[About 10:00 AM on Day 37]
Two days' ride from your destination, the unexpected finally finds you. You are at a crossroads, a muddy intersection of two dirt tracks cutting through a vast, windswept plain. The sky is a sheet of grey, and a cold wind whips at your robes. Ahead, blocking the road, is a patrol of five mounted men-at-arms. Their banner, snapping sharply in the wind, is not the rampant lion of Bourgogne. It is the Gilded Lily of Francia. They are King's men. Their leader, a man in a polished steel helmet and a clean white tabard, sits astride a grey charger.
His resonance is a steady, disciplined hum—a Bronze-Tier knight, competent and confident. He watches you approach, his hand resting casually on the pommel of his sword. His men fan out behind him, their expressions wary, their lances held upright in a gesture that is both professional and a clear warning. The knight urges his horse forward, stopping a dozen paces from you and Louie. His eyes are sharp, taking in every detail: your expensive horses, your lack of armor, your single, shared face.
He is not a corrupt toll collector or a simple-minded thug. He is a professional, and he sees two powerful, unidentifiable men on the King's road, far from any major city. His gaze settles on Louie, who sits tall and straight in his saddle, every inch the nobleman.
"State your names and your business on the King's road," the knight commands, his voice clear and sharp above the whistling wind.
He is not making a request; he is enforcing the authority of the Crown.
You sit easily in your saddle, the powerful warhorse calm beneath you. The cold wind whips a strand of hair across your face, but you don't brush it away. You meet the knight's commanding gaze with an open, placid expression.
"We are going to attend a tourney hosted by Baron Faucher," you say, your voice carrying easily on the wind.
It is a simple, honest answer to the second half of his question. The knight's expression does not change. He remains a statue of polished steel and disciplined authority. But his hand, which had been resting on his pommel, now grips it.
The leather of his gauntlet creaks softly. He is a professional, and he recognized the omission immediately.
"A noble pursuit," the knight says, his voice flat and devoid of warmth. He urges his horse a single, deliberate step closer.
"But that is an answer to only half of my question."
His eyes, sharp and intelligent, narrow slightly. The four men-at-arms behind him shift in their saddles, a subtle, synchronized movement. Their lances, which had been pointed at the sky, dip slightly, their points now angled in your general direction. The encounter has shifted from a routine patrol stop to a formal interrogation.
"I will ask again," the knight says, his voice losing its last trace of professional courtesy.
His gaze is fixed on Louie, who has remained silent, projecting the image of a noble lord.
"State your names."
The wind whistles across the empty plain, whipping the Gilded Lily banner into a frantic dance. The five King's men wait for your answer, their stillness a promise of swift, disciplined violence should they dislike what they hear.
You lean forward slightly in the saddle, your posture relaxed and non-threatening. You offer the knight a placid, almost helpful smile.
"The handsome man beside me is my lord, Louie de Braisechant," you say, gesturing to Louie, who remains silent and impassive as a statue.
You then tap your own chest.
"And I am the bastard son, Janus, whom he has graciously allowed to serve as his retainer."
The name Braisechant lands like a stone in the cold air. The Bronze-Tier knight's face, which had been a mask of professional suspicion, hardens. A flicker of cold, undisguised contempt crosses his features. His men exchange uneasy glances. To a loyal servant of the Crown, that name is not just a name; it is a synonym for dishonor.
"Braisechant," the knight repeats, his voice flat and laced with ice. "The son of the Baron who turned his back on the King's levy."
He looks from your face to Louie's identical one, and a sneer touches his lips. "A bastard son... with the same face. A convenient tale." His gaze sweeps over your magnificent horses, then back to Louie.
The casual posture is gone. He now sits ramrod straight in his saddle, his hand a white-knuckled grip on his sword. He is no longer a patrolman; he is an executioner of the King's justice, and he has found a potential traitor.
"The son of a disgraced house, riding a warhorse fit for a Duke's champion, on his way to a tourney of loyal men," the knight says, his voice a low, dangerous growl.
