The Power and the Glory 5/9 [Gramis, House Solidor]
Canon Status: Up to FFXII-era, Archades.
Genre: General, Intrigue.
Rating: PG-13.
Characters: Gramis, House Solidor, the OC horde.
Pairing: Implied OMC/OMC. I think.
Warnings: Rating went up for character death and what are euphemistically called 'implications'.
Notes: Names are subject to repetition without warning, and I just invented some geography. But I invented a plot, too, so it balances out.
Summary: The life and times of House Solidor. The Imperial family was in attendance, as was proper, at the triumph voted by the Senate for Gramis's best general when a shot rang out.
Other Parts: Gramis | Strella | Zulia | Ceraano | Gramis | Viali
The Imperial family was in attendance, as was proper, at the triumph voted by the Senate for Gramis's best general when a shot rang out.
With a strange choking sound, Strella crumpled to the ground. Gramis thought she had merely fainted, and the shot had missed completely or been targeted elsewhere. As the guards in the streets ran in the direction of the gunshot and the spectators began to disperse down alleyways, Zulia's new young wife bent to assist her mother-in-law. She was the first to see the blood that gushed from Strella's throat, staining the blue of her dress a deep violet.
Her stifled scream alerted Zulia, who left off searching the crowd for the shooter to kneel by her side. That was the only reason the second shot missed its target, skimming over Zulia's head to bury itself in the back of a young Judge where he stood protecting his sovereign.
There were no more shots; the well-trained guards had caught the assassin before he could leave his perch atop a nearby boutique. All the same, two shots were more than enough.
Gramis refused to leave the pavilion, instead remaining at his wife's side as she took her last ragged breaths. Next to them, Zulia and his wife clasped hands tightly to save the pride that would not allow them to weep in public, while Ceraano made no attempt at concealing his own tears. After what seemed an eternity, Strella's weak gasps for air ceased, and Gramis closed her staring eyes.
It had all taken less than three minutes.
There was not yet time to grieve; there were officials to be summoned, the inevitable visitors to be received, and, which loomed largest in Gramis's mind, an assassin to be interrogated. He left Zulia to manage the first under the care of his wife and Ceraano to handle the second with the support of his dear friend Quinas and went to deal with the third personally.
The assassin, scarcely more than a boy, was not foolish enough to think he had a hope of avoiding execution: a rifle had been found in his very hands, having been fired twice, containing the same type of shot as had killed the Empress and the Judge. It was enchanted to render the victim unconscious upon impact. Carrying a weapon loaded with such shot was illegal within the bounds of Archades, for in a place without fiends its only use was murder.
At the sight of Gramis, still in the formal wear he had donned for the triumph, the assassin's eyes widened, but he refused to speak, despite encouragement from his guards, four Judges who were inclined to serve private justice as well as public for the death of one of their own. At length, Gramis declared that he saw no purpose in continuing and left choice of his punishment entirely in the hands of the Ministry of Law. As he had hoped, the man broke at that, having enough imagination to guess at his fate in the Judges' hands. He told Gramis everything.
He had failed, in the end, for his target had been, not Strella, but Zulia. The reason for such an attempt became all too clear after the assassin explained how he had traced his employer even through the two intermediaries used to conceal his name.
Zerides Bunansa had been disappointed that his friendship with Gramis had not gained him ascendancy, or even influence, over the Emperor. Nevertheless, he would have done nothing but dream, save that Quinas his son had become so close with Ceraano. If he wished, Quinas could control Ceraano as no one had ever been able to control Gramis, and Zerides was (perhaps unduly) confident in his ability to control Quinas. But power over a second son was of little account, especially now that his brother was wed. Without Zulia, however, Ceraano would be the next Emperor and Zerides could rule in all but name.
So much Gramis concluded, in all of which he was borne out later. It surprised and saddened him, who had already in one day been surprised and saddened enough.
He left the assassin in the slightly more tender care of the regular military prison, along with orders not to harm him until the time came for his execution. His death would at least be swift when it came, which was all Gramis had promised. No concern would ever convince him to grant Zerides so much.
Gramis was furious, as he had been only twice before, perhaps, in his fifty-two years. A man he had once called "friend" had betrayed that name, had murdered his wife, and had tried to murder his son, all so that he might use his other son as a puppeteer used a marionette. Not even his usually cool temper could bear up under such a barrage of insult and injury. When he returned to the entrance hall, sleeves still dark with Strella's blood, he was in a towering fury that only increased when he beheld Zerides Bunansa offering Ceraano consolations as false as a pirate's promise.
