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Livi isn't sure whether it's a relief or a further humiliation to be brought up the winding trail to the Warlord's stronghold in a cart full of bolts of cloth and crates of expensive wine like another piece of baggage. On the one hand, she doesn't want to be decked out in gold and gems and silks and made to ride shivering at the head of the column like Milena, the highest-ranking of the 'noble guests' being sent to placate the Warlord's assumed territorial ambitions. On the other hand, being treated like she is only worth as much care and attention as a crate of Toussainti wine is frankly humiliating.
At least the bolts of cloth mean she isn't being jostled against the corners of the crates. At this point she is very much counting the small blessings she can find, because if she thinks about how desperately terrible her current situation is, she will become hysterical, and that simply won't help anything.
There are four other noble ladies - all the daughters or sisters of barons - riding in various other wagons; most of them are weeping, loudly or quietly by turns. Livi doesn't blame them, precisely, she just doesn't see how crying will make the situation any better. Maybe the Warlord's terrifying inhuman warriors will take pity on a weeping woman, but if the Warlord's terrifying inhuman warriors were prone to pity, they wouldn't be terrifying inhuman warriors, now would they?
Livi has no more information on what the terrifying inhuman warriors or their Warlord actually do prefer than anyone else in the caravan, of course. Maybe they like weeping, or find it flattering. Maybe they expect it. Maybe they'll be offended that Livi isn't crying.
Well, if they want her to weep, she is sure they will be able to cause her to do so in short order.
And she is about to find out, as the carts round the last curve in this ridiculously steep and switchbacked path and come to a halt on the cleared space in front of the gates of the Warlord's stronghold. The keep looms above them, dark and terrible.
There are a full dozen warriors arrayed before the gates, yellow eyes gleaming in the afternoon light. Livi cringes down behind one of the crates of wine, wishing desperately and futilely that they might somehow fail to notice her.
It doesn't work, of course. The king's guards are greeted roughly and summarily dismissed, sent back down the trail without any hospitality offered - though Livi suspects they prefer it that way, since accepting hospitality would mean stepping into the terrible Warlord's keep and perhaps never emerging again - and then the warriors spread out, two to a cart and two to poor shivering Milena on her horse.
One of the warriors who comes over to Livi's cart is a woman, who swings herself up into the cart's bed with liquid grace, landing in a crouch in front of Livi. She's a tall, lean woman with tawny hair and several remarkable scars; she reminds Livi irresistably of the lionesses she saw once in Zerrikania, sleek and deadly and beautiful.
"Well hello," she says, grinning with slightly too-sharp teeth. "You're not crying!"
"Would it help if I was?" Livi asks, too cold and scared to mind her tongue.
"Actually we'd very much prefer if you didn't," the lioness-woman says. "Let's get you inside out of the wind and then we can sort out what the fuck your king was thinking, sending us a whole bunch of noble girls."
"He was thinking that most warlords are pleased by being offered concubines," Livi says, bewildered. Surely that was obvious?
The lioness-woman raises an eyebrow. "Wouldn't that be an insult, implying he can't go and get his own concubines if he wants 'em?"
Livi hesitates. "I suppose it could be taken that way?"
"Huh. Well, the Wolf doesn't want a harem, so that's just a whole clusterfuck right there. C'mon, you look half frozen." She offers Livi a callused hand.
Livi blinks. She isn't entirely sure what's going on right now, but it does seem to be far less violent and terrible than she had expected. Warily, she puts her hand into the lioness-woman's, and is drawn easily to her feet as the woman rises.
"Fuck, you're tiny," the lioness-woman says, frowning down at her. "How old are you?"
"Eighteen," Livi quavers. The lioness-woman heaves a sigh that looks like relief.
"At least they didn't send us kids," she says, and hops down out of the cart, then offers her hands again. Livi steps forward, and the lioness-woman takes her gently by the waist and lifts her out of the cart without seeming to notice her weight any more than Livi herself would strain to lift a cooperative kitten. Her hands are very warm through Livi's too-thin dress and chemise.
"C'mon, then," the lioness-woman says, resting a hand on Livi's back, and guides her towards a door set into the keep's gates. Milena is already going through, flanked by two warriors; Livi sees other warriors trying to coax the other noble ladies out of their carts. The warriors look more bewildered than anything else, as if not quite sure what to do with weeping women. They certainly aren't offering the women any violence.
