by H J Peterson
The Assassin’s Blade:
The Archangel Trilogy - Book 1
H.J Peterson
For my loyal readers:
Thanks for sticking with me
I. ADELRIC
Adelric Biermann couldn’t help but stare out the carriage window on the night his life changed forever.
The Überhaus, the pride of the city of Königstadt and Vorbereich’s premier opera house, loomed right outside that window, a giant, glowing monolith amidst the darkened streets. It was absolutely massive, with columns that were easily twenty meters tall, grand windows, gargoyles on the roof's ledge, and a domed roof of oxidized copper that allowed for enough space for one of the largest opera houses in the world. It had taken ten years to build, ten of the worst years of Adelric’s life: Manfred II, for reasons unknown, let the city tax the commoners to death to get the money to build it, and he’d spent those years on the brink of starving to death. Five years later, it was one of the grandest, most extravagant buildings in the world, with enough money to make him live like a king for the rest of his life…
Adelric forced himself to stop thinking about that. He couldn't steal anything that night: Bator had been very clear that he would be skinned alive if he took or left anything that could be traced back to him.
He looked over at Klara Schultz, one of Bator’s main Bashers, who was sitting across the carriage from him. She’d taken off her glove and was tending to her mechanical hand, tightening up a few screws in the wrist. Maybe she’d actually get a new one with the money she was getting from that job, if she could go through the painful procedure to replace it.
"That's not a good idea, Klara," Adelric said. "Bator will kill you if you get grease all over that dress. Do you have any idea how much those things cost?"
"One thousand five-hundred twenty-five marks for the dress, one-hundred marks for the stain resistant gloves, seventy-five marks for the shoes, four-hundred marks for the necklace, two-hundred marks for the earrings, and one-hundred fifty marks for each the hairpin an’ the fan, both specialized," Klara said as she continued to tweak her arm. Her Gelynian accent was thick at the moment: it looked like she was waiting to turn off her brogue. "You'll find that comes to a total o’ three-thousand one-hundred twenty marks with taxes."
She looked up at him with an annoyed look, gesturing at what Adelric was wearing with her small screwdriver. "That suit with all your trappings cost us four-thousand two-hundred marks, makin’ this venture worth a gran’ total of seven-thousand three-hundred twenty marks. And that ain’t countin’ everything else.”
Adelric must of looked as confused as he felt, because she just rolled her eyes at him as she continued to work on her hand. "I handled the lot of marks for this job, boyo. You see, that’s what happens when the boss actually trusts ya.”
Adelric looked back out the window of the carriage as they made their final approach to the Überhaus. So, Klara did hate him. What did he do to her to deserve it? Did she just hate everybody?
Actually, now that he thought about it… that was probably it.
The carriage rolled to a stop, and Adelric began his final mental preparations for his job that night. It was time to get into the mindset of a nobleman, and to not think about what was going to happen if he royally screwed up-
Focus, Adelric told himself as he turned his attention, the carriage bouncing up and down slightly as the driver came off of his seat. You’re going to kill us all if you psyche yourself out.
The door to the carriage opened, letting chill, moist air in. Standing there was Elisha, one of Bator’s trusted drivers.
Elisha held a hand out to Klara, offering some help. "If I may be so bold to say, Lady Montparnasse: you look very lovely this evening,"
Was it just Adelric, or was Klara actually blushing? He certainly wasn't about to bring it up: he had a feeling that she would kill him if he mentioned it.
Instead, he got right into his persona: that of an upper noble from Rochereux by the name of Emil Montparnasse.
"You have our tickets, yes?" Adelric asked Elisha, doing what he could to slip into a Rocheran accent. Even after weeks of practice, he wasn’t great at it: he might just pretend to be some sort of mute for the night.
"Of course, Lord Montparnasse," Elisha said as he helped Adelric from the carriage. Elisha pulled two tickets out of the pocket of his threadbare coat and bowed the second they were in Adelric’s hand.
That made him uncomfortable. Nobody should bow to someone else, especially when that someone else was him.
"Box 16, huh?" Adelric asked nobody in particular. "Is that one of the upper or lower boxes?"
"It's one of the upper boxes, darling," Klara drawled in her flawless Rocheran accent as she daintily offered Adelric one of her gloved hands. He took it and did his best to not react to the feeling of gears and brass beneath the fragile fabric. “You'll want a good view of the opera, right? After all, you don't have any business partners to distract you during it."
"Of course, my dear," Adelric said. The two of them began walking to the doors to the Überhaus, giving Elisha a sort of signal to leave with the carriage. "I swear on my honor that I won't allow anything to come between us tonight; not even business."
She tried to look up at Adelric with a starry-eyed look in her eyes as he handed the doorman the tickets for inspection. It wasn't hard to look past it: she wanted to kill him. He knew that she hated getting talked down to, and that he had to in order to play his part convincingly, but… well, would it be worth it in the end? Especially if she decided to kill him for it?
Once the doorman saw that the tickets were real, he handed them back to Adelric and bowed as he opened the door for them, letting Adelric see the inside of the Überhaus for the first time as they were announced to everyone in the room.