Much as he desired to accuse him there and then, Gramis knew he could not alert Zerides before arresting him, which would have to wait until he could contrive a moment alone with Judge Magister Lleir, a young man from Predayn who commanded the Imperial Guard and was therefore the Judge Magister most readily available to Gramis. Once he knew that there was sufficient evidence to make an arrest, it would be carried out with perfect efficiency, but until then any hint would give Zerides time to destroy evidence against him or flee. Instead of confronting him, therefore, Gramis made vague excuses about "a family discussion" and, separating his sons from their companions, brought them to his study. Lleir, who had been there awaiting orders, was on the point of withdrawing tactfully, but Gramis gestured for him to remain.
Then he told them all what he had discovered.
Both his sons' faces paled when they heard the tale; each believed himself at fault for his mother's death, though Ceraano had perhaps more cause both for guilt and fear. Fear, that Quinas, whom he loved and trusted, should prove complicit in his father's crimes. He did not speak or look up from where his long-fingered hands twisted themselves together in his lap, knuckles white from the strength of their grip. When Gramis dismissed the two young men as gently as he could, Ceraano left as if in a dream, not seeming to see where he went.
When Zerides arrived at his home from the palace, the Imperial Guard were waiting.
The ensuing trial--public, as the people who had seen their well-loved Empress Strella shot before their very eyes deserved--was a trial for House Solidor as much as for House Bunansa. The latter, after all, only had to contend with losing one son out of many for being perfidious and, what was perhaps worse, overconfident to the point of carelessness, for half Archades would have made the same plan given the same opportunity. But the former had to face what they viewed as personal complicity in a crime: Gramis, that his onetime friend had done such a thing; Zulia, that his mother had died by a gun meant for him; Ceraano, that his affection for Quinas had brought all this to pass. As the evidence was presented, piece by piece, from the assassin's testimony to that of Zerides himself, the whole family felt itself strained almost to snapping point.
Nor did Zerides with his ultimate confession make it easier to bear. Knowing he would get no other revenge, he described the basis of his plan with such words as no gentlemen ought use of anyone, much less his own son and the son of his Emperor. His gift of diction was as great as his son's; Archades would not soon forget his depiction of naïve, besotted Ceraano and silver-tongued, thoughtless Quinas. By the time the flow of his words ceased, Ceraano was dead white, lips pressed tightly together to remain silent.
Quinas Bunansa sat in the same seat at every day of the trial, in full view of the sensation-seekers who crowded the room, back straight and shoulders set as if he could make poise into armor. When his father spoke, his stiff posture never changed, but he grew as red as Ceraano did white with rage and shame, and Gramis caught him blinking back tears at the vicious comments of the spectators. Save for that he might have been stone.
He was there when Zerides was hanged, a sordid penalty as befit a sordid crime. He was the only one of his siblings present: his older brother remained at the estate which Gramis had generously left him, rather than confiscating it as was his right from a traitor. As for his other brother and his sisters, they were either at the estate or various cousins' country houses, away from barbed tongues and prying eyes. It was rumored that none of them had seen or spoken to their brother since the arrest, that Quinas had in fact seen or spoken to no one at all, keeping inside his town apartment save for the trial. Gramis believed the rumor, for no one he spoke to had seen him elsewhere. Quinas did not seek out Ceraano then, had not since the arrest, but when their eyes met by chance it was not only Ceraano who flushed and quickly turned his gaze elsewhere.
From his behavior, which was unlike a guilty man attempting to brazen it out, but also unlike a guilty man hoping to be forgotten or allowed to flee, Gramis was inclined to believe in Quinas's complete innocence. Nonetheless, he had to be sure. Therefore he had the young man brought to the business wing of the palace where, in the presence of three Judges (the minimum number required to convict, acquit, or punish, as Quinas well knew, though Gramis had no intention of following through on the implied threat) Gramis put such questions to Quinas as he thought appropriate and necessary.
