Vero was several steps away and down another hallway, when a servant emerged from a side closet. He was rushing towards her holding an armful of wood.

She presumed he was on his way down to the furnaces and paid him no special attention. She stood aside to let him pass, and dimly recollected that he was going the wrong way. The stairway down to the lower level was ahead of her, not behind her.

The moment after she turned away from him, she heard the thud of the logs falling to the floor.

In an instant, Vero threw herself forward. She spun to face the stranger and prayed that her feet would not catch the hem of her dress.

The man held a dagger, but seemed momentarily perplexed that she had moved beyond the reach of his sweep. In his moment of indecision, Vero grabbled as much of her dress as she could with her left hand to free her feet.

Then she began to scream as loudly as her lungs were able. “Alarum! Mattias! Help!”

The assassin lunged, but Vero evaded his thrust and fell further back. Without weapons, and in the cramped space of the hallway, she could not challenge him directly. Dressed as she was, she would not be able to outrun him in a sprint either.

She started a slow evasive retreat to give herself as much time as possible, and continued to call for help. “Assassin! Guards! Mattias! Come quickly!”

The dagger arched out at her again and again, although it never quite reached her. The blade glistened with an oily coating. Vero was certain she did not want to experience whatever its effects were firsthand.

At last, Mattias rounded the corner with his sword in his hand. The knight appraised the situation in a second, then charged with a roar. The assassin spun to face him and Vero seized the opportunity. She danced forward and grabbed the arm which held the dagger, just above the wrist.

She wrapped it up in the fabric of her dress and held it extended outwards, away from her. “The blade is coated in poison!”

Mattie understood her warning and carefully ended his charge with a well-placed blow to the would-be killer’s immobilized arm. The man tried to pull away in instinct, but Vero made sure his arm was held taut to meet the slicing edge of Mattias’ blade. A single slash was enough to sever the exposed limb just below the elbow.

The assassin fell to the ground with a scream. After a moment, he regained enough of his senses to lunge for the fallen dagger with his one remaining hand.

Vero kicked the weapon out of his reach. Mattie brought down his knee in the center of the man’s back, pinning him down.

Saul now approached them carefully to see what all the shouting was about, and Mattie sent him to go find Jean. Another guard arrived and they dragged the assassin down to the dungeons.

Vero carefully picked up the killer’s weapon. She took it down to Aeolus’ laboratory.

After a few hours of study, she went to the dungeons. For convenience, the dark and somber set of stone cells were located immediately adjacent to the laboratory. Jean, Mattie, and Ser Frederic were already present and conducting their interrogation of the assassin.

“In my own house.” Jean’s voice was quiet, but a moment later he lashed out and pummeled the assassin with his gauntleted fist.

He was trembling with rage by the time he was finished, but his voice was still tightly controlled. “Tell me who sent you.”

The assassin spat a mouthful of blood onto the ground, but did not otherwise respond. He looked like he experienced at least one beating already, probably several. She noticed that Mattie was favoring bruised knuckles. The spymaster appeared to have abstained.

This killer murdered someone she loved very much. He tried to do the same to her. Vero felt no sympathy for his predicament.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

However – as satisfying as it might be to watch – she had better things to do than wait in the filthy dungeon, while the men applied the repeated beatings it would take to break their prisoner’s will.

She answered on his behalf. “The Guild sent him. He’s no slayer. And besides our order, only the worshipers of Affliction know how to create a contact poison like this.”

She placed the assassin’s knife on the table nearby. The poison dried soon after the attack, but not before she and Aeolus had identified it. A rare herbal oil mixture, invariably lethal unless magically slowed within a minute of exposure. Even then, the recovery would involve a lengthy course of treatment, and survival was not a given.

“Why would the Poisoner’s Guild try and kill you?” Mattie asked.

“They work for pay,” Vero answered simply. “We suspected that the culprit we hunted hired an agent to work on their behalf. Here is your hireling. We can bring in the serving boy who brought the sweetbread to identify him.”

