[X] [HOLT] "I've always wondered. What is Takara like?"
[X] [HOLT] "What are your thoughts on us? In general, I mean."
[X] [HOLT] "And what are your opinions of me?"
[X] [HOLT] "I've always wondered. What is Takara like?"
"It is…" Lord Cassius begins, only to find himself, for once in all of the time you've known him, short for words. "Well, if you'll imagine…" He shakes his head. "I think it would be best if you considered…"
He shakes his head again, more definitively this time. "Bah! It's impossible! How could I describe Takara to someone who's never been there? It's as if—" He throws up one hand, even as he pours himself a fresh glass with the other. "It's as if the very air is different. You wouldn't understand, I don't think, not unless you were seeing it through falkisch eyes."
"What about Tierra, then?" you ask. "Surely, if I cannot judge Takara through my recollections, you might judge Tierra through yours, having resided in both countries."
Lord Cassius nods as he sips from his glass. "Yes, that…that perhaps would be easier." He pauses to think for a moment. "I think the biggest difference is that you Tierrans, you're all so…stationary. You don't move towards any greater things. You all seem so content to live your lives as if it was the only thing you could do, it's—" He leans back, his finger stretched out as if picking out a distant point. "Yes, that's it. You lack ambition."
"Really?" you reply, a little surprised. "If it's anything we in Tierra lack, I do not think it's ambition—"
"Oh, but you do!" Lord Cassius exclaims. "When a man in Tierra is born a farmer, can he choose to become a lord? Can he choose to become a general? To sit in your Cortes? Can he marry a great lady? Change his fortunes? Counsel your King?" The Takaran shakes his head. "No, he can do none of those things. Worse yet, he doesn't even think about doing any of those things! Even in his darkest hour, he doesn't even think of seizing his destiny!"
"But a man's destiny is determined by his station!" you object, somewhat confused. "And it is the Saints who choose a man's station."
The Takaran empties his glass with one swallow, then almost-slams it onto the desktop. "Rubbish!" he exclaims. "A man is born to his station, but he must earn his destiny! In Takara, it doesn't matter if one is born poor or of no status, whether one is born sick, or slow, or man or woman. If one is born in the wrong district, or the wrong house, or even in the wrong body, it doesn't matter! Only strength of will and determination matters, for they are the only things needed to seize one's destiny, to do what they were meant to do in creation!"
He shakes his head once again. "This is all well known in Takara, in Butea too, I think," he continues. "Yet here in Tierra, you do not see this. You're all so trapped in your positions of birth, and despite all of your talents, you'll never surpass it." He levers himself up, almost out of his chair, until the light of the sun from the window shrouds him with a golden nimbus. "You must be taught!" he declares with a grandiosity which would have seemed comical from almost anyone else. "You must learn to seize your destiny, as we have!"
"And who will teach us?" you ask. "You?"
Lord Cassius breaks out into a wide grin. "Of course! A race has a destiny too, and it is ours to instruct, just as it is yours to learn."
[X] [HOLT] "What are your thoughts on us? In general, I mean."
Lord Cassius replies with a pained grin. "It would be…difficult to explain, especially to one of your race. Please, I do not mean offense, only that…you might not understand."
That just makes you more curious. "Try me."
The Takaran lets out a breath. He slowly pours himself another glass, then drains it in a single, long swallow.
"My father's ministry, the one that deals with you people, it's called the Ministry of Barbarian Affairs. You know that, of course. I suppose you're even insulted by it, but that is the fault of your pride, not any inaccuracy on your part." He raises a wavering hand to forestall any argument. "Can you deny it's true? You're all barbarians! Your government is completely controlled by the rich and powerful, who are only rich and powerful because of who their fathers were. You lock up your women in kitchens and bedrooms, and you don't even let them inherit property! Your streets are never washed, your food smells like it's already been eaten and vomited up once, and you'll murder each over the most arbitrary, ridiculous things. You're obsessed with petty, pointless pride, but you cannot even spare a thought to the honour of your country or your race. You're violent, ill-disciplined children, and you always smell like you need to bathe!"
Much of you wants to muster some sort of a reply, but any part of your mind which might do so is left reeling by the sheer force of what you can only describe as a frustrated torrent.
As for Lord Cassius himself, he's just shaking his head. "That is all they see, most Takarans. They take a glance at you, and they…" His hand twists in the air, as if grasping for words. "They write you off as animals, but—" He leans forwards, eyes bright with a fever glow. "I've seen what you're capable of, in your best moments. I've seen you act with a discipline and a sense of self-sacrifice which most of my people would think yours incapable of. In Antar, I saw your people fight with courage worthy of a Takaran. I've seen your potential, like the light of a smooth facet on an uncut gem."
