Sunset at Whitcombe

[bickando 3967]

SUNSET AT WHITCOMBE

 

 

The sun had crossed its high mark long before the Helvetii carriage made it to Whitcombe, home of the House de Falstaff. Here reigned Albert Arthur of Leuven over fields of poppies and roses, and a craggy coastline of little sand but many rocks. Indeed, few would call such a structure a manse comparable to that of the Augustine or of Trissingham, but fewer still would call it unworthy of even a Count. It was a lordly structure by all meaning of the words, but more perfectly suitable to a lord that might wish a quiet retirement in a corner of the Empire than the urbane vassals of the capital, and far fewer found personal invites to the stately locale than the palace as well.

 

But here was the young inheritor of the Rocheforts, Robert Foltest, nonetheless - in his fingers the half-crumpled invitation sealed with blue wax marked with a sun, and indeed before him stood its sender. In recent years the Lord Leuven had grown to look tired indeed, with slight greying to the once pitch-black hair framing a gaunt, weather-worn face.

 

"My lord," greeted the young Helvets, whom had steadily been growing into an inerasable reminder of his grandfather, for he had grown pale and thin, and sported the blonde hair and blue eyes that were so prevalent in his progenitor. Here, in another time, Albert might have smiled - for Richard Victor had been his mentor, his true father, in his Kaedreni youth. Now, however, he was a reminder of the darkness in the souls of all men, for it was Richard Victor too that had attacked Albert's wife, the old man's own daughter. The nervous Helvetii was greeted instead by a stoic Falstaff.

 

The interior of Whitcombe was vibrant - for its walls were decorated lavishly with paintings and pigments, marbled linings and relics - indeed so lavishly that the entry hallway was covered floor to ceiling in grand paintings of Leuven and Owynsburg - a world that Robert, young as he was, had never known, and Albert himself having never seen the former, for its grand demeanor was destroyed with most of the House de Falstaff in the closing days of that continent's great war.

 

In the old man's study, filled with books and yet more relics, most jewels but some more exotic - one appearing to be a tiny old elf reading a tiny book in a birdcage - but most visible the stack of work that had come to occupy his desk constantly of late.

 

"Young man," begins Albert, who takes his seat behind the desk. "I am told you've been found with wisdom beyond your years. Tell me, then, that you understand our problems?"

 

"...I do," replied Robert, for beyond the struggles of the Church, or perhaps because of them, the greatest issue of late in the Imperial nobility had been that of the attempted murder.

 

"Then you understand that we must come to an arrangement."

 

"...I do."

 

-+-

 

ACCORD BETWEEN THE HOUSE FALSTAFF OF LEUVEN AND THE HOUSE HELVETS OF ROCHEFORT, 1803

 

That, by virtue of the young Robert Foltest's earnest regret over the incident, Albert Arthur finds him wholly unaware of its conception; and, therefore, that to punish his own nephew for such egregious sins as were attempted by the late Lord Rochefort would be little becoming of their shared stature; and that, given this, the following agreements shall be struck;

 

The House Helvets of Rochefort shall pay the cost of treatment required by TRH, the Countess of Leuven;

 

The House Helvets of Rochefort shall not further cause harm either physical or emotional to TRH, the Countess of Leuven;

 

The House Falstaff of Leuven may continue to query the intentions of one Adrian Othodoric Helvets, and may sponsor arguments against him but not his family;

 

The House Falstaff of Leuven shall stop inquiries into the continued standing of the House Helvets of Rochefort, both for the prestige of both families and the mental health of TRH, the Countess of Leuven, Theodora Angelica of Rochefort;

 

That the House Falstaff of Leuven recognizes the issue resolved with the death of Richard Victor Helvets;

 

The House Falstaff of Leuven shall not raise further issue upon the subject otherwise, and instead seek to help mend relations between TRH, the Countess of Leuven and her kin.

 

Let this quarrel be no more.

 

Undersigned,

Albert Arthur of the House de Falstaff, IG

Robert Foltest of the House of Helvets

[Proddy 2415]

Robert Foltest Helvets grants his assent to the accord, jotting down his signatory.

[Draeris 3124]

The High Pontiff, from the bed of his chambers, smiles at his Vice-Chancellor @GoldWolfGamingholding up the document. 

"Ahh splendid: may both houses reconcile and conjoin their fates, so that they may taste the bounty of their prosperity together. I do hope the young Robert is faring well out there, and that he doesn't share his familial fascination with knives."

[ydegirl 2357]

Theodora Angelica, the ailing countess, frowned. She was never informed of the treaty.

[osumanduas 1442]

Headless Richard Helvets nods, haunting the grounds of the meeting with a particular relish; fully sane now that he had shed his frail mortal form.

 

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