I have it from Life in Stasis that she is going through some shit and to consider this RP to be on hold for the foreseeable future.
Lyaer
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It seems like we have a bit of a bottleneck situation going on with one or two characters.
Happy birthday, @Errant Son!
"Tell father we're coming, and see that when the guards are scolded for barging in on us, it is done in a spirit of magnanimity," Perrine murmured to Renée Kennin, and the matron darted from the room. "If you will follow me, Your Majesty, I will take you to the Lord Anquis now," and with luck he will even be awake, and sane.
She led the young king and his knight through the halls of the old keep, ascending a staircase before reaching the master's chambers. A sense of mingled sheepishness and existential dread still lingered in her over her earlier failure to recognize Alonso for who he was, and treat him in kind. That the trespass had been forgiven was some consolation, but it did not mean that there wouldn't be consequences. A bad first impression was a difficult thing to overcome, and she ill-fancied the thought of House Anquis leaving a bad taste in the mouth of the sovereign. Thinking of bad tastes, the meal she had provided seemed in hindsight far too base for the royal palate. There was not much to be done on such short notice, but she could have at least called for fine wine to replace the mead. Mead! For the king!
There would be proper feasts prepared for all future meals His Majesty spent in the city.
Though Perrine found herself almost more distressed at having offended Sir Linus Kolbe. The knight's words had been harsher than his sovereign's - rightly so - and she could think only that he thought her a fool, a child, that he would disdain her and her family. He was only a knight. He had no significant holdings that she was aware of, so his opinion was of little enough consequence at court. But he had been there, with Sacha, and so he represented something. Her gut twisted.
The door to the master bedroom was closed when they arrived, but Renée Kennin emerged from it mere moments after, to inform them that the lord was indeed awake and ready to receive his guests. Perrine lead them into the room. It was spacious and tastefully decorated. Opposite the door, a large window with curtains drawn allowed the twilight in, though the room was also lit by two wall-mounted braziers, and a writing lamp on the desk in the corner, where Mathys sat, his light hair obscuring his face as he hunched over a diagram of the male form he was copying from a book of anatomy. The room was dominated by the large bed. Above it hung two portraits of young women - her father's two late wives: Perrine's mother Emeline, and Mathys' mother Nolwenn. Her father lay in the bed, his gaunt form propped up with several pillows. On the other side of the bed a balding physician with round eyes and a flat nose seemed to fade into the background.
As they entered, Mathys rose from his chair and scurried to the foot of the bed, where bowed deeply. Her father managed only a weak nod.
"His Majesty, Alonso vas Aretaeus, son of Leonard vas Aretaeus, King of Areta, and his knight Sir Linus Kolbe," Perrine said by way of introduction. "And this is my father, Lord Demour Anquis, Baron of Greenbank, and his heir, Lord Mathys Anquis. My brother."
"Your Majesty, you do me a great honor. I would stand, but..." Demour gestured feebly at the bed and the unobtrusive doctor. His breath was shallow, his voice a rasp barely above a whisper. "I have not had the good fortune to see you since you were a boy; the journey to court is hard on an old man. But I won't bore you with pleasantries and reminiscence. To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit? Besides the obvious." Besides Vicenna.
She led the young king and his knight through the halls of the old keep, ascending a staircase before reaching the master's chambers. A sense of mingled sheepishness and existential dread still lingered in her over her earlier failure to recognize Alonso for who he was, and treat him in kind. That the trespass had been forgiven was some consolation, but it did not mean that there wouldn't be consequences. A bad first impression was a difficult thing to overcome, and she ill-fancied the thought of House Anquis leaving a bad taste in the mouth of the sovereign. Thinking of bad tastes, the meal she had provided seemed in hindsight far too base for the royal palate. There was not much to be done on such short notice, but she could have at least called for fine wine to replace the mead. Mead! For the king!
There would be proper feasts prepared for all future meals His Majesty spent in the city.
Though Perrine found herself almost more distressed at having offended Sir Linus Kolbe. The knight's words had been harsher than his sovereign's - rightly so - and she could think only that he thought her a fool, a child, that he would disdain her and her family. He was only a knight. He had no significant holdings that she was aware of, so his opinion was of little enough consequence at court. But he had been there, with Sacha, and so he represented something. Her gut twisted.
