It wasn't that Cole was going to march right out and demote Guy, no. After all, his promotion was all part of the process, part of the plan, and as long as things went more or less according to Cole's plan, he would have more time to do more fun things with the lover he hadn't seen in five fucking years, most of whose time this past week had been frittered away in unpleasantness, rather than the very, very pleasant things that Cole had FIVE YEARS' WORTH stored up to distribute.
He was going to demote Guy with his fist.
Nika thought it all very funny. Cole admired and adored many of Nika’s traits, but there were nearly as many he didn't understand, and he didn't understand how Nika could think this was funny. Certainly it was true that Nika was always better at – to be delicate – managing his attraction, but Cole thought this particular instance went a little beyond doing classwork before instead of after having a screw. Right now, Cole could hardly touch Nika without feeling a sharp and painful burn through his guts which let him know that, at any second, he could respond to the call, so to speak. There were only so many times that reason could conquer passion, and Cole was up near the end of his tally.
Though it took the entirety of the short time dressing, and the constant, patient coaching of Nika (he managed to keep his laughing down to only every once in a while) – finally, as they stepped out of the tent, neat and presentable, Cole was able to think: yes, Guy had probably had good reason to interrupt.
Guy must have had an excellent reason, and made a daring call, and really it was quite an admirable demonstration of his worthiness. So admirable that Cole was going to murder him, because surely that was the peak of his existence – it was all downhill from here so why not save him the trouble of the rest of his life.
Nika hid a chuckle. The breaking of Cole’s cold façade could, at time, be very amusing.
Cole glared at him, but raised a hand to call over the other of the pair of guards Nika had come to see like native birds to his habitat. Though it now seemed a world away, that very first night of his capture, they had gotten their painful say in – not nearly as long or hard as others, but still. It was strange the way that war worked on the mind.
And good for them, that they were no longer at war.
Nika looked at his coat, now in such a shabby state it hung like a loosely-sleeved cape over his shoulders. The buttons had not yielded to Cole’s haste so much as given up entirely. He yet held some hope there would be enough time not to miss them.
Lo trotted up when summoned, a wise worry etched on his face, as Cole had an expression of active disappointment still working his jaws. Cole would undoubtedly be furious with himself about it later.
“Take the General back to his tent and then consider yourself dismissed to prepare for tomorrow.” Cole tried to give the guard some relief through a tight smile, which did not work, at all.
Before Lo had dropped his salute, Cole's hand touched at Nika's arm, and they met each other's eyes before parting.
There was a lot said in that look which Nika would have liked to focus on, to reserve to himself as a sweet memory; maybe it was that he knew Cole wouldn’t be pleased he had failed to maintain his untouchable demeanor that kept him from doing so.
Whatever it was – he noticed that Lo looked vaguely uncomfortable as they walked. It took a moment to decide the proper course of action:
He caught Lo's eye, just briefly, as if on the sly, and gave him the biggest shit-eating grin he could muster. It was easy to get the grin right because, after all, it was about Cole.
There was no way that Heary had departed the tent without conveying to Lo what he had seen – that was how partners worked. And these two had a strange telepathy, passing large chunks of information through (apparently) meaningful expressions and gestures, incomprehensible to outside observers (Nika had tried. It was a tough call between admiring their capability and thinking they could communicate that way because they had no greatly complex thoughts).
Though caught by surprise, Lo first theatrically checked back and forth, then gave Nika a shit-eating grin right back.
Nika nodded, as though thoroughly impressed, and Lo gave a low whistle of appreciation.
Putting on a look of deep contemplation, and perhaps a little awe, Nika confirmed what Lo had always suspected about his General. Lo adopted a prideful expression, complete with puffy chest, marching a little taller – all doubts assuaged.
Traitorously used or not, sexual prowess would always be admired.
Cole departed for the hitching post.
He took a roundabout route. Guy’s message had been delivered urgently – the interruption was surely deliberate, may Fate, like a following gull, forever shit on him – but was not, in itself, urgent. A palace messenger having to wait pleased Cole immensely, and he should probably walk the whole ‘interruption’ situation off for a little longer.
Although word seemed to have spread that Guy had been promoted, old habits would die hard, and Cole could still command. He walked and he checked in – nudging an order here, rearranging a priority there – and put some shape into the preparations for the evening to come to account for a few things Guy couldn’t possibly anticipate.
