Chapter Text
Gabriel Reyes, crown prince of Argia, waited for the barbarians to arrive in the outer courtyard of Alcázar de Zaindari. Jesse stood just behind him and to his right, where he'd stood at every official function since he'd returned from his travels in the lands north and east of Argia. He still wasn't knighted; the idiot kept running off whenever Gabriel talked about it. But Jesse was his brother-in-arms, and his mothers didn't trust anyone else with his life.
The rest of his entourage was arrayed around him, other young knights and courtiers of Argia. A handful of Satya's people stood at the edges, having found a new reason to stay at court since the princess had left.
"Your mamas really let you wear your owls today?"
Gabriel didn't even turn his head. "No one's told me how to dress since I was sixteen, Jesse."
"Just don't think wearing a bird of ill-omen when you're meeting your husband-to-be is the best thing you've ever done, Gabriel."
His mothers had agreed with Jesse, not that he'd mention that to any of them.
The page-girls he'd sent to stand lookout came darting back down the stairs from the walls. "They're coming!"
They skidded to a stop in front of Gabriel, eyes bright with excitement. One started, "There's wagons and horses-"
"Fifteen wagons, we couldn't count the horses-"
"-we think the prince is the one at the front!"
"There's a woman riding behind him with the Löwenkrone banner!"
"And there's a man walking beside him! In armor!"
He smiled, raised a hand to quiet them. "Good scouting. Return to your classes. I already told your trainers where you've been."
"Thank you, Prince Gabriel!" The page-girls glanced at each other, then took off at a dead run, racing towards the inner gate. He smiled as he watched them run, remembering similar races with Jesse and Satya when they were younger.
Gabriel glanced sidelong at his friend, saw Jesse reach for his beltpouch and the cigarillos he kept there, and casually punched him in the shoulder. "Not now."
Jesse grumbled in a language he'd picked up traveling and folded his arms.
The creak of wagon-wheels and the jingle of horse harnesses was audible now. Gabriel turned his full attention back to the gates in time to see the barbarians ride in. Well. Of the three who mattered, only two rode. The other was a giant of a man, his companions' horses only coming up to mid-chest. He wore full plate, bright brass lions worked across the chest and shoulders, gleaming claws on gauntlets and boots. His helmet was nowhere to be seen - likely in the baggage with the weapons. His long silver hair shone bright in the sun, and his beard was braided. An old scar slashed over his left eye, and he looked around with unabashed curiosity.
The man who rode with him, the barbarian prince (your husband-to-be, Gabriel reminded himself) was nowhere near as tall, thankfully. He looked to be Jesse's height, which meant he was Gabriel's. He was as pale as the big man, which… was exotic. Gabriel wasn't sure he would call it attractive, but it was certainly exotic.
He looked grim and stern amid the bustle of his people as they led in the horses and wagons. His hair was the color of sunlight, and his features were arrestingly handsome. Two thin braids framed his face, while the rest of his hair was pulled back in a loose tail. He wore a lamellar chestpiece over a lapis blue tunic edged in searing red, bands of white and yellow running up the sleeves. His trousers were a darker blue with white wrappings barely visible above his boots.
Rich colors. His husband-to-be was not a penniless barbarian prince, at least.
It felt like he'd been telling himself 'at least' for the past half a year, ever since they settled the terms of the treaty with Löwenkrone. At least it was just a treaty marriage and no one expected him to keep it up past the war with Omnica. At least the man was the eldest son, so they knew Löwenkrone was taking this seriously. At least he had served in the Ilevellan imperial court, so he wouldn't be completely barbaric.
(At least Vizcondesa Amélie was with Satya, so his adopted sister would have someone to help her adapt to her new land and her new husband.)
The prince's bannerwoman rode behind him, grip firm and head high as she displayed the maneless lion of Löwenkrone. She was just as pale-skinned as the prince. They were all pale-skinned, Gabriel noticed, as he scanned over the others in the entourage. He didn't know why he was surprised - Löwenkrone had nothing to attract civilized people to settle there. He wasn't even sure they had cities.
