“How did they escape? I read that bulletin. You reported that they had taken refuge in a natural fortress. You had them pinned in,” the Montisferro boy asked. The king had already arrived, to the typical fanfare that is so laden with ceremony that it is not worth repeating. His seating, between the dukes Feugard and Ashe, marked the proper start of the feast and food had already been laden across the table. Bounties of vegetables, both raw and roasted, were kept in communal bowls and steaming loaves of bread burned the fingers of the overeager before they could stuff the baked bounty into thick cups of seafood chowder.

While Aisha chastised Lupa for picking the scallops out of the soup, Lucius explained, “I wrote that bulletin while we were still sieging the place.” This was a lie of course, but the kind of lie appropriate to the situation. “It was obvious that the number of defenders was decreasing through the night. It’s very difficult to leave proper cook fires unattended you know, and my wastelanders were still habitually vigilant beneath the stars. I had a good estimate of their reduction but I made the mistake of thinking it was through desertion. The cliffs to their back weren’t unscalable, they were simply difficult to take en masse. I learned after that they had smuggling tunnels to use. One third of their army climbed the hard way. One third used the tunnels, and the mercenaries allowed the Giordanans under Ismael to escape through the foothills because they regrouped with me for orders. The fire threw everyone’s plans into disarray.”

“Except the Cyclops,” Frederika said.

Lucius nodded his head. “True. While I won the tactical victory, I was unable to break their strategy. At that time, I had no idea what kind of leverage they were seeking to use against me, else I would have been slightly more irrational.”

“Good that you didn’t,” Annika said. She gave a coy grin and said, “People would have starved if you hadn’t secured that grain.”

The boy grimaced. “And a great deal of soldiers would probably still be alive today if I had ended the rebellion then and there.”

Frederika had mostly ignored her food. “Did you really count the bodies? Like, you assigned somebody the task to go around and count everyone who died?”

Of course, he hadn’t, but he said, “It happens when you bury them.”

“In a pit?”

“Even when you bury them in a pit, yes. I think our conversation has strayed a bit from appropriate fare.”

“Well, father always says to never trust a bulletin. Half the time they’re forged to mis-inform the enemy. The only thing you can really trust is the goods and the prisoners that show up before your very eyes.”

Lucius grinned. “Such as the grain.”

“Such as the grain, which you took from an enemy you drove off to fight nearly on the other side of the world.”

Lucius scoffed. “Please, we were barely east of Tavina. We were still in Jeameaux’s territory when I caught up to him again.”

“For the grand finale to the rebellion,” Frederika said, speaking into her wine.

“The paladin had to reconvene with his designated thief. I would have caught him sooner if he hadn’t plunged into the swamp.”

Annika chimed in, after glaring at her little sister. “Remarkable, isn’t it? That such honorable men became so base?”

Lucius glanced over to Aisha. “If any lesser a man had done the deed, I’d be here telling a very different story. And I don’t mean to say they bungled the villainy.”

Aisha had completed barely a week of study–she still struggled even the simplest of resonances(1)--when the blademaster came for her. The ruse of staining her hair with soot was meaningless while she stayed in the known home of her family. The effort to hide her was ultimately for naught. Mihael of Bakerstreet prowled through the night, having shed the armor and glory of his due station. He once more skulked as does a youth without parents, without hope for the future. The city streets were of Tavina, hot and dusty, but much the same. He had no fear of squelching through mud, of leaving the signature tracks of his boots. After several days settling into the city, he moved through the night as if he had grown up there.

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The guard patrols were light, one of many symptoms left by the rebellion. Still, he had no desire to cross blades with the men of the polis. When their lantern light came swaying across the alleys, he shrank beneath windows and stifled his breath. As quiet as death, he still kept a grip upon the handle of his arming blade. Though he brought with him his knightly blade, it was the shank of steel kept in a hand-stitched leather sheath that he knew he would have to rely upon between the plaster walls.

Perhaps if he had been with any other accomplice, he might have had to spill the blood of the town guard, but he had with him a man of Aillesterra who existed as a ghost. His breathe oozed out with a heavy magic, leadening the air and holding it still. No sound existed around his cloaked form.