The camp was alive, as it was always alive, to him, but it was no longer his body – lively as it was, it was a bear gorging before a winter’s well-earned sleep, and he was, in a way, just waking. They were happy – going about tasks at double-time in sheer anticipation of being home, or being at rest, or just being in a place with people not in uniform. They were preparing for peace, and Cole was going to war.
But he liked war. Or, rather, this war pleased his already war-like nature. He had fought against Nika, and suffered fear, uncertainty, self-doubt, and terror; but now he fought for Nika – there would be no defeat, there was nothing to be uncertain of, and the terror was his to inspire. That he started at bay – forced to go along with Nika’s plan, which spelled his suffering and death – was no cause to doubt that he would do whatever was necessary to prevent Nika’s death. The very idea Nika would die was ludicrous.
The very idea that Hammerlyn’s petty schemes would stop him, that the Palace would somehow turn his course, that even the Academy Council itself could stand in his way – these were all ludicrous ideas. He wondered if their backers knew this. Nika would not die if Cole had to kill the King himself to save him.
Well, Hammerlyn first. King later, if necessary.
The walk around the camp not only gave him a moment to collect himself, but let him start to disentangle what Nika had said. It was true he had a plan, and true Nika would have been scandalized by the vague notions he called ‘a plan.’ Nika’s plan, which Cole still had to ferret out and do… something about – Nika’s plan would not be vague. Nika’s plan would be exact. It was exact. It was to confess and die, but first to pull Cole in because…
People in the Capitol couldn’t be trusted. He didn’t know how he had been caught. Did he think Hammerlyn had somehow betrayed his whereabouts to the Comids? Well, one more reason to do something about Hammerlyn – and Cole’s plan was to do something about Hammerlyn – but Nika wouldn’t pull Cole in for petty revenge. It didn’t line up well, anyway. Hammerlyn would have had him killed before turning him over to the Comids – if nothing else, he was too base to be the sort of schemer to try to ‘arrange’ a defection…
Trust, and capture; the Capitol, and Nika’s escape; freedom and authority– and the law…
He was frowning deeply when he approached Guy, but not, as Guy feared, because of him.
Cole stopped by his side, and Guy turned to him, putting his back the liveried messenger, who had been speaking far too close to Guy’s face to be, in most circles, polite.
Guy was pale – wan, even. He needed to sleep. Cole needed to let him sleep – maybe the change in ranks could be delayed?
All the same, he seemed relieved that Cole had arrived. “General, I…”
Cole held up a hand, lightening his expression enough that Guy could understand the seriousness was the messenger’s sake, not on his account. “It’s fine, General Guy.”
The rank made Guy shake his head, as if something were stuck in his ear. “I’m sorry – about the – uh, well, interrupting…”
Cole laid a friendly hand on Guy’s shoulder, then tightened his grip. “Justice falls upon all men.”
Through his wince, Guy’s twitched out a grin, but his eyes kept sliding nervously towards the messenger behind him.
Indeed, Cole had noticed the messenger, for all his disinterest, watching them like a hawk. There were a number of reasons Cole hated court people, and courtly manners were very high on that list – but, as years as Durante’s protégé had hammered into him, they were a necessity. So he had studied them, and the endless signs and sigils of rank, the ins and outs of politesse and protocol, and, as it was an ever-changing world, did his best to stay up to date.
The messenger wore the green and black of the Palace, with spots of royal red around buttons and in folds, marking him as an official of the Regent. Pinned over his shoulder was a bulging canvas bag, markedly plain compared to his outfit, but explained by his black cap, with the shiny gold horn signifying his status as a messenger. The degree of polish to this messenger’s stance – the deliberate placement of his feet, his hands held artfully – not subserviently, or like a reprimanded child – behind his back, the angle of his body as he faced Cole – all of these were indicators of a degree of closeness to the inner court which, if Cole gave a shit about the inner court, demanded graceful return.
As a military officer, however, Cole was not expected to respond in kind. In fact, his lack of deliberate poise (grace of movement was another thing entirely, which Cole had in spades, but wouldn’t waste on the Regent’s messenger) was an expected point of disdain for the court messenger. Cole was happy to oblige.
He gave Guy’s shoulder another reassuring pat as he pushed past him to meet the messenger face to face. Though tempted to order Guy away to his much-needed rest, it was evident to Cole in the few seconds in which the messenger met his gaze like a slightly too-fat housecat sure of its mouse, that he couldn’t afford to. This all spelled trouble.
