Vincent soaked in every one of her words with alarming interest, taking note in how fervent her promise was. Her words cut into his smooth bravado deeper than she could imagine. Never had a woman been so hell-bent on ruining him in the way he saw it in her eyes. The line? He had crossed it. Not only had he crossed it, but he had returned, snapped it in twain, and set it aflame right in front of her face. He had manipulated her honor, sense of decency, and violated her trust. He knew he was better than to take advantage of her, of the fact that she was beyond inebriated, but he could not resist her. And was it so wrong to reveal his cards to her? She had to know how he felt, or else he'd have been living a lie his entire life, if kept inside. Either way, something in the way that Richard walked out of the room told him that this would be the last time she would allow this mistake to happen.
"Quite the firebrand," he chuckled, trying to make light of the situation, but he instantly sensed something lurking in his mind.
It rubbed itself softly around the edges of his psyche, asking permission to enter. He pushed it further back, recognizing it as the voices he heard first in the village of Bagamér. They hissed at him in frustration as he rocked forward and placed his head in his hands.
Vincent Ramos…You have been given a ch-
"SILENCE!" he roared and slammed his fists on the cot. They ceased, obedient.
The thousands of needles in his leg and right arm returned with a powerful vengeance. He groaned in pain and settled back into the blankets, tense. His arm returned to its numb state and fell limply at his side once more. The blood from his leg that was wrapped had seeped almost entirely through his bandage. Courteous, he slid the mess out from underneath the blankets and to the floor, not wishing to stain the sheets.
Vincent froze for a moment when he heard the barrack's door open once more.
Perhaps Richard returning to apologize? he thought for a moment and then laughed inwardly.
A most curious and striking maid entered, instead. She had ebony hair, braided to her waist, that flowed in a familiar way to someone he thought he had seen before. She walked straight into the room and closed the door abruptly. Her green dress looked familiar as well. She wouldn't be…
"Lady Richard! Lady Richard, where are you?" she shouted, cupping her hands as her voice rang hollow throughout the elongated room.
Placing her hands on her small waist, she grunted disapprovingly and made an effort to walk all the way to the other end of the room heels clacking the whole way. Exasperated, she returned to the front and nervously glanced around. Emerald eyes darted across the room, as if aware of someone's watchful eyes, and locked with Vincent's.
"Oh," she stammered, "You are…the one I met in the market," her voice was coated in disbelief.
"Yes," Vincent drawled slowly in recognition, "I knew you looked familiar," he winced slightly, "Though I'm afraid I did not catch your name, last we spoke."
"Last we spoke was the first we spoke," she approached Ladislaus with a helpless manner and began to remove his bandages, "You were…you were one of the advisors to The Regent, no?" Vincent nodded. She regarded him with a doubtful look, but shrugged, "My name is Lady Jusztina. I am one of Richard's ladies-in-waiting."
Vincent's eyes sparkled with curiosity, "You are not claimed, hmm. Waiting for a proposal, then?"
Her cheeks blushed, "Well, yes, though I do not believe that is any of your concern. At any rate, have you seen Lady Richard? She is not in her room, and Lady William regarded me with the strangest grin when I asked her about Lady Richard's whereabouts."
Vincent refrained from showing too much knowledge, relaxing into the blankets once more, "She is not here, I can assure you. My powers of observation inform me that there is currently only one fair maiden in the room."
"Peace, good Sir," Jusztina sighed as she finished unwrapping, "Save yourself the embarrassment and not offer your honeyed words."
"Come now," Vincent pursued as he inched forward on his bed, "This beautiful songbird knew that she would sooner or later be noticed, if not by the gentry, then surely by the nobility."
Jusztina scoffed dryly, "A dying songbird at that, her flashy tail-feathers bent and burning and her wings stripped to bone, all aspirations and achievements stripped away as well. Her only chance of redemption for herself and her family title being marriage to a nobleman, she is forced to decide which to sacrifice: her selfish happiness or her family's lineage continuing. The argument is quite one-sided, so the songbird travels to her regent in the hopes of arranging a marriage through the tourney."
