Chapter 186

Queen Calca Bessarez' wail carried beyond her chambers, it carried beyond the hall which led to her chambers, it carried down the stairs and into the throne room where nobles sat or stood according to their station. Worried faces and grim, clenched jaws were everywhere. Eyes darted about with uncertainty, and nobody could or would speak. The wealth and power, the pomp and status of their bright mottled clothing, the bright white of the priests who conveyed the will of the gods, all was silent as the grave.

The wails of the mourning Queen carried out the window and down to the very streets of Hoburns, drawing the eyes of the population with dread to the place where their monarch let her misery ring out.

She was not alone at least. Kelart Custodio sat on the royal bed with her, they shared the mourning embrace as closely as if they were kin. Kelart's tears were quiet, her sobs choked, her body shook in time with that of her Queen as the weight of the death of her sister settled on her shoulders and bent her with their weight.

"How could this have happened?! How?! How?!" Calca asked with dismay.

"My Queen, my sister could be restored to life, we just have to wait until…" Kelart stopped.

"-They've found enough parts of her to do it." Calca said, "But what if they don't?" Her eyes fluttered as she tried to blink back tears that blurred Kelart's face.

"Then we do our best without her. Remember all we have are the initial reports of what happened… nobody could have foreseen that a dragon would attack the wall. How could they have?" Kelart asked, "The whole thing sounds like something out of a drunken bard's feverious dream."

Calca nodded. It was an analogy she agreed with, Kelart however, was not through, "But my Queen, there's no sense in worrying like this, not until we know more, the South is screaming for aid after the disaster at Wenmark, they're withholding taxes, the Paladin Order's Vice Commander has to be confirmed to the new role at least temporarily… and the rumors are getting worse. And what makes them worse is that they're true."

Skana sat in the office in Hoburns sipping the best beer she'd had in her entire life, the doppelgangers in front of her chose to take on the faces of some of her former lovers for today, and that made it weird. Skana winked at the one to come up first, she smiled up at the beautiful face, and called him by the name of the long dead young man. "Sami, did you spread the stories in the salons about what happened in Wenmark?"

"Of course, my love." He said, a lying smile on his face that Skana fluttered to recall when the doppelganger reached out and stroked her cheek, "Anything for you."

"Exactly like that." Skana said with a titter and a delighted little smile grew much larger. "Just keep it up, I've gotta admit… I feel kind of bad about using Illyana's stories of the Golden Roan to stir some outrage, kinda feels like I'm using her, and I kinda like her. But…?" She shrugged, "The brutal truth might be for the best. Keep the women pissed off at home, and even if they're elves, some things are more likely to strike home for womankind in a way that makes them see the Kingdom less positively."

"Of course, of course… but after?" He asked and arched an eyebrow just like the real Sami used to do.

Skana felt a brief well of sadness and put her hand over the one of his which touched her cheek, "If I still wondered if he was alive, I would enjoy that very much, but it's just too bitter to think about now. But thank you for letting me see his face again."

The doppelganger returned to his faceless state and picked up the address that Skana scrawled out for him.

Albedo watched from out of Skana's sight, standing in the doorway at the back, it was remarkable and amusing both at once. The human seemed to have no real fear of the monsters that could mimic those they loved best in the world. If anything, Skana treated everything as a novelty to be embraced with an almost reckless abandon, to the point where she neglected to ask for any form of payment some days. The lack of bigotry against non-humans was a winning point in Albedo's eyes, and even if the auburn-haired girl was no genius, she showed an aptitude for administration and surprisingly enough, she was literate.

"Where did you learn to write?" Albedo asked on the evening of the third such day watching the vicious little rumor mistress scribble down talking points to play up. From what she knew of the peasant population, almost none could even write their own names, so writing these things made her all the more a curiosity.

Skana's smile never left her face, despite her cheeks being stuffed with lamb which Illyana prepared. Nor did she hesitate to speak with her mouth full. "Eashy, I lohcked good stories, bard came through the villahge and said he got em from books." She swallowed the oversized bite and took a deep drink of a wooden cup full of wine and then said, "So on a trip to sell stuff I straddled a merchant and offered him the ride of his life if he'd just teach me how to read and write. Mom didn't think much of that, said it was a waste but… I enjoyed it. I'm pretty good at it too." Skana's face beamed with pride as Illyana took her seat at the table.

The elf woman was far more demure than Skana was comfortable with, though it was difficult to blame her, and the sweet temperament made her very pleasant outside of ribald and vulgar humor of the sort Skana tended to favor. So, she toned it down a little when the elf joined the pair at last.

"Anyway, as I was explaining to the doppelgangers earlier, Gustav drunkenly confessed that Remedios made sure that the trial went her way. The crazy bitch on the wall must have rubbed her the wrong way somehow. When it makes its way through the women's groups like the salons and the tea houses, it'll reach the more active women in merchant and adventurer guilds. Get the wives, the whole thing comes crashing down. Kinda like a village that way." Skana chuckled a bit, and Illyana asked…

"How could you possibly know that?"

"A city is just a big village, idle people talk, and the men of this country are kind of dense about that. They don't put women in charge of much, so they create a lot of idle women who become backroom power brokers and gossips. It happened all the time in the village, and I learned a lot from the people who would pass through my home. We may not look like much, even us pretty ones. But put us all together, and there's not a lot we don't hear from somewhere, and nobody ever listens to the little three…" Skana raised her fist, and one finger at a time with each of the things which followed, "A woman, a peasant, and a whore."

"Are they that stupid?" Albedo asked, almost not believing that she could be so lucky as to have such an easy mission.

"Yes, Miss Demoness, they can be." Skana answered to confirm her dry, scathing criticism.

She stabbed her knife into a hunk of meat and began cutting it down to a smaller piece, "Maybe it's not as dumb as openly saying that non-humans are people, at a trial where you're charged with that as a kind of crime… but still…" She shoved a hunk of meat in her mouth and while she chewed she said…

"Pwetthy dumb."