The Duel: A Dowry of Steel

IAM Writing Prompt for November 29, 2023

The end of a great war heralded the return of battered and broken men from the ruined wastes of faraway lands. Maimed in both body and mind, they bore with them twisted scars unimaginable. By boat and train and wagon, they shuffled their glad husks into the peaceful embrace of home.

The idyllic countryside of the rolling pastures and clustered groves of their home gave these shattered souls solace—and they basked their sullen faces in its simplistic radiance. The pungent odor of manure was a welcome aroma—like the sweetness of springtime flowers. The busy drone of insects a lullaby.

For John-Albert Fortescue—the son of a lowly baron—the war had been a time of humility and of hardening. By forging his age upon enlistment, the then youth of fifteen joined the fateful fray two and a half years earlier than most of his contemporaries. For five long years, the boy witnessed horrors wrought by his fellow man, and at times, was a willing participant.

Such were the ugly throes of war.

Through his natural acuity and fortitude, Fortescue took to soldiering like a fish to the depths. Before long, he rose from the muddy trench dwelling of a common privateer to the modest rank of captain by the age of nineteen. Now, as the war had closed the final pages on its last and gruesome chapter, twenty year-old Captain John-Albert Fortescue trudged along familiar dirt roads flanked by teeming summer crops.

Upon his back was a weathered officer’s uniform, trimmed with frayed gilded cords and adorned with jingling medals. Hanging on his left hip was a saber—the blade of which had drunk of the blood of many enemies—as did its dirk cousin that was fastened to his belt on his right-hand side. Held in Fortescue’s gloved hands was a letter, bound in a sealed envelope and addressed to one Oliveya Aldebourne, a childhood playmate only one month his junior.

This was not the first letter he had written to Oliveya. It represented the latest in a great multitude of correspondences, and the first in some time that had not been spattered with dribblings of blood, ink, or mud, only to be discarded and rewritten. Fortescue had been able to pen this most recent note within the safety of a train station using a fountain pen imparted to him by his superior officer as an end-of-the-war parting gift.

Upon the pristine pages he had scratched words laced with silvery, purple poetry, dripping with promises of abiding love and overt hints of marriage. His love for Oliveya had evolved over the years from mere cordial missives to outright tomes heavy-laden with reckless and naked romanticism. The flaxen-haired Oliveya, being the more reserved of the two, kindly accepted his affection without reciprocating in too candid of a manner. Nonetheless, Fortescue aimed to dive headlong into making the woman his wife.

The sky was bright and the air was mild as the veteran captain made his way through the patchwork farmlands, all the while keeping his eager eyes locked upon the Aldebourne manor in the distance. The house was perched atop an earthen mound and surrounded by a natural stone wall crowned with imposing wrought iron spearheads. As Fortescue approached the manor more closely, he spotted a peculiar sight.

Under the shade of a walnut grove nearby the manor, a collection of headstones stood at attention in three rows of five. A groundskeeper was busy at work digging a sixteenth grave. He was halfway finished with this task as Fortescue approached. The laboring man’s clothes were soiled and his brow drenched in sweat. He wiped his face with a rag, planted his spade in the earth like the flag of a conqueror, and climbed out of the half-finished grave to have a break. He sat upon the excavated earth and fanned himself with the rag.

“Goodday, sir,” Fortescue greeted him with a tip of his cap.

The man was startled by the voice of the captain. He shot up and stood at attention as if one of Fortescue’s subordinates.

“Aye, 'tis a beauty, sir,” the groundskeeper agreed. “Seamus Kelly, at’cher service,” he said with a bow.

“Tell me, Mr. Kelly—and forgive me, as it has been many years—but I don’t recall there being any headstones standing here last I visited.”

“And how long has that been, sir?”

“About five years.”

“Many a man can die in the span o' five years, sir.”

“Yes, I’m all too familiar with such a notion…” Fortescue muttered as he scanned the headstones.

Not an Aldebourne was named among them. Each of the headstones belonged to men and their deaths were conspicuously close together by a span of a few years. None had died before the beginning of the war, suggesting that they all passed and were buried when Fortescue was abroad. As he quickly glanced among them, the curious captain found not a single man who had aged older than twenty-seven, the very latest being buried nearly four months prior to that day.

