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Sylvain was not in Fearghus when the war began. He was in Derdriu, avoiding his so-called “responsibilities.” He had come there for the fashion - bare shoulders and bare midriffs were popular in Derdriu - but he had stayed for the women themselves.
First - after a stream of nameless beauties - had been Dorothea, an Adrestrian singer of no small acclaim, who had signed on for an extended engagement with a famous Derdriu hotel. They had been lovers only briefly, discovering that they had too much self loathing in common for romance to last, but they had ended it soon enough to remain friends - for Sylvain, a true first. Unsatisfied with her contract, Dorothea had dismissed her agent, and Sylvain, about to run out of money, had taken the job. They had planned to move on, but the hotel had renegotiated, and so they had stayed.
Then came Ingrid. Ingrid was no new face to Sylvain, but he never did figure out just why she had come to Derdriu. Ingrid had no interest in fashion, lovely though she was. She was not one to hide from her responsibilities. On that subject, she stayed tight-lipped, but she was quite taken with Dorothea, and, much more remarkably, she was impressed Sylvain had “made something of himself.” At a side table, in the dark, she kissed Sylvain while Dorothea sang, “As Time Goes By.” Later, she joined him in his bed.
“I’ve got three tickets,” Sylvain whispered, lips brushing where Ingrid’s shoulder curved into her neck. “Platform four to Gloucester, then to Charon. From there, it will be easy to escape to Galatea.” Outside, Imperial tanks were rolling into Derdriu. The airports had closed down, but trains still ran - for now.
“I have to go back.” Ingrid never brought a bag when she stayed with Sylvain.
“The train’s at three. You have time.”
Sylvain waited. At 3:01, when the train began to move, Dorothea shoved Ingrid’s ticket at a sobbing refugee and pulled Sylvain into the car. The platform grew smaller in the distance. Sylvain looked back until it disappeared, but he was sure that Ingrid never came.
*
They did not make it to Charon. Dorothea, secretly, turned out to be a bleeding heart, and she insisted that they give away their tickets for the next leg to a bishop and her cleric fleeing the crumbling Alliance ahead of the Empire’s anti-Church troops. Being Adrestian herself, Dorothea was never in any real danger, and Sylvain was in no hurry to rush back to Fearghus and be sent to the front lines. Gloucester, having sided with the Empire immediately, retained some sovereignty, and so Sylvain and Dorothea opted to stay there.
*
The refugee community in Gloucester grew. Sovereignty was one step in a long game Count Gloucester was playing for power. It had started a few years before the war when he had, none too secretly, arranged for the assassination of Duke Riegan, leaving the Leicester Alliance once again in the hands of his frail father, whose only remaining choice of heir was the unknown and half-Almyran son of his estranged daughter. Both Gloucester and the Empire had benefited from the resulting instability, but now, with old Riegan deceased and Imperial troops conscripting soldiers and burning cathedrals all across the old Alliance, folks from far and wide had fled to relatively stable Gloucester, while, in the remains of Derdriu, rumors of Claude von Riegan raising an Almyran army to free the oppressed masses spread rampant. Devastatingly handsome the young heir was rumored to be, with bright green eyes and an Almyran complexion. It was also rumored that the people of the Alliance were ready to rise up and fight with him, eager to be rid of Imperial rule and eager, as never before, for a peace with Almyra. Sometimes, Sylvain wondered just how pleased Count Gloucester could be with the results of his long game thus far.
Pleased the Count’s son certainly was not. Sylvain had always had money, first from his family and now from his own wits. With Dorothea’s fame on his side, it had been easy enough to secure some investors for a small nightclub in Gloucester, which he infused with just enough dazzle to draw the local nobles and the refugees alike. Each evening, Lorenz Gloucester - tasked with keeping peace in a city once famous for its rose gardens, high society, and decadent tea services - would step into the Rose and glare down his long nose at Sylvain, perpetually offended by the tongue-in-cheek name of the club. That part of his routine had never changed, but it had taken less than a month for the subject of his furtive longing to shift from Dorothea to the bottles lined behind the bar. Begrudgingly, Sylvain allowed himself impressed the man had never yet indulged in either. It had been four years.
