The Thief of Dunmire and the Tear of Astra (The League of Sinister Means Book 1)

by H. K. MacTavish

  I should mingle. Maybe I’ll make a friend or learn something. The storage room can wait for a minute. I walk to the other servants and don’t recognize any of them.

  “Do you see Princess Bridget?” one asks.

  “Yes. Up at the large table,” another says.

  “And Princess Melinda?” the first one asks again.

  “She’s not here yet,” a third responds.

  I step forward and interject myself in their little conversation.

  “I heard she was to arrive tonight. Maybe she will arrive after dinner,” I say. Let’s see if they have any new information on Melinda’s arrival.

  “Prince Blaise would have held out until she arrived,” a serving girl says.

  Yeah, of course he would. What was I thinking? That means she isn’t coming tonight. Wait. Maybe that gives me an extra day.

  “When is she supposed to arrive?” I ask.

  “I don’t know,” a serving girl says.

  “She has to arrive at some point. What would be the point of everyone gathering if not for the ceremony?” another says.

  “It is the formal engagement of Prince Blaise and Princess Melinda. Princess Melinda has to arrive!” another says.

  This is, troubling, to say the least. While I’m happy to be given some extra time, I get nervous when things don’t go as they’re supposed to.

  Well, I must assume that she will come, eventually. Even if she doesn’t tonight, the Tear of Astra is still here in Hammerheim. I don’t need Melinda to be here. I just need to discover where Blaise has hidden the Tear of Astra. I bet it’s in that room he was in earlier. It looked like a war room. All keeps have some sort of war room for the heroes to play general in and play with their swords. I didn’t see a bed in there so I know it’s not a bedroom. I’ll need to search it. Maybe tonight.

  Imagine getting lucky and finding the Tear of Astra tonight! No more trying to get into that vault they’ve built. I love getting lucky.

  I start to head up the stairs at a casual pace. So many heroes have arrived. I recognize some of them from previous encounters. I would love to knock them all down a bit. Well, a bit more than some of them have already knocked. I have been successful the few times that they have tried to stop me. This one hero, an archer named Katrina Korecki, tried to stop me from pilfering a chest of gold out east in the country of Masavichian. The gold was from some recently collected taxes, I think. She came at me, trying to shove her shafts into me. I wasn’t having any of it. Last I saw of her she was hanging by the seat of her underwear from a tree, cursing me into the night. I wonder how long she was up there.

  Heroes like those gathered in that hall need a little comeuppance. Without villains like me around their egos would just go unchecked. I’m doing a public service really.

  Up to the second floor I go. Old Lady Winters will be in the feast hall with the other heroes and nobles. Now would be an excellent time to pilfer the nobles’ bedrooms.

  It appears that is such a good idea that the nobles and heroes have posted their servants as guards in addition to the guards patrolling the second floor of the keep. Well, I didn’t want any of their stuff anyway. I walk as if I belong there and no one questions my place there.

  Down the hall I see a servant wearing the yellow and purple tunic of Veronica Hornsbach. Her coat of arms is a tree rising from a pair of outstretched hands. The Hornsbach family motto: To give is to live. I almost vomit in my mouth after reading that above the tree.

  Her appearance so close to the storage room could be problematic. Well, it’s not like she’s a sorceress or a warrior. Her power is money. That won’t help her here against me.

  I enter the storage room and look around. No one else is in here. I walk about and see the bucket off in the corner. It’s filled with sheets tied together with strong knots. And the little contraption is there, resting right under the rope blankets. This thing is so easy to make, to hear my sister tell of it.

  I put it all back. I’ll head out tonight if I can. Right now I think I’ll make it look like I am spending the night here. Actually, that isn’t a bad idea. I certainly don’t want to sleep in a communal room. I hate that! People talking, farting, sucking in the walls…I can’t get any sleep that way! If others get the idea to stay here tonight I’ll have to figure out another way into that war room on the fourth floor.