"Ah," Vincent sighed, piecing the puzzle together and much fascinated by this lovely creature, "But the game is begun."
"And may the best contender win," she added heartily with a spiteful laugh, not truly understanding why she was sharing private matters with him.
Vincent elevated his head toward her, intrigued, "Then you and I have much in common in origin, in particular being stripped to bone and all aspirations and achievements stripped away as well."
The sentence rang hollow for a moment, awaiting a confirmation on her part that would resonate in both of their beings, a cause for them to look at one another in a new light.
The lady-in-waiting could not refrain from answering him. "I know." And with that response came a flood of emotion that resounded of understanding. A connection.
"Tell me," he turned his body slowly to face her completely, "Do you find solace and comfort in others like yourself, others who understand your pain?"
Jusztina inhaled sharply and tossed Ladislaus's old wrappings behind and reached into a drawer for fresh ones. She was still reluctant, he could sense, "Please, I have no need for your sugar-coated words," her worried frown returned, "It looks as though I'll have to call in a search," she reminded herself of the task at hand.
"Lady Jusztina," Vincent rolled her name off his tongue in a way that caused her to turn around and face him again, focusing her attention on his trimmed and bare body, "I would regret not to ask you to spend some time with me…perhaps after this leg heals?"
Jusztina smiled politely, though he could see her anticipation bubbling just underneath her penetrable surface, "I…" she cleared her throat, "I will have to think about it," she turned around to wrap Ladialsus's head, shameful that her eyes had wandered down his figure -an act she knew he had noticed.
Vincent's lips parted as they hooked upward into a leer. He had finally reached her.
If Richard wished to torment him, then two could play at this game.
He was just about to plot a most emotionally abusive scheme when Jusztina interrupted his tainted thought process.
"What were you doing in the market that day, if I may ask?"
Vincent brushed her question off, hastily answering it, "I was in the tavern with a…friend…sharing an afternoon off." He remembered the fool who had slipped and spilled his mead all over Vincent's new garments. Fortunately, the owner had hurried the drunkard away.
Vincent paused, "The owner! Of course!" he leaped from the bed, leg suddenly gaining a momentous amount of strength.
Jusztina gasped in shock, "Th-that was hemlock. You were never supposed to walk again."
Vincent almost toppled over, mind more enthusiastic than muscle, but his hand reflexively caught the bedpost. Something hard and long fell to the floor as well, as he jostled the frame of the bed, and with a terrible 'crack'. He winced, but instantly recognized its shape.
A cane had been leaning off to the side, and he had failed to notice its presence, or who had given him the gift.
Bending over and picking it up, Vincent measured that it was for his height. He smiled and hobbled off, ignoring Jusztina's confused queries, each next step surer and stronger than the last.
Lord Rodriguez traced the soft metal touch of his thick daggers. It was a soothing act to calm the heightened sensitivity of his nerves. Grinning, he remembered the night he had blessed them with holy water provided for him by the church itself. He was currently pacing meth
odically in the dimly lit hallway, slowly weaving back and forth as he followed the decadently weaved and stitched lines of the custom rugs on the castle floor. A part of him was elated that the tourney was set on eternal pause, but another piece lamented all the hard work he had put into cleaning the castle up for show, accommodating designated space for the influx of guests, and gathering the necessary food, now all in vain. He shook his head but grinned in spite of the circumstances that he faced currently. His country was in dire need of a hero, someone to save Her from annihilation, someone to reach for Her as She near slipped off the precipice to Oblivion. Lord Rodriguez would gladly sign himself up to be savior of Christian Europe, God willing.
What appalled him now was that he had to save Hungary from herself. It was not the Ottomans threatening them from within. It was a traitor. Traitors deserve the ninth circle of Hell.
He paused, feeling a sliver of guilt creep up his conscience, when The Regent fiercely turned the corner.
