Edward an Imperial's Story, Coward, bounder, thief, murderer...and hero? Options

[Rachel the Breton]

@Foxy, haute ecole rider, malx: lol, Edward has no control over his reason, his senses, his reactions...why should his bladder be any different?
As for Maric, yes, lol, I thought that portrayal was fitting. I mean, he's a pretty poor villain -- he threatens you and then takes off running the instant he's in danger. Not that he's able to do much in a fight anyway, lol...


The path of reason,
The wise man will gladly tread
But it is as hot coals
To the feet of the incorrigible fool.

-- An excerpt from a piece translated in the scholarly work “Writings of Old, Dead People”
Chapter Seventy-One

The trio emerged, shaken but unharmed, into the sunlight some little while later. The valet carried Umabccano's lifeless body; Claude Maric carried a few valuable stones he'd picked up throughout the ruin; and Edward carried nothing.

“We'll have to give him a proper burial, sir,” Norvayne declared. “Whatever he intended to do, he deserves better than being entombed with the undead.”

Claude rolled his eyes. “Once a servant, always a servant. He would have killed you...killed all of us...what do you care if the rats feast on his carcass?”

“I wouldn't expect one of your caliber to understand, Maric,” the other man commented.

The Breton laughed mockingly. “Well, as far as I'm concerned, it was an unfortunate end to a profitable relationship...I have no idea where I'll find another like him.”

Edward curled his lip in disgust, thinking this was some outpouring of emotion from Umbaccano's prostitute.

“Oh well...life goes on,” the Breton smiled. “At least I've got some nice Welkynd stones to sell...”

“And I've got nothing...” Edward sighed. “He promised me a room full of treasure....”

Claude laughed. “You really don't belong in this business, my friend.” The Imperial glared at him, but Maric walked past, toward his horse. “Although, I do recommend a bath for you. You stink.”

“Ignore him, sir,” the valet suggested. “Let's get the hole dug.”

Edward stared at his servant, an eyebrow raised. “You don't actually think that I am going to help bury that son of an elf, after he cheated me out of my gold?!”

* * *

Several hours later, after his manservant had finished giving Umbaccano a proper burial, an impatient Edward was finally able to set out. His impudent subordinate had insisted that he bathe before they leave, so, whilst the servant dug the grave, he had lounged in the stream. Nonetheless, he was eager to leave; as easy-going as his time outside of Nenalata was, he had no desire to linger near a haunted ruin.

So, it was with great joy that the Imperial turned his back on the ruin, at last. “Finally...that's done,” he sighed.

His servant nodded. “There's one thing I don't get, though, sir. It's that attack on him...he was wearing a crown, an Aleyid crown...he chanted the incantation that should have unleashed the power of Nenalata to his command...instead, it turned on him.” He frowned. “I wonder...”

Edward rolled his eyes. Who cared about the details, he wondered, as long as the honoured user was dead?!

“You acquired that crown, didn't you, sir?”

“That's right.”

“Are you sure you got the right one?”

Edward stared in annoyance at his servant.

“I mean,” the other man hurried to explain, “the only reason I can think of for that sort of reaction is if the crown he wore wasn't really the crown of Nenalata. If it was some other Aleyid kingdom's crown – there were many of them, you know, and they all hated each other. If he was wearing a rival kingdom's crown, Nenalata's defenses might have attacked him.”

Loosing a sigh of extreme aggravation, Edward demanded, “Who cares? I'm never going back there, you're never going back there...what does it matter?! And why must you put the blame on me? I bought the crown, the crown Umbaccano told me to get. It was his stupid fault, not mine!”

“I'm not blaming you, sir. I'm just trying to figure out what happened.”

“A stingy, thieving honoured user met a fitting end,” Edward snapped. “That's it. End of story.”

His valet sighed.

“Now, let's get to Cheydinhal. I have work to do. Real work.”

“Yes sir.”

“I can't believe I ever let you talk me into this in the first place.”

[Rachel the Breton]

Bring me fortune, bring me fame,
Ye gods above hear my pleas
Bring me treasure, bring me gain
Oh gods ignore not my entreaties!
-- Edward's prayer as a child

Chapter Seventy-Two

At the Imperial's insistence, the two men had turned their horses toward a chapel that had been some way off, but visible, from Nenalata. “I refuse to sleep on the ground like an animal!” Edward had steadfastly maintained. “We can seek shelter at that church...I'm sure the priests have nothing better to do than put up weary travelers, so it shouldn't be an inconvenience. And, anyway, they might have some food – actual food, and not the garbage that you make; and I'm famished!”

His valet had frowned. “I don't know, sir. I think that is Cadlew Chapel.”

“So?”

“I believe it's been defunct for some years now.”

Edward stared down his nose superciliously at the other man. “And who is this diviner of the ways of the church that I am to disbelieve the evidence of my own eyes in favor of his...superior...inside knowledge?”

His valet blinked at him. “Sir?”

“Look at the damned church, man!” Edward snapped. “There's smoke coming from the chimney! And there! There's a black robed man – and another, with him.”

Frowning in the direction Edward had pointed, the valet said naught.

“Honestly,” the Imperial fumed, “your airs are tiresome!”

A bewildered expression crossed the manservant's face. “Airs, sir?”

“Yes! Your pretentious airs! You have to know everything about everything. How on earth would you know which chapels are or aren't in use, anyway?! There's got to be hundreds of them throughout Cyrodiil.”

“Not at all, sir,” the valet contradicted. “There's not even two dozen in Cyrodiil.” Edward glared at him. “And it's by no means pretentiousness on my part, sir – I know quite by accident, as it happens. At the monastery, they had -”

“Stop!” Edward demanded, his brow wrinkled in distaste. “Even in your defense – your pathetically unconvincing defense, I might add – of your smug pomposity, you are smugly...pompous!”

The other man's face was a mask of consternation. “Sir, I did not mean -”

“No!” Edward interrupted. “Enough! Stop making excuses, and apologize!”

“Apologize?”

