The Prince and The Assassin chapter 08 part 01/10
Chapter 08: Vinni, Viddi, Vicci
*
Duo sighed as he opened the door to his uncle’s study.
It had been two days since that eventful meeting in the advisors’ meeting room. Heero was still stuck in the infirmary and the stitches in Duo’s arm weren’t ready to be taken out yet. Sally had begged, ordered, and guilt tripped him into staying the night in the infirmary, not that she really had to try that hard, so that she could keep an eye on both him and Heero at the same time.
Needless to say she disapproved of them pushing to cots together but didn’t protest when she realized that they had both passed out the moment they were comfortable. They were both exhausted beyond comprehension. Injuries, heartbreaks, reunions, revelations and all the stress in the world could make a person tired like that.
Heero had almost succeeded in preventing Duo from getting up that morning, with his pouty lips, pleading eyes, and extremely strong embrace, but eventually Duo knew his duty wouldn’t go away and Heero knew it too. As much as it tore him up to leave his lover after nearly losing him, Duo kissed him gently on the lips and left the infirmary to continue on with the necessary jobs before he could be crowned.
The desk in front of the window looked so innocent with its deep cherry color and its neat quills and parchments. Duo shuddered. He was going to go through everything his uncle had acquired for the passed thirteen years of his temporary reign and Duo had no doubts that some of the things he was going to find would repulse him beyond belief.
Taking the seat that countless kings had taken before him, Duo started his search with the top right hand drawer, smiling when he recognized the work of his lover’s abnormal strength.
It squealed in protest as Duo pulled it open only to find an array of jewel incrusted letter openers, quill whittlers, and the royal wax stamp. Shrugging, Duo moved to the top middle draw.
Now this drawer produced several rather interesting findings.
A roll of parchment revealed an enormous list of battalions and troops poised at strategic points around the Sanq border poised for attack on the neighboring kingdoms. Duo sighed in relief. He had watched the fastest messengers in the kingdom ride out that morning with notarized letters informing of the change in power and a brief summary of the events leading to it. That situation was taken care of, thank God. The dates next to the deployment locations were all frighteningly close and Duo hoped the messengers made it all the way around the kingdom before the first attack was launched.
Unrolling another thick roll of parchment, Duo’s eyes almost bugged out of his head. It read of a number of orders Dekim had placed with far off kingdoms for an enormous amount of enormously expensive luxuries.
Among the list were twenty African harem women, thirty half ton bales of Oriental silk in various colors, a cargo ship filled with the most sought after in goods from the Caribbean, Spanish, French, and Portuguese colonies: rum, bananas, chocolate, gold, turquoise, sterling silver, live barrels of crab and lobster among other just as unbelievable things. Duo kept reading growing deeper in despair with every page; bull and heifer elephants from the Indies, a snow tiger from the Siberian, a hundred bales of Egyptian cotton, the list went on and on.
He felt like crying. There was no way that the kingdom had enough to pay for even half of this. Dekim was planning on literally starving Duo’s people so he could be living like a God in a castle that wasn’t his on a throne that wasn’t meant for him.
Slamming the roll of orders down on the desk top, Duo rummages through the drawers with shaky hands until he found a ream of blank parchment. Wasting no time he drafted off a separate letter for every kingdom Dekim had ordered from explaining the situation and offering an apology, praying it would be enough to stave off their anger and inconvenience.
Shouting almost desperately for Quatre, Duo almost threw the notarized letters at the flustered blond. “Quatre I need these sent now!”
“But David-” Quatre almost protested
“No!” Duo snapped. “They must be on the next ships out of the harbor by tomorrow morning! Get them there or so help me, the whole kingdom will be doomed.”
Gasping, Quatre nodded and ran down the hall like a bat out of Hell.
Wiping a hand down his sweating face Duo tried not to collapse in the door way. The need to complete his task and the need to curl into the infirmary cot and cry in the arms of his lover warred inside Duo. Eventually he got a hold of himself and walked reluctantly back over to the desk.
Pulling out the remaining drawers Duo found records of the various wars Dekim had waged on the neighboring kingdoms, consensus of the pour and the rich (barely any rich), records of the treasury, and several tomes of journals written by both Duo’s father and Dekim himself.
Duo’s brow creased in a frown and he lifted the oldest journal with the starting date and ending date writing in neat swirling script across the front. He flipped to the first page, it read in the same neat elegant hand, King James Theodore Maxwell of Sanq Kingdom.
His breath caught. This was written by his father. He leaned back in his seat, turned the page and began to read.
Sunday, June 21,
I have been crowned King of Sanq and I fear that I have no earthly idea how to run a kingdom.
