A trait learned from his father - not because he was good at it, but because he said so little, yet expected so much. Listen to what people tell you, because it's always more than what they're saying. 'Leave me alone' too often means 'I want to cry on your shoulder but I dare not make myself more of a burden than I already am'.
"I think," Tristan is achingly slow to say it, keenly aware of how many wrong ways to say this there are, "We owe her more help than she earns - not 'as much as', but more. Kindness begets kindness, and if we scorn her attempts to make good, then why should she try? Most of all..." Tristan looks back towards the banquet hall. "I think it's important we prove to Constance she wasn't wrong to see something in her. Even if Sir Coilleghille is to fail the tasks ahead, Constance deserves that she be failed right this time."
Tristan stretches his arms behind his back, touches his fingers together across his shoulderblades, and thinks some more. He wishes he was there, now, to see what was going on. On the other hand, he's very happy he isn't. "I'm in the dark about so much of this, though. How much do you know about what has to happen?"
It seems strange to Tristan to treat Robena so unfairly, as there were plenty of fair reasons to treat her unkindly. She has many true and nameable faults: Why criticize her beyond the real?
"She said it would be true if the Saxons invade." Tristan corrects Hector. "I think her answer was quite humble. She spoke of doing a small good that cannot be perverted or undone, comparing it to your great good of more obvious worth. A fair answer to your question of what could make such a small thing valuable."
No, that's not enough. A weed must be pulled from its root. Tristan pauses, thinks. "Which is missing the point. You are choosing to forget your own question, and to whittle down her answer until your prior offense is justified. It may be! You likely know her better. But what has she done - what has she been - that offends you so much? Would you have been satisfied by any answer she had to give, if she were the one to give it?"
Tristan's campaign on Constance is a delicate mix of ruthless and gentle, where it needs to be.
Let's start with ruthless.
Take, for instance, Constance's miserable habit of refusing to get out of bed. Lying for an hour staring up at the ceiling, stewing in bad thoughts and self-doubt, before hunger or thirst or bladder forces her from her position. Cajoling, sweet talking and bribing do nothing.
The solution is taken to with the elaborate bloody-mindedness Tristan insists upon everything. An hour to drag his empty tub to the right spot. Two to practice lobbing snowballs until he cannot fail the throw. Another to fill a side table with a small pyramid of pre-made ammunition, as he'll not have a chance once he's in the tub.
The second morning of their arrival in the castle, Constance is roused from bed from a snowball lobbed perfectly at her head, from through the castle window, through her curtains. No easy feat since their rooms are not on the first floor, and there is no direct line of sight.
When she goes to the window, Tristan is starkers in a steaming bath in the snow-thick courtyard outside, keeping a thick layer of bubbles for modesty, already hefting his second shot from his supplies. He waves cheerfully. He has sculpted himself a white bubble beard to stroke thoughtfully. He does so while wiggling his eyebrows.
It is impossible to hide in bed from a man so well-armed and comfortable.
Other weapons in his arsenal involve telling children stories about Constance-daughter-of-giants in the corriders and hallways she's set to pass through, and leaving wondrous ambushes. Hot drinks and a steady supply of sweets for leverage. Outrageous gossip, only some of which even makes a pretense of being true. (Constance! Constance! I just saw Mort unhinge his jaw and eat an entire deer! It just ran straight in and- Look! There he is now! Pretend I saw nothing-) (Constance! Constance! Sir Harold is actually a head-shaped bird, and his 'human' body is just an elaborate puppet! Just you watch, I'll pull it straight off after dinner-) (Constance! Constance! The Lady Sauvage has seventeen toes, and not all of them on her feet! You would not believe how I found out-)
It'd be one thing if it were just compulsive lies, but Tristan seems to have an irrepressible knack for getting the targets in on the joke. Mort found a way to hide a large bone between his cheek and jaw, and pull it out at the right moment. Sir Harold chasing Tristan off at dinner by hooting, and shedding feathers from his scarf as he ran. The Lady Sauvage managed to cast a many-toed silhouette against a wall, in the process of taking her shoes off.
The more elaborate the lie, the more elaborate the means of 'proving it' must be. Oh, nobody actually tries to convince Constance. Nobody breaks kayfabe, but the kayfabe itself is transparent. These jokes are silly, which makes it all the more important that an incredible effort is put into them.
