Chapter Two

Kels' eyes swept the hall, left to right.  Right to left.  Towards the back.  The couches.  The tables- there!  She found a servant she hadn't questioned yet.  She hopped off the table and strode straight over to the girl.

     "Excuse me," Kel said clearly.  "Servant?"  She didn't turn.  Kel tapped her shoulder.

     The girl whipped around, her chin-height dark hair bounced, and she pressed her broom to her body.  "My lady?"  She squeaked, then suddenly remembered to curtsy.

     Kel watched the girl and her broom stoop awkwardly, and asked.  "Were you one of the servants working at the court party two nights ago?"

     "No, my lady"

     Kel swallowed her disappointment.  She had questioned so many people, mainly servants, about Seaver, and if they had seen him with a girl.  Kel shut her eyes.  "Well, I don't suppose you saw Sir Seaver with a lady at any time that night?"

     "I did, my lady."

     The sigh Kel had been waiting to release stopped in her throat.  Her eyes flew open.  "You did?"  She demanded, gaze intense.

     The servant subtly leaned away from Kel and nodded.

     "When?  Who?  Who was he with?"

     The servant's eyes dodge Kel and locked onto something else.  "Her."  She pointed across the room.

     Kel looked over her shoulder.  "The one in green?"

     The servant nodded.  "Yes, my lady."

     Kel grabbed the servants' shoulders.  "Thank you, thank you so much."  And she marched straight over to the lady in green.  "My lady, may I please steal a moment of your time?"

     The lady in green seemed preoccupied, but when she looked at Kel, her face lit up.  "Lady Knight!  What a pleasant surprise!  I'm flattered that you remembered me."

     Kel frowned.  "Remem- oh!  Ness.  Of course.  How could I forget?"

     "It's Niss, actually-" she seemed to sense something cold in the way that Kel regarded her, and out she blurted, "but don't you worry, it's a common mistake.  In fact...in fact, sometimes...my parents!  My parents will even call me Ness, by mistake...sometimes."  She tried a tentative laugh and twisted a finger through a lock of hair.  "My parents...imagine that."

  Kel's face stayed neutral.  "Oh, oh Niss.  That's right.  Niss.  Well, I don't suppose we could just have a little talk?"  Her eyebrows rose.

     "A talk!  Indeed, it would be splendid."

     Kel dropped on a couch; Niss sat just across from her.  Kel eyed her for a moment, then a strategy formed in her head.  She lounged back, stretched her long legs and smiled at Niss, who stayed upright and tense.  Kel said casually, "There were lots of interesting people at that party."

     " Oh yes, it was so great to see them all."

     Kels' eyes twinkled.  " Do you have an arranged marriage?"

     Niss shook her head.  "No, and I am lucky indeed."  She smiled. 

  Kel chuckled, "Then you must have had your eyes open?  Did you meet anyone interesting?"

     Niss opened her mouth, then lowered her head.  The air about her dropped.  "Sir Seaver.  I was with Seaver for a short time that night.  It is such a tragedy, what happened."

     Kel nodded slowly, thoughtfully.  Naturally the entire court had heard about the death by now, but Kel was certain that Niss here didn't need to get any information from some court gossip.

     "He was a friend of yours, wasn't he?"  Niss had lifted her head back up.  A tear rolled down to the corner of her mouth.  She wiped it off.

     Kel stopped.  Slowly, she said.  "Yes, he was.  And that's what I came to talk about."  This was not going entirely according to plan.  She had imagined a subtle, clever interrogation.  Now it almost felt like Niss was controlling the conversation.

     Niss sucked on her lips.  "You want to know what happened?" she guessed.

     Kel shifted her weight.  "I need to know."

     Niss nodded.  "Well, in all honesty, my lady, nothing happened."

     "Nothing?"  Kel asked dubiously.  "As in what?  Romance?"

     "What else?"  Niss looked a little confused.  "Anyway, I wasn't even really interested in him.  I did go to his room, but I left straight after.  It's complicated."

     This just didn't add up, as far as Kel was concerned.  "I don't understand.  You weren't interested him, so why go to his room?"

     "I, I don't feel comfortable talking about it."

     "Niss, I'm not going to go yelling out your secrets like a child.  This is important.  Seaver was murdered, and I'm going to have to be blunt: you were the last person to be seen with him.  You're a suspect.  The only one we have, in fact.  So if you don't tell me what happened, I'll leave you to some real interrogators."

     Niss looked shocked, then it finally seemed to sink in.  She dropped her head.  "It's the pressure," she said faintly.

     "What?"

