Deva Victrix (9/?)
Title: Deva Victrix (9/?)
Rating: PG-13
Character(s): (so far) America, femAmerica, femCanada, England, France, femGermany, Italy, Luxembourg, Northern Ireland, Portugal, Romano, Scotland, Wales
Pairing(s): (so far) mentions of England/Portugal
Warning(s): None
Word Count: 2952
Summary: It’s raining when they find the body, but then it usually is in Deva.
A fantasy AU murder mystery.
_____________________
The guardhouse training yard is empty save for Corporal Jones, who is swinging away at the training dummy with such ferocious intensity that Alasdair concludes that it must have paid her some kind of grievous personal insult.
“Now, I know you’re keen, Jones,” Alasdair says, as he cautiously approaches her, “but turning up to work nine hours early is a little too eager, even for you. Aren’t you on night patrol again today?”
Jones lands one last blow against the dummy’s blank wooden face, and swivels on her heel to face him. Her complexion is pallid, making the red cast of her bloodshot eyes seem even more vivid in comparison.
Alasdair groans. “You haven’t been home since last night’s patrol yet, have you?”
“Roberts and I spent most of the night trying to get something useful out of that Walsh guy,” Jones says with a scowl. “No luck there. He’s still sticking to that ridiculous story about just tripping over Martinez’s wallet practically the second he disembarked from his ship. And I’ve had no luck with the bard, either. I spent all morning chasing after him, but he managed to stay one step ahead of me the whole time. Not the behaviour of an innocent man, if you ask me.”
Alasdair isn’t convinced that it’s the behaviour of a guilty man, though. The bard seems to spend all his days flitting from place to place; dispensing unasked for nuggets of ancient lore, sticking his nose in other people’s business, and, one would presume, occasionally singing at largely undeserving members of the public.
Such pastoral work was once an essential bardly duty, and despite the fact that most folks nowadays are perfectly capable of going about their daily lives without once feeling it necessary to take into account what some long-dead king or bard might have had to say about their decision to name their child Kevin or some such, Llewellyn doggedly continues it even in the face of almost universal apathy.
His diligence may well be influenced by the dilapidated state of the mouldering Bard’s Hall; Alasdair wouldn’t want to spend any longer inside it than he had to if he were in Llewellyn’s place.
“Well, you’re more likely to catch him tonight, in any case,” Alasdair says. “He sings at the Lost Antler most evenings, and he always sleeps at the Hall, as far as I know. You should go home till then; get some sleep.”
“I tried to sleep earlier, in one of the cots in the locker room, but I couldn’t keep my eyes closed. I still feel so full of energy.” As if in demonstration, Jones starts bouncing on the balls of her feet. “I just want to keep moving.”
Alasdair looks at her appraisingly. Although she’s not overly tall, and thin as a lath, he has heard tell that she’s surprisingly strong for her size. The new gaping smile she’s just hacked out of the dummy’s hitherto featureless head seems to bear out that particular rumour.
“I’ll spar with you a while, if you like,” he says. “That might help wear you out a little.”
“If I’d like?” Jones breaks out a wide, dazzling grin that brightens her face a great deal. “I’ve wanted to spar with you for months. Everyone tells me that you’re one of the best sword fighters in the guards.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” says Alasdair, but only because he’d feel too much of a boastful twat to admit otherwise.
“Even Sergeant Lewis says it, and he can’t stand you,” Jones says, which serves to prove something about the man, though Alasdair’s feelings are so confused about the information, he can’t work out quite what. “I can give you some lessons with the pistol later, if you want. To pay you back.”
“I don’t need repayment,” Alasdair says, even though the offer is tempting. He’s a lousy shot. “We’re comrades in arms, aren’t we? Of a sort, anyway. We should be helping each other to get better at avoiding being killed in the line of duty if we can.
“Besides, my back’s aching after tangling with Walsh yesterday, and I need to stretch my muscles out. I came early for my own shift so I could get some practice in, too, you know.”
Jones gives Alasdair a dubious look, which makes him chuckle, recognising himself as a teenager in her particular shade of disbelief. “When you get to my advanced age, you might find you can’t bounce back from a pummelling the way you used to, as well,” he says. “Right, just give me a couple of minutes to warm up my old bones and we’ll get started, okay?”
