morriganfearn | Not Exactly a Secret [Fanfic] (Reply)

Title: Not Exactly a Secret
Author: MorriganFearn
Rating: M
Characters: Rutger, Dieck, Clarine, Sue, Fir, Klein, Saul
Genre: Romance, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort (still not clear what that is as a genre, but it's prolly the closest to accurate I'll get)
Pairings: Rutger/Dieck
Summary: It's not exactly a secret that Rutger has some aggression to work through. It is a bit of a surprise that Dieck is interested in this. But as the first half year of the War Against Bern rolls on, the status quo they create begins to change.

Title: Not Exactly a Secret - Part 3
Author: MorriganFearn
Rating: G
Characters: Rutger, Dieck, Lance, Wolt, Percival, Cecilia, Clarine, Noah, Treck
Genre: Questionable Romance, International Intrigue
Pairings: Rutger/Dieck
Summary: Rutger needs to be more careful about making casual bets. The stakes might not be worth it.

Previous Part (From Thria to Ostia) Next Part (Araphen)

Not Exactly a Secret: Part 3

The birds were barely singing when Rutger lurched out of his room to find a privy, or, in his secret hopes, a full bathhouse. Ostia was the center of Lycia, and it should be able to afford a bathhouse. On the other hand, Lycia was fairly backward about a lot of things, so maybe there would be no hot pools, and he would have to make do with a horse trough and hope that cleared the sleepless night from his eyes.

Unfortunately, even with ruined walls and torn tapestries to indicate the progress of the army, Castle Ostia was a maze. He had just been through the ground floor yesterday—admittedly following Roy's lead to the throne room—but it had been yesterday. He should be able to find something other than endless passages.

Clarine ambushed him as he backed out of the laundry—the servants had privies hiding just past the drying yard, complete with the said horse trough—complaining that she was looking for the banquet hall and no one would tell her where anything was. Also, Rutger, you're dripping water. You should tie your hair back so it's more dignified. Rutger didn't know whether telling her that he was equally lost would get her out of his wet hair, or somehow enlist him as her guide, so he listened to the ranting with one ear as he continued to explore the ground floor.

That was why he almost missed a sleepy eyed Noah and actually-sleeping-upright Treck asking Dieck which way to breakfast. What alerted Rutger was the way Noah's voice jumped a surprised octave and his eyes widened as Rutger and Clarine came down a side passage. Rutger tried not to grin as those tired eyes woke up enough to dart back and forth between himself and Dieck. At the second pass, he raised an eyebrow and smirked enough for there to be no mistake about who had placed their teeth all over that broad expanse.

The last time he had done that, the young Lycian knight in the red armor had jumped, and hastily muttered excuses, while looking guilty. Noah was obviously made of sterner stuff, but he was older than Allen, and an Ilian mercenary to boot. If Dieck was anything to go by, Ilians were an open-minded lot.

Noah broke eye contact with a shake of his head. "Well, if we're all looking for breakfast, we should look together. Dieck, do you know where Brother Saul's quarters are? He might be able to help with your—"

"Do you know if he's ever been to Ostia before?" Dieck drawled.

Noah's face worked through uncertainty. Clearly he did not know, but the moment he opened his mouth, Treck's center of balance seemed to decide that sleeping vertical was silly, and Noah had to dive before his fellow mercenary crashed to the floor.

Dieck watched, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Well, it doesn't sound as though there's anything the good brother can do for us, then."

Clarine stamped her foot. "Where is Roy?! It's his duty to see to his guests! Particularly ladies."

Dieck turned in surprise, and then nodded swiftly. "I will go find him for you, milady."

Rutger was amazed how quickly that brought out smiles in the petulant girl. Even as Dieck hurried away, Clarine turned to him, to point out a laundry list of qualities "that nice man" possessed, and Rutger did not. "And I hardly would think you were protecting me at all!" she finished. "I should ask that man if he would do it."

"I can always ask him in your name," Rutger promised, already heading for the corridor Dieck had chosen for his disappearing act. There was something about Clarine's child-like certainty that he was willing to indulge, as a general rule, but after a night of restless haunted sleep and an early morning lost in this stone mausoleum, his patience was thin.

