Jack reached the next floor without the slightest idea of what he should do next - hardly an unfamiliar state of affairs, but not necessarily one that was likely to boost his confidence. He looked up and down the apparently deserted corridor, and wondered what exactly he was supposed to do next. How long did he have before Idira raised the alarm? Probably not all that long. He wandered out of the stairwell and along the corridor a short way, somewhat uninspired. It all seemed rather unlikely to him. Just because Acton appeared to be a traitor was no reason to suppose that he was being traitorous all of the time. It seemed far more likely that he was just not where he was supposed to be. There could be any number of explanations for that. Jack had pulled guard duty himself often enough to know how boring it could be, and how tempting a different view could seem to even the most experienced and conscientious soldier. With this in mind he listened at two or three of the doors that he passed, looked for any signs of a struggle just to be on the safe side, and then dismissed the whole thing as a bad idea and headed for the next floor up. Maybe Acton had come into some money. Maybe he gambled on the quiet. Maybe he was as bent as bent could be, but just wasn't misbehaving at the moment. The bribe might be for something he was supposed to be doing in a week's time, or a month's. It could be payment after the fact, for dirty deeds he had done before Jack had even arrived on the planet. Anything might be the truth.
The next floor was as empty as the one below it, as devoid of any sign of misbehaving castle guards. Jack walked through it all anyway, listening carefully all the while, and wondering when he would hear the approach of Idira and her reinforcements. They would look like fools then, the both of them. It wouldn't help her cause any, and he was sorry for that. There probably really were dissidents and traitors looking to steal away the throne - in his experience, kingdoms were plagued with such things.
It was a boring corridor, he decided. Not that corridors were, on the whole, especially exciting places. This one was bare stone, like the rest of the castle, but there were no pictures to soften it, no rugs to warm it. No windows looked out into the grounds, and the lighting crystals were bare and functional, without decoration. The only change to the monotony of the place came as the corridor reached its end - a huge wooden door, carved with strange symbols, set in a stone arch with carvings of its own. The home of the king's magician no doubt. Jack smiled again at the thought of it. He nearly knocked on the door, before he remembered that he was supposed to be trying to catch a crook at his work. The king's magician would just have to live with the interruption. Still smirking to himself, Jack pushed open the door.
He saw a huge room, clothed in shadow and filled with tables and shelves. The shelves were lined with books, bottles and knickknacks of every description, some covered with cobwebs, others obviously well used. In the middle of it all was a mighty chair - a throne of sorts, with richly embroidered upholstery, and tapestried cushions that emphasised the regal air. There was a man sitting in it, and for a moment Jack assumed that it was the magician. He stepped further into the room, wondering what one said to such a person, when bursting into their quarters unannounced. Only then did he recognise the man. It was Acton, and he was clearly stone dead. Another man lurked in the shadows near to him, busily cleaning the blood from a long, triangular knife that he held in his hands. Jack was halfway to reaching for his gun before he remembered that he no longer had it. He didn't even have Idira's anymore.
"Well don't just stand there. We'll have to move the body." The man lowered the knife, clearly not remotely disconcerted by the arrival of a total stranger just as he was cleaning up after an apparent murder. "Rye sent you, yes?"
"Yeah. Of course." Jack walked on into the room, flaunting all the confidence that he could muster. Well, Idira had told him to find out what was going on. This was as good a way of doing so as any other. He looked over Acton's body with a professional's eye. "We'll have to hurry. There are guards on the way."
"Guards? Coming here?" The man with the knife pulled aside a curtain that had been invisible in the shadows, revealing a narrow window that stretched from ceiling to floor. "What the hell are guards coming here for?"
"Acton. They found out that he'd been paid off." Jack hauled the dead man out of the chair. It served to give him time to think, and to be sure that the unknown knifeman couldn't see his face. He didn't want to be betrayed by his thoughts. If this man was awaiting an emissary from the supposedly traitorous Captain Rye, then who was that emissary really? And where was he? Just as long as he didn't arrive before Idira and her reinforcements.
"Oh." The knifeman seemed unsurprised, and largely uninterested. Stepping past Jack, he heaved open a large trunk, newly revealed by the daylight now coming through the window. "You can put the body in here. Nobody will find it."
"Why did you kill him?" Jack hoped that he sounded nonchalant. His companion didn't seem to mind the question.
