The real work takes place behind a heavy iron door, bolted with four locks. The air is still and damp, seasoned with dust, tallow, and ink. Low lanterns line the stone walls, their glow filtered through thick, smoked glass, keeping the room perpetually dim. Shelves line every surface, and they are crammed with scrolls in coded scripts, wax-sealed dossiers, and tiny glass vials of murky contents. A map of the duchy sprawls across one wall, riddled with pins, red thread, and annotations only Abato truly understands.
At the center of the chamber sits a wide oak desk, its surface pitted by decades of candle burns and blade scars. Ink wells and quills, many half-used, cluster beside a pair of black gloves and a folded blindfold. A narrow pipe carries voices from hidden corners of the palace, if you know how to listen. If you know the schedule. If you’ve earned the key. Behind a false shelf, waits a smaller chamber, even colder than the first. It contains a single chair, shackled to the floor, and a drain that’s not on any plan of the castle anywhere. The spymaster’s presence lingers whether he is in the room or not. Every breath in that place carries the weight of knowledge no one else is meant to possess.
Argonath finds Abato down in his basement lair, parked at the desk in his outer office, shuffling through reports and correlating various happenings. “I ran into someone who said I should report to you about their archery skills,” Argonath says without preamble. “Ahhh,” Abato grins, “You have met my most radiant, fiery Radha. Do tell... What happened?”
Laughing at Abato’s description, Argonath launches into his meeting with her at the fairgrounds. “You know that every so often we hang about these fairs looking for recruits. We were hanging around an archery game at the fair, looking to see if anyone had the skill to beat the game. A boy was dancing around her, practically begging her to pay attention to him. She was polite enough, but not interested in him, much to his dismay. I think she went to the archery booth to get away from him for a bit. She caught my eye when she started picking through the bows, so I settled in to watch her. She got more of a pull on that creaky old thing than I had thought possible. When she nailed the first target, I was intrigued. When she nailed the second, my interest was piqued. Once she nailed all the targets, I knew I wanted to recruit her, so I invited her to go hunting with us. I wanted to get a sense of her, how she interacts with others.”
“And how did my incandescent Sati fare?” Abato grins, “I think I know, but I’d like to hear it from you.”
“All in due time,” Argonath laughs, “All in due time. Let me tell my story, will you? Now, where was I? I had to pressure her a bit to get her to accept. She’s very attached to Benger and his family, and all of them are very attached to her. We headed over, and I won’t lie, I stepped right into the cowpie. I asked what her relationship was with Benger, merely wanting to know if there was some attachment there that I might need to be aware of. The response I got was one of snarling frustration and essentially accusing everyone of having their minds in the gutter. She went stomping off, saying that she was going to punch a tree, and Benger laughed at us. He was going to go after her, but I offered. We found her actually punching a tree, so I offered her a more mobile opponent.”
“Did my numinous one show herself to advantage?” Abato sighs, “Or did you manage to best her?”
“She gave a good account of herself,” Argonath agrees, “until her strength ran out and she nearly collapsed in the middle of our bout. I was impressed that she managed to land so many blows so quickly. She also didn’t give me much of an opening to strike back, either. We settled our differences and apologized to each other.”
“So, my radiant Pavati has a temper after all,” Abato grins, “Having seen her fierceness, I had wondered if her other passions run just as hot. Tell me, how did the rest go?”
“We took her hunting then. Her style is unorthodox, but incredibly effective,” Argonath allows. “She uses these things she calls cat’s claws to get high into the tree and lock herself into position to shoot. She took four elk before the herd scattered. Two of them were right through the eye. One through the throat and one through the heart. None of them got more than two steps.”
“I hadn’t pegged my numinous one as a show-off,” Abato laughs, “but she was clearly showing off. And she told you to come and report this to me. Perhaps there is hope there, after all, if she is showing off for me.”
“She had some other things to say,” Argonath grins, “about being the second-highest-ranking general among her people. I didn’t believe her, but she swore it was true.”
“Did you see the flash of truth?” Abato asks, and Argonath nods, so Abato continues, “If you saw that flash, then she’s telling you the truth. I can’t imagine the king being pleased to wed the crown prince to a foreign general, so perhaps my chances improve a bit more, if that helps to clear the field.”
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“I’m not sure that helps you at all,” Argonath says with a frown, “I can’t imagine the duke being happy about his spymaster being married to a foreign general either. Though she did say that she’s yet to ascertain if any of her royal family still lives, so perhaps that’s not as much of an issue for you as her lack of a dowry or even a trade alliance is for the prince.”
Argonath goes on to describe the process of her placing a Mark on a nasty, jealous nitwit of a village boy and the aftermath.
“My resplendent Durga,” Abato laughs, “vanquishing evil. I cannot believe that she’s able to do that so soon. She must truly have been magnificent.”
“Newly consecrated and already that powerful,” Argronath sighs, “I had hoped to recruit her to the King’s Guard, but it seems that may not be in the cards. She was quite clear about not taking on any oaths that might conflict with her existing ones to her Goddess. Still, if she’s already that powerful, the King will want an eye kept on her, as well.”