“Okay,” Jones agrees, and then retreats a few paces away to give him some swinging room. She settles herself down, cross-legged, on the dusty flagstones, and then fixes her eyes on Alasdair avidly.
At first, her attention makes him feel incredibly self-conscious, because he hates having to perform in front of an audience - he used to break into a cold sweat whenever he was cajoled into taking part in one of the ridiculous dramatic readings Da loved to inflict on him and his siblings, and they’d only ever been in front of Da and Ma - but as soon as he draws the blunted practice sword from its scabbard, the unsettled feeling vanishes in an instant.
He’s always felt calmer when he’s holding a blade; more centred and balanced, even when it’s one as badly weighted and ill-suited as the one in his hand.
He starts with some strengthening exercises, slowly lowering the sword down to the ground and then back up to his shoulder again. His back protests the movement at first, but it gets a little easier with every repetition, until eventually stops pulling against him, at all.
Next come stretches, then finally feinting thrusts. When he’s finished, his entire body feels warmed though, thrumming with so much restless energy that he too starts bouncing on his feet, just to burn some of it away.
“Are you ready?” he asks, glancing towards Corporal Jones. She looks distinctly less impressed than she had before he began his exercises, but still jumps to her feet eagerly enough.
She moves to stand in front of him, her arms braced and her feet carefully set a shoulder-width apart; a position Alasdair recognises from a woodcut in the book on military training he and Caitlin had bought as children. The one they eventually decided focused far too much on rules to the detriment of actually staying alive during a fight, and later chose to ignore in pretty much its entirety.
Alasdair springs forward, and taps the point of his own sword against Jones’ shoulder.
“Hey!” Her eyes widen in shock. “We haven’t started yet!”
Alasdair loops around to land another soft hit against her other shoulder. “Stances are all well and good if you’re fucking duelling or something,” he says, “but if you’re fighting - even sparring - you’ve got to keep moving constantly.”
Jones’ nods curtly, tightening her grip around her sword’s grip. She dips her hip too soon, telegraphing her next move as clearly as if she’d shouted it out ahead of time, and Alasdair’s counter-strike catches it mid-swing. And she is strong - the jolt reverberates down Alasdair’s arm hard enough that it stings his shoulder - but Alasdair finds he can use it against her with a well-timed twist of his wrist which redirects the force back down the length of Jones’ sword.
The sudden push catches her off-balance; she staggers her next step, and the consequent slight drop of her arm allows Alasdair to disengage. He feints left, but darts right, swiping his sword across the back of Jones’ legs as he manoeuvres himself around her.
“If you were this quick yesterday,” Jones says, once she’s caught her breath again, “you might have caught Walsh before he made it to the tannery.”
“Aye, taunts are good, too.” Alasdair laughs. “You’ve got to use anything you might be able to turn to your advantage.”
Jones uses his advice immediately, lunging for him before he manages to finish speaking. Her next two blows are weak, easily avoided, but by the third she’s got her wind back sufficiently that the third would likely have knocked him out cold if he hadn’t been able to duck beneath it at just the right moment.
They weave around each other, trading parries and ripostes back and forth, until Jones’ face is almost purple from exertion. Distantly, Alasdair is aware of sweat trickling down his own face, the tired weight of his arms and legs, but they both seem far away.
He always feels like this when he fights with a sword: light and free. It’s almost as though he’s temporarily inhabiting some body other than his own; one which isn’t too bulky, too slow, and with feet which aren’t hopelessly clumsy.
Jones’ feet, however, are growing increasingly more so. She catches one first against the corner of a flagstone, and then the other against the back of her own heel, which finally sends her crashing to the ground, helped on her way by the flat of Alasdair’s blade, pressed against her back.
He quickly nudges her onto her back with the toe of his boot, and then rests the tip of his sword against the hollow of her throat.
“Do you yield?” he asks.
“I yield,” Jones says, her voice wavering as she takes in huge, gusting gasps of breath.
“It was a good fight,” Alasdair concedes, reaching down to haul her to her feet again. “Though, if you -“
He’s interrupted by faint clapping, and when he turns, searching for the source of the noise, he catches sight of the prince standing halfway up the flight of stairs leading to the guardhouse’s back door, palms pressed together and smiling broadly.
