Returning my attention, to our house guest I had to admit considering Nemesio was in his awful armour and he was here. I was a lot calmer than I thought I'll be. Maybe it's because I'm playing with my dulled blade and Harrison's hair. But I like to think it's because I'm getting better.
What concerned me though was Alessandria's story about cloaked men attacking her and Nemesio. Thankfully, Harrison patched her up too and against his better judgement he patched up Nemesio too. He had some old healing potion of a witch he knew once so he gave it to Alessandria. Saying she'll be fine tomorrow. I really hope so. I don't want her to be in pain.
Immediately, I flinched as I saw Nemesio open his mouth and speak: “Thank you, Harrison for patching us up. You have a lovely house,”
Harrison simply nodded and ignored the compliment. We both agreed they were pointless words. Did it matter if he liked our house?
“Alessandria, what happened exactly again?” I asked.
Alessandria tapped Nemesio’s legs to get him to remove them from the table as she replied: “We were talking to the Lord Justice about the Serpentine boy and these assassins just turned up. They must have been hiding in the office,”
“Strange,” I added.
“At least me and Daniel found something. We were artful. Even with those women shooting at us,”
“Thank you, Hellen,” Alessandria smiled.
“But this makes no sense,” I said. “Let’s recap, what do we know?”
“We know earlier today a group of assassins got let into the Queen’s official talking thing and tried to kill her. These people were hired by an unknown figure who is only known to the Leader of the Serpent Gang. She bargained the name for the release of her Grandson, who these assassins killed for an unknown purpose,” Alessandria explained.
“Meanwhile, Ares, who is most certainly this figure, has been sieging the Greenscales land and trying to raise an army for an unknown crusade. He has even gone as far as to cover his tracks by faking all the necessary legal documents. Even the Queen’s signature is fake,”
“What ya mean Unknown Crusade?” Hellen asked.
“He says he wants to invade Mortisical, but I don’t believe him. I think he wants to take the palace,”
“But he doesn’t need a secret army, does he? He could just use the men under his command,” Harrison asked.
Continuing to play with his hair, I replied: “Not necessarily, the majority of the soldiers at the palace and in the military worship the Queen as a divine being. They would never support a coup against her,”
He nodded.
“What about this Triad the assassins referred to?” Nemesio inquired.
“Well, a Triad means three,” Alessandria explained. “So, I think there are three masterminds behind these assassination attempts. Sure, Ares’ could be one, but who are the others? And we need proof. Ares has too much political power for the Queen to just arrest him without proof. That could put her reign in even more uncertainty,”
Laying out my head to look up at the wooden ceiling, I asked: “What now?”
Raising my head again, I saw Alessandria stand up and stretch her arms. Whilst Nemesio stared at her. I wanted to smile at his lack of subtlety, but something told me not to.
Walking over to me, Alessandria said: “Well, it’s almost eleven o’clock at night and I need to go to bed. Tomorrow I’ll go and see the old Lady Serpentine again and hopefully she’ll give us the name,”
Alessandria leaned over Harrison, I felt him tense, and she gave me a hug and a kiss on the forehead.
As the three of them walked out the door, Alessandria added: “Harrison, Daniel has something he wants to talk to you about?”
I smiled and shook my head at her. Trust her to make me talk about the topic.
When the wooden door shut, Harrison rolled onto his side. His head still resting on my leg and he smiled at me.
“What you want to talk about?”
“Me and Alessandria were talking earlier, and she said I should just tell you,”
Lifting up his arms, he grabbed his hands and said: “Daniel, if it’s about doing it. I will wait for as long as you need,”
I allowed a weird laugh to come out.