A Dog Among Princes

Chapter 24

Guts wondered what Griffith and Casca were doing right now. They’d been gone for hours now. He couldn’t sleep. Being with someone else, it helped somehow, but with Griffith away… Damn it. He could sleep before, he didn’t need anybody else. He turned over and closed his eyes. Fuck. He sat up. It had been a while since he had to do this. He’d had to get a custom mount for his sword. It no longer fit in any in the castle armory. However that had allowed him an excuse to keep it close at hand for occasions like this. He sat on the floor and closed his eyes, letting the blade rest on his shoulder. The weight of the metal against him allowed him to finally drift off into sleep.

He was running from the monster again. This time he didn’t have his sword. It pinned him down and he slashed at it with his claws. They drew blood. The iron smell of it drove him mad. He clawed and bit until he reached bone. He was winning! He was

Putting on the gauntlet. Guts tore it from his hand as if it was red hot. He was in the tower again. The sheet that was normally draped over the armor lay on the floor. Oh god, he’d almost put it on. Shit shit shit! He paced trying not to look at the thing. Fuck! What if he’d actually managed to get the damn thing on? “Quit fucking around!” He jabbed the armor with his finger poking the middle of its breastplate. The helm stared at him impassively. It was just a suit of armor after all. “Damn it!” He ran a hand through his hair. “Stay out of my fucking head!” He knew it wasn’t in his head. All it did was compel negative emotion. It wasn’t its fault that he had so much to spare. “Sorry.” He put its hand back on and covered it with the sheet. He needed to fix this shit and fast.

Griffith quietly dipped inside Guts’s chambers. His betrothed (aaaahhhh! His heart beat faster just thinking about it) had taken to leaving the window unlocked so that he could come and go as he wished. Gut’s sword was on the floor but he was nowhere to be found. He picked it up and put it back on its mount. No blood anywhere, but the sheets were tossed about. Might’ve been restless sleep but the fact still remained that Guts wasn’t here. He took a deep breath. It didn’t smell like anyone else had been here recently. So then he’d wandered off by himself somewhere. Griffith remembered he’d mentioned something about sleep walking. What had he told him again? He was supposed to keep him from wandering off if he did. Damn it! His hand met the door handle just as Guts opened it.

“Guts!” He whispered. Despite his concern it was awfully late. He was awake, but if the dark circles around his eyes were any indication, he certainly didn’t want to be. Upon seeing Griffith, he immediately wrapped his arms around him. “Is everything alright?”

“Later, I just want to go to sleep.”

“I told you that witch went somewhere yesterday and now look she makes to travel again!” Farnese beckoned for Serpico to take a look.

“Lady Farnese at the risk of sounding insubordinate, what proof do you have that Sir Casca is a witch?”

“She consorts with demons and faggots, is that not enough?” Setting aside that he was not one hundred percent certain Griffith was or wasn’t a demon, Farnese was guilty of the second one and he’d never seen her do magic. Though he guessed he should probably keep that one to himself.

“And how do you know she went somewhere yesterday?”

“I’ve been keeping watch over her home. She had the demon take her somewhere for about eight hours.”

“You are perhaps over committed to your work, my lady.” Yikes. This was going to be a rough one. Hopefully Farnese didn’t try to set her on fire. Sir Casca didn’t seem to be the type to let somebody off easy just because they worked for the church.

“It is better to be over committed than to be as lax in your duties as you.”

“I wasn’t lax in my duties, I gathered information just as you instructed. You just didn’t like what I had to tell you.” He’d come to the conclusion that the Prince at least, was a good man. He was rough around the edges and was sleeping with a guy who may or may not be a demon, but he seemed like a good guy. Of course Farnese didn’t want to hear that. She wanted proof he was a pagan and a practitioner of magic.