After Father’s death I was taught by the best tutors, loved unconditionally by my mother, and given every luxury and freedom imaginable, but today, right now, I’m quivering inside.
I’m frightened, Father. Frightened I will let you down and fail in the hope that I will be even half the king you were.
Duo wiped a tear from his cheek and held the opened journal close to his chest. He had very few memories of his father; quick impressions of laughter, the fuzzy picture of a handsome smiling face, and the memory of the smell of sunshine and fresh hay. He father had loved the stables and spent every minute he could with the horses and on the back of a horse in the sunshine.
Smiling lightly to himself, Duo opened his eyes, disappointed that he wasn’t still sitting in front of his father on the back of his favorite horse safe in his arms.
Shaking his head he turned back to the journal and continued to read through four more volumes of his father’s hopes, dreams, fears, life. He read about his parents’ wedding day, how happy and in love his father was. He read about the excitement his father had felt on the day of his birth. Then he read about his father’s sudden correspondence from his estranged half brother asking urgently for help.
Frowning Duo sat up and read with growing dread deep in his chest.
I received an urgent letter from Dekim this morning. He tells me his lands are in dire straights. He has requested I visit him and help him work on a solution to whatever problem he has found himself in.
I must confess, though, that the whole affair has me suspicious. Dekim has never made it a secret of how much he resented my being chosen as the heir to the throne when he was the older of us. I have often wondered of it myself, except that when I take into account the gossip of the court and what my father had told me of Dekim’s mother, Father’s first wife, that Dekim had taken after her more than was desired.
Like her, Dekim is devious and quick to jealousy. We didn’t get along much in childhood, but I cannot simply stand by when he, a brother, is in need of my help. If I travel to his lands I will have to be on my guard, this might be a ploy of some sort to request an extra allowance than what he already receives from the treasury.
Should I choose to travel to his lands and investigate his claims, then I would have to leave Gertrude and David and I, though I feel guilty in it, am more reluctant to leave them then my kingdom. Perhaps I have grown too much accustomed to having my own way…
Duo’s hands shook so much he couldn’t continue reading. A ploy to request money… devious and jealous… resented not being chosen as heir…
Flipping quickly through the rest of the pages of the journal Duo discovered that was the last entry made. Almost frantic he searched the remaining journals on the desk top, they were all written by Dekim.
“Oh God. Oh God!” Duo clutched at his bangs and tugged hard. Could it be possible that his father had not simply died in his duty to his kingdom? Could it be that Dekim…
Snatching up the first of Dekim’s journals Duo read with an almost desperate urgency.
Tuesday, November 14
I have finally succeeded. I am now king of Sanq, but I have found an obstacle in my way. James had birthed a son. Not only that but the child is clever, smart, and observant; he will be a problem that is obvious.
All the planning and waiting I have had to endure to reach this could possibly be for nothing if that little brat should turn out to be smart enough to rule on his eighteenth birthday. It could all be for naught.
I had thought is would all be finished when I had gotten word that the king’s guard I had paid off had accomplished murdering that wretched brother of mine. Five long years of planning and I finally get so close, murdering my brother, marrying his widow, and assuming the throne in his stead only to find that he had boy child for an heir…
Duo sat staring at the words without truly comprehending them. Dekim had murdered his father.
Dekim murdered his own brother, perhaps the greatest king to rule, and Duo’s beloved father just to get to the throne. The room began to spin and Duo thought he would surely fall from his seat until a pair strong arms and a startled voice cut through his frazzled mind.
“Duo!” Trowa shook his stunned cousin. “Duo, snap out of it!”
“Tro?” Duo blinked then, eyes widening, he clutched tightly to his cousin’s shirt front. “He killed him, Trowa! That bastard fucking killed him!”
“Who, Duo?” He had never seen his cousin like this before, it was scaring him. “What are you talking about?”
“Dekim!” Duo shouted in frustration and shock. “Dekim killed my father! He murdered my father so that he could get the throne.”
Trowa stared at his cousin trying to comprehend what he was saying. His gaze flitted over to the many journals spread over the desk then flicked back to his pale and furious cousin. “Fuck.”
“Exactly!” Letting go of Trowa’s shirt he picked up the journal that had shifted everything he knew. “Dekim gloated, Tro. He talked of my father’s death as if he were simply swatting at a fly.”
“God, I’m so sorry Duo.” Trowa sat on the desk and wrapped his still stunned cousin up into his arms, offering comfort.
“My dad!” Duo suddenly broke into sobs. “He loved me and that bastard killed him.”
Fighting back tears of his own Trowa nodded and rubbed Duo’s back. He may not have very many memories of James, but what he did have were warm and kind. “Duo, I have something to tell you.” It was time.
