Skamsen sprinted down the dimly lit corridor toward the lady’s bedchambers, cursing under his breath as he ran.

Fool. You damned fool!

Rounding a corner, he slammed into a maidservant. The ewer she carried slammed to the floor. He didn’t linger to help her to her feet nor spend a passing glance at her frightened expression.

He reached the staircase and flew up them, taking as many of the velvet steps in one stride as he could.

From outside, cries of alarm finally reached the front doors. The two sentries had recognized Skamsen but wanted an explanation. It would’ve taken far too long. Instead, he had shoved them aside and ordered them to follow. They were too slow. He was too slow.

He reached the top level. Several strides more and he’d reach her room. If only he could have made better time…if only he hadn’t spent the last few days wallowing in misery…

Skamsen had arrived at the lord’s manner as fast as he dared push each horse he’d ridden. His gut told him he was too late. It had only been a few days since he’d left her reunited with her husband. Rather than leaving her at the gates, he had accompanied her inside. Skamsen needed to know who had sent out the Mark. He suspected the lady’s husband. Skamsen would know when he saw the man’s face upon seeing his wayward bride. Skamsen may not know women as well as he wished. He understood the expressions of dark and deceitful men.

When Skamsen and the lady arrived at the estate, the sentries threw open the outer gates. They sprinted ahead of the duo on horseback, heralding the lady’s return to all.

Before the pair reached the front door, the lord rushed outside. When his eyes rested on his bride, he sprinted toward her. She dismounted and waited for him. As he reached her, she fell to her knees in humble obeyance. He fell to his knees and hugged her, calling her name over and over. He’d feared the worst, he said, after receiving word that she’d disappeared.

The lady apologized to him. He appeared confused, saying he should be the one sorry for sending her away.

As he asked question after question, and as the lady answered them, promising to answer them all in due time, Skamsen studied the husband’s face. At one point in the conversation, she mentioned the name Sarvotstra. The name produced no untoward reaction. The husband showed no sign he knew the name. Vicanda’s name also fell from the lady’s lips. Again, no reaction. His face showed a hint of horror when she explained who that was.

The husband shook his head, rose and pulled the lady to her feet. It was far too much, he said. It was too unbelievable. When the lady asked if he thought she lied, he told her that he believed every word she spoke. It was simply unbelievable and not to be spoken of again in his household. She was safe now.

Skamsen exhaled and grabbed the reins of the horse she had been riding. He’d been prepared to leave at that moment. A servant ran up to him and took both the reins of his horse and the other, explaining the lady had ordered him to see to the horses. The servant added that the lady had invited Skamsen to dine with them that evening. Skamsen knew it wasn’t an invite; it was a command.

The dinner had been lovely, though Skamsen didn’t eat a morsel nor take a single sip of wine. He smiled as best he could, promised the lady he’d say goodbye to her when he left the following morning, then watched her retire with her husband.

Skamsen left the estate that night under cover of darkness.

He rode straight threw the nearest town, not stopping for the night, wanting to put as much distance as he could between him and her. He skipped the next town as well, riding well into the early morning hours. His horses snorted their displeasure. Stopping at a farm, he paid handsomely for a room in the stable with the farmer’s ox and ass. Though the straw was a welcome bed, Skamsen slept only a little.

When he finally coaxed his horses out of the stables, the sun had yet to appear in the sky. Sostrad wouldn’t let him in the saddle, so Skamsen walked beside the pair of horses.

For the next few days, Skamsen plodded through towns, choosing to sleep on the cold dirt under a tree rather than a down mattress under the roof of an inn.

At the break of dawn one morning, Skamsen woke to the thunder of hooves bearing toward his position beside the road. He ignored the rider until the morning sun glinted off the brooch of the rider’s cloak. Skamsen recognized it.

Just as the rider tore past, Skamsen whistled. The rider heard and recognized the call of a servant of Sarvotstra and turned in his saddle. Seeing Skamsen in the road, the rider reined his mount and whipped it back around and trotted toward Skamsen. The roan frothed at the mouth and paced, anxious to be on the move. Skamsen reached out and patted the mare on the neck, calming the seething horse.

“I’m sorry to slow you in your quest, young rider,” said Skamsen. “What brings you out so early in the morning? It appears you’ve already been riding for hours.”

The rider removed his cloak, revealing a head of black, shortly-cropped hair and a youthful face free of whiskers. “Fellow servant,” said the boy, his own chest heaving, “Me and several others have been searching for days for Skamsen. I’ve ridden the entirety of the night in great haste looking for him.”

Skamsen stopped soothing the mare to stare at the boy.

