//------------------------------// // Dancing In The Pale Moonlight // Story: In the Company of Night // by Mitch H //------------------------------// SBMS041 "We both remember what happened the last time I took you into the field. That's not happening, not until you're a good deal more seasoned and cautious.” "I kan be cautious! I am cautious! I am the most cautious fawn you will ever find!” "Rye, a militia-pony had to keep you from trying to put out mage-fire with your bare hooves! You had nightmares for a week afterwards! You're what, ten years old? Feel free to be a foal for another year or two. I pushed you too hard, too fast.” We were finishing up clinic, and the last mare was just taking her prescription and gathering her things. Rye Daughter pulled the slightly soiled cloth off the examination table, and took it over to the wash-barrel for later. As soon as we had the surgery to ourselves again, we could get started on the next round of fitness evaluations. I had borrowed several of Languid's dressing-dividers, which provided a nice amount of privacy in the surgery, walling off the ward and turning the space into a temporary examination room. We'd be having some novel medical procedures late next fall, but other than that, everypony we'd seen would be perfectly healthy. Assuming proper diet and rest and so forth, so who knows what the next campaign season would make of those promises, you know? But best not to borrow trouble. The next tranche of privates from second cohort started filing through the exam room, and Rye Daughter was kept busy boiling tongue depressors and hoofing me materials, forms and the like. It was tedious work, but at least it kept her from whining and pleading and trying to convince me to put her life in danger for no better reason than cabin fever and a misplaced sense of adventure. When we took a break between examinees, I tried a different tack. "Look, Octavius will be with my detail, and the orphanage-foals are still shaky. I need you here to keep Feufollet and the other foals out of trouble, safe and tolerably amused. Who else would I trust to make sure that happens? Gibblets? He'd likely lead the lot of them off to burn down a windmill or some such foolishness!” She side-eyed me with a dubious look, and chose to be amused. It's nice to know that we were already at the point in our relationship where she was tolerating my grey hairs and feeble wits. The endless line of examinees extended into the dusk and long evening hours. Dancing Shadows and I were delivered by chariot shuttle to an obscure market-town in northern Hydromel, on the border with Verdebaie. We had hired a townhouse on a side-street in this town, which was guarded by Hydromel militia-ponies working under the table. Dior Enfant's carte blanche for Company expenses covered a great many sundries sometimes not strictly recognizable by small-minded Imperial accountancy as valid expenses for a mercenary regiment. Such as private guards, safe houses, and town-council bribery. The earth-pony who was sitting in the town-house's parlor shot to her hooves when I walked into the room behind Dancing Shadows, looking anxious and a little skittish. I had to wind her up a bit, and tried to come the witch-doctor a bit. "Hon-chil', dey done tell'um hunnah bin wikkit chil', de rootdoc comeyuh fuh me new gobbin!” The exiled mayor got up and narrowed her eyes at me, defiant. "Don't give me that gibberish, you fraud. We've had a lot of time to compare notes stuck here with nothing to do. You can't do squat to me. I've been helping Dior Enfant as is my duty as a duly appointed provincial official.” "Don' crack e teet, uh dunkyuh warruh hunnah wikkit behabor dun. We'un gwine he'p de Duchesse, b'kaus she done bet' de provence.” The earth-pony, the former mayor of lau Crosse, blinked in annoyance at my utter gibberish, until Dancing Shadows reached out and clouted me across my shoulder, knocking me sideways in the parlor entrance. "Sawbones, knock off the routine, you're boring us, and you're not nearly as funny as you think you are.” "Don' yent nobbon leff me habe me fun.” I rolled my eyes. "Oh, very well then. No-one ever seems willing to let me enjoy myself, it really is quite a shame,” I said in my best plumy academic accents. "To be honest, I only half-remember what I'm saying whenever I put on that accent. I can only hope I'm not actually swearing at you, we were never exactly sure what the old ladies were saying on the old block when they were wroth with us. It's rather like remembering the old songs of your foal-hood, you