"It is… trying being my husband's wife. His very presence makes my skin crawl. Fortunately, he is more than willing to chase after the maids when I have a headache from spending too long in the same room as him and his constant shouting. I would like to free my daughters from the cruel constraints he has imposed on them, but I fear what he would do to me if I forced him to accept the truth about them. What's worse is that some of them prefer to act like he wants them to! It sickens me – but of course I cannot let my true feelings about him and his actions show. So I smile, mouth my prayers for his good health, and wait for him to run off again on some new quest."
– Francesca Juliet Helen Georgia Phosphene von Zerbst (née l'Ussuria)
…
It was dimly lit in the inner chambers of the van Rien estate, and a few lonely glowstones lit the room in a sinister dim light. Goblets full of red liquid gleamed in the gloom. Hooded figures sat around the circular table, listening to one of their number, who stood with a tome on the table before her.
"The narrative was trite and moralising, the character development was positively negative because the lead female literally lost interesting traits as the story went on, and there was no nuance at all in the narrative arc!" the standing woman proclaimed loudly, jabbing a finger at the book. "I can only conclude that the intended market for this… this pulp is people with the literary grasp of a dead seal!"
"My goodness," another one with a few blonde locks escaping her hood, one hand going to her mouth. "So you wouldn't recommend 'Instructions on the Correct Behaviour For A Goodly Wife, With Manifold Examples Of How Sin Might Be Averted', Magdalene?"
She received a withering stare in response. "No, I wouldn't, Jacqueline," Lady Magdalene van Delft told her fellow sister-in-darkness. "I would say that it is pap, utter pap, and it would be better that every copy be burned than one remain to be read by those who might take its message to heart!" By the end, her face was visibly quite red, despite her long black hooded cloak. "We should work within the shadows to ban it forever, and destroy all copies of the printing plates! That will surely lead to the triumph of Evil forever! And if not that, at least no one else will need to read this pulp!"
"That'd be nice," Comtesse Jacqueline van Rien said placidly. She perked up. "And I think sometimes you prefer finding books you can tear apart, so it's good that you're enjoying yourself. Oh! I forgot! I had the servants make cakes! And I got black goats for Carmine! Is anyone hungry? The Midnight Ritual is soon, and we should all have a proper meal beforehand!" She coughed, maternally, and took off her long black cloak, folding it neatly and hanging it over the back of her high-backed chair. "Now, I'm sorry, but I'm just going to have to check on the children and make sure the maids have put them to bed properly. Jacques makes such a fuss if he isn't tucked in with his woollen lamb, you know. And then we can look towards invoking the third aspect of Femin, if the signs are right."
With their host gone, the cabal of upper-class, well-educated and very bored youngish women-slash-conspirators-slash-cabalites-of-dark-gods got down to their base-state. Namely, gossiping, chatting, and enjoying time away from their husbands and children.
"I really liked your report, Carmine," the conveniently newly-widowed Vicomtesse de Anoun said to Cattleya. "We don't get enough people who like reading philosophy. Magdalene likes her natural philosophy, of course, but it isn't the same."
Cattleya beamed, her half-mask concealing her features. "I liked it too, Maria!" she said happily. "I look forwards to these meetings! It's jolly nice to get together with people, you know!"
Maria grinned back at her. "Oh, I know," she said. "And now my husband is dead – thank you very much for that, by the way – I can host them! He was just dreadful, you know. He was always very… demanding about his husbandly 'rights', but he wouldn't let me have any guests at all. I only got to go to these things because I told him that they were prayer meetings."
Cattleya nodded agreeably. "You didn't lie," she said, the flickering lights lighting her face from below.
"I know, right?" Maria said. She picked up her wine-filled goblet, and sipped it. "He never asked which god I was praying to."
Picking up her goblet, Cattleya swirled it around. Or at least attempted to. The other members of the cult were always very accommodating about her dietary requirements, but the thing that blood sitting on goblets tended to do was congeal. She was vaguely aware that her paternal grandmother once infamously used to bathe in the blood of pretty young women, but – quite apart from the fact that Cattleya could think of much better uses for both the blood and the pretty young women – she really wasn't sure how the blood stayed runny when filling the bath. And it'd go cold, too, and cold blood was nasty.
