Chapter XIX
Bannished from Bergskort
As Codsworth crosses the town square, he looks in every direction. His years as a commander had taught him to see enemies in every face, and there were a lot of faces, some looking angrily at him, but they weren’t the ones that concerned him, it was the ones who looked normally around that did that. After all a false friend is far worse than a known enemy.
Finally reaching the governor’s residence, he barges past Sjur, who makes a feeble attempt to stop him and barges into the residence, where he finds Forrest standing behind his desk apparently waiting for him.
“Ah Codsworth. I’ve been wondering when you would show up.” Forrest said, he sounded exhausted, but that wasn’t the worse, beside him were two thugs that the commander knew had run with Edvin before the thug’s death.
“Why are they here?” Codsworth said with no attempt at pleasantries, the two thugs didn’t say anything, but looked ready for a fight, old as he was, Codsworth was ready to give them one. But Forrest soon restored order before anything could happen.
“Please take a seat, we obviously have things to discuss.” Forrest said and sat down. And so, after a few moments did Codsworth, wanting to have the appearance of reasonableness in front of the governor. As defiance would get him nowhere, plus it would make the two thugs look bad and uncooperative in comparison.
“This is bad Codsworth, I don’t think I can put it any other way.” Forrest said, running his hand through his sweaty hair, so that it stood up in odd spikes as he continued. “A member of your group attacked one of my civilians.” The governor finished. The two thugs had sat themselves down, trying to make them look civil in this matter.
“In the man’s defence Forrest. The man he killed had it coming.” Codsworth said, being careful to watch how the thugs reacted. The statement went down about as well as the commander thought it would, one stood up, and slammed his fists on the table. Only sitting back down again when his friend forced him to.
“What could Edvin had done to deserve such a violent end?” Forrest said. this angered the commander; the governor was clearly now just acting dumb. Even if he was as moronic as he was acting, even he couldn’t be so blind as to ask this question, what with the man’s crimes being engraved onto his forehead. But if he wanted to play this game, Codsworth was ready to play.
“That pathetic excuse for a man attempted to rape a sixteen-year-old girl, in front of the entire inn. And my man was the only one to try and stop it.” Codsworth said angrily, wondering whether the man’s question was satisfied by that response. But before the governor could speak one of the thugs spoke up.
“That girl was consorting with the enemy if she had just not…” The man said, but before he could finish. Codsworth, who had had enough after the first few words, took out his pistol and shot the man between the eyes. Forrest jumped out of his seat, and the man’s fellow companion, attempted to lash out put was stopped as Codsworth turned his gun on him. He returned to the governor.
“Sorry about that sir. But I will not be called the enemy here. And I do not believe that Erika supposed crime, if you can call falling in love with a member of my group that, is to be justified by attempting to assault her.” Codsworth said as he kept his gun trained on the one remaining thug, who sat back down, as did Forrest. Eying the spot where the dead body was, a little too eagerly for Codsworth’s liking. “So, let’s continue shall we.” The commander finished and Forrest immediately started back up again, fearing another bloodshed.
“Edvin was a scumbag we all knew that.” Forrest said in a calm enough tone. “But what your man Brutus did was well above what was necessary.” He finished trying to plead with Codsworth to compromise on that fact at the very least.
“That we can agree on.” Codsworth said, he was all for the man’s very painful death, but Forrest was right, Brutus had gone well above what was necessary in terms of his punishment. He was all for the throat ripping and the engraving but ripping the man almost in half was beyond even his ability to defend.
“Good. Now to the reason why you have come here. Obviously, it wasn’t for my company, so why are you here?” Forrest said, putting his fingers together and staring intently at the commander.
“We need your protection. We have people who can defend the house, but not enough.” Codsworth said as he leaned forward, trying to match the man’s intense staring, something that even he admitted he had never been very good at.
“And in exchange?” Forrest replied.
“It’s only for the one night, after that we’ll be gone.” Codsworth said, that was now a certainty, they could no longer remain here now, whilst he had just put down one of Edvin’s loyal thugs, he knew there were others.
“Agreed, Brutus will have to leave. There can be no doubt about that. Plus, I think it would be for the best if the rest of you followed in his footsteps.” Forrest said, smiling before continuing. “Do you agree to these terms so far commander?” the governor finished, looking up at Codsworth, awaiting his response.
“I do.” Codsworth replied, although he wasn’t so keen on the ‘so far’ part of the question, but he had little choice but to listen on.
“In return for this, I will assign a portion of my guards to keep your house and those who are inside safe until tomorrow at midday.” Forrest said and Codsworth nodded, as he did so. the thug that was still alive got and marched out of the room, that did concern Codsworth, and he hoped that Barca could hold the fort until he and the governor’s reinforcements could arrive. “There is one more thing that I must demand on behalf of my town.” Forrest said gently, as what he was about to say next would not be easy to hear.
“What do you want Forrest. I’m all ears.” Codsworth said, resting back in his chair, as he prepared for the final stage of the negotiations. But something told him that they were not going to be as easy as the first part. In fact, he thought that the pair would be haggling for most of the night, over the finer details.
Almost everyone was still up and awake despite the lateness of the hour, the only ones who weren’t were Martin and Erika, both of whom had excused themselves a barely a few minutes before. As Codsworth unlocks the door and walks into the house with a grim look on his face, it had been long and hard, but eventually everything had been worked out. Proof of that came from outside as twenty guards, led by Idar himself took began to take up their positions around the house.
