With all the guests from foreign territories floating around the castle, meat stores were being severely cut into. Particularly due to the visiting dignitary from Gastrobury, who had a way of eating any scrap of food made available anywhere in the castle, as well as drinking one glass after another from a keg of ale until it was gone. So it was one of Steven's duties, in addition to preparing for the coming tournament, to go out hunting in the hopes of bringing in fresh meat.
Since Rupert had a shift guarding the entrance to the forest, he and Steven walked there together. Amie had disappeared almost the moment she finally made formal her agreement to help. Considering her rapid, violent mood shifts, Steven could not say he was sorry.
As they walked, conversation naturally fell to Rupert's favorite subject of them all: the lovely Minstrel Rhianwen, with whom he was desperately in love.
"I have written a poem to praise her beauty," Rupert announced.
"Oh?" Steven responded, not feeling at all optimistic about this.
"Since she performs them so often, I thought she might appreciate it if I wrote a poem for her," Rupert explained enthusiastically, "I call it, 'Ode to Rhianwen.'"
So far, Rupert had tried basically everything to woo the lady fair, except actually talk to her like a human. He had hung out in her tavern at all hours until Steven imposed a strict work schedule for all the guards under his command, so now Rupert had to restrain himself to his days off, and daily morning and evening jaunts to the tavern. Not long ago, Rupert had felt certain that increasing his fighting prowess would impress Rhianwen, but she had not seemed terribly impressed by his initiation of a bar brawl in her tavern. Now he'd found a new tactic, but Steven had serious doubts about it, the primary one being that he was reasonably sure Rupert couldn't find rhythm or rhyme if they sat in his lap and shouted 'Jehoshaphat'.
Rupert began to read,
Oh Rhianwen,
with cinnamon skin and chocolate eyes, your gentle
ways are sweeter than the taste of honey mead, and
your beauty I could not compare to Hunter's Stew.
Your deep black hair flows like stewed fowl broth.
Oh Rhianwen,
you are more delicate in your grace than a rabbit
slowly being roasted by the turning of a spit, and
much sadder I would be without you than without
the goodness of apple and boar pie on my plate.
Oh Rhianwen,
Your embrace I would choose over the hint of egg
in Luffenting Wine, and your soft kiss is better than
royal custard and spit roasted sweet bear combined,
and your scent is more pungent than braised whale.
Oh Rhianwen-
It was at this point that Steven interrupted, asking, "How many stanzas does this go on for?"
"Twelve," Rupert answered.
Steven's silence was apparently sufficient to make Rupert feel defensive, for he continued,
"Well I had to be sure and cover every delicious food and drink that exists. Otherwise she might think there was food or drink out there lovelier than she in my mind, and then she might be offended."
Steven scrambled for words, any words, that did not include the phrase 'you are awful at poetry, please stop immediately and never mention this to anyone else.'
He finally managed a strained, "I'm just not sure the word 'pungent' is right for this... poem."
"Really? How else would you describe the smell of braised whale?" Rupert inquired.
Steven hesitated for a moment, then admitted, "Actually, I wouldn't."
"Why not?" Rupert demanded, his eyes widening, "There's nothing stronger smelling on a hot summer day than a big hunk of whale meat jammed onto a spike and hung over an open fire, or if there is I don't want to know what it is."
"But does Rhianwen really smell comparable to a whale?" Steven asked as delicately as he could manage.
"No, that's the whole idea. The point is that she smells even better, and that I am more drawn to her than I am to the smell of whale meat cooking in town square," Rupert explained.
"I see," Steven said slowly, "But the word 'pungent' just doesn't seem like the best choice there. Maybe...aromatic... or uh... fragrant might even be better. But pungent just seems..." he trailed off, finding he was unable to express the thought without also hurting Rupert's sensitive feelings.
"You just don't get poetry, do you?" Rupert asked.
Steven sighed, "I guess I don't."
