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Mara Whitehorse chopped at the sand-filled dummy, using an underhand cut to disarm the "opponent." It wasn't anything like a challenge, in fact, almost too easy, as though her employer wanted her to get out of shape. What the employer didn't know, though, was that Mara had been testing her skills against the head hostler, her grandfather Ayler, and keeping in shape that way. Ayler may be her grandfather, and correspondingly old, but he packed a wallop and pulled no punches.
Well, maybe the employer did know what she was up to. It seemed lately that Ayler was always either too busy to help her or out of town. Give the mysterious employer a little credit, he might actually have a brain in whatever it was his skull looked like. Mara herself didn't think he was using her and her skills properly, but that was none of her business. As her contact so often told her, she wasn't the strategist, "my lord" was, and "my lord" would make all decisions regarding Mara's targets and assignments.
She shrugged philosophically, and threw all her concentration into the dummy and the "danger" it presented. Let the high, mighty, and rich concern themselves with the affairs of the high, mighty, and rich. She, Mara Whitehorse, would continue with her life, no matter what they did, short of killing or seriously maiming her.
Take life as it comes, hurdle the obstacles. Don't bother planning for the future, the future will plan for itself. Believe and trust in yourself but no one and nothing else. No one else can be depended on. Trust in your heart and your strength, and hold to your beliefs. The mantra her father had taught her for life held true even now that she was twenty-nine and not six. She repeated it under her breath as she practiced sword, dagger, and fighting-knife, then switched to hand-to-hand.
She was so wrapped up in her work that she didn't notice the intruder on her practice until he tapped her on the shoulder. Battle reflexes took over and she swung around, grabbing the man's hand and swinging him into the wall, a fighting knife mysteriously appearing in her hand. "Fight like a man, you yellow coward," she snarled, until she noticed who it was. Then she laughed aloud with relief, the knife disappearing as inexplicably as it had appeared.
"Reflexes good, timing good, threats need a little work," Ayler Chilan commented with a wry smile. "And what have I told you about concentrating on the opponent so hard you forget all else? Had I been an enemy, you would be dead now. Kindly let me down."
"You mean that if I was still your pupil and not your equal, I would be dead now," Mara replied impishly, complying with Ayler's request and putting him down. "You know full well what you do to those poor implings that are your pupils when they disobey, or forget one of your lessons."
"It is necessary, child. Else how would I ensure that they learn the lesson and not forget it? Then I would have to teach it to them two, perhaps three times. That would be a larger waste of time, no?" he inquired, inspecting the dummy as they talked. "I was watching you for some time...no, not in a way I would have expected you to know. Someday I shall have to teach that technique to you, but not now. You were doing well in all but sword. Am I correct in learning that you did not touch a sword for some time?"
"Yes," she confessed, shamefacedly. "I wasn't allowed near a sword until I turned ten. I didn't learn it until thirteen."
"And you are perhaps twenty-nine now? No, do not answer, I do not need to know. Mara, my child, that father of yours was a fool. I have said it before..."
"And you will say it again," Mara finished for him with a weary sigh. "Grandfather, haven't we been over this? Papa was not a fool, no matter your opinion of him."
"Not unless it is true," he countered swiftly. "Do you care for a bout, or are you too wearied from your practice?"
"Bring it on, old man. I'm never to weary to beat you," she said snippily. He snorted at her, muttering something about youngsters and impertinence, and snagged a sword from the rack beside the door of her practice yard, preparing for a bout. Mara wiped her own sword free of sweat and sand and stepped to a position across from her teacher, ready to beat him.
As it turned out, it was Mara who was beaten, and badly, too. She was still nursing her bruises when a summons came. She was to appear at the employer's dayroom tomorrow night, prepared for an assignment. She sighed and scribbled a message to Ayler, asking him to have her mare Iris ready to go tomorrow evening, and handed it to a passing page. She then caught a serving girl; fortunately one who owed her a favor or three, and asked her to get some food and leave it on the dressing table in Mara's room. The girl winked and nodded, then sailed on her way, and Mara returned to her room, tired, aching, and wanting only a bath, food, and bed.
She climbed into the bath, laid her head back and stared at the patterned ceiling, admiring its intricacies. Unicorns danced in a meadow, shaking their manes and rearing, sometimes bucking. She stared at them until her eyes watered, then suddenly brought her hands up and rubbed her eyes frantically. A group of people had just appeared on the edge of the clearing, talking and laughing. As soon as Mara stopped concentrating on the picture, however, they vanished. She blinked, and looked hard at the mosaic, but the people did not return. She shrugged it off as a hallucination, then returned her attention to the waiting bath.
