Kerrass likes to tease me about this.

I firmly believe myself to not really being a violent man. I just can't see it. Given the choice I would rather avoid violence wherever possible. That's not to say that there aren't some people in the world that could do with a fist to the face, but on the whole, I would rather avoid such people than to seek them out and do my best to knock their fucking teeth out.

But I'm not a violent man. I don't get a visceral thrill from violence. I don't enjoy it. I've had to force myself to get better at it because of the direction that life has taken me but I don't enjoy it. Nor do I have a talent for it and every step I have taken towards competence with weaponry has come at the cost of hours of patient instruction at the hands of a trained killer.

But Kerrass has a different view of me. He cites numerous examples of my near urgent need to commit violence. He giggles at various times when he can see that temptation cross my face. Namely the temptation to apply an idiot's face to any nearby hard surfaces. He ribs me about it all the time, asking me questions about my temper.

“Are you feeling violent Freddie?” He'll ask me suddenly out of the blue. “Do you want to crush skulls and jump up and down on people's faces again Freddie? Do you? Huh?”

His argument is this. Since our travels have begun he claims to have noticed a steady increasing what he calls my “violent side.” This is not helped by my own travel journals which cannot entirely be used as evidence in my favour. He keeps a list of the people that I want to, or have wanted to kill in the past and whenever I try to claim that I am not a violent man, he likes to produce this list and torment me with them.

The first is that knight. “William the Ram,” the murderer of poor old Tom the Troll. This is an odd one as his cruelty and arrogance had been focused and amplified by the girl that he was trying to court with those selfsame acts of barbarity. But even then, I wanted him to die, not her.

The next bloke that I wanted to give a good kick up the arse on the edge of a high cliff was that uppity merchant bastard that had come so close to provoking a violent scene at the end of my first season on the road with Kerrass. I can't remember his name now as I don't have my regular notes with me at the time of writing. But his arrogant sneering face occasionally jumps out at me when I am sat trying to get some work done or when I'm trying to put a face onto a training dummy.

There are various monsters of course but they tend to be of the kind of things that act according to their nature.

There was that utter bastard that had us wake up Ariadne for his own purposes. My thoughts regarding him have changed, in the year or so since he poisoned me to the point of death. On the one hand he made me so angry that I could barely speak but his actions have taken on a new slant in my mind and in my life since those times. Without him and his actions I would never have met Ariadne. Yes I spent a significant portion of time thinking up new and interesting ways to torture him to death but that was a more therapeutic exercise to keep my mind from the fact that my insides were turning to goo. Also there is the change that he, also, is dead and as such my hate of him, the former Duke/Count of Angral (It's complicated) is lessened.

Then there is Sir Robart de Radford. That prize bastard I would still cheerfully murder. When I was last at home I sent some more money out to the town criers of Novigrad and Oxenfurt to remind general passers by of how much of a cowardly idiot he is. Someday, when this is all over, I'm going to devote a certain amount of my time to hunting Sir Robart down and destroying him.

After that though, there isn't anybody. Kerrass claims that this is a much larger number than I should have if I was going to claim that I'm not a violent man and maybe he's right. But the point is....The point is that there is a now a new name to add to the list.

That person is the stupid little gob-shite of a jobs-worth that ran the Imperial messenger service in Toussaint. I never learned his name but as I stood in the messengers office while Kerrass tried to get him to tell us some “confidential information,” I would cheerfully have strangled him. My hands were cramping with the effort of not wrapping themselves round his stupid, saggy chinned neck, working their way under his jowels and using my thumbs to get in and under his chins to close off his windpipe. I imagined his face going purple, then blue, his tongue protruding and flapping around while blood vessels in his eyes started to pop, as slowly but oh so sweetly, his life faded out beneath my grasp.

In my defence, this man had information. Crucial information that he steadfastly refused to give us.

Information that could lead us to whoever or whatever had taken my sister away from me and he was refusing to give it to us.

I had taken my post, a little distance away from where Kerrass was trying to reason with the walking pus stain of humanity. I was leaning against the wall with my forehead letting the cool stone calm me as I listlessly kicked at the wall over and over again in an effort to both listen to what was being said and at the same time, trying not to get increasingly frantic with panic, fear and a terrible rage that threatened to boil over and drown everybody in the southern part of the continent in bile.

I was not handling the delay well.

Fortunately for me, Neither was Kerrass.

“Look,” he said, audibly trying to stay calm and patient, “Do you see this medallion? This one here? The one that looks like a hissing cat?”

“Yes sir I see that symbol.” The man smiled apologetically and patiently, as if the entire world was pressing down on him in particular, that it wasn't his fault and he was doing everything that he could do to help. But that the person in front of him was just too stupid to understand the many varied and complex things that meant that he simply couldn't do what was being requested of him.

“Also, while we're on the subject. Do you see this sword on my back? The long one that I spend hours each day cleaning and maintaining so that it's razor sharp and easily able to cut people in half?”

The man behind the desk sighed his world weary sigh for what felt like the six hundred and forty ninth time.

“Right, do you know what these two things mean when they are carried around by a man with a vertical slitted iris in his eyes?”

Another sigh. I tried not to count how many times that meant that he had done that. “It means that you're a Witcher sir but....”

“Right. Now, do you know what the Witchers are to the Empress of Nilfgaard?”

Another sigh. “I am well aware that that makes you the personal bodyguards of her imperial majesty, but at the same time that doesn't give you the authority to read the private messages.”

“Well, funny you should mention that but do you see this piece of paper here?”

Another sigh. “Yes sir. You've shown it to me three times now. It's an Imperial Warrant sir.”

“Yes, it's an Imperial Warrant. A warrant that I had to run upstairs to get. I had to go to the Empress to get her to sign it. While she's busy signing all the other pieces of law which, by the way, includes the Imperial seal on the charter of the Imperial Messenger service.”

“Now I don't appreciate threats sir.”

“I don't care what you do and do not appreciate. After that I then had to get the warrant to be signed and counter sealed by the Imperial Secretary and Chief of Imperial Intelligence so that I have the ability to look at state secrets.”

Another sigh. “That's as maybe sir but none of those things allow you or the gentleman behind you to look through the private message records. Any of those people are more than welcome to come down here and look through the messages themselves but until they do, the safe stays closed.”

Kerrass took a deep breath. “You see that man behind me?”

Another fucking sigh. “Yes sir, I see him.”

“That man has lost his sister. I would warn you that if you make a joke about looking under the bed or behind the wardrobe for her, that I'm not sure that I would be able to hold him back from kicking your testicles out through your nose. We found some Messenger paper in the fireplace.”

“That would be a serious crime sir and the lady would have to be reported to...”

“The lady is missing. We just want to know what the message was so that we can help find the lady and rescue her, or bring her to justice, whichever is the right course.”

Another sigh. The man tried to take on a conciliatory tone. “I wish I could help you sir, I really do and if it was up to me then I would do so without a second thought but the rules are the rules and I am not authorised to break them.”

Kerrass groaned. “Who is authorised to break them?”

“The Empress, the Imperial Secretary and the Chief of Intelligence,” Kerrass and the messenger said at the same time. “You remember my warrant?” Kerrass went on. “The one signed by the three people that I've just mentioned giving us permission to do precisely that?”

“I'm sorry sir. They are the rules. Only the three people named can open the seals.”

“But they've said that I can look.”

“I only have your word for that sir.”

“And their signatures and their personal seals.”

“All of them could be forgeries.”

Kerrass put his head in his hands and tried again to appeal to reason. “You understand that the people you refer to have other things to do at the moment? Including the aforementioned signing of various things into law and hunt down possible conspirators against the Empire.”

“Yes sir which, I might suggest, renders this point a little moot. It clearly isn't that important as one of the other people that I've mentioned would be down here.”

It was that sentence that finally caused my patience to snap. I was up, hurdled the counter that this idiot was standing behind and landed almost on top of him to the point that I carried him off his feet and onto his back.

My knife was out of my boot almost as quick and I used it to tickle under his throat.

“Guards,” He called but I pushed the tip of the dagger up a bit further until it drew blood. Please don't think that he was in danger. He had several false chins which I would have had to force my dagger through before I could do him any kind of serious damage.

It had not been a good day. After we had discovered the piece of card that showed that Frannie had received a message before disappearing, we stormed down to the messenger's office who was shut for the coronation.

We hammered and shouted and generally caused a fuss until a guard came to see what all the fuss was about. In the end we managed to convey the urgency of our errand before we found out that the chief messenger was away at lunch. Kerrass stomped off to find the messenger while I ran off to keep the Empress up to date with our progress having received a message of our own that the Empress needed to know what was happening. Having made my report I ran back down to discover that Kerrass had been waiting, not very patiently, for the messenger's office to open. We got in, whereupon this gigantic fool was telling us that he couldn't possibly allow anyone to read the private messages of the service. After some argument, Kerrass found out that only the Empress, the Chief of Intelligence and the private Secretary could order the messages opened. Cue my running up the stairs again to get a warrant from the secretary to say I could read the messages. But the messenger still wouldn't let us in.