Because that's what's really important here, more than the jokes themselves. Everyone's been talked into being a bit ridiculous for her. It's a theatre with an audience of one.
The subtle are important too. Listening to Constance when she needs to be listened to. Asking questions to keep her talking. Leaving her alone, and respecting that time, for hours - but still checking up with hot drinks every now and again, just to make sure her brooding is necessary and productive, and not a depressive spiral.
Tristan will have to be grim and serious again soon, he's sure. When Robena arrives, it's unlikely that it will be appropriate for him to be anything but. It's why it's so important he has this two weeks to revel with.
And there are so many in the castle worth his interest, in the hours he leaves Constance alone.
Who is Sir Harold? What did he mean about Lady Sauvage? What did he mean when he said the castle is a special case?
Why is the Lady not long for this world? What passion drives the Lady? What does she do for fun, around here?
What about Sir Liana? Where did she learn her poems? Does she have any others? Does she dance?
Tristan also makes time for Mort. He is his staunchest ally in the campaign against Constance's bad mood. What are his own notes, his own strategems and tactics? Where is Mort strong in helping Constance that Tristan is weak? Or vice-versa?
And who is most likely to go and watch the winter sunset with him, at the highest point of the castle, which he does every day?
There's always been a romanticism to the cyanide capsule hidden in a tooth. The problem with it was that it made just about any blow to the jaw lethal. Always seemed like a terrible idea.
Well.
He can't tell through all of the everything, but Lucien hopes the professor didn't suffer. That'd be a real downer note to end on.
Nobody expects the last card up your sleeve to be from the tarot.
Lucien rips their shirt open. Their hair is tall and ruffled with static and sweat. To kiss their cheek would be to lick a battery. To kiss their lips would be to know the hour of your death.
Kids are scared of clowns. Kings are scared of Fools.
This is where the chaos sings purest, and Lucien is in the mood to dance to the beating. This is different from being subsumed in the role of Fool of the Sky Court, in the place of mushrooms and angels where reality was at its thinnest. They were safe as long as they did not think of the past or future - They lived in the moment, between concepts.
Lucien is the Fool Inverted, a role of his own making. He will dance through the chaos, though the role grants him no power that was not already his own. Reckless, daring, stupid - and he's got a bloody gun. He knows his future and he thinks only of it. He will land his punchline. There will be no encore.
Lucien shoots ᴇᴠɪʟ ᴊᴀᴄᴋᴅᴀᴡ point blank in the spine, through the place where her heart should be. This is no great challenge. She is so focused on Ailee, the real threat. His gun is a joke. Everybody knows that. It is a work of moments to walk behind her, silent under the impossible thumping music. There was no way this could have killed her, everyone knows that too. It doesn't need to. It ends the fight.[1]
She will hold the clown's attention better like this, anyway. The old saw about the tiger and the running shoes comes to mind. "Surely you can't shoot all the clowns?" "I don't have to-" The clowns flock to the feast.
Lucien is standing in ᴊᴀᴄᴋᴅᴀᴡ's silhouette as she crumples, and stands eye to eye with Ailee. Are those tears in them? Or are his own eyes watering, staring into her power like this. Let her see him and know what he has done, and what he will do, and for all the love he has ever held for her, let her understand.
But we aren't finished yet, are we? The bouncers are walking towards the table. Nothing to hold back now, there will be no rainy days left to save for after this. It is time to cheat.
Surma had a book on her, oh yes she did. What kind of Bookhunter doesn't domesticate their most useful catches? It's just one of those things that caught his eye, made him so immediately cautious about hiding a spine from her - har har, a running gag.
Wouldn't it be such a shame if she had lost that book when the word of Regret hit her? Dropped it, even, in the scuffle. Wouldn't it be a shame if Lucien had picked it up? Wouldn't it be miraculous if it was just the thing he needed?
As any card-counter knows; good cheating is indistinguishable from good luck. What was it he told the professor about his ability to extrapolate? He had tapped into the ultimate nexus of bad luck in the Heart, and he's had plenty of time to think about it. He'd been right in the thick of it when it blew up - able to learn from both cause and effect. It's a damned shame he didn't get more of a chance to practice.
