Post by devilinthedetails on Dec 12, 2022 11:39:13 GMT 10
Title: Royal Apology
Summary: Wyldon receives a royal apology. Set in an AU where Roald is Kel's page sponsor.
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: References to sexism and racism.
Notes: This piece is set in an AU where Roald is Kel’s sponsor. It is something of a companion work and missing scene to “Comets and Compromise.” However, I have written it with the intention that it can be understood and appreciated as a standalone piece. Thus, it is meant to be enjoyed either as part of this broader AU arc as an interconnected work or can function independently in terms of having a coherent narrative of its own.
Please heed the warnings in the tags regarding sexism and racism since Wyldon is in his First Test mode in this fic.
Royal Apology
Lord Wyldon frowned down at the letter he had received from a conservative who preferred to live on his country estates rather than suffer the indignity of residing within a palace ruled by progressive monarchs. The note amounted to nothing more than a lengthy appeal for Wyldon to involve himself in what appeared to be a minor dispute between the Crown and the conservative noble. To intercede with the king and queen on behalf of the conservative noble in question, of course.
Wyldon scratched irritably at the arm still imprisoned within its sling. Mentally cursing both his slow-to-heal wound, one of the many drawbacks of being an aging warrior, and the conservative who had sent him this pleading piece of correspondence.
Not for the first time since his acceptance of the role of training master, he bemoaned the fates that had seemed to simultaneously appoint him as one of the few voices of the beleaguered conservative faction at King Jonathan’s famously progressive court. He had even half-hoped that when he threatened to resign if Keladry of Mindelan was permitted to train as a page that the king would decide that championing the cause of female warriors was more important to him than retaining Wyldon’s services as training master.
Thus, allowing Wyldon to leave his post as training master and assume command of some border fort. A duty that would be far more satisfying than dealing with a bunch of unruly pages every day. Alas, wishes amounted to nothing, half-hopes to even less, and Wyldon remained in both his official position as training master and unofficial one as an advocate of the conservative approach at court. A role that felt very akin to shouting against a roaring wind.
By all the gods, he didn’t even regard himself as that ardent a conservative. Deep down, he believed that he was much more of a moderate man than the progressives made him out to be. Not an extremist of any stripe except in terms of his devotion to his knightly duty and honor.
After all, his politics had been considered unremarkable and inoffensive–bland and even banal according to his wife–during King Roald’s far less radical reign. It was only in an unbalanced era of wild changes and rapid reforms– a time when all respect for tradition seemed to have been eroded and impulsively abandoned–that he could be regarded as a rigid conservative.
Though perhaps that was all a rigid conservative was, he mused with a trace of wry humor and self-deprecating irony. Someone who stayed still–lingered to bring up the rearguard–when everyone else wanted to charge recklessly on ahead. Ignoring anyone who suggested a modicum of caution might be prudent. That there might be pitfalls and dangers in the future. Traps for the unwary to topple into. That the wisdom of their ancestors might be consulted like a map of the terrain.
A knock on his study door interrupted his thoughts. His manservant Leofric, no doubt.
“Come in,” he called. Stowing the letter in his desk for further contemplation and future, measured response.
Leofric entered with a bow. “The Crown Prince is here, my lord. He requested a word if you’d be gracious enough to see him.”
A reversal–a turning of the tables–from last night. Last night when Wyldon had sought a private audience with royalty in the form of King Jonathan and Queen Thayet. Tonight royalty in the shape of twelve-year-old Prince Roald wanted a private word with him.
Prince Roald had never requested a word with Wyldon before. No page ever had, in fact. Even the most obtuse, mischief-seeking lad wouldn’t wish to invite trouble and potential punishment in that manner. Better by far to keep one’s head down, work hard, and hope to avoid the training master’s notice. That was the time-tested strategy for success and survival in the pages’ wing.
Not that a Crown Prince, however reserved and generally understated in his demeanor, could entirely evade notice in the pages’ wing. His every action would inevitably be scrutinized. Judged and weighed in a way no other boy’s would be because no other boy happened to be the heir to the throne. His every word and deed perforce a political statement.
Roald had certainly not been subtle in his political statement last night. Last night when he had stepped forward in the crowded corridor after Wyldon had asked for a volunteer to sponsor Keladry of Mindelan. When he had bowed properly and politely to Wyldon–somehow still finding a way to be sufficiently respectful even when defying Lord Wyldon and setting the whole realm on its ear-and declared that he would be honored to sponsor Keladry of Mindelan.
