Chapter 38: Volume 1 - CH 6.2

All stray shufflings fell silent as the leaders settled at their seats. Their eyes, a score and more, sent their stares all to me.

“Rolf Buckmann. Testify before us all of what actions you took on the day of the steed’s vanishing.”

A demand from one amongst the leadership: namely, the chairman charged with moderating the hearing.

“Sir,” I began. “I was given official leave for both that very day and the day prior to it. On the night of the latter, I went to town, and stayed there till my return in the dark hours of the former.”

“My my. Stayed overnight, did he…”

“Sorts rather well for an ungraced, doesn’t it? To put up some coin for a corner girl?”

“Look at him. Thinks himself the lucky lad to have laid with a whore.”

Murmurs from all through the panel of leaders. Veritable spit made only to wet the air. The faces that produced them were as a circle of sneers around me, twisted and reddened with ever greater scorn.

I stole a glance at Felicia, finding her regard wide with shock in one moment, and furrowed from disgust in the next.

“Rolf Buckmann,” the chairman resumed. “You make the claim that the Reuscher horse was indeed in its stall on the day preceding its reported disappearance. Explain yourself in full detail.”

“Yes, sir. On the morning of that day, I cared for said horse as per my routine. At the end of it, I had the horse returned to its stall; this, I am certain of. On the evening of that same day, I checked the stalls once more before heading out to town. Then, too, was the horse in its proper place, and this, also, I am certain of.”

“And what of your exact whereabouts in town?” the moderator pressed further. “Mind! We are well-vested with the authority to gather testimony from the citizenry. Speak the truth, and only the truth.”

“I cannot recall. I’m afraid I partook too many a mug of mead during my outing,” I stated flatly, stirring up a mixture of misgivings, impetuous incredulity, and venomous vituperations from the panel. The commotion thundered clear through the conclave.

For their part, Emilie and Felicia were both seized with a look of despair.

“And you would have us accept such incredibility?” the chairman charged.

“I believe such is irrelevant. This hearing deliberates my agency in the disappearance of the horse, not my doings in town,” I charged back. Veins vaulted on the moderator’s face.

“We test your testimony precisely that we may deliberate—with any justness—the extent of your agency, swain! A man inebriated, muddied of memory—’innocent,’ he insists of himself. Tell us: what right mind would believe such folly!?”

“What right mind would meander from the matter at hand?” I challenged yet again. A wave of leaders leapt up from their seats.

“Foul insolence! This cur-bastard had better tame his tongue!”

“Your arrogance is but a brazen abuse of the mareschal’s trust in you, ungraced!”

A carousel of criticisms, replete with pointing fingers. The conclave was thoroughly choked with airings of anger.

“Calm! Calm, please! Everyone! We must have order!” Emilie raised her voice, bringing quiet to the hearing once more. She then looked to me, and with clarity and carefulness both, brought forth her own inquiry. “Rolf… You must know, ‘tis quite difficult for me—or anyone, really—to believe in something so absurd as a loss of memory from having too hard a drink. Pray tell us all. What… what was it that you were up to?”

“I do not remember.”

“Rolf… Do you truly mean that?”

“I do.”

Her brows sank. Sorrow, irritation—such was the shade upon her face.

“‘Tis certain,” she continued, “I’ve not forbidden our officers from fraternising with the brothels. Yet… yet I cannot think that you would buy yourself a woman on a whim, Rolf. Just the same, I cannot think that you, of all of whom I know, would drink yourself to an amnesiac stupor. Tell me, Rolf… What am I to believe?”

“As I’ve stated before, Mareschal, my actions in town are not pertinent to the purposes of this hearing. Neither have I let the horse loose, nor has any evidence been brought to bear that abets otherwise. This is the simple truth of it.”

“But Rolf… You well-recount having returned my horse to its stall, yet you also claim that you cannot recall what transpired in town. Wouldn’t you say that’s rather… convenient?”

“No, Mareschal. I would not.”

“…Rolf…” Her face foundered again in sombre. The leadership around her, however, were quick to pounce on her plight.

“Madame. ‘Tis clear as the summer sun that you neither believe Buckmann to be culpable, nor see him as the sort to commit this fault. Yet we of the leadership bear a position that is quite the contrary.”