She did vaguely wonder if the blood of old women could be used to make one look older, and whether Louise would be interested in that, but she caught herself and stopped. That was a naughty thought! She shouldn't be making fun of her little sister like that!
Oh, and she also shouldn't be thinking about filling a bath with the blood of old people. That was also wrong.
"Excuse me!" a voice said from behind her, interrupting the talk. Cattleya recognised the constantly-exasperated tone of Lady Magdalene. "Carmine, I feel we must take the chance to talk."
Cattleya smiled up at the other woman. "Of course, my lady," she said sweetly. All around them, some of the other members of the cult were backing away from the confrontation, trying to look like they weren't involved, or in some cases spontaneously comparing baby pictures.
Magdalene jabbed one finger at her, stepping in closer. Her heels clicked on the marble floor. "This is a non-political group and I won't let you use us in your master's power plays!" she said accusingly. "You're not going to ruin this for us!"
As worshippers of Anark, they were of course devoted to overthrowing the nobility and certainly didn't have leaders themselves because they were all equal. However, Cattleya had noticed that Magdalene seemed to be the most equal of all of them, which sort of made her the leader. Well, it wasn't so much that she was a leader, because she didn't really lead. She mostly organised who'd be hosting the next meeting, and then complained loudly about books and tried to persuade them to work in the shadows to ban things she thought were badly written. And loudly criticised people when she felt they were doing it wrong. Which was quite often.
Honestly, she reminded Catt of her big sister.
"Magdalene," Maria said, plaintively. "Please don't make a fuss."
"I am certainly going to make a fuss!" Magdalene, producing several groans from all around the hall. "Do you want a repeat of what… what that womandid? Utterly shameless!"
"It's not the same," Maria protested. "Carmine is nice! She's not a cold wet fish." She paused. "Well, she's cold, but that's not her fault."
"I warm up when I drink blood," Cattleya said helpfully.
"See! She warms up when she drinks blood," Maria said, crossing her arms and nodding emphatically.
Magdalene glared at the two of them, her eyes narrowed and her mouth a thin line. "That has nothing to do with my objections to politicising our group and you know it, Maria!" she hissed, leaning forwards. Her hood fell forwards over her eyes. She yanked it out of the way. "That's a fallacious argument! We're all equal here, and that means there's no way at all I'm letting you ruin what we have just because you've been… associating with a vampire. Remember, she works for an overlady! And overladies never think small!"
Cattleya wasn't sure what followers of Anark thought of organisers. She suspected that they were probably inclined to look poorly on them, but without someone to do those things, they wouldn't get done. And then they wouldn't have somewhere to meet and that would just be dreadful. It was probably fine for peasant who worshipped Anark to meet in a remote barn at an altar of their inverted bull-head icon, but it wouldn't be done for well-bred ladies to do that.
Anyway, this cabal also worshipped Athe and Femin, and being too devoted to Anark might offend the others. They weren't working very hard at overthrowing the nobility, which Cattleya agreed with. Quite apart from the fact that she was rather in favour of the nobility, they'd have to do a lot more work than just reading some books and discussing them to do that. And she went to these meetings to socialise and get away from Louise shouting at her about teeny tiny accidents like maybe perhaps slightly murdering three squadrons of cavalrymen, their horses, and their hunting dogs.
It was jolly unfair! They'd attacked her first! Just because of the colour of her skin and eyes (chalk white and glowing red, respectively).
"I'm sure L… the overlady would like to discuss any coordination with her plans you might want to do, but I'm here on my own," Cattleya said, gesturing politely to the seat next to her and sitting herself. "If that's something you're worried about, there's no need for that! I like meeting people! And books! Not as much as my sisters like books – I think they'd marry them if, you know, Pope Aegis VII hadn't purged the reforms of his degenerate predecessor from the Church – but I like them."
