Chapter 9
In His Flight
The silence was thick as Louise coldly looked at the crowd, expecting the answer to her command. Paul saw one of the few seated man stand up. He was an elegantly dressed blonde, too similar too Guiche to be anybody but his father. Shit.
"Shut up!" He screamed, and every head in the hall turned towards him. Paul saw Karin´s eyes narrow. "Shut up! I don´t care! He killed my son, so I kill him!"
And then he drew his sword. The nobles close to him gave him a wide berth and some of them even backed away for him as must as they could, but nobody tried to stop him. Karin stood up for her sheath, and pointed her wand at General Gramont.
"Stop!" She screamed, and Gramont turned towards her, brandishing a wand on his other hand. They stared at each other in silence.
"Stop! Stop! Both of you!" Henrietta screamed. Gramont was still aiming at her, but Karin let her wand drop to the ground just like that. Gramont´s wand shook in his hand, and for a moment Paul thought he was going to try to kill Karin anyway, but he too dropped his wand. They both turned to look at Henrietta, as she approached Louise. "I just have to say one thing on this matter: it's true. This young man carries the Gandalf runes, and that makes Louise Valliére a Void Mage, like she says. And, like she said, she is the one that burned down Albion´s fleet, the only reason we survived on that day and we remain free. I am just a… powerless queen. So… So…"
She turned to face Louise, and knelled in front of her while the crowd looked on, utterly speechless.
"My only right to the crowd is the right the royal families were given by Founder Brimir, so I am not giving anything, just returning it." Henrietta said, took off the crown for head and presented it to Louise. She took it, and put in on her own head. It didn´t quite fit her, but nobody could have dared to laugh at this point.
A new Queen had been crowed.
When the hall had been cleared out of nobles, Louise sent the soldiers away. Then, she moved impassibly under the stares of all three of them, and picked out Henrietta´s staff. She was in a simply dress, but still she looked every bit the queen she now was.
"Why did you do that, Henrietta?" The old man called out to the former queen. Louise looked at him for the corner of her eye, but didn´t nothing more. "This… This is just…"
"Wrong? No, Cardinal, it was the only thing I could do. I… I nearly got this young man killed, and you expected me to bear Louise´s death in my conscience too?" Henrietta effusively shook her head. "No. No. I did the right thing."
The Cardinal sighed.
"Romalia is not going to like this."
"They will." Louise butted it, and the Cardinal narrowed his eyes at her. "What I said is true, and Headmaster Osmond, Professor Colbert and Henrietta will butch for me. There are enough details that me being a Void Mage is undeniable, so Romalia will end up accepting it."
"True? You…"
"Shut up, Mazarin." Louise cut him off. "I read it straight for the Founder´s Prayer Book. Even Henrietta is telling you that I said the truth. Who are you to deny the word of Founder Brimir? ? Who are you to deny even a former queen´s word?"
"Anybody can be deceived, even a queen. And I don´t trust you, at all."
"Cardinal!" Henrietta said. "Stop! I gave her my crown willingly. You shall serve her like you served me."
"Is fine, Henrietta" Louise said. "This is my kingdom now, and he will have to deal with it. Like everybody else."
She tapped the staff on the ground, like a cane, and walked away. Paul looked back once, and then followed her in silence. In a few minutes, Louise stopped in front of a big, wooden door and opened it with her free hand. It was Henrietta´s chambers-a giant bed out of the side, purple curtains on the window of the balcony and several pictures with golden frames hanging for the walls. Louise signed, put the staff on the top of a desk and sat on the other side of the bed, her back facing towards him and looked through the window. Paul approached her.
"Why… Why did you do that?"
"It was my only option. They couldn´t have listened to me otherwise."
"No, no, it didn´t mean that. Just… you could have just stayed quiet, let them kill me, get another familiar and not get into anything more complicated… and you saved me anyway. Why?"
"You are my familiar, my responsibility. I can´t let you die."
"Responsibility can´t possibly be worth that much."
"Fine." She said after a moment, and sighed. "I-I don´t dislike you. You supported me when it mattered, so I couldn´t just let you die." Then, bitterly: "Are you happy now?"
"Sorry. I shouldn´t have asked."
"Master."
"What?"
"Call me master."
"…Sorry, master."
