A Dog Among Princes

Chapter 42

When Guts woke up, his body still ached. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been out. Usually when he blacked out from injuries he could gauge how long he’d been out by how long into the process of healing he was. He could breath now without pain meaning his ribs had been healed, which would’ve normally told him it had been weeks, but there were still superficial cuts on the back of his visible hand that hadn’t healed yet. They must’ve had Puck come and heal the worst of it. He shifted his left arm into his field of vision. It ended just below his elbow, but it felt like the wound had closed at least beneath the bandages. Yeah, he didn’t think they’d be able to fix that. At least it still worked, though he’d probably have to learn to use a hook. He let out a heavy sigh as he realized what was wrong with his eyesight. Everything looked slightly flat. Guts reached up to his face and found that the socket where his right eye should be was hollow. The lids had already been sewn shut to prevent infection. He’d have to relearn how to gauge distances as well.

Griffith lay asleep at his bedside. He hadn’t changed out of his clothes from the wedding and his silver hair was still matted with blood. Cadogan sat in a chair further away reading a book.

“How long was I unconscious?” Guts croaked. He must have strained his voice as well.

“Two days.” The king put down his book.

“I told you something bad was going to happen.”

“I’ll admit I did think it was just nervous paranoia.” The king sighed.

“It probably was, I just get put in a lot of situations where my paranoia ends up justified in hindsight.”

“I can’t fathom how you’ve had the strength to live like this for all these years.”

“It isn’t strength,” He admitted. “I can’t just lay down and die because I’m terrified of dying. Even if my life ends up being one kick to balls after another, until one day I get kicked so hard I don’t get up, I’ll still be alive, I’ll still be able to fight. I don’t know what will happen when I die, but I know if there’s a heaven that’s certainly not where I’m going. At that point though there isn’t really much I can do about it. At least while I’m alive I can still fight. Even if I fail, if I get hurt or let other people get hurt, it’s because I still had that option. Things wouldn’t get worse if I just died, but they’d also never have the chance to get better either.” Guts ran his fingers through Griffith’s hair, dried blood crackling beneath his fingers. “I’m afraid that I’d be stuck like this forever. That I’d rob myself of even the tiniest chance that someday I’ll get to a point where it won’t hurt as much.”

“So it is not fear then, it is hope that sustains you.” Guts’s hand stilled in Griffith’s hair.

“Yeah, I guess it is.” He gently shook Griffith. “Hey. Wake up.” Griffith rubbed his eyes. “Go take a bath, you stink,” Guts joked. Griffith’s eyes widened and he practically launched himself on top of Guts. “Shit that hurts.” He laughed.

“I’m sorry.” Griffith buried his face in his neck. “I should have come back to you sooner. Your sword…” the words caught in his throat. Guts knew what Griffith wanted to say. He didn’t think Guts would ever hold a sword again.

“I’ll learn.” He stroked Griffith’s hair. “You really do need a bath though.”

There was a quiet knock on the door and Rickert poked his head in. His face brightened when he saw that Guts was awake.

“Guts!” He held a wrapped bundle under his arm.

“Rickert! It’s been a while since I’ve seen you!” His apprenticeship with Godot had been treating him well. He’d even begun to grow his hair out.

“I brought you a gift. Godot and I both put it together. Though the workmanship might be a little rough for your station.”

“As if that’s ever stopped me. Let me see what you’ve got.” Rickert unwrapped the bundle.

“I came up with the design, but Godot helped me figure out all the mechanical aspects.” It was a metal arm with articulated fingers and a strange box-like structure in the wrist. Guts picked it up and the arms of a crossbow extended from it.

“What’s the box for?”

“Bolts. After the first one is shot, the second drops down into the mechanism. That way you don’t have to stop to reload.” Rickert answered proudly. Guts experimentally looked down the barrel with his good eye. He noticed a cord hanging off of the wrist.

“Hey what’s this do?”

“DON’T TOUCH THAT!” Rickert seemed shocked at his own outburst. “It’s better that you only use that outside.” He looked as if he was about to have a heart attack. “There’s also magnets in the palm and fingers.” Gut’s eyes lit up.

“How strong?”

“You’ll have to see.” Rickert showed Guts how to strap it to the remaining stump of his arm. It fit perfectly. He couldn't clench his hand and the metal forearm was heavy but at least his arm moved like it was supposed to. His sword sat by his bedside, perhaps left as a good luck charm. He fumbled the first time, missing by inches, but the second his hand touched the hilt, his fingers wrapped around it like they always had. Next he attempted to lift it, first testing to see how much force it would take with his heavier arm. He adjusted the angle of his arm and pulled. The magnets held and again he was holding his sword in his left hand.

“Rickert you’re a goddamn genius.”

“Like I said I had plenty of help.” He scratched the back of his neck bashfully.

