WHO: Gwenaรซlle Baudin, Nell Voss, Marcoulf Ricart, Lakshmi Bai & possibly another. WHAT: An escort mission in southern Orlais. WHEN: This month. WHERE: Halamshiral, the Dales. NOTES: Sub-headers in the comments.
[ She's there at the appointed time and place that they're to set out from, if not a good hour early out of some pent-up need to be moving already. The horse's reign wrapped around her off hand - a sturdy roan animal she'd picked out of the Gallows' stables. Leave those big and burly chevaliers to their war beasts. She would be far happier with a creature that could take a long journey well. To that, she has infinite affection and care.
The rest, she goes over her saddlebags one last time, making sure she's prepared for the journey before she leaves. Provisions, for her and her beast, sleeping gear. Weapons ( sword, bow, strapped to hip and against her back, a comfortable sure weight after years ) and the scale mail that seemed so popular amongst the Inquisition soldiers - and especially the heavy leather glove on her left hand she made sure not to dare to take off that hid that itching, pulsing mark. The other at least free as she tightened all her straps on last time - until she finds herself with company in the early hours of mostly quiet streets and lifts a hand in greeting to what she either hopes or suspects is one of the other hired men. Waiting expectantly for them.
If there was anything to say about this place, she was glad she did not have to fend off every idiot over-proud cock, that she had a right to bear arms just as he did. That she did not miss. ]
[ Approaching is a red-haired woman with a staff across her back, dark wood bound with leather and topped with a curved blade. She's walking alongside her horse, a dark palfrey with Inquisition tack and no great weight in her saddlebags. She lifts a hand in return, and halts a few feet off. ] I'm Voss. You don't sound much like a Marcoulf. Bai, was it?
[ Her smile of greeting is easy, and her own accent something vaguely reminiscent of Northern or Central Europe, though her hands (bare, anchor-less, freckled across the backs) mark her as a native. She tugs at her collar with one, peeling fabric away from skin. ]
I hope the others turn up soon. The faster we get on the road, the faster we're out of this damn swamp.
[ She nods in greeting, digging about the last bit in her own gear before - stop fussing, Rani, it will be fine - she finally relents. At this point she supposed, she was either prepared or she wasn't, she supposed.
So she reties everything and settles back. ] I hope so as well. I never did like waiting when I ought to be working.
the townhouse is still in the process of being shut up, though by the time they arrive, there are no other servants save the stone-faced man who anticipates them at the door; tall, gaunt, immovable. he says little, says mademoiselle just the same way he must have before said my lady, may be somewhat recognizable as having been present at the grand tourney, occasionally in the company of commander coupe when she shared that company with both vauquelin brothers.
his name is guilfoyle; he appears to be the steward, the gentleman's gentleman, that gwenaรซlle made reference to.
there will be a day or so still before the townhouse is locked up and the party moves on. )
( they leave halamshiral with both gwenaรซlle and her (retired) assassin. horses are available before they leave the city; her own is named persistence, matches her hair, and is still carrying her sensible travel supplies from the trip to falon'din's temple that she'd come from. she's dressed more appropriately for that adventure than for a young lady attending household affairs, which at least means they aren't as blatant a target for bandits as they might be. )
( more mausoleum than home; a stately, sprawling place, an exquisite feat of architecture overlooking manicured landscape, no doubt the product of generations of indentured servitude. the servants still present are a relatively even split of human and elven, and much of gwenaรซlle's business is the settling of their employment and assurances that they go on to work, leaving the vauquelin employ with generous payments to tide them over, letters of recommendation, quiet apologies. )
[This place, more than any district or fine house in Halamshiral ever could, reminds him of-- not home, never that. But something very familiar anyway. Something close enough to stir some fond reaction despite every instinct otherwise. He'd thought it when they'd first finally come away up through the trees and the irregular road had grown more conscious and direct, the subtle tangle of the wild Dales giving way to carefully tended lawns and blooming flowers. That sensation lingers here too, days later as he sits in the shade of one of the estate's many verandas and watches as a minor contingent of the household's servants sort through mountains of heavy winter bedding. It's to be arranged and evaluated, packed away with more permanency than a season requires. Some of it may make its way elsewhere after the house is closed, though he guesses most will stay here in chests and boxes forgotten until they're too eaten through to be useful.
Marcoulf has his dagger across his knee, though his attention for sharpening it has waned in favor of a cup of wine supplied by the kitchen maid (freer with it now that she knows her job here is nearly finished). It's a little vouyeristic, he decides, doing nothing while a whole skeletal staff scrambles to end their own employment. And yet--
Well, there's no reason to really stop himself either. Certainly no work to be done but to wait. So he drinks and feels just parallel enough to the servants in the yard that the road back to Kirkwall begins to seem appealing. He should have brought his own horse after all. Leaving ahead of schedule on foot is more trouble than coaxing the animal onto a boat would have been.]
[ She could not find more different. Her eyes slide over words that are familiar but wrong. Corridors that she saw in ruined chateaus, the leftover decadence of Fat King George IV, chippendale furniture, and the filigree over gold figures. Holding candles like beauty had no purpose but to illuminate. She finds nothing of home here, not even in the servants. The pay is good, and she cannot complain to her present mistress' generosity. But it is so much the opposite of home, so much the nearer to Paris and it's opera. To its severed head kings and despotic emperor. Grandeur, enough to drown a country in gold.
