Amare Dividere
Title: Reluctant Truths, pt. 2 [Part Nine]
Series: Vision of Escaflowne
Rating: PG-13 for some violence.
Unsure of how to proceed with his dealings in the Palace, Allen seeks out the only man he had managed to trust almost his entire life. Gaddes.
The slightly older man was also of noble birth, though his parents had a lesser tragedy that befell them, and it was after he had joined the knighthood, so it did not affect him as much. It had been Gaddes who had taken young Allen away from the rainy funeral proceedings of his mother, and his family who had helped the young Schezar pay for them when the collection master had come looking for the money.
While the Crusade is in the dock above the city, he knows he will find his childhood savior at the family's holding that he still maintains just to the south of the market and back in a shaded recess that fell back into the mountains. Mounting his horse, Allen set out just after breakfast while Eries and Dryden headed off to meet with advisors. A tedium of meetings, it seems to him, is all the current war has meant for Asturia, except the loss of the queen.
When he arrives at his friend and second's home, one of the house servants takes the reigns to his horse and he is ushered inside with a friendly smile and a murmur of, "The master will see you shortly."
They did not use Gaddes' title here, for good reason. Allen never did either. What had happened to Gaddes after joining the knighthood, not the Knights Caeli but the Brotherhood of the Sea Guardian, as the order was known, was that he had indulged himself in less than honorable acts with which to restore his family's holdings.
The monarchy had easily turned a blind eye on it, since the piracy he had committed not only brought the magnificent ship that was later named The Crusade, under their relative control, but because Grava was not without an eye at counter-marketing strategies, and he knew that Zaibach was also well positioned and well equipped to become a powerful merchant company.
"So what brings you here?" Gaddes calls down from where he is lounging against the balustrade on the top of the balcony, looking, for once, entirely out of place without his armor and leaning against fine soft marble.
"I'm hurt," Allen replies.
"Why? You never make the trip all the way out to see the manor unless you have need of my ship or you have need of my ear. Since I doubt the princess is going to allow her country's champion free leash to run cross country at the moment with such an impending threat as Norte in our neighboring Egzardia, I surmise there's something on your mind."
"And you are right, as usual." Gaddes gives a shout and one of his servants comes to take the fine brocaded and embroidered jacket from Allen's shoulders as he shrugs it off and loosens the cravat around his neck in comfort.
"I'll have wine poured on the lower balcony, and then you can unburden your mind to me."
"Princess Eries proposes a treaty between Fanelia and Asturia, one to be made during the war, and strengthened through trade thereafter," Peralis announces as Hitomi presides over the meeting with the other advisors.
"And what says Dryden on this matter, since after the war he will still be king, and Eries a sister in a distant convent once more?" Brett asks.
"The seal of both the king and the princess is on the letter," Hitomi says in a gentle but firm voice. "They are in accord on this matter. I am of a mind to accept, tenuously, this treaty. It will do good for us to be on the same side as Asturia. The Astons are rarely completely out maneuvered when it comes to such things as war, and the smart countries, I am sure, are aligning themselves with Eries. I ask your response."
"It is an offer unlikely to come by again," the foreign minister, Gabriel, pronounces.
"Or a long time in coming," Brett replies. "It is, however, a splendid gesture of faith in your majesty's abilities, with the King-"
A stern glance from Peralis silences him instantly on that comment.
Gaddes had known about the betrothal, or had figured it out when the Princess departed for Tuloom Convent after her sister's announcement of her pregnancy. He had chosen, as had Eries, to remain silent on that score. Like Allen, he had always held a certain ungrudging respect for the more introverted princess. He was fairly certain this conversation would be about that, but was curious to let Allen bring it up first.
"So what is it that's troubling you, Allen?" he asks, leaning back on the balcony furniture. "It must be unbearable in the palace if you've run from it."
Brushing a hand through his hair as he tries to find the proper words, Allen finally says, "Eries." If his eyes had been lifted to his friend, he would have seen the knowing look in Gaddes' eyes, but they are not, and so all he sees is the back of his eyelids as he continues. "She is a puzzle to me…at once so understanding, and so cold."
"Oh?" Gaddes replies, a faint smile belying his superior knowledge of the situation. "How so?"
"She speaks to me as though there is something that she knows, and has known, for a long time, but will not say it. Instead, she rebuffs my questions and leaves me with no answers."
"I'm usually the last person you come to for advice about women, Allen," Gaddes replies. "Wouldn't Celena have been a better choice? She is the Princess' handmaiden, after all."
Discarding his gloves as he lifts his wine glass, Allen rubs his temples. "She appears to be remembering her time as Dilandu."
Gaddes swallows the sudden lump in his throat. He and Allen had spent hours upon hours discussing what should be done about his sister's part in the war, when Dryden and Millerna had deferred to him for judgment in her case. In the end, he had accepted the responsibility himself, and her care, as he would've if things had played out more normally with the two siblings.
He had received his promotion following that decision.
It had been their policy to reward in the proper manner those that served well, and not to punish crimes that could not be undone. Especially after so many had done so much wrong.