“I am Skamsen.”

The boy dismounted and knelt. “I am your humble…”

“Enough of that,” said Skamsen, hauling to boy to his feet. “What message do you have?”

“I was to give this to your lady if I couldn’t find you.” The boy pulled a folded piece of parchment from beneath his cloak. Skamsen snatched it and read, the words the same on the paper as what the boy spoke. “The one you delivered is not Vicanda.”

Skamsen’s breath stuck a moment as a deep dread washed over him. “Sostrad!” The black stallion, sensing the urgency in his master’s tone, began pacing in place, allowing Skamsen to saddle him quickly and without delay.

After shouting a few words of instruction to the boy on where to take the nag left behind, Skamsen atop Sostrad stormed down the road.

Skamsen switched steeds twice, hoping the servant boy had heard and followed to collect the black.

Making much better time on the return trip, Skamsen reached the lady’s manor just after the eleventh hour after noon that same day. He’d made good time.

He wasn’t fast enough.

He kicked open the bedchamber doors and the fragrance of eastern freesias filled his nostrils. No. Not eastern freesias. Lavender!

The lord rose, his night shirt still on, his eyes groggy and having trouble focusing on the dark shape entering the room.

“Light a candle. Hurry!” Skamsen said, his tone telling the lord to obey without question.

Skamsen hurried to the bedside near the lady. She lived. Yet she was dying, the stench of the poisonous flower thick around her.

The lord provided the light and held it close to his bride. “What’s going on?” he said.

Skamsen ignored him, all his focus on the lady. She lay on her back, her skin paler than the white night dress she wore, and stared blankly upward. Her shallow breaths rasped from between dried and cracked lips. An arm dangled beside the mattress, the other rested on her abdomen.

As the light fell across her features, the lord gasped. “What is this?”

“Vicanda,” said Skamsen.

“Who? You mean that…that marek…assassin?”

Skamsen nodded. “He has poisoned her.”

“I don’t understand. Why? Who would want her dead? She’s no threat to anyone.  I’m not royal. Even if I was, I’ve no heir. She is barren. She can’t have children.” He tried to wipe a strand of hair from her face.

Skamsen stopped him. “Do not touch her hair unless you wish to die as well.”

The lord’s eyes widened; his breath stuck in his throat. He recoiled, pulling his hand to his chest.

The lady tried to speak, her voice wheezing as her lips tried moving. “Skam…Skamsen.”

“I am hear, my lady.”

“Time…leave? Time…make…love?”

Skamsen forced a grin. “Yes. It is time to leave. I am hear now. We can leave together.”

“No!” she said, her wheeze forceful, loud. “Life.”

“I’m sorry. I have no antidote. I am too late.”

She wheezed again. “Skamsen. I am…I am…late.”

The hand on her stomach twisted, the palm facing upward. Skamsen placed his in hers. She turned it so his palm lay flat on her lower abdomen. “Death…severs…but life…life…” Her wheezes trailed off.

Skamsen looked at their enjoined hands then at the lord.

He glared at her abdomen, his lips twisting with distaste. “Does she mean what I think she means?”

Skamsen nodded and gave the lord a measured stare. “It means she’s not barren. She was never at fault. It was you. You were the problem. You are a father, my lord.” Skamsen spat the honorific.

“I’ll not be father to a bastard!”

Skamsen raised a warning finger, his lips pressing tight together. He refrained from saying what he wished to say. In doing so, he avoided death. In the silence that followed, Skamsen heard him. The slight noise of his movement would never have reached Skamsen’s ears had he given in and yelled at the lord.

Instead, Skamsen turned around in time to see a dark figure, dagger drawn, leap at him from the folds of the balcony curtains. Skamsen swatted the dagger aside with his left hand. His right cracked down on the outstretched elbow causing the dagger to clatter to the floor. The assassin swung with the other hand. But Skamsen, having stepped close to the attacker, turned his back to the blow. It glanced off his shoulder. At the same time, Skamsen back-fisted the assailant in the jaw. As the dark man reeled, Skamsen drew his own knife.

The assassin pulled a short sword from beneath his cloak. The cruel-looking and battered blade grated against the leather, making a grotesque sound as the steel cleared the scabbard. Skamsen didn’t hesitate, ignoring the advantage the assassin’s lengthier weapon provided. With a speed greater than even he thought he was capable of, Skamsen closed the distance between them before the dark man could raise his sword to make a proper swing. Skamsen dodged the thrust easily and slashed the man’s wrist. While the sword fell, Skamsen spun and kicked the man in the solar plexus. The rusty weapon and its wielder landed at nearly the same time.