     "The pressure!" she yelled, making Kel jump.  All of a sudden Niss was sobbing into her gloves.  "Oh, my lady, you have no idea what it's like!  My parents are always telling me about getting a husband.  They'll be so disappointed in me.  And the other ladies, too: all the ones in my year.  They...they circulated rumours that I..."she breathed in mightily through her nose and leaned over to Kel.  "They started a rumour that I didn't like men.  That I preferred wom-" she burst into tears again.  "That I preferred womeeeeeennn," she wailed the last word loudly.

     Kel looked about; people were staring.  She sat on the edge of the couch to pat Niss on the knee.  "Niss, stop.  Soon the whole kingdom will hear you.  You have to calm yourself down."

     With a great deal of effort, Niss made the sobbing cease.  She left her head in her hands, however, and her shoulders still shook. 

     But Kel still needed a lot more information.  "Niss, is the rumour true?"

     Niss looked up and at Kel with bloodshot eyes.  "Is that even important?  Or do you wish to torment me like everyone else?"

     Kel felt a flicker of impatience.  "I told you already, Niss: this is an important matter.  Not some sort of gossip collection."

     Niss hesitated.  She opened her mouth.  Shut it.  Finally, as quietly as she could, she said, "It is...I mean, I am.  I do...prefer..."

     "So then why did you kiss him?"  Kel interrupted so she could catch Niss by surprise.  And she did.

     Niss stared back dumbfounded.  "How did you know!"

     "He told me."  Kel watched the girls' eyes.  They flashed with what...?  Annoyance?      

  Niss' demeanour, on the other hand, told a different story.  She smiled softly and straightened her back.  "As I said, my lady: it was the pressure.  The pressure to fit in.  The hunger to please my parents."  She shook her head.  "I kissed him because I thought it was the right thing to do.  But by the time he had taken me down to his room, I realised I couldn't just lie to myself."  She shrugged.  "So I left."

     "I see."  Kel said nonchalantly.  "I guess that also means you were the one who gave him this letter."  Kel removed the letter she had found in Seaver's chamber from her bag and handed it, rolled up, to Niss.

     Niss went bright red.  "He even told you about this?  I thought love letters were meant to be private..."

     "Love letter!"  Kel choked back a laugh.  "Niss, please.  Don't play dumb with me."

     Niss frowned.  "What are you talking about?"

     "Perhaps you should refresh your memory."  Kel waved her hand at the letter.

     Niss unrolled it.  "This isn't my letter," she said immediately, then read it.  "My lady!  This is an assassins letter!  But-" she gasped.  "You thought, you thought I did it?  Me?"

     Kel stared back, her expression plain.

     "WHAT!"  Niss screeched, and threw the letter at Kels' feet.  "I don't know whether to be insulted or, or furious.  How dare you begin to presume.  What proof is there?  And I admired you!  And you're accusing me?  Is this your accusation?  This?  A letter and no witnesses?  Well?"

     Kel didn't say a word.

     "Liar!  There's no proof!  Don't you believe me?  I told you the truth: nothing happened.  Nothing!  I went to his room, then left.  Is that so hard to believe?  I didn't even like the man.  Obviously your assassin went in afterwards.  Do I look like a killer?  Me?  I'm seventeen!  I sit and giggle and do tapestries.  I don't kill people I've only just met for no reason.  This is unbelievable!"

     Kel raised an eyebrow.

     "Oh, so you want proof, huh?  Well, I'll give you proof.  Go to his rooms.  I'm sure you'll be quite disappointed to find that there is a love letter there.  I don't know where he put it but believe you me; it's there."  And with a huff and a flutter of her skirts she was gone.

     Kel sighed.

     "Maybe I was wrong in accusing her.  It's not like I had a lot of evidence, anyway.  And her story seemed to fit."  Kel had stopped by Dom's chamber before going to examine Seaver's.

     Dom moved closer.  "Not to mention we actually saw her that night.  She was coming into the hall when we were coming out."

     Kel nodded.  "And if she was telling the truth, then I'd say she had just come back from Seaver's."

     "She didn't seem that murderous to me."

     Kel put her head in her hands.  "Don't tell me I just accused a noble of being an assassin."

     Dom patted her back.  "There, there.  It's not that bad.  What's the worst that could happen?  She could go into a homicidal rampage with her knitting scissors, I suppose.  Or maybe she'd just go blind with fury and try to gnaw your arm off-"

     "And I came here for comfort," Kel grumbled.  She stood up, straightened her shirt and presented herself to Dom.  "Do I look forgivable?"