Even though he hadn’t thought he’d run into the man again any time soon, somehow Alasdair isn’t taken aback to see him there, nevertheless. Given his previous behaviour, it comes as no surprise to discover that he’s likely the sort of person who delights in turning up exactly where he’s least welcome, just as he took pleasure in a great deal of things that Alasdair found equally irritating the day before.
Irritating enough that he doesn’t bother to check himself before going with his first instinct and calling out, “What the hell are you doing here?”
The prince laughs; a high, tinkling sort of sound that grates against Alasdair’s already raw nerves. “That’s no way to talk to either a governor or a prince, Corporal Kirkland,” he says as he begins to descend the stairs. “Don’t make me regret yesterday’s decision to not have you flogged for insubordination.”
He jumps neatly down the last two steps, and then wanders towards Alasdair and Corporal Jones with an insouciance better suited to taking a leisurely turn around his overly manicured gardens.
As he draws near, Corporal Jones snaps out a smart salute and an even smarter, “Your Highness.”
Alasdair wonders whether she was already aware of that particular nuance of royal protocol, or that the captain had given the rest of the guards a debriefing on proper address, to prepare them just in case the prince ever did decide to come and stick his pointy nose in guard business again.
The prince nods at Jones indulgently, and then gives Alasdair a very expectant look.
Alasdair holds out as long as he can, but the chain of command is a weighty one, and it eventually crushes his defences into rubble despite his best efforts. “Sir,” he says grudgingly.
In a final, useless act of defiance, his salute is far sloppier than Jones’.
The prince looks gratified by it, regardless, which makes it feel even pettier. “Don’t let me keep you from your training,” he says. “Please, carry on. Watching you has been very educational so far.”
“Oh, we’re finished now, Your Highness,” Jones says before Alasdair has chance to reply. She tilts her head towards Alasdair and adds, “Thanks, Kirkland. I think I’m knackered enough to sleep now.”
Then, very deliberately and for no reason Alasdair can easily ascertain, she winks at him before scampering away towards the guardhouse at a speed which makes her claim of being knackered somewhat suspect.
Alasdair watches her go until she disappears from view, and then reluctantly returns his attention to the prince.
His hair is pulled back in a tight martial queue, tied with a length of sombre grey ribbon, and he appears to have shrunk a couple of inches; the top of his head barely reaching the level of Alasdair’s nose instead of his eyes as it had the previous day. Glancing down, Alasdair notes that his boots are plain riding ones, lacking the high elevation in the heel.
When he looks back up again, he finds the prince studying him with the same intensity he had subjected him to during their carriage rides.
Alasdair guesses that he must have once again demonstrated a skill that the prince patronisingly considers a marvellous achievement for someone of his lowly standing; a suspicion that is soon confirmed by the prince saying, “You’re very proficient with a sword, Corporal. Did your -“
“No, my da didn’t teach me,” Alasdair says, knowing now how the rest of that sentence is bound to go and having no wish to hear it. “My sister and I taught ourselves; out of a book at first, and then we just sort of made the rest up as we went along. I’m sure neither of us uses the proper techniques or anything, but we’ve managed to keep our heads on our shoulders and our guts in our bellies, regardless.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone untutored fight so well before,” the prince says. He doesn’t seem annoyed by having been pre-empted, but, instead, even more intrigued. “I’d relish the chance to test my mettle against you some day.”
“That doesn’t seem as though it’d be very fair, sir,” Alasdair says. He expects the prince to look puzzled, and he doesn’t disappoint.
“How so,” the prince says, frowning. “I was taught swordplay by the finest Rōman masters of the art. You’re talented, but I assure you I could more than hold my own against you.”
He should probably start writing his lies down, as he clearly can’t keep track of them otherwise. Alasdair’s caught him out twice on this one with no effort at all.
“It’s a shame that they didn’t take advantage of that skill during the last war,” he says blandly.
“How so?” the prince says, raising one fine, sculpted eyebrow.
“Well, they stuck you with those maps, sir, when it turns out you should have been out on the battlefield fighting, after all.” He shakes his head with mock sadness. “Seems like such a waste.”
The prince’s mouth twists angrily, but the rest of his expression doesn’t shift to match it. His blue eyes spark with good humour. “You have an unforgivingly good memory, Corporal.”
“Aye, I do.” Alasdair finds himself grinning without meaning to.
