Cold and Cavalier

Time once again passes.

Years have gone since the defeat of the twelve knights. If reservations nagged Renard about too easily securing a title, his efforts in that tourney erased them — he has become the Iron King’s right-hand man, ostensibly his bodyguard, ostensibly his confidant, but in reality ‘lackey’. Since the King needs no bodyguards, and since he rarely divulges his worries to Renard, Renard figures the King keeps him so close because his presence gives the King a feeling of purpose, and lessens his loneliness.

Which is the role Renard always desired. Renard cannot dispute where he’s wound up, in that sense, and in fact feels quite proud.

In every other sense, though, he does not feel proud. An undercurrent of unease, cynicism, and shame dominates Renard’s life. People no longer smile or feel protected in his presence. For how the tension in the air irks him, he feels no right to brighten the mood with jokes or bold claims of valour. Actually, knowing what he has committed, and knowing why people do fear him, any attempts to laugh his sins off would ignite an instant desire to strangle himself.

All he can do is dismiss his old self as an idiot, adhere to the just laws of the King, and try not to snap at townsfolk for cowering when he passes by.

He never did get that title of Knight, by the way. Owing to the different tenor of what Renard represents, as a loyalist to a hexant King, the title he did get is Cavalier. It entitles him to enforce the King’s word, as a knight would, protect the King’s honour, as a knight would, and fight in the King’s wars, as a knight would, but without the trammels of chivalry that would otherwise guide his behaviour. In a sense, since he has the King’s favouritism anyway, it entitles him to do whatever he wants without suffering punitive consequence.

Though everyone knows he has it, it’s a product of Renard’s own pride that he declines to exploit the privilege. Between attending the King, overseeing the guard for hints of conspiracy, and drinking himself gormless in the darkest corners of taverns, life goes on.

Lacren, too, has endured a widespread change of reputation. Though previously guarded from scrutiny by the relative peace of occupied Pilamine, the slaughter of the twelve knights has locally certified it as a hexant kingdom. Neighbours of Pilamine previously too occupied with their own business to spare Lacren notice have now alarmingly, and with great impetus, fixated their attention on the evil emanating from the Iron Throne of the Blood Kingdom of Lacren.

Let those hypocrites think what they will, Renard bitterly grouses. The people here yet live well, and nothing either has changed for the Pilamines.

But the Pilamines disagree, as Renard finds, when the Iron King calls him for debriefing that day.

A courier from Pilamine requests the King’s presence in the city, to discuss a pressing issue.

The Pilamines are refusing to deliver Lacren’s shipment of water.

The Pilamines’ rebellion infuriates Renard, mostly because it is foolish. If the Pilamines dig in their heels, the King slaughters their leaders and takes their throne too. Obviously. What is the point of such a stupid invitation?

It is possible, the Iron King notes, that the Pilamines’ neighbours are pressuring them into this antagonistic move, hence, there may be a diplomatic resolution to this problem, at least between Lacren and Pilamine. Renard considers this novel angle, finding it wise and agreeable, and joins the Iron King on a diplomatic visit to Pilamine.

They come to Pilamine’s gates. Guardsmen welcome them with no resistance, opening the first portcullis.

Standing in the gap between the city’s two wall-gates, they wait for the second gate to rise.

Thoom! The portcullis they just passed crashes down behind them. Renard flinches and twists, but the guards outside give no acknowledgement to his shock.

A trap! Renard thinks. One they walked so stupidly into. But even this flash of indignation fades to rising fear, as the passing seconds confirm the second gate never will rise.

Renard glances over.

If the Pilamines have stuck him between their gate walls with the Iron King…

The King stands with hands cupped, back straight, his annoyance towards the Pilamines barely a hint.

…That means he is stuck in an enclosed space, with the Iron King. Renard glances over. If the King is panicked, he is not showing it, or responding with much fervour for anything at all, in itself an unnerving response.

Renard bangs the bars and demands the Pilamines explain what they’re doing. But they turn away. His throat constricts. For all his stated devotion to the King, right now near him is truly the last place Renard wants to be. Because if the Pilamines hold them here more than two or three days, and the King’s bloodthirst begins to assert itself, that translates to Renard being locked in here with a monster.

The King’s claws rending him from his guts to his gullet, his teeth gnashing through his throat, globules of viscera splattering over the stone — and then the King unfurling back into human stature with that horrible air of dispassion. Screams from his survival instincts command Renard’s body to shout at the Pilamine guards even more insistently, demanding they find the humanity in themselves not to keep him locked in here with a ghoul.

It works. They chain the Iron King’s hands to the portcullis and escort Renard out. The Iron King smiles subtly through the bars, rubbing his wrists once the Pilamines unchain him, and encourages Renard on this course of action. He seems to think it was some strategy of Renard’s to better position himself to do something about the situation, and not an entirely sincere and genuine terror that moved him.

