Vincent cast a glance at Rafel, then addressed Gerk. “You trust him with your life, of course. But do you trust him with
all matters of state?”
“I don’t trust anyone with all matters of state,” Gerk replied calmly. “But he comes close enough.”
“I won’t share your secrets, Mr Waldgrave,” Rafel added.
Vincent nodded, satisfied. “And this room is secure from listening ears?”
“Just about,” Gerk replied.
Vincent relaxed, and smiled. “Then I may speak freely, for the first time in a while.”
“If you remember nothing else about me, know that I am a family man, and a patriot. That just about sums up my life. I did Arts at university – History, Politics and Economics – and as soon as I graduated, I started working for NISB. I was eager to serve my country and this seemed the best way to do it. I think I was pretty good at it, by the end. I certainly got around a lot in my time. Chasing bounty hunters in Amokolia, breaking a smuggling ring in Batavia, stealing military designs from New Britannia, investigating the Katarian Empire, not to mention my work in Lovely – I’d swear I was in their ministerial offices more often than their own King! Dangerous, but I was serving my country, and that’s what I wanted to do. And then I met Clara.
I’d broken into Montag Industries and taken some samples – NISB were hoping to deal with the Montag Virus – but Novatainia lacked the genetics capability. So I was instructed to take the samples to the University of Toketi genetics department. They’d just got a new head of department – the young and beautiful Clara Hopkins. She had a brilliant intellect and extensive knowledge – we could hold an intelligent conversation on everything from third century Matbaaic history to the latest in genetic modifications. But what really got me was how loving and caring she was – even to the cleaning staff. Well, one thing led to another, and we got married. We were both keen to have kids, and we knew NISB wasn’t a career conducive to family life, so I left and became a forensics officer.
That lasted a while, during which our first two children were born – Joanne and Deborah. But before Deborah was three months old, a pirate ring I’d been investigating did a sail-by-looting of our house. Clara put her foot down, and I’ll admit it scared me too. I loved my children, and I didn’t want them to be hurt by what I did. So I got a desk job in an insurance firm instead. I worked there for a decade, during which time my son, Samuel was born. It was a peaceful decade, under Andreas the Wise as King, and Novatainia a province of the Gralan Empire. But then Andreas left, and the demons came. And I was on holiday.
Well – you know what I did at St Nova
that day, so no need to go over that again. But that made me realise we weren’t as safe as I’d thought. So I
put my name forward to be Lord General. I had given up on that sort of work to keep my family safe – but I realised then that unless our nation was in good hands, nobody’s family would be safe. You might remember that sort of sentiment from my election speech. But there was ... another reason. One I haven’t told anybody who didn’t already know.”
Waldgrave leaned forward at this point, and began to whisper. Rafel couldn’t hear this bit, nor could Reynardine, but Gerk listened, and smiled as he did.
“You will recall a couple years ago that Andreas the Wise, one of Gralus’ staunchest defenders, disappeared into the blue almost without warning. However guilt ridden it was, didn’t it strike you as a little odd that he would not set things up to protect his beloved country while he was gone? Well, he did.
I knew Andreas from my NISB days, as he was Foreign Minister for much of that time. He came to respect me as an man of honour and wit. I wasn’t the only one. He got together seven people before he left, and gave us each tasks for the ongoing defence of Gralus and the world. Mine was to ensure that the non-magical strength of Gralus was maintained – that militarily we could defend ourselves, and diplomatically we were not unpopular. I nodded and said yes at the time, but I was doing it to keep an old friend’s conscience happy. I didn’t think it necessary – I was still in insurance. And so I ignored it for a while – ran from it, you could almost say – but then Al’Magroth came, then the demons burned St Nova’s, and I could run from it no more. And so here I am, Lord General of Gralus.”
Waldgrave leaned back and began to speak normally again. “Well, you have my bio now. There isn’t much more to say. I love my family and I love my country, and I do what I must to keep them both safe. That includes not working too late at the office too often, no matter how bad a crisis we’re in – I knew this was a job I could easily get caught up in, so I make myself come home and remember what I’m doing it for. Who I’m doing it for. My secretary still says I take my work too seriously – I guess I do present a fairly serious face in public. I don’t have as much time for humour as I would like, but when I do, I tend towards dry wit – like that Lovely sitcom, ‘Yes Minister’. My deepest fear is that someone will do something horrible to my family because of my job; and if that happens I doubt that I will be able to restrain my response. I cry when I see a good nation going to waste or held to ransom by arrogance and pride; and I cry when I see my children in pain. Which brings me to what I can ask of you.”
Waldgrave paused, and this time it was the others who leaned forward. “What I would really like, Gerk, is to know my family is safe, no matter where my job takes me. I can have military men defend them no trouble, but I cannot command an Archmage to defend them; and my wife would refuse to have big obvious magical defences installed in the house because she would say that would mean I was working too hard, and besides, obvious defences would just make my house a magical target. If there is some way you can keep them safe, particularly from magic, in a way that doesn’t have an aura visible from a mile away – that I would be very thankful for. If not, anything to keep them safer would be nice.”
He finished, and waited for Gerk’s response.
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