Chapter Twelve: Lessons in War (1)
Aug. 31st, 2010 02:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
manniness
Tamial Hightopp – man of Action and defier of Parental Declarations! – pokes his head out of the mirror and listens very carefully. He examines the room in front of him, recognizing the sheet-covered furniture and thanks his parents’ oversight: they had not recovered the looking glass after all!
When only silence tumbles into his ears and stillness unfolds before his eyes, Tam grins and steps through the mirror completely.
He’s home.
Finally!
Oh, he knows he’ll have to go back to London soon – before Aunt Margaret comes to wake him for breakfast – but for now he can sleep in his own bed! Perhaps on his familiar mattress, he’ll be able to escape the nightmares that had stalked him last night!
He tiptoes over to the living room window and pulls back the curtain. It’s dawn. The line of the Witzend-side horizon is darkening against a softly glowing sky. Wispy clouds dance slowly against the backdrop of pale gold.
Yes, the weather is most definitely better here!
The motions of the cherry trees, their boughs waving in the breeze, draw his gaze and Tam sighs with contentment at the sight. How he has missed this place!
He turns and surveys the apartment, frowning at the open door to his parents’ room. He peeps through the portal and notes the utter... chaos within. Bed sheets and pillows – two of which had been separated from their cases! – litter the floor. Even the curtains are askew! The wardrobe doors are open and changes of clothes are scattered all over the place. Even...
Is that a... sock on top of the dresser mirror?!
Tam’s brows arch upward with incredulity.
“Well. Something... happened in here...”
And considering the people to whom this room belongs and the activities he has caught them at once before (only once, thank the Fates!), Tam would rather not think in any more detail on the matter, thank you very much!
He turns away and reconsiders the mirror. Should he go back through? If his Mam and Fa walk through the front door and catch him here...
Tam frowns and considers his options. Yes, he would like to sleep a bit longer in his own bed... but is it worth the risk? Perhaps another bedroom in the castle would do just as well. Now he’ll just have to find one that’s not in use.
He creeps to the front door and pauses to listen again. Gently, mindful of the keyhole’s snores, he eases the portal open and slips into the hall. The very, very silent hall.
He scowls. Yes, it’s early in the morning, but even at times like this there is some noise echoing in the corridors: fish butlers dusting, frog footmen delivering tea trays, and everyone knows Thackery is up early banging away in the kitchen and that racket echoes for miles!
Tam sneaks down the hallway, toward the stairs. He encounters no one, only Silence. It’s not until he’s making his way past the terrace that overlooks the training field that he hears any sounds of life at all!
“No, no! You’ve got to hold it up higher. Yes, like that!”
Thwack!
“Ow!”
“You dunce! What did you let it go for?”
“... got a splinter in my thumb.”
“Oh for...! Come on. Your turn now.”
Tam approaches the edge of the terrace and peers over the railing. There, on the pitch, two boys are facing off to do battle with wooden swords. Two boys Tam knows very well!
“Lanny! Ian!” he shouts, forgetting his priority to remain stealthy and undetected.
Lanny pauses in mid swing and looks up, shading his eyes. “Tam?! What are you doing here?”
“Aren’t you supposed to be in Upland?”
Tam smirks and skips down the stairs. “Well... yes, I am,” he admits, grinning.
The twin princes gape at him, then at each other, and then they grin.
“Awesome!” they chorus.
“How’d you get back by yourself?” Ian presses.
“Through the looking glass,” Tam replies, his chest puffing up. “Of course.”
“Of course? Of course?! ” Ian stutters.
Lanny rushes to confirm, “So, you figured out how to do it?”
“I’ll show you later if you don’t tell anyone I was here!”
“Deal!”
They shake on it.
“So...” Tam muses, taking a moment to take a good look around. “Where is everyone?”
The twins’ eyes widen until Tam fears they’ll topple right out of their sockets and find their way into luncheon soup. “You don’t know? ” Lanny whispers, clearly scandalized.
“Know what?”
“About the battle!” Ian informs him.
“What battle?”
“That battle between two Champions, of course,” a new voice inserts.
Tam turns and watches as Maevyn waddles around the corner with what appears to be a suspiciously Thrambleberry-juice colored stain on its jaw.
“Which two champions?” Tam asks, his heart pounding so loud his manners tumble right out of his mind.
