Devotia Ch. 14: Strategem

Stratagem

Callie rouses in a comfortable-yet-dark room. The walls are heavily decorated with a messy array of paintings, bookshelves, and gear; she sees a variety of shields and swords and pieces of armor, most appearing well-used and worn-in, primarily lit up by a singular window. She's laying down on a slightly rugged, though incredibly comfortable sofa, tucked away in the corner of the small room. Still exhausted, she'd easily return to sleep if it wasn't for the noise of two voices talking and the dread of being found out.

"-bother asking you, Calvin," Wellt is saying as Callie's mind wakes up enough to listen. "I already know the answer: you weren't thinking." Wellt sounds disappointed and frustrated, though surprisingly not angry. She sits at a large wooden desk at the far wall of the room, fingers intertwined above her elbows which lean down onto the hardwood.

Knight-Captain Wellt is a tall and muscular woman, somewhere around forty-five, though her strength gives her an air of youthful vigor. Her jaw is wide and squared, supporting a noble face with plain features and a few scattered scars. Her hair is deep brown, bordering on black, and is cropped into a short, soldierly cut; a stark difference from Calvin's slightly longer, curlier hair. She's slightly bigger than Calvin, with a flat, stocky chest accented by wide shoulders. She wears her armor like a second skin, and as Callie takes her in, it's hard to believe the metal isn't a natural part of her.

"I should have known better, sir," Calvin's head drops low, staring into his lap in shame. It's a rare expression on his face, and Callie is surprised at how particularly upset he is at the Knight-Captain's disappointment.

"Yes, you should have." Wellt sighs. She frowns, furrowing her brow at his moping posture. "Sit up straight," she commands half-heartedly, her voice low and graveled, "I don't like talking with the top of your head."

"Yes, sir," Calvin squares his shoulders, forcing himself to meet her stern expression.

Wellt looks as though she has a dozen different things she wishes to say, but eventually she purses her lips and leans back in her chair, crossing an ankle over her knee and resting her head onto one of her fists. She takes a deep breath, shaking her head and softening her gaze. "Talk to me."

"We..." He sighs, rubbing a palm against his jaw. "I care about her deeply, sir. The pressure's been getting to us both."

"I can see that. How long's this been going on?"

Calvin looks as though he wants to hold back, but he relents. "Since the beginning, sir."

"Drop the 'sir'," Wellt sighs as well, "you know me better than that."

"Understood."

"Since the beginning, eh?" She mulls the answer over for a few moments, but when she speaks again, her voice is far softer. "Why didn't you come talk to me, Calvin?"

He looks confused. "I..." His words fail him, and Callie sees his shoulders droop.

"This about your brother?"

Calvin nods, refusing to meet her gaze.

"You're not Gellan," she says simply. "Never have been, never will be."

"I'm a paladin in love with a Devotia," he scowls, "how is it any different from him? You trusted me to be responsible-," he cuts himself off. Callie can tell he's getting worked up, frustrated with himself and embarrassed by the situation. He takes a breath and says, "I know what this looks like to people."

Callie shifts slightly in the sofa, trying to keep from falling back into the comfortable clutches of sleep. She can feel a deep weariness in her bones, as well as the empty feeling in her stomach of having exhausted her magical abilities.

"Finally awake, hal Devotia?" Wellt calls over to her, noticing her stirring. She waves a hand, flicking her fingers to direct her to a chair next to Calvin. "Join us."

Callie obeys, slowly rising and walking the few steps to the desk as her guilt pulses inside her chest. As she passes Calvin to take her seat she carefully squeezes his shoulder, hoping to encourage him. To her surprise, he cautiously takes her hand as she sits, returning the gentle gesture before letting it go.

"I'm going to be honest with you, hal Devotia," Wellt begins, an air of casual authority filling the space around her, "I'm not pleased with this."

"I thought you'd be angry with us," Callie says quietly, her voice slightly hoarse.

"I am," Wellt replies simply. She clears her throat, shifting in her seat and finding a more comfortable position. Despite her statement, her face looks calm and relaxed. "But that doesn't really matter to me right now."

Wellt leans back in her chair even more, balancing it to rest on the back two legs and propping her boots up onto the side of the desk. She grabs a small cloth ball from a nearby shelf, tossing it between her hands as she thinks for a moment.