"No," Lady Magdalene said bluntly, refusing to sit. "There is not the slightest chance we're going to get involved in such… overt actions again. L'affaire des poisons was bad enough, and let me tell you, we kicked out the person responsible for it! We have lives of our own we need to protect, and we will not be pawns for some… some upstart overlady!"
Cattleya pouted.
Lady Magdalene wagged her finger at her. "No!" she said sharply. "Bad vampire! Pouting doesn't work when Jacqueline does it, and she doesn't expose her fangs when she does it! Uh, not that she has fangs. Of course."
Maria scowled. "Lay off her," she demanded, leaning forwards. "And for goodn… badness sake, just sit down and stop making a fuss. You're embarrassing yourself in front of everyone!"
Magdalene drew a deep breath, and let it out slowly. She sat. "I am not going to let us be turned into some pawn. This is the only chance some of us have to get out of the house and she – or her mistress – will not ruin it for us. Any of us! Remember what she nearly did!"
"I know you got burned worse than me and I understand this! Really, Mag, I do! But the Lady Carmine is different! She's not-"
Cattleya raised a hand, secretly very pleased that Maria had come to her defence. Wasn't that nice of her? "No, no, she's right," she said respectfully, ignoring the little voice in her head which suggested that she should probably grab Magdalene by the throat and then shake her around a bit. And drink quite a bit of her blood, of course. That was a naughty voice. "The overlady has no interest in you. She just considers it nice that I have a hobby – oh… um, she did tell me that she will be very very unhappy with me if we summon any evil dark gods with tentacles to eat the world, but apart from that, she doesn't really care."
"Well, of course," Maria said. "Dark gods with tentacles are so dreadfully nouveau riche – at best! At worst they'll leave you pregnant with their unholy spawn – and only peasants would welcome that!" She shuddered elegantly. "There is such thing as respectability in heresy and blasphemy. I approve of your overlady's standards there."
Lady Magdalene had focussed on another part of what Cattleya had said. "Oh, so we're not bad enough for her?" she demanded, crossing her arms.
"Oh, no," Cattleya reassured her. "She just has different… priorities to you."
…
On a small island off the north coast of Tristain, terrible things lurked on a wind-swept gravel beach. The crashing waves of the ocean beat down on the islet, throwing spray up over the things which waited among the stones. What foul purposes could such beasts have? What dark and malevolent goal could they be working towards?
"I think this rockie is the tastiest one I is eating at the moment!"
"Nuh uh! This one is betterer! It no hurt teethies!"
"That are because it are drifty wood, stoopid!"
These two shadowy figures were picked up by their heads, and slammed together a few times. "Shhh," Maggat informed the two dazed Minions. He glanced up at the shadow of the ruined relay tower, and the firelights from the pirate encampment built around it. "Blues," he said softly, "this are a very sneaky mission. We is needing to be in place before overlady are flying overhead. So now is sneakytime. Maxy, are the crate all hidy-like yet?"
Maxy, who in compliance with threats of massive violence had removed the strings from his lute, saluted. "The crate are hidden in a cavey," he said.
"There no are water troll in cave no more," Fettid said helpfully. "But there are body of water troll. Now I is feeling better after nasty ride in box across water." She sighed. "We are making big big saccry fices for overlady."
"I is thinking that a cratey is just like a tiny boaty when pulled by minions," Maxy said. "And overlady are needing us to keep the blues from being dumb-dumb."
On that, the three of them were in full agreement. Blue-skinned minions were prone to stupidity of a more abstract nature than other minions, and required firm watching from other minions to stop them from spending too long staring at the pretty lights of their magic. That meant their presence here was a vital part of the plan of the forces of Evil, or at least this specific force of Evil.
Louise de la Vallière, ultimate force of darkness, had once again devised one of the strategic feats of brilliance that she was becoming infamous for. Namely, through observation of minionkind and their casual attitude to death she had realised that the best way to get a crack force of minions onto an island was to have the blue-skinned minions swim over dragging a few supervisors in a waterproof box, and then push the other minions out of a high-flying airship.
They died on impact, of course, but the blues were there to remedy that state of affairs.
