The following is an excerpt from the writings and records of Rory Fisher, a humble bard and chronicler of the City of Five Sails:
It is impossible to accurately discuss the Saint Terni’s Riot without acknowledging that the lead-up and aftermath of that wretched day included at least three dozen schemes. High profile conspirators from each District were entrenched in theft, double-crossings and even outright murder. Everything was at play! Syrneth artifacts, District leadership, the hearts of rogues and maidens, anything that could be swindled, was swindled. If I were to name the season, I would call it the Year of Chicanery. Not to make light of the violence, mind you, but to emphasize the convolutedness of both the villainy and heroism involved.
But, dear reader, why this preamble?
To explain how I came to this series of interviews. As part of my chronicling, I’d meant to investigate the mysterious shooting of Maxime de Lefayette. The man was a noble, a diplomat, a sorcier, and a personal friend of the Emperor of Montaigne. He’d been shot to death by Horatio Lockwood. HL was certainly a man of messy repute… but by all accounts, stood on good terms with his victim. MDL was his patron, his house guest, and frequent companion to the opera.
I’ve long ago given up on learning ALL the City’s secrets, but this one! I swore! I swore before Theus that I would – that for Honor’s sake I must! Unravel. I sadly report that I’ve failed quite completely. The City makes fools and oathbreakers of us all.
No one would dare breathe a word of Lafayette. Not his Montaigne companions, who would not even swear his revenge. Astounding, mind you, because they had turned the City upside down not three days earlier, when another of their number had been slain. See Journals 6 and 7, covering the public and private details of the ambush against Francois Dufort.
I bribed who I could. Neither villainous Angelo nor charming Penya could (or perhaps would) admit to details of Lefayette’s untimely demise. Two of my most frequent sources, rendered so useless, was quite a shock.
So what, possibly, could this addendum to Journal 9 possibly contain? As a pre-emptive summary, allow me to introduce the following facts: Horatio owned both a successful pawn shop and a successful inn with which to house his Montaigne guests. Despite the several rooms he could have placed one, Horatio did not own a bed for personal use.
No one, and I mean no one, would talk to me about what drove Horatio to violence that night. However… there wasn’t a soul in this forsaken town who didn’t have an opinion, anecdote, or testimony to offer about Horatio’s actions on literally any other night of the previous three years! The man was a prolific lover and a prolific vagrant, and I couldn’t tell you which habit led to the other.
For those of you driven to tears of boredom by my histories, rejoice! Here is my salacious gossip:
Valeri Mikhailov: “A charming fellow. Quite useful. I’d grown tired of my wife. The two of us were oil and water. Sadly, we were bottled together in the glass cage of matrimony. I shook and shook. We did not mix.
I hired Horatio Lockwood to entertain her interests. Their affair freed me of my chain. I annulled our marriage, and left with my purse intact. I paid for his silence. I failed to consider that she would be the one to brag.
When the whole City imagined me wearing the horns, I figured: ‘I must kill him.’ I approached him for a duel. But he was a cunning rascal. In his shop of wonders, he stored an actor’s bladder. It would hide a liter of pig’s blood under his armpit, to burst and spray when pierced.
In the end, I agreed to meet him at the Bazaar. Within moments, I had triumphed. The public adored me. Scorned husband, cheated friend, winning duelist! And all Horatio lost was a jerkin, now stained with blood. Maybe also a shred of dignity, if he even had one to lose.
Funny, useful fellow. A great actor, when the need strikes him. I recommend him for his cunning services. I’m a little bitter, though. I wish my former wife would stop recommending him, too.
Vittoria Anselmo: He’s got a stellar knife collection. He understands me, in that way. We could talk about knives for hours. Problem is, that’s all we had in common. Heartbreaking, if I had a heart to give.
I heard that Lefayette fellow trashed Lockwood’s shop. I reckon he deserved getting shot. It’s a tragedy that they messed up the place.
If Lockwood survives the week, I’ll give him a visit. Strictly professional this time, They say he broke seven ribs, so I expect recreational is off the table.