He answered well, evidently much sobered by events, for he indulged in none of the wit Gramis remembered both from popular report and their happier meetings in earlier times. His answers were short and to the point. He had not known his father's plan; he would have brought it to the Emperor's notice immediately if he had discovered it; he had had not even a suspicion of such treachery; he had not, nor had he ever had, the slightest intention of treating Ceraano in such a manner; he hoped he would never treat even an acquaintance so; he had indeed heard his father's confession but had nothing whatever to say to its description of his relationship with Ceraano; he had not spoken to Ceraano since his father's arrest; he would not have known what to say, and imagined that Ceraano's reputation would suffer less the less they were seen together; there was nothing to say to Ceraano except to profess his innocence, at any rate, which was a waste of time, as he would certainly have done so had he been guilty; he had remained in Archades because he had fancied that his arrest would not be long in coming; he was well aware of the penalty for seduction; he had no response to such an accusation but to protest his innocence; he would not care to elaborate on that statement; he would accept whatever penalty the Emperor wished to impose as punishment for any offense he might have unintentionally given.
He bore up exceedingly well, considering, and with every word Gramis approved of him more. He had admitted nothing on the one subject every gossip in Ivalice was most curious about, while under the gaze of four men who could kill him on the spot in perfect legality. More than that, Gramis believed that he really was innocent of treason in deed or thought. Still, he could not stay in Archades a free man, and they both knew it. The malicious gossip would never stop, and more than gossip: there were others who would have the same thought as Zerides. Gramis had a good opinion of this young man and refused to allow this.
After consulting with the Judges, Gramis issued the decree that Quinas was to be banished for the remainder of his life to the newly-conquered colony of Exandria. Among the land's many virtues were that it was far from Archades and contained the most famous library of historical texts in Ivalice.
Quinas requested to be allowed back to his apartment to pack a valise, which request was granted. He did not ask to speak to Ceraano. Gramis gave him no choice. What they said in that conversation not even Gramis ever knew. He did know that that, every week for the rest of his life, Ceraano received a thick letter from Exandria, to which he replied in kind. The Emperor turned a blind eye to these, as he did to his son's yearly visit to the famed Library of Exandria. It was, after all, the perfect place for a scholar of history to go, and now that it was within the bounds of the Empire it would be a shame to waste the opportunity.
The gossip turned eventually to more current affairs, and the temporary shadow that lay over House Bunansa lifted. Nevertheless, there were some changes: Ceraano spoke rarely to anyone after that, diving into his books and avoiding the society into which Quinas had dragged him; Zulia, feeling guilty in equal parts for his mother's death and brother's loss, worked harder than ever at the minutiae of the Empire.
And Gramis fell in love.
Genre: General, Intrigue.
Rating: PG-13.
Characters: Gramis, House Solidor, the OC horde.
Pairing: Implied OMC/OMC. I think.
Warnings: Rating went up for character death and what are euphemistically called 'implications'.
Notes: Names are subject to repetition without warning, and I just invented some geography. But I invented a plot, too, so it balances out.
Summary: The life and times of House Solidor. The Imperial family was in attendance, as was proper, at the triumph voted by the Senate for Gramis's best general when a shot rang out.
Other Parts: Gramis | Strella | Zulia | Ceraano | Gramis | Viali
The Imperial family was in attendance, as was proper, at the triumph voted by the Senate for Gramis's best general when a shot rang out.
With a strange choking sound, Strella crumpled to the ground. Gramis thought she had merely fainted, and the shot had missed completely or been targeted elsewhere. As the guards in the streets ran in the direction of the gunshot and the spectators began to disperse down alleyways, Zulia's new young wife bent to assist her mother-in-law. She was the first to see the blood that gushed from Strella's throat, staining the blue of her dress a deep violet.
Her stifled scream alerted Zulia, who left off searching the crowd for the shooter to kneel by her side. That was the only reason the second shot missed its target, skimming over Zulia's head to bury itself in the back of a young Judge where he stood protecting his sovereign.
There were no more shots; the well-trained guards had caught the assassin before he could leave his perch atop a nearby boutique. All the same, two shots were more than enough.
Gramis refused to leave the pavilion, instead remaining at his wife's side as she took her last ragged breaths. Next to them, Zulia and his wife clasped hands tightly to save the pride that would not allow them to weep in public, while Ceraano made no attempt at concealing his own tears. After what seemed an eternity, Strella's weak gasps for air ceased, and Gramis closed her staring eyes.
It had all taken less than three minutes.
There was not yet time to grieve; there were officials to be summoned, the inevitable visitors to be received, and, which loomed largest in Gramis's mind, an assassin to be interrogated. He left Zulia to manage the first under the care of his wife and Ceraano to handle the second with the support of his dear friend Quinas and went to deal with the third personally.
