“Wait, you’re leaving just like that?” Exclaimed, François. “Didn’t you just freak out over your friends being here? How can you just go?”
“It’s complicated. I still care for them, but they betrayed me, I still don’t know how to feel about it and need time. Please, just keep them safe.”
“Safe? But you’ll leave me here alone.”
“It seems like it’s more dangerous with me around and I can’t stay here waiting for things to happen. I have to go.”
“Fine, leave me but don’t be surprised if they find my body in a ditch.”
I didn’t have anything to tell him, he was good with words, and I’d be stuck here forever if I went along with it. “I’ll see you back in Rouen.”
Crawling out of the church basement, I took in the surface’s air.
It smelled of blood. I suppose they hadn’t cleaned up the mess in front of the church. I don’t know why but I wanted to give it one last glance, perhaps to make sure it had really happened. That such a weapon really did exist.
Leaving the church, I turned and headed to the street where François had shot his shot. There, I found the kidnapper’s corpse. I didn’t want to look at his head, so I immediately turned to where the kidnapped had been. They weren’t there anymore, but… just across the street. Sliced in two—
I covered my mouth. I don’t know why I came here. I did my best to stay out of things like this in the dead-ends. But now I couldn’t. I’d have to get used to it.
#
Two days later in Rouen,
“Gregoire. Tell me, what are you doing here.” The duke wasn’t happy. It wasn’t hard to see that I had made a mistake in leaving François, but—
“I… couldn’t stay there.”
“What does that mean? You left François in enemy territory, did you not! What is this reason?”
I didn’t have anything to say. He was right, but coming here was more important.
“Nothing to say?” The duke raised an eyebrow. He wasn’t speaking in his usual manner. He now spoke like a noble, like a duke. But it made it easier on me as well.
“No.” There was no need to explain, nobles didn’t understand anything of human emotions. They were an extension of the devil if anything—
“You’ve disappointed me Gregoire, for now, hand over your armour.”
“Wait, what? My armour.” I couldn’t hand that over. I was expecting death, this was worse.
“Yes, your armour, be quick.”
“I can’t give you that.” I wouldn’t have anything left.
“No?” The duke leaned back. “Are you sure those are your words?”
I still answered as I did before. “I can’t hand it over, what would I do without armour.”
“Ha!” Frederick chuckled. “What would you do without armour?” He turned to Damien expecting a reaction, but the knight’s expression didn’t change, his gaze was squarely locked on me. “No armour you say… Well, then why the FUCK did you leave François alone? Were you not his armour! You who has enough strength to wield a blade. If you can revoke someone else’s armour then I, as the duke who paid for your armour can sure as hell revoke yours.” His eyes were bloodshot red, and his forehead veins pumped blue. “Take it off this instant, else the people will soon forget the existence of gargoyles.”
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
He wasn’t kidding, well, I shouldn’t have expected anything else from those who love tyrannizing people so much. I threw my chest piece to the ground before also taking off my leather pants, leaving me with just my cloth underwear.
“Don’t forget to leave the gun and your sword.”
I put them down as well.
“Good, now leave, I don’t want to see you for the next month. Wait outside, someone will take you to work as a labourer for the time being. You’re dismissed.”
I stormed out. This was ridiculous. Why had I come to serve a duke if all I ended up doing was being beaten for a month then sent to work as a labourer. This wasn’t the life I was promised.
#
Waiting outside the castle, I wondered if I should just run. Yes, I had lost my armour and weapon, but my stats were twice, even thrice that of a dead-end adventurer. I could make a living anywhere; it wouldn’t even take me a lot of time if I used gargoyles—
“Are you the one the Lord said needed to be disciplined?”
Turning over, I was met with a short, old man with a patchy and unkempt beard.
“Don’t worry too much and stop chewing on your nails.”
Looking down, he was right. I had been chewing on them, and they were a bit bloody.
“The duke is fair, if you are here, it means that you deserved it. Don’t take all punishments as a negative thing, experience makes us who we are. If this never happened, then you would never become whom God intended you to be, no?”
This man made no sense to me. Perhaps he was a pastor of some sort. Was I to help build a church or something? “I don’t know what you’re talking about, just tell me what to do.” I would leave at night, and oh! Did the Lord forget his own words. “I can help, but I can’t craft anything.”
“I’m well aware,” said the old man, nodding. “But don’t worry a labourer’s job is nothing akin to that of a craftsman. God will differentiate it.”
Differentiate between labour and craft? This was a joke, no? Or was this my real punishment, to throw away the possibility of becoming a warrior— “It’s not different, both build, both create.”
“Is that how you conceive of a craftsman? One who creates.”
What was this about? “Yes, ones who craft are craftsmen, and crafting is creating.”
The old man rubbed his beard like he’d never thought of the concept. Was he stupid or what? “Is that so?”
“Yes, it is so.”
“Then why do we have the word build.”
“Just like we have the words…” I couldn’t think of anything.
“You see, they are different.” The old man smiled, but his smile wasn’t smug, it struck me now, he was cut from the same cloth as Eve.
A wave of western winds passed carrying the calming scent of the Général Arnault.
“To build is to create something that will not provoke emotions, it is artless. One builds a box or a roof, but one crafts a watch or gargoyle. That is the difference. And I can promise you that although what you will be building will provoke a sense of awe at first, it is no different than the sense of awe a savage may have the first time he sees a cardboard box. Follow, me, let me show you something.”
Although I sensed the warmth of Eve in his words, it was as if I was being trapped. But hell, where was I going to go that would give me more wealth and honour than the court of a duke? Might as well listen to this old man to become rich another day.
As we descended the cliff on which Rouen’s castle stood, I asked for the old man’s name.
“Should you not introduce yourself first?” he said.
“I’m Gregoire.”
“Gregoire, is that it? Why are you being favoured by the duke then?”
Was he here to give me a lesson or put me to work? “It’s Gregoire de Gargoyle, son of Justin.” Had I just said that last part?
“That’s good.” He nodded. “And me it’s Yves de la Grange, his excellency’s head engineer.”
We continued until we got to a construction site, the same one the duke had pointed to when he was explaining his ambitions to me.
Shit, that reminded me. If I ran away, wouldn’t the duke kill me since I knew of his plans. Why would he even tell me such things when he barely knew me?
Stepping right up to the large hole or more like ditch Yves pointed down the hole. There, below, lines of ropes held by half a dozen men each were lowering a pipe into the earth. In the bottom, four men were adjusting the positioning of the pipe so that it would line up nicely with the one besides it. Finally, right as the pipe was about to touch the ground, they pushed it into the pipe besides it. There, a man dressed in a red tunic placed his hands on the pipes. Heat radiated from his hand fusing the two pipes together.
“This project is no small feat,” said Yves. "But it isn’t one of greed, but necessity. If we could have it finished in the next month, we would but that’s not feasible. To build we need hands and hands we lack.”
The fire class holder moved smouldering his hand, making sure he didn’t miss a gap.
“You have hands, do you not?”
“I suppose I do.”
“That’s good, we’ll have new workers coming in soon, so you’ll be starting then. Rest well, the work will be hard.”