Arc 4: Chapter 21: The Gala
I rode with the lady Laessa in a carriage to the gala. It was, to put it mildly, an uncomfortable experience. We spoke very little beyond some niceties, and she mostly stared out the window at the passing city, her expression distant.
“You clean up well,” Laessa said after some time of listening to wheels over cobblestone.
I grunted something noncommittal. The young woman also looked much changed since that night of blood and terror in which I’d met her. She’d had her black hair arranged into a mossy crown of curls hung lower over one temple than the other, done so they stuck out a ways from her brow in the front. She wore a burgundy dress with detached sleeves that showed her shoulders, and she’d dabbed deeply black kohl over her eyes, dark enough to shadow her already ebony skin.
“You look good,” I told her. Inwardly I winced at that — I’d been a knight once, and good manners, especially with women, were practically a religion to us. I was out of practice.
Laessa muttered a wan thanks, her eyes going back to the window. She’d seemed distracted since I’d picked her up.
“When we arrive,” she told me, “I’ll need you to be on my arm for a time, to get some introductions out of the way. There should be opportunity to leave you to your own devices once the formalities are done with.”
I grimaced. “I would rather not have too many eyes on me, my lady. You know my work for Her Grace is meant to be incognito?”
Laessa studied me. “Are you someone very famous?”
“Not in this realm,” I admitted.
“Hm.” The young noblewoman pursed her lips. “Well, many of my friends and peers are already aware of the mysterious bodyguard who saved my life from Inquisition torturers and monsters fallen from the sky a week ago. They have wanted to meet you. You are free to lie to them, but I assure you this is better than the alternative.”
I could imagine it. Young nobles snooping around, trying to figure out who I was. I didn’t need that sort of trouble.