Jessica had wanted to call it a High-Altitude-No-Opening drop, but Jessica said things like that a lot. Louise had dubbed it the Lead Skull Stratagem, on the grounds that testing had revealed that nearly eighty percent of minions dropped from a high-flying airship landed head first.
Advanced testing was still in progress to determine as to whether a minion holding a barrel filled with gunpowder and nails could be trained through practice to set it off just before impact. Once again, her forgemistress had tried to call that a smart bombard, but Louise had rubbished that suggestion too because nothing which used a minion as a guidance system could be called 'smart'.
And with no warning, a minion landed on the beach and left a bloody mess in the centre of the sandy crater.
"Ah," Scyl said happily, ambling over with his webbed hands in his stolen trousers. "Overlady are starting with fun jumpiness. Unless minion fall over side. Maybe I no bring him back if he just fall over side, if it no are part of plan."
Maggat shook his head. "Overlady be star cast tick at us if we no bring him back," he said firmly. "No one want star casting."
"It burny," Fettid agreed, as more flailing forms fell from the heavens.
"Oh look," Scyl pointed out happily. "It are raining minions!"
…
The pirates did not expect an attack from the land, and anyway were mostly inebriated, asleep or both. As a result, with somewhat alarming rapidity they had transitioned from being dead drunk to being dead drunks
Up in the sky, cloak tucked tight around her armoured form to keep out the chill, Louise focussed on the map before her. The enchanted parchment before her was changing colour as her forces rampaged through the encampment, killing and stealing and almost certainly drinking everything even vaguely alcoholic that they found. Fortunately, their minds were so tiny that the alcohol missed it, and so being rascally drunk did not appreciably affect their capacity to follow orders.
"We killed all the pie rats in the docks!" Maggat announced happily, his voice coming out of the Gauntlet. "They no can run away. Some of the boaties are on fire, but it that no is our fault at all, honest. There was a burny mage and she have many drinkies and then she try to burny the reds. It no work, but she hit the boaties."
"I has a new pretty red dress," Fettid contributed. "It now are even redder than it was when burny mage was wearing it. And have stylish knify cuts."
Louise gritted her teeth. She had wanted those boats. They might only have been seaships, not windships, but she could have used them productively against harbours along the north coast.
The Gauntlet rang like a bell. She grated her teeth. She didn't need a distraction like this right now. Nevertheless, she touched it and said, "Hello?" Jessica's glowing ghostly magical projection appeared, flickering slightly. "I'm busy right now-"
"You know, Lou, I have an idea!" Jessica said quickly, "Maybe these pirates might be more useful alive than dead!"
"Don't call me that," Louise said automatically, before her brain kicked into gear. "And I fail to see how a dead pirate is not a good pirate."
"Exactly! With them alive, they could really be bad for you. It'd be pretty good for you to throw away a chance like this!"
Louise stared at her, and then blinked as she processed the Evil phrasing. "You think it would be… helpful for me to leave them alive?" she checked.
"Yep!"
"… why?"
Jessica stretched, leaning against the wall with her hands in her pockets. "Well, just think about it," she said cheerfully. "You tell them to either work for you or die, and they'll probs work for you. Best to give the offer to their leader, because he'll have experience sailing and… uh, you don't. And that means you can be a totally kick-ass pirate queen. Well, maybe a pirate princess because you don't have much of a fleet," she admittedly, "but you could totally grow it! And have your own fleet who can pillage and strike fear into the hearts of men, which is totally sweet – and you'd get a cut of all the money!"
"But…"
"Money," Jessica said firmly, rubbing her thumb and forefinger together in the cross-plane-of-existence gesture for 'filthy lucre'.
"I'll take it into consideration," Louise said firmly. "Now, if you will excuse me, I am busy here so if you don't awfully mind…"
"Kay 'kay," Jessica said, her magical image vanishing.
Louise gripped onto the wooden ship's rail. She did have to admit that 'pirate queen' was not an entirely unattractive title. But it would also be an act of clear and present wickedness. Respectable young ladies did not command pirate fleets. Well, good respectable young ladies did not. She was fairly certain she'd had some ancestors who had probably… slain entire fleets with evil magic and then resurrected the corpses to man them as zombie pirates or something. That sounded like something her ancestors would have done. And she didn't want to be like them.
