The low-roofed room smelled of baked yama, meat, nuts and alcohol, and the light mainly came from the pottery bowls on the tables and rare bowl hanging from the ceiling by a chain, filled with pebbles of fire stone.
Smoke had long since the initial construction of the tavern stained the ceiling a rather sickly grayish-yellow, which could probably partly explain the bad light.
On the other hand, the stones that gave light also gave heat, and in the hot, humid climate of Sessa, light could be sacrificed for a slightly less oppressive air to breathe, especially in a building people wouldn't spend a lot of time in.
Ducking under the door post and taking the few steps down from street to floor level, Alderan looked around the talking, laughing crowd, relaxing as the sound levels, incredibly, dropped. The Black Swan laid in an alley, and a bit under street-level, immediately insulating it from some of the cacophony from the main streets, and the tavern was usually frequented by a crowd used to being quiet... it just stuck with you, after a while.
"Monkey Fingers! Over here!" Lelima's bright, loud voice speared through the general, low din like an elephant in a pottery shop, making Alderan wince as several other patrons looked up with frowns or brief stares, singling her and her sister out more than she'd have liked.
Following the eagerly waving hand to a table remarkably close to the counter, Alderan grimaced at her sister.
"Quiet down, would you? This isn't exactly the place for being loud," Alderan snapped as she slumped down in the chair, muttering "the usual and a pitcher of giva, thanks" to the waitress that had appeared like a spirit beside their table.
Alderan had to wonder if it had been at all that smart to allow her sister to meet with her here, of all places. But Lelima had batted her eyelashes and pleaded sweetly and with hidden cunning that she wanted to "meet you on your home turf, for once. Pleasee, Al?" It had obviously been a mistake, and really...
"I noticed. People are so quiet here, it's rather scary. Are they all thieves and murderers?"
Taking that voice in consideration, it wasn't all that strange how Lelima had managed to appropriate a table so close to the counter, Alderan finished her thought with a wince at the bright, unconcerned voice barging ahead.
"Could you show yourself as more of an outsider, Lima? This isn't even funny. I only agreed to this if you would behave, and you aren't. And while there could be quite a few thieves in this group, of which you're looking at one, as you well now, sister dearest, the rest is more likely to be smugglers than killers." Alderan drummed her fingers on the worn tabletop, frowning at her older, if one could believe that, sister.
Lelima had the grace to slump down a bit and smile sheepishly at Alderan, staying quiet, thankfully, as the waitress came back with a platter of leaf-packed baked yama, slices of roasted meat and nuts, and, thankfully, the giva.
Lelima's pretty nose scrunched up as she sniffed the alcohol and shook her head.
"I don't see how you can drink that, Al. It's nasty," Lelima said fiercely, but she kept her voice low and controlled this time, melding into the rest of the voices instead of breaking away from them and singling herself out.
Rolling her eyes, Alderan scratched her scalp under the puffy pony-tail her short hair had been caught in, and took a deep, demonstrative gulp of the freshly green beverage, slight froth clinging to the corners of her mouth before being wiped away with a rag Alderan usually carried with her.
"So? Just because you prefer the honey-based ones doesn't mean everybody do."
Lelima stole a few of the nuts on her plate, after having eyed them as if she wondered if they'd jump up and bite her upwards-pointing nose tip, as Alderan indifferently wet her rag with the giva from the pitcher and 'washed' her hands with that, before unwrapping the leaf-packet of yama.
"You always had disgusting table habits, Al," Lelima said with a frown, but her red eyes glittered, and the corner of her plump lips were hard-pressed to stop twitching as Alderan smirked at her sister from under her lashes.
"Just be glad I have the manners not to use them in front of our mamas, bossy tongue," Alderan said with a raised eyebrow before she took a bite of the yama and cut away some meat to spear it on the end of her knife.
"They'd kill you!" Lelima laughed and shook her head, then did her nose-wrinkling grimace again. "Why can't you use a proper table knife, Al? Where has that thing been, anyway? Not buried in someone, I hope!"
Alderan ignored her sister for a few moments, just so she could finish eating. She wasn't sure why, by all blessed ancestors, she continued to meet her sister as often as every other week; she met with the family every other month, for dinner, never mind other chance meetings and visits, and with Lelima's constant nagging and disapproval of how she acted, and what she did...