Taking calming breaths Duo pulled back and wiped at his damp face before looking expectantly at his cousin, wondering what it could possibly be. “You going to ask Quat to marry you?” He joked weakly.
Smiling lightly, Trowa shook his head. “Not quite yet.” Then he sighed and glanced down at his hands. “What I have to tell you, I fear, will present quite the problem.”
Frowning, Duo patted his friend’s knee. “It’s alright, Tro. Go ahead. We’ll sort it out, whatever it is.”
Feeling marginally more assured Trowa took a deep breath before plowing on. “I visited my mother in Paris, last summer.”
Nodding, Duo remembered it. He had wanted to accompany him and visit his favorite aunt but was prevented by his studies.
“She told me she had something to confess.” Trowa looked up and met his cousin’s confused eyes. “She told me that Dekim was not my father.”
Blinking, Duo smiled. “That’s great! You hated that bastard anyway.”
“That’s not all.” Trowa confessed, affectively quieting his cousin. “When I asked her who my father truly was she told me of her dislike for Dekim and her parents forcing her to go through with the marriage. Upset and afraid for her future, she told me that she ran to one of the guests the night before the wedding seeking a shoulder to cry on and someone to confide in, but ended up having a single night of passion with him instead.”
“Okay,” Duo hedged. “Are you going to tell you’re really the Duke of Earl or something?”
“Or something.” Trowa continued on. “She married Dekim before your father was crowned king and by laws of etiquette, James was required to attend the marriage.” Trowa took a deep breath. “My mother had one last night of passion with your father, Duo. James was my real father.”
Duo sat in silence and simply stared at his cousin… brother, not saying a word.
“Duo?” Trowa asked uncertainly. “I know this is a major surprise and I understand if you want to send me away or station me at the edges of the kingdom, but I had to-”
His sudden and uncharacteristic rambling was silenced with Duo’s fingers pressed to his lips. “You’re telling me,” Duo said, “that you’re my brother. That you’ve known this for a whole year and haven’t breathed a single syllable of it to me.”
Trowa nodded dejectedly. He was hoping Duo would have taken it better than this.
A surprising smile bloomed on Duo’s face shocking Trowa’s eyes wide. “I have a brother!” Duo shouted and jumped out of the chair and scooped Trowa up with surprising strength.
Spinning his startled brother around Duo dropped this taller man on his feet and scowled mockingly at him. “You asshole. You could have told me!”
“I-I… What?” Trowa had never found him self speechless, regardless of how little he normally spoke, but he had been fully prepared to be sent away as a threat to the throne.
“Tro-bro!” Duo smiled. “You should have told me! This is great! I’ve always wanted a brother!”
It was than that Trowa’s face broke into a stunning smile and he clutched at Duo’s shoulders. “You mean you’re not mad? You’re not going to exile me?”
“Fuck no!” Duo frowned. “Why would I do that?”
Of course. Trowa should have realized that this was no ordinary royal. This was his crazy and infinitely surprising little brother. “Never mind. You really want me as your brother?”
Clapping a hand on Trowa’s shoulder, Duo gave him a bright grin. “Defiantly! Now I don’t have to be king.” Trowa immediately turned pale and began to sweat. “I’m kidding!” Duo shouted with a laugh. “Jeez, Tro calm down, I was only kidding.”
“That’s not funny.” Trowa scowled at his still laughing brother while he pulled at his collar trying to get it to stop choking him.
A delicate ahem startled them both. Turning toward the entrance of the study, the brothers saw a nervous looking Gertrude standing there unsure of her self. “Am I interrupting something?”
Trowa was about to open his mouth and say yes, but Duo elbowed him before he could. “No, come on in.”
Gertrude stepped inside and averted her eyes from the angry glare Trowa was directing at her.
Duo elbowed him in the ribs again and scowled at him. “Tro, could you leave us alone please?”
Sighing and huffing in frustration Trowa bit back his refusal. “Yeah, don’t forget lunch before the meeting with the advisors.”
“Of course not, bro. Now beat it.” Duo waited until his newly discovered brother was out of the study before he turned his full attention back on his mother. “How may I help you?”
Gertrude watched as her son sat back down at the desk her beloved late husband used before his sudden death and Dekim, her recently dead husband, before he was killed trying kill David.
“Quatre told me that I should come and speak with you about the things that have been going on since I married Dekim.”
Duo shuffled all the diaries into two stacks: Dekim’s and James’. “Yes he told me.” Gesturing to the two seats on the opposite side of the desk, he invited, “Take a seat.”
