Chapter 7 -
The sun was high in the blue sky, clouds playing on the horizon. The high gray stonewalls seemed to show their back to the inner palace garden while guarding the outside.
A long green field with gardens to their side, standing at one end was Zelda. Her long blonde hair tied in a handkerchief at the height of her neck; she wore an embroidered silk shirt with eagles' details. She wore pants, her left arm a leather guard in the forearm, her hand holding a long wooden arch with intrinsic carved details. For many noble archery was a sport something that was used in festivals and competitions.
To Zelda that was a weapon that demanded admiration and respect. Although the sword was considered the mother of all weapons, the bow was the weapon that decided the fate of kingdoms and entire wars.
The practice of archery was not just a sport, but also the domain of one of the deadliest weapons in the known world.
On the floor in front of her spiked arrows on the other side of the field three targets. Her eyes closed; her breathing slow, exercising control over herself. She felt every fiber of her being.
Her eyes opened and she took each shot arrows at the target, each arrow reaching the other on the center of the target.
Zelda gasped, it was a full day of exercises. She looked around and no one was there. It was the way she preferred when practicing. For bridesmaids it was a bad taste for a princess to practice such sport, with such dedication. For the knights and nobles it was embarrassing to have a princess who could wield a bow better than any of them. However, she did not care. The bow was an art that always attracted her. The practice demanded that she focus all your concentration on the bow to shoot arrows, leaving aside all other thoughts from her mind.
Her concerns, her aspirations and desires. There was only her and the goal to be reached.
This exercise helped her clear the mind and relieve tensions and in recent days, since she had spoken to Raurur she was restless.
Her visions with the wanderer had stopped and she could not tell if he had left the castle town or if they would come back later.
"My Highness."
Zelda turned her eyes to the entrance, a servant carrying a silver tray and on it a letter. The princess came and took the letter, which was sealed with the seal of Raurur. The princess motioned with her hand and the servant left. Zelda opened the letter breaking the seal and read.
The letter had a message saying how happy he was the possibility to go back to talk to her and so may resume relations between the families.
A nice message, but only one front for the real message. The Zelda's eyes swept the hidden pattern of the arrangement of words of the letter, the gears behind your mind brought meaning. Raurur found the wanderer and asked the date she wanted they met as well as the location.
Zelda smiled, her former mentor, was perhaps the only man able to send two true messages with a single text.
Then the air stopped in her lungs, without her noticing she was holding her breath. He said he found the wanderer.
The world has taken a sudden turn, the wanderer was real.
The captain Ashley walked briskly, her men were on her heels. She finally had acquired an anonymous tip where the robber was hiding. He lived in the poorest parts of the castle city, hidden in the slums.
She crossed a stone alley, the walls of houses formed tortuous ways that seemed to cram over her.
Somewhere she heard the crying of children and the discussion of adults, one alley excerpt had the open sewage, the stench filled the nostrils. Nevertheless, the severe expression that Ashley wore remained unchanged even when the soldiers behind turned up their noses and tried to breathe through the mouth to avoid the smell.
She found an almost hidden door in the side of a corner; she signaled to the guards surround outputs while she knocked on the door with her heavy gauntlets.
The sound was that of a sledgehammer against the wood of the door creaked every blow.
"It is the city guard! Open the door Sakoni! We know you're there!"
No one answered, Ashley drew her sword and kicked foot against the door and its folds were broken up the door fell. Ashley looked around the room there was a straw mattress on the bedroom floor and Sakoni tied in the room chair.
The stomach Ashley wrapped and the sword fell from her hand as she lost the strength in the arm. The man looked like a patchwork quilt. Aside from his face, his body was full of cuts; whole parts of his skin carefully removed exposing his flesh in the air.
Sakoni's face distorted by pain to the point of being almost unrecognizable. When Ashley's sword hit the ground, the unthinkable happened.
The man groaned and mumbled, his voice hoarse and powerless just begged for something.
"Make it stop ... It's not with me anymore ... The pain ..."
One of Ashley's men came through the door and saw the scene turned pale and threw up right there.
Ashley took the sword in hand and with firm steps stood in front of Sakoni with a violent motion of her sword his head rolled around the room.
