A Matter of Honour

Admittedly, Lawrence had stepped back when the lance had been thrust in his direction -a reaction he had developed after training with lance-wielders for a good amount of time- but the distance between him and the tip was far greater than it should have been. Had she misjudged? No... something told him that wasn't right. Still, he leapt forward and thrust forward himself. A risky move, considering her greater range, but if she was getting tired, then he would be faster than her.

He'd pay dearly if he'd been mistaken in Min'nei's reason for not hitting him, but if he was correct, then this one thrust would be all he needed to bring her out of balance and win the fight.

Success! Just as she had predicted, Sir Everett had been unable to resist flinging himself at her, thinking to capitalize on the "opening" she had provided him. It was time to demonstrate that a properly-honed mind could always vanquish a sword, no matter the circumstances.

Having not shifted her feet at all during her feint, it took only a split-second for Min'nei to recover and unleash her true attack. In an instant, she had jerked her arms backward, bringing the lance back to its original position. She immediately swung low, hoping to sweep Lawrence's legs out from under him. Without waiting to see if her maneuver had proved effective, Min'nei used the momentum of her swing to reverse her grip and promptly lashed out with the blunt end of the lance, aiming for his chest.

If by some miracle he had managed to hop over the shaft of her weapon in his blind rush, her follow-up would stop him dead in his tracks.

Lawrence gave a most unlordly mental curse when he suddenly had his shins hit with the shaft of the lance. He managed to stay standing, but his balance was gone and he detached several fingers from his sword's hilt in his attempt to quickly regain it. It wasn't fast enough. He never recovered quickly enough. As the blunt end of Min'nei's lance hit him in the chest, sending him backwards, he opted not to look back at how quickly the ground was approaching, but lashed towards her wrist with everything he had, hoping to at least save SOME of his pride by knocking her lance out of her hands.

Not looking where he was going led to him hitting the ground unexpectedly, and only having one hand to catch himself. He gasped audibly at the impact, although more out of surprise than out of pain. And, in fairness, embarrassment. In a normal battle, he would shake it off, possibly roll out of the way of an incoming attack, leap back to his feet, and continue fighting. But this time, following the rules that he himself had set, even if he could physically still best her...

"I concede defeat," he said, "I will comply with your request-" as he got to his feet and took a good look at Min'nei's face, rather than her weapon and her movements, he became alarmed. She looked even paler than before. "Are you quite alright, milady?"

In light of what had just happened, it would be logical to assume that Min'nei felt something. Joy and relief at her victory? A perfectionistic disappointment in herself for failing to completely avoid Sir Everett's desperate attempt to disarm her? Yet the sickly woman felt none of these things. Rather alarmingly, she felt nothing at all. Even as Lawrence's blade rapped against her left hand, forcing her to relinquish its grasp upon her lance, her knuckles registered no pain from where she had been struck.

Struggling to comprehend her predicament, Min'nei stared first at her bruised hand, then at Sir Everett. She opened her mouth to say something, to accept his surrender, but no words came out. A cacophonous buzzing had erupted in her ears, and her whole body suddenly felt weightless, as if she were floating on air. As her vision dimmed, she understood. Her vile illness had crept into her system, waiting until her moment of triumph, when she was most assailable, to strike...

Without warning, Min'nei pitched forward. The practice lance clattered to the ground, and its wielder followed suit, unconscious.

"Dame Min'nei?!" Lawrence didn't think, instead leaping forward and extending one arm, catching the smaller, now-unconscious warrior. Now that he touched her anywhere else than her arm, and felt her weight, he knew for certain that she was emaciated to an unhealthy degree. "Milady!" Frustrated with the situation, he looked at the woman who had joined the training ring out of curiosity. "Rayne! Help her!"

----

"How is she?" Lawrence saw Rayne's head turn when he walked back into the room. The two of them had carried Min'nei back to the manse and put her in a bed, where Rayne administered treatment and examined her while Lawrence had changed into fresh clothes and finally, finally figured out a plan with captain Vincent. Now that he had time, he was surprised to see Min'nei still not awake.

"In poor state, Your Grace," Rayne answered. "Signs indicate this isn't the first time she's fallen over... and it will be far from the last time, too. She suffers of a chronic malady that to the best of my ability, I do not know how to cure." She looked at her lord sideways. "If it is any consolation, my lord, you did nothing to cause this. While the exertion certainly helped, you had no way of knowing this would happen."

