Friends Who Became Villainesses

By Henry Cobb

Chapter Thirteen: Catch the Conscience of the King

I was surprised when it was Lord Vurbor who took the seat opposite mine at lunch one Thursday in the late summer of my sophomore year at the academy, but not that he had been informed of the rules for the game that Amy had set.

He picked up the pair of tickets that I had left next to my tray, and he said, "What's this?"

"Those are tickets to a, um ..." Startled by his entry into the game I struggled to remember what the setting was for it this time, then recovered to my practiced script, "play that have been sent as a gift, but unfortunately Her Highness has other matters to attend to. She is unable to return the gift and must not leave the seats vacant, so she has asked me to find someone to attend the play with me. If Your Lordship already has someone he wishes to attend this event with then you can take both tickets with my gratitude, for all that is worth."

"Commoner, you shall attend this play with me. Wait, let me start over. Please, Miss Pureheart, might I have the honor of escorting you to this event?"

"As Your Lordship wishes, but I admit to some puzzlement about the change of heart towards this slum born orphan."

A knight's son approached our table, but the baron's heir waved him off then turned back to me. "Miss Pureheart, your acts of selfless charity have been an inspiration to the nation. I find myself questioning many things and feel that I might find some answers once I get to know you better."

"Your Lordship, there has been no charity on my part as I have nothing to give. I simply do as Her Highness directs."

"And is service to Her Highness your only association?"

I nodded towards the other students in the cafeteria, especially those nearby who were clearly listening to our conversation.

He followed my glace then turned back to me. "I see. This play starts tonight at 6pm, so I shall arrive at the palace at 5:30 and escort you to the event. In the meantime, let us enjoy our lunch."

"Even Lord Vurbor, but not my brother? Well, it's only the fall semester of your sophomore year, you still have seven more months until our prince graduates and is put on the international meet market. Yes?" Amy stopped in the middle of the city square that late summer late afternoon and looked at the peasant woman with an infant in her arms that one of our two palace guards had stopped in front of.

Synthia scanned the crowd with a practiced gaze that betrayed her maid's outfit, while her understudy (in all things) Miss Benci Chiskei looked up at her.

"Miss Pureheart," Amy turned back to me, "Is there any threat or malice nearby?"

"Not that I detect, nor that Miss Chiskei has reacted to."

Benci looked at me and blushed as she was reminded that she was also my understudy, poor girl.

"Nor I," Amy stepped towards the peasant woman and asked, "Good afternoon, Madam, how might this humble princess help you?"

The woman bowed just a tiny bit then stepped to the side as she turned to shield her infant from the gaze of the princess before she called out to me, "Your Grace, can you bless my child please?"

I stepped up to stand next to Amy, "I'm sorry, Madam, but I am no priest. You can probably find one at the city cathedral on the north side of this square." I glanced down at the infant then back to face of the peasant woman, "Your child appears healthy enough, but Her Highness is a much better judge of illness than myself. We also have a clinic at the academy most Saturdays."

The woman glanced at Amy, bowed to me, said "I see. Some other time then." And walked away.

This was oddly enough, one of those occasions when Amy was actually needed for some diplomatic matter, so it was Synthia, Benci, and Lady Depecia who prepared me for my date.

Synthia had just finished checking the fit of my hidden dagger (the narrow imported one and not the leaf shaped Jade Blade) when Depecia tilted her head as she heard something the rest of us hadn't and said, "Angie, your carriage has arrived."

"What, it's ten minutes ahead of the schedule he set."

"Well hurry along, but don’t dare run in this dress."

A five-minute brisk walk later I reached the gate house and saw Lord Vurbor sitting in his carriage and examining his pocket watch. "Good evening, Your Lordship. Is there some problem with your watch?"

"Good evening, Miss Pureheart. This one was made in this kingdom," He showed me the royal emblem, "And I set it from the recently erected clock at the Academy. I just needed a few minutes to collect my thoughts."

"I'm sorry to have interrupted Your Lordship."

"No, this is fine. Get in and let's be off. All the nobles are buying these lately. We need them to track how quickly the world is changing around us. Just the other day I saw a Royal Ranger whose bow had pulleys on it, like a sailing ship. The innovation seems to be centered on Her Highness."

"Oh." I turned away and looked at the shops of the city as we passed by them and tried to remember which ones hadn't been there last semester.

"This isn't the world I was born in."

"What?" I turned back to him and studied his face.

"The strangest things set you off, Miss Pureheart. But as I was saying, my family have been strong supporters of the royal family for centuries. We are used to a world where competing factions all claim to be working for the best interests of the throne. But in this new world everyone wants to recruit me into their cause and all of these factions claim to support what you yourself have called a slum-born commoner. I was summoned by Duke Barta over this summer break so that he could examine, with his new magnifying lens, the places where The Saint had touched me."

"I am sorry to have caused Your Lordship some inconvenience, but I did not force that confrontation. And the church has named no living person a saint in the past thousand years."