“I expect it’s a boon in your line of work.”
“It is.” With the conversation’s turn, Alasdair realises that perfect opportunity to cut it short. One which he readily takes. “And, speaking of my line of work, I really should get moving. I’m on the afternoon shift, and I could do with a wash and a bite to eat before it starts.
“Of course,” the prince says, flicking his hand towards the guardhouse in what appears to be a gesture of dismissal. “Please, don’t let me keep you.”
It appears to be a dismissal, but when Alasdair starts walking away, the prince immediately falls into step with him.
“I was on my way to speak to your captain before you distracted me,” the prince says; chidingly, as though Alasdair had deliberately set out to lead him astray. “I understand new evidence has been found in the Martinez case.”
Alasdair wonders if he’d heard the news from the captain herself, or if he has some other source of information secreted away in the guardhouse. Remembering his captain’s request to keep his eyes and ears open around the prince, Alasdair files that question away to share with her later.
He makes a noncommittal noise. “You’d be better off asking the captain about that, sir. I can’t say I know much about it.”
Though the prince doesn’t look particularly convinced by that, it doesn’t dispute it, either. In fact, he holds his peace completely as they enter and then move through the guardhouse, and it falls to Alasdair to eventually break their silence when they reach the locker room on the third floor.
“Well,” he says, resting his hand, palm flat, against the rough wood of the door. “This is me, then. I presume you remember your way to the captain’s office from here.”
The prince’s eyes stray towards the stairs which lead up to the fourth floor, but they are quick to return to Alasdair’s face. “I do,” he says slowly, “but I think I might prefer to take that tour we talked about yesterday now.”
“Really?” Alasdair asks incredulously, still not quite able to grasp the appeal of the idea. The guardhouse really has very little to recommend it.
The prince’s gaze remains steady for a beat or two longer, and then he sighs and casts it aside. “No, you’re right. I should continue on -“
Pounding footsteps thundering up the stairwell from the armoury drown out the prince’s next word, and then Corporal Ellis bursts suddenly into view.
“Thank the gods you’re here, Kirkland,” he says, flushed and breathing raggedly. “Report’s just come in; the morning patrols have found another body.”
Rating: PG-13
Character(s): (so far) America, femAmerica, femCanada, England, France, femGermany, Italy, Luxembourg, Northern Ireland, Portugal, Romano, Scotland, Wales
Pairing(s): (so far) mentions of England/Portugal
Warning(s): None
Word Count: 2952
Summary: It’s raining when they find the body, but then it usually is in Deva.
A fantasy AU murder mystery.
_____________________
The guardhouse training yard is empty save for Corporal Jones, who is swinging away at the training dummy with such ferocious intensity that Alasdair concludes that it must have paid her some kind of grievous personal insult.
“Now, I know you’re keen, Jones,” Alasdair says, as he cautiously approaches her, “but turning up to work nine hours early is a little too eager, even for you. Aren’t you on night patrol again today?”
Jones lands one last blow against the dummy’s blank wooden face, and swivels on her heel to face him. Her complexion is pallid, making the red cast of her bloodshot eyes seem even more vivid in comparison.
Alasdair groans. “You haven’t been home since last night’s patrol yet, have you?”
“Roberts and I spent most of the night trying to get something useful out of that Walsh guy,” Jones says with a scowl. “No luck there. He’s still sticking to that ridiculous story about just tripping over Martinez’s wallet practically the second he disembarked from his ship. And I’ve had no luck with the bard, either. I spent all morning chasing after him, but he managed to stay one step ahead of me the whole time. Not the behaviour of an innocent man, if you ask me.”
Alasdair isn’t convinced that it’s the behaviour of a guilty man, though. The bard seems to spend all his days flitting from place to place; dispensing unasked for nuggets of ancient lore, sticking his nose in other people’s business, and, one would presume, occasionally singing at largely undeserving members of the public.
Such pastoral work was once an essential bardly duty, and despite the fact that most folks nowadays are perfectly capable of going about their daily lives without once feeling it necessary to take into account what some long-dead king or bard might have had to say about their decision to name their child Kevin or some such, Llewellyn doggedly continues it even in the face of almost universal apathy.