“Executive General Esras Cole?” the messenger asked, with a polite little lean in towards him, the expectant half-step of a bow.
“Brigadier, unfortunately,” Cole said with an affable lack of regret. “If you want the General, you want General Guy.”
He stepped sideways, to gesture towards Guy, behind him, but the messenger shook his head and – after a dismissive narrowing-of-eyes and pressing-of-lips directed at Guy – returning smile for smile.
“Oh, I’m not sure the rank matters as much as the personage,” the messenger said.
“I’ve always thought so,” Cole replied, with simple, military, joviality.
But, of course, the messenger was not fooled by a pleasant tone; he took the cut for what it was, though he was too poised to show it in anything but the extra crinkling around his smiling eyes. To a career soldier, he would have been interpreted as an older man, but he was probably younger than Durante – something about the hard life and pretended authority of high-ranking servants disordered the sensibilities of those for whom reaching middle age was a sign of great fortune. Cole knew he would see both Cole’s career and age in the same way. To him, Cole was a young upstart with rank bloated by favoritism. The vastness of the messenger’s experience at court made Cole’s repartee even more impertinent.
“You are Esras Cole, then?” He paused, but before Cole could respond, added, “Formerly Executive General of the Ainjir Army, son of Daithí Cole, the tailor?”
“I am,” Cole said, surprised at the need to coach himself back to cool neutrality. It meant nothing to Guy – or to the guard, Heary, who still stood next to him like an idiot, because both he and Guy were too entranced by the obvious coming conflict to do otherwise – but Cole had just been insulted. Smoothly, in the same veiled way he had cut he messenger. And Cole was out of practice at being insulted by hangers-on of the nobility.
“Then,” the messenger said, beginning a beautiful, slow, low bow, “I give you greetings, Brigadier Esras Cole, from His Royal Highness, Diarmaid of Dúiche Sheilge, Prince Regent of Ainjir, on behalf of his father, his Majesty the King of Ainjir, Sovereign of the Great Plain of–”
“Yes, the Prince,” Cole said. This, he never could stand. “Go on.”
The messenger paused – after all, rank did matter somewhat, to him. “…and the River Verun, from–”
“Prince Diarmaid,” Cole said. “And the King. Lands and confines. Yes.”
“…and the noble houses–”
“Yes,” Cole said again, through clenched teeth behind a smile. “Who I protect, along with the lands and confines I’ve marched over in almost their entirety over the last five years of protecting. Do list them, if you must, I suppose they don’t get old.”
This was rude. But then, it was rude to ignore Guy’s rank, and then insist upon the full titles of the nobility. That sort of rudeness, in the military, earned one a whipping rather than an even ruder reply. The messenger just didn’t know his luck.
“All greetings to you then, Sir General,” the messenger said, reiterating in miniature his earlier bow, which would have taken the entirety of the list of the honors to complete.
“I’m not titled,” Cole corrected. “And ‘Brigadier’ will do.”
“For the moment, perhaps,” the messenger said, eyes a-sparkle with privilege knowledge and patronizing self-importance. “The Prince Regent has issued a personal invitation for you attend a public ceremony, as his honored guest on the dais, following tomorrow’s parade.”
Well – this did not warrant such a patronizing smile. Without knowledge of his abandonment of his rank, Cole should be expected on the dais of a triumphal parade as a matter of course.
“As a further mark of esteem,” the messenger continued, as if Cole’s silence indicated his shock at such a flattering invitation, “the Prince Regent wished me to convey his desire that you be armed at said ceremony, which, I should explain, is contrary to custom and courtesy, which demands one be unarmed before one’s rulers.”
Cole frowned (not, as the messenger assumed, at being unable to retort to another bold and cutting remark regarding his ignorance of custom).
A knighthood – he was being offered a knighthood. Knights were supposed to be the bridge between Ainjir’s bifurcated branches of government, but in being so, a particularly useless (and to the military, at least, somewhat embarrassing) title. Neither side particularly sought the honor, though the messenger presented it as if a peasant like Cole couldn’t help but be impressed by the gift.
A ham-fisted and rather gauche gesture for the Prince Regent to make, if, indeed, the Prince Regent made it. Not beyond the Prince Regent, though, to do it as a joke.
