Chapter 15, Frame Job
Things hadn't gone well, a bad taste left behind in my mouth once the fighting had finished. A hiss left my lips as I lifted my right arm's sleeve up, the fresh bandages over the burn wound left by that damn sword ached. It was more of an annoying headache than anything else, with too little information at my fingertips to get the details behind why they'd want someone dead so badly.
It was too clinical for my comfort with a pungent smell not unlike bleach saturated the room, with a hint of iron in the air from the blood. Truth was the strength of the smells were reversed, but my nose was more hard wired to pick up on the scent to resemble the hospitals back home. The benefits of modern medicine were greatly missed, instead of the ritualistic candles that seemed to take its place.
A part of me remained on edge, not quite calmed by the solid castle walls that we had retreated behind.
Even so it was the safest place to be, leaning against the section of the wall where opening the sole door into the infirmary would initially hide me from view. I'd long since given up trying to scrub the blood off my hands, a cloth thick with black chunks and red ink lay in the sink. Any deeper into the corner of this room and I would get stuck there, pointedly not looking at the woman in the medical bed to get stuck in the past.
One moment was one second too many for my mind to wander. My traitorous mind insisted on trying to link this with another older woman who'd I long since lost the opportunity to ever see again.
Shaking my head clean, my left hand crackled with power as my body instantly tensed. I squashed my anxiety, sealing it inside so I could focus. Reigniting the pain took my thoughts from traveling back to the past, and kept them in the present. Periodically glancing over at the queen's prone form, keeping track of her chest for steady breathing.
Watching healers peel the wrappings from her face and replace them had been the hardest thing to witness since I arrived here. Anything I could've offered would be too little too late. So I instead just watched them work.
Half using the excuse of security in order to learn, the other to idly hope that fate would change.
All is not set in stone after all.
taptaptaptaptaptap, tap tap tap Tap Tap Tap. . .
Light footsteps approached the entrance, steady and singular yet making no further efforts to hide their intended destination. The wooden door creaked, a weight pressed against its frame as a key was fitted into its lock. Various candles around the room flickered out, a ring of crimson runes around my hand replaced them as the only source of light.
Cklcklckcl, click!
The color of the mana around my grip flipped, the air chilled and my breaths came in brief puff barely seen by my grip on the spell's building power. Blood burned in my veins to make up for the heat lost, and the once bright red sigils silently shattered to be replaced by icy blue ones. Bright gold caught my eye the second before the grip I kept on my magic was released. With snowflake-like runes scattered through the air, the king's dry expression was illuminated by my magic as he looked back at me.
Nodding to me as he turned his back to me to kneel by his wife's side, the frozen light shining down onto him washed away. Even though I could only see the back of head from his angle, the slight nod he gave me was unmistakable. In the moment that passed after his plain acknowledgement of my presence I dismissed the ice spell as it was on the brink of being something. . . More.
The numbness in my fingertips was at odds with the heat as I waited with baited breath, letting him have a moment with her. My heart was in my throat, while my own breathing wasn't steady it was leagues better than the first time we had met. No matter the occasion I felt like a gazelle in the presence of a lion.
I couldn't lower myself into a bow any faster, taking a knee so that I wouldn't have to hear my own legs shake. Can't rely on first impressions anymore, but it'd be worse to even briefly fidget from all the energy I gathered up and hadn't spent.
"Stand for me," The words came out from where his highness sat, cutting through the dead air in an instant. His voice struck a chord within me, like molten steel that urged my limbs to follow his commands. A familiar tone that couldn't place where I'd heard it before as he asked me about the queen's condition, "How is she?"
I needed to respond, a sudden audible intake of breath reminded me that I had yet to offer him an answer.
". . .alive," I spat out the word in the same motion while shaking off the strange feeling that had come over me. My curt reply must've seemed odd, given that the king had tilted his head in my direction at my choice of word. Rephrasing what I had meant to say once my breathing became steady, "I can't say in how bad of shape that her pain is in, but she has not got worse since she came in."
Don't send me to the gallows.
I didn't expect his amused scoff.
