Unforseen Consequences - 4/9
Apr. 9th, 2007 07:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jeriendhalI've wanted to work faster on this, just because I know what's going to happen in the end, and it's going to be such a devastating blow to Tez. Unfortuantely working at home is nearly impossible when Thomas is awake, and it's difficult to write in the five minute chunks between calls. Anyway, here's the next bit.
The next step nearly did them both in. Well, the next several steps, leading back up into the house. As Maria had feared, she’d broken her ankle in her escape attempt, and had to lean on Tez for support as they headed up the stairs. Given she was nearly a head taller than the elf and outweighed him by nearly a hundred pounds, this even more difficult than it first appeared.
“Are you… certain… you don’t want to… oof… splint that first?” Tez asked again, as she balanced herself on his arm and braced her other side against the stairwell.
“I’m not wasting that much time.” She bit down hard her lip to keep from screaming as her damaged foot brushed against the floor. She took a deep breath and tried to distract herself from the pain. “How did you get away? Surely the Marchioness didn’t trust you completely after you betrayed me.”
“She didn’t trust me at all,” Tez said, puffing between each word as they continued upward. “Actually I think she had the idea of using me in much the same manner that you originally bought me, minus procreation. Or at any rate she leashed me to a bedpost when she went to sleep, and bade me to sleep at the foot of the bed.”
“So what did you do?”
Tez grimaced, and helped up to the head of the stairs, where they both sat down to rest. “I’ve picked up a little lock picking skill over the years. It wasn’t that difficult to free myself.”
Maria shook her head. “You can pick locks? Then why didn’t you ever try to escape when I first bought you?”
He smiled at her. “I much prefer your company, Maria.” Which was enough to make her smile in return, and give her the will to push herself back to her foot, and hobble with Tez’s aid out to the stable. She let him saddle up Sleepy Nell, though she nearly fainted from the pain when she swung her injured foot over the horse’s back.
“I’ll handle her reins,” Tez said. She grimaced and nodded her head in agreement, wrapping her arms around his bare torso and hanging on for dear life when he kicked his bare heels into Nell’s sides and galloped away. Maria thought she might have heard shouts of alarm behind them, and gritted her teeth against the pain of her broken foot to ask, “Won’t they catch up to us?”
“Not without horses,” he said.
“What did you do with their…? Never mind!” She grimaced and concentrated on holding onto his waist as Nell dropped back to a fast trot. In perhaps a half-hour they reached the gates of the town, where Tez brought their huffing and sweating mount to a halt.
“Hullo! Open the gate!” he called out.
The gate’s small sally port opened, and a sleepy looking guardsman stuck his head out. “Who are you to be askin’ for the gate to be opened? It’s the middle of the night!”
“Tez, servitor to Maria, Acolyte of the Temple of Thanatos. She’s injured and requires the aid of her personal healer, the Most Merciful Garvin.”
“The old Death Priest?” the guardsman asked, looking surprised.
“The same,” Maria gasped. “Please, let us in.”
“Can’t let anyone in until sunrise, ma’am. Council orders.” The guard stepped back inside the sally port, laying his hand on the door to shut it.
“We do not have time for this,” Tez muttered in irritation, slipping off Nell’s back.
“Tez, wait!” she ordered, before he could initiate more violence. “Guardsman, you must let us in. I was injured in a matter... in a matter that will be of concern of the Town Council.” Hopefully.
The guardsman looked uncertain. “I don’t know, ma’am.”
“We are not attempting to smuggle in goods restricted by the guilds. We are not armed. We are certainly not strangers,” Tez added persuasively.
“And if you are still worried you may escort us to the Most Merciful Garvin yourself,” Maria concluded, then bit down on her tongue as a sharp spike of pain in her foot ran up her leg.
The guardsman, faced with her obvious need and Tez’s plea for reasonableness, finally nodded and gestured them inside. Maria fell into Tez and the guardsman’s arms, since Nell wasn’t about to fit through the sally port. Between the two of them, they managed to support her as she hobbled painfully the few blocks to the Temple of Thanatos.
After shouting and knocking on the door for a few moment, Garvin appeared dressed in hastily put on trews and a sleeping gown. He took one look at Maria and gestured everyone inside with a “Come in! Come in! By the Most Merciful, Maria, what happened?”