Donning his full gown attire, full-sleeved shirt with puffed cuffs, tights, feathered cape, polished celebratory boots -though this was no time for celebrating- and a hard scowl, the lord and regent nodded abruptly to Lord Rodriguez, not pausing for his advisor to catch up.
"My lord and Regent," Rodriguez bowed, noting that any delay would take that much longer to jog back up to him, and that this was hardly a time for formalities.
"Lord Leroy Rodriguez," The Regent passed him.
"As your advisor, I would not suggest walking into this with a…" Rodriguez trailed off when his better fixed his icy glare onto him, "…certain abrasiveness you carry today."
"You think my 'abrasiveness' ungrounded?" The Regent proceeded to jog down the steps lower into the castle, approaching the dungeon.
"No, my lord. You have every right to keep it in such a concentration."
The Regent slowed down, "…and as my trusted friend?"
Rodriguez inhaled sharply as they turned the final corner and opened the wide-swinging double doors to the rank underground jail. The foul stench assaulted Rodriguez's senses, though he easily brushed it off. Anyone detained in here was deserving of breathing in the noxious smell.
"As your trusted friend, I say right on spot," Rodriguez parted his hands as the guards posted outside a specific cell subsequently parted out of their way.
"My lords! We've kept them here, feedin' them water and a meal to keep 'em from bellying up," a guard notified.
The Regent peered in, eyes frantic to see the man who had near murdered his son, "Lord George of Kunštát and Poděbrady, show yourself!"
The darkened cell had no rays of sunshine to illuminate what or who was within. A hell within the bowels of the fortress of rock wall, it offered cold stone floor, bars, and the bones of dead cellmates previously occupying it. But within there was a rustling noise; a very abrupt rustling and several coughs to follow.
"Y-you," the raspy voice wheezed, "How dare you treat a noble of faith and friend with such hostility."
"Explain yourself and I might accommodate," The Regent's voice echoed throughout the dungeon.
A man of smaller stature, balding head, and rotund belly, poked his head out from the darkest shadows. He began to crawl forward, shirt and pants clearly torn, bruises on most surfaces, and still bleeding gashes on his forearm and cheek. His next to bare head strained forward as his screaming arms protested in anguish at the exertion of trying to support his weight. He tried to kneel, instead.
Another, stronger hand appeared through the shadows of the cell and hoisted the old man up with a jerk motion.
"Father, do not waste your energy. The Regent is beyond reason," Victor abandoned the cloak of darkness and took his stand in front of both glaring men.
Lord George huffed for a moment and steadied himself, "I suppose you're going to tell us that you will keep us here indefinitely, without sentence or a trial, by imposing Devine Right."
"Nay, I do not have it. I am no king. I am Regent, and by all that you hold dear and the power bestowed onto me, you will answer for the crimes you have committed. It is not just my son over whom you will burden, but all the nobles you have murdered."
"I did no such act!" Lord George roared.
"That's a lovely lie. Is that what you tell yourself so you can sleep better at night? Is that what you tell yourself to justify why you hired Assassins to murder The Regent, his son, and his nobles?" Rodriguez stepped forward, nose almost touching the bars.
"My caravan had just arrived when the explosion occurred," Lord George assured, "You may ask them!"
"How convenient, your excuse and foreseen exculpation is on your council or you payroll," Rodriguez scoffed, clearly disgusted, "If you were a man of God, you would stop dancing around our questions and just bother to tell us why. The Regent has heard of the Ottomans courting you, nay, seducing you to their side. Did it finally pay off? I notice your territory is falling into civil war."
Lord George's face began to redden, the veins coursing throughout his thick neck now bulging, "If you think that I would blithely sit atop a throne and watch as my world burns, then you could not be leading a more false life. I have tried appeasing both sides, and both sides have refused to come to an agreement," he then magnified his crazed glare to The Regent specifically, "I had left out of respect to you, János. I left because I knew what you were trying to accomplish. I might be one of the few who actually can read your actions. I knew you were going to try to unite the banners, and I knew I had to be there for it to succeed."