This had been a very strange weekend for the King of Tudor. He still didn’t quite understand the wedding he had attended. The White Falcon had been a thorn in his side for four years during the very end of the war, the king might even say he was instrumental in ending it, but he could not determine what value he brought in a partnership with York’s prince. As far as he knew, the leader of the band of the hawk was a lowborn mercenary, and in coming here he had completely abandoned the lands and titles he had been awarded by the late king of midland. He would bring nothing of any real value to the marriage aside from his military expertise, which while incredibly well developed for a man his age, was still far from worth the trouble that a marriage between two men could cause politically. Maybe there was something there he wasn’t seeing. Perhaps the king of Midland had thrown the entirety of the royal coffers at him before he had deserted?

Then there was the matter of the king and queen of Midland. Both had died when that monster crashed through the windows but not at all in the same way. The queen had been caught by shrapnel, an unfortunate accident, but the king it seemed had been slain by his own daughter.

It seemed ludicrous. The rumors suggested that she was naive and timid to the point she had difficulty speaking to men she didn’t know. However the young woman who stood before himself and York’s king did not display even a hint of timidity, though the two young knights, one an intense eyed young woman with short blond hair, the other a young man likewise with short blond hair, who despite his bored appearance, never seemed to let his hand stray too far from the hilt of his sword, may have something to do with it. The princess herself was short for her age and baby faced, she would have looked almost like a doll in her fine red and white dress if not for her shaved head and impenetrable expression.

“You intend then, to assert your right to the throne.” The king of York asked the princess.

“Indeed” she nodded, “and I humbly ask that the both of you publicly recognize my sovereignty.” She kept her gaze completely level.

As an unmarried woman, asserting her sovereignty was highly unusual and if any of her direct male relatives had remained alive, even her ten year old cousin, her claim would’ve been dismissed outright. However, that was not the case, she was the only one left to take the throne. This did offer him a rather unique opportunity. His old enemy had been weakened by the war and would be further destabilized by the death of their king, if his daughter attempted to take the throne it would only weaken the kingdom further. He was in no hurry to start another war, but would it really be a war if the other side was completely incapable of fighting back?

“While I respect your resolve, I question whether or not you are fully qualified for the position. Would it not be better for you to appoint a regent to rule in your stead? Perhaps a political ally with more experience.” The King of Tudor suggested. If he could conquer Midland through diplomatic means that would be even better. Princess Charlotte did not allow emotion to enter her expression as she spoke.

“I would argue there is no one who is better qualified. I have been trained my entire life to take up the position of queen, I have know my nation’s laws, I understand the culture of her people, and though I have been away from it for a short time I understand the rhythms and dynamics of my court’s dealings, far better than an outsider might. When I first came to York I negotiated my own asylum, still tired and dirty from travel. I have no doubt in my abilities to act as a lawmaker and diplomat.

“I just worry, my lady, that you face difficulties in the course of your rule that diplomacy cannot solve. Problems of war a violence beyond the purview of a young queen. My son is only a few years your senior, perhaps you would be willing to-“

“You doubt my ability to make war?”

“Well, it is not something taught to a young woman of good breeding. You should not have to bloody your hands after all, it is unbecoming. It would not be right to force you to make decisions on which the lives of others hinge.”

“Your majesty, with all due respect, you have been blinded by your decades of war. War is not the only realm in which the lives of my people will hang upon my decisions. For example, were I to empty the coffers of my kingdom to engage in vice and hire mercenaries to assuage my ego at the sight of my own impotence, the tax burden I put upon my people would likely cost many people their lives and livelihoods. Or to use a less relevant example, if I decided to increase the grain tax at an improper time, or to put off digging irrigation channels, or allow a group of merchants to break quarantine before entering the country, lives could hang in the balance. I do not take any of the responsibilities I will take on lightly, but if it is reassuring to you, my hands have already been stained with the blood of my own kin. I have already made the most difficult decision a daughter can make in killing my father for the good of my people. It may be unbecoming, it may even be repulsive, but it was necessary. I ask you, could you have done the same if it were asked of you?!” Charlotte stared at him with an intensity the King of Tudor had only ever seen in his most hardened generals and he shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “If you cannot say that you could, how can you possibly think to call my qualifications into question?” The King of Tudor swallowed. The king of Midland had been childish and unpredictable in his tactics but he had never been particularly resolute. His daughter on the other hand seemed like she would be a far more dangerous enemy, one he would not like to make.

“I will respect your claim.”

“Good.” The slightest glimmer of relief broke through the stone of her expression.

“It is absolutely ghoulish!” Charlotte threw her hands up as she sat at the foot of Guts’s sick bed. “I have never understood men’s preoccupation with the ability to inflict violence upon another. I can have every other qualification, display every other art, and skill and yet I cannot compel the authority of anyone unless they believe I’ve committed murder!”

“That was pretty good thinking by the way.”