By this time they had reached the edge of the forest, so Steven bid his friend a polite goodbye, and headed out to look for something to hunt, trying desperately to forget the entire poem he had just heard. It wasn't as easy as he would have hoped, as the hunt proved to be uneventful, and also unsuccessful, and Steven returned home empty-handed.
He hoped Firefly would return with something more than bare bones clutched in his talons.
Steven went home, ate a meager dinner of seed soup, and went to bed and fell asleep. A bout of insomnia hit sometime after midnight, and he got out of bed to try and walk it off, only to become aware of the presence of someone else in the room.
A series of invectives escaped him and directed themselves at the intruder. At the same time, as if by magic, the fireplace and other light fixtures in the room roared to life and he could see who was there. A fresh batch of expletives found their way out into the night.
"Well aren't we foul mouthed?" said Adept Amie, leaning on her staff nonchalantly.
"You're in my house," Steven said, stringing together his first coherent sentence of the day.
"Of course I am," Amie replied, "What? You didn't expect me to cast spells on you from my tower, did you?"
"I didn't expect you here at this unreasonable hour," Steven corrected.
"And I didn't expect you to wake up at this unreasonable hour," Amie told him, "If you didn't want anyone in here, you should have locked your door."
"It's my bedroom," Steven objected, "I shouldn't have to tell-"
He broke off as the door swung open and Royal Adviser Greta walked in.
"I saw your light on, so I figured you were up," Greta said by way of announcing herself.
"Don't you ever sleep?" Steven asked.
"Never," Greta answered, then continued breezily, "We really must rally a defense against these cave crabs. We've got inventors in the castle proposing flying death machines, and some sort of thing that makes a big sound and kills everyone, and Lord Spaulding has decided that the correct way to provide defense for our fair country is to talk to the crabs! He's been corrupted by their crabby ways, and it's up to us to put a stop to this before Freedonia is overrun by the Crustacean Menace!"
"Crabs?!" Amie exclaimed derisively, "There is a literal war between territories on and we're trying to annex a territory -the first in Freedonian history aside from the annexation of Tredony and Crafthole at the founding of Freedonia, I might add- and you're worried about cave crabs!?"
Steven did not see this encounter ending well, and he wished it would end somewhere besides his bedroom, but he was wise enough to guess that a polite suggestion that they both leave would not be well received. Not sure what else to do, he stood by and watched.
"Annexation?" Greta cried indignantly, "There's no time for frivolous things like annexation with crabs running unchecked through our Cave! Besides, what use could we possibly have for all these territories anyway?"
"It's called a merchant," Amie replied with a critical gleam in her eyes behind the mask, "You might think about getting one to handle foreign trade."
"Oh, well don't you just know everything," Greta retorted snappishly, "I suppose next you'll be applying for the position of monarch!"
"Why not? It's plain I'm more qualified than the rest of you idiots," Amie shot back.
"Now wait just a minute," Steven objected, "That's my king you're talking about-"
He got no further, as the door flew open again, admitting Build Master Krispin.
"You really should get a lock for that thing," Amie whispered to Steven.
"Ah! Royal Adviser Greta!" Krispin's voice boomed through the space, "Just the woman I was looking for."
"Oh?" Greta dropped her voice and fluttered her eyelids ostentatiously, "Really?"
"Yes," Krispin said, "We need to discuss where to build the kingdom's new mill."
"Oh," Greta said, clearly disappointed, then changed her tone to a more seductive one, stepping close to the build master, "Wouldn't you rather... talk about us?"
"Geez, get a room," Amie muttered, tapping her staff on the floor impatiently, but Greta and Krispin ignored her.
"Not right now. There's this mill I need to design."
In the meantime, Firefly flew in through an open window with a majestic screech. He came at once to Steven's arm, and gifted his master with a rank smelling bag. Steven investigated this, and found a dead dire chinchilla inside.
"Where did you get this?" Steven asked of Firefly, who hissed and demanded his food reward.
