The #Broken_Dagger Forum

Marshall Ariane Emory

First of all, on your recent appointment: my congratulations, if such are warranted; my condolences if they are not.

Brandy - I am hesitant to take such assurances on trust, and suggest the "exceptional" nature of this brandy be tested thoroughly.
Matters - When has this ever not been the case?
Place - Quite the challenge; I shall call for you at Darkenhold, after noon. Dress warmly, and wear stout boots. Bring whichever bottle seems most in need of investigation.

CC

It's a lone traveller who arrives at Darkenhold's gates the next day, breath clouding before his face in the pale winter sun. Sturdy boots, well-worn, and a similarly rugged coat that is practically new; hat, scarf, gloves, swordbelt, and a satchel slung over one shoulder.

Never let it be said that the Dauntless-born cannot dress for winter days. What emerges from tall Darkenhold doors is a thing half-smothered in longcoat and scarves: the one is well-fitted, the other excessive, and the broad-brimmed hat which caps the lot of it is surely a concession to hair grown entirely too long and liable to tangle in December winds. She is a swift stride across the courtyard, and between gates which part willingly for her departure, and then the years-ago Governor is faced with a thing from whose elbow a basket hangs and with glances up towards him with a question already animating its lips.

"Suitable?"

Such a pointed glance - downwards, towards her own boots: heavy dark leather, loose at the calves and thickly-soled. With toes worn grey with age and long use, and cross-hatched with the thin scratches that thick leather will sometimes wear, and these she's tapped lightly together like a demonstration: once and then again, with the slightest arch of the brows when she glances up again. Grinning, now, and it brightens features naturally inclined to a certain coldness, a certain meanness, so that one manage after all to overlook the terrible things it does to the scarring at her mouth.

"Where do we go?" asks a swordswoman who has learned, and so slowly, that not all surprises are unwelcome. "Or do I wait until we've reached it?"

And isn't that a pleasant relief, to see her approach with such ease; the last time he'd visited she'd still been healing, recovering, an ordeal of bandages and ointments and careful movement constrained by her injuries. For the first question he offers her a solemn inspection as of a soldier on parade, then nods with satisfaction.

"Acceptable." Modest approval given the lie by his grin, which is pleased. "It's good to see you recovered again."

Her second question, though, receives only a light shrug and a sweep of his arm for the road, a small bow as one might make on making an invitation to dance.

"I've a couple of places of interest in mind. Beyond that I am ready to improvise, depending on what we discuss." Matters of which they ought to speak. He might guess as to what they are, but he had learned not to take the swordswoman for granted, not to assume that any such guesses would be correct. Ariane Emory, full of steel and surprises.

"The important thing, I think, is to walk. Since we can."

It is the loose-limbed stride that was impossible, eight weeks ago. It is an evenness in the shoulders that bandaged old hurts had inhibited, and while there's no mending the mess that her cheek's become, but there's no more hiding it, either; not within her home, and not in this company. This is how a weapon benefits from the passage of time and a very cautious seclusion, but perhaps it has improved her mood as well, for this is the most laughter he's seen from her since long, long before she flew so far from this plateau.

"Acceptable," she's snorted, and then it's a grin to rival his own, for: "Perhaps I must have my seamstress see to fetching better - for the next time, mn?" And only, only, because the notion of this pragmatist having a tailor of any sort is so absolutely incongruous; it is absurdity, and it has her laughing all over again. "My thanks," when she's sobered - just a very little. "They tell me that I was fortunate, with - " a tilt of chin down towards her shoulder. "Were the blade a little wider, were it a little to one side or the other - but then, what sort of news it this? I already knew. It were never my shoulder he'd meant to pierce, mn?"

