A Quieter Road

[Xarkly 17299]

A QUIETER ROAD

 

@Gusano

 

Spoiler

 

 

Puffing out a cloud of smoke, Konstantin Wick left the Church.

 

As he stepped outside into Karosgrad's square, the twin banners that had been hung for his dear friend's funeral - Lauritz Christiansen's golden Kaldenic swan, paired by the Justiciar's crow - snapped in Konstantin's direction as the wind suddenly picked up. Even as he trudged across the square, his pipe smouldering in his mouth, the voices followed him from the Church. Konstantin had left before Lauritz's funeral had ended, but he did not feel particularly bad about it. Instead, he found himself ... pensive. There had, of course, been tears at the service, but there had also been laughter prompted by a new spirited kind of sermon. Konstantin did not mind, not really - he knew Lauritz would have wanted laughter at his funeral, but Konstantin could not consign himself to join in.

 

As he mounted the steps leading to the Nikirala Palace, he paused, and glanced around as the late-evening sun slanted across the city. Though there was still a crowd thronged near the Church, merchants remained hawking at their stalls, craftsmen and burghers drifted to the tavern as the evening service ramped up, and a gaggle of children were playing on the street. "Life goes on," he murmured to himself as the soft wind picked up again, messying strands of his grey hair. He broke into a half-jog, then, into the Palace and to his wife's apartments. By the time he scurried back outside the Palace gate - breathless from his haste - the evening light had deepened, and the tolling of the Church bells echoed across the city. He had fetched his redwood lute from his wife's apartments - the same instrument he'd played since he first settled in New Reza - and he skirted around the Palace, taking the path to the Royal Gardens.

 

The Gardens were blissfully quiet, as usual. The noise of the city was muted to a distant din as he set off down the Garden path, the gravel crunching underfoot, and the trees flanking the path swayed gently. He passed by the rows of statues erected along the path in honor of the Knights of the Lily, and it was when he arrived a face carved with face with an eyepatch that he stopped and sighed.

 

 

"You would have liked the funeral," he muttered idly as he eased himself down, then reclined on the grass in front of the statue, with the Garden's stream trickling nearby. He knew it wasn't a grave, but he far preferred this over some graveyard. As the sun continued to sun, the light fading as it shone through the leaves around him, he leaned back to lie on the grass, propping his head on his hands. "Ahhh. You remember how we started?" His left hand began to pluck a few idle notes on the lute. "In a big city, a very long time ago, far away." When Konstantin had first settled in the Empire on Arcas, he was without friends. He was a Wick, and so the family he did have were ... eccentric. Lauritz had changed that, though; he had been the first Konstantin had called friend, and the first to really teach him much of anything. It was with Lauritz that Konstantin had began his grand legal career; it was with Lauritz he had formed the famous Christiansen-Wick Solicitors; it was with Lauritz that he had endured the House of Commons; and it was with Lauritz he had revolutionized the Haeseni legal system from scratch. Really, the old man had been there for most of the important parts of Konstantin's life. It felt truly odd to think that Lauritz was dead, now. He kept having to remind himself of the fact.

 

"And look at how we finished," he murmured softly, staring up as a wispy cloud passed through the darkening sky. Now, he found himself in a new Haeseni city free from Oren, surrounded by baby-faced bureaucrats, and soldiers who had never seen war. A different world from the one he and Lauritz had grown up in.

 

"Heheh. Do you remember our walks?" he asked, giving the lute a strum. He and Lauritz had often gone on walks, often when something monumental was about to happen. They had walked the outskirts of the Helena moat when he had first become President of the House of Commons; they had walked the smoke-hazed courtyard of Ekaterinburg after Koeng Sigismund's pyre when Konstantin had been thrust into the role of Palatine; and they had walked the New Reza Gardens beneath a murky, rainy sky when Konstantin was preparing to propose to his wife.

 

He began to laugh, but it wasn't long before he trailed off wistfully. "Ah. I suppose you won't be good for walking anymore, now that you'd gone and died and all that." It was only as Konstantin cocked his head up did he realize his eyes had begun to water and blur his vision. "I'll ... I'll miss them." His voice had grown a touch shaky, too. "Godan, what's happening?" he grumbled to himself, laughing wearily as he threw his head back against the grass. Lauritz had died of old age - a natural death - and Konstantin had made his peace with it. Why was he suddenly tearing up, then?

 

"You know," he said hoarsely, tears trickling down his cheeks as he continued to pluck notes on the lute. "I always considered you as ... as my brother." His laughter returned again, stronger than before and more suddenly like a cough, even as he continued to weep. "I'm sorry I never got to tell you that," he managed between breaths.

 

Konstantin could not have said how long he lay there in the middle of the gardens, crying and laughing while playing on the lute, but by the time he stood, the deep burnt light of the sunset had been replaced by the pale light of the moon. It was only by telling himself that his wife would be wondering where he'd vanished that he managed to push himself to stand, and laid his own wrinkled hand on Lauritz's statue. "Thank you," he breathed softly, throat choking up again. "Brother."

 

He would miss his walks with Lauritz. He knew that for a certainty as he began the slow trek out of the Gardens. Life went on, though, and Konstantin had no choice but to continue with it.

 

In his eyes, life was just a little quieter now.