  I pull out some of the spare blankets and spread it out on the floor, near enough to the corner of the room as I can manage with all the furniture that is still there. It will help prying eyes from seeing that bucket. Blankets knotted together and that strange contraption inside will beg too many questions. Questions that can’t be answered.

  “Making yourself comfortable?” a servant asks. She speaks as if we know each other. I look up and…it’s the same woman that I embarrassed earlier. She clearly sees I’m someone else now. “Oh, I’m sorry.”

  “No, that’s okay,” I say. “I just have one of those faces.”

  What was her name? Come on Corvina, she told you earlier today!

  “I thought you were someone else.”

  Obviously.

  “It’s all right. You don’t think anyone would mind if I sleep here, do you?”

  “Not usually. Sometimes, lords and ladies like to keep us all in one place.”

  “I like being alone,” I say.

  Jessica? No, that’s not her name.

  “You wouldn’t rather have some company?” she asks.

  That would be the opposite of being alone.

  “Thank you, but no. I sleep better this way,” I say. “I just need a bit of quiet and something firm under me without any loud noises or people poking me all night in the back.”

  “Well, most of us are going to be down below in the basement. There’re plenty of leftovers after feasts.”

  Oh! Cast offs from the heroes! That was sarcasm by the way.

  “I’ll be down and pick up something while it’s hot. We still have work ahead of us, don’t we?”

  “Not like earlier today. The lords and ladies are fed and will be entertained afterwards. A handful of servants are working to bring out food and drinks for them, but most of us can relax.”

  “Yeah. Beds are made, floors swept…”

  Jacqueline? Is that her name?

  “And will have to all be changed tomorrow. Sheets washed, new sheets spread over the beds…”

  “Well, we are getting paid,” I say.

  “We are. If we’re lucky we’ll get a bonus.”

  “I like getting lucky, but do you think we’ll get a bonus?”

  “It’s a wedding ceremony! It looks good for the nobles to be benevolent, even if they are not normally so.”

  With the heroes wandering the halls here the servants stand to be minor nobles when this is all done. Still, nothing compared to selling the Tear of Astra.

  “I’ve never served at a wedding proposal before.”

  “No?”

  “No,” I say.

  Julia? I know it began with a ‘J’. This is one of the many reasons why I don’t have friends.

  “Well, we’re pushed harder because everything has to be just right. Two kings, two queens, and a proposal with a priceless jewel.”

  Not priceless. I have met men and women who can absolutely put a price on it.

  “If the other king and queen arrive,” I say, more out of spite.

  “You think they won’t arrive at all?” she asks.

  “Melinda isn’t here either,” I say.

  “Really?” she says. “I’m sure that everyone will arrive in the next day or two.”

  “I should hope so. All this work and effort and no one comes? That would be a huge disappointment, I think. Don’t you?”

  “Everyone will be here. They have to be here!” she says.

  Why is she so adamant...oh, she wants to see the princess-get-the-bauble ceremony.

  “Well, I would be just as disappointed as you if I don’t see the Tear of Astra around Princess Melin
da’s neck,” I say, with all the conviction I can muster.

  “Just thinking about it makes me…”

  The way she’s going on about it I’m guessing…horny?

  “Happy?” I ask.

  “Immensely so,” she says.

  “Well I should head back down to the kitchen. Things will need to be cleaned,” I say.

  “Oh, you should hurry!”

  “Why? I’m going to get yelled at no matter what I do or how well I do it.”

  “That’s not a good attitude to have,” she says.

  “It’s a realistic attitude,” I say. “I just had a break to come up here and see if anyone else had the idea to spend the night here.”

  “I’ll walk down with you,” she says. I leave the storage room with her beside me.

  “That is Lady Hornsbach’s room,” I whisper to her as we pass by.

  “I saw her earlier. She frightens me. She looks so…”

  Bitchy?

  “Mean?” I offer.

  “And cold.”

  “Well, housing orphans can be tiring,” I say.

  “I had forgotten about that. You think she really did that?”

