Author's Infuriating Note: Here you go. The next chapter, with the appearance of a character we already got a glimpse of at the beginning! Bet you never guessed she would come back, did you? No you didn't I know you didn't. I was too much of a genius, wasn't I? Wasn't I? Anyway, REVIEW!

Chapter Nine

Lady Frostrosé

When Arach at last got rid of the sly young Lord, her first will was to go and find Hawkke, and strangle him. But then she thought she would perhaps be more clever if she fled from the hopeless passage she had found, this reckless idea of walking over the wall, go down by a tree and fly as she could. She slipped away from the hall, and slid all her way down the corridor, walking fast and silent like a shadow, next to the wall. She had nearly reached the door when a strong, incredibly powerful hand caught hold of her arm.

Hissing and spitting like an angry cat, Arach tried to free herself, but the man was strong. She finally turned. He was every tall, kind looking, with pale brown eyes and hair, a kind, almost reverent smile toward this furious little kid. He was dressed in brown, with a deep green cloak and hood, and his hands were gloved. She said:

'What do you want? Let me go, you brute!'

'Hush, calm down, m'Lady, 'tis the master that wishes to see you.'

'I am not a bloody damned Lady!' yelled Arach, struggling with all the power of her body, 'I am an assassin and an Alchem—what the bloody hell does he want!'

'He wants thee to meet his guests, fair Lady—'

'Stop calling me a Lady or I'll stick a knife in you stomach and dig maggot holes!' she shouted.

It wouldn't have been easy for her to do so, as he was holding her arm firmly, and he was very strong and massif, but, the poor girl, after all…He dragged her down the corridor, in the Hall, in a corner behind a tall pillar, against which Hawkke was carelessly leaning.

She couldn't believe her eyes. All the time he had leaved her with Drymarchon to their poisonous conversation, he had gone to dress up, and the effect was totally astonishing. He was wearing a rich, deep black velvet shirt over black silk breeches, with black boots of costly, elastic leather, and his hair was combed, even if untied, and his face clean and shaven, pale and slim, fine as the finest ivory carving. He was also wearing a long, very beautiful cloak, tied at his shoulder with a golden brooch with a flying hawk as an emblem. His hands, she noticed, were gloved with silk, and his eyes, golden like the brooch, but more noble, and glittering, were shining very brightly like fires.

When he saw her, he straightened and languidly pulled away from the pillar, then said in wearily commending tones:

'You can leave now, Blackwing, I think you've fought well enough with a wild cat for today. Go and enjoy yourself, for tomorrow we shall have work.'

'Yes, my Lord,' said Blackwing, then he bowed before Arach, who held her tongue, and withdrew.

'You are again in a mess, I can see,' he said, turning back toward her, and starting to rearrange her clothes, as she so much hated he to do.

It wasn't because he was very handsome and well dressed that she had forgotten her project to slit his throat off or strangle him, so she glared at him, while his gloved hands brushed all over her body, her raven hair, her milky face, her shuddering throat, her beating chest, her hips, her skirts…Tying, smoothing, pulling, arranging. When he was finished, he straightened, flicked a strand away from his attractive face and said:

'Here you are. You don't want appear like a hag, do you?'

'Yes I do,' she said sulkily.

'No you don't,' he said, and very quickly, he bent to her, but then seemed to thought better of it and he pulled upright, and with a little glance at her pale thunderous face:

'Ah, behold our first guests.'

And as if handling a mere rag doll, he dragged her to the wide opened doors of the hall, were had appeared three peoples entering the room, with the warm light of the day and the singing of the birds in the trees of the courtyard. One was a tall, dark bearded man, who bowed and kissed Arach's hand with an innate gallantry, then a woman, dark faced, but fair haired, who languidly curtsied and smiled with a kind of eagle-like grace, than a young girl, of the same age as Arach, looking at the same time older in body, yet her clothes were pale pink, and her blond hair was tied in a long plait and she often fluttered her golden eyelashes over her crystalline blue eyes, which inevitably brought upon her Arach's disdainful lofty glare.

'The Lord and Lady Nightflight, and their daughter, the very fair little Lady Butterfly,' said Hawkke, smiling with a predator's grace to his guests, elegantly bowing and kissing hands 'My friends, met the young Arach.'

'Your mistress?' asked kindly Lord Batwings, surveying her with heavy, fatherly grey eyes.

Arach blushed furiously, the dark fuchsia spreading high upon her pale cheeks to her greatest irritation and chagrin, and Hawkke laughed in his golden way:

'Nay, she is mere but…a…friend.'

'I am most certainly not! I am an assass…'

He squeezed her arm so tightly she cried out, but his shining gaze told her to shut up more than his very move, so she did it, and shut her crimson mouth furiously, grudgingly, swallowing her words and her cantankerous face darkened even more.

