Chapter Text
Wyman couldn’t deny it, he really liked boats. The low humming of the machinery reverberating through the hull was soothing and the open porthole by his desk let in the smells and sounds of the sea. As he perused through the pages of a morleyan law book, taking notes, he reflected that his only complain, really, could be that this boat wasn’t the ISS Jessamine – the ship would only be launched in two weeks in Dunwall. But the regret of missing the ceremony added to the regret of not being at Emily’s side for the next four never-ending months, and...
“Wyman!”
“I’m sorry, but he has requested not to be disturbed...”
The door of his cabin bursted open anyway, Síne barged in and Wyman rubbed his face with his free hand, before raising his head slightly to glare at the intruder and the contrite-looking guard behind her. Here it is, the final nail in my coffin of regrets. He loved his sister, but by the Void, ever since their departure from Dunwall four days ago she had grown increasingly restless and taken upon herself to make everyone as miserable as she.
“I told you not to leave anyone in, Lieutenant!” Wyman sighed and the guard blushed and glanced at the floor.
“My apologies, Your Royal Highness, but the princess seems to believe that you being siblings insures her some permanent right of access to your quarters.”
Turning a deaf ear to their discussion, Síne sat on the edge of Wyman’s bed with a very lady-like sigh, shook her ringlets and pointed an accusing finger at him.
“I can’t believe it! I just spoke with the captain of the ship! He told me we were still one week away from Wynnedown! One week! At the very least!”
Wyman dismissed the guard with a curt nod, remaining silent until the door was closed behind the man. Then he turned his head at his sister to throw her a reproving look. “It’ll depend of the currents and winds, but it sounds like a fair estimate to me, yes. How is that a problem?”
Síne narrowed her eyes at him, her lips pursued. “The problem is that I’m on that boat to begin with! Father asked for you to return home, not me!”
Ah. Of course. “His Majesty did indeed ask for me alone, but Mother sent me another letter begging me to bring you along,” Wyman explained with a frown. His eyes went back to his notes, and after a moment he dipped the nib of his pen into the inkwell, determined to resume his work. “She wishes to have her two children at the Caisleán Bán together for the first time in a decade,” he went on. “I saw no reason to deny her request.”
The explanation visibly didn’t sit well with Síne. “It’s ridiculous,” she protested. “I only left Wynnedown for Dunwall last year and I write to both her and Father regularly, she can’t miss me so much already!”
Her two children, Wyman was tempted to remind her, but he stopped himself. He had been out of his sister’s life for fifteen years, nothing more than a faceless name whispered in the corridors of their ancestral home – Síne was only three when he left, and she had been raised pretty much as an only child. And maybe he was somewhat to blame, too: sweet Síne had been longing to be part of Dunwall’s high society for years and her brother had done his best to indulge her fantasies since her arrival, while sheltering her from the harsher realities of the Court. Her time in the capital so far had been a continuous succession of balls and galas, and this sudden trip back to Morley seemed as sudden as unfair.
Wyman couldn’t deny it was, though not for the same reasons. Once, returning to Morley was all he could have wished for, back when he was nothing but a child sent away to Gristol at the tender age of ten without having a say on the matter. Now, as a grown-up adult, he had made himself a good life in Dunwall: he was Morley’s representative at the Parliament, a member of the Empress’ cabinet, one of her most trusted advisors and, yes, the person she spent her nights with. And as Emily’s lover, the timing of the whole thing was horrendous, to say the least: the anniversary of the assassination of the late Jessamine Kaldwin was getting closer and Emily would need all the emotional support she could get on that sad day, yet it was the moment the King of Morley had chosen to summon his heir before him for the first time in fifteen years. I will not throw the stone and claim he did it on purpose, but I cannot ignore his perfect timing either; had he actually decided to pester me, he wouldn’t have done it differently.
