by Dan Wingreen
"You! Wait!"
Elias mentally went over his notes as he walked. Memorization had always been a talent of his, but sadly he didn't possess an eidetic memory and had the unfortunate habit of forgetting things if he didn't regularly review and organize his thoughts.
"Scholar! I said stop!"
He supposed, since the Dark Prince wanted "drama", he could start off with one of the stories where the Prince was in danger and then end the prologue on a cliffhanger before starting the biography proper. It was distasteful, and more suited to a pulp novel than an informative text, but Elias rather thought he'd write erotic literature for the Prince if it meant getting his hands on books which had survived from the days of the elves—
"Excuse me, scholar!" The voice, which had been hovering on the periphery of Elias's awareness like a persistent pixie, was suddenly directly in front of him. Elias just barely managed to stop before he would have barreled into the man who had planted himself directly in Elias's path. The man looked down his incredibly long and pointed nose at Elias, his cheeks flushed with exertion, most likely from running to catch up with him. The man's turquoise robes and matching tunic and breeches were expensive and cut to show off his tall, trim figure, but they were obviously at least several months old because they did almost nothing to hide the bulge which had begun to form around his midsection. Vain, but lazy then. Or perhaps in denial about his changing figure. His aging face was as pointed as his nose, with dark, graying hair, sallow skin, and fever-bright green eyes.
He stared down at Elias with a small sneer. "I believe I told you to stop."
Definitely a noble. And what was more, he was a noble Elias recognized.
"I believe you shouted for a scholar to stop, Your Grace," Elias said, his voice even and calm and the exact opposite of what the man was looking for. "Forgive me for my assumption that any one of the many wandering the halls would do."
The Duke Hightower, father of the patricidally inclined Marquis Hightower, narrowed his eyes as he tried to decide whether or not he had just been insulted. After a moment, he seemed to decide he hadn't, which meant that he wanted something. Elias held back a sigh.
"Yes. Well. You still should—" He cleared his throat, then coughed. "Hem. You still should have stopped."
"As you say."
If Duke Hightower had bothered to pay attention, he most likely would have heard the dry sarcasm Elias made little effort to hide. As it was, he barely even listened to what Elias said.
"Exactly." Hightower nodded. He opened his mouth to speak, but before he could another cough forced its way out of his throat, which then turned into a small fit. When he recovered, his face was red and his voice was hoarse. "Dammit, I should be over this confounded cold by now!"
Elias blinked in surprise. Cold? He was quite obviously in the early stages of the Rot just like the Librarian had said. Could he really not know what was afflicting him?
Well that explains the marquis, at least. Too much inbreeding indeed…
"Perhaps you should see a heal—"
"What's your name, scholar?" Hightower interrupted impatiently.
And, once again, Elias was reminded why he disdained interacting with nobility. As if I needed to be. "Elias Sutterby."
"Sutterby…" Hightower sneered slightly at his name, a reaction Elias had gotten used to from the children of the upper nobility. It seemed they came by their imperious attitudes honestly, at least. "I don't recognize the name." He waved his hand dismissively. "Not that it matters, I suppose," the Duke added in a tone that heavily suggested the opposite was true.
Elias had no idea why. Surely he wasn't expecting a Merryweather or a Gildencrantz, or any of the other respected noble families, to have one of their number working as a mere scholar.
"From now on you'll be reporting directly to me."
Elias actually cocked his head at that. Did I miss part of the conversation? "Excuse me, Your Grace?"
Hightower let out an impatient huff. "After your meetings with the foreign invader!"
It took Elias a moment to realize he was talking about the Dark Prince. He almost laughed out loud. The idea of the Dark Prince "invading" anything was completely ridiculous, unless he planned on conquering with his vanity and arrogance. And if that were possible there would be coups every day.
"When he's done doing whatever he's doing with you, you'll come directly to me and tell me everything he said, do you understand?"
Elias raised an eyebrow. "You want me to spy on the Dark Prince?"
