One-Stringed Harp
Chapter Two: Something Old, Something New...
The most incredibly puffy white clouds were rolling lazily over the palace of Begnion; not the wispy frayed-cotton types, but towering explosions of marshmallowy fluff that caught the sunlight perfectly and hovered in the vast blueness of the sky, each one an avatar of hopeful cheer. Nephenee stretched on the blanket and wondered why anyone in the world would want to be anywhere else.
"So you really called this an advanced combat lesson?" asked Boyd for the third time.
"You bet," Nephenee confirmed, turning her head to see him lying beside her. Boyd had folded his hands behind his head to better bask in the sun, but now he turned as well to meet her gaze. For a moment, there was perfect stillness and peace in all the world, except for a warm breeze rolling across the palace roof.
"Well, that's flattering, but I'm really just pointing out some basic stuff," said Boyd, climbing to his feet and hefting his axe. "You'd figure it all out on your own with intensive practice, but I guess that'd mean specifically rushing after lots and lots of pirates and brigands with huge weapons. Let's start on the backhand defence again."
"How'd you get to learn all this, anyway?" Nephenee asked, bringing her lance up to a guarding position.
"When the boss – Greil, that is – taught me how to use an axe, he made sure to point out all the tricks I could use against lance-wielders. All I've got to do is show you how they work and you're set." Boyd paused and looked thoughtful – a rarity, as Mist would have been quick to point out. "I guess saying that kind of takes all the mystique out of my wisdom, doesn't it?"
"C'mon, Boyd, I got a pretty good idea o' what your kinda wisdom's made of," said Nephenee, grinning. Covering his sudden fluster, Boyd struck with a double-overhead assault that the halberdier easily sidestepped each way. When he seemed left open at the end, Nephenee lunged ahead with her lance, but Boyd had more control than he let on, and slapped it aside with the flat of his blade. With the point out of the way, he rolled along the iron shaft until he was too close for Nephenee to possibly get in an effective hit. Of course, this also put his face roughly four inches away from hers.
"Now what was that?" Boyd demanded, trying to look nonchalant as he jumped as far away from her as he dared on top of a tall building. "I've seen you handle that routine before – heck, I even told you that's what I was going to do. You know the biggest advantage axes have over lances is the weight they can parry with."
"Yeah, that was sloppy," Nephenee admitted.
"No kidding," Boyd agreed. "One backhand swing and I could have had as much of you as I wanted." …Dear Goddess, I did not just say that, please. Please let her have something much bigger on her mind that kept her from noticing.
"You heard Astrid's getting' married this week?" the halberdier asked, distractedly.
Boyd cheered within. Yes! Yes yes yes yes yes! "No," he said, truthfully. "I didn't even know she had got engaged."
"She ain't," Nephenee confirmed. "She got betrothed ages ago. Lucia wants to do somethin' about it."
"Lucia once rushed three wyvern riders during a thunderstorm at night," Boyd reminded her.
"Won, too."
"That is a point. So that's why you called this an 'advanced combat lesson'? Trying to wriggle out of Lucia's crazy conspiracy?" asked Boyd, still grinning over the praise for his teaching skill.
"I don't wriggle," Nephenee insisted, uncomfortably.
"That's a shame," the warrior muttered. …How do I keep letting this stuff out of my mouth? "Well, I wouldn't blame you for it even if you were. Ike and Elincia are about the only nobles I've ever been able to stomach. And Astrid, I guess. But intentionally going up against mansions full of them? No thank you."
"I sorta think I should," Nephenee admitted, almost before he had finished his sentence.
Before Boyd had any further opportunities to put his foot in his mouth, the quiet midday was shattered. Not literally – the fabric of reality itself failed to fracture and collapse into a great pile of indeterminate causality, the dust of random chance and probability rising around it. But there was a literal shattering as something large was flung out of the window of the top floor of the castle, directly underneath Boyd and Nephenee. They rushed to the edge of the roof.