"He demanded more money from me, and he became violent. It was hardly planned." He shut the chest lid, sealing Acton into his makeshift tomb. "Though I can't pretend that I'm sorry. Now. Who are you? You don't sound local."
"I'm not." Jack tried to be as businesslike as possible, unsure exactly what part he was playing. "I'm a mercenary. Captain Jack Harkness, at your service."
"A mercenary." For a moment the other man looked less than pleased - then he shrugged and nodded. "I suppose it makes sense. A man with no loyalties. Bought and paid for."
"I'm on your side. That's all that matters." Jack went over to the window. He could see guards below him, heading his way, directed by some as yet unseen commander. Idira, possibly. "What do you want to do now?"
"Leave, I suppose. I don't know whether or not my position is still secure. It all depends on whether anybody works out who must have bribed Acton, and I can't believe that it'll take them long to do that." The knifeman fixed Jack with a particularly piercing gaze. "My name is Leith. I have the dubious honour of being magician to the king."
"So I heard." Jack couldn't fight off a smile. "You do much magic for him?"
"Sadly not, no. It's some sort of traditional position. I'm an advisor of course, but I do have one large piece of magic that I'm planning to perform before very much longer. I'm going to make the king's throne disappear. And his crown, his position, his family. His very kingdom." He smiled, rather disarmingly. "It should be quite a thing to see."
"It'll need more than an Abracadabra, that's for sure." Jack matched the other man's smile. "We'd better be going, if you want to be out of here before those guards get in."
"Yes." For a moment Leith didn't move, and Jack knew all too well that he was being sized up. The king's magician wasn't quite sure whether or not to trust him. Then he nodded shortly, and the moment had passed. The danger had gone for now. "Come on." Leith crossed the room, pulling aside a mighty, shadow-drenched tapestry to reveal a narrow wooden door.
"A secret passage." Jack was delighted. Big stone castles had no business failing to have passages. Passages, hidey-holes, and hidden treasure wherever possible. To his surprise, Leith smiled back at him.
"I was rather pleased with it myself. This castle is five hundred years old now. There was no need for secret passages back then, any more than there is now, for most of the inhabitants. This was always intended to be the magician's residence, though. Possibly the original architect was a romantic. I don't suppose that I shall ever know."
"Cool." Jack couldn't help his natural enthusiasm, and since it didn't seem that Leith was bothered by it, he didn't try. Instead he cheerfully followed the other man through the door, hearing it slide closed behind them. Presumably the tapestry would also fall naturally back into place. The tunnel proved to be lit all along by small lighting crystals high up on the walls, the light falling down onto criss-crossed spiders' webs and the occasional indignant rat. "I don't suppose there's any buried treasure?"
"Sadly no. Or none that I've found. This castle was built to suggest at a bygone age of kings, knights and mediaeval what-have-yous, but the comparisons end there. There are no priest holes, no vaults, no torture chambers. The dungeons are impressive, though, or so I'm told. Thick stone walls and no windows."
"Yeah. I've heard a fair bit about the dungeons too." Jack was not too eager to find out what that particular part of the building looked like. "It's all pretty strange. Or it is to an off-worlder. I guess you're used to all of this."
"Perhaps." Leith shrugged faintly. "Castles and kings, no democratically elected government. I've no wonder that it seems strange to you. When we got our independence from Earth, the settlers of the time must have hoped for a free future. Three thousand years on from then, and in many ways this place is more backward than our forefathers on Earth were centuries before this planet was even discovered. We have technology, we have space travel... and yet we're ruled by a royal family that has had total control for generations. It's time for a change."
"That's why I'm here." Jack was almost beginning to enjoy himself. "Who are you planning to put into power in place of the king?"
"All in good time." Leith slowed to a halt, beside another tall, narrow door. "No offence, Captain Harkness, but you'll have to let me take this at my own speed. And it shouldn't make much difference to you anyway."
"Fair point." Jack waited for the other man to unlock the door, then followed him through it out into green-tinted daylight. They were inside a giant bush, grown up against the castle walls, its size providing a perfect shelter for anybody wishing to use the secret passage. Leith pushed the door shut again, revealing that on the outside it was almost indistinguishable from the grey stone wall. He locked it carefully.