His diligence may well be influenced by the dilapidated state of the mouldering Bard’s Hall; Alasdair wouldn’t want to spend any longer inside it than he had to if he were in Llewellyn’s place.
“Well, you’re more likely to catch him tonight, in any case,” Alasdair says. “He sings at the Lost Antler most evenings, and he always sleeps at the Hall, as far as I know. You should go home till then; get some sleep.”
“I tried to sleep earlier, in one of the cots in the locker room, but I couldn’t keep my eyes closed. I still feel so full of energy.” As if in demonstration, Jones starts bouncing on the balls of her feet. “I just want to keep moving.”
Alasdair looks at her appraisingly. Although she’s not overly tall, and thin as a lath, he has heard tell that she’s surprisingly strong for her size. The new gaping smile she’s just hacked out of the dummy’s hitherto featureless head seems to bear out that particular rumour.
“I’ll spar with you a while, if you like,” he says. “That might help wear you out a little.”
“If I’d like?” Jones breaks out a wide, dazzling grin that brightens her face a great deal. “I’ve wanted to spar with you for months. Everyone tells me that you’re one of the best sword fighters in the guards.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” says Alasdair, but only because he’d feel too much of a boastful twat to admit otherwise.
“Even Sergeant Lewis says it, and he can’t stand you,” Jones says, which serves to prove something about the man, though Alasdair’s feelings are so confused about the information, he can’t work out quite what. “I can give you some lessons with the pistol later, if you want. To pay you back.”
“I don’t need repayment,” Alasdair says, even though the offer is tempting. He’s a lousy shot. “We’re comrades in arms, aren’t we? Of a sort, anyway. We should be helping each other to get better at avoiding being killed in the line of duty if we can.
“Besides, my back’s aching after tangling with Walsh yesterday, and I need to stretch my muscles out. I came early for my own shift so I could get some practice in, too, you know.”
Jones gives Alasdair a dubious look, which makes him chuckle, recognising himself as a teenager in her particular shade of disbelief. “When you get to my advanced age, you might find you can’t bounce back from a pummelling the way you used to, as well,” he says. “Right, just give me a couple of minutes to warm up my old bones and we’ll get started, okay?”
“Okay,” Jones agrees, and then retreats a few paces away to give him some swinging room. She settles herself down, cross-legged, on the dusty flagstones, and then fixes her eyes on Alasdair avidly.
At first, her attention makes him feel incredibly self-conscious, because he hates having to perform in front of an audience - he used to break into a cold sweat whenever he was cajoled into taking part in one of the ridiculous dramatic readings Da loved to inflict on him and his siblings, and they’d only ever been in front of Da and Ma - but as soon as he draws the blunted practice sword from its scabbard, the unsettled feeling vanishes in an instant.
He’s always felt calmer when he’s holding a blade; more centred and balanced, even when it’s one as badly weighted and ill-suited as the one in his hand.
He starts with some strengthening exercises, slowly lowering the sword down to the ground and then back up to his shoulder again. His back protests the movement at first, but it gets a little easier with every repetition, until eventually stops pulling against him, at all.
Next come stretches, then finally feinting thrusts. When he’s finished, his entire body feels warmed though, thrumming with so much restless energy that he too starts bouncing on his feet, just to burn some of it away.
“Are you ready?” he asks, glancing towards Corporal Jones. She looks distinctly less impressed than she had before he began his exercises, but still jumps to her feet eagerly enough.
She moves to stand in front of him, her arms braced and her feet carefully set a shoulder-width apart; a position Alasdair recognises from a woodcut in the book on military training he and Caitlin had bought as children. The one they eventually decided focused far too much on rules to the detriment of actually staying alive during a fight, and later chose to ignore in pretty much its entirety.
Alasdair springs forward, and taps the point of his own sword against Jones’ shoulder.
“Hey!” Her eyes widen in shock. “We haven’t started yet!”
Alasdair loops around to land another soft hit against her other shoulder. “Stances are all well and good if you’re fucking duelling or something,” he says, “but if you’re fighting - even sparring - you’ve got to keep moving constantly.”
Jones’ nods curtly, tightening her grip around her sword’s grip. She dips her hip too soon, telegraphing her next move as clearly as if she’d shouted it out ahead of time, and Alasdair’s counter-strike catches it mid-swing. And she is strong - the jolt reverberates down Alasdair’s arm hard enough that it stings his shoulder - but Alasdair finds he can use it against her with a well-timed twist of his wrist which redirects the force back down the length of Jones’ sword.