The door to the master bedroom was closed when they arrived, but Renée Kennin emerged from it mere moments after, to inform them that the lord was indeed awake and ready to receive his guests. Perrine lead them into the room. It was spacious and tastefully decorated. Opposite the door, a large window with curtains drawn allowed the twilight in, though the room was also lit by two wall-mounted braziers, and a writing lamp on the desk in the corner, where Mathys sat, his light hair obscuring his face as he hunched over a diagram of the male form he was copying from a book of anatomy. The room was dominated by the large bed. Above it hung two portraits of young women - her father's two late wives: Perrine's mother Emeline, and Mathys' mother Nolwenn. Her father lay in the bed, his gaunt form propped up with several pillows. On the other side of the bed a balding physician with round eyes and a flat nose seemed to fade into the background.
As they entered, Mathys rose from his chair and scurried to the foot of the bed, where bowed deeply. Her father managed only a weak nod.
"His Majesty, Alonso vas Aretaeus, son of Leonard vas Aretaeus, King of Areta, and his knight Sir Linus Kolbe," Perrine said by way of introduction. "And this is my father, Lord Demour Anquis, Baron of Greenbank, and his heir, Lord Mathys Anquis. My brother."
"Your Majesty, you do me a great honor. I would stand, but..." Demour gestured feebly at the bed and the unobtrusive doctor. His breath was shallow, his voice a rasp barely above a whisper. "I have not had the good fortune to see you since you were a boy; the journey to court is hard on an old man. But I won't bore you with pleasantries and reminiscence. To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit? Besides the obvious." Besides Vicenna.
"...Your sovereign," rasped Kolbe, the standing knight.
Oh, Perrine thought. Ohh. I'm ruined. Stupid, stupid girl. She sank to her knees before her king, pressing her forehead to the fine carpet. When she spoke her voice betrayed her, escaping her throat as a high, breathless squeak. "Your Majesty. Forgive me. I didn't know."
She held the pose, waiting on the man who could unmake her tenuous position, her family, her world, on a whim. But he did no such thing: his words, when he spoke were conciliatory, dismissive, distracted. Of course they were. There were bigger worlds than hers coming apart. None of this mattered. She rose sheepishly to her feet. And let us never speak of this again, she prayed.
And then they were back to business.
So, the king had been in Vicenna and his knights sent to retrieve him. That explained some things. What he was doing there, she did not know, but from the sound of it their reunion had coincided with Vicenna's fall, and the emergence of the hellish insectoids to whom that fall was being attributed.
Perrine eyed the scepter where Kolbe had thrust it down on the dining table. If the magus - if Marcus spoke true, it was a mighty and terrible object. Her own knowledge of the arcane was, as yet, frustratingly limited, but there was a palpable presence to the thing. An almost animal quality. She could believe the thing was powerful. She could believe it was made with blood magic. More disturbingly, though, the presence carried with it the uncomfortable inkling that it was something she should recognize, that she desperately wanted not to recognize.
Yet as she stared the familiarity of the presence grew undeniable. She had felt this before - not in Udny Pass, nor during her dealings with the Viceni, but in Marion Bay, in the underground sanctum beneath the temple of Hayaz.
That ineffable sense of life, of animacy had accompanied three objects - a bowl, a lantern, an auger - each held by one of the masked members of the Laughing Priesthood, the chosen of Hayaz. If this scepter, their most tangible lead to the cause of Vicenna's destruction, was of a kind with those other items, their source could be similar. Following the the lead could bring the king and his men right back to the Circle of Mirth. She was not keen to find out what would happen then. At the same time, the lead could not go unfollowed. Knowing whether Areta was at risk of following Vicenna underneath the sands and what, if anything, could be done about it was of utmost importance. She would aid in the investigation as best she could, but she would not hand the crown the rope to hang her with.
In any case, if the young magus was right, this blood magic was a known process. The artifacts needn't all come from the same place. She hoped that was the case even as she feared it wasn't. There was no way around having to investigate the Circle, but she would do so on her own.