Rena Klingenhalter: It’s always been messy, me and men, I mean. I can’t get the hang of them. Most men are scared of me, which sours the fruit before it blooms. I mean, no, flowers bloom. Fruit ripens. You know what I mean, you’re a bard. Whatever the metaphor should be. It never works out, me and the average man.
And then there’s the freaks. The fools. They all hear, ‘oh, Rena is the Iron Bitch of Eisen. She’s a mountain no one can climb. She’ll kick your ass!’ and you know, I hate that they say that about me. A man gives orders, and he gets discipline. I give orders, and I get challengers. These idiots think that disobeying me is flirting. I actually just do not understand why. They stand there, like dogs in heat – well no. Men dogs don’t go in heat. I mean male. Male dogs don’t. Theus help me…
Anyways, they stand there, randy as rabbits, thinking they’re some kind of suave for disobeying me. Thinking that talk-back is how they’ll climb the mountain. And the only fun I get out of those idiots? It’s that look on their face when it doesn’t work and I court-martial them.
And that’s the half-of-it. Oh, Theus, the second part is more embarrassing – I mean, write it down, I guess. I’m not making any history books, I was too young during the War of the Cross. So maybe this is how people learn I was the scariest soldier around. Learn I scared every sane man away from marriage. My mother is rolling in her grave, croaking ‘I told you so! I told you so!”
Anyways, that’s the half-of-it, you know? The other kind of derangement is all about complete obedience. These soldiers beg for discipline in all parts of life. They dream of getting beaten and conquered – and you know? I’m not just a soldier. I’m a quartermaster. I train recruits! That’s the opposite of what I want in a rookie. It will never be what I need in a husband. I hate that they ask, over and over. Like bugs begging for the boot to squash ‘em.
Anyways, that’s why I sent Horatio flowers. Which I know is backwards. It’s a big mistake, I think. I’m trying not to be embarrassed, here. But I’ll stand by it! I don’t… I can’t love Horatio. I don’t think any man or woman could. No one should love, love him. It’s not something he can give back. We know who he is, and that it’s always messy, between him and everyone.
But he’s just… the only one who’s treated me like… just a woman. I’m not the weaponsmaster, to him. It doesn’t sway him one way or the other, that I’m three inches taller. He’s gentle, in this really simple way. Where he can talk to me about weapons, which I appreciate! But he doesn’t have to. We can talk about the sunset.
I got him flowers, because he’s the first man to gift me earrings. I just didn’t know what to get him back, now that he’s hurt. I helped clean up the shop, but so much is broken. I can’t fix it, so I owe him, you know? I miss him.
Is that too much to say? You’re a bard. How much was I supposed to tell you? Theus, smite me.
He’s a good guy. Just leave it at that. Forget the rest. Flaws and all, he’s a good guy.
Claude de la Roche: I have nothing good to say about that fool! He’s always right behind me, at every soiree. Just right under my nose, flirting with the same fine lady I’m trying to charm. He’s a prurient little weasel and I hope he learns his lesson. Someone should stab him a third time! A fourth, even!
The following is recorded as a dialogue. Maya de la Roja and Lorenzo de Zapeda are a difficult pair to record, as they constantly speak over one another.
MR: So, I met him out of spite.
ZP: We weren’t speaking.
MR: Right between the second and third time we got married.
ZP: Which we weren’t supposed to! Never annulled any of them-
MR: Not even the first.
ZP: Not even the first.
MR: And it’s all on the rocks.
ZP: Like a ship, crashing.
MR: Because guess who was wearing the Captain’s Hat, in those days?
ZP: Not me!
MR: Totally you!
I interjected, to refocus them. Please, speak of Horatio.
MR: So I thought it would suit me to find someone else, out of spite.
ZP: Horrible woman. I love her, but she is a horrible woman.
MR: Don’t listen to him, he’s a monster. You know what he does? Spite for spite.
ZP: When I heard – I mean the marriage was only dead three days!
MR: Five days!
ZP: Not even a week!
MR: A working man’s week!
