Igraine blinked as she woke. She sat up in bed and looked around her room, clutching the sheet to her chest. Thorin was long gone, but the impression of his body was still next to her. He had held her for a long time after their love making. He was changing, and probably not for the better, but he still loved her more than anything. It showed in the way the coverlet was bunched and crowded around her. He even made sure to push the blankets closer so she wouldn't realize he had left. He was getting entirely too good at leaving and it made her a little sad on the inside. Igraine glanced around self conciously at the darkest areas of her room, knowing and hoping he would be there, watching over her. At least he came to her in the dark of night, he might eventually stop coming to her at all -- but she hoped not. She liked his arms around her.
"My lady. You are up quite late." Blackburn stepped into the room and sending maids to her bedside. He turned his back to her so that she could slip into a heavy silk robe of a soft lavender shade. At the sound of her voice he turned back around and offered her a roll of parchment with a bow.
"Oh, you have the documents for Master D'Angelo? Good. You'll need my signature before you send it to him?" At his nod, Igraine leaned over a small desk in her room and pulled her pen out of it's inkwell. With a flourish she signed her name and sanded the ink so it wouldn't smear. She turned and handed the documents to Blackburn. "Make sure all is well with Master D'Angelo. See that he wants for nothing."
Blackburn nodded and escorted Igraine into her sitting room. She took a seat near the window as the maids pulled the curtains back. The brilliant morning sun warmed her cold skin and she tilted her head back with her eyes closed to drink in the bone deep warmth, letting it soak away her aches and her worries. Blackburn watched her, worrying only slightly at the quickly fading red mark on her neck and the almost invisible bruises on her wrists. Thorin was a rough lover with his new powers. Something else was bothering her too, and Blackburn made to step forward but thought better of disrupting her during her quiet time.
"I'll see that he gets the documents, Majesty. Do you require anything else?" Blackburn asked as he walked toward the door.
"I would like to see the Water Mage again. He is quite fascinating and there is something about him that makes me curious. If D'Angelo will humor me I would like to see him as well. I do believe that Thorin is lurking about as well. Let's have everyone meet in the dining hall. It wouldn't do well to have them meeting me in nothing but a robe, now would it?" Igraine laughed as she looked over her shoulder at Blackburn.
Gavin Blackburn backed out of the Queen's rooms and turned immediately to D'Angelo's door. He knocked heartily so that the man would be able to hear him and waited patiently for him to answer the door. It was well past time for the Queen's personal guard's training so there was no where else he could be, well unless he had other business but Blackburn was certain he would be in his rooms.
He caught a maid leaving the Queen's rooms with a basket of laundry and told her to set aside her load to inquire after the Water Mage. He paid her for her troubles and set her off.
The girl was hardly older than twenty and she hurried quickly to where the Master Blackburn had said the odd new mage friend of the Queen's was. She made it there quickly, knowing all the backways of servants. She hurried to his doorway and knocked on it. When, and if, he opened the door she would curtsey low and say: "The Queen Igraine requests your presence in the dining hall as soon as you're ready. I reckon she'll be ready by the time you're dressed and in the hall M'Lord."
The girl spoke without ever looking up, not wanting to offend a man from a culture she had never seen before.