She's getting fanciful, old in her bones. But she has her word to keep, her peace she had promised, and wine to drink. She does her best to keep out of range of servants. She has no want to make their lives harder than they are already not. Better to mind her own business, fetch another drink, and - oh, perhaps the fanciful had more to do with this wine than it did anything else.
Eventually, misery was always in want of company, even if miserable is not quite the word for it. Uncomfortable is better, a history that has not been made here, but feels so sure, maybe the wine is to hide that instead. Wash it out. Gives up on her sensibilities. How imminently practical she insisted on being when it came to moving on the road. Clipping adherence to the structure of set tasks. The unfaltering way she made sure to be first up, last down when it mattered.
To that reckoning, it's forgivable when she asks the maid for the jug so she didn't have to keep playing a hostess for the guards, and went to find someone else who appeared to be doing a similar task of keeping out from underfoot. ]
More?
[ She holds up the jug, and it's not overt, she's not so far gone that there she sways in her steps or pushes herself too far with the movements. But there's a brightness there, in her gaze, in how she wets her lips with the tip of her tongue to a sheen, the particular way she offers up the wine. ]
[It's not the kind of invitation he can turn down, is it? Not that the lady has been so free about her state so as to alert every would-be bandit between here and Halamshiral; but the road from Kirkwall isn't short, she is a keen conversationalist, and he isn't altogether an idiot. Anyone with eyes in the skull and half a lick of sense could know that wherever she came from, she'd been important there. And while Rani Lakshmi Bai might be no one at all here, he suspects she is fundamentally not the type of woman to be refused anything easily.
Besides, it's only drinking.
Blinking, Marcoulf supplies his cup for refill. He nods to the spare real estate on the veranda ledge where he's perched; there's room for one more and the jug besides if she'd rather not stay on her feet.]
[ She takes that seat gladly, dropping into it, One leg that curls underneath her to prop herself up - how there were so many here that could be so tall was ever beyond her. Like being trapped amongst Half-breeds, without the teeth.
But settled, she leans over to pour the wine into his cup. Almost too full. She has no head for drinking, but plenty of practice at being generous that at least right now, she had no interest in pretending about. His filled, hers topped up, she placed the jug between them. Leaning to rest an elbow to her knee, a hand under her jaw as she watched the servants go about. ]
[He murmurs some low word of thanks, pausing with the cup half raised to glance back down into the courtyard - to the linens being stretched out and folded between servants then packed methodically into trunks layered with bundles of lavender. Does all of Orlais look like this? Like people drinking wine on veranda rails while servants tend to their sheets?
Well, yes. But everywhere does.]
Not at all. [He takes a sip then rests his cup on his knee.] Estates like this one can be found through the Dales and Claose and so on through to Lake Celestine and up into the Frostback's foothills, but south of here the wood becomes the Wilds where it's too dense and dangerous to be settle. And then far enough west lies a desert. Mining is done there, I think. Same up to the Hunterhorns in the north, I believe. --Those are mountains as well. The Hunterhorns.
[Marcoulf shrugs.]
It's all mostly pretty though, I suppose. In its way. [A pause. A moment where he thinks a question, nearly doesnt ask it, then decides most people loke talking about themselves so does:] Is it not like this where you came from?
[ She is drunk enough to be clear in her meanings, regretful enough to talk in riddles. Her fingers skimmed the rim of the glass, moving about in a sway back and forth like the movement of the servants. Leaning, working, draping. The steady sweep of brooms. The clatter of crates onto carts, horses stamping idly under the impatience of holding in one place. A serenity that is full of movement. A utter inability to stay still even if she must stay put.
Where does she come from, does she suppose? Does she come from Dales or Lake Celestine, Mountains or mined deserts? Neither, all of them. She comes from nowhere at all. ]
Hard to say. I have been many places. [ She wets her lip, finds she can scarcely remember home in the midst of the taste of the wine. ] But... my home has always been at the edge of a desert. Even if... that is only one part of a land that covers from the to the forests thick with green and so dense you could not see and elephant until it trampled you, [ does he know what an elephant is? Perhaps not, but he ought to understand the merit at least. He was a clever man, if quiet. ] But you would loathe dressing as you do. It is hot, in summer, blisteringly so. More than the worst days I have felt here.
[ But then, here was a great deal better than the perpetually cool and damp of London. ]
[He listens, ear tipped in her direction even if his gaze is firmly attached to either the contents of his cup or on the activity of the courtyard below them. Were she travel far North, he thinks she might find a place closer to what she describes. The heat is said to be stifling there and there are stories he heard as a boy about elephants there. You're in luck, Lakshmi; maybe not everything is as different as it seems.
Maybe if it weren't for the jug of wine, her longing for the place wouldn't be so obvious. It might at least be less keen. But that's fine. Marcoulf supposes people are allowed their homesickness. After a moment of sipping wine, he does his part to indulge her:]
[ Was there any other answer that could be expected? How she adored them, how she ached for them. She takes a sip, slow. Thinking about it. ] No. No one would call her so. Jhansi is a fortress, cut into the desert. She exists, where perhaps she should not.