Far below, a tremendous splash broke the surface of the courtyard koi pond. When the spray cleared, they got a glimpse of a giant ornamental vase, its gilded edges gleaming, before it sunk beneath the water. Warrior and halberdier looked at each other.
"Ain't those usually the first to get all smashed up?" Nephenee asked, mostly rhetorical.
"I think we're right above one of the palace reliquaries," Boyd remarked.
"Any chance it's jus' summer cleanin'?" she asked, still on her rhetoric kick.
"Rope…" the warrior muttered, dashing over to the equipment bag he had brought along. Moments later, his curved axe blade was securely hooked around the nearest sturdy drainpipe, anchoring a rope that he managed to throw over the edge a few seconds before Nephenee followed it. "…She's crazy," he observed. Crazy hot, his thoughts amended. "Oh, who asked me?" Boyd snapped at himself, and followed her.
Nephenee was in free-fall for only a single, heart-seizing second before she grabbed hold of the rope and let her fall turn into a neat arc, straight through the window broken by the vase. It was a tough landing, skidding across the marble floor in an uncontrolled tumble, but she did land at the feet of a large mercenary, who gave the soldier a startled, once-over glance before raising his sword to strike. Nephenee's lance was quite a bit quicker.
As she got to her feet – and the mercenary left his – she found that Boyd was right. This level was merely a walkway around the edge of the room, with choice relics of Begnion displayed around the walls. The wide space in the middle looked down onto the main gallery below, where even more palace treasures were held. And on the stairs that connected the two levels, a giant blue knight was being increasingly surrounded by hostile soldiers.
"This is the best you can do? This? Bah! I'll take you down with him, and then you're really going to start regretting it!" Gatrie bellowed, sweeping enemies aside easily with his lance. Actually keeping them down was turning out to be a lot harder, and if he had noticed Nephenee, he would have felt much better. Still, pure bravado demanded that he pick up a mage with one hand and fling him headfirst into a group of oncoming mercenaries.
"No one asked you," said one of the attackers, raising his bow. "Hold still and this won't hurt."
"This will," Nephenee stated, and floored him with the pommel of her lance.
"Oh, good," said Gatrie, catching sight of her as he smacked a myrmidon over the railing with his lance. "…How did you get in here? All the doors are locked."
"Duck!" Nephenee shouted across the room.
"You have a duck trained to pick locks?" Gatrie asked, and received a ringing hammer blow to the back of his helmet. However, the knight was harder to bring down than that, and he struck back with a reversed lance thrust before he could even speak clearly again. "Bbllooooddyy wwaarrrriioorrss. Ouch."
From his position on the stairs, Gatrie was a hard target to get to, and the crushing force he struck with was hardly an incentive to rush closer, so Nephenee quickly found herself the new centre of attention. Whatever reinforcements these soldiers had called for had now arrived, and there was at least a score of them closing in from all around the room. Being surrounded by no-doubt-priceless artefacts was only going to complicate things more.
The whole experience was like a dance, in Nephenee's mind. At this point, a kind person would remember that, being ridiculously shy, she had little experience with actual dancing, and would just go along with the metaphor. Besides which, there was something symphonic about the many crashes of metal, the rhythm of feet pounding on the marble floor. And Nephenee's one-arm lance-vault over the heads of three enemy soldiers was something most people would happily see every day.
She landed on the far side of the first wave, just as planned, but quickly found herself flanked by the second and third – not quite as planned. Dropping flat to the floor caused a sudden tangle of enemy weapons, giving her a few seconds to scramble out of the way, but when Nephenee rose to her feet and was faced with a row of gleaming axe edges, she had no escape. Fortunately…
"Duck?" she suggested, unable to help herself. The axefighter grinned. Boyd's weapon cut him down in a single cleave.
"Whatwhatwhat?" Boyd demanded, leaping into the midst of the enemy soldiers. "What's all this, then?"
"What?" one of them echoed.
"Good answer," he remarked, and laid the soldier out flat. "Gatrie, what've you got us into now?"