"Ah, I [suppose] this [failing] faells on me. Hmpf. Eat," Rising to his feet, a box appeared in front of my face breaking the staring contest that I was having with the floor. There was a warmth coming from it that I could feel just as much as I could smell the cinnamon coming off of it. Searching the room briefly as I fiddled around with the dish I'd been handed. His majesty pulled up a pair of stools for the two of us, "You'll be no use to anyone tired. . . Thaet is not whaet I wanted from you Alcides. Tell me whaet [happened], how this [happened], and whaet you think will come after."
There were bags under his eyes, putting the food aside for a moment to relight the various candles around the room. Choosing to add an extra dose of mana into the torch emplacement on the wall. Shutting the door I glared at the pair of tamed snoozing wolves who failed to alert me of someone approaching.
Just because I had been paying attention didn't mean they could slack off.
"Pffph. . . Ask they who you call your men at arms," There wasn't a single clue that my two brain cells could make use of, even less that would be interpreted well. Fiddling with the food while silently stowing over my weak grip on the language as my teeth bit into meatloaf. Tasting it for the first time in. . . months really. Swallowing only to voice an excuse that felt weak even to my own ears, "My words are not well put for a task like that."
"Taeke your time, aes much aes you need. Whaet you haeve to saey [matters] to me," Lambert hummed as a strange look over took his visage at my comment, glancing at Patricia's prone form. With a hint of desperation he asked me for anything that I knew again, "Every laest bit of [information] that you haeve is [invaluable], I aesk this of you not aes ae but aes your lady's [husband]. She needs me now more than ever."
"For her sake then."
"Indeed."
"You can call it bad luck, but it is not so clear cut. We got split up," I rubbed at my lips trying to clean myself after scarfing down a meal like some starving dog. Silently angsting over the fact that his highness had a front seat to my terrible eating habits and my severely degraded table manners. Finding the right words as my knee began to tap against tiles of the cold stone floor, "They hit us on two sides, at once we had to deal with a blade at the back and front. I was close to Patri while Khris was with the many other who bare the mark same as your own."
"They used my people aes cover for their [assault] on my [betrothed]," A chill went down my spine when his gaze turned from his wife and the entirety of his royal countenance was focused on me. The light reflecting off his crown seemed to warble as tiny flickers in candles around us intensely, a certainty fell over me that I wouldn't survive if I breathed in a way he disapproved of. A second later the king's hard expression softened into a regretful one as he spoke, "The [innocent] of my laends [getting] caught in the [crossfire] wasn't [something] that I ever wanted to happen, but you aere merely the [swordbearer]. Not ae [queenbreaker]."
"You had no way to know this might, that they would lose blood for it-"
"No. This was my [responsibility], it falls on those of noble blood to know the risks involved and not leave you to pay the price for my [oversights]. I'm sorry."
"Save it for one that needs it sir," A steel entered my voice as my mind trailed back to details of the fight that I missed before. No matter how he or I felt about it, there was more he needed to know about. Cursing my inability when I had so much more to say, "While it was the best time for them and worst for us. Only one blade made up the second front of the brawl, the one I kept on order from Khris."
His eyes glanced over at his wife sleeping peacefully, the implications of a tiny detail clicking something together inside of his head. A deadly calm coming over his face that allowed me to breathe this go around.
"Aere you sure of this," Contemplative would've been the most fitting word for the look that the king bore, his words receiving a nod that was far too eagerly done in retrospect. Had the layer of confusion for a reason behind such an attack been more apparent, or the first assassin far luckier. I might not have thought it so odd to even bother with bringing up, "You aren't simply [mistaken]? The rush of [fighting] caen maeke ae short time spent in ae mess feel like aen aege, aend ae busy street can hide alot of things in the heat of battle."
At what must be an extremely unamused expression, his majesty chuckles at my expense. Sparing me from having to continue my incredulous look from becoming a permanent feature stuck on my face.