“Has Master Aldebourne graciously donated a plot for the public to bury their dead here? Such an odd thing to see!” Fortescue wondered.

The groundskeeper shuffled his lips nervously.

“You here to visit him, sir?” he asked, gesturing to the envelope in Fortescue’s hands.

“In a manner of speaking,” Fortescue answered pensively. His thoughts remained on the strange cemetery plot. He absentmindedly fingered the edges of the envelope with his gloved fingers. “To be frank, I’m here to see his daughter, Oliveya. I’ve been writing her for ages and I’m eager to finally see her in the flesh once again.”

The groundskeeper’s demeanor suddenly changed. The man seemed to shrink back into himself, as if Fortescue’s words had revealed a virulent pestilence that swirled around the young captain’s body that he wished to escape. He plunged back into the half-dug grave with spade in hand.

“I best be gettin' back to work, sir,” he said hurriedly as he flung scoops of earth with a newfound burst of purpose.

“Good day to you, then,” Fortescue muttered. He did not fully depart before shooting a few more suspicious glances at the bewildering gravestones.

Upon reaching the entrance to the manor, Fortescue grasped the brass ring knocker held in the mouth of a fox and knocked. An elderly man of notably elevated stature promptly answered the door. He wore sharply pressed servant’s garb.

“Good day to you, sir. May I be of assistance?” the servant greeted him.

“Havel! It is I, John-Albert Fortescue. I’m here to call upon Oliveya. May I come in to see her?”

The servant Havel’s fissured face twisted in perplexion as his old, yet piercing eyes scanned Fortescue from head to toe. The boy he knew to be associated with the moniker had changed. The man that stood before him was hardier, grislier, and scarred. Not scarred visibly in a way that the discerning Havel could see with his eyes, but cut deeply in the cavernous places within a man that remain hidden but from God.

“Could it be? The young pup of Baron Fortescue’s line standing before me a man?”

“It is I, Havel,” Fortescue reaffirmed with a grin.

“Please, come in, Master Fortescue. What brings you to the humble Aldebourne abode?”

“Oliveya. I have been writing her all this time,” he said, flashing the letter in Havel’s view.

“I can deliver it to her, if you so desire.”

“No, thank you. I would like to give it to her in person.”

“Oh, I’m afraid that won’t be possible. Madam Oliveya is not seeing visitors. She hasn’t for quite some time,” Havel told him. “Nearly four months, it’s been, since she has accepted any gentlemen callers.”

“Whatever do you mean by gentlemen callers? I’ve been courting her through our correspondences as I’ve been away. We’ve spoken of marriage in our letters,” Fortescue explained. Havel’s revelation about Oliveya confused and alarmed the captain.

“Perhaps you should speak to Master Aldebourne. Shall I inquire of his temperament at this hour?”

“Yes, please do,” Fortescue grumbled.

“As you wish,” Havel bowed and departed.

As Havel went to speak with the master of the house, Fortescue meandered his way to a window that overlooked the back garden. Through a bevy of ivory trellises and manicured shubbery, he spotted the figure of a woman strolling along a paved stone path. She wore a lavender dress and held a lace-trimmed parasol to defend her fair complexion from the rays of the sun. As she slowly paced along the path, her gaze was glued to the ground in front of her as if she were meticulously counting the paving stones as she walked. For what seemed like only a moment, she peered up at the manor.

It was Oliveya.

Fortescue’s heart skipped a beat. He was convinced that their eyes had met. In the fleeting seconds that she had looked up at the manor, Fortescue was bewitched, as if her eyes had enchanted him with an ensnaring hex. The culmination of five years’ anticipation of seeing his beloved Oliveya in the flesh came to a furious boil. Her face was despondent. Lonely. On the border of despair. He wanted to go to her and comfort her. To hold her in his arms and whisper promises of hope and romantic abscondence.

