Vignette 16 - A Nose for Trouble

Brigands' Den, around noon, immediately after the battle against Milleuda

Ramza couldn't bring himself to look at Argath, even as he Cured his broken nose.

The nose was not an injury from the fight against the Corpse Brigade but from a punch delivered a minute or so after the severely wounded female Knight had limped away. Oddly, it had not been Ramza or Delita who had delivered the punch, but Hildegarde.

Hildegarde had been quite badly injured during the fight. After Sam had Cured her, she had walked up to Argath, while the others were still looking at him as if he had grown a second head, punched him hard in the face, and walked away again, all without saying a word. Ramza and the other girls had stared after her, shocked, while Delita had begun to grin.

After a moment, Argath exploded, blood dripping from his nose as he demanded indistinctly:

"You're her captaid, Ramza, ared't you supposed to baintaid disciplide better thad that?"

"And if Hildy had, in fact, done anything wrong, then I suppose I would have to think about disciplining her." Ramza had answered in a cool, hard voice.

Argath had gaped at him while Delita's grin had taken on a hint of viciousness. Ramza had sighed deeply and cast Cure on their unwelcome guest - the other boy had to be in a fit shape to fight, should they come up against a group of random fiends that afternoon.

"Come on, everyone" he called out to his squad, "let's quickly grab a bite to eat and then head for home."

When Ramza finally brought himself to glance at the other boy, for a moment, to check that the healing had worked, he discovered that it had... sort of. He idly wondered if he should feel any guilt that he had a profound sense of satisfaction that Argath's nose would never be perfectly straight again. He felt not one jot!

That evening, encamped on the Southern Mandalia Plains

Argath spent a fair amount of time, that evening, trying to justify his words and behaviour during and immediately after the battle. He managed to be almost as offensive, while he did that, as he had to the woman, that afternoon.

Delita had tried going after the knight, once they had all got over the shock of what Argath had said, and Hildy's reaction to it. He had, literally, had the Hi-Potion he had tried to give to her, thrown back in his face. Ramza had thought Delita was brooding on that but instead, he had apparently been thinking up a way to get at Argath.

"Ramza, since you're the one whose mother was a Master white mage, you may know the answer to a question I have." Delita said, his voice almost a drawl.

He was lying on the ground by the camp-fire, with his hands linked behind his head, feigning nonchalance.

"If Hildy knocks Argath's teeth down his throat when she punches him this time, is there a spell of the Cure family that will regrow them, or does he have to stay all gummy, like someone's great-grandpa, for the rest of his life?"

Hildegard had certainly been eyeing Argath balefully, as if she was thinking about hitting him again, until that question. Much of the tension in the female part of the group drained at that, though, with all four girls trying to hide giggles as Argath looked daggers at them and Delita. He moved so that he was sitting further away from the main group.

"That's enough Delita." Ramza said quietly, sounding more weary than any of the others had ever heard him.

He had earlier sat down by the fire, his head in his hands and hadn't moved since. Delita shot back to a sitting position.

"You'd defend...?" Ramza raised his head and interrupted whatever diatribe Delita sounded like he was beginning.

"I'm defending no-one. Nor am I condoning anyone goading other people, when everyone's already on edge."

"I'm not! I wouldn't..."

"Think about how well we know each other, before you tell me you wouldn't do that, Delita."

"I despise prejudice, Ramza."

"I know that. It's one of your best qualities." Ramza gave a tired half-smile, though he still just wished everyone would shut up including, or perhaps especially, Delita. Delita didn't.

"This whole conflict is being perpetuated because of prejudice. Their side, because they seem to have decided that all aristocrats are the same, and that all must be held accountable for what the minority have done to them. Our side," and there was an odd, bitter note in Delita's voice and a twist to his lips when he said "our", "because he's hardly the only person who thinks that the nobility have a gods-given right to treat peasants however they wish and that it would lower our dignity to try to treat with the Brigade to end this."

Ramza shook his head at that.

"Six months ago, when the Brigade was simply the remnant of the Company of Dead Men we might have treated with them. More recently... no. They're no longer just that few dozen, they've attracted a much larger following, now. A following who are essentially an uncontrollable rabble, baying for the nobility's blood. Would they all abide by any treaty Wiegraf or his remaining Lieutenants agreed to?... And why is it me giving you the political lecture for once?" Ramza asked that last with a slight laugh.

