One-Stringed Harp
Chapter One: Out Of Their Hands
"Just try it, will you?" Calill insisted, pushing Nephenee back behind the standing screen again. "Honestly, I should not have to fence off the area just to get you to put on something that isn't full of armor plating. That is a finely hand-woven dress from one of the Begnion capital's best-reputed laceries."
"Whaddaya expect?" Nephenee protested, staring at the garment. "Handin' me somethin' like this outta the blue. 'Least I know what all the parts of a hauberk are for. This part's got springs in – listen." She twisted some bit of garb and let the rubbery-shrill squeak of metal do the talking. Sqreyk.
Calill, ever the bustling urbanite, swept around the main room of her apartment, drawing open the blinds on her giant windows as she went. The chain of suddenly unbarred sunbeams illuminated the white stone walls as perfectly as she had been able to orchestrate, and when the last one rose it revealed Lucia, settled comfortably in the wide window-frame where the light could strike her with the most artistic contrast. Nothing was allowed to happen in Calill's home without being saturated with style.
Still, the sage was surprised by Lucia's sudden appearance, and showed it with a mildly irritated eyebrow. "What are you doing in there?"
"I was enjoying the solitude," the swordmaster replied.
"Overrated," Nephenee called from behind the screen. "Plenty of solitude back here and it ain't doing nothing for my state of mind." Sqreyk-sqreyk. "D'you really expect me to put this on?"
"Astrid would be terribly disappointed if you didn't," Calill said, managing to bustle without actually doing much of anything. As she had explained before, in the strictest confidence, a truly sophisticated city-dweller always, the very least, looked like she was in a great rush.
"I think Astrid would be terribly disappointed if Nephenee arrived wearing silk carved from diamonds and invited along her friend the Goddess," Lucia stated flatly. "This marriage is not what she wants, I guarantee it."
"Have you heard from her?" Calill asked, passing through briefly on her way from the kitchen to the study and back again. She was always hard to keep track of for a few hours after a long shopping spree. "I haven't received a word since she left Lord Ike's command. Except for the invitation to the wedding, of course, but that would have come to me no matter what, upper-class socialite that I am."
"No, I haven't," Lucia replied, letting the 'socialite' boast alone despite her desperate urge to perforate it. "But I did speak to her back then, at least, and I heard the occasional whisper. Well. When Gatrie whispers, some people suffer permanent damage. But if I knew one thing about her, it was that she didn't want to return home and get married off in some random betrothal."
"And the apple trick," Nephenee called.
"Okay, two things," Lucia agreed. "No betrothal; apple trick. I never said we were best friends."
"That's unfortunate, then, but at least when it's over she'll be able to settle into a proper city life. I mean, gallivanting about in time of war is one thing, but a military career for someone like her? It's a waste. Just you wait. Begnion's social circles are in for a dazzling surprise from her," said Calill.
A knock at the door turned out to be Mia, looking somewhat baffled as to why in the name of all holy things she had been invited to the home of Calill, a woman sufficiently unlike Mia that a mere handshake between them was risking mutual annihilation in a catastrophic matter-antimatter reaction. Lucia watched on the edge of amusement as the sage hauled Mia inside cheerfully and bustled her away into another room.
"Still orange all over? With your hair? By the Goddess, even if Astrid weren't to be married this week, fixing you up is a matter of civic duty," Calill stated.
"Uh, hi. Have we met? I'm Mia," said the myrmidon, as close to nervous as she ever got.
"Calill, of course – we were both under Lord Ike's command during that unpleasantness last year – just come this way."
"I thought you looked familiar…" was all Lucia caught of Mia's response before the door shut. She had a few moment's peace, and used them to soak in all the morning light she could. Begnion's skies were a breathtaking clear blue this day, the perfect backdrop to the white-gold sun, and such a sight had never failed to raise the swordmaster's spirits.
And then Calill was back, shouting a last bit of advice to Mia before closing the door. "She recognised you," the sage said accusationally.
"We work together every week," Lucia reminded her. "You'll recall that we're both Crimean soldiers specialising in the same type of combat?"