All the while, my sister was getting further and further away from us.

I ran downstairs to get Lord Voorhis to write and seal a warrant to say that we could read whatever the hell we damn well liked. Then, just to be sure, I ran back upstairs to ask the Empress to put something in writing. When I finally managed to return the chief messenger still refused to believe us and steadfastly refused to talk to us. Until, as I say, I lost my temper.

I heard some clanking behind me as some soldiers came into the room. But I also heard a rustle of paper and Kerrass saying “Imperial business,” quite calmly. I would later find out that he had held up the warrant and the sight of the Imperial seal did it's job and caused them all to back down.

“Now I want you to listen to me very carefully.” I thought that my voice sounded relatively calm considering everything that had happened. The man that was, by now, shivering and sweating with my knee on his chest didn't seem convinced by my relaxed tone however. “I want you to listen very carefully and understand something. I need you to take it in, process it and then understand what I'm telling you otherwise today is going to end very badly for you. Do you understand?”

His eyes widened and he jerked his head up and down. I moved my dagger so that he wasn't injuring himself as he nodded.

“Good. Do you know who I am?”

He nodded again.

“In which case you will understand my feelings on the matter. So here's what's going to happen next. Myself and my Witcher companion are going to ask you a few questions. Not very many at all, just a few short questions. When we're done you can feel free to register a complaint with the Office of the Chief of Intelligence, the Empress' secretary or indeed the Empress herself. You can call for my arrest or whatever you like. Do you understand?”

He whimpered.

“I asked you if you understand?” I raised my voice a little and gave him another little poke with my knife for emphasis.

“Yes, I understand,” he wailed.

“Very good. Now, I'm going to pass on the rules to you. They are simple rules as a whole but I'm confident that they are easy to understand. Here they are. As I say, we are going to ask a series of questions. You will answer them immediately and without hesitation. I won't penalise you if you are reaching for the information or for tripping over your words. However, I will penalise you if either of us begin to feel that you are keeping something from us. If you fail to answer the question, or if we think you are lying to us then you will be penalised. Do you understand? Just nod.”

He did so.

“There is only one penalty. That penalty is that I use this dagger to end your miserable, jumped up, self important little life. There will be no second chances. We are confident that the answers to our questions can be found in this place and that you can give them to us. Do you understand?”

He nodded. He looked as though he was about to burst into tears.

For a moment I felt like I was the bully, the stronger man preying on the weaker. For that moment I felt shame.

But then I remembered my sisters face, the fact that this mid-level bureaucrat stood in my way and that he has said that the disappearance of my sister wasn't important and my anger came flooding back. I remembered his smug face and his insistence at hiding behind clever words and rules and laws. But he wasn't going to answer any questions while I was kneeling on his chest.

I let him up whereupon he scooted over to the corner of his little office in the lower parts of the castle. I noticed that Kerrass had closed the door at the entranceway to the office and was leaning against it nonchalantly.

“Now,” I said, pulling over a chair and sitting on it before crossing my legs. “Let's have a chat.”

Kerrass had moved a table in front of the doors to barricade us in before walking round to perch on the counter.

“Why don't we start with your name?” he asked.

“Gregoire du Montagne” The terrified man answered.

“Very good. And you are the chief of the messenger service?”

“Yes.”

“So you have all the keys and things to all of these secret boxes?”

“I do.”

“Ok. So let's pretend that I know absolutely nothing about how the Imperial messenger system works. Explain it to us.”

The erstwhile postman Gregoire du Montagne shuffled into a more seated position and started to sweat.

“Uh, what do you want to know?”

Kerrass blew out his breath. “Lets say I want to send a personal message to, I don't know, Lady Merigold. What would happen?”

“Uh, well,” he licked his lips a little nervously. “That would depend on what kind of service you require?”

“What are the options?” Kerrass prompted. I thought he was being really patient considering.

“Well, there's the standard messaging service which is what most civilians use.”

“I see, what else is there?”

“Military post. That is reserved for use of the military only. Military dispatches are sent with our couriers in an effort to keep them secure and because our couriers tend to be more dependable. We don't know what's in them as they turn up already sealed so all we do is take them to where they are needed to go.”

“What else is there?”

“Well there's Imperial messages?”

“What are those?”

“Those are the messages that are used by heads of state and by their trusted....people.”

“You mean their trusted servants?”

He licked his lips before answering. “Yes.”

“How does that work?”

“Well there are two messages. The first is something that is written on paper. Often it;s a piece of nonsense rhyme or is a distraction for anyone who might discover the written message. But the real message is told to the messenger verbally. To be passed on directly as is.”

“Why is it done that way?” I asked, “Doesn't that mean that the contents of royal messengers is known tot he messenger service?”

“Yes but we would never pass those details on.”

“As I've recently been informed though. Everybody has a price. Everybody breaks sooner or later when you find their pressure points.”

“Well, that's true. In all honesty it's a trick we took from the Northerners that actually worked really well.”

“You mean the whole, Ass of Iron, Brain of Gold?” I asked.

The man winced. “We say it a little different from that but yes.”

Kerrass raised his eyebrows to me in question.

“What it was, was that royal messengers used to carry three sets of messengers. Sometimes more. They had a satchel for regular dispatches and then another set of messages, often sowed into the lining of his clothes or inside his saddle or similar. The idea was that the Imperial forces paid a considerable bounty for the capture of Royal messengers. They were almost never killed except by accident. Subverted, tortured, blackmailed. These things they often were, but killed? almost never.

“So they would be captured, their satchels would be confiscated and then the messenger would be put to the question. They had been trained to have layers of information, so that during questioning they could give up the unimportant pieces of information to protect themselves. The torturer or questioner would be able to hold up those pieces of information in an effort to tell their employers that progress was being made, but all the while, the real message was concealed in the messengers memory. Those brave men and women were trained to be able to pick up information instantly, keep it steady in their brain until the point of delivery and they could then forget it instantly upon delivery of the message. They tested it once, I saw a demonstration at the university where they hired a mage to come in and use their enchantments to compel the messenger to tell the truth and he couldn't remember a message that he had delivered that morning.”

“That's about the long and short of it. Our couriers have developed the same technique.”

“So if the Empress comes in here or sends her secretary or similar with a secret message?”

“There are two pieces of paper. The first we ask them to write on the famous blue card that we use. It's the same stuff that we use to convey our standard messages. Then the real message is written separately on any kind of paper. We once had a message written on the back of a sales receipt.”

“Stick to the point if you please,” The tone of the conversation was getting a little too friendly for my taste.

“But the scrap paper would go into a safe which we keep under guard for the period of two weeks before they get destroyed.”

“Why two weeks. Surely you would want to destroy them immediately?”

“For verification sir. In the highly unlikely event of a message going astray or going wrong, we keep the original message in an effort of verification.”

“An example please.”

“Well sir, our standard example is that a general orders a captain to attack a hill. That's all that's in the message. We take the message dutifully and from the generals perspective there is only one hill because he's set his command post halfway up a hill himself. But the captain who has a different perspective on the battlefield says that he can see several hills of various sizes. But he knows that indecision is death on the battlefield. He doesn't have time to send a message back to ask for clarification. He attacks the hill that he thinks is the one that needs attacking and as a result the battle goes poorly. The general insists that he ordered one thing. The Captain insists that he receives another and as a result the blame inevitably falls on the messenger. Then the messenger produces the original message and it turns out to be a lack of proper thought to the messages.”

“I see. So, just to be clear. You keep records of all the messages sent.”

“We do.”

“Good, along with their intended recipient.”

“Yes.”

“Excellent. And the sender?”

“The sender often writes the message themselves and signs the card.”

“What if they don't?”

The man started to sweat. “It was decided that it's none of our business sir.”

“I see. Who has access to which tier of messages.”

“Anyone can pay a fee to have a letter or a message delivered. The military service is reserved for the military itself. The final tier is reserved for royalty itself.”

“But only for royalty.”

“Yes sir.” He was sweating.

“Really?” Kerrass had seen it too.

“Yes sir.”

Kerrass shrugged. “Ah well Freddie. You warned him I suppose. Time to make with the throat slitting I think.”

“I thought of jamming it through his eye to be honest.”

The man started to blubber in protest.

“Ah well, there's always a danger that you'll get the dagger stuck in the man's eye-socket.”

“Sometimes we let other people use it.” The man all but shouted.

“For a suitable fee I suspect.”

The man had the good grace to blush furiously.

“You have to understand that there are certain cases where discretion is also an important part of the security of the Empire.”

“Really?” Kerrass seemed un-convinced.

“Oh yes. The Gentlemen of office have needs after all.”

“Do they now?” I wondered. “I can't help but notice that you don't talk at all about the women of office.”

“Yes...well.”

“Anyhow,” I snapped, attempting to steer the topic of conversation back towards what was going on with my sister. “So someone comes to you with a suitable monetary donation to the postal service. He informs you of the utmost need for discretion and then what.”