But this is where she quiets. Now, as the man sweeps his arm towards the open road, a moment which somehow has the breath caught in her throat; how she watches, as if grey eyes could circumvent horizons, reaching their gaze far past the misty vanishing point. There is a solemn edge to the small shape of her smile; there is a quiet, quiet delight when she looks back towards Calomel again. "The most important thing," she echoes him, and in a murmur; it is moments yet before she properly has her voice again. "And I think - to Kerrak's Hel with the cold, mn? I am glad for the road and for the very biting air and," she's laughing now, "to be able to move at all. They have me writing letters, from a desk. Imagine this, Cinnabar: letters, every day and then the next. How did you bear it?" And with a shake of the head, she is stepping firmly out onto the road: one step and then the next, and with a beckons of the gloved hand:

"Come. Show me these places of interest."

"Oh, we have a seamstress now? A tame one?" Perhaps he reckons it for a joke, a mockery of noble ways in which one has people for every conceivable purpose. But no, that's not the way of this weapon and his grin is for how awkward such an idea sits, and perhaps imagining how such a circumstance might have arisen. He nods meanwhile at that explanation of her wound, of how it was luckier than one might consider a blade to the shoulder to be, and his features make it clear that he is glad of that fortune. His own bruises have long since faded, thankfully.

"The cold'll be no trouble, rest assured of that; we'll not be dawdling." A brisk pace and regular tasting of brandy should do the trick, and as she takes to the road he moves readily to follow, to keep pace alongside. Loping, easy strides of the sort to devour the miles, as of a man well-accustomed to wandering.

"Letters. Letters. And reports too, no doubt? Requests and demands and entreaties and all the rest. The secret, Marshall, is secretaries." A sidelong look and a grin, as of a ruse shared. "Secretaries with discretion to reply on your behalf - we thank you for your concern; the matter is being looked into; alas, we cannot help you; this issue is best drawn to the attention of someone else. Secretaries who know which letters are worth bringing to you."

The Darkenhold road unrolls beneath their boots, carrying them closer to where it joins the North Passage Down.

"Secretaries and brandy."

"A seamstress." Ground vanishes steadily beneath his boots and hers; to glance back across a shoulder now is to find a stronghold's dark glitter swathed in the hazy mist of an early winter morning. "At the Governor's recommendation," and these are weighted words even when she doesn't care them to be; a sidelong glance concedes this much. But gentles, afterwards, and: "A tame one. A very - do you know, she will bow like this," and they must pause a moment just for the outlandish sight of a swordswoman dropping into a curtsey of dramatic proportions. It is a tumble of dark hair, a drift of coat-skirts; it is a body bent sharp at its middle, and all of it collapsing into laughter when it very nearly costs her the hat from her head. See how it very nearly falls, but no! She straightens, and there's a hand shoving it firmly back into place; with a slight cough they may continue onwards, disaster averted. "And only for that there is a title set before my name.

"But she is remarkable; she is filled with such stories, and there are two different ways in which to write her name - not unlike the 'r'Chyr'laud, you know? There is, mn - Joseph, but amongst us he might say it like: Iosedde," and it is a thing of gentle contours, soft in the throat and upon the lips. "So it is with her. Mm. Perhaps you might recommend me a secretary. Do you think so? And then I will have a seamstress of my student and a secretary of my friend - or perhaps," and this is an arch little grin, "perhaps I hire you. If it must be a someone with discretion, mn? A someone who might discern the worthwhile from the tedious, and your writing, Ser Calomel, is so very good. Do I convince you?" A testing sidelong glance. "Or need I add - "

And a hand is flipping back one of the basket's little doors; delves in thereafter, to emerge again with a bottle between its gloved fingers. A little tilt sends its contents to darkly sparkling.

Such a smile.

"If you were born to such a title then, well. This" Echoing that curtsey with a quick spread of his own coat-skirts and a wide grin. "may or may not be deserved. But your title comes with duties, hm? Hard work and harder decisions, and, I suspect, was bestowed because you are trusted to attend to both. That warrants a certain respect. Though perhaps you might teach her to salute instead, hm?"

Moving on again once that little pantomime is complete, though at an easier pace for the moment.

"I can give you a few names - some clerks at the Meetinghouse who've proven themselves capable, unless the Governor has claimed them for his own." Talk of hiring him, though, of taking him on as a secretary, prompts a bark of sudden laughter.

