(no subject)
Hypothesis - If Lady Margolotta von Uberwald had not been a Black Ribboner when the young Havelock Vetinari travelled into her country, things may have gone a little like this.
Disclaimers: Obviously, I own none of these characters, nor the world they inhabit. My voice for Margolotta is terrible, but this was only meant to be swift AU backstory, for Pete's sake. Some of the concepts contained herein may be discomfiting, but nothing is explicit.
...Look, it's been years since I've had to write one of these things.
~~~~~
Perhaps it was a mistake to try and avoid entanglements with the vampires.
Other young men around his age, when they returned to the Guild, spoke of the town in low voices, prideful with a tinge of awe. It was a life experience. Those other chaps who gave Uberwald a miss just didn't have the same depth of self-knowledge they had acquired. And these stiffly-starched high collars looked simply corking for any occasion, don't you find?
Havelock thought quietly to himself that exsanguination and quite probable mental domination scenarios were things he could do well enough without. There was quite enough of that sort of thing at Milliways, even not counting one or two evenings in with Puck that had got, on reflection, a little out of hand.
(He'd apologised most sincerely afterwards.)
He didn't think that many others had noticed, since Assassins were the trendsetters; being mainly young gentlemen of the upper classes that would go onto Greater Things, it was slightly depressing that nobody else had seen the risk - an entire generation of Ankh-Morpork's future leaders susceptible to slight mental pressure from a foreign nation. Or, perhaps, just one foreign citizen with a wide reach.
~~~~~
The trouble being, of course, that Havelock needs to study Uberwald. It is a significant power, although generally regarded as slowly losing the battle for modernity, and only a fool ignored a potential future enemy or ally.
Possibly a fool also judges themselves reasonably safe if they are clever enough to blend in with the natives of the region, rather than striding in as if he owned the place, speaking very slowly in loud Morporkian. Havelock watches Smethwyn impassively, paying more attention to the low conversation of the peasants by the side of the road. They are pleased to see the younger assassin, it seems. One more night of safety for their village while the Lady was in residence.
It isn't honourable, what he is doing, but it isn't an honourable world. People can only pretend, and that doesn't suit him right now.
And Smethwyn is in no more danger than if he had been alone.
Just no less, either.
~~~~~
He knows he's in trouble the moment a cool feminine voice rings out in the darkness of the room.
There's a certain tone to a woman's voice when she is completely in control, and Havelock grew up knowing it. (He almost feels nostalgic, even as he goes for a knife - only to find them all inexplicably missing.)
"Now, now, young assassin," the vampire continues, and her voice is gently chiding. "That's no vay to behave tovards a lady."
Oh, really?
"With respect, Ma'am," Havelock says, voice as dry as midday in Klatch (because some lines are too good for even the terminally taciturn to avoid), "Entering a gentleman's bedroom alone is no behaviour for a lady."
A few notable exceptions notwithstanding.
"I think I can forgive myself."
"Can you indeed?" A soft whisper of sound, just on the edge of hearing, and she is visible in one corner of the room by the flicker of a candle, and it is most definitely not the hovel where he went to sleep.
Hmm.
"And I thought you Assassins vere so set on your code of honour. Nil mortifi sine lucre, is it not?"
"Generally."
She watches him, dark eyes warm and interested in the pleasant face of an attractive woman maturing gracefully. Havelock stands very still, but he can feel himself tensing.
"Relax, young Master Vetinari," she says, and in a disorienting rush, he feels himself doing just that. The vampire's manners are good, she is evidently a reasonable woman--
Thirteen students last year, pale but feverishly talkative in the final year common room, had all returned within days of one another, odds of that being a coincidence?
He leans away as she reaches to touch his hair, the thought like ice cracking in his mind.
"Seven seconds," she says, voice soft and satisfied.
That was the point where he realised he might not get out of this intact.
~~~~
Havelock faces her, sword hilt heavy in his hand. "You are faster than I am," he says quietly, stating a fact. "Stronger, too, I do not doubt."
"Yes," she says, smiling. "Being what I am is quite the advantage. But you must vonder, am I more intelligent than you? You must have a trick or two up your sleeve. And if I kill you, boy, it vill not be with a sword."
She lifts the blade, levelling it at his chest.
"Unless you let me."
"No."
Her smile sharpens, showing a hint of sharp fang and she strikes, a quick twist to one side that he parries automatically. It was light, and he turns it aside easily, but it had been fast. If he hadn't been used to sparring with a faerie... She raises a cultured eyebrow.
