Soot-Steeped Knight (LN)
‘Twas violet vesper-light when I arrived at Arbel, having put Balasthea behind me upon finding Brother absent from its battlements. As I strolled through the streets, bound for his abode, my thoughts turned to dear Emilie.
Oh, such misery that she abides. I well-recall that clouded countenance of hers, seen a week past, right as my carriage cantered off for Ström. As mareschal, hers is a station staying all recourse for my brother’s return: though Emilie wishes it, she cannot will it. The reality wrings her ruesomely. The pain is painted bare upon her portance.
How did it come to this?
How might it be mended?
Caught cold in the corner, Emilie has scant comfort for these aching questions.
A most gentle soul she is. Though it need not be said. For even as Brother is as he is, Emilie yet frets for his welfare and future. Hence did I resolve to shoulder her worries atop all my own and make haste to this margravate, that I might meet with Brother and enquire in full his deaf ears for Emilie’s call.
“Rolf Buckmann” be his name, that brother of mine.
Staunch and steady as a mountain, ever is he the apple of any eye laid upon him… once upon a time. For the recent years have borne witness to a change in him. Oh, change comes to us all, of course Even mountains can be moved, unmade with the passing of many ages. But the change I saw in that man was one I could scarce suffer.
We are of the living, born and blessed with breath. As trees grow given nurture and nutriment, so do we with the wheeling of the seasons. But just as a sapling might quail in the sprouting, so might a man fail in his maturing. A man like my brother. Emilie and I have done our fair share, of cutting our teeth and coming into our own. What woe we knew when the third amongst us remained yet the child.
‘A prodigy at ten, a prince at fifteen, a plebeian at twenty.’
Words a wistful soul once said; ‘twould seem of such precocious sprouts, many find note only in their sooner years than the later.
But my brother’s—that man’s is a marring more lamentable again than a mere idiom can encapsulate. His is a fall to but a foundling of no accomplishment, no recognition, no worth. We each brave the buffeting of our many moons and winters, that we buds might bloom and attain to our fullest beauty. Such be our path, precious and shared. Our lives are much too long to be defined by the feats and faults of our most fleeting years. And so must they be remembered as they are: mere memories, of small meaning by any measure.
Would that Brother faced his flaws and assayed aught within his means. But he instead remained the pup chasing a speedier dream.
I know well that his dawns and dusks, of every day of every year, are filled with the swish-swashes of his sword swings. Though I am loath to disparage his discipline, ‘tis but a jest, a child’s play that he pretends—just as a boy would twirl a twig and proclaim himself slayer of some mighty, make-believe monster. Has that not always been so of late? That Brother’s sword is looks more a toy than a tool of war? For how long has it been since last his edge carved out victory? How long since last it reached aught but air? A sword wasting on with every swing: such is the weapon he wields.
My brother, in short, keeps shut his eyes to the imperatives of his plight. That he savoured only bitter silence in communing with Yoná was most miserable and unfortunate, yes… but that need not be so powerful an impetus to perish all hope, to founder in folly deeper still.
Reflect, and with mustered courage for the first step, begin again the grand journey—a trying trial, true, but a trial my brother has abandoned, despite what wonders might await him. Thus does his life linger, losing all chance for achievement.
Why, then? Why does he not choose the brighter way? Are the soot-like shadows such solace to him? He has known much loss, of course, but not all is lost. Oh, why does he not realise this?
And that’s to touch nothing of the hearing.
What despair I knew on that day… Dire and dour despair.
Had he confessed and made amends, no pain, no punishment would’ve been his to suffer. For Emilie was set—nay, most willing to forgive all his grievances, come what may.
A word.
Just a word.
A genuine word of apology would’ve well-sufficed. And then all would’ve been as wind. But stubborn in his ways, Brother scorned the solution and sowed his own undoing.
For the woman he loved, he delivered not on her one desire.
For his beloved, he uttered not the one word she wished most to hear.
A woman he ought’ve loved and cherished above all else.
But that brother of mine is now only a man ill-loving strength and ill-cherishing wisdom. ‘Tis a most bitter and lamentable reality that I must swallow, and yet…
“This seems the place,” I thought aloud.
‘Twould appear my stride was made fleet by all this frustration, for I now found myself arrived at my brother’s abode sooner than scheduled. And so taking a breath, I knocked upon the door.