“He writes down two messages. The first message will be carried on the blue card to it's intended target.”

“And the other message?”

“The other message is also written down for our records.”

“So then, when you have found a messenger. The messenger takes the blue carded message, whilst also learning the other.”

“Yes. Then while delivering the blue card they also pass on the verbal message.”

“I see. So, now we come to the heart of the matter. The messages that were delivered to my sister. Lady Francesca von Coulthard.”

“Yes sir?”

“You still have the messages on record?”

He squirmed a bit before nodding.

“Excellent. Then you will be able to open the box that contains those same messages.”

You could see him, almost feel him screwing up his courage in an effort to refuse us. I drew my dagger again and started to examine the edge, testing it with my thumb. He took a key from a pouch that he kept at his belt and opened a rather ornate box, inlaid with a blue fabric.

“When was the message sent?” He asked.

“I suspect that you know which message I'm speaking of already.”

He paused as I said that.

A horrible suspicion stole across my mind then. “You know, don't you you bastard. You know...” Kerrass took a moment to interpose himself between us.”

“Two messages,” The man said. “The blue card was taken and kept by the recipient which is not unusual in these cases.”

“Cases like what.”

“Like this.” He passed a piece of paper over to Kerrass who read it before sighing and passed the paper over to me.

I had a shock even before I read the message.

The blue message was long and flowery so I won't try to recount it here. It was a romantic message in the form of a poem. It was in the style of a man wishing for permission to simply adore the recipient of the message. It was not badly written all things considered, the penmanship was superb, and I suspected that there were some things hidden in the message. If I had more time or more freedom to do as I wished I might be able to decipher some kind of hidden meaning in the depths of the poem. One or two clumsy phrases here and there that struck me as too artfully clumsy to be entirely believed. This poem had been carefully crafted, even despite it's pretence at a man writing quickly with a heart longing. But I wasn't really reading it.

The secret message was much shorter.

“I have learned something vital to the survival of your patron. Meet me on the bridge below the waterfall.” I read aloud. I bounced to my feet, folded up the paper and placed it carefully in a pouch. “We must be off.” I declared. “You,” I said pointing with the dagger at the postmaster. “You will wait here. There are further questions need to be asked of you and I think that you will count yourself lucky if it is anyone other than me that comes to ask you these questions.”

He spluttered a bit but I left no time for retort and had already turned to leave.

Kerrass must have stayed a little while but I soon heard his footsteps running to catch me up.

“Freddie?”

Not now Kerrass. I ignored him but my pace increased.

We sped out of the palace and jogged gently through the gardens.

“Lord Frederick?” A couple of voices cried out, “Any news of your sister?”

“A hint Lord Frederick and I will be forever in your debt.”

“Smile Freddie. Look pleased. These people think it's a game.”

I waved at the nobleman who had called, but jogged on.

“Freddie what the fuck?”

“I know who sent the message. But it's impossible.”

“Freddie?”

I ran on.

“Goddess dammit Freddie but if you ever complain about me keeping my thinking from you on a hunt again I'm going to slap you silly.”

We ran, down through the paths that descended towards the harbour. I don't know what I expected to find there. My sister was missing for well over half a day and this path was often travelled so there was no way that she would still be here. But the need to stand in the place that she must have gone burned in me. Even if she had done something else? I felt sure that there was a clue of some kind there.

We got there and looked around, disturbing a young couple, obviously crazily in love with each other. They were looking into the stream and I got the impression that they were looking for something. I shooed them on and started looking around.

Kerrass joined me, jumping down to the bed of the stream, rooting around amongst the rocks and plants. Contrary to my expectation though, we found something almost immediately. Kerrass stopped for a while and took a deep breath. I had seen this before and watched as he took a deep breath before turning his nose towards a bush. He carefully dropped down and gently parted the branches of one of the bushed. Fishing in the bush he produced a rock. It still glistened a little with drying blood.

“That is not a good sign.” he commented. I heard a whooshing in my ears and then next thing I was having water splashed in my face.

“Kerrass. It was my brothers writing. It was Sam's handwriting.... But that's....”

“Impossible. I know....”

“Flame Kerrass what the hell is happening?”

“I don't know Freddie. Come on.”

He helped me to my feet and helped me up the path towards the palace.

He kept the rock in his hand.

It took us some time to gather everyone. We were shown straight into the Empress' office where she was still frantically signing various documents while, at the same time, going through the various stages of being dressed for the various balls that she was going to be attending over the course of the evening and the night.

She seemed to be throwing away one law in three as she found some fault in the writing or found that some scribe or another had inserted their own little clauses or sub-clauses into the laws that she was signing.

Apparently only throwing away one in three was considered a good success rate for a new Emperor in office.

By the time we got there she was back to wearing a dress but if anything her temper was getting worse.

“Find out who wrote this?” she demanded waving it under the nose of her poor, much put upon private secretary. “Find out who wrote this and enquire who is paying them more. Me, or the Duke of Cantre. If it's the Duke of Cantre then the scribe can fucking well find employment with him. If it's me then we are paying them far too much and they can be kicked out the door, onto their arse where they can wallow in their own shite for all I care.”

“Yes, Imperial Majesty.”

“I don't know, do they think that because I'm a girl and because I'm young that I won't notice that they're trying to squeeze these things past me in an effort to get one over on me?”

“I don't know, Imperial Majesty. May I suggest however that that question is better devoted to a time when you've already decided which pieces of the law you want to keep and which one's you don't.”

The Empress grumbled a bit before signing another piece of paper.

Lord Voorhis was summoned and arrived with little ceremony, slipping in via the back door. The Empress was still attended by her dressmakers and a couple of Witchers. I recognised Gaetan although I hadn't been introduced to the other man.

The Empress finished her latest signature before waving off the next piece of paper. She looked up at Kerrass and raised an eyebrow. “Well?”

“It's not good Majesty.”

The Empress sighed heavily. “You'd better tell me.”

“Lady Francesca was lured out of the palace in the course of the night by a message carried by the Imperial messenger service. Here is a copy of the letter. As well as the private message that was written underneath. We didn't finish the questioning though as we were trying to stay with the trail.”

The Empress nodded as she handed the paper on to Lord Voorhis.

“We went to the only place that we could think of that was covered by “The Bridge under the Waterfall” where we found this.” Kerrass placed the rock on the desk.

The Empress' face went pale and rigid, as though she was suddenly wearing a mask of her own face.

“Is that Francesca's blood?” she asked.

“I'm as confident as I can be. It would be too much of a coincidence otherwise.”

The Empress nodded.

“So the train of events is that a message was carried to Francesca in the night. She read it, trusted it enough to investigate alone. Why would she do that?”

“Because, according to Lord Frederick. The Handwriting is similar to that of Lord Samuel's writing.”

Lord Vorhis looked at me. I had slumped into the nearest chair and was letting Kerrass do most of the talking. “Similar Lord Frederick?”

“No.” I said. “It is so close to my brothers handwriting that I would swear that it was his handwriting except that it can't be him.”

“Why do you say that?” The Empress asked

I opened my mouth to speak but Lord Voorhis interrupted me. “Regardless, I'm going to put Lord Samuel Kalayn under arrest while we track down his movements over the last couple of days as well as the movements of his squire and the couple of men-at-arms that he has kept.”

“That's as maybe but it can't be Sam because...”

“We'll get to that Lord Frederick,” Lord Voorhis was scribbling a note that was taken off him by a page. “But what else needs to happen?”

“I would say that we need to properly interrogate the Postmaster of the Imperial messenger service.” Kerrass said. “I would even go so far as to say that the entire system needs to be rethought.”

“Why do you say that?” Lord Voorhis seemed to bridle a bit at that accusation. I would later find out that the Imperial messenger service was Lord Voorhis' personal brainchild.

“Because it would seem that the “Imperial” messenger service has become the messenger service of anyone who can pay for it.” Kerrass said. He went on to describe what we had found about how anyone who paid enough for the “most discrete service” could get the same level of service as the Imperial service. “But,” Kerrass went on, “he can probably be questioned in an effort to find out who it was that actually dropped off the message as well as things like, was the message written in his presence? and...”

“Yes Thank you Master Kerrass. I have some ideas as to what questions need to be asked.” Lord Voorhis snapped.

Kerrass just smiled a little. The Empress ignored them both.

“I want to know why it can't possibly be your brother.” She told me. It wasn't a question.

“Because Sam could no more kill Francesca than I could. What you've got to understand about it is that...” I took a breath in an effort to calm my own mind. I was stuttering around a lump in my throat as well as being torn between a desire to scream, to shout as well as to burst into tears. “What you have to remember is that... Francesca was the culmination of all of us. We all loved her beyond reasoning. She was smarter than me, better with numbers than Emma, more physically gifted than Sammy and kinder than Mark. She became the Princess to all of us. Everyone loved her. Even Edmund loved her despite his obvious faults and warped way of looking at it. She was the culmination of all of our thoughts and prayers. Goddess, we weren't jealous of her. We were proud of her. Everything that she has, she deserves the lot. It wasn't as a result of luck, it was the result of hard work. She was everything to us. Everything to all of us.”