Other men entered the room watching the scene. Ashley turned her eyes to the horrified faces.
"Bury the body."
Then she marched out of the room, Sakoni was practically a purse thief, nothing justified the brutality by which it happened.
She then stopped, remembered the words of Sakoni.
"It's not with me anymore ..."
He had taken something that was very important to someone. She then punched one wall of the plaster fell on impact. That simple theft was getting complicated.
Link drummed his fingers, he was in an alley that swarmed with people, and Raurur come into a store and asked him to wait outside. This process repeated itself more than once throughout the day and the only thing he heard was.
"So far so good."
Link snorted and wondered if Raurur was actually doing something or if he was just playing with him. In the absence of something, more practical to do Link began to watch the crowd. People moving from one side to the other chattering and carrying shopping's.
When something caught his eye, Rutel walking down the street, carrying a paper in her hands nervously and looked sideways as if looking for something. She not even noticed him it until she found the entrance of a small theater, she breathed deep and went in with firm steps.
Link looked over his shoulder, he saw inside the store. Raurur communicated with exaggerated movements to a seller who seemed to communicate with him also in exaggerated movements. Link estimated that still have at least half an hour before Raurur finish what he was doing and turned away from the store going after Rutel.
Wondering what she was doing.
He entered the theater and found a large poster announcing auditions for singers. Link smiled to the thought of Rutel being on a stage. His curiosity sneaked him in the theater.
It was a narrow theater; the stage was a bit far from the seats.
In the first row a number of directors sat assessing young people who how came to the auditions. Link observed each singing and each of the directors, most of times they were dry or cruel in their reviews before deciding who would be hired.
Link was not used with spectacles, had seen one in a theater, but that was long time ago.
Rutel then stepped up on stage, she was with her inn clothes, Link wondered if she would not have anything to wear; the other girls seemed to have made a point to dress in colorful dresses much better designed. He heard a whisper that seemed to carry a disapproving tone between the judges.
Link then crossed his fingers and leaned forward, he wanted to observe with the utmost attention to Rutel performance, for it was a way to respect a colleague working.
The first thing Link noticed was that, even with the simplest clothes than the other girls, Rutel seemed to behave with an innate majesty.
She introduced herself to judges and began to sing. Links hair stood on end and a shiver ran down his spine, Rutel's voice was clear and reverberated inside, almost playing in a trance. Link did not understand music, but believed that Rutel was by far the best singer he had ever heard in his entire life.
When her voice began to fail, the change was so sudden that Link felt torn from the state in which the Rutel had placed. While her voice failed, new acute tones stuck out as if scratching nails on a blackboard and the music accelerated in a non-uniform way.
When she eventually finished she was panting. Link noted that she tried to control her breathing to not look out of breath, came to fear that she would faint at one point while her cheeks were a dark blue tone.
One of the officers stood up.
"Miss Rutel, right?"
She nodded her head, not showing that she was out of breath; the man nodded.
"Of course you sing better than most, but cannot keep your performance to the end. We cannot have you mending your voice with other singers if you are not able to keep it until the end of the act."
Rutel stepped forward challenging the man.
"But I can."
The man laughed at the statement, the other directors followed.
"Little girl, we have seen that not. You cannot. My advice is to finish the studies that you obviously do not concluded and in three years, we find ourselves again. Next!"
Link watched as the cheeks of Rutel seemed to gain a more bluish tint. Her eyes were so full of rage that Link could swear they would throw daggers at the man. She then nodded and left the stage while another girl walked in. As she came out of the theater she then crossed with Link and realized he was there, those blue eyes staring at her, his expression was worried he then smiled.
"I think you sang very well."
Rutel eyes widened and she marching out the door, Link got up to follow when he heard Raurur sitting next to him.
"It's a bad idea, do not do it."
Link turned and stared he had not realized when Raurur entered. He then looked at the output of the theater. Raurur stood up.
"Well I have good news. I have discovered which store Sakoni had sold the artifact."
Link's eyes widened even more.
"So there we go."
Raurur smoothed his eyebrows.
"The store was burned to the ground."