"You're offering me a job? Times change." Amused, delighted by the strangeness of it. How peculiarly Myrken - from mercenary to murderer to Marshall; wanderer to Constable to Governor to landlord to secretary. "But no; you're asking the wrong man, I know what it's like, and by Glenn's generosity I've escaped it." A theatrical shudder, a wave of his hand to press thoughts of letters and reports and paperwork firmly aside.

And then there's that bottle, which earns the swordswoman a thin press of lips and brows lifted in manifest doubt.

"That is a bribe. Ariane, you have spent too long in the company of politicians." Mock dismay in his tone, a despairing shake of his head to go with it. But the bottle is not precisely refused, for all that he lifts a finger while he explains his terms.

"If I am brought to tears perhaps I might consider the job. Not jenever-tears, either - rapturous joy, I will settle for nothing less." No promises, not even a wager. But certainly interest in precisely how exceptional this spirit might be. "And even then, it would have to be provided by the case. Letter-writing is thirsty work, hm?"

And what a sight they make! Like a picture drawn from the oddest sort of storybook: the weapon and the blacksmith, a-walking down the lane, a bottle of brandy in the hand and curtseying all the way. Except that for a time they'll have to stop altogether, because a pantomime it was and it has her laughing all over again, a very pretty bottle briefly imperiled.

"I think that a salute might be more fitting; I think that my preference might be nothing at all, not when we sit in a common tavern to argue over colours and buttons. It would be different were she Militia, but - mm. I think I do not want for clerks. The things of which I must sometimes write are not for casual eyes, mn? And so I have been pressing Farsiris into this work, and she and I know very well that she is wasted on it." The line of her mouth is a thin resignation; it is very much a reluctance. But it can be a smile when it's his turn to laugh, and thoughtfully then: "By Glenn's Generosity. It has the sound of an oath. Do you think? Some srteltsy brute might shout this upon discovering his mug unexpectedly refilled. By Glenn's Generosity - more ale!" The tiniest, laughing shudder; it's the laughter which lasts the least, though, for: "I have .. spoken with him." Obviously. "But that waits." With the pointed glance towards that bottle which he must have known, known to expect.

"I have spent entirely too long in the company of politicians," she's retorting then, when she has found better spirits again; when Calomel lends himself a little drama. "Their ways infect me. But I have also spent two years travelling the very worst sort of places, and there is no better way, I think, to learn what a variety of things coin will secure. Passage. Goods. Liberty, on occasion. Why not a secretary? And the very best sort, having a capacity for discretion and an endless well of patience," laughter threatens at the corners of her mouth. "And your writing is so good, mn? Like inky flames upon the page, very striking, I think -

"But perhaps not," she is swift to add, "several cases worth of striking. Really. Do you think it even possible? Do you imagine it healthy? No. No, I could not do this to you. It would begin as a fire in the belly and then it would consume you. It would swallow you down and leave nothing behind but remorse, for I think not even the most ecstatic of tears might quench that flame. No, you will see for your self," and here is a deft twist of the hand uncapping this bottle; it is offered to this silver-haired fellow with a very solemn glance - and eyes bright with anticipation.

"I'll not deny that I'm very slightly tempted. To have that information in such abundance - what is happening, where, and to whom - and to be able to direct responses, to react with knowledge rather than desperate flailing. To make a difference."

Ah. The bottle is held out for him to take, and take it he does; but if she was expecting him to swill from the bottle, well, no, the swordswoman must be disappointed. They're already being uncharitable - brandy being best sipped from bulbous glasses before a warm fire, best savoured slowly and attentively. Here on the winter road the chill air will dull their noses and keep the drink's heady vapours from properly rising - a terrible injustice to so fine a spirit.

"It's time away from my home, my family, from things I've come to prize. I'd have papers brought to me while I was Governor, yes. But this - secretary to the Marshall - that wouldn't be practical; I'd need to be there, to receive letters, and to ensure that those you needed to see were seen quickly."