Honestly, he was somewhat surprised it had taken this long for someone to suggest it. He'd even thought that was why the King had asked him to meet with the Prince in the first place, but if anything, the King had seemed weary of the whole situation, instead of calculating. Of course, Elias had been too enraged and too focused on trying to hide that from the King to bother questioning it…
"Such a base word. What I want is for you to clandestinely—" He doubled over and broke into another coughing fit, this one lasting so long Elias started to worry the duke might pass out right in front of him. When he finally recovered, his face was splotchy and purple. He cleared his throat, then spit on the floor. Elias shuddered and took two steps back.
"Yes," he rasped. "Spy on him. Understand?"
"I do."
"Good," Hightower said, a fierce grin pulling at his lips. "I'll expect you tonight—"
"Excuse me, Your Grace," Elias interrupted.
The Duke stuttered and looked so dumbfounded that Elias had to wonder if this was the first time anybody had interrupted him.
"But I believe you misunderstood me."
"What?" Hightower practically barked.
Elias met his glare placidly. "I only said that I understood what you said. I never agreed to comply."
The Duke narrowed his eyes. "What did you say?"
It was probably meant to sound threatening; however to Elias he just seemed petulant. It was incredibly refreshing to deal with a spoiled noble who didn't make him want to scream. In fact, if he had to choose a word to describe this conversation, he would be hard pressed to choose a better one than meditative.
"I said that I never agreed to comply with your request to spy." The Dark Prince would have immediately pounced on Elias's accidental rhyme.
Duke Hightower didn't even seem to notice.
Elias almost smiled. "If you had asked, which you didn't, I would have politely declined."
The Duke blinked. "You didn't…" He trailed off.
Elias could almost see him going over the last few minutes of conversation in his head, trying to figure out if he'd imagined it or not. Hallucinations were not uncommon from sufferers of the Rot, and if he'd been having them long enough to so easily question his reality then he was farther along than Elias had thought. He took another discreet step back. The Rot was only contagious towards the end when the sufferer was bedridden and insane, but he saw no need to test it. There were, after all, exceptions to every rule.
After a minute, Hightower shook his head before fixing Elias with what Elias could only assume was his most authoritative glare. "And what right does a scholar have to refuse a duke? You're lucky I don't have a guard haul you off to the dungeons."
This time, Elias did smile. It was small and polite, but he knew that the lack of insolence would only annoy the duke even more. "My apologies, Your Grace, but you are mistaken. There are actually no laws that say a scholar has to obey any request made by a passing noble of any rank. In fact, according to tradition, scholars are usually left alone to pursue whatever areas of research they wish without interference from outside interests, including the nobility."
Hightower, who seemed equal parts enraged and confused that he was standing in the middle of a hallway arguing with a lowly scholar, took a step closer to Elias and drew himself up to his full height. Aside from tilting his head back to maintain eye contact, Elias didn't move.
"Tradition?" Hightower scoffed. "Meaningless. You have been given an o
rder from your better, both in birth and in rank, that you are legally bound to follow. That is the only thing you need to concern yourself with."
Elias raised both eyebrows in a deliberate show of surprise. He was aware that, unlike during his conversation with the Crown Prince, a few scholars and servants were loitering nearby pretending, badly, that they weren't listening in.
Elias put them out of his mind. "Meaningless? My apologies again, Your Grace, but surely a man with a lineage as old as yours should know tradition is anything but meaningless. The tradition of scholars being left to their own devices dates back to the enthroning of the First King of Ellington. If such a tradition can be so easily swept aside as meaningless, then the same could also be said for any tradition which governs our daily lives. And, if I'm not mistaken, there are many of your peers both in birth and rank who make most of their fortunes based on precedents set in nothing but tradition. I believe the King himself has several trade agreements with the Semi-Autonomous Coalition of Quasi-Independent Barons that haven't legally been renewed for generations. If they were to gain an inkling of just how unimportant we hold tradition, they might start to get nervous. And Quasi-Independent Barons aren't historically known for making sound decisions when they become agitated."
