by Laura R Cole
CHAPTER 16
“My lady,” Devon greeted Jezebel as he knelt before her.
Jezebel gazed down at him. “I think perhaps you should start referring to me by my new title; Councilor,” she said, rolling the word over her tongue.
She smiled and Devon stood. “As you wish, Councilor. I come bearing interesting news involving your Lord Gryffon.”
Jezebel snarled at the name. “Unless it's that he's rotting in the gutters, I don't want to hear anything about him.” Devon had not had any luck finding that whore of a maid, and Jezebel’s attempts to make Gryffon’s life miserable kept falling short.
Devon hesitated before going on, obviously weighing his options. “His current situation is irrelevant,” he decided on evasively. Jezebel felt a flash of annoyance as this probably meant that the man was not rotting in any gutters, but she let Devon continue anyway. “Besides which, he soon will find himself being pulled rather rudely out of it.” Jezebel gave him an impatient look, and he went on hurriedly. “You see, I've been following him since that day in the market.” Jezebel raised her eyebrows at him, warning him that he was in dangerous territory if he wished to bring her back through that again. Once more, he hastily continued, stumbling over his words. “He's lost my tail on several occasions, which is not easy to do, and not something that normally happens to people who don't know they're being tailed, and especially not more than once. So I put more people to the task of checking up on him, and guess what we found out?” Jezebel licked her lips at him and shook her head, sighing impatiently and tapping her fingers against her folded arms. “Apparently, our little friend Gryffon was not completely honest about where he's from. No one from the town he claims to have come from has ever heard of him,” he announced triumphantly, gaining confidence as Jezebel's look of irritation turned to one of interest, and she stopped drumming her fingers. “Not only that, but my sources believe that he is actually from Treymayne. They confirm that he has had several secret meetings with others who were followed heading east before we lost track of them, and he has once been spotted at a known drop spot.”
“Really,” Jezebel said slowly, drawing out the word as the wheels started turning her in head. “Perhaps we should bring him in as one of the latest bunch,” she mused, her lips curving into a smile.
“That was my thought as well,” confirmed Devon, returning her smile.
“That's why I like you so much, Devon,” Jezebel purred, running a finger over his jaw line. “We think so alike.”
Jezebel thought she saw a hint of an uncharacteristic blush, and Devon turned his eyes downward a moment, before bringing them back up to meet hers. “With your permission, Councilor, I'll see to it right away. Would you like it to be a private or public affair?”
Jezebel thought about it for a moment. “Why don't you make it private for now. I'd like to be able to have a little chat with him myself before we turn him in to the proper authorities.” She laughed. “Not even seated, and already the newest Councilor has brought a spy to justice. Good work, Devon. I look forward to seeing you once this task is completed. Let me know the moment he arrives.”
“As you wish,” answered Devon, his dark eyes sparkling in their shared laughter, and then he left her to her thoughts. Well, well, well, she thought, how fun this little reunion will be. She imagined all the wonderful things she would do to him. Well, it will be fun for me anyway. Her lips parted in a sinister smile.
She called a Council meeting later that evening, unable to contain such a wonderful turn of events, and she put together her presentation for the other members. When she had collected all the papers she thought she would need, she stacked them neatly into a folder and carried it out to the waiting carriage.
She glanced at the time as she entered the palace, and noted that she was running late. Ah well, they can wait. She strolled into the Council chamber and immediately made her way to the speaker's podium. It was a spot that she planned on spending much of her time as the official speaker for the Council.
She cleared her throat, ignoring the pointed looks from a few of the members who made obvious gestures of impatience due to her tardiness. Rather than acknowledge this, she took note of which members needed to be taught a lesson on who was running the show here. She started right in on her speech. “Thank you for coming on such short notice,” she began, and then paused a moment to glare at one of the men who made a rude comment about having hurried to get here and then ended up sitting around for half an hour for her to arrive. She did not rebuke the comment, deciding instead to simply continue on with her information. “I have been made aware by my extensive network of informants - details of which does not concern you - that we have had a traitor in our midst. In fact, right under our very noses.”
