A Dog Among Princes

Chapter 38

Guts had found he no longer flinched when he was fitted for clothes. This wasn’t a particularly new development, he’d slowly become more and more acclimated to being touched over the months. He still jerked away when someone surprised him in public, but when he was expecting it, even when like this, where the other person was mere inches away, it was beginning to bother him less and less.

Judeau skeptically picked up the dark silk the seamsters had brought as a sample. He’d come along, sticking around as Guts had his fitting done. It was no longer quite as uncomfortable but it was still a little boring without someone who wasn’t in the middle of something to talk to.

“Don’t like it?” The blonde jumped. He wasn’t used to Guts initiating conversation.

“No, no it’s very nice, just why black?”

Casca had looked at him funny for that too. He probably should’ve chosen a more joyful color for his wedding, but black was what suited him. He was of unpolished iron, of secret vows sworn under the cover of night, of the ravens that followed him from battle to battle as they followed wolves. Nothing suited him but black.

“Brings out my eyes,” he joked, habitually dodging the question. It took him a moment to realize that he had, then another moment to come up with an actual answer. “Despite everything good that’s happened, I still think I’m probably cursed. There’s only so many times a guy can have ghosts or demons or elves invested in his fate before it stops being a coincidence. I’ve made peace with it. I’ve even made peace with the idea that even if I tell you to leave and save yourself you’d still stay here in harm's way, or if I run off somewhere by myself somebody would just track me down again. One day somebody is probably going to get seriously hurt because of the fucking cloud of death following me, but there isn’t anything I can do besides getting better at protecting everyone. Once again that’s just something I’ve accepted.”

Judeau wanted to protest, but he had to admit the evidence was pretty damning. Guts seemed to exist in a bizarre cosmic place, hounded by death at every turn but still clinging desperately to life. Almost more than human but far from spirit. It was like from the moment he’d been born the universe hadn’t been sure whether to group him with men or ghosts so it tossed him in with both and hoped for the best.

“I don’t know, I figure if I’m a bringer of death I might as well look the part right?”

“It could still just be a really long, tragic, string of coincidences.”

“Ask me again in five years. My luck probably will have run out again by then.”

“Even if you are cursed, you really want to be Guts the bringer of death when you’re getting married?” Guts stared into the middle distance for a moment.

“Even if I wasn’t cursed I’d still be followed by death. I’m a damn good killer, you know that. I don’t feel guilty exactly, I think any of the guys I killed would’ve gladly killed me if I’d let them, but you know, I still killed a whole lot of people. That’s part of what I meant by accepting it I guess. I’ll always have blood on my hands, the best I can do is try to choose whose.” Even the seamster, still working on getting down his measurements, had paused in his work to listen. “I know who I am, and I think other people ought to know who I am too. If it makes people uncomfortable, all the better. The way the world is now, I’m a kind of person that needs to exist, that the world itself will create on its own, but that doesn’t mean it’s right that someone like me should.” He rubbed the back of his head. “When I got here I didn’t really know what I wanted to do with my life. I know Griffith had all these grand ambitions, but all I was really concerned with was trying to figure out who the hell I wanted to be and how to stop being this. Now, I think I know what I want to do. I want to make sure there are as few people like me out there as possible.”

There was silence for a beat when he finished speaking. Guts never used to talk very much. He wasn’t expected to, what did his opinion matter to anyone outside the band anyway? But in the rare moments that Judeau did hear him say more than five words at a time, generally when he was trying to put words to a complex thought or emotion, he could almost match Griffith in poetics, despite his much coarser speech. He had a knack for getting people to understand just how he felt about any particular issue or person even if he didn’t come out and directly say what he was feeling. Ironic for somebody who kept himself so guarded for so long. When he spoke you understood how strongly he believed in something, enough that occasionally Judeau found himself wanting to believe in it too. Not this time though.

“You know, you’re more than a hand on a sword hilt Guts.”

“I might be, but it’s still hard for me to come to grips with that.”

“It’s harder for you to be a person than it is to be a bad omen?” Guts coughed out a rough laugh.

“Way fucking harder, I’m expected to act like one. I’m better at it than I used to be at least.” He gave Judeau a long look. “Thanks for that by the way. I don’t think I would’ve gotten as close to acting like a person as I did without you and Pippin dragging me around.”

Maybe he wouldn’t have, but Guts had a tendency to sell himself short. He had a sort of calm detachment when it came to things he knew he was good at, treating even skills he’d worked for hours and years to hone as matters of course, but when it came to things he wasn’t good at, he had a tendency to fixate. Judeau figured it was because Guts was right, he did know himself, but he was far too familiar with his gifts to see them as remarkable and far too familiar with his detriments to see them as things he could overcome on his own.

“I think you’re stronger than you give yourself credit for. It might’ve taken longer but I think even without us you could’ve learned to be a person again.”

“If you say so.” Guts shrugged.

Charlotte looked at the invitation she’d received as if it might bite her. It was rather unfair to the invitation, it was very nicely written. She recognized Griffith’s precise, almost stencil-like, formal penmanship. Different of course from his personal and casual penmanship, the first of which was just as careful but far less standardized, the second of which was a near illegible scrawl. She’d seen him work through all three in his correspondence with her, beginning formally and then slowly working down to casual as he “became closer to her”.

It still left a bad taste in her mouth that he could concoct such a convincing display of false vulnerability. Charlotte was almost perversely glad now that he had broken her heart. A relationship with a man willing to lie so freely and convincingly to manipulate her would have ripped her from the nightmare of her father only to trap her in a new one with Griffith. So greatly had it disturbed her, when she’d had time to consider what happened, that if she had doubts in Guts’s capability to understand the knight’s true intent, she would have done anything in her power to sabotage their engagement. As it was however, it seemed that Guts fully understood just who Griffith was and had, for some reason, decided he was worth the pain and effort. He was stronger than she was certainly.

No, she did not mind seeing Griffith’s back, better he take the hand of another with royal blood than herself. What truly concerned her was the guest list. His majesty had been nothing but apologetic when he informed her, his eyes fixed upon a point just above her left shoulder instead of her face. He had made it clear that her presence was not expected and that if she believed that it would be too dangerous or unpleasant to attend in light of her father’s attendance. Charlotte had been the one to insist she would be present, though she wasn’t fully bereft of her wits she would be wearing a disguise. That was most of the reason she’d asked Farnese to accompany her. It’s not that she didn’t trust the girl to protect her, but she was in an awfully fragile state herself. It would be better for her to act as camouflage first and foremost.

Charlotte put down the invitation. This would be a trial for her. The first major trial she had chosen for herself. She had always understood that she would one day be queen, but for most of her life she did not understand what she wished to do with the position nor what it would ask from her. Her father was a markedly poor example to follow, allowing his court to command itself while he indulged his laziness, only stepping in when something arose that prevented him from indulging his vices. That was not how she wanted to rule. She would not be so selfish or so passive. However to become the queen she wished to be, she would need a will of iron and nerves of steel and at the moment she found her mettle to be far more brittle than she wished. Charlotte’s will had begun to temper in the flames of the tribulations she’d already faced, and she believed that choosing to go back into the flames herself would strengthen her further. She would not turn away or run from trials any longer.