assault on the Council, which had not reached this region of Europe until the past hour, and when his questions became too many Odin held up a hand and said, "The technical crew from Spain arrived today."
Rhyn, even in his curiosity, halted. "All of them?"
Odin nodded. "Yes, Marguerite is among them. I've given her your chambers, if that pleases you."
Rhyn's boyish face broke out into a wide smile. "Of course it pleases me, Odin-love, and now if you don't mind terribly, I'm off to go please somebody else, we haven't seen each other in six months, you know, and…" His voice trailed off into a series of incoherent echoes as he ran down the subterranean corridors.
Lucrezia looked up at Odin, who had only minutes ago given to her and Zechs this set of rooms, without grudge or hesitation. Already Zechs had drifted into sleep by her side, and absently she stroked his hair as it veiled from her eyes his ethereal face.
An angel at her side, the devil watching from across the room.
"I never got a chance to thank you," she said to Odin finally, "for what you did for him."
"Don't thank me, Miss Noin. I did it partly out of concern for myself as well as for the Prince."
"But still–"
He silenced her with a wave of his hand. "I said there was no need to thank me."
She nodded and returned her gaze to Zechs, her beautiful, beautiful sleeping angel.
"He will be needed soon," Odin said as he rose from the chair to take his leave, gesturing toward Zechs.
"What do you mean?"
"Due to what occurred in Luxembourg, the first true phase of this war will transpire much sooner than we had anticipated." He opened the door, paused before exiting. "When you awake tomorrow, Miss Noin, there are several good physicians here, if you're concerned about the child."
She flashed him an incredulous look, and before she could ask the devil smiled and said, "Goodnight, Baroness," and with this startling closing he disappeared.
VI
Odin was proven right in his theory that the next stage of the battle would begin soon. The war officially, to the public, began two days later, when Treize Kushrenada's army began its ascent to glory and Treize his rise to power.
Amazed to find it could rejoice, Hell raised a hoarse, half-human cheer.
Author's Notes: This may be my least favorite chapter of Ballad. I'm very bad at writing action scenes, I feel, and the pivotal scene of this chapter is an action scene. In this regard, I rather envy those professional graphic artists who can have their assistants draw some of their more difficult scenes: I would love to have someone write my action-steeped chapters for me. Whenever I write action scenes, they always come out too short and too undetailed.
Relena makes her brief return in this chapter. As an explanation for her odd, uncharacteristic behavior toward Rhyn, suffice it to say that at the time, she is not entirely sober. (Although it should perhaps be noted that I personally do not feel such behaviors are so out of character for Relena at this age, but then again, I do have a rather low opinion of her.)
As for the last line of this chapter, after careful consideration I did decide to end it with a line from the Davidson poem that is quoted throughout this story and after which this story is named. This is the final chapter of Part II; in the next part, the entire poem is quoted at last.