Livi lets the lioness-woman guide her through the door; the keep's courtyard is cobbled and busy, with yellow-eyed warriors and perfectly normal looking humans bustling back and forth. Milena, halfway across the courtyard already, has been draped in a cloak that clearly belongs to one of the warriors escorting her, which is a remarkable kindness. The lioness-woman makes a huffing noise and pulls off her own cloak.
"Shoulda thought of that - can't let Aiden show me up too bad," she says, swirling it around Livi's shoulders. It's heavy and warm, and so long that it drags along the ground; Livi gathers it up in her hands so it won't get dirty or trip her up.
Is the lioness-woman implying that there is some sort of competition to be kind to the newly arrived nobles? That makes no sense at all. Perhaps a competition to lay claim to the prisoners? But it would be extremely odd for the warriors to be staking their claims before the nobles have even been presented to the Warlord. Livi has no idea what is happening.
The lioness-woman guides her across the courtyard and up a short, wide flight of stairs and through the keep's heavy wooden doors, which are standing ajar just far enough for two or three people to walk through easily. There's a broad corridor beyond, and another set of heavy doors, these ones carved with great snarling wolves facing each other, and past those a positively enormous hall, with trestle tables stacked against one wall and a dais at the far end holding an imposing stone chair.
There's no one in the chair. Instead, on the steps of the dais, a young man is sitting comfortably with a second man lying down, head in the first man's lap. The second man has bone-white hair, which the young man is stroking gently. It's a startlingly intimate scene for the middle of a great hall.
The lioness-woman ushers Livi over to stand near Milena and Milena's escorts - a tall, wicked-looking man and a shorter, rather rakish one, both of whom look surprisingly protective and worryingly possessive of Livi's friend - and then they wait while the other four noble ladies are brought in, each escorted by one or two warriors. Most of the other ladies have stopped weeping, or at least gone from wailing to sniffling, and Livi is interested to note that they've all been granted the use of cloaks, just as she and Milena have, though to her eyes none of the other warriors look quite as possessively protective as the two next to Milena - or the lioness-woman guarding her.
Once they've all assembled, the young man on the dais steps runs his hand through his companion's hair one more time and says, "Time to be regal, dear."
The pale-haired man heaves an enormous sigh and opens his eyes. Livi flinches at the sight of irises as brilliant as molten gold. The man - the inhuman warrior who must be the Warlord himself - rolls to his feet with the same liquid grace the lioness-woman displayed, and looks the noblewomen over with a stern expression. Livi flinches despite her best intentions; the lioness-woman's hand moves on her back, a subtle stroke of what Livi thinks is meant to be comfort.
"Why have you come?" the Warlord asks, in a deep rough voice that fills the hall despite not actually being terribly loud.
Milena swallows audibly and steps forward, dipping into a deep curtsey. "Sire, we are sent by King Vizimir of Redania to serve at your pleasure, as a sign of peaceful intentions between our lands."
The Warlord gives her a very long look. "To serve at my pleasure," he says slowly, and turns to look at the young man still lounging on the dais steps.
The young man sighs. "Yes, that translates out of noble bullshit into exactly what you're thinking it does, I'm afraid."
"For fuck's sake," the Warlord says, sounding very irritated. Livi cringes, and sees Milena flinch. The lioness-woman strokes Livi's back again, and the wicked-looking man steps forward and puts a hand on Milena's shoulder and glares at the Warlord, which is so deeply bizarre that Livi can't even imagine what the consequences might be.
"Unfortunately glaring at me isn't going to make Vizimir be less of an ass, my love," the young man says without any sign of fear. "I can certainly write a very pointed letter to send to him, if you like. But in the meantime, what are you going to do with these poor shivering young ladies?"
The Warlord turns back to look at the noblewomen, and Livi swallows hard. If he's displeased with their presence - which it appears he is - then the easiest way to deal with that displeasure will be ordering them disposed of. Or giving them to his warriors, perhaps, as barbarians are said to do.
"Can I just send you back?" the Warlord asks.