“It was disgusting! It is horrific that I even need to keep up with this pretense, that murder is considered something worth lauding!” The prince that had been lauded for his whole career as a mercenary for the sheer amount of people he had murdered shifted awkwardly. “Oh! My apologies, I didn’t mean-“

“No, you’re right it is awful. Griffith would probably say it was a consequence of Midland being at war for so long, it was a scar on the whole system.” He scratched his head. “I don’t know though, I think when you drill down on it though it’s because those on top are the ones most capable of enacting violence, so people tend to get this sick association between violence and the wealth and prestige that power gives you. That and if there’s some guy going around hitting people with a stick, you want to at least make him think you agree with him so that you’re not the next person to get whacked. I don’t like it either, I don’t think any of the shit that I did was honorable. Necessary yes, but desperation doesn’t make anything honorable.”

“Why did you kill my cousin?” It just came out, she hadn’t meant to ask. He sighed, and she could see the unfathomable age that years of horror had inflicted on him behind his one young eye.

“I wasn’t supposed to. I was sloppy when I killed your uncle and he saw me. He wasn’t supposed to-“ he sniffed roughly wiping a tear from his one eye and Charlotte remembered once again that he was barely older than she was. “I saw your uncle training him, how much he was getting beaten down by it all and it reminded me of me and my father. It probably doesn’t make you feel better to hear, but it made me feel like I was killing myself. I told him I was sorry but I knew even then it wasn’t anywhere near enough for what I was taking from him. Just like I know it isn’t anywhere near enough for what I took from you.”

“And my uncle?” she asked.

“He tried to kill Griffith. That assassination attempt at the hunt, that wasn’t for you it was for him. We ended up tracing the poison on the bolt back to him.” He quieted for a moment. “But also like I said, he reminded me of my father.”

“Did you kill him too?”

“Yeah. I did. I’m nothing if not internally consistent.” He answered bitterly. “Why’d you cut your father’s head off. You could’ve just slit his throat.” Charlotte didn’t know how to answer that question. She wasn’t sure why she’d done it. “Sorry, that’s unfair. You’re not used to thinking about this shit yet. I guess, think about it this way right? If you just wanted to stage a fake assassination you could’ve just slit his throat, you probably would’ve thought to do that if you’d come at it with a clear head. But you didn’t, you came at it with the full knowledge of who he was and what he did to you and you let that guide your hand. I want you to know that I’ll never judge you for that, but you also need to understand that impulse. Cruelty always comes from emotion. A lot of men will try to say they’re beyond that, that they were thinking rationally when they killed another soldier with their own hands, but they’re lying, every single one of them. What you felt when you ran away, what you felt when you took his head, that’s what violence is. You know it better than any of those bastards that sit around and order other people to enact it.” He clenched his fist before releasing it. “That also means you know exactly why people shouldn’t try to bring even more of it into the world needlessly. Though I guess we’re both in pretty good positions to try and prevent that, Queen Charlotte.” She looked at Guts in his sick bed, and she saw a child, one who the world had torn pieces off of until he resolved into the shape of a man, a soldier, and a murderer, but who still sensed the bloody holes in his self well enough to intuit exactly what had been ripped away from him.

“I appreciate your counsel, Prince Guts. I will take it to heart.”

“Are you sure you’re well enough to do this?” Judeau asked as Guts braced his prosthetic arm. “Didn’t Rickert say the force could dislocate your shoulder if you weren’t careful?”

“I can handle it.” It had been a good week now since he had awakened and his body no longer aches with the vestiges of healing.

“If he wants to tear his arm off, let him.” Casca sighed. “He’s just going to dig his heels in more.” Guts had noticed she’d been letting her hair grow out. It had begun to reach just past her chin at this point, not quite long enough to tie back, but long enough that she had taken to wearing a hairband to keep it out of her eyes. It suited her.

“Have a little faith.” He lined up his shot, staring down his wrist at the target he’d set up, a log, propped up with a metal rod driven through the center. The kind he’d used to begin practicing his swordplay again the moment he could stand. He didn’t care for needless violence, but he knew there would always be times when once again he’d have to pick up his sword. He turned towards Griffith, who stood behind him, hands on his back. “You ready?” Griffith dug his claws into the ground.

“When you are, my love.” He looked beautiful in a crown. Guts was glad he had been the one to finally put one on his head. He took the cord that hung from his wrist in his teeth (Rickert had joked that that first duel had really made an impression on him) then he pulled as hard as he could. His hand swung down below his wrist, revealing the barrel of a miniature cannon. A fist sized ball of hot iron shot out, jolting his shoulder with the force of it, and crashed into the dummy which exploded into splinters upon impact.

“Holy shit!” He laughed. The barrel of the cannon still smoked from the discharge. He’d have to take his arm off to clean and reload the mini-cannon, but with how much damage that single shot did, he didn’t think that would be a consideration. Griffith flipped his hand back into place, making sure he heard the click of the spring loaded mechanism closing. Guts’s fingers curled, magnetizing themselves to Griffith’s. Both of them looked at it, his unmoving hand holding Griffith’s, then they both burst into laughter.

“We’ve only just been married and you can’t keep your hands off me!” Griffith threw his head back and laughed.

“Well come on can you blame me?” Guts pulled him to his chest and wondered how he’d gotten so lucky.