ZP: Anyways, ignore the calendar.
MR: You want to know what he does?
ZP: I could have dueled him, but that’s what pathetic losers do.
MR: Yeah, yeah. It’s quite gauche, you know?
ZP: To kill a man, because he slept with your wife.
MR: I wasn’t your wife at the time.
ZP: Technically you were never not my wife.
MR: Anyways, it takes a sore loser to try and win love back with a sword, instead of poetry.
ZP: It’s the wrong tool, you know? Someone outplays you in romance and you grab a sword? What are you, a child? Like a small baby, running away with the ball? Demanding we switch to checkers after losing at backgammon?
MR: You want to win, you have to do it with roses.
ZP: So out of spite – I’m proving a point here – I find that weasel –
MR: He steals my boy.
ZP: Doesn’t take five minutes.
MR: Horatio isn’t even done climbing down my balcony-
ZP: I’m not so brazen as to flirt at her window. I brought the man back to Sanjay’s pub –
MR: He steals my new toy.
ZP: Spite is a powerful motivator,and it’s easy to be motivated about Horatio. Talented man.
MR: Yes. Talented man.
ZP: Anyways, not just talented. Has a big heart.
MR: He understands Romance. Believes in it. A little more than we did.
ZP: And guess what he does?
MR: Guess! Guess!
I decline, and ask them to continue.
ZP: He invites himself to my abode –
MR: he tells me, wouldn’t it be funny to soil Lorenzo’s sheets! Promises to crown me the queen of spite.
ZP: Tells me to wear a mask.
MR: And it doesn’t work.
ZP: It does not work, not like he plans it.
MR: Like I wasn’t going to notice.
ZP: I mean, she mmediately realizes –
MR: Immediately.
ZP: That it’s me, not Horatio, in the costume. And I immediately realize it’s her, not him-
MR: Rather obvious, to anyone with eyes.
ZP: He’s played the stupidest game. Of course, we aren’t fooled. But he brought us together, and is nowhere to be found!
MR: Because he’s a romantic! Wants to see us back together.
ZP: And it’s the thought that counts.
MR: And I was mad at Lorenzo-
ZP: But what was she going to do? Go home?
MR: Never go home empty handed.
ZP: Anyways, we don’t make up.
MR: No, there was plenty more fighting to do in the following days.
ZP: But he got us good, and we respect a game of three card monty.
MR: We respect a good scheme. Can’t waste a good scheme.
ZP: And by the time we were finished with each other –
MR: By the time we kiss and don’t make up –
ZP: He waltzes into the room with a bottle of wine.
MR: Eyebrows just wiggling, because he knows what’s next.
ZP: We owe him our third marriage.
MR: Charming fellow.
ZP: A real romantic.
Before interviewing Lorenzo and Maya, I hadn’t considered myself a prude. I’m a metropolitan man. A ‘romantic’ in my own right. What Maya and Lorenzo call ‘romance,’ though? Theus is a forgiving god, but they will test his limits when they reach His gates. Save this bard from the dramatics of a Castillian lover.
Despite my shock, I find myself reviewing all of these (and the remaining) interviews, and realizing I’d grown fond of the rascal by proxy. I am dedicated to stories, and I am dedicated to fables and myths. I recognize in him a kindred disharmony. Horatio is fundamentally incapable of a long-lasting connection. He loves quickly, briefly… like a bee, seeking the next flower to pollinate. But he always seeks a sincere connection. Always leaves a heartfelt impression.
I can’t include him as a major player in these histories. Unless some other truth finds me, it’s clear that the death of Lafayette was no scheme. It was an act of random, extreme violence peppered in as the inevitable result of the plans and conspiracies that ruled those days. That’s why, however, I feel so inclined to include him as a minor player, in this addendum.
Horatio is proof that humans participated in this madness. The rest of this story revolves around men and women of mythological proportions. Musketeers and sorciers, warriors and witches. And there, in that hospital bed, lay Horatio. Theus bless the fools. Every Arcana deck must have one, and so must every story.