The Lady of Ravens

Chapter Two

PAST

Why am I not surprised? He was late. Again. Knowing him, he was probably off in a brothel, with a bottle in one hand and a girl in the other. While he was off having fun, I was sitting here in this rundown, backwater tavern. Who does that?

Him, apparently.

Well, I'll just see how far I'll let him get when he tries to steal the glory from our little caper, now won't I?

Until then, I just sat in my little corner of this watering hole, breathing the tavern stink and watching drunkards wallow in their filth. The contact would be there soon, I was sure. They were never late for things such as this. Indeed, they often had too much to risk by angering someone like me. But until then, I would wait in my little corner with my feet upon the dirty wooden table.

As I predicted, I didn't have long to wait. A skittish boy entered the tavern. It was clear from the look in his eye that he had never entered a tavern, let alone one like this. I don't think he focused long on his surroundings, however, as his gaze soon found me and latched upon me. He traveled the tavern floor, paying no heed to the drunkards brawling or the wenches serving mead. The kid only saw me.

In order to appear the slightest bit more professional and more menacing, I removed my boots from the table. I also gathered my cloak about me, lest I desire the youth to catch a glimpse of my face. I wouldn't want that, now would I? My secret identity would be exposed, not that I necessarily had any other identity than my current one.

Finally, the adolescent reached my table. With big eyes of "horse shit" brown, he peered at me with fear and curiosity.

"You- you're her? The Lady of Ravens?" wondered the boy in a voice reminiscent of a little girl.

"Who else would I be? The Lady of Chickens?" I answered.

"I- I meant no offense, miss," he said with a frown meant to invoke pity in me.

"Don't think yourself important enough to offend me," I snapped, "anyway, do you have the contract?"

The boy shuffled around in his pockets. "Yes, of course, miss. Right here." He held out the papers in one dirty hand.

I snatched them from him without a second thought. "Say, aren't you a bit young to be filling out assassination contracts?" I wondered.

"Y-yes. I suppose, but he killed-" he started.

I cut him off. "Spare me the sob story, kid. Do you at least have the payment ready?"

Once again, the kid rummaged through his pockets, searching for some copper bits.

Why, oh why, did we allow assassinations for so cheap? It just meant that there were more poor buffoons that I had to deal with before I could get to the more important ones.

After collecting what looked like a sufficient amount of copper coins, the child dumped them upon the table. "Here."

"The target will be dead tomorrow morning at the very latest. Pleasure doing business with you," I stated with much boredom.

The adolescent backed away awkwardly from the table as I collected the coppers into a leather coin purse. Best to let my lazy partner take care of counting them, because I wouldn't deign to do it. He could get it done later, while I was pleasantly off completing an assassination and he was watching my back like a good little lookout.

Once all of the coins were safely tucked away in that pouch and stowed on my belt, I rose from my table. Quite confidently, I made my way towards the door, ignoring my surroundings as the boy had. Any drunk who managed to somehow get in my way was shoved out of the way roughly. I'd done this a million times in a million different bars, so it was easy to imagine my surprise when I was snatched up by the arm.