Lothby never entered the room that had been set aside for him. He spent the night in Penmark’s room, as Tamberline had known he would and, after performing a thorough examination of the room looking for traps and listening holes, he spent the night in a chair with its back against the door to ensure that no-one could either without his knowledge.

     Penmark hadn't expected to be spending the night there and so hadn't brought any night clothes. There were some hanging in the wardrobe, but she didn't dare take the risk. Any of them might have a tiny needle carefully hidden in the fabric, to prick her skin and deliver a deadly poison. She would sleep in her bare skin, therefore. Lothby had seen her in that condition plenty of times before and she felt no self consciousness as she carefully undid the complicated buttons and laces of her travelling clothes.

     From outside the window came the sounds of waves crashing against the base of the cliffs, far below. It made Lothby look distinctly uncomfortable and Penmark wondered whether their host had given them this room for that precise reason. His dislike for the sea, and everything to do with it, was well known, after all.

     “Give me a hand, will you?” she asked, sitting on the edge of the bed with her foot lifted high. Lothby came across and carefully pulled her boot off, then the other one. Lothby himself would sleep fully dressed, in case anything happened in the night. In fact, Penmark suspected, he might very well not sleep at all.

     “We should be back in Direfell Castle by now,” she grumbled as she unbuckled her knife belt and placed the leather sheath with its small, poisoned weapon on the bedside table beside her. “A delicious young concubine watching me getting undressed instead of you, followed by some night time pleasantness. Our business with Lord Born satisfactorily concluded and our plans for the future well mapped out. Instead, all is still uncertain and I have wasted a whole day that I could have put to better use.”

     “A ploy to gain advantage, obviously,” replied Lothby. “He keeps you waiting like an errant underling in order to make you angry and make poor decisions.”

     Penmark nodded as she undid her bodice. Her breasts, formerly gathered up neatly into pert cones on her chest, flopped out to lie on her stomach like workmen tired out after a long, hard day. She’d stared down at them in disappointment, then began on her stockings. “If he thinks I can be goaded into making a poor decision so easily, then he doesn't know me,” she said.

     “If your positions were reversed, I suspect you would be doing exactly the same thing, My Lady,”

     “Of course I would. You never overlook the chance to gain an advantage, no matter how small. Doesn't make it any less annoying, though.”

     “The simplest solution, of course, would be for one of you to simply kill the other.”

 
   “No matter how careful and subtle we were, the King would know it was an assassination, and that there could only be one reason for it. He would guess our plans and whichever one of us had killed the other would be ruined nonetheless. No, there is only one solution, if I can convince Lord Born. We must combine our forces. Only then will we be a force than can stand against the King.”

     “But with him supporting you, or you supporting him?”

     “That is what we must decide. Being forced to take the subservient role would be annoying, of course, but once the King has been disposed of I will be able to dispose of Lord Born in any way I choose without fear of consequences.”

 
   “You should beware, then, if he agrees to take the subservient role without raising too much of an objection.”

     “I beware of everything all the time, Lothby. Even here and now, with your formidable personage here to watch over me.” Especially here and now, she thought. Nobody could be trusted, not even the most loyal, must trusted servant. Lothby had no loved ones who might be kidnapped and used to coerce him into betrayal, that being one reason why he had been chosen for such a delicate, trusted position, but there were other reasons why he might turn on her, including the basest, most common reason of all. Money. Lady Penmark was extremely powerful, extremely wealthy and had many enemies. One of those enemies might think that her removal was worth paying Lothby enough to set himself up as a nobleman in his own right. She had come to know Lothby quite well over the years and couldn't imagine him doing any such thing, but she kept a poisoned needle in her hair even so, a needle that even Lothby knew nothing about. In this world, you just couldn’t be too careful, and Penmark wanted to have a chance of defending herself even when fully naked.

     She could never relax, never let down her guard. Not even for a moment. Even if Tamberline herself wasn't planning to take this opportunity to kill her, she had other enemies, many of whom probably had agents here in the castle among Tamberline's staff. Who knew which of them had been given orders to avenge some past insult? Or perhaps they thought that her removal would benefit them in some way. Also, it wasn't unknown for some ambitious agent to take action of his own initiative in the hopes of fimding favour with his master. Such independent action rarely ended well for the individual concerned. Their masters would fear that they would be the next victims of his ambition, but some people seemed to lack the ability to look that far ahead.

     For a moment, she found herself longing for the life of a simple commoner. Married to a labourer, perhaps, and with no worries in life beyond cooking his meals and rearing his children. She smiled to herself at her foolishness. The worries of the common folk were greater than those of the aristocracy, not less. Fears of disease, of poverty, of being left unable to work because of an injury and without access to the medical help that the upper classes enjoyed. Fears of being drafted by some nobleman to serve in their mansion, leaving their families to struggle without them, or watching their children taken to be surgically transformed into a musical instrument or a work of art. Or perhaps being killed on the spot for the crime of just being there when a passing aristocrat was in a bad mood. No, in this world, it was far better to be at the top of the social hierarchy than the bottom. At least she had the legal right to defend herself if she was attacked.

 
   “What do you make of this new bodyguard of hers?” she asked.

     Lothby stared at the opposite wall thoughtfully for a few moments. “I would say that he does not belong to her,” he said. “He belongs to her brother, Lord Born. This new man looks expensive. You can see the signs if you know what to look for. The very best training. The very best surgical enhancements.”

     “Better than yours?” asked Penmark.

     Lothby rubbed at the scar on his face, the scar he’d gotten in battle with another such man several years before. An assassin hired by another great house, hired to kill his mistress. He'd only been a Captain in the house guard at the time. His predecessor had already fallen to the assassin's blade, and Lothby had stepped forward to take his place. The man he’d fought, Penmark judged, had been one of the best killers in the kingdom, but Lothby had matched him step by step and had eventually killed him in a clear mastery of speed and skill. Ever since then, he had enjoyed the reputation for being unmatched in the kingdom, perhaps in the world, but now there was something in his bearing that told Penmark that this new man unnerved him more than he would ever admit to anyone.

     “Possibly,” he admitted. “Let us just say that it would be an interesting battle, if it should ever come to it. Tamberline could not possibly afford such a man, though. That is why I believe he belongs to Lord Born, and has been loaned to her during his absence. Lord Born is easily wealthy enough to be able to afford several such men, and he no doubt keeps the best for himself.”

     “Something to bear in mind if it ever becomes necessary to remove him,” said Penmark, studying her bodyguard carefully.

     “Indeed, My Lady.”

     Penmark finished undressing and pulled back the bedsheets of the huge, four poster bed. A maid had left a hot pan there. She lifted it out and placed it on the wide, stone windowsill. While she was there she looked out at the ocean view. The sky was still lit a dull, angry red by the sun, just below the horizon, and a tall ship was silhouetted against it. Perhaps one of Lord Born’s ships bringing slaves and spices back from some exotic, foreign land. She pondered the romance of such a life for a moment. It was as the Captain of the ship that she imagined herself, of course. Not as a lower officer, and certainly not as a member of the pressganged crew, or the cargo. She was a leader, a ruler, and no matter what other course her life might have taken, she would always have been a ruler.

     She climbed into the bed before it grew cold. “Good night, Lothby,” she said as she snuggled down under the blankets.

     “Good night, My Lady.”