"If you really want to know, I used it to pry open a window the other day, but otherwise this is my table knife. And I don't kill people, Lima. I steal things, sure, but people's lives aren't included in that!" Alderan's voice was still low enough to draw no attention, but it had sharpened with irritation, and her heart-shaped face twisted into a brief full-face grimace for a moment, ending with another pointed, and rather noisy, gulp of the sharp, nutty giva.
"... I'm sorry, Al. I just... can't see it. We've had problems with money, I know, but I still can't see turning into a thief for it." Lelima's face, much like Alderan's, but a bit more oval, was contorted in mild confusion.
Despite this being a fairly regular conversation between the two sisters, if not the rest of the family, who was more of the line of ignoring it, Alderan's narrow, red-eyed stare softened and she shrugged.
"It pays. And besides, I just pick pockets," Alderan said with a breezy smile, showing off surprisingly white teeth against dark lips. Lelima frowned at her sister with a tensing of the muscles around her eyes that Alderan was well-used to, and just held her light, open grin.
"You just said you used your knife to break up a window the other day," said in a soft, quiet voice that nonetheless was like steel, and accompanied by Lelima's lips being pressed into a narrow line; here was the coolly demanding older sister that, at times, seemingly held shades of danger. They always only came into the light, though, when she thought someone was lying to her.
"I didn't say whose window it was, now did I? Could be mine, couldn't it? You're so suspicious," Alderan said, still smiling, before ducking her head to take a few more bites of yama and meat.
"... I suppose so." Lelima's face slowly softened and she shrugged, stretching across the table to grab Alderan's hand around the back and palm, avoiding her greasy fingers. "I hope you don't think I'm too snappy with you, Al. I just don't want you to think bringing down your dignity and person into the mud is the only way to go through life." Soft and insistent, Lelima stared into her sister's face for a long while, before she shook her head and stood up.
"I suppose I should go, Mantana and Ndaliss are waiting for me. Don't get into trouble, Al." Lelima bowed to kiss Alderan on her forehead and embraced her sister's shoulders before disappearing in a flutter of bold red sheat dress with green and white circles and zigzags on it, the slam of the door loud in only the way an outsider would close the door.
Alderan winced.
***
The paved streets were still hot with residual sunlight when Alderan left the Black Swan, having taken her time with the pitcher of giva after Lelima had gone. She had, though, given the last to an associate, the gesture acknowledged with a nod and a flick of finger against nose tip that recognized and accepted the gesture for what it was; a negotiation of future deals.
Not that Alderan had any need, at the moment, of debt and trust owed, but it was a good thing to hoard, and then be able to pick it out and use it as circumstances warranted.
The large, stone-bottomed glass bowls suspended from their chains and poles at a regular distance from each other along the main roads left distinctive, dark-holed shadows surrounded with warm, yellow pools of light now that they had been lit. Some of the light even falling into the mouths of the smaller streets and then alleys that lined the larger roads.
Sure-footed, Alderan started on her way home through the dimmer, but still lit, side roads, not needing to take the unlit alleys yet, where the houses pressed up close enough in places that even "alley" was a dubious description as one needed to walk sideways.
Even now, the streets of the capital were threaded with sound; the clattering of carriages, the near-constant slap of feet against stone, and a deep, underlying hum that at a distance throbbed in the bones, but close enough to the city resolved itself into thousands of voices, seemingly forever reverberating between the walls and along the streets of Tetsisudinante.
"Let the bells ring for the grace of the Lady, let the voices be raised in song... If only in soul, if only in thought, forever shall She be praised by uncounted hearts..." Alderan hummed as she went, snatches of popular songs, festival hymns, prayers, and impromptu ditties that no one else had sung, and probably would never again, as they were forgotten as soon as the next string of melody took its place.
She enjoyed her life as it was.
She might not have much approval from her family because of the pickpocketing, but the money she gave every now and then was hardly refused, if frowned upon because of suspicions of where it might have originated.
The firmer slap of sandals against stone brought Alderan out of her musings about her family and made her freeze in the middle of the narrow street she'd been walking down, wondering if she'd been stupid.
Slowly sliding back to the side and up against the shadowed wall of the long, three-story building where several families would live together in the apartments inside, she hoped that whoever they were, they passed her.