"These mercs are here to steal one of the holy relics of Begnion, probably to assassinate the Apostle and try to conquer the city, and they killed Sothe – I say we bury them in three graves each," Gatrie recited grimly. "You're welcome to join in."
"They killed Sothe?" Nephenee repeated, incredulous. "How did they – how did you – what was he doing?" Not waiting for an answer, Nephenee had at the nearest mercenaries with her lance, and Boyd was quick to follow.
"…Exactly what I asked him to," said Gatrie. "I heard the description given to their commander. Hey, where is that accursed–" On the far side of the hall, tall doors swung open to reveal a giant knight armoured in black and white. One clap of armoured gauntlets signalled to the mercenaries to break off their attack, retreating to block off the bottom of the stairs, in front of the new general.
"Allow me to cut you off just there," said the general. "There are rules of decorum in the palace, after all. As for the boy, I think you have to consider our perspective."
"Which is what, exactly?" Boyd demanded.
"That he was irrelevant and in the way. Much like all of you, but you're in luck; we don't need you dead." The helmet turned to regard the mercenary lieutenant. "The inner chambers are open – you know what to do. I'll handle these three."
And with that, to the heroes' astonishment, the entire platoon of mercenaries marched away in double-time, streaming through the open door and spreading out on the far side in a search pattern. The general approached the bottom of the stairs and drew a hammer in each hand. They knew a barricade when they saw it, and although Ike had named this tactic 'playing a round of You Shall Not Pass', he hadn't invented it.
Ever confident, Boyd was the first to rush the general, his axe carving the air in great sweeps. He struck overhand, the enemy matched it, and their weapons clattered together just long enough for Gatrie to shout a warning: "Uh, Boyd, that's the one who threw the huge vase at me…" Then even Boyd found his strength wasn't enough, as the general kept his axe locked high with one hand and lashed out low with the other, sending him flying up the steps.
"Right," Boyd groaned, clambering half-upright before staggering dizzily. "This is not ideal."
"It ain't my turn next, I can tell ya that much," Nephenee stated.
"Well, we'll need a battle plan fast," said Gatrie. "We can't let them have free rein of the reliquary. Whatever Sothe found out about their plans, apparently they thought it was worth…" He trailed off, looking as distant and thoughtful as anyone had ever known him to be. Gatrie wasn't a commander, wasn't used to sending people on missions that got them killed. Bravado would get him through this battle, but Boyd could already see that some part of him had already been utterly broken.
The fighter took control. "You don't mind if we take a couple of minutes to build makeshift catapults, do you?" he asked the enemy leader.
"By all means, continue your prattling," said the general, keeping up a good guarding stance. "You're only making my job easier. I was expecting warriors."
"Oh, that does it," said Boyd. In perfect silence, he and Gatrie held a four-second conversation concerning the stairs, the carpet, his axe, and the laws of physics, using only glances and facial muscles. The warrior nodded and sliced along an edge of one stair, freeing the fabric for Gatrie to take hold of. At the top, Nephenee caught onto their tactic and charged down the stairs, leaping at the last moment. With a sudden tug, Gatrie snapped the carpet up and it sprung tight just as the halberdier touched down, catapulting her in a high somersault over the waiting general.
"What in blazes?" Boyd followed Nephenee through the air before the general could even fully turn around, let alone strike her down, and then Gatrie lashed out from behind with a thrust that sent the mercenary leader sprawling. The lighter heroes sprinted for the door, but Gatrie stayed behind.
"Now, what I like best about this is how you were left here to keep us busy, but now I'm staying to keep you busy," he remarked. "Poetic, don't you think?" As the other general scrambled up, he reared back for a crushing slam.
"You wouldn't hit a girl, would you?" asked the enemy general, lifting away her helmet. Time slowed down by at least half as she shook out tresses of wheat-gold hair.
"Hmm… yeah, I probably would," Gatrie decided, and attacked.
"Drat," she remarked, parrying the thrust with one hand and ringing another hammer blow on his helmet with the other. "It was worth a shot."