"My place was as the final blade 'for the Queen, I saw all we're I was. They didn't- did not aim to kill yours to get you, few got used as cover for Patri shed first blood. The fight was a mess but one that we could keep blood as low as any would wish for," Trailing off, my understanding of how the battle occurred and developed was imparted. A grim expression growing on his majesty's face, "They were not here for the kids, not us but her. They meant to take her above all else, yet had not the skill to do it well."
"So this waes their first [attempt]," Seeing the same sort of concealed meaning in the chaos of that streetside battle, Lambert leaned back a bit. Confusion briefly flickered across his face of a similar sort that I had before it was replaced, "[Mercenaries desperate] for coin and [uncaring] about their own lives for the saeke of ae paey daey. It would line up with [everything] else."
He knew more about this, that much was obvious. Was he trying to confirm something by questioning me? And if so, why would anyone want Patricia dead? In his kingdom no less. . .
"My lord, if I may be so bold to ask. . . What does it all mean?"
". . ."
"I-, I don't know."
"Trust me maege when I saey this. [Nothing] else in the world would please me more thaen to know why this haes [happened]," His majesty addressed me as he rose to his feet, brushing a hand against his wife's cheek. A moment of weakness that denoted a hint of melancholy slipping through into his voice, "[Nothing] but for this to haeve never [happened] to begin with. "
"No use in [dwelling] in the past sir. I have spent too much time there," I joined him, though a few steps away from the two of them. An amount that I wagered was a respectful distance away from the pair. Curiosity tinged my own question that had remained largely unanswered from the start of our conversation, "Why ask me for what few I knew?"
"Gah, simply put. Aell of our other [prisoners] thaet [Christophe managed] to [capture] turned up dead in their cells before we were able to [interrogate] them," Sifting through the mess that the king spoke kept me occupied for a brief time, the implication washed over me and sent my hairs on end. Prompting a mix of feelings out of me, mostly half terrified and the other impressed by Khris' making quick work of them. That proud half was squashed by Lambert's own confession, "[Despite] being king, and in spite of aell the power thaet [position] brings me. You aere the laest person that I [figured] would haeve what I need."
"What about the others?"
"My son and [Christophe's younger brother reportedly] saew little behind their own [protectors]. Her [daughter] is [despondent]," Lambert blandly informed me of the state of information he had managed to garner from the others that had been at the battle. A layer of exhaustion making itself known by the way his shoulders slouched at mentioning the Queen's daughter, "She won't speak let alone eat or drink since you've aell [returned]. Only moving aet her [sister's insistence]."
It seemed I wouldn't be executed on grounds of issue between a royal couple at least. Though I would need to check on my former charge once I got out of here. Perking when the king turned his head to ask me a question in return.
"[Christophe mentioned] thaet you haed [acquired] aen object thaet would [interest] me [greatly]," Gesturing at the weapon sheathed at my side, the clean leather holding it contrasting greatly with my still bloody clothing. My hands almost dropped the weapon in the process of handing it over, "Caen I take ae look aet the blaede you [recovered] from the enemy? There maey be [something] of use to learn from it."
The iron filling my lungs probably belonged more from the filth that I should've spent more time cleaning off. Looking at it now, what I had managed seemed like it had sunk in too much into my clothing to rub off easily.
"Take care," Wavy metal shined in the candle, a warped reflection stared back at me when I handed it over. Warning him of the odd sensation that I'd received as feedback whenever I used the blade, "It does not take well when used to cut or with a spell."
"Now that's. . . quite [strange]. Do you see the second [crossguard] set along the blade? Thaet is called its [Elzetto] or [parrying] hooks, ae [version] of this blaede is [standard] for [imperial] forces. Ae tool you [wouldn't] have been privy to aes it is [reserved] for [masters]," Lambert described as I followed along with his explanation, spotting the same details that he was more intimately aware of than I was. At this proximity I was finally noticing different waves that cut lines in the steel, "[Between] this [second crossguard] and the first, the spine of [imperial blades are [blunted] to assist [wielders] in their [particular] style of sword [fighting techniques]. This one though-"
His highness slid his fist to grip the blade closest to the hilt, releasing it to reveal its dull gray edge soaked with red.
"Is [sharper] than I [thought]."