Not because they were wearing sandals, because they weren't exactly unusual in any but the poorest parts of the city, but because of the steady, concerted thrumming that echoed down the empty street.
Such discipline spoke of training, of danger, at least to one such as Alderan.
"Monkey Fingers?" The subdued, but definitely not soft or giving, voice rolled down the street from the hulking wall of four dark figures. Alderan's thoughts were a momentary jumble of gibbering panic; guards!
What had she done to warrant guards, in the late evening, to come looking for her? She was just a pickpocket!
Then the words of what had been said, not just the tone of which it had been said in, registered and Alderan breathed softly, but didn't leave her spot in the shadows.
"Yes? Has one of you fine guardians of state and civilization lost something, perhaps?" Alderan drawled loud enough to easily be heard, knowing it might not be the best idea to tease the city guard, but, like with her rather crude table habits, it was another lamentable thing about her.
Fear always had to be assuaged by more or less mocking teasing. One of these days her mouth was going to get her in trouble, whether the fear was well-placed or not.
"Would you consent to meet your client?" The stony ignoring of Alderan's tease was both a relief and infuriating, because the guard that had spoken sounded as if Alderan had said nothing at all... or been speaking unintelligible nonsense.
Slapping a hand against her thigh, Alderan considered refusing, just for the attitude the guard that had spoken sported.
But she needed the money.
She always did.
"I suppose that would be acceptable, yes." Alderan smiled brightly as she stepped out of the shadows, relieved they weren't here for Alderan the pickpocket, but Monkey Fingers of the Finders.
***
While the name might be unassuming at best, and perhaps seen as childish at worst, it hid behind it able mana who would get you what you paid for... whether it was yours from the beginning or not.
From the belt around Alderan's hips hung the small brass figure of a hand and on the palm the letter 'F' was placed, and from its underside an amulet with a monkey whose fingers were rather grossly exaggerated; anyone who had the knowledge would be able to recognize a member of the Finders, if not the name of the agent herself, though usually it wasn't that much of a problem to figure out what each agent's amulet might stand for.
"Well and good. Do you have time right now?" The four guards came closer, their steps still synchronized, and if Alderan wasn't busy (mentally) gaping, she'd be busy thinking how creepy that was.
Not just city guard; palace guard.
"Uh, no, not at all, of course. Show the way!" If her voice ended on a squeak, she could surely be forgiven; though possessing enough skill with her fingers and sneaking to have landed her a place with the Finders, she was no one special.
She had, as of yet, only gotten "low-profile" jobs; simple forgetful losses of items, demands of bringing back money or items from a deal gone bad, such things.
Never had she been so much as approached by even any of Tetsisudinante's finer population, and here she was being asked by four palace guards to come with her in her capacity as a Finder.
The thought made her mind reel.
They weren't, in truth, clad much differently than Alderan; the cat suit-like sleeveless outfit might have been fastened around the throat with a collar of gold instead of brass, their sandals were undoubtedly of the finest, most carefully treated leather that could be bought and the arm guards they wore were of finely polished steel, but otherwise the biggest difference (besides in that, that Alderan was hardly sporting either arm guards or a gleaming spear) was in the sobriety of the colour of the just past knee-lenght clothes.
Where Alderan sported a dark purple with white stylized flowers; a large bold pattern like any other Sessanid mana, the guards were clothed in solid, dark blue, only lightened up by the gold around the hem of the legs of the outfit and the collar.
The difference wasn't only stark, but so different it felt like she was being escorted by the grim spirit guards of the Eastern Faïedin Queen, instead of normal mana.
Feeling like a baby koribii next to the tall guards, Alderan was of half a mind to refuse this assignment. Who by the pits of damnation that could command palace guards could have "lost" something that not sending said guards after wouldn't fix?
Shaking her head, Alderan knew she wouldn't refuse; not out of fear for any reprisal due to such a refusal, because any mistreatment of an agent would have the whole Finders organization refuse the one who abused an agent any further service, but because she was curious.
Who wouldn't be, after all, with palace guards coming to ask help... "assistance" for whoever had sent them out?
Out on the main street a saddled koribii waited beside a chariot drawn by two dnera, their large, black-and-white striped slender bodies nothing beside the impressively massive, though still graceful koribii.
The large bird clattered its meat hook-like beak softly and the green stare sent at the group was decidedly irritated.
