"I don't mean to keep collecting people," the legate sighed as they walked from the little house together, "But you have to admit, Aphra's good to have around…"
"I never said she wasn't. I just think it's funny that you can't seem to go anywhere without acquiring another resident for the world's smallest embassy…" She elbowed him at that.
"I didn't think it would end up being an embassy. I just thought that it would be somewhere for me to live, with a spare room for you until I managed to seduce you."
Kurt made a noise that was half laugh and half choke, and it made De Sardet throw her head back in a merry guffaw, "Oh, sweet Kurt – you're so easily shocked."
They had reached the steps at the foot of the palace now and De Sardet sighed as she looked up them.
"I'll call by for you, when I've taken Sieglinde her prize," Kurt tried to reassure her. She kissed his cheek, sighed heavily, and began to trudge upwards. He watched her go, his heart aching for her. She'd lost the Princess to the Malichor, and now she stood to lose her cousin too.
"Greenblood," he yelled after her. She turned and looked down at him, "We'll figure something out."
She smiled, warm and grateful, but entirely disbelieving. They nodded at one another, and she continued the ascent.
"What would I want with a whopping great thing like that?" Sieglinde scoffed when Kurt dropped the ring on the table.
"I don't know, do I? Saintere found us in a tavern and insisted I take it to you."
"So you'll listen to what some random noblewoman tells you but you don't do as you're told when I say you need to bed your royal duckling."
Kurt was silent, and it didn't escape Sieglinde.
"Ha! I bloody knew you would!" she paused for a second, then, "Feel better for that?"
"Oh shut up."
"I'll take that as a yes," They both tried to hide how much they were smiling.
There was a heavy pause in which Sieglinde pursed her lips, drew breath to talk and then stopped herself, her words seemingly caught at the tip of her tongue.
"Take the ring," she said to Kurt. He frowned.
"Take it where?"
She groaned, exasperated, "To a bank, or to a merchant, or some shady bastard who can give you money for it - I don't care. Point is, keep it – buy a little cottage or a trip back to the continent, or a tavern, or whatever it is you and your duckling plan on doing next."
"You should sell it," Kurt pressed, "You earned it."
"People would ask questions. And…" she sighed, "I never had a brother. Not a real one. Best I got is you."
"Yeah well," he scuffed his boot against the floor in front of her desk, bashful, "I'm sorry for that."
"Me too. Not least because I've a childhood of sibling rivalry to catch up on… But let me do this kindness for you. You're family, and I can give you a nest egg for when you're fathering royal spawn."
Kurt groaned at that, "I don't plan on fathering anything."
She glared at him, her face fixed in an expression he'd never seen her wear before, "Kurt," her tone was firm, but loving too, "Let me do this. And then shut up."
Kurt deposited the gaudy ring with a bank on the square. He had considered selling it there and then, but Saintere's husband's 'death' was so very recent and Kurt wasn't an idiot. He didn't want anyone asking questions about its provenance.
He made his way to the palace with that same distant, light feeling he'd had after they'd walked from the house in San Matteus to the stew tavern. Nothing felt quite real.
Inside the building he paused, trying to ground himself before entering the audience chamber. Morange sat, perched on the chair meant for Constantin and Kurt wondered for just a moment, what he would have done during the coup if the woman he loved hadn't loved the governor…
Kurt had never really liked Morange.
"Sir Kurt," she said as he entered, "I understand congratulations are in order? That you're some kind of… knight now?"
He shrugged, "Something like that. I'm still enough of a Coin Guard that I'll do most things for a purse of gold… wearing a fancy title included."
She smiled, but it didn't touch her eyes, "You're here to chaperone the legate home? Not that she needs it, I imagine…"
Kurt tried to keep his emotion from his face – it didn't appear as though De Sardet had informed Morange of their … relationship. He shrugged again, "I go where I'm told. It's not my job to think much about it."
"You may as well take a seat," she gestured to a bench at the side of the room, "De Sardet remains with her cousin. I often think it would have been a kindness to him to have died in the coup, you know…"
The comment sounded idle, but Kurt caught the weight of it. He said nothing, nor did he make for the bench. Morange seemed to take his silence as agreement though, and she continued, "The temptation is always to slip something into his drink… something to complete the process. The Malichor is so very brutal in the young – something about their virility seems to help it take them faster."
She looked at her nails, plucking at one, idly, "He suffers dreadfully and his moods make sure we do too. His cousin is the only one who seems able to calm him. But of course, we can't spare the legate to function as a glorified nurse maid now, can we?"
Again, Kurt said nothing.
There was a long, awkward pause before De Sardet emerged from Constantin's personal chambers. Strands of her hair had worked loose from her braid and crowned her head in something of a halo, backlit by the fading light at the long windows which flanked the room.
"Kurt," the relief in her voice was audible, but she seemed to read the flat expression he wore and adjusted her own to one of professional distance, "I was hoping you'd be here. I am more than ready to go home now."
