DrabbleWriMo 10: Treaty
11 November 2021 03:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlodeAll right, we finally (p242) reach the Brencourt/Kersaint duel -- after deciding that I couldn't very well afford to use it either for 'Wound' (my first thought, given this prompt list) or 'Vein' (my second)...
Broster describes this moment of mutual agreement as a 'covenant' and 'compact' rather than a treaty as such, but short of the actual treaty negotiations (which don't take place until p345) it's the closest analogy I've got!
(Also, I seem to have acquired an ongoing convention that de Brencourt, who appears to regard himself as the protagonist of these events, remains nameless as narrator ;-p I always did have sympathy for the morally compromised character...)
Broster describes this moment of mutual agreement as a 'covenant' and 'compact' rather than a treaty as such, but short of the actual treaty negotiations (which don't take place until p345) it's the closest analogy I've got!
(Also, I seem to have acquired an ongoing convention that de Brencourt, who appears to regard himself as the protagonist of these events, remains nameless as narrator ;-p I always did have sympathy for the morally compromised character...)
Strange, after all, how things fell out.
He had devoted day after day, since his escape from Paris, to needling his opponent in order to bring about this duel; to avenging everything that Valentine had suffered. When he took that shot, he had meant to kill.
But despite his best efforts, he had failed. Now, bandaging the wound he himself had inflicted, he found himself oddly moved by the other man's generosity of spirit.
Bloodshed, between gentlemen, could wipe out all things. When the Marquis offered his hand, he took it.
Only that unspoken compact did not include Valentine's whereabouts.