The sudden push catches her off-balance; she staggers her next step, and the consequent slight drop of her arm allows Alasdair to disengage. He feints left, but darts right, swiping his sword across the back of Jones’ legs as he manoeuvres himself around her.
“If you were this quick yesterday,” Jones says, once she’s caught her breath again, “you might have caught Walsh before he made it to the tannery.”
“Aye, taunts are good, too.” Alasdair laughs. “You’ve got to use anything you might be able to turn to your advantage.”
Jones uses his advice immediately, lunging for him before he manages to finish speaking. Her next two blows are weak, easily avoided, but by the third she’s got her wind back sufficiently that the third would likely have knocked him out cold if he hadn’t been able to duck beneath it at just the right moment.
They weave around each other, trading parries and ripostes back and forth, until Jones’ face is almost purple from exertion. Distantly, Alasdair is aware of sweat trickling down his own face, the tired weight of his arms and legs, but they both seem far away.
He always feels like this when he fights with a sword: light and free. It’s almost as though he’s temporarily inhabiting some body other than his own; one which isn’t too bulky, too slow, and with feet which aren’t hopelessly clumsy.
Jones’ feet, however, are growing increasingly more so. She catches one first against the corner of a flagstone, and then the other against the back of her own heel, which finally sends her crashing to the ground, helped on her way by the flat of Alasdair’s blade, pressed against her back.
He quickly nudges her onto her back with the toe of his boot, and then rests the tip of his sword against the hollow of her throat.
“Do you yield?” he asks.
“I yield,” Jones says, her voice wavering as she takes in huge, gusting gasps of breath.
“It was a good fight,” Alasdair concedes, reaching down to haul her to her feet again. “Though, if you -“
He’s interrupted by faint clapping, and when he turns, searching for the source of the noise, he catches sight of the prince standing halfway up the flight of stairs leading to the guardhouse’s back door, palms pressed together and smiling broadly.
Even though he hadn’t thought he’d run into the man again any time soon, somehow Alasdair isn’t taken aback to see him there, nevertheless. Given his previous behaviour, it comes as no surprise to discover that he’s likely the sort of person who delights in turning up exactly where he’s least welcome, just as he took pleasure in a great deal of things that Alasdair found equally irritating the day before.
Irritating enough that he doesn’t bother to check himself before going with his first instinct and calling out, “What the hell are you doing here?”
The prince laughs; a high, tinkling sort of sound that grates against Alasdair’s already raw nerves. “That’s no way to talk to either a governor or a prince, Corporal Kirkland,” he says as he begins to descend the stairs. “Don’t make me regret yesterday’s decision to not have you flogged for insubordination.”
He jumps neatly down the last two steps, and then wanders towards Alasdair and Corporal Jones with an insouciance better suited to taking a leisurely turn around his overly manicured gardens.
As he draws near, Corporal Jones snaps out a smart salute and an even smarter, “Your Highness.”
Alasdair wonders whether she was already aware of that particular nuance of royal protocol, or that the captain had given the rest of the guards a debriefing on proper address, to prepare them just in case the prince ever did decide to come and stick his pointy nose in guard business again.
The prince nods at Jones indulgently, and then gives Alasdair a very expectant look.
Alasdair holds out as long as he can, but the chain of command is a weighty one, and it eventually crushes his defences into rubble despite his best efforts. “Sir,” he says grudgingly.
In a final, useless act of defiance, his salute is far sloppier than Jones’.
The prince looks gratified by it, regardless, which makes it feel even pettier. “Don’t let me keep you from your training,” he says. “Please, carry on. Watching you has been very educational so far.”
“Oh, we’re finished now, Your Highness,” Jones says before Alasdair has chance to reply. She tilts her head towards Alasdair and adds, “Thanks, Kirkland. I think I’m knackered enough to sleep now.”
Then, very deliberately and for no reason Alasdair can easily ascertain, she winks at him before scampering away towards the guardhouse at a speed which makes her claim of being knackered somewhat suspect.
Alasdair watches her go until she disappears from view, and then reluctantly returns his attention to the prince.