"Your Excellency," he said with a nod of ascent, hoping that hearing her title coming from him would be something of a reassurance.
There was a huge commotion from behind Constantin's door and De Sardet's whole body slumped with exhaustion.
"No… " she groaned, "I just put him to bed…"
The door crashed open and Constantin stumbled through in his night clothes. Kurt and Morange tried not to recoil from the look of him but neither was entirely successful. Only De Sardet was unmoved by his visage and made for him with her arms outstretched.
"Come now, Con, you must be tired… Surely it's time to sleep?"
"Sweet Cousin, I swear to you that I am lucid. Tired, yes, but it's me – it's truly me. Not the phantom you've wasted your afternoon upon."
She scanned his face and seemed to find confirmation there that he was telling the truth. It was only watching his former students now that Kurt noted the violin in the governor's hands.
"I need you to promise me something, Sweet Cousin," Constantin's eyes weren't frantic, but there was an urgency there – a plea, "I've been thinking about my possessions and-"
"You've already given me your mother's ring," she said, and showed him her hand, "And it is something I will treasure until I find you a cure, but-"
"You still see the Naut captain, don't you?"
"I do."
"Take him my fiddle," he pressed the instrument into the legate's hands, "I've never heard anyone make music as beautifully as he does. He needs something better to play on."
De Sardet set her chin, stubborn in a way she only ever was with Constantin, "No. I absolutely shan't. For a start, this needs to be in a case before I even consider carrying it from this palace. Secondly, you're going to be fine."
"We both know that isn't true. Please. Don't patronise me like everyone else does."
"I have promising leads – a scientist from the Bridge Alliance, and Siora's people have-"
"Cousin." It was another plea, but gentle, coaxing. Earnest. Kurt watched the way the legate's shoulder's sagged as she conceded silently.
"You're not allowed to die, Constantin," she said in a voice barely above a whisper, "I have so much news I want to tell you – so many places I want to show you, and so much good we can do…"
"And I want all of that too… but… Right now, I need to know that my violin is going to be played by someone who will appreciate it."
De Sardet clutched it to her chest and nodded.
"Do you remember that song…. The one you kept trying to learn on the harpsicord?"
"And failed spectacularly at? It was Fiddlers Green, though Mother thought it was The Admiral At The Dock."
"Sing it for me." Constantin seemed to miss the glint in De Sardet's eyes as she drew breath and began.
"The Admiral stood at the edge of the dock,
One hand on his hip and one on his…. Cock-rel
Just robbed from the nest
by the woman beside him with great heaving… Breast-plate-"
Constantin pushed at her, fondly, though it left him breathless, "Not The Admiral! I want to hear Fiddler's Green…."
"Then I shall bring Vasco here to play it for you – it's a shanty, after all…"
"You, cousin. I have such memories of you singing it through the corridors constantly… you loved that song."
She sighed and passed the violin to Kurt, "I'll sing it to you, Con. But only if I can put you back to bed."
"You drive a hard bargain, but I consent."
The legate took the governor's hand and clutched it so tight that his knuckles went white. And then, with a quavering note that was thin and heavy all at once, she began to sing. She had a plain voice, and - Kurt suspected - had it not been for the hours of failed music lessons, she would have had an abjectly terrible one. But the words were breathy and haunting, and the melody sounded like the ghosts of lullabies.
"Wrap me up in me oil-skin and jumper
No more on the docks I'll be seen
Just tell me old shipmates, I'm taking a trip mates
And I'll see you some day in Fiddler's Green
When you get on the docks and the long trip is through
Ther's pubs and ther's clubs and ther's lassies there too
When the girls are all pretty and the beer it is free
And ther's bottles of rum growing from every tree"
When they reached the house again, De Sardet pushed the violin into Vasco's baffled hands, then stomped upstairs to collapse face down on the bed, sobbing.
Kurt stayed downstairs.
"Play something," he said to Vasco after a moment.
"Play what?"
"I don't know – The Admiral At The Dock or that thing you played on the ship when the wind died."
Vasco cocked an eyebrow but plucked the fiddle strings, produced a tuning fork from his belt and proceeded to warm up. Then he drew the bow across to form a cord, opened his mouth in a perfect 'o' at how beautiful the instrument sounded, and began to play a dance. Not mournful exactly, but melancholy beneath the marching notes.
Kurt climbed the stairs and knelt before where De Sardet now sat on the bed. He bowed his head, like he'd seen suitors do before and took her hand. Covered in tears, he fingers were wet, but he held them anyway and kissed them regardless.
"Your Excellency… A dance?"
She stood, somewhat reluctantly and seemingly drawn up from the edge of the bed by the music. He placed his hands as she'd taught him and stepped awkwardly to and fro like they had in the ballroom. She managed a smeary smile, then lay her head on his shoulder. He held her as they moved, and she began to grieve.