"Sorry," Alderan mouthed to the bird before she was hustled up on the carriage with the group's leader taking to the koribii's back, one of the three guards taking the dnera's reins and the two left arranging themselves around Alderan in a way so that she felt as if she really was being taken in for breaking the law, and not to lend her "expertise".
But then, that was probably partly because they were guards and she was a thief, if of another sort than just a Finder - which was only ignored by authority because they were useful, anyway - and partly because she was very short for a Sessan, while the guards perfect pictures of the glories of the population of the Sessanid Empire, and she felt crowded.
***
The building they went to, however, wasn't the palace, and Alderan was secretly both relieved and disappointed; who wouldn't want to be able to say they had been in the Palace of Grace and Glory at some other time than the special Public Hearing Ceremony, when anyone in the population of Sessa had a right to be heard by the Empress herself?
The chariot, following the koribii and its rider, was steered inside an open portal set in a wall, and parked in the shadow of the awning that stretched along the stable, clearly marked by the sharp smell of animal manure, hay, seed and the sounds of koribii and dnera.
The main entrance of the building that the stable belonged to was brightly lit and had garlands of flowers wound around the pillars supporting a ceiling for the wide stairs leading up to the house, which was classically elevated on pillars.
Buildings in the present time were usually set directly on the ground, when they were in any settlement more crowded than a village or small town.
They didn't enter through the main door, though, but rather three of the guards - the fourth left behind with the koribii - led Alderan around the back and up a narrower, though still wide enough for three people to walk side by side, stairs, which led to the kitchen.
Not even there they stopped, however, and Alderan continued to be led, by the tight-lipped and expressionless guards through the inner corridors and even a gallery of a particularly lavishly appointed inn, it seemed.
Alderan was getting impatient and frustrated at being herded around like a stupid goat, but refusing now and stalking out would be beyond rude; it would also be against the Finders' rules as she had verbally accepted, and then not refused within the initial minute.
She could now not refuse the assignment until she had heard what it was all about, and so she let herself be, almost imperceptibly, pushed around until they got to what apparently was their destination.
The door looked like any of the others they had passed, but the guard that had spoken to her before knocked on the door, then opened without waiting for an answer and let Alderan follow her in, with the two other guards remaining outside.
Alderan was just about finished with patience when the person who supposedly must be the one to have set the palace guards after a Finder stood up from the chair by the window, the lamplight streaming in from it behind her having smudged out her features in shadow.
***
"Thank you for accepting the assignment, dignified mana," the crown princess' voice was low as she spoke, though there was no softness in it; instead it rasped slightly, dragging the voice down to a hum that was as comfortable as it was intimidating.
Or at least it could be intimidating, because any nervousness was only on Alderan's part for standing in front of such a person, not because Ndagi nal'Bnaiva was exerting herself to be particularly intimidating.
"I have accepted to hear the assignment, your highness, not accepted the assignment itself," Alderan snapped out, her voice breathy but steady, and she was sure the roar of her heart beating could be heard by all.
She also, suddenly, felt very, very conscious of her bare feet, the dust on the soles making them slide over the smooth wooden floor instead of stick with nervous sweat.
That she'd dared to make the usual input of distance to a client that erroneously thought that just because she was here meant that she had accepted the whole thing, surprised her.
It also, despite the slight babbling panic about insolence, made her heart swell for herself.
She could obviously do her job, even if the potential client (nothing potential about her really, Alderan couldn't see herself refusing a job from the crown princess despite her earlier words) was the nal'Bnaiva.
"Ah, of course. I shouldn't assume," Ndagi smiled slightly, face relaxed and open, though the guard beside her was staring narrowly. Somehow, Alderan couldn't help but want to straighten her back and cross her arms over her chest, thrusting it up against the two staring at her.
It was a childish response, but while she couldn't see any incredulity at her stature, and the age it implied, however wrong, she had become well versed in feeling it.
And the slight tilt of that smooth-featured, fine face and minute narrowing of the eyes, despite the rest being a picture of relaxation, told Alderan all she needed to know about that.
Instead, she only straightened her back and raised an eyebrow, used to tilting her head back to be able to look those she talked to in the face.
"Since the night won't be getting any younger, blessed nal'Bnaiva..?" She wasn't going to demand, or even ask, indeed, for an explanation of what needed to be taken back. It was both a question of policy in letting the client getting to it in her own time, and a very important question of having manners.
