Generally speaking, Timona le Nain did not wear his emotions on his sleeve. What little he did show also tended not to appear on his face, so outside of a few rare instances, it was impossible to precisely tell what he was feeling. At the moment, Vera-Sylvie thought he looked angry. The squire to whom he’d only just introduced himself thought he looked discontent.
Truth be told, neither of those estimates were wrong. Timona was angry and discontent. But those kinds of trivial emotions would ordinarily have been hidden underneath his iron mask. No, what had gripped his heart was an anxiety that was difficult to put to words.
I have a bad feeling.
His liege, Emperor Carmine, had entrusted him with a pivotal mission: to take the five hundred men who’d been stationed at their headquarters in reserve, and support the parts of the army who were strategically weak. Timona was, at this very moment, leading those five hundred men up to the northern part of the hill.
However, the anxiety he felt was not in regard to this mission. But what, then? That, he couldn’t answer. He just had a feeling in his bones—some shapeless sense of foreboding.
“They say temporarily commanding a unit like this is the first step to promotion. What are you so displeased with?” This squire had been assigned to be Timona’s attendant by Joel de Bourgault-Ducoudray, who had insisted that “a commander won’t look the part without an attendant at his side.” Clearly, though, the knight-in-training envied the younger Timona’s position and had no intention of hiding it.
Timona understood that the purpose of this assignment was less to “attend” and more to “oversee.” However, the oversight wasn’t because Bourgault-Ducoudray was unhappy with the emperor, but because he was wary of Timona.
Their long shared history had informed Carmine’s order to send Timona out, but to Bourgault-Ducoudray, Timona was just “the emperor’s servant.” Nothing more, nothing less. Sticking one of his men to Timona was his way of making sure nothing fishy went down.
Timona accepted the arrangement without fuss. Had the decision been an implicit attempt to resist the emperor’s will, that would have been a problem, but being the object of doubt didn’t bother Timona at all. Rather, it was the logical reaction.
“If I had to say,” Timona answered, “it’s the idea of being commander.”
Indeed, it was a common story for those who’d done well leading in battle to then formally become platoon commanders to replace those who had fallen. If Timona were to become a platoon commander, he might cease to be the emperor’s personal aide, which was anything but desirable.
He had to stop himself from sighing. It wasn’t that Timona objected to Carmine’s orders, and he understood that there wasn’t really any better way.
Emperor though he was, Carmine did not yet have absolute authority. Most notably, he had to be careful with how he interacted with Duke Warren.
At present, over half of the total loyalist forces holding down imperial territory traced their allegiance to the duke. His armies were said to have been on par with Raul’s on their own, and as such, he was the de facto head of the loyalist faction. The combined forces of the other absent loyalist nobles were under the command of Viscount Hervé de Cédolin, Duke Warren’s trusted confidant; those taking part in the battle at the hill were led by Joel de Bourgault-Ducoudray, who’d been recommended by the duke personally.
Thus, Carmine couldn’t simply ignore his stated intent to entrust the matter to the deputy general on the ground by sending out a reserve force from their headquarters. Instead, he’d done so under the pretenses of earning his servant greater honors.
If this didn’t work out, then it would naturally be the emperor’s weight to bear. But even if Timona’s reinforcements found success, theirs was a superfluous mission, and Bourgault-Ducoudray would not face criticism for failing to move those reinforcements himself. Further, the general in charge was not an imperial noble, and it was hard for him to stop a mission that was based not in military strategy, but noble posturing.
In essence, Carmine was painting his order as a selfish whim to ensure it would be carried out without damaging his general’s reputation.
Timona already had his marching orders to enact upon getting into position. He was less of a commander and closer to a dutiful messenger.
“Hmph,” the squire grunted. He evidently couldn’t understand Timona’s way of seeing things, nor did he notice the delicate balance of power around him.
In fairness, it was easy to tell from within the army’s ranks that Carmine was competent, but it was not so easy for those outside looking in. For example, the prevailing wisdom on the Northern Continent was that Duke Warren had purged the Chancellor and Minister of Ceremony, and it was his empire to rule—that the idea that Carmine had turned a new leaf was the duke’s attempt at propping up the imperial heir’s image, in honor of his old friend, the last emperor.
There was some truth to the notion that this was becoming Duke Warren’s empire. The man himself was not rallying more troops to jockey as the man in charge; he was actually letting his own numbers bleed specifically to distance himself from that image. There was no question that the majority of loyalist casualties came from his troops.
However, he had a powerful reputation and true merit to match. The lesser nobles feared him and tried to suck up to him as a matter of course. Other nobles who saw such deference fell into line so as not to stick out. This snowballed into a feedback loop that led people to honor Duke Warren more than the emperor.
Evidently unaware of any of this, the squire snapped his finger in epiphany and, without any ill will, stepped directly onto a verbal land mine.
“Oh, right. I forgot that you’re His Majesty’s ‘partner.’ I can understand why being apart would make you—”
“That is a slight on His Majesty’s honor,” Timona said, his voice dripping with murderous rage. “Say it again, and I will cut you down where you stand for your insolence.”
There was no mistaking the intention behind the squire’s euphemism. The emperor was famously reserved and gentlemanly around women, particularly considering his age. This fueled all sorts of talk about his potential “dysfunction,” or perhaps his “differing preferences.” Combine that with Timona’s reputation for being “perfect save for his scar,” and the rumors wrote themselves.
Carmine scoffed at gossip and never bothered to refute such claims, citing the fact that “They’d come up with something new anyway.”
The same could not be said of Timona. Owing to childhood trauma, the very thought filled him with disgust—enough to point his hatred outward.
“I-I’m sorry, sir!” The squire on the receiving end of this oozing malice shivered uncontrollably and apologized. It was in this moment that the power dynamic between them solidified.
As an aside, Vera-Sylvie, who had done nothing but watch the exchange, was getting misty-eyed.