[ Falls silent, again, falls to watching the wine, taking a slow sip. Her Jhansi. Her dark haired, white-walled city. Dark eyed, flowering where water hardly flowed. She misses, and she misses, and she misses, and she is so full of pride for her home, how could she not be? Contrary, cutting at end pieces. Offset and against each other when she speaks again. ]
Yes, she is beautiful. But, a hard one. Made out of wildness and emptiness.
[For a moment he says nothing, turning his cup idly between his hands. But after a beat, Marcoulf nods in apparent approval and raises his drink in the ghost of a toast. 'To your Jhansi,' it seems to say. He takes a long drink, then sets the half emptied cup aside and finally turns his attention properly to the dagger he's meant to have been sharpening this whole time.]
Is there anything similar here to what you might see from home? The people, maybe. Or the color of the sky.
[Fuck if he knows, right? The sun might rise in Jhansi as far as he's concerned. He thinks it's better to ask questions when in conversation with women anyway. Sorting out what to talk about otherwise can be challenging, so best to let her pick the direction as he runs the whetstone down the length of the blade.]
[ And she - so helpfully - fills his cup again. The generosity easy once it starts to flow, and mercifully, her hands do not even shake. ]
No, little in common with the people. Save that people are ever the same when it truly comes down to it. Their faiths, hopes, pride. [ A sigh. He goes back to cleaning his weapon, she leans back onto her elbow. One foot kicked out, as she went back to watching the servants take in the laundry, bring out another set.
But the same? Your nobility is a hungry, corrupt thing, your people are suffering, your land tears itself apart, and threatens being swallowed up. That, I know. Easier to take another sip. ] But the sky... I think that is the same.
[He lets her fill the cup, though he thinks he won't touch it again. Not here anyway. Maybe he'll take it with him when he goes, though. Better to do his drinking in the ludicrously appointed room he'd been appointed than here on the veranda. Instead he fills the lopsided quiet with the steady, rhythmic pass of the knife's edge across the stone.]
Then it's just a matter of getting used to the weather. [Never mind that his attention is wholly devoted to the work under his hands, it's definitely at least meant as a joke - the line of his mouth twitching behind the unruly curl of his whiskers.
Anyway.]
You said Jhansi is a fortress and you're a strong rider. Is fighting your people's trade?
[ A joke that she snorts at, shaking her head. Not least because she can't imagine why it should be the least bit funny, and yet. She pauses, her hand stilling at the corner of her mouth as she swallows another mouthful of wine. ]
It is a little more complicated than that. But in a way, I suppose, we are. In my Great-Grandfather's time - he was raised up by and served a great hero to my people. Peshwa Bajirao Ballal, A Peshwa is... what you might call a First Minister to the King, and he served as a general and financial advisor to a great empire. [ Hoped that ought to do, easier if they had the English house of commons, but there you had it. ] Since then, we... served and fought for the Peshwa. Trained as fighters. When I was born, so too my father trained me just the same.
[ All the important details to give him what he wanted to know - without explaining any further. Not half bad for someone well on their way to getting utterly sodden. ] I do not think he ever expected me to take to it as well as I did.
A common thing with fathers and their daughters, I think. [He literally wouldn't know - not when it comes to daughters -, but it seems like the right thing to say. He can see how it would be easy for a man to underestimate his own flesh and blood.
Hiss says the knife's edge against the whetstone's grain. He pauses to test the edge for a burr with his thumb and must be satisfied as he turns the dagger and resumes the work from the other side.]
And your siblings? Were they taught the same, or did he learn his lesson off you?
[She must have them, and it's simpler to ask after them than the man. He's probably dead and that's not the kind of conversation to start with a person in their cup. She doesn't seem the type to shed tears, but she could be and he wouldn't know what to do with her then.]
[ It's a cruel thing to divert otherwise polite conversation with truths as miserable as hers so often were. 'He died when my brother was a child and our homeland was destroyed' was hardly a decent way to carry any conversation. So she kept to soldier's details. Removed facts. Both for the sake of keeping her own outwards persona in place...
... and to keep herself thinking too long on the matter. She was long past weeping over much of anything in grief. ]
Unfortunately, he fell in battle before he could train my younger brother.
[ Picking out the details, the way she likes them. ]
But I was thankfully in a position to afford his mother - my father's second wife - enough income to see to their upkeep. He was much my younger, you see. I hope in time he receives training.
[ Had he lived? There was more of a chance for him than her own son, she knew that much. Moropant Tambe was hunted only because of his rebel daughter, but his wife? No one should have cared much at all save to prove a point. One, she hopes by this point, well and truly made. ]
[Well, it was a good try. Note to self: don't talk to any Rifters about their families. It's a universally miserable subject.]
Sorry to hear it. [Rassssp goes the knife's edge against the whetstone. He doesn't linger much on the mention of her father's death - not because he isn't sympathetic, but the timing is bad. Better to talk of nicer things when drinking. Anything else seems... presumptive.] I'm sure your brother will take to it, though. I heard a thing is easier to learn when there's a history for it in siblings and fathers and so on.
[He wouldn't know first hand, but it seems right.]
[ Bemused mildly, she's obviously not here to bemoan something long-suffering in such a way. It was, and she's had enough time at least, to know how to speak of it without the pain bubbling up like blood to a fresh wound.
She taps her thumbs against her pads of her fingers, tapping them to off rhythm. ]
[He hums, a low mild sound to compliment the murmur of the dagger against the whetstone.]