She let out a moan of pain, and Garvin hastily cleared off the altar to allow Tez and the guardsman to lay her down upon it. “You… ooohhhh…. tell me. You were there after Tez knocked me unconscious.”
“Yes, well, speaking of which, I’m very surprised to find you still with him.” Garvin glared at Tez, who merely crossed his arms and stood his ground.
“It’s all, ah, all right, Garvin,” she told him. “He was saving me from striking a noblewoman.”
“Oh, very well, I suppose. Let’s see to your injuries first then.” After dismissing the guard, Garvin retrieved his small case of medical supplies from his rooms upstairs and got to work setting Maria’s leg. “I’m just a Death Priest, my dear,” he said apologetically, “I’m afraid healing miracles are outside of my realm of influence.”
White stars of pain crossed Maria’s vision as her ankle was set and wrapped into a splint. “That’s all right… Just keep talking to me… What happened after I was… argh… knocked out?”
“Well, frankly I was at a loss. There you were lying on the floor insensible, with Tez standing over you with this smirk on his face. I protested loudly that this was completely unreasonable, but the Most Merciful Alfred sided with the Marchioness naturally, and with Tez having apparently betrayed you I was very much outnumbered. Lady Evelyn ordered that servitor Beast-Kin of hers into the room and told him to take you down to your old cell in the basement. I made the decision to retreat and inform the town fathers about the situation.”
“And what did they have to say?” Tez asked.
Garvin shrugged uncomfortably. “They didn’t seem happy about it, but from an absolutely technical standpoint the Marchioness was within her rights.”
“All for nothing,” Maria muttered, as her ankle throbbed in pain and her head began to ache, “all for nothing…”
* * *
Once her ankle was splinted sufficiently that she could be moved without further injury, Garvin made a sort of nest of mattresses and blankets on the floor for her to lay down on, not wanting to try and lift her body up the stairs. Maria lay on the floor, feeling chilled, while Tez squatted beside her to keep her company.
“What are we to do, Tez?” she asked him. She was feeling less pain now, Garvin having given her a tincture of poppy oil to ease her, but it left her feeling like she was floating slightly above the mattress.
“Well, come morning the Marchioness is going to find her pet Beast-Kin locked in your old cell,” Tez said. “Once they figure out that you’ve escaped and I’ve betrayed them their next step, if she is intent on keeping the manor, is to bring her case to the town fathers and attempt to locate you. The latter won’t be particularly hard.”
“Given that the guardsman helped us here, yes. So what now?”
“Our first option is to fight a court battle,” Tez said, “which you are unlikely to win.”
“Our second?”
“Run. If you cut off your horns you’ll be just another human and more difficult to track. Once we reach a reasonably sized city there will be no finding us. You’ll have lost your wealth but maintained your freedom.”
“No! I’m not giving up what I am, Tez. Not now, not ever!” she said, pushing herself up to her elbow. “What’s our third option?”
Tez’s face grew grim. “I return to the manor, kill the Marchioness, the Most Merciful, and the Beast-Kin servant, then burn the manor to the ground to destroy the evidence. Alone I can slip over the town walls with a minimum chance of being detected and then return before morning. Sinod will be able to testify with perfect truth that the manor was lit afire well after we came to town, and as you noted we already have a witness to our entry. Again you’ll lose your manor and some wealth, but I can replace that for you given enough time.”
Maria felt the shock from his statement drive out the fog the poppy tincture had placed over her brain. “Tez! I can’t ask you to murder three people just so I can stay free.”
“You didn’t ask, I offered to do it unbidden,” he said. “Maria, after all that I’ve told you about me, do you imagine I’ve never killed anyone with my bare hands?”
“You can not simply murder three people in cold blood.”
He squatted down beside her, face close to hers. “I have pledged myself to you and sworn to protect you and your children. Given the choice between permitting you to be placed in a collar and shackles again, and taking the life of a rather unpleasant old woman and her minions, I have no moral compunction at all in doing what I said I would do.”
She pushed herself upward, closer to his face. “You don’t. I do. And if you leave here to do what I expressly do not want you to do, in the mistaken belief that you know better than I, then feel free not to come back. My god tells us that to hasten a death except in times of personally demanding release from a great pain, or to destroy that which would be a grave harm to others, is a sin beyond measure. I will not violate that oath. Not for anything, not even myself!”
Tez was silent for a long moment. “Not even for your children?” he asked in a soft voice.
