Chapter Seventy-Five
- Location
- https://discord.gg/z9tBvbh
Chapter Seventy-Five
The news that a circle of child kidnappers had been plaguing the countryside of Gallia came to light soon after, and as a minotaur was sighted in the nearby proximity of said camp, the answer was clear.
Purification by fire, cannons, and general destruction of the surrounding areas ensued with ruthless efficiency. It wasn't just a matter of finding the cave the minotaur inhabited, but of getting the child kidnappers too.
And when we did, I did not mince words or let caring take place. The kidnappers were strung by their necks, and the minotaur tracked back to its lair and killed by sending mages at it until he could defend himself no more.
"We lost a dozen men," the knight-officer said, even as a group of soldiers dragged the dead minotaur aboard, his head detached with surgical precision. "But in the end, he finished his willpower-he suffocated together with everyone sent in the cave," he swallowed.
"Clear the rubble, get the corpses of my men," not ours, not 'of the king', but 'my' men, "aboard and have them washed up and put back together by water mages." I took Freedom to descend down from the side of the ship, taking with me a small number of knights just for that extra safety. Such a fortuitous coincidence, I could already string up a convincing lie to tell the king.
The prisoners wouldn't cooperate, but they didn't need to. Contract Magic had that power, and my word? My word was worth more than theirs.
In the chilly atmosphere of the cavern, amidst the bones that stood in a corner hastily dug out, I knelt even as the knights nearby began to search the surroundings. My fingers soon found a skull, a tiny skull, a skull that belonged to a child without a doubt and which made my stomach twist since I was effectively touching it with my own hands. Unfortunately, if I had known the location of this place earlier, I would have intervened immediately, but-but it wasn't that easy. Knowing only that a minotaur would help Tabitha-Charlotte against a band of child kidnappers, it didn't give me the location of his cavern, or the actual place on a map of where it would take place.
Thankfully, knowing that the area had to be where Lords took an interest in a band of child kidnappers shrunk down the area to search, and finding the village in question took even less.
Even so, we arrived with bones already hidden beneath the ground.
Even so, some of these bones would be interred with all of the deference given to a royal princess.
"I found them," I said, my voice trembling. "I found her."
The small figurine placed within the skull, the chain dangling from it and dirtied quickly, none of these men that followed me were experts in the craft of criminal scene investigation, and they didn't need to be. They had been told I knew how to recognize our target, and in truth, I had been told of the small holy relic by the Duke in person, who had been told by the Abbess. If all else failed, this at least would work in finding her...remains, should she be unrecognizable from her face.
"Oh no," the knights nearby whispered, "That monster!" while they did not fully understand the importance of it, clearly if both princes were in agreement over something, then this had to be someone truly important to them both. Whispers had been about a potential bastard, or a lover, but with the gathered bones in my hands, I stood back up and grabbed my cloak.
"Y-Your grace!" one of the knights exclaimed, "Please-use mine-"
"No," I said firmly, standing tall and proud as I unhooked mine from my shoulders. "Mine is the failure," I said deeply, "So mine must be the shame."
"Your grace!" a chorus of it echoed, and soon after, more mantles unhooked themselves from the shoulders of the knights.
"Definitely! This isn't just your grace's failure! It's ours too!" one of them said, clutching his mantle in his hands like the others had. "Please, let us bear part of the guilt!"
I enfolded the child's remains with the figurine in my cloak, and my shoulders trembled, even as I gave them a weak smile and nodded. "Very well," I said in the end. "Let us go back to Lutece. Send a messenger along. We have found her...and we...we are sorry."
The return to the ship, the return to the capital, it went by in a deeply silent mood. The knights didn't know what they had to be sad about, but they knew it was something bad if the Prince-Consort had removed his mantle as a sign of shame. This truly was starting to reach the level of perhaps a bastard of the King, or some sort of long-lost love of Prince Joseph, or something of the sort.
The arrival in Lutece was accompanied without fanfare, but with the country's flag at half mast, and somber, dark colors pretty much dominant at every window.