“Yes!” Edward fumed. “This instant! It's about time that you remember your place – all day you've been ordering me about, telling me what's what, and talking to me as if I was your subordinate! Just because you happened to make a lucky guess about Umbaccano's motives, you think that that gives you the right to treat me like a fool? Me, who -”

“Sir, I never -”

Edward's glare was fixed now. “Enough with the excuses,” he growled. “Do as your told! Apologize! Or does your inflated ego object?!”

“Of course not, sir; I just -”

“Good! Then you will apologize!”

His servant stared at him, perplexedly, for a moment, and fidgeted, as if weighing two courses of action.

“Now!”

The other man sighed. “Yes sir. I'm sorry if anything I said or did seemed -”

“Was!”

“...like it was meant to be anything less than respectful.”

Edward sniffed. It wasn't the ideal apology – in fact, his wayward servant had practically shirked all responsibility – but he didn't dare to push it too much farther. He had got the man to apologize; that was something, after all. “Very well,” he declared with a self-satisfied smile. “Then, servant, let us set our course for the chapel!”

[mALX]

Oh no, Cudlow Chapel !! SPEW !! And "the valet" figuring out Edward had given the wrong crown - ROFL !! I am so glad you didn't deprive us of this Umbacano questline - it was like getting a special treat in the midst of enjoying the chapters that we know and love !!! Awesome Write !!!

[Rachel the Breton]

Thanks, mALX -- it's been a lot of fun bringing back this original dynamic between Edward and the valet. Glad you are enjoying it!!





You say, “There's much to be done, much to be said.”
I say, “There's naught to do, it's all in your head,
And anyway, before you know it, we'll all be dead
So pour a glass, don't waste precious time, drink up I said!”
-- From On Priorities and Life, by the Inebriated Odist

Chapter Seventy-Three

Edward reined his horse to a halt some dozen or so yards from the chapel, and dismounted with a sigh. The horse had suddenly grown quite irritable – perhaps, he'd thought with a smirk, it was as pleasantly disposed toward religion as he – so he dared not continue on horseback, but must, instead, persevere on foot for the last stretch. But that was not what caused the Imperial to sigh. The ride – short as it had been – in the afternoon sun had worked up quite a thirst in him, but even greater than his thirst was his hunger; he was positively famished. “Take care of the horses,” he told his manservant. “I'm going to see if the priests can put us up. And feed us.”

He heard his valet say something about him waiting, but he had no intention of doing so. The other man was apparently resuming his worrywart routine, and attempting to squeeze the full advantage out of his one lucky guess; but Edward had not time for such theatrics. “I'm starved,” he thought peevishly, “and this stupid servant wants to waste my time with his paranoia?”

As he drew nearer the chapel, he saw a robed figure pass in front of the window, and smiled to himself. The priests must have seen him arrive. “Good...no doubt they're already making ready the accommodations...”

The chapel door opened, and a man in a dark, ankle-length garment stepped out and smiled. “Ahh, traveler!” he greeted. “How may the humble friary of Cadlew assist you?”

It was Edward's turn to smile. If only, he thought with a touch of satisfaction, his servant could have witnessed this obliging gentleman's greeting, he might be singing a different tune; so much for his tales of villainy and suspicion.

“My servant and I,” the Imperial answered, “were rather hoping we might avail ourselves of traveler's hospitality, and spend the night here.”

“Of course!” the priest replied. “My brothers and I would be honored if you would share our humble rectory with us as long as you desire.”

“And,” Edward continued, “feed us.”

“Pardon me?”

“Well, we're rather...famished...” the Imperial confessed.

“Oh!” the priest remarked. “Traveling without supplies? Is that wise, in these remote reaches?”

Edward shifted uncomfortably. “Well...it's not that...exactly...just that...”

“Never you mind,” the other man remarked with a smile. “Be that as it may, it would be our privilege to share our humble fare with you.”

Smiling, the Imperial inwardly hoped that the priest was being modest. “I hope it's not that humble,” he thought.

“Will you not come in?” the robed man asked, gesturing toward the door. “We are, in fact, just preparing our evening meal...”

“Oh!” Edward exclaimed, checking himself even as he began to lick his lips with anticipation.

“It might, at this very moment, be ready, in fact,” the priest continued.

Nodding eagerly, the Imperial raced toward the door; moving so quickly, his mind preoccupied with one topic – feeding – he missed the sinister grin that crossed the priest's face.

* * *

The valet frowned as he secured his and Edward's mounts in the little stable behind the rectory. There was a third horse there, and something about the animal seemed somehow familiar.

It snorted as he neared, in much the same nervous fashion as the two beasts he led. Still frowning, he murmured a low level calming spell. The animals quieted, but were hardly relaxed. “Come on,” he spoke soothingly. “Be good and...” He trailed off as his eyes picked up what it had been that struck him as familiar....the pack, hanging off the side of the third horse's stall.

“Maric!” he hissed, for it was the same bag that the adventurer had filled with Welkynd stones only hours before; and the horse, who had resumed his whinnying, was the same that the Breton had rode off on.

Detestation was, perhaps, too harsh a term, but it conveyed something in the vein of the valet's regard for his wily former colleague.

That, however, was not his primary concern; at the moment, his mind was dwelling on Edward's purse, and Maric's claim – which he did not for a moment doubt – that he had emptied it. If Maric was inside the chapel, Edward was as like as not to remember his stolen fortune, and demand its return. Maric, especially after exposing himself for the coward he was – to say nothing of the contrast of his craven actions with Edward's fearless clearing of Nenalata's undead population – was hardly likely to be in a cooperative state of mind.

“Oh blast,” he thought. Closing the gate to the stable with a hurried promise to the horses that he'd be back to tend to them “soon,” he raced for the Priory. “If Maric's mood is remotely like Edward's, the chapel will be a bloody war zone unless I intervene...”

[haute ecole rider]

Ooh, but why do I believe that Maric is the main course?

Can't wait to see what happens next!