After situating herself comfortably and watching Duo continue to open drawers and pull different things out, she mustered up the courage she so obviously lacked. “David, I realized that I have spent the last thirteen years with blinders on. What exactly has Dekim been doing?”
“Beside’s plotting my assassination, murdering my father, and attempting to spend my kingdom into irreparable debt?” Duo looked at her with a blank, but wholly adult face, making her feel terribly ignorant.
“What?” Her brow furrowed in confusion.
“Dekim, before he took the thrown, paid a guard in my father’s party to murder him while on his way to Dekim’s lands.” Duo took little satisfaction in seeing Gertrude turn pale.
Her stomach rolled, her body began to sweat and at the same time began to shiver. She didn’t notice that Duo was out of his seat until he had an arm around her shoulders and was holding a waste bin in front of her as she began to heave and wretched.
“It’s alright.” Duo soothed as he rubbed his mother’s shaking back through her dry heaves. “You didn’t know.”
“Oh God!” She gasped as tears began to leak from her burning eyes. “Oh God, James.”
Duo reached into his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief. He handed it to Gertrude before he walked to the door and shouted for a servant to take the bin away.
Returning to his mother’s side he pulled the other chair close and continued to rub her back comfortingly. Despite how indifferent he felt toward her, she had been there when Heero was teetering on the cusp of life and death and despite how he felt about her Gertrude had been deeply in love with James.
“How can you-” Gertrude gasped between sobs, “How can you stand to even look at me?”
“By remembering that you were ignorant.” Duo responded, not caring to spare her feelings.
“I-”, she gasped in horror, “I let him…”
Closing his eyes and fighting the urge to throw up him self with the images that brought to his mind, Duo said, “You didn’t know.”
She continued to cry and wallow in misery. Duo patted her on the shoulder than stood up and resumed his seat behind the desk. “Forgive me for not breaking the news to you more gently. I have not had the best of mornings. It was unkind of me.”
Gertrude didn’t respond, simply blew her nose in the lavender smelling handkerchief and nodded. “Is the kingdom in trouble?”
Duo flipped through another stack of treasury reports. “Not if I can help it. Dekim didn’t leave a lot to work with besides an obnoxiously full treasury, a volley of angry neighboring kingdoms, and a list of luxury orders so long I could wipe my ass with it for a year.”
Smiling despite her scandalized gasp at her son’s turn of phrase, Gertrude asked, “Is there anything I can do to help and make up for my ignorance?”
Looking up at her with a slightly startled expression Duo had to think for a second. Did he really want her privy to all that he was going to have to do in regards to the keeping the kingdom away from poverty and out of war.
A sudden thought hit him and his smile verged on mischievous. “Actually there is.” He pulled a sheet of parchment in front of him and began to scribble instructions. “There is a gang of street urchins in Peacemillion. I want you go into the city, find them, and invite them to the castle for my coronation.”
Thinking about the instructions while she watched Duo continue to scribble on the parchment, Gertrude asked, “Is this your gang, David?”
He glanced up at her in confusion as he finished writing. “How do you know about that?”
“When your uh… friend Solo came to visit you, Quatre explained to me about your sneaking out of the castle.” Gertrude watched him wearily. He now held all the power in the kingdom and if he decided retribution was in order for her invasion of his privacy, he would have no opposition.
Instead he rolled his eyes, folded up the parchment, pulled out another one and began to draft a hasty letter. “I should have known Quarter would spill the beans. Yeah, it’s my gang.”
He signed at the end of the letter took out the royal wax stamp and passed the royal crest into the hot wax before standing up and handing both the letter and the instructions to Gertrude. “This,” he lifted the folded piece of paper, “is a list of the places the gang might be hiding out at and a list of their names. And this,” he handed her the sealed letter, “is a letter you must hand to Solo personally. Do not hand it to anybody else but him. Do you understand me?”
“Why must I hand it to him?” Gertrude frowned down at the two pieces of parchment in her hands. She didn’t want to go into Peacemillion, had only been through when she was traveling, but she would do it if David asked her. She had to atone for her sins someway.
“Because,” Duo explained gravely, “he won’t take a single step toward the castle unless he knows I’ve sent for him.”
Gertrude frowned, but didn’t comment. Standing she headed toward the door to fulfill her task but turned before she stepped out of the room and glanced back at her very mature and amazing son. “David?”
He glanced up from the papers he had begun to read, waiting for her to continue.
“When you are crowned,” she asked with some trepidation, “will you truly send me away?”
Duo didn’t respond right away but eventually he looked her in the eye and said simply, “We’ll discuss it when we come to it.”
Feeling a sinking in her chest Gertrude simply nodded and left to accomplish her task.