Waiting for me at the ship's port wasn't just the royal family, but many of the high-ranking nobles. I descended, and then knelt as I brought forward my mantle. A spell had been placed to keep the smell of the bones under control, but as Charles and Marie D'Orleans drew near, it broke the moment they pulled the folds of my mantle away. The glinting pendant was in plain sight, and as Marie's gasp echoed noisily and her hands covered her mouth, she couldn't help but cry out in pain and anguish, falling backwards only for Charles to hold her up, his own visage a grim expression of sadness, sorrow, guilt and despair.
Two knights of the Lily Parterre took my mantle with the remains of the child, and as they placed it in a coffin upon an open carriage, Isabella neared me with a new mantle and a sorrowful expression.
"Henry..." she whispered with a light strain in her voice, "You did your best."
"But it was not enough," I answered back softly, patting the back of her hand as I straightened myself. I turned to the line of knights that had their mantles in their arms, a show of humility in front of their peers, and then I walked towards them and, one by one, put their mantles back on them.
I then sharply walked back down, and the knights followed. The soldiers did so too -at least, those that were excused and weren't essential to keeping the ship afloat.
It was not everyday you got to see royalty being buried after all.
Even though I had kept quiet, in the end this sort of thing couldn't be. The corpse of Josette, the twin sister of Charlotte, was laid to rest after the cathedral held a mass. Even though the whispers kept growing, it was only when an official statement was released later, pointing to misguided mages, that the true reckoning of my actions and lies came to the front.
The lie had been clear. A misguided mage of Charles' faction had learned of the child, and had wanted to remove her in case people of Joseph' faction came to know it.
This mage had kidnapped the girl from the monastery, with the intention of bringing her into the folds of the kidnapping ring, perhaps in hope that she would be sailed out into the unknown, not having the guts to kill her himself -or perhaps, dreading the consequences of such an action. Unfortunately, along the way to meet the kidnappers the minotaur had killed them both, devouring their remains.
As proof, one of the men of the ring had admitted after a bit of convincing that he was supposed to meet with a noble to get a child with silver hair from him -young children with silver hair sold for a lot in some foreign kingdoms- and...well, that had been it, since the scoundrel in question had not survived the interrogation.
Scum that kidnapped children did not have the right to a righteous process.
On the plus side, Raven was waiting for me in the courtyard of the royal gardens, and after the funerals...
There was much hugging to be had.
The news that a circle of child kidnappers had been plaguing the countryside of Gallia came to light soon after, and as a minotaur was sighted in the nearby proximity of said camp, the answer was clear.
Purification by fire, cannons, and general destruction of the surrounding areas ensued with ruthless efficiency. It wasn't just a matter of finding the cave the minotaur inhabited, but of getting the child kidnappers too.
And when we did, I did not mince words or let caring take place. The kidnappers were strung by their necks, and the minotaur tracked back to its lair and killed by sending mages at it until he could defend himself no more.
"We lost a dozen men," the knight-officer said, even as a group of soldiers dragged the dead minotaur aboard, his head detached with surgical precision. "But in the end, he finished his willpower-he suffocated together with everyone sent in the cave," he swallowed.
"Clear the rubble, get the corpses of my men," not ours, not 'of the king', but 'my' men, "aboard and have them washed up and put back together by water mages." I took Freedom to descend down from the side of the ship, taking with me a small number of knights just for that extra safety. Such a fortuitous coincidence, I could already string up a convincing lie to tell the king.
The prisoners wouldn't cooperate, but they didn't need to. Contract Magic had that power, and my word? My word was worth more than theirs.
In the chilly atmosphere of the cavern, amidst the bones that stood in a corner hastily dug out, I knelt even as the knights nearby began to search the surroundings. My fingers soon found a skull, a tiny skull, a skull that belonged to a child without a doubt and which made my stomach twist since I was effectively touching it with my own hands. Unfortunately, if I had known the location of this place earlier, I would have intervened immediately, but-but it wasn't that easy. Knowing only that a minotaur would help Tabitha-Charlotte against a band of child kidnappers, it didn't give me the location of his cavern, or the actual place on a map of where it would take place.
Thankfully, knowing that the area had to be where Lords took an interest in a band of child kidnappers shrunk down the area to search, and finding the village in question took even less.
Even so, we arrived with bones already hidden beneath the ground.
Even so, some of these bones would be interred with all of the deference given to a royal princess.
"I found them," I said, my voice trembling. "I found her."
