SwordPoint Diplomacy ch 20

ROSE: the battle

She bitterly resented every step that took her further away from the city that she had been ordered to capture. Rose’s back was as tense and hard as a rock from where she walked at the back of the unfriendly formation of 3 prisoners and 3 guards. Outside of everyone else’s view, she allowed herself to limp and favor one leg. It was shameful proof of her failure, but her pride was hardly the most important factor right now. She could hear the distant sounds of a heavy battle. Occasionally, the ground shook with the force of stones being thrown against the great wall.

‘Don’t sulk,’ she told herself fiercely. ‘You already fucked up. Being a brat about this would only compound it. I’ve accepted this lesser role and now I need to do it well.’

The reminder that she’d wound up a prisoner choked her with embarrassment. Rose felt her cheeks burn red.

She didn’t even want to know what her Father would have to say about that. He would not be impressed that some nobodies had carted his heir off. They finally reached the end of the dry riverbed and squeezed one-by-one through the grate in the stone wall. Fresh air hit her with cheerful vigor and tugged on her hair. Rose was not cheered.

‘He’s also not going to be impressed by the fact that there were traitors with Duke Harrod’s men. And surely they were part of his actual host. If not, they would have been recognized earlier..’

Rose set her jaw grimly. Ahead, she saw Sir Willame’s ridiculous bulk sway to the side. His assigned guard reflexively put her hand on his back to direct him on path. “Be careful with him,” she ordered the soldier at the knight’s back. “Sir Willame, please be reasonable.”

He grumbled something that she couldn’t make out. It took a moment to place it as being in a foreign language.

‘Does he have some particular reason to be fluent in a foreign language?’ Rose frowned at the muscular back ahead and to the left. Prince Marcel was to the right and being much less troublesome. The soldier paired with the Chamberlain was in the front of their little formation, a silent threat that any attempt to run or fight would result in the civilian hostage dying in front of their eyes. ‘Surely he’s not a diplomat. Is it a family connection?’

Willame slammed his shoulder into his guard.

Rose shouted. No words, just anger.

The guard fell down. The knight came down on top of her and hit her in the face. There was a jarring crunch of metal twisting.

Prince Marcel jolted towards his friend. His guard didn’t reach for a sword– the man grabbed the Prince with an arm around his neck and held the Prince’s body to his own.

Willame bellowed in rage. He tore the sword away from his guard and savagely brought it down onto the grounded woman. Blood splatter hit the Chamberlain, who was only now turning around with wide eyes. The servant cried out but Rose only had eyes for Willame.

She bolted forward, her own sword out and ready. Willame looked at her at the last second, pulling his stolen blade out of her dying soldier and bringing it towards her. His ruddy face was twisted and made angry with rage. She deflected his sword and sent it pointing away. Hers was just as useless. She let her grip on it go and tackled Willame to the ground.

“What?” He didn’t manage more than that before Rose planted a vicious punch into his gut. Willame grunted and twisted, trying to bring his sword to her but she was too close to his own body. He let it fall. She hit him again twice in quick succession and then scrabbled over his body to crowd his neck.

A big man like this should have been a terrifying grappler. But he didn’t seem to know how to stop her from closing her elbow around his neck and pressing down, even as she controlled one arm and forced it upwards. His free hand rained down great thumping blows onto her back before he started pushing at her side in an attempt to dislodge her. Rose felt each impact with light flashing behind her eyes. She tightened the grip that her legs had on his torso, digging her left knee into his gut as meanly as she could. Willame landed a mean hit on her cheekbone. Her vision blinked out in that eye for a moment. She did not let go.

The Prince was shouting now. She heard scuffling. Rose didn’t look because her angle had her nose pressed into Willame’s sweaty hair. She had to trust that her remaining people could control the Prince and the Chamberlain. She felt his pulse against her arm.

Wet gasps cut through the air.

‘Dying,’ Rose recognized. ‘Blood in the lungs. She has no chance of being saved.’

She couldn’t tighten her grip on Willame without risking his safety. Rose waited with iron control and counted the seconds. The knight went limp before he ought to have. She did not let up. He might truly be unconscious. He might be faking. She waited. She let go of him and stood when she deemed the time was right and scowled down at the bastard.

‘I should have found something to restrain them with before we left the keep, even if we had to cut up the drapes to use as rope. If I'd thought of that, she’d be unharmed, perhaps bruised at worst from being tackled.’

Rose tucked the ugly lesson away. She had learned from it now and had to act rather than berate herself. She took a cautious step away from Willame so that he could not leap at her and then began tearing off the bottom hem of her borrowed dress. She did not look away from him. The knight truly did seem to be unconscious. Rose rolled him over using a foot and gathered his hands into a knot behind his back.

The sounds of scuffling had stopped. When she finished tying, Rose spared a glance to Prince Marcel and the Chamberlain. The servant was pale and shuddering. His hands were working at the blood on his face and neck, compulsively wiping it on the hem of his shirt.