On the road, mostly. I travelled as a boy and it was necessary to learn. [These roads can be dangerous. Mademoiselle Baudin had required an escort for a reason.] And in the war as well - the one fought here not so long ago, if you've heard about it at all.
[Not the most politic thing to discuss, but he suspects the servants here are used to that sort of thing.]
[ More than, at least the path here hadn't been too fraught.
And maybe it's not, but there was a wonderful thing to being a rifter, she's found, she may ask whatever question she pleases, and it can be put down to general ignorance. ]
Grand Duke Gaspard broke rank, split the army and led a number of men against the Empress in a bid for the throne. He was meant to have it when Emperor Florian died, but Celene snapped the seat out from under him. The Grand Game, you know.
[He tests the edge of the blade. Feels the burr against the pad of his thumb and must be satisfied as a moment later he sheaths the dagger with a soft snap.]
He was for some time known as a chevalier and master tactician. Fought honorably and won against the Nevarran incursion. When some questions about Orlesian security came up, someone thought he might be a better guiding hand through it than the Empress.
[ She doesn't need to guess what happens after, taking a deep sip of her wine to hide the roll of her eyes. ]
Typical.
[ It's a bitter, sharp mutter, but one she has even deep in her cups, to keep to herself. The one she has an even greater sense not to say - if they behave that way, neither of them deserve it. ] Have they reached an accord?
In a sense. A year ago they met for peace talks, only the meeting was disrupted by a contingent of supposedly independent rebels and calling themselves the Freemen of the Dales. The story goes that the Grand Duke helped them gain access to the Winter Palace and in return, the Freeman turned on him and Celene both.
[If there's a note of skepticism in his voice, surely it's for the incongruous details in the story. Gaspard had held a reputation as an honorable fighter with no love for the Game; Marcoulf had seen him once along the border in the company with a half dozen chevaliers and can remembr thinking he looked square in a way few men of title, much less one so high, did. But somehow in the span of a few years that man becomes the kind who helps secret murderers into the the palace. It feels--
Well, whatever it feels like doesn't really matter anymore.
There's a leather loop run through a hole at the end of the whetstone. Marcoulf uses it to secure the whetstone to his belt at his hip.]
Luckily for the Empress, the Inquisition was on hand to reinforce the guard and run off the attack. After, the Grand Duke was taken into custody and the whole thing settled by execution.
[ It's parroted back, and that she could not keep to herself. Dry as a desert wind. Catches her thumb at the bottom of her wipes the taste of wine off of it. Enough there, to never want to come back. Squabbling princes and ambitious daughters. Taking and taking and taking and wondering why nothing ever good came of themselves.
Was it worth? Was it worth it Nana? Rao? When they took your lives? ]
Who are the Freemen of the Dales that they have no love for either?
[He clucks his tongue. There on the veranda as a half dozen servants fold an army of linens between them, it's a mild kind of sound.]
Deserters.
[If he sounds just as unimpressed with them as the rational behind the Duke's betrayal-- well. No one likes a coward, much less one who runs away shouting 'You're wrong,' at everyone left behind. It's a selfish way of doing things.]
[ She'd heard the call for some help and gladly went for it. It was better than standing around, drinking in misery to drown out the bad taste in her mouth this place gives her.
Rather be working, and it was after some time of waiting around getting frustrated, that she finally gave in to beg a maid to give her something to do. Didn't give a damn if it was nothing but sweeping the floors, she set herself to it gladly. Her undershirt pushed up to her elbows, the leather over vest tied up around her middle. Slowly getting stained as she worked with the dust that inevitably got kicked up in clearly out great old houses.
( A twinge, aching, short, of just this same process, but for far different reasons that - at least is old enough now that it only pulls, no longer bleeds. )
Until there are less and less servants and she is given more tasks with the surety she didn't ask questions and did what she was told - 'not so bad for a rifter' is the easily ignore comment - before she hears Gwen call her just the same, and she finishes up what remained of her task to got see what was needed. ]
( but it's a distracted murmur when as she'd been walking into the suite of rooms she'd called out with more easy certainty, the lingering derision that seemed part and parcel of touching anything her father left behind; swept away, now, by what she finds in a room she hasn't set foot in for more than a decade. almost two. it is a fine space; gwenaรซlle's good eye and tasteful restraint having clearly been got honestly from a father whose fingerprints are all over this house, but the master suite most of all. it is deep shades of vauquelin green and rich woodโthe bed massive, the multiple liquor cabinets still well-stocked. it looks like a room its master might return to at any moment; his robe a puddle of fabric in the armchair near the window, the fire burned down, a half-empty glass remaining on the table near it.
above the fire, there's a portrait.
the woman in it is elven, youthful; the room recognizably within this house, mostly by what can be seen through the window behind her, the clear continuity of aesthetic of emeric's private rooms and his study. her legs are bare, and the man's shirt (his shirt) that she wears slips down to show one shoulder as she rests her chin in her handโyet she meets the viewer's gaze with cool, calm authority. it is not a demure show of availability but an elven lover portrayed with affection and admiration, a jewel she could never have been permitted to wear outside of these rooms hanging between her breasts.
the resemblance between this woman and gwenaรซlle is all the more marked for their similar ages, young oil on canvas and woman in the world. her fingers curl around the same pendant, hanging at her own throat.
her shoulders tighten with the awareness of a second person, though, a person she had called for, and she straightens; drops her hand. )
I have an inventory to take from here, ( abruptly. )
[ There is that creeping sense, about all this dust - that is familiar at least.