  “Why not? Everyone else here has an equal reputation,” I say.

  And that is weird. Not all nobles and knights are heroic, but almost everyone invited here has some heroism under their belt. It could be that all that heroic adventuring that Prince Blaise does puts all other would be heroes in his little group of friends, so it makes sense that all of his friends would be the heroic types and he would invite his friends to a marriage proposal ceremony. But still, I wonder…

  “Everyone here is a hero?” I ask.

  “Well, not everyone,” Jennifer says.

  Like me.

  “I’m sure there are some dastardly villains about,” I muse.

  “You think a villain would be foolish enough to poke his head in here? Under Prince Blaise’s nose?”

  Absolutely.

  “Well, I didn’t mean that there were really any villains here. I was just joking with you. Besides, some of these nobles have to be the self-absorbed kind, right?”

  “Oh, I see. Yeah.”

  “But,” I say. “Since you bring up a villain…can you imagine how humiliating it would be to do something right under the noses of so many heroes?”

  “Oh, stop it,” she says. She’s not wholly offended or angry at the suggestion. “That would be awful.”

  “For them. But for use lowly servants, we would be the ones treated to quite the show,” I say.

  She laughs.

  “Oh, I’m an awful person for finding that funny,” she says.

  You’re not an awful person. I’ve met awful people. To many, I’m an awful person.

  “What if, some villain finds out that some hero that defeated him, humiliatingly, is here? And the chance to return the favor, well, that would be just too great a temptation to resist, wouldn’t it?”

  “You don’t think that he would be after the Tear of Astra?”

  It always comes back to that, doesn’t it?

  “Or the crown jewels?” I ask.

  “You think this villain would steal those?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Like the Thief of Dunmire?”

  My reputation precedes me. Still, there are other villains out there.

  “What if it’s an assassination?”

  “God! Really?”

  “Why not? They are villains, right? Or a kidnapping? Or…casting a curse!”

  “Stop it!” she giggles. “Maybe we should be on the lookout for the Dark Queen.”

  “Or her sister, the Goblin Queen,” I say.

  “I wouldn’t want any of them to harm the heroes here.”

  “Nor I,” I say, with a completely straight face. I will prevent me from snatching some jewels.

  We continue chatting about Princess Melinda getting the Tear of Astra. It’s all this poor woman will likely have in the way of such, romance. She is poor and whoever her husband is, or will be, they will never give her any stones that shimmer and shine let alone one as big as the Tear of Astra. Living her dreams through a princess is as close as this serving girl will get to being a princess herself.

  Moving Mountains

  The heroes and the nobles are all finished being wined and dined and entertained. Prince Blaise is rising from his seat and a hush falls over the crowd. I’m standing in the doorway with some of the other servants waiting to hear what he had to say.

  “I wish to thank everyone for coming tonight,” he says.

  The servants I’m with are eager to hear what he says. It’s disgusting how they hang on the words of this hero.

  “My precious bride, the princess Melinda, has been delayed,” he continues. Disappointment fills the air. “I know, I promised the ceremony tomorrow and, with luck, we will still have it!”

  He is reaching into his pocket and…

  Oh

  My

  God!

  It’s…it’s so beautiful! The Tear of Astra! It’s, so big, and blue, and shiny. Oh, it is shiny! Am I drooling? I can’t help it, I’m giddy! I’m really giddy! Just to look on it! And to think, I’ll be able to hold it soon!

  “I will prove to her my love by giving her this, a simple token,” Blaise says.

  I nearly choke. Leave it to heroes to think that you need to prove love with a display of wealth; also, a simple token? Really Blaise? I will be doing them a favor by taking that, simple token. The wealth is wasted on them.

  “But,” he continues putting it back into his pocket. His right pocket. I could pinch it right now. Bump into him, grab the Tear of Astra, make my way out…no. Now is not the time to be hasty. Why do I feel like I’m in a lion’s den all of a sudden? I feel so much like I am the star of a play. I am the Thief of Dunmire. I’m supposed to be hidden, obscure. I don’t have a lead role.