He shakes his head again. "My father always told me that humans were like children. Always, I thought that was meant in contempt. But now that I've lived among you and seen the glimmers of what you're capable of becoming, of the race you might be one day, I think I understand what he really meant."
He leans in even closer, his eyes almost blazing. "Tree! Your people have greatness inside them!" he hisses, with all the excitement and conviction of a true believer. "Underneath all your faults, you're capable of wondrous things! If only you had someone to teach you how!"
[X] [HOLT] "And what are your opinions of me?"
"What is there to say?" Lord Cassius replies as he pours himself another glass. "Out of all of your people I have ever met, I think you're the one I would consider closest to a friend."
"I alone?" you ask. "Have you met no other so worthy?"
"There are others who possess qualities worth emulating, perhaps," the Takaran muses, somewhat erratically. "But they're virtues of birth or good fortune. They inherited their good points from their station or their teachers. They're actors following a script." He fixes you with a steady look. "They haven't seized their destinies, as you have."
"My destiny?" you ask. "What does that mean?"
Lord Cassius takes a deep swallow from his glass, then he holds it up until its remaining contents glitter in the sunlight. "You come from a very inferior breed, you know that?" he asks, with a meaning that's clearly rhetorical. "I've seen how the others of your sort act, puffed up with their own arrogance, using harsh words and empty gestures to shield their pride. That is the mould of your people, those who think themselves too great for honest labour and too small for kindnesses. But you!"
He points a finger at you, not in accusation but in praise. "You've broken free from what you were supposed to be, allowed yourself to think and act beyond what your breeding would tell you to! Even if you don't understand it, you have a destiny! And instead of pretending it doesn't exist, you move to seize it, as a Takaran would!"
He drains the rest of his brandy in a single, sharp motion. Then he reaches over, across the table, to put his hand on your shoulder. "You are what your people could be. And for that reason, you are my friend."
Lord Cassius seems about to say something further when suddenly, he stops himself. He blinks, once, twice, frozen still, jaw slightly slack as if he's come to a completely unexpected realisation.
"Listen, you aren't going to tell anyone else about this, are you?" he asks with a quaver in his voice that must either be apprehension or mockery. "Especially that girl with the dark hair, the one who was with us in Antar? I've been told that she's supposed to be quite pretty, by your standards."
"You may be assured of it," you reply. It's hardly as if you can say anything else. "I'll not speak of word of it to her, or anyone else."
"Good! Good!" the Takaran replies brightly before leaning in close, a conspiratorial glint in his eye. "You…ah, you know she's a spy, right?"
"I am aware," you answer, "though I—"
Before you can continue, Lord Cassius is already leaning back in his chair, letting the heavy piece of furniture tilt back precariously as he drains the last portion of brandy. For a moment, he stays in that undignified posture, his head tilted back, the empty bottle to his lips as his eyes flick from side to side, looking for a fourth bottle which is evidently nowhere to be found.
He leans forward again, the front legs of his chair and the empty bottle landing with a simultaneous thump. "Leud!" he shouts. "Leud!"
The door behind you opens quietly, just wide enough for Lord Cassius' manservant to peek his head through.
"Iha, mir hiir?"
The Takaran ambassador says something in his own tongue. You recognise the word 'brandy,' but that is all. Almost immediately, Leud answers with a lengthy reply of his own, in a tone more fit for a parent admonishing a child than a servant addressing his master.
Lord Cassius answers back, angrily, half-rising from his chair. Leud seems to pay him no mind, answering in that same calm, soothing tone as he slips through the door, crosses the carpeted room, and begins to pick up the empty bottles, one by one. Then he turns to you.
"His Excellency the Ambassador is not in a state fit to receive visitors at the moment," he announces, as if the subject of his declaration were not three paces away from him.
As for Lord Cassius himself, his mouth is already half-open in objection, but it takes only one sharp look from his manservant to leave his shoulders sagging in defeat. "Yes, yes. I suppose that would be best. Good day, Alaric, and please, visit again before I die of boredom."
-
Your subsequent visits follow a similar pattern. You learn to arrive expecting to find Lord Cassius in an inevitable state of inebriation. And likewise, you cultivate the expectation that your visits are not to be ended at his request, or yours, but at the discretion of his manservant, when he judges his impetuous charge to have at last proven no longer fit to be in even your company.
Yet even so, in between your arrival and your inevitable departure, you possess a most rare and extraordinary opportunity: to speak frankly with the envoy of the Takaran Emperor, without either diplomatic niceties or all but the most basic restraint. It isn't always a comfortable experience, but it is an elucidating one.