She is somewhere terribly private that was never hers to see.
Granted, usually, she couldn't give a damn. Whether she was tearing apart United India building or sieging a Fortress. She took as she needed, she pried out what was important, and she never stopped to look behind her. But there was this sensation, as she stood in this darkened room, the same as all the others before it. That this woman, with her cutting gaze, the intimacy of bare skin and clothes, it is more than just warm. It is devoted. To her, to whoever she was. Some understanding, perhaps, between the shape of the ears - pointed, and knows now to call that elf - but more, the eyes, the directness of her, the turn of her mouth. Ah, this was her father's estate, if she remembered all the details correctly and more importantly.
This was a shrine to something that was no God of hers. She could make as many assumptions as she liked, and they would be no more than that. But reverence had a taste, and she could breath it softly off that canvas.
She hesitates, almost on the back step ( she might tear things apart, and often, but only when it had a purpose, not for simply the sake of it ) before the order cuts across it and she opts to say nothing. Rather more than that, looks at nothing at all particularly. Pressing on with the instruction. ]
( the uncomfortable sensation of intruding settles between gwenaรซlle's shoulderblades; not lost on her, either, the style of portraiture. the placement of it, dominating the spaceโguenievre had never asked for such devotion, but in emeric's absence their daughter is forced to finally admit that perhaps she had it. she remembers, unwillingly, the weight of you did this and watching it strike him as a body blow.
she had wished him in pain. she doesn't, precisely, not wish that. she doesn't know how she feels, confronting evidence that he is. assembling this moment and that one and his hands in her hair at the tourney and how tightly they had gripped her shoulders, assembling context and it is unfair, how many things can be true at once.
he deserves this, she thinks. it doesn't bring her any more comfort than the last time she thought it. )
I'm going to rifle through his desk, ( she says, becauseโwell, that's what it's going to amount to, she could dress it up with purpose but that's how it'll be done, ) for some of his writings.
( to keep; to burn, so this next sentence is not a non-sequitur at all, )
I'd like you to start the fire. And to start separating the clothes worth preserving from those that can be easily repurposed to charity.
( ah, and that explains why she had asked lakshmi, and not someone else. )
[ She moves then, exactly to her task and the smile is small, pleased. There is not very much she likes here, approves of, is set against her own life. That is not this places fault, even so, but to do something glad as that? That is an easy task.
So is starting a fire, for that matter. To which she busy's herself with first. Taking from the modest supply of wood that seemed to have been shut up here. At least it was dry, an idle bemusement as she begins to stack it. Dropping onto one knee, reaching for kindling, at the base, then the logs she arranges into a tower. Looks like there was plenty to burn, after all. But for the moment, she takes out her own flint and strikes the stones against each other. The sprawl of sparks dazzling in the dark room. Once, twice, until the spray catches the twigs, and she leans to blow hard over them, feeding the flames. Watching them, attentive to how needy fires could be to start.
The flame catches, and out of absent habits, when she pulls back, she touches the ground with her fingers, then her brow, before she straightens up. Watching to make sure the job was done before she was done. ]
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๐ฑ๐ฅ๐ข ๐ฏ๐ฌ๐๐ก ๐ฑ๐ฌ ๐ฅ๐๐ฉ๐๐ช๐ฐ๐ฅ๐ฆ๐ฏ๐๐ฉ
no subject
The rest, she goes over her saddlebags one last time, making sure she's prepared for the journey before she leaves. Provisions, for her and her beast, sleeping gear. Weapons ( sword, bow, strapped to hip and against her back, a comfortable sure weight after years ) and the scale mail that seemed so popular amongst the Inquisition soldiers - and especially the heavy leather glove on her left hand she made sure not to dare to take off that hid that itching, pulsing mark. The other at least free as she tightened all her straps on last time - until she finds herself with company in the early hours of mostly quiet streets and lifts a hand in greeting to what she either hopes or suspects is one of the other hired men. Waiting expectantly for them.
If there was anything to say about this place, she was glad she did not have to fend off every idiot over-proud cock, that she had a right to bear arms just as he did. That she did not miss. ]
Nell Voss? Or Ricart?
no subject
[ Her smile of greeting is easy, and her own accent something vaguely reminiscent of Northern or Central Europe, though her hands (bare, anchor-less, freckled across the backs) mark her as a native. She tugs at her collar with one, peeling fabric away from skin. ]
I hope the others turn up soon. The faster we get on the road, the faster we're out of this damn swamp.
no subject
[ She nods in greeting, digging about the last bit in her own gear before - stop fussing, Rani, it will be fine - she finally relents. At this point she supposed, she was either prepared or she wasn't, she supposed.
So she reties everything and settles back. ] I hope so as well. I never did like waiting when I ought to be working.
๐ฅ๐๐ฉ๐๐ช๐ฐ๐ฅ๐ฆ๐ฏ๐๐ฉ.
the townhouse is still in the process of being shut up, though by the time they arrive, there are no other servants save the stone-faced man who anticipates them at the door; tall, gaunt, immovable. he says little, says mademoiselle just the same way he must have before said my lady, may be somewhat recognizable as having been present at the grand tourney, occasionally in the company of commander coupe when she shared that company with both vauquelin brothers.
his name is guilfoyle; he appears to be the steward, the gentleman's gentleman, that gwenaรซlle made reference to.
there will be a day or so still before the townhouse is locked up and the party moves on. )
๐ญ๐๐ฐ๐ฐ๐ฆ๐ซ๐ค ๐ฑ๐ฅ๐ฏ๐ฌ๐ฒ๐ค๐ฅ ๐ฑ๐ฅ๐ข ๐ก๐๐ฉ๐ข๐ฐ.