The assassin, scarcely more than a boy, was not foolish enough to think he had a hope of avoiding execution: a rifle had been found in his very hands, having been fired twice, containing the same type of shot as had killed the Empress and the Judge. It was enchanted to render the victim unconscious upon impact. Carrying a weapon loaded with such shot was illegal within the bounds of Archades, for in a place without fiends its only use was murder.
At the sight of Gramis, still in the formal wear he had donned for the triumph, the assassin's eyes widened, but he refused to speak, despite encouragement from his guards, four Judges who were inclined to serve private justice as well as public for the death of one of their own. At length, Gramis declared that he saw no purpose in continuing and left choice of his punishment entirely in the hands of the Ministry of Law. As he had hoped, the man broke at that, having enough imagination to guess at his fate in the Judges' hands. He told Gramis everything.
He had failed, in the end, for his target had been, not Strella, but Zulia. The reason for such an attempt became all too clear after the assassin explained how he had traced his employer even through the two intermediaries used to conceal his name.
Zerides Bunansa had been disappointed that his friendship with Gramis had not gained him ascendancy, or even influence, over the Emperor. Nevertheless, he would have done nothing but dream, save that Quinas his son had become so close with Ceraano. If he wished, Quinas could control Ceraano as no one had ever been able to control Gramis, and Zerides was (perhaps unduly) confident in his ability to control Quinas. But power over a second son was of little account, especially now that his brother was wed. Without Zulia, however, Ceraano would be the next Emperor and Zerides could rule in all but name.
So much Gramis concluded, in all of which he was borne out later. It surprised and saddened him, who had already in one day been surprised and saddened enough.
He left the assassin in the slightly more tender care of the regular military prison, along with orders not to harm him until the time came for his execution. His death would at least be swift when it came, which was all Gramis had promised. No concern would ever convince him to grant Zerides so much.
Gramis was furious, as he had been only twice before, perhaps, in his fifty-two years. A man he had once called "friend" had betrayed that name, had murdered his wife, and had tried to murder his son, all so that he might use his other son as a puppeteer used a marionette. Not even his usually cool temper could bear up under such a barrage of insult and injury. When he returned to the entrance hall, sleeves still dark with Strella's blood, he was in a towering fury that only increased when he beheld Zerides Bunansa offering Ceraano consolations as false as a pirate's promise.
Much as he desired to accuse him there and then, Gramis knew he could not alert Zerides before arresting him, which would have to wait until he could contrive a moment alone with Judge Magister Lleir, a young man from Predayn who commanded the Imperial Guard and was therefore the Judge Magister most readily available to Gramis. Once he knew that there was sufficient evidence to make an arrest, it would be carried out with perfect efficiency, but until then any hint would give Zerides time to destroy evidence against him or flee. Instead of confronting him, therefore, Gramis made vague excuses about "a family discussion" and, separating his sons from their companions, brought them to his study. Lleir, who had been there awaiting orders, was on the point of withdrawing tactfully, but Gramis gestured for him to remain.
Then he told them all what he had discovered.
Both his sons' faces paled when they heard the tale; each believed himself at fault for his mother's death, though Ceraano had perhaps more cause both for guilt and fear. Fear, that Quinas, whom he loved and trusted, should prove complicit in his father's crimes. He did not speak or look up from where his long-fingered hands twisted themselves together in his lap, knuckles white from the strength of their grip. When Gramis dismissed the two young men as gently as he could, Ceraano left as if in a dream, not seeming to see where he went.
When Zerides arrived at his home from the palace, the Imperial Guard were waiting.
The ensuing trial--public, as the people who had seen their well-loved Empress Strella shot before their very eyes deserved--was a trial for House Solidor as much as for House Bunansa. The latter, after all, only had to contend with losing one son out of many for being perfidious and, what was perhaps worse, overconfident to the point of carelessness, for half Archades would have made the same plan given the same opportunity. But the former had to face what they viewed as personal complicity in a crime: Gramis, that his onetime friend had done such a thing; Zulia, that his mother had died by a gun meant for him; Ceraano, that his affection for Quinas had brought all this to pass. As the evidence was presented, piece by piece, from the assassin's testimony to that of Zerides himself, the whole family felt itself strained almost to snapping point.
Nor did Zerides with his ultimate confession make it easier to bear. Knowing he would get no other revenge, he described the basis of his plan with such words as no gentlemen ought use of anyone, much less his own son and the son of his Emperor. His gift of diction was as great as his son's; Archades would not soon forget his depiction of naïve, besotted Ceraano and silver-tongued, thoughtless Quinas. By the time the flow of his words ceased, Ceraano was dead white, lips pressed tightly together to remain silent.