To this blameless drink he offers what mercy he can; a finger raised to plead patience as he lifts the flap of his satchel to retrieve a simple tin mug into which he splashes a little over a finger's worth of the purportedly excellent brandy, cupping the cold metal in his palm to warm it slightly.

"I shall have to think on it. Extensively. There is a great deal to consider."

Watching her over the rim of the mug as he takes a scent of it, then tilting it for a careful sip; holding the spirit on his tongue for a breath, then two, brows lifting in contemplation. Finally there's a brief grin before he dips his head for another drink, deeper, and holds out the cup for the swordswoman to take. The bottle, for the moment, he retains. His features set into a mask of stern disapproval as he gives his preliminary evaluation.

"It's a cruelty, Ariane, to deny this most deserving brandy the civilised surroundings it requires. No; it is a crime, and to even contemplate swilling it like barbarians while tramping down muddy, frozen roads makes monsters of us both." A solemn condemnation, and he gives time for her to take a taste before holding out the bottle in polite offering.

"Another?"

Amongst all the half-hundred strange and wonderful things which an architect had taught her, the proper appreciation of brandy did not feature. Perhaps this was only inevitable; perhaps for these two - the dying scholar, the blooded weapon - alcohol had been something other than a luxury, less an indulgence than a means to an end.

At least the once-Governor has had the foresight to bring his own cup.

But when he describes what she's supplied him as a cruelty, it is to the accompaniment of a swordwoman's dubious frown, all fixed upon a cup which ought not have offended so. The beginnings of a protest lurk behind her crooked lips; clearly words long to be spoken: see how they tremble around the mouth's edges. But just as clear is their collapse into outright laughter as he explains his objection, and then she's accepted the thing in good conscience and with no further hesitation. For one sip, and then a more substantial next, and nevermind that her mouth's slightly wrinkled with that one, for:

"I - really - are you sure?" A skeptic's glance for the cup's contents, but like a good soldier she's drunk again from it - perhaps just to be certain of the stuff. "It's - so flowery," and this is the clear distaste which a third sample couldn't manage to dislodge. "Flowers steeped in boots. And people prize this?" A shuddering little shake of the head; she's exchanging cup for bottle and with something a little like relief as she caps the thing and returns it to its basket. "No. I do not understand this. You might disdain the jenever but at least we may agree that it confesses its bitterness. This, though. This hides behind its pretty colour and its elegant name - which," she adds then and hastily, "I cannot begin to pronounce. So it is best not to ask, mn? Here."

Another. But there's some elegance to the shape of this bottle: it is pear-like curves, swollen about the shoulders and slender at the throat. Even glass not cut for its angles can acquire a gleam beneath sunshine, and what tilts and tumbles within has a knack for capturing pale morning light and transforming it into subtle gold.

"You might have the right of this, though." As they continue onwards; he may refill that cup at his leisure, but a woman needs to move, for reasons which have little to do with the cold; whatever her disdain for that first brandy, there's no denying the fact that it gently warms. "Such a task would steal you away from those things that the Governor has promised you." And a woman who'd a month ago confronted his talk of those promises with outright shock speaks these words with nothing but the quietest assent. "And if I could - if there were - room in me for such things, perhaps I might say the same, mn?" But this is difficult ground. Dangerous things threaten here, and for a time she must cast her gaze aside and fix her eyes upon harmless landscape instead: on the approach of tall woods; for a time their path will wind through a corridor of winter greenery.

"Steeped in very fine boots, of best-quality leather." A grin at that comparison, much as it might make more cultured and fastidious devotees of the drink scowl and shudder.

"It's the spirit of wine - the essence of it, distilled. So you might drink Derry Red and think it pleasant enough, some hints of this aroma or that; make a brandy of it and those things are concentrated. So, fruits and flowers." Sing-song tone, an airy wave of his hand level with his brow, trying with voice and gesture to depict the lighter, sweeter aromas. The returned cup is hooked casually upon his swordbelt meanwhile, over the hilt of the dagger. Readily accessible, should they pause for another tasting.

