Mordred looked down at the unconscious man at his feet curiously. There were no physical signs of injury, and he still appeared to be breathing. Whoever it was who had taken him out, they knew exactly what they were doing.
“The King and Prince have gone hunting, my Lord,” the young guard told Mordred, his face drawn with worry, his hands rubbing against one another in a repetitive dance of nervousness, “I thought I had better fetch you.” Mordred nodded his head slowly in agreement,
“It seems we have a visitor,” he said slowly, raising his eyes towards the ramparts, “one who has some kind of objection to doors.” Missing the jest entirely the guard stuttered again,
“what should we do?” he asked, his eyes growing ever-wider as he struggled to even stand still.
“Notify your captain,” Mordred instructed in a calm steadying voice, knowing the positive effects that steady confidence could have upon someone of the guard’s disposition, “then fetch a healer.” The guard nodded before he turned and half-marched, half-jogged across the yard towards the West guard tower, leaving Mordred alone. Instantly he reached out telepathically to Angmar delivering one brief order, ”no one leaves.” Seconds later, a great shadow passed overhead and Mordred looked upwards to see the dragon begin to circle the castle.
Mordred made no sound as he made his way up the spiral staircase that would lead him to the family quarters. His intent, as part of his continued charade as a dutiful son and brother, was to ensure that Nimueh was moved to safety until the intruder was apprehended. The captains knew their job, they would have guards combing the corridors methodically in no time. It was just a shame that the King had taken such a large retinue out with him that morning. It would take longer, but it would be done. Crashhh. Mordred froze, listening hard. The sound, like the splintering of wood had come from the opposite direction. He turned on his heal and headed back the way he had come, turning right onto the corridor that contained his sister’s room. He was just in time to see a man march free of the open door, dressed in black leather and smelling of saltwater and seaweed. The pirates had grown bold. The castle was Mordred’s hunting ground, his sister was off limits. She was his. The stranger disappeared, turning right at the end of the corridor, and once he was satisfied that he was far enough away, Mordred strode into the room. His eyes took in the broken box, and the unconscious maid lying in a crumpled heap against the wall, a bruise forming along the line of her cheek.
Mordred turned around again and left the room quickly, moving down the corridor down which the stranger had passed just moments previously. He paused about halfway down, in front of an ornate tapestry and pulled it back, revealing a passage built into the stonework of the wall. Summoning a ball of light in his hand, Mordred pressed on through the cramped darkness. He paused about half-way along, listening out for the pounding of angry, impatient footfalls. He was going the right way. Quickening his pace, Mordred pressed on until the light between his fingers illuminated a second tapestry at the end of the passage. Mordred approached it slowly, the flexible souls to his boots restricting very little his natural capacity for stealth. He leaned forwards, peering through the crack between the fabric and the stone, his eyes falling upon the shadow cast upon the floor. It was growing steadily larger. Slowly, Mordred withdrew his sword from its place at his hip, his eyes still fixated upon the shadow as the man drew closer. Choosing his moment with a practiced precision, Mordred pushed his blade out from behind the tapestry in a single sudden movement, pressing the sharp edge against the man’s chest with a relentless pressure. It was not the wisest move, there were far cleverer things that could have been done, but it had been so long since Mordred had had the chance to play. A grown, sea-hardened pirate confronted by a boy of sixteen with porcelain white skin and the face of a doll? It was too good of an opportunity to pass up. It was wonderful what could be learned about a man when he thought he had the upper hand.
Mordred stepped out from behind the tapestry. His facial expression was perfectly sculpted to suggest both a grim determination and the anxiousness that was only to be expected from a boy so apparently green and untested.
“I think,” Mordred said in a voice that was all smooth edges, each word pronounced with an almost loving precision, “that I am within my right to object to pirates in my sister’s bedroom. What do you think, Sir?” The boy could not rightly remembered what his own natural voice sounded like, he had used so many over the years. For the past three years it had been his court voice, a voice to match his royal brother’s, his nephew’s, but it sat upon his tongue with the same ease as any other. He accompanied his impertinence with an outwards thrust of his chin, stretching the skin of his face taught over the Celtic sharpness of his cheekbones. The gray-scale of his black hair and milk-white skin broken only by the vivid blue of striking blue eyes. “I think she has better taste than that.”  |
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