“Agreed!” another leader cut in. “Trustworthy he may have been in your childhood, but such verdant days have long since dusked. He stands as an ungraced before us all—an ungraced good-for-nothing of an alga, no less!”

“Why… Sirs!” Emilie turned to them, vexed. “You speak beyond your boun—”

“To begin with,” I interjected, “I was freed of my swainly duties during the time of my leave—a time that includes the day the horse disappeared.”

Verily did Emilie try to shield me—sincerely and sonorously so—but more verily again did she require shielding of her own. Her position was at stake; she verged right on the cusp of being doubted by the leaders for placing our intimacy above the integrity of the Order. Something had to be done before she took one step too far.

“It stands to reason, then: on that day, responsibility for the horse was not in my hands. To charge me so in spite of this is injustice,” I deflected their indictments, once again rousing the panel into a riot. Their gripes filled the conclave air, more so than ever before.

“What gall! Are you fain for contempt, ungraced!?”

“You insist upon your own innocence, yet dare blame us all in the same breath!?”

“You all! Tame yourselves! We must maintain order!” Emilie attempted again to soothe the seething leaders, whose collective anger and enmity was fast reaching a rolling boil.

“Emilie, love,” Raakel called in the midst of the chaos. “That mickle-berk’s gone an’ done it, I really reckon. But look at ‘im. Pretends the turtle tuck’d in his shell, he does, afear’d we might ‘im out fer the hangdog hyaena what he is. So, his next plan o’ action? A thin chelpin’ ‘bout how he can’t recall—a stinkin’ lie, it is, fresh from his arse.”

“Indeed. We would do well to sooner trust our noses than his words,” Sheila said disinterestedly. For his part, Gerd kept his lips sealed tight.

“My fair Mareschal. This Buckmann fellow, he seems too stubborn to rightly say his sorries. His farce tarnishes the sheen of our esteemed Order—why, I say we ought to oust him from these halls. ‘Tis our only course out of this circus,” suggested one leader, with whom the others hungrily joined in.

Their mareschal stood silent, her eyes shut away from the scene. But before long, she looked to me once more.

“…Rolf,” Emilie started quietly. “Pray speak the truth. I beg of you…”

I but breathed as my answer. Felicia, seemingly fed up, shook her head at my reticence. In contrast, Emilie kept her patience and pressed on.

“…We’ll not thrust you into the streets and allow your return only once you’ve retrieved the horse—that’s not our intent. We but dearly wish to know the truth of it all, and to hear from your own lips a proper testimony. That’s all we want from you, Rolf. Truly.”

Even then, I did not budge.

“Rolf. Is this really too much to ask of you?”

Even then, I stood firm.

“…Brother.” A call from Felicia, small but steeled of timbre. A single word that egged me on to apologise at once.

Only, I did not.

“You’ll become a knight one day, won’t you Rolf?” Emilie continued, her voice dark with desperation. “No knight can keep himself so unspotted along the long toils of his path; certainly, he may err somewhere along the way. But when he does, he makes certain to accept his faults, that he may reflect upon and hone himself further. This is what a true knight is… isn’t it? At least, I should like to think so.”

“‘Tis as the good Mareschal says!”

“You might do yourself a great favour to heed her words, ungraced!”

“How about you show a smidgen of decency for once!? Set a good example for all your fellow good-for-nothings out there, eh!?”

The leaders arduously echoed their sycophancy for Emilie’s pleas. But this time, she made no effort to silence them. Rather, she loosened her grip upon their leashes, that they may continue their barking fits for the while. When all was settled again, she spoke once more.

“Rolf. You shall apologise at once.”

Words, clear and calm, conveyed with her azure regard fixed straight upon me. The leaders were quiet. Her mighty mien had stayed their instinct for interjection.

‘Yes. I admit to the loss of the horse. For that, I am deeply sorry.’

Were I to utter those words, this entire ordeal would be done and dealt with. That much was certain. The leadership would no doubt be insatiate from so insipid an ending. But equally doubtless would be Emilie’s unceasing efforts to protect me from their ire.

And just like that, all would return to as they once were.

I would remain by Emilie’s side, striving day by day on the path towards knighthood.

Days, each spent in her dear company.

Yet, my soul was set.

Set upon the words that must be said.

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Set upon a resolve that must be revealed.

