Implementation

Arianelle meets with Captain Todd of the Queen's Guard to begin her new role as a guardsman.

5.

Implementation

 

Arianelle felt an exhilarating mix of freedom and terror as she rode at a gallop through the twilight toward Westmark.

It wasn’t the high-speed ride in the dark that caused the reaction, for she actually loved riding, even at night, and was as skilled at horsemanship as any knight in her grandfather’s court.

Instead, it was the realization that at this point in her life; she suddenly was completely in control of what she did.   She could turn the horse any direction and ride off.   For a long period of time, no-one would realize where she was or what had happened to her.

It was an epiphany of the end of childhood which was more exciting than depressing to her and a slight smile crept across her face as she leaned down over the mane of the horse and the evening wind whipped her long silvery hair behind her.

 

She reached Westmark just before the main gate was closed for the night.     Thankfully, there was always a surge of traffic in both directions just before the gate was closed, so she was able to wrap her cloak around her, throw her hood over her head and, staying hunched over on her horse, trotted passively in with the crowd entering the royal city.    

Outside of the stables of the Queen’s Guard quarters (next to the Palace), she was greatly relieved to find Captain Todd waiting for her.   The orc was pacing back and forth nervously, and was so wrapped up in his uneasiness that he didn’t notice her until she rode up to him and leaped off her horse.   

“Princess?”   he asked as she led her horse toward him. 

Arianelle didn’t dare lift her hood, as there was plenty of Palace servants that could see them from the upper floors of the palace keep.   She nodded, keeping her head down, and he opened the stable door.   She followed him through and he took the reins from her as she patted her steed. “He needs special care, for he really pushed himself to get me here on time.    I hate to have to give him up, but he just won’t do as a warhorse.”

“I’ll just sneak him back into the royal stables, Your Highness,”  the captain said to her.

“You’ll have to stop calling me that, captain.    Hopefully that will be easier tomorrow once I have changed my appearance.”

The orc frowned slightly. “Princess, I still have serious misgivings about your idea.   I certainly understand the need to have spies in the palace to better protect the royal family, but…”

“It’s alright, captain, be frank with me.”

“Well, it’s just that you are a member of the royal family!   You’re the king and queen’s granddaughter and the only child of King Aedric and Queen Snoe of Tarmard.    You should be one of those protected, not acting as a spy.”   He looked at her rather worriedly, afraid that she would be offended by what he had said, but she accepted it with a slow nod of her head.

“I understand that, captain, but I’m hoping that my love of my family will motivate me to see any dangers in a personal light.”

Captain Todd sighed deeply. “Well, it is the grandest plan that I’ve been involved with as captain of the Queen’s Guard.    If I don’t end up in the dungeon for supporting this scheme, it just may be the most adventurous thing I’ve tried.”

“If something goes wrong, captain, I swear to Yesh that I will take all the blame and proclaim your innocence.”

“Hopefully King Eleazar and Queen Aurei will accept that.    I guess when they learn that King Aedric and Queen Snoe were behind the plan, that would convince them.    Well, shall we get this whole thing in motion?”

Arianelle nodded and the orc captain gestured for her to follow him to the back of the stable.

“I’m sorry about using the stable, princess, but there are an over-abundance of nosy people at the palace.   I have your suit of armor and weapons.”    Captain Todd swung open an empty stall and Arianelle saw Queen’s Guard plate armor and weapons neatly laid on a crate.

The albino girl held up the sword that Amala had given her. “Captain, would it look suspicious if I used this sword rather than the one you selected?”

“Well, it does look a bit fancy for someone claiming to be an orphan girl.”

Arianelle decided that she should explain to the captain where she had acquired the magic blade, so she told him about Amala’s conversation with her.     Captain Todd seemed somewhat pleased that another member of the royal family knew of the girl’s plan.

“I guess if you can use another scabbard with the magic blade, it won’t look quite as outlandish for you to possess.”

Arianelle switched scabbards with the plain guardsman model, and was pleased when the enchanted blade fit perfectly. “Well, that solves that problem.”

“I have a warhorse for you as well, and though he isn’t as fine as the elven horses of the royal family, he is a fine steed.”   The orc captain led her across to another stall where a young black and white stallion stood staring intelligently at them.     Arianelle held out her hand, whispering the words that her great grandmother, Mathlyn, had taught her to win the trust of horses.    The animal whinnied and nudged her hand.

