Chapter 6: Informant
Fen’s newly acquired money was burning a hole in his pocket, so he used it to try and burn a hole in his liver. He bought an entire bottle of booze, barely even cheap, and drank the rest of the day away, falling unconscious before the sun set.
When he woke the next morning, well after dawn, the hangover served to enhance the worries the liquor had erased, so with a regretful sigh Fen cleaned himself up and headed over to The Vulgar Lake.
Harl was already there, cleaning up the bar and getting ready for the day. He eyed Fen skeptically as he entered. “You got drunk without me?”
Fen nodded, sitting heavily at the bar.
“I really want to stay out of it then.” Harl said.
“I know.” Fen said. “But I think this one is something really special, and I could use your… talents for it.”
Harl shook his head, disappointed. “You say that about twice a year.”
“Yup.” Fen let the silence build, knowing that it was letting Harl’s curiosity boil inside him.
“Alright.” Harl eventually said. “Tell me about it.”
Fen held back his smile as he explained what he’d found so far. “The ledger I was hired to find had incriminating evidence about the King, and some of the other information I found possibly points to the Queen conspiring against him.”
“What do you need me for then?” Harl asked, though the ill look on his face told Fen that he already knew something.
“Have you heard anything about this recently?”
Harl shook his head as though to say no, but he started talking anyway. “Well, word on the street has been that the queen has been acting odd lately. Taking visitors in secret and doing her best to evade the palace guards.”
“That sounds about right if she really is conspiring.” Fen said.
Silence fell between them again, and again Fen let it hang. Harl looked at him uncomfortably, twisting the fat gold ring on his thumb as he stewed.
“Fine.” Harl placed his hands down on the counter. “I’ve heard the name Elzie going around a lot. She’s a former servant at the palace, and she apparently fell in with the wrong folks and then got fired.”
“Thanks Harl.” Fen said, standing to leave.
“You could have figured that out on your own and you know it.” Harl said. “You know I hate helping you with these things, it makes me feel dirty.
“Yeah, but that would have taken me a whole lot more time, so this was worth a shot.” Fen shrugged. “Sorry.”
“Whatever.”
Fen slunk out of the tavern, feeling guilty for using his friend, but he forced that out of his mind, engaged by the intrigue of the job he now had before him.
Elzie was a bit of a recluse, though that seemed to be a recent development as a lot of people Fen asked had heard of her. With a whisper in the right ear and a few coins in the right pockets Fen was easily able to track her down.
She lived in a small home on the outskirts of Unger. All the windows were shuttered and no smoke rose from the chimney. Fen sat down across the street and watched the house for a while, worried that nobody was home.
A few minutes passed in stillness before Fen caught the glimmer of eyes peeking through the slats of the shutters. He grinned and walked up to the door and knocked.
There was, naturally, no response.
“Elzie?” Fen called out. Not loud enough for his voice to carry, but he knew that if someone was just on the other side of the door they would hear him. “I need your help with a situation that I’ve heard you know about.”
The door snapped open a moment later, and a small, disheveled woman with a kitchen knife hissed at him. “What do you want?”
“I’m here to speak with Elzie.” Fen said with a smile. “I presume we have some common interests.”
“How do I know you’re not just here to kill me?” Elzie asked, knuckles going white on the knife.
“If someone wanted you dead then you would already be dead. I’m just here to talk, and to help.”
Elzie seemed to deflate a little, the knife falling from its threatening position. She stood there and stared for a long moment, the weight of the world behind her eyes as she considered his words. “Alright. Come in.”
Fen stepped past her and she closed the door, latching several different locks behind him.
“You are a paranoid one.” Fen said, glancing around the disheveled room.
“Well, you came looking, so you must know something about me. Wouldn’t you be too?” Elzie gestured for him to sit and then sat across the table from him.
“Fair point.” Fen said. “Pissing off royalty never ends well.”
“Why are you here then?”
“To piss off some royalty,” Fen grinned at Elzie’s glower. “I’m a mercenary,” she tensed when he said that, so he rushed to explain, “I was tasked to find some information, and along with it I found a whole lot about the King and Queen. I decided to dig a little deeper and I heard that you might be able to tell me something.”
Elzie nodded slowly. There were huge dark bags under her eyes, but she perked up as it finally sank in that Fen was there to help her. “The King is a bad man.” She said. “But the Queen might be even worse. I stumbled into one of her planning sessions, and her and her friends are going to try and blackmail the King into handing over power to them. As soon as she found out I’d overheard she kicked me out of the palace. I’ve been worried about assassins ever since.”
That made sense. Regis’s thoughts of a coup had come from his own intentions, but it was natural that the Queen would try something quieter. “What do you think we could do to stop that?” Fen asked.
“I really don’t know. The dirt she has on him is true stuff, so when she goes for it it’s probably going to stick.” She shook her head then. “I don’t think the King will go with it quietly though. He’s a real bastard and it’s likely he’ll fight back in some way.”
Fen nodded. “I’ve got some ideas coming to mind. None of them are very pleasant.”
“Let me help you.” Elzie said. “I’ve been stressing about this whole thing for weeks, knowing this terrible secret, but not having any way to act on it. I think I could be useful to you though, I still have some connections in the palace and I have a whole lot of experience from helping the Royal family for years.”
“I’ll think about it.” Fen said.
“Please?”
“I’ll let you know when I come up with something you can do.” Fen said. “I don’t really have a plan just yet.”
“Thank you.” Elzie said, and for the first time in their whole conversation she smiled. It took the years of stress off her, and Fen realized that she was much younger than he had thought, likely not even twenty yet.
“Don’t thank me yet. Neither of us know what we’re getting ourselves into.”
Notes: This chapter was a few weeks late because I hit a bit of writers block trying to get it right. I decided to spend a little extra time doing some extra drafts to get it to a place I was happy with rather than rushing it to stick to a self-imposed schedule.