"And yet the church is carefully laying the groundwork for this edifice. I attend the services, and I have seen this."

"If Your Lordship is aware of all of this then why this date tonight?"

"All of my learnings and reason tell me that I am a fool to be here. That I should keep away from you, enjoy this new prosperity of our kingdom, and life will go on, whatever happens to you and this new craze around you. I have argued this point night after night, and yet every time I circled around, I found myself drawn like a moth one step closer to the light. Even now I find myself giddy to be sitting alone so close to you and want nothing more than to reach out, grab your hand, and never let go."

"One does not simply take my hand, for I shall march into unspeakable horrors that will claw at your body, mind, and soul, should you stand too close to me."

"You have visions of such things?"

"No, I'm just well informed."

"My heart is convinced by the conviction in your words. It says that these things will be, and so be it."

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

"Your Lordship decided to join the pursuit of The Saint due to a change of heart?"

"At first I thought it was jealousy on my part, but then I realized it was empathy. Ah, here we are." He stepped out and I accepted his hand to help me out of the carriage.

The usher didn't even ask for our tickets, but simply pushed a way through the crowd to escort us to the royal box. This was placed above the side of the stage for display purposes and hence wasn't the best location for watching what was performed on the stage.

Before the play started the lead performer dedicated the performance to "Miss Angelica Pureheart." I stood and waved as the audience applauded.

I sat back down, turned to Lord Vurbor and said. "At least it wasn't The Saint this time. What did you mean about empathy?"

"That, right there. When something has been dedicated to The Saint you haven't budged, so the crowd has adapted to get you to play along. I can see that you don't want any part of this, that there is someplace else you long to be. So why do you perform as the puppet of our princess?"

"I have learned to trust the hands of Her Highness more than my own. It was she who lifted me out of hopeless misery to stand by her side. There I shall stay so long as she has need of me, to fulfill whatever value she sees."

"Is it true that the shadow aspected can feel the presence of the light aspected?"

"Perhaps you've been reading too much of the adventures of The Saint into current events? I see that the performance is starting."

At the end of the play the usher escorted us out the back way where Lord Vuber's carriage was waiting.

He helped me into his carriage then asked, "Has tomorrow night's event been set?"

"Not yet. There are several possibilities."

"Might I suggest the gallery opening then? You've been lagging in history, and I can take advantage of this occansion to regale you with how the people in these portraits (some from my own family) fit into our nation's history."

"Isn't the gallery opening scheduled for next week?"

"It will be a private viewing, without a crowd to please."

"Very well, I shall ask Her Highness."

That night I lay on my back beside Amy with my right hand in her left as I told her about this date. When I finished, I turned my head to watch her reaction.

She thought for a moment then said, "Fine. Let's try his date. The more initmate setting will let you judge him better. Vuber is a conquerable character after all."

"What is his path like?"

"I never tried him myself. You'll have to ask Misaki as I saw two entries under his name on her chart, one as a true love and successful game, and another as a false love and a loss. I've never asked her for the details."

"Will you send me away to him?"

"Angie, if you defeat the Demon Lord then I promise to release you to fly wherever your heart takes you. Fail, and it doesn't matter what any of us wanted."

"Amy, how do you clearly remember a chart from fifteen years ago?"

"First, all of our old memories came back to us in a flood when we were nine, and second that chart is something we all helped her recreate this last year."

"Can I read it?"

"Can you read Japanese? There are secrets that we double protect with our language and Misaki's self-destruct enchantment."

The next day Vuber stopped by my table at lunch again and said he'd be by the palace at 7pm.

With the extra time I had dinner with the four friends.

"Lady Malheurfla, how did you win, and how did you lose with Vuber?"

"Angie, in that distant world I was Misaki, and I was you. Unlocking the Vuber path was very difficult as it required you to defeat him in a duel and he would never challenge you nor would he accept a challenge from you. The trick was to score higher than him on a test (which you haven't done here) and then gently taunt him into accusing you of cheating. You reply with a duel challenge that he's trapped into accepting. You used a different route to the same result here."

"Is Vuber that much smarter than me?"

"No, you're twenty percent smarter than him. He's just very meticulous in his studies and everything else. When I had him as your true love, I used that quality of his and every trick I knew and just barely squeezed out a victory at great cost. I then tried to do better in the next game and he litterally stabbed you in the back. I'm not sure that I can offer any good advice with Vuber."

I grew tired of Vuber sitting and watching me during the carriage ride, so I broke the silence, "Your Lordship has something planned."

"Do I? Is it malicious?"

"No, Your Lordship, but that means nothing."

"How so?"

"My foes are fantics who believe that their way is the best and only way. If they acted out of haterd rather than their twisted love, I could spot them easily. By spreading the gosphel of the Saint's reserection they create a fog of love to hide within."

"That is clever of them. You are well informed indeed, Angel."

