It was just over half a bell when Coatleque finally returned to the house of Taeros. Her whole body was numb with the realization of what she had done that evening, and it was not until she had latched the door behind her that life became reality once more. She had stopped to shod her darkened armor for something more comfortable along the way but had no recollection of the event herself, so focused was she on the night itself. Not seeing James sitting at his desk, she stopped and leaned back against the door. Her eyes closed for a long moment as she breathed slow and deep.
The fire had died down to the soft glow of embers while the rest of the lanterns had been dimmed as well, and the scent of spiced brandy clung to the air itself. It was an entirely different change from the earlier evening. One that was rarely seen at that. A mixture of somberness and mirth that failed to lift the pensiveness which had overtaken her.
Her eyes had adjusted to the low light by the time she reopened them. Pushing off the door slightly, she crossed the room with slow and light steps as a sneak-thief trying to avoid detection. It felt to her as if everyone and everything was watching her now. She almost startled herself as she approached the room division and saw James sitting at the couch. Had she not taken a moment before he would have been obscured in the shadows of the room.
In one hand he held aloft his snifter as he swirled the brandy within. The other hand held an open book which he idly glanced over as if it held no attention of his. Coatleque stood there quietly for a moment longer before speaking. "I have the item you asked for." She had withdrawn from her gil purse, just then, a folded handkerchief. It had been doubled over many times to form a tight-knit square.
"Set it on my desk, if you will." he replied quietly. Her eyes darted about the room searchingly before she bowed her head once, and low. Turning about, Coatleque placed the folded square on the side of his desk. Her hand traced the wood grain as she pulled back before turning to face him again. "What will you do with her now?" she asked.
He did not look up but merely swirled his glass again; The amber liquid within reflecting in his eyes over the dim glow of the fireplace. "She will, I hope, be enough to draw the pirate out from his proverbial cove." His voice held no great cheer, despite getting exactly what he had wanted this night. "We cannot lack courage in this. If opportunity presents itself, Lazarov must die. Quickly." he said softly.
"And if she is not?" Coatleque asked earnestly as she stepped forward to the room division.
"Then the war continues, as ever. More lives lost." he answered without hesitation before lowering his voice to a whisper. "Come sit with me, love."
"Die? Like your man had to di..." She stopped herself just then and closed her eyes to compose herself. Moving through the portal she complied and sat, but across from him rather than next to him. Doing so, she leaned forward with her face hidden in her hands.
"My man?" he asked with the raise of one brow. "Dirk, you mean. He was Mandercrown's man. I only paid him." Jameson said. His voice had taken on a familiar tone of annoyance she heard when it was clear she should have known something already. "Say what you mean. We are alone here, Coatleque."
She barely heard him, truth be told. Her hands lowered as her face turned towards him with glazed eyes. "Who am I, James?" she asked with a waver to her voice. She had not even expected an answer, and what little willpower she had left was focused on keeping from breaking down into tears in front of him. He peered back at her searchingly.
"Is that a question I should be answering? Or you?"
She shook her head and looked down once more. "Who do you think I am, then?" She had called to mind past conversations where he had spoken so highly of her, treated her as if they were equals in some shared struggle of wills. "I've done nothing to be where I am, yet you speak as though I am some great warrior."
He frowned, sitting up straighter upon the couch. "If you do not know, how should I? How did you receive your stripes? Am I mistaken that you still hold a commanding position within the 'Sworn?"
The notion was met with the stifling of a sarcastic chuckle. "Commanding? I am just some dumb country girl who got lucky one day. I never asked for this... it was thrust upon me when Natalie was suspended."
"Lucky in what way? Did an Ishgardian drake accidentally fall dead at your feet? I am confused."
She looked back up and slowly shook her head, her eyes not leaving him. "I am no desert rose."
Jameson canted his head. "I know. I was simply making a point. And in doing so, placing a trust. Should I not have?"
"... A trust in what? That I would not take action?"
"In your love.", he said softly.
Coatleque's mouth opened to reply, but she found no words. She blinked and looked away from him once more. For the moment at least, his words seemed to have ground her again. "Forgive me if the night was too eventful for me to handle at once."
"Is it Deneith or the hired blade that bothers you more? Or my poor heritage? You need to be steel." Jameson said evenly. "I cannot brook a wavering of your spine, Coatleque. I have already risked much for you. And thus far I have bound to every demand."
Her gaze snapped back to him suddenly as her own rage began to ebb. "What have you risked? What have I demanded of you?"