And if he had done this, as a joke, then some greater outrage awaited Cole. That would be what made it funny.
“Fine,” Cole said, watching the twitch, as if slapped, in the messenger’s face. “However, these arrangements will have to be passed through General Guy and General Hammerlyn, who are currently the ranking members of the military present. I’m afraid they may learn that recent events would make such a ceremony… inappropriate.”
“Allow me to present a message from General Hammerlyn, then, which might aid General Guy in his decision.”
Some of the playful lilt – the fashion in court speech for the last several years, that annoying coyness – had fallen from the messenger’s words, but none of the pleasure left his face. After all – let barbarians speak to barbarians. It was technically beneath him to deliver messages for General Hammerlyn, and this part of his message – at least to him – proved why.
He took the simple sack from his shoulder and swung around to the front. It took some prying to get the metal free of the rough cloth, and then further fumbling to figure out which was the right way to hold it.
“General Hammerlyn would like to convey his congratulations to his honored associate for both his victory and his anticipated Royal honors. He wishes the conveyance of his orders that the prisoner presented on the dais be appropriately attired, and your soldiers be organized for a public decimation of the remaining prisoners.”
The messenger at least held the thing in his hands with proper disdain, his fingers just barely curled over the rusted metal cage enough to keep it in his grip. Cole remained silent.
Soon, he realized it was not just his silence. The camp had gone silent. Soldiers, after all, were supposed to be simple, not stupid, and with Guy and Cole and the messenger of the Prince Regent all standing together, in increasingly tense conversation, meant something serious was about to happen – and now it had. Everyone remotely within earshot had slowed to listen, at the start, and now they all stood, straight and still as reeds in breezeless summer. They all stared – at the thing, the messenger, and their once-leader.
When word had come to the army that the Comid Hierarchy was ordering decimations of uncooperative towns and their own failed or fearful soldiers, High Command had dismissed it as rank rumor – base lies conjured up by a fearful populace of a secretive enemy. They had never bothered to find out of it was true, because there was no reason to make animosities worse, or encourage terror.
Among the first traits listed in the Conventions of an unbecoming ally – that is, the sort of ally only temporarily acceptable – was the use of decimation. Keadar-Ainjir himself banned the practice in Ainjir, and pressured the other five of the Six Nations to abandon it. True, it was not as inviolate a stricture as the Ban which forbid the development of black powder weapons, but his personal distaste for it was a well-known feature of many a fireside tale of the founder’s virtue.
And this – Cole raised two hands to take the cage from the messenger’s hand – a scold’s bridle. It could very well have been the one from the Academy, though Cole had never actually seen it; it was such a dire dishonor to any cadet that usually the very threat of taking it off its peg sufficed.
Thin bands of rough iron, clumsily bolted together and rusting at every meeting, fit over the head, locking together at the top, with a sinister twist of flat metal protruding inward. This pressed against the tongue in the mouth, ensuring the wearer could neither speak nor eat. For rumor-mongers, slanderers, and liars – a punishment for the tongue, for those too weak to win, too scared to fight, too vulgar to accept their own weakness and fear, and thus, deserving of humiliation rather than the expiating pain of a beating.
Cole looked at the messenger, who, relieved of his unseemly burden, waited with bored indifference for his reply.
“Do you know the Conventions?” he asked.
The messenger glanced at him, then at the bridle, then back up. “General Hammerlyn assumed the Conventions would be mentioned,” he said, in a way that perfectly conveyed the sense that that had not been Hammerlyn’s phrasing, but Hammerlyn’s phrasing, like his message, was, strictly speaking, beneath him to repeat. “He requested in such case an additional message implying that the Conventions did not apply to rebels or traitors,” and he made a gesture indicating the descriptive vocabulary went on.
Cole looked up, at the circle of watching soldiers, then back, at Guy and the guard. The eyes that met his held a myriad of different emotions, but all were steady. Looking again at the bridle, he lifted it to shoulder height with one hand, and seized the messenger’s fine lapels with the other.
“And what is this for?”
“Brigadier!” the messenger said, gulping back his affront when Cole’s eyes met his. “The presentation – your presentation – the required proof.”
Cole's fist tightened, gathering the messenger's finery until it began to squeeze over his chest too tight to breathe.
“To strike a messenger is an ignoble crime!”
“Answer me, you whimpering piglet,” Cole's shout rang over the camp, striking the silent field with the echo of a bell.