Finally, everything happened at once.
Sylvain was in his office when Ignatz slipped in and, having closed the door behind him, placed two papers on his desk. Ignatz was his accountant. He was also the accountant for Kirsten’s, an older, local bar still operating on the other side of town. It should have been a conflict of interest, but Kirsten’s was hardly competition. Sure, they both served booze, but Sylvain’s Rose didn’t offer lodging, and Kirsten’s didn’t do entertainment. Sylvain didn’t even need an accountant, really, but he liked having Ignatz around. He liked to think, between the two of them, that he and Dorothea had enough charm to worm every bit of intel out of their own clientele. Ignatz knew everything else.
“Forgeries?” Sylvain asked. The papers were passes signed by Emperor Edelgard herself - two no-questions-asked tickets to Brigid. Ignatz had an eye for detail, but Sylvain had judged him too aboveboard to get into work like that. War changed people, however.
Ignatz shook his head. “Pinelli took them off a pair of couriers coming South from Derdriu.” There was something - friendship, maybe more - between Igantz and Raphael Kirsten and this third person, Pinelli, whom Sylvain had never met. Not everyone in Leicester was content to wait for Claude von Riegan’s hypothetical Almyran army before they started their own fight.
“And why are they here now?” Sylvain prodded. “You’ve always wanted to see Brigid.”
Ignatz smiled flatly. “Brigid is an Imperial vassal state,” he whispered. This was hardly news. “But rumor has it they’re out of the war. Waiting, I guess, to see if they can get better standing if they help the Empire win . . .”
“Or get out from under their thumb altogether if they help them lose,” Sylvain surmised. He tapped the papers. “They were sending emissaries to make sure that didn’t happen.”
Ignatz nodded.
“You and Pinelli want to make sure that it does. Why are they here?”
Ignatz looked around as though someone could be standing behind him. It was before noon, a slow time in the Rose, and, in the barroom, Dorothea was noodling on the piano, occasionally humming a line.
Ignatz leaned closer. “You ought to get out. Things are going to get worse. We belong here. Dorothea will be fine. You’re Fearghan. You look Fearghan, and your name means something there.”
It was a kind thought, but: “You send me to Fearghus, I’ll be back here in two months with a gun on my back and a bullet in my chest.”
“You don’t have to go to Fearghus. Stay in Brigid. Get them mobilized. Get out.”
The thought of Sylvain inciting revolution in the Empire’s vassal state brought out a smile. “And ticket number two?”
Ignatz shrugged. “Dorothea, if you want. Whoever. Burn it, even.”
Sylvain slid the papers back towards Ignatz. “You’ve got the wrong man. I’m fine here. Lorenz knows I’m not taking sides. Someone else can mobilize Brigid. Do I look like Claude von Riegan?”
It was meant to be facetious, but Ignatz laughed high and nervous. He pushed the papers back. “Hold on to them, then. This plane leaves Friday night. I can’t have them on me.”
Sylvain frowned. That felt awfully close to taking sides. Today was Tuesday. “Friday,” he agreed, and pocketed the papers.
*
On Wednesday, Ingrid walked into the Rose, and Dorothea sang, “As Time Goes By.”
“Of all the gin joints . . .” Sylvain muttered. Ingrid didn’t even drink. “Am I meant to be happy to see you?”
She smiled, soft and sad, like she had smiled when she had promised to meet him at Derdriu Station. “Can you tell me you’re not?”
After she had a chance to talk with Dorothea, Sylvain took her to his room. He took his jacket off before she had a chance to feel the crinkle of the Imperial passes in the inside pocket and, while they were making love, he reconsidered Ignatz’s proposal. It was much more tempting now that he could put a face to ticket number two.
“That’s new,” he remarked afterwards, fingering her wedding band.