Although if she could get Henrietta to give her a warrant, technically they'd be a privateer fleet…
"We is taking the air-boatie down!" the minion captain shouted. "Overlady, it are a wicked deed to be flying you and…"
"Yes, yes," Louise said dismissively, checking the set of her armour and gripping tight onto her staff. Her stomach was churning, and she felt sick. She practiced her breathing, and tried to calm down. She hated the moments when she knew violence was coming but she couldn't escape it. Yes, her minions had rampaged across the island, but a stray musketball fired by a pirate – the survivors had barricaded themselves in the relay tower structure – could still hit her in the face or in a joint where the demonic steel couldn't save her.
And even when her armour took the blow, it still hurt like flip.
Maggat saluted her smartly-by-minion-standards when she stepped off the ship. "Overlady! I bet that good-for-something captain of the sky boatie gave you trouble," he said. "But I are here now, to be your much better minion boss no matter what he say." He gestured over at the sealed iron gates of the relay tower. The entire structure was lit up in red by the fire from the burning ships and villages. The screams of the remaining pirates trapped outside as minions went looting for gold teeth echoed through the night. "Pie-rats are in there. They are barry-cading the door so it are very hard for us to get in."
"We no have enough blackpowder to blasty through," Igni said sadly. "It are a cat-ass trophy."
"Interesting, interesting," Gnarl's voice came echoing out. "Sadly you could not get through before they sealed the gates. Alas! Well, that is merely a minor obstacle in the despicable path of Evil! I would recommend that you select one of your most skilled greens – perhaps Fettid – and then direct them up through that small overflow vent which can just about be reached if the other minions make a pyramid. By doing that, they can work their way down to the-"
Louise cracked her knuckles. "Oh, I think I have an easier way," she said smugly. She'd been practicing. The Gauntlet had started whispering to her when she studied magic, and by making some modifications to her lightning and fireball spells to better channel the raw Evil she might have technically been using, she had a raw explosive blast.
She'd tried it out when some winged horses had started hassling her when she was perfectly innocently minding her own business and trying to shape the evil magic properly, but now would be the first time against something as armoured and well-defended as this.
The doors exploded, taking out a good chunk of the wall and the pirates standing behind it along the way.
"Your wickedness!" Gnarl said, sounding appalled. "Please! While unrestrained destruction is of course very, very Evil, it is often ill-advised! When taking over a location you intend to fortify, it helps if there are small things like 'doors' and 'walls'. This will be expensive to repair!"
Louise suppressed her surge of annoyance at Gnarl's borderline insubordinate behaviour. Who was the evil overlady around here? Not him!
She looked around the dust-choked interior. Louise could see the shared architecture with the main tower, but like the other one she had claimed it was built to a smaller scale and was much more cramped. In fact, this one was even more compact than the last one. It was a squat fortress which more resembled a tree trunk than any kind of soaring tower. She wasn't even sure how it was tall enough to work as a relay – except, hah! Of course. This was an island, so it was effectively taller because it was raised up above the seabed.
The dark evil overlady of profound wickedness felt very smug with herself for realising that. A protective screen of minions in front of her, Louise marched forwards through the tower, following Gnarl's instructions.
"Oh, ze wicked leader of zese minions? Would you be az kind as to come in, pleaze?" a man called out. "I wish to talk about… surrender, non?"
Louise, naturally, sent the minions in first. One of the useful traits of her de la Vallière heritage was a keen awareness of the many ways one could pick off the enemy leader. There were a few gunshots, and then the usual sound of minions rampaging.
"Urgh! I was going to give you ze chanze to surrender before I shot you!" the man complained. "Now your feelthy goblins-"
"We is minions, not goblins," Maxy said with rusty steel in his voice. "Overlady, we has him surrounded."
"I has a cleaver at his throaty!" Fettid called out happily.
Ah. Things were right with the world. Louise summoned a ball of fire to her hand, and then stepped through the door, into a room which was probably what was meant by the word 'boudoir'. Or at least, it had been one until about twenty seconds ago, when the minions had entered. The lush red drapes had been cut down and all the mirrors were broken.
