Chapter Text
It doesn't matter the country or location, for a Naut, life confined to land is like being in another world entirely.
And life here is as different as the sea is from the sky.
Had they been aboard a ship, there would be several key differences in the way the interaction before him would have played out---firstly, De Sardet's book would be gone forever. It wouldn't have bounced once off the road, scattering loose pages to the wind, and then landed forlornly into the dirt with a distant thud. Secondly, De Sardet's immediate and indignant order to "stop the wagon!" would not have stopped a ship, because ships do not simply stop .
Caravan wagons, it turns out, do not simply stop either, they stop with a lurch and a jolt and a general displacement that shifts all the cargo within and does terrible things to Vasco's stomach---but he's not been beaten yet by the lurking threat of landsickness, and though it's a near thing, he manages only to lose his hat and not his lunch.
De Sardet, however, finally loses his temper. He's on his feet and glowering down at Kurt in an instant, blazing with fury and blistering contempt, though Kurt remains seated and outwardly unmoved as Conrad flares at him, "I have heard the word 'savage' thrown around with impunity since our arrival, and yet somehow you seem to be the only person on this island to whom it actually applies!"
"Might be fair," Kurt concedes with infuriating aplomb, tilting the brim of his hat back to look upward, regarding the young legate from beneath half-lidded eyes. "What of it?"
Conrad points imperiously out the back of the wagon, in the direction of his rudely discarded journal, with its spine broken open and its pages fluttering pitifully in the breeze.
"Go. Get. It."
Glaring at Kurt with something that almost approaches loathing, Conrad bites out each word of the command. The muscles of his jaw tic visibly as his teeth clench and his eyes flash.
Kurt just scoffs in answer, unimpressed by the display. "Make me."
This is the sort of pointless exertion of dominance that has no place among the Nauts. It's a broad misconception held by outsiders that a captain rules his crew with an iron fist, swaggering about the deck and bellowing orders. A bad captain might. But a true captain is the loyal servant of every member of his crew, and it's his job to ensure that each and every one of them has what they need to work effectively aboard the ship and home they all share. A true captain's greatest virtue is humility and the second greatest is patience. Neither quality is on display here, and Vasco watches with a sort of horrified fascination.
A long, tense moment stretches out between the pair of them, and if they weren't blocking his only ready egress from the wagon, Vasco would have hopped out to go fetch the book himself, brought it back, and suggested that they all take a little break and perhaps calm down just a touch. If two of his crew were to have such a disagreement, Vasco would have sent them each to opposite ends of the ship to cool off, with instructions to meet back at the mizzenmast once they could both think of something productive to say to each other.
But on land, Vasco isn't a captain. Not in any way that matters.
Conrad, predictably perhaps, breaks first. He looks away from glowering at Kurt to rub at his temple and shake his head. With a muttered curse beneath his breath, an insult about Kurt's parentage ill-befitting a member of the gentry, he turns away and jumps down from the back of the wagon, landing with a puff of dust beneath his bare feet on the dirt road. He walks away with his spine straight and his shoulders unbowed, defiantly retaining an air of dignity that would have been robbed from a lesser man.
Kurt lets him get a few paces away before sitting up and reaching for his sword, the massive zwiehander that had seemed to Vasco as though it must be overkill, with none of the simple professionalism of his own one-handed cutlass, or the restrained but deadly elegance of De Sardet's rapier.
Kurt grabs this as well, and nimbly follows De Sardet down from the back of the caravan.
With his own blade unsheathed and shouldered, Kurt waits until his former student has picked up his book and turned back around, before tossing the rapier onto the ground before him, in unspoken challenge.
De Sardet's eyes flicker to the sword on the ground and then back up to Kurt, and from Vasco's vantage point at the back of the wagon, he watches a faint shadow of dread pass across the young legate's features, though he remains frozen where he stands, making no move towards his weapon.
"Kurt…" he starts, but has nothing to follow it, which matters less than it might otherwise when his expression belies a certain hollow protest and a weary, reluctant fear. This is not the man Vasco had seen on the pier of Serene, facing down a murderous creature five times his size. This is someone else.
"Get your blade up, Greenblood."
This is all Kurt says, but Conrad still makes no overture towards his rapier, even as the zwiehander leaves Kurt's shoulder and he assumes a defensive stance. It strikes Vasco then that what he had naturally assumed was mutual respect between the two of them, despite the difference in their ages, is actually something quite different. No matter how things are done on land, Vasco knows a bully when he sees one, and he's forced to reevaluate his opinion of Kurt as the soldier paces slowly at the back of the cart.
Conrad shakes his head, defiant, but that defiance is undermined by a wavering note of doubt in his voice, when he tries to insist, "I'm not going to do this."
"Then you can walk back to New Serene, the way you wanted to. Maybe then you'll learn why we took the caravan to begin with."
This seems toxic. Vasco considers intervening, but isn't quite sure how. Aboard the Sea-Horse, on the voyage out, he and the other Nauts had had their own fun, watching their three passengers clumsily learning the various customs and cultural quirks and foibles inherent to life at sea---and now Vasco is paying for this in kind, in the way he finds himself completely at a loss as to how he should comport himself in this situation. Perhaps this is normal. Perhaps he's misunderstood the relationship between mentor and mentee, because, for as outraged as Conrad has been, he doesn't seem quite surprised by the way Kurt treats him. As though he might be accustomed to it. Perhaps it's not bullying, exactly, but just the way Kurt passes on the myriad lessons of life.
High points of colour already stand out in bright relief against De Sardet's fair skin, but it's his voice that rings with his justifiable anger. "I'm not a child who needs to be taught your lessons anymore, Kurt!"
Then again, perhaps not.
Kurt laughs aloud at this, dismissive. "No, you're a grown damn man who needs to be taught that he has limits , and if he doesn't learn their boundaries quickly, we'll all suffer for it."
Conrad scowls, but still refuses to pick up his blade. "This is absurd. We haven't time for--"
"All you need to do is get past me," Kurt interrupts, taunting this time. "If you've got that in you--and I'm betting you don't--then you can carry on as you were. Write your fingers down to bone and work til your eyes bleed. But if it's as easy as I think it will be to put you down, Lord De Sardet , then you'll have no choice but to stay down. Pick up your sword."
"I won't."
"So be it." Kurt scoffs again---but then shoulders his sword and turns away, to boost himself back into the caravan wagon and thump a gauntleted fist against the side as he resumes his place aboard, seated and comfortable. "Drive on," he calls to the front of the wagon, and to Vasco's surprise and dismay, the wagon starts moving again with another lurch and a jolt. From the road, De Sardet only watches, his face a grim mask.
Eventually, after a few moments that feel much longer than they are, over a distance that grows with each turn of the caravan wheels, Vasco sees Conrad's shoulders slump slightly as his posture wilts in reluctant surrender. He begins to walk--stopping for only a moment to pick up his rapier--before following barefoot along the rolling carriage track, book in one hand and blade in the other.
From the back of the wagon, his expression equally grim, but somehow satisfied with the current outcome, Kurt watches him.
And Vasco sits where he was, feeling slightly sick for entirely new reasons.