A Dog Among Princes

Chapter 32

Charlotte hesitated for a moment as she began to put her quill to paper. The situation she found herself in was embarrassing to say the least, but that didn’t mean she could be derelict in her duties. She was no longer a cloistered princess, she was a dignitary claiming asylum in a foreign state. It was her duty to herself to learn the machinations of the political system she’d been dropped into. That meant making connections. She already knew two people in powerful positions within the government. One she had already discarded. Griffith was a good contact to have, it seemed that he was always able to worm his way directly into the heart of whatever court he wished, however though it may have been stupid of her in the long run, she simply did not wish to speak to him at the moment. She was over her misplaced feelings for him, but his manipulation of her had still left a bad taste in her mouth. She was in no hurry to speak to him and it seemed he was in no hurry to speak to her either. That left her with only one real option.

Guts received a fuck ton of mail these days. Petitions from vendors asking to be able to display a mark of his approval of their goods, invitations to policy meetings and social events from members of the nobility, stray letters of congratulations for his engagement, the occasional unsolicited gross letter or portrait (haha that missive was sent in error, prithee destroy it. Lest, you desire to look?????) sent by assorted anonymous weirdos. At least with those he could just toss the letter and laugh about it, everything else he actually had to dignify with a response. As he started going through that day’s messages, Guts saw some handwriting he recognized. He’d passed a lot of letters between Griffith and Charlotte, he knew her handwriting well enough. He figured it was coming. On the milder end, she was probably pretty pissed about the whole stealing her boyfriend thing, and if she’d figured out who killed her uncle and cousin, that was a whole other viper’s nest. He popped open the seal. Even if he wanted to avoid talking to her, it was better to just rip the bandage off.

She didn’t seem pissed off, sticking mostly to formal language, which was already setting off alarm bells for Guts. She wanted to meet, in public if possible. That last bit actually made him feel a little more comfortable about the whole thing. Meeting in public ensured that it would be harder for either of them to pull some cloak and dagger shit. That might mean she also knew the situation was emotionally charged and awkward. Then again it could also mean she wanted him to think it would be harder for her to pull some cloak and dagger shit. She was raised in a court where assassinations were as common as sparrows, and he was just a soldier. She probably knew all sorts of tricks he’d never had to learn. Guts began drafting his response. He’d have to make sure to check his drinks.

Charlotte was surprised when Guts showed up to their meeting undisguised and unaccompanied. She had worn her most discrete cloak and cajoled Anna into accompanying her, but Guts stuck out like a sore thumb, carrying his sword and wearing a simple iron circlet. Anna discretely attempted to hide behind Charlotte as the giant approached them.

“What’s up with the hoods?”

“I thought you would not want either of us to be recognized in public.”

“If you’re worried about being recognized I get that, but I just end up looking more suspicious wearing a cloak in public.”

“I suppose you would, wouldn’t you.” Charlotte removed her hood. He was probably right, if she saw a man over six feet tall, carrying a sword larger than she was, clearly attempting to hide his identity in the middle of a large city, she’d probably alert the local militia.

“So, what did you want to see me for?”

“Well I thought we could maybe catch up?”

“Catch up?” He furrowed his brows. Oh that really wasn’t the right phrasing was it. They’d only really known each other in passing to begin with. Now he was going to think she was being overly familiar to secure favor.

Guts started to discreetly scan the crowd. Nobody suspicious, no tell-tale flash of steel from a crossbow on any of the nearby roofs, that left the possibility of an archer nearby as well as the princess and her escort. On second Ctuaglance he was pretty sure he remembered seeing the escort working at the castle, wasn’t she a maid? Maybe that was just a cover. He couldn’t tell which direction the knife was going to strike from. There could be something he was ignoring entirely.

“Actually what I mean to say is, I would like to get to know you better. I’ve heard a great dealabout you from Griffith, Casca, and Pippin, but we haven’t had the chance to actually speak to each other. I would like to meet the person they all held in such high esteem. If I am being honest, I suppose my motivations are partially selfish as well.” Guts stopped desperately searching for non-existent assassins. “I don’t have any friends at court. Well, I suppose I didn’t have very many friends in my father’s court either, but I also lack the influence I would’ve had there as the future monarch.”

“So you want me to be your friend at court.”

“At the risk of sounding self-serving, yes. Though I hoped to at least try to form a genuine friendship with you.” Guts was stunned into silence. After a few seconds passed Charlotte piped up again attempting to break the tension. “So, what is Guts short for then?”

“It’s not short for anything.”

“So it’s just Guts then.”

“Yeah it’s just Guts.” Another moment of awkward silence passed in which they both desperately attempted to find even an inch of common ground to stand on. “You wanna go get something to eat?”

“Yes, I think that would be best.” Charlotte sighed in relief.

Guts didn’t really feel like playing the “let’s sneak into Corkus’s even though we know I’m banned” game with Charlotte. Besides he knew a bakery that would probably be more her speed. The owner was there today. She wasn’t always, she had three kids at home that took up a lot of her time and attention. He thanked her by name after he paid.

“Do you come here often?” Charlotte asked, tearing pieces off of her bread and buttering them.

