"Mate? Mate, you bloody there or what?!"
"Hmm?"
"You about done wiv' that?"
Kasoria looked down at the potato in his hand. Half-peeled and still moist. Long enough for him to blink a few times and the younger man sitting with him to snort in amusement. "What, duck out for a nip earlier, did yeh?"
The man who was definitely not an assassin-in-waiting and was, most definitely, just another faceless kitchen hand gave a sheepish little shrug and handed over the potato. "Sorry. Had a few things on me mind, is all."
"Yeah, well, you ain't the only one," Byron said with a weary sigh, taking the potato and expertly peeling the rest of it. He added it to the tub of finished ones, glowing like yellow eggs. Kasoria was already working on another, taken from the sack between them. "Ain't we all?"
If only you bloody knew, boy.
He'd scrubbed dishes and pots for a while until Fidale moved him over to the other side of the kitchen, where the food was prepared. The room was as big as a ballroom, filled with people and smoke and smells and boiling, burning, grilling metal and meats. But he'd got lucky, at least. He was right in front of the door leading out to the hall, which led to... well, he didn't know, but all the dishes going out were immaculate. The food wasn't so much dumped on them as it was arranged, artistically placed with as much an eye for looks as sustenance. The servants bringing it out were in livery, not drab robes or shabby tunics.
This was where the feast was being fed from. Supplied by a never-ending human chain. Not just food, too.
Here comes the booze.
"All right, people, let's make it smart out there!"
Fidale was definitely a man who liked being in charge. His kind were familiar in all places where rich and poor worked close together, because they always made sure to be right in the middle. Not one of the Rich, never accepted, perish the thought, but appreciated by his "betters". Useful and efficient and loyal... and they liked to let everyone else know it.
"Suzanne, brandy and ale to the Duchess and her husband. Welsley? The Baron will take his sherry and his niece the wine. Ah, Falco, Lord Kayled Wine will be having, hah, of course, the wine. "
Fates, the cunt even pauses for laughter... oh, and fuck me, he actually got some. Have some fucking dignity, people.
"The rest of you, keep your eyes open for empty glasses, and refill them as necessary." Fidale clasped his hands behind his back and beamed with pride at his little gaggle of drink-bearing minions. "Do the household proud. Off you-"
"Bugger?"
"What was that?!"
"Um..." All eyes turned to Falco, who was studying the wine bottle on the tray. "This, er... This is port, sir."
"Oh, for... well go down to the wine cellar and-"
"I'll get it, sir!"
Those same eyes swiveled around to the hairy man bounding over from a pile of potatoes. Grinning broadly, standing up straight in front of Fidale like a soldier on parade. Yeah, play it up. Wankers like him act like soldiers, buy into it. For every surprised face there was a scowl, a frown. This upstart, with barely a night in service, dared to be so brash?! Fidale cocked a tapered eyebrow and regarded Kasoria like a cat that had somehow learned to talk.
"And you are...?"
"Alvaris, sir. Fresh to the household, sir, jus' fer the night. Extra hands an' all. I think you saw me earlier, when I arrived...?"
"Oh... yes. Yes! Of course!"
Like fuck you did. But you'd rather eat your own dick that admit to being an old coot with a less-than-perfect memory, wouldn't you?
"Allow me to fetch the wine, sir. Good chance for me t'learn where everything is. Won't be a jiffy!"
Some part of him... okay, fine, almost all of him cringed at his performance. So winsome, so eager to please, so very everything he was definitely fucking not. But this was not Etzos, where his usual icy callousness would open all doors and accomplish all missions. Here he needed to blend in. More than his hair and his face and his clothes, it was the attitude that mattered. Kasoria tried to remember every servant and bondsman he'd met in his life. The image he always got was one of... almost a slave. No will of their own, but to impress. No desire, but to ingratiate. He channeled that as best he could, and kept smiling. That was the key. Even if it made him look like an idiot.
So look like one. People are easier to play if they think you're stupid.
"Hmm... well... yes, I suppose that will suffice. Falco? Take some more rolls out, I saw the end table was running low. Alvaris, is it? Indeed. Down those stairs, second door, and the bottle is "Grand Reginald, 457"." A finger flashed up so quickly that Kasoria was almost impressed. Put a blade in the old boy's hand and he might have been someone, arcs back. "Not the 447. Seven Above, what a stink that would raise..."