"Don't worry about it." She took off her shoes, and curled herself into a ball. "You know, I didn´t plan to do anything at first. All through Mazarin´s speech I expected Henrietta to interrupt him, to send you to prison instead of letting them execute you. I waited for it, the soldier raised his sword above your head… and she didn´t do anything. That´s when I understood that I was the only one willing to save you; that my childhood friend could allow that something like that happen right before her eyes. I fell empty, just empty; first Wardes, and now her. I… I don´t know who I can trust anymore."
"You can trust me, Master." Paul said, and Louise looked up to him in surprise. "I will not leave, nor betray you. I am your familiar."
"I…" She looked away, blushing slightly. "Thank you. A-anyway, make sure to get a good rest. Tomorrow, we are heading to the town square. I want to… present myself. "
"Yes, master." He said, and walked away towards his little corner.
"What are you doing?" Paul stopped.
"I was going to sleep for a bit, master."
"This bed is big enough for both of us, familiar." For a moment, he couldn´t believe what she had said. Not because he had imagined anything weird, but because he had thought that she was still, deep down, afraid of him.
"Are… Are you sure, master?"
"Yes." Louise stirred. "But it will be just for today, so don´t get any ideas. I will make them get you your own bed as soon as possible."
"Understood, master." He said, got into the bed, turned away for Louise and closed his eyes. He heard her covering herself with the blankets, and fell her back press against his. She was trembling. Ah, so that´s why. She was afraid of the possible repercussions of what she did, despite what she had so brazenly told Marazin and how she acted until now.
She really was more fragile that she looked.
When he waked up in the morning, Louise was already awake, fully dressed and her staff in hand. They went out of the palace, and at the entrance the same carriage Henrietta had used in the familiar exhibition was waiting for them, two soldiers on each side of it. They got inside, and rode to the town square. A crowd was there, just in front of a pulpit. Louise got out the carriage and to the pulpit, while the crowd looked on, and Paul and the soldiers followed her.
"My name is Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière, a Void Mage and as of now I am your new Queen." Silence was the only response. She gestured towards him. "This person here is the Gandálfr, the left hand of Founder Brimir himself and my partner. You may have some misgivings, but this is how it is and this is how it will remain."
"Lies!" Somebody screamed. Paul stiffened, put a hand behind his back, and searched for the voice, but it was lost in the crowd.
"The former Queen, Henrieta herself knelled to me and gave me her crown. She can butch that what I say is the truth, as can Osmond, the head master of the Tristainian Academy of Magic. Think what you want, but truth prevails." She swept her gaze through the crowd. "Now, I understand that the commoners here don´t really care about any of this. It doesn´t matter who holds the crown, when you struggle to survive every day, anyway. You think that´s never going to change, but it will. A Valliére has assumed the throne, so everybody will be treated like they deserve. No more ignoring the laws just because nobles are nobles. Justice will be made."
The people looked uneasily between each other, like they couldn´t believe it. And they really couldn´t-the nobles were born in power, and the majority of commoners were treated far worse than him. He still remembered how Guiche had hit that maid, in the middle of a courtyard packed with students, and they did not even try to stop him. It was how just how the world was.
For the corner of his eye, Paul saw a man making his way through the crown. He waited, eyes narrowed, preparing to draw Derflinger and dealt with him if he did anything stupid. That man suddenly stopped, and lifted his hand. The cold metal of a gun gleamed in the sun. Paul opened his mouth to scream a warning, but it was drowned out by the shot. He watched, paralyzed, as the bullet hit Louise on the gut. She put a hand on her stomach, which was soon stained by the blood flowing for the wound. He was dimly aware of the screams, and the fight that had broken out in the crowd. Louise staggered forward, and fell out of the pulpit. She hit the ground with a crouching noise.
Paul unsheathed Derflinger, and jumped out of the pulpit. When he landed, his knees popped like firecrackers. He knelled beside Louise, and picked her up. The wound didn´t seem bad, but he didn´t knew anything about that so his opinion didn´t matter anyway. He had to get her out of there, fast. Something hit in on the back of his head, and he flinched. The crowd had started to throw rocks and dirt and anything they could find at each other. Two of the soldiers went past him to stop the fighting, and the other two followed him into the carriage. He settled Louise down on the backseat, and pressed her hand down to reduce the blood flow as they rode for the palace.