Maria closed her eyes and lay back on the mattress. “Not even for them. Not even if I doom them to wear chains their entire lives. Better that than to live free with blood on my hands.”
TBC
The next step nearly did them both in. Well, the next several steps, leading back up into the house. As Maria had feared, she’d broken her ankle in her escape attempt, and had to lean on Tez for support as they headed up the stairs. Given she was nearly a head taller than the elf and outweighed him by nearly a hundred pounds, this even more difficult than it first appeared.
“Are you… certain… you don’t want to… oof… splint that first?” Tez asked again, as she balanced herself on his arm and braced her other side against the stairwell.
“I’m not wasting that much time.” She bit down hard her lip to keep from screaming as her damaged foot brushed against the floor. She took a deep breath and tried to distract herself from the pain. “How did you get away? Surely the Marchioness didn’t trust you completely after you betrayed me.”
“She didn’t trust me at all,” Tez said, puffing between each word as they continued upward. “Actually I think she had the idea of using me in much the same manner that you originally bought me, minus procreation. Or at any rate she leashed me to a bedpost when she went to sleep, and bade me to sleep at the foot of the bed.”
“So what did you do?”
Tez grimaced, and helped up to the head of the stairs, where they both sat down to rest. “I’ve picked up a little lock picking skill over the years. It wasn’t that difficult to free myself.”
Maria shook her head. “You can pick locks? Then why didn’t you ever try to escape when I first bought you?”
He smiled at her. “I much prefer your company, Maria.” Which was enough to make her smile in return, and give her the will to push herself back to her foot, and hobble with Tez’s aid out to the stable. She let him saddle up Sleepy Nell, though she nearly fainted from the pain when she swung her injured foot over the horse’s back.
“I’ll handle her reins,” Tez said. She grimaced and nodded her head in agreement, wrapping her arms around his bare torso and hanging on for dear life when he kicked his bare heels into Nell’s sides and galloped away. Maria thought she might have heard shouts of alarm behind them, and gritted her teeth against the pain of her broken foot to ask, “Won’t they catch up to us?”
“Not without horses,” he said.
“What did you do with their…? Never mind!” She grimaced and concentrated on holding onto his waist as Nell dropped back to a fast trot. In perhaps a half-hour they reached the gates of the town, where Tez brought their huffing and sweating mount to a halt.
“Hullo! Open the gate!” he called out.
The gate’s small sally port opened, and a sleepy looking guardsman stuck his head out. “Who are you to be askin’ for the gate to be opened? It’s the middle of the night!”
“Tez, servitor to Maria, Acolyte of the Temple of Thanatos. She’s injured and requires the aid of her personal healer, the Most Merciful Garvin.”
“The old Death Priest?” the guardsman asked, looking surprised.
“The same,” Maria gasped. “Please, let us in.”
“Can’t let anyone in until sunrise, ma’am. Council orders.” The guard stepped back inside the sally port, laying his hand on the door to shut it.
“We do not have time for this,” Tez muttered in irritation, slipping off Nell’s back.
“Tez, wait!” she ordered, before he could initiate more violence. “Guardsman, you must let us in. I was injured in a matter... in a matter that will be of concern of the Town Council.” Hopefully.
The guardsman looked uncertain. “I don’t know, ma’am.”
“We are not attempting to smuggle in goods restricted by the guilds. We are not armed. We are certainly not strangers,” Tez added persuasively.
“And if you are still worried you may escort us to the Most Merciful Garvin yourself,” Maria concluded, then bit down on her tongue as a sharp spike of pain in her foot ran up her leg.
The guardsman, faced with her obvious need and Tez’s plea for reasonableness, finally nodded and gestured them inside. Maria fell into Tez and the guardsman’s arms, since Nell wasn’t about to fit through the sally port. Between the two of them, they managed to support her as she hobbled painfully the few blocks to the Temple of Thanatos.
After shouting and knocking on the door for a few moment, Garvin appeared dressed in hastily put on trews and a sleeping gown. He took one look at Maria and gestured everyone inside with a “Come in! Come in! By the Most Merciful, Maria, what happened?”
She let out a moan of pain, and Garvin hastily cleared off the altar to allow Tez and the guardsman to lay her down upon it. “You… ooohhhh…. tell me. You were there after Tez knocked me unconscious.”