The pirate king was a tall, thin man with carefully done hair which managed to look déshabillé despite the proximity of Fettid. Her minions had been busy, and a worrying number of them were now wearing pirate hats which were mostly on their heads. They were also sporting muskets, which were pointed eagerly at the king. Some of them might even be operational. Minions tended to get hold of the first blackpowder weapon they could, use it until they ran out of powder or blew it (and themselves) up, and then use it as a club.
"Arrr!" declared the pirate king. "Welcome to moi domain, Mademoiselle Overlady. Ze pleazure eez…ah,'ow do you say eet? Lezz mine zan eet would 'ave been eef you 'ad not murdered all of my men!" He coughed. "But zat eez now water-with-lots-of-blood-in-eet under ze bridge, non?"
He was not… unhandsome, Louise was forced to concede, even if he was very Gallian. In a degenerate, bare-chested, well-muscled, long flowing black locks coifed, attractively-facially-scarred, tight-trousered Gallian way. Although of course that was nowhere near as handsome as a theoretical Tristainian pirate king would be.
Louise really hoped that was a bollock dagger concealed down the front of his trousers. Well, sort of hoped. Wait, no, really hoped. She had got it right the first time.
"Well," she said. "I appear to have you at my mercy." She bounced the fireball up and down in her palm. "Now, am I a merciful woman?"
From the expression on his face, Louise suspected he didn't expect her to sound so young. Well, that wasn't her fault! She was just naturally petite! He recovered quickly. "Eet would seem to be zat way, and may I say, your mozt grazeful evilness, you are a fine and beautiful woman."
Fettid poked Maxy in the back. "What he talky about?" she whispered. "I no know what ratty say."
"That are because he no know how to speak proper," Maxy said soundly. "He are speaking funny. If he are a proper pie-rat he be talking 'bout yo ho ho and bottles of rum." This was broadly approved of by the minions, who weren't sure what a yo ho ho was, but were great fans of bottles of rum.
"What I wonder," Scyl asked, "are where are his pie? I see his rat. It are on the floor there. But how he a pie-rat without a pie?"
Maxy thought for a moment. "He the boss, so he eat all the pies," he said, an insight which awed the rest of the minions.
"And zat was my door," the pirate king added, attempting to rise elegantly to his feet before remembering the cleaver at his throat and sinking back down. "But it appears zat you 'ave defeated me." He tapped his hands together. "Would you mind eef your leetle minion wizdrew 'er weapon from my neck?" he asks. "I 'ate to offend such a fair maiden by asking 'er 'erself."
Fettid turned a darker shade of green. "I are not some weak may den who you can take ad-van-tage of!" she insisted, withdrawing her weapon. "I are carrying many throwing stabbies!"
"Talented as well as mozt beautiful," he said, rising gracefully and bowing to Fettid. "'Ow amazing you are."
Louise stared in mild confusion and less-than-mild disgust at the fact that this pirate king was not only flirting with a minion, but apparently doing so successfully. It was probably because there wasn't much difference between a Gallian and a minion in smell, she decided. Well, apart from more eau de garlic from the Gallian.
"Now, your wickedness, I am a wize man and I know when I 'ave been beaten," the pirate king said. "I am sorry for myself that I 'ave been defeated and almost all my men killed by ze leetle goblin zings, but now I muzt offer you my servizes. I, the famed pirate François l'Olonnais, will fly under your flag and serve you een… other ways eef you wish, subject to later negotiation. I am sure we can come to a mutually beneficial arrangement zat would 'elp both of us, non? What do you say to… ah, a thirty per cent cut of my takings? And I am sure wiz your sponsorship, eet could grow even larger!"
Frowning, the overlady considered the arrangement. This François l'Olonnais… she vaguely thought she'd heard of him. He was a notorious Gallian scourge of the north coast, famed for plundering, pillaging and… ahem, paramouring. All three were disapproved of by the Brimiric church in general, barring obvious exceptions like pillaging and plundering from evil people. Paramouring was more of a general no-go, except when certain anti-popes were in power. She had to say strong and resist such weak womanly urges!
