Caia....

Thaddeus and Nathaniel were perplexed at finding an empty cloak outside the hall. After all, they were discreet in their tactics, but was it possible they missed something? It hadn't been even 10 seconds from the time Thaddeus had run around the back and Nathaniel hadn't taken an eye off the figure and yet, here was the cloak and the figure was gone in a blink of an eye with only a faint scent of the perfume on the cloak and a slight scent at the door to even prove he or she was ever there in the first place. The only thing left to do was to be more vigilant in the time remaining in the evening and tell the princes in the morning, allowing them to still enjoy themselves.

As Thaddeus took his seat next to Eric, he found that the elder prince was engaged in a conversation with a lovely young lady whose face was vibrant and lively and yet took on a mature note, as if her travels had taken her beyond where she ever intended and often tragically so. Her figure was pleasant and almost catlike in her grace, curving like blown glass. Eric noticed that Thaddeus had sat and introduced his conversation partner.
"Oh, there you are Thad, I was wondering where you'd gone. This is Caia, she's an explorer of sorts and she and I were talking about her exploits...absolutely fascinating."

The woman extended her hand and, almost instinctively, Thaddeus took her hand and kissed it briefly, taking note of her scent in the moments her wrist was close. No luck. A very different scent from that of their watcher. He sat, satisfied he'd done his due diligence. Eric, however, looked a bit annoyed at what he viewed as an attempt at to sabotage his conversation, but under the circumstances, he allowed the gesture to fall by the wayside as Thaddeus excused himself. Undeterred, Eric and Caia continued their conversation while Andrew was otherwise occupied with Romi, Sara, and Martha on the other side of the table with Nathaniel.

Hours passed and villagers began to funnel towards the exits, bound for their warm beds and deep slumber. The conversations held the princes both until deep into the evening as Matthew was preparing to close the main hall for the night. Eric said his good byes and Caia went out one door while the princes' party went out the other. The peculiarities of the night weighed on the two men charged with keeping the princes safe and on the way back to their home away from home, it became clear that all was not well in what was supposed to be paradise as the conversation on the cart revolved around nothing else, but the princes could not know the details of the night just yet, not until tomorrow when the festivities had been mulled over and processed. So with the princes trying like crazy to hear any detail, the guards kept to themselves.

As the group arrived, the princes insisted.

"What happened tonight, Nathaniel?" Andrew asked, putting an arm on Nathaniel's shoulder. Nathaniel kept silent. Eric dismounted the cart and approached the two while Thaddeus trailed behind, carrying the cloak concealed within his own.
"Come on, Nate. Let's have it." Andrew persisted. Again, Nathaniel was silent, this time looking at Thaddeus, who spoke up this time.
"Let's go inside, we can talk there once the girls have gone to bed. This isn't for outdoor conversation." His eyes were brooding and serious and the princes became sober instantly despite their enjoyment of the merriment of the night.

The ladies had arrived a few minutes prior to the princes' party and had already begun turning down beds and the like for the evening. Once the men had entered the main room, Martha and the women greeted them briefly and excused themselves to bed for the night. Thaddeus took off his cloak, setting it across the conversation table along with the second cloak and sat in the chair it was closest to. As Nathaniel came into the room, he sat in the remaining chair.
"Please, sires, take a seat." Eric and Andrew pulled two chairs from near the fireplace and sat with their cohorts at the table. Thaddeus began recounting the events of the evening from the time they arrived at the gathering at the main hall, leaving nothing out as he could recall. Nathaniel added in what details were missing from the time Thaddeus had left the room. All the while, the princes were silent.
"When I rounded the final corner and reached the back exit," Thaddeus explained. "There was no one and I found this." He reached beneath his cloak and took out the one he'd found.
"There is a fragrance I cannot identify on the collar, but if you take a moment to assess, you'll find it quite feminine. I am sorry for lingering so upon kissing the lady Caia's hand, but I had to be sure."
Eric nodded, understanding finally what had been so irritating at the event.
"I had hoped to find further reason to give chase in any direction, but there was none, so I came inside, where the fragrance was still lingering a bit at the door. I thought it might be possible the watcher had only left the cloak behind to throw me off the trail in spite of my attempts at secrecy, which would have been seen by anyone else as completely normal. It was as if whoever it was heard me somehow, but my voice was only but a whisper at the time." Thaddeus was perplexed once more.
"Well," Eric began. "It seems clear we're not alone here, but we're not exactly here for vacation, but rather to make plans. We need to know what's going on here, but without any idea of what we're looking for, I think it's best to simply be on our guard at all times. We may be able to rule out a person or two, but fact is, we have no proof yet. So we need everyone to keep our wits sharp and quick."
"One other thing, though," Andrew added. "It's clear to me that our observer is an adept tactician and that fact alone should mean we must do any kinds of planning behind closed doors or in the confines of controlled spaces. We could do that in the girls' quarters when they go to run their errands. If we do that, however, we need to make sure that there is always a pair of ears on the other side of the door to keep secret every detail of our plans. Above everything, we must control the room."
"Agreed," the rest echoed.