When the carriage came to a stop in front of the palace, Paul picked Louise up again and kicked the door open. They hurried inside, and he screamed that the queen had been shot, that they needed a water mage until his throat felt raw. A man with bright, yellow hair and a simple white shirt came for around the corner, looked at Louise once, and nodded. He said he was a water mage, and together they went to Louise´s chambers. Paul sent her down on the bed. The man looked at her, grimaced and waved his wand around, muttering a spell.
In the middle of his chant, there was a loud bang. Paul looked back, and saw Henrietta, pale and breathing raggedly. She looked at Louise, at covered her hands with her mouth, her eyes moistening.
"Is she…" She whispered, her voice nearly breaking. "Is she going to be all right, Edwin?"
Edwin finished his chant, then:
"Yes. The musket ball didn´t hit anything important, and stopping the bleeding is not an issue. If they had taken too much time in getting here, it could have been different, but they were fast. So relax, your ma… miss. She is going to be all right." He signed. "Now, please, let me work."
"Ah, yes. Sorry." Edwin took a flask of purplish liquid for the pocket of his shirt, and opened it. It filled the room with a disgusting stench, but he didn´t even seem to notice it.
"All right, I am not going to lie: this is going to hurt. But you have to deal with it; is not going to last long." Louise sent him a hazy look, and nodded. Then, Edwin poured the liquid right in her wound. Louise try to hold it back, but she screamed at the top of her lungs, writhing in pain. Paul grimaced, and looked away. It was already hard to watch, but knowing that she was there, laying on the bed, feeling the heat and the pain was only because she had save him made it unbearable. He turned his head around when the scream stopped.
She was gasping, beats of sweat running down her face, but she was not moving. The bleeding had stopped. Her dress just had dark patches, and when he looked towards the water mage he saw that he had a napkin stained with blood on his other hand
"I am done here." He said and put the bottle of liquid back on his pocket. "I wait an hour or so here, just to see if she worsens, but is highly unlikely."
Then, he sat down on a nearby chair, and they all waited together.
An hour later, Louise wound had closed and nothing else happened. Paul let out a deep breath; she was going to live through his, all right. Edwin stood up, nodded to her, then to Henrietta and left the room, and the two soldiers followed suit, leaving all three of them in an awkward silence.
"Louise?" Henrietta said. "I am sorry."
"What for?"
"For this. Is my fault it happened. If I hadn´t…"
"If you hadn´t not given me the crown, I would be dead, as well as my familiar. This is not your fault."
"No, I didn´t mean that. If… If I acted differently, if I didn´t bend because of Mazarin and the other nobles, if I had chosen to be a good friend instead of a ruler, this couldn´t not have happened to you."
"Yeah, well." Louise sneered. "Too late for that."
Henrietta fidgeted.
"You have to understand, Louise. I had to be a good ruler, for my mother and my father. And I feared the backlash, not only for me but for Tristain, that could happen if I didn´t listen. I never wanted to do it, but I had to."
"It was your responsibility, I know that. You think I don´t know that?" Louise sighed. "Look… You had to do it, and I had to do what I did. Let´s leave it at that."
"…Okay." Henrietta said. "How are you feeling?"
"I am fine, actually. Is just a dull throbbing now. It doesn´t even hurt that much."
"Oh. That's good, that's really good." She stood up. "I will leave now. Just... call me if you need anything at all, okay?"
"Okay." Louise said, and nodded. Henrietta stood up, smiling weakly, and left the room. When Paul stopped hearing her footsteps, Louise picked up the pillow and threw it. He watched it spin twice over his head, and crash into an expensive looking basin. It wobbled, and fell to the ground, breaking. It sounded as loud as a gunshot.
Paul stared at her. She leaned back down on the bed, and breathed in and out, trying to calm herself down.
"Sorry." She said, breathlessly. "Please, call somebody for the cleaning staff to pick up the pieces. Or do it yourself, whatever. Just make sure that it gets cleaned up."
"Understood, master." He said, left the room, looking for a maid or a butler. He found one butler idly cleaning the dust for a desk, after three or four corridors, talked to him and together they went back to Louise´s chambers. The butler swiped the shards of the basin, put them all in a box and went out to throw the pieces on the trash and go back to his job. Paul sat again on the chair. Sometime later, he noticed that Louise had fallen sleep. An hour or so more, and he himself dozed off on his seat.
