Chương 318: Soluble (adj) : susceptible of being dissolved in or as if in a liquid

Junia Pinking and Millstrong Griefir approached me together, wending their way through the loose gathering of my relatives and associates.

"You seem quite unconcerned with the attempt made on your life," he said.

"Well, it is only fair to point out that I was really expecting something like that," I told him.

"I had thought it would come from close in, not a distance, so that is probably why they attacked from a distance. And so now I've got angled walls suspended in the air at staggered distances from me, should make it impossible to shoot me again."

"Expecting this?" Junia asked, with a raised eyebrow and a tilted chin.

"I was given to understand that was not something you could foretell."

"Not with magic or miracles, no," I said.

"But I am still smart, and I'm aware that a lot of people hate me a lot. To that note, Millstrong, I know I've said it three times to her already, but please commend my thanks to your wife for her help with my last round of assassination attempts. She is not about?" He considered exactly how to answer that.

"She is at home. With the children, where it is safe. Supervising the packing of our things and the mothballing of our home."

"Where are they headed?" I asked." We are headed back to Woadrun," Millstrong said. His tone was stiff with conflicted emotions, bottled tightly and masked by duty.

"The family cannot afford to lose an heir, I'm afraid. My liege's orders are clear. He is likely to live for a few more years yet, but I am to stay nearby and in good health." With the curse that afflicts the Greifir royal family, killing them with a mysterious wasting disease that only takes effect after they take the throne, every strong heir is a valuable resources. They are constantly in a race to keep their House alive, buying their years with the lives of their own family.

"I understand of course," I said to him.

"The past couple of years have grown increasingly dangerous, as we have just seen." He looked relieved.

"I would have you know that I would not quit the side of an ally for less than the lawful orders of my liege, given for good cause, except perhaps the safety of my own family. And with both of these together, I truly have no choice. But I do not quit your side entirely. I am leaving Greifir's Hearstcliff affairs in the hands of trusted kinsmen and thanes. Your contact is a general of the Greifir banner army, by the name of Vholf.

Speak to him as you would me, I have chosen him as my spokesman because we feel alike and believe alike in nearly all things. As I would tell you, he shall tell you." Millstrong circulated away to take this news and his farewells to others he knows among Harigold, he knows a great many of my relatives. His House and mine are very close allies, from back when Harigold was only a Lesser House.

I would likely have as many connections in Greifir as he has among Harigold if I did not have schooling and romances and a dozen major projects taking my time.

"There goes a fine ally," Junia Pinking said at last.

"Stalwart," I agreed. It's not a word you can apply to many people, but he's got it.

"I worry that the honor and loyalty he has extended to me is more than I have earned. He has done far more for me than I have for him."

"Yet."

"Yet what?"

"Ye- wait, sorry," she said, blinking rapidly. The first time I have ever seen her off-guard.

"No, not 'yet' as in 'however', I mean 'yet' as in 'at the current time'. I mean that you have not finished earning that loyalty- yet. But I have told him that you shall, and that the support and boons we give to you will be paid back several times over." Ah right. The woman who has mysterious access to visions even more accurate than mine. I've got knowledge from outside the game, she seems to have actual prophetic abilities inside the setting. It is a bit annoying, I'll confess.

"Now why would you go and tell that nice man such a mean-spirited lie?" I teased her.

"Oh, Natalie," she laughed a little.

"You know how it works. We do what we know needs to be done, and we don't discuss how, or why, or when."

"Refreshing to speak with someone who understand the rules," I sighed, settling on my feet. I had 'long night' vibes already.

"Seeing things is sometimes difficult," she admitted.

"It's like living your whole life with your neck held in between the jaws of a monster," I said.

"And being able to see the monster." The other dukes and house leaders did not approach me in the same way, they kept mostly to their own centers as I did. Our borders opened and there was mingling at the margins, but the mainstays did not move to merge among the masses. But I was being approached directly by messengers and representatives, rather than relayed from their messengers to mine. Usually there's only a certain amount of movement among the main bodies of people, but this time things were a lot more fluid.

Even the royals moved around some, periodically the field of their security measures would cross into my space and a film of purple lightning would crawl along the air surrounding me. Today the bubble of crackling purple threads was several inches closer to my body than it was yesterday. The Lord Protector of Kinghand sent a woman to discuss a series of prisoner exchanges among provincial jurisdictions.

Honestly I was out of my depth in that conversation within ten seconds, I had not even realized I was missing so much information on that extremely specific subject. The woman in question was quite lovely, despite having the narrowest eyes, the smallest nose and the thinnest lips I've ever seen. Eerie, even chilling, but still lovely. She barely looked human but her features were in balance in a weird way.

Skyback sent a repulsive little man with a badly-fitted quilted doublet and chausses, with hilariously long-pointed shoes and a wonderful sense of humor. He spoke quickly and efficiently but with a patter like a stand-up comedian. He wanted to discuss the railroad construction teams using local labor, the same issue I had gotten ambushed with yesterday. I told him that if Drailim wanted to use local labor I would provide the hardware and he could hire the workers himself.