You didn't demand anything of sorts from the imperial family.
You just didn't.
Ndagi nodded, the diamonds on her necklace and on the hoops in her ears sparkling in the light with the movement, loosing her relaxed expression for a tighter, flatter one that sent a shiver down Alderan's spine.
The princess' presence had been in the room from the moment she came in, a caged lioness pacing her confines; now, though, part of that control slipped, and Alderan stood in front of a person that seemed to be able to bowl her over with nothing more than the most briefest of glances.
"You are familiar with the state rings as exchange of negotiation and trust?" Ndagi gestured with a hand, the coloured diamonds decorating the rings she wore grabbing light and casting mad reflexes around the room.
Alderan had a bad feeling about this.
"Of course. Greeting the Empress, anyone has the possibility to slip one of those rings. The exchange of trust would be to give it back, later," Alderan said with a frown, trying to ignore the bubbling pit in her stomach.
Had this been someone other than one of the imperial family, she would have been much snappier in her reply; who didn't know of the state rings?
And phrasing it in a way that it had been a question, as if Alderan was ignorant of all just because she led a life slightly less glorious than that of the princess... it grated.
Of course, Alderan could be thinking on it too much, and the only reason for the question could have been a way to introduce the explanation for the assignment.
"Just so. A person now has one of the state rings, and by tradition she has already had her exchange of negotiation, though she has not returned the ring. There has been demands for more; this is going beyond tradition and into severe loss of dignity for the possessor of the state ring.
"My dignified mother has declined in demanding the ring back; bound by more dignity than most of us would ever have in nine lifetimes, blessed be her soul."
Alderan was now really trying to ignore the protests going off like the colourful sparkles that were imported from Janjin for feasts in her stomach.
The princess couldn't really be suggesting what she seemed to be suggesting, right? To simply take back an exchange of negotiation broke all sorts of unwritten rules and traditions it made Alderan's mind fold in on itself in denial of the act.
But the nal'Bnaiva's face was set in stone, her red eyes cold with a sort of determination Alderan wouldn't want turned on her... at least not in a bad way.
It wasn't as easy as all that, though; the possessor of the state ring had, if she had already received her exchange of negotiation and not given back the ring, herself broken tradition, gone beyond rudeness into blackmail, as Ndagi was so delicately explaining, and into severe loss of dignity from such an act.
There really was nothing bad to be had from taking the ring back, besides Alderan's clamoring thoughts. And the fact, unfortunately, that such a thing just wasn't done.
Especially not by the Empress of Sessa.
No wonder then that the nal'Bnaiva, possessing a place of freer act and a streak of cold practicality to her personality, had gone to the Finders.
"I think you can understand the need to act delicately in this, honoured mana. You absolutely can not be found by the possessor of the ring until it's in the hands of the imperial family again. While, were you to be found out in your position as an agent of the Finders, she cannot accuse my mother directly of the act, there would still be loss of dignity and trust. I won't allow that to happen to the blessed Empress," Ndagi's rough, warning voice made the hairs at the back of Alderan's neck stand up.
Fiercely, she hoped to never have those flat, expressionless eyes turned on her; Ndagi looked much more pleasant when smiling.
Though the idea that she'd have anything to do with the crown princess after this assignment was finished was ridiculous.
"Of course, dignified nal'Bnaiva. I understand completely." That didn't lessen her desire to run away as quickly as possible, though, because to take back an exchange of negotiation, however right it may be, just screamed "wrong" in Alderan's mind.
That didn't mean, however, that she'd show the princess to any other agent of the Finders.
She had been asked, after all, and letting a chance like this go, even if she might never be able to tell anyone she had done it, was too much to ask.
"I am blessed to be dealing with such able and dignified persons that understand where true power lies," Ndagi said with a smile and sat down in the chair again, the guard bringing a small, glazed lamp bowl to the table. Alderan smiled back, just briefly and held up her hands in an open-palmed gesture.
She was hardly a priestess blessed with grace and dhima, but, frankly, a rather simple person.
While her upbringing might insist taking an exchange of negotiation was wrong, she could see it was right, and she figured she had the power to bring it back.