"A fake or just a flaw?"
"Hm. . . Could be, but the blaede feels uneven too. Like each [section] waes maede at [separate] points of time by [different] people and put [together] at a later daete," Lambert rambled, absentmindedly dunking his wounded hand in a clean bucket of water. Holding in a hiss better than I would've he continued explaining as he wrapped up his injury, "Blaedes like these aere the pride of the Empire, a smith would lose his [contract] let alone his life for such shoddy work if it waes [discovered]."
"What about the other claws that our foes had?"
"Aell [destroyed] before they could be taken in and [examined]," A sharp click rang throughout the small room when he tightened the bandage one final time. Handing the bastardized sword back to me, "Or not of the saeme sort aes this one before us. If we haed more time we could look for more [similarities] or more flaews in their design."
Glancing nervously at the queen laying in bed I looked back at the king, "So if they are not to blame, who is?"
"I've fought the empire before. Those daeys Ionis wasn't so [desperate] aes to resort to [conscripts]," Folding his shoulder I felt like his highness had redoubled his focus with new conviction fresh in the air, "But times have [changed]. The ones [responsible] for this have [clearly] been [convinced] that they [haven't], and I am not one so easily goaded."
"What we have now is less too late," Desperation of my own leaked through, a sign of still being rattled by the aftermath of these fights even after all this time. Shaking off the unease with a breath that I sucked in to add steel to my voice, "More proof is vital as we lack the name for a group to point at. Less you know more than I do still."
His majesty had a pitying look on his face, an abject feeling of outrage built up in my fist. Squeezing the bubbling emotion before it could build up to a significant degree, snuffing out the spark before they could become a blaze.
"There is [nothing] thaet I know now thaet you aren't aware of, only [personal conjecture] thaet I'd prefer not to taint your [perspective] with. I'd hoped you would grow to be more [Cornelia] while in my [presence]," A sense of nostalgia seemed to take hold of the man as the topic of Cornelia was brought up. The king's court mage was a woman that I had met many times, but briefly on each occasion. His tone switched to one with much more tension laden in his voice, "[Patricia] caen't be risked in public aes they might find more luck with [additional attempts], likely aiming to avoid having to fight to kill her to begin with. That much is [certain], but they'll likely go to ground anyway if we launch aen [official investigation] for aen [attempted assassination]."
"Patri will need to hide, kept close while the coin purse that fuels the fight is dealt with. And if they are to go under," An idea struck me, more so half of one that could be used to buy time. Regardless I relayed what I thought if my input was something his majesty wanted so dearly, "Let them think they have won, that you do blame one for her death. Just not the one they had a wish for."
The moment was still, Lambert taking on a fully contemplative look like some painting depicting a noble king from times past. A visage that would've fit in beside other works of art inside the Louvre. Even without candles I might dare say the room could still be argued as being quite bright even with an absence of light.
"I have new orders," The words he spoke rang of the familiar implication that denoted fieldwork, and more than that dirty work considering the situation we we're in. With the knowledge that someone else might not do as good of a job my participation in this was already secured, "That is if you'd be [amenable] to them, for my [request] is no light [hearted endeavor]."
"My spells and blade are yours for as long as she is too," Kneeling felt a step too far, while bowing in some resemblance of respect more appropriate for the tone of my speech. Hidden from view, a sad smile appeared on his lips as my head was laid low before him. Steady and calm as I spoke, "What will you have me do?"
"First, I need you to gather [Christopher] and his. . . phahah, gather up his 'merry men' for me."
Chapter ? Summery:
I don't really have a rule when it comes to Lambert's accent, or the 'faerghus' accent in general. As long as it sounds kinda gaelic when read I consider it good enough.
I'll probably just combine this chapter with 'Assassianation Attempt', the gap feels kinda redundant in retrospect. Past chapters still need to be correct before I add to much to this, even so this nuertered version is still surprisingly coherent. Hopefully I have the first batch of redone chapters finished up before adding another chapter to this story. Should that be the case this story will be considered 'complete/abandoned' while I work on the revamp. I probably won't delete this, but I don't know the future.