His own expression turned to annoyance now. "I risk all that I have in showing you truths. I trust you with my secrets. One word to Jenlyns and you could ruin me. Surely you see that." His voice grew steadily more angry. "I could be hung as a traitor." he nearly hissed.
"As she almost was?", she almost spat back.
"Indeed. They are not welcoming to our kind here." His voice lowered once more. "I thought you of all people would understand."
Coatleque furrowed her brow and shook her head incredulously. "Then why do you stay?"
His annoyance fell to an anger she had only seen once before. A seething rage that ended with his hand around her throat. "You would have me return to nothing?!" he said softly, after a long moment.
She felt herself slinking backwards into her side of the couch instinctively. Her eyes met his with some worry behind them. "That is not what I meant at all..."
Jameson's voice became clipped, pointed. "Then what did you mean? That you wish I were gone?"
"N-no... this is not about what I wish... there must be some reason you stay this far from home. T'is all I meant..." She tried her best to clarify in her own soothing tone.
He looked off towards the shadows of the room. The glow of the embers had all but gone out now. "A birthplace is no home. Have you ever seen Garlemald? Surely not." He shook his head slowly. "Never again. Deneith and I share that in common."
Coatleque's gaze slowly shifted back to the floor, gazing at the patterns in the carpet forlornly. Whether she cared for his anger or not by then, she had seemed to resign herself to it. "I have never been."
Jameson exhaled, long and slow. His rage did seem to subside. "You have not answered my question. You are clearly bothered by something. I would know the extent of your consternation." His words did not draw her gaze though.
"I have betrayed a friend this night. I have watched an execution ordered. In either case I did nothing."
"Duty then." he replied with a nod, pursing his lips. "The friend you betrayed has been conspiring to kill me. You brought me that news yourself. Yet I treated her with mercy, even kindness. And you still feel weighed?"
She exhaled slowly herself now. "You did. More than I.", she sighed.
"As for the man..." The corner of his mouth twisted to a distasteful sneer. "That was messy, I will concede. I am not normally that clumsy."
"I do not want to know" She said, shaking her head ever so slightly.
"But you should." he replied sharply. Reaching down then he picked at some (perhaps) imaginary lint on his pant leg. "The man was sent into my employ to spy on me. He would have had to have been dealt with eventually, lest he bring my secrets to that... harridan." Jameson sighed. "My carelessness merely stepped up the time-table." He peered at her once more, searchingly, as if trying to offer words of comfort. "You said no children," he continued softly, "and I swore to you."
"You did."
A long silence passed as she sat and mused over the night once more. What she had done, why she had to do it, what it meant for the future and for Ul'dah. Jameson sat respectfully as well, watching her from the other end of the couch. "I suppose...", she said at length, "... it is all just business then. That we are all merely pawns for the noble houses."
Jameson took a deep breath. "We are all pieces on the board. It is our choice whether we are pawns or kings. My house is not noble. It is a fabrication." His voice lowered once more. "I intend to change that. But I need you."
Her brow quirked. She could begin to fathom what he meant. Her heritage was no more noble than his own. "A fabrication. A trait we share then." she stated.
He shrugged. "The noble houses are all fabrications. Built on the bones of weaker men and women. We all started in the same misbegotten pit, Coatleque. They are..." His voice turned back to his clipped and distasteful tone. "... merely longer fabrications."
"Yet you had the wherewithal to climb your way out, while I had no choice." she said.
His eys narrowed in annoyance at her once more.
"If you are so displeased with yourself, perhaps you should just strip those fine clothes off right here, right now. I can use you in the way you originally intended."
Now it was her turn to be annoyed, and she glared at him in silence.
"Quit belittling yourself. You need be made of sterner stuff, else you will crumble." he continued.
Another long silence passed as she sat with closed eyes. Her face fell back to her hands as she breathed slowly, deeply. Who had she brought Roen in for? "For Ul'dah", she told herself over and over. It was becoming harder to believe her own words, though, the longer she remained here with him.
"He doesn't really need me. He is using me. Or is he? Why would he tell me these things? I told him I did not want to know..."
Jameson rose and walked 'round the center table to her. He leaned in close to her, his voice hesitant. "I need you. Not just your armor. Not just your blade." His voice turned like sandpaper. "We are too far in to flinch, Coatleque. Far too in. There is no escape. For either of us."
Standing upright again he offered her his hand. She swallowed hard and looked up to it, hesitating a moment before taking it with hers and standing beside him. "As you will. I stand with you then."
"You serve too often." he said softly. "Let that change."
The night passed with a new-found tenderness he had never shown before. In all their dalliances he had been determined, mechanical, almost hollow. Tonight their lips lingered strangely. An ache, all in its own, hovered over them both. A feeling that they are perched upon the edge of a yawning chasm, and either could slip and fall.
