Surpassing Status Quo

The morning's dew softened the siege trenches, muddying Eoval's, his master's, and many other joyous knights and squire's boots on the short walk to accept Tellenmarke's formal surrender. Numerous white flags snapped wildly atop the high, never-before-breached walls of the Secessionist's strongest fortress in the east; the King warned the siege would last the better part of a year, if not longer. The citadel surrendered in two weeks before either side drew blood. 

Eoval welcomed the tranquility relief granted, a sense he grew accustomed to feeling only after a battle when he tasted his blood and could smell only ash and metal. Tellenmarke's fall heralded the end of the war's stalemate.

Awaiting the surrendering delegation to leave the city, beside his master, Sir Hawthorne, Eoval stood tall, priding himself over his labors to crispen their linens. And without his armor hindering him, Sir Hawthorne looked all the more the Lord of Eidenbürg, especially with two short shoulder capes, glittering gold in the rising sun. Eoval's master turned to catch his squire admiring him and grinned.

The thick bristles of his mustache danced as Sir Hawthorne spoke quietly to Eoval, "How absurd do I look, lad?"

"I mistook you for the King's fool, Sir," Eoval japed. They chuckled, but Sir Prietto hushed them by clearing his throat. The scornful animosity between the plump man looking like wet clay and the hardened Sir Hawthorne rivaled the enmity between the Secessionists and the Kingsbound. Luckily, many anxieties that the feud would hinder the siege proved moot; a few minutes of silence passed, save for the disappointed caw of crows above, before the metal-rimmed gates of Tellenmarke groaned, opening for about two dozen persons to march out.

The Secessionists looked no different to Eoval, but after they left the King's realm, they promptly altered their attire for practicality over finesse. The coarse-looking cloth did not impress the squire, but the woman leading the company did. It seemed the leader who surrendered the city sent a beautiful woman to bat her eyelashes for better terms. 

Her blonde hair, in a long tight tail, swished gently from side to side as she walked, but Eoval couldn't help but blink in surprise at her eyes - the irises, the color reminded him of clotted blood. And the confidence in her steps made it seem she was in complete control of the situation. 

Sir Prietto welcomed the delegation, "Ah, well met, my Lady, my name is Sir Prietto. I am glad your lord - er-hm! I beg your pardon - your 'General,' as you rebels like to call your leaders, saw the futility of resisting our superior forces. Now, who commands the city?"

"She stands before you, Sir Prietto," the young woman's reply sounded calm and calculated. Sir Prietto guffawed, but the woman remained still as stone, "My name is Major Kala. We may skip the terms if it pleases you, Sir; the city is yours. Along with myself, I ask that you grant my one hundred officers fair treatment; their families will make good on ransoms. The rest of my troops are commonfolk whom-"

"Lady Kala, did you say one hundred? I presume they are all of noble birth." Sir Prietto's enthusiasm sounded perverse.

"The majority are, Sir. Officer and enlisted alike will comply with-"

"Ah ah ah, Lady Kala, I would know the most notable names amongst your noblemen."

Bearing the weight of so many hungry lords of the King, Eoval would crumple, but this woman, Lady Kala, eyed Sir Prietto as a cat does a mouse. She remained silent, looking back to her attendants and her city before stating briskly, "Urndeil and Sallen, but I ask that you look past-"

A murmur of excitement swept Eoval's party, silencing Lady Kala, and with good reason, too. The King suspected the leading Secessionist families committed one or two of their own to their unjust cause, and Sir Prietto happened to find two out of the three. Eoval gasped, understanding the power behind such bargaining chips. Their capture changed the war.

Sir Prietto puffed out his chest, "No, I do not think a ransom will do, Lady Kala. I am taking the Urndeil and Sallen brats as my prisoners, along with the rest of your lot. I will deliver you all as gifts to the King-" he turned to the rest of the knights, "Form a garrison to remain here; the rest marches south-east. We make for the Capital!" Hearing this, the men roared, Eoval included. The war would soon end.

~

Breaking camp, Sir Hawthorne received their orders: they were to oversee Lady Kala's captivity personally. Eoval thought it an empty honor, taking the security of a cowardly leader in stride, but Sir Hawthorne scorned the slight and did not appear too guilty when he delegated the task solely to his squire. The knight then argued his way into marching at the head of the column with Sir Prietto and the Urndeil and Sallen captives.

Soon, distance shrank the city to a white pebble on the horizon. When Lady Kala stopped looking over her shoulder, she asked politely, "May I know your name, Sir?"

"Eoval, my Lady, and you need not call me Sir," he said, straining his tone to deepen a little in front of a beautiful woman.

"And you need not call me Lady, at least not anymore." Lady Kala ran her fingers through her old steed's greasy mane, her shackles clinking to the horse's clopping. After a few moments to weigh her words, Eoval's look turned incredulous.