After they had chat briefly with their host, Batwings and his elegant wife went away to talk to watchful Drymarchon, who had been himself talking with a hunter next to a pillar, and Hawkke started to talk to he simpering Butterfly, who irritated Arach so much that she started to growl like a caged beast, so furiously that Hawkke had to get rid of the young girl, so loud and anguishing was this little savage of an assassin's behaving.

'So, you are jealous of another girl, now,' he said, turning to her and smiling his prettily amused smile.

'One day, I'll break your neck,' she said, and added, 'like a twig,' thinking that it wasn't so bad after all, and she could perhaps try and kill him more painfully, so that he would regret all he had made her endure. Delighted with this new way of diverting herself, she started to think about what she could do to him, from strangling him with his own standard to drowning him in a bucket of water full of soap and dirt. This last thought brought a brilliant smile to her red lips, which Hawkke caught with surprise, as he said.

'I don't think you really want to kill me…Ah, Lord Thornsilver and his three sons: Mint, Leaffe and Bramblesong, I am so pleased to see you, my friends,' he said, as four men entered the room, walking quick, and followed by a little page boy who was holding the older man's cloak in both his arms, staggering after him, unable to quite keep the rhythm and somewhat spoiling the elegance.

They were all four very tall and handsome, all brown haired and blue eyed, all deliciously gallant, and they all kissed Arach's hand, leaving their lips caress her skin even as she glared at them with all the fury from her narrow black eyes.

'You have got rid of Frostrosé, eh, Hawkke?' asked the older of the sons, Bramble, smiling convincingly at Arach, looking pleased and good hearted.

'No, actually…'

'Who's the Frosty-thing?' asked poisonously Arach, turning slightly toward the hunter, shooting thunderbolts in his face.

'You didn't tell her the name of your last mistress?' asked the Lord, whose laughers boomed across the room, making several girl and men raise their head.

'I am not his damned bloody mistress!' half-screamed Arach, clenching her white fists at her side, and gritting her sharp teeth.

'Ah, she's got fire and fury, she is delicious!' said the man, and again, the guests scattered, the Lord and Leaffe to go to talk to the little group formed by the Nightflight and Drymarchon, Bramblesong with the young Butterfly, and Mint left to talk to Hawkke and Arach, who he obviously found fascinating. At last, tired of her glares and the sulky monosyllables answers, the young man went away to talk to Lady Nightflight, replaced by his brother, Leaffe.

Guest arrived and arrived, until the Hall was nearly full to burst, and the loud sound of the chatting and laughing and gossiping was humming in the entire castle. The vegetable-handling girls had gone away and disappeared in the kitchens, and a delicious smell of roasted meat and boiled vegetables and fried onions was ruling in the crowded air, slipping their perfume in each corner and staircases. Hawkke was talking and acting very gracefully, dragging Arach behind him, and she was fuming, because everybody seemed to have arrived, and she could not see the woman that had employed her for the hunter's assassination what seemed so long ago at StonePort. It was enraging her because it was the only thing for which the hunter kept her in his castle and if she couldn't find her here, she really would have nothing more to do, and idleness was certainly her worst enemy. After Hawkke, of course. And Lord Drymarchon. And all the guests in this room, those tall and beautiful lords and ladies. But finally, her forced patience was rewarded.

She came alone, dressed in a silken gown composed with a smooth dark pink bodice, and long trailing pale skirts, with her long blond hair tied in a braid mixed with coils of blue and gold ribbons, and her eyes, so blue, so deeply beautiful, were smiling. She gracefully went toward her host; and smiled, and gave him her lovely hand, which he kissed with more feelings than he could have shown, and usually showed.

'Arach, meet the very fair lady Frostrosé,' he said, turning to the assassin.

'She's the one that's your mistress, then,' said Arach in a crude way, sounding profoundly disgusted and accusing.

'We surely are more than friends, Lady Arach,' said gently Frostrosé.

'I am not a Lady, I a—'

'Ladies, allow me to retire. The domains of femininity are far too unknown to me to accept my joining your delicate conversations. '

Hawkke withdrew, after he had glanced at Frostrosé, a gleaming glance, he placed on her heart and her lips. The blond woman sighed a luxurious sigh, and smiled her lovely pink smile, with her hands caressing the silk sleeves of her elegant dress.

'I didn't know he could just love someone,' said Arach finally, looking after Hawkke, and ceasing to torture the little piece of silk from her own sleeve she had not stopped scratching and breaking all this time.

'Yes. It was a surprise for me too. But do not feel too jealous.'

'I ain't feeling bloody damned jealous!'

'Oh, yes you are. Everyone is. Such a handsome man, so…It would really astonish me that you don't love him.'

'I detest him.'

'I suppose you do.'

The stayed silence for a moment, than Arach said:

'If he loves you so much, why did you want to kill him then?'

'Ah, I expected you would talk about that.'

'Of course, we must talk about that! It is because of that that I am here, prisoner in a chamber in his castle, looking ridiculous in those doll dresses!'