He was right in that she holds his fate in her hands, but he equally held hers now. She was complicit as any base criminal if all the facts were spread across the board. Yet as she considered where she was, and all she had done, there was a nagging loneliness that he had filled. They were both so, so far in now. She could not turn back.
In the morning as they both dressed to prepare for the day, he could not help but to assist her, leaving her beret askew as she sat by the vanity. He whispered in her ear. "Courage. I've still many players on the board, my Queen. But I need you to not falter."
She righted the hat and combed out her hair again as he turned to button his coat in the mirror against the wall. She nodded once, feeling somewhat emboldened now this morning. "James... ?" She turned towards him.
"Yes?" he asked, glancing back.
"I... I love you. Please, be careful."
He smiled at her. "And I, you. I will try."
"Tell me... what you need." she said in almost a whisper. Yet it was also a command that carried a seriousness which was not present the previous night.
"I have other irons in the fire,... " he replied as he fixed his testy lapel, brows furrowed. "... and not all in Ul'dah. Though this is our home." Content with his coat he came back to adjust her collar. Her murmured to her. "I need you to be what all the others expect you to be."
Her head tilted to the side as she tugged on her gloves one at a time.
"Well... most others.", he continued.
She smirked.
The two made their way back to the front of the office eventually. Jameson took his seat at the desk while Coatleque came around to the front. Roen's linkpearls were laid out before him. Coatleque tapped the desk with a finger. "One of those surely is direct to Lazarov."
"Do we know which?"
"No, but..."
With that she removed all of her own pearls and laid them out one by one. Each one was compared and matched to Roen's as she explained what each was that they shared. Coatleque removed each of her own pearls in turn as they weeded out the ones they knew were not Nero's. Jameson retrieved what was left.
"Visit Deneith. Ask her if she has a personal message for Lazarov, and assure her I will deliver it. Within reason of course. We may not need to send a lock of her hair if we can simply talk to the fool." His words were not commanding as one would expect, for she was no subordinate of his. She nodded once in understanding.
"True enough." she replied. "Shall I ask anything more of her?"
"No. Let her ask the questions. Perhaps our fair treatment of her will soften her edges. See that she is not wanting comforts. I am not a barbarian."
Coatleque smirked at him tauntingly. "Depending on whom you ask."
He met her taunt. "If they ask you?"
She only shrugged.
"Get out." he replied with a laugh.
The fire had died down to the soft glow of embers while the rest of the lanterns had been dimmed as well, and the scent of spiced brandy clung to the air itself. It was an entirely different change from the earlier evening. One that was rarely seen at that. A mixture of somberness and mirth that failed to lift the pensiveness which had overtaken her.
Her eyes had adjusted to the low light by the time she reopened them. Pushing off the door slightly, she crossed the room with slow and light steps as a sneak-thief trying to avoid detection. It felt to her as if everyone and everything was watching her now. She almost startled herself as she approached the room division and saw James sitting at the couch. Had she not taken a moment before he would have been obscured in the shadows of the room.
In one hand he held aloft his snifter as he swirled the brandy within. The other hand held an open book which he idly glanced over as if it held no attention of his. Coatleque stood there quietly for a moment longer before speaking. "I have the item you asked for." She had withdrawn from her gil purse, just then, a folded handkerchief. It had been doubled over many times to form a tight-knit square.
"Set it on my desk, if you will." he replied quietly. Her eyes darted about the room searchingly before she bowed her head once, and low. Turning about, Coatleque placed the folded square on the side of his desk. Her hand traced the wood grain as she pulled back before turning to face him again. "What will you do with her now?" she asked.
He did not look up but merely swirled his glass again; The amber liquid within reflecting in his eyes over the dim glow of the fireplace. "She will, I hope, be enough to draw the pirate out from his proverbial cove." His voice held no great cheer, despite getting exactly what he had wanted this night. "We cannot lack courage in this. If opportunity presents itself, Lazarov must die. Quickly." he said softly.
"And if she is not?" Coatleque asked earnestly as she stepped forward to the room division.
"Then the war continues, as ever. More lives lost." he answered without hesitation before lowering his voice to a whisper. "Come sit with me, love."
"Die? Like your man had to di..." She stopped herself just then and closed her eyes to compose herself. Moving through the portal she complied and sat, but across from him rather than next to him. Doing so, she leaned forward with her face hidden in her hands.