*
Chapter 08 part 02
*
Duo sighed as he opened the door to his uncle’s study.
It had been two days since that eventful meeting in the advisors’ meeting room. Heero was still stuck in the infirmary and the stitches in Duo’s arm weren’t ready to be taken out yet. Sally had begged, ordered, and guilt tripped him into staying the night in the infirmary, not that she really had to try that hard, so that she could keep an eye on both him and Heero at the same time.
Needless to say she disapproved of them pushing to cots together but didn’t protest when she realized that they had both passed out the moment they were comfortable. They were both exhausted beyond comprehension. Injuries, heartbreaks, reunions, revelations and all the stress in the world could make a person tired like that.
Heero had almost succeeded in preventing Duo from getting up that morning, with his pouty lips, pleading eyes, and extremely strong embrace, but eventually Duo knew his duty wouldn’t go away and Heero knew it too. As much as it tore him up to leave his lover after nearly losing him, Duo kissed him gently on the lips and left the infirmary to continue on with the necessary jobs before he could be crowned.
The desk in front of the window looked so innocent with its deep cherry color and its neat quills and parchments. Duo shuddered. He was going to go through everything his uncle had acquired for the passed thirteen years of his temporary reign and Duo had no doubts that some of the things he was going to find would repulse him beyond belief.
Taking the seat that countless kings had taken before him, Duo started his search with the top right hand drawer, smiling when he recognized the work of his lover’s abnormal strength.
It squealed in protest as Duo pulled it open only to find an array of jewel incrusted letter openers, quill whittlers, and the royal wax stamp. Shrugging, Duo moved to the top middle draw.
Now this drawer produced several rather interesting findings.
A roll of parchment revealed an enormous list of battalions and troops poised at strategic points around the Sanq border poised for attack on the neighboring kingdoms. Duo sighed in relief. He had watched the fastest messengers in the kingdom ride out that morning with notarized letters informing of the change in power and a brief summary of the events leading to it. That situation was taken care of, thank God. The dates next to the deployment locations were all frighteningly close and Duo hoped the messengers made it all the way around the kingdom before the first attack was launched.
Unrolling another thick roll of parchment, Duo’s eyes almost bugged out of his head. It read of a number of orders Dekim had placed with far off kingdoms for an enormous amount of enormously expensive luxuries.
Among the list were twenty African harem women, thirty half ton bales of Oriental silk in various colors, a cargo ship filled with the most sought after in goods from the Caribbean, Spanish, French, and Portuguese colonies: rum, bananas, chocolate, gold, turquoise, sterling silver, live barrels of crab and lobster among other just as unbelievable things. Duo kept reading growing deeper in despair with every page; bull and heifer elephants from the Indies, a snow tiger from the Siberian, a hundred bales of Egyptian cotton, the list went on and on.
He felt like crying. There was no way that the kingdom had enough to pay for even half of this. Dekim was planning on literally starving Duo’s people so he could be living like a God in a castle that wasn’t his on a throne that wasn’t meant for him.
Slamming the roll of orders down on the desk top, Duo rummages through the drawers with shaky hands until he found a ream of blank parchment. Wasting no time he drafted off a separate letter for every kingdom Dekim had ordered from explaining the situation and offering an apology, praying it would be enough to stave off their anger and inconvenience.
Shouting almost desperately for Quatre, Duo almost threw the notarized letters at the flustered blond. “Quatre I need these sent now!”
“But David-” Quatre almost protested
“No!” Duo snapped. “They must be on the next ships out of the harbor by tomorrow morning! Get them there or so help me, the whole kingdom will be doomed.”
Gasping, Quatre nodded and ran down the hall like a bat out of Hell.
Wiping a hand down his sweating face Duo tried not to collapse in the door way. The need to complete his task and the need to curl into the infirmary cot and cry in the arms of his lover warred inside Duo. Eventually he got a hold of himself and walked reluctantly back over to the desk.
Pulling out the remaining drawers Duo found records of the various wars Dekim had waged on the neighboring kingdoms, consensus of the pour and the rich (barely any rich), records of the treasury, and several tomes of journals written by both Duo’s father and Dekim himself.
Duo’s brow creased in a frown and he lifted the oldest journal with the starting date and ending date writing in neat swirling script across the front. He flipped to the first page, it read in the same neat elegant hand, King James Theodore Maxwell of Sanq Kingdom.
His breath caught. This was written by his father. He leaned back in his seat, turned the page and began to read.
Sunday, June 21,
I have been crowned King of Sanq and I fear that I have no earthly idea how to run a kingdom.