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

There was something else that was niggling at me. I had seen the note and I knew whose writing it was. But at the same time I also knew that it wasn't Sam that had done this. It was a hunch I suppose.

I know, I know that the academic thoughts on the benefits of a hunch but I can't explain the extreme, almost visceral reaction at the possibility of Sam's guilt in the matter of Francesca's disappearance. I refused to believe that it could be him I just couldn't even begin to understand how it could be him.

Things started to move very quickly after that.

I've never understood the bodies desire to go into a state of shock. I can only speak from personal experience but it seems to happen whenever we have entered a moment or period of crisis. At the receipt of some really bad news or after you've been injured. It always strikes me that this is a very foolish time to go into a mental state where your brain goes all woolly, you can't think straight and you run into the very real possibility of passing out. Surely that's the worst possible thing that you can do in these circumstances. I can understand the need to suppress pain response and things like that, but surely that would be the point that you would need more of an ability to think and control and plan.

But no. There I was, sat in the Empress' office as she signed a whole bunch of Imperial orders and I could do absolutely nothing. I began to shake and sweat until someone noticed what was happening and I was brought some strong, restorative drink to get my brain to work again.

There's another thing. Why is it always a strong alcoholic drink that they choose in these circumstances? But I digress.

I sat in the Empress' office as circumstances moved further and further away from my control.

On some level I was aware that my brain was still working. Worrying away at the problem, turning it this way and that way in an effort to find the solution as though a new perspective might shed some more light on the matter. I was also aware that I was exhausted. I had gotten engaged the day before yesterday. Yesterday I had been involved in a discussion at the highest level and today, I had been all set to watch history in the making and was looking forward to the parties that were bound to be happening, even now as the sun was beginning to set.

I wanted to dance and drink and talk and walk. I wanted to see Ariadne but most of all I wanted to sleep and let the world worry about itself for a while.

The evidence against my brother was damning. But how could I go against it? That was the shape of the problem. The larger problem of where my sister had vanished to seemed a little...big...for me to comprehend at that point. We had followed the trail as far as we could and now it needed to be homed in on a bit more.

The “legwork” part of the investigation that Kerrass had been ignoring while we had followed Francesca's trail more closely. I was dimly aware that he was involved in doing all of this now, specifically I was aware that he was part of the interrogation of the Postmaster where they were asking him things like “What did the man look like who dropped off the message? How were they dressed? What did they sound like? How did they move?

I was also dimly aware that people were asking my sister's guards some searching questions. Did they hear anything? Had they seen anything? Was Francesca acting suspicious in any way? The questions about why they hadn't reported the fact that there had been a message delivered to her on the night of her disappearance or questions regarding their competence were waiting until after the other questions had been answered to the satisfaction of the questioners.

I knew that my brother had been arrested and was sitting in a cell somewhere. I knew that his servants were being questioned and that his squires and so on were being examined in the most minute detail. I was even dimly aware, somewhere in the back of my mind, that Sorcerers were getting involved. I felt badly about that. It's easy to say to yourself that someone would eventually identify Sam's handwriting so that I wasn't entirely responsible.... but I felt responsible. I felt as though I was to blame somehow.

But there was something wrong with the note and I couldn't say what it was.

Flame but I didn't want to be here.

I wanted to be at home. Or failing that I wanted to be camping by the side of the road with Kerrass. Hunk of meat roasting over a camp-fire passing a bottle of hooch backwards and forwards while we talked about the latest monster that we had faced.

I wanted to be planning my first series of lectures at the university. I wanted to be with Ariadne somewhere, spending some time planning our future or, alternatively, just spending some time looking at her. I could live with that.

If I couldn't get any of that, then some time training. The Empress had asked for a recommendation regarding the founding of a new Witcher school. I could be spending some time working on putting together a report. But now. Now. I had to figure out why I was so certain that Sam was innocent of the things that it was beginning to look like he might be guilty of.

I say again. The possibility that he might be guilty had not even begun to cross my mind. It simply could not be true. But I didn't know why that might be the case. It was like.... It was like that moment where you have an intuition about something. I'm an academic so I can only really talk about this on that kind of level. You have been asked a question by someone in a position of authority and so they need to be answered. You then realise that you know what the answer is. You can see it in front of your eyes and you declare that answer in a proud and happy voice, then the lecturer or tutor looks you square in the eye with a wicked smile and says.

“You are correct Mr Coulthard. But why is that the case?”

It is a common and unfair point that you often don't get credit for work unless you can state with definition as to why a thing had happened.

But I couldn't see it. I knew that my brother was innocent and it was more than just the instinctual thought that “My brother couldn't possibly have done something so evil.” I was well aware that there was the potential for evil in my family. Edmund had proven that. I had had that thought back then when Kerrass had found that Edmund had killed our Father that he couldn't possibly have been responsible. And again when it was found that Mother had, in turn, killed Edmund. On both of those occasions my brain had leapt to their defences saying that they couldn't possibly be responsible for the calamity that had befallen us and time and again I had been proven wrong. My family had the capacity for evil and I knew that, even though I privately thought that Francesca might be above that kind of thing.

Samuel was a soldier. He had fought in the war and was more than physically capable of killing someone. That I knew that was indication enough that there might even be the capacity of something worse. Since the time of my father's death I have, again, changed my outlook on life. I now believe that everyone is capable of extreme violence given the right circumstances. It's a similar sentiment to the old one of everyone having their price. Everyone has a price, which means that if you offer something to someone, it might not be money or property or women then, sooner or later you will find that thing that they want Sooner or later if you torture someone enough then you get the information, (it might not be the information that you want but you will get the information). But the other thing is that, at the end of the day, with enough of a push, a person can be driven to extreme violence.

I knew that he was capable of violence. If I thought about it, which I did, I might have said that Sam's thinking was a little bit more direct. If he wanted to kidnap or kill Francesca, going through some convoluted plan to summon her out of a place where she was almost as heavily guarded as the Empress herself was just not his style. He had every opportunity to do these things with considerably less risk as well. It didn't feel right that it might have been Sammy. It just wasn't his style.

But that wasn't why I was so convinced that it wasn't him. There was something else there as well and I couldn't see what it was. I reached out for it and it just fell away from me as though it was on the end of a piece of string and the kidnapper was tugging that string away from me.

I had seen something. I was sure of it. Some....thing that meant that it was impossible for my brother to do the things that he was being accused of. Something that potentially only I had seen or only I could be sure of.

I rubbed my eyes.

“I always find it better to look away from the problem for a while.” The Empress told me after a while.

While I had sat there in a daze she had gone through another change into a brighter and more colourful dress than the severe cut of the coronation dress. She was still sat at her table and was looking down at the paper that she was working on. She looked like a tutor who was marking a student's work. I was dimly aware that somewhere in the back of my brain, my inner schoolchild was glad that she wasn't my teacher.

“Excuse me?” I spluttered out on my second attempt as my throat had gone dry.

“Take a step back from the problem that you are working on and try something else,” she said. Passing the piece of paper off to her secretary who took it off her. The entire thing was covered in writing and she gestured for the secretary to take it away before turning back to me.

“It's tough sometimes.” She said. “Sometimes you want to just barrel through a problem. To charge it, sword spinning and make it go away. But it doesn't work like that. It never works like that.”

Another one of the doors into the room opened and a table was set out. Plates, dishes and cutlery were set out before a steaming chunk of meat and some vegetables along with some gravy and a bottle of wine.

“Join me for something to eat?” She said getting up. “You have the look that mother sometimes gets when she's working on something. The look of someone who has forgotten that they need to eat occasionally on the grounds that they had other things on their mind. You don't even have the excuse that you can sort yourself out with some liberal application of magic to keep your energy up. “The brain needs fuel”, as mother Nenneke would say,”

I staggered over to the table and sat down opposite the most powerful person on the continent. We ate in silence and she was correct in her assessment of me. I was absolutely famished.

“I have a policy,” she said. “It was something that was decided within a week of my introduction to public life. If I'm eating with someone, then no-one is to interrupt me during the course of that meal.”

“Why is that?” I asked.

“Because it gives me a moment to myself. The Witchers taught me early on that Breakfast is the most important meal of the day but if I haven't been woken up before dawn due to some kind of catastrophe then believe me when I say that that is a good day.”

She put some more vegetables on her plate with relish and drowned them in gravy.

“Lunch is often spent working with people or talking with people and I get a couple of mouthfuls of whatever high energy pastry that passes in front of my mouth between speeches but then, another of Mother Nenneke's sayings occur to me which is that sitting down and eating something is actually still hard work.

“She once told me that you should always take the time to sit and eat with people, even if you have nothing to say. That it is a time for strangers to get to know each other while it's also the time for old friends to get together and reminisce about old times.