"Oh. Right," Calill agreed, frowning. "…How on earth could you possibly let that fashion atrocity continue? I thought you knew better than that."
"I'm trying to remember how we got to be friends," Lucia said, cheerfully ignoring the question.
"We're the only beorc women under Lord Ike's command not completely wrapped up in ourselves," said Calill, somehow keeping a straight face. Lucia waited for the shattering crash of thunder that a just universe would have created in response to such a ridiculously huge self-delusion, but none came.
Eventually, let down by the nature of reality yet again, Lucia had to speak up. "So have you invited every female soldier you know to come by here and be involuntarily made over?"
"Only the ones with no personal knack for it," Calill replied smoothly before rapping on the screen. "How are you faring back there, Nephenee?"
"I can't breathe in 'less I put my arms over my head, fold my neck, an' bend my knees," the soldier replied.
"That's how you know you're the height of style, dear; come on out and let me see."
Lucia sighed and turned back to look out the window. How Calill had managed to wrangle her way into owning this apartment, she couldn't imagine, but between the adjacent palace garden and the perfect blue sky was an endless sea of rooftops and parapets, all very striking. Somewhere out there, one of them was probably the city home of Astrid's family, though where the former bow-knight was, Lucia had never discovered.
"I hope you're enjoying this as much as she is, Astrid," Lucia murmured.
On a scale measuring enjoyment-of-preparations-for-the-wedding-of-Astrid-of-House-Ceffylau, where Calill sat at the upper limit and the lower was represented by Mia – currently trying to work out which limb was supposed to be adorned with which frilly thing, although she guessed that in a proper fight it wouldn't matter – Astrid had the most in common with a hole in the ground so deep that anyone who survived the passage through the planet core and emerged at the other end would find themselves immediately kicked to death by startled kangaroos.
That is to say, she was not enjoying it.
After returning home, adorned with badges of valour and the commendation of the Apostle herself, Astrid had clearly and without hesitation stated to her parents that she was no longer willing to take their every whim as law. She would henceforth be her own person, make her own decisions, and absolutely not get married just to complete some kind of foolish noble alliance in the eternal struggle for power.
Exactly what had happened over the last few months was still not clear to her.
The result, however, was plain enough, and drove her mad. "War? I mean, really, war? That is what my parents consider a prod in the proper direction?" Astrid demanded of her maid, who desperately wanted to run, but couldn't until ordered.
"It would only be if milady didn't go through with the wedding…" the maid offered.
"Yes, and that is precisely the foolishness of it! Whatever little agreement they had before I left was one thing, but now they've drawn up this new contract that says my fiancé's family is duty-bound to declare war against ours if the betrothal is broken! What kind of–" Astrid was cut off.
"If you please, milady, don't start with that sort of language again, you know it makes the housekeepers faint. What sort of company you were keeping that taught you such terms, I don't want to imagine," said the maid.
"Her name was Jill," said the paladin, recalling memories of her year of freedom. Where Astrid had her famous apple trick, Jill the wyvern rider occasionally showed off her ability to sharpen blades with nothing but a carefully selected torrent of profanity.
"Astriiid!" That was her mother, whose education, no matter how complete, would still have not prepared her to spell any of the words Astrid was considering replying with. "Aren't you ready yet, dear? They're coming up High Street now!"
The tone of her mother's voice caused Astrid to stop dead in her tracks and pause while her mind completely altered course. What 'they' could possibly be relevant to any of these blasted betrothal processes who hadn't already arrived? She turned sharply to ask the maid, but her expression – 'I desperately want a large shield and a full suit of titanium plate armor' – was all the confirmation Astrid needed.
Casting aside the last jangling accessories, Astrid strode out of the room, down two sets of spiral stairs, along the corridor, around another twisting staircase, and finally into the cavernous entrance hall, where her mother was standing in an alcove, facing the wall.
"You didn't tell me tha… what are you doing?" Astrid asked, this time cutting herself off.
"Oh, with the acoustics in this old house, that's the only place you can hear me from, up in your room," said her mother. "And don't you look wonderful!"