"It is true that here on the outskirts of the kingdom, with Vicenna so close, the attitudes toward the malign arts of witchcraft are perhaps looser than they are in Marion Bay, but this is a relative thing. We of Greenbank are as God fearing a people as anyone, and House Anquis does not make a habit of providing safe haven to warlocks and soothsayers. We have of course had our dealings with the magi of Vicenna, but these dealings have been primarily matters of trade, and even then our main liaison in recent years has been Ambassador Farwater, who to my knowledge does not practice."
Faint cries echoed down the guest corridor. The ambassador was having another fit. "As fate would have it, Sir Orson Farwater was staying with us when... We have confined him in a guestroom, for the time being. He might be worth questioning - I would defer to him or Marcus here where it comes to the arcane, and the state of things in Vicenna during its final days, but I warn you: he is not in a good place. I'm afraid those screams you inquired about are his." She suspected Orson could be persuaded to talk, or she hoped he could. She did not relish having to have the man tortured.
"Udny Pass also has a resident inquisitor. He is retired, I am told, but he may have valuable insights. If it pleases your majesty, I will have him summoned."
She turned to the matter of her father's absence, "It is true that had we known of your coming, and the nature of your visit, my father would have wanted desperately to attend this meeting. He..." She looked to Renée Kennin - given the present unexpected circumstances, ought he make an appearance after all? But the matron shook her head, frowning tiredly. So it was that bad, again. Already. "He is very ill, your majesty. Moving him would be...taxing. When we are done here, if it is your will, if he is lucid, I can take you to him. You and...Sir Linus Kolbe. Sir Linus was... I believe he would want to meet with Sir Linus," before he passes, she thought.
Oh, Perrine thought. Ohh. I'm ruined. Stupid, stupid girl. She sank to her knees before her king, pressing her forehead to the fine carpet. When she spoke her voice betrayed her, escaping her throat as a high, breathless squeak. "Your Majesty. Forgive me. I didn't know."
She held the pose, waiting on the man who could unmake her tenuous position, her family, her world, on a whim. But he did no such thing: his words, when he spoke were conciliatory, dismissive, distracted. Of course they were. There were bigger worlds than hers coming apart. None of this mattered. She rose sheepishly to her feet. And let us never speak of this again, she prayed.
And then they were back to business.
So, the king had been in Vicenna and his knights sent to retrieve him. That explained some things. What he was doing there, she did not know, but from the sound of it their reunion had coincided with Vicenna's fall, and the emergence of the hellish insectoids to whom that fall was being attributed.
Perrine eyed the scepter where Kolbe had thrust it down on the dining table. If the magus - if Marcus spoke true, it was a mighty and terrible object. Her own knowledge of the arcane was, as yet, frustratingly limited, but there was a palpable presence to the thing. An almost animal quality. She could believe the thing was powerful. She could believe it was made with blood magic. More disturbingly, though, the presence carried with it the uncomfortable inkling that it was something she should recognize, that she desperately wanted not to recognize.
Yet as she stared the familiarity of the presence grew undeniable. She had felt this before - not in Udny Pass, nor during her dealings with the Viceni, but in Marion Bay, in the underground sanctum beneath the temple of Hayaz.
That ineffable sense of life, of animacy had accompanied three objects - a bowl, a lantern, an auger - each held by one of the masked members of the Laughing Priesthood, the chosen of Hayaz. If this scepter, their most tangible lead to the cause of Vicenna's destruction, was of a kind with those other items, their source could be similar. Following the the lead could bring the king and his men right back to the Circle of Mirth. She was not keen to find out what would happen then. At the same time, the lead could not go unfollowed. Knowing whether Areta was at risk of following Vicenna underneath the sands and what, if anything, could be done about it was of utmost importance. She would aid in the investigation as best she could, but she would not hand the crown the rope to hang her with.
In any case, if the young magus was right, this blood magic was a known process. The artifacts needn't all come from the same place. She hoped that was the case even as she feared it wasn't. There was no way around having to investigate the Circle, but she would do so on her own.
"It is true that here on the outskirts of the kingdom, with Vicenna so close, the attitudes toward the malign arts of witchcraft are perhaps looser than they are in Marion Bay, but this is a relative thing. We of Greenbank are as God fearing a people as anyone, and House Anquis does not make a habit of providing safe haven to warlocks and soothsayers. We have of course had our dealings with the magi of Vicenna, but these dealings have been primarily matters of trade, and even then our main liaison in recent years has been Ambassador Farwater, who to my knowledge does not practice."
