THE MEMOIRS OF QUEEN CATHERINE I OF THE PETRA - A Hand Worth Nations

[Zaerie 3414]

— THE MEMOIRS OF

 QUEEN CATHERINE I

OF THE PETRA —

 

Spoiler

 

– A HAND WORTH NATIONS –

These memoirs are private and are currently unpublished.

14-17

 

A simple battle of decisions and consequences. That is what this has become, a battle of its own of attempting to excuse your own actions while damning those of another. Ignoring the contexts to best benefit your own narrative. Am I guilty of that too? Probably. Though my own journal is not a place for unbiased accounts. In my view, my actions will be justified. The circumstances that led to my actions will always balance out, and my own excuses will make the most sense. There is something to be said really about ‘unbiased’ opinions, the thing to be said is well, that they don’t exist. Within every writing is anger and sadness. There is grief and relief, and within mine, there is every emotion, in turmoil. I will never know if I was correct, if my actions the best. Those crossroads have all been burnt behind me.

 

I signed the pacts with Haense, Numendil, Aaun, and Balian the day that the Heartlander Accord expired. There was no betrayal, no promise broken. I was not approached about extending or re-signing it, so I didn’t. The world is a very daunting place to be a little Queen alone, and after my experiences, I fear the dark, I fear the lonely road, I refuse to be caught out unprepared. I, and my nation, were about to be alone- so I fixed it. Perhaps in the eyes of those that don’t understand, I looked like a backstabbing coward. One that can’t hold their word or stand by their ‘friends’, but what friends were they to me?

 

How dare I? How dare I? How dare I?

 

How dare I look out for my people.

How dare I look out for my own nation.

How dare I look out for my family.

 

How dare I allow a pact to expire.

How dare I explore other options for alliances.

How dare I sign new treaties.

 

How dare I shut the gates of my city.

How dare I turn away masked men.

How dare I break the hand of bandits.

 

How dare you.

 

A man for a hand. They killed him. My cousins, my Uncle, my neighbors- they killed him. Do you understand what I do to bandits now? I kill them. Bandits will die in Petra, that is the rule. That is the rule that you gave me, Stassion. That is the lesson I learnt from you. That if you let them live, they will take the life of another, the life of an innocent. When word returned to them that Aimo had the bandits hand broken, they kidnapped the first citizen they could and they killed him.

 

And yet they claimed they were not bandits.

 

Liars. Liars. Liars. Liars.

 

A man for a hand.

A hand a hand- it was a hand.

 

Is that what this world has come to? Taking lives for injuries? The lives of the unassociated, the lives of men that had nothing to do with you? How dare you kill him. If the cost of a hand is a man, then that man was worth a nation. And we shall take it. You have proven that your existence is nothing but a tumor on the Petran border. A blight on any map that I look at. A blight on the road between Vallagne and Whitespire. If I swear to anything, it will be the removal of that. For him. You have made me owe it to my people, vengeance.

 

An innocent and a King. That is your legacy. Death. The death of a King that believed that you could be part of his nation, a part of his future. You ended his chance at a future. I knew Edmund, at least somewhat. He wanted to be my friend, he was gentle, he was kind. He wanted a world more than war and you denied us all of that. Perhaps you are worse than Veletz. Perhaps your sins are greater. You took this tense time, this period of bated breath where we were all waiting to see where the pawns would land on the board, and you took the first move. Your mistake.

 

The world that I wanted was good, I wanted to be a Queen of peace and progress. I wanted to rebuild Vallagne, to expand the farmland. I wanted to build hamlets and cottages and create a cozy life in the Petran countryside for those that wished for it. I wanted to have jousts and tournaments, to have tavern nights and gambling. I wanted something, and I was not allowed it. Instead, I am a hateful woman seeking revenge and death in exchange for death. Who started the death, the killing? It was not me.

 

 

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Breakwater, Brasca. Two battles towards the rest of my life, to revenge and hope. I hope they mean as much as I pray they do. It is times like these when I am glad that my parents are dead, that they don’t have to look at their dear little daughter and see the small set of armor that now adorns her, or the mud that dries on the plate. The way that I didn’t think my hair could get any redder, but the blood staining it proves me wrong. I wonder if the two men that I killed at Brasca apologized to my parents for what they have been part of forcing me to become.

 

Was it a relief, Gustaf? Falling to that arrow? That you wouldn’t be part of this problem any longer, you wouldn’t have to pace through the anxiety before battle, or stitch up slashes through your skin? You don’t have to mourn the losses of your comrades, or bask in terrified awe as a keep is blown apart like a childs sand castle being kicked? Is it relieving? Is it calming? Did you fear in the end?

 

Despite it all, Gustaf, I hope you didn’t feel it. I hope that you were able to look up at the sky and away from the battle as you died. In the end, perhaps I didn’t hate you, but you were the start of the hate that has grown within me, and I am afraid that you being gone can’t be the end of it. You may have started it, but you did not carry it further, you did not feed it. Go in peace, Gustaf, because you never would’ve gotten it from me for what you have begun. Go in peace, because God only knows there is none here.

 

 

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Somehow, I am finding that these battles are the parts that I prefer the most about the war. There’s some simplicity in it, you go in knowing to expect death and battle. At home? The walls scare me. The scrapes, the noises, a crash outside the wall. The kidnappings have begun, the hostages. I don’t know if it’s something that I’d be able to handle. There are still marks around my wrists where I was chained by the deadmen. Tearing at the flesh on my arms to try to pull free of a burning tree. How do war prisoners get treated? Do they have similar chains? Would I panic all over again? Would I black out and see that cave, those faces, and that tree again? The tunnels so far have been safe. I will keep taking my people into the tunnels. We will do all we can to not be captured.

 

I don’t know if I could survive being kidnapped again.