Accession Day

More guards entered the room, all dressed alike and with swords drawn. Mantabé, unarmed, found himself cornered. With swordpoints at his throat, he at last raised his arms in surrender.

The guards threw him to the floor next to Didius, who knelt with a sword at his throat. The men roughly rifled through his pockets until they found the Shrouding Stone. Kaunitzen eagerly hurried through the press of startled men and servants to seize his prize.

Reverently, he took it from his guardsmen and handled it as a man might handle an enormous gemstone.

"Wonderful," Kaunitzen whispered as he beheld the stone in his hands. "I'm afraid I have no further use for you, Didius." He looked from the stone to Didius' ashen face and then gestured to his guards. "Kill him, and the gladiator too."

There was a sudden crash outside, following by much shouting. Kaunitzen looked away in confusion, and Mantabé seized the opportunity. He headbutted his captor in the stomach and seized the sword that fell from the man's grip. Lunging forward, he drove the sword into the gut of the man who held Didius on his knees.

Again, the dining hall erupted in panic, men running everywhere. There was a blast of gunfire outside and then the sound of battering in the front hall. Wide-eyed, Kaunitzen dropped the stone and ran from the room, only to become entangled in the press of bodies trying to do the same.

Mantabé pulled Didius out of the way just as another of Kaunitzen's guards lunged at the two of them. Behind the guards, the door to the hall swung open and eight men with swords and bucklers burst into the room. Kaunitzen's guards, attacked from behind, never stood a chance. In mere moments, they were overwhelmed and went down in a frenzy of hacking and stabbing.

The men trying to flee the room suddenly began backing into it, and soon more swordsmen appeared at the other exits. The swordsmen were all dressed in tabards of sable emblazoned with saltires argent.

"No one is to move, on pain of death!" a woman's voice proclaimed from the hall. Following it, a woman entered the room in a whirl of her black dress. She was tall and dark-haired, dressed in a black gown and a bronze cuirass. In her hand, she carried a short spear of elden oak tipped with a shining spearhead.

"Just as I told you, Mother," Fethira, the queen's spymaster and second daughter, said wickedly. "A bunch of fat, soft men making foolish plans."

"Indeed," the queen said, her black dress flowing behind her as she strode into the room. "The crows will feast well tomorrow. What better way to celebrate my accession than with the execution of traitors?"

There was a sudden clamor, as men rushed to disavow their part in the plot. Lamira raised her hand and the room felt silent once again.

"I have seen this night long ago in my scrying pool. A plot to slay me and my children was hatched here tonight, and no pleading on your parts will save your necks. This conspiracy will be crushed and I mean to demonstrate the futility of plotting against me. Kaunitzen, this is your house, and you are responsible for all that occurs beneath your roof. Tomorrow, I will have you fed to a basilisk, you scheming viper. You sought to take my throne and you will pay for it with your life. Think on how you have repaid my hospitality as it feasts upon your innards.

"As for the rest of you, you will be allowed to prove your innocence. Guards, take them in for interrogation." Her black-coated guardsmen began rounding up the conspirators, roughly shoving them into line as they brought forth shackles. Didus and Mantabé were hauled to their feet and thrown against the wall until their shackles were brought forward.

Lamira stepped forward and picked up the Shrouding Stone from where it had rolled under the table.

From the hall, Mantabé heard yet another familiar voice.

"Your Majesty," Sabinia called as she pushed her way past a queen's guardsman, "Your Majesty I must protest on behalf of Master Didius and his gladiator there."

The queen gave her a bemused look, rolling the stone between her hands. Her daughter Fethira stepped up next to her and whispered in her ear.

"Lady Sabinia," said the queen, "what brings you here tonight? I do not see your husband among my new prisoners."

"No, fortunately you do not, Majesty. I came here with Mantabé, the gladiator of Didius. He and I have been investigating a poisoning attempt on him this afternoon."

"Indeed," the queen said. "And how has that brought you here?"

"We believe that Kaunitzen was behind the poisoning, as a means of fixing the fight. Mantabé was one of the few favored fighters to win his match today, and Kaunitzen collected great winnings on all the other fights. If not for a stroke of good fortune, Mantabé would have drunk his poisoned wine and likely been defeated by Sweyn."

"My wager on the fight was that stone you hold," Didius added as a guardsman shackled his hands behind his back.

"Hmm." The queen said, her attention on the stone as she tossed it from hand to hand. "Fethira, can you verify all of this?"

"Yes, Mother. This slave was the only favored fighter to win. Kaunitzen did bet on the other winners and lost a bet on this one's bout."

"Very well," the queen said. "I will grant them their freedom, for now. If any other reason to detain them comes up, we will meet again. Guards, let them go."

The guards reluctantly but obediently unshackled Didius and allowed him and Mantabé to leave. The queen held up the stone in her hands.

"This, however, I will be keeping. Don't worry, you will be compensated for it. But it is too valuable to leave in anyone else's hands."

Didius waved his hands in frustration and stormed out of the house. Mantabé and Sabinia hurried out of the room before the queen could change her mind.

"Well done," Mantabé said, "I have no interest in meeting the queen's interrogators."

"Yes, I should like your fingernails and eyelids where they are now," Sabinia replied. "What happened in there? I only saw the queen's men arrive and shout 'traitors!' as they gunned down Kaunitzen's men."

"It was an entire ordeal," Mantabé replied. "I shall have to tell you about later. For now, I just want out of here."

They made their way through a press of Lamira's guards and Kaunitzen's detained servants. The coachmen had been lined up in the front hall and placed under the guard of a bellicose minotaur with a wicked looking cleaver. Some of the guards were plundering tapestries and candlesticks from the house. The servants huddled together in fear as their home was torn apart around them.

In the garden, they could see a crowd of onlookers gathering in the street. News was moving fast in the city. The queen's guards had formed a cordon around the property, keeping back anyone too curious, or anyone intent on looting.

"Well," Sabinia said with a heavy sigh after they had made it to the street. "That was a night to remember."

"It's not over yet," Mantabé replied. "And all our previous nights to remember have involved the Black Lotus, wine, dancing and several nubile courtesans. Why should this be any different?" he extended his arm to Sabinia, who smiled and put her own in arm in his.

"I can agree with that. Come along, Alami, we're off to have some fun."