Min'nei hadn't been exaggerating when she'd said death had already claimed her, then. Somehow, this made his defeat at her hands even more embarrassing.

As chance would have it, Min'nei's eyes fluttered open shortly after Rayne delivered her diagnosis. A sharp intake of breath heralded her awakening, followed by a feeble effort to sit up. Her sight was impaired by a fresh wave of dizziness, exacerbated by the feverish sweat that had pooled upon her brow dripping onto her eyes. Still, refusing to let the potent misery of her condition conquer her spirit, the woman gingerly reached over and pinched her left arm. Pain. That meant she was alive. By Naga's divine grace, she had not yet departed the world of the living.

However, while most would have rejoiced at this happy revelation, Min'nei only felt bitter. She had collapsed again. Because of her rigid, unflinching sense of decorum, the very thought of passing out both irritated and terrified her. It was agonizing to be so reliant on the charity of others, having to be dragged to a bed every time her malady reared its grotesque head in full. To impose upon her hosts was embarrassingly shameful... But moreover, the idea that she might simply keel over and die one day filled her with dread. To be there one moment and gone the next...

The illness had spared her life, but for how long?

As her vision finally stabilized, Min'nei saw that Lady Rayne and Sir Everett had been watching over her. She called out to them, figuring it would best to apologize to the Ylissean noble posthaste.

"Lord Everett...? Please f-forgive me... I fear no man, but... disease is a most dishonourable opponent..."

"It is." Lawrence put a hand on Min'nei's shoulder, both in an attempt to comfort her and to push her back into the pillows. "Don't try to force it. Rest. We won't leave for another day or two, and my healers will tend to you to hasten your recovery." He knew well that she would likely collapse again. It wasn't the first time he was faced with chronic disease, after all.

He could put his shame aside when he compared Min'nei to his little sister, Leanne, who was near-constantly bedridden herself. When healthy, she was a cheerful girl, almost a motherly figure to both him and Raymond, but these spells were less common than the times she had to spend days on end in bed and could hardly walk. Of course, Min'nei's disease was clearly of a different order of magnitude, but Lawrence still couldn't help but be reminded of Leah.

"There is nothing to apologise for. You bested me fairly, and it will be a few days before Calderon's mages arrive and we can leave. Take that time to recover." He turned to the healer. "Rayne, you are hereby assigned to Dame Min'nei's side. Be generous with the healing staves, we have plenty of them."

"Yes, my lord." Rayne bowed to Lawrence, and then turned back to the emaciated woman in the bed.

"N-No, you must not expend any resources that could instead be used to save another!" Min'nei protested, staunchly opposed to being treated with a healing staff on both moral and pragmatic grounds. Striking into the very heart of Plegia was certain to be a perilous journey, and a lord was beholden to ensure the safety of his retainers. Sir Everett's staves were a finite supply of invaluable healing for his troops; to use them solely to ease a dying woman's pain would be a colossal waste. Min'nei had long regretted fleeing Chon'sin alongside her family while her servants gave their lives to secure her retreat, and did not wish to see Lawrence endure a similar tragedy.

Resisting the knight's attempts to force her to lie down, Min'nei shook her head and shot him a pleading look. "I cannot be cured, Lord Everett. 'Tis an arcane malady, born of foul Plegian sorcery, that plagues my very being. Please, let... let fate run its course. Do not concern yourself with my health... It is enough that you have granted me leave to accompany you. Your responsibilities are to your soldiers." As she concluded her explanation for her outburst, Min'nei finally rose and moved to slide out of the bed.

She had embarked upon her wanderings to escape from the prison of sheets and pillows, not to return to them, and the revelation that Sir Everett would allow her to join him despite her poor showing in their duel imbued her with a newfound strength. Determined to prove herself worthy of his trust and resolute in her belief that staying in bed would only hasten her death, the sickly woman swung her legs over the side of the mattress and prepared to stand.

"I am aware that your disease is terminal," Lawrence said, frustrated that the woman did not understand. Was this his divine punishment for some past indiscretion towards women? "Both you and Dame Rayne have told me as much, and I am not quite unintelligent enough to believe that I can change your fate in any sort of way." She was clearly far too stubborn to let anyone but her try, anyway.

"But there is one thing you must understand." He put both hands on her shoulders, forbidding her to stand. "When you bested me and I agreed to take you along, you became one of my soldiers, which means my responsibilities have extended to you, whether you like it or not. I will bring you to Plegia, but not in this state. You will let Dame Rayne tend to you as were you an Ylissean soldier, and you will obey my orders. And for now, my orders are for you to rest. We have brought more staves than we can realistically ever require, and I can afford to run through every last one of them."