Rounding a corner that concealed a stair case, he was surprised to discover the object of his search resting in the shadow of the stairs, running fingers over one of the deep gouges in his arm. It was one of the ones Rutger had trouble figuring out, much like the strange burns. For one thing, scarred skin was usually a raised line, but a few of Dieck's old wounds were deep valleys into the muscle, usually paired in two or three scars, as though someone had taken a hooked blade and sliced several parallel marks in quick succession with uncanny precision.

What was strangest, however, was the clear unnaturalness in the way the damage had healed. Those valleys were obvious, but the skin itself was unblemished, as though magic had been used to restore the skin evenly, even if it couldn't repair the actual flesh underneath. Since most of these injuries were on Dieck's back, Rutger had initially guessed they were tokens from past lovers, but they were horrifically deep for foreplay, and mages were secluded, weren't they? Oh Lugh had ambitions in that direction, but magic was generally the provenience of the sacred on the Plains, and particularly in lands controlled by Elimineans, being a mercenary was profane. It just didn't seem likely that Dieck would have taken a mage for a lover.

"So, what will I get for winning the bet?"

Rutger started. He hadn't thought he had been noticed. "You didn't win. Noah isn't the walking military tactics manual."

"Ah, and here I was hoping you were here to concede and maybe promise me half your pay or something equally nice."

"No, I'm here because Clarine wants you to be her bodyguard," Rutger leaned forward, trying not to grin at Dieck's predicament.

Oddly, however, Dieck just sighed. "I hope she forgets that before I see her next."

"Can't tell a little girl to run off and play?"

Dieck shrugged. "Oh, I'm sure that I can. You've got rings around your eyes like an owl in daylight, you know that? So, how was your night?"

Did Dieck really want to know? Rutger tried to image what Dieck would say to the thoughts of anger and screaming that tumbled through his head all night long. No one here cared what Bern had done. Worse, Rutger was suffering a blow to his pride as a warrior, and allowing his pride to weaken him. It wasn't important. "Fine."

Dieck's eyebrows suggested very strongly that Rutger was a liar, but he shrugged again. Rutger felt them teetering on the brink of something, but he wasn't sure which way to push things to get what he wanted. Actually, right now the only thing he really wanted was a hot bath, which didn't seem to be part of any conversation he could possibly have with Dieck.

Dieck stepped away from the wall. "I think I'm going to go linger conspicuously near the practice yards."

"You really want to win that bet, don't you?" Rutger asked, tolerantly wondering if their stakes were at all similar.

Dieck's answering shrug was interestingly bland. "Well, unlike you, I don't mind anyone asking how my night went. Which will probably lead to well meant suggestions from conscientious fifteen-year olds. You can go be a help to Clarine and get Roy—"

Striding feet from just beyond a bend in the corridor indicated that someone wished to use the hallway very much. Rutger assumed it was the knights in question from a certain armored clankiness to the noise. Rather than lose the bet on that instant—or worse, get questioned about the rings around his eyes—he grabbed Dieck's arm, and pulled him into the shadow of the stairs.

"Percival!" a woman called out, just as Etruria's tall general from the previous day turned the corner.

He stopped, and sighed, looking around. "What is it Cecilia? I've received my summons from the King, and if I can't find my way out of this maddening place soon I'll be trying to navigate the border mountains with a full army division in the dark."

"Well, for one, I wanted to tell you that you should leave by the kitchen entrance, which is in the other direction. But can't I persuade you to stay for a few more days? You've been traveling or fighting on every order out of Aquelia for the last year. You can't catch the assassins by choosing to roast yourself in the infernal blazes just trying to find them."

Percival chuckled darkly, a grim expression that had nothing to do with humor flitting across his face as he stared down at his short companion. "I shouldn't even have accepted the hospitality last night. The faster I can get back to our little pit of vipers, the more favors I can garner. I'm so close, Cecilia. Closer than even I may know—the King doesn't suspect it, but the rumors I've heard make me think that it wasn't Bern at all that killed Mi—our prince."

The mage general took a step backward, her eyes wide. "Percival—that's a serious charge. Bern is known for their assassins, and after Sacae, and now Lycia, they have to have their eyes on us. It only makes sense that they would put succession into doubt—"

"Bern's king is Mi—Prince Mildain's cousin, and visited often enough when he was young, until his father forbade it. I'm sure King Zephiel suspects—suspected his cousin was unlikely to—that Etruria's succession is—was likely to be in turmoil after the prince became king, anyway. If the king of Bern had the ability to kill a beautiful and strong young man in the prime of life to place the crown into doubt, he could have done away with an aging, frail king, as well. The chaos of choosing a new ruler would only make invasion easier. With King Mordred still alive the country is still governed, and stable. I doubt it was Bern."