๐ฑ๐ฅ๐ข ๐ณ๐๐ฒ๐ฎ๐ฒ๐ข๐ฉ๐ฆ๐ซ ๐ข๐ฐ๐ฑ๐๐ฑ๐ข.
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Marcoulf has his dagger across his knee, though his attention for sharpening it has waned in favor of a cup of wine supplied by the kitchen maid (freer with it now that she knows her job here is nearly finished). It's a little vouyeristic, he decides, doing nothing while a whole skeletal staff scrambles to end their own employment. And yet--
Well, there's no reason to really stop himself either. Certainly no work to be done but to wait. So he drinks and feels just parallel enough to the servants in the yard that the road back to Kirkwall begins to seem appealing. He should have brought his own horse after all. Leaving ahead of schedule on foot is more trouble than coaxing the animal onto a boat would have been.]
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She's getting fanciful, old in her bones. But she has her word to keep, her peace she had promised, and wine to drink. She does her best to keep out of range of servants. She has no want to make their lives harder than they are already not. Better to mind her own business, fetch another drink, and - oh, perhaps the fanciful had more to do with this wine than it did anything else.
Eventually, misery was always in want of company, even if miserable is not quite the word for it. Uncomfortable is better, a history that has not been made here, but feels so sure, maybe the wine is to hide that instead. Wash it out. Gives up on her sensibilities. How imminently practical she insisted on being when it came to moving on the road. Clipping adherence to the structure of set tasks. The unfaltering way she made sure to be first up, last down when it mattered.
To that reckoning, it's forgivable when she asks the maid for the jug so she didn't have to keep playing a hostess for the guards, and went to find someone else who appeared to be doing a similar task of keeping out from underfoot. ]
More?
[ She holds up the jug, and it's not overt, she's not so far gone that there she sways in her steps or pushes herself too far with the movements. But there's a brightness there, in her gaze, in how she wets her lips with the tip of her tongue to a sheen, the particular way she offers up the wine. ]
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Besides, it's only drinking.
Blinking, Marcoulf supplies his cup for refill. He nods to the spare real estate on the veranda ledge where he's perched; there's room for one more and the jug besides if she'd rather not stay on her feet.]
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But settled, she leans over to pour the wine into his cup. Almost too full. She has no head for drinking, but plenty of practice at being generous that at least right now, she had no interest in pretending about. His filled, hers topped up, she placed the jug between them. Leaning to rest an elbow to her knee, a hand under her jaw as she watched the servants go about. ]
Does all of Orlais look as this?
[ It's a good enough question to start. ]
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Well, yes. But everywhere does.]
Not at all. [He takes a sip then rests his cup on his knee.] Estates like this one can be found through the Dales and Claose and so on through to Lake Celestine and up into the Frostback's foothills, but south of here the wood becomes the Wilds where it's too dense and dangerous to be settle. And then far enough west lies a desert. Mining is done there, I think. Same up to the Hunterhorns in the north, I believe. --Those are mountains as well. The Hunterhorns.
[Marcoulf shrugs.]
It's all mostly pretty though, I suppose. In its way. [A pause. A moment where he thinks a question, nearly doesnt ask it, then decides most people loke talking about themselves so does:] Is it not like this where you came from?
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Where does she come from, does she suppose? Does she come from Dales or Lake Celestine, Mountains or mined deserts? Neither, all of them. She comes from nowhere at all. ]
Hard to say. I have been many places. [ She wets her lip, finds she can scarcely remember home in the midst of the taste of the wine. ] But... my home has always been at the edge of a desert. Even if... that is only one part of a land that covers from the to the forests thick with green and so dense you could not see and elephant until it trampled you, [ does he know what an elephant is? Perhaps not, but he ought to understand the merit at least. He was a clever man, if quiet. ] But you would loathe dressing as you do. It is hot, in summer, blisteringly so. More than the worst days I have felt here.
[ But then, here was a great deal better than the perpetually cool and damp of London. ]
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Maybe if it weren't for the jug of wine, her longing for the place wouldn't be so obvious. It might at least be less keen. But that's fine. Marcoulf supposes people are allowed their homesickness. After a moment of sipping wine, he does his part to indulge her:]
Yes, but is it beautiful?
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[ Falls silent, again, falls to watching the wine, taking a slow sip. Her Jhansi. Her dark haired, white-walled city. Dark eyed, flowering where water hardly flowed. She misses, and she misses, and she misses, and she is so full of pride for her home, how could she not be? Contrary, cutting at end pieces. Offset and against each other when she speaks again. ]
Yes, she is beautiful. But, a hard one. Made out of wildness and emptiness.
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Is there anything similar here to what you might see from home? The people, maybe. Or the color of the sky.
[Fuck if he knows, right? The sun might rise in Jhansi as far as he's concerned. He thinks it's better to ask questions when in conversation with women anyway. Sorting out what to talk about otherwise can be challenging, so best to let her pick the direction as he runs the whetstone down the length of the blade.]