The man that had shot Louise was executed the next day, at dawn, in the same hall that Paul had nearly died in. He was there to see him, at Louise´s side. Mazarin made the speech, and one of the soldiers beheaded him. The head fell and rolled on the ground, spreading a trail of blood over the red carpet. Nobody blinked, not even Louise. She just gripped the staff harder, and stared at the scene. The nobles went out the room, and the soldiers carried the body and his head off the room, to the morgue or to his family or maybe only to throw the corpse in a ditch somewhere. After that, they went back to Louise´s chambers. She was better that before, much better, but still it was unwise to over extern herself too much at this point.
Henrietta came into the room hours later, with a letter on her hand. Louise looked at her, then at the letter, then back at her.
"Romalia?" She asked.
"Yes." Henrietta said, as she approached Louise. She took the letter for the former queen´s hands, opened and read it. By the end of it, she was frowning, and she looked sickly. They had not taken it well, then. Paul had not expected anything different, not since he saw Henrietta so hurried, but it was still worrying. Louise sent the letter down on the bed. Then she breathed deeply, once. Just once. Some color returned to her face, but not much.
"Master?"
"I am fine, familiar." She sighed. "Don´t worry."
"What was in the letter?" He asked, even though he pretty much knew it already. She was avoiding telling it what happened, and that worried him even more.
"They didn´t liked any of it, at all. Romalia... Romalia has scheduled a trial. For both of us."
"Do we have to listen to them, master?"
"Yes. For too many reasons. Is Romalia, and that is the real problem. We could take them in a fight, of course. But I am not even sure if ours soldiers could fight against Romalia, even if I ordered them to do it. Or Henrietta. Or her mother."
"Why?"
"Because it is where the Pope is elected, and where he resides. Some people think that is sacrilegious to go against Romalia because of that. Nobody dares to go against what Founder Brimir wanted."
"What are we going to do, then, master?"
"Go, and hope for the best. We don´t have any other choice." She put the letter back on the envelope, and left it on the nightstand.
Paul waked up, and saw Louise, dressed in her royal dress and that purple mantle over her shoulders. Henrietta was at the door, looking at her. He stood up. They heard that, and turned towards him. He saw their expressions of surprise and dismay, and he felt his his chest tighten.
"Was going on?"
"Nothing." Louise said, curly. "Go back to sleep, familiar."
"Please, master. Don´t lie to me."
"Louise..." Henrietta mumbled, looking between her and him.
"Shut up, Henrietta." She said, without even looking at her
"Look, don´t tell me anything if you don´t want to. I don´t care. But let me go with you... to do whatever you are doing."
"Just shut up." She bit back, blushing a bit. "Don´t you get that I am doing something dangerous, that I doing this for your sake? Just shut up and wait for all of this to be over."
"Albion has broken the peace treaty." Louise froze. "We are under attack."
She sharply turned back to Henrietta, her free hand on her hip.
"Henrietta!"
"Sorry, Louise, but he at least deserves to know." Henrietta looked at him. "She is planning on holding back the army, all by herself, to give us a chance to retreat. But... she is not going to survive. She just can´t."
Paul froze. She was going to die. The girl who had enslaved him and dragged him into a warzone, twice, was going to die. But she was also the girl who had cried in front of him, instead of in front of her own fiancé. She had saved in the battle of Albion, and had saved him for execution, putting her life in danger, because she cared about him as much as because he was her familiar. He... didn´t know what to feel.
"Why?" Louise screamed. "Why did you have to tell him? I shouldn´t have trusted you!"
He felt his lips moving, as in a dream:
"I do it." Paul said. The room fell into a sudden, heavy silence. "I will hold the army back."
"What... What are you saying?" Louise said, and then laughed. "That´s... I won´t allow you to do that."
He had already made up his mind. It was a choice he already made, long ago, just even more restricted. Without Louise protection, he was as good as dead, so he had to take the suicidal mission. Again. However, he was far for stupid. He didn´t plan to die.
"I am the Gandálfr." He said. "I am the left hand of god. Of course I will do it. I have to do it."
"Are you even listening to me? You won´t, you won´t, you won´t!"
"I am just holding the army back, okay? I won´t die." He feel a headache growing, but he tried to ignore it. "I retreat as soon as I can. Please, master."