Before he realized what he was doing, Fortescue’s hands grasped the handles of the doors that led to the garden. He watched Oliveya through the window as his heart thrashed about in his chest. Once more her eyes looked up at the manor as she strode. As if a blade had pierced him, a sharp, anxious pain throbbed in his gut. She had looked up at him again. She knew that he was there.

I should go to her. My beloved, she pines for me, as I do for her!

His grip on the handles of the door tightened. Just as he was about to burst recklessly into the garden, a voice broke through the trance.

“Master Fortescue! Master Aldebourne will see you now,” Havel announced.

Fortescue’s hands released the door handles and clarity returned to him. He cleared his throat.

“Yes, Havel. Thank you.”

“This way, young master,” Havel said as he motioned to a mahogany staircase.

The servant brought Fortescue to Aldebourne’s study. The room was dimly lit by a dying fire and some weak sunlight that squeezed through thick, embroidered curtains. Along the flanking walls of the study were stuffed bookshelves and mounted animal heads, and hanging on the wall across from the fireplace were several swords. A haze of pipe smoke hung in the air.

Arthur Aldebourne, the patriarch of the family and master of the Aldebourne estate, sat in the smoky room behind an oaken desk all by his lonesome. He was slumped in a wheelchair and had his back turned to them.

Havel walked over to Aldebourne’s decrepit silhouette, bent over, and whispered something into his master’s ear. The old man waved Havel away with a feeble hand. The servant obeyed, departing to leave Fortescue and Aldebourne in the study alone, and closed the door behind him. A grandfather clock standing in the corner dependably ticked away. For a few moments, Fortescue studied the collection of blades that reflected the tangerine light from the gleaming log in the fireplace. The eclectic gathering of weapons intrigued him. There were rapiers, broadswords, sabers, longswords, even a couple scimitars among them. A flamberge. A claymore. A gladius. A peculiar assortment of armaments. Sixteen in total.

Out of respect, Fortescue didn’t dare speak before the master of the house. He stood in the study, gently clutching the letter to his dear Oliveya.

“What brings you to my home, young Master Fortescue?” Aldebourne suddenly inquired. His voice quaked with the weakness of advanced age.

“Sir, I am here to call upon your daughter, Oliveya. We have been writing one another the entire duration of the war and I have been eager to return to her.”

“Oh? What are your intentions? Am I speaking to yet another suitor?” Aldebourne spoke as if the correspondence between Fortescue and his daughter had been a secret to him until that point.

“Have there been others, sir?”

“Aye. Many. All while you were away.”

Fortescue was stung. Betrayed. All this time had Oliveya been nurturing the advances of other men?

“May I ask, sir, have any of them proposed marriage?”

“Aye,” Aldebourne answered. “The whole lot of them.”

“And has she accepted any of their offers?”

“Indeed she has, lad. Every one of them,” the old man wheezed.

Fortescue felt another stab through his chest as if run through clandestinely from behind.

“My apologies, sir. But did I mishear you? It’s entirely possible, considering the many blasts of cannon fire my ears have endured.”

“I spoke clearly, boy.”

“How could a lady accept the marriage proposals of more than one man? Why would she do this?”

“Do you love her?”

“Sir?”

“My daughter. Do you love her?”

“Yes. I would die for her.”

“Then go to her,” Aldebourne instructed with a wave of his bony hand.

“Havel said she was not accepting visitors,” Fortescue said.

“Nonsense. If you love her, go to her!”

The veteran turned heel, rushed down the stairs, and heedlessly burst through the doors to the garden.

“Oliveya! Oliveya, darling!” he called to her as he ran beneath the canopies of walnut trees and past rows of carefully sculpted rose bushes.

Oliveya had ventured far into the garden, beyond the reaches of the paved stone path that weaved throughout the luxurious hedges and legions of brimming flower beds. She sat upon the crest of a grassy terrace that faced away from the manor. The young madam peered out into the flowing expanse of gentle hills and quilted farmland. She seemed to be a world away. Fortescue spotted the dome of her parasol and called out to her again.

“Oliveya! It is I, John-Albert!”

Despite his powerful voice, she did not flinch. Fortescue stopped just short of where she sat.

