Heard from a Bird

It is the beginning of morning the sun rises in fellowship with the same star that had first escorted its movement. By the hour and the gentle season, its rays roll lazily towards Pelargir’s walls. Only some scant few attempt to hurdle it, thinning the city’s shadows.

The door to Arathis’s chambers within the Minas Sirion, keep of the King, appears ajar. From time to time, the rise and fall of a vessel may be heard.

[Niphredil(#10854)]

From the lower levels of the palace, there\'s a stirring.

Footsteps gallop down corridors and up stairways -- and then, with a thump of palm to wood, the Lord Arathis\' chamber door is knocked upon. Behind stands Niphredil Hlorithain -- daughter of the Knight-Marshall -- panting from the effort it cost her to travel from wherever she may have set out from. In the place of a lady\'s garb is that of a messenger breeches instead of skirts, boots instead of slippers. Her worn cloak is pushed back with her fingers -- the same fingers that gesture for the concerned minders of the palace trailing after her to move back.

\"My lord!\" Niphredil calls, pacing back and forth behind the door like a panicked cat in a cage -- like a child with nowhere to go. \"My lord, I need to speak with you -- I\'m -- I\'m sorry, it\'s -- it\'s early \" -- she breaks off, at a loss.

It takes all she can muster to wait.

“Come Niphredil,” comes the lord’s worn bass from behind the wooden port.

His personal chambers appear in inconsistent order. The bed seems as if unused yet the desk at which he sits is cluttered with parchment and statesman’s ware, some covered heedlessly with a herbal-wafting cup. He himself is unkempt, somewhat huddled and wrapped in more furs than the climate warrants.

A hand, wiping first some sweat from his brow, gestures for the lady to enter and sit. “Come, do enter.”

[Niphredil(#10854)]

The second invitation seems unnecessary as soon as her name is spoken, the teenager is swinging the door open and stubbornly placing herself on the other side of it with a jumping burst. And it is closed -- closed after the corridor is given a suspicious once-over -- behind her.

\"Sir, I am unsure as to how...\" Niphredil trails off, and seems to forget herself decidedly she steals a moment to take a handful of steps forward, placing herself in the center of the lord\'s floor, and remove her cloak, slinging it over one arm. Her hair, though folded in a braid, is somewhat ruffled by wear and weather -- and shadows play about her eyes, hinting at a lack of sleep.

She clears her throat and takes in a deep, soothing breath. And starts again.

\"I was in the library, my lord -- only two hours past, if that. It was very late and I was very close to falling asleep -- then, to my surprise,\" she speaks clearly, but quickly, with panicked enthusiasm, \"three men arrived to sit with me, in the dark. We were far apart, in alcoves. We couldn\'t see one another\'s faces. They thought I was someone else.\"

The lord straightens in his seat. A sharp alertness dispels the hour, and his eyes widen atop their weariness.

“Niphredil,” he protests, heeding the girl’s careful entrance and enthused manner, “please, find seat and be calm. These men I pray did not trouble you?”

[Niphredil(#10854)]

Be calm?

This advice triggers a self-deprecating sigh, and a boyish slap of hand to stomach. \"I am trying, my lord,\" she whines, though the target of her exasperation seems to be her own attitude, not the Isilrim lord\'s. With reluctant stomps, the girl walks to the nearest chair and settles upon its very edge her back erect and stiff as a plank of wood.

\"Trouble me? -- no, no, this is not that sort of story,\" she says, after a good pause that seems to calm her some. Though her eyes remain bright and wide, her breathing has corrected itself a great deal, and she meets the lord\'s stare with a solemnity that was lacking moments before. \"They had organised a small conference, and believed me to be the lady who was to meet with them -- and the things they spoke of, my lord...\"

Searching for an example, Niphredil bites her lip -- then says, with a serious lowering of her chin, \"The man they call their \'King of Gondor\' will be married in two months. The woman they believed me to be is a widow with a daughter of marriageable age. She has connections to both the Bragollach and Tarikhor the host of the covenant made references to the both of them when he gave me instructions. She is a priestess of the dark religion. The four of them are living amongst us, but they\" -- Niphredil gestures wildly with a swing of her arm -- \"are in service to some other creature. They want the Knight-Admiral to be looking to the south, they said. They want him searching the distance so that our forces may miss what it occurring in ports nearby.\"

[Arathis]

Brooding claims the airs about the knight, long unhampered by the passing weight of word or breath.