"Take a look. See if there's anybody around." He had a natural authority, or perhaps was just used to his position of power within the castle. Jack didn't mind doing as he was told. He had no desire to push things, and risk his already potentially precarious position. He found his way out through the edge of the bush, and found a wide expanse of garden, deserted save for a few distant figures. One of them was a guard, distinct by his uniform. The others looked like gardeners.
"I think we're okay." Rather dishevelled now, and well decorated with cobwebs and bits of bush - but apparently unobserved, which was the main thing. "Where are we going?"
"To a contact point. A village near the castle where there are a number of people prepared to support us." Apparently realising that he had just pulled ahead, Leith glanced back. "What is it?"
"Minor problem. I sort of... got into some bother with the authorities. Nothing that needs to worry you exactly, but I can't get out of the grounds right now. The guards get annoyed when I try."
"Oh." Leith clearly didn't consider this to be a problem. "I'm not meant to leave the grounds myself. You never know when a king will have need of his magician. Taking on the role is like joining the priesthood." He shrugged. "But who cares? I have a transmat beam, so we can go whenever we like. I couldn't build it in my room, as the castle is shielded against such things. Actually so are the grounds, but it's easier to get around the security out here." He smiled, in a perfectly charming manner. "Want to make a guess where it is?"
"Gardener's shed?" Jack looked around, unable to see anything that even hinted at the presence of a transmat beam. Unless this guy really was a magician, and had hidden one in a rhododendron bush. Leith laughed.
"Not even close. A few months ago there were some repairs made to part of the main wall. I showed an interest in the workings of the security system that's wired into it. A little sleight of hand - I'm not a magician for nothing you know - and my transmat was built into the very security system designed to prevent it." He shrugged. "It's easy, when you know how. It's only basic - one destination, there and back. But it serves its purpose well enough."
"I'm impressed." Quite incapable of resisting the temptation to flirt, Jack smiled. "Do you topple kingdoms for a living, or is this just a hobby?"
"I stand to make a fair profit from all of this, I suppose, but I can't really call it a living. I've not done it before."
"Can I ask why now?" Idira's instructions aside, he actually found that he was interested. Jack had no great political convictions, and no loyalties at all to anybody save himself. To risk death or imprisonment in such a way as this was not something that he could see himself choosing to do.
"You ask a lot of questions for a mercenary." Leith smiled suddenly. "Not that I've met many. Why now? Perhaps because now is the right time to do this. But that's enough for now. I'd just as soon not talk so openly, at least until we're out of the castle grounds." He quickened his pace slightly, leading the way past shrubs and flower gardens, towards the outer wall. "Do you see anybody about?"
"There's nobody in sight now." Jack barely needed to look. He had been fully on the alert throughout their hurried walk, and for now at least they were unobserved. "There's a guard on a patrol back there a way. He'll come into sight again in the next ninety seconds. That enough time?"
"Easily." Leith pulled a hand-held scanner from somewhere about his person, and held it up to the wall. Something peeped gently, but Jack didn't look. He kept watch instead, staring out across the gardens, and looking for some sign of Idira. She would want to know where he was and what he was doing. He ought to leave some kind of message. Nothing obvious presented itself to him. He was still wondering when he felt a familiar buzzing sensation race across his skin, and saw the castle grounds evaporate around him. A second later he was standing in a small room.
"Revolutionary HQ," announced Leith, with a touch of humour in his voice. Jack looked around. What he saw was an ordinary living room, at least to all appearances - a coffee table bearing a vase of flowers; a writing desk adorned with family pictures; a mantelpiece lined with model ships. A girl of about twelve was sitting on a chair, reading a holo-novel and eating sweets. She looked up with such disinterest at the arrival of two men in her house, that Jack could only assume she had long become bored with the procedure. Either that or she didn't know enough about it to care.
"Dad's in the study." Sounding distinctly bored, the girl gestured with one hand towards a door. Leith nodded.
"Thankyou." The girl didn't answer. Whatever her book was about, it was clearly more exciting than the revolutionary escapades of her father, the king's magician, and a complete stranger that as far as she knew could be anyone. Jack, who was beginning to find this whole business of revolutions to be just the kind of thing that he liked, wondered what on Io she was reading. Leaving her to it, he followed Leith across the room, and through the waiting door.