"You weren't given the city to defend; you inherited it?" the gravel in Eoval's voice as firm as dust.

The woman nodded, "Yes." 

"You gave up your own city? Why?" Eoval felt surprised to hear temper flare in his voice. Every knight and squire he knew would lay down their life defending their home.

Lady Kala looked into the meadows and jutted her chin, "Look over there," Eoval saw nothing but charred timbers, a ruined home accompanied by a recently salted field. Lady Kala watched him closely, and when he met her eyes, she continued, "In preparation for a siege, I read extensively on the subject: like how I should have kept the woman and children busy with little tasks to keep their minds from darkening, and the precise sanitation practices I should follow when I order my troops to fling our waste over the walls." 

She turned her attention back to the rubble, "I also learned that this," she pointed, "Is nothing compared to what a breached city endures after a long siege."

"My master would never permit such things," Eoval scoffed.

"Your master, whom I believe is Sir Hawthorne, if I recall my reports correctly, may not have allowed you to raid and rape," the stoic woman conceded. "But no one could dissuade thousands of your comrades from committing such evils, not when their blood excites at seeing my gates destroyed after months of idleness."

Eoval fell silent for a quarter kilometer, not knowing what to say, not after hearing the certainty in Lady Kala's voice. Somehow, the raw inflections in her voice convinced him that maybe by losing her city, she had saved her home.

But then, an itch in Eoval's mind irritated his inner ear and asked, "How did you know who my master was?"

Lady Kala, bored with tugging at her chains, replied, "I happened across your name when I read everything we knew of your master; really, you have his presence to thank for my surrender."

"I don't understand, Sir Hawthorne and I didn't take to battle; our forces had just finished digging our trenches."

Shrugging, Lady Kala explained, "Time has taught your master patience, a lacking resource when my superiors ordered many of my troops and supplies west. I knew we would not last and played on Sir Prietto's infamous ego to distract him and thus his men from doing any harm to my city."

"The Urndeil and Sallen-" Eoval murmerred. "You expect me to believe you wanted to give them up? That it was your plan all along?"

Turning her head, slow and measured, she replied quietly, "I did not want to give them up, but yes."

Eoval lightly spurred his horse forward and grabbed Lady Kala's reigns to pull them off the flattened dirt path the march made, "By claiming this, you call all of my superiors fools; they wouldn't take kindly to this."

"They would not," Lady Kala replied.

"Then why claim this?"

"Because what good would come of you telling them? My suffering, yes, but at least we are far enough away from my city that they wouldn't bother turning around."

"You think I won't do it; I won't tell my master whom I am honor-bound to serve?" Eoval invaded Lady Kala's space, his face inches from her.

Calmly but cooly, Lady Kala answered, "I know you won't."

"Why?"

"Because I took you for a good man. Prove me wrong, Eoval." Eoval recoiled, hearing the ice in her voice that chilled his blood. They spoke little in the following days. The march continued to Halensbürg, the King's equivalent to Tellenmarke, without incident, and soon the army camped outside its walls, marred from that failed a few months ago.

Sir Prietto, Sir Hawthorne, and many other knights divided up the army: a force to reinforce another army farther west, a small contingent to reinforce Halensbürg's dwindled garrison, and the remaining troops to march south. Sir Hawthorne occasionally sent after Eoval, inquiring how the Lady Kala faired; the seasoned man's brow arched a few times but did not press his squire. Eoval caught a knowing twinkle in his master's eye. He seemed amused, perhaps thinking Eoval fancied the Lady, but was rebuked. 

Eoval never told his master that Lady Kala wanted to march south as a gift to the King. Maybe he did fancy her.

~

Both stinking of horse, Eoval longed for a bath and hoped Lady Kala did not take offense for not being offered one for the past few days. They resumed talking again, cordially at first, when they departed Halensbürg but soon began discussing their lives. Eoval didn't know how it had started; he felt comfortable around the woman, and he passively mentioned his sister, whom Lady Kala had asked about. After this, it seemed the sun set faster whenever he and Lady Kala exchanged life stories. Frequently, she would cite scripture and academics, enlightening the squire to an ever-growing world.

And then Eoval admitted something.

"I cried all night after I killed someone. For the first time, I mean." Eoval felt himself sag in his saddle, his strength abandoning him. It seemed an effort even to draw breath.

"It is only natural to respond to something so unnatural. Killing another person, I mean," Lady Kala's voice changed. She sounded almost younger, more alive. "I-I, too, was forced to take another's life. It's so strange, I feel as if, even though they're gone-"

"They're always right behind you," Eoval finished. Lady Kala nodded and remained silent for a time, allowing each of them a moment to grieve, "Have any words of wisdom helped you?"

"Guidance can bring order to things, but matters of the heart?" Lady Kala shook her head, "No, emotions need to flow and recede like the tide. Nothing can lessen such anguish but time. Have patience, and it will heal."

