"Your Highness," said the Page, "Yodel, Guild-master of the Cloth-merchants of Yarfell, begs immediate audience!"The Princess looked up from the diagram of the fortifications of Yarfell's River-gate. What news could the merchant have brought since the fateful council meeting? She bit her lip, deciding.
"Admit him," she ordered.
The merchant bustled in, practically falling at the Princess' feet. His white face hung in heavy folds, and he seemed almost to have shrunk within his rich but disorderly clothes.
"Highness! Lord Droth! I- I think he must have gone mad! He came to see me yesterday at my home, asking me question after question about the attack on my daughter -- about what kind of monster it was, and what he was carrying, and I don't know what else! 'And what right is it of yours to ask?' I said, 'the Task is for those whom the Princess chooses!' Then he started to curse me, and accuse me of hiding my daughter myself, just to stir up war with Venger -- and then he began to threaten my life, Highness!"
The merchant shuddered, and his voice sunk to a hoarse whisper: "And, Highness...as I was making my way here, a knife was flung at me! It stuck even in the padding of my sleeve...and when I looked to see who had thrown it, I saw a man in a black hooded cloak hurrying waythrough the crowd!"
The Princess sat stiffly at her scriptorium. Then she called to the page. "Go, find one of the otherworlders, and ask him or her to request any of them who wish to help Yodel to come hither to me -- and summon to me the Lady Helmwigge." She would demand Captain Aumeric's report on Droth afterward, having no desire to subject her outland friends to his idiot theories.
The page, (the Sarcastic One, Maskelyn by name -- an annoying boy with a snub nose and lank, tow-colored hair) saw Rosalia in the hall. "Hey, Outworlder!" he leered unpleasantly, "the Princess wants you to gather up your fellows and bring them to her chamber -- she wants to know if you intend to help old Yodel." And without waiting for an answer, he scuttered off to find Lady Helmwigge...and then to inform to Captain Aumeric...
