Chapter Four: At a Mortal War

Tours, France

Arthur Catalonia walked into Saint Gatien's Cathedral; his quick foot falls echoing across the marble tiles which covered the floor of the Romanesque building. Father Chapuys had greeted him at the door as per usual. The old man was too friendly for his own good sometimes though he well made up for it when it came to his fiery preachings about the evils of the ongoing war they all now found themselves in.

The vertical panels of the colored stained glass stretching around the perimeter of the walls and over the pulpit cast a bluish hue over the stones of the floor and the empty wooden pews facing the alter.

Mass would be held in an hour, but as per usual Arthur would not be in attendance.

He was stretching it as it was, taking time he didn't have to drive into Tours just for fifteen minutes of prayer, but this place was sacred to him for another non-religious reason.

During the earlier years of subsequent conflict leading up to the war they were now in, Arthur's father, the late General Leonardo Catalonia, had grown up in Tours and had been a member of this congregation. While he was away fighting in the army on one of his first assignments, the Cathedral was bombed along with many strategic points in the city in which many civilian casualties were taken including Leonardo's father. Years later, after he had received his promotion to General, he left the army briefly to assist in the rebuilding of the historic Cathedral which was now fully restored to its original splendor.

Arthur slid into the pew closest the front of the massive church, and pulled down the kneeler before bending on both knees over it. In full military uniform, he didn't feel like the sort of man who should be at prayer now, more like the kind meant to hold a permanent seat in a confession booth with one hand glued to his hip holster, but he tried to push those feelings aside as he leaned forward and folded his hands under his chin.

As he began mechanically reciting the Our Father, his thoughts wandered back to his early life spent in this town, in this church. His late mother had been the daughter of one of his father's superiors, a man who had raised his children to know what the life a soldier meant for his home and family and as such, Arthur's mother had known full well what she was getting and also what was expected of her in going from a soldier's daughter to a soldier's wife.

And she had become the very best at what she did.

Whereas her husband's life had entailed fighting and winning battles in faraway nations, Helena Catalonia's life had revolved around her children and she would have had it no other way. She relished getting them up and ready for school in the morning, disciplining them when they went against the virtues she was teaching them, and playing with them when they needed a fourth for football. She had been a strong woman and their rock throughout the whole of their childhoods.

There had originally been five children, all sons, born to Leonardo and Helena Catalonia, but only three had survived into adulthood: Ferdinand, Arthur, and their youngest brother Victor who was not yet a full soldier. The other two had died young: Edmund, the eldest, had only lived five years. In personality, he was by far the meekest and most content of all of them to lead the life that they lived. He was always sickly and was often confined mostly to his bed due to doctor's orders and though it had irked him that he was never healthy enough to run and play with his brother's, he enjoyed being the subject of their mother's doting. However, in AC 154, when their mother was pregnant with Arthur, Edmund took horribly ill with a tough strain of pneumonia and had succumbed to it.

Gerard, the second eldest son, was born two years before Edmund's death and had outlived him by five years. Arthur's memories of him were fuzzy as he was very young when he had died, but he remembered him as an aggressive child who liked to wrestle and play football. There mother was always sitting him in a corner for something he'd done and he would usually be made to sit out games after he had lost his temper with a teammate or one of his brothers. After a particularly horrible outburst in which two other children were injured (one with a broken wrist, the other with a crushed nose), their mother had been forced to pull Gerard from school and had sent him to stay temporarily with her mother's family in a neighboring town. However, Gerard and their grandmother had died when the town came under heavy crossfire from an uprising between the military troops stationed there and members of the town's militia who did not agree with military policy.

Arthur had been twelve years old when both of his parents had died, his father from complications from an old war wound and his mother from lung cancer. And considering their family's losses, the three surviving brothers had joined the Alliance military and let it become their new family just as the regional military had been for their father before them.