[mALX]

GAAAAH! Eating Maric stew ... then sleeping in the chapel - WOO HOO!!!!! How could you ever have left these chapters out of the original???? They are AWESOME !!!! I am on the edge of my seat !!!!! Thank you, thank you Rachel for deciding to give us these bonus chapters, they are GREAT !!!!

[Rachel the Breton]

haute ecole rider & mALX: Thanks, lol...nahh, they're not really ready to eat at all...the Necromancer can just tell that Edward is obsessed w/eating at that moment, lol.
As for leaving these chapters out, I hadn't initially written them, but wanted to include that quest at some future point....I just never got around to it as the story progressed. As I was editing, though, this seemed the perfect place to add them

Beware, oh beware!
For the Priests of the Dead,
If they find you unaware
Will surely make off with your head!
-- Child's rhyme about Necromancy

Chapter Seventy-Four

Unbeknownst to the dutiful manservant, however, the church was already a bloodied battlefield. The building reeked of blood and decaying bodies; and the source of this stench was apparent at a glance. Everywhere there were human remains – even the altar at the far end of the room was strewn with body parts. Blood stained the floorboards, and colored the stone walls of the chapel. A body, motionless and bleeding, lay on a table near the altar, macabre tools all about.

Edward, having taken all of this in as he entered, had fainted as he turned for explanation to his sinisterly smiling escort. At the moment, this Priest of the Dead – for that, a Necromancer, was what he was – was, in company with another of his kind, dragging the Imperial's limp body to the table whereon lay the other intact body.

“Go find the other – I'll take care of him,” the Necromancer who had lured Edward in instructed. “He went to the back, by the stables. Try not to kill him, as long as he cooperates.”

The other man nodded, and dropped Edward's head and shoulders to the ground as he turned to obey his superior's orders.

Hauling Edward toward the table, the first grunted. Today had brought them a rare stroke of fortune – three bodies, and all live, fresh ones, on which to perform rituals. But he wondered that there should be so many, all at once, in these desolate reaches; even the Church had abandoned this wilderness. Why, now, this sudden spurt of adventurers?

“Oh well,” he mused, speaking as if to the limp Edward, “we'll just have to wring it out of you, won't we?” He smiled again as he threw the unmoving Imperial onto the table, beside and atop the other body.

This first captive flinched and whimpered as Edward was dropped onto him, and the Necromancer sneered. “Quiet, you, or I'll make you suffer as you've never yet suffered.”

“Please...” the bound man murmured over the gag that muffled him. “Please, let me go!”

“I said quiet!” the Priest of Death repeated. “I don't want to-”

At that moment, a crash of glass sounded, and one of the chapel windows opposite splintered into a thousand pieces. The Necromancer cursed as he started in surprise. “What the...?”

The robed upper body of another man – his fellow Necromancer – appeared for a moment, and he seemed temporarily dazed; then he roused himself, shouting something to an unknown assailant.

“Damn it!” Edward's keeper cursed. “The other one...!” Grabbing a mace that lay near the bloodied altar, he paused to wind a rope around Edward's limp hands and feet, and raced for the door.

After he had gone, the chapel lay still, save for shouts outside, first near the rectory and then further away, until, at last they were inaudible.

“Edward!” the conscious captive mumbled through his gag. “Edward, wake up!”

The Imperial, however, lay still as a sleeping babe, making neither sound nor move.

“Edward!” the other man grunted. When there came no response, he pushed with his bound arms against the Imperial. This movement rocked his still body, but achieved nothing else. “Damn you!” the captive cursed, pushing again, but this time harder.

Edward's body moved, tipping precariously over the edge of the table; but then he settled again on the prisoner. A savage gleam lighted the other man's eyes, and he cursed, “Idiot!”

With a mighty shove, he hoisted the Imperial over the edge of the table. He heard him land and murmur something, as if he was coming to, with satisfaction; then, he began to maneuver himself upon the table.

This was not so easy as hoisting Edward off, however, for – as the Necromancers had had more time to secure him – they had done a better job of tying him. His rope was fastened to a hook in the wall overhead, but this he thought he might, with sufficient pressure, be able to pull out. It had, by the look of it, been hammered into the stone clumsily by the Priests of the Dead, and though wedged in tightly, might come out eventually.

Sweat beaded off his forehead as he worked, and the ropes round his wrists cut deep into his flesh, but the prisoner persevered feverishly. The occasional unconscious whimper from Edward went almost unnoticed as he pulled and cursed and strained against his fetters; and then, without the least warning, the hook gave way, and he found himself plummeting backwards.

He fell at an angle back against the table, and, for a moment, his fall was interrupted; but, though he was no longer affixed to the wall, his hands were yet bound, and proved powerless at stabilizing him; so, though he grabbed with his fingers, he slipped from the tabletop, onto the unconscious Imperial.

[mALX]

WOO HOO!!! "The Valet" throws the guy UPHILL and through a window - I think he used to live next door to me, I saw my neighbor do that once !!! (and a pretty awesome sight, I might add, lol)

And Edward ... in a dead faint through everything - SPEW !!! Hilarious !!!! ROFL !!!

[Rachel the Breton]

mALX: haha, what, you expected him to do something like...escape? ;P

Hear the voice of your Father,
My Children, listen to my words
The sun yet slumbers in the east
But soon, very soon, it shall awaken!
-- Excerpt from a sermon by Mankar Camoran

Chapter Seventy-Five

Edward started, his eyes opening wide in fear. His dreams had been strange, and full of unknown terrors, but something had just now – and quite suddenly – awoken him from sleep.

With a shrill screech, some blending of terror and disgust, Edward saw what it was that had assailed him. It – he – was the prostitute, Claude Maric, lying atop him, his face mere inches from his own.

“Ahhhhh!” Edward screeched again, fighting in vain to free himself from his assailant. To his horror, he found his hands bound. His eyes widened in renewed mortification. Clearly, this too was the work of the prostitute – to render him powerless to escape his vile attentions.

Edward began to thrash this way and that, trying to force his assailant off him, all the while screeching in horror. Maric spoke something in a muffled tone, and shielded his face from the Imperial's blows, as he rolled away from him.