“…Mm…?” I blinked a moment later.
No answer had come. Was he elsewhere, perhaps?
How splendid. Seven days spent in travel to the very verge of the kingdom, and not here nor at the fort could I meet him.
Stilling the familiar frustration from steaming over, I rummaged my purse and produced a key—duplicate, and borrowed from Balasthea.
Into the lock it went. With a twist, the door cracked open. A hush sighed forth from within.
“His house…” I whispered to myself, “…his home.”
I stepped in.
The floorboards gave a wooden groan, echoing through the distinct silence of an uninhabited abode. Lamps were unlit. The evening dim was daring to settle in, yet there was brightness enough from the twilight to illume the interior.
Deeper in I went, glancing about with wordless breaths. ‘Twas a sizeable home, rightly becoming of a commandant’s quarters. And spick-and-span besides: the counters were well-appointed, the furnishings well-arranged, the surfaces well-dusted. Though hardly strange: if there was aught his years of swainhood have honed in my brother, ‘twas the quality of his housekeeping, I must admit.
“Hm…?” There at the dining table: two chairs. And set on the shelves: more receptacles and utensils than a lone resident might require. “…For the seldom guest, surely.”
I could scarce conceive what soul should crave his company, but I suppose even an acting commandant must stand ready to receive the errant visitor.
Shaking my head briefly, I ventured further in, arriving at the bedchamber.
“And… here he sleeps. Every night…” I observed under my breath.
Unlike Emilie and myself, Brother took bed in the barracks when he was yet in the Order. A curious irony that banishment should bring him a boon of private room and board.
And speaking of beds, his was of sheets rippling with nary a wrinkle, upon closer look. Not too queer, thinking on it. His is a scrupulous mind, my brother’s. Though… is it even in a man to make his bed so neatly, I wonder?
“…He wouldn’t dare.”
‘Twas during the hearing when doubts were raised as to whether Brother might’ve bought himself a brothel-maiden for a night. I had a mind to also enquire this very matter from him, but truth be told, I doubted not his chastity. After all, to this moment does Emilie so wearily worry for him—a great pain of no profit, for their betrothal is all but long broken, ‘tis certain.
Thus it appals reason that he would so brazenly patronise a bawdy-house when his beloved yet sheds sweat and tears for his welfare. Indeed, not then, nor now. However much a bumbling fool he may be, I yet believe Brother above the vice of dalliance, at the very least.
…In the midst of my own profitless worries did my annoyance for that man boil all the more bubblingly.
“Haa…”
Sighing aloud, I let myself fall abruptly onto his bed…
“…hh…”
…and burying my face in his blankets, I breathed in with all deepness.
Oh, where has he gone?
If his holiday be today and on, then at least was he here till yesternight.
Here in this house… on this very bed.
Why hadn’t he come?
Come to answer Emilie’s call?
She’d prepared the very post for him. The chief adjutant’s seat—all his for the taking.
Yet take he did not. Come, he did not.
Not for Emilie.
Not for me.
“…mm…” I muttered again, gazing at the blankets turning blue with even-gloam from the skylight above. A colour Brother had no doubt savoured many a time till his slumber.
Brother…
However weak he’s become, however much of a fool he’s fashioned himself, that man yet earns none of my enmity, none of my scorn.
None…
That man, that brother of mine…
I dare not hate him, no. And I neither wish to forsake him.
We’re family, after all.
Siblings, bound by the same blood.
A bond that shall not break. A bond that can never break.
“Siblings… siblings, we are…”
…Then shall I be the patient sister and speak with him duly. I know all that I must do: ask of his absence at the screening, discuss with him at length the many matters that wound us, and then…
…and then, I’ll bring him back.
Back to Emilie, for she is mistress to her own house and barony now. The house of Valenius, burgeoning with ever greater clout and prestige. Take her hand, and surely shall Brother know a home of much welcome—more so than any other.
“And yet… he’s not here. Where, then…?”
Whispering such, I rolled about till I was aface the ceiling. There I spotted the boughs of a great beech beyond the skylight, one very much like another that stood in the mists of my childhood.