In all honesty, Adelric was disappointed.
The room the two of them found themselves in was fairly large, but that was the only thing that was particularly unique about it. Otherwise, it looked just like the reception room of every noble’s house he’d ever snuck into. Almost everything in the room that was the high nobility's entrance was made out of one of two materials: marble and mahogany. The floor was white, while the marble that made up the walls and the pillars towards the sides of the room was a brownish red color, like terra cotta. The ceiling, which supported a simple chandelier lit with candles in the center of the rotunda, was made out of mahogany, with small vines carved into it.
He began to look around at the high nobles that surrounded them. The room they were in was pretty plain, but the people that filled it certainly weren't. The women that surrounded him were dressed in some of the most beautiful (and expensive) dresses he'd ever seen. They were in all sorts of silken hues of blue, green, pink, red, yellow; there were so many different shades of so many different colors, Adelric wasn't even sure he'd seen some of them, before. There were also a million and one different cuts and styles: loose-fitting, form-fitting, massive skirts, simple skirts, skirt volume spread evenly, skirt volume in the back; it was hard to believe that when he was younger, he’d thought that skirts only came in gray and brown.
"Aren't you going to put your things in the cloakroom, darling?"
Adelric looked down at Klara. She had an innocently quizzical look on her face, which translated to one thing in his mind: he was acting stupid, and she couldn’t figure out why.
"Of course, my dear," he said, smacking a smile onto his face. "I just can't quite decide how I feel about leaving you here by yourself; it isn't right to leave the woman you're accompanying by herself."
"Oh, it's quite alright," Klara said. "You're really quite the traditionalist, aren't you?"
And you aren't? No matter what social class one was
in, one thing remained constant: the fact that nobody cared about a woman's political, social, or philosophical beliefs, just as long as you agreed with your husband in public. To disagree was very rude, and it might blow their covers if the wrong person heard.
However, Adelric didn't bring it up: the last thing he wanted was for Klara to have any reason to be any more pissed than she already was.
"I know," Adelric said, trying to act embarrassed. "I'm sorry about that; I blame my father."
With that, Adelric gave Klara's gloved hand a kiss and made his way to the cloakroom with the other men while the woman chatted with one another.
Compared to the women they were escorting, the men looked very plain: most simply wore black suits with white shirts and, sometimes, an article of clothing that matched the dress of the woman they were escorting. Of course, those clothes were still easily worth enough money to feed a family living in the slums of the Vergesse quarter for a month.
Adelric hated seeing it. It wasn’t fair: why did he have to steal just to get by, while others hardly had to lift a finger to have everything in the world they could ever want?
He hated to think it, but… what if all that stuff Bator was always spouting was right? What if the only way to make the nobility see what they were doing to the people of Vorbereich was to force them to look at it? What if that really was the only path to recovery from the war?
Never in his life would he have thought that Bator might actually have a point about something.
When Adelric came back out of the cloakroom, he saw that Klara was fanning herself in the midst of a bunch of noblewomen, the slightly bored look noblewomen were famous for on her face. He found himself thinking that Elisha was right when he said she looked beautiful that night. The dress was made out of cream colored silk, the well-fitting bodice of which was embroidered with gold flowers. The embroidery began to grow simpler and simpler starting where the skirts began until the embroidery ended entirely about halfway down the dress. It started back up on the hem of the top skirt, though. The dress–and its matching, elbow length gloves–accentuated how pale her skin was, while the emerald and diamond earrings, necklace, and hair pin made her red hair look even redder. He knew that red hair was not the most desirable hair colors, and that the shade of green her eyes were much too dark for noble tastes, but that didn’t stop people from staring, including himself.
It felt strange, having those thoughts for a woman who would like nothing more than to throw him right off the edge of a cliff.
"Are you alright, darling?" Klara asked, pulling Adelric out of his thoughts.
Adelric smiled and took Klara by the hand, again. "I was just thinking about how lucky I am to have a wife as pretty as you."
Klara smiled warmly at him as he began to lead her towards the marble staircase that lead to the rest of the Überhaus. "Aww, aren't you sweet? It reminds me of why I married you."
Adelric didn't even realize he was holding his breath until he let out a small sigh of relief. She didn't seem to see the real compliment disguised by the fake one, thank heavens; he didn't think she would've taken that very well, especially coming from him.
However, he didn't have time to relish the tiny victory. Just after that little exchange, they came into the main entry hall of the Überhaus.
Adelric did his best to not gawk.
Now that he was out of the high nobles' entrance, he could see that the Überhaus' really earned its reputation. The room he found himself in was the biggest, most ornate place he'd ever seen. The entire entry hall seemed to be made of marble, from the carved pillars that supported the sides of the building to the grand staircase that lead to the entrance to the theater, itself. Brilliant candles lit the space, supported by bronze statues in the classical style, making the nobility’s clothes shine. A massive fresco covered the ceiling, depicting some scene from a long-forgotten religion. Balconies lined the walls, all of which were filled with people looking down at the high nobles like hawks, interested in every breath they took. Servants wandered around it all like ghosts: dressed in white and nearly invisible. They served champagne and small hors d'oeuvres to everyone with their heads down, wanting to be forgotten by the nobles the second they were no longer required.