Dragging himself backwards, Edward glared with disgust at the other man, whose eyes watched him with a mixture of fury and incomprehension. It was only when the Breton pulled the gag out of his mouth with bound hands that the Imperial stopped to notice, pausing midscream, that he, too, was fastened.

“You fool!” Maric exclaimed. “Shut up before your screaming brings them back!”

“Them?” Edward repeated.

“The Necromancers!”

A sudden pallor touched the Imperial's cheeks as the memories of late which his mind had so far suppressed flooded back. “Wait...the priest...he...the bodies...oh gods!” The stench, the blood all around him, and the miscellaneous body parts in various states of decay, too, suddenly came to his attention. He let loose a wail of horror.

“Quiet, fool!” Maric hissed.

Edward, however, had no mind to be silent, for he continued to whimper and cry in anguish, backing as far away from the table and its macabre tools as he could. This movement stopped when he backed into the altar, and that encounter in turn dislodged a partially dissected arm from its resting place above his head. This limb fell with a splat on Edward's skull; and at the sight, smell and feel of something so hideous, the Imperial's reason was all but gone. His limbs yet bound, he frantically crawled and hopped across the floor, falling here and there only to pick himself up again, and run in circles. Every new move brought him in contact with some new horror, and this in turn fed his panic. So he raced one way, only to stop and go another the next moment, as he made his way around this course of horrors.

It was only when a body impacted sharply with his, throwing him first into a pew, and then onto the blood-covered stone floor, that Edward's panicked flight pattern was disrupted. It was the bound Breton, who glared at him. “Idiot! Do you want them to come back? We need to untie each other, and then -”

But Edward had already sunk into a new fit of panic, and lay on the ground, flailing in place and screaming at the top of his lungs.

[Rachel the Breton]

Watch the grand play,
Play your part,
Part the lines,
Line the field with the dead.
-- The Charge, a speech delivered by Emperor Augustus I to his outnumbered forces before the final, decisive charge at the Battle of Dremora Field


Chapter Seventy-Six

Even as he dispatched of the last Necromancer, he had heard the anguished screams of his comrade. “Blast!” he thought. “There must be more of them!”

Already, the valet battled the two Priests of the Dead that Edward had seen, and several of their vile undead conjurations. He had hoped, in luring them away from the chapel, to draw the Necromancers to him; but, if he was to judge by the wails of horror issuing from the rectory, this was not the case.

So, pushing himself with every ounce of his strength, the valet raced toward the chapel. The sounds of combat leaked outward, seeming to confirm his suspicion that some terrible torture, some hideous Necromancer ritual, had been begun, and he lost not a moment in bursting through the doors, his blade at the ready.

To his astonishment, however, he saw only Edward and Claude Maric. The telltale noises of combat had, indeed, come from the chapel; but they were the sounds of the contest upon which these two men were presently engaged. Edward, partially bound, was wielding a small dagger, and Maric, a rope tied round his hands and another around his feet, was still managing to pummel him with what looked to be a severed arm.

Staring in mortified amazement, the valet confirmed this first surmise; it was, indeed, a limb that the Breton was wielding, and rather effectively at that, for he managed to beat Edward again and again with it – a splatting stroke on the head here, on the arm there, on the face again. The Imperial, for his part, was cursing and lunging rather hopelessly with his dagger, either tripping on the other man's ropes or being rebuffed by his macabre fleshy weapon each time.

“Edward! Maric!” he managed in astonishment.

Both men started, turned toward him, weapons at the ready, and then went a deep shade of crimson. “Nor...Norvayne!” Maric stammered, dropping the decaying arm he held with a splat.

The Imperial, though he did not speak, hid the dagger behind his back, and drew himself up tall, angling his nose toward the ceiling.

“What...were you doing?”

This quickly proved to be a mistaken query, however, as both men launched into heated accusations against the other.

“This blithering coward drew a knife on me!” Maric shouted. “I tried to get him to escape, but he...”

“Liar!” Edward shot back. “I woke up to this sick son of a Breton trying to kiss me!”

“Kiss you?” the Breton blanched. “I'd sooner chew on that maggot-infested arm than touch my mouth to yours, you putrid animal!”

“A likely story!” the Imperial sneered. “You spotted your chance, now that Umbaccano is dead, and tried to take it. And if you weren't interested in kissing me – and worse – what were you doing on top of me like that? And with your mouth right above mine -”

“Ye gods!” Claude recoiled, seeming to go green at the very suggestion. “You are as dense as you are disgusting! I fell off the table, trying to wake your stupid -”

“So you randomly go around kissing people after you fall?” Edward snorted.

“How could I kiss you?! I was gagged!”

“That didn't stop you from trying!”

“That's it!” Maric shouted, reaching for the weapon he'd dropped. “I'm going to do what I should have done a long time ago...”

“Not if I finish you first,” Edward snarled, retrieving his dagger. “I'll show you what I think of your 'attentions'... ”

The valet, still standing in the church entryway cleared his throat. The two men's attention shifted again to him, and again they lowered their weapons. “Guys, I think you're overreacting here.” Both men tried to protest, but he gestured for silence and pressed on. “Why don't you both just calm down...put down the weapons. Edward, drop the dagger...Maric, the...arm...” Begrudgingly, both men did as they were told. “That's better...now, why don't we get you both untied, and get out of here?”

“Very well,” Maric nodded, straightening up a bit. “Although I'm not sure it was necessary to require me disarming.” And then, as if the fury of a moment before, and the terror of the moments before, were forgotten, the Breton sounded his characteristic laugh.

[mALX]

SPEW!!! [gasp...choke, choke...gasp] GAAAA ... BWAAAHAAA !!!! ROFL !!! [gasp...BWAHaaaurgh...bleaga]

** mALX died laughing in front of her PC. Her ghost was heard screaming "The arm! BWAAAHAAA! Meric ...the prostitute ... kiss...BWAAAHAAA!!!"

[Grits]

Disarming!!!

[haute ecole rider]

Oooh, the comedy of errors! And Norvayne the only sane person in that chapel!