And while the nal'Bnaiva's mother, may the ancestors hold her name forever, might have dignity in amounts that was impressive, the nal'Bnaiva rather held another virtue, just as important for a ruler as well as a person; the power to act, speak and do right. And Alderan was just a mortal creature, and the power and dignity, besides the selfish pride, to be gained from helping the imperial family directly?
Couldn't be denied.
***
Tugging on, and then tightening the thick fluff of springy hair caught in her ponytail, Alderan wondered if she was insane.
Maybe she should have directed the crown princess to another agent, if only because of the obstacle she was facing right now; breaking and entering.
Shaking her head, Alderan grinned at herself.
As if.
She wouldn't have given this up if she so would have had to sneak into the palace itself, whatever her initial thoughts had been on stealing an exchange of negotiation.
"Right then. This shouldn't be too hard," Alderan murmured, taking a breath and darted from the shadows of the garden up to and under the pillars the house she was going to break into stood on.
Nowadays, one had to have more money in general - at least in the cities - to have a house built in the old way if there was no immediate need (like, say, the town being built in a flood area) for all houses to be built on pillars.
Closing her eyes, Alderan tried to calm her racing heart and suppress the mad grin on her face; the exhilaration of the situation was hard to resist, but she needed her mind cool and clear for this.
At least she hadn't had to get over the wall by herself; she'd sneaked in with the contingent of guards - led by the person she'd met last night who'd done all the talking for the guards, apparently a captain of the imperial family's guard - who'd tried to, once again, make the adviser of state give the ring back, as was fitting.
The attempt had obviously been unsuccessful, the proof supplied by the grimmer than usual look on the captain's face, and the sour expressions on the faces of those who had accompanied her inside.
"Some people are unbelievable..." Alderan breathed as she slid from pillar to pillar, clothes and skin all melting into the darkness cast by the floor above her.
She hardly had to worry about being found out under here; there was no party going on in the house, so the garden was empty, the owner herself had left on some errand or other - Alderan would hardly hazard a guess what an adviser of state would do in the evenings - and the servants hardly had any reason to be walking under the house, especially as the cold stores and the cellar where the alcohol was stored were hidden beyond the back of the house, on the the other end of the garden.
This part of the breaking and entering was, frankly, underwhelming.
But well inside she'd had to look out for servants and what possible security, if the adviser had any, that was, that could be inside.
Pausing for a moment in the shadow of the kitchen stairs, Alderan's breath caught as a window was flung open two floors up, the bright, snappy voices of two servants... probably maids, wafted out.
Some argument about one of the stable tenders, apparently.
Alderan tilted her head and listened, smirking as they seemed to, reluctantly, agree that they could not only share, but should, at least once, try it all three together. Love, or at least lustful attraction, made most people rather possessive, despite the fact that they had all the right and possibility by law and culture to share among each other.
The argument was concluded when a thunk and soft moan floated out over the quiet air; the comment from one of them about being uncertain if she actually would stand being close to the other sexually had apparently prompted the second maid to show her that she well could.
"Good luck to you, I suppose. Just don't look out the window." Alderan rolled her eyes; with any luck, they'd be too busy to look out the window due to some mutual "proving" that they could indeed stand to be together sexually, and not just with their stable tender as a middle hand.
With a careful gaze up at the open window, Alderan ascended the stairs with not even a scrape of feet against stone; she might be a pickpocket normally, but sneaking around was a specialty of hers.
On the other hand, she might have some trouble with the breaking in part.
Staring at the door, flicking a quick glance surrounded by a frown at the masks hanging on each side of it, Alderan bowed down over the lock and fished out the lock picks.
One of the other Finders had spent the day with her giving Alderan a crash course in how to pick locks; her fingertips were still sore from the handling of the thin, metal items, and her results had left something to desire, but the agent had declared her passable enough to break into a normal house by the time the evening meal had rolled around.
Hands shaking slightly, enough to make the metal clatter softly as she handled the metal ring from which the professional items of breaking and entering hung, Alderan grimaced at the slight sound.
She was able to keep the giant loops of bracelets she wore quiet in almost all that she did, but give her something new and she obviously had some trouble.
***
The still-open window remained empty of curious maids, however, and the faint moans that were coming from it suggested it'd stay so for a while longer. Alderan could work in peace; she knew the sounds had been negligible, but her thundering heart made it hard to judge, and her fluttering thoughts made her jumpy.