“Oliveya, is that you under there?” he asked with a hint of levity in an attempt to break the frigid ice that seemed to encase her.

Slowly, the woman turned her head from behind the parasol to meet him. Her large eyes were slightly sunken and a veil of gloom hung over her face. Tight blonde ringlets flanked her sharp cheekbones and bounced merrily at even the slightest gesture.

“John-Albert,” she calmly answered, “you have returned.” She stumbled erect and Fortescue wasted no time in aiding her.

“Are you well? Havel said you haven’t been seeing visitors lately. Please, God, may you not be ill.”

“I am well,” she sighed. Her voice was exasperated.

“The war is over. For good. I have returned to you just as I said I would in my letters. Here,” he said, handing her the envelope, “the latest. And I hope it to be the last I ever have to write.”

Oliveya took the envelope in her delicate fingers and gingerly splayed open its flaps. Her ample, emerald eyes scanned Fortescue’s poetry, his confession of love, the bearing of his soul that had been penned on the train station stationery. She let out a curt breath.

“An official proposal of marriage,” she said.

“Forgive me for not having a ring. But your father has told me of other suitors. The lot of them thieves, attempting their damndest to steal you from my grasp. Tell me that my proposal is the only one you intend to accept in earnest. You must,” he demanded, clasping his hands around her arms.

Oliveya averted her gaze, staring down at his chest and the myriad of medals that adorned it. She pinched them one by one, lifting them to examine their details and asking him their meaning.

“Valor in the face of overwhelming odds. Exemplary leadership. Weapons mastery. Superb swordsmanship. Self-sacrifice. Victory,” he explained.

“Then you have truly proven yourself a worthy man. A born warrior,” she said, looking up at him with her pupils as deep as ceaseless chasms. “I accept. Consider me your betrothed. I am to be yoked to no other.”

Fortescue’s heart leapt joyously within his chest and his lips curled in delight.

“Congratulations to you both!” said a familiar, waning voice from behind them in the garden.

Fortescue whipped around to see Aldebourne’s frail frame mounted upon a creaking wheelchair with Havel behind him to aid his master in locomotion. In Aldebourne’s lap rested a sheathed rapier with a silver hilt and shiny ligament guard.

“Master Aldebourne,” Fortescue greeted him. “Thank you.”

“No, it is I that should thank you, young Fortescue. For a man of such bravery and esteemed accomplishment to take matrimonial interest in my offspring is an honor!”

Aldebourne grasped the armrests of the wheelchair with his weathered claws, hoisting his quaking figure erect. His spine was rounded by years of toil and neglect, his fingers knobby with arthritic knots. He held his sheathed blade at his side. Havel remained steadfast behind him, ever the loyal servant.

“For my daughter’s hand, I shall pay unto you a dowry! If you should accept it and not be crushed by its weight, your wife Oliveya Aldebourne shall be!”

The elderly master proceeded to grasp the hilt of his rapier, and as his gnarled fingers wrapped around the weapon, his youth and all the savagery thereof returned to his decrepit bones. His spine stood straight and ironclad, his crumbling muscles grew taut and stout, and his eyes filled with sanguine ferocity. He unsheathed the argentine blade which sang a tune of keen bloodlust and murderous resolve.

“Master Aldebourne? What is the meaning of this?” Fortescue asked as Havel removed the wheelchair to allow Aldebourne—the frail patriarch seemingly on the precipice of the abyss—to stand alone.

“Many men have come before you, young Fortescue. From across the reaches of the earth they have come for my daughter’s hand, and naught of them have withstood me! For the dowry my name shall pay unto you is not one of goods or wealth, but of cold steel! Should you not stand firm against the fury of my blade, your just rewards will be your death!”

Fortescue was astounded. Not any amount of blood, death, grief, nor tragedy that befell him during his five-year campaign could have prepared him for such a dire situation.

“My darling, what in the devil—?”

“It is best not to avert your eyes from him!” Oliveya warned.

Fortescue managed to turn his head back to Aldebourne just in time to dodge a piercing thrust aimed straight for his heart. The edge of the singing blade grazed his arm and tore his uniform. He had no time to reason with his father-in-law to-be, as he was forced to scramble out of the way of another pair of furious swipes. Fortescue drew his sword, albeit reluctantly, as he did not wish to slay the father of his bride. But the crazed, ivory-haired swordsman was unrelenting.

