Disclaimer: I don't own Gargoyles.
The voice came from the doorway of her apartments as Finella tested the keenness of the blade. She barely had to prick her finger to draw blood. Good.
"I believe you and I can be of service to each other, my Lady." It was the sorcerer Princess Katharine had brought with her from Wyvern; his footsteps made no sound on the lamb skin rugs.
"Oh?" Finella murmured almost absently, standing, but not turning to look behind. She did not bother to hide the blade grasped in her hands, nor did she make any attempt to mask the emotions on her face.
"Yes." The tall young man moved to stand where she could see him. "But it involves you putting that knife away."
Finella rolled her eyes. "It does not sound as though we reached an accord, sir. Not to me." The Magus was rarely out of Princess Katharine's company; he had not come idly, she knew. Some need drove him, but if this was it… "Please, speak your piece or be gone."
Shadows of early evening fell across the large apartment; the fire in the grate and the torch at the wall flickered and guttered, sending little twisting ghosts of smoke flying across the room.
"I received a reasonable account of how King Kenneth died from Tom," the Magus said slowly, fingering the top of the wooden table Finella had standing in front of; his long fingers came away with dust.
"The lad saw that?!" Finella exclaimed, gasping in horror. For a moment, all thoughts of revenge were lost.
He winced. "Yes. I know that you had no foreknowledge of the regicide of the King, contrary to the popular belief of the court."
That stung. The only thing that hurt more than knowing Constantine had used her feelings for him to plot the death of the king was to know that he was subtly and quickly spreading the rumor that she had in fact been the one to hold the knife. If it kept on in the way Finella suspected it would, it would not be long before she was brought to trial for regicide herself.
Two pairs of blue eyes met each other, equally grim. "I know you wish revenge for the hurt done to yourself, Lady Finella, but I do not think that killing Constantine will solve your problem."
Finella let out a bitter laugh. "Well, here is the pot calling the kettle black! As I saw, you were ready to do the same yourself when Constantine declared his intent to marry Princess Katharine." The Magus's face tightened considerably; she was making him angry, but didn't care.
Finella may have run out of the courtyard, but she had stayed long enough to know that the Magus had had to be physically restrained by the two other members of Katharine's party when Constantine had made that particular announcement. Finella wasn't certain if he would have used magic or simply tried to tear him apart with his bare hands if he had managed to get to Constantine, but it was clear what his ultimate goal would have been. Finella wasn't sure who would have been more likely to die in that encounter: the Magus, or Constantine himself.
As he tried to compose himself enough to make a somewhat collected response, Finella realized that the door to her apartment still hung wide open. She quickly moved to shut the doors, fearing that they may have been overheard.
By the time Finella returned, the Magus seemed ready to speak. "Your intent is to kill Constantine, my Lady." His voice dropped. "I know that. But how do you intend to carry out your plans?"
Finella smirked; only someone whom she was sure wasn't in Constantine's hand would have asked her so directly. "I invited him to the drying house later, to beg his favor. The location and the sheer irony of it proved irresistible to him." Her smirk became an ugly sneer.
And there, in the cool recesses of a mostly abandoned outer building would Constantine meet his fate. For his betrayal of her, for his killing of Kenneth who had been as a father to her throughout the many long and lonely years of her childhood after her father Cuncar of Angus was killed—
—She would never forgive him.
The Magus raised a closed hand to his mouth, giving her a shrewd, penetrating, even slightly mocking look. "I see… With that dirk of yours, I presume?"
Finella fingered the blade almost lovingly. "With what else?" She didn't like the calculating note in his voice.
"Ah, and has it occurred to you what would happen if he was to survive?"
Finella stiffened, taking the moment to brush a strand of long golden hair out of her face.
The Magus took the opportunity to further present his case. "If you stab in the wrong area, the wound will be exceedingly painful, but not mortal. And who is to say Constantine will not be able to raise the alarm before he dies or doesn't? My Lady, if Constantine is to live, he will implicate you."
She laughed hollowly in response; red sunlight flashed on the honed blade of the dirk. "I will not miss my mark, Magus." A bell tolled in the distance.
The Magus stared out of the window. Still studying the towers and parapets of Edinburgh (1) Castle, he began to speak again, with the accented voice of one who had come from much further south. "And if he does die, what then? What do you think will happen to you after Constantine dies?"
It had the distinct air of being a question that Finella should have already known the answer to, but in truth Finella didn't treat it as such. "If he dies," she spoke in the air of one speaking to a child, "it will be over."
"Yes." His voice dripped mockery. "It will be over. Over for you. My Lady, you are already suspected in the death of one king. Even if you were not discovered while committing murder of Constantine, the people would suspect you anyway."
