A visit to the new Marshal.

[Carnath-Emory]

"What - a solution that's fueled by Derry's destruction? A province must fall so that he might better confront the Aegis?" And she's laughing then, really laughing as she shakes her head. "Raz'yebuj, vstat' rakom - oh, forget him. If he is negligent, he's not worth our considering: Trae Kelsa falls to the Duke, or Chewdry falls to his own military; they might accept the loss of Derry, but they won't stand for your lord to sit idle while the Duke's hand reaches further across the map."

A bite from the apple, obnoxiously loud in a room so small.

"And if that bzdenok Chewdry is uh, powerful beyond our understanding? Then we must only hope that he flexes his might before Thessilane passes through Myrken - if it means to do so; if the Duke's assurances are worth nothing. Or else convince the Duke that he'd do better to gate his armies - well. Look."

Charcoal. Paper. The things a mercenary-turned-Marshall keeps at hand in this obscure room. And she's sketching out what might be history's clumsiest rendition of the Amasynian Peninsula, resting a fingertip directly on -

"Heath. Robber-barons and roaming dacoits. A standing army that in fact stands against nothing but local threats to Threminor and the trade which passes through it. Internal threats, mn? The only reason that Chewdry fortified Threminor. There's nothing there that the Duke could want, and every reason to let it fester undisturbed."

Another stab of the finger.

"The Grange. Where that bl'adstvo Garrison waits, desperate for blood. No. And through here is mountainous - so of course, if he means to move troops across land it must be Myrken. But what then? He must pass them through that. Foggy Bottom. Which is a - mm. Udushenie. A choke. The roads are good but narrow; an army which moves through there is bordered by mountains on one side and forest on the other. It is not possible for the Duke to field the entire might of his forces upon that land, were there some ambush, and were I Chewdry I would delight if he were to make the attempt.

Agnieszka."

A hip against the table's edge; quiet-eyed, now.

"Do you really think he won't simply gate his forces directly into Amasynia?"

[channe]

"In which case, it's not really our problem, is it?" But that's not true, not at all; and the girl's eyes know it, brown and dark and glowering. She lifts one hand and bites her thumbnail, narrowing her eyes at the map. "And you're right. The lords of the Towers won't stand for it. Chedwry is well-loved, but they also love their taxes."

The hand comes down, reaching once again for the glass of liquor. "There was that battle a few years ago. The university town, Collingford; he had his armies try to take it, and ended up giving up on the attempt. In Razasan they saw it as a failure, but... eh. They're all walled towns, up North. They have militias an' stuff, knighthoods an' shit we don't. I'm thinking it was probably more of a test."

A pause. "But if he wants Amasynia, why not Myrken and Heath as well? Why not the whole shebang? Hell, drop two or three channelers in the Meetinghouse an' kill off Glenn Burnie before he can say aye -- if he don't want any of this, what the hell is his game? And don't tell me he's scared o' Myrken's so-called curse."

[Carnath-Emory]

"Oh, it would be. Just a different sort of problem." And she's laughing then, really laughing; easy old gallows humour, the only kind that's ever made much sense to her. The lords of the Towers. The swordswoman had spent two years travelling between continents; at no point had Razasan been her destination, and there were so many excellent reasons for this. Here though, in this narrow room, amongst all its maps and with a difficult Chairwoman, she begins to slightly regret that choice. Towers. A thing she's never seen, and for which she has no context at all; which, more than anything real, sounds like a story she might read in one of her books...

"A test. And why not? I don't imagine it was something so trifling as revenge. A test then, a means to discern at what point conventional armies will fail; at what point the Aegis becomes necessary."

But - Collingford.
Oh, Helstone...

"What's worth having - in Heath? What's worth taking? To install a Thessilane authority in Heath is to find it engulfed by the same tangle of feuds and claims and lawlessness that plagues the Duke who huddles in Threminor this very minute. And Myrken? Really? These are not places worth having, if your interest is plunder or even territory. And what of it? For as you say, if it were Myrken he wanted, then he would have it. The Meetinghouse - gone, like splinters. Not only the Governor; the rest of them as well, the entire Council, snuffed out in so many seconds."

Quieting, then, all that doom stifled by the loose-limbed drop of her body back into its seat. A sprawl of the legs, still inclined to stinging. A cooling sip from her glass.

"How do you think the King would answer that? Would he spare even a word for the Council's destruction? Agnieszka, I think that is the Duke's 'game'."