Drawing herself up to her full, postured height, Lucia gave the attendant a grave look and wished that she had let Calill do the talking. It had taken most of the day just to find House Ceffylau, the city home of Astrid's family, and despite every attempt to look like people who deserved to be let inside, they were facing off against the most stubborn doorman either of them had ever met and not slain.
"I assure you, we are both on the guest list," Lucia stated.
"Be that as it may, madams have also arrived fractionally too early for the reception," said the doorman. His grey eyebrows were bushy enough to double as a blindfold.
"How early?"
"Fifty-one hours," he replied smoothly.
"I am a personal retainer to Queen Elincia of Crimea," said Lucia, "and I cannot believe I am being turned away from the home of a Begnion noble. Where, pray tell, would you expect me to stay, if not with the very family that invited me here?"
"Madam raises an excellent point that is hardly at all undermined by the quarters that the Apostle's palace is required by diplomatic law to provide for retainers to foreign dignitaries," said the doorman.
Lucia turned slightly to confer with Calill, waiting behind her. "Really?"
"Mm-hmm," the sage confirmed.
"Huh. I should read more memos," she remarked, frowning at empty space.
"Unless either one of madams has business with anyone within the building, I must request that–"
"Yes," Calill volunteered, raising a gloved hand. "I most certainly do." The doorman prompted her with a polite lift of his brow that almost made his eyes visible. "I require access to family documentation which I will then scour for any possible way in which the contract could possibly be considered illegal, non-binding, breakable, or in any way unlawful."
"You just used four words for two things," Lucia pointed out quietly.
"Stuff it," the sage advised with ventriloquistic stillness.
"Madam wishes to search for ways in which the betrothal may be annulled?" asked the doorman.
"Yes," said Calill, perfectly truthful and honest.
"And who requested that madam attempt this?"
"Lord Ceffylau," said Calill, uttering the most grandiose and underhanded lie Lucia had ever heard her form. "For reasons of security." Nevertheless, the doorman turned aside to hold the door open for them and bowed, practically averting his eyes as they passed. Lucia wasn't familiar with Begnion's lawbringers or any reputations they had, but it could only help that Calill's colour co-ordination made her look like a highly poisonous amphibian even at the best of times.
"We'd better avoid being seen," Lucia advised, trying not to stare – the house wasn't as luxurious as Crimea's palace prior to the war, but it was only one house on the street. "If we had thought ahead we could have worn all-white dresses and hidden among the marble statues whenever anyone passed. Of course, in this house, standing still and wearing white may be enough to accidentally get engaged."
"Why shouldn't we be seen?" asked Calill. "We're allowed to be here."
"We got inside. That's not the same thing."
"Let me assure you, Lucia, no real Begnion noble can imagine a difference."
"That makes no sense," the swordmaster decided.
"It's complex, all right," Calill remarked. "Now, we've been here for thirty seconds and I'm already bored with their hopelessly stuffy bourgeois decorating scheme. Let's break into the private records archive and change everyone's birthdays."
"Yes to the first part, no to the second," said Lucia. "We need to find out how people have gotten out of betrothals before, and the family archives ought to have all those precedents written down somewhere, if we can just find–"
"Bored again," Calill announced, striding away. "Let's stop by the kitchens first."
With hammers and lance ringing out behind them, Boyd and Nephenee rushed into the inner reliquary. It was full of exactly the sorts of objects anyone would expect; what Begnion nobles would refer to as 'historical artefacts and masterpieces beyond valuation' and what soldiers like them would call 'priceless old junk'. It was so cluttered with tarnished riches, in fact, that they couldn't see even the slightest hint of the scattered mercenaries, though plenty of metal was clattering somewhere nearby.
"Did Gatrie say what they were looking for?" asked Boyd.
"I doubt he was ever knowin'," Nephenee replied.
