sabremeister | HS&S:WT Short

Part 5

The letter was addressed to Ander and Lilith Terney. That was either a mistake or a hint, because they weren't married. He was the son of a city guardsman from Tasal in Inpokkar, she was the daughter, only child, and heir of one of the most prominent nobles of that city, Viscount Rothsun. Who exactly they were and how they came to be living together in a cottage in the foothills of the Addrenn Mountains was a complete mystery to everyone in the area, but not to a grand total of five people, two of whom were themselves, and the other three were a hundred miles away.

The city of Tasal had a city guard to maintain law and order. It consisted of three Divisions; the Day Division, the Night Division (known as the Night Owls), and the Heim. While the Day and Night Divisions were simple thief-takers, street-patrollers, fine-levy-ers, the Heim Division were more akin to the Duchy's intelligence services. They wore no uniform, they sniffed out crimes before they happened, and solved crimes where there appeared to be no perpetrator. Sergeant Terney was a respected veteran of the Day Division, and since his wife had died in childbirth he had dedicated every spare minute he could to the Division. His son, Ander, had grown up a healthy and robust young man with a keen intellect and an even keener sense of duty to the city, and so he had joined the Heim Division.

Lilith Rothsun was a very pretty young noblewoman, with a mischevious streak a mile wide. Once she reached her mid-teens, she had begun moonlighting as an upper-storey burglar and thief. This was not acceptable to the city, nor was it acceptable to Viscount Rothsun, who saw in her much of his beloved deceased wife. An arrangement was made, that she return all that she stole to the owners within 24 hours of taking it. Until her last theft in Tasal, she had abided by that agreement completely. Her last theft in Tasal had been at the behest of the Heim Division, specifically from Ander Terney.

Viscount Rothsun had been suffering from ill health for some years. His household wizard, a tall, cadaverous and generally unpleasant individual by the name of Mathis, had gained more and more control of the operations of the Viscount's estate. Someone in the Ducal court had found out that Mathis was familiar with several Necromantic spells, and decided that him being in charge of a powerful Viscounty would be a bad thing, and decided to take steps to limit the amount of control he could exert. Almost simultaneously, Lilith Rothsun had discovered Mathis' designs on her body, and was quite repulsed by it. She resolved to get away from him, but couldn't quite work out how to do it without leaving her beloved father to Mathis' mercies.

Ander Terney volunteered for a mission during his first month on the job. He would pretend to be looking for work as one of Viscount Rothsun's personal guards so he could get into the large townhouse the Viscount lived in, and keep an eye on Mathis, with the ultimate intent of limiting his control over the estate, and preferably over the Viscount as well. He had barely been there two days when his eye was caught by the Viscount's daughter, and her eye was caught by him as well. They began spending quite a lot of time together, and on instruction from his superiors in the Heim Division, Ander told her much of his mission, as it was considered she would likely be sympathetic to its' purpose. She was more than sympathetic, she was downright enthusiastic about it, and she had some ideas of how to accomplish it. After discussing the matter with each other, and getting permission for their plan to be carried out from the higher-ups of the Heim, they ran away together. They rented a room halfway across the city, and they would execute the significant part of their plan from there.

The Viscount's seal ring was heavily enchanted. It allowed the wearer to not just see or hear, but to fully understand the exact state of affairs of every bit of the Viscount's estate. It was an extremely powerful tool with which to run the estate, and no-one but Mathis wanted it to end up in Mathis' possession. Lilith stole it. After a few days of covering their tracks and making discreet arrangements, they left the city and moved to a small town a few miles up the coast. From there, they bided their time, working dull jobs and keeping their heads down. They not only wanted to stay out of Mathis' reach, but also to not give the Heim, or any higher authority, any reason to recall them to the city. Ander had only reported that the mission to steal the ring had been successful, but Mathis' near-foiling of the theft necessitated that they go into hiding for a while. So they had, but that wasn't quite the whole truth of it. The whole truth of it was that they were two young people who were getting mighty fond of each other in a rather short space of time.

Four months after they left Tasal, they had eloped to where they lived now, and had been living for the last three years. They hadn't quite disappeared completely; Ander had gone into Tasal one last time to notify the Heim division that they were eloping, and that Lilith was taking the seal ring with her, as was her birthright. He told them they felt it was better, given Mathis' abilities, not to let anyone know where they were heading, and could someone please say goodbye to his father for him? He also handed over a note for the Viscount from his daughter, written by a scribe so Mathis wouldn't be able to use it as a link to Lilith with which to trace her. And then they were gone.

But someone had obviously found out where they had gone, because the letter was here. They opened it together, and read it in silence. It wasn't a very long letter.

"I'm so sorry," Ander said, quietly.

"Thank you," Lilith replied. "It's not all bad news, though. What does 'cumulative murder' mean?"

"Killing someone over a long period of time. For example, you could poison someone with a non-lethal dose of something, but if you keep poisoning them, the doses eventually build up faster than the body can flush them out, and it eventually it reaches a lethal dose and kills them."

"Would it apply to a magical murder?"

"Yes."

"Good."

They were silent for a while.

"We've had a good life here," Ander said, "it'll be a shame to leave it."

"You don't have to go back. Only I do."

"I have to go back with you."

"Ander, you'll be arrested for desertion! You can't go back, they'll hang you."

"I doubt they will," he reassured her. "After all, it kept you safe, kept the mission on-track."

"Uprooted all their nice plans for what to do with the ring, too. They won't be lenient."

"You have status now, you could persuade them to be."

"I'm barely twenty, and I've had no proper training for such a status. They wouldn't let me persuade them to open a window."

They fell silent again.

"You know," Ander began slowly, "if I were noble, they wouldn't dare do anything to me. Nothing permanent, at least."

"'Nothing permanent'?"

"Prison, maybe hard labour. They wouldn't flog me or execute me."

"But you're not noble."

"Not at the moment, no."

"What?"

Ander got down on one knee in front of her. "Milady Lilith, Viscountess Rothsun: Will you permit me the honour of your hand in marriage?"

"Ander!"

"You know how I feel about you, and I'm fairly sure I know how you feel about me. We've been living together as husband-and-wife for over three years. Why not formalise it? We couldn't take this step before because you needed your father's permission, but now..."

"... We don't," Lilith finished. She looked down at him, and after a long, long pause, smiled. When he saw that, Ander smiled as well. "Stand up, Ander. My husband will be my equal, or not at all."

Ander stood, nervously. "Your equal?"

"Yes, I will marry you, Ander Terney. I don't care that you're common-born and I'm noble, but I will not look down upon you during the happiest moment of my life!"

They embraced, they kissed, they shouted in joy, they kissed some more. They headed to the bedroom and celebrated properly, leaving the letter to float aimlessly to the floor.

It was a short letter. It said, "Viscount Rothsun is dead. Mathis is under arrest for Cumulative Murder. Please come home."