I knew that Edward was going to wake up with Maric on top of him and instantly think of the 'prostitute!' Ahhhh!

[Rachel the Breton]

mALX: Sorry 'bout that, wha'? No 'arm meant. (Sorry...watching some British shows...and everything is said with an accent in my head now...LOL) Glad you're enjoying!!
Grits: That's the one thing about (this) Maric that I actually like -- his total irreverence/bizarre sense of humor. Glad you liked it too!
haute ecole rider: haha, could there be any other explanation? Poor Edward...all he has to put up with. Thanks for posting -- glad to see you enjoyed Edward's newest escapades.

Listen, and hear the wise, wise words
Spoken wisely and in wisdom by the wise man
Listen, and hear the true, true truths
Spoken truthfully and in truth by the honest man.
-- From the Philosophy of Life, attributed to the ancient sages

Chapter Seventy-Seven

The trio had set up camp some ways from the chapel; though they – or, rather, the valet – had disposed of all the Necromancers and undead they had come across, they nonetheless thought it wiser to abscond from that place as quickly as possible, lest there be any lingering Priests of the Dead, or their unnatural spawn, in the vicinity.

Also, for all his prowess at thrashing Edward, Claude Maric had sustained several rather significant injuries when he'd first been taken by the Necromancers, and these needed to be treated in a sterile – or as sterile as possible – environment; and the putrid lair of the Priests of the Dead did not qualify.

So, hidden under a rock outcropping some ways from the river, they set up camp. Edward, despite reeking of decayed flesh, had not stopped complaining of hunger since they'd left Cadlew Chapel; in response, his valet had hastily started a fire, and thrown together a handful of ingredients to cook over it. “Alright, sir – I will fetch water to boil for cleaning Maric's wounds; you tend the food.”

Edward gaped at him. “Me?” he demanded. “You want me to do the cooking?!”

“Unless you prefer to fetch the water.”

The Imperial scowled at the heavy vessel he was offered; his valet had to think he was mad to suppose he'd volunteer for such an assignment as lugging about a weighty kettle full of water. “Of course not!”

His valet nodded. “No worries, sir. I'll take care of that.”

“And who will cook?”

“You will, sir. Unless you want to wait until I come back to get dinner on...”

Edward's scowl deepened. “Why can't Maric cook?!”

“Oh, yes,” the Breton sighed. “Have the guy with open wounds all over his body handling the food. That would add interesting elements to the flavor, I'm sure.”

“You weren't so concerned about that when you were flinging chunks of decayed flesh all over me!” Edward shot back.

The valet cleared his throat to halt this new quarrel before it began. “Maric needs to rest,” he answered. “You are not injured, sir.”

Edward growled at the other man, who seemed to take no note as he turned toward the stream, kettle in hand, and Maric laughed at his unwilling Imperial chef.

After the valet had gone, the Breton remarked, “Well, well...Imperial cooking, eh?” He shivered. “There's only so much garlic a man can eat.”

Edward, glancing up from stirring the food, glared at him. “Garlic?! What is that supposed to mean, Breton?”

Maric smiled at the contemptuous emphasis the other man had used to describe him. “What do you think it means, brainy?”

Edward's glare intensified. “I think it means you're too much of a barbarian to appreciate quality cooking – that's what I think it means.”

Claude Maric smiled again. “Or maybe that I saw your valet cutting the garlic and throwing it in the pot...and, even had I not, I could smell it...”

The Imperial's scowl lifted a touch. “You mean...you can smell it even over...”

“The rotting flesh stink that you carry around? Yes, I can.”

Edward's expression of fury had returned. “That's not exactly my fault, is it?” he shot back.

“Oh no,” Maric intoned. “Unless one counts drawing a knife on a man provocation to defend oneself...”

“The knife was self defense!”

The Breton rolled his eyes. “Yes, yes, of course...how could I forget the whole 'kissing episode.'”

“Exactly!”

“You're pathetic,” Maric sighed, his lip upturned in disgust.

Edward stared in astonishment at him. “Coming from someone who ties people up so that -”

“I didn't tie you up, you moron!” the Breton interrupted. “I told you – the Necromancers tied both of us up! I was trying to wake you up so you could escape before they came back.”

Edward rolled his eyes. “I'm sure you were.”

The expression of disgust had returned to the Breton's face. “I can't stand you...why the hell would I want to...to...to...” His face contorted with mortification at the idea, he trailed off, as if at a loss for words, so reprehensible was the idea to his mind of any form of physical contact with Edward.

The Imperial loosed a short, sarcastic laugh. “Nice try, Maric...but no one believes you.”

Claude Maric stared at him, two eyebrows raised. “Ohhh, let me guess...you're so irresistible that everyone jumps at the opportunity – even if it's being tied up and awaiting brutal execution in a Necromancer's lair – to...have their way with you?”

This was said with absolute contempt, but the tone seemed to go over Edward's head, for the Imperial shrugged. “I don't know about everyone, but...”

The Breton's face wrinkled in disgust. “Alright, for the record, you egotistical imbecile, I've met mud crabs more attractive than you. You're a whiny, simpering little boy, who wets himself whenever danger presents itself, and goes running to your servant to get you out of binds. I don't know about your interests, but, to normal people, there is absolutely nothing enticing about that!”

Edward had been rolling his eyes all during this speech. “Yeah, yeah, whatever,” he shook his head.

Their conversation had come to this milestone of Edwardian thought when a sudden whoosh sounded behind the Imperial. Both men started, and their eyes at once fell on the cooking pot over the fire. The wooden stirring utensil Edward had been using was ablaze, as were the contents of the pan itself – indeed, giant, leaping flames shot forth over what the men had intended to make their dinner.

In unison, the onlookers loosed shrill screams of fright.

“Quick – put it out!” Maric directed.

“My eatables!” Edward bemoaned.

“Get going, you dummy!” the Breton shouted.