No mention the letter Wyman had received gave little reasons for this sudden convening, except for a terse sentence lost within a spate of platitudes: “Your presence is requested back in Morley.” If it were not for the personal seal of His Majesty affixed to the paper, Wyman would have taken it for a joke, or even a trap – a theory brought up by Corvo Attano when the young noble, in search for a sympathetic ear to complain to, had shown him the letter. After numerous rereads, he had finally given up on figuring an explanation; things would reveal themselves on time once they reached Wynnedown and the Caisleán Bán. But this would not happen before another week, as Síne had pointed out.
She was still pouting, fidgeting with the fabric of the blanket. Wyman took a deep breath. “I’m going to repeat myself, but it was Mother’s idea; regardless of your complaints, she’s the one you should bring them to, not me.”
“But it was so sudden,” his sister insisted, “and I was looking forwards to the parties following the Anniversary. I had contacted the same tailor who made my costume for the Boyle Masquerade months ago, and my new outfit was almost ready!”
A small shiver ran down Wyman’s spine at the mention of the Masquerade. It had taken weeks for Emily to confess she had drugged him on that night so she would be free to join the festivities at the Boyle Mansion, and a small part of him was still cross with her about the whole thing. But he shook the malaise – and the anger – off. “I’m sure your tailor is as devastated as you are, but Drapers Ward doesn’t lack fortunate customers. Your outfit will find a taker, no need to worry.”
“I don’t want anyone else but me to wear it!” Síne indignantly yelped. She got up and walked to Wyman, grabbed the arm that held the pen.
“Síne...!,” he warned her.
“I don’t want anyone else to wear it and I don’t want to go to Wynnedown! So the moment this boat calls in at Driscol, I’ll disembark and return to Dunwall! Even if I have to walk the whole way back!”
“Oh really?” Wyman raised a dubious eyebrow and for a moment played with the idea of doing nothing to prevent this from happening, if only to see if Síne would actually act upon her words or not. Ah, the burdens of being the first-born, always forced to be the responsible one... “You intend to escape and you’re telling me, of all people? You realize, of course, that the moment you’re missing, I will send a letter to Dunwall and Emily will put you on the next boat for Wynnedown as soon as you’ll reach the doors of the city, this time with a heavy guard escort?”
“She will not!” His sister countered, but she sounded much less confident than earlier. “And neither will you! Please, Wyman! Please!” She tightened her grip on his arm and the pen slipped, leaving a crude line across his notes.
Wyman looked down at the line, and then back at his sister, his jaw squared in anger. “You’re bothering me. Get out. Now.”
She gasped, let go of his arm and quickly turned away, her shoulders shaking. Wyman rolled his eyes and straightened his sit, before picking up the piece of paper. His lips tightened in a disapproving line. Days of work, ruined. Which made him even less receptive to Síne’s little playacting. “Stop pretending to cry,” he ordered; after a moment she sighed and faced him again, her eyes dry and resigned.
“You don’t let yourself being fooled easily, damn you. It usually works on everybody. I even got myself out of troubles by using this trick on Lord Corvo once.”
Wyman snorted. “I’m sure Lord Corvo did it on purpose – he has a soft spot for you. So does Jameson, and Alexi. Emily too, even though she’s still angry you took – sorry, borrowed – her comb. They like you, all of them.”
“They would have agreed to let me stay with them in your absence, had you made the request,” Síne said softly. She is persistent, I can grant her that. A true daughter of Morley. She put her arms around his shoulders and pressed her chin again the top of his head, sighing.
“They would have,” he agreed as he put the piece of paper back on the desk. “But none of them deserve being stuck with a nuisance such as you,” he added in a softer, more affectionate tone, and he felt her smile.
“What, not even Ichabod Boyle?”
Wyman made a face. “Ichabod Boyle is a different case altogether. You don’t deserve being stuck with a nuisance such as him.”
His sister giggled. “I wonder if that’s true, what I’ve heard about the two of you. About you punching him during one of Lady Brisby’s parties and it got you kicked out.”
