“Thank you, your highness, for coming up with a way for Lady Maude to gain citizenship in our kingdom,” Jaspar said. He sounded genuinely grateful, even though Maude herself was most certainly reeling. “I suspect that Lady Maude will have a lot to sort through with your decision, so she will likely need some time to determine if she accepts your conditions or not.”
What? Maude thought. Jaspar ought to know that fighting in the war is a condition I cannot, under any circumstances, accept!
“That’s perfectly acceptable,” the king agreed with a few nods. “The lady herself seems to be shocked into silence, so I’m sure it will take her some time to digest.”
Take me some time to digest? Maude thought. I already know my answer!
But she didn’t seem capable of saying anything out loud. It was as though her brain and body were no longer connected.
“We shall be in touch, your highness,” Jaspar said, bowing. Maude felt her body curtsy, even though she did not feel as though she was voluntarily controlling it.
Jaspar grabbed her hand, and began escorting her from the throne room back to their carriage.
Does this mean that this is the end of Jaspar and I? She considered. Is he someone I will really be able to walk away from?
~
Maude followed Jaspar into his office. During the carriage ride home from the palace, she’d only calmed down a little bit. More than the prospect of being coerced to fight in the war once again, Maude was concerned about what the king’s decision would mean for her and Jaspar’s relationship.
Neither of them had said a word on the way home. His face had remained sullen for the entire trip.
He always said he would find a way, she had thought, looking at his face. Now what will we do? What could our path forward possibly be now? What will happen to us? Jaspar’s face had given her no clues.
As soon as they had gotten home, Jaspar had assisted her getting out of the carriage, telling her only two words. “Study. Now.” She nodded, and began following him to his office. No other words had been shared, even within the manor. A lump had formed in Maude’s throat, and it only added to the pain that she felt in her heart, and the squeamishness in her stomach.
They arrived at the office. Jaspar shut the door behind them. He gestured to the couch that had become very familiar to her. She nodded, walked over and sat down. He sat down across the coffee table from her, in a single personed chair.
She looked up at him and met his eyes. “So,” she said, not really knowing what else to say.
“So,” Jaspar repeated after her, raising his eyebrows up and then letting them drop back down. He nodded. “What did you think of the king?”
A generic topic of conversation to break the tension, Maude thought. I’m grateful, but I still don’t really know what he’s thinking.
“He wasn’t what I expected at all,” she admitted honestly. “I expected him to be more like the emperor.”
Jaspar nodded. “Yeah, King Johan is an incredibly kind and benevolent king. We are lucky in Aulbert. He is also strict when he needs to be strict. Another great quality for a great ruler.”
Maude nodded. “I was surprised at how familiar the king and queen were with you as well.”
Jaspar’s face softened. “As I am very close with crown prince Erich, so too was my father close to the king when he was the crown prince.” He smiled softly. “In a lot of ways, the king became much like a father figure to me as I was growing up. That was part of why I told you not to worry so much about meeting him, but…” Jaspar sighed heavily.
The room’s air was thick with the unspoken words between them. I think I can see where this is probably going to go, Maude thought.
“You would like me to fight in the war, wouldn’t you?” Maude asked him directly.
Jaspar turned his face away from her. “What other option do we have, Maude?” he asked.
He was right. She knew he was right. But she still wished they would be able to find another way.
“None, I suppose,” Maude agreed with him. At least for now, she added in her head.
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“So you’ll do it, then?” he asked, turning his face back to hers and looking hopeful.
“No, I can’t fight in the war,” Maude replied. “You know that.”
“What?” Jaspar asked, looking crestfallen. “You still can’t?”
“What do you mean ‘still can’t?’” Maude asked, feeling a flash of heat run through her. “I’ve told you before, I cannot fight other human beings and kill them. It goes against my values.”
Jaspar sighed at her. “You can’t even do it for the sake of our relationship?” he asked. She could hear the irritation creeping into his voice.
“For the sake of our own relationship?” she asked, her voice cracking a little. “You want me to give up my values just so I can be with you?”
Jaspar sighed again, sounding incredibly exasperated. “Maude, do you understand what the king said? If Aulbert does not win this war, we will all die!” His face was contorted into a look that suggested that he was in disbelief.
What the hell? Maude thought. Does he think I don’t realize what the stakes are? Does he think I can just stop being a pacifist because I’m doing it out of my own volition or something like that?
“I thought you understood me,” she replied out loud, blinking tears out of her eyes. “You know it’s not that simple for me!”
Her heart felt like it was cracking, slowly but surely, into two pieces.
