The Mephit's Tales

“You’re worried, Sasha.”

Sasha Devar blinked down at the woman under his hands. She had her chin on her arms and her eyes closed; until that moment, there’d been little indication that she was paying him much mind beyond the massage he was giving her. Which he did not permit himself to interrupt for more than an instant; hands still at work, he responded with a noncommittal, “Pardon, ma’am?” He was being paid, and paid well, to make her comfortable. Among other things which would come later, of course – the lapis lazuli twinkling on the rim of his right ear, in its silver setting, was not an idle decoration – but in any event, his worries weren’t on the agenda, and he thought he’d been keeping them at bay…

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Putting on the Duke’s green and brown had been the proudest moment in Misha Dantrig’s so-far-short life. Not even when he’d made lieutenant a few weeks back had it compared – and he’d been ecstatic to have those stripes sewn onto his cloak and his jerkin. He’d been promoted for doing his job and using his head, so it wasn’t that he wasn’t proud of his progress – and he was only nineteen, young to have an officer’s stripes. But entering the service of Duke Wafret had been entirely his choice, a decision that set himself apart. A defining moment of his life.

Being told to leave the green and brown behind, to dress like a tradesman in plain, unremarkable clothes and keep his hood over his face, to leave his sword on the rack and keep his pistol out of sight – those were things that didn’t sit well with him. It was like the Duke’s livery had suddenly become something to be ashamed of.

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CHAPTER THIRTY

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I’d not been on the palace grounds since before the coronation; Rebecca had sought me out through the winter, but always our liaisons had taken place in my own quarters, be it on the bed, in the bath, or, one memorable evening in the new year, up against the oak tree in the back yard.

Now, though, spring was in the air, the namesake vines of Yellow Rose House were showing green on their trellises, and the city was abuzz with celebration. There’d not been a royal wedding in twenty years, and then-Princess Meribeth had not yet been a reigning Queen; the festivities surrounding the wedding of Queen Rebecca IV to her young and heroic Prince Consort, Travis Baker, seemed to take all the fervour that the city hadn’t had a chance to indulge at her winter coronation and make up for it fivefold.

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TWENTY-NINE

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My new quarters, named the Yellow Rose House at some point in the past though it showed no sign of the flowers in winter, were everything Ophelia had mentioned, and more.

The house was a street away from Blue Ribbon House, and that put it on a markedly finer street. Outwardly, it was a modest but well-built little home, crouching among its quite similar fellows; a small family of reasonable means might live here.

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TWENTY-EIGHT

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The lack of a room for the night did somewhat disrupt our plans to tend to Rebecca then and there; she assured me, though, that she was not so far along that she could not wait another day if need be, although she would need to avoid the rites and ceremonies and preparations for more of the same – “It wasn’t for my sake alone that I needed to get away from all of that,” she confided with a grin.

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TWENTY-SEVEN

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Even the most hurried of coronations, I soon learnt, took time to arrange. Invitations had to be sent; people needed to be contacted; ceremonies needed to be rehearsed. Rebecca was promptly drawn into the midst of this – few doubted her claim to begin with, and the High Court approved it in a rare unanimous decision. The Duke of Wafret, distancing himself from the heinous deeds of his traitorous guard captain, became one of Rebecca’s staunchest supporters in the House of Lords; as the evidence of just how many people Trellig had tainted came to light, the sheer scope of her plans made clear that even those who had been implicated in the past had nothing of substance to do so now.

Aside from a brief consultation with the Court’s telepath, an aging woman named Alisande, I was spared the bulk of this, which was as well; I had my own difficulties to deal with, and most of them centred around that final skirmish, and the horrible realization I’d been faced with in the wake of it.

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TWENTY-SIX

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It was not a particularly dignified position in which I found myself; propped up against Travis’s side, with Rebecca in front of us both, in heated argument with the Duchess of Dentry. Or rather, attempting to argue with the Duchess, who was rather monopolizing the conversation, bemoaning the state of affairs that had led to this recent marriage, to her losing control and credibility in the eyes of the populous.

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TWENTY-FIVE

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I don’t believe that I ever quite lost my senses entirely. I was aware of little that was definite, but I could hear vague, indecipherable sounds all around me, and I was aware of motion.

Presently, I was aware of being wrapped in something, in cloth, and of being carried; I was curled up in someone’s arms, and being carried in that somewhat awkward manner with my head against that someone’s shoulder.

My body felt leaden, and it was an effort to so much as lift my head, but this I managed to do. Opening my eyes left them dazzled by brightness, and it took several breaths for them to adjust and to regain their focus.

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TWENTY-FOUR

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Trellig’s quarters were generously appointed, and came complete with full plumbing, right down to heated water. I was able to bathe in something approaching luxury, complete with a conspicuously-placed scented soap that in no way resembled a scent I’d actually smelt on her person; I could only guess that it was there specifically for her “guests” to make use of, and was thus a scent that pleased her.