remember the tune and some of the words, and you just hum through the forgotten parts. Mayor Bound Codex, we need some of your time.” Her eyes lit with hope and trepidation. "Time… for what?” "The rebel is fled, the province is under imperial occupation, I'm sure you must have heard by now.” "Of course I know, it's the only thing the guards gossip about. Tartarus, it's the only thing we talk about. I need to get home, lau Crosse has got to be falling to pieces without me.” I rolled my eyes at her self-importance. "Mayor, you were easily replaced by your aide. Of course, he was far less loathe to collaborate with the rebel than you had been. We didn't hang him, but some-pony did, quite recently. Before half the town, I am told.” She looked shaken. "Yes, of course, it's time for you to go home. But we need one more thing of you on the road home. As I said earlier, if you only spoke genuine street-gutter zebra gibberish, the new duchesse needs a bit of… encouragement. Prompting, if you will. You see, Lady Bonforte labours under the delusion that since she is merely fifth in the line of succession for the empty ducal seat, she is not rightly duchesse. We need her mad enough to overlook that technicality. How would you go about removing that reticence in your future duchesse?” "Tell her of her… blood claim and the anarchy in the province?” "How very proper. You like this town-house? Planning to start up a business here as a notary public, perhaps? We'd have to turn over the lease to you, the rent is not cheap.” "WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?!” "We need you to be mad, Mayor. You've been kidnapped, you've been exiled, you've been kept against your will by very. bad. ponies. Did you hear? We're backing the rightful heir, Pouce Fantoche, and are in communication with her noble guardians. She's what, seven years old? Being raised in the town-palace of her relatives. Very good family, I hear they're in trade. Or maybe it was manufacturing? I'm not really up on the social scene in Rime. Not that anypony in Rime cares for the social scene in the northlands.” She got more and more red-faced as I continued my impersonation of a southlands social parasite. The small-town clark, of which Bound Codex was a prime specimen, is an interesting species. To their townfolk and the farmers of their district, they are the very face of literate civilization and culture. To pretty much everypony else in creation, they're back-boondocks savages and bumpkins, barely lettered and not generally expected to be able to keep themselves from fouling themselves at the dinner table. Their natural enemy and feared predators are big-city lawyers and socialites. I was waving a red flag before her eyes. And bless her, she was smart enough to know I was doing it. "Fool me twice, Herr Doktor? You're not even being subtle.” "Oh, come now. I'm a simple, humble military surgeon. I'm no more a university doctor than you are… a barrister licensed before the Inns of Court. Or even, really, a properly trained solicitor. Studied law under some sort of back-country avocat, I understand?” Ah, there was the boil and flash. "You have me, barber. What lies do you have for me to retail?” "We need her to dislike us, of course. But only in a cordial sort of way. So what we had in mind was…” Chateau d' Abeille was an old family fastness, sprawling out from the original block-house in long centuries of intermittent peace. The central bloc was once a fortification, and you could see the heavy cut stone hidden back behind the long galleries and gingerbread and mansard roofs. Otonashi and I pulled the exiled mayor's hired hack up to the side-entrance. Not quite the front entrance hall, but at least it wasn't the servant's door. I would normally stick out like, well, a zebra in donkey country, but I had Otonashi along for minor glamours and emergencies. Once the mayor was shown in by a hoofmare, a groom came around to show us where we could put up the brougham and rest our hooves in the stables. We had a nice talk with the few grooms on duty. The vicomte and his family were quite the social butterflies, and half of them were out today on calls throughout the province. Which meant that we would be there for a while, since the family members missing from the chateau included Lady Bonforte. There's nothing quite like servants' gossip for building a picture. I had to carry the burden of our side of the coze, because Otonashi, well, you know. But that mostly consisted of relating the basic biography of our employer – exiled mayor from