Swordpoint Diplomacy 36

CHAPTER 36

“Where are we going?” rang in Kian’s ear more than it really deserved to. The prince’s voice was grating. He couldn’t stand to be quiet for a few minutes, could he?

Kian forced down the urge to outright growl. He stared forward for another few seconds, buying time to choke down his temper. His voice was as mild as manners when he said, "We are going to retrieve something from Hartsbluff."

‘I will not let him know that he vexes me. This spoiled bratling will only act out further.’

There was a pause as the prince thought that through. He made a little hum while his mind worked. "Where the Duke is from?" He said.

No. The Duke was from somewhere else entirely, the Duchess was the one with the inherited title.

"Yes," Kian said, because it was simpler and he didn't care about this man's education. "That's it exactly."

"So why?" He wondered. His steps got longer until he was nearly level with Kian.

"Fall back," Kian said, ostensibly so that no one knew something was wrong. In reality he simply did not wish to see the foreign fool.

"Right, of course." The other man's footfalls blessedly retreated.

Kian took a long, slow inhalation. "There is something there that must be delivered post haste."

He had about ten seconds of silence while the Prince put that together. "I understand."

Did he? Kian wondered, but he didn't want to talk badly enough to ask. He nodded at the gate guard who had been over-familiar on his way in. She nodded back this time without any commentary or smiles. Ah. He felt a twinge of regret about how curtly he had spoken to her earlier. There was no need to alienate anyone. That hadn’t been well done of him.

‘I may have been overly brusque with her on the way in.’

Out they went, onto the road.

The ambient noise of people living, working, and chatting faded behind them along with the rattle of carts on the cobblestones of the captured keep. For a while the only sound was their boots hitting the road.

Ah, hells. He was going to be alone with Prince Marcel all the way back to Hartsbluff. Kian wanted to throw his head back and groan.

‘I should improve our rapport. It will be a misery to fight the entire journey.’

As the stress from searching out a misplaced political prisoner faded, regret took its place. Perhaps he had made a terrible error in throwing his lot in with Princess Rose. The fact that he had already been forced to pick between his duty to his stepfather and his duty to the crown sat very poorly in his chest.

Even if he was to set aside the dubious wisdom of hiding an enemy combatant from the chain of command, the man running off out of spite and immaturity was a different beast. Unsupervised, he could have done anything. Perhaps he had done something. There was no small amount of possibility that the foreign prince was less than sincere in his promises to the Princess: what would he do with any information he had learned in the keep?

It had been a terrible breach of security. He should have told Harrod about the intrusion. He had sworn an oath of loyalty to his local liege lord. The crown technically superseded it, but Rose didn't have the crown yet, did she?

Kiam pushed down guilt. Duke Harrod would forgive him for keeping a secret he was told to keep. He wasn't confident that the Queen Presumptive would be that generous. He wasn’t even confident that she hadn’t killed her Father to get the throne.

That was what royalty did, so it wouldn’t be overly surprising. The King had sent away both of his wives to reduce their influence at court and over his heirs precisely because he didn’t want someone to prematurely succeed him.

That was besides the point for now. The best thing that Kian could do would be to keep Marcel with him, away from any opportunity to communicate with his allies.

‘I would like to send him home, but it would be very unwise to let his King know we currently have no monarch.’

…that needed to be resolved very quickly.

“I presume that you can ride well?” Kian looked up the road. They could already see the edges of the main camp on the horizon. “We should request mounts when we return. We are going much further than initially expected.”

“I’d like to have a horse,” Marcel agreed easily.

They walked in silence for a while. Gradually, Kian’s irritation slipped away in the sunlight. He had probably overreacted, he thought, looking back on how things had gone at the keep. Prince Marcel had been a bit childish, but he hadn’t deliberately sabotaged them. He hadn’t taken the chance to run away. He was chafing at the bit because he didn’t like being told what to do– but would Kian like to be in those boots? Not one bit.

And besides, he would not find out if the man was a possible ally by treating him as a threat.

Kian cleared his throat. “So, you’re using the name Maurice, correct?” He glanced over and deliberately slowed a step so that they were walking next to each other. “It’s clever to use a name with a similar sound that you can respond to by habit.”

“...Thank you.”

A few steps passed in silence. “Is there anything that you would like to know?” Kian tried. “About the people you would know were you a military man, for example.”

“I am a military man,” Marcel shot back.

Kian put his hands up. “Of course,” he agreed. “Our military, I meant. Earlier you did not recognize the fox rampant, for example. Should I tell you about it?”

Marcel gave him a dubious look. Eventually, he ventured, “I assume that it is associated with the royal family in some way. But it’s not in the iconography that I studied.”

“No, it’s a revival,” Kian agreed easily. “About two decades ago, the King began a shift to revive some older traditions. The fox was the symbol of a branch of one of the families that were absorbed into the royal family.”

“So that’s the family he’s choosing to emulate?”

There was an awkward silence where they both realized that ought to have been in the past tense. Kian eventually nodded without verbally acknowledging it. “Recently the older spiritual traditions are being brought to the forefront, and continental religion less valued. It is not being suppressed, but it is not practiced in upper society of late.”

Marcel nodded, absorbing that. He looked like there was something he wanted to say.

“Go on,” Kian encouraged.

The Prince gave him a sideways look with amused eyes and a wry twist to his mouth, as if he expected to be snapped at. But he obliged. “The princess is very much a woman in the old traditions, is she not?”

Oh. Kian snorted aloud. “The pinnacle,” he said. The Prince relaxed when he saw he had caused no offense. “She’s the proof of concept. Her whole generation is much more…” He paused, searching for words. “Particularly the children born in her year,” Kian said. “It was said to be an auspicious year. The latent magical gifts in the noble lines were quite prominent around the time of her birth.”

“And her brother,” Marcel prompted.

Kian grimaced. He did not answer.

“Oh.” Marcel’s eyebrows shot up. “I see.”

Kian looked from side to side as if someone might be listening in. He didn’t know if this would offend the man on behalf of fellow royalty. But it seemed worth the try. “Poor man,” Kian said, a little quieter than he meant it to come out. He cleared his throat. “Nothing wrong with him at all. But it’s a hard thing to be in direct comparison with the most perfect specimen of national ideals all your life.”

“He has a good reputation,” Prince Marcel prompted, curious. “I’ve met diplomats who have spoken to him.”

He didn’t seem at all offended on the Prince’s behalf. Kian relaxed just the humblest amount. “He is clever, kind, and capable,” Kian agreed. It was all true. “No one has an ill word for him.”

If he’d been born a few years earlier, he’d have been the darling of the country. He was popular as it was.

Kian rather thought that was the Queen Presumptive’s biggest potential issue. If he were the Prince Etienne, he might be measuring his distance to the throne and his own suitability over a kinslayer.

“Here we are,” Prince Marcel said, pulling Kian out of his thoughts. “Do we give the same passphrase to enter camp?

“Yes, you can do it this time,” Kian said. He rolled his neck. “We shall report back to the Princess and then hurry on our errand.”