It was as I was drying myself afterward that I became aware of some additional time pressure: criers going through the streets, announcing that the Duke was to be wed in the capital within four days’ time. The thought of such haste was impressive; he’d not be riding in any great comfort, to reach the capital in time for that.

But Trellig had also revealed that she’d not be leaving him much time to enjoy his marriage before it was cut short. And that the assassins would somehow implicate his other principal rival, against whom he’d already been stirring up whisperings of misdeeds in the form of her deploying the Army without a Queen’s right.

Either the plan would cement Wafret’s hold on the throne, or it would plunge the nation into war. And there I was, stuck in a woman’s bedchamber, waiting for her to come and be pleasured by me, unable to bear any word of all this to anyone who could prevent it from happening.

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TWENTY-THREE

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Any doubts I had as to the nature of this encounter rather vanished when I was half-led, half-shoved into a capacious and well-appointed bedroom. The windows were barred; the single door was heavy and oaken, and bore a similarly heavy steel lock. When Trellig locked the door behind her, she did so with the key; there would be no opening the door without it, either.

“I don’t have much time, pretty, so this will have to be just a taste of what’s to come.” She gripped my shoulder just long enough to shove me toward the bed; and though shorter than I by a head, that was certainly tall for a woman, and she was powerfully-built besides, made all the more imposing by her antique-styled leather jerkin, heavy cavalry boots, and the pistol resting in plain sight at her hip.

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TWENTY-TWO

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I hadn’t quite intended to run into that friendly and generous gate guard, but he encountered me in the market square in the early morning. He wasn’t in uniform, this time, and seemed about as surprised to see me as I was to see him. He took advantage of it, though, saying that since he finally had a day off, would I be willing to earn again what I already had, this time without the need to rush?

I was somewhat hesitant, but here was the man who’d tipped me off about Captain Trellig in the first place; if I was fortunate, perhaps I could get some more information from him still.

Admittedly, I also wanted to enjoy him a little more thoroughly than I’d had a chance to do.

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TWENTY-ONE

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As useful as the knowledge I’d brought back was, even that wasn’t the triumph of the night. As the sun was about to set, Travis, the last of us to report back, bustled into our room all out of breath.

He’d been applying his charm around the more social districts of the city, and had learned that Frederic Darcy, the Duke himself, frequented one particular brothel. His usual woman had confessed that she wasn’t exactly satisfied with him – he paid poorly for a man of such means, it seemed, and there had been some question of his sexual prowess as well. Travis wasn’t sure to what degree she’d be willing to compromise herself – the Duke was a powerful enemy, after all, especially here in his home town – but he had learned roughly when the man tended to visit. And as it would call too much attention to his nighttime activities to show up with a full retinue, he usually came alone.

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TWENTY

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The morning found us refreshed and hopeful, if somewhat daunted. We’d not the slightest idea where to start looking for clues, and now we knew full well that we could ill afford to let the days go by with no progress. Every day, every hour even, brought Vard closer to a brutal civil war, and that was a thing we could ill afford right now – not that there was ever a good time for that sort of carnage, but there were too many enemy nations that would be all too happy to take advantage of our weakness.

We fanned throughout the streets, agreeing to meet back by nightfall, save that any of us might wish to do something that lasted the night and report back in the morning. Though nobody looked my way, I was fairly certain that this was directed mostly toward me, given the nature of my own activities and the manner in which I could interrogate someone thereby.

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NINETEEN

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There was a bit of awkwardness as we made ready to bed down for the night. No matter what I’d said earlier, how aware I’d been of the fact that the tents offered little barrier to what I’d been up to of nights and our occasional jaunts into the heather with someone or other had offered even less privacy, I wasn’t accustomed to being able to see anyone else nearby but the one I was lying with. Nancy hardly seemed less awkward about it all, and that was to be expected; but the others certainly had their share too.

Well, the other women did. Travis actually seemed rather eager, though he was sheepish about that in turn.

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EIGHTEEN

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The walls of Wafret were not so high or so thick as those of Nordport, but they still formed an imposing ring of stone around the city. The gate was suitably large to pass even the largest merchant wagons, and it was tended by a cadre of vigilant guards. Worryingly vigilant, all things considered.

“Just follow my lead,” Nancy murmured to us as we progressed along the queue. “I have a notion, and I think it’ll make our time a bit easier.” She leaned up against me, curling an arm around my waist.

I’d been amazed enough to see how all of them could shift from an upright, mile-eating march to a slouching saunter; it had changed their entire demeanour in ways I couldn’t possibly hope to emulate. Now Travis and Elizabeth leaned up against one another, with Helen coming up against my other side, and we made our way up to the gates as such.

If not for the circumstances being so dire, it would have been rather enjoyable, truly.

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