He is being tested; and if he fails deliberately, he will probably die.
That could be a problem.
~~~~~~
Her name (in the short form) is Lady Margolotta, and she watches him to a discomfiting degree, both when they are fighting, and when they are not.
She had called a respite to the last bout just before he dropped from exhaustion. Havelock thinks, in a cold quiet way, that he will not last through the next. He is bleeding, here and there, but she seems in remarkable control save for a slight gleam in the eyes.
"Vhat do you have to go back to?" she asks him, as bright and polite as if they are sitting over afternoon tea together, and for a moment he thinks she means Milliways.
"The city," he says after a moment, leaning against the cold stone wall. He needs the support, although he had refused to sit.
"Of course," she agrees, and her smile gleams with interest. "You know, so many of you young assassins aspire to rule there. You are the first that I can actually see doing it."
Havelock laughs humourlessly.
"They want to be Patrician. They do not want to work for it, or at it once they are."
"But you do."
"I will."
Assuming he gets out of this alive, of course. Appealing to her reason seems the best course - she has not bitten him yet, nor tried to influence his mind again after her first attempt. He does not want to be subject to that strange influence he had observed in the other boys. It would be inconvenient.
Besides, Puck - Grand Master of becoming subject to thrall - would never let him hear the end of it.
~~~~~
"The key to ruling effectively has alvays been fear. Fear of an overlord, fear of an outside aggressor - both are binding."
"Yes," he says, voice still ragged but thoughtful. "But it will not always be so. People want security, and fear undermines that."
"An assassin, averse to rule by terror?" she asks, amused.
He lifts his eyes to hers, cool and studying under sweat-soaked hair. "Don't pretend to believe that's what I am. I haven't followed their code in years."
"And yet you live?"
"And therefore I live."
A long silence.
"For how much longer, only you can say."
Margolotta reaches forward to brush his hair aside. His expression hardens, but he doesn't move away. Her fingers are cold against the heat of his skin, but her voice is as warm as the candlelight.
“Far longer than you think.”
~~~~~
"No."
"You're very stubborn, for someone vith political ambition. I am offering you all you have alvays vanted."
"And-- in return?"
"Oh, politics, boy. One of mine as Patrician, surely you can see the appeal in that?"
"I will not serve another's interests over those of the city."
"Not even your own?"
Havelock doesn't reply, only tests her hold on him once more. Her slim fingers are like iron.
"No," Lady Margolotta says, and it sounds like agreement. "I see not. But I am not going to let you go, you know. I do not trust that mind of yours."
She sits back in her armchair, looking mildly vexed. It is soft, and the upholstery is pink. Havelock wonders idly from the floor in front of her if she always had the tastes of somebody's grandmother, then realises his attention is slipping.
Fatigue.
And probably the vampire, too. For someone who employs kidnap as standard practise, she certainly has her own brand of subtlety.
He glances up to meet her stare.
"Yes," she says coolly. "That is vhat I mean. You do not often hold to only one train of thought-- do you, Havelock?"
"I--"
Window is too high up to jump but could perhaps be climbed will she intervene yes so instead keep reasoning suppose a three second reaction time but mine is negated already think faster if she tries again don't know if tacito, tacitas, tacitat, tacitamus, tacitatis, tacitant...
"--Occupational hazard."
"Hmm."
~~~~~
Logically thinking -
If there is a feasible way to escape, I cannot find it.
I have been trying to fight for hours. My physical resources were initially limited, and are now at an end.
Reason has not prevailed. Mine or hers, and even if mine is questionable right now, I can only work with what occurs.
It will not do to become subject to the command of another. That will not be in the best interests of anyone.
Perhaps not even hers.
Given this - there is one option left to me.
(Puck. I'm--)
~~~~~
His consent is given out of no real choice at all, the vampire knows, but it pleases her that he gave it-- eventually. His mind is a weapon, this one, and to make him subservient would be to dull its edge. He will fight her, but she thinks she can rely on his pragmatism, along with the very subtlest touch of her influence, to counter that.
He will need to learn from her, if he wishes to keep in control.
The Vetinari boy is losing consciousness fast, even fighting against the bloodloss, body tense against hers as the sharpness in his eyes goes distant, before the lids slide slowly closed. It has been rather a time since she began, Margolotta realises, mildly surprised. The sun is nearly up.
She stands and steps back, drawing one of the knives he had carried. It seems appropriate, and it is sharp enough that she only needs to draw it smooth and neat across her own wrist with a frown for the necessary mess. There, that cardigan will never be the same. But she rather thinks, bending solicitously forward, that he will be worth it.
