After all the boring formalities of shaking the hands and greeting all the important people of Ordericous, Alessandria, Nemesio and Hellen had finally made it to the stage along with lots of other people. Making the air hot and humid and the chamber smelled... interesting as Alessandria breathed in all the different sweet, fruity and earthy perfumes everyone wore.
Alessandria had never minded greeting the Nobility whenever her family had guests but she didn't need to greet all the military captains and commanders, the Nobility and everyone of importance in the castle and church. She probably shook over a hundred hands.
Yet it didn't matter now as Alessandria stood on the far right hand edge of the large wooden stage next to Hellen and Nemesio.
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Scanning the chamber, Alessandria eyed all the members of the crowd. She eyed the military leaders at the back, all the church people who snarled at Daniel to the left and all the rich families to the right. All chatting and muttering to themselves. Alessandria hoped Daniel was okay with all this noise.
Alessandria's eyes narrowed on them all, she wanted to see if someone was an assassin before they striked, but who knew an assassin would attack?
Turning her head slightly, Alessandria looked at the six massive guards in thick imposing armour with red metal shields as tall as her, standing behind and in front of the Queen. Then Alessandria smiled briefly as she caught Daniel's eye as he looked at her.
Daniel smiled and looked away. Continuing to spin his dulled blade fast.
She wished Daniel would come over and be with her. They were siblings but she couldn't blame him for avoiding her when Nemesio was around. It probably explained why Daniel had placed Harrison in between Nemesio and himself. Whilst she was determined to prove to Daniel that Nemesio was sorry for getting him tortured, she knew she just needed to support and love him.
Raising her head, Alessandria focused on the rows of burning candles in the ceiling and the great sheets of stain glass that illuminated the chamber. Even one would have been a perfect place for an assassin to lie in wait. Yet that was assuming there was an assassin.
Despite Nemesio's faith in his informant, Alessandria knew better than to have complete faith in them. As she remembered some interesting situations of informants lying and the traps she had walked into during her Procurator days.
After a few moments, the Queen in her admittedly stunning white armour started her speech as she stood in the centre of the stage.
“My dearest subjects and friends, I have bought you here today to celebrate the ending of the war against Mortisical,”
Hellen and I smiled as we heard the military moaning and muttering to themselves. She tapped my feet with her big wooden stick as I almost laughed aloud.
“I know this may have come as a shock. We were winning the war against the people of Mortisical, but the war should never have happened in the first place,”
Hellen gave a few silent laughs as a wave of moaning came from the military lot at the back.
“My military commanders, I will not be disrespected. One more sound from you and I shall remove you all from your current positions,”
That silenced them quickly.
Afterwards, the Queen continued to explain why she ended the war and the secret peace treaty that she negotiated with her foreign counterparts.
Alessandria continued to smile in support of her Queen as she spoke, but Alessandria understood the military’s outrage. A lot of good men including her father had died during this war. And all of her family, except her mother, had fought in the war.
Although, Alessandria doubted her father would have cared. He never really understood the war and neither did she. The former King said it was something about a transgression and a terror attack. Yet nobody really bought it, so she supposed it was only right his daughter stopped a war built on lies.
A part of her considered her family because war was their business, but she thought about the money her family makes off the training of the soldiers alone. At least, she didn’t need to worry about getting a job for a long time.
Turning her attention to the crowd, Alessandria started to notice people walking very slowly towards the stage.
In the crowd of hundreds, it might have been only twenty people. Not a lot but just enough for her to notice the crowd moving.
Hellen tapped her legs. Alessandria nodded.
She looked at the Queen, who was metres away. Too far to run to protect her.
A piece of her mind considered this wasn’t a group of killers, but she knew better.
Narrowing her eyes, Alessandria focused on the moving crowd. They were too far away.
She looked in Daniel’s direction and he too was looking at something. Alessandria didn’t know what, but her brother was observant. He probably saw them before she did.
Then the people in the crowd stopped moving.