Speaking quietly but firmly. Not wasting a word in a manner Wyldon usually appreciated. Valiantly and visibly trying to infuse his tone with some of the unshakeable conviction and confidence that reverberated in King Jonathan’s voice whenever he announced another reform to a shocked, scandalized court.
Of course the lad would seek to emulate his father. That was what every son did. Diligently strove to imitate his father while staunchly maintaining a desire to do nothing more than be independent because pride would not allow any admission otherwise. Any confession of longed-for approval or affection when such a confession could only be construed as a weakness.
Wyldon had been furious at this request to sponsor Keladry of Mindelan made by the Crown Prince. It was an insult to his honor. A not very subtle implication that royalty didn’t trust him to be fair in his evaluation of Keladry of Mindelan. A public questioning of his authority in the pages’ wing. An undermining of the compromise he had reached with his king regarding the Girl’s training and probationary status.
Despite his rage, he hadn’t been able to deny Prince Roald the right to sponsor the Girl. Any page in good standing in the second year and above could sponsor any newcomer. The Crown Prince met those requirements. Hadn’t technically violated any rules when he requested to be Keladry of Mindelan’s sponsor.
Still, that hadn’t meant Wyldon would surrender without a fight or would bear the slight to his integrity and authority without lodging a strong protest with his king. After dinner that night, he had marched over to the royal wing in a towering temper and requested a private audience with his monarchs. Aiming both to communicate his anger at what Prince Roald had done and discover if the boy had been acting on his father’s orders or his own initiative. Whether it was King Jonathan himself who was going against their agreement. Using his heir as an obedient proxy for his will.
Even now, he didn’t truly know the answer to that question, and his ignorance irked him. King Jonathan had seemed outraged and surprised enough when Wyldon had revealed the cause of his displeasure. What Prince Roald had done. Yet the king was a cunning man and certainly capable of feigning wrath and shock as politically expedient. As necessary to manipulate those beneath him.
Wyldon had sworn loyalty to his dying breath to the Crown. A vow he wouldn’t break. However, that didn’t mean he believed anything other than that his king would lie to him if politics demanded it.
That meant, of course, that Wyldon might never know whether the Crown Prince had been acting on a father’s command of his own initiative last night. At any rate, King Jonathan had promised to have what was implied to be a very stern talk with his heir, and they had arrived at the uneasy compromise that Wyldon wouldn’t resign his post as training master as long as there were no further attempts to undermine his authority in the pages’ wing or question the fairness of his judgment in the matter of Keladry of Mindelan.
He supposed that stern talk was why Prince Roald had come to speak to him now. No doubt the boy had been ordered to apologize to him. To offer restitution for the affront to Wyldon’s honor in that way.
He could, of course, make the lad sweat and squirm–if the heir to the thone ever did anything so undignified as squirm. Somehow, it seemed foolish to bait the future king of the realm needlessly, though Prince Roald did have the mild-mannered, judicious-minded temperament of one unlikely to bear grudges. Besides, he didn’t actually dislike the boy despite the fact that he vehemently disagreed with the politics of the lad’s insanely progressive parents.
“Send him in.” Wyldon waved a hand at Leofric. “I will see him now.”
“At once, my lord.” Leofric bowed and disappeared.
A moment later, he was opening the door for Prince Roald, who entered.
Gave the deepest bow a prince could be expected to offer a lord. Then said, “Thank you for taking the time to see me on such short notice, my lord.”
“You can show your appreciation by quickly getting to the point of your visit, Your Highness.” Curt words that concealed a sort of mercy. That didn’t force the boy to wait in shame to provide the apology he had no doubt come to deliver. He was feeling in a magnamious mood this evening.
“I wanted to apologize for offending you by volunteering to sponsor Keladry of Mindelan.” Prince Roald inclined his head. “It wasn’t my intention to offend you, but I did, and for that, I apologize.”
An apology that skirted responsibility rather too much for Wyldon’s approval but was otherwise gracious enough. Of course, by now, he expected no less from the prince. When the boy had started page training, Wyldon had braced himself for dealing with a royal brat on a daily basis.