"Understood, sir!"
Off he dashed, playing the part all the way down the stairs, and not a moment longer. As soon as he hit the bottom step, his manner seemed to slough off like skin from a snake. Gone was the smile and the straight-backed Can Do Attitude. Replacing it was something stoic and clinical and without any of the humanity he'd been feigning for the last break. For that long he'd been sitting, and peeling, and watching, and listening. Knowing that Qit'ria was waiting opposite that privy, likely turned into a fucking lion for all he knew, eager to pounce. But he had to give her the opening, and now...
"Thank yeh kindly, Falco," he muttered to himself, opening the door to a room lined from floor to ceiling with bottles. "Fer fuckin' up at the right moment..."
It took him a few bits to find the right one. Apparently they were all stacked alphabetically, which made sense. He was worried it would be be country, or type, or year, something esoteric that only the posh sorts would care about. But instead, he just had to run through the alphabet song in his head as he walked, one finger plinking and tinkling off each bottle until-
There you are.
He ripped off the cork and poured out half the bottle onto the floor, careful none of it splashed his shoes. Then he pulled a smaller bottle from his pocket and emptied the water into it, instead. He'd grabbed it during his waiting, knowing he'd need something of the like. Wouldn't be very smart to be seen watering down the wine for their "guest of honor". As he poured, he mused that if only it was something else. Something Miss Givings would have sold for a handsome price, masked by the heady wine and deadly in a matter of bits. That would have been more his sort of job. He could hand over the wine, and make his way out of the castle. Be halfway across the city before Kayled Wine, whoever the fuck he was, started choking to death on his own blood.
Not tonight.
With a rueful sigh, Kasoria corked the bottle and left the cellar. He was halfway up the stairs when the transformation came over his face. The sullen, emotionless look bloomed into eagerness, capped with a smile. Falco and Fidale were still waiting up top, the latter giving him a slight nod of approval, and as he handed the bottle to the former, the servant leaned closer-
"You're a right little asslicker, y'know that?"
Kasoria's smile didn't waver. The mask didn't slip. He wasn't about to fuck this up now.
"Yer welcome."
Then it was just the waiting. Back to his potatoes, and Byron, and his endless fantasies about noble women. Kasoria tuned him out and kept his hands busy. His eyes roved every few trills to the doorway, looking for... fuck, he didn't even know what Wine looked like! A man in need of a piss, probably. He'd have to keep his ears open. So he did... but time was a corrosive thing. It ate away at willpower, just like it sapped at strength. The more he thought of what he had to do, the more she came more and more into his eyes. Not just her, but how she looked at him. The heat of her hand across his chest, even for a moment, even over the fabric of his tunic-
Fucking hells, man, stop acting like a bloody child!
Kasoria sat there and peeled and stewed. Thought of the utterly naked way she regarded him, seemingly every time they were together. No courtly pretense or flirtations for her, not in the chaste way he'd known of other women. Whores didn't count, after all. This one wanted him, not for virtues he had to pretend to have, but for the vileness he seemed to project. Well... not seemed to, if he was honest. But she wanted him, knowing he was far from a good man, and sought no coin or favor for his... attentions.
There was a babble around him. A blurting of noise, voices, words. But two pierced through his reverie-
"-s'Lord Wine himself, as I live and-"
Kasoria's head snapped around, just in time to see a man in fine clothes with weathered, patrician features walking swiftly past it. Two men taller and broader than him kept pace just behind, weapons sheathed at their hip and backs. Faces wary where his was... slightly pained.
"Oi," Kasoria whispered, putting down his peeler. "Gotta go fer a piss. Back soon!"
"Hey, you can't just-"
Kasoria wouldn't bother with banter, this time. He got up and stated walked, shushing Byron as he left, waving a hand vaguely in his direction. He all but ran to the doorway, and turned to see the trio heading further down the high hallway. Their feet slammed almost in unison on the stones, and his own footsteps were masked by them.