"I cannot ask her about what the Princess says to her, because Eries, I am almost certain, feels the way that I do about her at the moment. Eries is less likely to unburden her mind to Celena than she is to me."
"Have you no idea what might be causing this sort of a reaction from the princess?"
The three of them traveled to the edge of Asgardia before loosing the two horses. Tristan has Skan and Arik stand close together before he spreads his arms and tilts his head back, calling upon the spells required to transport them to Ispano.
He only hopes that they do not arrive at the worst possible place and time.
The moment the blinding light fades, Arik pulls the two of them quickly back against the wall they have come to rest near, and none of the three of them speak. Tristan's aim had been almost right on track, and he has set them down, waiting, breathlessly to see if they have been discovered. Their backs are to the royal residence, where the traitors have made their foothold apparent.
Across an open, guarded square is the Temple of Asgard, their destination.
"What is going on?" Skan asks in the barest whisper.
In response, Arik points, meaningfully, at the temple.
Thankfully, no one has seen their arrival, despite the spectacle that it appears to have been for the three of them. Tristan, breathless, rests his back against his former home, and waits for Arik's decision. "We will split up," she says to Tristan in a soft voice, "Skan and I will make a break towards the palace, drawing the troops guarding the temple, and you will move across to the temple without causing attention to be called to yourself. Wait for us in the Priestess' chamber of devotion."
"Arik," he starts, but she lifts a finger to his lips, leaning up slightly to give him a kiss that stops his words, and, as alarming as it is to him, his breath.
"Do as I say, Tristan," she says, pushing him back from her and turning to relay her plan to Skan, who nods in a grim manner and draws the blade at his waist. When she leaps forward from their position, booted feet swift on the blood-marred flagstones of the square, he is right behind her.
Breathing hard, Tristan takes a long moment to try and fathom his response to Arik's method of silencing him, and then, as he hears the large rush of soldiers moving after them, he turns to survey the square between him and the temple. There are two soldiers remaining, but their attention follows their comrades.
Lifting one of the cracked rocks from the flagstones, one with a deep gash from a staff or a sword, Tristan throws it far from him, so that it lands on the far side of the temple gates.
"No logical one has presented itself."
"Because you've never had a problem with an Aston woman before?" Gaddes asks with a hint of sarcasm and condescension in his voice. "Or because you aren't thinking of every possible reason?"
"I would not be here if I knew the answer to those questions, Gaddes," the blond knight says, frowning. "And you're starting to sound just like Eries does about the whole situation."
"What was it she said to you, exactly, Allen?"
"That it was not her place to inform me of what was wrong between us."
"She is as proud a woman as you are a warrior," Gaddes says in a soft voice, sipping his wine and leaning back, "can't you guess? It didn't take me as long to figure it out, and it came to mind years ago for me." He pauses, and when Allen doesn't respond, he sighs before prompting, "Old Aston was very high and mighty when it came to his honor, and that of his family. He maintained that a monarchy ought to be honorable to its ties, even if those ties were less than so… any deal he made, he did his best to follow through on. Of his three daughters, we both know it was Eries who took most after him."
Allen stares at Gaddes for a long moment, and then blinks wide blue eyes at him. "You aren't serious."
"She wouldn't ever have told you something it was not her duty to tell you, Allen."
"But why didn't anyone… Jichia's name, Gaddes, it's been seventeen years!"
"Arrangements like that aren't the sort you spread around. And even you mentioned that she was brought to visit your home when you were a child. Even after your father disappeared." He taps his finger against the stem of his wine glass, "And she was the one who was put in possession of your family's estate and your mother's possessions when you ran from the city. Did none of this ever occur to you before, Allen? Truly?"
"Never," Allen replies, firmly.
With tense muscles and baited breath, Tristan waits, hidden in the devotion chamber he had spent so much time playing in as a child. It had been here that his mother had taken him to hide when there had been a small uprising among the workers, before she had been made priestess and the people were chafing under the rule of the regent in charge of the nation.
It was here, also, that had the best means of escape.
Arik knew that, when she sent him.
Hours have passed, he feels, and he begins to lose hope of the safety of Arik and Skan, and the successfulness of the ploy when the door opens, swift and silent, and two figures enter before it closes on almost total darkness. "Tristan," Arik says in a breathless voice, cursing herself and her failings.
Skan, standing tall and proud beside her, nonetheless holds his left arm where a deep gash has been made by the enemy soldiers.
Not quite trusting her, he pauses.
"You're here, Skan knows it. The bracelet you wear told us you had made it safely. Come out."
"Only if you promise to never do something so foolish again," Tristan snaps, moving from his hiding place swiftly to stride across the room, grasping her arms and shaking her. "He is hurt!" he exclaims, turning pale eyes on the Draconian that had accompanied his Kathis.
"I will do what is needful," Arik murmurs, stepping over to finally inspect Skan's wound, which she binds with a piece of cloth that Tristan hands her, a silk blindfold his mother had once used in a ceremony.
Between the two men, a meaningful look is passed, and a truce is made.
"The question now, is what are you going to do about it?"