The kitchen door opened with a soft click and no whine of joints, though, and the room beyond was empty, only faintly lit by two bowls on the tables used to prepare the food, along with one still-glowing stove.
Carefully closing the door behind her, Alderan quickly darted over the clean-swept floor to the large, obvious door; there were at least two others, but she was not interested in roaming around the servants' corridors or what storage rooms the kitchen might be connected to.
She'd take a route that went through the rest of the house.
Beyond the kitchen and its short corridor came a large, open room with several long, low tables and a few round, smaller ones, the floor covered by rugs and strewn with pillows; banquet room. This also had a few doors leading into other parts, but she again chanced on the larger, more conspicuous door; another corridor, this one wide and lined with a few decorative story masks and two classic bark-cloth tapestries.
Alderan shook her head, feet breath-light on the cool floors. She really was lucky she didn't have to try her luck in a larger, more complicated building, like one of the government ones by the palace, or the palace itself.
She'd get lost in moment.
The entrance hall covered the length of the front of the building, with broad stairs at the back of the room leading exactly to where Alderan wanted to go; the upper floors of the front.
That would be where the family lived, and where the owner would sleep.
There was a slight possibility that the adviser carried the ring with her; but only slight. She was sure of her control over the ring, but couldn't show it off as tradition stated she should already have given it back, so why not leave it at home?
It wasn't as if someone would come to steal it...
At the top of the stairs, Alderan paused, confused over which door to take. The sound of one of the doors being opened, however, startled Alderan into fear-spurred action; the one to the right was mindlessly opened and closed behind her, before the other person had gotten the door she was coming through open so much as a hand span.
It seemed to have been the right choice, if the homier decoration of the corridor was any sign.
"I'm not made for this..." the whisper slipped out unbidden, and Alderan froze, staring around as she pressed into the shadow of a pillar with a potted plant crowning it.
Nothing happened, and she slowly started down the corridor, carefully opening the doors until she found a bedroom that looked like it might belong to the owner of the house; usually belongings weren't kept in the bedroom when one had place, but this was a ring of state, held as an exchange of negotiation, and on top of that past the time it should have been given back; Alderan didn't think it would be lying around with the rest of the jewellery.
"Where would I hide it..?" Breath-soft whisper as Alderan slipped around the room, doing her best to avoid the large windows in the front of the room.
There weren't many places to look, and in the end she was left standing in front of the low platform with its mattress and abundance of blankets and pillows on and surrounding it.
As more time slid by, Alderan's heart raced faster, though she forced her breath to come steady and calmly; the longer she stayed here, the bigger the chance of being found out.
And she couldn't find it!
The fact that she was rummaging around someone's bed wasn't making anything better, either.
Finally, after having shaken and let her hands run over some of the ornamental pillows, she got down on her knees and pushed blankets and the bottom rugs away to feel along the base of the platform. She'd almost worked her way around when her fingers met an irregularity.
Hoping it wasn't locked, Alderan used her knife to pry the little box out.
"Thank you." Alderan's mutter was threaded with a giggle; this was getting to her. Things were just so much easier with pickpocketing!
Putting the box, now empty, back in its place and clutching the heavy gold ring with its perfect, round-cut diamond and attendant amethysts, Alderan breathed a sigh of relief.
This part done.
There were two doors, besides the one she'd come through in the room; one yielded what was a closet, if one large enough to house a family in on all its own, while the other had *things* in it.
Shelves of books, artwork, a table with papers and other few curiosities, and another, smaller table with several rings, necklaces, armlets and other jewellery.
She'd left the bedroom in disarray, roughened up the closet a bit for show, and now took a select few of the items on the small table; if no one was supposed to think she'd been here only for the state ring, it'd have to look like a burglary, like someone had gone through the places in search for some few valuables to steal.
Her mouth tasted sour for having to do what she was doing; it just wasn't right, looking through a person's personal places like this.
It was definitely one of the reasons she stayed with something as "petty" as pickpocketing, besides it being infinitely more easy than this.
Slipping out the door in this room and back into the corridor, she was met with the door out into the entrance hall opening just as she went to open it.
Her only thought as she was met with a body and an exclamation was "Bleeding spirits and blessed ancestors!".
Then she pushed her way past the two mana, and hurtled down the stairs among cries of "Thief!", her few stolen items glittering in her grasp.