The moment was coming. It was always there, had always been there. It waited for them all, seen and unseen, hidden and obvious. The bodyguards, the Lord of the Mantis, the wild Becomer and the Etzori assassin. All of them careened towards a moment, a space in time that had a place in a castle in Andaris City. The footsteps were a metronome now, matching his heartbeat as it went faster and faster. Kasoria was ten feet from their backs before one of the bodyguards frowned and looked over his shoulder, hand going to his sword-
"Master?"
All three men stopped and turned, looking upon a little man in cheap clothes with a smile plastered over a face that seemed mostly made of hair. He stopped and bowed, one hand behind his back, the other on his chest.
"Deagh dhuine! A bheil feum agad air ceist a chur ort!"
"What the hell was that?"
"Buggered if I know."
"It's... Ith'ession, I believe." Kayled Wine frowned and stood between his protectors, curiosity overwhelming his suspicion for a moment. The mage hunter cocked his head to one side, brow knitted. Kasoria couldn't see a weapon on him, not even a ceremonial one. But if he killed mages for a living, he most likely was one, so he hardly needed them. "But it's just... gibberish, I think. Who are-"
Then it happened. There was a shrill, high sound. It clanged and echoed off the high arches. Blasted around the stone and tapestries. A whistle ripped from Kasoria's lips and all three men before him knew what that meant. Seasoned as they were, they knew an ambush when they'd walked into it, and the signal to spring one when they heard it.
The moment Qit'ria had been waiting for. The door opposite the privy clung open with a crack of wood against stone and metal hinges rattling. The sound and violence was enough to draw the eyes of all three men immediately, bodyguards starting to pull their weapons, but moving their eyes away from-
-Kasoria, who had already had got his hand around the karambit at the small of his back, and-
-ripped the curved blade free, slashing it through the air and lunging in the same moment. The funny little man was gone now. Now there was The Raggedy Man, striking with the precise brutality he was famous for. Taking advantage of that thin sliver of time Qit'ria's entrance had granted him. One of the bodyguards had an ax pulled from his back and in his hands, but he was still looking the wrong way-
-karambit slicing open his throat, carotid first, ripping a red, gushing line diagonally across his neck-
-then Qit'ria joined the fray, and Kasoria had to bite down his shock at what he saw, and focus on the last protector of Kayled Wind. The one who, he knew with one look at what the Becomer was unleashing, had already failed.
"Hmm?"
"You about done wiv' that?"
Kasoria looked down at the potato in his hand. Half-peeled and still moist. Long enough for him to blink a few times and the younger man sitting with him to snort in amusement. "What, duck out for a nip earlier, did yeh?"
The man who was definitely not an assassin-in-waiting and was, most definitely, just another faceless kitchen hand gave a sheepish little shrug and handed over the potato. "Sorry. Had a few things on me mind, is all."
"Yeah, well, you ain't the only one," Byron said with a weary sigh, taking the potato and expertly peeling the rest of it. He added it to the tub of finished ones, glowing like yellow eggs. Kasoria was already working on another, taken from the sack between them. "Ain't we all?"
If only you bloody knew, boy.
He'd scrubbed dishes and pots for a while until Fidale moved him over to the other side of the kitchen, where the food was prepared. The room was as big as a ballroom, filled with people and smoke and smells and boiling, burning, grilling metal and meats. But he'd got lucky, at least. He was right in front of the door leading out to the hall, which led to... well, he didn't know, but all the dishes going out were immaculate. The food wasn't so much dumped on them as it was arranged, artistically placed with as much an eye for looks as sustenance. The servants bringing it out were in livery, not drab robes or shabby tunics.
This was where the feast was being fed from. Supplied by a never-ending human chain. Not just food, too.
Here comes the booze.
"All right, people, let's make it smart out there!"
Fidale was definitely a man who liked being in charge. His kind were familiar in all places where rich and poor worked close together, because they always made sure to be right in the middle. Not one of the Rich, never accepted, perish the thought, but appreciated by his "betters". Useful and efficient and loyal... and they liked to let everyone else know it.
"Suzanne, brandy and ale to the Duchess and her husband. Welsley? The Baron will take his sherry and his niece the wine. Ah, Falco, Lord Kayled Wine will be having, hah, of course, the wine. "
Fates, the cunt even pauses for laughter... oh, and fuck me, he actually got some. Have some fucking dignity, people.