It was a comfortable study - well used, and clearly almost lived in. A scuffed desk, barely visible beneath piles of paper, digital files, and at least half a dozen computers, was the centre-point. Around it, lining the walls, were shelves and shelves of books, various forms of data storage, probably eight or nine further computers and a child's toy soldier. It was standing on the end of a shelf, on a pair of sturdy metal legs, pointing a gigantic laser rifle straight at Jack. Tactical squad officer from Earth, his brain filled in automatically. Thirty-seventh century. The uniform was the wrong shade of grey, though.
"Leith." The voice came from the desk, or seemed to. Moments later a man emerged from underneath it, holding yet another computer, two books and several writing implements. He dumped the lot cheerfully down on top of the muddle already on the desktop, and promptly lost two pens, that dived for cover back underneath the desk. "Hello."
"Charnaby." Leith nodded in polite greeting. "This is the man that Captain Rye has sent us. He's a mercenary from off-world. Jack Harkness, this is Stef Charnaby. He's--"
"The engine guy?" Jack was staring about at all of the clutter with a new eye. "The Charnaby drive system? It revolutionised small-scale space-craft." He shook the man's hand with real enthusiasm. "I knew you were from Arosa, but I never thought... Shouldn't you be living in some big mansion house somewhere?"
"The rich man's life never really appealed to me." Charnaby, a rumpled-looking man of about seventy, with flyaway white curls, smiled bashfully. "And besides, I never really became rich. I sold my designs on to other firms. All those sportsmen, racing across solar systems with my engines... they paid their fees to other people." He frowned suddenly. "Are you a sportsman? Never really cared for sportsmen. Nasty, loud, flashy racers, roaring overhead in the middle of the night when other people are trying to sleep. Showing off all over the place, and colliding in mid-air when you least expect it. And the newspeople always try to make out it's my engines that are at fault. My engines! As if they can stop idiots from doing aerial tricks." He frowned suddenly. "Harkness, you say? Could have sworn that Rye told me the name of the man he was sending, and I don't remember it being Harkness."
"I do use other names." Jack smiled placidly, and was fairly sure that he saw no real suspicion. Certainly Leith didn't seem at all concerned by Charnaby's little announcement. "So... what exactly is it that I can do for you guys? I've only had pretty sketchy information so far. I'm happy to work on a need to know basis, sure, but I'm still going to need to know something."
"Yes. No doubt." Charnaby sighed, then gestured to several of the various chairs scattered about the room. "Sit down then. And try not to squash anything important." Jack sat. So far he was inclined to think that Idira had over-exaggerated the threat of rebellion, when the only rebels he had met were an alleged magician, a rather bemused engineer, and his decidedly bored pre-teen daughter. If it hadn't been for Acton's death back at the castle, he could have written all of this off as little more than empty talk. The transmat beam hinted at something more intricate, but it didn't seem to fit with the image he was seeing now, of Charnaby's chaotic domestic arrangements, in the middle of a supposedly traitorous plot. The engineer leaned on the desk, and failed to notice that a good many pieces of paper were dislodged, and slipped away onto the floor.
"You know that we're ruled by a king here?" he asked. Jack nodded. So did Charnaby.
"Yes, of course you do. Everybody does, I'd imagine. Inefficient form of government, as Leith here pointed out to me. I suspect that he just wanted somebody with some political leverage to stand up and support his cause. I do still have the ear of a few people on a few worlds. Anyway, he persuaded me. Showed me how much better things would be in a Republic. I wouldn't be scraping together a living for my daughter, for one thing, if we were governed differently. So we decided that we needed to get rid of the king, and put somebody else in charge. Your job is to help us do that."
"Sounds straightforward enough. What do you want me to do? Sabotage?"
"Sabotage?" Leith frowned at him, and for a moment Jack thought that he was in trouble. "I can't believe that you were told so little."
"Little? Listen, I haven't seen anybody, or spoken to anybody, since I got to this planet. I've been stuck in Auric Castle with people keeping an eye on me all the time. I never got to meet Captain Rye properly. He told me I was to talk to Acton, and it wasn't me who killed him before he could say anything." He drew in a deep breath, as though reining in his anger. "If anybody has screwed up around here, it hasn't been me."
"No." Leith smiled suddenly, once again the charming man of earlier. "I'm sorry. I hadn't realised that Rye hadn't spoken to you."