Once in the bath, she scrubbed all the signs of sweat, bruises, blood, and dirt off her skin. She vigorously soaped and resoaped her hair, changing it from a sweat-dark, dirt-infested brown to its true coal black. Climbing out, she felt much better, snagging a towel from the rack beside her, and drying both hair and body off. The food was, as promised, waiting on her dressing room table, but Mara elected to change into her court costume and visit the court and her contacts in it first.
Her hip-length hair was her one true vanity, and she reflected that in the way she wore it. Tonight, half would be braided and coiled around her head like a crown, and the other half she would somehow force into an elaborate coif, which was all the rage right now. Mara privately thought they were stupid, but again, who was she to defy the high, mighty, and rich?
The dress she chose was a light rose, offsetting her black hair and eyes quite nicely. She slipped into it, laced up the back (a task requiring both hands, much dexterity, and a great deal of cursing) and carefully fit her feet into the small, delicate slippers that went with this dress. The dress itself was beautiful; it had a simple design and was easy to put together and take apart, yet it seemed like it would take hours. The embroidery was of tiny white horses alternately rearing, resting, and nursing all around the hems, neckline and sleeves. Her ebony earrings had a rearing horse in pearl inlay on each, and the necklace was a chain of the horses.
Quite a lovely piece of work, that. I wonder if I could get the employer to make me an everyday set? I wear the earrings all the time, but it would be nice to have a matching necklace.
The dress was also accompanied by an anklet matching the necklace, and similar chains to thread through her hair. There was no doubt, with this getup on, who she was. After all, with a name like Mara Whitehorse, and embroidery and jewelry like this, who could doubt her identity?
It was common knowledge that she was the employer's pet assassin. Rumors floating around implied that she was his pet in more ways then one, but given people's sordid minds, it was only to be expected. Add to that the trouble pregnancy would give an assassin, and the fact that Mara had never actually seen her employer and didn't even know for sure who it was, it made the rumors impossible. But impossibility never stopped rumors. Mara snorted. Courtiers. They generally had either rocks or mush for brains.
She stepped out of her rooms with the gliding pace that became second nature to an assassin, and gave a last pat to her stubborn hair as she made her way towards the gardens, the court's current gathering place. She stepped inside, and flinched a little as her nose was assaulted with the stench of heavy perfume and flowers. The chattering noise of talk and laughter made her ears ache, and the bright, garish, eye-smarting colors of clothing clashing with those of flowers and more clothing made her head hurt. She rubbed her temples and shook her head to relive herself of that feeling, then stepped out among the crowd and looked for one of her four contacts, or anyone new.
There was at least one person who was new, and she probably wasn't friendly, judging from the people she was associating with. Tall, brown-haired, and brown-eyed, she was slender, ladylike, beautiful, and altogether too perfect. Mara made a mental note to avoid her, then heard the voice of one of her contacts and turned, relieved.
"Mara! Excuse me, Delavar, I simply must speak with my friend." Lady Chiliasana laughed at something her husband, Lord Delavar, said in reply, and made her way over to Mara, grabbing the woman's arm and all but dragging her into a dimly-lit, semi-private alcove away from the rest of the court.
"What are you doing here?" she hissed. "Don't you know half the court is determined to challenge you and the other half wants you dead by any means? What are you doing here?"
"I came to see if there was anything I could pick up before I leave tomorrow," Mara replied to her friend and contact, just a little nettled that Sana would assume that she was incapable of taking care of herself--she was an assassin, after all--but also worried because Sana thought something wasn't right. Sana wasn't your typical high-strung courtier. She kept her head in the worst emergencies...except, it would seem, this one. "What's this about the court wanting me dead?"
"Lady Sariata's been murdered. You're a suspect," Sana said briefly. "Look, Mara, you have to get out of here. Now, if at all possible."
"It isn't, Sana, I still have to talk to Tan, Farrold and Senja. Why am I a suspect? And why didn't I hear about this little problem earlier from one of you?"
"Because it just blew up this afternoon...while you were practicing. You were bouting with Ayler about the time she was discovered, and he's vouching for you, along with his pupils, but..."
"Who trusts a groom?" Mara finished for her. "And he's my grandfather to boot; people expect him to vouch for me. I see. But you still haven't told me why I'm a suspect."
"It was done by an assassin. There's no question that it was done by a trained assassin, the only question is who, and you're a prime suspect."
"What?" Now Mara was well and truly angry. Not because Sariata had been a friend, or even a close acquaintance; no indeed. Sariata was the biggest court gossip, and no one liked her by any stretch of the imagination. Even Mara, with her easy-going temper, disliked Sariata, and many of the court openly detested her. No, what made Mara so angry was that another assassin was on her turf; worse yet, had killed on her turf, and pinned the murder on her.