"And then it's left to wait in oak barrels, where it draws further scents from the wood. They use oak bark in tanning leather, so. Boots." A booming tone for that last word, hand palm upward before his stomach with fingers spread as if clasping something weightier, more solid. A stroll become a lecture, though an easy enough one - here is a drink with certain flavours, and here is why.

"It's, hm. The appeal, I think is that it has so many tastes to it - layer upon layer, hm? So to drink it properly - slowly, at one's leisure - makes it an exploration. An adventure." They walk on, a touch warmer, a touch more animated perhaps. Though thoughtful as they turn to more sombre things, or at least more substantial.

"It's a matter of balance - I could spend my days at home gladly. Have done, in fact. But it's possible I might find time for other matters as well - I spend time in the forge, or reading, or whatever else; Cam spends time with her garden, or visiting friends, and so forth; we spend time together as well, of course, but some time apart is needed, hm? So we might each have news to tell one another, if nothing else.

"So it's possible" A finger raised with a smile to reinforce that this is not acceptance. "that I might find other uses for that time apart. Might."

A stretch of quiet, filled only by the crunch of two pairs of boots on the road's stone, winter-busy birds foraging in the bare trees.

"You might find you have room, Ari. Consider the possibility at least, hm?"

A lecture it is, but it is also an interesting one. And this is nothing that she had anticipated, but then she'd learned two years and more ago that there is no pattern to what will grasp and hold her thoughts, no way to predict these things at all. Poring over fabrics with a seamstress had engaged only because the seamstress did; an artist's explanation of oils and pigment and perspective had quietly engrossed, her eyes all caught up in the way a smudgy blackness, indistinct at close range, becomes from a distance the delicate shadow cast by oak-boughs upon still water...

So that if Cinnabar is to play the lecturer, he has found an attentive student - if an opinionated one. "What is the value," she's murmured and after some lasting, quiet thought, "of adding boots to the rest. Fruits and flowers is not so bad, mn? But what is the need for these other things - boots and oak," a thin wrinkle of the nose, "when you've already given it the prettier things? Mm. I think it must wait in a different way; in barrels not of wood but glass. And then it would also taste of, of - oceans," a quirk at the mouth's corner. "For glass is of sand is of the seawater's edge, and then you would have a most interesting wine." Judgement is passed! And a weapon has stumbled with her laughter.

"Here. A different adventure." One bottle replaced by another: a slender thing, offered by her hand to his. "Perhaps this one is catacombs, for you see? It's grown ill around the edges with dust and at a glance it seems pale as ghosts. So: try this at your leisure," she echoes him, "but with some caution, I think. Perhaps it will lull you and only in order to surprise." Sneakily. The idea of it satisfies. And when her hand delves into the basket again it's only to emerge afterwards with an apple in its palm, and this first crunch is a brisk accompaniment to thoughts not quite so easy. Not really, not at all.

"Balance," she murmurs slowly, between one bite and the next. "But you understand that I do not intend to ply you with cases of liquor, not unless the Governor is grown very giving with his requisitions." And it is always this way: The Governor, with Bromn; The Governor, with Agnieszka and even with Calomel. The Governor, unless she is speaking to the man himself and in person, and then it is never the title but only and ever his name. "And what might I do then? Perhaps I might give my hours to - gardens, to reading; to - oh, embroidery perhaps, have you tried this? It quiets. It relaxes, and so completely that you might imagine all the life seeping from your veins into your seat, and limbs forgotten how to stir the body upright again." A slow death, and how quietly she laughs at the thought of it. But what has he said? This man, this puzzle, this sometimes and often friend; he has placed this suggestion so quietly between them, with space enough about its edges that it cannot be ignored at all, and what she murmurs is: "I have."

And it has the sound of a song to her, of a thing which children might patter tunelessly while skipping ropes, clapping hands: I have - I might - I could - If I dared... A litany so familiar, so crucial and impossible and weighted that she interrupts this with a brisk bite at the apple, and: "I would fetch Catch to your forge, one day or another. Would this suit?"