"I wish I wasn't sure your were right. I had a conversation with the half-sister last night and she said that King Zephiel would never use assassins. How accurate her observation is, of course, subject to doubt—but none of this is proof," Cecilia stepped closer, as though what Percival was saying really shouldn't be for other ears.

Rutger glanced at Dieck, but his fellow mercenary had his eyes closed, and hardly needed Rutger's weight to press him tightly against the wall. Curiosity's pull on the Sacaen mercenary was far too strong, however, and he continued to peer around the stairwell.

"Douglas knows something," Percival murmured, or tried to, but the stones of Ostia's keep bounced his low voice all around the corridor. "If he thought it was Bern, he would be calling for swift action. Instead, he does nothing. Nothing that might endanger the King. If it was the court, however, even a hint of suspicion places King Mordred in peril."

"It's still not proof, Percival."

"Which is why I have to go back and find some. No rest for the wicked, or foolish, lazy knights."

Cecilia sighed, reaching up to cup a well shaved chin. There was nothing but sad affectionate understanding in her expression, and with the faces haunting his sleep, Rutger immediately thought of his mother tutting over the scars he had earned as a temporary guard for one of the trade caravans. He never would have imagined that a Western noble woman who had risen to the rank of general had an understanding bone in her body. Whoever was lucky enough to have Cecilia as an older sister was lucky indeed.

"You didn't kill him, Percival," General Cecilia's tone had the flattened sound of someone who has repeated the words too often, and knows they will never be taken to heart, but just doesn't have any more words to add to her mantra. "An assassin strikes when there is opportunity, and there is always an opportunity. You could have been the Saint herself, and still Mildain would have died. Douglas was there, and he couldn't save him. You may have been the Prince's General, but you're not the Great General of Etruria yet."

Percival tried to turn away, and mumble something to a hall tapestry. However, even though Cecilia's hand slipped from cheek to cloaked shoulder, she held on fast. "I know. I miss him too. Maybe not as you do, but he was my student, and I failed him."

"Hah. Now who expects too much from herself. But," Percival straightened and stepped away, "that brings up another reason for me to leave promptly. This sad, ragtag little band of mercenaries is going to be made to pay for yesterday's rescue. I know the commander is another student of yours Cecilia. I'm not going to stay to be the one who will order them to fight our battles to their deaths, but it will happen."

"Oh, I know it will," Cecilia nodded, the kindness leaving her face bleak. "I have a missive concerning the rumors of the Princess of Bern's defection from her brother's side on my desk. It suggests some housing conditions that involve a lot of pointed questions about Zephiel's army and even pointier methods of asking those questions. I've been trying to figure out a convincing way to dispose of it."

"Spill wine on it when you break your fast," the general suggested dismissively. "That's what Mildain did when he wanted to prolong his absence from court for a few days, or politely not be invited to parties filled with eligible ladies. But the talks will happen. Steer them in your favor if you can."

"Thank you, I'll try. Guinevere is a sweet girl. I can't believe she's related to the old king by blood. I met him once, you know. The old king. He made a tour of the university when I was graduating, and you could just see the seething envy and contempt for his Etrurian cousins."

"I can't believe she's related to Zephiel. She looks as though a gust of wind could blow her away."

"Ah," Cecilia's voice rang with hollow darkness, "you would think that. But after talking to her—she can turn on the charm the way he could when he was a lad. There's that same earnest belief in the goodness of creation in her. I pray that Etruria's crown will not be what destroys that belief, the way growing up seems to have done to her brother. Anyway, speaking of avoiding the duties of the crown, I suppose you are right to leave before more unfortunate orders find you."

"Well, if any come to this warren of a castle, I wish them the luck of finding me. I wanted that side passage to the kitchens?" Percival pointed over Cecilia's shoulder, and the two turned the corner they had just come around.

Although he didn't want to admit it, Rutger felt nearly weak kneed with relief that they had not been caught. Yet even as he relaxed, or perhaps because he relaxed, he noticed Dieck's chest was tight, his hands had balled into fists. The tension vibrated under Rutger's gloved hands. Rutger would swear he could feel the muscles of that bare chest was trembling, and Dieck seemed to be keeping his eyes closed.