"This smells of treason, Braisechant." He draws his longsword. The hiss of steel is sharp and final in the whistling wind.
His four men instantly lower their lances, their sharp points now aimed directly at your chests.
"Give me one good reason," the knight commands, his eyes burning with cold fury, "why I shouldn't escort you both to the nearest garrison in chains to answer for your father's legacy."
The wind howls, a lonely, mournful sound across the vast, empty plain. The points of four lances are leveled at your chests. The tip of the knight's longsword is a hair's breadth from Louie's throat.
The air is electric with the promise of violence.
You don't look at the sword.
You don't look at the lances.
You meet the knight's cold, furious gaze with a look of placid, almost detached curiosity.
Your voice is calm, a quiet question that cuts through the whistling wind with chilling precision.
"How many silver tiers do you have within 300 paces to rescue you?"
The question is a drop of poison in a cup of wine. It is not a plea or a bargain. It is a tactical assessment, delivered with the casual air of a man checking the time. For a heartbeat, the Bronze-Tier knight's face registers nothing but pure, uncomprehending confusion.
Then, the meaning hits him.
It hits him with the force of a physical blow. His righteous fury vanishes, burned away in an instant by a flash of cold, primal dread. He is a professional soldier. He understands threat assessment. He understands power dynamics. And he understands, with a sudden, sickening clarity, that the man he is holding at swordpoint is not asking a question.
He is stating a fact: You are alone, and you are outmatched. The knight's knuckles, already white on the hilt of his sword, seem to lose all their color. His eyes, which had been narrowed in contempt, are now wide with a terrible, dawning understanding. He and his men are an isolated patrol in the middle of nowhere. There is no one to rescue them. The four men-at-arms behind him, sensing the sudden, drastic shift in their leader's demeanor, grip their lances tighter. Their bravado evaporates, replaced by the grim, nervous tension of men who have just realized they have walked into an ambush. The point of the knight's sword does not waver from Louie's throat. But the hand that holds it is now trembling, almost imperceptibly, with the effort of holding a weapon that suddenly feels impossibly heavy.
The knight's sword trembles, the point a mere fraction of an inch from Louie's throat. The wind whips his banner, the only frantic movement in a tableau of frozen tension.
You don't raise your voice.
You don't posture.
You deliver your words like a physician explaining a terminal diagnosis, your tone one of calm, academic disappointment.
"If you, due to your pride and pigeon-sized brain, sacrificed yourselves because you decided that you can judge someone who will slay a hundred of your equals on the battlefield... and died for it... causing the king to lose precious manpower patrolling the roads... which in turn causes him to waste more money training more troops, and losing you, the experienced asset... wouldn't that be more treasonous?"
The insult—"pigeon-sized brain"—is a sharp, vicious jab. The knight flinches, a barely perceptible tightening of his jaw. A lesser man would have lunged. But the logic that follows is a slow, cold poison that seeps past his pride and into the professional core of his being. You have not just threatened him. You have reframed his entire reality. You have twisted his duty into a potential act of treason.
You have given him a choice: die for his honor, or live for his King. His eyes, which had been burning with righteous fury, went blank for a moment. He is calculating. He looks at his four men, their faces pale and taut with fear. He looks at you, a calm, reasonable monster sitting on a warhorse.
He looks at the vast, empty plain around them, and he sees the five unmarked graves you have just described. Slowly, deliberately, with a movement that seems to cost him every ounce of his pride, he lowers his sword. The tip of the blade drops from Louie's throat, pointing now toward the muddy ground. The knight takes a deep, shuddering breath, the first he seems to have taken since the confrontation began. He sheathes his sword. The sound of the steel sliding home is deafening in the sudden, profound silence. He turns his gaze from you to Louie, then back to you. His face is a mask of carved stone, all emotion scoured from it.
He has made his choice.
"The King's roads are for loyal men," he says, his voice a hoarse, strained thing. "See that you prove to be one at the Baron's tourney." It is not an apology. It is a dismissal. It is the last, ragged scrap of authority he has left.
