A Brush with Fate

[Luskin]

At the gesture from Lord Bowen, Luskin moved to the empty chair and sat down, letting the comments about his clothing and etiquette pass for the moment. As to the clothing, Luskin was content for the moment with the fact that the small ruse was producing the desired effect even upon Lord Bowen, who Luskin had judged to be a shrewd politician if nothing else. If Luskin's guess was correct as to the nature of the work Bowen had for him, that ruse could be useful, and it wouldn't be difficult to convince the Lord of its usefulness should it be necessary.

As to his etiquette...what exactly had the Lord meant by that comment? Either it was a further remark aimed at his clothing choice, or the nobleman had somehow heard of the events surrounding his meeting with Lady Bowen the previous night, and probably of Luskin's glib remarks as well. That option did not bode extraordinarily well, but Luskin doubted the incident would come to much, given the circumstances. While Bowen easily wielded enough power to make Luskin "disappear" should he so desire, enough people had already heard the Lord's version of the assassination attempt that such an act would surely raise questions. This granted Luskin some small amount of pull with the Lord of Dolovich, at least so long as he kept his mouth shut.

The matter did, however, open up further questions as to who exactly had passed that information along to the Lord, for Luskin doubted that Victoria herself had mentioned it given what he had seen about their relationship, but for now Luskin focused on the business at hand, resolving to think it over once he was alone. He surveyed the table in front of him, noting with a small amount of disgust the display of opulence, and selected a few pieces of fruit, bread, and cheese from the array of trays. Once his plate was filled, Luskin sat back in his chair, eating selectively, and patiently waiting for Lord Bowen to begin.

[Shin]

Lord Bowen showed no hurry as he shuffled through his papers, finally grabbing up a rolled parchment off to the side. He carefully unrolled it on the table before him and scanned over the words before rolling it back up and sliding it across the table to Luskin. Lord Bowen repeated the process several more times throughout Luskins meal.

“The items there are several you will find useful throughout your travels. The first,” he gestured towards the only rolled parchment. “is a treaty signed by each of the main lords of each nation, pledging their aid to me. You will need to go to each of them and deliver a separate message.”

Lord Bowen pointed to a larger stack of sealed letters, each with is personal seal. “There are the letters, each addressed to the separate Lords. The old looking folded document is a map if the country, however, you may or may not need that. And the final paper is a document verifying who you are and that you are my emissary, it should provide some weight to your words depending on where you go of course.”