The warrior regarded another massive vase, exactly like the one flung through the window a few minutes earlier. "At least if they're all this big, it'll be easy to spot what they're trying to haul out. …What's this made of, anyway? The coating is really shiny." Boyd quickly checked his hair in the ridiculously warped reflection shown on the relic's pale gold midsection. Ridiculously spiky and out of control, just as he had styled it in the morning. Good. In the distance of the mirror image, his only warning was a brief flash of light.
Boyd and Nephenee both ducked as the enemy mage's fireball rocketed in, and both braced themselves for the shower of searing-hot shrapnel that would result from the vase's explosive demise, but none came. Instead the gleaming band pulsed with faint light and the fireball bounced away, where it splashed apart on a gong of similar metal.
"Hey, enchanted electrum," Boyd noted, tapping the shining vase with a fingernail. "Silver-gold alloy. Practically indestructible, and it repels magic. Nephenee, check this out when you're done."
She thumped the attacking mage for the fifth time. He was definitely not going to attack them again, nor speak coherently for a few days. "Job to do, y'remember? Sothe dead?"
"Oh, goddess, right," Boyd said, cursing his attention span. "Let's keep an eye out for more ambushes." The two wove among ancient treasures of the holy empire warily. Unable to catch sight of any of the mercenaries in this room, they made for the next door – even sealed inner chambers had sealed inner chambers, in Begnion – and found that it led into a corridor lined with a score of suits of armor, all decorated with the same magical electrum.
They shared a glance that spoke volumes. It took no imagination at all to realise that one of the hollow knights was newly inhabited, and would wait until they passed to leap out and stab them in the back. Unfortunately, the plate mail was thorough enough in covering gaps that they couldn't tell which was the ambusher from afar.
Without much of a break in pace, the soldiers made their way along the corridor, listening for telltale breathing or a creak of old metal in disrepair. Nothing happened. Wondering how any worthwhile mercenary band could miss on obvious trick like this, they were more than halfway through when Nephenee caught one helmet's nervous twitch. Her lance was up in a half-second.
"No trouble, no tricks, and maybe there won't by any stabbin'," she warned.
With that, every suit of armor in the hall stepped off their posts, and an absolute thicket of spears rose around Boyd and Nephenee, their points obviously newer and better-maintained than their borrowed plate mail. "Your terms of surrender are accepted."
"I hate the ones that cheat," Boyd remarked.
Books were piling in front of Calill at an alarming rate, delivered by Lucia as she vanished into the shelves like a hunting hound into a forest, returned with an armload of dull ancient tomes, spilled them across the table, and took off again. If she were the one on reading duty, as Calill was, the sage expected her friend would not be nearly so eager to grab every likely book. As it was, she might have been piling wood for a winter's worth of bonfires.
"How fast do you imagine I can read?" Calill protested.
"You're the scholarly one," said Lucia. "Besides, you're always talking about books improving your mind. You love to read."
"About ways to channel the primal elemental forces of the world into a fist of retribution with which to smite my enemies, yes. But these are pure boredom compressed into page-shaped wedges and then written all over. And not one of them has anything useful to say." She flipped another kite-sized page.
"No references to betrothals at all?" The swordmaster frowned. "But I've specifically been picking out–"
"They're filled with betrothals, but they all went through, Lucia. People don't get out of these things. They're legal contracts applied to nobility with no backbone. What do you expect?"
"I expect people to stand up for themselves once in a while," Lucia fumed. "You there!"
"Me?" Calill asked, startled. Lucia gave a brief, grim nod over the sage's shoulder, to a young man who had just entered the room. From his looks, he was probably a visiting cousin or a new servant on the fast-track to Head Usher and mastery over all employeekind, but either way he was right freaked at being caught in Lucia's fierce gaze.
"How would you feel if you were suddenly told you were supposed to marry a strange woman you'd never met before in your life, just because your parents had got together and decided it was a good idea? An entire, vital part of your life set down in front of you whether you like it or not? Hmm?" Lucia prompted him, arms folded in a way that demanded a response lest his personal honor be stripped away.
"Lucia," said Calill, "he's a man."