The young veteran was at a slight disadvantage. The rapier, while mainly a thrusting weapon with a flimsy blade, was fashioned with an edge about six inches greater in length than his saber, a curved weapon suited primarily for slashing and not as well for thrusting. This truth, coupled with Aldebourne, who with his hunched back now straightened by some ethereal essence of warrior strength, and thus possessing greater stature than Fortescue, compounded this disfavor. Luckily, Fortescue was equipped with a thrusting weapon of his own. The foot-long dirk, while assuredly an odd weapon to be paired with a saber, provided the medal-bedecked captain another vector of attack should he be able to close the gap between he and the deranged elder. Fortescue thought swiftly. Honed by years of training and grueling combat, his wit and cunning bore unto him a strategy that greatly improved his chances of victory.

Parrying the incessant stings of Aldebourne’s furious strikes proved challenging. He beat the rapid stabs of the rapier away with quick and precise downright blows, but there was little window to be had for any riposte. Aldebourne’s flurry mired Fortescue in a cycle of defensive swipes followed by retreats, yet his poise remained solid. The heftier blade of the saber aided the veteran in pushing away the slenderer rapier with ease, yet despite this impressive defense, Aldebourne was not dissuaded. The clash of the clamoring blades echoed throughout the garden, rivaled only by the harsh grunts and harrowing battlecries of the embroiled duelists.

“Is this what I have to expect from my new son?! Retreat, retreat, retreat! Am I to believe that our countrymen were declared the victors of this latest terrible war? Ha! Led by men that do nothing but move backwards!”

The war had developed Fortescue into an adept tactician. But this skill had been honed leading companies of men, not at dueling. He could only defend against Aldebourne’s flurry of attacks for so long before he would make a mistake, whether that be through fatigue or simple carelessness. The veteran came to the realization that he would need to end this fight soon or his death would be assured. Many times he had faced his own mortality, knee-deep in trenches filled with muck and blood and wailing, writhing men. He had survived hell. But Aldebourne was tireless. Resolute. Seemingly unstoppable.

“What gives you the right to marry my precious Oliveya? My daughter is a delicate flower, a rare gem, a perfectly rounded pearl without blemish! You swine! You devil! Have at thee, weak and spineless bastard!”

Fortescue had no retort. The entirety of his mental and physical fortitude was being poured into his bladework. Yet, it was clear to him that it was not his skill that had carried him thus far, but instead his tenacious grit and the luck of a soldier—the divine providence given unto every man not destined to die in the blazes of glory and battle.

But, luck would not bear him any longer.

Fortescue missed a crucial parry and was stung through the ribs and into his left lung. He let out a brief cry as Aldebourne quickly withdrew the weapon now painted with bright red blood. Fortescue dropped to a knee and leaned on his sword like a crutch, planting its tip in the earth. Aldebourne rested on his laurels. It was only during this respite that Fortescue realized the extent of his own injuries. He hadn’t blocked as many of Aldebourne’s strikes as he had previously believed, and was bleeding from various flesh wounds scattered throughout his limbs and body. He had dropped the dirk some time ago and could no longer close the fingers of his left hand.

He peered up at the silhouetted Aldebourne who eclipsed the early afternoon sun. As Fortescue wheezed laborious and painful breaths, a slight breeze clipped through the wisps of thinning white hair atop Aldebourne’s sweaty, glittering scalp. In a final, vain effort, Fortescue slashed at his foe with an unbalanced swipe, but he was rebuffed. The rapier parried the saber with ease, knocking the curved blade from Fortescue’s hand. The weapon sang a dirge of defeat as it tumbled hilt over tip, coming to an unceremonious rest in the grass.

The veteran had been defeated. Aldebourne placed the tip the rapier beneath Fortescue’s chin and lifted his head to face him.