Renard wobbles with nerves. The Pilamines distance him from the Iron King’s earshot to confirm that he is Renard the Cavalier, who slaughtered the twelve knights. Straining, he confirms yes but also that the Iron King forced him to do it on threat of upending Lacren. Fearing in his gut that the Pilamines will incarcerate and torture him, Renard begs that he be allowed to plead his case and divulge Lacren’s side of this whole affair.

Again it works. Though not sympathetic to him specifically, the Pilamines do empathise with the difficulty of being trapped in a hexant kingdom, and on principle see it as justified that he be allowed to speak. Being so close to the Iron King, he also is in a good position to have witnessed the King’s deeds. They escort him to their castle.

The castle hosts many guests. Dignitaries, knights, governors, and soldiers from many neighbouring kingdoms pace through the halls — a coalition has formed between these forces and Pilamine to unseat the Iron King. Even a shaman woman from distant Palida, too dignified to be anxious but still a sore thumb in this castle, mills among the ranks.

Renard unwinds and breathes in relief. Though apprehensive the strangers may not receive him well, the sheer number and diversity of parties helping against the King reassures him. He is presented before the Pilamine lords and the other leaders of this coalition.

They are intrigued to hear from him. Eyes and ears lean in attentively from atop their thrones.

Renard takes a breath, puffs out his chest, and lets a well of suppressed fear predominate. He divulges the hostage-like hold the Iron King has over Lacren with the composure of a weeping child, pleading for the coalition to understand how coercive and frightening the King has been and how insignificant Renard has felt beside him. Though contrary to the ideas that got Renard here in the first place, presently these words shine with more conviction than anything he has said in his life, as though the Iron King has never even once treated him kindly.

And as much as Renard believes himself in this moment, the coalition leaders believe him too. Moved by his plight, they discern the role he can serve as part of the coalition, earning himself amnesty for the killing of the twelve knights.

He can be the coalition’s spokesperson, smoothing the locals through the government shift as these foreign princes conquer Lacren.

The meeting breaks for dinner and Renard rushes to his guest room, panicking.

In retrospect he is not sure why he thought — well, no, he wasn’t goddamn thinking anything. Dumb gut reactions upon dumb gut reactions cornered him into this predicament, and though he’s been erratic in his allegiances, he can at the least say he absolutely doesn’t want to be the reason Lacren winds up being conquered.

At the same time, he still finds himself wavering on whether he truly wants to release the King. Renard thought he had scoured himself of this irresolution, by the dreadful commitment he’d made in the King’s name, but now he can only wonder if he’s actually just a very shallow person.

That being, the kind of person who would abandon his principles at even mild urging, or in fact never truly had any to begin with, but still wanted accolades and an authority’s justified recognition. The desire to flee right now is immense. Unfortunately, beyond being an impossible option for him psychologically, it is also not practicable in a hostile walled city as Pilamine, anyway.

Perhaps, then, he best align with the coalition — but before he can even complete this thought, a furious word blasts through his mind: hypocrites! Renard clenches his fists, grinds his teeth. They thirst for power as fervently as the Iron King must thirst for blood, yet they haven’t the incontrovertible binding of ghoulishness to excuse it. They are pretentious warlords, reaping the livelihoods of simple civilians that they may press their own culture’s vanities upon them, expecting to be so celebrated for their graciousness and righteousness that none will raise even a thought of complaint against them. Were these accusations untrue, they would conduct their business and simply leave, allowing Lacren the dignity of its own sovereignty. But they will not! They want the power!

As far as masters go, the Iron King, at the very least, has not once salivated over prospects of taking mighty Coquain, or unconquerable Oppenveist, or even the humble neighbour Pilamine. He aspires to keep the Lacrenese people fed, free, protected, and watered. That is the only height to which he has aimed and he has not once faltered from this goal. Next to those tyrants, he is impeccable.

But even knowing himself too disgusted and indignant to even hypothetically submit to the coalition, Renard still cannot erase his unease around the Iron King. Plus, he is not sure how he actually can release him from the gates unnoticed, or what consequence could follow except the Iron King slaughtering the coalition — yet again impressing to every observer the exploitable notion that he is a savage ghoul.

What can Renard do? He tries to imagine what arguments he could present to the coalition’s leaders, but his tongue only twists in his mouth. He is not a studied diplomat or an ambassador; he cannot win a contrary argument against a roomful of clever and semantically trained princes.

Finding no solution in these trails of thought, Renard allows them to fade. His fear and uncertainty rise back into consciousness to choke him: something, do something!

I don’t know! What should I do? Help me, He wants to sob back.

Something!, is his gut’s only reply.

Allowing once again that gut to reign, Renard gets up, exits the room, and marches down the hall.

Behind the door of the guest room at which he knocks comes a slender silhouette, of that strange Palidan shaman.