Jackal Among Snakes

“There’s something you should know,” Anneliese told Argrave.

Argrave set aside his duster, preparing to finally head to sleep. “Something wrong?”

“I believe Elaine is cooperating with the Bat, too. She felt guilty when you mentioned that name, as though she had informed on you and regretted it,” she disclosed seriously. “Although… the last bit is only my personal conclusion. I cannot say with certainty.”

Argrave frowned. “Not entirely unexpected… but good to know,” Argrave nodded. “I’ll be sure to watch my tongue.”

“You always do,” she noted, finally relaxing now that she’d conveyed what she had wanted to.

“Another thing,” Argrave pointed at her. “I need your help with something.”

Anneliese raised a brow. “Magic advice?”

“Durran advice,” Argrave said bitterly, then moved to sit on the bed, removing his shoes.

“Oh,” she took off her own duster, casting it atop his.

“The Margrave had no intent to release us,” Argrave stated plainly. “From what I remember of the conversation… he had plans for me. He wanted to introduce me to his vassals. That meant we’d be forced to stay, and with the importance of ending the spread of the plague, that’s simply not an option. This was a good outcome,” he reflected.

“But I don’t care if everything worked out—him going off on his own like that, it could cause problems in the future. It can’t happen again. At the same time…” Argrave shook his head, leaving a question unspoken.

Anneliese slowly shook her head, then sat down beside Argrave. “I think that is reasonable,” she reassured him.

“He needs to be reined in,” Argrave nodded decisively now that Anneliese agreed with him. He trusted her opinion more than his own. “I have to nip this in the bud, especially when dealing with that holy fool Orion. He could get us all killed. I can’t abide him continually doing things like this. If I can’t predict him, he might not be welcome. Durran’s a resourceful bastard—crazy, but smart. He’s got brains, balls—if he’d fucking be straight with me, I could use all that,” he said quickly, frustrated with the situation.

Anneliese shrugged. “Though I loathe to admit it… I do not know where to begin.”

“I know ‘where’ to begin, just not how,” Argrave turned to her. “He doesn’t respect me. That’s the issue. He thinks more of his own opinion than mine—maybe there’s good reason for that.”

Anneliese shook her head.

“But even if that is the case, that’s not important.” Argrave continued. “With his personality, we’ve got a recipe for disaster brewing on the horizon. I have to show him that there are consequences for doing things like that—have to show him what I say has weight. He won’t respond to punishment. That might only exacerbate his disobedience.”

Anneliese turned her head. “We just conversed with two people who might help you with that—Elaine and Rivien. Perhaps not entirely honest, staging consequences for his actions… but then, neither are you.”

Argrave kept his gaze locked with hers, expression slowly brightening as he put together what she said. Then, as he pondered it more, his gaze grew distant. “I don’t know… that seems like something Titus would do. I want him as an ally and confidant, not as some servant cowed by intimidation and subterfuge.”

“Titus did win, no?” she pointed out quietly.

Argrave sighed. “I’ll have to think on it more, but it’s better than what I had before. This is why I ask you,” he pointed out, wrapping one of his arms around her. She smiled lightly. “Another thing,” Argrave continued. “I want you to stay inside until I get the things that’ll help you resist disease better.”

“What?” she looked at him. “We had this discussion. It serves no purpose.”

“Please,” he pleaded earnestly. “It won’t take very long at all, maybe two days… and it would mean a great deal to me.” He swallowed, then clarified, “It would ease a lot of the worries I have.”

Anneliese stared for a long while, expression inscrutable. Finally, she sighed, then leaned forward and gave him a kiss. “Alright,” she agreed with a whisper.

Argrave looked as if relieved of a big burden. “Thank you for this. I know you’re pretty far from a fragile flower, but I don’t want to take any chances.” He sighed. “If it makes you feel any better, there’s something I want you to do. Talk to Durran, find out what he’s interested in doing. I’m sure if I forbid him from doing it, he’ll do it anyway. That’s what I want.”

“I see you have already made a plan,” Anneliese noted.

“Not necessarily,” Argrave looked to the door. “I just want to keep the option in mind. Feels a bit dirty, frankly, and it might cost me… but having Durran be truly steadfast will be a big boon. And the alternative… I don’t want to cut Durran loose.”

“It may come to that,” she informed him curtly.

Argrave bit his lip. He wanted things to work out. Durran had ever been his favorite character, largely for his reckless nature.

He wasn’t sure someone like that could fit into the party he’d built thus far.

#####

Elias found that calming a crowd using a common enemy was not as immediate a task as he suspected it might be.

He spent five days and five nights on the battlements of Elbraille’s castle, largely sleepless, shouting out to the people just outside the gates, urging them to settle things amicably. He ate only bread and soup before them. They threw things, made outlandish demands, and even threatened to kill Elias and those close to him. Despite this, he was unwaveringly kind.

Though it seemed he might never be able to get through their outrage, eventually, his endurance outlasted their own and they could shout no longer. Like that, he was able to engage in dialogue with the revolt. He spoke to many people of their misgivings with the Duke, patiently listened to the people and their grievances, and tried to relate to them—at the end of the day, they were all human beings.

