“MY sincerest apologies for visiting during the early hours of morning,” one of the men began, after they had taken a seat in a clinic chair. “I’m Sissel, and this is Turek. We both serve Cerná’s King Klinack. We are here with a letter for Lady Unen from our king.”
The two men were young. The slender one with dark-brown hair was the king’s attendant Sissel, and the square-faced, rock-solid one was the imperial guard Turek.
Sitting on the bench across from them was Milosh, with his unruly morning hair, and Unen. Simon and Zola were standing behind them, and for some reason, Ori and Mouru had chosen to lean against the back wall of the clinic.
“What does it say, Unen?”
Unen lifted her head from the king’s letter at Simon’s restless question. “In short, it says to come to the castle.”
“Don’t make it that short! Please give a little more detail,” Milosh sighed. “Actually, just let me read it myself.”
Restless like his son, Milosh took the parchment letter from Unen. Then, after mumbling and nodding to himself, he turned around to inform everyone standing behind him of the contents.
“It sounds like he’s not summoning her to ask about the quarrel with Chelveny last week. He wants to talk about maps instead.”
Baborak and Chelveny had come to some sort of agreement about the border dispute, and King Klinack had been made aware of the entire course of events. Rather than worry about the not-so-unusual dispute between two of his lords, King Klinack had taken great interest in the “map created with sparrow eye vision” that had been the catalyst of their argument.
“He requests you visit the castle by all means to tell him about yourself and the map. If it is not too much trouble, would you care to accompany us to the royal capital?”
Unen quietly glanced up at Milosh. He gave her a firm nod. She turned back toward the king’s emissaries and took a deep breath, filling her lungs, before giving them her answer.
✦ ✦ ✦
“AND why are you guys going with her?” The first thing out of Irena’s mouth when she ran over to the clinic after hearing Unen was going to the capital was a complaint.
In Milosh’s living room stood Unen, who had finished preparing to leave, and Ori and Mouru, who were outfitted for accompanying her.
“We’re her bodyguards,” Ori said simply.
“Bodyguards? Doesn’t she have the king’s emissaries for that?” Irena frowned and pointed at the main street outside the window. “The tall, thin guy and the buff guy in those trim and tidy uniforms, who brought some spectacular horses with them. There’s even a crowd of people outside the clinic checking them out.”
“There’s no guarantee they’ll escort her back home. For that matter, it’s not an effective use of manpower to have the king’s men make another roundtrip to Yezero.” Mouru grinned and continued, “Besides, to be honest, I want to hire her to make a map. My plans will be ruined if something bad happens to her before that. So, since guarding her is convenient for us, she gets the special benefit of not having to pay us.”
“Then I’m going too,” Irena flatly declared.
Unen instantly put up both hands and waved Irena off. “You don’t have to.”
“Going by his logic just now, there’s no guarantee they’ll properly escort you back to Yezero either. It’s safer to have someone from Yezero guarding you.”
“Now that you mention it, that’s a really good point,” Unen acquiesced.
Irena noticed a slight upturn of a grim smile on Ori’s face and looked at him with a hint of awkwardness. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, but…but…” Letting the last half of her sentence disappear into unintelligible mumbling, she shot a glance at Mouru.
Mouru pointed at himself with a broad grin. “Might sound bad for me to say this about myself, but I think I’m pretty useful.”
“Well, yeah, you’ve earned the name Two-headed Griffin, so I’m sure you’re skilled, but…”
“Like I said, drop the moniker. Please.” Mouru covered his face and shook his head.
“There’s just something shady about you,” Irena said bluntly. “Especially that smile of yours. It doesn’t reach your eyes.”
“Can’t help that.” Mouru shrugged with theatrical pomp, but it did nothing to remove the sharp glint that had been glimmering in his eyes since the start of the conversation.
“At any rate, I’m going with Unen! I’ll get ready in three minutes, so wait for me!” Faster than she could even finish her sentence, Irena flew out the door in the same whirlwind she had busted in with.