She paused again for dramatic effect, amused when several of the members glanced around as if expecting her to point the finger at one of them. She let them mutter amongst themselves for just a moment before enlightening their pitiful attempts to divine who it could be. “Lord Gryffon, who until recently I so charitably gave house to has been found to be a traitor of this country and, in fact, a spy from Treymayne!” Her mouth twitched into the tiniest of smiles at the outburst of reaction through the Council. Gryffon had been well-liked, though why Jezebel could never figure out.
She caught her thoughts wandering as to why he was so liked when he spent so much time talking to people that weren’t worth the effort, and she pulled them back to the meeting. The cacophony had died down, and they were once again looking to her for direction. As it should be, she thought smugly. “I have already dispatched one of my own guard troops to bring this traitor to justice. It will be my extreme pleasure as my first act of an official Council member to carry out an inquisition into his clandestine behavior.” She smiled at them all and continued, “Also, I have reason to believe that he may have a co-conspirator in his spy dealings. One of my own maids, a girl named Layna. It shames me to think that I had traitors under my own roof and therefore played a part, though indirectly, in exacerbating our spy troubles. I suppose that's what I get for being so generous and so trusting. Now that I have discovered this betrayal, as a concerned Council member and a loyal citizen, I would be remiss to ignore the alarmingly real and substantial evidence against them which could result in dire consequences for our country if their actions are not forcibly and immediately ceased.”
The Council members broke into a flurry of voices once more, and one member spoke up with a tone that did not properly display his subordination to her. She narrowed her eyes a trifle.
“Lady Jezebel, we are all aware of your current problems with Lord Gryffon and the girl Layna.” Jezebel's eyes narrowed further, becoming mere slits, and she inadvertently let out a hissed breath as he continued. “As Council members, we are responsible for the safety and proper maintenance of the country. Not carrying out your personal vendettas.”
Jezebel fought hard to control the anger that threatened to boil over at his words, and in her mind she burst him apart with fire. Who has been spreading that kind of talk? She silently raged, and made a mental note to take a good look at the so-called friends she had been speaking with lately. I may just need to find a new circle if this is the way my current friends are going to treat me.
She took a deep breath and reminded herself that convincing them was only a formality as she was the one of real importance. “I have here,” she responded as sweetly as she could manage through clenched teeth, and patted the bulging folder before her, “reports of Gryffon carrying out secret meetings with known operatives, being present for no apparent reason at a known drop point, and there is also this tiny little detail that no one in the town he claims to have come from has heard of him. Is that enough proof for you?”
The man gave her a grudging nod but impudently insisted, “We will want to see these reports for ourselves and have time to have our own people look into it before we coul
d possibly decide on the proper action to take. He is a noble after all.”
The rest of the Council members were nodding their heads in agreement, and Jezebel again had to douse her anger. I really must find a way to work around having the whole Council agree on actions that I should be able to just command at will. She was glad now that she had had Devon take it into his own hands to bring Gryffon in rather than having left it to the authorities.
“Fine,” she told them, trying her best to sound nonchalant. “While you all are talking about taking care of the country, I will put my people to work on actually locating the fugitives and really taking care of it. And if anyone would like to hear my personal accounts of the illicit contact that Layna had as well, I would be happy to tell you. I saw her with my own eyes speaking with him in low voices over pieces of paper that I later noticed to be suspiciously like delicate documents that I had had on my desk while she was cleaning, which would suddenly show up in a different spot than where I left them.” She wracked her brain for another piece of seemingly damning evidence that she could use against the girl, but couldn't on the spot think of another so she said, “Well, the list goes on and on, like I said, I trusted them and only now am beginning to put the pieces together to find what was going on right under my own roof.”
The Council discussed this revelation for some time while Jezebel took a seat and tuned them out. Their insignificant talk did not concern her. Eventually their dull brains would come around to the realization that she was right. She let her thoughts drift instead to what she would do with Gryffon once Devon found him. It would be wonderful to get that little whore charged as well, but even bringing her in for questioning Jezebel had high hopes that perhaps she'd simply keel over from fright – like they said happened to sheep when they were being chased by wolves. She remembered her face during the short little trial over the book incident. She shifted her weight slightly in her chair to cover the grin that was threatening to spread over her face as she thought of it. She did so hope that he was able to find the girl too. But Gryffon...oh, Gryffon would be such a treat…