His hair is pulled back in a tight martial queue, tied with a length of sombre grey ribbon, and he appears to have shrunk a couple of inches; the top of his head barely reaching the level of Alasdair’s nose instead of his eyes as it had the previous day. Glancing down, Alasdair notes that his boots are plain riding ones, lacking the high elevation in the heel.
When he looks back up again, he finds the prince studying him with the same intensity he had subjected him to during their carriage rides.
Alasdair guesses that he must have once again demonstrated a skill that the prince patronisingly considers a marvellous achievement for someone of his lowly standing; a suspicion that is soon confirmed by the prince saying, “You’re very proficient with a sword, Corporal. Did your -“
“No, my da didn’t teach me,” Alasdair says, knowing now how the rest of that sentence is bound to go and having no wish to hear it. “My sister and I taught ourselves; out of a book at first, and then we just sort of made the rest up as we went along. I’m sure neither of us uses the proper techniques or anything, but we’ve managed to keep our heads on our shoulders and our guts in our bellies, regardless.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone untutored fight so well before,” the prince says. He doesn’t seem annoyed by having been pre-empted, but, instead, even more intrigued. “I’d relish the chance to test my mettle against you some day.”
“That doesn’t seem as though it’d be very fair, sir,” Alasdair says. He expects the prince to look puzzled, and he doesn’t disappoint.
“How so,” the prince says, frowning. “I was taught swordplay by the finest Rōman masters of the art. You’re talented, but I assure you I could more than hold my own against you.”
He should probably start writing his lies down, as he clearly can’t keep track of them otherwise. Alasdair’s caught him out twice on this one with no effort at all.
“It’s a shame that they didn’t take advantage of that skill during the last war,” he says blandly.
“How so?” the prince says, raising one fine, sculpted eyebrow.
“Well, they stuck you with those maps, sir, when it turns out you should have been out on the battlefield fighting, after all.” He shakes his head with mock sadness. “Seems like such a waste.”
The prince’s mouth twists angrily, but the rest of his expression doesn’t shift to match it. His blue eyes spark with good humour. “You have an unforgivingly good memory, Corporal.”
“Aye, I do.” Alasdair finds himself grinning without meaning to.
“I expect it’s a boon in your line of work.”
“It is.” With the conversation’s turn, Alasdair realises that perfect opportunity to cut it short. One which he readily takes. “And, speaking of my line of work, I really should get moving. I’m on the afternoon shift, and I could do with a wash and a bite to eat before it starts.
“Of course,” the prince says, flicking his hand towards the guardhouse in what appears to be a gesture of dismissal. “Please, don’t let me keep you.”
It appears to be a dismissal, but when Alasdair starts walking away, the prince immediately falls into step with him.
“I was on my way to speak to your captain before you distracted me,” the prince says; chidingly, as though Alasdair had deliberately set out to lead him astray. “I understand new evidence has been found in the Martinez case.”
Alasdair wonders if he’d heard the news from the captain herself, or if he has some other source of information secreted away in the guardhouse. Remembering his captain’s request to keep his eyes and ears open around the prince, Alasdair files that question away to share with her later.
He makes a noncommittal noise. “You’d be better off asking the captain about that, sir. I can’t say I know much about it.”
Though the prince doesn’t look particularly convinced by that, it doesn’t dispute it, either. In fact, he holds his peace completely as they enter and then move through the guardhouse, and it falls to Alasdair to eventually break their silence when they reach the locker room on the third floor.
“Well,” he says, resting his hand, palm flat, against the rough wood of the door. “This is me, then. I presume you remember your way to the captain’s office from here.”
The prince’s eyes stray towards the stairs which lead up to the fourth floor, but they are quick to return to Alasdair’s face. “I do,” he says slowly, “but I think I might prefer to take that tour we talked about yesterday now.”
“Really?” Alasdair asks incredulously, still not quite able to grasp the appeal of the idea. The guardhouse really has very little to recommend it.
The prince’s gaze remains steady for a beat or two longer, and then he sighs and casts it aside. “No, you’re right. I should continue on -“
Pounding footsteps thundering up the stairwell from the armoury drown out the prince’s next word, and then Corporal Ellis bursts suddenly into view.
“Thank the gods you’re here, Kirkland,” he says, flushed and breathing raggedly. “Report’s just come in; the morning patrols have found another body.”