When Delita's reply came, it was hesitant and it sounded like he was weighing every word. He was obviously working things out in his head, even as he spoke.

"Because I've been over-simplifying things. I've just been dismissing Wiegraf's followers as the "peasants' revolt" that everyone calls them. But you're absolutely right, most real peasants have subservience far too deeply ingrained to be taking part in this and those that don't are still far better off than they've ever been, since the black death eight years ago. They don't need to rebel.

"It's poor men and women, from towns, especially those with a little education, that would become the main-stay of this sort of rebellion. Those men at Dorter hadn't just moved there, they were from Dorter. I knew that, and yet I didn't really consider the implications. Because of the way this started, I've only been considering it as a rebellion of the ex-Dead Men, as if those following them didn't have much influence on events.

"Gods, what's made me so stupid lately? If you've got a better handle on the situation than me..." Delita turned to his friend, full of contrition. "Oh gods, I'm so sorry, Ramza, I really really didn't mean that the way it must have sounded!"

Ramza tried to look offended, then began to grin wryly. After the day they'd all had he was going to make every effort to keep the friction within the group as low as possible. Besides there was a certain amount of truth in what Delita said – he never came close to having the same grip on the political situation as Delita... except today. Today had been a very strange, unpleasant, unsettling day altogether!

"Don't worry about it." He said. "It was something that the headmaster said a few days ago that made me draw those conclusions, you know I don't think about politics without prompting. You can relax, you still take the laurels for cleverness." Ramza's tone might have had, just a hint of sarcasm when he said that last.

Whether or not Ramza had meant that sarcasm as a reproach, Delita felt his cheeks grow warm. He was suddenly glad that, with his olive complexion, it was impossible to notice a blush in light this poor. He noticed Ramza give a jaw-popping yawn.

"I don't know why I'm so tired." Ramza said. "Do I have a watch tonight?"

The question was aimed at Delita, who as the second in command kept the watch rota.

"No, that's part of why you are so tired – you had middle, last night, remember?" Delita then raised his voice, to make sure everyone heard. "It's Ophellia first, Argath middle and I'm on last."

Ramza sat quietly for another minute or two then got up to go to bed. He was half-way to their tent, when he stopped and turned around.

Delita, he saw, had moved so that he was now lying with his head pillowed in Juliana's lap and was talking quietly with her.

"Delita, I need a word." Ramza almost barked out – suddenly the consummate Cadet-Captain. He saw Delita roll his eyes at Juli, then scramble to his feet.

"Yes sir." Delita gave him an infinitely sloppy salute. Ramza, unamused, just took him by the arm to lead him away from the fire.

"Delita, Argath took a watch last night - so let me guess - by your rota, Argath's on middle watch tomorrow night and every night, as long as he's with us, hmm?"

"Well... yes - everyone always hates it - though he always was allocated to middle tomorrow..." Delita didn't sound particularly contrite.

"Delita, I know he's a completely insufferable, gormless little tit, and after what he said today, I would have been incredibly happy to have been the one who punched him but, as Captain, I couldn't do that. And however much it seems justified, I can't let you give him all the crappy jobs, either. That would be tantamount to bullying." Ramza's face was in shadow, but his voice sounded all but pained as well as slightly disbelieving. It was almost as if he himself couldn't quite believe that he was giving Delita an order to ease up on the "little tit".

Delita just gave a heavy sigh and went back to the fire.

"I mixed the watches up. It's tomorrow, that Argath's on middle watch." He called out. "Ophellia's still first, me middle, Juli last." Even though everyone had to know exactly why he'd been forced to correct his "mix-up", he wasn't about to acknowledge that openly.

Dissatisfied with everything that had happened since the fight had begun that morning, Ramza headed for bed, feeling thankful that tomorrow couldn't possibly be as bad as today.

Author's Note:

Sorry, but I'm not sure why it's Hildegarde, specifically, who punches Argath - mostly I wanted him to get punched, and it seemed less predictable if it wasn't one of the boys who did it. I could come up with the requisite back story, I suppose, but it's a bit late to add it now, I guess.

Oh and in case anyone picked up on it, it just seemed right, given the game's nose-less sprites, to make it a broken nose he suffered. I have a rather twisted sense of humour - sometimes it just finds its way out in a peculiar manner. I kind of wish I could work a reference to noses or smelling into every vignette from now on. I should probably try to resist that temptation, though! (I probably shouldn't have given in to it when I named this chapter, either!)