"We haven't had a chance to talk since I arrived. He didn't want to say anything on a communications link. You know what it's like inside the castle, with all the security, and it's not like he gets much chance to get out of the grounds. Anyway, you try getting a secure channel anywhere."
"It's alright, I understand." Leith's smile was genuine, or certainly seemed to be. Jack allowed himself to breathe once again. "Look, we'll be here all day waiting for Charnaby's version of events. In a nutshell, we don't want to be a monarchy anymore. We want a president instead of a king, and it's your job to see that nobody else finds out what's going on." He frowned suddenly. "You said that you were a mercenary. You are still a Time Agent?"
"A Time Agent?" For a second Jack blinked at him, before he shook off the moment of confusion, and nodded. "Yes. When I said that I was a mercenary, I meant that I take commissions on the side. The Time Agency doesn't know that I'm involved in this."
"Ah." Leith nodded. " I understand you. We'll talk later about the details, and about the payment that Rye promised you. Before then, our future president ought to meet you. Is she here yet, Charnaby?"
"She's here, hiding in the back, doing her usual paranoid act." Charnaby seemed remarkably disinclined to show any respect for the woman he was planning to help raise to such high office. "She keeps demanding coffee. She must know it doesn't grow on this planet. Nobody outside of the castle can afford to drink the blasted stuff."
"She's here?" A confused house occupied by a confused civilian seemed rather an unlikely place to find the figurehead of a revolution, but Jack's surprise did not last long. This was hardly a conventional revolution. Charnaby beamed at him, his moment of irritation forgotten.
"Oh yes, she's here. We're supposed to be having a meeting later on." He gestured to the back of the study, apparently at a pair of bookcases. "She's in there."
"We'll go on through." Leith stood up, stretching his long legs and smiling his charming smile. The smile seemed brighter and more charming than ever when it alighted upon Jack, and the former Time Agent, interested by everything that he had heard, as well as by Leith's obvious charisma, was happy to see where all of this was going. Without comment he followed the other man through what turned out to be a door, all but hidden by the bookcases. It led to a corridor, that in turn led off into bedrooms and a tidy little kitchen.
"Can I ask a question?" With no idea of how long it would be before they reached their destination, Jack spoke as soon as the door had closed. Leith raised an eyebrow.
"Aren't mercenaries just supposed to take the money and run?"
"Not curious ones, no. This place. Charnaby. None of it really screams 'revolution', does it."
"So what's your question?" Leith still sounded good-natured. Jack wasn't fool enough to think that he would necessarily stay that way.
"A little house. Obvious civilians. You said something about a 'number of people' here being behind you, and I guess two is a number, but are there any more? Or is this just some little operation with big aspirations?"
"By my count that's more than one question." Leith's smile didn't waver, and nor did the tone of his voice suggest at displeasure. If anything he seemed almost amused. "Do you have any more?"
"Yeah, one or two. The great hope for your new leadership is hiding in a back room in some suburban house? And what does any of this have to do with the Time Agency, anyway?"
"Ah, well. That bit we'll come to later." Leith regarded him in silence for a moment, standing still in the middle of the corridor - then he smiled again. "I have my supporters, Jack. I hope that you'll be one of them. Acton, as it turned out, wasn't."
"I don't die easy." Jack smiled his own smile, though it was considerably harder and colder than Leith's. "And it'll take a whole lot more than your knife to send me after that poor guy."
"I would hope so. I don't intend to do business with a mercenary who falls into that simple a trap." For a second Leith's eyes showed indecision, though his smile never wavered for a moment. The smile broadened after that, into an expression of obvious warmth. "I'm going to enjoy finding out if I can trust you. It strikes me that things could go either way. I can't even ask Rye about you, until he can come out this way himself."
"Yeah." This time Jack's smile was warm as well. There was something in Leith's manner that was extremely easy to respond to. "Awkward, isn't it."
"Vexatious." Leith's eyes sparkled. "In answer to one of your questions, yes, our 'great hope' is hiding in a back room here. Apparently she likes it. And in answer to another... no, it's not a big revolutionary movement. I think you'll find out that it doesn't have to be. The king will be removed, his replacement installed, and the people will put up with it. Embrace it or be indifferent, it doesn't matter. They won't stop me."