Edward made not a move, however, as he gazed on in stupefied terror while the flames began to climb and billow out of the pan. When they reached a high peak over the fire, the sight finally elicited a response from the Imperial – a high-pitched yelp. “Stop! Ahh! Help!” he screamed. His eyes roamed the campsite for something – anything – with which to put the flames out; at last his gaze lighted on the heavy towel he used to wrap around the handle of the pan in order to move it without burning himself. Seizing this, he began to frantically wave it at the flames.

“Don't!” Maric called. “You're fanning them!”

But the Imperial hardly heard his companion's words, for he was busily, desperately, trying to extinguish the fire in this manner. Alas, but his best efforts at sending blasts of air toward the flame had rather the opposite effect than he intended, and the fire soon began to enjoy its existence with renewed vigor.

What had been mild fear of the flame, coupled with great annoyance at the loss of his dinner, began to morph in the Imperial into a full blown panic. By this point, he was all but deaf to the shouted advice of his companion – even the threats, in fact. His senses were consumed by the horror of the rebellious conflagration.

When, while fanning his instrument of fire suppression too near the flame, it suddenly sprang alight, Edward's reason was truly splintered. He found himself now fully overwhelmed by blind panic.

Casting the rag at the blazing pan with a shriek, the Imperial recoiled, shrieked again as the flame engulfed the fabric, and then turned to run.

This post has been edited by Rachel the Breton: Feb 8 2011, 01:44 AM

[Rachel the Breton]

The lazy and unjust man unjustly spurns justice
While lazily seeking out ways to laze about listlessly
So that, in malicious malevolence, he may malinger,
To malign the mischievous and misunderstood alike
While insolently basking in insipid indolence.
-- From the Philosophy of Life, attributed to the ancient sages





Chapter Seventy-Eight

Unluckily for Edward, his retreat was halted – or, at least, momentarily delayed – by the interference of the insufferable Breton – who, seeing Edward's bungling, had risen to aid the fire fighting efforts.

Though his intentions had been good – or, at least wise enough to take self preservation into account – Maric's decision to, in spite of his injuries, come to the Imperial's assistance was ill-timed. For, as Edward careened into him, he fell backwards, and his hastily bandaged wounds began to bleed and ache anew.

A multitude of curses escaped the Breton's lips, but Edward, stumbling over the other man's prostrate body, took no heed. He hardly noticed as his heels dug into Maric's stomach and torso, or his boots grazed the Breton's head; he was bent only on escaping the growing, incorrigible conflagration behind him.

Bursting from their campground, he set his footsteps toward the river. This was not from any design or thought that this path should prove the safest, in the event of a forest fire; indeed, it was only the merest chance that directed his feet in this manner, for it happened quite by accident that he was headed thusly as he fled camp...and so he continued in that manner after he was free of the camp.

Fortunately for the Imperial – else, he may well have vanished into the wilderness, driven beyond the reaches of rescue by sheer panic – his valet, carrying a full kettle of water, was at the same time headed toward him, and away from the river.

Though, due to his heightened sense of panic, Edward could not stop in time to avoid colliding with his manservant, the impact and, especially, the dose of cool river water applied liberally to his torso that said impact afforded, roused him to a state of some sensibility.

“Fire!” he gasped. “Pan!...Dinner!...Fire!”

The valet seemed at first confused, but, at the conclusion of this disjointed explanation of sorts, an understanding expression crossed his face. “Than pan caught on fire?”

Edward managed a fearful gurgle of acquiescence, eying the distant shore as he did so.

His servant apparently missed the indicators that his master was about to flee, for, hoisting Edward to his feet, he declared, “Good that you got me, sir – let's go!”

The valet hardly seemed to notice the protests of his master as he dragged Edward toward the conflagration; however, as they rounded the rocks that concealed their campsite and burst onto the scene, his grasp loosened.

The Imperial, rather than fleeing, fell to whimpering and shaking in place at the sight of the conflagration. The fire once contained in a pan had now engulfed most of their camping supplies, and filled the area with smoke and flame.

Amidst this stood Claude Maric, who, bedroll in hand, hobbling from one patch of flame to the next, was hard at work smothering the fire.

“Quick!” the valet called. “Sir, fetch water!”

Edward, however, was still frozen in place by fear, so could only watch as his valet and his hated rival battled the flames.

[Rachel the Breton]

As the gnat does things befitting a gnat,
And the bat does things befitting a bat,
While the rat does things befitting a rat,
So too does the cat do things befitting a cat.
-- From the Pontifications of the Prince of Pontificators, collected works of a sage of the first age

Chapter Seventy-Nine

Between Maric smothering the flame as well as he could, and the valet's impressive wielding of ice spells to rob the fire of its heat, and, thusly, flame, the conflagration had, finally, been banished to the camp fire.

Maric and the valet stood covered in soot and sweat, and panting heavily; but Edward remained where he had stood throughout the entire extinguishing process, yet shaking. “That...was close...” he managed in a half strangled way.

His servant nodded. “Yes sir. Thanks to a good team effort, though, we were able to beat it.”

“Team effort?” Maric hissed between choking gasps. “That spineless coward didn't do a damned thing!'

“Edward?” the valet repeated, blinking in surprise at the accusation. “Of course he did – he came and fetched me, and then got buckets of water.”

Maric stared at the valet as though he were daft. “He didn't 'fetch you', you idiot – he ran away. And he wasn't getting water, either; he was standing there, right where you left him – right where you see him now – whimpering like a coward.”

The valet frowned at Maric, but then, his eyes resting on Edward's current location, frowned at his friend. “Surely...I mean...you were helping us, weren't you, sir?”

“Of course!” Edward snapped, though the crimson that peaked through the soot-covering of his cheeks rather put the lie to the adamant nature of his tone.

“You see?” his valet responded triumphantly.

At the same time, Maric shot back, “Liar! I saw you – you didn't budge from that spot!”

Edward scoffed. “You don't actually expect us to believe you can fight fires and obsessively stalk someone, do you? Or are you admitting that you did nothing while we worked?!”

Rage covered the Breton's features, and he thundered, “Miserable coward! You threw the towel onto the fire, and then ran off as it lit! When he-” This was said with a jerking motion of his thumb at the valet. “Brought you back, you didn't move – except to shake!”