Louise bowed her head, for a moment, and then lifted it again.
"Fine. But we will go. Both of us." He was about to say no, that she shouldn´t risk herself, but thought better of it. Part of it was that he didn´t want to die, but mostly it was that, together, they could actually manage it. No just holding the army back, but killing them all.
"Understood, master."
The Redoubtable had taken them to a little hill, and went back. Now, they stood together, alone, waiting for the army.
"You know..." Louise mumbled. "I don´t want this, even now. The mission in Albion showed me the truth; that proving myself was not worth going that far. But... I am dead. I am dead since Henrietta gave me the crown. I threw my life away on that day. So... this doesn´t even matter. I just wish... that you didn´t have to this."
"Don´t talk like that. You said it yourself, that you have inherited Brimir´s power. We can do this. I might not be likely, but we can do this. I am the Gandálfr, a familiar of legend and you are a mage of legend. Even this... Even this is nothing."
"Idiot." She smiled, softly. "Do you think I can´t see you shaking?"
Paul looked down on himself. It was true. His whole body was shaking, like it was made of lead. Eh, how uncool.
"Ah... This is just... just..."
"That you don´t want to die. Don´t lie. I get it." Louise grabbed his hand in hers, and squeezed it. Her hand was shaking, too. Just a little bit. "See? You don´t have to pretend. I know what is coming, and I have already accepted it since the moment Henrietta came to warm me. So don´t be stupid. Say it."
"I... I don´t want to die."
"Good." She squeezed his hand, again. "That´s good."
On the top of the grassland, he saw the army approaching them. Paul stepped forward, and drew Derflinger for his sheath. The runes blazed. He felt strong, stronger that anybody else, even while he saw the vague shapes of the army coming closes and closer.
"Hey, Paul." He froze. It was the first time she had called him by his name. "Don´t die."
"I won´t." Paul said, through its suddenly dry throat, and roared, charging to meet the advancing army as Louise started to chant behind him. He crossed the distance in an instant and tore through the troops of Albion, Louise´s chant making his heart beat wildly. Men screamed and died all around him, as he ducked away for a few musket shots, and trusted Derflinger to adsorb the magic trowed at him. He felt the sword growing hot with all that suppressed energy, but he held on to him. After a while, the soldiers thought clearly again and stopped shooting at him, but the mages still launched spells at him, some of which he barely managed to dodge. He didn´t even feel his wounds, but even the power of the Gandálfr runes could not keep his body up forever.
Then, he feel that feeling inside of him stop, that rush Louise´s chant had given him.
"Move!" Louise screamed, but he was already moving. He jumped to the side, dodging swords as spells. Some lucky bastard got him right in the shoulder, just before he escaped. Then, the world exploded. He was launched various meters through the air by the force of Louise´s spell, but he somehow managed to hold on to Derflinger.
When he looked back to that army of thousands, he saw a total disaster. The grassland was burned in a big circle, and the group was littered with the corpses of the soldiers and their mounts, some of them those he had killed but mostly just the victims of the explosion. Some of the horses that had not been reached by the explosion had run away in fear, throwing the rider to the ground.
Void. That is what it is.
He stood up and rushed back into the fight. The army was confused and terrified, so they became easier prey. Some of the managed to reach him with their swords and spells, but they were less accurate that before. Paul could not even fell his left arm, and he was losing a lot of blood, but he still charged forward. He didn´t feel fear, not even hate for the enemy or a desperate wish for his death to have meaning. He just carried on, while surrounded for all sides.
Ahead of him, he saw a group of mages around a person. So many, for just a single person. That meant he was of high rank. If he managed to kill him, that could father stall the army. He charged towards him. As he approached, the man in that circle set a wind spell against him. He barely managed to do it, but he did it. Just a little more.
The soldiers surrounding that person sent bolts of magic towards him, and while he managed to dodge some of them the majority managed to hit him. At that instant, he fell like all the wounds he had suffered in the battle relighted, but he carried on. He closed on the group of mages, and drove Derflinger through that man´s chest. He gasped, and his mouth filled with blood. Paul got his sword back, and the man fell to the ground, dead. Then, he fell to his knees. The pain was just too much; even Louise second chant, which still continued, couldn´t make him move. It was over. Everything was over.
Paul passed out.