Affairs Of A Knight

Shadowing Nobility-23

"for things that were made, were made from things unseen."

Chapter 23, Affairs of a Knight.

They left just before midnight, their dark velvet coats obscuring their faces and horses clattering against the cobblestones of the castle grounds while the knights knelt and prayed with the rosary.

She saw Alywn draw his coat closer to his body, the cold was wicked. If she was superstitious, she would believe that their mission bore ill fortune, but there was nothing of that nature in Cromwell's castle, what one couldn't see had no power, such was the lord protector's belief. Her horse was still under her hands as they watched the lights in the main seat of Warwick slowly go off.

"Over to you Sir Louis. At your mark." she nodded while staring unshaken into the Warwick house, her neck straining. If one asked Alywn, then they had stared at the bloody brick wall for hours.

"Now." she whispered urgently and they jumped off their horse noiselessly, securely anchoring them to a tree. Sir Louis's favourite thing about being a shadow to nobility was the way they were caught in their own loopholes. Most noblemen were unable to keep their dicks to themselves, to the utter disgust of their wives, some which were vicious enough to hunt down the whores and have them threatened, beaten and in too many cases, killed. Hence the need for secret passages, that transported majorly women but not limited to illegal and contraband goods. And as an assassin for the King, when one did not know who the proverbial axe was going to fall on next, it was important to make oneself familiar with these...loopholes.

She had been invited into the Warwick house a number of times that couldn't make up one's hand, but it was enough to capture the outlay of the house. Often, for security purposes, the master and mistress of the house did not have their bedroom windows facing the outer walls. It was given to the children. Kidnapping was a very distasteful form of coercion and even the most common criminal stayed away from it especially if the child you happened to grab was not the next in line for the title-or worse, a girl. She stilled when a leaf crunched under Alwyn's boots. The air was still, chilly but not bold enough to be called cold, the ending of the hot, rainy, and uncertain august welcoming the freezing days of the ending of the year. Nothing rustled, not even a dog barked; they continued their move.

The whoregate, as I was called-much to Sir Louie's great disgust-was loosely bolted. A sharp stab of the butt of her sword dismantled the padlock that swung against the door loudly. "Shit!" she whispered. There came a shadow of light against the door as they both pressed intimately against the wall. But the watchman was lazy, muttering incomprehensible words, he approached the whoregate and stuck a hand out-Louis battled with the urge of giving him a clean slice-he closed the door. Without a padlock this time.

"Micah ought to really get his head out of his bloody arse and do his job." the light and footsteps faded.

After another set of waiting that nearly drove Alywn mad, they passed through the gate. On one hand, the outlay of most noble houses were similar because of the rush for the dazzling new builders from the New World, yet different because one was unwilling to have less of what another noble in his standing had. Hence the slight tweak in structure, but the whoregates most often had the same outlay, it had to. The whoregate was situated at the far end of the house, not towards the side that faced the villages or other neighboring houses, but towards the forest and sometimes, the roads. Warwick had his towards the forest, using dead leaves, twigs and twines to hide the existence of such an entrance. Upon entrance, there was little distance to work as the whores-and whatever illegal activity was being transported-entered directly into the lower flow of the building. The floor was meant for servants. But, once again, servants weren't the most trustworthy, and peculiarly known for their gossip-although rumour had it that Warwick had once pulled the tongues of all this servants to prevent gossip-the servant rooms were located in the far of of the left through the centres and then, a storehouse on both sides before the room where these whore were...stored.