“He likes you, princess.   His name is ‘Arrow’.”

Arianelle patted the horse’s nose. “He is quite nice, captain, thank you for such a fine stead.   Did I give you enough gold?”

“You did, Your High-   sorry, I mean, princess.   Actually, I should stop addressing you as ‘princess’ as well.”

“What would you call me if I were merely a young guardsman?”

“You’d be referred to by rank - private, for example, if you were truly a new recruit.    But that is something I wanted to tell you - for your back-story to be logical, I had to modify it.    You see, I wouldn’t let a new recruit to have the honor of standing guard in the presence of the king and queen.   All recruits guard low-key areas such as stables and such, and the king and queen know this.”

“I’d never thought of that,”   Arianelle admitted.

“Well, I have a solution.    Your uncle, His Majesty, Prince Gamel and his wife have left for King’s Reach and should not return here for at least a month.     We will claim that you were stationed at King’s Reach as a guard for Prince Gamel’s family, but you were promoted to sergeant due to your skill at arms and service.”

“Well, we can’t claim too long of a service as that would look odd for someone my age to have much experience.”

Todd nodded, bothered by her youthfulness, “You are actually too young to serve in the Queen’s Guard, so you’ll have to tell them that you are about 80 years old.    We’d take you on as a recruit at age 78 for an elf, though we actually have no elven soldiers and only have one half-elf in all of the guard.   In fact, there are only 22 non-orcs in all of the Queen’s Guard.”

“I’ll say that I’m 80 and that I’ve served for about a year, at King’s Reach.    That would jive with the time that the Queen’s Guard was opened up to other races.   None of your men here will know?”

“No, that is why I used King’s Reach for the back story, because none of the soldiers here served there.   I’ll claim that you were a street urchin that we picked up for stealing fruit from a supply going to the prince’s household.   When we found you were an orphan and hungry, we trained you as a guardsman and you served valiantly in Lady Valmiai’s court until being reassigned here.   Oh, how I hate lying to Their Majesties, even for a good cause, but unless they speak to Prince Gamel or his lady, our ruse should work.”

“What about Prince Nolen, their son?   He’s here now at his grandfather’s court.”

Captain Todd smiled, “Thankfully, Prince Nolen wasn’t at his father’s court much, as Prince Gamel had him training for several years with paladins stationed a few miles from King’s Reach.    It would be very easy for him to have missed several shifts of guards at his father’s court.   Still, I would avoid speaking to him much in case he questioned you about events at his father’s court.”

“Alright,”   Arianelle replied, “I guess I should go see if my magic ring has arrived yet.”     The young princess snorted with a frown at the thought of having to deal with the proprietor of the magic shop again.

“Tell me ‘sergeant’, how were you able to secure enough gold to fund this whole endeavor?”

Arianelle grinned upon hearing her new rank. “That was easy, actually.   I was lavished with a lot of gifts at the time of my birth and those included an abundance of gemstones and jewelry.    It was supposed to be part of my dowry.    I took some of them and sold them for gold.”

Captain Todd looked mortified. “Oh no!   Your parents will be horrified when they find out.”

Arianelle snickered. “They won’t notice, I imagine.   Captain, you wouldn’t believe the riches that were given to me.     I only used a few of the moderately valued gems and I will still have plenty of gold after I have paid the second half of the magic merchant’s fee.”

The orc shrugged, “Still, I’d think that was difficult to do.”

“I felt good actually using money to buy things.     Royalty doesn’t purchase much of anything from day to day.      They either have servants do it for them, or else merchants give merchandise, hoping for the favor of the royal family.     It doesn’t seem fair, does it?    We should have to buy our things just like anyone else.”

“Well, you’ll get your chance for a month at least.    Your salary as a sergeant in the Queen’s Guard won’t be much, so don’t be surprised.     There are three female guardsmen in the ranks here in Westmark, so you will be housed in that barracks.    You’ll outrank all of them, though, so as senior guardsman of that barracks, you’ll have a room to yourself, though it isn’t really much of a room and it will probably seem to you as if you were sleeping in a servant’s quarters.”

Arianelle smiled at the thought. “It might be refreshing.”

“Remember, prin-… sorry, I mean, ‘sergeant’, that the Queen’s Guard have long shifts.    Your shift will begin at 6 AM.     I will outline the duties when I officially introduce you to the king and queen.     What name will you go by?”