Hightower, who had turned an interesting shade of red while Elias had been speaking, clenched his hands so tightly his fingers turned bone white. Elias wondered absently if he was about to be struck. He hadn't been for several years now, and it wasn't an experience he was eager to repeat.
"I will have you horsewhipped." Hightower hissed.
"Actually, Your Grace, corporal punishment was outlawed forty years ago for any crime less than rape or murder." Elias continued. "The most you could do, legally, is put me in the stocks in market square, and, even then, you would need to have me arrested and tried for an actual crime."
"Disobeying me is a crime."
"Yes, it is," Elias agreed cheerfully.
Well, cheerfully for Elias, anyway. He doubted anyone else would notice much difference in his tone. "However, even if you disregard tradition, you would need to tell the courts, which I should remind Your Grace are open to the peerage, exactly what order of yours I disobeyed. Since I believe that asking someone to spy on foreign royalty is considered espionage, and since espionage is illegal, you might wish to reconsider that course of action."
While schadenfreude was something Elias usually refrained from indulging in, he couldn't help but feel rather soothed and reinvigorated by the way the Duke Hightower sputtered and swore. And after the emotional hurricane he'd been trapped in since meeting the Dark Prince, he couldn't even be bothered to chastise himself for it.
"If there is nothing else, Your Grace," Elias said when it seemed like the Duke was winding down. "I really must be off. Good morning."
Elias was mildly surprised that, aside from a glare that honestly should have been able to make something catch fire, the duke made no move to stop him. Elias moved several feet down the hall, then paused before turning back.
"Oh, Your Grace? I apologize for the inconvenience, but I just remembered that your son the marquis borrowed several books from the library which are now outstanding. If you could remind him to return them when you get the opportunity, I'm sure the Head Librarian would be most pleased."
The Duke's face turned an even darker shade of purple. Elias gave him another small, polite smile. "I'm afraid I forget the name of two of them, but I do know that the third was Ecclestial's Poisons for Laymens; How to Administer Death in Four Easy Steps. Perhaps a servant could have a look and return it without needing to bother the marquis or inconvenience yourself?"
It was incredibly interesting, Elias mused, how quickly a face of such vivid purple hues could pale.
Without sparing Elias another glance, the Duke Hightower rushed off down a nearby hall, practically barreling over a poor maid who didn't get out of his way fast enough. A soft shriek followed quickly by a "fool girl, move!" echoed throughout the halls. Most of the castle denizens who had stopped to watch stared after the duke, but a few scholars, some whom Elias had never been on the best terms with, were looking at him with something which could almost be interpreted as respect.
Much like their earlier looks, Elias dismissed these rather easily.
Perhaps now I can finally make it to the library without any further interruptions, he thought as he started making his way through the castle once again.
Chapter 10
Regardless of what Elias may have wished, that was not to be. However, this time, instead of a high-strung prince with an overactive imagination or an arrogant, obtuse nobleman, it was a laugh that stopped him. A laugh that was familiar and utterly out of place in the halls of the castle, one he'd only ever heard mixed with the soft crackling of a nearby fire.
Wearing a frown he was barely aware of, Elias followed the phantom echoes of that laughter down a nearby hall and into a one of the tearooms that were scattered throughout the castle. It was a small room, meant for private gatherings for nobles and anyone else who might need a semi-secluded place to conduct their business, expensively, yet still tastefully, decorated around a central color theme. This particular room seemed to be based around the color red. Dark burgundy drapes hung over windows set in scarlet walls, while similarly colored furniture, plush chairs, and even a small loveseat, were set strategically around stained, dark mahogany tables. On the far side of the room was a cold, immaculately clean fireplace. In front of that fireplace, talking like old friends, were the Dark Prince and a young noblewoman Elias had never seen before.