When the two of them reached their destination, they had to climb over a mudbrick wall, its edge lined with pottery shards. Hoisted up by Mihael’s hand, the Aillesterran struck off the ceramic blades without a noise. He then easily pulled himself up and rolled over to throw down his hand. Hauling Mihael up like a pendulum, the two rogues barreled into the garden of the Canta family residence.

Here, there was a victim of history. Through no fault of anyone, that particular night the Canta family hosted a suitor for Aisha. He was a young man with little to offer for her but his forthright effort. He had ridden in on a spotted horse and boldly offered his own life in bondage to Master Canta for a period of three years in exchange for his daughter’s hand, and if she would have him, seven more years hereinafter. He thought that with her brother buried, such a proposal would be amendable to the old man.

Perhaps in another circumstance, it would have been. The boy was cunning and strong, with a sincere heart. He was wasted as the mere son of a well town elder. As evidence, the revelation that Aisha was already taken before he arrived was greeted with laughter and congratulations for her good fortune. He bore not a shred of ill-will to her. Truly, he believed the two of them would have grown close over the years and bonded properly, but with a frank rejection he merely accepted customary hospitality.

He was to stay one single night but that was the night that Mihael invaded.

Among the languishing flowers of a mother long passed, the two men confronted each other. The failed suitor tried to raise an alarm but discovered that he had no voice. He understood even before Mihael drew his little knife that it was to be violence. With no explanation of intent, both men naturally acceded to violence. Out from his night robe came his own little dagger. It was a smaller weapon than the swordmaster’s, but it did not break or bend under the blows. Steel slashed back and forth as the men lunged at one another. Their feet silently scattered the garden gravel as cloth was ripped apart and stained red.

Then Mihael’s blade opened a wound on the man’s hand. Muscles were split open and his grip faltered. Another blow knocked the little dagger from his grasp and then it was but a single move to thrust into the suitor’s chest. He collapsed to the ground, choking on blood as Mihael entered the Canta home where his comrade had already intruded.

Tragedy made silent proved somber. The Aillesterran had carved open the throat of Master Canta and he laid across the tiles in his pooling blood. Aisha had been taken by the arm. She thrashed and wailed to no effect as tears poured down her face. A number of cuts already adorned her cheeks, hands, and throat, but the threats of the foreigner could hardly quell her anguish.

Unable to speak, Mihael gestured with his hand to ask where the others were. His companion could only shrug. The two violent men who accompanied Aisha every day were not there. Neither defended her beneath the moon and no other man raised a hand to stop the three of them. After throwing a cloak over Aisha and pressing a blade to her back, they dragged her off to the stables they had prepared, and there they hauled her onto the front of a saddle. While Mihael took the reins, he also placed his hand to her shoulder to steady her for the ride.

While he did so, the Aillesterran slaughtered the stablehand who witnessed them. The needless death sickened Mihael, but he suffered it. Then they snapped reins and sent their frightened horses galloping through the streets. Subterfuge was abandoned, flight taken. They burst past the city watch, flying out into the desert.

When Tavina was a speck in the distance, the Aillesterran dropped his stigmata. His chest heaved as exertion caught up with him and they drew their horses to a walk. “We have a problem.”

Mihael reined closer. “Where were the men?”

The Aillesterran sneered and shook his head. “Let them come. I’m not worried about them. She’s the problem,” he said, gesturing to Aisha.

She turned her head and glared with insurmountable hatred at the swordmaster who had captured her. “You’re going to pay for this.”

Mihael bowed his head to her. “I’m terribly sorry about your father.”

The Aillesterran reached out and yanked on the cloak that covered Aisha. “Her father can’t hurt us now. Look!”

Aisha twisted her shoulders as Mihael pulled his horse to a stop. She let him see the soft rounding of her belly. The Aillesterran hissed, but there was no need to explain to Mihael. He understood at a glance, now that he had her so close, that there had been a tremendous miscalculation. She was pregnant. She was not merely Lucius’ mistress of choice, a pawn to be bartered with.

Aisha was the mother of his child and by abducting her, they had not only endangered the girl’s life, but the life of Lucius’ firstborn child.

She made him a promise. “Lucius is going to rip your heart out of your chest. He is going to kill every last one of you.”