I'm happy with this chapter, I had a lot of fun with the large group meeting. I'm also happy to say I'm finally resolving something I left from all the way back in DiNozzo vs Investigatii! If you recognize it when it comes up, let me know! This is the second longest chapter in the story.

Side note: fopdoodle is a real medieval insult

Second side note: Do bones float? I'm not sure. For the sake of this chapter, we're going to say they do not.

-owl

Tony

Tony sat at the head of the table in the old war room. Kate sat at his left hand. The room was smaller than Tony would have hoped, as they were going to have a total of thirteen people in it at some point soon. As odd as it sounded, this was the first time he had ever entered the room. He always preferred to hold war meetings in the new war room.

For one, it was bigger. For two, it was much more convenient.

"Wasn't Ziva supposed to be back a while ago?" Kate asked absently, reading over a letter.

Tony shrugged. "Yes, but she is perfectly capable, so I'm not too worried. Besides —"

Tony was interrupted by the door banging open and Abby leading Lady Liu into the room. Abby took the seat to Kate's left and Lady Liu took the seat across from her.

Again, not looking up from her letter, Kate spoke. "If you want Ziva to sit next to you, Tony, you might want to somehow claim the seat."

Shrugging, Tony removed his crown from his head and placed it on the seat of the chair at his right hand. The door then banged open again and Tim came in, King Steve trailing behind. Tim took the seat next to Abby.

"Feel free to sit wherever you want," Tony commented, watching the foreign king.

King Steve nodded and sat in the chair at the other end of the table. "Danny will not be here tonight," he said, "He doesn't trust Grace to be more than three rooms away from him since she ran off to the royal box long before the tournament started."

"That's perfectly reasonable."

Then the door opened one more time. Nick and Ellie preceded Countess Kono, Earl Adam, Sir Reigns, and Lady Tani as they all entered the room.

Now they ran into the problem of how small the room was. There were only ten chairs, but thirteen of them. Twelve, if you didn't count Ziva, as she wasn't there yet. Ellie took the seat by Tim, Countess Kono sat to the right of Lady Liu, and Lady Tani to the right of the countess. The husbands all took places standing behind their wives.

Tony sighed. "In the interest of getting this meeting over with, so everyone can go to bed, as most of you are traveling tomorrow, we will start without Ziva. Does anyone here argue that?" when no one said anything, Tony grinned. "Alrighty then! Abby, Kate, or one of the ladies, can you fill us in on what the full plan was that you all made last night?"

The women all looked at each other until Kate spoke up. "We all met up to try to think of a way to help Kensi. Ziva suggested that we use decoys, so as to confuse anyone that ArchDuke Granger might have sent to follow 'Kensi.' Ziva, obviously, volunteered to be a decoy, as well as Ladies Kono, Quinn, and Tani. The next thing we figured out was where Kensi would be going.

"Abby suggested that Kensi go to McGee Manor, and I was under the impression that there was a letter sealed by Tim for her to give to his father when she arrives. I'm not sure how things went for the decoys, or if we fooled anybody, let alone ArchDuke Granger."

Tony couldn't help it, he started laughing. When he finally stopped, he became aware of everyone's very confused looks directed at him. "You see," he said, swallowing down more giggles, "This evening I happened by the tavern, the one that's favored by the castle guards. I overheard a group of five people talking. One was the guard that notified me about Granger poking around the castle — I'll tell you about that in a minute — and the others must have been the guards at the gates.

"Throughout their conversation each revealed that he had seen 'Duchess Kensi' leaving the city. They were so confused! I told them the slightest bit of what happened, and they just laughed with me about the absurdity of it all. So, yes, you did fool at least four people."

"Five, actually," Lady Tani said in a dry voice. "It was probably nearly noon when whoever had been following me attacked. Speaking of… Junes, can you go grab our guest?"

Sir Reigns nodded and left the room only to come back thirty seconds later, pulling a man who's wrists were bound together. There was a length of cloth in his mouth that prevented him from speaking.

Everyone stared silently at the man. He glared back at them.

"He wouldn't tell me his name, so I've been calling him Fopdoodle."

All eyes turned to Lady Tani once again.

"What? I was bored. Nothing happened, other than the altercation with this fopdoodle here."