As it is, he'd just learned enough to see the thrum of the thread leading Ailee and Surma to himself at just the wrong moment, and for the spiral out of control since. Just hit after hit of bad luck and awful coincidence. Enough to form a pattern. Enough to extrapolate.
"Tell Coleman to hug Sasha for me, she deserves it, and tell Jackdaw to always remember me fondly. Please." His voice breaks too hard to say anything more to Ailee. He's crying. How can he be crying, when he is also laughing and smiling? He laughs at that, too. This is all very silly, isn't it? Yes, it is.
He takes Surma's book from his pile, opens it to a black-velvet bookmarked page, and hurls it at Ailee's chest. It's a panic button. It's a safe escape. And, if Surma was especially clever and good at her work - which Lucien suspects she is - she will have linked herself to it, so she will go wherever Ailee is as well.[2]
Somewhere safe.
There is only one last thing to take care of. The ringmaster is still here, and Lucien still has five bullets. The clowns will only be distracted feeding on ᴊᴀᴄᴋᴅᴀᴡ for as long as she keeps squirming. After that, there is him and the professor.
ᴊᴀᴄᴋᴅᴀᴡ is live bait. Let them get closer. Lucien has five bullets and a target.
Lucien moves through the clowns in a blur of burlesque, ballet and boxing. Leap, lunge, kick-in-groin, spin, twirl, stomp-on-foot, shoot-in-kneecap, two, three, four.[3] The professor is dragged behind him, when he’s not being pushed ahead of him. The clowns are ripping into the mockery of their friend, and there is a heavy spray of blood in the air keeping their attention.
He does not have to fight the clowns. He just has to push through them. Any that get funny ideas about the weaponized professor he carries with him is dispatched in hilarious fashion. The clowns do not see a kick to the genitalia as a threat, they see it as a joke, because that's all Lucien is, remember?
The Ringmaster doesn't fall for it. He makes his way for Lucien, not the carrion. The Ringmaster knows a good joke when he sees one, and he doesn't want to be the butt of it. The Ringmaster is here to escort Lucien from the table and drop the curtains.
One last bit of sleight of hand. As long as he's looking at Lucien, he's not looking at the Professor about to drop him into Crows. There will be consequences for this. They are in the middle of the clown mob, just as planned, and he's played all the cheap tricks he's had. There's no way out of this one.
Lucien smiles as he thinks: Fried pickles are a hell of a last meal, aren't they? He can still taste them on his breath. Lovely.
[1: Finish them by Disabling them: Sense 10 -1 ammo] [2: Lucien has Luck of the Devil in his inventory, an immediate single-use get-to-safety-free card. He inflicts it on Ailee.] [3: Keep Them Busy: 7 - It succeeds, but there will be a retaliation -1 ammo]
The bath water takes some time to heat, but the rising steam is a pleasure all its own. Tristan already feels pores thick with dirt and sweat begin to open for the first time in days. His expression softens with his skin.
"I have thought long and hard, these last few minutes, about the best way to prepare you for the trials to come," Tristan intones solemnly. "Arduous test of your mind and spirit that they may be, I feel it's only appropriate we have a big snowball fight, and Mort and I shall gang up on you most ruthlessly. For your sake, of course. The bath should keep warm for that long. Then we must see about fattening you with your favourite sweets, to ready you through this harsh winter, and then we shall find some children to play hide and go seek with, so that they might share with us their knowledge of the best hiding places in the castle. And then I plan to sleep for a thousand years, and wake up early to go watch the sunset, and you're free to join me."
He nods grimly. "Yes. This is a most able plan, I feel. Nothing short of your duty."
Everything Sir Harold said is interesting, probably worth interrogating, definitely worth investigating... later.
Tristan jumps and whizzes around the rooms, inspecting everything. He'll have to start to heat water for the tub first, which is to say, immediately. And the bed! When he falls back into it with open arms, it's like being swallowed by a marshmallow! He bounces, laughing. He can read by the fire!
Reading wouldn't normally be such a priority, but he's sore and tired and books are lovely and is there a library, he wonders.
He should probably introduce himself to the place, too, find somewhere quiet to listen to the world...
Tomorrow. Definitely tomorrow. First he most definitely wants that hot bath.
