*A loud and boisterous laugh fills the hall. Henry is beside himself with amusement at the recent events. He hasn’t had a laugh like that since his days of gallivanting around with the Arcadians.
Finally composing himself (note for any motivation sensing purposes that Henry is being completely sincere during this entire speech):*
My sincerest apologies, Lord Ironhall. It’s just I haven’t seen a show so ridiculous as the one put on by Sir Delacroix here since the days of my youth. See, the reason we were sent here by Shedlund was to inform you, and I quote her exact words, that “When you see the old man tell him that his wife has been recovered safely and that he can expect her to return to him shortly.”
But it’s lies. She intends to go to war with you. She said that war is indeed inevitable because you allowed her sister to fall so easily into the hands of bandits which she said was quite an insult. And upon those words, Sir Delacroix here smirked, as if in agreement and full knowledge of what was going on.
But what the Lady Shedlund didn’t know was that we had managed to get the truth out of Mildred. She begged us not to return her to you, and I was able to leverage that into finding out why.
See, your marriage was a sham. It was a plot hatched by the sisters to get an item of yours that apparently is very powerful. Mildred had searched high and low through your castle and lands for it, and couldn’t find it. Upon her failure, her sister hired some peasants led by a minor noble to use the guise of kidnapping to extract her from your lands and launch a war on you for it. Had my party and I known the depths of this situation, we would have returned Mildred to you rather than her sister. By doing the latter, we may have brought war on your lands, and for that I apologize. On the other hand, had we not done so, you might never have known the depths of Shedlund’s treachery against you.
And you, Delacroix. You accuse us of having no honor!? Amusing. You knew fully well your Lady intended to go to war against Ironhall, yet you come here with us to tell him that everything is fine. How is that honorable? To approach one’s enemy under the guise of peace only to stab him in the back later. It’s obvious you were sent here to both report back on us and to observe the weaknesses of Ironhall’s lands so your lady could best exploit them. What did you really expect we were going to do? Your lady offered us nothing, while all the while dealing dirty with Ironhall, a man who as far as we know was honest with her the whole time, and has a reputation for being fair.
I’ve done some things in my life that many would have considered horrible, and honestly, I can say I don’t regret any of them, because one thing I always did was bargain fair with those who bargained fair themselves. I may not be what many would consider noble, but I never stabbed anyone in the back, in all meanings of that phrase, that didn’t have it coming. I met Mildred and found her to be a stuck-up, overprivileged, self-serving, waste of air. (No offense intended to yourself, Lord Ironhall, I know she is or was your wife, but I’m just giving my opinion of her.) She had no clue how the world worked. I figured her sister might be more reasonable, but found she was really no different, other than much more cunning and worldly-wise. I spent much of my wayward youth amongst people who might knife you just for looking at them funny. But I didn’t really care? And do you know why? Because they never made any pretense otherwise. They never made secret their intentions. You always knew where you stood with them. They always played it straight, something I see little of amongst us nobles. It was a refreshing change from what I saw my father go through and the mantle my oldest brother was going to have to carry on.
So don’t stand there in judgment of me or my party and speak of honor. You came here under the guise of peace as an act of war against Ironhall. Sure, I might be a treacherous dog toward Shedlund, but what does that make her and you, then?