“I will not ask you who told you that,” he grumbled. But since the current mood was one of appeasement, Wyman decided to indulge her. “He had insulted Morley first, claiming that my relationship with Emily was nothing but a sophisticate ploy for us to get our independence from the Empire,” he explained, “and I simply defended my pride and my honour as a Morleyan. But it didn’t matter to Lady Brisby and she gave me the cold shoulder for the rest of the Season. In short, it wasn’t my most shining moment but I had mitigating circumstances.”
“And what did Emily say?”
“Well, she later called the whole thing the “least boring social evening Lady Brisby has ever held”, a comment that I decided I shall wear as a badge of honour.” Síne laughed again and Wyman had to fight the urge of puffing himself up. His thoughts went back to his Emily. He closed his eyes for an instant to better capture her portrait, the hazel eyes shining with intelligence and determination, the long black hair she only wore down when it was just the two of them, the lips so soft and red against his when they kissed. He hadn’t woke her up the morning of his departure, only leaving a letter that, hopefully, had made her laugh when she found it. I’ll have to figure a way to bring her back some white leaf tobacco, though. Or some whiskey. The real good stuff, not that watered-down version they produce in the Distillery District.
“It is true; Lady Brisby’s social evenings are so dull! And lately, the only thing people are speaking about there is the Crown Killer!”
The name jolted Wyman from his reverie. “There is no Crown Killer!” he snapped and Síne moved back with a gasp. He felt the stab of a pang of guilt, and offered her an apologizing smile. “There is no Crown Killer,” he repeated in a gentler way, “it is only a name the Dunwall Courrier came up with to boost their sales.”
“But there is really a murderer on the loose who targets foes of the Kaldwin family, yes?” Síne asked hesitantly. “The-the name may be an invention, but the victims...”
“There is a maniac who kills people in a really gruesome way, and so far all of their victims have been opponents of Emily,” Wyman admitted reluctantly. “But neither she nor Lord Corvo has anything to do with those murders. When the name of the first victim was revealed, Emily was dismayed, and Lord Corvo ordered an investigation into the affair. Jameson is confident they’ll catch that lunatic before the Month of High Cold.”
“But that leaves plenty of times for more assassinations,” Síne mused, and he found nothing to answer to that; he had made the same remark to Jameson Curnow himself. “Though”, she went on with a sly smile, “I think no one would shed a tear if the next victim happened to be Ichabod Boyle.”
No, that would be a disaster, Wyman reflected in silence. The man himself is a ludicrous oaf, but he has friends who would be quick to turn him into a martyr. This is the last thing Emily needs at the moment. “I should wash your mouth with soap for that,” he finally said out loud.
“Why? You dislike him, you told it yourself!”
“Because if every people I dislike happened to be killed, Dunwall would be a very empty city. And right now that would include you as well,” he added, and when Síne opened her mouth in protest, he pointed the crossed-out paper on his desk with a smirk. She turned a nice shade of scarlet. “So, now that we’re done with this conversation, would you mind to leave me to my work? I am forced to redo it from the beginning, and the sooner I’ll start the sooner I’ll finish – then we’ll be free to spend time together. It should make the rest of the travel less dreadfully boring for you.”
“Will you play the harp?” his sister asked with an expectant smile and he nodded.
“Of course I will. Now shoo!”
“As you wish, dear brother,” Síne said and she curtsied deeply before opening the door of his cabin and leaving. Wyman quickly surveyed his desk in search of something to throw at her before the door closed again but found nothing except for his pen and inkwell. It was really tempting...but he was still the first-born, the responsible one.
The door finally shut and Wyman let out a sigh, slumping slightly in his chair. The prospect of rewrite his notes already wore him out, but now there was also something else: Síne’s comment about the Crown Killer made him think. Is this why His Majesty called me back to Morley? Is he afraid I’ll somehow fell to the maniac’s blade? Or does he actually believe that the killer is either Emily or her father, and he wants to put a distance between myself and the Kaldwins for fear of scandal?
So many questions and the answers were still one week away. But as soon as Wyman would face the king, he would demand for them. In the meantime, though, there was work to do. So he took a blank page out of one of his desk’ drawers, picked up the pen, dipped the nib into the inkwell once more and began to write anew.