"And what of it?" Finella flared angrily, hands on hips. "He is a monster!" Amazing that I am saying this of a man I thought I loved. "Who would miss him?"
The white-haired man shook his head wearily. "He is a clever monster. He has either imprisoned or eliminated all those he considers to pose a serious threat to him. Whoever succeeds him, Maol Chalvim I suppose, will see you as a convenient scapegoat for both of their deaths. Anyone who might feel inclined to support or protect you is not in a position to do so; your father is dead, is he not?"
Finella bit her lip, her eyes flying to the window, to the sunset-stained chapel where a doleful bell tolled.
"My Lady, if Constantine dies, so do you. I understand—" his voice hit a genuinely sympathetic note; Yes, I imagine he does understand "—truly I do, but killing him is not the answer."
Finella whirled round, turning to meet his eyes as her own half closed in a mixture of rage and anguish. "What would you have me do?!" she cried. "What on earth would you have me do?!"
The Magus moved forward, gripping the back of a chair with one hand. "I need your help, Lady Finella." His face creased in a mixture of extreme anxiety and some strange, yearning hope.
She crossed her arms. "To what end?"
Now a supplicant, his former cool confidence melted away, and Finella saw that he was for all his sharp words and certain demeanor, he was a very young man, a man feeling the savage hold of desperation upon him. "I need to get Princess Katharine, Tom, Mary and the gargoyle eggs away from this place. If you hold to your meeting with Constantine but change your intent, I think you can help me with this."
"Why should I help you?" Finella asked coolly. "What will it profit me?"
Alarm flared in his eyes, and momentarily Finella felt sorry for him, and some shame that she was inflicting these emotions on a man who, though she barely knew (they had a barely passing acquaintance), she had no reason to dislike. Anxiety flavoring his words with fear, he spoke quickly. "Constantine is above all things rapaciously avaricious. What better way to punish him than to take away what it is he wants most?"
Finella smiled knowingly. Which is to say you are fond of her yourself—more than fond, probably—and you will be damned before you see her married off to someone else, especially if she is unwilling. It would be good revenge though; strikingly appropriate, though Finella realized that revenge was probably one of the last things on the Magus's mind.
"Alright. How would I go around aiding you?"
"I have a sleeping draught mixed in with cider that I could give you to give to him. The effects, in great enough quantities, are immediate; he would be unconscious before he finished drinking."
Finella scoffed. "That is all fine and well, Magus, but what will happen to me when he wakes up? You have made it clear that I will fall with Constantine if he dies, but what on God's name makes you think it would go any better for me if I was to follow your course of action?"
He frowned. "Is there nowhere you could go where you would be safe?"
She shook her head vigorously, dying sunlight catching on her hair. "I've no living family; my father's estates in Angus are overrun by Viking raiders. I have been a ward of King Kenneth since I was a girl."
"Well, if you are willing to do this for us then I'll not leave you to become a proverbial sacrificial lamb. I doubt Princess Katharine would object to you joining our party; we will be journeying to the docks tonight."
"The docks!" Finella exclaimed in surprise. "Where on earth do you plan on going?"
He held up a hand as he turned to leave. "Come to Princess Katharine's apartments in an hour. I will give you the sleeping draught and explain everything there. Just," he smiled weakly, "just put the dagger away from you, my Lady. It will not do anything but cause more harm."
Finella smiled slightly, sliding the dirk into her desk as the Magus left.
After tonight, I will not have to live in fear or pain any longer. After tonight, I will be free of him. The bell sounded sweet now, instead of disconsolate.
Free from guilt at last.
1: Kenneth's castle looks nothing like Edinburgh castle in the flashbacks in the "City of Stone" arc, but I couldn't find a name for Kenneth's castle, and I suppose there could have been add-ons and new buildings built between Katharine and Macbeth's times.
I'm only familiar with the cartoons, so I'm not sure if the comics cover this, but, apart from Katharine, the Magus, Mary, Tom and the Gargoyles, everyone in the flashbacks and from the Dark Ages were real people (The stories of Macbeth and Gruoch's villainy was much exaggerated). Finella was a real person too, and her father was really was Cuncar, the Mormaer (Earl or King) of Angus; I don't know if Angus was ever under attack from raiders; I made up that part about her being a ward of the king. She was believed to have been involved in King Kenneth's death in history, and I figured it would just be like Constantine to shift blame from himself to her. In history, Constantine really did become king after Kenneth, but it's not strictly considered usurpation of Maol Chalvim's birthright since the throne of Scotland wasn't hereditary in those days.