Into the back of the house, desperately retracing her footsteps Alderan took a swing at the sleepy, startled servant that stumbled into the kitchen, and then slammed the back door open with pursuers at her heels.
Down the stairs, feet slipping for a moment and her breath caught in her throat with the possibility of falling down and getting caught.
She caught herself though with only stubbed toes and a brief flare of pain in her ankle, and then out into the garden.
There was a door at the back, leading into an alley; she hoped it would be easy to get open.
"Please, please, please..!" Stopping in time to only gently slam against the door instead of running headlong into it, it screeched in protest as it was forced open and then there was hard stone under her feet instead of soft, lush grass.
***
"The Empire is grateful for your assistance," Ndagi nal'Bnaiva's voice was warm as she bent down and kissed Alderan between her eyebrows, though her face only held a hint of thanks or relief, coolly distant as she bestowed the honours of gratitude.
It didn't surprise Alderan; this was the crown princess, and she could hardly behave as if this had been a personal favour done. This was for the Empire, and as such an official situation, however unofficially it had been carried out.
As she was showed out of the inn, the same one used as two nights earlier, Alderan wondered over her denial of mentioning the jewellery she'd taken.
She felt bad about it, but the amount of money they were worth...
Ndagi had also declined asking about the theft that had been trumpeted out that morning, and Alderan wasn't sure if she'd prefer having been called on it or not.
On one hand, anything done in the course of getting an asked item back by the Finders, short of torture, murder and any acts that might be unnecessary in the course of the assignment, was null and void after the item had been returned; they simply hadn't happened.
On the other hand... Alderan just didn't feel good about being in possession of the jewels.
Not because she'd stolen them, because when pickpocketing, she took what she could, but because they'd been in someone's house, at the moment not worn on the person she was stealing from...
Rubbing her face, Alderan knew it didn't matter any longer anyway; she'd already hawked the items in question, and portioned the money out among her family.
"Over and done with. Though I'd certainly prefer to not do such a thing again... My poor heart can't take it," Alderan grimaced, trying for a bit of levity and shaded her face with one hand as she stepped out on the street outside the inn, the guards having left at the door and turned back.
While she could say she didn't want to do it, as long as she was part of the Finders, it would come up again.
At least the breaking and entering, if not necessarily the stealing of non-designated items.
***
The air was filled with the scent of spices, bread and sun warmed stone as Alderan wandered the streets in the glaring sunlight towards home, relieved that that assignment was over and done with now.
The pouch hanging from her belt was filled with her payment; Alderan hadn't looked, so she didn't know if there was any amount of money beyond the standard fee, though she couldn't imagine why it wouldn't be.
She hadn't wanted to show herself for the poor, unmannered in courtly ways person that she was, and had so refrained from opening the pouch in the princess' presence.
Alderan fancied that she'd gotten a glance of approval for that, but who knew with that smooth face, looking soft for it's features but carved from stone for its expressions.
"Hmm..." Alderan was briefly distracted from her thoughts of the money pouch as she caught sight of a foreign mana, probably a merchant as there was no train of servants or a bodyguard following her.
The pale skin and loose shirt and pants clearly marked her for the outsider she was, a pale lily in a sea of black roses, though not an unusual sight in Tetsisudinante.
A perfect target.
Shaking her head, Alderan decided that she wouldn't relieve her of her money.
Not today, anyway.
Alderan had the pouch at her side, and it should be enough for a good celebration today, at the least, which Alderan thought she definitely deserved.
Then she couldn't hold it any longer, and, retreating to stand against the wall of a bakery with one last, fleeting glance at the lost opportunity for money as the merchant disappeared into the crowd again, Alderan opened the pouch.
"Sweet, merciful..."
It was indeed a fair amount "more" than the standard fee.
Even taking away part of it for a serious celebration left her with a week of feeding herself with her usual fare.
But that wasn't what had prompted the faint, breathless mutter.
In among the oval, wooden chips threaded with gold and silver wire in their particular shapes, lay a ring.
The gold band was slender, but wide enough to not let the few-faceted, brilliantly golden-brown diamond overtake it.
It wasn't a state ring, which the nal'Bnaiva had two of, to signify her status and responsibility, but one of her personal rings.
The princess must have been very grateful; Alderan had been given an exchange of trust.
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