“You want to go in … through the front door?”
Lady Renise looked stunned as I described the intricacies of my plan.
Naturally, I didn't expect anyone to immediately take to the complex nature of my methods, sown from a thousand possibilities, as I did. But even so, the look of abject shock on her face was far too much praise. Being able to conjure immaculately designed proposals on demand was paramount to my role as a princess.
Still, I modestly nodded as I eyed the tall iron gates of the Rimeaux Estate from the corner of a … shack, hovel. Whatever these fishermen used to store their tools or live inside.
“I do. Why opt for inefficiency? The prize lies just ahead.”
Lady Renise's mouth opened, but no words came out.
We were on the edge of the docks district, where the walls and gates of the Rimeaux Estate rose above every ramshackle building here.
Unlike the majority of noble estates, the Rimeaux's ancestral home was located not in the same district as the embassies, but the very edge of our city's docks.
Seeing its location, it was little wonder how they'd offered their souls over to criminal enterprising. Smuggling goods through, or perhaps beneath, such a well placed estate must reap a tidy reward. Enough that an organised criminal venture now operated within its grounds.
The Smugglers Guild.
A truly wasteful state of affairs. Had they devoted themselves to the good of the kingdom, then their enterprising spirit would have served the Royal Treasury's tax coffers kindly.
Now, the only industry they would be aiding would be my soap making one.
And that wasn't a bad thing. Oh, not in the slightest.
“I see only one unintimidating individual standing guard,” I said, eyeing the portly man behind the gates. “There is little reason to hesitate at a straightforward entry, especially given Coppelia's wide array of methods for underhandedly dispatching foes.”
Beside me, Coppelia tossed a very suspect red berry into her mouth.
“I don't know what you're talking about,” she said, chewing slowly.
Lady Renise looked up to the sky. I could almost hear the prayer. Undoubtedly, she was thanking the heavens for ensuring we were the ones to answer her call to aid.
“I … well, yes, but I believe there are quite a few reasons not to barge through the front. The presence of only a single man is assuredly a ruse. There are certain to be guards inside. Perhaps the greatest concentration waiting behind the door.”
I pointed at Coppelia. She ate another red berry.
It was all the explanation I needed to give.
“I understand you both have a prodigious amount of ability,” continued Lady Renise, shooting yet another glance upwards. “But it's unnecessary to risk an open conflict. There's a path into the estate. A tunnel.”
“A tunnel,” I repeated after her. “A smuggler's tunnel?”
“Yes, although I don't believe it was ever used. The hatch I utilised was buried beneath decades of ash ...”
Suddenly, Lady Renise became quiet.
“I was aided in my escape by a friend,” she added. “Lord Oliver Lepre. I … I don't know what became of him after.”
I frowned.
House Lepre. I knew the names of every worthless lord in Reitzlake. And yet this one almost had the honour of escaping my unerring memory altogether. A truly meritless House. The only acclaim that the Lepre family had was that they had clawed out survival by sheer measure of how little attention anyone paid them.
Small wonder they were involved in the smuggling trade. Their businesses were unnoteworthy and their holdings non-existent.
And so, I wiped the name once and for all from my mind.
“Then you may inquire after Lord … whoever, after I've dealt with the Tolent woman first. This tunnel. How muddy is it?”
“Excuse me?”
“The quantity of mud. How far does it rise? To the heel? Or perhaps ankle? What is its consistency? Is it relatively dry, or will it stick like sludge?”
“Um … don't you want to know how far this tunnel is? Where in the estate it leads? How secure the ladder is?”
“For my plan, it's exceptionally important to learn about the mud.”
“Huh? Well, in that case … I suppose it fully engulfs the sole, and up to the ankle on occasion. It's relatively sludgy, being mud and wet sand.”
“I see.”
“So we'll use it?”
“No. We'll use the front door.”
Lady Renise looked between myself and the gates.
“I don't understand,” she said simply. “Is there an advantage to revealing ourselves to the Tolent garrison? If we use the tunnel, we may take Lady Lucina unawares, bind her and even steal her away.”
“Lady Renise.” I shook my head. “This is your home. Will you be content to crawl in the shadows even as you return to oust the trespassers from your birthright?”
“I ...”
“A smuggler's daughter you may be, but you are still nobility. No matter how low into the sewers of the underworld you may sink, your head will always rise above the darkest, filthiest waters, to command the respect of even those knaves around you. That is what it means to be a true noblewoman. Know that if the smugglers see you skulking like an intruder, then they will view you as one.”
In other words, we did not delve into muddy tunnels when there was a perfectly serviceable door right in front of us!
I shuddered at the very thought.
I was not above prudent ideas and spectacular entrances. Diplomacy was always more impressive after bypassing reception and mysteriously appearing in the midst of our opponent's court.