[channe]

A shudder runs across her shoulders. "Conventional," she says, and it's a word simply spat there between them. "I'd think, with all the books an' magery an' stuff, Collingford has some of the best militia o' all," she observes. And then -- sobriety, cold sobriety, drags itself into her stance. The liquor goes down immediately; a cold realization settles on her shoulders. "The Council." A pause. "That'd mean you an' I, Ariane."

She purses her lips. Stares at the map. Difficult and obtuse, today, this one; she's missing something and she knows it. "Prove that my lord the King cares nothing for our us. With blood and land."

[Carnath-Emory]

You and I.

Of all the things she might have said - this girl, this Chairwoman - of all the epithets she might have flung, all the outraged litanies she might have poured out into the air, somehow this is the strangest. You and I. As if there had ever been an 'us' between them, as if it had been anything but you against me. The words would haunt, if she permitted them to.

Her answer is another bite from the apple.

"And? Perhaps we die tomorrow a different way. Another riot. Another fire. Perhaps tomorrow there's an assassin at my door."

Smiling like this does terrible things to her scar.

"'Prove'. What's to prove? Foggy Bottom. Snowstill. Audmathus. The Five-Fold Blight." At some point she finds herself counting them off upon her fingers; it pauses her, summons a slow, wry smile to her lips. It's just like he'd said. Softly chuckling, she shake off the moment's reflection. "Maziani spilling over into our territory from one direction, Derry refugees flooding us from the other. These are not petty concerns. This is not one lordling vying with another regarding land that's been in dispute for centuries. This is - this - " A search for words. "This is disruption. Instability. A province that edges upon collapse year after year, and in each case the King's sole word on the matter was a lasting silence. Myrken? Proven. Heath? Clearly. Derry..."

On the matter of brutalised Derry, what's left to speak?

"Perhaps the Duke means to speak the only language Chewdry might heed.

Perhaps he hopes to receive a response."

[channe]

She narrows her eyes, then. "He'll get one." Another pause; another sip. No extra comment on why her voice is so certain. "I'm kind o' hearing that your recommendation is that we stand with the Duke. Glenn, o' course, will continue talkin' independence." At which -- at which, her eyes glitter a little, but she says nothing more about it.

Her eyes turn to regard Ariane, and there's no opinion in them, then. Not a one. "Where do you stand on it?"

[Carnath-Emory]

No opinion.
Not one.

And that alone is everything she'd thought not to expect. 'Irrevocably compromised', they'd said - years ago, on much looser grounds, and that condemnation had cost her large measures of blood, effort and influence. To sit here now and find nothing but nothing but a patient silence in this girl's eyes ... is to wonder if perhaps she's returned to a New Myrken after all.

"My recommendation is that we hold firm against what comes - be it the Duke or your lord." Easier in the seat, then; they come to simpler matters now, and she will meet them casually. "The Governor will continue to advocate independence, and in that he has my whole support. We are no province of Thessilane and I would not have us become one. As for that bzdenok Chewdry? Da ya ego na khu'yu vertel; the allegiance I owe a louse."

Cold words, and quietly all the same. At their conclusion - but no, a hand has lifted.

"I do not believe that the Duke means to siege Myrken. I've no reason to believe he means it harm at all." And every reason not to. " Should this change? Blood is blood, threat is threat. I would not see either go unanswered. More pressing, I would not see Myrken become a battlefield for two men and their armies - conventional or otherwise. That is where my concern rests.

And you?"

Knowing, all the same, that she likely needn't ask. My lord the King...
And asking anyway. Because whatever else she might be - antagonist, worms, Chairwoman, royal lackey - this girl is Agnieszka Kaczmarek. And she will not be so cold as to assume.

[channe]

"I think," she says, delicately, her fingers beating a tattoo on the chair-arm, "Myrken goes for independence." Her eyes flicker back to Ariane. Again, they're strangely unreadable. "Burel goes for Amasynia, Chedwry for Burel; once their armies are tied up, and they will be tied up, we start building for it. We may not declare, not right away. We'll need to build our defenses anyway, just in case we become a battlefield. But the refugees? Workers. Soldiers. Effort for the cause. Glenn's the strongest governor we've ever had, and we shouldn't waste it. We need no King, Kelsaen or Thesshole."

Her eyes return to the map, and then to Ariane, and she smiles, and the lost opinions? They're in that wicked smile. "Why the feck not?"

[Carnath-Emory]

Effort for the cause.

It's interesting.
It's really interesting.
The subtle curve of her hand does nothing to hide this twitch of a grin.