Her brown hair was pulled back in the same manner as the prince, though the two locks framing her face were strung with beads rather than braided. She wore no armor. Instead she wore a bright white dress with divided skirts, the sleeves and collar edged in green brocade. Over it was a sleeveless dress, the same blue as the prince wore, straps over her shoulders to hold it up and pinned with gold brooches. There was a gold buckle on her fine leather belt, a set of pouches, and a ring of keys.
"Bones and blood," Jesse said softly behind him. "He's as big as the horse."
Gabriel turned his head to the right just enough to look at his bodyguard out of the corner of his eye. "Yes."
"Wearing full plate, too. You know how much metal that is?"
"Yes."
"Well," Jesse said, amusement coloring his voice, "at least you're not slumming it."
"Shut up."
The barbarian prince had noticed him now.
***
Jack scanned the courtyard of the castle without moving his head. Now that he was inside, he could see another set of walls and, behind them, the main keep. The inner walls were probably as thick as the outer ones had been, though the towers at the corners were less massive. They both had turrets along the length of the wall, but the inner wall had fewer.
The parapets projected out over the main part of the wall, for some reason. It couldn't just be to look beautiful - the patterns of colored stone used to make the walls and the shape of the turrets showed the Argians had other ways to make their fortifications beautiful and functional.
Extremely functional. He wouldn't have liked to try to take this castle. Especially not in soldiering season - it was just too damn hot here in Argia. Jack was very glad they'd stopped at the edge of the capital the night before instead of pressing on. The chance to clean off all the grit and sweat from travel had eased the tension that had settled between his shoulder-blades when his father's messenger caught up to him at the imperial seat of Ilevell.
"We need allies against Omnica," they'd said. "You must go to Argia and wed their prince. They are sending their daughter to wed your brother Winston."
He had tried to argue, but everyone had always known he and Lena were the marriage-pieces his parents could play. And the Argians were a civilized, cultured people - they couldn't send Lena. But Jack, who'd spent half his adult life in Ilevell, guarding the empress herself as one of her Vaatiyan Guard? (Golden Jack, the only one of their children who'd inherited Grandmother's yellow hair?)
Of course he'd get sent across half the continent to a kingdom he'd never visited to marry a man he'd never met.
That man stood before the great doors of the castle's inner gates. His attention was on the man who stood where Reinhardt usually stood for Jack, giving him a moment to just look at his husband-to-be.
Prince Gabriel was dark-skinned and dark-eyed, like all the handsome men of Ilevell, and he kept his facial hair neatly trimmed. His hair looked naturally curly, but not in the same way the empress's was. But his clothes… Jack swallowed. That was not the imperial fashion. Black hose that clung to finely-muscled legs, black shoes with a chunky heel - why a heel? A close-cut doublet of black brocade accented in silver, owls picked out in crimson along the sleeves.
A good black dye cost a fortune. A bad black dye needed to be replaced every few years, so it still cost a fortune.
A silver chain of office hung around Prince Gabriel's neck, the sun-disc of Argia clearly displayed on the central pendant. Odd. Jack had thought Argians preferred gold.
The prince's bodyguard was lighter-skinned than the prince and lighter-haired than Lena, but anyone would recognize him as a native of Argia. His shaggy hair wasn't cut as short as the prince and the rest of his entourage kept theirs. Nor was his beard as neatly-trimmed. He wore similar clothes to Prince Gabriel, but in more colors. His doublet was a rich red ochre, cut even closer to his body than the prince's. Yellow suns ran down his sleeves, and his hose were a deep brown.
The rest of the prince's entourage dressed similarly, though often in colors much brighter than Prince Gabriel or his bodyguard.
"Reinhardt," Jack said quietly, without taking his eyes off the prince, "where are the rest of their clothes?"
His foster-father turned away from studying the battlements to glance at Prince Gabriel and his entourage. "Ach. Westerners."
The prince had noticed him. Jack mustered up a smile; Torbjörn's advice to be grim had served him well in the Vaatiyan Guard, but he was supposed to marry this man. It'd be better if they could at least like each other.