But mud. And a tunnel. And a ladder. Again.
Necessity had required me to climb up and down a well. But a smuggler's tunnel? Me? A princess crawling around a hole utilised by criminals? It didn't matter if no one saw me. I'd see me. In my own nightmares.
The shame sent a shiver through my body.
“No … you are correct,” said Lady Renise, her fists clenching. “This is the Rimeaux Estate. Not the Tolent's. Even if I'm to face judgement and all our holdings are taken from us, this is still not yet the case. I cannot shame my family's name any further. I have skulked enough. I have … are we going in now?!”
“Yes,” I said, sweeping around the corner and making my way directly to the gates of the Rimeaux Estate. “Apologies, but I haven't the time for your positive self-reflections.”
“Shouldn't … Shouldn't we at least discuss a plan?!”
“We have a plan. You punch Lady Lucina Tolent in the face. Slowly. And then Coppelia hauls her to the nearest dungeon to await a sham trial where she will be found guilty without due process for a litany of high crimes against the kingdom.”
“Excuse me?! It … It won't be that simple! Lady Lucina is—”
I glanced behind my shoulder and smiled.
“Insignificant.”
Lady Renise had no words, almost stumbling as the bluntness of my answer caught her unawares.
I told no lie. Lady Lucina was a speck in the history book of nobility with an overinflated sense of worth. Judging by the boldness of her attack on the Rimeaux Estate, she believed herself to hold higher authority than her current status permitted.
She would be proven wrong.
As would her subordinates as well.
“Well, now. Lady Renise. And other guests, too. This does come as a surprise. Particularly the maid's clothing. Have you come to seek employment with the new proprietors of the estate? If so, I can endeavour to speak a good word on your behalf.”
The portly man behind the gate practically bounced as he smiled at our approach.
Red silks and gold embellishments. He wore too fine a livery to be a mere gate guard. And yet it was also too outspoken for nobility, who were at least drilled from an early age on the importance of dressing for the occasion.
Standing alone behind a gate was no position of honour.
Someone who wished they were nobility, then. A merchant. Or perhaps ...
“Sir Albert,” said Lady Renise. “You're less courteous than the last time we spoke.”
Ah, but of course.
A knight.
They were not nobility. And thus unworthy of my automatic contempt. It did happen on occasion, but rarely.
After all, some knights considered themselves the lowest rung of nobility. Worse, some knights knew they weren't nobility, and yet actively strove for promotion, as though to be a baron of some countryside barn was an honour worth striving for.
This man.
He was one of them.
I could see it. And I could smell it. The perfume. Like the droppings of a toad after being regurgitated by a plagued rat.
“Courteousness is for the privileged. I am the last knight in the city. A rarer breed than ladies these days. I believe I'm due a curtsey.”
“You're due more than that,” I said, as Lady Renise quite clearly eyed the gap between the bars with her fist clenched. “You disgrace yourself, sir. To involve yourself in the politics of crime is beneath every vow of knighthood. Your duty is to serve the realm, not undermine it.”
The toad knight laughed. He'd heard this before. Or perhaps he'd simply accepted his new lot in life.
“I was failed by the realm long before I could claim to undermine it. You may skip lecturing me, girl. I was sworn to duty and betrayed by it. I served barons, lords and dukes with distinction, and received pittances and insults as a reward. I have no obligations remaining to blablablablabla ...”
I shut off my brain to allow the stream of perceived slights to enter one ear and exit the next.
I could accept when peasants complained about being poor. Being poor was their job. And nobody liked their job. But knights?
Being a knight wasn't a job. It was a lifestyle choice. One filled with dirt, sweat and hardship. They were warned explicitly, thousands of times before they took their vow of knighthood, that it was filled with more muddy roads than crying damsels. If they ignored the warnings and were surprised they only received gratitude instead of daughters and bags of crowns, then I had no room to listen.
“Clearly,” I said, once the mouth before me had stopped moving. “Where are the knights? Where are the Orders of Reitzlake and their endless parades of banners, squires and squealing towngirls illegally clogging up the narrow streets?”
The toad knight scoffed.
“They left north.”
“North? Where north?”
“They left for the Wovencoille. The prince foolishly sent every Order to the northern forests and left himself vulnerable. Now the city he presides over is lost to him.”
I narrowed my eyes at this portly excuse of a man. His reprimand would come.
“Why have they gone north?”
“You do not know, adventurer?” he said, his smirk wider than his stomach line. “Then perhaps you can take this to your guild so they can prove of use. The snow that engulfs our northern forests has become an impassable blizzard. The local barons have sighted the fae, and fear an invasion is imminent. All Knightly Orders have been dispatched to face the possible threat.”
For a long moment, all I could do was blink.
Eventually, however, I placed my palm against my face.
And then—
I internally let out a groan.
Uuugggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
“You want to go in … through the front door?”
Lady Renise looked stunned as I described the intricacies of my plan.
Naturally, I didn't expect anyone to immediately take to the complex nature of my methods, sown from a thousand possibilities, as I did. But even so, the look of abject shock on her face was far too much praise. Being able to conjure immaculately designed proposals on demand was paramount to my role as a princess.
Still, I modestly nodded as I eyed the tall iron gates of the Rimeaux Estate from the corner of a … shack, hovel. Whatever these fishermen used to store their tools or live inside.
“I do. Why opt for inefficiency? The prize lies just ahead.”
Lady Renise's mouth opened, but no words came out.
We were on the edge of the docks district, where the walls and gates of the Rimeaux Estate rose above every ramshackle building here.
Unlike the majority of noble estates, the Rimeaux's ancestral home was located not in the same district as the embassies, but the very edge of our city's docks.
Seeing its location, it was little wonder how they'd offered their souls over to criminal enterprising. Smuggling goods through, or perhaps beneath, such a well placed estate must reap a tidy reward. Enough that an organised criminal venture now operated within its grounds.
The Smugglers Guild.
A truly wasteful state of affairs. Had they devoted themselves to the good of the kingdom, then their enterprising spirit would have served the Royal Treasury's tax coffers kindly.
Now, the only industry they would be aiding would be my soap making one.
And that wasn't a bad thing. Oh, not in the slightest.
“I see only one unintimidating individual standing guard,” I said, eyeing the portly man behind the gates. “There is little reason to hesitate at a straightforward entry, especially given Coppelia's wide array of methods for underhandedly dispatching foes.”
Beside me, Coppelia tossed a very suspect red berry into her mouth.
“I don't know what you're talking about,” she said, chewing slowly.
Lady Renise looked up to the sky. I could almost hear the prayer. Undoubtedly, she was thanking the heavens for ensuring we were the ones to answer her call to aid.
“I … well, yes, but I believe there are quite a few reasons not to barge through the front. The presence of only a single man is assuredly a ruse. There are certain to be guards inside. Perhaps the greatest concentration waiting behind the door.”
I pointed at Coppelia. She ate another red berry.
It was all the explanation I needed to give.
“I understand you both have a prodigious amount of ability,” continued Lady Renise, shooting yet another glance upwards. “But it's unnecessary to risk an open conflict. There's a path into the estate. A tunnel.”
“A tunnel,” I repeated after her. “A smuggler's tunnel?”
“Yes, although I don't believe it was ever used. The hatch I utilised was buried beneath decades of ash ...”
Suddenly, Lady Renise became quiet.
“I was aided in my escape by a friend,” she added. “Lord Oliver Lepre. I … I don't know what became of him after.”
I frowned.
House Lepre. I knew the names of every worthless lord in Reitzlake. And yet this one almost had the honour of escaping my unerring memory altogether. A truly meritless House. The only acclaim that the Lepre family had was that they had clawed out survival by sheer measure of how little attention anyone paid them.
Small wonder they were involved in the smuggling trade. Their businesses were unnoteworthy and their holdings non-existent.
And so, I wiped the name once and for all from my mind.
“Then you may inquire after Lord … whoever, after I've dealt with the Tolent woman first. This tunnel. How muddy is it?”
“Excuse me?”
“The quantity of mud. How far does it rise? To the heel? Or perhaps ankle? What is its consistency? Is it relatively dry, or will it stick like sludge?”
“Um … don't you want to know how far this tunnel is? Where in the estate it leads? How secure the ladder is?”
“For my plan, it's exceptionally important to learn about the mud.”
“Huh? Well, in that case … I suppose it fully engulfs the sole, and up to the ankle on occasion. It's relatively sludgy, being mud and wet sand.”
“I see.”
“So we'll use it?”
“No. We'll use the front door.”
Lady Renise looked between myself and the gates.
“I don't understand,” she said simply. “Is there an advantage to revealing ourselves to the Tolent garrison? If we use the tunnel, we may take Lady Lucina unawares, bind her and even steal her away.”
“Lady Renise.” I shook my head. “This is your home. Will you be content to crawl in the shadows even as you return to oust the trespassers from your birthright?”
“I ...”
“A smuggler's daughter you may be, but you are still nobility. No matter how low into the sewers of the underworld you may sink, your head will always rise above the darkest, filthiest waters, to command the respect of even those knaves around you. That is what it means to be a true noblewoman. Know that if the smugglers see you skulking like an intruder, then they will view you as one.”
In other words, we did not delve into muddy tunnels when there was a perfectly serviceable door right in front of us!
I shuddered at the very thought.
I was not above prudent ideas and spectacular entrances. Diplomacy was always more impressive after bypassing reception and mysteriously appearing in the midst of our opponent's court.