Faint cries echoed down the guest corridor. The ambassador was having another fit. "As fate would have it, Sir Orson Farwater was staying with us when... We have confined him in a guestroom, for the time being. He might be worth questioning - I would defer to him or Marcus here where it comes to the arcane, and the state of things in Vicenna during its final days, but I warn you: he is not in a good place. I'm afraid those screams you inquired about are his." She suspected Orson could be persuaded to talk, or she hoped he could. She did not relish having to have the man tortured.
"Udny Pass also has a resident inquisitor. He is retired, I am told, but he may have valuable insights. If it pleases your majesty, I will have him summoned."
She turned to the matter of her father's absence, "It is true that had we known of your coming, and the nature of your visit, my father would have wanted desperately to attend this meeting. He..." She looked to Renée Kennin - given the present unexpected circumstances, ought he make an appearance after all? But the matron shook her head, frowning tiredly. So it was that bad, again. Already. "He is very ill, your majesty. Moving him would be...taxing. When we are done here, if it is your will, if he is lucid, I can take you to him. You and...Sir Linus Kolbe. Sir Linus was... I believe he would want to meet with Sir Linus," before he passes, she thought.
The keep some of ya'll are in now used to be a small fortress guarding Udny Pass, back when it was actually just a pass. The city grew up around it and it's been renovated several times in the intervening centuries. It's become the seat of power in Greenbank.
Or that's how I'm envisioning it. It's either situated in the middle of the city, or on a particularly defensible edge of it.
Or that's how I'm envisioning it. It's either situated in the middle of the city, or on a particularly defensible edge of it.
"Evie - my girl, my youngest. She's fiery, too. They must be about the same age. She's turning seven next week and if I don't have something good when I get back I'll be in big trouble." The portly diplomat from Vicenna delivered the line with an air of solemnity betrayed by the twinkle in his eye. Then he reached out and placed a large pink hand on Perrine's head, ruffling her hair. "You'd like her."
Perrine stiffened. A sidelong glance at her father told her he would not be calling his new acquaintance out on the indignity. He looked amused. She exhaled sharply. "I'm ten," she said. "And I am not fiery."
The two men's laughter flooded the room. The diplomat's laugh was loud and hearty, where her father's was shallower, and had a rasp to it. The realization that they were laughing at her swept through her like dizzying wave, and for a moment she was sure she was falling, though the ground stayed in its place. Her breathe came short, but no tears came; she wouldn't let them.
The diplomat caught her eye and quickly reined in his careless guffaw. "I seem to have given offense, m'lady." He went to one knee before her, his face a mask of contrition, his hand extended in invitation. She was reasonably sure he was still mocking her, but she put her tiny hand in his big one anyway. It was the polite thing to do. "I wish to offer my humblest apologies," he said and kissed her hand.
Perrine eyed him coolie, evaluating his sincerity. "Your apology is accepted," she said, through a smile she didn't mean. For now.
Matthieu, the burlier of her two chaperones, grappled the diplomat from behind, crushing the man's flabby wrists together with one hand, while the other arm wrapped around his chest between the throat and collarbone. With the man thus pinned, Perrine's other chaperone, the scrappy older tutor and maidservant Renée Kennin, frisked him down, removing two daggers from the folds of his silken robes and tossing them onto the table next to the man's short sword and the dirk and three belts they had found by upending the guestroom.
"I apologize for having to do this," Perrine said, and meant it. "They will be returned when you are in a calmer state."
Sir Orson Farwater, trade ambassador of the late Republic of Vicenna and something of a family friend, squirmed and twisted against Matthieu's grip. He had managed to jerk his left wrist free, and was now attempting to pry the strongman's arm loose from his upper torso, but lacked the leverage for success.
"This is pointless!" Sir Orson's voice was hoarse from screaming, and lacked even a trace of the joviality Perrine had become accustomed to over the decade since his first visit to Greenbank. "It's not a fucking favor you're doing me. I am nothing. Nothing! Just let me fucking die."