“As well as that,” She went on, “You can tell a lot about a person by the way they eat food.”

I felt my interest being caught. “Really?”

“Oh yes. For instance. You have just eaten your green vegetable first before moving onto your meat and stuffing before mopping up the juices with your bread. Did you do that because you dislike the meat and was putting it off? Or did you get your least favourite parts of the meal out of the way before everything else?”

“The second one,” I said feeling a bit bemused.

“Ah, so you're the kind of person that gets the unpleasant chores out of the way before you move onto the more pleasurable ones.”

I nodded. “What does that say about me?”

She laughed. “I haven't got the faintest idea. It probably says something but I'm not wise enough to try and figure it out.”

“Awww.” I complained. “I was looking forward to finding out the answer to that.”

“Yes well, I wish I had time to look into it. If I had the wish of my heart I would be out on the road dealing with the monsters that trouble my subjects. One of the things I have enjoyed about your writing is that you have commented about the simplicity of a Witcher's work. I recognised that and I miss that aspect of my life. Of course, back then, when I was fleeing and fighting for my life, I would have given anything to be somewhere warm, comfortable and secure.”

“We always want the thing that we can't have.”

“Isn't that the truth.”

“So why did you give that up and come to be Empress?”

“It's an interesting question.” She said, “and you are not the first person to ask it.”

I waited a while to see if there was going to be any more but the Empress remained steadily silent.

“And?” I prompted.

She grinned at me. When looking at her during her carefully managed public appearances it is sometimes easy to forget that there's a young woman under all of that. A clever, charming and beautiful one at that. “I've thought about it quite a bit. I'll let you know when I have an answer.”

I laughed with her.

Conversation stalled for a while in the manner of two people who don't know each other very well.

“Were you ever told the story about how your sister first came to my attention?”

“I was not, Majesty.”

She laughed at the memory.

“She was sixteen.” She said. “Time is a malleable state for someone in my position. In years for this world I stood at somewhere around nineteen to twenty one when I came to my Father's court.”

She saw my confusion.

“Sorry, you will have been told of my elven title of “Lady of time and space?”

“I am aware of the title but beyond that...”

“What it means is that time passes differently for me. It goes on a linear course only because I allow it and because I want to interact with the people here. If I wanted to I could keep time still, move outside of time altogether which is actually a fun trick if you ever want to hear what people are really saying about you, or even make time run backwards. I've tried it a couple of times but as a result it would be safe to say that I am both younger while at the same time being older than I look.”

“At the same time?”

“Yes.”

I felt my mind sliding off the concept. The Empress laughed at my face.

“At least you register the possibility that it might be true rather than just denying the truth that time is, in fact, not absolute in it's passage and is, actually, rather maleable. But anyway, enough of the advanced concepts of space time and more reminiscences about your sister. I had arrived at my father's court,” She looked sidelong at my confused face. “Sorry, sorry. Dandelion would be furious with me as I'm absolutely useless at telling stories. Do you know about my two fathers?”

“I was aware, in as much as I have read the saga's of the poet.”

She winced.

“So you know that my biological parents didn't really have much to do with raising me. That largely fell to Geralt and Yennefer who I call Mother and Father. But when I came to court there was so much nonsense going on, I had to teach myself to refer to the Emperor as “Father,”. To be fair to him, I think he struggled with it as much as I did.”

She poured some wine for herself and offered me some. I made the universal gesture of “only a small one” with my thumb and index finger.

“I like my Step-mother though, even though she looks unsettlingly like me but she's entertainingly terrified but at the same time exceedingly brave. Whoever it was that taught her how to speak with an educated Cintran accent deserves all the money that they were paid. But anyway, I'm getting away from the story.

“I had been at court for a couple of months. When I first got to court I was, rather naively, determined not to change in any way. I told myself that the courtiers would have to learn to accept me the way that I am, warts and all. That didn't work out. Not entirely their fault.

“Part of the problem was that they simply didn't know how to treat me. My Father intended me to replace him as The EMPEROR with all the capital letters that that implies. He didn't want me to be some kind of figurehead while all the decisions were going to be made behind closed doors, by other men who had their own best interests at heart rather than the interests of the Empire. He wanted me to be Empress of Nilfgaard. He wanted me to rule.

“That just didn't cross the minds of the people here. Nilfgaardian nobility expect their women to be seen rather than heard. The women at court have an awful tendency to only speak when they're spoken to and to always, and I do mean always, defer to their husband's opinion. Some people said that I might be a pleasant breath of fresh air but the truth was that the old factions of the court just had a mental shut down whenever I went near then or tried to talk to them. They had this.... kind of shutter behind their eyes that cut off their thoughts whenever they saw me. This....girl can't possibly be the Empress therefore she does not exist and her opinion is precisely that.”

“An opinion.” I offered.

“Yes,” She grimaced. “The first time it happened after I had been formally presented to the court as my Father's intended heir my father had the offending dignitary pulled apart by horses. After that, instead of them ignoring me you could almost see them sweating with the effort of trying to take me seriously.

“But I refused to allow them to pigeon hole me. I refused to be categorised and labelled but we soon realised that I would have to work within the system to force people round to my way of thinking.

“It started with my wardrobe. A woman's wardrobe in Nilfgaard....Ugh,” She shuddered theatrically. “All dark, subdued colours, plain cuts designed to show off someone's profession as well as to minimise any sexuality that the lady in question might have. If you do spend any time in court, it's somewhat relaxed here in Toussaint because it has to be but when we get back to Nilfgaard, you can spend an entertaining afternoon watching all the old men's faces whenever Phillipa, Triss or even your Ariadne walk through the court. Confident women, comfortable with their sexuality are almost abhorrent to the courtiers, but at the same time being so....attractive.

“But I digress.

“At first what we did was to try and emphasise the fact that I am my father's daughter. If you look at the portraits of each of us we don't look alike and people comment that I must look like my mother. But when you see us together, really see us together then people can see the similarities. So at first, they tried to work off that. If I dressed like my Father did, then people would accept that that's who I come from and what I expect to do with my time.

“It didn't work out.

“Then they tried to dress me in these ornate, heavily jewelled and embellished confections that they called Dresses,”

The Empress shuddered again before chuckling at the memory.

“As I recall I politely enquired if the dressmaker in question had ever faced a stampeding herd of wild horses. That was the day I also learned about how people in Nilfgaard take whatever I say literally.”

“Funny that,” I commented.

“Yes, well. My father used to come up with increasingly inventive ways to have people executed in an effort to get people to think about things before they start to talk. He used to take a perverse pleasure in coming up with methods of execution to fit the crime and then not to bother turning up to watch them. He says that he thought it was the final nail in someone's self-esteem and confidence if the Emperor himself didn't think you were important enough to watch your execution.

“In the end though I chased them all out of the room and chose the one woman who asked me what I wanted to wear. Together she and I came up with what my current wardrobe mostly consists of. I kept my Father's simplicity in that I don't really like jewellery. I told the woman that I want clothes for day to day use that I could, at a moments notice and without having to disappear of to my chambers for several hours, go riding, hold court, receive dignitaries, accept gifts and pass sentence. I wanted to be able to move, walk around at my own pace rather than at the pace governed by overly narrow skirts and I wanted to be comfortable. I told her than everyone should already know who I am so I didn't feel as though I needed to announce it with frills, ornaments or jewellery. It still took work, many weeks and months worth of work before I was approaching satisfaction with what I had but we got there in the end. But there was a significant problem. A problem that no-one, including me, had even begun to think of.

“That problem was what to do with my hair.

“It's a truth of the South, as well as a truth of the North that a woman's hair tells you a lot about the woman in question. Women cover their hair when they're married. Either under a hat, a wimple or some kind of scarf. But even before that, many young women tie their hair back to keep it out of their eyes while they're working, in the fields or looking after the children but then we come to the problem.

“I used to tie my hair back as well. To keep it out of my way while fighting, running or riding. But it's unthinkable for the Empress to have her hair tied back like some kind of Peasant woman.” She smirked at a memory. “But likewise, a woman with long hair is also a statement about status. It tells anybody watching that the woman in question had time and the money to keep their hair long, clean and in a state to be managed. That way, I could even make my hair a statement in and of itself.”

Her eyes went distant for a moment or two.

“My sister told me that.”

“I didn't know you have a sister Majesty.”

“I don't. Not really but Triss and I have a certain understanding.”

There's nothing like speaking to someone who has a close relationship with important people to remind you that important people are still just people too. I had difficulty thinking about who the Empress was referring to when she said “Triss,” although it seems obvious now that she must be talking about Triss Merigold, advisor to King Tancred of Kovir.

“So we wasted even more time trying to figure out what to do with my hair.

“I remember distinctly. It was maybe six months after I had come to court. Only a couple of months after your sister had arrived. She had been living in the capital since I had arrived waiting for an introduction. She had been presented to me but there were so many names and faces in the early days of my arrival, that I had lost track of her. But it was just before I had decided that if I wanted to wear trousers under a long coat then I could wear trousers. So I was still in skirts, a bit more severe than the dressmaker wanted them to be while at the same time being a bit too ornate for my tastes.