“I expected more from you, John-Albert. Such a decorated and accomplished warrior was to be my son? To take my daughter’s hand and give me grandchildren? To hear of your proposal to my dear Oliveya, I was overjoyed. But,” Aldebourne said as he shook his head in regret and disappointment, “you have just spat in my face. What a half-spirited endeavor you displayed here in my garden! I cannot in good conscience allow you to marry my daughter. But, I shall allow you a moment to make your peace with God before I send you to meet him.”

Fortescue remained stoic, spoke no words, but instead coughed a spew of blood.

“Very well, then. I will pray for your soul,” said Aldebourne as he positioned the tip of the rapier above Fortescue’s heart. “I promise to make it swift.”

Just as Aldebourne reared back to deliver one final, fatal thrust, he was interrupted.

“Stop! Father, I beg you. I love him!” Oliveya shouted with tremulous voice. Her face was stained with streaking tears.

“Love him? Just as you did the others, I presume?”

Oliveya hung her head in shame.

“As I thought. It makes me glad that your mother is no longer here to see how fickle and shameless a guttersnipe her daughter has become in womanhood.”

Fortescue suffered great umbrage at these terrible words. What evil was rooted in the heart of a man who could speak such hatred about his beloved Oliveya? For five, long years the veteran had trudged through the fires of hell, boots caked in filth and blood and despair to emerge victorious at the end of it all. And through its entirety, he thought of Oliveya. He would not lose. He could not lose. For he would not only lose his own life, but his life with Oliveya.

Yet, in what was all but assuredly his final hour, Fortescue faced death once again. It was in this moment that the end lingered closer than ever before.

“May God have mercy on your soul,” said Aldebourne as he positioned himself for the killing blow.

Fortescue stared his opponent in the eyes, waiting for just the right moment. As the wrinkles on Aldebourne’s eyes twitched with murderous intent, the veteran knocked the rapier aside with his limp and bleeding arm and lunged at Aldebourne. The veteran plunged the sharp brass nib of his fountain pen deep into his opponent’s throat. Aldebourne sputtered, stumbled, and fell to the ground.

“Father!” Oliveya exclaimed. She ran to Aldebourne dove to the ground at his side.

Fortescue looked upon Aldebourne and Oliveya who wept over him. The veteran captain wheezed, coughed up blood, and collapsed into darkness.

Weeks later, John-Albert Fortescue stood at the altar with a priest by his side. His mother and father—the baron and baroness—watched their son the war hero proudly from the pews. Fortescue beamed as his elegant bride strode down the aisle, her arm entwined with Havel’s, who was the only man left alive whom Oliveya entrusted with giving her away. They wed, amidst family, adoring friends, and a vortex of emotions.

The wedding reception took place at the Aldebourne manor. As his guests drank and made merry, Fortescue sat at Aldebourne’s oaken desk and gazed upon the weapons hanging on the wall. Alight with the fire’s flickering glow, the gleaming blades seemed to dance. Collected there were rapiers, broadswords, sabers, longswords, and scimitars. A flamberge. A claymore. A gladius. And at the end, still painted with the rust of Fortescue’s blood, a shining slender blade forged with a ligament guard. He removed the sword from its mount and clothed it in its sheath.

With sword in hand, Fortescue made his way downstairs to the front door. Before he could make his escape, he was met with a servant carrying a platter of champagne. He graciously took a glass and again proceeded to leave, but was called to by Oliveya.

“John-Albert, darling! Where are you going? The guests want to hear of your riveting exploits during the war!”

“Yes, dear, I’ll be there in a few moments. But forgive me, I must do something first.”

In the afternoon heat, John-Albert took shelter beneath the shade of the walnut grove nearby the manor. As he stood before a grave, he raised his champagne glass aloft.

“Cheers to you, old man. Your grave shall be the last of its kind, for now I am the master of your house.”

Fortescue sipped the champagne and placed the glass to rest on the arm of the seventeenth grave—a crucifix-shaped headstone. In the cleft of the opposite arm of the marker he leaned the bloodstained sword.

“Peace be with you,” Fortescue said before departing back to the manor.

Upon the headstone was etched the name Arthur Aldebourne, laid to rest among the men to whom he had paid a dowry of savagery and steel.