Swordpoint Diplomacy 35: Kian and Harrod

CHAPTER 35

“I didn’t expect to see you back so soon.” Duke Harrod offered his stepson a smile. He was sitting at some old desk, lovingly maintained and high quality.

Kian inclined his head. He knew bait when he heard it.

Without his payoff, the Duke prodded a little harder. His eyes were warm and amused when he said, without any particular inflection, “I had thought that the Princess would keep you by her side for longer. She seems fond of you.”

“Not any fonder than she ought to be,” Kian said. It was a little too fast.

The Duke huffed a silent laugh. Kian only recognized it by the way that his chest moved. “Of course,” he said, and pointedly raised a hand to offer Kian a glass from the sideboard. “Would you have some wine with me?”

Kian pressed his lips together hard. It was amusing. But he couldn’t let the older man know that he thought so.

Besides, it was no time for japery.

Something in his face must have told a story to the Duke. Harrod paused, cocked his head slightly, and indicated that Kian should sit.

This was a conversation as family, then, not from a soldier to commander. Kian was a little grateful to sink into the offered chair. “I bear unfortunate news,” he said, despite the fact that he knew Harrod thought the King was a brute. “The Queen Presumptive has sent me to request that you allow the sabre to be transported to the Capital for a coronation.”

A dozen miniature expressions flickered over Harrod’s face as he processed the news. He took a long inhalation and sat with the information. “My word,” he finally said. Harrod blinked quickly. “Well. There’s nothing else to be done.”

Kian fought the urge to stand. “How long will it take for you to be ready for travel?” he asked. He pressed his boots further into the floor to treat his body’s urge to do something.

Harrod laughed. It seemed wildly inappropriate. Kian froze. He didn’t know what the joke was. “I have my orders,” Harrod pointed out. He sounded amused.

Kian’s blood ran cold.

‘New orders from the crown would countermand– he does not accept Rose?  Does he intend to support another candidate for the throne?’

He had a lightning flash of doubt in his veins. Perhaps he had erred severely in giving Rose his support. He- he was drawn to her as a person and he respected her. But Kian would not deliberately go against Harrod’s wishes-

“You’ll have to take it in my stead.”

What?

Kian stared. The brown-eyed gaze that Harrod turned back on him was as steady as the man always was. “You must do it,” Harrod repeated. He leaned back in his seat, as relaxed as he would be at home. “I am certainly not able to travel at this time.” He made a theatrical face of pain.

He was in genuine pain. Kian knew this. So he did not smile. “My lord,” he began slowly.

Harrod cut him off with a hand gesture. “None of that,” he commanded. His eyes turned steely. “Aren’t you your noble Mother’s first born? Weren’t you born to inherit the Dukedom?”

Kian threw his gaze heavenward and swallowed down the angry words that wanted to erupt. “Avoie is your heir,” he bit out.

“And a child,” Harrod agreed. His answering smile was thin and without any joy. “He cannot do this for me, can he?”

Avoie was her squire, he would already be returning to the Capital. Then Kian thought it through and hesitated. If there was no other option, perhaps Avoie could stand in for the ceremony. It would look weak. And it would put undue attention on Avoie. It would make Harrod look much weaker than he actually was.

A regime change was a very unwise time for a noble house to appear vulnerable.

“You win,” Kian said sourly. He gave in to his exasperation and buried his face in his hands.

Harrod didn’t say anything, but the smugness was palpable. “Cheer up,” he eventually said. “It won’t be forever.”

Kian ignored the attempt at light humor. “What proofs will I need to have Mother release the saber, and is there anything I need to know to prepare?”

The logistics were resolved in a short conversation. Kian was desperately unhappy about the situation. He felt he had been tricked somehow, despite the fact that Harrod could not possibly have arranged affairs to end Kian’s deliberate political irrelevance. But it was manageable. He could do this and then if he did nothing else of interest for a few years, the court would leave him alone.

Kian was grimly calculating how best to lie still and look dull for a decade as he left Harrod’s temporary office.

That was, of course, when he realized that Prince Marcel had left.

Xx

He waited only a few minutes to straight, nod goodbye at the guards, and walk out as if he had orders.

Marcel did not actually hide. He backtracked their steps a few rooms to where he knew Kian would find him, and then he waited. He was in a petty mood.

He busied himself as he waited. There were supplies to unpack and organize. He picked up where some quartermaster had left off in inventory. After a while a soldier came past and Marcel put her to work prying open boxes.

The inventory that Marcel took was accurate, though he was pettily amused at how easily he could create problems here. He had enjoyed his go at sabotage on the forward camp.

For now, he was content to note information for future reference and to bask in just how delightful Kian’s fury would be.

Surely enough, the solder came prowling through and found him. Marcel noted the man, gave him a smirk and a correct nod, and went back to his self-assigned task.

“It is time to depart,” Kian ground out.

He couldn’t plausibly ignore that, so Marcel murmured an obsequious little acknowledgment and put down his task.

Kian was furious. Marcel glided along at the other man’s heels, smiling beatifically at passersby and enjoying the situation. If only for a moment, he had reversed the power dynamic. There was nothing that the soldier could do or say without letting on that he’d brought in an enemy and left him unsupervised. Even if he didn’t care about Rose’s reputation, he surely wanted to keep his own head.

Marcel would probably have to catch the brunt of Kian’s temper once they were alone, but he wasn’t that worried. What could Kian actually do? Marcel was a prince. Even if he was a prisoner, his station protected him from most reprisal. Royalty and perhaps nobility such as the Duke here could engage in some extremely unwise revenge. But some second son of a country lord?

Marcel smiled and enjoyed his little victory.

Kian ought to know that he couldn’t command Marcel and expect obedience, anyway.

He braced himself for the scolding when they got to the limits of the camp. It didn’t come. Kian trudged on, obviously in a temper but as just as obviously disinclined to speak.

Marcel felt less like he’d won something.

Eventually, he broke. “Where are we going?”