The night was heading for an end. The moon, three quarters full, was
climbing down the North rooftops of the city, illuminating like ghosts
the cats walking on them. The guards of the third night watch were
walking the streets yawning, thinking that in less than an hour they
would be in their bed. All city was asleep, all lights in the houses
were out, save a bakery in Market street and a dim light that came out
of a window in Aleksander Beck’s mansion on a wealthy part of the city.
The light from the oil lantern inside that room barely touched the face of a young noble, who was sipping Malrukian wine while having a conversation with a hooded figure sitting across him. The hooded man sat in darkness, on a far corner of the room and he seemed a bit nervous.
- I have an assinment for you, Ratas, the young noble whispered.
- Is it so important that you sent word for me so urgent and so carelessly?
- It is.
- What you want me do this time?
- I want you to kill a man inside his house, tonight.
- That’s impossible! I cannot break in a house with decent hopes of not getting caught without a week’s surveilance first, you know that!
- I have already bribed his guards and personally seduced the young maid he sleeps with. She sleeps in my bed upstairs. He is all alone there.
- All alone?
- Save his son, but he is not home today.
- If he returns?
- He won’t.
- How you want it done?
- Dragonclaw poison, that i will give you. It is undetectable. Makes it seem like a heart attack.
- This is gonna cost you.
With a swift move, the young noble tossed a pouch to Ratas’s
direction. The hooded man grabbed it, opened it and smiled under the
hood broadly. He hurried it in some place under his belt.
- The adress and the details are in the parchment in the table next to you. So is the vial with the poison. Please show yourself out. Finish the buisiness as fast as you can.
- I will.
The hooded man slided to the garden through the window. The young noble was closing it, when he heard the voice from his father comeing from the stairway, outside the room.
- Jonathan, who were you talking to?
- Word came from Manneman’s home. Old man is not feeling well, and would like to postpone tommorow meeting you two are having.
- Is that so? I’m working hard to persuade him to sell to our house his caravan routes. He is totally negative, but tommorow i would make him a deal he cannot decline.
- Well, his son seems more interested in the money we offer than the carvan routes.
- Indeed, but he cannot step up until his father dies.
- I know dad. I know.
With that comment and a crooked smile on his face, Jonathan climbed the stairs. He kissed his father on the cheek as he passed him by. Entering his room, he caught a faint smell of jasmine comeing from the garden through the open window. Or was it from the hair of the young maid sleeping in his bed? He took off his clothes, drank empty his wine glass and laid to bed thinking what price he should suggest his father to give to Manneman’s son for the caravan routes. And that he had to kill Ratas someday. He knew too much.
by Grigoris Starakas
The light from the oil lantern inside that room barely touched the face of a young noble, who was sipping Malrukian wine while having a conversation with a hooded figure sitting across him. The hooded man sat in darkness, on a far corner of the room and he seemed a bit nervous.
- I have an assinment for you, Ratas, the young noble whispered.
- Is it so important that you sent word for me so urgent and so carelessly?
- It is.
- What you want me do this time?
- I want you to kill a man inside his house, tonight.
- That’s impossible! I cannot break in a house with decent hopes of not getting caught without a week’s surveilance first, you know that!
- I have already bribed his guards and personally seduced the young maid he sleeps with. She sleeps in my bed upstairs. He is all alone there.
- All alone?
- Save his son, but he is not home today.
- If he returns?
- He won’t.
- How you want it done?
- Dragonclaw poison, that i will give you. It is undetectable. Makes it seem like a heart attack.
- This is gonna cost you.
- The adress and the details are in the parchment in the table next to you. So is the vial with the poison. Please show yourself out. Finish the buisiness as fast as you can.
- I will.
The hooded man slided to the garden through the window. The young noble was closing it, when he heard the voice from his father comeing from the stairway, outside the room.
- Jonathan, who were you talking to?
- Word came from Manneman’s home. Old man is not feeling well, and would like to postpone tommorow meeting you two are having.
- Is that so? I’m working hard to persuade him to sell to our house his caravan routes. He is totally negative, but tommorow i would make him a deal he cannot decline.
- Well, his son seems more interested in the money we offer than the carvan routes.
- Indeed, but he cannot step up until his father dies.
- I know dad. I know.
With that comment and a crooked smile on his face, Jonathan climbed the stairs. He kissed his father on the cheek as he passed him by. Entering his room, he caught a faint smell of jasmine comeing from the garden through the open window. Or was it from the hair of the young maid sleeping in his bed? He took off his clothes, drank empty his wine glass and laid to bed thinking what price he should suggest his father to give to Manneman’s son for the caravan routes. And that he had to kill Ratas someday. He knew too much.
by Grigoris Starakas
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The language of the posts must be in plain English in order to be allowed due to the fact that people from different countries cannot converse in the mother tongues.