It often disturbed Arthur how many of the people in his family history had grown up without their parents because they had died young. It was a family lineage of violence that predated even their family name. The Catalonia family was so named because they had originated in the foothills of the Principality of Catalonia in former Spain six hundred years ago. They had been called La Guardia then and they were the ruling ducal family of Barcelona until they were murdered by the rival family who pushed them out of power. All but one child was killed, Verdun La Guardia who would take on the surname Catalonia and come back for revenge. The Catalonia family had never regained its dukedom, but it had reinvented itself through military prestige and since then every Catalonia man had been a soldier of some kind.

Arthur and his brothers were no exception and their children probably wouldn't be either, though Arthur hoped for a different life for Dorothy.

She would be a beauty like her mother, no doubt, and war, on any level, didn't suit the truly beautiful.

He had the same hope for Ferdinand's children, but at heart, Arthur was more worried about Dorothy for the war was a much more threatening reality for her as she was connected to the Alliance through him and to the rest of the warring factions through the Romafeller Foundation and its leader, the Duke Dermail. War was much closer to corrupting her future in a drastic way than any of their own. Arthur and soldiers like him had made their beds with war and they were prepared to lie in them, but what about their children? Should they inherit the consequences of the generation who had come before them or who had raised them?

Arthur had.

He and his brothers had inherited their father's military legacy plus that of their entire family and had advanced it to a new paradigm. Arthur knew Ferdinand didn't want their history to repeat itself in the lives of his Michael and Maria just as Arthur wouldn't have it be so for his daughter, but could anything be done about it or was it just a continuous vicious cycle no matter what?

As he knelt there, bent over the back of the pew in front of him, Arthur prayed to God that such a thing was only a figure of his imagination.

Making the sign of the cross over himself, Arthur rose from his kneeling position and slumped back into the pew behind him as the last whispered pleas of prayers left his lips. Oh, what a hardship was made of war. In truth, he had to admit that he had only really begun to get used to having home cooked meals and hot showers during his short four months of leave from the Balkan front before being ordered back to the main European Theatre.

As always, Christina had been reluctant to see him go while his father-in-law had been far too overjoyed, even going so far as to call in a limo, which Arthur smartly declined, to take him to the base in Tours instead of the armored car which had been sent for him.

The blasted, old man was one needle in a haystack short of being an actual human being.

Though Arthur knew nothing of the Duke Dermail's previous military record, he was inclined to believe that the Duke had never seen combat, at least not firsthand. It was a common practice for the privileged sons of Romafeller's aristocratic leaders to join the military and Michael Dermail had been no exception to that rule. He had enlisted at eighteen, but as the only surviving son of the previous Duke Dermail, Emmanuel, and his wife the youngest Grand Duchess of Navarre, it was probably arranged that Michael would never set foot on a battlefield in person before he even set foot on the loading dock.

Too many influential leaders had lost their lives in the past to incomplete skirmishes fanciful personal duels and it was almost inconceivable that Romafeller should lose its future by losing its sons. It was an understood distinction within Romafeller and it was also a distinction that a Catalonia could not afford. They were and had always been front line soldiers. It was a known fact that a Catalonia man had died in every war since the family had been driven out of Barcelona and that so long as wars existed, there would be a Catalonia fighting in them.

Arthur took at deep breath, barely flinching as a barrage of machine gun fire echoed faintly through the church's stone walls, a testament to the fighting taking place between Alliance troops and the local faction of rebels in the nearby hills. Every so often the constant sound was interrupted by a short burst of silence or punctuated by a blast or two of artillery fire creating the concert ensemble of everyday war each side had become accustomed to over the past few years.

The first assaults always began with the advance of light infantry, tanks, and heavy artillery and ended quickly, for the most part, when mobile suit troops were deployed. Being a rather new weapon currently unmatched by anything else in the field, the mobile suit and the side that had them tended to decide the outcome of ground battles and at the moment, the Alliance military was on the up and up when it came to this particular tactical advantage.