~

Two days away from the King, Eoval lay awake at night, seeing imaginary lines connect the constellation of stars. The night sky a shade of purple tonight, he felt sluggish from embellishing in a wine bottle and imagined the stars twinkling more than they did. Pulling up his too-thin blanket, he saw Lady Kala sitting upright, forgoing any blanket.

"Can't sleep?" Eoval asked.

"No, not tonight." Lady Kala murmmerred.

"Something on your mind? Maybe I can offer the advice for a change." She looked at him, and he saw a pain of sorrow soften her face; Eoval propped himself on an elbow, the alcohol's effect forgotten, "Lady Kala? What's wrong?"

The Lady, his enemy, took a few deep breaths before replying, "I'm sorry, Eoval."

"For what-" Eoval saw that she looked behind him, and as he turned, he saw something fast, large, and close to his face before feeling pain pull him into darkness. It felt like moments passed, and when Eoval's eyes fluttered open, he felt his head ring, throbbing in pain. He felt his hair and face were wet and sticky and voices around him sounded like they were spoken within a deep cavern.

Coming to, his vision sharpening, Eoval looked down to see himself bound in a tight rope. He rubbed his wrists together feebly but found the bindings fast and unforgiving. Looking up, Eoval saw Lady Kala, free of restraints, walking towards him.

"Lady Kal-" Eoval winced as she pressed a cool cloth against his forehead. The touch stung, but he didn't recoil.

"Forgive the injury, squire," Lady Kala, her voice had resumed to its measured cadence, "But luckily, my comrades understood that I wanted you taken alive." She then nodded to someone Eoval couldn't see, and then hands grabbed and hauled his flimsy body. Catching glances to and fro, Eoval saw mounds of lifeless bodies - Kingsmen - surrounded by Separatist forces; all of them saluted Lady Kala as she passed. And Eoval pieced together what happened - Sir Prietto's army must have been ambushed from the north!

But that would mean Halensbürg didn't stop or couldn't stop any Separatist army from following them.

"Eoval! My lad, are you all right?" a voice called. The hands that dragged him threw him before Sir Hawthorne and many other significant persons in the King's army, all with their arms tied behind their backs and on their knees. "Speak to me, my boy!"

Struggling to sit upright, Eoval groaned, "I think I'm all right, Sir."

Lady Kala, standing over them, a new sword fastened to her belt, said, "I will have my healers look after Sir Hawthorne; you have my wo-"

"Witch!" Sir Hawthorne hissed. A large Separatist stepped forward and struck the knight and raised his hand to strike again, but not before Lady Kala gently pulled him away.

"You are mad. You've doomed your men. How do you expect to retreat with Halensbürg not three days north?" Sir Hawthorne asked; Eoval winced, seeing his swollen lip blackening. 

"You misunderstand, Sir. We are not retreating north. We are marching south to take your Capital by surprise," Kala smiled tightly, a cold look even with the fire in her eyes. "As for Halensbürg, many of my forces that I deployed weeks before your troops besieged Tellenmarke are now occupying your comrades' attention."

A frigid shiver overtook Eoval, like cold tree roots coiling in his veins; he slowly inhaled at the realization. "Y-you... You planned this too?" he stammered.

Lady Kala looked down at Eoval and nodded, "Indeed, I did—all of it. I told you that I learned a great deal in preparing for my city's siege. I knew many would die, and if I hadn't sent off my troops, then your siege likely would have failed, as did our siege to Halensbürg. So, I arranged for Tellenmarke to fall, forcing my superiors to follow my plan, even though they thought it madness."

Shamefully, Eoval felt more betrayed than dishonorable. Despite the damned souls of his brothers in arms he permitted to die when he never told anyone of Lady Kala's blithe demeanor, he felt rejected. Shunned by a woman he felt an odd kinship with.

Lady Kala seemed to sense the faceless shadow overtaking Eoval and kneeled before him, "This way, the war will be over. This way, a few hundred will die in a few days rather than many thousands over the next decade. I hope you can see that." Her words rang true, or at least, from what Eoval discerned of Lady Kala's character and logic, it made sense. She stroked his cheek and departed by saying, "When this is over, I'd like to see you again. I-I found myself enjoying our conversations."

This woman, his enemy, someone he found kindness in and wise words despite her capture, Eoval found himself to loathe. His perspective shifted every day he spent with her, and despite understanding that his learned knowledge wouldn't change because of tonight, it felt tainted. He felt used.

"Go. To. Hell, Kala." Eoval spat.

Lady Kala's mask had now gone to Eoval. He could tell she wasn't surprised but deflated in disappointment, "How unfortunate," she said. Standing, she regarded Eoval, "Goodbye, Eoval. I wish I could've learned more from you." He never saw the woman again, and he never understood how she felt she was the one learning from him.