Tarot Campaign

Interlude          Nobility & Orders

Gilliamtown. Evening. After Maythias.
After long hours of prayer, Paris had left the church and gone to keep her appointment with Father Maythias at the village inn. At the conclusion of that interview, she made her way back to the house where her comrades had been assigned billets. Calais, feeling her depressed mood, met her outside the place. They sat in silence for some while before Paris spoke. "Tell me one thing, Calais. Why were our comrades so reluctant to comply with my request that they leave the inn after the -- incident with Rhori? Why were you so reluctant?"

Calais who was showing signs of alarm at the first question subsided in relief, answering almost happily. "I can tell you what I was thinking. I wasn't 'reluctant'. I was going to do what you asked; you know that. But I was really worried that you'd tell those people a bunch of stuff that they really shouldn't know. I wanted to warn you that they were bad and couldn't be trusted."

Paris smiled wryly. "Like I can't be trusted?" Almost immediately -- as though that had been a rhetorical question -- she continued, "I have seen no reason why you all consider them "bad". And I trust people with what I need to trust them with. Still -- I see no reason to be so mistrustful. I only told Father Maythias things applicable to me. There was no reason for the Party to think I'd give away their secrets."

Calais looked skeptical. "I don't know why you think that other Party is not bad; I've got plenty of reason to think they are."

Paris looked her question. He answered, "They're just out for treasure. They only said they were here to help people as an after thought. And they're saying bad things about us."

Paris, patiently. "As if some of us aren't saying bad things about them? As if we have all been completely uninterested in treasure? in reward? As if there haven't been arguments about what one or more of us wanted as opposed to what is Right? What makes us better than they?"

Calais, grumbling. "You weren't there."

After a few more moments of frustrated silence, Paris rose and entered the building.

A few minutes later.
Lucas looked up at Paris' entrance. "Well? What did you learn? Anything useful?"

Paris paused, still upset and frustrated by the day, by her lack of understanding with Calais, by her own inability to measure up. With care, she tried to suppress that, to not let it seem she was upset with Lucas' question. But her answer came out brusquely anyway. "Nothing I did not already know. Father Maythias didn't say anything that could help me." She turned away, tempted to head back out the door again and into the night, to take a page from Rhori's book and commune with nature for awhile. But Rhori was there.

He drew her aside, down to where he'd been scritching Hobbes. The lion was almost as welcome as a fireplace in the midst of a midwinter storm. Warm. Friendly. Uncritical. Some of the tension flowed away as the warrior slid her fingers into the tufts of mane, seeking a scratching place. Quietly Rhori said, "You can talk about it, Parris. What you didn't learn. Why couldn't he help you? You'd help someone who came to you for help."

Paris: "Maybe I just asked hard questions, Rhori. Questions without answers. But I think he just wasn't thinking -- about what he did tell me to do. He couldn't have really considered or he wouldn't have told me to do what he did."

Rhori, prompting: "What did he want you to do?"

Paris: "All I really want to know is a bit about myself. I've asked Lucas and he doesn't know about magic. The padre of this town doesn't know magic. The Duke's padre has been 'way to busy to consider asking. I suppose I should have asked Genelle when we were at the High Priestess, but..." she looked at Rhori, "I was thinking about other things at the time."

Rhori: "Yeah, I think I asked the wrong questions too. But why ask that priest."

Paris: "He's a white priest. But all he wished to tell me was to go study in Batica. To leave right away and go study. But if he had thought -- he'd have known you can't just go leave people who depend on you in the middle of a strange place simply to go study something that may not help anyone else at all."

Rhori: "He told you to go away? That would be bad."

Paris: "No, I told you. He just wasn't thinking; it was thoughtless, not bad."

"But--" Rhori stopped for a moment thinking, then his tone changed slightly. "Parris, would you say that Father Maythias was of the White Church or of The Church?"

Paris: "He said 'The Church'. He corrected me when I called it white."

Rhori: "I think this is important to people like you and me, Parris. I think we have been thinking around it. We haven't wanted to think about it. But we should. We were raised in The Church. We know lots of good people who were part of The Church. But both the Duke and Prince William didn't seem to like the Heirophant very much. Which sorta means, don't you think, that maybe the Heirophant is not one of the good people. Maybe he isn't what he used to be. Like the Emperor and the High Priestess aren't who they were when the Change came. Maybe he is only the head of the White Church or the White-and-Black Church. And that isn't the same as The Church you and I believe in?"

Paris: "The Heirophant keeps the outer mysteries -- and he designs them, we were told. The High Priestess keeps the inner mysteries. And she mediates between god and man. It's possible that the Heirophant doesn't actually have anything to do with god at all. That his mysteries are all form and not really talking to god." Paris hesitated. "You are right. I have not wanted to think about this. But -- we have seen that the white god is Death. And we were told that the Black god was Nature. But now, when we seek the Major Arcana, we think he's called the Devil. Death and the Devil -- both are things we would like to avoid nowadays. But -- once -- if the Devil was once Nature, then perhaps Death was something not so scary too. Perhaps they both got twisted somehow when the Mirror broke. It -- is not -- pleasant to think of myself as a daughter of the Church of Death, of a knight of Death. It -- is not something I have wanted to think about."