Once upon a time, I clambered up a tree—too far up, to my fright. The ground below seemed to stretch dizzyingly away. How lost, how lonely I felt. And so I did what I’d often done in those nascent years: I cried and cried, quivering amidst my many sniffles and snivels.
But then, Brother came.
And up the tree he climbed, big and towering though its trunk was. Up and up to the high boughs of my stranding. And with his succour, his comfort, all was well again.
Wheresoever I was, he would be.
My…
“…Dear Brother…”
Turning to another window across the room, my sight settled upon a nearby desk. ‘Twas of the smallish sort, neatly assorted with parchments, papers, and manuals of military defence—a sign that he’d saddled himself with his duties, even here in his home, where duty should shackle him little.
Some inkling of earnestness yet endured him, then, from the look of it. For his post as acting commandant, for the wellbeing of Balasthea. The war, too, was faring well here, from all I’ve heard.
I wonder: why does he not devote the same energies, the same expertise to the Order? The rigours he faces here are little different from those of a chief adjutant, after all. Why, then?
Still, withal has he finally joined the fray of our holy war, the long-fought battle to bring a lasting end to the Nafílim. I knew some gladness in that, at least. And he does, as well, I’m sure. Though that brother of mine had best not let his sudden successes get to that pate of his. He is yet weak—much too weak to swing the sword where the fray burns fiercest. Wield it, and he wields his own ruin.
A thought occurred to me then.
Albeit a most absurd one.
What if…
…what if Brother and I were to measure our mettle against one another?
A farce of a duel, ‘twould certainly be. What mettle has he in him?
“…Mm…”
Indeed, I ought serve him a slap or three. Reveal to him this reality, remind him of where he truly belongs…
“…Or perhaps not.”
Nay. The folly lies in me.
A bumbling fool Brother may be, but what good would come of it? Of laying him low out of his wits?
Right, then. ‘Tis but a fleeting fancy to fight him. Naught but a fancy.
“Yes… a fancy. A future never to fruit…”
Atop his bed was coldness.
Sheets like a wintry wind, warmth long-forgotten.
No matter how dearly I search…
…no matter where I touch…
…his warmth met me not.
How tired I was.
All because of him, surely, for mightily does he move me with myriad worries.
Ill-able to stay the tides of sleepiness, I gave myself to the brisk cold of his bed and let my eyes fall to a close.
─────────────────────
Volume II ─ End
Chapter 106: Volume 2 - CH 6.3
Oh, such misery that she abides. I well-recall that clouded countenance of hers, seen a week past, right as my carriage cantered off for Ström. As mareschal, hers is a station staying all recourse for my brother’s return: though Emilie wishes it, she cannot will it. The reality wrings her ruesomely. The pain is painted bare upon her portance.
How did it come to this?
How might it be mended?
Caught cold in the corner, Emilie has scant comfort for these aching questions.
A most gentle soul she is. Though it need not be said. For even as Brother is as he is, Emilie yet frets for his welfare and future. Hence did I resolve to shoulder her worries atop all my own and make haste to this margravate, that I might meet with Brother and enquire in full his deaf ears for Emilie’s call.
“Rolf Buckmann” be his name, that brother of mine.
Staunch and steady as a mountain, ever is he the apple of any eye laid upon him… once upon a time. For the recent years have borne witness to a change in him. Oh, change comes to us all, of course Even mountains can be moved, unmade with the passing of many ages. But the change I saw in that man was one I could scarce suffer.
We are of the living, born and blessed with breath. As trees grow given nurture and nutriment, so do we with the wheeling of the seasons. But just as a sapling might quail in the sprouting, so might a man fail in his maturing. A man like my brother. Emilie and I have done our fair share, of cutting our teeth and coming into our own. What woe we knew when the third amongst us remained yet the child.
‘A prodigy at ten, a prince at fifteen, a plebeian at twenty.’
Words a wistful soul once said; ‘twould seem of such precocious sprouts, many find note only in their sooner years than the later.
But my brother’s—that man’s is a marring more lamentable again than a mere idiom can encapsulate. His is a fall to but a foundling of no accomplishment, no recognition, no worth. We each brave the buffeting of our many moons and winters, that we buds might bloom and attain to our fullest beauty. Such be our path, precious and shared. Our lives are much too long to be defined by the feats and faults of our most fleeting years. And so must they be remembered as they are: mere memories, of small meaning by any measure.