"My man?" he asked with the raise of one brow. "Dirk, you mean. He was Mandercrown's man. I only paid him." Jameson said. His voice had taken on a familiar tone of annoyance she heard when it was clear she should have known something already. "Say what you mean. We are alone here, Coatleque."
She barely heard him, truth be told. Her hands lowered as her face turned towards him with glazed eyes. "Who am I, James?" she asked with a waver to her voice. She had not even expected an answer, and what little willpower she had left was focused on keeping from breaking down into tears in front of him. He peered back at her searchingly.
"Is that a question I should be answering? Or you?"
She shook her head and looked down once more. "Who do you think I am, then?" She had called to mind past conversations where he had spoken so highly of her, treated her as if they were equals in some shared struggle of wills. "I've done nothing to be where I am, yet you speak as though I am some great warrior."
He frowned, sitting up straighter upon the couch. "If you do not know, how should I? How did you receive your stripes? Am I mistaken that you still hold a commanding position within the 'Sworn?"
The notion was met with the stifling of a sarcastic chuckle. "Commanding? I am just some dumb country girl who got lucky one day. I never asked for this... it was thrust upon me when Natalie was suspended."
"Lucky in what way? Did an Ishgardian drake accidentally fall dead at your feet? I am confused."
She looked back up and slowly shook her head, her eyes not leaving him. "I am no desert rose."
Jameson canted his head. "I know. I was simply making a point. And in doing so, placing a trust. Should I not have?"
"... A trust in what? That I would not take action?"
"In your love.", he said softly.
Coatleque's mouth opened to reply, but she found no words. She blinked and looked away from him once more. For the moment at least, his words seemed to have ground her again. "Forgive me if the night was too eventful for me to handle at once."
"Is it Deneith or the hired blade that bothers you more? Or my poor heritage? You need to be steel." Jameson said evenly. "I cannot brook a wavering of your spine, Coatleque. I have already risked much for you. And thus far I have bound to every demand."
Her gaze snapped back to him suddenly as her own rage began to ebb. "What have you risked? What have I demanded of you?"
His own expression turned to annoyance now. "I risk all that I have in showing you truths. I trust you with my secrets. One word to Jenlyns and you could ruin me. Surely you see that." His voice grew steadily more angry. "I could be hung as a traitor." he nearly hissed.
"As she almost was?", she almost spat back.
"Indeed. They are not welcoming to our kind here." His voice lowered once more. "I thought you of all people would understand."
Coatleque furrowed her brow and shook her head incredulously. "Then why do you stay?"
His annoyance fell to an anger she had only seen once before. A seething rage that ended with his hand around her throat. "You would have me return to nothing?!" he said softly, after a long moment.
She felt herself slinking backwards into her side of the couch instinctively. Her eyes met his with some worry behind them. "That is not what I meant at all..."
Jameson's voice became clipped, pointed. "Then what did you mean? That you wish I were gone?"
"N-no... this is not about what I wish... there must be some reason you stay this far from home. T'is all I meant..." She tried her best to clarify in her own soothing tone.
He looked off towards the shadows of the room. The glow of the embers had all but gone out now. "A birthplace is no home. Have you ever seen Garlemald? Surely not." He shook his head slowly. "Never again. Deneith and I share that in common."
Coatleque's gaze slowly shifted back to the floor, gazing at the patterns in the carpet forlornly. Whether she cared for his anger or not by then, she had seemed to resign herself to it. "I have never been."
Jameson exhaled, long and slow. His rage did seem to subside. "You have not answered my question. You are clearly bothered by something. I would know the extent of your consternation." His words did not draw her gaze though.
"I have betrayed a friend this night. I have watched an execution ordered. In either case I did nothing."
"Duty then." he replied with a nod, pursing his lips. "The friend you betrayed has been conspiring to kill me. You brought me that news yourself. Yet I treated her with mercy, even kindness. And you still feel weighed?"
She exhaled slowly herself now. "You did. More than I.", she sighed.
"As for the man..." The corner of his mouth twisted to a distasteful sneer. "That was messy, I will concede. I am not normally that clumsy."
"I do not want to know" She said, shaking her head ever so slightly.
"But you should." he replied sharply. Reaching down then he picked at some (perhaps) imaginary lint on his pant leg. "The man was sent into my employ to spy on me. He would have had to have been dealt with eventually, lest he bring my secrets to that... harridan." Jameson sighed. "My carelessness merely stepped up the time-table." He peered at her once more, searchingly, as if trying to offer words of comfort. "You said no children," he continued softly, "and I swore to you."
"You did."