"How much does she know?" Callie asks Calvin.

"Enough," he replies, shaking his head. "She saw all of it."

Callie exhales a tight breath, feeling her shame bristle inside. She tucks her hands into her lap, sitting back into the chair and awaiting the punishment she knew would be coming. While she'd broken a few rules back home in Rookwell, Callie knew well the feeling of invoking repercussions, and she decides it isn't much worth fighting the Knight-Captain at this point. She had them dead-to-rights.

Wellt squeezes the ball into her fist, sighing again and saying, "Let me tell you how I see this. A sparkling new Devotia falls for her Knight-Commander, immediately after her predecessor is removed for doin' basically the same thing. Now, here I am with proof of the whole thing, able to topple it all down."

Callie holds her breath in her throat, feeling exposed at being found out. Once again, she'd let her jealousy overpower her into making a profound mistake, only to be caught and forced to suffer the consequences of it. She can't believe she'd let herself be so foolish.

"And I've got a duty and an obligation and yaddy-yadda," Wellt grumbles, tilting her head to look at the ceiling for a moment. "But as I'm sittin' here, staring at the two of you, I can't find a good reason to rain on this parade."

Callie leans forward, unsure she correctly heard the Knight-Captain. She wasn't going to punish them?

"What?" Calvin mutters, in a similar state of disbelief.

"What good am I doing by removing you, hal Devotia?" Her hand rotates absently to accent her point. "It'd just force the whole city to undergo the selection process again, and we'd have to train your replacement and whatever."

"I broke the rules," Callie's brow furrows, incredulous. "I'm in a relationship."

"And there's already another Devotia," Calvin agrees.

"Do you two want to be punished?" Wellt's eyebrows raise, daring them to contest her. Calvin and Callie shake their heads, pushing away their disbelief. "When I saw you both walk off at the banquet just now, I had my suspicions, so I followed you. I stepped away when things got more intimate," she says frankly and Callie blushes, embarrassed, "but I made sure no one else saw."

"Why would you protect us?" Callie asks timidly.

"Goodness of my heart or something like that," Wellt snorts, quickly returning to her stern neutrality. She focuses her gaze on Calvin, sitting quietly beside Callie. "He's got a good heart," Wellt explains, "as much as he refuses to accept it. Call me sentimental, but part of me likes seeing him have something for himself, even if it's something he shouldn't."

Callie places a hand on Calvin's arm, softly squeezing it to support him, though he remains motionless.

"You don't have the markings of a blessing, Calvin," Wellt observes, though it seems like something she noticed a while ago and waited to bring it up. "Are you a bad lay, or did you figure something out?

Calvin's face turns pink. He shuffles in his chair, but manages to explain, "I encased her in a Shalani ward and blocked the blessing. I didn't think it'd work... but it did."

"Good shit," Wellt says proudly. She sets the small ball down, folding her arms over her chest. "Do you two have a cover story for being alone?"

"I received a vision from Suul," Callie recounts, "She wants the Knighthood to take a day of prayer to think about widows and orphans."

"And he caught you as the goddess' power overwhelmed you or something like that," Wellt waves a hand, completing the lie.

"Yeah," Callie nods.

"It'll do," Wellt says. She purses her lips, tilting her head and letting a thought develop. After a few breaths, she speaks, having come to a decision. "Alright, here's what I've got. I'm willing to publicly vouch for your alibi, and confirm that nothing funny is happening between you two."

"You'd do that?"

Wellt nods slowly. "I have conditions, however."

Callie pushes away the excited feeling in her chest. She can hardly believe the Knight-Captain would be willing to help them; she was so sure that she would turn them in.

"What are they?"

"This," she waves an open palm at the two of them, "stops happening in public. I'm only covering for you once. If this happens again I won't be able to protect you, and I'm not sure I'd even be willing to. "

"Understood," Callie exhales, and Calvin nods with her.

"Next, you keep using that ward trick, or anything else that prevents blessings, I don't care how." Her shoulders wiggle slightly as she readjusts in her seat, pushing the chair back and enjoying the balancing weight of it. "Gods, it's like telling you kids to use protection or something."

Callie smiles lightly, feeling her face flush. But, as she recalls the feeling of the blessing bursting around her, engulfing her as the ward pushed it back in, she shivers. "I... I would appreciate it if you found a way to make it less intense," she tells Calvin.