The assassin gave Vero a withering look, but said nothing.

Ser Frederic leaned forwards to examine the assassin’s knife closely, but was careful not to touch it. “You’re familiar with the Guild, my Lady?”

“They’re despicable, they should all be hanged. My former master had some dealings with them – despite my better judgement – and we both came to regret it. Put plainly, I despise them.”

“If the poisoner is just a mercenary, then we still haven’t caught the one responsible.” Jean struck the assassin again. “Who hired you?”

Vero let him have one more swing before interrupting once again. “I have a theory as to who hired him, but your wife should be able to confirm if I’m correct or not soon. I expect this one will eventually crack as well, if enough pressure is applied in the right place. Perhaps I should explain the rest to you in private.”

Jean nodded, then turned to Mattie and Ser Frederic. “Continue the interrogation. Make use of Aeolus if you have need for spells. I want this to have priority over his other affairs. I’ll speak to you again tomorrow morning. In the meantime, I will escort the Lady Veronique to her chamber.”

The knights nodded their approval, and then consulted with each other about how to proceed.

Jean took Vero by the arm and led them away.

Despite what he had said, she noticed that he was leading her towards his own bedchamber. She did not voice any complaints. After everything that had happened, the last thing she wanted to do was sleep alone.

Not in that room.

In Jean’s bedchamber she explained everything she had done. When she was finished, he said that he approved and they lay down together.

Although she felt very tired, Vero was also sure she would not sleep for some time. She closed her eyes and just tried not to think about anything.

A finger began to trace lines along her back, along her arms. “Where did you get these?”

The scars.

Vero did not reply.

“Are you sleeping, my love?”

“No- I… different places…”

Jean put an arm around her and held her close to him. “I have a watch posted at the door. You’re safe here.”

“It’s not that. They embarrass me- the scars. May we speak of something else?”

“Here.”

He guided her hand to the top of his unpierced ear which he kept beneath his hair; it was cauliflowered. “This happened when I was sixteen, and too fond of competing in melees.”

He took her lower, to a raised scar along his right ribs. “A jousting injury three years later.”

He kissed her neck. “The smallest finger on my left hand doesn’t bend very well anymore after I broke it on this last campaign.”

“I understand.”

“We all have scars, Vero.”

“The Marquise doesn’t, I’ve seen every inch of her.”

“No, you’re right. She doesn’t.” Jean sat up. “I never met her once before our wedding, but I fell in love with her the moment I laid eyes on her. I was barely a man at that point you must remember, so I was very impressionable. She never returned the emotion, and love can’t exist in a vacuum. Not for long, at least. It must transform into either friendship, or resentment; I chose the first.”

“Did you fall in love with me the moment we met?”

“No.” He lay back down very matter-of-factly.

Vero was not sure what she had expected him to say, but it was not that. She began to laugh and he laughed with her.

“You must remember, I was several years older when we met, and not quite so impressionable by that time. I thought you were a very silly, but also very brave girl. And maybe an exotic sort of dalliance to enjoy while I was abroad. When my men fished you out of the swamp, every priest I queried said that infection had set in. All of them claimed it was hopeless, and you would die soon. Any further ministration was pointless, as it would only delay the inevitable. But when I sat by your bed and watched you… I can’t explain it. I’m a cynic by nature, I’ve never believed that the gods would wish to bother themselves intervening in the petty little affairs of mortals. But I held a kind of certainty in my heart that I’ve never felt the like of before. I never doubted that you would survive and return to me. I bribed the doctors to stay with huge sums of money, and motivated them with vile threats if I believed they were slack. The moment you first opened your eyes. When I held your hand. That was the moment I fell in love with you.”

Vero had stopped laughing. “I fell in love the very first moment I saw you.”

They were both silent and watched one another for a time.

Then he began to laugh again. “I could tell.”

She quickly silenced him with a kiss.