Even if she was forced to admit he was quite handsome – by Gallian standards, of course – and when he flexed she could see that he was muscular in an athletic way and she was growing quite sure that it wasn't a bollock dagger in his trousers.
It might be a flintlock. With a reinforced barrel.
But she didn't want to be really evil! And living off the proceeds of piracy was wrong. It wasn't at all like what she did when she rightfully confiscated the goods of traitors who opposed her.
Maybe she could… guide him properly. Make him only attack bad people. And then one day he'd turn to her and…
"My dark queen of ze night, I am waiting to pledge my allegianze to you. Your burning eyes fan my 'eart," he smouldered.
Louise turned bright red under her helmet. That… that did it! How dare he… he try to use his Gallian allure on her! To think she'd be swayed by such a transparent attempt at… at… at that! She would never give in to such temptations!
"No," she said shortly, and gestured to the minions.
…
The sun rose early in summer in the north of Tristain. Louise yawned and stretched, looking down on it from the airship. The miserable wretched swamp was really at its best at this kind of year. It was not freezing, it had dried out a bit, and the vegetation was mostly a healthy green if you excluded the bits with where they'd all died or the cratered areas she used for testing magic.
She'd had a nap on the flight back, but she still wanted her bed. She was going to collapse there and sleep for…oh, six hours felt good. That'd take her to midday and then she could eat. Urgh, but she wanted a bath. Okay, okay, maybe if she had a bath first…
Her calculating chain of Evil logic was interrupted by the sight of Jessica and Henrietta waiting for her.
Oh dear. Jessica clearly was expecting answers.
"I just couldn't trust him," Louise said, having had time to think of her excuse and so made sure to get it in first. "He was Gallian. Everyone knows you can't trust a Gallian. They're as untrustworthy as Romalians, and barely more trustworthy than one of the perfidious Albionese. I couldn't risk the chance of betrayal."
"Louise-Françoise!" Princess Henrietta protested. "Not all Albionese are perfidious."
"But most of them are," Louise countered, climbing down the gangplank and joining the other two as they stepped into the tower. "They're a country of despicably cruel traitors! And Albionese authors? The less said about Albionese authors, the better! We were forced to study some of their – fortunately translated – works at the Academy and that wasn't enough! You can't purge the loathsome taint of the Albionese language! The worst thing is when they think they're being clever! I was marked down heavily for several essays where I explained how awful they were!"
Henrietta and Jessica were looking at her dubiously.
"Ah… Louise-Françoise, that may just be you," Henrietta ventured. "Although of course, I am sure that this is a well-considered and erudite opinion, it is perhaps… not the most well-considered due to the sadly present bias which weights it with certain not-entirely-considered-"
"Lou, you're ranting and I don't think either of us care," Jessica clarified.
Henrietta wrung her hands together. "I wouldn't put it like that precisely," she tried.
"Yeah, you wouldn't," Jessica said, sulking slightly. "I really wanted you to become a pirate queen. It'd be a new income stream and did you see him?" She fanned herself. "Hotty!"
Louise smiled darkly. "Yes, he was. Especially when the reds were done with him," she said.
"You're no fun," Jessica accused.
"Ah, your wickedness," Gnarl said effusively, sweeping up to meet her in the corridor. Louise shifted to walk alongside him. The faster she got this done, the faster she could have a bath and go to bed. "I must apologise for the time it took us to connect the relay back up to the tower, but as I mentioned already the tower can only support one outbound connection at the moment. We had to deactivate the other relay-tower before we could bring this one online. I will have to hassle the forgemistress' father to see if he has found any further hints on the locations of the remaining bits of the Tower Heart."
"That's fine, Gnarl," Louise said. "Have the minions delivered the plunder to the treasury?" She wouldn't expect them to have done it yet if they were humans, but minions were very good at moving large sums of money around rather quickly.
"Indeed they have, your malevolence," Gnarl said, his glowing lantern bobbing with glee. "By killing that pirate, we could clear the place out entirely. Although the income stream would have been nice. Oh, well. The treasury is looking rather more healthy. A few more raids like that and you'll be in an excellent place for an assault on Amstreldamme."