“Her abilities were returning to her even at the inn,” Abato confirms, “just two days after her consecration. I witnessed that firsthand.”
“Can I trust you to keep an eye on her, old friend?” Argonath asks, “Atres is too taken with her to be objective.”
“I’ll file copies of my reports with you,” Abato nods, “but I must warn you that three years from now, when she’s old enough to be courted, I plan to woo my Goddess. Dealing in everything she’s sworn to abstain from, I have no illusions about the difficulty of the task, but I will attempt to scale those heights.”
“But why would you bother?” Argonath asks and laughs when Abato looks at him like he’s daft.
“The sheer spectacular resplendence of the prize,” Abato replies, “The prince sees it, as do all of the duke’s sons. Even that skirt chaser Atres sees it. None of them, save Atres, are in a position to act on it, so that seems to leave the field clear enough for me to at least try. Gods, man, how is it that none of the rest of you see her for the jewel, the paragon that she is? Not that I’m complaining, since I’d rather not have the competition, but still... How do you not see her as the nonpareil she is?”
“She’s something special, I’m just not sure she’s that special. Although Atres would seem to agree with you,” Argonath allows, “He’s already wrapped around her dainty little pinky. Neither Korek nor I is quite so taken with her.”
“Damn the luck,” Abato frowns, “Once Atres walks into a room, you can practically hear the women’s underclothes hit the ground.”
“Well I know,” Argonath groans, “They spot him and the rest of us cease to exist. You’ve got your work cut out for you, if you mean to try to woo her, since it seems he means to do the same. If I read his actions correctly, he’s already started. Tell me, how did you meet her? What gives? Why are all of you so besotted with this slip of a girl?”
“I was sent to an inn to wait for her and to deliver a message,” Abato grins, “Having observed the comeliness of the lass in question, I thought to have a bit of fun and sneak into her bath to leave the message among her clothing.”
“Do tell,” Argonath grins, “This should be good.”
“I was fumbling with the lock. I was certain I had picked it, but the door still wouldn’t budge. While I’m trying to figure out why it won’t open, the door flies open, and before I can do anything, I’ve landed in her bathwater and she’s glaring at me, foot on my chest, with a foot of steel in her fist.”
“Serves you right,” Argonath laughs, “For trying to sneak a peek at her.”
“I was planning to relock the door on my way out,” Abato shrugs, “once I’d delivered my message. Instead, I ended up almost begging for my life and offering her the message. She told me to hand it over and let her read it while she decided if I was going to keep my manly bits or not. She was magnificent – that fierce look in her eyes when she told me that I shouldn’t so much as twitch or I’d end up missing bits I’d rather keep. Rather than risk her ire, I decided to have a bit of fun with it and lounged in her bathwater.”
“Then I mentioned that my men downstairs might have a say in whether she snipped anything off me. She got this look like she wanted just to stab me and have done before telling me in no uncertain terms that we stood no better chance than a hog’s fart in a hurricane. She was growling with anger when she told me she’d done for far more than my little band just the day before. That’s when I got the story out of her about taking on that nasty lot of bandits that had the treetop archer on the road out of Harito. I wasn’t quite ready to believe her, but she invited me to stop by there on my way back to Harito and count the graves. Finally, she decided that the message was from Jessop and left me sitting in her bath. I asked her if she’d like to stay and help me with my bath, half-hoping she’d say yes.”
“Did she?” Argonath asks, grinning.
"Alas, no,” Abato sighs, “or I would have seduced her then and there. No, my hopes were dashed. Although she did loan me her soap.”
“You are a strange one,” Argonath tells Abato, “A woman threatens to geld you, and your immediate response is to want to bed her.”
“You didn’t see her,” Abato laughs, “She was magnificent, sublime. Who wouldn’t?”
Argonath shakes his head, as Abato launches back into his story, “I went to change into some dry clothes and head downstairs to find my goddess seated with Benger and claiming to be his little sister, even though I know he’s only got brothers. I bought a round of drinks and quickly discovered just how young, how sheltered she is.”
“We ended up spending some time drinking and playing a card game where the objective was to cheat as blatantly as possible. It was great fun, and even Hrogarth was enjoying himself. That dour old rat doesn’t like anyone, but he liked her. She told me her theory about the bandits over the cards and whiskey. I had to mull it over for a bit, but I decided that she was likely right and decided to investigate it myself, as an Induction Day present for her.”
“That’s when the ruckus started. Someone was trying to break into her room. She goes running upstairs, and I hear the crash of someone slamming into a wall. Before I can go after her, she comes thumping back down the stairs, dragging some boy, and dumps him at my feet. I heard her mumble a bit, and the next thing I know, there’s magic swirling around both of us as she demands we state our names. Some of the strongest magic I’ve ever felt coming off a paladin, as a point of fact.”
Would you choose Abato over Atres for Emlyn?