The return smile was not as wide or bright as one of his countrymen would have given him, but it wasn't the tight-lipped smiled he'd gotten in Ilevell, either.
***
Gabriel didn't even get a chance to talk to his husband-to-be. The diplomats formally introduced them, they clasped hands, and Gabriel welcomed Jack to his home and life in his native language. Jack presumably responded in kind, but he understood the man's first tongue as little as it looked like Jack had understood his.
Then he bade the stewards to settle the Löwenkroner into their quarters, and Jack was whisked away before he had a chance to find out what languages the man did speak.
Now, though, they were at the welcoming feast, up on the central dais in the great hall. Gabriel's mothers were in the center, of course, with their court around them, while he and his were off to the right. Jesse sat in his usual place at Gabriel's immediate right, and for the first time in his life, someone sat immediately to his left. The spouse's place.
Jack had taken off his lamellar and added twisted gold armbands to his clothes. The armbands were in a style he hadn't seen before: designed to not fully close, with stylized Löwenkrone lion's heads capping either side of the opening. His bannerwoman wore a neckpiece of a similar design and an earpiece shaped as stylized smoke rising from a forge. Her hair had been put into an intricate braid strung with colored beads. His bodyguard had shed his full plate for clothes similar to Jack's, though with a preference for greens and browns. He'd also changed the braids in his beard. Interesting. Jack hadn't changed the small braids in his hair, except to add small blue beads at the end.
Gabriel was having to resist the urge to bat at them.
Jack had seemed perfectly comfortable when the bowls of water for hand-washing went around, but now he was eyeing the utensils on either side of the porcelain trencher.
***
"What are these?"
Reinhardt shrugged. "I have traveled all over the east, Jack, not the west. I do not know the customs here."
Jack glanced sidelong at Prince Gabriel, who was watching him with interest. Great. "I knew we weren't going to eat in the Ilevellan style, but I thought everyone used trencher and knife west of Ilevell."
"Everyone here has a trencher and knife," Reinhardt pointed out helpfully. Brigitte looked like she was trying not laugh.
"What are these other pieces then? What are they for? I managed to avoid looking like a complete barbarian in Ilevell, Reinhardt, I'd like to avoid it here."
His foster-father patted him on the shoulder. "Watch your prince. He knows the customs."
***
Gabriel watched as Jack spoke briefly with his vassals. Hm.
Then Jack turned back to him, and the servants brought out plates of cheese and olive pastries. Gabriel took two from the plate set down on their table, offered one to Jack. "You'll like these."
Jack smiled and waited until Gabriel took a bite himself. He made a pleased sound when he followed suit, so Gabriel grabbed another for both of them.
"I know you don't speak Argian," Gabriel said after they finished the pastries. He licked crumbs from his fingers before continuing, "but kya apa hindi bolte hai?"
Jack was looking a little wide-eyed and unfortunately just as blank as this morning.
"Parlez-vous francais?" Gabriel tried.
Jack shook his head. "Türkçe konusuyor musunuz?"
"Loquerisne Latine?"
"Talar du svenska?"
Gabriel shook his head this time. At least Jack had picked up on what he was trying to do.
"Vy govorite po-russki?"
"Miláte Elliniká?" Gabriel knew it was a long-shot. His own Nision wasn't very good, but Jesse could converse in it.
Jack brightened, then his shoulders slumped. "Lígo."
A little. Well. That was better than nothing. That had to be better than nothing.
***
Prince Gabriel didn't look any more pleased with 'a little' than Jack felt.
"Reinhardt speaks it better," he added, the only other useful and polite phrase in Nision he could use right now. Maybe the prince spoke Bahramin? "Hal tatakallamal-'arabiyah?"
"Atakallam qalilan," Prince Gabriel replied, frowning.
A little. The niceties, probably. Jack didn't think a man who lived as a prince among his own people, even among warriors as well-known as the Argians, would have picked up the insults.
Prince Gabriel accepted a silver cup from a servant without looking and handed it to Jack. He wondered if the prince was going to feed him the entire meal. The servant, meanwhile, looked at the non-silver cup in her other hand, then hurried away.