“Proof of the feat!” the messenger replied. “To earn the knighthood – it is required –presenting before His Majesty the foe defeated.”
The messenger stumbled back when Cole released him, turning his back and holding the cage again in two hands, head bent as if contemplating the scarred metal.
“This is what is required to earn a title – to serve the nation – to preside over a parade of humiliation and death?”
Now, that was a slight exaggeration of the matter. This whole situation was a bit dramatic. If Durante were here, his face would be stormy with disappointment, his whole personage held rigid with anticipation of the scolding he would give to Cole later, in private, for making a simple matter of registering objections and trusting to the bureaucratic processes and face-saving urges of the military and nobility to correct an obvious overreach on Hammerlyn’s part. This was precisely the sort of display of passion he had discouraged since Cole’s earliest days as a cadet.
But this was Cole, fighting for Nika. His point would be made as he pleased to make it.
The messenger, whether so insulted by the ‘piglet’ comment, or so relieved to have been released, had rather wisely stayed silent – and unaware of the tension building in the air around him.
Cole caught Guy’s eyes as he raised his head, and was pleased to see the tired but firm resolve in them. Heary, in awe of being so close to the center of the action, stood gape-mouthed.
“Will you take my reply back to the Prince Regent?” Cole asked, still facing away from the messenger, bridle in hand.
“As is my duty,” the messenger sniffed.
Cole turned on his heel, whipping the cage in his hand across the messenger’s face and letting it bury itself in the grass at their feet. The messenger fell like wheat before the scythe. In another step, Cole stood over him as he lay dazed on the ground, pouring down rage like a waterfall.
“Give that as my answer! Let that serve as proof! For five years I have given all but my life, and that was free to take in service to my nation, but I would have run before death, I would have made myself a coward, if I thought the nation would demand I give up my honor. To demand that I disgrace a noble victory with barbarous gloating. That I betray the Conventions, and the words with which this nation was founded. That I put desire for rank before the law – the law Keadar-Ainjir said would govern all of us, King to beggar. Tell the Prince, I say as the founder said before me, may those who seek to be more than man, suffer for it!”
There were things he needed – toiletries, and his clothes, for example – but instead Cole stalked away from the messenger, to where the messenger’s fine, liveried horse waited, ready to bear him back to the Capitol at any second. Giving the groom barely time to shove the bit back in its mouth, Cole mounted.
A babble had started the second he stopped speaking – the restrained gurgling of swallowed cheers, gasps, whispers quickly growing into talk, and then into shouts, such that by the time he mounted, giving the horse a little nudge to waken it into tossing its head, the camp roiled like the market streets on fair day.
Still – when he trotted to meet Guy (who at least had the presence of mind not to run towards Cole as he took off, instead settling on a dignified but hasty walk) – another hush fell, though not so perfect as the last.
“Decimation is the tool of savages,” Cole said. “I must try to stop it. I didn’t waste our strength marching the soldiers here, taking precious time away from their homes and families on a difficult route, just to watch our laws be disdained for the sake of spectacle. I will not let our efforts be tainted – I will not let our names be written in a tale of disgrace and dishonor.” His voice had gradually risen, until he turned the horse, shouting his last orders over the camp. “Soldiers! Prepare to be before the Capitol tomorrow, prepare to show the people what pride you take in your victory! Prepare to show the Prince and all his nobility what virtue the Army of Ainjir bears with it!”
The cheer broke through all ceilings of noise set by the hubbubs before it, but for those who wished to witness it, the final, private act, was staged – the only proper way, after all, to pass on rank, was in the midst of war.
“Guy,” said Cole, “it's your camp.”
Guy snapped his salute. “Yes, Sir.”
“I go to get the Law.”
A tug and sharp command sent the horse back on its heels, its high pitched noise of discontent calling out the dramatic fervor of the soldiers in another cheer. They shouted for Cole, for Guy, for Keadar-Ainjir and even for his obscure notions of honor and virtue that previously they would hardly have willingly named in company.
Cole only wished for one last thing – and he got it. From his perch on the horse’s back, Cole could see Nika, lured by the noise, dragging his 'guard' by the collar towards the commotion. He stopped, seeing Cole, watching the display, and smiled a wicked, knowing, prideful smile.
That was his promise – Cole had promised to take action. Now, Nika knew, war had come to the Capitol.
With one last look, Cole rode for the city.