Arianelle blinked a few times, “You know, I hadn’t thought of that!   I should think of something that sounds as unattractive and perhaps somewhat masculine, as I want the Hutcaiah prince to be disgusted by me.      Let’s see, what would annoy him…”

She thought for a minute as Captain Todd politely waited.

“Maelneth,”   Arianelle finally proudly said, “I’ll go by ‘Neth’ for short.”

Captain Todd nodded in approval, “It is a name I’ve never heard of before.”

“Well, ‘Mael’ means ‘Prince’ and is a masculine name in the human lands southeast of the Southern Empire.   ‘Neth’ means Young or teenaged girl in the Faesidhe language.  I don’t suppose an orphan would have a last name.”

“No, I would think not.”

“So, I’ll go pay a visit to the magic shop and retrieve my ring, then return here and begin my transformation tonight.”

“Fine, I’ll inform the women in your barracks that you will be arriving soon after a long ride from King’s Reach.     Meet me back here when you have completed your errand and I’ll introduce you as Sergeant Maelneth, after you’ve completed your transformation.”

“Okay.    Captain, I want to thank you for your assistance.    I strongly believe that you will be doing a great service to the king and queen by helping me.”

Todd bowed, “I hope so… sergeant.”

 

The orc captain turned from her and left the stable, as the princess drew her cloak around her and prepared to slip through town one last time as herself.

 

***

 

Gee Macstus had retired to his bedroom, somewhat relieved that the albino princess had failed to appear by closing time, but apprehensive that it could mean trouble for him.

He was preparing to blow out his candle after a meager dinner and go on to sleep when the sound of a stone hitting the pane next to his upstairs window drew him to the portal.

Down in the street below stood a cloaked figure, looking up at him.    He opened the window, already knowing who it would be.

“I’m closed!”  He protested, but she threw her hood back and glared at him, her dark elven eyes glowing bright red in the night.   It was enough to scare a brave man, and Gee was certainly not that.    

“Alright, alright, just a moment!”    He pulled his head inside, threw on a robe and rushed downstairs, nearly stumbling over his cat that had been sleeping on one of the stairs.     As soon as he pulled the door open she rushed inside, pushing his door closed behind her somewhat rudely.

“I trust that you have the ring?”  She asked, still frowning as she had the day before.

“Yes, Your Highness, I have it.”

“And?   Any hitches or anything?”  She questioned, her tone hinting that there had best not be any problems.

“No hitches, your Highness.”   He reached underneath his counter and pulled out a blue velvet bag, opened it and dropped a plain looking silver ring into the palm of her hand.

She immediately slipped it on her finger. “How does the magic work?”

“Think of yourself looking slightly different than you do now.   If you think of something too drastic, nothing will happen.     As I suggested yesterday, try thinking of a human or elven albino, with pinkish skin and pale blue eyes.”

Arianelle closed her eyes and did as he suggested.    There was a shimmering as if light and shadow were fighting for dominance, and when it cleared, she had changed.    Gee smiled in pleased relief, knowing she would expect a mirror to see the change.   He brought forth a hand mirror that he had placed behind his counter for that very reason and held it up to her.

Arianelle gasped, took a close look at her face and eyes, touched her lips which were now a pale pink color instead of blood red and then re-examined her eyes.   

A smile crossed her face. “I look quite different!”

“Yes, you do, Your Highness.”

“You’ve done well.”   She pulled out a pouch of gold and handed it to him, “Now remember, I have paid you twice of what this ring is worth.    You owe me your complete silence.     Comply with my wish and I will return here from time to time and buy other items, and will pay as well as I did this time.   You would like that, I imagine.”

“Oh yes, certainly.”

She pulled out the magic comb he had given to her yesterday and placed it in her hair, “How long did you say this would take to work?”

“Overnight, I’m afraid.   Just think of the hair length you desire and by morning it will be that length.    Then you can take the comb out of your hair and it will remain that length until it either grows out or you put the comb back in.    Each time the magic works overnight, while you sleep.”

“I was hoping it would work immediately.    But that is a small thing.”    She pulled the comb from her hair and leaned in close to him. “Remember what I told you - I was never here.   If you betray me, you’ll find yourself in the royal prison.”

“I shall not betray you, Your Highness.”   He assured her.

“Good.    Then I shall let you return to your sleep.    Goodbye.”

“Goodbye Your Majesty and thank you for your patronage.”

She turned and frowned slightly at his words, but nodded once and then slipped out of the shop, wearing her new form.