After many moments, his eyes rise and look kindly upon the girl. “Did they say more?

”Did you speak in response?

“It is possible that they shall soon discover they did not succeed in their rendezvous, Niphredil.”

[Niphredil(#10854)]

\"They said...\" Niphredil\'s brows curl into a pensive frown and she glances to the floor, and to the side. Two times, she goes to speak, halts, then appears to start anew upon the third attempt, she finds success. \"There were three men, I know I said that already. One of them called himself Heledir, he spoke on behalf of their master he lead the majority of the discussion, and asked for our opinions only on the matter of whether his king should announce his wedding publicly. He requested of another man, the strangest of the three who arrived with an owl mask on his face, for better resources from Pelargir\'s stockpiles.\"

\"He mentioned you to Heledir,\" she looks up as she says this, \"He said you made demands on the city on behalf of the Lord Steward he said he would use these channels to collect more stock for their \'royal wedding\'. I liked him the least.\" Niphredil sneers at some memory, shaking her head in disgust, \"He kept laughing, but when he spoke, he was as smart and eloquent as the next man oh, I do dislike it when people pretend to be more stupid than what they are.\"

The girl turns quiet as Arathis\' last thought is given the occasion to sink in. Slowly -- regretfully -- she nods her head, \"Yes, I expect they will, Hir. And yes, I spoke in response. I had to.\"

[Arathis]

The Lord Arathis discards the furs at his back and sportily wheels his arms at his shoulders. Whatever sickly tiredness mired him prior appears overcome, whether by virtue of dawn’s gradual heartening or sudden necessity bid by the Hlorithain girl’s report.

“Niphredil,” he begins, compounding his utterance with a firm nod, “if they shall know you by your stature or voice, then this city has become unsafe for you, and I would have you depart this day for your father’s side. If they shall not, then you must reveal this meeting to no other you must not even write of it. Your father shall learn of it only when we may circumvent the risk of couriers. In all settings, you must prove unassuming.

“Aye, I believe I know this foul priestess of whom they spoke. -- You have done your kingdom a great service, Niphredil, by coming to me. I would ask you last only to disclose more of these men’s habits, such that, though their faces were darkened and mayhap their names’ false, I might know them by their laughing, as you say, or aught else peculiar and typically forgotten by the man wearing the trait.”

[Niphredil(#10854)]

Relaxed at last -- physically, at least -- Niphredil\'s posture loosens boyishly, she lets her shoulders keel forward, forward enough that she is able to rest her elbows on her knees with her hands coming together in a comfortable fold of fingers between them. \"They did not see my face,\" she tells him this, and here she is certain. And then, softer: \"My voice... I could not say -- I tried to lower it.\"

\"I asked where the wedding would be held, when I could,\" she tells him, eyes closing when she pronounces the latter half of her sentence as an actress might a line in an old script, \"but Heledir reminded me that it was my... my influence that brought the wedding fortress to \'His Highness\' power. He said it is strong enough to withstand any siege, but its location is a secret that I was supposed to already know, so I hushed. They will be wearing bird masks during the ceremony to keep their identities safe, as they are expecting intruders.\"

A thought comes to her she glances up, and holds the knight\'s stare with a stern one. \"The third man called himself the Herald. He has been masquerading as a knight -- with success, I can only assume. He is a pretender. I cannot guess who or what he is, I was not able to see his face or hear his voice enough to be able to recognise it if I heard it.\" Niphredil gives a bitter hiss, \"I considered following him when they left, but I thought it was more important to focus on finding my own way out so that I could not be followed instead. And then I ran here.\"

[Arathis]

“You thought rightly,” assures the Isilrim lord, approaching the Marshall’s daughter to clasp her gently at the shoulder. Even so, the other hand dutifully unhooks a baldric from the corner of the girl’s chair, pulling upward its attached scabbard.

“You have done well. As a single candle may, you have broken the deepest darkness. Those who would deceive the faithful servants of Eru are now seen. And -- here my promise to you, good lass -- hard Justice shall be brought upon those who would break our noble peace.”

An eye cants in consideration upon Niphredil an evident resolution as he bends: the Herald removes a sheathed dagger from his baldric, handing it simply to the Hlorithain. “If my guard should ever fail you, thrust truly -- do not swipe.

“This Haven of our First and Rightful King has become a den for the False. By my Oath, it shall not remain so.”

FADE