"The rest of you, keep your eyes open for empty glasses, and refill them as necessary." Fidale clasped his hands behind his back and beamed with pride at his little gaggle of drink-bearing minions. "Do the household proud. Off you-"
"Bugger?"
"What was that?!"
"Um..." All eyes turned to Falco, who was studying the wine bottle on the tray. "This, er... This is port, sir."
"Oh, for... well go down to the wine cellar and-"
"I'll get it, sir!"
Those same eyes swiveled around to the hairy man bounding over from a pile of potatoes. Grinning broadly, standing up straight in front of Fidale like a soldier on parade. Yeah, play it up. Wankers like him act like soldiers, buy into it. For every surprised face there was a scowl, a frown. This upstart, with barely a night in service, dared to be so brash?! Fidale cocked a tapered eyebrow and regarded Kasoria like a cat that had somehow learned to talk.
"And you are...?"
"Alvaris, sir. Fresh to the household, sir, jus' fer the night. Extra hands an' all. I think you saw me earlier, when I arrived...?"
"Oh... yes. Yes! Of course!"
Like fuck you did. But you'd rather eat your own dick that admit to being an old coot with a less-than-perfect memory, wouldn't you?
"Allow me to fetch the wine, sir. Good chance for me t'learn where everything is. Won't be a jiffy!"
Some part of him... okay, fine, almost all of him cringed at his performance. So winsome, so eager to please, so very everything he was definitely fucking not. But this was not Etzos, where his usual icy callousness would open all doors and accomplish all missions. Here he needed to blend in. More than his hair and his face and his clothes, it was the attitude that mattered. Kasoria tried to remember every servant and bondsman he'd met in his life. The image he always got was one of... almost a slave. No will of their own, but to impress. No desire, but to ingratiate. He channeled that as best he could, and kept smiling. That was the key. Even if it made him look like an idiot.
So look like one. People are easier to play if they think you're stupid.
"Hmm... well... yes, I suppose that will suffice. Falco? Take some more rolls out, I saw the end table was running low. Alvaris, is it? Indeed. Down those stairs, second door, and the bottle is "Grand Reginald, 457"." A finger flashed up so quickly that Kasoria was almost impressed. Put a blade in the old boy's hand and he might have been someone, arcs back. "Not the 447. Seven Above, what a stink that would raise..."
"Understood, sir!"
Off he dashed, playing the part all the way down the stairs, and not a moment longer. As soon as he hit the bottom step, his manner seemed to slough off like skin from a snake. Gone was the smile and the straight-backed Can Do Attitude. Replacing it was something stoic and clinical and without any of the humanity he'd been feigning for the last break. For that long he'd been sitting, and peeling, and watching, and listening. Knowing that Qit'ria was waiting opposite that privy, likely turned into a fucking lion for all he knew, eager to pounce. But he had to give her the opening, and now...
"Thank yeh kindly, Falco," he muttered to himself, opening the door to a room lined from floor to ceiling with bottles. "Fer fuckin' up at the right moment..."
It took him a few bits to find the right one. Apparently they were all stacked alphabetically, which made sense. He was worried it would be be country, or type, or year, something esoteric that only the posh sorts would care about. But instead, he just had to run through the alphabet song in his head as he walked, one finger plinking and tinkling off each bottle until-
There you are.
He ripped off the cork and poured out half the bottle onto the floor, careful none of it splashed his shoes. Then he pulled a smaller bottle from his pocket and emptied the water into it, instead. He'd grabbed it during his waiting, knowing he'd need something of the like. Wouldn't be very smart to be seen watering down the wine for their "guest of honor". As he poured, he mused that if only it was something else. Something Miss Givings would have sold for a handsome price, masked by the heady wine and deadly in a matter of bits. That would have been more his sort of job. He could hand over the wine, and make his way out of the castle. Be halfway across the city before Kayled Wine, whoever the fuck he was, started choking to death on his own blood.
Not tonight.
With a rueful sigh, Kasoria corked the bottle and left the cellar. He was halfway up the stairs when the transformation came over his face. The sullen, emotionless look bloomed into eagerness, capped with a smile. Falco and Fidale were still waiting up top, the latter giving him a slight nod of approval, and as he handed the bottle to the former, the servant leaned closer-
"You're a right little asslicker, y'know that?"
Kasoria's smile didn't waver. The mask didn't slip. He wasn't about to fuck this up now.