"That is rather familar of Your Lordship."

"Then let's drop the title, shall we?"

"Very well, Vuber, you may call me Angelica, but nothing shorter."

"Angelica, when we are alone, please use my given name of Nemet. And here we are."

"The gallery is dark. Are they not expecting us?"

"Yes, do you not see the gallery staff and Professor Juhasz? I thought that you alone were not afraid of the dark."

"And which faction told you that?"

"All of them."

As Vuber turned away to get out of the carriage I checked for the handle of my hidden dagger, then accepted his hand to exit the carriage. I released his hand and summoned a wisp light.

Vuber said, "Professor Juhasz, I have brought the artist," then he bowed to me.

I frowned. "There has been some mistake. I do not paint."

"There is your brush!" Professor Juhasz pointed at my wisp light.

"How so?"

"Let me show you." He led the way inside the dark gallery and the staff followed Vuber and me.

"First is our 'Triumph of The Saint'," Professor Juhasz stopped next to the painting, "This is of course a copy of a copy of the original, but that isn't the point tonight. Miss Pureheart, please sit on this bench and show us how you would illuminate this painting."

I adjusted the number, intensity, and color of my wisp lights until I was sastified, then stood up and checked the results from different angles for further adjustments. When I was done Professor Juhasz had me hold the lights steady as the gallery staff took careful notes.

This continued until halfway through the gallery Vuber declared that I was showing signs of fatigue and called off the event, to the disapointment of Professor Juhasz and the gallery staff.

On the carriage ride back Vuber smiled and said, "Angelica, have I shown you a side of yourself of which you were unaware?"

"Perhaps."

"As for myself, the two brothers in that last painting split the Barta and Baieduc families and they divided the fomer duchy in two at that point, with the Baieduc focusing on trade and the Barta focusing on agricuture. My grandmother was a Barta, and the two extended families remain on good terms despite Duke Barta's interest in younger men and Lady Yeuxpera's wild tendencies. It might be best for this or the next king to appoint whoever marries Lady Yeuxpera's middle sister Lady Cyprinia to be the next duke over my barony, as she lacks her younger sister's dedication to the arts of trade."

"Nemet, I appologize again for inadventurently subjecting your body to unwanted attentions."

"No, it wasn't that. Duke Barta seemed to have a purely scientific interest in my flesh. Perhaps it's something about my face."

"Nemet, you have a face that should be reguarded as handsome."

"And yet I see that my face stirs no interest from you. Let us set aside these outer facades and take the time to get to know each other's inner selves. Unless there is some other man you favor more, Angelica?"

"No, this is fine. I apparently have three more years."

"And this deadline is because?"

"I'm just well informed."

We held our usual Saturday clinic at the academy the next day and as we were walking across the town square on our way back to the palace, Amy stopped and said quietly, "Synthia, let the man approaching from our right have his outburst please. He appears to be acting alone."

I turned and noticed the rage in the soul of the man who was dressed as a commoner. I could see Synthia tense up, but Benci just looked around puzzled. Our two palace guards put their hands on their swords.

The man noticed that we were looking at him and started running towards us. He drew a dagger and shouted, "Free the Saint!"

Synthia tackled the man to the ground three steps away from Amy.

Amy shouted out "Do not run from me but walk away from the plaza now! I shall strike down any who dares run!"

The crowd froze then slowly dispersed.

Amy then walked up and touched her fingers to the back of the stuggling man's head and he fell asleep. Then she turned back to me. "Miss Pureheart, please pick up the dagger. Be careful as it appears to be poisoned. We shall have Lady Malheurfla examine it later."

"Miss Chiskei," Amy turned to Benci, "Please help Synthia carry the man."

"Can't she carry him on her own?"

"Yes, but we must observe appearances. People are still watching us."

Benci wound up carrying hardly any more than the weight of the feet and ankles of the man who outweighed them both combined, but it was a good enough show for anybody watching from a distance.

I slept alone in Amy's bed that night as the queen refused to let her daughter out of sight until after the service at the palace chapel the next morning.

As we made our way down to the palace dungeon Amy said, "Angie, you don't have to watch this."

"I'm not here to watch what you do to him, but rather what you do to yourself. I would rather take care of this myself. I would cut, and heal, and sharpen the man's awareness of pain over and over again until I was certain that all threats to yourself were revealed."

"Angie, while I can intellectually see you doing that, it conflicts with the emotional image I have of my kitten. My methods are more effective than torture, and as much as I hate having you watch me do it, I deeply appreciate having you as a lifeguard watching out for my soul."

Four hours of subtle Black Magic later Amy was weak in the knees and leaned against me as we climbed back up the stairs. She reported to her father that the man had been non-magically manipulated by strangers and rumors to make his attack. The King nodded when she sent Synthia to report the details to the Shadow Guard. I then helped Amy to her room where she rested the rest of the day in her bed and watched as I tutored Benci in the casting of White Magic.