Would that Brother faced his flaws and assayed aught within his means. But he instead remained the pup chasing a speedier dream.
I know well that his dawns and dusks, of every day of every year, are filled with the swish-swashes of his sword swings. Though I am loath to disparage his discipline, ‘tis but a jest, a child’s play that he pretends—just as a boy would twirl a twig and proclaim himself slayer of some mighty, make-believe monster. Has that not always been so of late? That Brother’s sword is looks more a toy than a tool of war? For how long has it been since last his edge carved out victory? How long since last it reached aught but air? A sword wasting on with every swing: such is the weapon he wields.
My brother, in short, keeps shut his eyes to the imperatives of his plight. That he savoured only bitter silence in communing with Yoná was most miserable and unfortunate, yes… but that need not be so powerful an impetus to perish all hope, to founder in folly deeper still.
Reflect, and with mustered courage for the first step, begin again the grand journey—a trying trial, true, but a trial my brother has abandoned, despite what wonders might await him. Thus does his life linger, losing all chance for achievement.
Why, then? Why does he not choose the brighter way? Are the soot-like shadows such solace to him? He has known much loss, of course, but not all is lost. Oh, why does he not realise this?
And that’s to touch nothing of the hearing.
What despair I knew on that day… Dire and dour despair.
Had he confessed and made amends, no pain, no punishment would’ve been his to suffer. For Emilie was set—nay, most willing to forgive all his grievances, come what may.
Just a word.
A genuine word of apology would’ve well-sufficed. And then all would’ve been as wind. But stubborn in his ways, Brother scorned the solution and sowed his own undoing.
For the woman he loved, he delivered not on her one desire.
For his beloved, he uttered not the one word she wished most to hear.
A woman he ought’ve loved and cherished above all else.
But that brother of mine is now only a man ill-loving strength and ill-cherishing wisdom. ‘Tis a most bitter and lamentable reality that I must swallow, and yet…
“This seems the place,” I thought aloud.
‘Twould appear my stride was made fleet by all this frustration, for I now found myself arrived at my brother’s abode sooner than scheduled. And so taking a breath, I knocked upon the door.
“…Mm…?” I blinked a moment later.
No answer had come. Was he elsewhere, perhaps?
How splendid. Seven days spent in travel to the very verge of the kingdom, and not here nor at the fort could I meet him.
Stilling the familiar frustration from steaming over, I rummaged my purse and produced a key—duplicate, and borrowed from Balasthea.
Into the lock it went. With a twist, the door cracked open. A hush sighed forth from within.
“His house…” I whispered to myself, “…his home.”
I stepped in.
The floorboards gave a wooden groan, echoing through the distinct silence of an uninhabited abode. Lamps were unlit. The evening dim was daring to settle in, yet there was brightness enough from the twilight to illume the interior.
Deeper in I went, glancing about with wordless breaths. ‘Twas a sizeable home, rightly becoming of a commandant’s quarters. And spick-and-span besides: the counters were well-appointed, the furnishings well-arranged, the surfaces well-dusted. Though hardly strange: if there was aught his years of swainhood have honed in my brother, ‘twas the quality of his housekeeping, I must admit.
“Hm…?” There at the dining table: two chairs. And set on the shelves: more receptacles and utensils than a lone resident might require. “…For the seldom guest, surely.”
I could scarce conceive what soul should crave his company, but I suppose even an acting commandant must stand ready to receive the errant visitor.
“And… here he sleeps. Every night…” I observed under my breath.
Unlike Emilie and myself, Brother took bed in the barracks when he was yet in the Order. A curious irony that banishment should bring him a boon of private room and board.
And speaking of beds, his was of sheets rippling with nary a wrinkle, upon closer look. Not too queer, thinking on it. His is a scrupulous mind, my brother’s. Though… is it even in a man to make his bed so neatly, I wonder?
“…He wouldn’t dare.”
‘Twas during the hearing when doubts were raised as to whether Brother might’ve bought himself a brothel-maiden for a night. I had a mind to also enquire this very matter from him, but truth be told, I doubted not his chastity. After all, to this moment does Emilie so wearily worry for him—a great pain of no profit, for their betrothal is all but long broken, ‘tis certain.