Without another word, he turns his horse, a sharp, angry motion. "We ride!" he barks at his men. The four lancers, their relief palpable, raise their weapons and wheel their horses around, eager to put as much distance between themselves and you as possible. The patrol of five King's men gallops away, not looking back, their banner of the Gilded Lily shrinking into the grey distance. You and Louie are left alone at the crossroads, the only sound is the lonely howl of the wind across the empty plain.
The path to Roche-sur-Yon is clear.
You turn in your saddle. You don't speak. You simply look at Louie. Your expression is not one of accusation or anger, but of pure, analytical inquiry. It is a look that asks a thousand silent questions: You had a sword to your throat. You are the scion. You are the lord. Why did you not speak? Why did you not act? What was your calculation? Louie meets your gaze. He understands the question instantly.
For a long moment, he says nothing. He simply sits atop his mare, letting out a long, slow breath he didn't realize he'd been holding. The rigid, noble posture he held during the confrontation softens, the tension draining from his shoulders.
"Because it wasn't my fight," he says finally, his voice a low, rough thing.
"It was yours." He looks down at his own hands, flexing the gauntlets.
"My answer would have been a sword. My words would have been a challenge. I would have turned that standoff into a brawl, and we would have had to kill them all." He raises his head, and his eyes are filled with a chilling, newfound clarity. He is no longer the boy who was goaded into duels.
He is a man who just had his life held in the hands of another and saw a path to victory he never could have walked himself.
"You didn't fight him with steel,"
Louie continues, his voice a murmur of awe and respect.
"You fought him with his own rulebook. You took his pride, his duty, and his fear, and you strangled him with them. My speaking would have been like a blacksmith trying to help a watchmaker fix a spring. I would have only broken it." He gives a slight, grim shake of his head.
The wind howls, a lonely, mournful sound across the vast, empty plain. The confession hangs in the air between you and Louie, a stark and bizarre addendum to the life-or-death confrontation that just occurred.
You deliver the words with a thoughtful, almost academic detachment, as if analyzing a chess game you just played against yourself.
"I just wanted to insult him at first, but halfway through speaking I realised I had chosen the diplomatic way out, so thankfully I managed to salvage it because he allowed me to finish speaking. Also, if we slew them, it would probably cost us a lot more trouble."
You pause, a flicker of genuine introspection in your eyes.
"After saying all that, I also realise now that what I told the knight was also for myself. That I shouldn't let my ego get me into more trouble than it's worth, unless my fist is much, much bigger than everybody else's ego... which is usually not the case."
Louie stares at you. He had just constructed a narrative in his mind of a master strategist, a watchmaker of psychological warfare. You have just taken that narrative, crumpled it into a ball, and thrown it away. A strange, strangled sound escapes his throat. It is not a laugh, not a scoff, but the noise of a man whose entire worldview has just been violently recalibrated for the second time in an hour.
"So," he says slowly, each word carefully chosen as he tries to grasp the new reality.
"You had no plan. You walked up to a King's Knight with four lancers at his back, called him a pigeon-brain, and accidentally created a diplomatic masterstroke that saved our lives and preserved our mission."
He shakes his head, a slow, disbelieving motion. The look in his eyes is no longer just respect. It is a profound, deep, and slightly terrified awe.
He runs a hand over his face, a gesture of profound, weary acceptance.
"My father taught me that a plan is a fortress, built stone by stone," Louie murmurs, more to himself than to you. "You... you are a landslide. You start with a single misplaced pebble and bring the whole mountain down."
He finally shakes his head, as if to clear it of the sheer insanity of the last ten minutes. A short, sharp, and for the first time, genuine laugh escapes his lips. It is not a sound of mirth, but of surrender to the absurd. "Alright," he says, gathering his reins with a newfound resolve. "Alright. No more questions."
He turns his horse, his back straight once more. The brief moment of levity is gone, replaced by the grim focus of the mission.
"Let's ride. We've wasted enough time."
He kicks his mare into a trot, and you urge your own powerful steed to follow. The two of you ride west, leaving the crossroads and its invisible ghosts behind, a landslide and the single stone that follows in its wake.