"Sorry," he gives her a weak smile, squeezing her hand again. "That should be possible, I wasn't sure how strong the ward needed to be in the moment."

"Good," Wellt grunts. She rubs a hand against her neck, massaging a small knot right above where it meets her shoulders. "Final condition: all future blessings for the Knighthood come through me."

Callie lowers her head. Part of her had been expecting it, suspecting that Wellt would remove Calvin from the duty, but she didn't always appreciate the way that she was so easily commissioned like this. She wonders if the Knight-Captains' strong and calloused hands would be too much against her smaller body. A tiny part of her wonders if the Knight-Captain was looking forward to it.

"It ain't like that princess," Wellt scowls, reading her expression. "The whole problem with you having a relationship is that the blessings can be biased, right? If Calvin isn't receiving them anymore, and I'm in charge of bringing them home to the Knights, that concern no longer applies."

Callie scratches her head, following the Knight-Captains' logic. It made sense, and if it provided them some extra leeway... Callie wasn't about to complain.

"If I'm no longer allowed to be summoned," Calvin asks, "how am I supposed to see her?"

Wellt huffs, letting out a restrained breath. "I figured you were going to ask that. Look, I'm not going to tell you to break any more rules - you shouldn't. What I will say is: what you do in the privacy of your apartment is your business, Knight-Commander."

Calvin and Callie exchange a look, weighing the option placed before them. It'd be risky, sneaking around to see each other. If they were caught by anyone else... no one would be able to shield them from the consequences.

"Don't tell me what you decide," Wellt rumbles. The legs of her chair clank against the wood floors as she stops leaning back, returning her hands to rest on the desk in front of her. "Calvin, would you give me and princess here a moment?"

"Of course," Calvin nods. He stands, giving Callie a weak smile before shuffling out of the room. Callie hears the gentle click of the door locking behind her.

"Do you burn incense much, hal Devotia?" Wellt asks her, pulling a small stick of incense out from a drawer and resting it into a delicate holder. She strikes a match, lighting the tip and inhaling the scent contentedly, falling back into her chair.

Callie shakes her head as the smell of lightly burning pine wafts around the room. It makes her feel a little homesick, remembering the forests that bordered Rookwell all her life. As a kid, she'd love to try and weave tiny baskets out of the pine needles that'd cover the ground.

"It's good for the soul," Wellt explains, closing her eyes and savoring the feeling. "My old man used to tell me that all the time growing up, and I always thought he was full of shit. Now that I'm older and have taken a few more hits to the head," she raps her knuckles against her temple, smiling fondly, "I think I'm starting to get it."

"My mother would make a pine needle tea whenever we were sick growing up," Callie recalls, her body teetering between grief and nostalgia. "This smells like when she'd accidently drop them onto the cooking stove."

Wellt smiles, her demeanor far less serious now that Calvin was out of the room. Callie glances back to the door, trying to remember all of the things he had told her about the Knight-Captain but coming up short.

"You've got good taste," the paladin mumbles, eyes following her gaze out of the room. "Did he tell you why I promoted him?"

Callie smirks, remembering his first visit to her villa. "He said it was because he led a squad against a bandit ambush, and one of his knights knew you."

Wellt chuckles, and Callie notices tiny dimples emerge from the sides of her mouth. Her eyes glimmer fondly, and as a small nub of ashes fall from the stick of incense onto the ashtray, Callie notices the Knight-Captain's presence continue to calm. Underneath her stern, authoritative attitude, Wellt seems relaxed and present. Each of her movements feels deliberate and restrained, and a well of perspective twinkles behind her eyes.

"Good to know he took the wrong lesson from it," Wellt snorts, her lips parting to flash her slightly crooked teeth. She takes another deep inhale of the incense. "It wasn't anything to do with him being clever or brave or any of that shit," Wellt explains, her voice washing with pride, "it was the way he comforted his folks afterwards. Gods, he visits every damned soldier who gets hurt under his command, trying to cheer 'em up and boost their confidence. Sometimes he doesn't leave 'till the nurses kick him out."

Callie smiles, imagining Calvin being pushed away by an impatient but well-intentioned nurse. She thinks about his calming presence around her, so gentle and tender with his touch; always checking in to make sure he's reading her emotions correctly.