Any Ylissean man would have bent his head at his voice; years of governing and commanding had given Lawrence an aura of authority that those under his command rarely if ever challenged. However, by now the lord knew that Min'nei was cut from completely different cloth and would likely resist him if he so much as told her to replace a broken lance.

Frowning as Sir Everett physically prevented her from rising, Min'nei considered her next words carefully. She had been lenient in allowing Lawrence to grasp at her in her weakened state, but her patience was at its limit. And while she recognized his right as lord to command the warriors under his banner, she could not cooperate with such fundamentally-misguided orders. Torn between her penchant for aristocratic etiquette and her own personal feelings, the sickly woman decided to object in the manner of a true scion of Chon'sin.

"With all due respect, Your Grace..." She began, adopting a tone of the utmost formality, "... I cannot obey. I have spent far too many days in bed already, and I yearn to face my destiny head-on. No amount of respite will improve my condition. I have suffered the worst of today's ailments; I shall live. If you insist on restraining me, then I must insist that you bring me a lance, so that I might seek satisfaction." With sleek, unprecedented swiftness, Min'nei seized Lawrence's wrist with her right hand to convey that she would brook no disagreement. "I will face you again, Lord Everett. I will face you as often as I must."

It was an audacious ploy, but in the face of an unflinching will of iron, Sir Everett would have little choice but to capitulate.

Did this woman not- Lawrence interrupted his thought and ran a hand through his hair, exhaling in order to keep himself from shouting, and collected himself. "Very well, I give up." If she was so Naga-damned determined to make things complicated, he would let her. He had better things to do. "I will not fight you again." He lifted his wrist from her grip. He would have expected it to be feeble and easy to break, but he had to wait for her to consciously let go of him before he could lower his arm next to him.

"Very well, then, allow me to brief you with some details regarding the conditions." He would not trust her with their entire route, but he could at least give her SOME details. "Exalt Emmeryn is most likely held captive at Castle Plegia, which is our destination. We're a small squad of specialized horsemen; almost all horses with us are trained to traverse difficult terrain and will not be slowed significantly by the desert sands." He hesitated. "You will have to ride with one of them in order to not slow us down. We're still waiting for Lady Calderon's detachment of sorcerers to arrive, but once they get to Themis, Everett's men can leave. We estimate they will take a few days more at most to get here."

He let his words sink in, waiting to hear if Min'nei had any questions for him.

"I understand. It shall be an honour to ride alongside the famed Knights of Ylisse." If Lawrence had expected a barrage of questions, he had been sorely mistaken. Now that she had ascertained Sir Everett would not coddle her like a child, Min'nei saw no need to antagonize him by playing the inquisitor. He had acquitted himself well enough in their bout, so she would give his tactical prowess the benefit of the doubt.

Rising to her feet, the sickly woman offered Lawrence an apologetic bow. His acquiescence had filled Min'nei with relief, putting her in a more amicable mood. "But, I fear that I have kept you overlong from your duties. If it please you, milord, I would like to retrieve my lance and go for a walk. Fresh air may yet do my health some good. I will remain at your disposal, of course... I shall not stray from the manor's gardens."

Justified though her actions had been, manners were of the utmost importance. Min'nei had no desire to sour her relations with House Everett so soon... Taking a stroll would allow her to get out of Sir Everett's hair and ponder her own destiny.

Knowing by now that he couldn't force a woman to take care of her body, Lawrence merely nodded when Min'nei told him she intended to walk around the gardens of the manor. At least she made a valid point; fresh air MIGHT indeed prove beneficial. As soon as the Chon'sinite warrior was out of the room, he turned to Rayne. "Your orders remain unchanged. For as long as she is within our company, you are to watch over Dame Min'nei and treat her as you see fit."

"Yes, Your Grace," she said, bowing. "What will you do?"

"Inspect Guinevere," he said, "And maybe take her for a ride while we wait for Calderon to arrive." With that, he left the room, running one hand through his hair. He had not told Rayne, Vincent, or Min'nei this, and had not spoken of it in his letter to Raymond, but something about this mission was incredibly unsettling to him. He chalked it up to word of the Risen increasing in number and then banished the doubt from his mind.

This was a sacred mission and he would complete it.

~The End~