Vignette 8 - Cousin Fred is Dead
The Merchant City of Dorter, mid-afternoon
Hildegarde, it had turned out, was from Dorter and one of her father's stable hands was about Delita's size, so they'd borrowed a set of his clothes and given him the price of a set of brand new ones to thank him. If anyone queried what Delita was doing in Dorter, they'd agreed he could simply say that he was a stable-hand working for Hildegarde's family.
Delita now stood on the doorstep of a small lodging house on the edge of Dorter's slums, talking to a slightly suspicious landlady.
"Hello, missus, Ah'm looking for me cousin, Fred. Me Aunty Ana said he'd bin stoppin' here."
"Frederick was your cousin?" She asked.
Delita heard and noted the "was", but pretended he hadn't. He smiled widely at her, playing the garrulous, open-natured country boy for all it was worth.
"Aye, second cousin. Me mam an' his mam are first cousins, but Ah call her Auntie Ana an' he calls me mam Auntie Su. Look, can y'let him know that his cousin Delita has arrived in town from Eagrose an' Ah'd like to see him.
"If he's not in, what time should Ah come back?" He continued to smile cheerfully - hopefully he'd lulled her into thinking him genuine and none too bright.
The worried suspicion on her face became tinged with a little sympathy.
"Oh. I'm sorry, lad; young Frederick died near a fortnight ago."
Delita let his face drop, then fall into shocked mournfulness and concern.
"How'd he die, like?"
"A short illness. The apothecary said nothing could be done – he wasn't even sure what caused it." She said
"Eee! His mam'll be devastated." He shook his head as if in disbelief. "Ah must be too late for the funeral, like?"
"Yes, I think so. Some friends of his took the body away and said they'd arrange it." She said.
"D'you know where Ah could find them? Me Auntie Ana'll wan' us to have found out everything Ah could about it." Delita said.
"Erm... I thought I recognised one of them, I think he has a little business down by the fishing wharfs. I don't know his name, though. Sorry I can't tell you more." She said.
"No, thanks a lot, missus. Ah've got me lass with us, at the minute, like," he gestured at Juliana standing a few yards away, "but once Ah've seen her home, Ah'll go down there and ask around. Ah'm much obliged." He said.
She nodded sympathetically and closed the door.
"Wipe that smug, self-congratulatory expression off your face, you've just found out your cousin Fred's dead, remember?" Juliana, clothed in a maid's dress, said quietly to him as he got close. He sobered. She took his arm and they walked along together like the young courting couple they were pretending to be.
"So, your "lass", huh?"
"Whey-aye, pet, you're me canny bonnie lass." His voice returned to its usual smooth near accent-less tone. "I really am sorry about three nights ago. It was only because I was lying in bed, unable to sleep, and I couldn't stop thinking about you. I was just assuming far more than I should have... and I do really like you. Can't we at least be friends again? Please?" He'd had three days to formulate the apology. "I couldn't stop thinking about you" had struck him as a particularly good phrase to help him excuse himself, when he'd come up with it, and he was pleased with the way Juliana's expression had softened perceptibly when he'd used it.
"Yes, all right. I really like you too, and I like being your "lass", only, I don't want to be taken for granted."
"Understood. I promise, it won't happen again." He bent and kissed her cheek lightly.
"You really are a very bonnie lass, you know." He said with a wink and a knowing grin.
She just rolled her eyes and shook her head at him.
"So do we go down to the fishing wharfs and ask around, or go back and tell the others?" She asked after a few moments, now smiling at him and squeezing his arm.
"I think you and I have pushed our luck far enough with this. I doubt "cousin Fred" really died of a short illness. I think, maybe, all of us need to go down there together, well armed, and take a look around."
Late evening
The four girls anxiously drank tea in Hildegarde's mother's elegant drawing room as they waited for the three boys to return. Hildegarde and Juliana had both needed Phoenix Downs during the fight and, even though they were healed, they were still shaky, so Ophellia and Samantha had brought them home, while the boys Phoenix Downed the swordsman who had been in charge of the brigands and interrogated him.
The girls looked relieved, then concerned, when only Ramza and Delita entered the room.
"Argath won't be joining us for tea, ladies." Delita said. "He's rather too annoyed at Ramza for stopping him from beating the prisoner into insensibility. He muttered something about heading for a tavern and stomped off." He slumped into a seat, with a wicked grin which quickly subsided.
