Viscount's Rise

“We understand that it is an implausible situation, that is why we think that such a person should be easily memorable.” The talkative man spoke again, seeing that his partner had decided to stop speaking. Now that they were actually talking about the matter that they came for, Braydon found them to be less irritating. But irritation was replaced by caution as the two men were clearly not any ordinary men. Braydon suspected that they were not official representatives of anybody. But that was only officially, there were many things that required unofficial business. And these two men were almost the poster child for that.

“Even if what you say is true, that is useless to me. If this was 5 years ago, there is no way that I can help you.” Braydon wanted to know when they thought that their target had passed through. If they said when he thought that they would, then he knew exactly who they were after. And that only gave Braydon more questions than he had before.

“It is nothing like that, not at all. We would not waste time looking for a person who had disappeared that long ago.” The man continued, unwittingly giving Braydon an idea of why they were looking for their person. The person in question had disappeared, and it seemed quite obvious to Braydon that they did not want to be found.

“Then how long ago are we talking? You should know that I have not long since inherited these lands, if it was any more than 9 months ago, I will be of no help.” Braydon knew that these men had no clue about Fiverian politics. He was almost certain that they did not know about his father, let alone that the man had died.

“By our calculations, this person should have come through here after you inherited your lands. They would have to be flying to get here any faster.” The man said with certainty, it was clear that they had quite the firm grasp on the dates of where their target was. If that was the case, Braydon could only question why nobody had approached him before.

“Can you be more exact? My country may not be in a good state right now, but it does not take 9 months to get from one side to the other. Even at the worst of times it would only take two or three months on foot.” Braydon was sceptical about the clergy’s ability to find someone with such a head start. He had no clue how these men were so certain that they would find their mark.

“We do not believe that the woman we are looking for had the intention to leave Fiveria. It should have been around 8 or 9 months ago that they passed through your lands.” Braydon did not know how they came to the conclusion that the person they were after intended to stay in the Kingdom but he was not about to ask. He doubted that he would get a truthful answer anyway.

“Well I can tell you for definite that nobody of such a description passed through my lands then or since. And I do not welcome you to search through my subjects to find them.” From the look of disappointment on both of the men’s faces, Braydon knew that they were going to ask exactly that.

“Then do you know of anywhere that we could stay for the night before we move on?” The quiet man spoke once again. Braydon knew that they were expecting him to make the offer but he was not feeling so kind. Especially after the farce that they had put him through. And the useful information that he had gotten from them afterwards was not going to change that. 

“Well the Kingdom’s armies are staying in my territory at the moment, I doubt that you would be welcome here for very long regardless of what I have to say. Unless you want to be captured as enemy spies?” Braydon gave them a not so subtle hint about his position on them staying the night.

“The noisy one looked frightened.” Mireille commented after Braydon returned to the great hall after seeing his guests out. They had passed by Mireille and Lani on their way out, Braydon seeing for himself the interest that the men had in Mireille’s appearance. 

“I only gave him a slight warning that loitering would not be tolerated.” Braydon knew that he could have been far more explicit if he had truly wanted to threaten the pair. Just telling them what might happen if they stayed was relatively tame in his books.

“Threatened them with being thought of as spies?” Lani asked, clearly not thinking that Braydon told them simply ‘not to loiter’.

“It’s not my fault if a pair of Serheshi appearing at such a critical time stirs the King’s suspicions. I would only be obliged to carry out any requests that the King might make to deal with such a threat.” Braydon’s theatrical response got a small chuckle from Lani. She knew exactly what Braydon’s personality was. He had definitely told the men not to stay, in not so polite language.

“Any ideas what they were after?” Lani had some ideas but wanted to let Braydon say what had happened. After all, if he had felt the need to threaten them then it was clearly not something that Braydon thought was good.

“Not a what but a who. And I have a very good idea about who in particular.” Braydon decided not to elaborate too much and Lani decided not to ask. She could see that it was something that Braydon did not want to talk about. Not to mention that she herself could make a good guess, it was not like the men had been subtle.

“Do you think that they will be back?” Lani asked. Braydon could not stay in the castle forever. He had men to lead and a war to win. And if they were both thinking about the same person, then she was sure that it would not be the last time that they would see such men in Cliforge.

“Not those men specifically, but definitely people that are associated with them. And they will likely not be Serheshi next time.” Braydon doubted that whoever was behind the pair was going to use Serheshis to gather information in Fiveria. Given their complete lack of knowledge about Fiveria, not to mention that they were obviously foreign, it would be hard for them to track anyone efficiently. Or covertly.

“What are you going to do then?” Lani asked.

Darkwood

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