Rennet, political, rebellion and all that – and humming appreciatively while they rattled on about their favorite subject, their "family”. For a certain class of pony, family is never their own flesh and blood, but rather the elevated lordly folk to which they had dedicated themselves, their time and ambition, such as it was. Life-long servants lived through their "family”. It was what kept their societies from boiling over in furious turmoil. They gave everything they had to their "families”, and their "families” felt the pressure of that dedication. A good "family” laboured constantly under the expectations of their servantry. It must rather be like living under the tyranny of a hundred censorious dutch uncles and meddlesome aunties. A bad family found itself sabotaged by disapproving servants, sold out to their enemies, and constantly under-staffed as the self-respecting found any other situation whenever they could. Bonforte was a poor relation, neither young nor elderly. She had been the companion of her cousin the vicomtesse in their youth, and now that her friend and cousin was a matron with many foals, acted somewhat in the character of a field-general for the family, running the household for the often-ill vicomtesse, whose constitution had not held up under the pressure of a life of constant pregnancy and far, far too many miscarriages. I began to grow uneasy as I heard more and more. Our prospective duchesse sounded a hair too upstanding for our purposes… A hoofmare came out to the stables, and notified Otonashi and I that our services and the broughram would be required at the front entrance. We hitched ourselves up, and pulled around the front entrance. Bound Codex was arguing with a handsome roan jenny by the closed doors of the main entrance. A pair of hoofmares stood to either side of the jenny, clearly lending their weight to the quite civil but decided ejection which was in progress. "But Lady-" "I have heard enough, Mayor Codex. My cousin's right is inviolable. My mind is set. And your time is up.” The mayor groaned in a fury, and leapt into the brougham, clapping her hoof for us to be off. It was a bit dramatic for my taste, but at least she didn't yell anything over her shoulder as we left. The next time we brought a delegation, and a number of coaches, all drawn by Company ponies dressing down for the occasion. They didn't make it past the entrance hall, although I'm told they were at least addressed by their reluctant duchesse. While we were being sent off with a flea in our collective ear, I quietly dropped my hitch, and let Otonashi take our vehicle on her own hook. The mayor could haul her own brougham if she wanted to keep up with the rest of the delegation. As the delegation rolled down the carriageway, I could feel Otonashi dropping my glamour. I waited outside the mansion in the snowed-under gardens, having learned a few things over the years about hiding in plain sight, even in somepony's own back yard. And I thought I was starting to get a feel for this Bonforte. She'd be getting away from her family soon. And here she came, stomping around the cleared walkway, her eyes raking the snowy lumps which in summer would be rosebushes and other such greenery – don't ask me, gardens and other green growing things that I can't put in a mortar and pestle aren't my thing. Roses can make for a decent remedy against scurvy, I know that much. I let her cool her head in the icy breeze blowing off their south lawn, under the twilight sky's dying glow. When she was ready, I greeted her from the shadows. "Why so reticent, parasite? Are you so attached to your host, that you're afraid to hop coat to a new one? Are you like a tick who fancies a certain shade of fur, a certain cut of mane? Afraid your little buggy legs will grow cold on a short-mane?” "Gaah! I- I do not carry deniers on my person! I will scream for the hoofmares!” "Take your ease, blood-tick. I'm not here to pinch off your head or dig you out of your chosen host against your will.” "Then stop calling me a parasite! I am a respectable jenny of a gentle family!” "You confuse me, mare. You say that as if the two were not synonyms in every practical sense. A ‘respectable jenny' is a mare who lives by the sweat of other brows, who feeds fat on the bread of other's make. What good are you, mare? Are you this great house's house-keeper, to keep their legion of willing slaves to their various tasks, well-fed and happy? Are you the cook, feeding that legion? A valet or hoofmare, or a groom? Or are you, truly, their ‘family', that legion's prized