"Best they're kept occupied." The refugees, apparently. "Men left bereft and idle will fester. Too much time to themselves, mn? To dwell on what's lost, to worry on what's to come. Best to keep their hands at work. A small wage, a - mm. Stipend. That they might retain their pride, despite what else they've lost. Workers. Soldiers, though..."

The breath hisses soft between the press of her lips; the shake of her head is reluctant but firm.

"That's trouble. You'd want care with that, real caution - unless all's gone so ill that we've become desperate. Then ... let them exercise their grievances. And hope to target them well." The heart wants something more than water; the rest of her insists to abstain. And nevermind that the water's begun to grow tepid. A quiet watch for the other woman, now, a level gaze across the tabletop.

"And are you certain? Your lord the King, after all."

[channe]

"The geas is gone, but it doesn't erase what was done. You don't have to worry about my loyalty, if that's what you're trying to ask all round-abouty an' crap." She rolls her eyes and waves her hand in dismissal; that's all the explanation you'll get unless you push, Ariane. Agnieszka chews her bottom lip and reaches the bottom of the glass with her next swig. "Most of the refugees are workers, anyway. We can use them to repair an' shore up the ringwall. But the Aegis is still an issue." A pause. "And the King's Own."

She stands, then, walking over to the map itself. "The projects for independence. I have no idea what the hell we need. I ain't no governor yet." That word.

[Carnath-Emory]

"I don't question your loyalty. And I'm not asking your geas." A thing she's heard explained, slip-shod, at least a dozen times; a word she can still barely pronounce, despite it all. Distaste interferes, distaste and other things far more complicated. "What - "

Pauses herself, then. And leans, instead, to tip the decanter to the Chairwoman's glass.

"The ringwall. Other things. Preparations. Reinforcement. Lines of supply; the things which require large numbers of people and very little skill at all." Which is to say the things that old Proxenus One-Eye had begun on, half a decade ago, when the Militia was a refuge for men left furious and half-broken in the wake of Townsedge. "Fire-breaks. Irr - " The word escapes; impatient, she waves it away. "For water. Someone will know." And if they don't, she can show.

"But this is - too much. We bring this to Kerrak first, and then to the Governor." Yet, says Agnieszka - little Agnieszka, knife and bruises and grass-stains, returning from exotic Razasan as something else entirely. Agnieszka, still herself all the same, despite or to spite what magicking they'd woven into her flesh. A swordswoman wants very much to believe that. "He places it before the Council. If he's not dispensed with procedure."

A necessary pause. Water. Apple. Like cold, tart clarity. Essential, for a woman who means to choose her questions carefully.

"I'm not asking your geas." Again. "I'm asking you. Your feelings on the matter, your inclinations. What was done?"

[channe]

"I'm not talking about what was done." Aleksei knows, of course, knows of the Flagellant's Tower and the darkness of stone; Catch knows, knows in the distresses of his nauseous stomach, with fewer facts entirely. Her eyes harden to flint; she presses her lips together. But here, she's lost in a memory, and she tears herself back to the room, to the second cup of liquor she's being poured, to the conversation.

"We can hardly bother the Council until our plans are in place. They'll just -- talk." Her voice is full of distaste. "I'll agree. We bring it to Kerrak, and the three of us to Glenn. And knowing him, he'll ask us to feck the procedure. That's his thing, you know. In case you haven't talked to him enough. Dispensin' with procedure." And then, she'll lock eyes with Ariane --

-- "Isn't this what we were always meant to do? Independence." The word trips brilliantly on her tongue. "Myrken Wood, cursed and forgotten, and finally ours."

[Carnath-Emory]

Our plans.

Darkenhold's architect would have known this moment from the startled lurch of her heart.

"As you will," she'd murmured - seconds earlier, and glad twice over that she'd filled the girl's glass again. As you will, because a woman intimately familiar with the deconstructing of flesh - of more besides - has no intention of pressing Agnieszka on this matter; lacks both the appetite and the immediate need. It will be this boneless slouch in her seat instead; it will be the now-and-then crunch of apple, and eyes which watch so mildly until the Chairwoman fixes her with a gaze like steel.

"His procedures, mn? Let him do as he pleases with them; they're neither my concern nor yours, until ... " Some marginal shift of the shoulder; there's no need to speak the words aloud. "But do you actually believe that, Agnieszka? 'Meant to'? I was meant - to birth children, and wither before they were grown."

A thin snort of breath; the sudden snap of her fingers.

"That for 'meant to'. This is what you are choosing to do. Wresting a forgotten province from its neglectful liege, because he has created an opportunity - and because for all its curses, for all its blood and filth, it offers what the capital could never want to bestow."