Queen Ehlana was giving less than half her attention to the steward who was standing in front of her, delivering the household report. She was, once again, wondering when Sparhawk would return, when this heir business would be sorted, and she could stop worrying about assassins around every corner. Well, maybe not stop worrying completely, that wasn't really possible for a Queen. Sparhawk had said that she would be adequately protected, but so far she had not seen any sign of sword nor shield.
She didn't let any of this show on her face, of course – that would have been very rude – and she was listening enough to gather that one of her footmen had been found dead after falling from a wall and a guardsman they thought was involved was missing.
"Please extend my sympathies to the family, and arrange for his pension to be paid. The guardsman is to be located for questioning." She instructed, just as the door opened and a maid bought in a tray of tea.
"Of course, your Majesty" the steward bowed, stepping backwards, having been in her service long enough to recognise a dismissal when she didn't say it.
"Please be careful Your Majesty, the water is quite hot. You may wish to let it cool a little before pouring." The maid spoke softly, laying out the porcelain, knowing the Queen liked to make her own tea. She also withdrew, a guard closing the door behind her, and the Queen was alone in her sitting room.
The Queen valued these moments of solitude. Her days were heavily scheduled and filled with audiences, trade agreements, documents and reports. There was always something demanding her attention or a courtier vying for her favour. Her afternoon tea and quiet contemplations allowed her face her duties with a patience she didn't always feel. Added to this issue with an heir, and the bigger problem they were all trying to avoid and...
Her thoughts were interrupted by the door opening again: without a knock! The guardsman was stepping briskly into the room, closing it again behind him.
"You have no time for tea your Majesty, I need to get you somewhere safer."
"I beg your pardon, how dare you!" She stood, affronted at his behaviour.
"Your husband has been spotted on the road, he's probably only about two hours away now. Duke Gluvir knows this and has stepped up. My fellow door guard had been bribed to leave his post and he tried to get me to leave too, so I suspect that very shortly there will be some very violent men come through that door."
Queen Ehlana felt true fear for the first time since her husband had left: this young man speaking so casually and certainly of someone coming to kill her. Nor was she oblivious to the fact that the man himself was armed, and she was alone.
"If that is the case I should call for my entire guard." And she moved forward to do just that, but the guard blocked her, refusing to move aside.
"Those that are loyal are too far away. We have a minute, maybe less." His tone was calm, yet urgent. Professional, in fact. And his brown eyes strangely trustworthy.
The guard... No, she was no sure this was no guard. The man in the guard's uniform moved into the room, gaze searching the walls.
"The Duke has left it rather late to show his hand," she murmured to herself as she watched and he gave her a sideways look, before turning back to his study of one of the bookcases.
"He made his first move the day your husband left. Your footman did not trip on the battlements in the dark. Your missing guardsman is not missing. I haven't been able to dispose of all the bodies I'm afraid, so there is someone who is going to get a very nasty surprise when they go into the wrong room."
Ehlana couldn't dwell on that horrifying implication too deeply as the man pulled on something at the edge of a shelf, and the bookcase swung outward to reveal a dark and draughty passage.
"If you wouldn't mind." He gestured for the queen to enter and she stepped into the tunnel, stopping at the boundary of the darkness. Behind, the man lit a torch and pulled the bookcase back against the wall, sealing them in.
"What now?" She asked, the sound echoing strangely in the confined space.
"We stay here. With any luck we won't actually have to leave the palace – you just need to be out of harms way for a few hours. " He spoke more softly and his voice didn't carry – he was obviously accustomed to hiding.
And she was accustomed to waiting. Never in a hidden passageway from her own sitting room. Never in the sole company of a mysterious stranger who knew of such passageways when she did not. That was something that she would need to do something about.
The flickering torch light illuminated the man tilting his head, ear pressed to the wall, listening carefully to the room beyond. He raised his finger to his lips in a gesture for silence. She nodded understanding and then heard... something... raised voices, maybe some angry shouting. It quickly died down but the tension in her shoulders remained.
They continued to wait. A breeze down the back of her neck made her wonder about the other end of this tunnel – how long it was, where it might lead, who might be lurking in the dark. Was it pure luck that there was this escape route in her sitting room, or were there more? How extensive was this network and who knew about it? She didn't want to tear the palace apart to make these safe, but it might yet come to it.
The darkness made time seem elastic: an age or a moment could have passed and very little would have felt different. Only the torch still burning gave any meaning to it, and the length it had burnt indicated that maybe she had been standing there for an hour and a half when the man straightened and moved his ear from the door.
"If you will excuse me a moment please your Majesty" he said with impeccable politeness. He pushed slightly on the wall, the bookcase moved and he stepped out. He left the entrance ajar slightly so she could hear the sound of scuffling and some wet noises, before he soon re-entered their hiding place, sheathing a knife.
While grateful her protector had returned her mind dwelt on what could have just happened in the room beyond. Whatever had happened it was over quickly and he wasn't even breathing hard. It bought home how dangerous he was and the Queen began to feel a little less safe with him nearby.
Another stretchy eternity passed in silence and flickering light.
"Your husband has returned, so it is time for me to return you, Your Majesty." He told her at last.
"How can you tell?" She whispered in reply.
"He has a ….. unique tone of voice when he is annoyed." The man smirked, and despite herself the Queen agreeing. Sparhawk was indeed stupendous when angered.
"So in a moment I will open the door for you to complete what you need to and then I will make myself scarce. Your husband knows what he needs to do."