possession and pride?” "I think you know very well who I am, shadow-pony. Whose agent are you? Those desperate clerks we sent on their way this afternoon? I am not a duchesse, I have dozens of family with a better claim to that wrecked duchy.” "Not dozens. At best, four, and none of them of age or from the northlands. Is it the wreckage that keeps you away? Are you, simply a coward, or merely lazy? Is it that you fear you won't be able to suck enough blood from the new host, or is it that you think it's larger but likely to expire? How contemptible are you, Lady Bonforte?” The moon's rise began to half-light the winter garden, but still left me in shadows, my noble target exposed, breast heaving in the moon-light. Gathering herself, she first turned from me so that I could no longer see her face, then turned suddenly to charge into my shadows, swinging without science but great vigour. "Villain! Blackguard! Demon! Damn you to Tartarus!” I spun around her untutored blows, dancing beside her as she lunged and swung, breathing in her ear, "There's the great lady.” Another wild swing, and I was on her other side, blowing in those great, red-furred ears, "There's that noble fire.” We spun in place, her trying to put a hoof through the air I left behind me, and I swinging as if we were in a bourrée. "How can you care for your honor, and yet leave your patrimony to bleed out in the snows of bitter winter?” She stopped, billowing, and I spun out several barrel-spans, continuing the pace of our dance, leaving her to follow my steps as I circled her. "The rebel is dead.” To her left. "Or fled.” Behind her. "The palaces are empty.” And her right. "They're hanging caribou in the hamlets.” Behind her again, reversing on my path. "Foals starving in the workhouses.” To the left again. "Grain mouldering in the threshing-barns.” In front of her. I held out my hoof. She took it. And we danced. "There is a child with a better claim,” she said, swaying. Turn, turn, step, turn. "Pouce Fantoche, of the Rime branch of the family,” I agreed. Turn, turn, step, turn. "In the care of a pack of tinkers,” I snarled. Turn, turn, step, turn. "Good families come from trade and manufacturing,” she objected coolly, swaying to the absent rhythm of a nonexistent orchestra. Turn, turn, step, turn. "But not this one. And the child is barely seven summers, and in wardship.” Turn, turn, step, turn. "They have the support of that damnable mercenary regiment that has destroyed my-" We paused, my eyebrow crooked enough for her to see in the half-lit half-darkness of the winter-bound gardens. "The province," she corrected herself. "For now, the legate's dogs have the veto over who holds the province.” We began again, turn, turn, step, turn. "Those who hold the province do not own it. Provinces can be occupied, but cannot be stolen without a little – " I bent her over in a dip, "Legitimacy.” She looked up at me. "Are we dancing a bourrée, or is it to be a gypsy dance, ser?" Gathering my breath, l pulled her back up to her hooves. "Which is why they're backing the Rimean child,” she said, composed once again. We returned to our dance, which somehow had become more of a waltz than a bourrée. "Are they now?" I asked. "Have you heard so from your black hats?” Turn, turn, step, turn. "Everypony I've talked to from the province has said as much. Their reputation is dreadful. No-one has anything good to say of them.” Turn, turn, step, turn. "Indeed? What have they been saying?” Turn, turn, step, turn. "Night-haunts, murder in the dark. Horrible displays, victims dismembered and posted like scare-crows at every crossroads. Hanging millers from their own mills. One pony told me today that they burned down an orphanage with the orphans inside!” Turn, turn, step, turn. "Well, mostly true I suppose. But the only orphans inside that work-house were already dead. True even of the proprietor.” Turn, turn – stop! "What does that mean?” Stillness. "I mean that there is a limit to the tolerance of the Company, and leaving the bodies of one's charges to be eaten by rats in back-rooms, and refusing to protect and feed one's living charges, was beyond that tolerance.” "So they- so you burned a workhouse proprietor inside her own workhouse.” "We did. She was dead by then. Duchesse, we hold your province. Do you wish to leave it, in torment, in our bloody hooves?” We began again, a different dance. One in which I wasn't quite so practiced. And no, I won't write where I learned to dance, it's none of the Company's business. Nor was the rest of that night, for that matter.