Tristan grimaces, but he's said his piece and more, and the fight leaves with his anger. The emotional expenditure here is bleeding into his physical exhaustion, and he has been overly-thorough in his job of patrolling and scouting for their travelling party. For every mile Constance has ridden, he has ridden three. Blessedly Mort had taken up Tristan's share of setting up camp as he made the perimeter, or else the poor boy couldn't keep on his feet right now.
He thinks about all the luxuries a room affords. A hot bath. A feather-stuffed mattress, if he's exceptionally lucky. A breakfast of eggs-over-easy and cured meats, if his stomach has a say in his dreams. It does, and it rumbles in his ear; when's the last time he's had ice wine? It would be in season, wouldn't it? And posset! Stars above keep his hand, the things he wouldn't do for posset by an open fire.
What the Lady Sauvage has given Tristan is a gift beyond measure: She has given him a deadline for duty, a near moment he must be ready for. That means there must be no training too exhausting, no exercise so strenuous as to fatigue him or risk serious injury. He must conserve and build his strength until that near moment, and be as sharp and as well-rested as it is possible for him to be.
The Lady Sauvage has given him a fortnight's holiday to make merry.
The word of regret flows through him, and yes, it is true, he has wined and dined this fine company time and time again. But a gentleman always dances with the one that brought him, and he came here with his regrets long before he met the Professor.
The blood on his hands has been literal far too often, when he was a young soldier. But isn't that a joke down here? Not only is he all talk down here - and only talk - but the idea he was ever scary, ever a mastermind of anything, rings absurd, and it has for a long time.
Sharks are only scary in the water. Drop a great white a kilometer inland, and watch what happens. See if it matters what it used to be.
And you know what? It's been wonderful, to be a bit of a harmless old joke, hasn't it?
He got ousted from his house by a bloody parliament, and now he's going to get stomped by the floppy shoes of every clown in the damned circus in a spot of the old ultraviolence, and for some reason that sounds exactly correct to him.
What's he going to do? Take on the clowns? Take on Ailee and Surma if they survive ᴇᴠɪʟ ᴊᴀᴄᴋᴅᴀᴡ, or ᴇᴠɪʟ ᴊᴀᴄᴋᴅᴀᴡ if she can take them out? And even if he could, then what? Would Coleman and Jackdaw be faring any better right now? Besides - there never was anything in the Heart for him anyway.
Alright. So he's dead then. What a hell of a way to go.
But if this old shark hasn't left the table, yet, he's going to keep dealing the cards and playing with the house's money until he's escorted from the premises. Wouldn't want to throw one last regret to the pile, would he?
Lucien takes "A Victory of Crows" from his pile of books and gives it to the Professor. Thrusts it into his chest, more like.
"Who wants to live forever?" Lucien demands of him. "It'd be worse if you got taken alive. And if you've got anything to live for, you better say it now, because I'm working out a grand finale, here. We're gonna keep dancing 'til the curtain falls!"
He draws his revolver. Powder dry.
What's he going to do? Face the storm. Greet his audience. Help his friends and die trying.
Has this come up before? It must have, for all the brooding and stalking and melancholy - and yet it must not have, for her to ask him this now, for her to have only be releasing herself of this burden now. He takes Constance's hand and squeezes it reassuringly.
"Constance, I was with her much of the night, and you did not fail, you were failed. It was Sandsfern who boiled her blood, and Sandsfern who pushed her to the last, and Sandsfern who would not tolerate a moment's hesitation or thought. When they compelled me to fight with them, her words felt reasoned and true, and felt right until she spoke in triumph over the deed. You were only there to see the axe as it fell - yours was not the hand that lifted it, and you were not the one to place the axe in hand to begin with."
Louder, he asks of Sauvage: "Will the Lady Sandsfern be here as well, to shoulder her share of the responsibility? For how she goaded a friend to act against themselves?"
The execution of Pellinore is something that Tristan is more ambivalent about. What stirs him now is the realization that this has been a crime against loyalty, the sin of being a bad friend. That causes him to tremble with indignation.
It's also now that Tristan realizes just how deep it would have cut him had he allowed the pair to goad him into attacking the hunting party as they had intended. He had stood his ground to the last to only shoot out horses and shout warnings. He had felt overwhelming pressure to act otherwise, and in the moment, he had wondered if he was simply an ignorant child for his resistance to the two world-weary and war-wizened veterans. How close he was to actions he would have come to be ashamed of, too, a shame he would have carried for the rest of his life.