“Not really. Every once and a while I’ll come by though.”

“I would’ve thought you were a regular since you knew the owner and all.” Guts shrugged.

“Just good with names is all.”

“You asked about her children.” Charlotte said incredulously.

“Well when I meet people they usually tell me stuff about their lives. You know, they talk about their kids, their problems, their goals, stuff they like to do. I feel like if I’m supposed to be in charge of them some day, that's stuff I ought to remember.” He pointed to a shop to their left. “That place is a jeweler, they focus on carved pieces like cameos. The son of the couple that runs it wants to take the civil service exams instead of taking over the shop so they’re looking for an apprentice.” He pointed to another one across the street. “That’s a tailor, the guy in charge used to be my right hand man. He’s wanted to be in charge of his own shop since he was a teenager, but never managed to put the cash together before. Everybody here has something they want to do with their lives. They’ve got dreams, people they love, things they want to protect. And one day I’m going to be the one helping them do that.”

“You’ve clearly put a lot of thought into what kind of king you want to be.”

“Well most people are taught how to be a king or queen their whole lives and I was just kind of pulled into it. I had no fu-, I mean, no earthly idea what I was doing so I just tried to do what I’ve always done. Learn who you're working with, figure out who they are and what they want and figure out what you think you should do based on that.”

“Have you determined any policies you wish to enact when you’ve taken the throne?”

“More expansive legal protections for prostitutes.” Anna choked on her bread. Guts looked over at her and she pretended to have a sneezing fit. “Look, you might not think it’s important, but in every single city, town, and mercenary camp I’ve ever lived in there’s been at least one person who sold sex. For some people it was their profession, for others it was just for a bit of extra money to keep themselves above water, but there was always someone. Even in places it was illegal there would always be a few, just made it way more dangerous for the people that did. There’s always going to be a demand for people that sell sex, so people are always going to do it. So, what I figure is that prostitutes should be able to form guilds so that they can lobby for better working conditions and establish standards of pay. Plus, if the industry is recognized by the crown, we can monitor it more closely and prevent disease outbreaks of stuff like syphilis before it gets too far.” Charlotte quickly glanced around to make sure nobody was staring at them. “If the nobility of the world could take their heads out of their asses for five seconds and stop worrying about how it reflects on their ‘moral character’ to publicly care about the welfare of prostitutes, while still privately hiring them anyway, they might actually manage to save some lives.”

“And you’re not at all concerned with how the rest of the court might react to your proposition?”

“Why the hell would I be? One, like I said people need to pull their heads out of their asses, two, for the first couple of years of my life I was raised by a woman who sold sex. If they have a problem with the policies I’d want to enact, they’d probably have just as much of a problem with my adopted mother being a prostitute.”

“Oh, my apologies.” Charlotte silently cursed her tongue again.

“She died when I was young. Looking back it was probably either syphilis or leprosy, but I was too young for them to tell me anything. Disease used to spread like crazy among the girls at camp. Would’ve saved a lot of lives if they had any sort of quarantine measures in place.”

“My mother died when I was young as well. I was also too young for the doctors to tell me what was ailing her. I miss her every day. With my stepmother around, I always keenly felt her absence.”

“I get that. When my mom died, her co-workers just gave me to my dad to raise. I really wanted to believe that he cared about me the same way she did, but he was a complicated person. Might’ve even been a pretty awful person if I’m being honest, but I didn’t really know any different. I just figured that’s how dads were for the longest time. Well until he tried to kill me I guess.”

“My father, he tried to-“ Charlotte could feel the bile rising in her throat as she tried to get the words out.

“Hey, you don’t need to say anything if you don’t want to. I figured it had to be something pretty awful to drive you all the way here.” He was quiet for a second. “Look, as somebody who’s gone through basically the full spectrum of awful shit you could put someone through, I can’t tell you it gets any easier to deal with. Over time though, you learn ways to cope, things you can do to distract yourself, you find things that motivate you to keep going for another day. It’s not easy and sometimes you’re going to have a day where you slip up and end up hurting yourself or somebody else, but it’s a process. Talking about it kind of helped me, but I’d wait till the wound is a bit less fresh. Bringing it up again too soon, you just end up digging your fingers into the open wound.”

“Thank you for the advice, though I don’t believe what we went through is really in any way comparable. Not that I think either of us had it any worse!” she clarified quickly, “Just that our experiences were likely completely different.”

“Hey, look at me.” Charlotte forced herself to make eye contact with Guts for the first time that afternoon. His eyes were still intense, the smaller size of his pupils and iris gave him a somewhat crazed look that had always frightened her, but his expression was placid, difficult to read. “When I say the full spectrum I mean the full spectrum alright. Even if you think it’s something that couldn’t ever happen to a guy like me, it happened.” He took a deep breath. “I grew up with a sword on my back. The stuff I did with this thing,” he pointed to his sword, “never made me lose any sleep. I figure that probably means there’s something wrong with me, but the point is, it’s mostly the other shit that keeps me up at night.” He looked down, scratching his nose as he did and for the first time, Charlotte wondered who’d given him that scar.

“It seems we’re not as different as I had believed.”

“Yeah, guess we aren’t.”