"Well," Jack said in Bahramin, "at least we have a few words in common."
The look Prince Gabriel gave him suggested he'd either said that too fast or too colloquially. Or he'd simply exceeded the prince's vocabulary.
Spirits, they were going to be married at the end of the season, and they couldn't even talk to each other.
The prince's bodyguard - Jesse, his name was Jesse - leaned forward and said something in faster and more complex Nision than Jack spoke.
Jack looked at him, then looked at Reinhardt.
"He says he speaks Nision well. Mm. He sounds different than what I learned, but I can understand him." Reinhardt took a large drink from his cup. "Fine glow-wine. You should try it!"
"I'll wait until Gabriel has his." Jack grinned. "Are you going to tell Jesse you understood him?"
"Ach!" Reinhardt spoke Nision more slowly than Jesse, but the man was obviously following what he said.
The servant returned with a silver cup for Prince Gabriel. Jack lifted his own cup, looking into the prince's eyes. "May this work out for the best."
Behind him, there came the crash of shattering porcelain.
***
Gabriel flinched, attention jerking away from Jack's very, very blue eyes. He felt a little light-headed, just from the man looking at him and saying… something. Quietly. Directly to him.
Reinhardt bellowed something, his cup in pieces where he'd smashed it on the floor. Had the mulled wine offended him? It was an excellent vintage and mix, one of Gabriel's favorites.
Hnh. They drank beer in Löwenkrone. If that was the problem, it was going to be a long-term one. Argia didn't make good beers, at least according to Jesse.
Brigitte looked fondly annoyed, as if this was something she was used to. Jack didn't even seem to be paying attention to his bodyguard; he looked more concerned with Gabriel than- His expression shifted as he noticed how silent the hall had become, and he turned to say something to Reinhardt.
"Jesse," Gabriel said calmly. "What the shit was that about?"
"Hang me if I know. Reinhardt!" Jesse spoke rapidly in Nision, then stopped to listen, his expression turning more incredulous. "He says he liked it. He wants another."
Gabriel looked from Jesse to his husband-to-be and his bodyguard. Jack had his elbow on the table, and his face in his hand. Reinhardt looked concerned and was talking to him in their native language. Brigitte had a hand covering her mouth; Gabriel recognized that look from whenever Jesse was trying not to laugh at something.
"So he smashed the cup," Gabriel said, looking back at Jesse. "He wanted another, so he smashed the cup."
"Yeah…"
"Why."
"Don't start talkin' to me like that, Gabriel." Jesse asked something in Nision, listened. "It's the custom where they come from."
"You've got to be kidding me."
"I'm not. Maybe he is."
Gabriel gave Jesse a look, then motioned to one of the servants. "Get him another. Jesse, tell the man that's not the custom here."
"Pretty sure he figured that out."
A hand as big as his head tapped him on the shoulder, and he shifted his attention to see Reinhardt looking at him sheepishly. The big man rumbled something in his own language; Gabriel assumed it was an apology.
"Apology accepted," he said graciously, rather than the usual vicious politeness he used on his own entourage.
Reinhardt clapped him on the shoulder, rocking him in his seat. Gabriel just blinked. Even Jesse wasn't that familiar with him in public, and they'd grown up as good as brothers.
***
"I like how you apologized for breaking the cup, and nothing else." Jack knew he sounded more amused than chastising, but he was more amused than chastising.
"There is nothing else to apologize for," Reinhardt said, settling back in his seat. "It is our custom. We are rich men, we may be so wasteful if we choose. And I did not think their hospitality would begrudge one cup."
His tone was of good cheer, but he had been in Ilevell with Jack for ten years. They both knew how to lie with tone of voice. No one there cared enough about barbarians to learn their tongue to know what they really said.
"I don't think it was a matter of hospitality," Jack said carefully. "You startled the owl-prince."
Reinhardt grinned. "Owl-prince, hm? I like it!"
"He's wearing owls on his sleeves and his jewelry, what do you want from me? I can't use his actual name, he's sure to pick that up."