The swordmaster fumbled for only a second. "…Also imagine that you're in a completely matriarchal Amazonian society."
"I'd bet he spends a fair chunk of the day imagining that anyway," Calill muttered.
"I suppose I'd be… uncertain of whether I wanted to or not," said the young man.
"Exactly!" Lucia agreed. "You'd want to make that decision for yourself!"
"Yes…" he agreed.
"You'd want your choice and your freedom left alone."
"Yes."
"You would want the power to shape your own destiny!" Lucia declared.
"Yes!"
"Fletcher?" called Astrid, leaning into the room with a confused expression.
"Astrid?" Lucia said, startled.
"Lucia? Calill?" Astrid blurted.
"Fletcher?" Calill enquired.
"Future Lord Sagita," Astrid corrected her.
"Lord Sagita?" the sage and swordmaster repeated as one.
"Well, I think that just about covers it," said Fletcher, taking Astrid's hand. To the sound of Lucia and Calill's jaws slamming to the floor, Astrid shared a smile with Fletcher-Future-Lord-Sagita and tugged his hand closer to her. "These are friends of yours, Astrid?"
"…Yes," the former paladin decided, increasing the awkwardness for both the other women by a factor of several thousand. "We fought alongside each other in the war with Daein, almost a year ago."
"Well, it would seem that arranged marriages are the trend of the week; they're both here researching the whole history of them in Begnion," said Fletcher. He smiled warmly at Calill. "Let me guess, you're the lucky bride. No, wait…" His finger shifted to Lucia. "You are. You seem properly flustered about the whole topic."
"I doubt it," said Astrid with a laugh. "Lucia is one of the retainers to Queen Elincia, and beyond deadly with a good sword – no one could arrange her into anything she didn't want."
"The same could be said of you," Fletcher pointed out, turning a little toward Astrid, who smiled again. She was doing a lot of that.
"You might be right," she admitted.
Around this point, Lucia tried to speak, failed, remembered that she eventually needed to breathe in, and managed to get out "It's a surprise to see you again." And not trying to slay your arranged fiancé. What in blazes?
Astrid laughed. "Everything's been a surprise all day," she agreed. "Fletcher just got here this morning, and – well, I can honestly say I haven't had a day this good since I returned home."
"That's… that's great," Lucia said. Please oh please do not ask why we're looking up information on betrothals…
"It is," Astrid agreed. "I have to admit that deep down I'm leagues beyond confused now, but we've just been having such a good time I haven't even had time to think about it." She laughed again. "Now, where were you rushing off to, Fletcher?"
"Nowhere important," he assured her. "But if you wanted to stay here and catch up with your friends, I don't mind waiting."
"Oh…" Astrid looked between the three of them. "Lucia, Calill, you can make it back here tomorrow, can't you? I would like a chance to talk before the…" She looked at Fletcher and paused. "Well, assuming there will be a…" Back to Lucia. "Tomorrow, yes?"
"We'd be glad to," said Lucia in the bland monotone of a concussion victim.
"Wonderful," she declared with feeling, and the two of them swept out of the room again, murmuring to each other and laughing continuously.
Lucia and Calill sat in silence for what felt like an hour. The sage's gaze still hadn't left the door, and Lucia knew with increasing certainty that she was going to have to make a tremendous sacrifice – probably a day at a spa and a stylish shopping spree – if she was ever going to earn Calill's forgiveness. Still, she couldn't say nothing…
"Well," she began after another silent eternity, "Astrid is certainly doing better than anyone would have expected. And this Fletcher… well." She was overusing 'well'. This was not a state of mind she was used to. Pull yourself together, Lucia. "Although the whole practice is outmoded and insulting, I suppose there isn't much point in risking trouble over something they decide they want anyway." She waited and braced herself for icy sarcasm.
Calill looked at Lucia as though she had only just remembered the swordmaster was there. "The man is scum and he has to be stopped."
They stared at each other for another month. "…You really are insane, aren't you?"