"They are gone now."

"Yeah," Dieck snorted, one eye cracking open to stare down at Rutger. "That was clever, hiding here."

"I thought we were going to meet one of the young knights before I had my breakfast," Rutger shrugged peering around the corner again. "They sound in a predicament."

"Poor souls," Dieck agreed, his tone so bitter, Rutger's attention whipped around. The mercenary looked as lazily bold as ever, but for once his eyes held the tightness of anger at the edges. What was going on in that inscrutable head of Dieck's? "It's good that they're putting off betraying us until the last possible moment, don't you think?"

Where did that come from? Rutger desperately wanted to know. But a direct attack almost never worked on Dieck unless it was swift, and Dieck was tired. With the mercenary this tense, his guard would never drop. He sized up the situation, running his hands absently over the network of bruises. Interestingly, the tight trembling thrum of Dieck's chest eased under his palms. He grinned wryly, and caught Dieck looking almost surprised.

"What, you expect me not to care that they might decide to throw us into a fray that has nothing to do with Bern?" Rutger asked.

Dieck shook his head for a moment, the more normal clarity returning to his expression. "Sometimes I do wonder about you. You're saying you wouldn't kill if it wasn't a blow against Bern?"

"No. But they'd have to pay me a lot more. I'll die happily with a blade in my hands, but I won't want to risk any of my enemies outliving me without a good reason."

"And what does a guy with your death wish do with extra money, anyway?"

"Well, obviously," but Rutger had to stop. He hadn't really thought about it. What had he used money for before Bulgar fell? "Get nice lodgings, I suppose. Or a tent of my own. There was a smith I would have given my right arm to commission a blade from," but he was dead. Too much yellow and green in his blood to be allowed to live.

Dieck sighed expressively. It almost covered the subtle shift, as Dieck laced his hands together behind Rutger's back, neatly enfolding him as though they really were lovers and not separate people leading lives that occasionally crashed into one another. "You're too self sufficient, you know that? There'll be no fun taking half your wages from you when I win the bet, if you don't actually need them."

"I wish I knew why you keep thinking that you're going to win when the cavaliers that we've met so far seem only to hint at healers, and I now know the way to the kitchen and breakfast, thanks to the Etrurians."

"Ooh, another reason to be less than happy with the news they brought," but Dieck was all lazy grins as he gazed down at Rutger. The anger seemed a distant memory.

"Huh. Maybe those two will pull off whatever kindness we need to continue fighting Bern without interference," Rutger began, hoping to see a break in Dieck's defenses.

Indeed, he came close, as Dieck's face grew more serious. "They won't. That general was right when he called the Etrurian court a pit of vipers."

Dieck stared past him, his eyes somewhere else entirely, and where ever they were, it was a hard unforgiving place. Rutger imagined his own eyes dwelled in the same plane much of the time. He couldn't ask. Not while Dieck's guard was firmly concentrated upon holding the past at bay. This was not the victory Rutger wanted.

Yesterday, Dieck had asked him if he had recognized a dead man, while Rutger's guard was down. Rutger wanted to be better than that. He didn't need to pry. And yet. The absurd lack of amusement in Dieck's face, and the tightness of his arms spoke of tension demanding to be broken.

Who would break it, if not Rutger? He gave up, raising an eyebrow with a curious: "Oh?"

Thumbs rode along his sword belt for a moment, pressing over the lip of leather, and rubbing a small contemplative circle on his lower back through his surcoat. Dieck managed a thoughtful smirk. "Maybe I'll answer that if you win the bet."

"Naming my stakes for me?"

"Why not? It's something you want to know, and something that I don't particularly want to talk about, but I suppose it doesn't really matter now."

"Just as long as you're not secretly a nobleman playing the part of a passive Ilian mercenary. There's too much fireside story in that to hold my interest," Rutger decided. "But, if those are my stakes, what will yours be?"

Dieck actually laughed at the suggestion. "Nobleman? Hah. You have been listening to tales. I'm commoner muck than you, and in Etruria common muck is very common."

Rutger blinked. "You mean, you're not Ilian?"

"Nope. What made you think I was sending money home to some impoverished idiots trying to turn ice into carrots?"