So went his thesis: he was a ghost now, his tethers to the world flying loose, their anchors systematically unfastened and in one sublime moment too terrible to comprehend, swallowed by the swirling sand. "Fiery Evie" swallowed, along with the rest of his six children, his five grandchildren, and the wife whose improbable beauty he would seldom shut up about. Swallowed, too, his brothers and sister, his aging mother, and a whole clan of relatives with strong personalities. Perrine was surprised at how many of their names came to her own mind unbidden, though she had never met a one; it was just that Sir Orson talked so much. He had always been a family man.
Perrine was no stranger to deaths in the family, but the magnitude of this was not something she could comprehend.
"My father wants you alive to speak for the refugees. We have a rapport." Rumors of whole villages driven by raiders across the Neratine and the great ravine that marked the border with Vicenna further north had been trickling into Udny Pass for the last week or so, though Perrine and her father had not paid them much mind until the night before, when the population of Muon Pond turned up on their doorstep. Perhaps they were too late to the game and other minds had already tackled the problem, but if House Anquis could make itself instrumental in the successful integration of this new wave of peasants, it could help to elevate their standing in court.
"Besides," Perrine continued, "I won't allow a guest in my father's house to be damned."
Sir Orson sneered. "How quaint. Fuck your hells and your backward desert god. And the refugees. I'm not a politician anymore and I'm not your father's pet."
Perrine ignored the man's provocations. By now, Renée Kennin had wrapped the knives and belts together in a cloth bundle and come to stand at the door. "You may release him now, Matthieu. We're going." To Sir Orson, Perrine said "There will be a guard posted. If you try to leave, or harm yourself, he will stop you. If you wish to walk the city or the castle you may do so with an escort and my or my father's permission. Just send one of the servants when they bring you your meals." She took a deep breath. "I'm sorry for you loss."
The woman was waiting in the hall when she exited. She was lithe, handsome, and taller than Perrine by almost a foot. Deeply tanned, and black haired, with a bit of an Eretol look about her. Her perfume smelled of orange blossoms and she draped herself in bright colors and jewelry of bronze and glass. "M'lady Anquis," she said, and bowed a bit deeper than etiquette required. "Your man bade me come here. They...let me in at the gate."
"Your madame tells my man you're Ambassador Farwater's favorite prostitute. Is that true?"
"I don't know, m'lady. I... Probably. He's a regular, when he's in the city."
"And this has been going on for three summers?"
"Four m'lady. But yes. Is..." Her question trailed off. From her apprehensive tone, Perrine suspected the woman wanted to ask if she had somehow stepped afoul of her lord's family - if she was in trouble. Probably, she was not accustomed to the attention of the highborn, excluding the client in question.
Though perhaps Perrine needn't reach for an explanation for the woman's demeanor. The cliffs of Udny Pass shook visibly when Vicenna fell, and many an Aretan eye had born witness as the nation's distant mountains sank into the sand. News spread quickly to those who had not seen, and Perrine doubted greatly that many of her countrymen would rest easy for months to come, if not years. She had long since learned to bury her own panic, but she could still feel it threatening to overwhelm her if she let herself stop to think.
"Do relax," Perrine said. "I asked for you because I mean to hire your services."
The woman raised an eyebrow. "M'lady?"
"Not for myself. I want you to keep the good Sir Orson company for a time. Stay with him. I fear you may be the last thread tying him to this world."
As Perrine's meaning sank in, the woman's eyes went large. She shook her head slowly. "He is a sweet man, but..." The woman was not ready to have the weight of the man's life on her shoulders, to share his quarters and weather the fits of rage and anguish that were like to punctuate his existence for the weeks and months to come.
"Do this for me and for Orson. House Anquis will see you are generously compensated for your troubles. If you are not stupid with it, you will not soon want for coin."
The woman bit her lip and nodded, because, of course, she didn't have much choice in the matter. "Yes, M'lady," she said.
Perrine sat at the small writing desk in the keep's library, a tome on the philosophies of Favian of Aul opened to her right and to her left a small plate of cheese and olives, untouched. The dry quill in her hand tapped a tight, anxious rhythm on the blank sheet of papyrus before her. It was to be, in theory, an essay drawing an analogy between Favian's doctrine of the primacy of animal virtues to the classical Veckish notion of the five roots of thought. But the written word was beyond Perrine; her head was full of swirling sand.