"I want to ask how it's possible that the most comfortable clothing I've ever worn came out of a forge, but even more than that, I want to know why this is the first I've heard that my…" – here she fought with her vocabulary and eventually gave in – "…fiancé is arriving today."
"Haven't I mentioned it to you?" her mother asked.
"You can trust that this is something I would have picked up, mother."
"But I've been talking about nothing else for days – oh, wait, all those conversations were with other people. Well, that does explain it. Now, do try to look presentable, won't you?"
Furiously aware that any slight could be the pretext for a war between their families, Astrid stood perfectly still and ready, radiating all the warm affection of a statue in midwinter. She heard the roll of carriage wheels on the gravel road, their clicking stop, the approach of many marching feet, and at last the great front doors swung open. She didn't even have time to brace herself before the first stuffy noble appeared, and Astrid was sure this was the man she had heard about. Just as the story went, he was at least thirty years older than Astrid, and she guessed his brain would overload if he saw a woman in armor.
"Lord Sagita," said Astrid, determined to at least do more than be displayed at this first meeting. "I hope you'll excuse me if I appear flustered" – or to be plotting your abduction, she silently added – "but I wasn't aware I would be meeting my fiancé today."
Sagita smiled with a sort of benevolence that caught Astrid off guard; it didn't fit the situation or his character at all. "Ah, yes, he'll be along shortly. Don't concern yourself too much, Lady Astrid, Fletcher is at least as flustered as you claim to be."
Astrid's face was a slide show on every permutation of 'confused frown' that she could think of as her mind tried to decipher any of what the man had just said. From his dress, there could be no doubt that this was Lord Sagita, but then who was he talking about? Recalling the bit about inter-house war, Astrid clamped down on her first attempt at clarification ("Whatever are you blithering about?"), and in any case the man had already moved on to speak with her mother.
Then the stream of Lord Sagita's entourage passing through the doors was broken, and the lone figure who stood there stretched out with an arcane magnetic force that instantly drew everyone's gaze to him. Literally red hair was rare enough, but his eyes were an impossible teal and he radiated the same force that had made Ike such a brilliant leader. The difference was that where Ike had gained respect for his sheer military prowess, this man – barely; he couldn't have been much older than Astrid – achieved it through tremendous, pervasive goodwill.
"Oh, my, are you Lady Astrid?" he asked.
"…Yes," Astrid decided. "…And you…"
"Fletcher, future Lord of House Sagita," he said with a bow – and a bow. The archery kind. It was strapped to his back, underneath an empty quiver. "It's a pleasure to m–"
"Why aren't you old?" Astrid demanded. Fletcher's eyebrows tilted in confusion before he noticed Lord Sagita off to one side.
"Old? Why would I – I mean, I realise I'm not exactly elderly, but… oh! There must have been some kind of mix-up," said Fletcher. "You thought you were supposed to be marrying him? …Well, for one thing, I suspect Mother would object to that." His grin was a terrible force to be faced with; it was so gently amused that it was impossible he was laughing at your expense, and that only made the embarrassment all the worse. Pure military discipline kept it off Astrid's face.
"Of course," said Astrid, turning her head upward to demand Why, of the goddess, are you obsessed with making my life more complicated than one of Soren's origami crossword puzzles?
"Instead you get me," said Fletcher, shrugging. "And, ah, it would seem that… I get you. Is there something on the ceiling?"
"No," said Astrid, finishing her deity-aimed rant and returning to the impossible choice at hand – was she to stand by her principles and freedom, refuse the betrothal, and let the foolish nobility of Begnion sort out their own little war… or did she marry a treacherously handsome and friendly lordling?
"I'm a bit of an archery fiend," Fletcher volunteered. "Have you ever wanted to learn?"
Astrid stared.
"I just thought it might be a start," he explained. "I'm not sure how these introductions are usually handled by other nobility. Does your family have a gallery outside the capital, perhaps? ...Uh, milady? The staring is started to get awkward."