After Father’s death I was taught by the best tutors, loved unconditionally by my mother, and given every luxury and freedom imaginable, but today, right now, I’m quivering inside.
I’m frightened, Father. Frightened I will let you down and fail in the hope that I will be even half the king you were.
Duo wiped a tear from his cheek and held the opened journal close to his chest. He had very few memories of his father; quick impressions of laughter, the fuzzy picture of a handsome smiling face, and the memory of the smell of sunshine and fresh hay. He father had loved the stables and spent every minute he could with the horses and on the back of a horse in the sunshine.
Smiling lightly to himself, Duo opened his eyes, disappointed that he wasn’t still sitting in front of his father on the back of his favorite horse safe in his arms.
Shaking his head he turned back to the journal and continued to read through four more volumes of his father’s hopes, dreams, fears, life. He read about his parents’ wedding day, how happy and in love his father was. He read about the excitement his father had felt on the day of his birth. Then he read about his father’s sudden correspondence from his estranged half brother asking urgently for help.
Frowning Duo sat up and read with growing dread deep in his chest.
I received an urgent letter from Dekim this morning. He tells me his lands are in dire straights. He has requested I visit him and help him work on a solution to whatever problem he has found himself in.
I must confess, though, that the whole affair has me suspicious. Dekim has never made it a secret of how much he resented my being chosen as the heir to the throne when he was the older of us. I have often wondered of it myself, except that when I take into account the gossip of the court and what my father had told me of Dekim’s mother, Father’s first wife, that Dekim had taken after her more than was desired.
Like her, Dekim is devious and quick to jealousy. We didn’t get along much in childhood, but I cannot simply stand by when he, a brother, is in need of my help. If I travel to his lands I will have to be on my guard, this might be a ploy of some sort to request an extra allowance than what he already receives from the treasury.
Should I choose to travel to his lands and investigate his claims, then I would have to leave Gertrude and David and I, though I feel guilty in it, am more reluctant to leave them then my kingdom. Perhaps I have grown too much accustomed to having my own way…
Duo’s hands shook so much he couldn’t continue reading. A ploy to request money… devious and jealous… resented not being chosen as heir…
Flipping quickly through the rest of the pages of the journal Duo discovered that was the last entry made. Almost frantic he searched the remaining journals on the desk top, they were all written by Dekim.
“Oh God. Oh God!” Duo clutched at his bangs and tugged hard. Could it be possible that his father had not simply died in his duty to his kingdom? Could it be that Dekim…
Snatching up the first of Dekim’s journals Duo read with an almost desperate urgency.
Tuesday, November 14
I have finally succeeded. I am now king of Sanq, but I have found an obstacle in my way. James had birthed a son. Not only that but the child is clever, smart, and observant; he will be a problem that is obvious.
All the planning and waiting I have had to endure to reach this could possibly be for nothing if that little brat should turn out to be smart enough to rule on his eighteenth birthday. It could all be for naught.
I had thought is would all be finished when I had gotten word that the king’s guard I had paid off had accomplished murdering that wretched brother of mine. Five long years of planning and I finally get so close, murdering my brother, marrying his widow, and assuming the throne in his stead only to find that he had boy child for an heir…
Duo sat staring at the words without truly comprehending them. Dekim had murdered his father.
Dekim murdered his own brother, perhaps the greatest king to rule, and Duo’s beloved father just to get to the throne. The room began to spin and Duo thought he would surely fall from his seat until a pair strong arms and a startled voice cut through his frazzled mind.
“Duo!” Trowa shook his stunned cousin. “Duo, snap out of it!”
“Tro?” Duo blinked then, eyes widening, he clutched tightly to his cousin’s shirt front. “He killed him, Trowa! That bastard fucking killed him!”
“Who, Duo?” He had never seen his cousin like this before, it was scaring him. “What are you talking about?”
“Dekim!” Duo shouted in frustration and shock. “Dekim killed my father! He murdered my father so that he could get the throne.”
Trowa stared at his cousin trying to comprehend what he was saying. His gaze flitted over to the many journals spread over the desk then flicked back to his pale and furious cousin. “Fuck.”
“Exactly!” Letting go of Trowa’s shirt he picked up the journal that had shifted everything he knew. “Dekim gloated, Tro. He talked of my father’s death as if he were simply swatting at a fly.”
“God, I’m so sorry Duo.” Trowa sat on the desk and wrapped his still stunned cousin up into his arms, offering comfort.
“My dad!” Duo suddenly broke into sobs. “He loved me and that bastard killed him.”
Fighting back tears of his own Trowa nodded and rubbed Duo’s back. He may not have very many memories of James, but what he did have were warm and kind. “Duo, I have something to tell you.” It was time.