The dark man growled and rolled backward to his feet, clutching his bleeding arm. Snarling something that sounded like a death threat, the man spun and leaped over the balcony railing, disappearing into the blackness below.

Skamsen scanned the grounds outside. Seeing nothing but darkness and shadows, he raced back to her the lady’s side. She no longer breathed. He touched his fingers to her lids, closing them. She seemed at peace. She looked to be sleeping.

Skamsen lifted the dangling arm and placed the hand atop her other, the palms mothering and protecting and burying the child now resting eternally within. Skamsen hadn’t been sure whether he’d completed his favor. She believed conceiving would keep her in the favor of her husband, preventing him from sending her away again. Skamsen had helped her in that endeavor for the past few weeks. But to what end?

She’d jokingly asked him to let her travel with him. They both knew that was an impossibility. She had her obligations. He had his. His obligations were now doubly needing to be resolved, his thirst for revenge needing quenching. It was the singular reason he’d chosen to train at Sarvotstra and the cause of his need to defeat Vicanda. Due to that choice, Skamsen would now leave behind another dead woman he loved. And another dead child.

Braving the stray wisps of hair carrying the deadly poison, Skamsen leaned over and kissed the Lady’s brow.

As he stood, he heard a man whimpering. The lord sat on the floor, his back against the wall opposite the balcony, holding the candle is if it were a shield. “That…that was…”

Wiping the blood from his dagger against his dark trousers, Skamsen crossed and stood over the whelp of a man who thought himself a lord.

“Yes,” said Skamsen, “that was Vicanda.”

“You…” the lord gulped and took a deep breath. “You defeated him. He…he had a sword. Yet you…”

“Yes. But I have not defeated him. Only delayed him.”

“It seemed so easy for you. What do you mean ‘delayed’?”

Skamsen crouched, his face the level of the lord.

“Why do you think Vicanda attacked me?” said Skamsen.

“Because he…because…witnesses?”

Skamsen shook his head. “He’d never get another assignment if anyone ever witnessed him doing any job.  Neither would he be hired if he killed any but the Mark. We would never have known he was still in the room. He could have left without notice. He’d already completed his work,” said Skamsen.

The lord sniffed with derision. “Which she probably deserved, that filthy whore.”

Before Skamsen could restrain them, his fingers viced around the man’s throat. The lord dropped the candle, dousing the flame and filling the room with darkness. A bit of light from the open hallway glinted off the eyes of the fearful man squeezing the life out of the lord.

Skamsen let out a low growl. “Was it you?” said the dark man, his voice raspy. “Did you commission the Mark on your wife?”

The lord vibrated his head to gesture no.

“If I learn otherwise, I’ll break a second of my vows. I’ll be yet another assassin after your head.”

The lord said nothing even though he tried, only gargled noises escaping his mouth.

Skamsen released the man and strode toward the door, turning to give one last look at the dark figure of the Lady lying in repose on the bed. His shoulders slumped. He exhaled and nodded as he remembered her last command to him.

“My lord, if you value your miserable life, you will tell all you know that your wife was with child when she died. You should herald it as you bear your wife to her grave and mark her name and the name of your son or daughter on the sepulcher.”

“That’s a preposterous notion,” said the lord, his tone spiteful. “In the end, she was nothing more than a common whore, just as dirty now as when I pulled her out of the swine slop.”

Skamsen fingered the edge of his dagger as he eyed the pathetic lord. “Choose your words carefully, my lord,” said Skamsen. “You may find I’m not a very tolerant man. Due to your inability to produce healthy seed and spawn progeny, you sent your wife to be the whore of your in-law’s brother while you took another woman into your wife’s bed, making a whore out of that servant girl. Yet you have the audacity to speak ill of your wife? Due to her sense of honor and obligation to you – despite you treating her dishonorably – she wished to conceive a child for you.” Skamsen shook his head. “What nonsense had you filled her head with that she believed she didn’t deserve better than you?”

“You are nothing but a commoner. You know nothing of these matters. My honor is more important than hers. None better learn that my wife was mother to a bastard child.”

“If none know, then besides me you’ll be the only one who knows. Vicanda will be back to silence you, regardless of our laws. He’ll risk breaking that rule rather than risk all knowing that he murdered a woman who was with child. The lady’s dying wish was for me to spare your life. But the choice is yours. As you’ve seen, I can deal easily with Vicanda. Can you?”

Without waiting for an answer, Skamsen left the Lady. His heart heavy, he noticed none of the features of the young woman rushing up the steps as he descended. Yet his nose caught the unmistakable fragrance wafting in her wake, the smell emanating from her dark red curls. He paused to sniff again.