She didn't notice the door open behind her until Renée Kennin's hand settled on her shoulder. She jerked around, but then relaxed, seeing her old tutor. "The world is quite literally crumbling around us and here I am failing to dissect the thesis of some long-dead Aulic demagogue. Please tell me there is anything else I need be doing right now."
Renée Kennin smirked. "I thought you rather liked Favian. But as it happens... Those knights are back. Amon Serona and his men. There's some noble with them, demanding to speak with the Lord Anquis."
"Father is not in a state to entertain visitors right now, I think."
"No," Renée Kennin agreed.
"Alright, have them escorted to the smaller dining hall. See that there's meat and bread, and that good mead, with the pomelo. I'll meet with them."
They were, most of them, seated around the small, ornate table when she entered, her two chaperones flanking her. She had not met in person with Captain Serona and his company when they first passed through Udny Pass two days prior, but she had heard reports and the numbers here were wrong. Serona had lost men.
Aside from the captain, there were four others. She recognized Sir Gawain Castagher, the surly knight who'd disappeared not long after he'd been assigned to Udny Pass a few weeks before. Her eyes and ears in the city had reported that Serona's knights had been looking for someone. She wondered if it was him. Beside him sat a tall, robe-garbed commoner she didn't know.
The remaining knight, the last of Serona's original company, stood to the side, still helmeted. Sir Linus Kolbe, by the description she'd been given. It was a name she remembered.
And there, seated at the head of the table, the place reserved for the Lord Anquis, was the mysterious young noble who had demanded this audience. Perrine could swear she had seen him before, but where was the question. Perhaps he had a common face? Pretty, though.
"Welcome to Udny Pass, Captain," she said. "I am Perrine Anquis, the lady of this house. Regrettably, my lord father is indisposed and will not be joining us, but I am authorized to speak on his behalf." She sized them up again. The lot of them looked bloody and haggard. "I mean no offense when I say that you and your men look...worse for wear. You must be famished. Food and mead are on their way and the servants are preparing hot baths and guest quarters for you as we speak."
Indeed, almost as she said the words a pair of maids emerged from an inconspicuous serving door and began to lay out food before the guests. There was fresh baked bread; basil roasted kid with walnuts and nutmeg; a soft, musky cheese; and a blend of coarse-ground herbs and seeds soaking in olive oil for dipping. The mead came last - two great carafes, from which the servants filled each of the guests' goblets to the brim. It smelled strongly of honey and bitter citrus.
"Now to business," said Perrine. "I am told you have some urgent business with my house. Judging by the timing of this visit and the gate through which you entered, I believe you have news of Vicenna and I would very much like to hear it. I suspect our ends may be pointing in the same direction, here. But first," she eyed the mystery nobleman, "who's the man in my God damned chair?"
Perrine stiffened. A sidelong glance at her father told her he would not be calling his new acquaintance out on the indignity. He looked amused. She exhaled sharply. "I'm ten," she said. "And I am not fiery."
The two men's laughter flooded the room. The diplomat's laugh was loud and hearty, where her father's was shallower, and had a rasp to it. The realization that they were laughing at her swept through her like dizzying wave, and for a moment she was sure she was falling, though the ground stayed in its place. Her breathe came short, but no tears came; she wouldn't let them.
The diplomat caught her eye and quickly reined in his careless guffaw. "I seem to have given offense, m'lady." He went to one knee before her, his face a mask of contrition, his hand extended in invitation. She was reasonably sure he was still mocking her, but she put her tiny hand in his big one anyway. It was the polite thing to do. "I wish to offer my humblest apologies," he said and kissed her hand.
Perrine eyed him coolie, evaluating his sincerity. "Your apology is accepted," she said, through a smile she didn't mean. For now.
Matthieu, the burlier of her two chaperones, grappled the diplomat from behind, crushing the man's flabby wrists together with one hand, while the other arm wrapped around his chest between the throat and collarbone. With the man thus pinned, Perrine's other chaperone, the scrappy older tutor and maidservant Renée Kennin, frisked him down, removing two daggers from the folds of his silken robes and tossing them onto the table next to the man's short sword and the dirk and three belts they had found by upending the guestroom.