"Well, you're a mercenary—"

"So are you."

"You're one of the basically honorable sorts of mercenaries," Rutger growled. "If I don't have a pressing reason to fight, I turn my blade. Just ask Marquess Laus."

"That only happened because you found out that we were fighting Bern," Dieck shrugged off the statement, though Rutger thought that his color was high. In the shadowed stairwell, however, that could have been a trick of the light. "Anyway, no, I'm just a common mercenary with no reputation for honesty to protect, and all of the usual vices of the profession."

"Huh," Rutger drawled. "Somehow I don't see you dripping with women in every town we pass through."

"Okay, maybe some unusual vices, too," Dieck agreed amiably, his eyes flashing in amusement. "But that's because most ladies I meet aren't as eager to rip into me as you are."

Rutger scowled, thinking of scars that couldn't have been won in battle. Did he used to have someone who he could ask anything of and would then receive heartfelt affection and closeness from? "Alright, so you're Etrurian. That doesn't change much. What are you going to be extracting from me, if not my wages?"

"Hmm. Something that you don't particularly want to give me, but won't kill you if you do," Dieck hummed, and Rutger secretly admired the the feeling of it through his fingers. Possibly he was imagining it, but the bruised marks on Dieck's chest burned hotter than the rest of his exposed skin, and reacted with more sensitive tenderness to his touch. Dieck suddenly laughed. "The next time we see a nice cushy room, you wouldn't be allowed to kick me out after you've had your fun."

Rutger's eyes shot up from the injuries he had been enjoying. He knew consternation was written on his face, and he tried to school the expression. Still, the idea of anyone, much less Dieck, seeing him left weak by something as foolish as a nightmare left Rutger cold. But he couldn't refuse without letting Dieck know that request was much more serious than it should have been.

"Sure. Sounds as though I have a bet to win. Now if you're excuse me, you're stopping me from getting breakfast," that would all he would have to do to win the bet, Rutger knew, or at least draw it into a stalemate. Dieck was the honorable type, for all his protests to the contrary. He would honor even a dubious win.

He even let Rutger go, rolling his eyes good-naturedly. "Okay, pick your poison, but I still bet the green one says something before you can take your first bite."

They headed out from the stairwell, and took the corridor General Cecilia talked about. After two turns, they abruptly started finding more servants, some of them carrying food. Rutger smirked, although he chose to be good, and at least not nab any fruit or meat from the trays carried past. It was a fun excursion in its quiet way, until some annoyingly helpful serving girl turned them around politely at the doors of the kitchen, and marched them to the banquet hall, on the grounds that the cook didn't need any more people underfoot, thank you.

The whole episode hadn't even been that annoying, until the boisterous party of young cavaliers and that little archer boy caught up with them in a side passage with a winding stair. The red and green ones were chatting about how confusing the Ostian layout could be to strangers, and the archer was wide-eyed.

Allan waved at Dieck, and then gasped, as the big mercenary turned toward him. Rutger wanted to curse all luck—none of which belonged to him evidently.

"Captain Dieck, what happened to you?" Wolt's high voice sang out, almost cutting through the serious advice from yes, the walking tactics manual.

"You should probably see a healer."

Dieck elbowed Rutger in the side, triumphant in this victory. Rutger swallowed, and decided that he was not feeling kind towards children today. He smirked, and stared at Wolt. "I happened to him."

He took some comfort in the saucer eyed stares, and the fact that suddenly all those chatty kids had shut up.

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Notes:

In Chapter 8: Reunion, Percival just shows up, is his brusque but slightly sly self, and leaves everything in Cecilia's hands, claiming that Etruria can't do without two generals for too long. Given the general historical setting (i.e. Not-Dark-Ages-Italy) and Ostia's location at the base of the border mountains between Lycia and Etruria, bringing a troop of soldiers to the aid of a castle, only to turn around and ride back, presumably with an escort of some kind, given Percival's rank, seems unrealistic to me.

So I played with the canon a bit, and imagined that Roy insisted everyone take dinner and hospitality in Ostia Keep that night. Percival getting underway the following morning is shockingly quick travel time even so. Most people making that kind of journey would be expected to stay for several days, as Cecilia did, over seeing the negotiations between Eturia and what was left of the Alliance army. / dodgy non-canon justifications

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