Yet as the weeks pass and your visits continue, Lord Cassius' own state seems to grow more and more dishevelled. Perhaps it is another sign of his growing trust in you, a loosening of the corset before one now deemed close enough to warrant witnessing it. Perhaps it's a sign of some greater deterioration, the same sort of directionless lethargy which you yourself have felt at times.
You can only hope that he finds some way out of it. It is high summer now, the apex of Aetoria's social season. Before long, the weather will begin to cool, and the days will begin to shorten. In what seems like only a few weeks, the city's temporary visitors will stream out of its gates and hit harbour quays like air from a sheep's bladder, leaving only its much-truncated shell to face the ravages of another winter.
Yet from the Cortes, there is still no news of upheaval, no call for a budget vote.
The Cortes must pass a budget before it dismisses, but neither Wulfram nor the King have presented one. Before long, they'll have no choice but to move forward.
But until they do, you must find some way to occupy yourself.
-
[X] I should do what I can to support the cause of raising Hunter of Wolfswood to Sainthood.
You suppose it's always been obvious that a task so monumental as raising your old commanding officer to a position of eternal exaltation would be one which would require many great names acting in concert. For all that your own efforts towards that end have seemed a solitary enterprise betwixt you and the Dowager Viscountess, you never held any real illusions as to the fact that there would need to be a great many others taking up the same cause if it was to hold any prospect of success.
So you suppose it's only natural that you would eventually have to meet your fellows in the cause, if nothing else so that you may know the company in which you are to stand. So it is that you arrange your attendance at one of the meetings now ongoing in the capital, to greet your would-be allies in the flesh.
The meeting is set for the late afternoon in a townhouse in the very oldest part of the Castle Quarter, amid buildings which you suspect had survived Edmund II's plan for reconstruction by sole virtue of their pleasant and dignified appearance. If this is the residence of one of your fellows in the cause, then you suppose the Viscountess wasn't exaggerating when she mentioned powerful friends.
Indeed, when you're ushered past an entry hall lined with the green-and-white banners of House Hunter of Wolfswood and into the great hall, you find no shortage of important personages present. Colonel Lefebvre of the Grenadiers is here, of course, as are three or four other officers of the same regiment—men who served with the late Viscount Wolfswood as you did. There are leading men from all five of the city's fashionable clubs, and half a dozen other Lords of the Cortes as well.
And there is someone who could only be the Dowager Viscountess herself, slim and grey and ramrod straight, her sharp features softened by a quiet, melancholy dignity and underlined by a simple white dress of mourning.
And on her arm, playing the part of the chaperone…
"My lord Reddingfield," the Duke of Wulfram smiles as he and the Dowager approach. "Welcome. Allow me the great honour of introducing…"
You suppose you might have expected as much. Wulfram had been Wolfswood's liege lord, and you suppose that as far as powerful allies go, the Duke of Wulfram is certainly the mightiest you could imagine, short of the King himself.
You cannot deny at least some degree of comfort in the knowledge that your old commanding officer's bid for Sainthood is backed by one of the Dukes of the Unified Kingdom, and judging by the almost reverential manner with which the Dowager regards the Duke, you suspect that the sentiment is a shared one.
"His Grace has been most helpful in advancing our common cause," the Dowager states as the three of you circulate around the hall. "He has not only provided this townhouse for our use, but brought the attention and support of so many great names whom I couldn't have possibly imagined to be willing to contribute to such a cause." She shakes her head, a sad smile on her lips. "To know that my son was so well-loved by so many…"
Wulfram smiles back. "His virtues were great, my lady. It could only follow that he should be so well-admired. He set an example to us all, not merely through his sacrifice, but through the whole of his life before it. It ought only be fitting that such an example be held up for all, atop the most prominent of pedestals."
[X] "Did you know Lord Wolfswood well, Your Grace?"
Wulfram gives the question a long moment of thought. "We were of an age, he and I, and I suppose we were well enough acquainted, though our interests quite rarely converged." For an instant, he frowns, his eyes taking on a distant cast. "My father approved of him greatly, I daresay at times more greatly than he approved of me. That would certainly make us known to each other, but…" He shakes his head. "I admired his courage, his clarity of mind, the way that he could always seem to distinguish right from wrong. But I do not know whether that would be enough to qualify me as his friend."
"It did," the Dowager replies, with a warm smile and a look of resolution. "Of that you may be assured. My son considered you a man worth trusting, and it was no accident that I first applied to you for the details regarding his end."
For a moment, the old woman's words seem to have put the Duke of Wulfram into a state which not even the Cortes at full fury could manage: speechless. "I—thank you," he finally manages. "If that's the case, then he did me an honour I did not know I deserved."
[X] "Given Your Grace's opposition to the army, it is curious that you would champion a soldier's memory."