By contrast, the Prince was still. He was still being restrained. His eyes were boring a hole into her, pitiless in their dislike.

‘Marriage is on track,’ Rose noted bleakly. ‘How is this my fault? I obviously could not let his friend kill us and escape.’ She heaved Willame to his feet and then swayed under his weight. He was a big man.

Her ankle screamed at her in pain. It was much recovered, but this was an unwarranted strain on it.

She didn’t let on. “You may let the Prince go,” Rose ordered. Her soldier acted instantly and took a polite step back. Prince Marcel didn’t seem to notice that he raised a hand to rub at his collarbone where he’d been held. “Come hold Knight Willame, please.”

Rose gladly passed off the unconscious prisoner. She spared Marcel one more scornful look before moving to kneel at her dying guard’s side. “I am sorry,” Rose said. She made eye contact.

The dying woman latched onto her gaze, desperation in her eyes. She didn’t want to die. Rose could see it. She was terrified.

“Be calm,”  Rose soothed. She gently removed the woman’s helmet and ran a hand through the soldier's hair. “I am here for you.” She kept eye contact to ensure that the other woman didn’t see that Rose was silently accepting a dagger from the Chamberlain’s assigned guard. “You did very well. No one would expect you to have done more. Thank you for your service.”

She kept eye contact when she pushed the blade in all the way to the hilt. The dying soldier seized, back arching. Then she was limp and gone. Her helmet was left sitting forlornly above her stricken face, a grim and temporary headstone to mark the spot.

Rose pulled out the blade with an ugly wet shlock sound. She wiped the blood on her own clothes and then flipped it so that she could offer it back by the handle. “Thank you for the loan,” Rose said absently. She stood. She took one last look at the body. And then she looked ahead. “We must continue. How far can you carry the knight?”

There was an awkward moment of silence where the soldier was probably swallowing. “I may be able to carry him all the way, Crown Princess.”

“Thank you,” Rose said, feeling a bit separate from her body as her feelings threatened to revolt. Gods, she was foolish. Not securing Willame’s hands had cost a life. So she lifted her dress and began tearing more. She lifted it high enough that every eye turned away from her on reflex. She repressed the urge to snort. The situation wasn’t funny, but it was an idiotic place for courtesies. “Prince Marcel, I apologize, but I would like to restrain your hands.”

He stood alone for a moment and looked at her, the body, the soldier holding his oldest friend, and the old Chamberlain with a soldier hovering at his side. A muscle visibly throbbed in his neck. “Of course,” Prince Marcel said. “Might they be bound in front of me for comfort?”

Rose weighed how trapped he was by the other hostages against what she knew of his personality against the miniscule increase in likelihood that he could escape those bonds. “That seems well enough,” she granted him. He wasn’t going anywhere without his people, and he could hardly carry Sir Willame’s great bulk indefinitely or quickly.

They weren’t much further before the distant din at the gates took a distinctly different tenor.

‘And that must mean that the gate is open,’ Rose thought with satisfaction. Sure enough, the sound of bombardment had stopped. ‘We’re in. Etienne was successful.’

She hadn’t doubted him, of course. But it was good to have some reassurance that things were going well on his end.

The smallest part of her was still full of fear for him. She’d seen one person die today because she didn’t think things through well enough. Etienne was capable, of course he was, but she itched to have him in sight.

She huffed, annoyed with her childishness. He was her twin. He wasn’t going anywhere. The world was cruel, yes, but they were strong. They would make it out the other side.

‘And the other side will come a lot closer if I can make an arrangement with Prince Marcel and get enough noble witnesses, fast.’

She stole a glance at him. His body posture was thoroughly closed off. He wasn’t even looking at his knight.

‘Trying to seem less invested,’ she guessed. ‘He wants to protect his friend instead of inspiring us to use him as leverage. Or else he wants me to think that he wouldn’t stay for Willame.’

They arrived back at camp. There was a pitiful skeleton crew remaining. Rose worked her way towards her tent, thinking to store the prisoners nearby.

‘I’ll separate them,’ she decided. ‘It would be much harder to escape that way. They can’t plan together or cooperate. I’ll need to change their restraints to proper cuffs so that I don’t risk blood circulation issues, and I’ll keep two soldiers on each one at all times. Soldiers from different factions,’ she amended. Rose felt her jaw tighten. ‘None of Harrod’s. I’m not letting anyone know what prisoners I have, of course. Bags on their heads- Marcel is distinctive and it would be suspicious to cover only his head. I’ll come to feed them personally. These soldiers with me…’ She didn’t let her gaze track over to them. ‘I can’t let them talk to anyone else here. They’ll stay with me until I can send them off. But not backwards, not towards Father…’

That was a pity. She could probably trust her cousin with this information. Who else-

‘Aunt Aime.’ Rose felt a smile curve her lips. ‘I’ll send them forward, to where she’s besieging. They’ll be the first line of communication. It’s plausible enough to send two messengers, and they’re fresh, compared to those who’ve been fighting.’