Because of Romafeller's financial backing, the Alliance military had been able to build a few complete battalions mainly consisting of mobile suits and heavy artillery, but this was an expensive venue even for the aristocrats to keep up and so the majority of their units remained composed primarily of infantry. Though the strategic advantage of the mobile suit was still there for them to exploit, it was minimal at best. Until Dermail and his rich buffoon colleagues started forking over their entire fortunes and fitted the men of every platoon with their own mobile suits the military would be a shadow of what it could be, but Arthur didn't care.

The Bureaucrats and their petty squabbles weren't part of his job.

The fighting was all he had to concern himself with and all he would concern himself with. He had to keep fighting, keep winning battles so that one day they could end. It was the only real objective Arthur had and would ever have in the war.

Time in the massive cathedral passed and the sounds of the continuing battle were so commonplace to him that Arthur was able to pick out the creaking of hinges behind him though he did not turn to regard who had entered through the archaic carved doors. If it was an enemy, mercy be damned, he was through fighting in a war he had no stake in and which he did not believe in. If they were going to kill him, so much the better.

It was about time anyway.

But the footsteps were quick, not slow and calculated, but unsuspicious. The verbal beginnings of the sound began at the worn heel of a boot and sung through the old muddied leather, only echoing once the toe had laid flat against the ground and lifted up from it for another step. He sat and listened as the orchestrative process repeated itself over and over again as the unknown stranger advanced towards him.

It was the thudding sound of a soldier's boot, probably one of his staff officers.

Arthur leaned his head back against the hand rest of the pew behind him, relaxing his shoulders as he stared up at the cloistered ceiling. The trek from the doors to the front of the church was relatively short if the person walking it moved quickly, but even so, the short time lapse still gave Arthur a few short moments to himself and he made good work of them.

Staring up at the high stone arches that began in the middle like a parachute and branched out on four sides like a warped letter 'X', Arthur couldn't help thinking about the last few months spent on leave with his family. He had seen so little of them in the past year between individual assignments and deployments of his battalion to remote regions of the globe he didn't even want to think about anymore. The simple fact of the matter was that the Alliance military had lost a great deal of their major commanding officers to petty clashes and full scale engagements and it had become HQ's excuse for keeping Arthur and his fellow generals constantly at the front.

Arthur was a man of action. He didn't enjoy fighting in battles, no one man did, but he was not a man who could be put behind a desk and do any substantial good. He had to be engaged in something so that he could throw his whole self into it and his superiors could reap the rewards. It was the way it had always been and Arthur wouldn't have it any other way at all. As much as he missed his family, he very much doubted that he would be able to stay at home very long without getting restless for the thrill of combat again. He was what he was, there was no remedy for it.

However, even if this was true, Arthur was also a family man.

He loved his wife, passionately, honored her wishes and cares, and adored his small daughter who, gratefully, was so unlike himself. And he was proud of her. She was only three years old and already she knew what direction to go on the fork in the road before they reached the chateau and if you went the wrong way, she would tell you. She was very opinionated, his little girl, just like her mother in so many ways, though some of her physical traits took after him. Her eyes were his eyes. Her hair was his hair, but Dorothy's features were otherwise her mothers and aside from the defining blonde hair color, the two were almost identical in childhood photos taken of both at the same age.

She was very much her mother's daughter and Arthur was appreciative of that fact. He didn't want his only child growing up to be anything like him, to turn into the warmongering monster that he was. He was a soldier, for better or for worse, and he took the lives of other human beings on any given day of work. He killed so that he did not have to be killed himself and he would do anything to ensure that she would never have to see the things he saw everyday. But his child was not like him. She was kind and loving and talkative just like her mother was.

His dear Christina.

Now there was a very great lady and one he would do anything to protect. She was many things, his wife: she was a beauty without a match in this life with long soft ebony hair that flowed over her shoulders and deep contemplative blue eyes that made the oceans of the world appear shallow in comparison. She was a diplomat, a lover, an artist with an untamed heart, and a fighter right up until the bitter end. Her passionate, stubborn, and introspective spirit was what had captivated him and had set her above all other women in his eyes. There was no one else in this world that he esteemed higher than his wife, no one he would do anything for like he would her, not even for Ferdinand or his little girl.

He admitted it freely.