"How much time do we have before the opera starts, dear?" Klara asked as they walked up the marble steps.
Adelric pulled out the pocket watch Bator gave him for that job. It was a pretty nice piece: if he didn’t think he’d end up dead for it, he might go pawn it off for some extra marks.
But, in the end, he didn’t even need to look at it: a bell sounded, signaling to the people in the opera house to get to their seats.
"We've got ten minutes, sweetheart," he said. He closed the watch and put it in his pocket as he looked down at her. "What do you want to do? Do you want some champagne or something? We have quite a bit of time on our hands to kill."
"Oh, I rather think we should got sit in our box, now," Klara said. "I think it might be a good idea to make sure that the box is in order, before everybody else starts taking their seats and snatches up all of the attendants.”
Adelric could feel his heart skip a beat. Not being able to find an attendant was one of the agreed upon signals they had: it meant that they needed to get ready for the job.
"Of course, dear," he said as they got to the first landing. "I think that's a wonderful idea."
They went through the doorway at the top of the second flight and entered a sort of waiting room, where the doors to the boxes on the first level and the theater and the stairs to the other boxes were. They began going up the red, velvet stairs.
"How are you feeling about all this?" It looked like Klara was back to her old self... sort of. She didn’t let her brogue come through, still, and she was actually pretending like she felt somewhat sympathetic towards him.
"A little nervous," Adelric admitted, scratching the back of his neck. "I've never exactly done anything like this, before."
Klara looked back at him, a horrified look on her face. "What?"
Adelric could feel himself starting to blush. "Y-you didn't know that? I don’t really do big jobs like this-“
Klara cursed under her breath as she began to rub her temples in annoyance.
"That's just damned perfect," She muttered to herself. "This is the most important job Bator's ever put on, and he’s got the street musician playing the lead.”
"I don't think it's a great idea, either: believe me, I think I'm the least qualified out of all of us-"
"Oh, well aren't you so damned humble," Klara snapped, turning and pointing an accusing finger at him. “Too bad that humility ain’t gonna keep ya from gettin’ us all killed!”
And there was the brogue. Thank heaven, the group that was on the landing when they walked up the stairs didn’t seem to notice the Rocheran noblewoman speaking like a Gelynian street rat.
"I didn't want this," Adelric said quietly as they walked into their box. They were the only ones in there: Bator had paid for the box right next to them, thanks to the fact that they were accessed through the same door and only had a small curtain separating them. Hopefully, it meant that there wouldn't be any eavesdropping or interruptions during their job. "I was under the impression that I didn't have much of a choice when Bator gave me this assignment."
"Let's just get this over with, alright?" Klara asked as she shut the curtains at the front of the box, blocking them off from the rest of the opera house, all trace of the brogue gone. She looked back at him. "Did Bator tell you how to apply shade oil, or do you not know how to do that, either?"
"A little refresher course would be nice," Adelric said as he pulled his dagger out from his coat, along with a bottle filled with liquid poison. It was specialized for use with a blade: it stuck to the blade and didn't drip off, making it the salve of choice for people that needed their victim to go down, and fast. "Bator went a little fast when he explained, and I was too afraid to ask any questions about it."
Klara sighed, shaking her head. "Well, get the blade out; it looks like we've got a lot of work to do.”
II. FRIEDRICH
Friedrich Eltz hated going to the opera.
That night, though, he was actually a little excited to go: he had the pleasure of escorting Katalin von Thurzó, the daughter of a Magyaran count, to the opera. He’d met her in his Magyaran class (she was the teacher’s aide and not a student, of course,) and they became fast friends when they learned of their mutual love of books and art. Dieter Eltz, Friedrich’s father and current head of house Eltz, didn’t approve of their friendship: she was a foreigner and far below his station, but he grudgingly allowed it. Friedrich was certain that he’d just found a noble to court, that time.
That night, Katalin was looking especially lovely. Her dress was the color of merlot wine, and had a crinoline that kept most of the volume in the back. Her sleeves went all the way to her wrists, her skirts went down to her ankles, and a collar covered her neck, making it the most modest dress in the main waiting area of the Überhaus. It accented some of her Magyaran features, namely her olive toned skin. Diamond berets, which matched her earrings, did their part to show just how dark her loosely done brown hair was. She was so, so beautiful: he was so lucky that she liked him.
“You look very beautiful tonight,” Friedrich told her as they went up the steps that led out of the high noble’s entrance.
Katalin’s cheeks turned bright red, embarrassed, flattered.
“But am I good enough for your father?” she asked.
It was only then that Friedrich noticed that she was tapping her middle finger against her thumb, just as she always did whenever she and Herr György did sample conversations in class. Just as any proper noblewoman would (and probably should), she cared deeply about what Friedrich’s family thought of her. It was good thing, he guessed, but… well, he just wished that she wouldn’t care so much about Lord Eltz’s opinion, of all people.