“Well?” Vernon said, although he could tell that they at least had some good news, as he saw a few guards take up their positions outside the front doors, whilst he heard a few others do the same at the rear. But he wanted to know what Codsworth had given up in exchange for their protection.
“McCoy wants Brutus out of the town. He's also politely requested that we leave as well. We're to be out of the here by noon tomorrow.” Codsworth said, as he sat down, he was exhausted, it had been a long few hours, haggling over the finer details to the deal. Making him swear that he would never get this involved in the politics of a settlement ever again.
“And?” Vernon said, this was about as good as they could have hoped for, as they were planning on leaving anyway, all this did was speed up their plans. However, he seriously doubted that that was all. Elsewise it wouldn’t have taken this long for Codsworth to return back to them. And sure, enough there was another part of the deal.
“There is a catch. One of us must remain behind to replace one of the men they've lost. The rest shall have enough supplies to reach the mountain with.” Codsworth said as he rested his head against the wall.
“What other man?” Charlie asked, as far as she knew only one north-men had died so far.
“There were two thugs already with Forrest when I got there. And one of them was just begging to be shot.” Codsworth replied, in truth he didn’t feel bad about killing the man as he doubted that they were going to accept anything less than the groups deaths. Killing him would send a message that he wasn’t fucking around.
“So, who's going to remain?” Bruce asked, getting back to the issue at hand, he and Abi had talked about remaining here when the others left. But if only one was allowed to remain, it would make things difficult.
“I will, I'm the oldest and will just slow you lot down.” Vernon said quickly, he knew that for a fact, there were many miles still to go and he wasn’t getting any younger. Besides, he didn’t want to be a burden to the group as they continued to travel north. He was about to continue when Jack cut him off.
“No, Vernon. I'll stay.” Jack said, as the old butler closed his eyes at this simple statement before turning around to see the lad leaning up against the wall. Erika having turned in a few hours before. But Vernon was not the first to speak, it was Dmitri, who looked at the steel faced Jack.
“That's... Quite a commitment lad. I won't allow it.” Dmitri said, if anything, he should be the one who would remain, he was dying and wouldn’t last much longer anyway, whilst the kid had his whole life ahead of him. At this statement Jack only smiled at the captain, at which point Dmitri knew that there would be no further discussion on the matter.
“I not asking you to allow it, from any of you.” Jack said first to Dmitri, then to the room at large, before he settled on Vernon to continue. “I want to stay. But more importantly, I have to stay.” Jack finished as the old butler walks over to him, the sixteen-year-old doesn’t flinch as Vernon steps in front of him and puts his hand on the lad’s shoulder.
“I don't want you to stay here. But I've known you long enough to know when your heart is set on something lad.” Vernon said smiling. He had known the lad since the day he was born and knew that it was beyond foolish to get him change his mind on an issue when his heart was set on it.
“Right, get some sleep all of you, it's going to be a long day tomorrow.” Codsworth said, he had known that Jack would be the one to ultimately nominate himself for the role of remaining behind, now it just remained to see how the rest of the group. In particular his brothers and Vernon would take the blow.
That night, when Jack had taken over the watch from Codsworth, he found himself alone in the living area as Vernon approached him. Knowing that this would ultimately be another attempt on the old butler’s part to trade places with him, he braced himself for the worst of what was to come. But to his surprise no such attempt was made, it seemed that Vernon had accepted that fact, as had both Dave and Nick, albeit grudgingly, the problem would come tomorrow, with Martin reaction almost certain to be the worst. Knowing how his youngest brother had reacted in the past to being abandoned by his family, it was not likely to go well for him.
“You alright kid?” Vernon asked as he walked towards him.
“Yeah.” Jack replied simply.
“So, when is Erika expecting?” Vernon asked, in a tone that told Jack that he knew everything, from the reason why he had been so quick to nominate himself to remain, to why he had rushed out so quickly after hearing about the attack at the inn.
“How did you know?” Jack responded; he expected the old butler to lay into him for being irresponsible but was surprised when he didn’t.
“Long enough kid, don’t worry though I’m the only one I guess that does know that fact.” Vernon said smiling and sitting down next to him.
“Just don’t tell the others.” Jack pleaded, and Vernon nodded his agreement.
“You know at times. I forget how much you’ve grown. At times I still see the small boy from who would spend hours sneaking around the manor.” Vernon said smiling as Jack looked at the ground slightly embarrassed. As the old butler continues. “Forgive my mawkishness, Jack. I am an old man.” Vernon finishes it was an odd excuse, but he had found that it was the truth, old men tended to be more sentimental over things than the young and combine that with the fact that he could still remember when Laura had first brought Jack to the manor, sentimentality was bound to occur.
“You look the same to me, Vernon.” Jack said, and it was strange how truthful that statement was, apart from the greying hair, Vernon had hardly seemed to age since the time he could first remember. This time it was the old butler who looked embarrassed.
“You’re just like your mother; you are unfailingly kind. A trait people never fail to undervalue. I’m afraid.” Vernon finished as he got up and looked down at the teen. “You will have made them both proud today kid. Trust me on that.” Vernon finished, smiled and headed back to his room, leaving jack alone with that thought. It was going to be a long night, but he didn’t wake Charlie up for her agreed shift, nor anyone else for that matter, as they would need all the rest that they could get, as all of them had a long way to travel in the weeks directly ahead.