Disclaimers: Obviously, I own none of these characters, nor the world they inhabit. My voice for Margolotta is terrible, but this was only meant to be swift AU backstory, for Pete's sake. Some of the concepts contained herein may be discomfiting, but nothing is explicit.
...Look, it's been years since I've had to write one of these things.
~~~~~
Perhaps it was a mistake to try and avoid entanglements with the vampires.
Other young men around his age, when they returned to the Guild, spoke of the town in low voices, prideful with a tinge of awe. It was a life experience. Those other chaps who gave Uberwald a miss just didn't have the same depth of self-knowledge they had acquired. And these stiffly-starched high collars looked simply corking for any occasion, don't you find?
Havelock thought quietly to himself that exsanguination and quite probable mental domination scenarios were things he could do well enough without. There was quite enough of that sort of thing at Milliways, even not counting one or two evenings in with Puck that had got, on reflection, a little out of hand.
(He'd apologised most sincerely afterwards.)
He didn't think that many others had noticed, since Assassins were the trendsetters; being mainly young gentlemen of the upper classes that would go onto Greater Things, it was slightly depressing that nobody else had seen the risk - an entire generation of Ankh-Morpork's future leaders susceptible to slight mental pressure from a foreign nation. Or, perhaps, just one foreign citizen with a wide reach.
~~~~~
The trouble being, of course, that Havelock needs to study Uberwald. It is a significant power, although generally regarded as slowly losing the battle for modernity, and only a fool ignored a potential future enemy or ally.
Possibly a fool also judges themselves reasonably safe if they are clever enough to blend in with the natives of the region, rather than striding in as if he owned the place, speaking very slowly in loud Morporkian. Havelock watches Smethwyn impassively, paying more attention to the low conversation of the peasants by the side of the road. They are pleased to see the younger assassin, it seems. One more night of safety for their village while the Lady was in residence.
It isn't honourable, what he is doing, but it isn't an honourable world. People can only pretend, and that doesn't suit him right now.
And Smethwyn is in no more danger than if he had been alone.
Just no less, either.
~~~~~
He knows he's in trouble the moment a cool feminine voice rings out in the darkness of the room.
There's a certain tone to a woman's voice when she is completely in control, and Havelock grew up knowing it. (He almost feels nostalgic, even as he goes for a knife - only to find them all inexplicably missing.)
"Now, now, young assassin," the vampire continues, and her voice is gently chiding. "That's no vay to behave tovards a lady."
Oh, really?
"With respect, Ma'am," Havelock says, voice as dry as midday in Klatch (because some lines are too good for even the terminally taciturn to avoid), "Entering a gentleman's bedroom alone is no behaviour for a lady."
A few notable exceptions notwithstanding.
"I think I can forgive myself."
"Can you indeed?" A soft whisper of sound, just on the edge of hearing, and she is visible in one corner of the room by the flicker of a candle, and it is most definitely not the hovel where he went to sleep.
Hmm.
"And I thought you Assassins vere so set on your code of honour. Nil mortifi sine lucre, is it not?"
"Generally."
She watches him, dark eyes warm and interested in the pleasant face of an attractive woman maturing gracefully. Havelock stands very still, but he can feel himself tensing.
"Relax, young Master Vetinari," she says, and in a disorienting rush, he feels himself doing just that. The vampire's manners are good, she is evidently a reasonable woman--
Thirteen students last year, pale but feverishly talkative in the final year common room, had all returned within days of one another, odds of that being a coincidence?
He leans away as she reaches to touch his hair, the thought like ice cracking in his mind.
"Seven seconds," she says, voice soft and satisfied.
That was the point where he realised he might not get out of this intact.
~~~~
Havelock faces her, sword hilt heavy in his hand. "You are faster than I am," he says quietly, stating a fact. "Stronger, too, I do not doubt."
"Yes," she says, smiling. "Being what I am is quite the advantage. But you must vonder, am I more intelligent than you? You must have a trick or two up your sleeve. And if I kill you, boy, it vill not be with a sword."
She lifts the blade, levelling it at his chest.
"Unless you let me."
"No."
Her smile sharpens, showing a hint of sharp fang and she strikes, a quick twist to one side that he parries automatically. It was light, and he turns it aside easily, but it had been fast. If he hadn't been used to sparring with a faerie... She raises a cultured eyebrow.
He is being tested; and if he fails deliberately, he will probably die.
That could be a problem.