Taking calming breaths Duo pulled back and wiped at his damp face before looking expectantly at his cousin, wondering what it could possibly be. “You going to ask Quat to marry you?” He joked weakly.
Smiling lightly, Trowa shook his head. “Not quite yet.” Then he sighed and glanced down at his hands. “What I have to tell you, I fear, will present quite the problem.”
Frowning, Duo patted his friend’s knee. “It’s alright, Tro. Go ahead. We’ll sort it out, whatever it is.”
Feeling marginally more assured Trowa took a deep breath before plowing on. “I visited my mother in Paris, last summer.”
Nodding, Duo remembered it. He had wanted to accompany him and visit his favorite aunt but was prevented by his studies.
“She told me she had something to confess.” Trowa looked up and met his cousin’s confused eyes. “She told me that Dekim was not my father.”
Blinking, Duo smiled. “That’s great! You hated that bastard anyway.”
“That’s not all.” Trowa confessed, affectively quieting his cousin. “When I asked her who my father truly was she told me of her dislike for Dekim and her parents forcing her to go through with the marriage. Upset and afraid for her future, she told me that she ran to one of the guests the night before the wedding seeking a shoulder to cry on and someone to confide in, but ended up having a single night of passion with him instead.”
“Okay,” Duo hedged. “Are you going to tell you’re really the Duke of Earl or something?”
“Or something.” Trowa continued on. “She married Dekim before your father was crowned king and by laws of etiquette, James was required to attend the marriage.” Trowa took a deep breath. “My mother had one last night of passion with your father, Duo. James was my real father.”
Duo sat in silence and simply stared at his cousin… brother, not saying a word.
“Duo?” Trowa asked uncertainly. “I know this is a major surprise and I understand if you want to send me away or station me at the edges of the kingdom, but I had to-”
His sudden and uncharacteristic rambling was silenced with Duo’s fingers pressed to his lips. “You’re telling me,” Duo said, “that you’re my brother. That you’ve known this for a whole year and haven’t breathed a single syllable of it to me.”
Trowa nodded dejectedly. He was hoping Duo would have taken it better than this.
A surprising smile bloomed on Duo’s face shocking Trowa’s eyes wide. “I have a brother!” Duo shouted and jumped out of the chair and scooped Trowa up with surprising strength.
Spinning his startled brother around Duo dropped this taller man on his feet and scowled mockingly at him. “You asshole. You could have told me!”
“I-I… What?” Trowa had never found him self speechless, regardless of how little he normally spoke, but he had been fully prepared to be sent away as a threat to the throne.
“Tro-bro!” Duo smiled. “You should have told me! This is great! I’ve always wanted a brother!”
It was than that Trowa’s face broke into a stunning smile and he clutched at Duo’s shoulders. “You mean you’re not mad? You’re not going to exile me?”
“Fuck no!” Duo frowned. “Why would I do that?”
Of course. Trowa should have realized that this was no ordinary royal. This was his crazy and infinitely surprising little brother. “Never mind. You really want me as your brother?”
Clapping a hand on Trowa’s shoulder, Duo gave him a bright grin. “Defiantly! Now I don’t have to be king.” Trowa immediately turned pale and began to sweat. “I’m kidding!” Duo shouted with a laugh. “Jeez, Tro calm down, I was only kidding.”
“That’s not funny.” Trowa scowled at his still laughing brother while he pulled at his collar trying to get it to stop choking him.
A delicate ahem startled them both. Turning toward the entrance of the study, the brothers saw a nervous looking Gertrude standing there unsure of her self. “Am I interrupting something?”
Trowa was about to open his mouth and say yes, but Duo elbowed him before he could. “No, come on in.”
Gertrude stepped inside and averted her eyes from the angry glare Trowa was directing at her.
Duo elbowed him in the ribs again and scowled at him. “Tro, could you leave us alone please?”
Sighing and huffing in frustration Trowa bit back his refusal. “Yeah, don’t forget lunch before the meeting with the advisors.”
“Of course not, bro. Now beat it.” Duo waited until his newly discovered brother was out of the study before he turned his full attention back on his mother. “How may I help you?”
Gertrude watched as her son sat back down at the desk her beloved late husband used before his sudden death and Dekim, her recently dead husband, before he was killed trying kill David.
“Quatre told me that I should come and speak with you about the things that have been going on since I married Dekim.”
Duo shuffled all the diaries into two stacks: Dekim’s and James’. “Yes he told me.” Gesturing to the two seats on the opposite side of the desk, he invited, “Take a seat.”