"I apologize for having to do this," Perrine said, and meant it. "They will be returned when you are in a calmer state."
Sir Orson Farwater, trade ambassador of the late Republic of Vicenna and something of a family friend, squirmed and twisted against Matthieu's grip. He had managed to jerk his left wrist free, and was now attempting to pry the strongman's arm loose from his upper torso, but lacked the leverage for success.
"This is pointless!" Sir Orson's voice was hoarse from screaming, and lacked even a trace of the joviality Perrine had become accustomed to over the decade since his first visit to Greenbank. "It's not a fucking favor you're doing me. I am nothing. Nothing! Just let me fucking die."
So went his thesis: he was a ghost now, his tethers to the world flying loose, their anchors systematically unfastened and in one sublime moment too terrible to comprehend, swallowed by the swirling sand. "Fiery Evie" swallowed, along with the rest of his six children, his five grandchildren, and the wife whose improbable beauty he would seldom shut up about. Swallowed, too, his brothers and sister, his aging mother, and a whole clan of relatives with strong personalities. Perrine was surprised at how many of their names came to her own mind unbidden, though she had never met a one; it was just that Sir Orson talked so much. He had always been a family man.
Perrine was no stranger to deaths in the family, but the magnitude of this was not something she could comprehend.
"My father wants you alive to speak for the refugees. We have a rapport." Rumors of whole villages driven by raiders across the Neratine and the great ravine that marked the border with Vicenna further north had been trickling into Udny Pass for the last week or so, though Perrine and her father had not paid them much mind until the night before, when the population of Muon Pond turned up on their doorstep. Perhaps they were too late to the game and other minds had already tackled the problem, but if House Anquis could make itself instrumental in the successful integration of this new wave of peasants, it could help to elevate their standing in court.
"Besides," Perrine continued, "I won't allow a guest in my father's house to be damned."
Sir Orson sneered. "How quaint. Fuck your hells and your backward desert god. And the refugees. I'm not a politician anymore and I'm not your father's pet."
Perrine ignored the man's provocations. By now, Renée Kennin had wrapped the knives and belts together in a cloth bundle and come to stand at the door. "You may release him now, Matthieu. We're going." To Sir Orson, Perrine said "There will be a guard posted. If you try to leave, or harm yourself, he will stop you. If you wish to walk the city or the castle you may do so with an escort and my or my father's permission. Just send one of the servants when they bring you your meals." She took a deep breath. "I'm sorry for you loss."
The woman was waiting in the hall when she exited. She was lithe, handsome, and taller than Perrine by almost a foot. Deeply tanned, and black haired, with a bit of an Eretol look about her. Her perfume smelled of orange blossoms and she draped herself in bright colors and jewelry of bronze and glass. "M'lady Anquis," she said, and bowed a bit deeper than etiquette required. "Your man bade me come here. They...let me in at the gate."
"Your madame tells my man you're Ambassador Farwater's favorite prostitute. Is that true?"
"I don't know, m'lady. I... Probably. He's a regular, when he's in the city."
"And this has been going on for three summers?"
"Four m'lady. But yes. Is..." Her question trailed off. From her apprehensive tone, Perrine suspected the woman wanted to ask if she had somehow stepped afoul of her lord's family - if she was in trouble. Probably, she was not accustomed to the attention of the highborn, excluding the client in question.
Though perhaps Perrine needn't reach for an explanation for the woman's demeanor. The cliffs of Udny Pass shook visibly when Vicenna fell, and many an Aretan eye had born witness as the nation's distant mountains sank into the sand. News spread quickly to those who had not seen, and Perrine doubted greatly that many of her countrymen would rest easy for months to come, if not years. She had long since learned to bury her own panic, but she could still feel it threatening to overwhelm her if she let herself stop to think.
"Do relax," Perrine said. "I asked for you because I mean to hire your services."
The woman raised an eyebrow. "M'lady?"
"Not for myself. I want you to keep the good Sir Orson company for a time. Stay with him. I fear you may be the last thread tying him to this world."