"Yer welcome."
Then it was just the waiting. Back to his potatoes, and Byron, and his endless fantasies about noble women. Kasoria tuned him out and kept his hands busy. His eyes roved every few trills to the doorway, looking for... fuck, he didn't even know what Wine looked like! A man in need of a piss, probably. He'd have to keep his ears open. So he did... but time was a corrosive thing. It ate away at willpower, just like it sapped at strength. The more he thought of what he had to do, the more she came more and more into his eyes. Not just her, but how she looked at him. The heat of her hand across his chest, even for a moment, even over the fabric of his tunic-
Fucking hells, man, stop acting like a bloody child!
Kasoria sat there and peeled and stewed. Thought of the utterly naked way she regarded him, seemingly every time they were together. No courtly pretense or flirtations for her, not in the chaste way he'd known of other women. Whores didn't count, after all. This one wanted him, not for virtues he had to pretend to have, but for the vileness he seemed to project. Well... not seemed to, if he was honest. But she wanted him, knowing he was far from a good man, and sought no coin or favor for his... attentions.
There was a babble around him. A blurting of noise, voices, words. But two pierced through his reverie-
"-s'Lord Wine himself, as I live and-"
Kasoria's head snapped around, just in time to see a man in fine clothes with weathered, patrician features walking swiftly past it. Two men taller and broader than him kept pace just behind, weapons sheathed at their hip and backs. Faces wary where his was... slightly pained.
"Oi," Kasoria whispered, putting down his peeler. "Gotta go fer a piss. Back soon!"
"Hey, you can't just-"
Kasoria wouldn't bother with banter, this time. He got up and stated walked, shushing Byron as he left, waving a hand vaguely in his direction. He all but ran to the doorway, and turned to see the trio heading further down the high hallway. Their feet slammed almost in unison on the stones, and his own footsteps were masked by them.
The moment was coming. It was always there, had always been there. It waited for them all, seen and unseen, hidden and obvious. The bodyguards, the Lord of the Mantis, the wild Becomer and the Etzori assassin. All of them careened towards a moment, a space in time that had a place in a castle in Andaris City. The footsteps were a metronome now, matching his heartbeat as it went faster and faster. Kasoria was ten feet from their backs before one of the bodyguards frowned and looked over his shoulder, hand going to his sword-
"Master?"
All three men stopped and turned, looking upon a little man in cheap clothes with a smile plastered over a face that seemed mostly made of hair. He stopped and bowed, one hand behind his back, the other on his chest.
"Deagh dhuine! A bheil feum agad air ceist a chur ort!"
"What the hell was that?"
"Buggered if I know."
"It's... Ith'ession, I believe." Kayled Wine frowned and stood between his protectors, curiosity overwhelming his suspicion for a moment. The mage hunter cocked his head to one side, brow knitted. Kasoria couldn't see a weapon on him, not even a ceremonial one. But if he killed mages for a living, he most likely was one, so he hardly needed them. "But it's just... gibberish, I think. Who are-"
Then it happened. There was a shrill, high sound. It clanged and echoed off the high arches. Blasted around the stone and tapestries. A whistle ripped from Kasoria's lips and all three men before him knew what that meant. Seasoned as they were, they knew an ambush when they'd walked into it, and the signal to spring one when they heard it.
The moment Qit'ria had been waiting for. The door opposite the privy clung open with a crack of wood against stone and metal hinges rattling. The sound and violence was enough to draw the eyes of all three men immediately, bodyguards starting to pull their weapons, but moving their eyes away from-
-Kasoria, who had already had got his hand around the karambit at the small of his back, and-
-ripped the curved blade free, slashing it through the air and lunging in the same moment. The funny little man was gone now. Now there was The Raggedy Man, striking with the precise brutality he was famous for. Taking advantage of that thin sliver of time Qit'ria's entrance had granted him. One of the bodyguards had an ax pulled from his back and in his hands, but he was still looking the wrong way-
-karambit slicing open his throat, carotid first, ripping a red, gushing line diagonally across his neck-
-then Qit'ria joined the fray, and Kasoria had to bite down his shock at what he saw, and focus on the last protector of Kayled Wind. The one who, he knew with one look at what the Becomer was unleashing, had already failed.