'Yes. But let me first tell you, Assassin, that you certainly do not look like a doll. Your beauty is quite savage, and Hawkke made a piece of art by giving you these garments that make you look even darker and mysteriously attractive. You see, when I saw you in a road, I thought you were totally the kind of person to whom nobody can help to be fond of. And I also saw in your tenebrous eyes so much hate and darkness that I told myself that your heart is empty from love. And I am right. Tell me, assassin, if I give you the double of the money I once proposed you to kill my lover, would you try again and kill him?'

A plan, a superb plan suddenly took shape in Arach's head. She could poison both the hunter and his mistress, demanding each reward at one another for both their murder before their respective death, get her freedom and the two rewards. It would bring her lot of money, and revenge; it was definitely a good plan. And she had everything she needed to do that; the crowded castle, the drinks, the sleeping powder in a pocket in the fold of her velvet skirts, and some weapon not far from her hand. If she had chance, she would even find them in both their bed, poison them with Breathing Poising powder, and...

'Ooh yeah,' she said, the thrill at the idea of murder, poison, money and flight flushing crimson her lips and cheeks, and sparkling in the jet depths of her eyes.

When night fell glorious starry azure outside and that it was time for the long-awaited dinner, Arach slipped in the crowd, and jumped on the place beside Hawkke, in front of the middle of the three long wooden tables which were staggering under the delicious hoards of carefully prepared, richly perfumed meals. He smiled at her, and she just frowned and held her sharp pointed tongue, and with this, the dinner began. The food was excellent, the moral high, everybody seemed to enjoy themselves, and they all ate and drank with great appetite, the men chewing the meat with their powerful jaws and drinking great glasses of wine, the women eating with manners, speaking softly, and stopping every second to wipe their fingers and lips on their pink and white handkerchiefs. Arach, while everybody was chatting and laughing around her, was collapsed on the table, half sleeping, looking around her with narrow eyes and yawning with boredom. She was nearly completely sleeping when she heard Hawkke's voice at her ear, and felt his hand on her arm, so she jerked upright and yawned hard.

'Have a drink with me, my kid,' he said, pouring wine in two glasses, 'I feel lonely, my mistress has a new lover, and my guests are busy with each others; you, with your sharp tong and all your hidden weapons and your pale creamy flesh, you're the only one that's left to me.'

'Don't get stupid ideas, hunter,' she said, but her snappy tone was a bit spoiled by another languishing yawn.

At that moment, a kind of incident burst at the other side of the table, involving the buffoon and a page boy, and the time Hawkke bent over the table, to turn his head away and look, Arach slipped discreetly the white sleeping powder she had kept in her sleeve all the time in his glass, then wiped her hands on her neighbor's handkerchief, took her own glass, and the time he had turned back, already bored with the event, she was sipping with an air of sweet weariness that she hoped would fool him. They both drank, and Arach pulled her half full goblet back on the thick table, for she was not very found of wine anyway, and she found it harsh and disagreeable.

The evening went on rather peacefully, with for only troubles the drunken guests or the sordid fights of the little page boys and the buffoon going on, and the time for night retirement came. The guests slowly retreated to the rooms that had been prepared for them, saluting each other and coming to kiss Arach's hand goodnight, the women discreetly curtseying a goodnight and disappearing behind their husbands or fathers in an overly modest way. And finally even Hawkke went to sleep, not even addressing the collapsed girl on the table, stumbling like a drunk out of the hall, leaving the empty room and Arach dozing on the dirty table behind him.

When she finally realized that everybody had gone sleeping, Arach told herself that she could do nothing else but sleep, because she felt very tired and dazed, and she would be able to make her murder another time, later maybe. She stumbled to her room like the hunter had, opened the door and went in and then closing it with the keys, which she threw on the little table near her bed. Sleepily, she pulled away her skirts, corset and boots, throwing them on the floor, staying just the black chemise that was falling to her knees, leaving her long, white slim legs bare apart from the slipped black stockings, and went to collapse on the bed, and jumped away from it immediately when she saw that Hawkke was thrown all over her pillows, and that he was not sleeping, even if he looked very crushed down.

'What are you doing here?' she asked in one breath, not even thinking of straightening her thighs or lowering her shirt, looking foolishly at him through her black strands.

'Sorry, but I gave my bedrooms to some guests, and yours is the only bed I could find available for my tired body. I couldn't even go in my fair Lady's one.'

'Who said it was available!'

'Me…Remember I'm the master here…'

He yawned and turned his back to her. He was just dressed with his breeches and boots, with his hair wild and uncombed, and his naked back sleek with taut, alluring muscles. She threw herself on him, turning him on his back with the little force she could muster, and shot him a cuff in his exquisite face. He grunted and sat up, and they started to fight, childishly, limply, because both had been drugged by the other. Finally Hawkke collapsed on his stomach, and Arach collapsed on his back, her chest pressed to him, so that he could feel her hard young breasts against his naked back, and her hair tickling him like little feathers in his neck. They both fell asleep heavily, together on that bed, not even conscious enough to insult each other.