Worry About Me
How did the King of Attolia steal the Mede Ambassador's statuette?
~:~
A night of pleasure, then finally, sleep. Ansel stirred drowsily, and stretched himself out between the rumpled linen sheets, a comfortable stretch, down into his very toes. It was still dark. No glimmer of morning tinted the blackness beyond the open window, no noise stirred in the room. Was it the beautiful creature lying in the other half of the bed who had woken him? Wanting, perhaps, to continu-
"Your wife didn't come with you."
The breath of the whisper was warm on Ansel's ear. The words were a blast of icy terror, cold as the knife blade that slipped onto his neck before he had time to do more than freeze in shock.
"Don't do this again," said the whispering darkness.
"I-I-" Was the knife blade really pressing as hard as it felt, that the words could not come? "I – won't-" Ansel panted.
"I do have a responsibility for what happens in my palace," the whisper continued. "Your wife will be furious-"
His wife! Ansel's heart skipped a beat at the thought.
"And her family-"
His heart stopped altogether.
How did the King of Attolia know that his wife's family were far more important than a mere secretary, even a secretary to an Ambassador, should ever normally have married into? His wife was almost everything a Mede woman should, ideally, not be: large, loud voiced, strident of opinion. Even as the eldest daughter of a wealthy and influential family, she had remained the unmarried embarrassment – until a young scribe by the name of Ansel had paid court to her.
It had worked well, just as he had figured at the time. Her family had, in their relief, asked very few questions. They had, on the contrary, stirred heaven and earth and half of Ianna Ir to get their eldest daughter's husband a suitable post and income as a private free secretary. It had not been possible to go too high – the upper ranks of the Mede court preferred slave secretaries as being more safely disposable – but secretary to Ambassador Melheret was not a post to be sniffed at.
But if they heard...
Disgrace, divorce, destitution danced before Ansel's eyes in the blackness.
"You mightn't live to have to worry much?" said the whisper in his ear.
Was that the breath of a chuckle with it?
Ansel gasped for more air under the pressing terror on his throat. "Your – your Majesty – I – I beg you-"
"Or you might live to tell me something..."
"The statuette!" Ansel gasped, clutching at this gleam of hope. The King of Attolia had been so – interested – in that! "It is in the engraved wood box, within the tapestry chest in the reception room!"
Ambassador Melheret had put it there himself, in an effort to keep it safe. But surely, surely, if it went missing, he would blame the king; he would not suspect Ansel-
"It is locked!" he added desperately. "But the spare key is on the key chain on my desk-"
This time the king did chuckle. "I knew that," he said. "No, no, Ansel. I merely wondered if – after your expensive evening – if you would like a little more money?"