He and Ramza both looked as wan and shaken as Hildegard and Juliana, both of them had needed Phoenix Downs too – Delita twice – it had been a brutal fight. Ramza held a hand out, palm down, in front of him, and watched it shake, with a dispassionate air of exhaustion. He picked up one of the tiny cakes that had been provided with the tea.
"Hildy, we couldn't get something more substantial to eat, could we, please? Nothing fancy, just some fruit, or something. I'm told it helps when you are trying to get over being resurrected." Ramza asked.
Hildegard rang for a servant and gave instructions for sandwiches and fruit to be brought.
"We're you serious about what Argath did?" Samantha asked.
"Oh yes. That swordsman's health was low enough that, for a moment, I thought we were going to have to Phoenix Down him a second time, after Argath kicked him half-way across the room." Ramza said with a look of disgust.
"Well at least it yielded us answers - the Marquis is being held somewhere called the Sand Rat's Sietch. We're assuming that that must be the old desertmen's settlement. How far is that from town, Hildy?" Delita asked.
"Seventeen, eighteen miles, I think." She said.
"Pushing hard, we've sometimes marched thirty-five, thirty-six miles in a day on the way here, we should be able to get there, rescue the Marquis and get back not too long after dark, assuming we leave at first light, and the Marquis is in a fit state to walk." Ramza did not sound confident.
"Papa has far more chocobos than he ever uses. We could ride – then, if the Marquis isn't fully fit, we should still be able to get him back here." Hildegard said.
"Is your father in? We shouldn't just take them without permission." Ramza asked.
"'fraid not. He's president of the Merchant's Guild, and he's hosting some event at the Guild Hall. Mother's with him. Jonathas might still be up, though. He's my older brother. Father's grooming him to be the next great Merchant Prince of Dorter. He's supposed to be leaving early tomorrow to travel to Warjilis, that's why he didn't go to father's big banquet. He'll give us permission - he'd better." She said.
Ramza, seeing a certain glint in her eye as she said that, remembered that this wasn't the first time he had thought that Hildy, though she was very nice, would make a formidable opponent. He suspected her brother would be only too pleased to comply without an argument, if he wanted a peaceful life. Besides, wasn't it a big brother's place to indulge his little sister?
He refused Alma and Tietra almost nothing, Delita and Zalbaag were much the same. Dycedarg was their guardian, so it was, perhaps, inevitable that he was a little sterner and less yielding, but he still tried to make Alma happy, when he could. Besides, a little sternness was probably necessary in a brother who was also your legal guardian - Alma could certainly be a bit of a brat at times and... well... he and Delita were certainly no angels.
Ramza smiled to himself, Tietra was never a brat and generally didn't get into too much trouble. Delita would tease her for being a goody-goody but really, everyone loved her for being so sweet-natured.
Author's Note:
Erm... the accent. The only one I had a hope in hell of getting consistently right was basically a stronger version of my own. So it turns out Delita's a Geordie (from the far North East of England), as far as his childhood accent goes. Presumably, Tietra can switch accents like this too, though I doubt we'll get to hear it. I tried to get a decent compromise between writing real accent/dialect and comprehensibility, I hope it works for most people – it's only there for a bit of fun.
I always wondered how they all just happened to arrive in the right place at the right time to see Wiegraf and that other knight's conversation – just a bit too lucky unless there's something that I've missed about the situation. So here, they at least had reason to have headed to that part of the slums – an indication that Frederick the spy's "friends" have a base down there. Still damned lucky to arrive just as Wiegraf does, of course...
About Frederick the spy and his death: Dycedarg, of course, set this whole kidnapping up, as Wiegraf will shortly be shouting about to Ramza and co. at their first battle against him. To me, it makes sense that Dycedarg would have told Gustav that Zalbaag had planted a spy in their midst, and it also seems logical that Dycedarg might have told Gustav how to get rid of the spy in a way that, at a pinch, could look like natural causes (or even provided him with the means to do that). Mostly this would just be to ensure that Zalbaag doesn't get to hear about the plot against Elmdore; pacifying a disapproving Zalbaag would be a waste of effort for Dycedarg and Duke Larg.
Dycedarg's tendency to be a far more prolific poisoner, here, than he is in the game is, of course, my fault. I was, however, re-reading Robert Graves' wonderful I, Claudius around the time I started the vignettes. So, for anyone who knows the book (of has seen the fantastic, but ancient, TV adaptation) Dycedarg, here, is essentially a male Livia.