"Touching words with your life in the grasp of my hands," The Regent shrugged his words off like the incarnate of indifference, "Because of you, my son Ladislaus does not wake. Because of you, nobles have been killed. Because of you, the kingdom under my protection is now in shambles, torn apart, laid waste, and stripped of safety as panic pursues the streets."
"Then why don't you stop wasting your time here and find the man responsible for this massacre?" Victor cut in. He did not want this mountain of misplaced anger to fall onto his father's innocent shoulders. If there was going to be false blame, then it would be placed on both of their shoulders.
"And you…perhaps you had nothing to do with it. After all, you saved both of my daughters, my manservant, and countless nobles' lives," The Regent paused, thinking, "Say, boy, if you tell us why your father contracted an Assassin to my family, I might consider in letting you go."
Victor inhaled to violently spit at the man when Rodriguez interrupted again.
"Think on it, boy. You could return home with your honor and dignity. You would gain back your life, the noble houses would still recognize yours, and your whole lineage would remain unmarked, untarnished, unsullied..."
Victor hesitated, "I…"
"You what?" Rodriguez yanked ever so softly with an understanding tone. If this man was threatening Christendom, then he would take the Serpent's form for the greater good with his sweetened words.
Eyes misting, Victor turned to his father apologetically, "I did it."
Vincent stood confidently in front of the tavern and sighed, tightening his grip on the cane. The market had proven to be as bustling with energy as it always was, the world still determined to continue on even in times of national peril. This thought strangely comforted Vincent as he busted through the door, nearly breaking off its hinges and the squeaking handle.
Near noon, the place was all but empty. There were a few stragglers just beginning to wake up on the floor, a few regulars nursing their latest picked poison, a few bar stool urchins who never really leave, and a few travelers in town. It was always too easy to spot those. While Vincent's eyes adjusted to the dim room, the old Turkish owner cautiously approached.
"May I help you, land-strider?"
Vincent turned to the man, raising an eyebrow knowingly, "I think you know why I am here, Ottoman."
The old man nervously shifted his eyes around the room and stuttered, "Uh…I…could we?" he motioned to a separate room that began where the bar e
nded. Vincent narrowed his eyes in suspicion, only now realizing that his weapon of choice was a cane and that he had not brought his sword or armor. In rejecting his offer and journeying back to the castle to fetch a weapon, Vincent reasoned, the owner might try to escape in his absence.
"Fine."
The two men made their way across the room at an excruciatingly slow pace for suspense to handle. The floorboards creaked loudly as Vincent neared the door, watching the owner open it and wave him inside. Closing it with a slam, the owner whirled around and put his fits up.
"Alright! Who are you, and what do you want from me?! I've already paid my debts, loan shark! Don't think I cannot best you! What I lack in height I generously make up for in strength!"
Amused, Vincent squared his shoulders with the man, encircling him like prey, "And what, exactly, would you hope to gain from assaulting one of The Regent's advisors?"
"I don't believe you," the owner quickly countered, "Where is your proper attire, hmm? Left it along with your clothes in the straw where you spent the night, bumming off of some poor family?" he surmised prematurely, turning with Vincent.
"No," Vincent stated with such finality and disgusted reprobation that the owner blinked in confusion, "Disclosed, I am Lord Vincent III Ramos, of House Drăculești, birthplace Sighișoara, Transylvania, Kingdom of Hungary. My father was Lord Vincent II Dracul. You may have heard of him. Do you remember now, or do words have no affect on your thick head?"
The owner's brown eyes grew wide with a mixture of horror and recognition, as his fists dropped and he fell to his knees, "M-my lord…we thought you had perished…" he shuffled to Vincent's feet and kissed his boot, "You are alive."
Vincent tiredly shook free of his grasp and helped the man back up, only to suddenly find a stave pressed uncomfortably against his back. The old man, with precision, then hooked his arm around into a choke hold, just barely giving Vincent enough passage through his throat to breathe.
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