"And then he just pushed you out of a bookcase and walked into the dark bowels of the palace?"
"Well, I wouldn't exactly call it pushed. He was a gentleman throughout. But yes, I came out and he wondered off into the tunnel I assume."
It was several hours later, in another sitting room. The paperwork had been signed, the ceremony completed and now the Queen had a legal heir. There had been a feeling of a disturbed ant hill in the palace ever since: a combination of the Queens sudden disappearance, reappearance, the summoning of witnesses and clerics, and no doubt the scurrying away of anyone with a guilty conscience.
Duke Gluvir had been among the watching nobility, a sour look on his face that was very satisfying.
Refreshments had been bought for the Queen, her husband and his best friend, but only Kalten had taken even a single bite. He was never one to turn down food but there was too much to discuss.
"Would you be able to describe him?" Sparhawk asked, pacing about the room. The immediate danger had passed, they had achieved what they set out to do but he was still worried. This plot by Gluvir might have been a coincidence or it might have been a distraction and he wasn't sure what would be worse.
"Yes, but there was nothing notable about him – no description I could give would help pick him out of a crowd. He was thoroughly ordinary." The Queen calmly stated, perfectly poised despite the day's excitement.
"That's a shame. One of the servants found the room he was talking about by the way. They checked one of the lower basement stores and found a pile of bodies. Eight of them."
"And the one who went off the wall." Kalten interjected. "And the four who were in that other room." There was a reason they were not in the Queen's favourite room, the four corpses bloodying the fine carpet one. The men trying to dismantle the bookcase to get access to the passageway was another. "Did you notice all the kills were clean? Death blows only. None of them had blood on their weapons and some of them weren't even drawn. I think he is as skilled as we were told. He might even have been a Black Brother after all."
"That is behind us now." The Queen moved the conversation on, not wanting to dwell on it. "We need to work out what you are going to do about the next crisis. Oh, don't give me that look Sparhawk. Of course I don't want you to walk into this sort of danger but I am well aware of the stakes here. This is a matter for the Church and that makes it a matter for you. Gather your friends and go do what you have to do."
Sparhawk moved to her side, placing a hand on her shoulder.
"You know you are the most important thing to me, if there was a choice I would always choose you." He told his wife.
"I know, but the world needs saving." She responded.
Sparhawk smiled. "I thought you would say that: the others are already on the way, they should be here in three days."
Two days later Sparhawk once again sat in the not-quite-as-bad-as-it-might-be tavern opposite a smiling man who was this time wearing a rather tasteful blue cravat. It still did not fit in with the environment but at least it didn't burn the eye.
"I take it you are satisfied with my employers work? The Queen is after all, still alive." The Intermediary suggested, toying with a half filled cup of wine.
"I am. And I hope that he will be satisfied with this." Sparhawk returned, placing a large pouch of coins on the table.
Berit picked it up, weighed it in his hand a moment, and then moved it to a pocket inside his cloak. "I'm sure he will be" He reassured with that smile. "If not, he will pay you a visit to discuss your difference of opinion. He never fails to come to a compromise."
Sparhawk considered that, and was not surprised that the master assassin could extract any coin he wanted from an unwilling hand.
"Do you ever worry about carrying such large amounts of money about?" Sparhawk was suddenly worried about this young man on the harsh streets of the city.
"No." He grinned. "I can't remember the last time I was robbed."
"I do have another job." Sparhawk said, looking into his own cup. The wine had turned out to be not bad either.
"Looking for a little revenge? I had a feeling you might be enquiring about the Duke's health." Berit even couldn't or didn't care to hide his relish of the thought to the Assassin going after Gluvir. "You may have to wait a while, there have been quite a few potential clients approach me in the last couple of days. Almost as if most of the competition were mouldering in one of your basements."
"No nothing like that: the Queen is already handling it. She says death would be too easy on him. Besides, if we started issuing death warrants for everyone who wanted to gain a little more power there would be no-one left to rule." Not that Sparhawk hadn't thought about it. He had thought about killing the man himself, but in this case he had to concede to the wishes of both his wife and his Queen. For the sake of his marriage if nothing else.
"Then what?" Berit enquired.
"I have another task, this time for the Church instead of the Kingdom."
"That sounds like it would be completely out of his skill set, he's not much of a spiritual person."
"Perhaps, perhaps not. This goes beyond dukes and thrones and politics into the realm of gods and monsters, but I still need people around me good with a blade. He's proved his capability from what I saw and when I leave Cimmura I'd like him with me." Sparhawk knew it would be a risk, but there was something about the way that the assassin had carried out this unusual task that was unusual in itself.
"With you? Physically going somewhere with you? No. He won't go." Berit was shaking his head emphatically in denial.
"The pay will be high." Sparhawk offered.
"It doesn't matter. He isn't the sort of person who enjoys company. And I'm not sure you would enjoy his company on your journey to... wherever."
"East, we are going east. And I think he will come. I can't tell you any more right now, but pass along that if we fail half the land this side of the mountains is likely to fall into the ocean. I don't think he wants that any more than I do."
Berit was silent, frowning at that imagery. "You're serious aren't you? You want a mysterious and paranoid murderer to accompany you on a mystical quest to save the world."
"It sounds ridiculous when you say it like that." Sparhawk stood up to leave. "We will be leaving at dawn along the east gate road. I hope he joins us. I fear we will need him for what we face."