Servants brought forward a massive gilded porcelain bowl of soup to the queens' table. Were they both queens? Jack was sure they'd been introduced with different titles. A smaller silver-edged was brought to Prince Gabriel, and porcelain bowls were set before each of them.
"Silver is your metal, isn't it?" Jack asked idly, tapping his finger against the silver goblet in front of him. "All your jewelry is silver, from your chain of office to the owl ring. But the queens wear gold."
Prince Gabriel gave him that polite look that said he had no idea what Jack was saying but he was listening anyway. Then he picked up Jack's bowl and filled it with the red soup, before filling his own. Instead of filling Jesse's, though, he put the ladle back in the bowl, and Jesse had to pick it up and serve himself.
In Löwenkrone, Jack would have served all of the people at his table. As their prince, he had the right to distribute food as he deemed fit. The best for the guests, of course; no one could say the king and his line weren't generous hosts.
But this was Argia, and they… didn't do that.
Well, at least this course was soup. Jack knew how to eat soup. He reached for his bowl.
Prince Gabriel picked up the small spoon set to the side of his trencher and dipped it into his own bowl of soup.
Apparently he didn't know how to eat soup.
***
Jack said less and less over the course of the feast, just watching Gabriel intently. He ate what Gabriel gave him but never reached for anything himself. Gabriel didn't know if that was the custom in Löwenkrone or if Jack didn't like the food. The idea of asking Jesse to ask Reinhardt grated against his bones, and he found himself snapping whenever one of his entourage tried to talk to him.
At the end of the feast, he was more than glad to send Jack and Reinhardt back to their quarters. It would be a few more hours before his mothers would retire to their private sitting room, so he went to fetch his weapons.
He worked his irritation off by beating Jesse three bouts out of four. By the time they were done, the sun had finally and fully set, and Jesse was swearing at him in three different languages.
Gabriel smirked and helped him to his feet. "Let's go see our mothers."
The ruler's private rooms were some of the most opulent in the castle. Frescoes of the constellations decorated the walls, each contained within painted, arched frame divided from each other by bands of geometric designs. The vaulted ceiling depicted the pagan legend of the sun goddess Giasolora's descent to raise the storm-tossed sailor to the first throne of Argia. The carpeting was plush and richly-dyed, the furniture handsomely carved out of expensive southern woods, the air in the room smoke-free and sweet-smelling from the lightweaver lamps.
Queen Valeria smiled indulgently when they came in still wearing their weapons on their hips. High Princess Sofia stood and embraced first Gabriel then Jesse. "How are my sons doing?"
"Not your son, your highness," Jesse said, already wincing.
As well he should. Queen Valeria's voice snapped like a whip. "Jesse McCree Reyes, your father was my husband. He may have given you your mother's name, but I raised you and I have claimed you as my child just as much as Gabriel. You are not of the blood, but you are of the family."
"Yes, your highness." Jesse didn't sound convinced. He never did, maybe never would. He'd admitted to Gabriel once, when they were drunk, that he didn't feel like Valeria's son. Everyone talked about his father, about how he'd let a pretty face turn him from his queen, and sooner or later, Jesse'd do the same.
Gabriel had told him he was an idiot, but he'd never been very good at comforting people.
Sofia hugged Jesse again until he relented and hugged her back. It was a long hug, longer than Gabriel would have tolerated. But Jesse liked to hold people when he got the chance.
When he finally let go, they all found seats, Gabriel and Jesse both taking a moment to take their sword-belts off.
"Well?" Valeria looked them over. "What do you think of the barbarians?"
"Jack speaks more languages than I thought he would," Gabriel admitted, "but the only ones we have in common, neither of us are both fluent in them." At her look, he elaborated, "Neither of us speak Nision well enough to talk to each other, and my Bahramin is terrible."
"The big guy speaks Nision like he learned it from a book," Jesse said, "but I can talk to 'im."
Valeria nodded. "And?"
"And what?" Gabriel crossed his arms. "He's handsome enough, but I can't talk to him-"
"You lit up like a lightweaver beacon when he smiled at you," Jesse added with a grin.