That…was not what Livi expected in the slightest. Which really does seem to be becoming a theme; between the lioness-woman's bewilderingly protective kindness and the Warlord's general lack of pomp and circumstance, very little about this encounter has been anything like what Livi had anticipated.
"You could, sire," Milena says, voice only shaking a little, which is better than Livi would be able to manage in her shoes. "Though I am afraid King Vizimir would take it as an insult."
"Well, I'm feeling pretty damn insulted," the Warlord says very dryly.
The young man stands and steps up to put a hand on the Warlord's arm. "We should probably offer them hospitality for the night and send them home in the morning," he says. "Or let them stay, I suppose, if they are sensible enough to prefer Kaer Morhen to Tretogor."
"Mm," the Warlord says, and nods. "Alright." He frowns at Milena for a moment, in thought rather than anger as far as Livi can tell, then eyes the other noble ladies, gaze lingering for a long moment on Livi. "Stay tonight. Tomorrow you can stay or leave, as you prefer."
As they prefer? That's - why would they prefer to stay in the Warlord's keep?
Except that as soon as she thinks that, Livi knows why. If she goes home, it will be in disgrace. The king will be furious, and that fury will be directed not at the dangerous, distant Warlord, but at the ladies who failed to win the Warlord's favor. They will be lucky to be sent back to their estates and told to remain there; there is every possibility they will be sent instead to nunneries, or married off at once to noblemen who cannot find wives for very good reasons. They will never gain good marriages, and very few of their friends and acquaintences will be willing to speak or write to them again. Even their own families are likely to shun them, and possibly heap punishments atop any the king decrees in an attempt to regain favor.
It will be terrible.
But would staying here be better?
This morning, Livi would have guessed the answer to be absolutely not. Now…now she isn't sure.
"Come on, then, let's find you a room for the night and a decent coat," the lioness-woman says as the Warlord turns away, the audience evidently over.
"Thank you," Livi says, looking up to meet the lioness-woman's yellow eyes. "You are very kind."
To her astonishment, the lioness-woman blushes. "That's the first time I've been accused of that," she says. "I'm - glad you think so?" She sounds hesitant, which is very strange and rather charming.
She ushers Livi out of the hall by a smaller door set into one of the long walls, again following Milena and her escorts; they go up two long flights of stairs and a corridor, and the lioness-woman stops in front of a door just down from the one Milena has been brought to. Livi opens the door curiously, wondering what the Warlord's warriors think will be appropriate guest quarters for unwanted nobles.
The room thus revealed is surprisingly cozy, with a thick bearskin rug on the floor and well-padded chairs before a fireplace, and another door across the room which stands half-open to show a curtained bed. Impersonal, yes, but quite comfortable. Livi smiles up at her escort. "This is lovely, thank you."
The lioness-woman blushes again. "I'll come up and get you for supper," she offers. "If you like?"
"Thank you," Livi repeats, and then, because at this point she is reasonably sure she won't actually be punished for misspeaking, "Is it permitted to ask your name?"
The lioness-woman puts a hand over her face in what looks like mortification. "Shit, I didn't say? I'm Dragonfly of the Cats." She scrubs her hand over her face and raises an eyebrow at Livi. "And you?"
"Oliwia Bartol of Denesle," Livi says, and then, because this day has been far less terrible than she thought it might and much of that may be laid at the feet of her companion, "Please call me Livi."
"Livi," Dragonfly says, grinning. "Good t'meet you. Or - well - obviously not great for you, given everything, but -" She trails off awkwardly.
Livi giggles, surprising both of them quite a bit. Dragonfly's eyes go wide and her expression softens into wonder.
"Today has been quite trying," Livi says, "but you have made it less so. It is good to meet you as well."
"Oh! I - good," Dragonfly says, still staring at Livi rather dazedly. "I'll let you get settled, I guess? You've got to have baggage, I'll go find that, bring it up, find you a coat -" She turns and dashes off, and Livi presses a hand to her mouth to muffle another giggle.
She didn't expect any of the Warlord's terrifying inhuman warriors to be sweet.
There is still supper yet to come, but if that goes well, and if Livi can perhaps find some task or duty within the keep by which she may earn her keep, instead of relying entirely on the Warlord's charity -
Perhaps she will, in fact, choose to stay.