Chapter 11

The next morning, Achmed awoke with a start. Something was happening, he could feel it. Quickly he arose and dressed, waking Rhapsody in the process.

"What is it?" she asked sleepily.

"I don't know," he answered simply, throwing his heavy black cloak on and bringing his veils into place. "Something happened and I need to find out what it is."

Rhapsody too got up and was dressed quickly. As Achmed opened the door to leave, he nearly ran into Grunthor. "Sergeant, what is happening?"

"Oi was jus' on my way to git the two o you. It seems someone has killed Tristan Steward."

Rhapsody gasped, shocked that someone of such importance in the alliance would have been killed at such an important meeting. Achmed merely nodded. He certainly wasn't surprised that the vermin had finally managed to get himself killed, but something didn't feel right about the whole thing.

"Well, we better go down and investigate, maybe the killer left us some clues," the King said.

Rhapsody nodded and threw on her cloak. "This is turning out to be a very nasty moot. My husband dies and now Tristan is killed."

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When the two monarchs arrived at the tent of the Duke, they found things to be much more subdued than they would have expected. "Is everyone still asleep?" Rhapsody asked.

Achmed scowled and looked around. As much as he disliked Tristan, there should be more to-do over his death. As it was, there was no one about outside the tent at all.

"Oi heard o' his death from 'is personal guard. 'Parently, his personal o'sistant gave order as few as possible people are t' know about it." Grunthor said.

"Hmmf, who would have guessed that someone in Tristan's employ would have enough thought to preserve the scene?" Achmed intoned.

"What do you mean?" Rhapsody asked

"Less people milling about and trampling over the place makes things less difficult to read."

Just then, Leah stepped from tent, which was really more like a cloth house than anything. "Thank you for coming so quickly," she said. "I'm Leah; I was Tristan's personal assistant. Please, come this way." She gestured for the three to enter.

"Oi think Oi'll go back ta my rounds. Oi was on my way to check in with the troops and see if they had anything ta report." Grunthor announced.

"Yes, maybe one of the guards saw something like last night," Rhapsody answered.

"Unlikely," said Achmed. "If any had saw anything suspious last night they would have reported it immediately." With that, he turned and entered the tent. Rhapsody followed behind.

She nearly ran into Achmed's back as he had stopped just inside. There was blood everywhere. Tristan's body lay slumped in his chair behind a desk. It looked as though his throat had been slit from behind as he sat.

"Tristan was up late last night, well after I had gone to bed. I woke up this morning to find him like this. I tried not to disturb anything, but I'm afraid that I have stepped in and touched some of the blood," Leah explained as she entered the room behind Rhapsody.

Achmed surveyed the room. Carefully, he made his way to the limp Tristan to examine the slash across his throat. It certainly looked real with all the blood that was seeping around it, but something didn't feel right about it to him.

Rhapsody came up around the other side of him, double checking for a pulse, knowing that with that much blood loss, he was most certainly dead. With a nod, she confirmed this thought to Achmed, who already knew that no blood flowed through Tristan's veins.

But the problem was, even though blood was not flowing, he could still sense blood under the skin. With this much bleed out, he should not be sensing that much blood still in the body. Looking closer at the slash, he wondered if the wound was really as deep as it appeared.

Finally, he decided that he was just being paranoid; there certainly was enough blood evidence all over the room to support this man's murder and death. Of course there was no love lost on behalf of either monarch, but it was still an issue that needed to be resolved.

"I don't know Achmed, this looks like it was probably another assassination. I think that we may have a serious problem."

"It would appear so. But this is the first successful attempt."

"Excuse me," Leah quietly intoned. "But what other assassinations are you talking about?"

Rhapsody and Achmed exchanged a glance and nod before Rhapsody answered, "Both King Achmed and myself have had assassination attempts on our lives in the last few months. It seems that someone wants to remove persons of power in our alliance."

"Oh my. Yes it certainly seems that way. What are we going to do about it?"

Achmed took another close look at the body, trying to discern why it just didn't feel right to him. Finally he straightened and answered simply, "nothing."

Rhapsody looked at him questioningly as did Leah.

"We will wait and see what happens. I will continue to try and discover who the assassin is but it is unlikely that I will be able to do so. It seems whoever this was, was very good at covering their tracks."

"In the mean time, I think it would be best if we keep this quiet for another day if possible. I am not to bring the moot together until tomorrow; at that time, I will announce the death of the Duke and give his elegy. This will clear up any rumors that may start and hopefully I will be able to assure all the people at the same time."

"Good," the King replied. "Now, you have done a good job so far keeping this quiet; see to it that it stays that way." He said to Leah. "I will send a couple of men to clean this up and arrange for the body to be taken care of."

"If you please, I would like to do the preparations myself. He will have a journey back to Bethany where his subjects could pay their respects as well as his wife. I would just ask that your men help move him to his bed for the time being."

Achmed raised an eyebrow at this, but nodded his consent. Then he turned and left the tent, followed closely by Rhapsody.

"Did any of that seem strange to you?' he asked her as soon as they were out of earshot.

"Well other than a high figure on the counsel being murdered, no it seemed rather cut and dry to me."

"Something isn't right here. I could feel blood still in his body and the blood that was outside of it felt deader than he was. As if the blood had been bled out long before he had died."

"Hmm, that is rather odd. Are you sure about that?" She asked.

"No, that is the problem. That is the feeling that I had but I have never experienced this before so I can't say for sure."

"What do you think we should do?"

"As I said, nothing. You go back to Cauldron and send those men that I promised. I'm going to spend the rest of the day observing."

"Observing what?"

"Anything, everything, but probably nothing."

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And so he did. At first he went back into the tent and looked around some more but found nothing of much interest. He noted that there were a few foot prints in the blood, but they belonged to the assistant and were accounted for. Everything seemed to add up and point to an assassination. The culprit snuck up behind the man and slit his throat before Tristan even knew what had happened.

Finally, not finding anything, Achmed left and found a place to simply observe the tent. He could not shake the feeling that something was very wrong about the whole deal. So he sat in the silence in the shadow of an overhang and watched the comings and goings to the tent. Of course, other than his own men, there were none. This also unnerved the King. The assistant never left the tent and no one came in.

This seemed rather odd. Who would voluntarily keep themselves in a stuffy tent with a dead man? And not even his personal guard would enter. Achmed knew that she was more than a personal assistant and that she more than likely had many other men that she also "assisted" in the guard. But she never called another in to keep her company and never left.

Time passed slowly as he camped outside, waiting for something to happen that seemed like it never would.