“Don't get me wrong, I like frilly things and pretty jewels as much as the next eligible lady but there is a time and a place and that was not it.

“But I was walking through the court. Meeting several people and catching up with a couple of friends when my hair fell out of the careful arrangement that had been piled on top of my head.”

The Empress laughed.

“The looks of horror on the surrounding courtiers would have been almost comical if it wasn't for my own frustration and impatience. In the end though a small, girlish snigger came to my ears.

““Who was that?” I demanded in what was probably a rather peevish tone of voice.

“Your sixteen year old sister was firmly pushed into view. I always suspected that there were rather a few people who wanted me to eviscerate this northern wench for her impertinence. Literally as well as figuratively. But the two of us locked eyes as she rose from a very deep curtsy.

“Silence reigned. Then your sister opened her mouth. Something else that simply isn't done in this part of the world where young women are expected to be seen, not heard. “If I may, your majesty?””

“I must have given some indication as to the positive, she disappeared into the crowd and came back shortly with a chair. She positioned the chair just behind me, oblivious to the bodyguards that were watching her every movement with suspicion and distrust, climbed up onto the seat so that she towered over me. She had a long stick in her hand which I later found out was from one of the jugs of lemonade. They were used to stir the lemony mixture and she had wiped it clean on her dress. She did some kind of...well... movement with my hair as she wrapped it round this stick. It took her, maybe ten heartbeats, if that before she climbed down, curtsied again and retreated to the press of court.

“Her arrangement held for the rest of the day and into the night.

“My hair-dresser expressed mystification at the invention and your sister had to be sent for to demonstrate how to take it down. Which she did by simple method of pulling out the stick to let my hair tumble down around my shoulders.

“After that I made it my business to know everything there was to know about your sister and your remarkable family from the north.”

The secretary knocked on the door and came in. “Majesty?” he prompted.

The Empress sighed. “Go on then, have they corrected the mistakes this time?”

“I think so Majesty, yes.”

Nothing had been said between them but they both seemed to know what the other was talking about. A large piece of paper was set down in front of the Empress which she cast her eyes over quickly before nodding her satisfaction and holding her hand out. A pen was pressed into her grip and she signed.

She did so too quickly and on one of the curves of lettering around the “o” in the Riannon of her name, the quill spattered a small amount of ink onto the paper as I watched.

I stared at the tiny blob of ink as it slowly dried on the paper.

Then I knew what I had seen.

I was up and out of my chair with the same speed as an arrow leaving the bowstring.

I was halfway down the corridor before I realised that I had just been unforgivably rude to the most powerful woman on the continent. I ran back, skidding to a halt in front of a bemused Empress who had moved back to sitting at her desk.

“My apologies majesty.” I stammered out. “Forgive me.”

She rewarded me with an amused smile and waved her hand in the universal sign of dismissal and I was back to sprinting down the corridor. I saw the Empress' personal secretary with another arm-load of documents for the Empress to sign and I grabbed him, probably causing some small consternation to the guards.

“Where's Lord Voorhis?” I demanded.

“What?”

“Lord Voorhis. Where is he?” I yelled.

“Err. In the cells?”

“Good.” I paused. “Errr, how do I get there?”

He gestured and a page detached from the wall. “This way sir.”

I nodded and ran on so that the poor fellow had to run to keep up.

He led me down a series of stairs where I nearly twisted my ankle jumping too far and too fast. But nothing could keep me from going where I needed to go.

We came to a guard room. Kerrass was there along with a couple of guards. Through another open door I could see a small series of rooms that looked to have been temporarily changed into a small prison. It was odd. The doors weren't heavy, nor were there any of the iron bars that you expect in a jail. Nor was the dungeon of the form of the deep pits that normally categorise dungeons and the keeping of prisoners. I'm told that Toussaint normally keeps it's undesirables in a separate prison enclosure across the river and this area had been pressed into service given the current crisis. It had probably been used to house wine.

I came to a halt next to Kerrass who raised an eyebrow at me.

“Freddie, You alright?”

I was out of breath.

“It's not Sam.” I got out between gasping for breath.

Kerrass winced. “I know we've said that and I'm on your side Freddie but it's not looking good. The messenger guy identified your brother as the man that wrote the message. He described him perfectly along with what he was wearing that day. There's a gap in your brother's schedule where he says that he was sleeping but there aren't any witnesses to that effect and he could easily have had the time to go and write the message.”

I nodded. “Where's my brother now?”

Kerrass gestured to the small collection of cells.

“The messenger too?”

Kerrass nodded.

“And Lord Voorhis?”

“Is currently questioning your brother.”

I stalked into the small group of rooms. The guards reacted badly, hands went to swords and people started shouting.

“Which one's the messenger in? What'sisname. George?”

“Freddie...” Kerrass waved off the guards.

“Which one,” I demanded.

Kerrass pointed and I threw the door open.

The man still had a very punchable face. He had a look that I had seen before. It was the look of a man who was beginning to think that the worst was past. That he would be ok. I still wanted to hurt him but I recognised him now as just being a pointless little jobsworth who thought he was more important than he actually was. If nothing else came of the whole affair then at least the messenger service would be completely revamped and his life would be forever changed.

But he would probably survive.

He began to change his mind when he saw my face.

“Err?” He sputtered.

“The man you saw.” I began, trying to keep my voice calm and level. This was the question that could prove my brothers guilt or innocence. “The man who gave you the message. Did you see him write it?”

“Err... yes.”

“With your own two eyes.” I was beginning to feel more secure in my certainty now.

“Yes.” He was feeling more confident now.

“On this paper.” I still had the blue piece of paper from earlier with the message on and I waved it him.

“Yes.”

“Is this the same piece of paper that you gave him. The one with the message.”

“Yes. That's the duplicate message. He wrote both of them and I had to check the one against the other to make sure that there wasn't any deviation.”

“Lord Frederick, what's the meaning of this?” Lord Voorhis had emerged from somewhere but I ignored him.

“You didn't look away.” I went on with my questions. “You watched the man write both messages with your own eyes. He couldn't have switched papers at all, sleight of hand? a distraction? Nothing like that?”

“No. I watched very carefully.” The man seemed to take offence that I could question his competence.

“So just so we're clear.” I went on. It was vital that I get all of this right. “The man came in, paid you the sum of money required for the usage of the messenger service. You gave him the blue card for the decoy message and a separate piece of paper where the decoy message and the real message were written down, by him, in front of your eyes.”

“Yes. That's how it works.” He had squirmed a bit at the reminder that he had been charging money for the Empire's most secret messenger system.

“How long did it take this person to write the messages?”

“What?”

“Lord Frederick I'm not sure what bearing this has...”

“HOW LONG?” I bellowed at the unfortunate messenger.

“I don't know, a minute, maybe two.”

I looked again at the poem and the message on the piece of paper.

“Two minutes to do the poem twice and the message.”

“Yes.”

“Let's call it three minutes just to be on the safe side.” I felt light headed. My brother was innocent. That horrible doubt that had crept into my mind. That horrible, momentary doubt that had begun to even hint that my brother might be guilty evaporated.

I turned to Lord Voorhis. “Is my brother down the hall?”

“Yes, but....”

“Do you have a scribe with you?”

“Well yes, we need to keep this whole thing recorded.”

I swept past him. Kerrass pointed at the door I needed and I burst in the room. Sam was sat behind a table in his shirt sleeves. Obviously furious and bewildered his arms were manacled and chained to the table. Sure enough a scribe sat in the corner of the room.

“Freddie?” He tried to stand as I walked in but the chains kept him sat down.

For a moment my fury threatened to overpower me. “Hardly “house arrest” Lord Voorhis.” I hissed. “Take those off.” I pointed at the manacles.

“Lord Frederick. I have been tolerant of your abuses of power but those manacles are going to stay on until I am satisfied as to the innocence of your brother. Innocence which is becoming increasingly doubtful in the face of the evidence that is coming to light.”

“Lord Voorhis.” I managed, struggling to keep calm. “I understand that this is your job and I appreciate that. I am about to prove that my brother did not write these messages.”

“How?”

I saw that Kerrass had come into the room as well.

“For that, I need those manacles removing.” I said.

Lord Voorhis took a deep breath, presumably swallowing his own anger, before gesturing. A guard stepped forward and unlocked the bonds. While that was happening I went over to the scribe and stole an ink pot, a couple of quills and some parchment.

“Ok Sam.” I said. “Here's what I want you to do.” I passed him the ink, quills and parchment. “Lay those out the way you want first as though we were in school.”

Sam looked at me oddly before arranging everything together. I lay down the original message next to him.

“I didn't write that.” He said looking it over. “It's a forgery.”

“I know Sam and I'm about to prove it. I need you to copy that out onto the blank parchment I've just given you. Then turn the parchment over and do it again. The two copies have to be identical. Do you understand?”