It was her he missed the most when he was away at the front and also who he worried for the most during his long absences. It was not easy to be the Duke Dermail's daughter and even more difficult was it to live in that house where the walls hemmed in the freest of souls until they caved in on themselves. Christina was a strong woman, the strongest Arthur knew of and not even he would cross her on most things, but he was not sure she would be able to withstand the weight of the pressure her father exerted upon her in all things. She was Dermail's daughter, his only surviving child after three miscarried sons, and therefore his family's only heir and what had she gone and done to him? She had married a Catalonia, a lowly soldier who's family had lost all title and ennoblement hundreds of years earlier. She had defied her father to marry him and Arthur was sure the Duke would never forget it.

Every time the two crossed paths, the Duke was always crass and short with him and there was no mistaking the loathing in the old man's eyes. Every time, Arthur left for the battlefield the Duke would smile a rare smile, just for him, and he was sure it was a silent wish for his demise in combat just so his daughter, the last of his proud bloodline, could remarry properly and they could erase the blemish of the Catalonia name on their beloved family tree. And that was not all. The old man had not given up yet. Just because his daughter was already married, didn't mean she had to stay that way.

Quite often, Christina would mention moments in her letters to him where her father had introduced her to some fellow official's son and had suggested that the two take a walk and spend some "personal" time getting to know one another. However, his wife was just as stubborn as her father and if he was going to play unfairly, she was going to play at his level and so she often made fiascos of his arrangements with the men he picked out for her.

Christina was many things, but she was not defenseless nor was she a push over. She fought back, always, and quite often she won.

His dear Christina.

She worried so much for Arthur's well being because of all of the small mercies she had come upon in her entire life, he was the only one that mattered to her, her saving grace.

She was a kind and loving woman, but by no means was she simply that. She had a spirited side to her that no woman alive could match and God have mercy on the man who thought he could tame her. Arthur certainly couldn't, nor did he want to, he wasn't brave or stupid enough.

There was no sympathy, no understanding for the love she bore him in that house of binding walls and constant unwelcome pressure, none from her parents and thanks to the absolute power her father wielded as the patriarch of the family, no support came from her extended family or the other young ladies of the foundation either. There were no friends for her to lean on, none she could trust that were not under her father's influence, really. She was a scion of strength onto herself and only onto herself could she rely for the fortitude to endure in the small, small world hemmed in by the foundation's high and lofty fortifications.

The graceful lady locked in the tower without a key, that's what she was, and the tower was burning…

"General."

Arthur closed his eyes, knowing that his time of quiet contemplation was finally up. "What is it, Lieutenant Grafton?"

The other man must have been surprised that his boss could tell his identity without even looking back at him once for there was a measured pause before he spoke again.

"What isn't it you mean, don't you, sir? Colonel Banzhaf and his troops are coming down into the city from the fighting in the countryside and they are requesting medical and martial aid. It appears the local faction they have been fighting in the forests has been all but wiped out. However, the Colonel requests your help in tracking down and annihilating the survivors as an example to the civilians living here just so they don't get any more rebellious ideas. Doesn't that beat everything?"

Arthur rubbed at his eyes and tipped his head forward. "He's no better than Septum chasing civilian shuttles and looting resource satellites in space. Tell him we will send transport vehicles for him to start bringing his wounded into the city and alert the third and first mobile suit companies to prepare themselves. We have a lot of work ahead of us."

"Yes, sir."

"And Louis?"

"Yes, General?"

"When was the last time you were issued new boots?"

Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war

How to divide the conquest of thy sight.

Mine eyes my heart thy picture's sight would bar,

My heart mine eye the freedom of that right.

My heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie,

A closet never pierced with crystal eyes;

But the defendant doth that plea deny,

And says in him thy fair appearance lies.

To cide this title is impaneled

A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart,

And by their verdict is determined

The clear eyes' moiety and the dear heart's part.

As thus: mine eyes' due is thy outward part,

And my heart's right, thy inward love of heart.

-William Shakespeare-

(1564 – 1616)