Lady Kono nodded. "Nothing interesting happened to me, either. I made it to Eareg just fine. I think it was the same with Quinn."

The knight nodded. "Yeah. The most interesting thing that happened to me was listening to the Earl of Hanna and Sir Callen argue about Sir Callen having a lover."

"Not that that pertains to the issue at hand," Tony mused, "But that is intriguing."

Then the door banged open and Ziva strode in. Her hair was a bit of a mess and her dress, which Tony was certain had been entirely blue as of that morning, had a few splotches of purple across it.

"Sorry I am late," she said as she took the open seat next to Tony, removing his crown from it and placing it in front of him. "The person following me decided that he should attack."

Kate grimaced. "Do I even want to know what happened?"

Ziva cocked her head. "No."

"So where do we go from here?" King Steve asked.

"We should try to get any information we can from Tani's captive, first," Earl Adam suggested.

The gag was removed from the man and he glared at the nobles around him.

"Who are you, and what was your mission?" Tony asked.

"I'm not telling you anything!" the man sneered. Then he spat towards Lady Tani.

After asking a few more times, Tony could see Ziva getting impatient. "If you really don't want to tell us," he said in a soft, eerily calm voice, "I think my wife can convince you otherwise."

Ziva grinned, showing her teeth. "Oh, yes. Let us talk, one on one." Then she stood up and dragged him from the room.

"Once we get the information from him, we'll probably be done with the meeting, right?" Nick asked.

Lady Kono shook her head. "The other thing we were planning, last night, was that myself and Adam would be going to Operacje to help Duke Deeks with clearing Duchess Kensi's name. We were thinking that we could classify it as a diplomatic visit to discuss a possible treaty or something."

"That doesn't sound like a problem," King Steve said. "I can even write a letter for you to give to the Empress."

"Oh," Lady Liu exclaimed, turning towards Tony. "Can I ask about the letter that the Operacje delegation received from you?"

Tony grinned. "Ah, right. Granger was poking around the castle, sticking his nose where it didn't belong. I wrote up a missive for Hetty, telling her that Granger is no longer welcome in DiNozzo."

The room lapsed into silence until Ziva re-entered the room, a bloody dagger in her hands. No one said anything as she took her seat. "He was hired by ArchDuke Granger to follow Kensi if she were to leave through the gate he was waiting at. He was supposed to carefully detain her and bring her to Granger."

King Steve raised his hand slightly, a look of vague concern on his face. "Do we, uh, want to know how you got that information?"

Ziva shrugged. "If you want to see, you are more than welcome to look in on him, in one of the nearby rooms."

"So, now that we got that information, is there anything else we need to talk about at this meeting?" Kate asked.

Tony shook his head. "No. I think we're all good to go. I look forward to seeing you in the morning."

He stood, holding out his arm for Ziva to wrap hers around. As they walked out of the old war room, they could hear those left behind make plans for the residents to escort them back to the upper levels of the castle.

The next day dawned bright and clear. Tony woke up first and was already dressed and ready by the time Ziva was awake. She looked surprised to see Tony ready.

"Why are you dressed for diplomacy so early?" she asked.

"King Steve said yesterday that they were planning on leaving early, to get a good start on the journey home, it does take fifteen days."

Ziva got up, pulling the sheet from their bed with her, wrapping it around herself like a dress. The only thing prettier than Ziva like that…

"Are you going to wait here for me?"

"Do you want me to?"

She shook her head. "No, that is not necessary, I will meet you down in the courtyard."

"Sounds good, Zi."

The courtyard was packed. That was understandable, of course, as there were two carriages, each with four horses harnessed, on top of the two horses that the knights would be riding. Said knights were standing with their horses, watching the happenings of the courtyard.

"Goodmorning!" Tony greeted everyone.

Once the pleasantries were done with, Ziva joined them. She immediately pulled King Steve and Prince Daniel into a conversation. Tony turned to Princess Grace. The princess was standing by one of the horses, softly petting its nose.

"Are you looking forward to going home, Princess?" he asked.

The girl turned to look at him. "Yes. I miss the beach, and —"

"Come'on, Monkey, time to go!" Prince Daniel interrupted.

Ziva had backed away from the brothers and they were now at the door of the carriage. Unlike when they arrived, the Earl and Countess of Noshimuri were in one carriage, and the others were all piling into the other.