Rhori: "I don't know about the Mirror. Or twisting. But it seems to me like The Church was what was good before. It is not clear what the White Church of the White-and-Black Church is. And I think we should think of ourselves as part of The Church. And be careful of the White -- White-and-Black. So -- if Father Maythias is a priest of the White Church and a servant of the Hierophant whom your prince does not seem to trust -- well, then it would seem that he might not have a good purpose in trying to send you off to Batica. Can you see that?"

Paris, slowly: "Y-e-s. But I wouldn't have gone anyway. My duty to the Church and my duty to this land go hand in hand in this Quest for the Major Arcana. I can't imagine just getting on a boat -- a boat! -- and sailing away just to satisfy my own curiousity."

Rhori: "Well-- if we don't find Temperance at the westmost point of Tara, maybe sailing to Batica is what we'll have to do?"

Paris: "Why do you think that?"

Rhori: "I don't know. Just maybe." After a moment, "But I really wish we'd have a chance to go see the Temperance Elves."

Paris: "I'd be more tempted to go there than to Batica."

Rhori: "But I don't think we should go to the orc city."

Paris stared at him for a long, long moment. "Why?"

Rhori: "Well, if we have this big Quest, is it right to get distracted where we can't do much good. What can we do there? Even if you free a group of the slaves, how will you be able to leave all the others. Wouldn't it be better to do the Big Thing and make the choice that they will all be free? Rather than trying to help a few and maybe getting too killed to do the Big Thing?"

Paris is silent for another long moment. "You -- are -- probably right. But -- it's a hard, hard thing." She thinks, 'We ignored the incursion at Fort Carcassonne in order to hasten the Quest, and I have to live with what happened thereafter.' Paris sighed and scritched the lion.

Rhori took a deep breath. "There's another thing, Parris." She looked up at him. He continued, "I think you've been apologizing for me for a long, long time. That's true, isn't it."

Paris swallowed, "Well, maybe, yes, sortof."

Rhori nodded, "Well, maybe I made a mistake in going to talk to Singer. But he needed to be told to stop saying things that could hurt people like he's done."

"Rhori," Paris's tone had a bit of reproof, "If I'd been up there sleeping, perhaps hurt after a long battle, you would have stopped anyone from coming up and waking me."

"But I wouldn't have drawn a sword," Rhori protested. "You wouldn't have drawn a sword either. You would have just stopped them."

"You're not that easy to stop, Rhori. And maybe they were afraid of you."

"Not the ones that had hold of me, Parris. They weren't afraid. And they were willing to kill me. They're not good people. And I don't like you apologizing to them. You've apologized for a lot of us," the big man continued, "and you've got to stop doing it. When I make a mistake, it's my job to apologize for it. Not yours. Maybe I still want you around to make sure I do it right. But I ought to do it."

Paris' voice was apologetic. "Oh Rhori." She swallowed again. "You are right. I should realize that you've grown up now."

He grinned shyly. "Well, maybe I'm growing up now."

She smiled back.

He continued. "And I'm going to apologize to Alexis. I want you to be there to help it go alright -- because I'm also going to tell her she's got to stop doing some of what she's been doing."

Paris: "What do you mean? I should have realized that she upset you; I should have stopped and talked to you and found out just what she had said. It's my fault I did not."

Rhori brushed the comment aside: "No. She was saying that she could have all of the Other Party hung for simply drawing their swords in her presence. I know she's someone very, very important, but she can't give orders or say things like that when she doesn't really know what the situation is."

Paris, aghast: "I did not hear that. She merely asked me to pull rank on them; I squashed that notion. It wasn't worth considering." She paused. "Alexis is really only very important when she is acting as a herald, when it is her job to be the Voice of the Duke."

Rhori, puzzled: "But isn't her father important? A duke or something big?"

Paris: "He is a baron, she is one of his younger children. A baron is below an earl, an earl is below a duke, a duke is below the royal family." Answering Rhori's puzzled look, she continued, "we met the Earl of Eastgate in Pelier. His son was the tall young man I fought in the tourney right before I fought the last bout with Ewen. Ewen is also the son of a baron. The Earl is a servant of the King, like our Duke is. The baron who are Alexis' and Ewen's fathers are servants of the Duke. Special barons -- like Silverlocke was -- are servants of the King." She smiled, "It is sort of confusing. Particularly when there are times when even people like you and me may have authority over a noble."

Rhori: "Not me. Are you a big lord? Didn't you swear to your prince?"

Paris: "Yes, I am sworn to my prince. I am his servant. But when I have to exert the authority of my Order -- when I have to administer Justice -- then I may have authority over someone who is much higher socially. But that is a function of my Order. It is our Orders, Rhori, that make us greater than we are -- when we are acting in their name and with their power. They are Royal Orders and we are servants of the Crown."

Rhori: "That's right. You're not just a knight."

Paris: "And it is royalty who must not be touched without permission. It is royalty in whose presence a weapon may not be worn -- much less drawn -- without permission. That is why a knight is given a grant of arms when he becomes a knight; that is why I was required to wear my sword at all times. My Order came with an award of arms, I think. But I think

[Rhori mentions that Hobbes is going to teach Paris to have more fun.]

[And somewhere Rhori asked if Paris feels about Ewen the way she used to feel about her prince -- which startled Paris into the mental image of kissing William. Which totally flabbergasted her. She'd never ever fantasized about kissing William.]