“Princess Tarranya and Alice,” the jabberwocky replies absently.
Tam gapes at Maevyn then turns and gapes at the twins. “Why are you still here? ”
Ian winces and Lanny grumps, “We’re not allowed to go. Bethie’s watching us.”
Tam cranes his neck and searches the pitch, the orchard, the castle windows. “Well... I don’t see her here watching us now... do you?”
Ian grins. Lanny giggles. Tam turns toward Maevyn.
“What?” the young jabberwocky asks, looking up from licking its berry-juice-coated claws.
Tam eyes the creature’s back and muses, “How many bushels of Thrambleberries would it cost us for you to give us a ride?”
*~*~*~*
The first hint Tarra had been given that not everything was as it appeared to be – the first hint that she had not been the hunter , as she’d thought, but the prey – had come the moment Abler Masonmark had held out a hand to her as she’d half-sat, half-lain on the floor of the tunnel, trying desperately not to crush the dormouse hiding in her cloak hood. He had calmly held out his hand to help her up and she had Known.
As he had pulled her to her feet, she had taken a moment to marvel: he’d played her, damn his slithy, shrifty black heart. And here she’d been so proud of herself for playing him!
From the outset, he had been part of her game. Tarra – or, rather Dirka Worthwool – had drawn Abler Masonmark in. Not because she had liked him (Eugh! The very idea turns her stomach!) but because she had needed to be noticed. She’d been a newcomer to town – unavoidably noticeable – but with the other newcomers that had followed in her wake, Tarra had known that it was up to her to draw as much attention to herself – and away from them – as possible. For a moment, she had been furious. This assignment had been given to her! Not to Mallymkun and Bayto! Not to that blasted boy lion lurking in the shadows!
But no, she’d thought to herself. Calm, Tarra. Control. Change the rules of the game, just as Mistress Alice taught you.
And she had. She had allowed them to follow her, had allowed them the privilege of listening for the muttermongings. She had tacitly joined their team, been their diversion. For the first day, she had managed quite well, she’d thought, despite the lack of inflammatory rumors. But each following day, her task had gotten harder, the weight of her responsibilities heavier, the loneliness... sharper.
“Fight the battle that’s in front of you, ahead of you...”
She had taken Mistress Alice’s words to heart, had not looked over her shoulder, had not shown her cards, had not revealed the fact that she is always followed by her mother’s most trusted allies. She had thought – on several occasions – that she had been needlessly overcautious.
Obviously, she had not expected Abler to turn out to be the leader of the rumored resistance movement against the White Queen.
Her first reaction to this revelation had been jubilation: perhaps she’d under-appreciated Luck; the fellow is a rather useful friend to have at your back!
But, as she’d looked up into Abler’s triumphant expression there in the dark, dank tunnel beneath the Orash orchards surrounding Crimson Harbor, she’d wondered: had it been Luck to lead her to the very object of her search? Or had Abler suspected who she really was when he’d strutted up to her in the bakery that first day? Had she been played?
She’d played back, just as Mistress Alice had taught her to do:
“Infiltrate their ranks. By any means necessary. Count their numbers. Gain their trust. And make the game yours. ”
Yes, Tarra has done – and is doing – that very thing! Yes, now... now, she’s not just playing Abler Masonmark; she’s playing all of them.
Still, those first moments had been frightening. She had stood there, in the dark with the flickering torches surrounding her, held aloft by too many to fight. Abler had stood too close to her, his hand on her arm, his fingers ready to grasp, trap, take...
The warning that she had been played had come far too late for her to turn back. It had come when the only path left open to her had been the one onward and forward into unforgivable and terrifying territory.
But Mistress Alice had prepared her for this:
“Fight the battle that’s in front of you and ahead of you: you cannot undo your missteps. Your footwork must be better than your opponent’s. Run rings around him, Tarra.”
To hesitate in the face of Discovery – to try to fight the facts as she had faced more than a dozen armed rebels – would have been the end of her and the end of the mission; she had allowed the guise of Dirka Worthwool to fall away; she had moved forward, her bearing regal despite her mussed hair and the dull, uninspiring color of it. There had been no point in pretending she is not the daughter of the very woman they seek to depose. There had been no point in pretending she is not strong, a warrior, a fighter trained by the best Champion in the known history of the White Realm. There had been no point in hiding, in backtracking, in even looking over her shoulder at the might-have-beens with regret.