"It was good to meet you, King Steve," Tony said in farewell. "I hope our countries will have a wonderful relationship of trading and peace."

"And to you as well, King Anthony," he responded.

As the Buidheann delegation clattered out of the courtyard, Tony could hear horses' hooves coming up behind him. When he turned, he saw Kate and her three knights, each leading their horse.

"We need to be leaving as well," Kate said, leaning in to hug Ziva. "I look forward to seeing you all at Christmas, and I think Dad was planning on offering to host everyone for the holiday this year."

"We look forward to the invite."

Both women turned to look at Tony.

"Why so formal, Tony?"

"What? I can't be formal?"

Kate shrugged. "It's just weird to hear from you when it's just us. Anyway, we really do need to be going."

Then she and her three knights mounted their horses and left the courtyard.

Tony turned to Ziva. "Are you ready to go in and eat breakfast?" he asked.

She nodded and they walked side by side into the castle.

They were almost done with their meal when there was a knock at the door and Nick and Ellie entered the room. Standing arm in arm, both were dressed in traveling clothes. Nick had his sword on his hip and Ellie had a bag in her open hand.

"We also will be leaving," Nick said.

Tony nodded. "We appreciate that you stayed longer than normal, to participate in the tournament."

"And we look forward to seeing you after Christmas," Ziva added.

Ellie smiled. "Yes, we do too."

Then the married couple left the room, leaving Tony and Ziva alone. They finished their meal in silence.

"And suddenly the castle is practically empty," Tony commented.

"Remember, Kensi will be returning here before the week is out," Ziva said. "And that reminds me, I need to check something in the siege tunnels. Would you like to join me?"

Tony shrugged. "Sure, why not." Why would he not take any opportunity to spend time with his wife?

"Do you have the map for the tunnels?" he asked as they were walking towards the entrance.

Ziva shook her head. "No, but I know where we're going."

Tony shrugged and let Ziva lead. He had never been in the tunnels themselves, only when he skimmed through them to get to the old war room or the hot springs. He didn't mind letting Ziva lead, though, so he just followed contentedly, carrying the torch they had brought with them.

They had been walking for nearly half of an hour when they approached a chasm that had an old wooden plank spanning the distance across it. There was a rope tied to one end of the board that hung down into the chasm. Maybe six or so fathoms past the chasm was light.

"This is what I needed to check on," Ziva said, leaning down and grabbing the board. "Nobody should know where the opening of the tunnels is, but I do not want to leave the board here for anyone who happens to find it."

Tony, meanwhile, was peering over the edge of the chasm. Four fathoms below was a dinghy, floating in an underground cave. In it sat a chest that had chains criss-crossed around it. The skeleton of some sort of rodent was curled up on top of it. There were also what remained of wooden planks drifting in the water.

"Did you and Abby see that last summer when you were mapping the tunnels?" Tony asked, pointing.

Ziva joined him at the edge. "Oh, yes. There was just so much going on that I did not get the chance to tell you about it."

"Well, we have the rope, should we see if one of us can get down and grab it?"

"Sure."

The rope was securely tied to the board, and so it was left there, just dangling. Tony sat on the board while Ziva prepared to scale down the rope. The rope was long enough that it pooled in a pile in the dinghy. Once they were ready, Ziva began the task of shimmying down the rope.

"I have made it," she called up to Tony.

Knowing that he didn't need to be at the other end of the board to offset her weight, Tony approached the edge and looked down at his wife.

Ziva pushed the rodent skeleton into the water and watched the bones sink into the dark water. Then she turned to the chest and started messing with the chains. There was a lock, though, that she was unable to do anything with. Tony heard a faint sigh right before Ziva tried lifting the chest.

"Tony?" she called up after she stopped messing with the chest.

"Yes, Sweetcheeks?"

"I am going to tie the rope to the chains on the chest, then I will climb back up, and we will both pull the chest up."

"Ok, careful now."

It took Ziva at most two minutes before she was standing by Tony once again. Then they both grabbed the rope and stood at the edge of the chasm. The chest was heavy as it slowly was raised higher and higher. There were a few times when they lost a few inches, but they never dropped it.

Finally they pulled it over the edge of the chasm. Tony let himself fall backwards in relief.

"Good job, Zi," he said. "Now we just need to find the key to the lock."