DrabbleWriMo 19: Shenanigans

The Comte de Brencourt finds himself yet again caught between the prongs of love, pride and honour in the face of underhand dealings from elsewhere...

He'd failed to die by his own hand, and failed to die as he had hoped in the uprising. Now he lay feverish and ill in the inn at Vannes, and heard through the cracked partition news from the enemy dispatches.

The Marquis de Kersaint, last of those still under arms, was to surrender under safe-conduct. Safe-conduct notwithstanding, he was then to be shot.

--

Somehow a message had to be sent. Only he could not — could not! — ride to beg pardon, to buy forgiveness with his warning... His own perfidy was too recent in mind. Yet for Valentine he must.

DrabbleWriMo 20: Obscure

It was eighty miles to La Vergne. Eighty miles to ride, day and night, and he was a sick man.

Mud-spattered from head to foot, he half-fell into the hall; gasped out his warning to its recipient, who surveyed him pitilessly.

"Treachery, de Brencourt? Your speciality, no doubt!"

The words struck like a blow. He found a chair; clung on.

"Your safe-conduct is wastepaper, I tell you. You are going to your death. In God's name, why else would I have come?"

"I cannot pretend to guess." Ice-cold. "Your motives may be obscure, monsieur, but your deceit has failed — again."

( The Duc de Trélan is not being quite as obtuse here as it might appear... )