Late Afternoon
Outer Office
TRAPPED IN THE OUTER OFFICE, Sergeant Hillbeck of the Palace Guard wondered if he would see the dawn. He had never intended to be party to a plot to poison the King. Never intended to do anything but investigate. Searching for truth had placed him in a precarious position and now that the King’s life had been attacked it made his uncertain.
Standing around for hours wasn’t what his dreams had promised when he’d left the Rex Dallin. The city was meant to be full of possibilities, not boredom and aching feet. The Teran Arms’ dark, dank atmosphere had suited his mood the evening of Queen Ira’s death; the beer wasn’t worth the coin, but something drew him back day after day until the curious and judgemental stares stopped. Then came the fateful evening. Sitting in his usual dark corner in the small room, drinking the flavourless beer, frustrated by boredom, anticipating the hangover, trying to find something that would give him meaning, he’d overheard their conversation.
“No, it’s got to be his private triniculum…”
“Why?”
He’d ignored them again. He wasn’t interested in the whys and wherefores of his fellow drinkers. There was a marital dispute occurring in the opposite corner. The ruddy-faced wife wasn’t having her scrawny husband’s excuses.
“Ya’re telling me ya expect me t’ simply forgive ya for whoring ‘n’ gamblin’ ‘n’ who knows what else—”
“It weren’t like that, Becka—”
“Sounds remarkably like that t’ me, ya bastard. ‘Ow many others ‘ave the’ bin?”
He’d got the feeling that the couple argued in public most of the time and didn’t care. He’d wanted to get up and shout at them both to shut up.
A lady whose profession was easily readable from her clothes’ suggestive nature had sat down with a jug of ale and poured him a top-up, before trying to engage him in conversation and sell her services. In trying to get rid of her, he’d heard the conversation at the next table again.
“The easiest way is to use the triniculum; we don’t have a choice.”
“Yes, but all I’m saying is there might be complications.”
‘Stuff your complications; I’ve got my own here,’ he thought.
The couple were still arguing loudly and the prostitute had sat on his knee, her legs folded on either side of him, breathing into his ear. She stank of cheap scent and sex. He’d wanted to hurl her from him but couldn’t bring himself to. Her hands had loosened the belt of his off-duty breeches. When she’d slipped her hand into them, he’d had enough. Standing up, he’d tipped her off his lap and into the table, knocking it over. Her pimp had confronted him, but Hillbeck had caught his arm and tumbled him into the table too. Stepping over the collapsed mess of prostitute, pimp and broken table, ignoring the outraged innkeeper, he’d marched over to the arguing couple.
“For the love of Cisluna, SHUT UP! Take your argument elsewhere. Some of us were trying to get a drink in peace.”
A cheer had erupted from the men who’d been at the table next to him. Ignoring them, Hillbeck had left. He’d stomped through the cool night air of Oedran until he reached another tavern, continuing his drinking, fuming about the idiosyncrasies of his fellow citizens. The scene played itself over and over in his head. When the room began to spin, he’d realised he needed to get home and sleep.
This time the cool night air sobered him up and – in that moment of clarity – the strangeness of the conversations he’d heard in the Teran Arms came back to him. He’d never seen the prostitute or her pimp before, yet the landlord had ignored them, and the married couple hadn’t worn any rings. The landlord might have been a grouchy git all his life but he had tended to stop trouble. So, what had been different tonight? Why had so many disparate elements come together? He had shaken his head, trying to focus through his alcohol-saturated body. It was no good. The answers didn’t present themselves, but the questions continued to niggle. He’d weaved his way home and dropped into bed, hoping he’d have forgotten the questions by morning. He hadn’t, and they continued to bother him all through his shift the following day. Captain Haster had reprimanded him for being hungover and later that had seemed odd. Haster was normally subtler than an open reprimand.
The more he’d considered things, the more worried he became. Something was happening, something more than a knife in a dark alley, something that would impact all their lives. He’d wondered what to do and reasoned that his current lack of anything substantial would get him laughed out of Haster’s office – especially as it was obvious that he’d been drinking heavily for days.
He hadn’t known why he was so worried. Eventually, he’d realised it was the word ‘triniculum’. The word was only in use at the Palace for describing the smaller formal dining rooms. There was a story about the word, something to do with a prince or king who hadn’t been able to say triclinium and so the word had changed. The Pala of Lufia still had formal triclinium but in the Palace of Oedran the word was forever triniculum and the only ‘private’ one, currently, was the King’s own.
He’d returned to the Teran Arms the following evening and the two men were there. He’d sat down close to them and managed to overhear something that they said; however, the men had realised that they were under observation. He’d played stupid and started agreeing with what they were saying, even when he thought they were wrong. At the end of the evening, the men apparently thought they’d found an ally. By the time he left the tavern the following evening, the men had confided most of their plan to him. They still wouldn’t tell him their names or the date they’d planned.
As he’d left, he heard the taller man say, “Don’t look like that. He’s just a stupid sergeant. The overseer and his lackeys won’t care.”
He’d never given them his name or rank, though he had mentioned he was a guard. Exceptionally worried, with a tightness in his chest, he’d come to the Outer Office to try to warn the King.
Lord Landis and Richardson had seen the state he was in and believed his story. They’d summoned the Steward and a complete search of the kitchens and the King’s Triniculum occurred. They’d found poisoned food in the latter, but no-one knew how it had got there. Lord Landis told him not to leave. So, he’d stayed, becoming increasingly anxious. A hunt for truth had brought him here, to the Outer Office, to the point of not knowing if the King would order his execution.