“What has gotten into you as of late Serpico?” He let her whack him on the back of the head. “You have never given me such a foul attitude before.” What was with him? Usually this kind of stuff would’ve slid off his back like he was a duck. There was a reason he’d chosen that particular symbolism for his helmet and heraldry. He could easily deal with all comers and all situations with a smile on his face, but now? Stupid fucking Prince. Serpico couldn’t even bring himself to be mad at him. It was easy to resign yourself when there wasn’t any hope. But now he’d had his face rubbed in hope until he was choking on it.

“All I’m saying is, the church doesn’t have a whole lot of power here. If you don’t have credible evidence it’s your neck that’s on the line. You’re already out of the Prince’s good graces.”

“Serpico, look how many rations they’re packing.” He begrudgingly squinted his eyes.

“Looks like about two week’s worth.”

“This is a rather small nation. Given about a week, provided they are packing for a round trip, they could probably make their way to Midland or even Paneria.” She collapsed her telescope. “Accidents do so often happen on the roads. Even to experienced knights when they travel in such small groups.”

Casca felt like there were eyes on her as she saddled up her horse. She’d gotten used to ignoring the sensation. Being a companion to royalty tended to make people stare. She’d opted to keep her forces as light as possible, prioritizing speed and stealth over power. Midland was no longer a war zone. It would be far more difficult to sneak in and out undetected. Just her, Pippin, and Judeau would be going. They needed some muscle to keep people from looking at them too hard but not enough to really draw attention. That and they were the only three that could really justify this much time off. Pippin was still working on his manuscript, but he insisted he would be alright taking it on the road.

Pippin was glad for the opportunity to travel again. It was one of the things he actually enjoyed about being a mercenary. Even though there was so much ugliness in the world, especially in his own small corner, there was also beauty as well. Limestone cliffs on the coast that shone white with the brightness of the stone and centuries of salt. Lakes set deep into mountains, that filled with fog like great bowls as the sun rose in the morning. Ancient forests with trees wider across than horses. It was good to remind people of that. He knew once their story was fully put to paper it would be a difficult one. Pippin didn’t wish to romanticize their lives and careers. They’d all done terrible things and had terrible things done to them, but that wasn’t really the point of it. The point of it was those moments of beauty and love that were made all the more powerful by the suffering they experienced. The moments that made him want to grab the kings of Midland and Tudor from their thrones and force them to look. Look at that you sons of bitches! Look at the good and beauty that can exist in the world despite the ugliness you insist on creating! Of course he was too reserved to say anything like that out loud. He had to think long and hard about everything he had to say before saying to make sure the words came out the way he wanted them to. Pippin would never be a great orator, but he could write and he could draw. He would be a fool to think that he could change the world with a book, but it was what he had. If he could affect some lives with it? Offer some person a bit of comfort or make someone think twice about bringing more misery into the world? That would be enough.

He’d never met Charlotte. Well he’d seen her around but he’d never talked to her or anything. In his mind she was just kind of an ancillary character in the whole Guts/Griffith/Casca nonsense. It was a shame. She seemed like a nice enough girl after all. They were looking at about a week on the road on the way back, that was plenty of time to get acquainted. He knew part of the reason why Casca had thought to bring him wasn’t just because she needed a big scary guy to look tough next to Judeau. Casca hadn’t given too many details but if Charlotte was leaving the throne behind willingly, something bad must’ve been happening. Pippin was the best at these kinds of things. He never pushed for information but he knew what to do to keep someone stable. Whether that was to force them to socialize or to offer an ear to listen when they felt comfortable. Leaving her home behind, the whole thing with Griffith, and whatever she was dealing with at home wasn’t exactly a recipe for stability. He was also probably there to keep the situation calm. Pippin was alright with that. He hadn’t been able to do much when the eclipse happened. He was a good fighter but he wasn’t anything on the level of those three. Just like he could never be an orator he could never be Guts, but this, this he could do. This was the way he could help.

Casca looked back one last time before spurring her horse. It would be a while before she was in such friendly territory again.