“Yes, well, speaking of which, I’m very surprised to find you still with him.” Garvin glared at Tez, who merely crossed his arms and stood his ground.
“It’s all, ah, all right, Garvin,” she told him. “He was saving me from striking a noblewoman.”
“Oh, very well, I suppose. Let’s see to your injuries first then.” After dismissing the guard, Garvin retrieved his small case of medical supplies from his rooms upstairs and got to work setting Maria’s leg. “I’m just a Death Priest, my dear,” he said apologetically, “I’m afraid healing miracles are outside of my realm of influence.”
White stars of pain crossed Maria’s vision as her ankle was set and wrapped into a splint. “That’s all right… Just keep talking to me… What happened after I was… argh… knocked out?”
“Well, frankly I was at a loss. There you were lying on the floor insensible, with Tez standing over you with this smirk on his face. I protested loudly that this was completely unreasonable, but the Most Merciful Alfred sided with the Marchioness naturally, and with Tez having apparently betrayed you I was very much outnumbered. Lady Evelyn ordered that servitor Beast-Kin of hers into the room and told him to take you down to your old cell in the basement. I made the decision to retreat and inform the town fathers about the situation.”
“And what did they have to say?” Tez asked.
Garvin shrugged uncomfortably. “They didn’t seem happy about it, but from an absolutely technical standpoint the Marchioness was within her rights.”
“All for nothing,” Maria muttered, as her ankle throbbed in pain and her head began to ache, “all for nothing…”
* * *
Once her ankle was splinted sufficiently that she could be moved without further injury, Garvin made a sort of nest of mattresses and blankets on the floor for her to lay down on, not wanting to try and lift her body up the stairs. Maria lay on the floor, feeling chilled, while Tez squatted beside her to keep her company.
“What are we to do, Tez?” she asked him. She was feeling less pain now, Garvin having given her a tincture of poppy oil to ease her, but it left her feeling like she was floating slightly above the mattress.
“Well, come morning the Marchioness is going to find her pet Beast-Kin locked in your old cell,” Tez said. “Once they figure out that you’ve escaped and I’ve betrayed them their next step, if she is intent on keeping the manor, is to bring her case to the town fathers and attempt to locate you. The latter won’t be particularly hard.”
“Given that the guardsman helped us here, yes. So what now?”
“Our first option is to fight a court battle,” Tez said, “which you are unlikely to win.”
“Our second?”
“Run. If you cut off your horns you’ll be just another human and more difficult to track. Once we reach a reasonably sized city there will be no finding us. You’ll have lost your wealth but maintained your freedom.”
“No! I’m not giving up what I am, Tez. Not now, not ever!” she said, pushing herself up to her elbow. “What’s our third option?”
Tez’s face grew grim. “I return to the manor, kill the Marchioness, the Most Merciful, and the Beast-Kin servant, then burn the manor to the ground to destroy the evidence. Alone I can slip over the town walls with a minimum chance of being detected and then return before morning. Sinod will be able to testify with perfect truth that the manor was lit afire well after we came to town, and as you noted we already have a witness to our entry. Again you’ll lose your manor and some wealth, but I can replace that for you given enough time.”
Maria felt the shock from his statement drive out the fog the poppy tincture had placed over her brain. “Tez! I can’t ask you to murder three people just so I can stay free.”
“You didn’t ask, I offered to do it unbidden,” he said. “Maria, after all that I’ve told you about me, do you imagine I’ve never killed anyone with my bare hands?”
“You can not simply murder three people in cold blood.”
He squatted down beside her, face close to hers. “I have pledged myself to you and sworn to protect you and your children. Given the choice between permitting you to be placed in a collar and shackles again, and taking the life of a rather unpleasant old woman and her minions, I have no moral compunction at all in doing what I said I would do.”
She pushed herself upward, closer to his face. “You don’t. I do. And if you leave here to do what I expressly do not want you to do, in the mistaken belief that you know better than I, then feel free not to come back. My god tells us that to hasten a death except in times of personally demanding release from a great pain, or to destroy that which would be a grave harm to others, is a sin beyond measure. I will not violate that oath. Not for anything, not even myself!”
Tez was silent for a long moment. “Not even for your children?” he asked in a soft voice.
Maria closed her eyes and lay back on the mattress. “Not even for them. Not even if I doom them to wear chains their entire lives. Better that than to live free with blood on my hands.”
TBC