     Dom grinned and opened his mouth-

     Kel put her hand in his face.  "Actually, I don't think I want to hear it, Domitan."  She turned about and walked to Seaver's room.  She remembered the morning before yesterdays, when she and Dom were half jogging along this same passage, with no idea that everything was about to be flipped upside-down.  That they were going to find their friend lying across his bed, dead.

     Kel felt sick.

     Of all the deaths she had seen...this was different.  This had not been in battle: it had been cold blooded and cruel.  And why?  The motive seemed to be about how he had helped in the invasion of Scanra, where Kel killed Blayce the mage.  Invaders Of Scanra Will Die.  Kel shivered.  Then that also meant Neal, Dom, Merric, Owen, Esmond and whole load of others, and herself, were liable for an assassination.

     'To be assassinated,' Kel thought.  'What a horrible way to go.'

     She stopped in Seaver's doorway.  The cleaners had been; there was no more blood.  The room had already been investigated.  Would the love letter still be in here?  Had it ever even been here at all?  Kel began a half-hearted search.  It felt so wrong to be going through all these things.  His papers, books and clothes hadn't been removed.  Kel guessed that family members were due to pick it all up.  Again, as she rifled through some papers, she felt a stab of guilt.

     "Excuse me.  Keladry of Mindelan, I believe?"

     Kel spun.  There was a young noble lady she hadn't seen before at the door.  Kel straightened her shoulders.  "Yes, that's me."

     The lady came closer.  Her face was frustratingly familiar, but Kel just couldn't say from where she'd seen it before.  "Allow me to introduce myself: I am Assa of Forestends.  And I am a close friend of the girl crying in her room at this very moment because you had the nerve to accuse her of murder."

     Kel blinked, surprised, then she understood and let out a long breath.  "I never accused her.  Not directly.  Let me explain.  My friend was killed two nights ago, and we have no idea who it is.  And now myself and many people that I hold dear are in danger until we can stop this killer.  I was not in any mood to be gentle.  And as far as I knew, she was the killer.  After all, she was the last known person to be seen with Seaver.  And the letter.  She had given him one at the party, then we find an identical parchment in his room, and it's a commission to kill him."

     Assa regarded her.  "Well, if she was the killer as you seem to suspect, then wouldn't it be her job not to be last person seen with him, let alone have any associations with him at all?  And why on earth would she hand over a commission to him at a party?"

     Kel didn't know what to say: the lady had a point.

     "And from the talk I've heard, this Seaver died without much of a fight.  Surely this means the deed was carried out by a professional, to so easily bring down a fully trained, strong young knight."  She smiled bitterly, "And if Niss was this professional, then I strongly doubt she'd have been flouncing around with the man for all to see."

     Kel had to admit, that all made a lot of sense.  She now felt certain that that love letter would be in here, somewhere.  She was also beginning to feel sick again.

     Seeing that look upon Kel's face, Assa sighed.  She put an arm across Kels' shoulders and drew her to the window.  "Forgive me if I sounded harsh, my lady.  But I have to defend my friend.  We've known each other since we were children, we were schooled together, we grew up together and trust me; she would never hurt a fly."  Assa smiled, kindly this time.

     Kel said, "I want to believe you.  Niss is a fine young woman.  But everything points at her, and now her biggest hope is that I find her love letter."

     The lady nodded, and looked sidelong across the room.  "Yes, she told me you'd be looking for- oh!  Would that be it up there?"

     "Where?"

     Assa pointed.  Atop the tall, exquisite cabinet near the door was a rolled up parchment.  Kel had to stand on a stool to reach it.  'No wonder I didn't see it,' she thought.

     Kel jumped down and stood next to Assa as she unrolled it.

     Dearest Seaver, it read.

                                  Watching you ignites a fire of passion within me.  My heart hungers for you.  My fingers long to touch you.  Every second, every step that we are apart makes me ache with longing.

     Kel stopped reading, and just made sure that it was signed by Niss.  "I think I've seen enough," she said.

     Assa eagerly took the letter off Kel, still reading.  "Oh my.  Niss warned me it was bad-" she laughed.  "But I wasn't expecting it to be like this!"

     Kel excused herself.  She had an apology to make.  And after that?  After that she would join her friends, and mourn.  She had pent up her feelings all day.  They needed to be released.

.                   .

Thanks reviewers.  I was enthralled with the responses.  Thankyou.  Hope you enjoyed Chapter 2.

Hannah:  Thanks for the pointers.  *sheepish* I sorta forget what the characters look like, except Kel.  I do have my own mental pictures of Dom, Neal etc but their just based on people I know.

Everyone:  I'm happy you think my story's different.  Thanks for the encouragement.  You ppl rock.  Plus you give better reviews than I.

Stay spiffy.

Liaska