Sam snorted.

“I do, but that's impossible.”

“Just the content of the message. No spelling mistakes. The penmanship doesn't matter but it needs to be legible with no ink splatter or anything that might make the message illegible or contribute to someone's confusion.”

Sam stared at me for a moment as though I had gone mad, before shrugging and setting down to work.

After a while, Kerrass chuckled quietly.

A bit longer and people watching started to shift their weight in discomfort.

I nodded my satisfaction as Sam leant back after finishing the last line. He flexed his wrist a little bit as I looked over the work.

“How long did that take?” I asked the room?

“Twenty two minutes,” Kerrass answered, “give or take a few seconds.”

I nodded and took another piece of paper from the scribe.

“Ok Sam, your wrist ok?”

He nodded, still angry. “Freddie, what the fuck's going...”

“I'll hopefully be able to explain soon. But first more writing I'm afraid.”

I put the new paper in front of Sam as well as some spare quills.

“Now do the same thing again. You have two minutes.”

“Fuck off.”

“I'm serious Sammy. Get to it.”

Sam shrugged again and bent to work.

When he was done he pushed the paper over to me with an expression of disgust. The number of ink blots alone was impressive.

He had gone through three quills and I had had to refill his inkpot.

“I can read it.” I said to the room. “But I know my brothers hand. I challenge any of the rest of you to say, with certainty, that you can read every word and.... how long did that take Kerrass?”

“Six minutes, thirty two.”

I nodded in satisfaction. “My brother is being framed Lord Voorhis. I don't know who by, or why but I know that he didn't do it.”

Lord Voorhis took a deep breath.

“I think I can follow your reasoning Lord Frederick. But for the record please.”

“I can't explain everything.” I said. “I can't answer for why the messenger can describe my brother in detail but a disguise, make-up and others might explain it. Leaving aside the problems of a missing motive... The messenger says that the message, and the two copies of the poem were done in two minutes. I could write those things out, as could the scribe here I imagine. But that's our skill and talent. Sam's talents and skills are martial in nature.

“He spent years. Frustrating, heartbreaking years trying to teach me how to use a sword. Bruises and scars for both of us. But the opposite is also true. I spent years trying to teach him the finer points of poetry and calligraphy. I would flatter myself that I know his handwriting better than anyone alive and as you can see....” I held up the two pieces of writing that he had done. “There is a reason that my brother employs a scribe when he has to send a letter.”

I put them back down again. Sam was smiling ruefully.

“The original message was written too perfectly for Sam. He can do it when he puts his mind to it, but it's a matter of painstaking effort. If you look here, and here.” I pointed at some examples on his careful attempt.

“You can see jumps in his writing, jerks in the word formation where he realised he was going wrong. Proper writing flows like water. It's natural and easy, even when it's not the best quality. He was making the effort here and it took him far longer than the messenger himself says that it could have taken.

“As for Sam's attempt at speed writing? I don't like that messenger. I think he's a snob but I flatter him enough that there's no way he would have accepted that.” I gestured at the offending piece of paper.

“My final point is this.” I said, picking up the original message. “Even the most careful scribe, the most professional scholar in the world makes mistakes. They blot and spatter ink. If you look at our friend scribe's writing, I would bet that you can see some ink splatter somewhere, small and hard to spot though it might be.”

The room turned to look at the scribe. A man of about thirty who looked up from his paper when he realised that conversation had stopped.

“He's right,” he said. “In the trade, we make the joke that that's why they invented blotting paper and use sand for drying.”

“Again, if you look at the original message. There are no mistakes. None. No ink splatters, no blots.... It's perfect. The messenger says that it was done in front of him and he has no reason to lie. That speaks to me of much practice. Why would someone practice that?”

“A forgery.” Lord Voorhis nodded. “A frame job. A good one at that. Are you sure I can't offer you a job in the intelligence service?” He turned to Sam. “Apologies Lord Kalayn?”

Sam paused to take a deep breath. “I know that I'm supposed to say that there's no harm done and no hard feelings. But right now I just want to punch someone.”

Lord Voorhis shrugged. “Feel free if it would make you feel better. It wouldn't be the first time that someone has taken to hating me for doing my job.” He turned back to Kerrass and I. The Empress insisted on being kept up to date so I should go and do that. She gets tetchy when she's not kept in the loop.”

“What are you going to tell her?”

“The truth. That we followed the wrong path and that now, we're nowhere.”

It took us a short while to get Sam settled down. He was very angry but at the same time a little grateful. I had been the person that put the finger on him by identifying the handwriting as his but I was also the man who figured out that he was being framed. That clash of being scared, angry and grateful along with worry over Francesca and the cold furious longing for someone to hit had left him feeling dopey and restless. I left him at the practice yards where he took a practice sword to a couple of defenceless training dummies that didn't survive the contact.

By that time the Empress had vanished off into one of the numerous balls that were being thrown in her honour. Instead, Kerrass, Lord Voorhis and I gathered in her office to exchange notes and see where we stood. I remember that Kerrass kept checking on me. The same way that he would check a bomb that hadn't gone off or an alchemical solution that hadn't done what it was supposed to.

I was tired. I felt echoey. I was having flashes and after images of things that I was looking at superimposed themselves on my vision. I was full of the same nervous energy that had afflicted Sammy. My left leg kept jiggling, beating out a nervous rhythm on the floor that must have been aggravating. But I didn't know what to do next.

The office had been turned into the headquarters of Lord Voorhis' investigation. He had a small group of men there sat at an increased number of tables going through Francesca's things. The Empress' desk and dress-makers apparatus had been removed and had been replaced with my sisters luggage that was being gone through with the proverbial fine toothed comb.

At two desks were a pair of oldish men that were introduced as the “Baker boys.” The term “boys” was pushing it as both men were well into their sixties with huge foreheads that seemed to climb out of thin curtains of hair. They both had small magnifying glasses that were perched on the ends of their noses and they were going through my sisters correspondence which was vast. I have a tendency to think of myself as having quite a large list of correspondents that I write to on a regular basis and whenever I return home I always find a thick sheaf of letters waiting for me. But my number of letters was made insignificant next to the vast number of letters that my sister had received. And those were just the ones that she had brought with her and had received in the meantime. The two men read each letter over and over again, trying to identify codes or if any of the letters might give out some kind of clue as to who would wish harm on my sister. As it turns out there were quite a few people who wouldn't take “The Empress has forbidden me to accept suitors” as a proper and acceptable answer to expressions of affection.

In one corner, a thin forbidding looking woman and another woman of much more generous figure were going through Francesca's cosmetics looking for poisons or potions. Another pair of men were going through her clothes, carefully picking apart stitching to see if there was anything hidden in any kind of secret compartment, whether by Francesca or by someone else.

I noticed that all three sets of investigators wore thick, leather gloves. At the same time, nearby there was a table, on which stood a series of bottles containing various hues of liquids. Kerrass saw me looking and identified them as poison antidotes. Lord Voorhis had then told me a harrowing story about the mysterious death of a lady at court. Upon investigating the death, one of Lord Voorhis' men had forgotten to wear gloves while examining one of the pieces of jewellery, fallen ill and died.

I found the thought incredibly depressing.

It seemed that it was indeed blood that was on the stone that Kerrass had found. That and it was indeed my sister's blood. Some Sorceress had provided the information although I didn't know who. I felt tired and frustrated, turning the facts over in my mind over and over again but I couldn't see a way through.

Lord Voorhis was sat in a chair, arms folded and legs stretched out. He looked like he was on the verge of falling asleep. Kerrass was leaning against the wall pulling at his lip and I watched the other bits of activity in the room without really seeing any of it.

“Right,” Lord Voorhis said suddenly. “Let's go through this again.”

Kerrass sighed and nodded. I didn't move.

“We know that Lady Francesca had retired for the evening.”

“We do,” Kerrass answered.

“We know that she entered her rooms because it was seen by many people, including the Empress who was on the way to her own rooms.”

“Then, at some point shortly after that, a messenger came with the blue card and the private message. The card was written in Lord Kalayn's handwriting which means that, as her brother, Lady Francesca would trust the message.”

“She then left the room...”

“Hang on Kerrass hang on. I have some thoughts about this....” Lord Voorhis got up and brought over a piece of slate and some chalk that he scribbled on. Some kind of shorthand that I didn't recognise. “Would your sister recognise your brother's handwriting quickly? Was it easily familiar to her?” he asked me.

I shook myself from my stupor. “No reason why not. Francesca wrote to all of us on a fairly regular basis, or at least to Emma, Mark and I that I know of. No reason that Sammy would be left off the list.”

“Mmm.” Lord Voorhis turned to the baker boys. “Many letters from lord Kalayn?”

“Several.” Said one of the two men. “The longer ones are not written in Lord Kalayn's handwriting which would emphasise Lord Kalayn's lack of affinity for the written word.”

“But enough so that she would recognise his writing?”