A long silence passed as she sat and mused over the night once more. What she had done, why she had to do it, what it meant for the future and for Ul'dah. Jameson sat respectfully as well, watching her from the other end of the couch. "I suppose...", she said at length, "... it is all just business then. That we are all merely pawns for the noble houses."
Jameson took a deep breath. "We are all pieces on the board. It is our choice whether we are pawns or kings. My house is not noble. It is a fabrication." His voice lowered once more. "I intend to change that. But I need you."
Her brow quirked. She could begin to fathom what he meant. Her heritage was no more noble than his own. "A fabrication. A trait we share then." she stated.
He shrugged. "The noble houses are all fabrications. Built on the bones of weaker men and women. We all started in the same misbegotten pit, Coatleque. They are..." His voice turned back to his clipped and distasteful tone. "... merely longer fabrications."
"Yet you had the wherewithal to climb your way out, while I had no choice." she said.
His eys narrowed in annoyance at her once more.
"If you are so displeased with yourself, perhaps you should just strip those fine clothes off right here, right now. I can use you in the way you originally intended."
Now it was her turn to be annoyed, and she glared at him in silence.
"Quit belittling yourself. You need be made of sterner stuff, else you will crumble." he continued.
Another long silence passed as she sat with closed eyes. Her face fell back to her hands as she breathed slowly, deeply. Who had she brought Roen in for? "For Ul'dah", she told herself over and over. It was becoming harder to believe her own words, though, the longer she remained here with him.
"He doesn't really need me. He is using me. Or is he? Why would he tell me these things? I told him I did not want to know..."
Jameson rose and walked 'round the center table to her. He leaned in close to her, his voice hesitant. "I need you. Not just your armor. Not just your blade." His voice turned like sandpaper. "We are too far in to flinch, Coatleque. Far too in. There is no escape. For either of us."
Standing upright again he offered her his hand. She swallowed hard and looked up to it, hesitating a moment before taking it with hers and standing beside him. "As you will. I stand with you then."
"You serve too often." he said softly. "Let that change."
The night passed with a new-found tenderness he had never shown before. In all their dalliances he had been determined, mechanical, almost hollow. Tonight their lips lingered strangely. An ache, all in its own, hovered over them both. A feeling that they are perched upon the edge of a yawning chasm, and either could slip and fall.
He was right in that she holds his fate in her hands, but he equally held hers now. She was complicit as any base criminal if all the facts were spread across the board. Yet as she considered where she was, and all she had done, there was a nagging loneliness that he had filled. They were both so, so far in now. She could not turn back.
In the morning as they both dressed to prepare for the day, he could not help but to assist her, leaving her beret askew as she sat by the vanity. He whispered in her ear. "Courage. I've still many players on the board, my Queen. But I need you to not falter."
She righted the hat and combed out her hair again as he turned to button his coat in the mirror against the wall. She nodded once, feeling somewhat emboldened now this morning. "James... ?" She turned towards him.
"Yes?" he asked, glancing back.
"I... I love you. Please, be careful."
He smiled at her. "And I, you. I will try."
"Tell me... what you need." she said in almost a whisper. Yet it was also a command that carried a seriousness which was not present the previous night.
"I have other irons in the fire,... " he replied as he fixed his testy lapel, brows furrowed. "... and not all in Ul'dah. Though this is our home." Content with his coat he came back to adjust her collar. Her murmured to her. "I need you to be what all the others expect you to be."
Her head tilted to the side as she tugged on her gloves one at a time.
"Well... most others.", he continued.
She smirked.
The two made their way back to the front of the office eventually. Jameson took his seat at the desk while Coatleque came around to the front. Roen's linkpearls were laid out before him. Coatleque tapped the desk with a finger. "One of those surely is direct to Lazarov."
"Do we know which?"
"No, but..."
With that she removed all of her own pearls and laid them out one by one. Each one was compared and matched to Roen's as she explained what each was that they shared. Coatleque removed each of her own pearls in turn as they weeded out the ones they knew were not Nero's. Jameson retrieved what was left.
"Visit Deneith. Ask her if she has a personal message for Lazarov, and assure her I will deliver it. Within reason of course. We may not need to send a lock of her hair if we can simply talk to the fool." His words were not commanding as one would expect, for she was no subordinate of his. She nodded once in understanding.
"True enough." she replied. "Shall I ask anything more of her?"
"No. Let her ask the questions. Perhaps our fair treatment of her will soften her edges. See that she is not wanting comforts. I am not a barbarian."
Coatleque smirked at him tauntingly. "Depending on whom you ask."
He met her taunt. "If they ask you?"
She only shrugged.
"Get out." he replied with a laugh.