As Perrine's meaning sank in, the woman's eyes went large. She shook her head slowly. "He is a sweet man, but..." The woman was not ready to have the weight of the man's life on her shoulders, to share his quarters and weather the fits of rage and anguish that were like to punctuate his existence for the weeks and months to come.
"Do this for me and for Orson. House Anquis will see you are generously compensated for your troubles. If you are not stupid with it, you will not soon want for coin."
The woman bit her lip and nodded, because, of course, she didn't have much choice in the matter. "Yes, M'lady," she said.
Perrine sat at the small writing desk in the keep's library, a tome on the philosophies of Favian of Aul opened to her right and to her left a small plate of cheese and olives, untouched. The dry quill in her hand tapped a tight, anxious rhythm on the blank sheet of papyrus before her. It was to be, in theory, an essay drawing an analogy between Favian's doctrine of the primacy of animal virtues to the classical Veckish notion of the five roots of thought. But the written word was beyond Perrine; her head was full of swirling sand.
She didn't notice the door open behind her until Renée Kennin's hand settled on her shoulder. She jerked around, but then relaxed, seeing her old tutor. "The world is quite literally crumbling around us and here I am failing to dissect the thesis of some long-dead Aulic demagogue. Please tell me there is anything else I need be doing right now."
Renée Kennin smirked. "I thought you rather liked Favian. But as it happens... Those knights are back. Amon Serona and his men. There's some noble with them, demanding to speak with the Lord Anquis."
"Father is not in a state to entertain visitors right now, I think."
"No," Renée Kennin agreed.
"Alright, have them escorted to the smaller dining hall. See that there's meat and bread, and that good mead, with the pomelo. I'll meet with them."
They were, most of them, seated around the small, ornate table when she entered, her two chaperones flanking her. She had not met in person with Captain Serona and his company when they first passed through Udny Pass two days prior, but she had heard reports and the numbers here were wrong. Serona had lost men.
Aside from the captain, there were four others. She recognized Sir Gawain Castagher, the surly knight who'd disappeared not long after he'd been assigned to Udny Pass a few weeks before. Her eyes and ears in the city had reported that Serona's knights had been looking for someone. She wondered if it was him. Beside him sat a tall, robe-garbed commoner she didn't know.
The remaining knight, the last of Serona's original company, stood to the side, still helmeted. Sir Linus Kolbe, by the description she'd been given. It was a name she remembered.
And there, seated at the head of the table, the place reserved for the Lord Anquis, was the mysterious young noble who had demanded this audience. Perrine could swear she had seen him before, but where was the question. Perhaps he had a common face? Pretty, though.
"Welcome to Udny Pass, Captain," she said. "I am Perrine Anquis, the lady of this house. Regrettably, my lord father is indisposed and will not be joining us, but I am authorized to speak on his behalf." She sized them up again. The lot of them looked bloody and haggard. "I mean no offense when I say that you and your men look...worse for wear. You must be famished. Food and mead are on their way and the servants are preparing hot baths and guest quarters for you as we speak."
Indeed, almost as she said the words a pair of maids emerged from an inconspicuous serving door and began to lay out food before the guests. There was fresh baked bread; basil roasted kid with walnuts and nutmeg; a soft, musky cheese; and a blend of coarse-ground herbs and seeds soaking in olive oil for dipping. The mead came last - two great carafes, from which the servants filled each of the guests' goblets to the brim. It smelled strongly of honey and bitter citrus.
"Now to business," said Perrine. "I am told you have some urgent business with my house. Judging by the timing of this visit and the gate through which you entered, I believe you have news of Vicenna and I would very much like to hear it. I suspect our ends may be pointing in the same direction, here. But first," she eyed the mystery nobleman, "who's the man in my God damned chair?"
It might be booze instead of tea. I haven't written the scene yet.
@Culluket, @Thortimer, @Errant Son, @Life in Stasis - would it step on any of your toes if I end my post with the lot of your characters sitting down for tea in my family's keep? (I'm assuming Alonso would insist they keep the mage with them.)
EDIT: If at all possible it's going up this evening, by which I mean some absurd hour tomorrow morning.
EDIT: If at all possible it's going up this evening, by which I mean some absurd hour tomorrow morning.
Starting on a post in a minute here. Will try to have it up in the next day or so. I aim to make contact with the Knights by the end of it.
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