The small figurine placed within the skull, the chain dangling from it and dirtied quickly, none of these men that followed me were experts in the craft of criminal scene investigation, and they didn't need to be. They had been told I knew how to recognize our target, and in truth, I had been told of the small holy relic by the Duke in person, who had been told by the Abbess. If all else failed, this at least would work in finding her...remains, should she be unrecognizable from her face.
"Oh no," the knights nearby whispered, "That monster!" while they did not fully understand the importance of it, clearly if both princes were in agreement over something, then this had to be someone truly important to them both. Whispers had been about a potential bastard, or a lover, but with the gathered bones in my hands, I stood back up and grabbed my cloak.
"Y-Your grace!" one of the knights exclaimed, "Please-use mine-"
"No," I said firmly, standing tall and proud as I unhooked mine from my shoulders. "Mine is the failure," I said deeply, "So mine must be the shame."
"Your grace!" a chorus of it echoed, and soon after, more mantles unhooked themselves from the shoulders of the knights.
"Definitely! This isn't just your grace's failure! It's ours too!" one of them said, clutching his mantle in his hands like the others had. "Please, let us bear part of the guilt!"
I enfolded the child's remains with the figurine in my cloak, and my shoulders trembled, even as I gave them a weak smile and nodded. "Very well," I said in the end. "Let us go back to Lutece. Send a messenger along. We have found her...and we...we are sorry."
The return to the ship, the return to the capital, it went by in a deeply silent mood. The knights didn't know what they had to be sad about, but they knew it was something bad if the Prince-Consort had removed his mantle as a sign of shame. This truly was starting to reach the level of perhaps a bastard of the King, or some sort of long-lost love of Prince Joseph, or something of the sort.
The arrival in Lutece was accompanied without fanfare, but with the country's flag at half mast, and somber, dark colors pretty much dominant at every window.
Waiting for me at the ship's port wasn't just the royal family, but many of the high-ranking nobles. I descended, and then knelt as I brought forward my mantle. A spell had been placed to keep the smell of the bones under control, but as Charles and Marie D'Orleans drew near, it broke the moment they pulled the folds of my mantle away. The glinting pendant was in plain sight, and as Marie's gasp echoed noisily and her hands covered her mouth, she couldn't help but cry out in pain and anguish, falling backwards only for Charles to hold her up, his own visage a grim expression of sadness, sorrow, guilt and despair.
Two knights of the Lily Parterre took my mantle with the remains of the child, and as they placed it in a coffin upon an open carriage, Isabella neared me with a new mantle and a sorrowful expression.
"Henry..." she whispered with a light strain in her voice, "You did your best."
"But it was not enough," I answered back softly, patting the back of her hand as I straightened myself. I turned to the line of knights that had their mantles in their arms, a show of humility in front of their peers, and then I walked towards them and, one by one, put their mantles back on them.
I then sharply walked back down, and the knights followed. The soldiers did so too -at least, those that were excused and weren't essential to keeping the ship afloat.
It was not everyday you got to see royalty being buried after all.
Even though I had kept quiet, in the end this sort of thing couldn't be. The corpse of Josette, the twin sister of Charlotte, was laid to rest after the cathedral held a mass. Even though the whispers kept growing, it was only when an official statement was released later, pointing to misguided mages, that the true reckoning of my actions and lies came to the front.
The lie had been clear. A misguided mage of Charles' faction had learned of the child, and had wanted to remove her in case people of Joseph' faction came to know it.
This mage had kidnapped the girl from the monastery, with the intention of bringing her into the folds of the kidnapping ring, perhaps in hope that she would be sailed out into the unknown, not having the guts to kill her himself -or perhaps, dreading the consequences of such an action. Unfortunately, along the way to meet the kidnappers the minotaur had killed them both, devouring their remains.
As proof, one of the men of the ring had admitted after a bit of convincing that he was supposed to meet with a noble to get a child with silver hair from him -young children with silver hair sold for a lot in some foreign kingdoms- and...well, that had been it, since the scoundrel in question had not survived the interrogation.
Scum that kidnapped children did not have the right to a righteous process.
On the plus side, Raven was waiting for me in the courtyard of the royal gardens, and after the funerals...
There was much hugging to be had.
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