Assuming that the Crown Prince would have been raised and ruined–spoiled rotten–by the poisonous progressive claptrap that children should be allowed to do whatever they wanted whenever they wished. That parents weren’t so much authority figures to be respected and obeyed as they were friends to have fun and joke with. The insidious nonsense that seemed determined to destory the kingdom one family at a time. It had been a relief to discover otherwise. That Prince Roald was, in fact, a respectful and dutiful boy. Soft-spoken. Diplomatic. Not generally the type to stir up problems.
King Jonathan, he had come to suspect, might have been more of a traditionalist parent than the monarch’s vaunted progressive politics would indicate. Prince Roald was, after all, betrothed to a Yamani princess in an arranged marriage when a passionate, freely chosen love match no doubt should have been the progresive ideal. And Princess Kalasin, rumor had it, had been discouraged from training as a page and would likely find herself pledged to Emperor Kaddar in a few years’ time.
Queen Thayet might have been more indulgent. Last night, she had been the one to defend her son. To point out that he hadn’t broken any rules by volunteering to sponsor Keladry of Mindelan and so hadn’t done anything wrong. Wyldon didn’t actually begrudge her that natural, motherly desire to protect her offspring. She had labored long and hard to bring her children into the world. Doting on them–defending everything they did as wonderful–seemed to him at least a more appropriate and womanly activity than the bandit hunting she engaged in far too often for his liking.
A queen who regularly engaged in bandit hunting was no doubt why the country had fallen so far from its values and traditions that Keladry of Mindelan wanted to train as a knight. A warrior had been set up as the ultimate role model for young women to strive to emulate. That and the Girl’s parents had foolishly allowed the Girl to be brought up among savages–learning their ways–instead of ensuring that she was raised in the proper courtesies and arts of a lady by a noblewoman in Tortall.
Wyldon pressed his lips together. He could not fix all the realm’s follies and faults in one evening.
“I accept your apology.” Wyldon gave Prince Roald a brusque nod. His acceptance of the boy’s apology didn’t mean, of course, that he would be keeping anything less than an eagle eye out for any transgression the Crown Prince might commit in the coming weeks and months so that he could impose a harsher than usual penalty. He would have his vengeance, but that was a matter of principle and pride. Not forgiveness per se.
“You should know, my lord, that my father didn’t order me to sponsor Keladry of Mindelan,” Prince Roald went on softly. “I was acting on my own initiative.”
Acting on his own initiative. An independent comment of his own or a mere empty echo of his father’s from last night? Something he had been commanded to say or had decided to voice on his own? Wyldon didn’t know. Abruptly decided that it didn’t matter. To all the world, Prince Roald was an extension of his father’s policies.
The entire world would think that King Jonathan had ordered his son to undermine Wyldon’s authority in the pages’ wing. Question Wyldon’s ability to be fair in judging Keladry of Mindelan’s fitness for knighthood. Renege on a compromise and agreement reached with Wyldon. It didn’t matter so much what the truth was as what everyone believed it to be. For the sake of his own honor and pride, Wyldon would have to act according to what the world believed, and not worry about a truth that he would never be able to know to his satisfaction.
“Enough.” Wyldon held up a sharp, silencing hand. “I have accepted your apology. We will not waste time nitpicking the details of who is responsible for what.”
“Yes, sir.” Prince Roald at least seemed sufficiently subdued by this reprimand.
“I will write to His Majesty confirming your apology to me.” Wyldon was very much convinced that he was being generous in his gruff way. After all, surely the king would be more likely to believe that the ordered apology had taken place if the account of it came from Wyldon rather than a boy who could have lied to dodge the discipline. “You are dismissed.”
“You don’t have to write to my father, my lord.” Prince Roald paused as he moved toward the door. “He didn’t order me to apologize to you. In apologizing to you, I was acting on my own initiative again.”
“Very well. I won’t write to your father then.” Wyldon fixed the Crown Prince with his iciest glare. “You are, I repeat, dismissed. Do not make me say it a third time.”
“I take my leave, sir.” The prince wisely bowed and beat a hasty retreat from Wyldon's study.
Which left Wyldon in blessed solitude at last. He would not bother responding to that conservative’s letter tonight because he could feel a migraine mounting in his head. An early night’s sleep. That was what he needed. One hopefully not to be interrupted by any brawling pages.