“I will not.”

The ensuing silence was as a fog falling upon the conclave. Emilie was astonished. Unmistakably so. The words that left my lips were to her as unforeseen as a bolt of lightning on a clear summer day.

“Rolf…?”

Her small voice echoed.

Yet mine did not answer.

“W… were we not clear… perchance? Rolf, if you refuse to accept your faults and apologise before us all, then I’m afraid we… we have little choice…”

Her voice waned.

Yet mine was unwavering.

“I’ll not bend the knee—not under the weight of odds so stacked against me. To coerce me so is a grave folly.”

“P… please, Rolf. Weren’t you striving all these years to become a knight…?”

Silence.

“Was it not your dearest dream…?”

Silence, yet again.

“Why…!? Why will you not yield!? You have only to apologise and this will all be over!”

It will indeed. The leadership craved an ending no less than she, albeit one woven of a different thread, of which they were quick to expound upon their mareschal as they roused themselves once more.

“Mareschal! We are decided! We find this fool ill-fitting of our Order!”

“Madame! Your verdict!”

“Rolf! Please! Apologise and I will forgive you here and now! Just… apologise…!” Emilie raised her voice clear in my direction, half-drowned out by the leaders’ fit of snarls.

“Mareschal! See how he spurns the olive branch! Such contempt is never inculpable!”

I have always known.

Always.

That there would come a time when Emilie and I would go our separate ways.

The day I found myself to be ungraced was the day our futures forked apart.

Yet amidst such misfortune was a blessing. Small, but cherished all the more: five years.

Five more, of her company.

Five more, by her side.

To see her.

To hear her.

To help her.

But now, our time together is spent dry; the hour-sand, silenced of its flow. I’ve supported her, given her counsel, and taught her aught and all that could avail her. House Albeck, the haunt of hedonists that sought to consign her to a foul fate, met its own by my hands.

I have done for her all that I can.

No longer will she have need of me.

From here on out, she has but to ply her fame, and the fortunes she fights so hard for will surely be hers.

“Rolf…”

“This hearing is all but heard, Mareschal. We are decided. We are resolute. Condemn him!”

“Please… Rolf… This isn’t… this isn’t how…”

“Madame!”

This was it. The fates have played their hand. I was but a pawn cornered by their cunning, but having seen the game for what it was, I knew no good would come from wavering now.

I’ve made my peace.

“Mareschal,” I called firmly. “I, too, am resolute.”

“But… but, Rolf… It can’t end… not like this…”

There was confusion in every facet of her bearing. And for Felicia, naught but disbelief, to be forced to witness her woeful brother at the centre such a storm.

We looked at length upon each other, Emilie and I. And in so doing, quietude returned to the conclave. The leaders, one and all, turned to their mareschal, waiting with bated breath for her words.

Emilie’s eyes.

Large and crystal blue, veritable jewels I’d beheld since the time my heart first began taking shape. Those same eyes now quivered with sorrow.

‘Why?’ they seem to ask.

But I could accord them no answer at all.

Were I able, I would have liked very much to thank her for filling my days with both brightness and beauty. Yet to do so in the livid company of the leadership was to fan an unforgiving flame.

Not that this day could have suffered such luxury, anyway. The time for warmth and honesty had long passed us by.

And that was precisely why I only looked on.

On and on, upon those same eyes.

Perhaps there was nothing left in me to tell her. In spite of it, I could not help but keep my gaze fixed upon hers.

“Rolf…”

I could not answer. Within me was found nothing that could be said.

And so another silence grew again between us. A silence heralding the end to our halcyon days. We stood face to face. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Even then, my determination remained undulled. To part from Emilie was painful, most certainly. Yet this was a wound I chose to bear.

There was no turning back.

No more second thoughts.

At the end of that enduring silence, Emilie shut her eyes. Before long, they were revealed once more.

Eyes free from the bitterness and bafflement of her heart.

The eyes of the “Aureola”, the Lady Emilie Mernesse, Dame Mareschal to the 5th Chivalric Order.

“…Rolf Buckmann.”

She called with deliberateness. Setting her eyes upon mine, she moved her lips once more, slowly, to intonate her next words with nary a spark of spirit in their timbre.

“I hereby discharge you from your service, and exile you from our Order.”

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