But mud. And a tunnel. And a ladder. Again.
Necessity had required me to climb up and down a well. But a smuggler's tunnel? Me? A princess crawling around a hole utilised by criminals? It didn't matter if no one saw me. I'd see me. In my own nightmares.
The shame sent a shiver through my body.
“No … you are correct,” said Lady Renise, her fists clenching. “This is the Rimeaux Estate. Not the Tolent's. Even if I'm to face judgement and all our holdings are taken from us, this is still not yet the case. I cannot shame my family's name any further. I have skulked enough. I have … are we going in now?!”
“Yes,” I said, sweeping around the corner and making my way directly to the gates of the Rimeaux Estate. “Apologies, but I haven't the time for your positive self-reflections.”
“Shouldn't … Shouldn't we at least discuss a plan?!”
“We have a plan. You punch Lady Lucina Tolent in the face. Slowly. And then Coppelia hauls her to the nearest dungeon to await a sham trial where she will be found guilty without due process for a litany of high crimes against the kingdom.”
“Excuse me?! It … It won't be that simple! Lady Lucina is—”
I glanced behind my shoulder and smiled.
“Insignificant.”
Lady Renise had no words, almost stumbling as the bluntness of my answer caught her unawares.
I told no lie. Lady Lucina was a speck in the history book of nobility with an overinflated sense of worth. Judging by the boldness of her attack on the Rimeaux Estate, she believed herself to hold higher authority than her current status permitted.
She would be proven wrong.
As would her subordinates as well.
“Well, now. Lady Renise. And other guests, too. This does come as a surprise. Particularly the maid's clothing. Have you come to seek employment with the new proprietors of the estate? If so, I can endeavour to speak a good word on your behalf.”
The portly man behind the gate practically bounced as he smiled at our approach.
Red silks and gold embellishments. He wore too fine a livery to be a mere gate guard. And yet it was also too outspoken for nobility, who were at least drilled from an early age on the importance of dressing for the occasion.
Standing alone behind a gate was no position of honour.
Someone who wished they were nobility, then. A merchant. Or perhaps ...
“Sir Albert,” said Lady Renise. “You're less courteous than the last time we spoke.”
Ah, but of course.
A knight.
They were not nobility. And thus unworthy of my automatic contempt. It did happen on occasion, but rarely.
After all, some knights considered themselves the lowest rung of nobility. Worse, some knights knew they weren't nobility, and yet actively strove for promotion, as though to be a baron of some countryside barn was an honour worth striving for.
This man.
He was one of them.
I could see it. And I could smell it. The perfume. Like the droppings of a toad after being regurgitated by a plagued rat.
“Courteousness is for the privileged. I am the last knight in the city. A rarer breed than ladies these days. I believe I'm due a curtsey.”
“You're due more than that,” I said, as Lady Renise quite clearly eyed the gap between the bars with her fist clenched. “You disgrace yourself, sir. To involve yourself in the politics of crime is beneath every vow of knighthood. Your duty is to serve the realm, not undermine it.”
The toad knight laughed. He'd heard this before. Or perhaps he'd simply accepted his new lot in life.
“I was failed by the realm long before I could claim to undermine it. You may skip lecturing me, girl. I was sworn to duty and betrayed by it. I served barons, lords and dukes with distinction, and received pittances and insults as a reward. I have no obligations remaining to blablablablabla ...”
I shut off my brain to allow the stream of perceived slights to enter one ear and exit the next.
I could accept when peasants complained about being poor. Being poor was their job. And nobody liked their job. But knights?
Being a knight wasn't a job. It was a lifestyle choice. One filled with dirt, sweat and hardship. They were warned explicitly, thousands of times before they took their vow of knighthood, that it was filled with more muddy roads than crying damsels. If they ignored the warnings and were surprised they only received gratitude instead of daughters and bags of crowns, then I had no room to listen.
“Clearly,” I said, once the mouth before me had stopped moving. “Where are the knights? Where are the Orders of Reitzlake and their endless parades of banners, squires and squealing towngirls illegally clogging up the narrow streets?”
The toad knight scoffed.
“They left north.”
“North? Where north?”
“They left for the Wovencoille. The prince foolishly sent every Order to the northern forests and left himself vulnerable. Now the city he presides over is lost to him.”
I narrowed my eyes at this portly excuse of a man. His reprimand would come.
“Why have they gone north?”
“You do not know, adventurer?” he said, his smirk wider than his stomach line. “Then perhaps you can take this to your guild so they can prove of use. The snow that engulfs our northern forests has become an impassable blizzard. The local barons have sighted the fae, and fear an invasion is imminent. All Knightly Orders have been dispatched to face the possible threat.”
For a long moment, all I could do was blink.
Eventually, however, I placed my palm against my face.
And then—
I internally let out a groan.
Uuugggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