“Well I can.” Said one of the two men. “So I would have thought that she could. We only have what letters she received here though, we're expecting more to come from the Royal palace.”

“Ok,” Lord Voorhis waved them back to their work. “Ok, so lets assume that she knew her brother's handwriting. Did she know his handwriting enough to recognise that the writing was a forgery?”

“Impossible to say. I saw it, but I read that message over and over again. As well as knowing Sam's handwriting so intimately from when we were younger. By the time Frannie and he would have been writing to each other...?” I shrugged. “Sam's writing would have settled into his “adult hand” by then which means that his writing style would have been identifiable by her and, presumably by others.”

“Right,” Lord Voorhis leaned forwards. “Who else would have access to Lord Kalayn's writing? By which I mean. Who would have access enough to be able to write something in his style and practice what was written enough to make it happen? To get the forgery right?”

“I don't know.” I thought for a while. “Surprisingly few actually.” I said after a moment. “Unless Sammy has changed his tastes drastically, he hates writing. So much so that he avoids it wherever possible. I remember him saying once that when he was knighted and had to take on the training of a squire, he demanded that the squire be able to write as he, meaning Sam, could teach the lad everything else except proper penmanship. Even Sam admits that his own handwriting is almost childishly round and written as if by a spider with wooden legs.”

“So it would need to be someone with access to Lord Kalayn's written confidential orders.”

“Yes. Sam's lengthier correspondence is obviously not in his handwriting. He hires a scribe to do that.”

Lord Voorhis rang a bell so that a page was summoned. “Find Lord Kalayn's squire. He is to be questioned as to Lord Kalayn's papers, who had access to them? when would Lord Kalayn write something himself and when would he get the squire or a scribe to write it? Why? What were the differences? Where did his own writing go? To Whom? And What for?”

I was making to get to my feet but Lord Voorhis waved me back to my seat.

“It is sometimes a mistake to rush off after the latest theory as that prevents further thinking from happening? We have flunkies. Let them do their job.”

“I hate doing nothing.” I grumbled.

“The perils of command.” Kerrass said as he pulled over a chair. “What's next?”

“Ok so,” Lord Voorhis stared at his slate. “Writing. The messenger-colonel...who will soon be out of a job by the way, identified Lord Kalayn easily.”

“Disguise?” Kerrass asked. “Disguise or magical disguise?”

“He seemed pretty convinced that it really was Lord Kalayn. Enough so that it lead to Lord Kalayn's arrest. The flaw of the forgery being too good is so slight that it actually proves that it was a forgery.”

“A paid actor?” I wondered. “A paid stooge or the actual kidnapper?”

“Impossible to say.” Lord Voorhis said. “I'm investigating the magical possibility. Or rather Lady Eilhart is, on the Empress' insistence.”

I shuddered. “That woman unnerves me. So...what next?”

Lord Voorhis pulled at his lip. “Lady Francesca has a number of enemies that we know about. But why was Lord Kalayn targeted as a scapegoat?”

I shrugged. “Sam and I are close when we get together, but our interests are so different that we don't talk together that much. He could have any number of enemies though. He's a soldier after all and a newly landed Lord which might have upset someone. But isn't it a bit more complicated to frame Sam for my sister's disappearance?”

“That's valid,” Kerrass said. “Unless it's a vendetta against the family. Framing Samuel is a lot less risky than risking the Empress' wrath with kidnapping one of her closer companions.”

“Right.” Lord Voorhis stared at his slate again.

“Was anything seen last night around the bridge.”

“The bridge around where she was presumably attacked?”

“I have minions finding out.”

I nodded.

“This bit's tough Freddie.” Kerrass leant forward and put his hand on my shoulder. “We've got the weight of the Empire behind us,”

“I know Kerrass but I really want to punch something.”

Kerrass smiled sympathetically.

We sat, the three of us together. I still wasn't sure how I felt about Lord Voorhis, but there was no doubt that he was doing his job and searching diligently.

I don't know when it happened. It was late though. It was dark outside though. Partying sounds came from outside on the balcony. I found myself getting more and more angry at that. So many people partying when my sister was missing and I was here, absolutely nowhere and straining for inspiration to strike from a clear sky while, in the meantime, it absolutely failed to.

I remembered blowing my breath through my mouth but the door opened.

“Sorry Lord Voorhis but I thought you needed to know this.”

The door swung wide to admit Sir Thomas, the sixteen year old guard was still in his armour and still looking fresh as a daisy. It wasn't him that I was looking at though. What he had in his hand was another young lad of maybe fourteen who was wearing a burnished golden breastplate with a shine on it so impressive that I could literally see my face in it.

The breast plate was made to fit which must have been astonishingly expensive. The lad was beautiful, blonde hair that fell down in curls to his starched collar. Greaves and bracers made from the same metal, edged in ornate scroll work. Bright blue eyes shone out from ridiculously long eye-lashes. If I didn't know better I would have been sure that he was wearing eye-liner. I hated the kid on sight. He was just the sort of lad that had gotten all the attention from the girls and the tutors when I was young

The effect was rather spoiled by the fact that Sir Thomas steered the young man, rather expertly, through the door by virtue of a twisted ear.

“This young man,” Sir Thomas continued, apparently without effort despite the struggling youth. “said something interesting when we were briefing the guard about Lady Francesca going missing.” Thomas used the smallest movements of his hand but the younger man squealed in protest. “Tell the nice men what you told me.” He let go, so that the younger man collapsed in a heap at Thomas' feet.

“I'll have your head for this,” yelled the purple faced younger man. “Don't you know who I am? I'm an important man and I...”

“Yes,” said Sir Thomas without change in his tone. “You mentioned that, and in case you needed reminding. I still don't care. I was talking about the other thing that you said.”

“I'll call you out sir. I'll see you at dawn.”

“Sir Thomas,” Lord Voorhis said dourly.

“Don't worry sir. I think it's worth inflicting this on you.”

The younger man had succeeded in working his gauntlet off his hand and threw it in Sir Thomas' face. Sir Thomas blinked, took a step backwards and stared at the younger man in surprise as blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.

Then he moved.

Which was when I found out why Sir Thomas was part of the Imperial guard so young.

He moved forward, caught the younger man's hand in one hand, singled out a finger and twisted. The younger man fell to his knees but Thomas wasn't done twisting yet. He steered the young squire until he was facing my astonished face.

Thomas spat blood from the split lip.

“You see that man there,” he snarled, his mouth inches from the golden boys ear. “That pale man, the one that isn't wearing a sword on his back. The one that isn't the head of the Empire's intelligence service that can have the information tortured out of you. The thin, scholarly one? He's the reason I don't take you down to the practice yard and kick you in the face repeatedly until your eyeballs pop out and your cheek-bones shatter. This is a real war shit-eyes. It's his sister that was who you referred to as “another whore.” The reason I don't take your challenge is because he has first claim. I've seen him practice. Him and his spear would kill you in three moves. If you're on a good day.”

Thomas let go. I was in shock at the sudden intrusion of violence.

“Well, maybe I'll treat myself.” Said Sir Thomas and kicked the young man in the balls. The boy squealed and Thomas hauled him up by the hair and slapped him across the face. He was blubbering.

“You make me sick,” Sir Thomas said.

“Sir Thomas, what in the name of...”

Sir Thomas was still snarling with rage. “This piece of filth. This, piss stain on the face of the office of knight-hood.” He walked over to the small table where there was a jug of wine and water. He poured a liberal amount into a cup which he drank quickly before spitting again. Then he picked up the jug of water. “He wandered through the guard room as I briefed the men on Lady Francesca's disappearance. He stopped, listened for a while and said. “So Laughing Jack has taken another whore has he?”

Sir Thomas poured the jug of water over the blubbering child in gold.

“I hauled him out of there before the men lynched him. Now,” He hauled the boy up to his feet again. “Stand up straight, arms down where they should be. ATTENTION!!”

The bellow would have done any drill-Sergeant proud.

I was too busy reeling though.

“Over the last few months....” The boy stammered. “Several women have been abducted. Young, pretty, dark haired. They've nearly always turned out to be prostitutes or have been sleeping around. The victim is knocked unconscious and taken off somewhere where she gets raped, strangled and starved to death. When he's finished with her he carves a smile into her face and dumps her. The peasants.” the boy actually sneered when he said peasants. “claim to have heard a man's laughter whenever a girl goes missing. Then again when the body is found, strung up by her ankles.”

I had staggered, missed my chair and fallen to the ground.

“The peasants call the killer “Laughing Jack”,” the boy went on but I wasn't listening. I was looking up at a horrified Kerrass and I saw that he had made the same connection that I had.

“You know this, “Laughing Jack”?” Lord Voorhis asked the two of us.

“Amber's Crossing.” said Sir Thomas. “I'm a fan. I read your work. This is the connection.”

“Jack,” I said....My voice broke. “This is my fault. I brought him...”

“What the hell is he talking about?” Lord Voorhis asked me.

But Kerrass was too busy catching me as I fainted and started screaming.