He sighed, angrily this time, shaking his head at her. “Maude, you are the most rigid and unrelenting person I think I’ve ever met,” he said. “Most people in your situation would want to defend their loved ones and the new life that they had created. But you? You haven’t changed at all.” Jaspar’s voice was starting to get louder. “How do you think I feel, asking you to do something I know you are against? How do you think I feel, sitting here having you basically say to my face that you don’t value my life as much as you value your ideals?”
“That’s not what I’m saying,” Maude protested, her voice getting shrill and desperate.
“But it is, Maude”, Jaspar replied, interrupting her next sentence. “You don’t seem to understand. Things the past month, in the war, have not been good. Aublert is losing right now. This is not a matter of you and I getting around this barrier to find another way to be together. This is literally a matter of life and death.”
Maude swallowed hard. Aulbert is losing now? She thought. But it wasn’t all that long ago that he told me that Aulbert had an advantage over the empire. What happened? In her chest, her heart clenched. I can’t even imagine a world without Jaspar, she thought.
“If I was in your shoes, and you were in mine,” Jaspar continued, “I would gladly fight for you. I would have no problem at all, laying my life down for you, especially if I didn’t, both of us could die.” He paused, seeming to study the expression on her face. “But it seems as though I care about you far more than you care about me.”
“That’s not true!” Maude protested. “How much I’m willing to sacrifice for you should not be a measure of how much I care.”
“Are you sure about that?” Jaspar asked. “Think about how much your mother had to sacrifice for you.”
“She didn’t sacrifice herself for me,” Maude shouted. “How dare you bring her into this conversation!”
“I’m just trying to highlight how selfish you’re being,” Jaspar replied with what seemed like a sarcastic shrug.
“You’re being equally as selfish,” Maude shot back, pointing at his face. “I’m a person first, and a sword saint second.”
“Do you really think his highness asked you to fight in the war because you’re a sword saint?” Jaspar asked.
“Why else would he ask me to fight in the war?” Maude asked, crossing her arms.
“Because as a future citizen of Aulbert, it is up to our citizens to successfully defend our land from an enemy invasion.”
Maude’s eyes widened for a moment, surprised at Jaspar’s response. “Yeah, but that duty is not typically require for women,” Maude replied.
“While you may be correct for the empire, in Aulbert, anyone who is able-bodied, and has trained with the sword is someone who may be called to participate in the defense of our country.”
“That’s bullshit,” she said. “What a terrible rule.”
Jaspar scoffed. “Most young noble ladies would be envious of your capabilities to defend themselves. So many of the young women in our noble society are nervous that they are going to die as the result of this war.”
“So what?” Maude asked. “It’s not as though I asked to be a sword saint, or to be trained in the sword arts.”
“So you’re going to spend the rest of your life fighting your fate and who you really are?” Jaspar shot back.
“How am I fighting fate?” she asked. “God. I should have just left the Rosenberg Manor and built my cabin in the woods somewhere.”
“Be my guest, leave,” he replied, his eyes flashing at her. “But that makes two of us. If I would have known that you were going to be this stubborn, I would have never ordered my men to lie in wait for the sword saint to see if you might show your face on that battlefield. I would have never brought you to my home to be a prisoner of war, in hopes that I might be able to recruit you to fight for Aulbert.”
Maude felt herself physically move back, her eyes widened and her jaw dropped. “What?” she asked. “You brought me here to try to get me to fight?”
“I did,” Jaspar confirmed, crossing his arms.
“Is anything about our relationship real?” Maude asked him, feeling as though she was splitting in two. “Why would you deceive me like this?”
“Honestly,” Jaspar replied, looking at her intensely, “I never expected to have feelings for you. My only goal was to show you how wonderful it is to live in Aulbert. I was hoping you would go out and make friends who you’d want to protect. Maybe even find a man that peaks your interest. I never could have imagined finding myself in the position I’m in.”
Maude still looked at him with disbelief. “Still!” she exclaimed. “You manipulated me in hopes of getting me to fight in the war.”
“Listen, Maude,” he said. “A man has got to do for his country what a man has got to do for his country. I could have never foreseen the fact that we would have been able to handle the empire for as long as we did in Aulbert. I would have assumed that we’d have been annihilated by this point. But now, I’m not begging you to fight so that we can save Aulbert. I’m begging you to fight so that we have a fighting chance of being together.”
Maude noticed that he had tears building up in the corner of his eyes. “I can’t,” she replied. “I can’t fight. I’ll kill someone…!”
Jaspar sighed. “Get out of my office, then. I can’t bear to look at you at the moment.”