The ugly funny man promised to take the message and promised the duke wouldn't like it. Muranda Nhullit did not send a single ranking delegate, but several lower-stationed representatives who all had relatively minor concerns to bring to my attention. One of those was Rabert, who could use this as cover to hang out with me during the proceedings. And Marquis Septimus Ebonder sent Larianne. She walked up with a drink in her hand and leaned her elbow against the cocktail table at my side.

"Evening," she said.

"Uncle thinks you need more bodyguards."

"It's good to have as many friends as possible here," I admitted.

"Thanks."

"Sure sure," she said, and took a sip. She rested her glass on one palm, her other hand wrapping around. Her nails were fanned out with particular care, she was fastidious to not let them touch anything. This is a mannerism I've seen before from her, when she had infused mana into her talons. In this state they would ruin whatever they touched, so she was fussy about them.

"Friends, yes, good, but also he thinks you're not protecting yourself enough."

"I bounced a crossbow bolt off of my face," I pointed out.

"I think I'm fine."

"That's part of the problem," Rabert said, with a nod towards Larianne. She inclined her head as she handed off the conversation to the more gregarious young man. He was speaking a little fast, like people do when they've rehearsed a conversation.

"You think you're fine. Listen, I know Quarl has been trying to talk to you about this, but he doesn't know how to talk to you like I do. That arrow earlier-""Crossbow." Larianne rolled her eyes.

"Yes, of course, that's what's important. That sharp thing had a poison that would kill you in about a second. That was someone casually checking to see how dumb you are, princess, and you failed the test."

"Rude." Rabert picked up again.

"You've been thinking about this all wrong. You can't just knock down one problem at a time as they come up, that's a recipe to make sure you're never prepared in advance. Understand? It's not about whether you are proofed against a specific situation, a sharp thing, it's about whether you preemptively guard against methods or if you react after seeing an attempt. And, whether you have aides that can watch the lanes of opportunity and clear threats before they become eminent."

"But I have those," I said.

"They can't be everywhere at once but-" Larianne held up a hand to cut me off, and from the way her nails sizzled in the air, she almost did.

"This is the part that Quarl does not know how to communicate. You have crappy guards, Natalie." Rabert winced, her mode of speaking was entirely too direct for his tastes.

"They're not crappy, but they're not up to this challenge. You have not updated your staff in years. You are using the same staff of House guards that has been working with your family for years. You're just taking what's assigned from the pool, right? But Natalie, please consider: your family spent twenty years in seclusion. Your cousins barely showed up to major events. There was no unified Harigold presence, and your people did not matter to the larger field of political influence.

There were Lesser- no, there were minor houses that rated more consideration than Harigold, you see? Your House administration chose the protective staff for cost-efficiency, and then those people had several years to get soft and slow because there was nothing for them to do. There were no House leaders or heirs in the city, your people were rarely seen and, forgive my saying so, more rarely significant.

And now you're buzzing all over the city, leading a coalition of nine houses, centerpiece for an imbroglio of a coup. And every assassin in this room just learned that you are relying on magically-hardened skin to protect you, and not skilled alert sentinels. So what they have learned is that the secret to killing you is not in subtlety or precautions or methodology, but simply in bringing a large enough weapon." Larianne's mouth showed a slice of wry amusement.

"For obvious reasons, that is not a message you want to communicate to assassins. They can and will bring a large enough weapon."

"Message received. Is this a problem that is solvable tonight?" I asked.

"Or do I just trust that they won't bring a sufficiently-powerful anti-Natalie weapon in the next few hours, and deal with this sometime in the next few days?"

"Not only is this problem soluble, but I've already taken the liberty," he said, gesturing up high. There was a subtle movement through the room, people moving closer, people turning to face different directions. I could see that with my eyes, my affinities could see that that is a lot of knives. And garrotes, and syringes, and coshes, brass knuckles, and armored clothing, and mana-infused items, and what looked like pieces that could be rapidly assembled into a lightweight crossbow.

"This has been long overdue," Rabert said, "and it's time you started taking this scene seriously." The various fighting-folk that had responded to his signal were not easy to pick out visually, because they missed the distinguishing feature that I would have looked for: coloration and livery. They were wearing colors of Grennick and Greifir, Ebonder and Elygra. A score of different liveries were represented, it looked like every House in the coalition had donated soldiers to Rabert's maneuver.

He looked quite pleased.

"And just that easily, now it is not only a protective measure, but a team-building exercise. A demonstration of loyalty and common purpose. A commitment to the same vision of our shared future. We shore up the coalition's bonds of trust while we dissuade further threats."

"That's very elegantly done," I said, nodding.

"Thank you."

"You are very welcome."

"However, the word was 'solvable'. Soluble means something different." He paused, and considered his words carefully before replying.

"The woman that shot at you has been found and she has been seen to, princess. She was entirely soluble." [Mission Checkpoint: Secrets and Lyes. +1 XP. Advancement: The Ruthless] Oh. Oh I get it. Oh, that's morbid.