“My lady,” said Skamsen, putting on his most disarming smile.

The young woman turned, her face wracked with worry. “My lord, is all well?”

Skamsen stepped up to stand just beneath her. His gaze began at the foot of her crimson dress, the hem covering her feet. The fabric inlaid with sparkling stones and gems gleamed, its style and price befitting that of a noblewoman, not a simple servant. His eyes rose toward her face, resting briefly on her heaving bosom, the low horizontal cut of the neckline allowing the pale skin of her breasts to nearly burst from the constraints of her dress. Their eyes met. He smiled wider, though there was not an ounce of mirth in his grin. “Yes, all is well. And I’m sure all is well with you.”

“What do you mean?” she said, resting a hand on her chest as she caught her breath from the short sprint up the steps.

He rose one more step, his face now at the level of her breast, though he stared past them to fix his eyes on hers. “Is that lilac,” he said. “It is a lovely smell.”

“What?” she said, her face riddled with confusion. “Um…yes. It is lilac. But how is the lord? Is everything all right, my lord?”

Skamsen threw his head back and laughed. “Lord? I am not your lord. I am master Skamsen. And your lord is perfectly fine.”

“Oh. Good,” she said, giving him a nervous smile. She half turned to go but stopped. “Is that all? I mean, do you need anything…master Skamsen?”

“I need nothing. Your lady, I’m afraid. She is not well.”

His eyes attent to her every facial nuance searched for it, knowing it must be there.

Her eyes shifted away from his and then returned. “What is wrong with her? Shall I call the doctor?”

“She is dead,” he said as evenly and devoid of emotion as he could.

Her mouth worked the air as she struggled to make sense of the information, her mind seemingly trying to figure out the appropriate response. “What? How? What happened?”

He said nothing, his gaze intent on her.

She stood frozen beneath his appraisal of her every move. “Master Skamsen, please…what has happened?”

“She has been murdered.”

The young woman’s eyes widened with terror. However, she did not look around the manor in search of a murderer. She showed no fear of a killer being loose in the house. Her voice did its best to sound concerned. Skamsen wasn’t being convinced. Yet at the same time, he was convinced.

“Wha…why?” she said.

“Vicanda.”

When he said the name, he saw it on her face. She’d been doing a remarkable job. She would have fooled any other, or at least any one not looking for what he found. She knew the name, and not in the manner someone might accidentally hear of it in passing or even hear it by the lady telling a tale about an encounter with him. No. The young woman knew the name in the same manner that a man operating in the shadows knew his name.

“But don’t worry, my dear,” said Skamsen, “you’ve nothing to fear from him. The lady was his Mark. He assassinated her and the child she carried.”

At the mention of the child, the young woman’s face blanched. “That’s impossible,” she said, her voice shaky and only a whisper.

“It’s a tragedy, to be sure. But ask your lord. He will tell you he finally sired an heir.”

The young woman said nothing as she turned up the stairs toward the lord’s bedchamber.

Skamsen turned and descended several steps before stopping to tell her one last thing. “It’s strange. I’ve heard of Vicanda and the servants of um...Sarvotstra, is it?. And I’ve heard the rumors about their laws. I wonder how someone convinced him to take up the Mark of a pregnant woman.”

The woman’s knees lost their strength. She put a hand down on the steps as she plopped down on them. She whispered again. “I didn’t...” she began before catching herself.

“Unless the Mark bearer didn’t know,” said Skamsen, nodding as if pondering the truth. “If that’s the case, I’m guessing he will be mighty unhappy with the person funding the Mark. His reputation will be tainted.” Skamsen shook his head and sighed. “I wouldn’t want to be the Mark bearer. I hear Vicanda is the most dangerous marekari to ever study under Sarvotstra.”

In a breathy and shaky voice, she said, “What’s…what’s a marekari?”

“A killer. A murderer. A ruthless assassin who will stop at nothing until he’s tracked his prey to extermination.”

She let out a few quick breaths, her eyes darting all around the room.

“But,” said Skamsen, turning back down the steps, “as I said, these are just rumors.” He shrugged. “There may be no truth to them. And if the rumors are true, these assassins from...um...uh...Sarvotstra – I keep forgetting that name – only kill their intended target. Since the Lady is dead, I’m sure you and everyone else in this estate have nothing to worry about.” Skamsen gave her a reassuring smile. “Unless someone here is the Mark bearer. In that case, I’d flee this place. Have a good evening, my lady.”

Skamsen turned away from her and left the estate, never once looking back.