After situating herself comfortably and watching Duo continue to open drawers and pull different things out, she mustered up the courage she so obviously lacked. “David, I realized that I have spent the last thirteen years with blinders on. What exactly has Dekim been doing?”
“Beside’s plotting my assassination, murdering my father, and attempting to spend my kingdom into irreparable debt?” Duo looked at her with a blank, but wholly adult face, making her feel terribly ignorant.
“What?” Her brow furrowed in confusion.
“Dekim, before he took the thrown, paid a guard in my father’s party to murder him while on his way to Dekim’s lands.” Duo took little satisfaction in seeing Gertrude turn pale.
Her stomach rolled, her body began to sweat and at the same time began to shiver. She didn’t notice that Duo was out of his seat until he had an arm around her shoulders and was holding a waste bin in front of her as she began to heave and wretched.
“It’s alright.” Duo soothed as he rubbed his mother’s shaking back through her dry heaves. “You didn’t know.”
“Oh God!” She gasped as tears began to leak from her burning eyes. “Oh God, James.”
Duo reached into his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief. He handed it to Gertrude before he walked to the door and shouted for a servant to take the bin away.
Returning to his mother’s side he pulled the other chair close and continued to rub her back comfortingly. Despite how indifferent he felt toward her, she had been there when Heero was teetering on the cusp of life and death and despite how he felt about her Gertrude had been deeply in love with James.
“How can you-” Gertrude gasped between sobs, “How can you stand to even look at me?”
“By remembering that you were ignorant.” Duo responded, not caring to spare her feelings.
“I-”, she gasped in horror, “I let him…”
Closing his eyes and fighting the urge to throw up him self with the images that brought to his mind, Duo said, “You didn’t know.”
She continued to cry and wallow in misery. Duo patted her on the shoulder than stood up and resumed his seat behind the desk. “Forgive me for not breaking the news to you more gently. I have not had the best of mornings. It was unkind of me.”
Gertrude didn’t respond, simply blew her nose in the lavender smelling handkerchief and nodded. “Is the kingdom in trouble?”
Duo flipped through another stack of treasury reports. “Not if I can help it. Dekim didn’t leave a lot to work with besides an obnoxiously full treasury, a volley of angry neighboring kingdoms, and a list of luxury orders so long I could wipe my ass with it for a year.”
Smiling despite her scandalized gasp at her son’s turn of phrase, Gertrude asked, “Is there anything I can do to help and make up for my ignorance?”
Looking up at her with a slightly startled expression Duo had to think for a second. Did he really want her privy to all that he was going to have to do in regards to the keeping the kingdom away from poverty and out of war.
A sudden thought hit him and his smile verged on mischievous. “Actually there is.” He pulled a sheet of parchment in front of him and began to scribble instructions. “There is a gang of street urchins in Peacemillion. I want you go into the city, find them, and invite them to the castle for my coronation.”
Thinking about the instructions while she watched Duo continue to scribble on the parchment, Gertrude asked, “Is this your gang, David?”
He glanced up at her in confusion as he finished writing. “How do you know about that?”
“When your uh… friend Solo came to visit you, Quatre explained to me about your sneaking out of the castle.” Gertrude watched him wearily. He now held all the power in the kingdom and if he decided retribution was in order for her invasion of his privacy, he would have no opposition.
Instead he rolled his eyes, folded up the parchment, pulled out another one and began to draft a hasty letter. “I should have known Quarter would spill the beans. Yeah, it’s my gang.”
He signed at the end of the letter took out the royal wax stamp and passed the royal crest into the hot wax before standing up and handing both the letter and the instructions to Gertrude. “This,” he lifted the folded piece of paper, “is a list of the places the gang might be hiding out at and a list of their names. And this,” he handed her the sealed letter, “is a letter you must hand to Solo personally. Do not hand it to anybody else but him. Do you understand me?”
“Why must I hand it to him?” Gertrude frowned down at the two pieces of parchment in her hands. She didn’t want to go into Peacemillion, had only been through when she was traveling, but she would do it if David asked her. She had to atone for her sins someway.
“Because,” Duo explained gravely, “he won’t take a single step toward the castle unless he knows I’ve sent for him.”
Gertrude frowned, but didn’t comment. Standing she headed toward the door to fulfill her task but turned before she stepped out of the room and glanced back at her very mature and amazing son. “David?”
He glanced up from the papers he had begun to read, waiting for her to continue.
“When you are crowned,” she asked with some trepidation, “will you truly send me away?”
Duo didn’t respond right away but eventually he looked her in the eye and said simply, “We’ll discuss it when we come to it.”
Feeling a sinking in her chest Gertrude simply nodded and left to accomplish her task.
*
Chapter 08 part 02