Sothe's daggers were a gleaming blur among his fingers as he nervously spun them. Although it would shock anyone who had ever gotten to know the confident, self-satisfied young thief – and had subsequently been told to A) take a portrait, as it would last longer, B) touch him again and draw back a stump, or C) quit gawking before he killed them in the face – he could get nervous. This situation, facing six-to-one odds against a whole menagerie of competent warriors, was ideal for nervousness.
The mage was obviously the biggest threat, with that Thoron tome in hand, but Sothe was sure he could cut down any mage faster than they could invoke arcane lightning against him. That would be his first move, five steps and a quick double stab, one to the throat and one to the lung. Then the sniper, before he could back off to a safe and effective distance, and then – bloody hell, why did they always have to attack before he was done planning?
The five dashing steps quickly turned into a roll as Sothe just barely ducked under the air-rending sweep of the warrior's huge steel axe, so he abandoned the anti-mage rush and instead put his attention onto making that same warrior suffer as much as possible. The thief's roll landed him on his feet again, but bent low enough for a good leap, just barely tucking his toes over the backswing of the same axe and lashing out. His dagger merely clattered off the warrior's plating, and the hulking man merely laughed.
That slowed down a bit when Sothe put the stiletto in his other hand through the armor like a hot wyvern through butter. It wasn't nearly a fatal wound, but it would inconvenience the warrior enough for Sothe to look elsewhere, and dive to the floor again as a large arrow shot just over his head. Hating the sacrifice, Sothe fired back by throwing one of his older daggers at the sniper, who felt smug about dodging it so easily until he noticed his severed bowstring.
By now, the shock had taken effect, and no one seemed eager to charge Sothe, but the fact remained that he was fighting a good 5.29 enemies on his own in a very small, dark room in a part of the Begnion capital where it would just be embarrassing to be found dead. So he was going to squeeze as much out of bravado as he possibly could. The mage stepped to the fore.
"Hey now, look, you're very glittery and all, but I can still fish-gut you in about six seconds flat, so how about we slow down and try talking again? I mean, come on, I bet you can't even use lightning magic indoors," said Sothe, folding his arms.
The mage raised his arm, and sulphur-yellow sparks began to crackle around it. "You'd be wrong."
"Oh," said Sothe, and hit him with a chair. It was a flimsy thing, and most of it broke off, but enough of the back remained in the thief's hands for him to throw through the window. Sothe followed it a moment later, reaching out to grab the first clothesline that came to hand, and discovered that, like most of Begnion, this street was infuriatingly free of laundry strung between windows. He took a moment to sigh before he hit a fruit stand.
"Don't let him get away!" the warrior shouted from the window above.
"Dang it, they know my nickname," Sothe muttered, rubbing the back of his head.
"Apples… so many apples…" the vendor said vaguely, staring at the devastation Sothe had caused on impact.
"Yeah, sorry about that," the thief said, ignoring the Inner Sothe that pointed and laughed as he tossed the fruit-seller jingling coin purse before taking off down the street. Generosity rubs off, he observed. Gross. I hope I at least got it off one of the hot girls and not Boyd or someone…
The reason that all the streets were free of clotheslines was that Sothe was in the cultural quarter of the city, surrounded by theatres and opera houses and the Library of Mind-Numbing Historical Records. He considered, for a moment, trying to lose his soon-to-be pursuit in the art gallery just across the street, but when it came to a fight, he knew the collateral damage would require him to travel back in time in order to work long enough to pay it all back. That was out. So was handing someone his cloak and a great deal of money to run in the opposite direction in plain sight. And while Begnion did have sewers… no. Just no.
He was left with the old standby, sprinting as fast as possible along a path that would be impossible to predict, pausing only to leave obstacles in the path of the pursuit. And it wasn't that he wasn't brilliant with that method – I am, Sothe reflected, as he neatly turned two horses drawing carts, a bag of apples, and a handful of whiteflower pepper into a chaotic traffic jam – but that they had the advantage. He wouldn't actually be able to lose his enemies inside the city, only in the wilderness beyond, and with their numbers, they would easily be able to follow him.
