The faster Count Hidere had to throw the assassination attempt together, the more likely it was to fail.  It was hard to gauge how much he’d planned ahead or if he was being purely reactionary at this point, but we needed to make sure he had to meet us on our terms.  

Assuming Carid was right.  I was basing this entire plan on what was essentially a hunch, as Queen Misht’s spy was quick to point out when I briefed him on the plan.

“Do you have any other leads?” I countered.

“No.  Do you have an excuse to return to the city if this doesn’t work?”

“Yes, of course.  And we’ll try something else.”

The spy nodded reluctantly.  I sympathized with him a little.  He was used to chasing a hunch down to the very end, until it could be confirmed as fact and sent back to the crown.  Our plan was reckless in comparison.  

The first step was to panic Count Hidere.  That wouldn’t be hard to do.  I’d taken his measure during our first meeting.  He was arrogant because so far, everything had gone his way.  He’d had enough success with taking control of the harbor that he mistakenly believed that everything would continue to fall in his favor because he was special, because he was intelligent, because he was talented.

Fool.  I’d spent enough time watching nobles rise and fall and I’d noticed the patterns.  Their ruin was mostly due to their own making.  But their rise?  A little bit of talent, perhaps, but mostly luck.

Count Hidere didn’t control the harbor because he was better than everyone else vying to take power for themselves.  He’d bested them all because he got lucky.  The circumstances fell in his favor and he had enough intelligence to recognize when to strike.  That was all.

Being the politically neutral darling of society had given me a front row seat to this sort of drama before.  He was poised at the height of his victories, teetering at the brink right before a fall.

And here I was, ready to give him a push.

“Your bodyguard isn’t here,” Count Hidere commented as my maid admitted him to my sitting room.

“He’s preparing the carriage,” I replied, seating myself but fidgeting slightly.  I gave him a thin smile.  “I’m afraid you’ll have to wait a bit longer to regain use of the harbor.  I’m very sorry, but there’s something that I need to do outside the city.  We’ll be back within a few days.”

Just long enough to travel out to the town where the god died in and back.  Count Hidere’s response was polite and controlled, but he didn’t try to talk me out of leaving.  Someone else would have.  Anyone else would have complained and blustered, trying to talk me into staying long enough to assure them of the harbor’s safety.  Every day they couldn’t use the port was a tremendous financial loss, after all.

But Count Hidere just commented that it was a shame I had to leave so soon and asked if he could perhaps send some of his people in my stead.  Then when I refused, he excused himself, so that I might have time to pack.

“That’s not suspicious at all,” I commented to my maid after he was gone.  “Care to wager that he’s going to inform his assassins they have work to do?”

“I’m not foolish enough to take that bet,” Opnie said wryly.  “You seem awfully calm for someone that’s the target of an assassination attempt.”

“I trust Sir Carid.  If he thinks he can fight them off, then I believe him.”

I also didn’t entirely believe that Manere would take my advice and let the mortals handle it.  If the situation grew dire, I fully expected her to intervene.  Unfortunately, the gods lacked finesse when they were exercising their power from a distance, so I sincerely hoped that she didn’t have to do that.  And hopefully she wouldn’t try to follow us in person, either.  That would certainly complicate things.

None of that was my problem anymore, I told myself resolutely.  I’d done everything I could.  The rest was up to Sir Carid.  

He rode with me in the carriage.  He’d be my last line of defense, if the handful of soldiers we had escorting us failed.  He’d sent part of my escort back already to warn the queen about the dead god, but he was confident he still had enough people to fight off whatever Count Hidere managed to hire.

Still.

“You seem nervous,” I commented, once the city was out of sight behind us.

He’d been alternating between pensively staring out the carriage windows and watching me.  His sword rested on his knees and he’d been running his thumb across the guard absently, a gesture that struck me as anxious.

“Oh,” he said, startled.  “I - it’s nothing.”

“Is it?”

He stared out the window again.

“I’m sorry,” he finally said.  “For what happened.”

It took a moment to understand what was happening.  But the guilty expression on his face matched the one he wore when I told Hidere what my ascension had been like.  He’d been present, hadn’t he?  He hadn’t taken an active role, he wasn’t one of the ones holding me to the altar, but he’d been there.

“I thought you were willing,” he said, speaking quickly.  “Honest.  You were so calm that I believed you wanted this.”

I was calm because my composure was the only thing I could control in that moment.  Because it was what I had drilled into myself over the years.  Show the world nothing of who I truly was, because that was how I got what I wanted.  A quiet life.  A peaceful life.  A life where I was largely left to my own devices.

What would he have done, if I had screamed and cried?  If I’d fought back?  He’d have stopped it, I thought.  The earnest, guilty look on his face told me that.  His oath to the queen was important, but so was his oath as a knight of the kingdom.

“I don’t hold it against you,” I sighed.  

He opened his mouth to say something and I sighed inwardly.  How many times did he feel a need to apologize?  Couldn’t we just move on and not talk about this anymore?  

Then an arrow slammed into the side of the door and that was the end of talking.