~~~~~~
Her name (in the short form) is Lady Margolotta, and she watches him to a discomfiting degree, both when they are fighting, and when they are not.
She had called a respite to the last bout just before he dropped from exhaustion. Havelock thinks, in a cold quiet way, that he will not last through the next. He is bleeding, here and there, but she seems in remarkable control save for a slight gleam in the eyes.
"Vhat do you have to go back to?" she asks him, as bright and polite as if they are sitting over afternoon tea together, and for a moment he thinks she means Milliways.
"The city," he says after a moment, leaning against the cold stone wall. He needs the support, although he had refused to sit.
"Of course," she agrees, and her smile gleams with interest. "You know, so many of you young assassins aspire to rule there. You are the first that I can actually see doing it."
Havelock laughs humourlessly.
"They want to be Patrician. They do not want to work for it, or at it once they are."
"But you do."
"I will."
Assuming he gets out of this alive, of course. Appealing to her reason seems the best course - she has not bitten him yet, nor tried to influence his mind again after her first attempt. He does not want to be subject to that strange influence he had observed in the other boys. It would be inconvenient.
Besides, Puck - Grand Master of becoming subject to thrall - would never let him hear the end of it.
~~~~~
"The key to ruling effectively has alvays been fear. Fear of an overlord, fear of an outside aggressor - both are binding."
"Yes," he says, voice still ragged but thoughtful. "But it will not always be so. People want security, and fear undermines that."
"An assassin, averse to rule by terror?" she asks, amused.
He lifts his eyes to hers, cool and studying under sweat-soaked hair. "Don't pretend to believe that's what I am. I haven't followed their code in years."
"And yet you live?"
"And therefore I live."
A long silence.
"For how much longer, only you can say."
Margolotta reaches forward to brush his hair aside. His expression hardens, but he doesn't move away. Her fingers are cold against the heat of his skin, but her voice is as warm as the candlelight.
“Far longer than you think.”
~~~~~
"No."
"You're very stubborn, for someone vith political ambition. I am offering you all you have alvays vanted."
"And-- in return?"
"Oh, politics, boy. One of mine as Patrician, surely you can see the appeal in that?"
"I will not serve another's interests over those of the city."
"Not even your own?"
Havelock doesn't reply, only tests her hold on him once more. Her slim fingers are like iron.
"No," Lady Margolotta says, and it sounds like agreement. "I see not. But I am not going to let you go, you know. I do not trust that mind of yours."
She sits back in her armchair, looking mildly vexed. It is soft, and the upholstery is pink. Havelock wonders idly from the floor in front of her if she always had the tastes of somebody's grandmother, then realises his attention is slipping.
Fatigue.
And probably the vampire, too. For someone who employs kidnap as standard practise, she certainly has her own brand of subtlety.
He glances up to meet her stare.
"Yes," she says coolly. "That is vhat I mean. You do not often hold to only one train of thought-- do you, Havelock?"
"I--"
Window is too high up to jump but could perhaps be climbed will she intervene yes so instead keep reasoning suppose a three second reaction time but mine is negated already think faster if she tries again don't know if tacito, tacitas, tacitat, tacitamus, tacitatis, tacitant...
"--Occupational hazard."
"Hmm."
~~~~~
Logically thinking -
If there is a feasible way to escape, I cannot find it.
I have been trying to fight for hours. My physical resources were initially limited, and are now at an end.
Reason has not prevailed. Mine or hers, and even if mine is questionable right now, I can only work with what occurs.
It will not do to become subject to the command of another. That will not be in the best interests of anyone.
Perhaps not even hers.
Given this - there is one option left to me.
(Puck. I'm--)
~~~~~
His consent is given out of no real choice at all, the vampire knows, but it pleases her that he gave it-- eventually. His mind is a weapon, this one, and to make him subservient would be to dull its edge. He will fight her, but she thinks she can rely on his pragmatism, along with the very subtlest touch of her influence, to counter that.
He will need to learn from her, if he wishes to keep in control.
The Vetinari boy is losing consciousness fast, even fighting against the bloodloss, body tense against hers as the sharpness in his eyes goes distant, before the lids slide slowly closed. It has been rather a time since she began, Margolotta realises, mildly surprised. The sun is nearly up.
She stands and steps back, drawing one of the knives he had carried. It seems appropriate, and it is sharp enough that she only needs to draw it smooth and neat across her own wrist with a frown for the necessary mess. There, that cardigan will never be the same. But she rather thinks, bending solicitously forward, that he will be worth it.