Wulfram shakes his head. "You are mistaken, my lord. I bear no grudge against the army, nor any officer or soldier within its ranks. I take issue only with the Crown's intention of retaining the war taxes to maintain it—and with its likely motives for doing so."
He glances at the Dowager for an instant. "Lord Wolfswood was more than just a soldier. He was a man of courage and convictions. One who saw the distinction betwixt right and wrong as clearly as one might see the distance between winter and high summer. He is an example worth emulating, and that would have been no different had he been a poet or a philosopher or a politician."
The Dowager gives the Duke a sad little look in return. "It would have been different, had he chosen a more peaceable course. He would still be with us."
"Take some consolation, my lady," Wulfram replies earnestly. "If we are successful here, Lord Wolfswood will be raised as an exemplar of all the manly virtues. He shall be a model to emulate forever more."
"Perhaps," the Dowager says with a slight, absent nod. "But you must forgive an old woman if such a notion seems a poor exchange for a son."
[X] "How shall matters progress from here?"
"Are you familiar with the process by which a Sainted Martyr is proclaimed, my lord?" the Dowager asks.
You nod without hesitation. The knowledge was drilled into your head as a boy, one of the most fundamental pillars of the faith which so few of your class truly follow. "A fire is lit to represent the candidate's bid for Sainthood, one which must be within clear sight of the chapter house of an existing order. The flame must be kept for a year and a day, which means it must be tended to and guarded from attack by those who would oppose the elevation of the candidate. Only then can the candidate be proclaimed as a Sainted Martyr."
"Then there is your answer," Wulfram replies. "If we are to see Lord Wolfswood become Saint Enrique, as he well deserves, then a fire must be lit and kept and guarded for a year and a day. Here in Aetoria, such a flame would be under the gaze of both the Order of Saint Joshua and the Order of Saint Octavia—but if we are to see it last the interval, then we must ensure that we have enough support to tend the flame—and most importantly, enough support to ward off any who might wish to see our effort fail."
"Fail?" The Dowager's eyes narrow. "But my son had no enemies. Who would wish such a thing?"
The Duke shrugs. "Perhaps those who might consider Lord Wolfswood unsuited for some reason, or those who would consider there already to be too many Knightly Orders in Tierra. Precautions must be made." He turns to you. "It is up to us, my lord, to gather support for this effort. To ensure that when the flame is lit, no one will be able to secure any support for extinguishing it. You must convince your fellows wherever possible to support this cause."
"And you, Your Grace?" you ask. "What shall you do?"
Wulfram offers you a confident look. "I have been blessed with a great fortune and a great name, and I intend to use both to my advantage. I have allies in the Cortes, some of whom you see here tonight. I shall rally the rest to this cause, to ensure that my close supporters in the Cortes will be my close supporters in this matter as well." He turns to the Dowager with a look of deepest sincerity. "You may rest assured, my lady. I shall ensure that the elevation of your son's sacrifice shall become integral to the cause of my faction."
And to whose greater benefit would that be, you wonder.
It seems rather convenient to you that by associating his own political faction with the effort to see Hunter of Wolfswood elevated to Sainthood, he would also be associating his own supporters with Lord Wolfswood's reputation, one which carries no small amount of weight amongst precisely the sorts of individuals normally ill-disposed towards the thrust of Wulfram's proposed policy. Had Wolfswood yet lived, you suspect that he would have been a perfect spokesman for Wulfram's cause. Dead, he's an even better one, without opinion or interest of his own to contradict that of any political master.
Indeed, as you continue to attend subsequent meetings, you notice the proportion of Wulfram's known political allies growing greater and greater—even as some of those you know to be supporters of the King's policy become rarer and rarer. Yes, it certainly seems as if Wulfram is co-opting the campaign to elevate your old commanding officer for the purposes of his own faction, an end which the Dowager Viscountess seems entirely unopposed to.
The question is, what do you mean to do about it?
After all, you cannot deny that you possess at least some small sympathy for the King's policy. You've made that clear enough through your actions. Yet if you commit yourself to advancing the cause of your old commanding officer's Sainthood, then you may well be strengthening the very forces arrayed against that same policy. If you intend to remain a partisan of the King, then it follows that you must disengage yourself at the very least.
Indeed, if you truly find yourself committed to the King's party, then perhaps you may even need to go a step further. If Wulfram intends on using Hunter of Wolfswood's memory as a weapon, then perhaps it would be necessary to deprive him of it, to ensure the campaign fails—no matter how much it might pain you to do so.
[ ] [SAINT] The Dowager's campaign will continue to have my support.
[ ] [SAINT] If Wulfram insists upon associating himself with this campaign, then I must oppose it.
[ ] [SAINT] If this cause is bound to become a political battleground, then I must withdraw from it.