  No one is actually looking at me. Why do I get the sense that everyone is looking at me?

  “But, I do not want to waste words without my beloved here to hear them,” Blaise says.

  Aw, how romantic. I wonder what he will say when Melinda is here. I mean, without the Tear of Astra, because, obviously, I’ll have it. I didn’t mean to say that I want him to give the Tear of Astra to her. That’s just silly.

  And romantic.

  “Tomorrow at this time the true festivities will begin in earnest!” Blaise says.

  Yes. Yes they will.

  Of course, if he keeps the blasted thing on him all the time I will have to pinch his pockets, won’t I? Or do I? He doesn’t keep it on him when he sleeps, does he? He can’t carry something like that in his pocket all the time. He’s got to have a place to stash it. I’ll follow him. Pretend I’m some love sick admirer of him and Melinda. I can be really sweet when I want to.

  The heroes and nobles are standing up to leave. I stand to the side quickly as they all disperse. They chatter as they eye each one of us.

  “You there,” I hear a woman say.

  “Yes my…” I begin but pause when I see it is Princess Bridget. “…lady.” Isn’t she gorgeous? That dress is doing her all kinds of favors and the way she is looking at me is making my heart race.

  “Come with me,” she says.

  I’d love to my lady. Wink.

  “Yes my lady,” I say. I’ll follow you wherever you want me to go. Her dress is lower cut and I can’t help but stare at her lovely neck, how it gracefully merges with those charming shoulders of hers. She is perfect.

  I follow her through the great mass of people; heroes, servants, attendants, and nobles are all talking loudly amongst themselves and all parting to make room for Princess Bridget. And me.

  We head up to the second floor. She has a bedroom there. Not the fourth floor. Not even the third floor. The rooms on the fourth floor are for her brother Blaise, her parents when they arrive, and Melinda and her parents, once they arrive. Poor Princess Bridget, she is forced to sleep below the others.

  Sh
e doesn’t seem to mind this slight to see how she struts through the halls. And believe me, I’m watching her strut through these halls. She opens the door to her room after she dismisses the guards nearby.

  “Your highness,” the guards respond as they depart. They don’t go too far. Just down the hall.

  Not that I want to hurt Bridget. I’m a thief, not an assassin. Killing her wouldn’t do me any good.

  Bridget closes the door behind her once I am inside and she sashays over to the bed. She takes a long look at me.

  “I saw the way you were looking at me earlier,” she says.

  “Oh?” I ask.

  “Don’t worry. The door is locked,” she says. “Unless you want to leave,” she says as she starts to undo the laces of her bodice.

  Gah! No! Me no leave! Me stay! Shit! Is that a quiver I feel? No, not before she’s come undressed! Don’t you dare humiliate yourself before this gorgeous woman. Damn it Mary, get your shit together!

  “I would very much like to stay,” I say, moving closer to Bridget. Yes. Smooth!

  As I get closer I ask myself, why me? I’m just a servant to her. She’s a princess. Then again, how many women in this castle would look at Bridget the way I’m looking at her? And how many servants looking at her like this are as cute as I am?

  This has to be a trap!

  “You seem sweet. Are you sweet all the time?” Bridget asks as she glides her hands over my chest.

  A sexy trap!

  “It depends on my mood,” I say. I take a ribbon she’s playing with

  “Oh, what can you do with that?” she asks.

  “I can do all kinds of things with this,” I say, as wickedly as I can.

  “I thought you were sweet,” she says, smiling playfully.

  “You don’t want sweet.”

  “No?” she asks.

  “I bet you have sweet all the time,” I say.

  “Do I?” she asks. “How do you know what I want?” she is tracing her fingers over my…Gah! Hold it together Mary! Stand tall damn it!

  “You don’t ask if someone is sweet because that’s what you want. I could hear the disappointment in your voice,” I say.