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No, little in common with the people. Save that people are ever the same when it truly comes down to it. Their faiths, hopes, pride. [ A sigh. He goes back to cleaning his weapon, she leans back onto her elbow. One foot kicked out, as she went back to watching the servants take in the laundry, bring out another set.
But the same? Your nobility is a hungry, corrupt thing, your people are suffering, your land tears itself apart, and threatens being swallowed up. That, I know. Easier to take another sip. ] But the sky... I think that is the same.
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Then it's just a matter of getting used to the weather. [Never mind that his attention is wholly devoted to the work under his hands, it's definitely at least meant as a joke - the line of his mouth twitching behind the unruly curl of his whiskers.
Anyway.]
You said Jhansi is a fortress and you're a strong rider. Is fighting your people's trade?
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It is a little more complicated than that. But in a way, I suppose, we are. In my Great-Grandfather's time - he was raised up by and served a great hero to my people. Peshwa Bajirao Ballal, A Peshwa is... what you might call a First Minister to the King, and he served as a general and financial advisor to a great empire. [ Hoped that ought to do, easier if they had the English house of commons, but there you had it. ] Since then, we... served and fought for the Peshwa. Trained as fighters. When I was born, so too my father trained me just the same.
[ All the important details to give him what he wanted to know - without explaining any further. Not half bad for someone well on their way to getting utterly sodden. ] I do not think he ever expected me to take to it as well as I did.
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Hiss says the knife's edge against the whetstone's grain. He pauses to test the edge for a burr with his thumb and must be satisfied as he turns the dagger and resumes the work from the other side.]
And your siblings? Were they taught the same, or did he learn his lesson off you?
[She must have them, and it's simpler to ask after them than the man. He's probably dead and that's not the kind of conversation to start with a person in their cup. She doesn't seem the type to shed tears, but she could be and he wouldn't know what to do with her then.]
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... and to keep herself thinking too long on the matter. She was long past weeping over much of anything in grief. ]
Unfortunately, he fell in battle before he could train my younger brother.
[ Picking out the details, the way she likes them. ]
But I was thankfully in a position to afford his mother - my father's second wife - enough income to see to their upkeep. He was much my younger, you see. I hope in time he receives training.
[ Had he lived? There was more of a chance for him than her own son, she knew that much. Moropant Tambe was hunted only because of his rebel daughter, but his wife? No one should have cared much at all save to prove a point. One, she hopes by this point, well and truly made. ]
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Sorry to hear it. [Rassssp goes the knife's edge against the whetstone. He doesn't linger much on the mention of her father's death - not because he isn't sympathetic, but the timing is bad. Better to talk of nicer things when drinking. Anything else seems... presumptive.] I'm sure your brother will take to it, though. I heard a thing is easier to learn when there's a history for it in siblings and fathers and so on.
[He wouldn't know first hand, but it seems right.]
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[ Bemused mildly, she's obviously not here to bemoan something long-suffering in such a way. It was, and she's had enough time at least, to know how to speak of it without the pain bubbling up like blood to a fresh wound.
She taps her thumbs against her pads of her fingers, tapping them to off rhythm. ]
And yourself, where did you learn your skills?
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On the road, mostly. I travelled as a boy and it was necessary to learn. [These roads can be dangerous. Mademoiselle Baudin had required an escort for a reason.] And in the war as well - the one fought here not so long ago, if you've heard about it at all.
[Not the most politic thing to discuss, but he suspects the servants here are used to that sort of thing.]
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And maybe it's not, but there was a wonderful thing to being a rifter, she's found, she may ask whatever question she pleases, and it can be put down to general ignorance. ]
I have not. What happened?
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[He tests the edge of the blade. Feels the burr against the pad of his thumb and must be satisfied as a moment later he sheaths the dagger with a soft snap.]
He was for some time known as a chevalier and master tactician. Fought honorably and won against the Nevarran incursion. When some questions about Orlesian security came up, someone thought he might be a better guiding hand through it than the Empress.
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Typical.
[ It's a bitter, sharp mutter, but one she has even deep in her cups, to keep to herself. The one she has an even greater sense not to say - if they behave that way, neither of them deserve it. ] Have they reached an accord?
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[If there's a note of skepticism in his voice, surely it's for the incongruous details in the story. Gaspard had held a reputation as an honorable fighter with no love for the Game; Marcoulf had seen him once along the border in the company with a half dozen chevaliers and can remembr thinking he looked square in a way few men of title, much less one so high, did. But somehow in the span of a few years that man becomes the kind who helps secret murderers into the the palace. It feels--
Well, whatever it feels like doesn't really matter anymore.
There's a leather loop run through a hole at the end of the whetstone. Marcoulf uses it to secure the whetstone to his belt at his hip.]
Luckily for the Empress, the Inquisition was on hand to reinforce the guard and run off the attack. After, the Grand Duke was taken into custody and the whole thing settled by execution.
[You know: typical.]
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[ It's parroted back, and that she could not keep to herself. Dry as a desert wind. Catches her thumb at the bottom of her wipes the taste of wine off of it. Enough there, to never want to come back. Squabbling princes and ambitious daughters. Taking and taking and taking and wondering why nothing ever good came of themselves.
Was it worth? Was it worth it Nana? Rao? When they took your lives? ]
Who are the Freemen of the Dales that they have no love for either?