"Shut up. Mamá, it doesn't matter if I like him or not. It won't bother me to have the sun-barbarian around, and we need the treaty. We need the timber."
"He has a point," Sofia said when it looked like the queen would have argued. "You know he has a point, Valeria. We need to expand the fleet if there's to be a war with Omnica."
Gabriel leaned forward, hands on his knees. "There will be a war with Omnica, and we don't want it to reach Argia. They're gobbling up the lands east of Ilevell. By the time they reach us, there'll be no one else left."
"You're assuming they can take Ilevell." Valeria sounded tired, but this was an old argument between the three of them.
"We can take Ilevell."
"No," both his mothers said sharply.
"No, Gabriel," Sofia said, "we cannot win a war with Ilevell. Even with an expanded fleet. Don't even think about it."
"Argia has the best sailors and sea-soldiers on the continent." He didn't bother looking to Jesse for support. He knew no one else thought they could win against Ilevell. No one had won against the empire in centuries, and the last time Argia had gone to war with Ilevell had been a disaster.
"Which we will use to stop the Omnican advance." The queen raised a hand to forestall any objections, not that Gabriel had planned to make any. "I'm pleased you can tolerate the barbarian. I hope you come to like him."
Jesse grinned slyly. "Oh, I think he'll like the 'sun-barbarian' lots."
"Shut. Up."
***
An Argian page led Jack and Reinhardt back to their apartments. Jack dimly noted the route, too tired to really concentrate on figuring out the maze of the castle. He'd be able to get back to the great hall in the morning or outside to the courtyard. That was enough.
The apartments were grand, grander even than what he'd commanded in Ilevell as an officer of the Vaatiyan Guard. But even an officer of the Vaatiyan Guard was still a servant; here, he was Prince Gabriel's betrothed.
The carpets in the hexagonal, windowless central room were bright. Glass lamps filled with a faint-smelling oil hung from the ribs arching the ceiling. The walls were carved with intricate geometric patterns interlaced with flowering vines. Arched doors opened on the three inner walls, each leading to a different suite.
Brigitte was already waiting for them, still dressed in her feast finery. Kirsa, one of the servants she'd brought from Löwenkrone, was removing the beads from her hair.
"Well?" Brigitte asked, starting to lean forward before Kirsa tugged gently on the hair in her hands.
Jack sat down and started working the beads out of his own hair. "The Argians think we're barbarians, none of what I learned in Ilevell matters out here, he has a temper, and we can barely talk to each other."
"It is not so bad as all that," Reinhardt said, finding his own seat. "You're a quick learner, Jack. You will be talking to him before the wedding and conversing with him before the next season has passed."
"They serve generous portions," Brigitte added, "and they take good care of their horses. The stables are bigger than your father's and mine combined." She turned her head as much as she was able to look at Reinhardt. "Your other suit of armor and your hammer are in your suite, Papa, and your mail and your swords are in yours, Jack. You need to introduce me to the castle's marshal as soon as you can."
Jack nodded. "I need to find out who the officers of the court are. But you're right, whoever's in charge of our horses is the most important. Is everyone else settling in, Kirsa?"
Kirsa didn't look startled to be directly addressed; she was one of Brigitte's people, after all. "Yes, my prince. We're managing as best we can, with most of us not speaking anything they do. The quarters are fair, though there's no place for the household altars."
Reinhardt grunted. "I saw no place in these apartments, either."
Brigitte pointed to the wall to the right of the doorway to the hall. "We'll have them clear away the furniture and set both of ours up there."
"I need to make myself known to the local spirits." Jack dragged a hand down his face. "I'd ask Gabriel to introduce me, but they don't speak to the spirits here any longer. Not since they converted."
Kirsa muttered something uncomplimentary about people who turned from their own gods.
Jack rolled his hair-beads in one hand like dice. "So. Find out who the marshal is and introduce Brigitte, despite neither of us speaking Argian. Set up the household altars so we can honor our ancestors. Try to be happy with the owl-prince. Anything else?"
"Sleep," Reinhardt said firmly. "Both of you. To bed!"