The valet cleared his throat. “Maric, are you really saying that you saw Edward the whole time? And that you're sure he didn't move?”

“Yes! Well, not the whole time – but look, he's in exactly the same spot!”

“Why wouldn't I have noticed, though,” the valet persisted, “if he was just standing there?”

“Did you see him actually doing anything? Other than standing there, I mean?!”

“Of course. Well, I'm sure...I mean, I can't specifically remember it, but I wasn't paying attention, either...”

“Well I was!” the Breton thundered. “After his bumbling and running off to leave me to burn to death, I can assure you that I was.”

“Ridiculous,” Edward snorted. “Your attempts at blackening my name are laughable. No one in their right mind would believe anything so utterly absurd!”

Alas for Edward, however, someone very much in his right mind did believe Claude Maric, for the valet, his face coloring with suspicion, asked, “In that case, sir, where is the bucket?”

“Bucket?”

“Yes, the bucket you used.”

“I...used that kettle you were using,” the Imperial lied.

“Well then...where is it, sir?”

Edward glanced down at his hands, starting, “Right...” He trailed off, however, as he noted the empty nature of those hands. “Well, where I...dropped it when I saw that the fire was out. Darned thing was awfully heavy!”

“And where is that, sir?”

Edward's eyes flashed. “How dare you question me, servant?! It's over....” He trailed off again, his eyes roaming the charred campsite for some evidence of the wayward ironware. It was nowhere to be found, however. “Well, right...right...”

“Yes?”

“Right where I dropped it, that's where!”

Maric laughed out loud. “Ho boy!” he snickered, his eyes dancing with delight. “Liar, liar, flabby-butt pants on fire!”

Edward glared daggers at the Breton, while simultaneously reaching toward his rear, as if to confirm that the pants he wore did not, in fact, make his bottom look flabby.

Ignoring both men, the valet persisted, “Where is the kettle, sir?”

Edward, his senses now more fully returned, and wholly devoted to his defense, was ready for this question. “How dare you ask me that?” he demanded. “Not only once to question me, your master, but again and again?! How dare the servant question the master, or cast doubt on his honest, trustworthy, respectable word?!”

Instead of the cringing apologies that Edward had hoped this response would elicit, however, the valet resolutely answered, “I would never presume to do such a thing, sir. I simply need to know where the kettle is so that I can fetch more water to heat before treating Claude's injuries.”

“Haha!” Maric shouted gleefully. “Caught you again! Liar, liar, my how your situation grows dire...”

Edward flushed deeply in the face of this request that was ostensibly calm and reasonable, yet at the same time a pointed accusation. “It's...I...”

“Yes?”

“On the...river bank...somewhere, I think,” he responded at last. That was, to the best of his reckoning, where it had been left after his and his servant's collision.

“I'll go get it, then, sir.”

Edward raced after his servant, praying to all the gods he could remember that the other man had forgotten where it had been dropped. And, chortling all the while, Maric hobbled after the pair.

Of the three, only one was was not disappointed as they broke onto the scene. The kettle lay precisely where it had been dropped, and the sand yet held the imprints made by the two men as they fell as a sort of evidence of their collision.

A patch of wet sand leaking from the mouth of the kettle, surrounded by two sets of footprints leading toward the campfire, were as sure a giveaway as anything that Edward's tale was naught but lies.

“Liar, liar,” Maric marveled. “Out of the pan and into the fire!”

[haute ecole rider]

Claude Maric stared at him, two eyebrows raised. “Ohhh, let me guess...you're so irresistible that everyone jumps at the opportunity – even if it's being tied up and awaiting brutal execution in a Necromancer's lair – to...have their way with you?”

Claude, Claude, Claude - *shakes head* It took you that long to figure that out about our Edward?

Maric laughed out loud. “Ho boy!” he snickered, his eyes dancing with delight. “Liar, liar, flabby-butt pants on fire!”

Edward glared daggers at the Breton, while simultaneously reaching toward his rear, as if to confirm that the pants he wore did not, in fact, make his bottom look flabby.

[mALX]

I'd have to quote every single bit of chapter 77 !!! I nearly choked to death laughing !!! Great Chapters, all - but 77 is in a league of its own !!! Awesome Write !!!

[Rachel the Breton]

haute ecole rider and mALX: lol, thanks for the comments. It was a lot of fun writing the dialogue between those two (Edward and Maric)

Beware, to the man who would hire a servant
Such a course is fraught with dangers aplenty
Fostering dependence through subterfuge and perfidy
The servant will bend his master until he breaks him.
-- From the chapter “The Worst Servant”, in A Nobleman's Musings on the Serving Class



Chapter Eighty

After disinfecting the bandages and thoroughly cleaning Maric's injuries, the valet had cast his best healing spells, and wrapped what he could not heal. “Sorry, Maric,” he explained. “I was never much of a caster. You're going to need a real healer to take a look at those. But this should at least stave off infection.”

Maric grunted. The procedure had been painful, but – in Edward's presence as he was – he had determinedly braved the pain without as much as a peep of protest.

“I'm not sure that I have anything for pain,” the valet was was saying. “At least, not left.” He motioned to the fire-devastated campsite about them.

Maric shrugged this off nonchalantly, though he spoke through clenched teeth when he said, “It's of little accord.”

The other man nodded, but seemed about as convinced as the Breton by these words.

Edward, meanwhile, was sitting across the campfire from his servant and the treasure hunter, glaring into the flames. He had been caught in a lie, and shown to be a coward, all in one fell swoop, and his mood reflected the event. He was most seriously displeased – and that in his better moments.

“Servant!” he called at length, in acerbic and petulant tones, all at once. “I want my dinner!”

The valet glanced up at this summoning and grimaced. “Yes sir. One moment, sir.”

“No! Not 'one moment', you bloody servant – now, right this instant!”

The other man's grimace deepened. “Yes sir. Of course sir.”

Maric shook his head. “I don't know why you put up with that lout,” he commented. “He must pay an awfully lot?”

The valet's expression was indication enough to the false nature of such speculation.