All he did was talk, yet perhaps that was all the people needed. Eventually, he stepped down from the battlements, and moved to stand directly across from them, just beyond the gate. He befriended many and remembered countless names just as the people came to know him. The people loved House Parbon—his reputation aided him in this, just as Stain suggested it might.

He promised them things that he had already intended to give them. He promised to root out the corruption in the city and ensure that each and every man would be treated fairly under the law. He promised that the people who had been wronged would be given justice—promised that those people unfairly seized and executed by rogue knights of the Dukedom would have their family compensated and receive vengeance against their killers.

Yet beneath it all, he wove the narrative that the plague was the common enemy. He drilled that idea into their head ever so slowly and deliberately so that soon enough, the people themselves were suggesting it would be best to focus on the plague and abandon this revolt. Elias never would have been capable of doing such a subtle thing—it was Stain’s idea, and he used Elias to implement it.

Soon enough, things had pacified enough that Elias dared to open the gates. He was the first to walk among the people. His dialoging had not been without merit—he’d made friends among the would-be rebels, and they all greeted him without hostility. He could not say it was warm—their tempers could not be calmed so quickly, he knew—but he finally lifted the siege.

After, the true work began. Though the Duke’s wife pressured Duke Marauch into remaining within the castle, Elias used his own men to organize proper treatment for all of the plague-ridden within Elbraille. At times he got his hands dirty, setting up tents and overseeing the process of organization.

The disease was a virulent and highly contagious thing. Elias was not foolish enough to think that he could conquer it within the day—even still, by restoring order in the city, the rate at which it spread diminished greatly.

“Young lord, with so many infected, the industries within the city have faltered,” an old man explained to Elias, who stood in a tent with the plagued. Helmuth stood just beside him, guarding him ever-diligently. His purple eyes swirled like vortexes, watching each and all before them.

“Meaning?” Elias pressed.

“The men that own the businesses—textile factories, my lord, or dyeing shops, or butcheries, or any number of enterprises—they refuse to allow people with the disease work in their buildings. ‘No work for those with the waxpox,’ they say. All of us are idle, my lord, and some people have even resorted to raiding the granaries of the wealthier citizens, for they cannot afford to pay. It is…” the man gripped his hands together. His fingers were waxy and distorted. “This work block is sensible, my lord, I know it. Yet even still, people begin to starve.”

Elias considered this, nodding. “I will ensure that the merchants do not raise the prices on common food item, under severe penalty,” he promised. “And… I will secure subsidies, even if I need to call upon my father. You may count on that.”

The old man looked greatly relieved. Elias gave him a curt, if gentle nod, and then walked out of the tent.

“Things have largely stabilized,” Elias reflected to Helmuth quietly. “I think the plague might’ve ended the revolt regardless of what I’d done… but even still, it is good to know I have helped curb things, if only slightly.”

“You are your father’s son,” Helmuth reflected. “He enjoys helping people, too.”

Elias smiled when he was compared to his father. “Yet now that things have calmed… I should leave this to subordinates. I made promises. I must keep them. The root of most of the corruption in the city is the Duchess, based on what Stain has found me. I will be of better use in improving the city back in the Duke’s castle. Yet how to separate the Duke and the Duchess…?”

“I am glad to hear of it,” Helmuth said, relief on his tone. “I—young lord Elias!”

Elias darted his head about from his retainer’s panic. Helmuth’s hand pointed ahead urgently. He quickly placed the pieces and turned to where Helmuth pointed. A large, badly hunched man ran towards him with metal held in hand, body wrapped in a heavy burlap cloak. Elias was not foolish enough to go out without guards—his knights moved to intercept, yet two more men coordinated with the hunchbacked man, mindlessly tackling his guards.

This hunchbacked man broke past his distracted guards with skill—he was no common cutthroat, and that much was obvious at once. Elias pivoted away, yet this seemingly deformed man at once lunged forth with inhuman speed. Helmuth conjured a B-rank ward in front of Elias, but it shattered once it met with the man’s weapon.

Something hurled towards the air at Elias, and he raised his hand to block it. Something cold and wet covered his hand and spilled onto his face. He had no time for disgust because his assailant still approached. He saw a gleaming metal whiteness approach and remembered his father’s training well. He caught the man’s wrist and kicked his shin. The dagger only barely cut his hand, right where the bulk of the liquid had landed.

The man fell from the kick to his shin, and his heavy burlap robe fell off of him. He was badly stricken with the plague, his skin waxy and distorted. The man’s wrist twisted as he fell, and the dagger clattered to the ground. Elias recognized it very well. It was his father’s, once. The Margrave had lost it fighting Prince Induen at Diraccha.

“Young lord…” Helmuth paused. “The blood…”

The man Elias had subdued started to laugh. His skin was so badly morphed his eyes were practically sealed shut, and they seemed to gleam with malice. “A parting gift for the young lord.”

Elias looked at his hand finally, realizing what had been thrown at him. It was blackened, diseased blood.