As Steven was feeding the gyrfalcon, he noticed his door opening again, but at first he didn't see who had entered as they slipped stealthily behind Build Master Krispin. He realized that Greta and Krispin's conversation had continued while he was distracted by Firefly.
"How can you think about building at a time like this?" Greta demanded hotly, "When you and I... we... well... when there are caves full of crabs to be worrying about!"
"What about the crabs?" Krispin inquired.
Before Greta could answer, Lord Spaulding entered, looked around, and said, "Ah, Krispin! I was looking for you."
"Why is everyone looking for someone else in my bedroom?" Steven wanted to know, but nobody paid any attention to him.
"I went into The Cave earlier today, and I saw an apparition," Lord Spaulding continued, still addressing Krispin.
"You mean the Crab Bandit?" Krispin asked.
"Oh, you mean he's real?" Lord Spaulding inquired.
"You saw him, didn't you? Crab claw? Big mustache..."
"Well, yes," Lord Spaulding answered, "But I thought maybe delusions were contagious."
"Speaking of contagious-" Greta began, but this time she was interrupted by the door swinging open to admit two more people into the room.
"Lord Spaulding!" exclaimed one of them, whom Steven recognized as the foreign contact for Advorton, "This is Sir Geoffrey the Inebriated, finally arrived from Advorton by boat."
"Yes, ships are fast over the water, but you'd be amazed how long it takes to get them over land," Sir Geoffrey added.
"I bet I wouldn't," Lord Spaulding said, "You know, I have a son named Jeffrey, I wonder if you two could be related."
"I doubt that very much," the foreign contact said, "Anyway, sorry he got in so late, but since a party seems to be in progress here, it seemed only decent to bring our champion to meet yours."
"Please," Lord Spaulding gestured and scooted aside to let them in, "Come and join this game of sardines."
Steven's bedroom didn't have much in it aside from the obligatory bed, a fireplace, a chamber pot and a wash basin, but even so it really wasn't big enough for all these people.
No sooner had the Advortonians moved out of the doorway than someone else appeared.
"Rhona!" Lord Spaulding exclaimed.
"Yes, dear?" Rhona replied gently.
"Is it me you're looking for?" Lord Spaulding asked.
"No, actually I came to see Captain Steven."
"Oh, well carry on then," Lord Spaulding gestured, "I'm sure he's in here somewhere."
"You know, you should make people buy tickets to get into this place," Amie remarked to Steven, as they backed up against the wall so there'd be more space for people entering the room, "You'd make a fortune."
"Honestly, at this point, I just want to go back to bed," Steven said, "Oh, hello, Lady Rhona, I see you found the back of my bedroom alright."
"Yes," Rhona replied, "I came here to ask you something."
"Well you must be very determined to have gotten through that crowd," Amie observed.
"This is getting out of hand," Steven said with a sigh, then continued more politely, "What is it you wish of me, Lady Rhona?"
"I want my old job back," Rhona replied, "You have no idea how boring castle life is. I liked being a guard, and I miss that, and I want that back."
"Does your husband have any objections?" Steven asked cautiously.
"My husband doesn't own me," Rhona informed him, "Besides, he's much too busy running a kingdom to be bothered about what I choose to do with my days, so long as he gets to see me in the morning and at night. So do I get the job back or not?"
"I don't think I have the authority to- Hey!" as Steven was talking, a rather familiar looking strawberry blond woman dressed in black had sidled around the room and swiped his bag of dead chinchilla.
Steven wasn't deeply invested in that chinchilla, but he objected to having it stolen. Unfortunately, the room was absolutely packed with people. The blond slipped her way around and out through the door expertly, but Steven found himself unable to follow.
"Who was that?" Amie asked.
"Adora," Rhona answered, "The under-spy. I think your falcon may have taken her chinchilla, Captain."
"If only the rest of this crowd was so easy to get rid of," Amie said.
As the under-spy slipped out, Irving the Servant entered carrying a wine glass.
"Lord Spaulding, I've brought you your after midnight drink. Shall I bring a few rounds for your guests as well?"