“Well, why not let him fend for himself then? There are plenty of better opportunities out there for someone with your skills. People who will pay well, cut you an even share of the profits when they go treasure hunting, and not stomp their feet when they get annoyed.”

“Oh?”

Maric nodded. “That's right,” he said. “Now that Umbaccano's dead, I'm probably going to have to strike out on my own as a treasure hunter. I could use a servant like you, whose skills come in handy in a tight spot like back at Cadlew; and I wouldn't mind having someone to take care of the horses and the food and all the rest too.” He shrugged. “What say you? A fair cut – fifty percent of everything we make off with? We could loot all the ruins around here; who knows what we'd find!”

The valet shook his head. “Sorry, Maric,” he replied. “I already have a job.”

The Breton frowned at him. “Yeah...but it's somewhere on par with a city outhouse sanitizer. And the pay is probably worse!”

“That's not true,” the valet shook his head. “I enjoy my job.”

“Dinner!” Edward screamed, interrupting the other men's conversation. “I want my food now!”

“Most of the time,” the valet qualified his statement with a sigh.

Maric said naught, but shook his head vexedly as the other man walked away. Now that he was left to fend for himself, and his band of treasure hunters had betrayed or abandoned him as a coward, he needed to figure out some means of supporting himself – and staying alive while doing so. This sap, Norvayne, seemed just the thing...except that the man was too darned stubborn. Even for a cut of fifty percent, the fool had turned down his generosity. Maric scowled at the other man's insolence. He had offered him the same type of job as he currently had – save that he'd be working in the employ of a man a million times Edward's superior, and making quite a bit more septims out of it too. “Servants!” he thought with distaste. “What a wayward breed of people!”

[Rachel the Breton]

A wise man's conversation,
Is wealth greater than finest pearls.

And wisdom shared by such a man,
A greater treasure than the riches of the Empire.
-- An excerpt from a piece translated in the scholarly work “Writings of Old, Dead People”

Chapter Eighty-One

Edward had refused to enter the “den of Barbarians” – Bravil – as they neared, and so was seated outside the stable on a large, damp rock by an old signpost, waiting for his servant to return. The wayward lackey had insisted on accompanying Maric into the town and seeing him to a healer's shop, so the unfortunate master found himself abandoned to the damp and dreary Nibenay Valley.

He was, at the moment, contemplating that only the basest savages could survive in such a dank, mosquito infested region when he noted a shabbily dressed, red-faced Breton approaching. He grimaced to himself at the sight of the creature – the precise type of ill-fated ne'erdowell that he had just been imagining.

“Top of the morning to you, sir!”

Edward scowled at the other man. It hadn't been morning for hours now.

“If you are looking to buy a horse, go inside and talk to Isabeau.”

The Imperial mumbled some insincere thanks for this tidbit of useless information, and turned his scowl to the walls of Bravil. The other man, however, seemed not to understand the import of this dismissive gesture, for he remained standing in place. Edward determinedly avoided eye contact with him.

For several minutes, Breton and Imperial remained in this fashion, the one seated and glaring at the walls of the nearby town, and the other standing and staring rather absently at nothing whatever. At last, however, the red-faced man spoke. “My name is Antoine,” he said.

Edward snorted. “I'm sorry to hear that,” he muttered ill-humoredly.

“Antoine Branck,” the other man continued. “That's my full name.”

The Imperial turned a supercilious sneer in the Breton's direction, and then returned his gaze to the walls of the castle.

“I work here,” the Breton continued. “I take care of the horses. We have lots of horses here. Nice ones. Say, if you're looking to buy a horse, you should go inside and talk to Isabeau.”

Edward's glare was fixed now on the talkative Breton.

“I can't sell horses, you know. Isabeau won't let me. They're her horses, that's why. I just tend them. She pays me to tend them. That's my job, you see.”

Edward's forehead was creased deeply as he stared furiously at the other man. “What makes you think I give a rat's behind?!”

Antoine shivered. “Don't mention them!” he replied. “Not rats. The horses hate rats. And Isabeau hates what the horses hate. And so do I. So we all hate rats.”

An eyebrow raised, Edward commented, “Yes, as fascinating as that was, would you mind shoving off? I'm trying to enjoy the scenery...well, enjoy is too generous a term, but-”

The Imperial was, however, cut short as the burly Breton pushed him from his makeshift seat. After landing face first in the dirt, Edward rose, sputtering with rage. “How dare you push me?!” he demanded of the blank-faced Breton.

“You told me to, sir,” Antoine replied. “You asked me to shove you off of that-”

“Not shove me off,” Edward snapped. “Just plain old shove off. As in, get lost. Go away. Go drown yourself. Jump of a bridge. Go hang yourself. Take a flying leap. Fly a kite.”

“All at the same time, sir?” the Breton asked perplexedly.

“For all I care, go ahead! Just leave me alone!”

“I don't think that's possible, sir,” Antoine replied dejectedly. “A man can't hang himself while he's flying a kite...unless he were to get wrapped up in the string, I suppose. But he wouldn't be able to throw himself off a bridge while he was doing it...at least, he could have leaped from the bridge – and that would be a flying leap, I guess, since the kite is flying and he is being hung from the kite. But the drowning and getting lost I just can't reckon in anywheres.”

Edward stared at the other man, an eyebrow raised.

“Unless...the kite wasn't strong enough to keep you in the air after you jumped from the bridge so you ended up in the water underneath...and you didn't know where that was, so I suppose you could be lost – while taking a flying leap off a bridge while hanging yourself from the kite you're flying.” This was finished with a self-congratulatory smile. “I see what you're saying, sir. It all makes sense now.”

“Oh, good...” Edward managed. “But...umm...shouldn't you be tending the horses or something?”

“Oh yes,” the Breton nodded resolutely. “That's my job. What Isabeau pays me for. She's my boss, you know. She owns this place, the Bay Roan Stables. Say, if you're looking to buy a horse, you should go inside and talk to her.”

This post has been edited by Rachel the Breton: Feb 9 2011, 02:17 AM