"Here, in the cold, the strongest scent is boots. Warm it, though, and it unlocks more subtlety, and the taste of leather might become more like, hm, woodsmoke, perhaps." Considering for a time, searching for some comparison, some more easily-grasped way of describing it. "Chilled so, it's like a band of musicians in which only the drum and pipe play - a pounding racket and twittering annoyance, utterly unappealing. Only when the other players join in does it become musical."

There, that was as good a way of putting it as he might manage; the transitory nature of taste and scent, the fleeting pleasure of music. If not then, well, he'd have to find some other symbols in which to dress the explanation.

"For the ocean... ha, maybe in barrels of salt-seared driftwood, though it'd likely end up more briny than is pleasant." Grinning all the while at being so literal, at taking something meant most likely in jest and finding ways to make it real. That other bottle, though, draws his attention, the age of it, left undisturbed for so long. Accepted carefully, almost reverently, with both hands and a glance from beneath raised brows. "If this is sock-stewed jenever, Ariane, I shall break it over your head."

A moment to inspect the bottle, the cork, before he carefully stows it in his satchel - there to be unkindly rattled and jounced for the rest of their walk, but it'd be given time to settle again thereafter.

Embroidery registers some surprise on his features, but which fades after a time; yes, work of precision, of care, of diligent focus lest a hand slip and blood be drawn. A more delicate sort of swordwork, and yet undeniably strange to a weapon so restless and given to action. "Smithing is similar, for me. I think... things like these seem peaceful, because they demand undivided attention - so there's no space for worries. It's a good thing to have."

Onward down the road, not quite the same march as they'd set out, but steady progress nonetheless. That she's considered the matter of room is... is good, and he nods, but there's a suspicion that the matter would end there. For now, then, he deigns not to nudge further in that direction - not least because she has this suggestion, this request made so casually, and it's a score of paces before he can answer, watching sidelong as he does so with a question of his own.

"You've met him, then?"

Sometimes, just sometimes, she is certain that Cinnabar Calomel is no more capable of casual suggestions than her student had been.

The rest of the time, of course, it's chess and planishing and the occasional analogy involving musicians in order to explain the intricacies of a gentleman's sort of liquor. As 'analogy' is a term that she understands about as well as she does 'rhetorical', the swordswoman enjoys the liberty of accepting the description for what it can become: an allusion to years-ago things, to barn-dances and odd little fiddles; tiny girls swirling their skirts as their feet made awkward attempts at dance-steps, long tables laden down with nameless dishes; a storm of jest and tale-telling in two languages and a person or two willing to translate softly by her ear -

"Oh, it seems not... so terrible," she protests, if quietly so, and which sadly might indicate that a swordswoman's taste for wine and music is in fact equally deplorable. Still, there is some compensation here, for a moment after it she's adding: "Cinnabar Calomel, it is brewed from berries - from the very fruit you so appreciate in that brandy! - and in any case, I would hardly summon you into such isolation just in order to ambush you with bitter drinks that you've already learned to despise. Nor," she adds a little sharply, "to wear them myself upon my head; really, though, the very dignified landowner all tangled in, in fisticuffs upon a dirt road? You'd really stoop so? Mm. I think not. No, it is only a very simple wine and I do not even know from where it came."

So that it can be with a small, satisfied smile that she can continue them on their way, there being road to be traveled yet and limbs to be kept warm by means of motion. Even at this advancing hour the pale sunlight is insufficient, save to banish a little of the chill's worst from exposed skin: from cheeks and brow and very little else at all. But to glance back upon their path is to find the stony fortress quite lost in its surrounding trees and lingering morning mist; to turn the eyes forward is to discover the broad treeline towards which this dirt road leads. And as for the travelers themselves:

"Cinnabar," she's added - and this is a skeptical tone, a similar glance. "I had thought that you were fond of 'smithing. Mm, but Catch - he came to our gates a month and more ago, and upon the oddest errand. I think that he might find some things of interest in your forge, but - "

But he is Catch.

" - it seemed best not to bring him unannounced."