She shook her head. “It’s not.”
*
On Thursday, Sylvain met Claude von Riegan. It was easy enough to understand what had made Ignatz laugh. Did he realize how funny it truly was? Probably not.
It turned out Ingrid had a type. Sylvain was a little bit taller than Claude, and he certainly didn’t have bright green eyes or an Almyran complexion, but Claude had Sylvain’s wide cheekbones and heart shaped face. His broad shoulders and narrow waist. His easy laugh and flirty personality and quick, logical mind. He was what Sylvain might have been had he “made something of himself.”
In the end, Sylvain was a runaway and a draft dodger, and Claude was the Alliance’s last hope.
Scratch that.
Sylvain was the Alliance’s last hope. He was the one with the passes. On Wednesday, Sylvain might have wondered why Ignatz hadn’t waited for Claude to arrive before unloading them, but he already knew the answer now.
It was evening, and Dorothea was singing as usual, and Lorenz was at his usual place at the bar. He was sipping their most expensive floral gin, however, and his face was as white as a sheet.
At one table, a group of Imperial soldiers were drinking with a sharp faced officer Sylvain had never seen before. At another, Claude von Riegan enjoyed dinner with his wife.
The officer pointed, first at Lorenz, then at Claude. “Gloucester, arrest that man!”
“I’ve told you, General Metodey. That man has not committed any crime.”
“He is a murderer! Our couriers . . .”
“Will be mourned,” Lorenz assured him. “I have already searched these people for the papers they were carrying. The von Riegans, the people of this town - far more than the usual suspects.”
Metodey scoffed.
“I assure you, the moment he commits a crime . . .” Lorenz took a dainty sip of gin. “I will arrest him.”
Metodey’s sip was much less dainty. He slammed his glass down on the table. “You forget your place, Gloucester. This is an Imperial territory now. You forget where you are, and he does, too. You!” He pointed at Dorothea. “You’re Adrestian. I saw you sing in Enbarr. Sing, ‘Ode to Adrestia!’”
Dorothea smiled seductively, “This is a jazz bar.”
“Sing it!”
Dorothea held up her hands. She was on key, but it was otherwise the most mediocre performance Sylvain had ever heard her give. Sylvain knew she had not been fond of the old Empire, but neither did she approve of the politics of war. After a moment, Metodey and his men joined in.
They were alone in their chorus until Claude launched into “Allies All,” and the rest of the patrons joined him, drowning out the Imperial tune. Sylvain did not sing, but he thought he saw Lorenz hiding his lips behind his cup.
“This is a public disturbance!” Metodey screamed, pointing at Claude and smashing his glass on the floor.
“It is now.” Pointedly, Lorenz looked at pool of spilt ale and smashed glass.
Then, one of the locals rushed one of Metodey’s men, and it was a public disturbance for real.
Sighing, Lorenz gestured for his own soldiers to help break up the fight. Sylvain looked around for Ingrid, but he didn’t see her or her husband anywhere.
When he retreated to his office, Claude was waiting there.
“Tomorrow night - I want you to take Ingrid.” He certainly wasted no time.
There wasn’t any point in playing dumb, so Sylvain countered with, “You’re not going to ask for the passes?”
Claude shrugged. “Would you give them to me?”
Sylvain prodded. “Gloucester is losing control. There’s never been a general posted here before. You’ll probably die.”
Claude shrugged again. “Does it matter? Who says I’ll not lead just as well dead as I can alive?”
“You won’t have an Almyran army, dead.”
This time, Claude smirked. He looked just like Sylvain.
Sylvain hated him.
“Ingrid isn’t my whole world,” Claude said. “She can’t be. But, I do love her. It would mean a great deal if I knew that she were safe. And loved.”
“So, you’ll die happy knowing your wife’s in another man’s bed?”
“Something like that.”
“Sure. I’ll take Ingrid. If she’ll go.”
*
Ingrid was waiting in Sylvain’s bedroom. She was never the type for begging or for tears, but she was not the type to go down easy, either.