Quinas Bunansa sat in the same seat at every day of the trial, in full view of the sensation-seekers who crowded the room, back straight and shoulders set as if he could make poise into armor. When his father spoke, his stiff posture never changed, but he grew as red as Ceraano did white with rage and shame, and Gramis caught him blinking back tears at the vicious comments of the spectators. Save for that he might have been stone.
He was there when Zerides was hanged, a sordid penalty as befit a sordid crime. He was the only one of his siblings present: his older brother remained at the estate which Gramis had generously left him, rather than confiscating it as was his right from a traitor. As for his other brother and his sisters, they were either at the estate or various cousins' country houses, away from barbed tongues and prying eyes. It was rumored that none of them had seen or spoken to their brother since the arrest, that Quinas had in fact seen or spoken to no one at all, keeping inside his town apartment save for the trial. Gramis believed the rumor, for no one he spoke to had seen him elsewhere. Quinas did not seek out Ceraano then, had not since the arrest, but when their eyes met by chance it was not only Ceraano who flushed and quickly turned his gaze elsewhere.
From his behavior, which was unlike a guilty man attempting to brazen it out, but also unlike a guilty man hoping to be forgotten or allowed to flee, Gramis was inclined to believe in Quinas's complete innocence. Nonetheless, he had to be sure. Therefore he had the young man brought to the business wing of the palace where, in the presence of three Judges (the minimum number required to convict, acquit, or punish, as Quinas well knew, though Gramis had no intention of following through on the implied threat) Gramis put such questions to Quinas as he thought appropriate and necessary.
He answered well, evidently much sobered by events, for he indulged in none of the wit Gramis remembered both from popular report and their happier meetings in earlier times. His answers were short and to the point. He had not known his father's plan; he would have brought it to the Emperor's notice immediately if he had discovered it; he had had not even a suspicion of such treachery; he had not, nor had he ever had, the slightest intention of treating Ceraano in such a manner; he hoped he would never treat even an acquaintance so; he had indeed heard his father's confession but had nothing whatever to say to its description of his relationship with Ceraano; he had not spoken to Ceraano since his father's arrest; he would not have known what to say, and imagined that Ceraano's reputation would suffer less the less they were seen together; there was nothing to say to Ceraano except to profess his innocence, at any rate, which was a waste of time, as he would certainly have done so had he been guilty; he had remained in Archades because he had fancied that his arrest would not be long in coming; he was well aware of the penalty for seduction; he had no response to such an accusation but to protest his innocence; he would not care to elaborate on that statement; he would accept whatever penalty the Emperor wished to impose as punishment for any offense he might have unintentionally given.
He bore up exceedingly well, considering, and with every word Gramis approved of him more. He had admitted nothing on the one subject every gossip in Ivalice was most curious about, while under the gaze of four men who could kill him on the spot in perfect legality. More than that, Gramis believed that he really was innocent of treason in deed or thought. Still, he could not stay in Archades a free man, and they both knew it. The malicious gossip would never stop, and more than gossip: there were others who would have the same thought as Zerides. Gramis had a good opinion of this young man and refused to allow this.
After consulting with the Judges, Gramis issued the decree that Quinas was to be banished for the remainder of his life to the newly-conquered colony of Exandria. Among the land's many virtues were that it was far from Archades and contained the most famous library of historical texts in Ivalice.
Quinas requested to be allowed back to his apartment to pack a valise, which request was granted. He did not ask to speak to Ceraano. Gramis gave him no choice. What they said in that conversation not even Gramis ever knew. He did know that that, every week for the rest of his life, Ceraano received a thick letter from Exandria, to which he replied in kind. The Emperor turned a blind eye to these, as he did to his son's yearly visit to the famed Library of Exandria. It was, after all, the perfect place for a scholar of history to go, and now that it was within the bounds of the Empire it would be a shame to waste the opportunity.
The gossip turned eventually to more current affairs, and the temporary shadow that lay over House Bunansa lifted. Nevertheless, there were some changes: Ceraano spoke rarely to anyone after that, diving into his books and avoiding the society into which Quinas had dragged him; Zulia, feeling guilty in equal parts for his mother's death and brother's loss, worked harder than ever at the minutiae of the Empire.
And Gramis fell in love.