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Deserters.
[If he sounds just as unimpressed with them as the rational behind the Duke's betrayal-- well. No one likes a coward, much less one who runs away shouting 'You're wrong,' at everyone left behind. It's a selfish way of doing things.]
4 Gwen
Rather be working, and it was after some time of waiting around getting frustrated, that she finally gave in to beg a maid to give her something to do. Didn't give a damn if it was nothing but sweeping the floors, she set herself to it gladly. Her undershirt pushed up to her elbows, the leather over vest tied up around her middle. Slowly getting stained as she worked with the dust that inevitably got kicked up in clearly out great old houses.
( A twinge, aching, short, of just this same process, but for far different reasons that - at least is old enough now that it only pulls, no longer bleeds. )
Until there are less and less servants and she is given more tasks with the surety she didn't ask questions and did what she was told - 'not so bad for a rifter' is the easily ignore comment - before she hears Gwen call her just the same, and she finishes up what remained of her task to got see what was needed. ]
You called for help, Mademoiselle?
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( but it's a distracted murmur when as she'd been walking into the suite of rooms she'd called out with more easy certainty, the lingering derision that seemed part and parcel of touching anything her father left behind; swept away, now, by what she finds in a room she hasn't set foot in for more than a decade. almost two. it is a fine space; gwenaรซlle's good eye and tasteful restraint having clearly been got honestly from a father whose fingerprints are all over this house, but the master suite most of all. it is deep shades of vauquelin green and rich woodโthe bed massive, the multiple liquor cabinets still well-stocked. it looks like a room its master might return to at any moment; his robe a puddle of fabric in the armchair near the window, the fire burned down, a half-empty glass remaining on the table near it.
above the fire, there's a portrait.
the woman in it is elven, youthful; the room recognizably within this house, mostly by what can be seen through the window behind her, the clear continuity of aesthetic of emeric's private rooms and his study. her legs are bare, and the man's shirt (his shirt) that she wears slips down to show one shoulder as she rests her chin in her handโyet she meets the viewer's gaze with cool, calm authority. it is not a demure show of availability but an elven lover portrayed with affection and admiration, a jewel she could never have been permitted to wear outside of these rooms hanging between her breasts.
the resemblance between this woman and gwenaรซlle is all the more marked for their similar ages, young oil on canvas and woman in the world. her fingers curl around the same pendant, hanging at her own throat.
her shoulders tighten with the awareness of a second person, though, a person she had called for, and she straightens; drops her hand. )
I have an inventory to take from here, ( abruptly. )
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She is somewhere terribly private that was never hers to see.
Granted, usually, she couldn't give a damn. Whether she was tearing apart United India building or sieging a Fortress. She took as she needed, she pried out what was important, and she never stopped to look behind her. But there was this sensation, as she stood in this darkened room, the same as all the others before it. That this woman, with her cutting gaze, the intimacy of bare skin and clothes, it is more than just warm. It is devoted. To her, to whoever she was. Some understanding, perhaps, between the shape of the ears - pointed, and knows now to call that elf - but more, the eyes, the directness of her, the turn of her mouth. Ah, this was her father's estate, if she remembered all the details correctly and more importantly.
This was a shrine to something that was no God of hers. She could make as many assumptions as she liked, and they would be no more than that. But reverence had a taste, and she could breath it softly off that canvas.
She hesitates, almost on the back step ( she might tear things apart, and often, but only when it had a purpose, not for simply the sake of it ) before the order cuts across it and she opts to say nothing. Rather more than that, looks at nothing at all particularly. Pressing on with the instruction. ]
Then by all means, I am at your service.
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she had wished him in pain. she doesn't, precisely, not wish that. she doesn't know how she feels, confronting evidence that he is. assembling this moment and that one and his hands in her hair at the tourney and how tightly they had gripped her shoulders, assembling context and it is unfair, how many things can be true at once.
he deserves this, she thinks. it doesn't bring her any more comfort than the last time she thought it. )
I'm going to rifle through his desk, ( she says, becauseโwell, that's what it's going to amount to, she could dress it up with purpose but that's how it'll be done, ) for some of his writings.
( to keep; to burn, so this next sentence is not a non-sequitur at all, )
I'd like you to start the fire. And to start separating the clothes worth preserving from those that can be easily repurposed to charity.
( ah, and that explains why she had asked lakshmi, and not someone else. )
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[ She moves then, exactly to her task and the smile is small, pleased. There is not very much she likes here, approves of, is set against her own life. That is not this places fault, even so, but to do something glad as that? That is an easy task.
So is starting a fire, for that matter. To which she busy's herself with first. Taking from the modest supply of wood that seemed to have been shut up here. At least it was dry, an idle bemusement as she begins to stack it. Dropping onto one knee, reaching for kindling, at the base, then the logs she arranges into a tower. Looks like there was plenty to burn, after all. But for the moment, she takes out her own flint and strikes the stones against each other. The sprawl of sparks dazzling in the dark room. Once, twice, until the spray catches the twigs, and she leans to blow hard over them, feeding the flames. Watching them, attentive to how needy fires could be to start.
The flame catches, and out of absent habits, when she pulls back, she touches the ground with her fingers, then her brow, before she straightens up. Watching to make sure the job was done before she was done. ]
- shall I items to keep somewhere particular?