“You have the passes,” she accused. “Ignatz said so.”
“Maybe,” Sylvain hedged.
“One of them must go to Claude.”
Of course. “And what about you?”
“I’ll stay here. With you.”
Sylvain made himself smile, but he knew it was a hard one. “So it’s that kind of negotiation, is it?”
Ingrid nodded. She stripped off her dress.
“Fine.”
*
On Friday morning, Sylvain went to Gloucester manor to see Lorenz, who served him rose petal tea.
“For all your failings, you almost fit in in a place like this,” Lorenz said.
“Not really. Not ever.”
Lorenz bobbed his head. He was the kind of man who still believed in “breeding.”
“You searched the whole town, but you never searched me.”
“Do I need to?”
Sylvain shook his head. “Metodey is waiting for von Riegan to commit a crime?”
“That’s what I’m waiting for,” Lorenz corrected. “Metodey doesn’t care.”
“And would it be a crime to try to fly to Brigid on a stolen pass?”
“I suppose.”
“And what about me?”
“You are a traitor to your homeland and a scoundrel. A rumored fratricide. And an adulterer, I am beginning to suspect.”
Sylvain laughed. “That’s accurate enough. You’ll let it pass, though, won’t you? If it gets you what you want?”
Lorenz took a long sip of tea.
“You will look after Dorothea, though. She won’t get caught up in the blowback?”
That got his attention. “Dorothea? Yes, of course.”
Sylvain smiled. “Perhaps you and Metodey should join me at the airfield later.”
*
When Sylvain met Claude and Ingrid at the airfield, he handed them both of the passes. Claude met his eyes and nodded, but he said only, “Thank you,” before he headed towards the plane.
Ingrid sighed, watching.
Sylvain bumped her shoulder. “Go on.”
“What?”
He nodded at the pass in her hand. “That’s not just for show.”
She gaped at him. “But we . . . we made a deal.”
That did sting. “You think so little of me? Sure, I pale before Claude von Riegan. Sure, I’ll take what I can get, but Ingrid . . .”
For some reason, she was the one crying. “Oh, Sylvain! I . . . it was for me, too. You left . . .”
“As I recall, you stood me up. I asked you to come with me.”
Ingrid shook her head. “You left Fearghus! Sylvain, it’s always been you. When I met Claude . . . I had no idea where you were. I thought I would never see you again. By the time we met in Derdriu, Claude and I were already married. I do love Claude, but he’s always going to put Leicester first. And he should! That’s why I love him, but I’ll never love him the way I love you.”
There wasn’t really time, but Sylvain kissed her anyway. “That’s how it ends, then,” he told her. “People like Claude . . . they’re the ones who need to get what they want. You love him for a free Leicester Alliance, for peace with Almyra.”
“For Fodlan,” Ingrid agreed.
“Then go with him! If you stay here with me, you’ll regret it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon - and for the rest of your life. He wants you safe. Do it for Fodlan.”
“Sylvain . . .”
“Ing, do it for me.”
She kissed him one more time and ran. The propeller had already started. Sylvain thought about Claude von Riegan thinking that he might die happy knowing the woman he loved was safe in another man’s bed and figured that was one more thing they had in common.
Of course, Lorenz and Metodey arrived too late.
“Where is von Riegan!” Metodey bellowed. He pulled out his radio.
Sylvain, who hadn’t fired his gun since he left Fearghus, shot him dead.
Lorenz Gloucester stared.
“You’ll be true to your promise, won’t you? About Dorothea?”
Lorenz knelt by Metodey and felt his pulse.
“Will you be adding ‘confirmed murderer’ to your list? What was it? Traitor, scoundrel . . .”
Lorenz shook his head. “I don’t think any of that will be necessary.” He stood up and brushed his hands on his thighs. “I’ll just round up the usual suspects.”
Sylvain laughed. He felt lighter than he had in his whole life. It was a rare thing, but Sylvain knew how to recognize the beginning of a beautiful friendship.