"You're sure about that? From where I'm standing it doesn't look much like democracy if it has to be forced on people."
"Perhaps." Leith shrugged. "But then I don't care about that. My job is simply to remove the monarchy, and create a republic. After that... well, after that doesn't matter. Stay around for long enough after our work is done, and you can see for yourself." He gestured down the corridor. "Now, if you'd like to follow me?"
"Yeah. Sure." Jack followed his lead, not seeing any sense in refusing. He was supposed to be a mercenary, content to do what he was being paid for. Arguing at any greater length would be foolish. All the same, this all felt odd. Idira had spoken of traitors in the castle and dastardly treacherous plots, as though this were some massive conspiracy to remove the king. In the event it was turning out to be something that was almost comical in its tiny size and haphazard construction. Either there was more than one plot, and he was immersed in one of the more minor ones, or somebody was wrongly estimating the scale of the problem. He only hoped that it was Idira, and not himself. Leith, meanwhile, had reached a door on the left-hand side of the corridor, and gestured at it without ceremony.
"Knock first. She likes that."
"Most people do." Jack knocked hard on the door, happy to be polite, but not at all concerned with maintaining decorum. A voice told him to enter, and with a glance back at Leith he pushed open the door and stepped into the room beyond. It was as unremarkable as the rest of the house - a living room of sorts, much like the one where the girl had been reading a book. Music was coming from some discreet source - a piece from the Jazz revival of the forty-second century, as far as Jack knew. If there was one thing that Earth had proved skilled at, it was spreading its music all over the universe. Timorans from Jack's far future had been known to hum songs by David Bowie, and even Sontarans had reportedly been heard singing Simon and Garfunkel. His always alert eyes took in the worn sofa, coffee table and ill-matching collection of easy chairs, before settling on a woman seated on a hardback chair carefully positioned so that it would not be visible from the room's one, large window. She was about sixty at a guess, hair just turning grey, elegant frame beautifully dressed in something soft, flattering, and perfectly chosen to match the green-blue glint of her eyes. One hand lay on the arm of her chair, and several rings flashed in the glow from the light crystals. Jack had already added up their probable value before the hand moved with its owner, and the woman in the chair smiled a formal greeting.
"Leith." She greeted him with a warmth that might have been real fondness, or might just have been simple courtesy. "And you've brought a guest. Another recruit?"
"Certainly." Leith nodded at Jack. "This is Captain Jack Harkness, possibly of the Time Agency. Jack, this is her Royal Highness, Queen Jena of Auric Castle. Wife of the current king, and chief agent in his intended downfall." This time his smile was a trifle smug. The woman laughed.
"It's all rather dramatic, isn't it. President Jena will do, since that's what I intend to become." Her eyes lingered upon Jack. "Possibly a Time Agent?"
"He hasn't decided yet if he can trust me." Jack smiled at the woman, taking the hand with the glittering rings, and kissing it extravagantly. It was intended to disarm the woman, and get him a better look at the rings, and it achieved both with interest. The queen laughed in ready good humour, and the jewels in the rings told him their most intimate secrets. He could sell them anywhere for a very satisfying sum. "I haven't decided yet whether I trust him, either, so we have to watch each other closely."
"There's a lot to be said for watching somebody closely, Captain Harkness." The queen reclaimed her hand, though not without leaving it in his for a significant period. "And can we trust you?"
"That would be telling." He flashed her one of his most popular smiles, the kind guaranteed to charm almost anything save a Dalek, and was gratified to see the glint of interest in her eyes. Who said queens were distant and aloof? She laughed at him, then looked over to Leith.
"I like this one. I don't like your associates back at the castle. A humourless bunch."
"Yes ma'am." Leith eyed Jack with a look that might have been amusement or annoyance. It was very probably both at once. "The others are necessary I'm afraid. They watch my back at the castle, and help to ensure that you can come and go there as you please. They're a means to an end, and I couldn't take the time to choose them for their sparkle."
"I daresay." She smiled again at Jack. "But this one makes up for it, I think. Tell me, Captain Harkness - what do you think of our plan?"
"I know very little about it." He glanced over at Leith, wondering if now was the time for explanations, but the supposed magician didn't appear to be listening. Small talk clearly bored him. "But a plan to make you the ruler of the country can't be all bad."