The Prince was dressed in his usual, enviously simplified, scholar-cut robes and delicately embroidered tunic and breeches, this time in a purple so deep Elias couldn't help but think of the way the Prince's eyes darkened whenever he became truly angry. The woman, or girl really, since she looked even younger than the Prince, wore an understated, yet expensive, cream-colored dress which highlighted her trim figure without squeezing her chest together to give the illusion of a larger bust, as was the current style among the rich and female. Her blond hair, a rare color in Ellington, perfectly complimented her blue eyes and fair complexion, and the smile she was currently giving the Dark Prince showed off almost blindingly white teeth. She leaned in and said something too low for Elias to overhear, and once again the Prince laughed. One of those laughs. One of his laughs.
Elias suddenly realized he was scowling rather fiercely.
With a feeling not unlike abject horror, he smoothed the expression off his face. And just in time, too, because even though the Dark Prince was facing away from Elias and the thick carpet muffled any sound he might have made, it didn't take long at all for the Prince to notice Elias's presence. He turned away from the girl, for Elias refused to give her the respect of thinking of her as a woman for reasons he couldn't even begin to fathom, and slowly broke into a smile when their eyes met.
"Elias! What a pleasant surprise to see you outside of my quarters in the dead of night." The genuine look of pleasure on the Prince's face lasted only a moment longer, before morphing into one of his teasing smirks. "Not that I'm complaining you choose to spend your nights with me, of course."
"That's Elias?" The girl's eyes widened with what could only be described as glee.
Before either one of them could answer her—not that Elias had any intention of sharing a single word with the unfamiliar girl, who could so easily pull that laughter from the Dark Prince—she let out an earsplitting shriek and bounded over to Elias. He barely had time to realize what was happening and start to tense before she threw herself at him and wrapped two thin, but deceptively strong, arms around his neck.
"Unhand me at once!" Elias said, slight—ever so slight—panic coloring his voice.
He'd never been overly fond of being touched, and this was most definitely in the upper reaches of all of the unwanted physical contact he'd ever had to endure. And that included beatings. He tried to quickly step away, but she was firm
ly attached. Elias fixed his eyes on the Prince.
"Get it off of me," he demanded.
"You didn't tell me he was this adorable!" the girl complained. "Look at his hair…" Elias shivered as he felt her fingers start to stroke his head. "Oh, you simply must let me keep him!"
"Elladora." The Dark Prince's voice was firm but his eyes, which had never left Elias, sparkled with amusement. "Let him go, please."
The girl—Elladora, apparently—let out a frustrated huff. "No one ever lets me have any fun."
To Elias's surprise, she let him go and took a few steps back, however reluctantly.
"Why can I never get a cute one of my own?" she complained, casting one last, longing look at Elias.
"My apologies, Elias," the Dark Prince said, the infuriating smirk never so much as wavering. "If I had known she was going to accost you, I would have had her restrained."
He walked over so he was standing in front of Elias. Elias glared at the Prince. It had taken less than a minute in his presence to completely erase the tranquility he'd gained from his encounter with the Duke Hightower. How he hated what the Dark Prince did to him. Almost as much as he hated hearing the Prince's laughter directed at someone else. Elias scowled again.
"I believe introductions are in order," the Prince said quickly, interpreting Elias's expression rather astutely.
Although his solution was slightly off track. Elias didn't want to be introduced to the clinging thing. He wanted to turn around and leave so he could try to salvage a portion of his day. Before he could make this clear, or the Prince could continue, said clinging thing stepped neatly between them and faced Elias. They were almost the exact same height, though whether it was because he was short for his gender or she was tall for hers was up for debate, and she met Elias's increasingly hostile gaze without seeming to notice the hostility.
"I can introduce myself, thank you." She smiled at Elias with an almost childlike openness. "I am Lady Elladora Redmond of the Eldenshire Redmonds, daughter of Earl Francis Redmond. It is a pleasure to meet you." She curtsied in perfect courtly fashion, then clasped her hands behind her back and giggled. "Oh, I did that rather well this time. Daddy would be ever so proud."