Tarra had been trained very well and she knows that the first hint that her disguise has been found out, that her motives have been questioned, will be her last if she is not very fast and very Alice-y.
“Run rings around him, Tarra. Run. ”
She had done just that. Is doing just that.
She runs but she does not run away.
“Are ye ready fer this?”
Tarra glances briefly in Abler’s direction as he – yet again! – finds it impossible to keep his blasted hands to himself. She thinks longingly of a hot bath and forces herself not to step away from the warm hand nestled against her lower back. Still, she’s allowed to have a bit of fun, isn’t she?
Tarra winks at Corea’s blatantly jealous stare. Yes, Corea had managed – thank the Fates! – to convince Abler to share her pallet the night before but she’s not the one he has chosen to stand with here on the battlefield, is she? Tarra knows she shouldn’t rile the girl – the poor thing is obviously in love with the worthless tail feather of a frumious borogove – but... she can’t help it!
“Am I ready?” she echoes, grinning out at the sea of broken, cracked, weed-crowded tiles. “I was born ready.”
The rebel force finds this highly amusing. The ten dozen or so just-turned men and women, and even some creatures that Abler has rallied to his cause, all find a reason to laugh at her overconfident words. Abler finds this particularly reassuring and not only removes his hand from her person but also strides off, no doubt to inspect something or otherwise make himself look Very Important.
Yes, she has charmed the enemy very nicely. Well, except for Corea, everyone laughs at Tarra’s wit and bravado. Their two captives, however, do not seem to share their... rebellious sense of humor.
“Tarra, please,” Leif rumbles too softly for anyone to hear over the chuckles and giggles and bellows of laughter. “You can see where this path leads. Turn away now.”
She feels her temper flash. Her shoulders tense. She opens her mouth and, surprisingly, the words of accusation she had intended to say get lost, confused, reordered. She hears herself ask in a tone that is too serious, too loud, “Turn away?! I suppose I could... but would you respect me in the morning, lion man?”
Yes, her tone had been too serious but she has the presence of mind to force a smirk onto her lips. The gesture feels stiff, unnatural. It unsettles her as nothing she has done so far has managed to do.
Masonmark and his army laugh. They laugh as if they hear a joke and not a very Serious Challenge taking place right here, out in the open, in their very midst.
Tarra tilts her head to the side and puts a hand to her ear, miming like a clown, entertaining and distracting the masses. “Ah, finally. I think I hear the melodious steps of an arriving army. Here,” she continues, pulling off her cloak with a flourish and laying it gently over Leif’s bound hands. “Make yourself useful and hold this,” she instructs him with a wink.
The Outlander lads and lasses roar with laughter, slap their thighs, snort behind their hands. They are enjoying the show too much to notice that a hat pin armed dormouse has slipped out from inside the hood of Tarra’s cloak and is making her way toward the rough twine knotted around Leif’s wrists. With a nod of satisfaction and a widening smile of triumph, Tarra turns her back to him and gazes out across the battlefield.
She watches as the White Army approaches in ordered ranks. Her gaze moves from her mother, riding atop her faithful steed, Alfred, to her father who is carried by her brother’s friend and steed, Winsommer. The Bandersnatch gambols forward and then lurches to a halt only two dozen paces away. From his shoulders, Mistress Alice – resplendent in her gleaming armor, slides to the ground. Uncle Tarrant, dressed in his clan colors, steps up beside her.
For a moment, Tarra is proud to be a member of such a strong, fierce family.
But then she remembers:
She has a job to do; in fact, it is nearly finished. It smarts that she won’t be the one to deliver the Killing Blow – so to speak – to these rebels. She’d like to be able to take all the credit for the coming victory. But she consoles herself with worthwhile facts: Tarra’s role is necessary and she has played it well. Better than “well”! She has played it perfectly!
Still, she wonders... how exactly is Mistress Alice going to finish this mission? Tarra had issued that Challenge to stop the White Army from attacking, to save her mother (dear Fates, had the woman forgotten her Vows completely? ) from making a horrible mistake. Tarra had not expected her mentor to actually accept the Challenge!