"It was done by an assassin. Mara, get out of here, now! You can't do anything here, and you'll get yourself killed or under indictment if you stay. Please!" Sana was growing more and more agitated by the minute, so much so that Mara suspected she would have a stroke if Mara didn't agree to leave.
"I'll go, I'll go, but only if you can round up Senja, Tan and Ferrold for me," Mara said hastily.
"Here already," said a rough voice out of the darkness. Count Ferrold materialized out of the night, followed by his wife, Countess Chiliasenja, Sana's older sister. Senja blinked, slowly, and waved a slender, beringed hand at the arbor of flowers nearby and a shadow within.
"Lord Tannakin is over there," she said in her soft, whispery voice. "He will speak with you later. But, Mara, as my sister has said, you are in great danger. Even we cannot protect you." By 'we', Senja meant both herself and her husband as well as Sana and Tan. Senja and Ferrold had one of the only truly loving marriages in the entire court, and intended to keep it that way. They did occasionally fight, but all loving couples did, and they always made up fairly quickly.
"I know," said Mara heavily. "That's what worries me."
Tan had nothing else to add to what Sana, Senja and Ferrold had already told her, except a heartfelt 'be careful,' said with her hands held prisoner in his. He had hesitated, as though he wanted to say more, but didn't, releasing her hands and turning away from her to brood by himself, running his hand through brown hair that needed to be cut. Tan did that often, and it annoyed the life out of his friends and associates, who would usually like to know what was bothering him and if they could do anything about it, as Sana had informed him acidly on more then one occasion. It seemed that he was doing that more and more, recently, especially when Mara was around. It was confusing, and no little frustrating.
Mara brooded on this and other topics as she took her second soak of the day, and slipped into bed, blowing out the lamp. She didn't understand court politics and probably never would, holding to her policy of "leave well enough alone and talk to Ferrold if it's not well enough." That policy had worked reasonably well, too, up until now. She hadn't foreseen the day when Ferrold and the others would be unable to protect her. It was an unsettling thought, and one she didn't like in the slightest. But with any luck, by the time the mission she would take tomorrow was over, all this would have blown over, and she could relax again, at least until her next mission.
She turned her thoughts to this mysterious next mission. She was already packed, planning to leave her packs with Ayler in the morning and to requisition some rations from the cook. What did I pack? She dug around in her memory until she recalled her packing list, and mentally went over it.
Twelve close-fitting outfits, all black or camouflage. That would serve her for as long as she needed. No problems there.
Two court costumes. She might have to leave one of those behind, since the dratted things were such a nuisance to take care of, and this mission, she might not need them at all. This was one of the times she wished she could know ahead of time what her mission was going to be. It would certainly help with packing!
But wait. What if I made different packs for different types of missions? Like for one where I was going to be posing as a noblewoman, I could have a pack that was mostly court dresses, with a few of those outfits that just scream 'assassin.' Or for one where I was going to be a peasant, I would have mostly peasant outfits. Of course, I would have a little of everything in every pack...the only difference would be the amount of a certain thing.
Yes! That is a good idea. I'm going to have to spread this around the Guild through...oh, what was his name? That assassin I managed to beguile into giving me lessons. Saumel, that was it. I'll send him a message and ask him to spread it around if he likes the idea. I certainly do. And I'm going to implement it!
Mara went to sleep feeling quite pleased with herself.
She woke with the sun in her eyes and a stableboy shaking her. "Oh, wake up, milady, we haven't much time!"
Mara groaned and rubbed her eyes. "Lad, do you have any idea what time it is?" she asked tiredly, well aware that it couldn't be more then an hour past dawn, since her window faced east, and her bed was directly across from it, to serve as a sort of alarm in the mornings. Must be an emergency. Couldn't be anything else, not at this ungodly hour.
"Sixth hour, milady," the lad said promptly. "Master Ayler sent me to get you, milady, and he said it was urgent."
Mara blinked and ordered her eyes to focus on the lad. He was young, not more then seven, but she thought she recognized him, and a moment later, she had it. His name was Kalvan, and he was one of Ayler's pupils in more then just the art of horses, like Mara herself had been when her second teacher died and she found herself at loose ends.
Then her brain kicked in, having finally come back from whichever country it had been in, and told her that if Ayler had sent the lad out at such an ungodly hour, and told the lad it was urgent, and told him they hadn't much time, it was a real emergency. Mara was out of bed and into her dressing room with impressive efficiency.
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