Thus it appals reason that he would so brazenly patronise a bawdy-house when his beloved yet sheds sweat and tears for his welfare. Indeed, not then, nor now. However much a bumbling fool he may be, I yet believe Brother above the vice of dalliance, at the very least.
…In the midst of my own profitless worries did my annoyance for that man boil all the more bubblingly.
“Haa…”
Sighing aloud, I let myself fall abruptly onto his bed…
“…hh…”
…and burying my face in his blankets, I breathed in with all deepness.
Oh, where has he gone?
If his holiday be today and on, then at least was he here till yesternight.
Here in this house… on this very bed.
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“…Why…?”Why hadn’t he come?
Come to answer Emilie’s call?
She’d prepared the very post for him. The chief adjutant’s seat—all his for the taking.
Yet take he did not. Come, he did not.
Not for me.
“…mm…” I muttered again, gazing at the blankets turning blue with even-gloam from the skylight above. A colour Brother had no doubt savoured many a time till his slumber.
Brother…
However weak he’s become, however much of a fool he’s fashioned himself, that man yet earns none of my enmity, none of my scorn.
None…
That man, that brother of mine…
I dare not hate him, no. And I neither wish to forsake him.
We’re family, after all.
Siblings, bound by the same blood.
A bond that shall not break. A bond that can never break.
“Siblings… siblings, we are…”
…Then shall I be the patient sister and speak with him duly. I know all that I must do: ask of his absence at the screening, discuss with him at length the many matters that wound us, and then…
…and then, I’ll bring him back.
Back to Emilie, for she is mistress to her own house and barony now. The house of Valenius, burgeoning with ever greater clout and prestige. Take her hand, and surely shall Brother know a home of much welcome—more so than any other.
“And yet… he’s not here. Where, then…?”
Whispering such, I rolled about till I was aface the ceiling. There I spotted the boughs of a great beech beyond the skylight, one very much like another that stood in the mists of my childhood.
Once upon a time, I clambered up a tree—too far up, to my fright. The ground below seemed to stretch dizzyingly away. How lost, how lonely I felt. And so I did what I’d often done in those nascent years: I cried and cried, quivering amidst my many sniffles and snivels.
But then, Brother came.
And up the tree he climbed, big and towering though its trunk was. Up and up to the high boughs of my stranding. And with his succour, his comfort, all was well again.
My…
“…Dear Brother…”
Turning to another window across the room, my sight settled upon a nearby desk. ‘Twas of the smallish sort, neatly assorted with parchments, papers, and manuals of military defence—a sign that he’d saddled himself with his duties, even here in his home, where duty should shackle him little.
Some inkling of earnestness yet endured him, then, from the look of it. For his post as acting commandant, for the wellbeing of Balasthea. The war, too, was faring well here, from all I’ve heard.
I wonder: why does he not devote the same energies, the same expertise to the Order? The rigours he faces here are little different from those of a chief adjutant, after all. Why, then?
Still, withal has he finally joined the fray of our holy war, the long-fought battle to bring a lasting end to the Nafílim. I knew some gladness in that, at least. And he does, as well, I’m sure. Though that brother of mine had best not let his sudden successes get to that pate of his. He is yet weak—much too weak to swing the sword where the fray burns fiercest. Wield it, and he wields his own ruin.
A thought occurred to me then.
Albeit a most absurd one.
What if…
…what if Brother and I were to measure our mettle against one another?
A farce of a duel, ‘twould certainly be. What mettle has he in him?
“…Mm…”
Indeed, I ought serve him a slap or three. Reveal to him this reality, remind him of where he truly belongs…
“…Or perhaps not.”
Nay. The folly lies in me.
A bumbling fool Brother may be, but what good would come of it? Of laying him low out of his wits?
Right, then. ‘Tis but a fleeting fancy to fight him. Naught but a fancy.
“Yes… a fancy. A future never to fruit…”
Atop his bed was coldness.
No matter how dearly I search…
…no matter where I touch…
…his warmth met me not.
How tired I was.
All because of him, surely, for mightily does he move me with myriad worries.
Ill-able to stay the tides of sleepiness, I gave myself to the brisk cold of his bed and let my eyes fall to a close.
─────────────────────
Volume II ─ End
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