So once the disoriented horses were thoroughly tangling their gear, Sothe took off in the other direction, turned down a series of alleys, and skidded to a silent, desperate halt just behind the looming figure of the same warrior he had stabbed earlier. He was resting his axe over one shoulder while he lurked in the shadows, watching for Sothe in the busy street.
The odds against this are incredible, Sothe stated in general protest to the universe. A proper, realistic thief would either go for the heart or the back of neck now, and make his getaway during the screaming. Being a thief with much, much more style than that… It was lucky that so many carts were clattering on the cobblestones in front of the watching warrior, since it covered the quiet rasping sounds of Sothe's work. It only took a moment, then the young thief took one flick of his stiletto to slice off the warrior's bandolier of throwing daggers and run.
That was hard to miss, and the giant axefighter did turn to strike, but he foolishly chose the obvious move: a massive overhead swing. If it had connected, Sothe would have been literally left beside himself – bisected at an intersection – but with a rope connecting it to his feet in two loose slip-knots, the warrior only succeeded in tripping himself up and tying himself to his weapon. Sothe gave the brute a good half-hour before he figured out how to manoeuvre the axe's blade near his bound feet.
"Gatrie," Sothe muttered to himself, as the warrior's inarticulate roar caught up with him, "you are so going to pay for getting me onto this mission."
Calill sipped a tall mug of tea so herbal it doubled as expensive conditioner and gave Lucia a measured look. Specifically, it had been measured to indicate, with eyebrows alone, exactly how lunatic she thought anyone had to be to have said what the swordmaster just did. "Repeat that, would you?"
"I think we should try to put a stop to Astrid's wedding," Lucia stated calmly.
"Yes, that's what I thought," Calill said, nodding. "On a related note, I was wondering if I could borrow a big ol' cup of crazy sometime."
"I heard that," said Nephenee, whose dress illuminated distant buildings if she stood in direct sunlight. No matter how she looked at herself in the mirror, she knew the only way she would feel confident was if she added a helmet with a faceplate. "You wouldn' let me drop consonants like that."
"Sometimes, I admit, the situation demands it," Calill said, still thoroughly dignified.
"I'm serious," Lucia stated, begging the question of when, in her entire life, she had ever been anything else. "Ashnard has been defeated, the traitors have been routed from the court of the Apostle, and diplomatic relations have opened again between beorc and laguz nations. This is the start of a new world, and forced betrothals have no place in it."
"Wonderful. Where does your crusade start?" asked the sage.
"Do not mock me," said Lucia. Calill made the mistake of rolling her eyes in plain sight, which was all Lucia needed to be set fully onto her path, unshakeable by act of mortal or goddess. "That does it. Mia, Nephenee, Marcia, get in here!" As the three appeared in varying shades of awkward, something belatedly occurred to Lucia. "Marcia?" she asked of Calill.
"Red with pink hair? The girl was a Valentine's Day card," the sage replied.
"Meuh," Marcia offered, sticking her tongue out at Calill.
"Look, none of that matters. And Calill, you aren't exactly furthering Astrid's cause by acting as if how we look is going to be more important than who we are," Lucia snapped.
"I thought we had already agreed that none of us actually knows Astrid. At all," said Calill.
"Oh, who does?" Lucia scoffed, waving it off.
"Ike," said Calill.
"Gatrie," said Mia.
"Sothe," said Nephenee.
"My brother," Marcia finished.
"Men, all of them," Lucia pointed out.
"Have you met my brother?"
"My point is that they have no idea what it could possibly be like to know, from your childhood, that your marriage would be someone else's choice, and used for political or societal or military gain," Lucia went on. "I'm not afraid of the consequences."
"That is abundantly clear," Calill observed.
"If we can take apart a conquering army led by an evil superhuman emperor bent on genocidal conquest, I think we can meddle enough with some minor noble politics and a couple of royally-approved documents of law to save a friend from a fate–"
"Do not say 'worse than death'," Mia warned. "It can't be that bad."
"He's thirty years older than her," Lucia remarked.
"I'm in," said Nephenee.
"I'm in," Mia seconded.