Louise nodded. She licked her lips, thinking, as they made their way into the Great Hall and she collapsed gratefully into her chair. "Are… are there any magical weapons or the like?" she asked, the thought striking her. "Anything I can use against the Madam de Montespan?"
"Hmm. Well, there appears to be a helmet made for a necromancer," Gnarl said. "If the aura of deathly magic wasn't enough, the fact that it's skull-shaped is a clue. Of course, the full inspection is not yet complete, but magical artefacts are most often quite obvious, your wickedness."
Louise stared at him. "And why, pray, was there a necromancer's helmet there?" she asked sarcastically. "Because pirates are such infamous necromancers, correct?"
"Presumably it was plunder," Gnarl observed.
"No, all things forbid that it might actually be something useful to me," Louise continued, raising her voice. "No, it has to be more… more trash. Honestly! No, I have no interest at all in becoming a necromancer, before you say anything at all Jessica. Necromancy is… is an unclean art!"
Jessica coughed, leaning against a pillar. "Well, yeah. And smelly as well as unclean," she agreed. "Dead bodies are pretty unhygienic. But you can't deny it's useful."
"I don't care how useful it is," Louise said, crossing her arms with a grating of demonic steel.
"Your loss," Jessica said with a shrug. "But you know, I'll have it put in the collection next to that staff you found before. It's looking pretty bare. Of course, if you got me more rare metals, I could make you some things would look just fab in the journals."
"And cover all my organs?" Louise asked suspiciously.
"Well, those things are more expensive to make," Jessica said shamelessly. "You need a lot more dragon teeth if you want a dragon tooth enamelled suit of armour which covers your abdomen."
"That would look very good," Henrietta said, squeezing Louise on the shoulder.
"Armour covers organs," Louise said bluntly. She shook her head, trying to clear it. "That's what it's there for. And I am literally falling asleep here, so I am off. We'll talk tomorrow. Or maybe today. Whenever I wake up. And now the relay tower is there, I can reach Amstreldamme. Yes. Nearly there. She's within reach."
She wandered off, in a clanking of metal.
Jessica waited until Louise was out of sight and hearing – the latter of which took rather longer – before she let out a groan of frustration. "She is so annoying!" she moaned.
"Oh, I don't know," Gnarl said, hobbling over to his chair beside the overlady's throne. "I feel she did rather wickedly today. Minion losses were surprisingly light for a plan which involved throwing them out of a windship to fall to their deaths."
"Um," said Henrietta. "You mean… uh, other overlords or overladies have tried that?"
"Oh my, yes," Gnarl said happily, putting his feet up on a stool. "Often just for their amusement. Why, back in the day even I remember my first drop! The ground comes up so quickly."
Jessica crossed her arms and glared, small horns sprouting from her head. "It's not about that," she insisted. "I like her, but she's so… urgh! So repressed! She killed an infamous pirate and paramour when he was known for working for those who defeated him until he could save up to buy his freedom! Why would you waste something like that? Especially when he was gorgeous! And she keeps on refusing to get any handsome oiled-up men to pose around the place!" She pouted. "She really is no fun at all! I'm so glad you're here, Henri! I was going crazy with just her around."
"I think she's just under a lot of stress," Henrietta said reassuringly. "I'll have to organise her a nice birthday. It's coming up soon."
"Oh?" Jessica said. "She didn't mention it."
Henrietta sighed, looking around the Great Hall and the draperies which covered up the whitewashed stone. "Well, no. She's been up late every night, always working. She's in the library past midnight every night. She's obsessed with getting revenge on the Madame de Montespan –and through her, Viscount Wardes. I want to do more to help her – because Founder knows I hate that horrid woman too, but she won't let me. She says I need to remain pure. Because I'm her prisoner." Henrietta ran her hands along the wall. "A party won't help her like… like I want to help her, but it's the most I can do. So I'll make it the best one I can!"
Jessica's eyes lit up, the fires of hell burning within. "Oooooh," she said. "I'm listening…"
…
