The Caravan pt 2

Continued from The Caravan, pt 1

The interior of the Marchioness’ private carriage is tasteful, lined with soft fabrics and curtained from the blowing dust. She sits perfectly still in the relative cool of her personal cave, dressed modestly in black from head to toe. She has been riding for days around the sea of Tranquility to pay respects to the Emperor in Copernicus and to discuss the fate of their noble house now that her husband has suddenly died. She will ride for days more, the sun growing higher and higher as they near the capital, central to the light side of the moon. As is the fashion of courtiers, she sits with a lapdog brought at great expense from the surface of the leaden earth. Unlike the product of the royal kennels he is a hunter, born and trained to hunt vermin in a much harsher environment than its present royal surroundings. His narrow eyes are focused on the imperial magister sitting across from them.
The magister requested to join the Marchioness’ caravan, and how could she refuse the hand of the emperor. Magister Mubarak was responsible for a long list of duties to the emperor, who has always known that the prohibition on spirits and narcotics have been loosely enforced in Taruntius. Unable to spare the troops required to rid the sea of Crisis of its privateers, he has wisely chosen to simply drown the crater in demands for tribute. While it is impossible to know the exact wages of sin, Mubarak knows what will be required to make this new Marchioness squeeze harder on the casinos and drug dens under her purview. Mubarak the magister is entirely consumed by these figures. He is professional, precise, and adept at his work. However, Mubarak the assassin takes unnecessary risks, inefficient, and worst of all unaware of these faults. For these reasons, the Marchioness is entirely aware of the hands which poisoned her husband’s rum. Her quiet rage permeates the carriage, which only seems to satisfy her companion. He knows she is completely unaware of the primary purpose of his trip. Her preoccupation with the untimely death of her husband has blinded her to the jealous eyes on her family coffers. Even now he casually checks his math, divvying up the Tamar holdings to ensure she is just at the cusp of leisure, quite unable to take her house renegade, unable to pay her way out of the situation.
Nino Tamar was a simple court girl once, 3rd daughter to a cousin of The Hero. She was a girl then, and had a girls interests in the rumors and intrigue at the palace. Oh, how she had pouted when he took her away, over the sea to his father’s wooden city. There she found another kind of intrigue – one of rum runners and opium dens. Gambling houses and love hotels. Privateers and assassins. Her father in law had been a spiteful sonofabitch, and her husband had been a heartless bastard. Now she wondered if she had learned enough from either of them to survive the trials to come.