"I'm late!" Marcia yelped, seeing Calill's clock counting down to the hour. She shot into the side room again, came back out in full knight's armor with ridiculous speed, and flew out the door, catching the frame in her hand just long enough to shout "I'm in!" before vanishing again.
"Ooh, I've got to meet with Tanith in half an hour," said Mia, similarly racing out of the room.
"I ain't missin' my first advanced combat class," Nephenee said apologetically, dodging behind the screen again.
Lucia stared at the vacated space, trying to decide if she felt more betrayed by her friends or the nature of all causality. "That was fun," Calill said, cheerfully. "We should start crusades every day. As long as we don't have to follow through on any of them."
"I could end you," Lucia reminded her friend.
"Oh, calm down," said the sage. "They said they were 'in'. And I suppose I should come along to keep you out of trouble and in perfect style. So we'll all be 'in'. Where shall we begin?"
"I have no earthly idea."
His cloak torn, bleeding from countless shallow slices, Sothe yanked a red-stained dagger out of the last fallen foe and aimed his furious, eagle-gold gaze at the remaining mercenaries. "Look, I'm really not a big fan of killing. I outran all of your idiot goons right out of the city," he pointed out, gesturing to the forest around them, and the thick, thorny undergrowth that was responsible for most of the blood seeping through his skin. "What do you say you just let me go, for initiative or pluck or who in Ashera's name cares, just let me go and I'll never come back to bother any of you again."
"Yeah, we don't really do that sort of thing," said one of the mercenaries.
"Do you think you can take me down?" Sothe countered. "Out here in the woods with your huge clunky cleaver-swords, never knowing where I'm going to hit you next? I'm betting that with a ten-second distraction I can find a hiding spot until nightfall, and then you're both just doomed."
"We don't need to kill you," said the mercenary, grinning. "We're just keeping an eye on you to make sure you don't wander off and hurt yourself before the boss gets here."
"Oh," said Sothe, taking on a more relaxed pose. "If we're just waiting, then, who wants a quick sparring match? I promise I won't aim for the eyes."
"That won't be necessary," said a new voice, and it was immediately obvious to Sothe that this was their leader – for more reasons than one – returning along with the messenger cavalier who had left the chase a good half-hour ago. "I'd be happy to strike a deal with you."
"I'm overjoyed," said Sothe, blandly.
"Oh, please, no matter what you think of me, you must realise it's a matter of honor that I would never break my word to you. So, what do you say if I promise that neither I nor any of my men will lay a finger on you if you just tell us how much you know?" asked their leader.
"I'd be free to go?" Sothe asked sceptically.
"You'll understand if I don't offer you a ride back to the capital, but yes, you'll be free to run as far as you are able," he said, sheathing his sword with an air of finality. "I guarantee no pursuit. Now, what do you know?"
Sothe gave him the most gloating sneer the world had seen in six hundred and eighty-three years. "Absolutely everything. Right down to the Bow of Falling Stars."
The man raised his brow in mild surprise at that name, but accepted Sothe's claim with a brief nod. He then swiftly drew, nocked, and loosed an arrow that flew, far too swiftly, across the small glade to fell the boy on impact. "Loot the body, but leave it here," he commanded, sighing quietly. "If anyone finds it they'll assume a bandit attack. Then join my father's guards back home and don't have any contact with me for at least a week; I don't want him getting suspicious. And send another messenger if we find that the boy had allies."
"Yes, milord."
The mercenaries' leader turned back and strode confidently out of the woods again, his concerns greatly lightened. At the edge of the trees, he mounted his horse again and galloped back across the hills to meet his riding partner, who was waiting much more patiently than she would have expected of herself.
"Sorry about that, Lady Astrid," said Fletcher. "My father does insist on lessons in decision-making and that sort of thing at the strangest times. And may I say that you're even more gifted with a bow than I would ever have guessed?"
"You may," Astrid said, grinning. She was actually having fun for the first time in weeks. "Shall we ride the target course again? I'm pleased just to meet someone who doesn't think it's odd for a woman to carry a bow."
"Oh, archery is a fine talent for anyone to have," said Fletcher, steering his horse back to the start. "You never know when it might come in handy."