"What I'm trying to say is, I get it," Wellt sighs. "Not enough people care about others the way he does. There's too many knights who just want to bust heads."

Callie nods, feeling more relaxed as Wellt's authority softens. With Calvin, the Knight-Captain seems aware of her responsibility over him, carefully guiding and disciplining him to ensure he's at the top of his form. With Callie, it's clear she doesn't share the same burden and is more able to treat her as an equal.

"He was so good when I told him I was threaded," she recalls. Wellt's eyebrows raise slightly at Callie's disclosure, but if she has any opinions about it she keeps them to herself. "I spent all my life thinking no one would ever love me... and then he was my first..."

"I get it," Wellt nods, but doesn't elaborate. After a pause, she says, "That whole business with his brother fucked with his idea of himself. I don't know how to get it into his head that he's not like that."

Callie is quiet, thinking about the sadness in Calvin's tone when he talks about Gellan. He saw it as a personal failure that he didn't stop him, hardly able to accept any other explanation.

A small voice emerges from inside Callie, and nervously, she ventures to ask, "Was it his fault?"

"Fuck no," Wellt snorts, shaking her head. But, in seeing the worried look behind Callie's eyes, she exhales and adds, "His younger brother was... let's say convincing. He could spin anything to go his way - talked himself out of plenty of punishments he probably deserved."

"Why does Calvin take it so personally?" Callie rubs one of her fingers anxiously, absent-mindedly enjoying the sensation. "It feels like he wants it to be his fault."

"He's got high standards for himself. Always has," the Knight-Captain grunts. "It's more than that, probably. I think he likes to believe everybody's got good in them; that they only do bad things if bad things happened to them first."

"Did something bad happen to Gellan?"

"Course not," she shakes her head. "He was the adored younger brother of a comfortable family and everybody liked him. Some people just have a bad heart."

Callie is quiet for a long moment. She'd never really thought about it, but had occasionally marveled at the way Calvin liked to treat people. He was hardly ever suspicious, always responding in good faith and a sometimes naive optimism. Callie sincerely believed that he would stop and help any person that asked it of him. He'd give the only cloak off his back to keep someone else warm.

Rookwell hadn't been like that at all... Callie's friends, parents, neighbors, pastors, all believed that wickedness was inherent in everyone and everything. It was only through discipline and structure that people could work towards good things, and even then their desires to be constantly held in check. Growing up, she was scolded or punished for every small lie she told, every tiny act of disobedience, even some helpless mistakes.

"I have a favor to ask, hal Devotia," Wellt says slowly.

"What is it?"

"Be a person who's worthy of him," she says, leaning back into her chair.

- - -

Callie feels like she spends the entire next day on another apology tour. She writes a quick letter to Cirene to explain the official story - she was about to receive a vision and went to Calvin for help because he was one of the few who had seen Callie endure one before. Despite being so short, the letter takes agonizingly long to write, and by the time she sends it Callie has a stack of failed drafts on her desk and ink on her hands.

She stops Junivere in the hallways of the villa and blurts out a teary-eyed request for forgiveness. Despite maintaining a deep cynicism around Silas and jealousy at their possible exemption, she apologizes for not trusting her fellow Devotia to make her own decisions. Callie stops short of offering her support for the relationship, but Junivere at least seems to feel like things are resolved between them.

And finally, while she doesn't actually provide an apology to the Imperium when she's summoned to stand before them again, Callie does feel as though it's an act of penitence. It wasn't easy to stand before the most powerful group of mages for the next hundred miles, and more than once she wondered if they'd turn her to ash for talking out of order.

With summer in full swing, it's warmer than is comfortable in the grand hall of the Imperium. Standing in the exposed beacon of sunlight is nearly unbearable, and within the first few minutes Callie is sweating heavily through her shortest linen dress. Most of the time, Callie and Junivere meet with the Imperium together, sharing the intense spotlight; though today, Callie faces it alone. She knows Junivere is probably awaiting her anxiously in the side hallway, eager to hear the results of the meeting.

"-and provide additional relief against this heat wave for Riverside," Callie is saying, though she only feels partially present. "Farmer Kiel informs me that without special attention, the keelt crop could fail before August."