What will happen now? Tarra wonders uneasily as she glares across the plain at her teacher’s hardened expression. Mistress Alice had never taught her this lesson. She would like to believe that Mistress Alice had not found the time or had simply forgotten to mention the protocol for situations like this... but Tarra knows that is not possible: Alice doesn’t forget things like that. And it irritates Tarra to realize that her mentor had likely intended for her to be less than completely self-sufficient, less that a True Champion.
When this is all over, you’ll have some explaining to do, Tarra silently informs her teacher. When this is all over, I’ll expect to receive the rest of my education!
After all, Tarra thinks as she considers her recent accomplishments, she has earned it!
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no subject
Date: 2010-11-16 12:09 am (UTC)Oh my! Why Tam, WHY? :(
I don't like the idea of him seeing the duel...
From: CrazyMarchHare
Date: 2010-11-18 10:06 pm (UTC)He turns and surveys the apartment, frowning at the open door to his parents’ room. He peeps through the portal and notes the utter... chaos within. Bed sheets and pillows – two of which had been separated from their cases! – litter the floor. Even the curtains are askew! The wardrobe doors are open and changes of clothes are scattered all over the place. Even...
Is that a... sock on top of the dresser mirror?!
Tam’s brows arch upward with incredulity.
“Well. Something... happened in here...”
And considering the people to whom this room belongs and the activities he has caught them at once before (only once, thank the Fates!), Tam would rather not think in any more detail on the matter, thank you very much!
GAH! I'M DYING! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
Phoo. Geez. Hysterical. Oh. Em. Gee.
Ahem. Yeah, I remember when I caught my parents at it. God. I'm permenantly scarred. I sympathize, Tam. Don't, I repeat, DO NOT, think about it any more than you have to! Gah. Not to mention, hel~lo. I wanna know how exactly they managed to get a SOCK on the dresser...? Never mind. I don't wanna know.
I tell ya, that scene was PRICELESS.
Oh God. Tam is gonna see it all. I know it. I just KNOW IT! STAY WHERE YOU ARE, TAM!!!
Poor Tarra. She must be so tired of playing this game. She probably feels awful for letting her mother down. And "Mistress" Alice. It's totally obvious how much Tarra looks up to the woman.
Dare I read the next chapter? I'll wait for you to respond before acting on that particular urge.
Re: From: CrazyMarchHare
Date: 2010-11-19 03:31 am (UTC)Re: From: CrazyMarchHare
Date: 2010-11-19 05:41 pm (UTC)Fine. I'll keep reading. But I won't be held responsible for my reactions! ;)
no subject
Date: 2010-11-24 04:15 am (UTC)Okay, so I want to tell Tam that it wouldn't take much to beat London weather, but...he's quickly got bigger problems, when he hears that there is going to be a Champion's fight. I really don't want him to see what is coming...Really.
This cleared up A Lot. But, dear Tarra really has gotten herself in deep. Things aren't about to go as she thinks they will. At least she isn't suffering from Stockholm Syndrome!
no subject
Date: 2010-11-24 08:02 am (UTC)I'm glad things are clear now with Tarra. I wanted there to be a niggling doubt until this moment, but I'm glad it's all explained and such. (^__^)
no subject
Date: 2010-11-29 05:16 am (UTC)And Tam, is there a reason you just seek out trouble? What are you, 13? Oh ... wait. Is this going to be the lesson he needs, just like the other kids?
no subject
Date: 2010-12-13 02:08 am (UTC)I really appreciated Tarra's thoughts at the end of this section, and how she forces herself to not dwell on the mistakes she made (or possibly will make in the future, with her self-admitted inexperience in these matters) but to plow on through and play the game as best as she could. It shows her as a strong young woman, and like Alice in the regard that, while she may *want* to be a Champion very badly, it may not be the right path for her. (I'm thinking of how Alice wanted desperately to be a merchant-trader for her father's company, and how she did the best she could, but she didn't Excel at it the way she does being a Champion.)
no subject
Date: 2011-02-08 08:13 pm (UTC)Tarra's POV...at last! That was very nice and enlightening to read.
Of all in this chapter, why does my mind meander to how Tam is still a Tom Sawyer and is now even teaching/encouraging Maevyn into mischief? LOL
I shouldn't have a light heart, but I do, rather. Somehow this will all fall together neatly, in an Ellery Queen style, however, hopefully not with a REAL corpse (for long, anyway.) I...ah...hope.