"Charmer." She smiled anyway. "And you have no reason to be loyal to the king, I suppose? Where are you from?"
"Here and there." He shrugged. "Nowhere will have me full time. I seem to have a talent for having to leave in great haste."
"Well then try to keep that talent in check whilst you're here. You're not much use to us thrown off the planet."
"I'll do my best." He decided to keep private the fact that he couldn't leave the planet just yet, at least whilst his ship was still impounded in some unknown place. If she didn't already know who he was, she obviously didn't keep a close eye on castle affairs, in which case he wasn't going to enlighten her. It didn't always do a lot for an employer's confidence, to know that their latest recruit was technically still remanded in custody for unspecified crimes. He offered the queen another of his trademark smiles. "From where I'm standing, there's plenty of good reasons to stay around for a while."
"I think I might have room for you in my government, once the revolution is over." She gestured to a chair, indicating that he should sit. "Do you have any special talents that I should know about?"
"I have all kinds of special talents, your highness." He smirked, and she echoed the expression. "I just don't know how many of them I should talk about in polite company."
She laughed at that. "Tell me, Captain Harkness. Might some of those special talents be in the area of confidence trickery!"
"Me?" He grinned. She was no fool, at least. "Don't worry. I only con people who deserve it." He couldn't help thinking that a woman who sought to aid the revolution that would likely see her husband killed, just in order to take his place, might very well be somebody who deserved whatever he did to her. Idira might have a strange devotion to Arosa's antiquated monarchical system of government, but she wasn't the kind to extend that devotion to a tyrant. King Hari was unlikely to be the type to deserve so treacherous a wife. He let his eyes trail across those tempting, gleaming rings, and hid an appreciative smile. He had missed out on conning Toby Mendosa. Maybe he could make up for that by stealing a rebel queen's jewellery collection instead. Leith coughed loudly at this point, and Jack got the distinct impression that the magician had seen the direction of his gaze, and knew exactly what he was planning. He glanced up at the other man, and shot him a challenging grin. Leith, to his pleasant surprise, smiled back.
"Do you require Jack any longer, ma'am?" he asked. The queen glanced over at him, as though she had only just remembered his presence.
"Require him? Certainly I require him, Leith. Do I need him? Strictly speaking, I don't suppose that I do, no. Why? Do you have other plans for him all of a sudden?"
"We have a lot to discuss, ma'am. I can do it here if you'd rather, I suppose, but you might find some of it rather dry and uninteresting. There is a lot that you already know."
"Yes, yes. Quite." She made a bored gesture with one hand. "Certainly. Take him away, and talk about revolutions. Do what you need to do." She reached out suddenly, and Jack picked up on the cue, taking the proffered hand and giving it another kiss. "Return quickly, Captain. I feel sure that there is plenty more that we can discuss."
"I'm sure that you're right, ma'am." He did his best to ensure that his eyes didn't linger for too long on her jewelled fingers. "Until later, then."
"Certainly." She looked away as he left, apparently doing her best to strike an attractive pose. As the door closed, sealing her inside the room, Jack flashed a grin.
"Know what you're doing, don't you. Somebody just vain enough for you to be able to manipulate her where necessary. Enough brains for her to do the job well, but plenty of room for your influence. Clever."
"And plenty of jewels for your sticky fingers." Leith shook his head. "Touch them before I'm done, and I'll bury you, Jack. I won't have my work compromised."
"I don't know what you mean." Grinning just at the thought of the jewels, Jack offered his companion an entirely unconvincing look of total blamelessness. "You said something about there being lots to discuss. Is this where I finally get to find out what's going on?"
"Yes. It's safe to talk here, and now that you've met our future president you might as well know the rest. You can't help us properly unless you know what's going on." Leith gestured down the corridor. "Come on."
"Where are we going?" Jack was happy to follow on behind. Things were quiet here. There were no immediate threats. Leith quite clearly enjoyed his company, and Jack wasn't going to complain about that. The other man indicated another door.
"Outside. I want some fresh air. Take a walk with me, Jack, and I'll tell you what's going on here. It's an interesting project, and I hope you'll think so too. It's certainly stands every chance of making you a very rich man."
"Yeah?" Jack grinned happily at that. "In that case I'm all ears." Money and jewels. Maybe the spying game wasn't so bad after all.