Morning came and went the men slept long and deeply, their slumber moving into the afternoon when Eric arose first and went into the dining room, where the ladies had already sat and were eating lunch, chatting among themselves.
"Good morning, ladies," Eric greeted.
"Afternoon, you mean," Martha corrected.
"Oh my! I must have had an even better time than I originally thought."
"We could hear you all snoring from our rooms," Sara interjected, smiling and giggling. Martha tried stifling a laugh, but failed spectacularly, causing Romi and Sara to join in. Eric held together longer than the rest, but his resolve wore down and suddenly he was overwhelmed and the laughter took him over to such a degree that his face flushed red and tears flowed freely down his cheeks. All the laughter brought the rest of the party from the main room and into the dining room, wondering what had brought it all on, but Eric and the women were laughing too hard to answer in complete sentences before they fell apart once more.

A knock came at the door as the company struggled to regain their composure. Caia stood outside and was greeted by Eric.
"Hi," Eric started awkwardly.
"Hi," Caia responded in kind, but then continued. "I was just in the area walking and was curious if you'd want to get out and see a bit more of town?"
"Uh, sure. Sounds great, actually. Let me grab something to put over my shoulders." He went to the chair and grabbed his cloak and belted his sword as Caia crossed the threshold to wait for a moment inside. "Don't worry guys, I won't be gone too long." And with that, the two closed the door behind them.

Thaddeus had stood when Caia had come inside the cottage and took a few steps toward the door to be more welcoming. As the door closed behind the couple, he returned to his seat and, looking at the tabletop, his heart began to beat in his ears and his stomach was in his throat. Goosebumps and the hairs on his neck stood at full attention. What began as a lesson in tactics had now shifted into a very real understanding that their visit had taken a very dark turn. As he sat, he looked over to find that the cloak he'd found the night before was now missing.

Time....

Morning came and the men were up early. As was the case most mornings, Eric and Thaddeus would take a hike into the hills not far from the cottage and spar, taking care to pull their blows a bit and using fallen branches roughly carved into their chosen implements to avoid doing irreparable harm by equipping what gear they brought with them. Equally the case was that someone would end up with more bruises than the other. This day was Eric's turn to wear the bruises, but either one could have passed for it as their shirts covered the damage and both wore their battle wounds on their faces and postures. They waddled into the house, clutching their arms and sat heavily in the main room, crumpling into a heap.

Andrew, while not especially interested in warfare from a physical standpoint, would talk strategy and philosophy with Nathaniel; walking with the other two and then breaking off when the battlements began. Nathaniel, who had been tutoring alongside the younger prince for a reasonable while before Julien went missing, had a keen mind and often kept Andrew guessing, approaching each challenge with sound logic and well thought out arguments, often playing devil's advocate just to sharpen Andrew's defenses. Not entirely unlike his older brother and his sparring partner, Andrew and his verbal sparring partner came into the cottage exhausted, having put their best challenges to one another and now had headaches at least as large as the welts dealt at the hands of their more physical counterparts.

When their appetites had been sated and the cider had been drunk, they took wonderful and deep rest, allowing Andrew to slip away and take a walk with Romi, who was very curious about the city as she would often be left to care for the house while Martha and Sara would take the trips for important matters whether to the village or the city. And so the questions began and there were many, from the castle's chef to how the stablehands cared for their stock; Romi was a wealth of curiosity, but truth be told, more often than not the questions were to make Andrew scramble to find ways to answer her on the fly. His voice was smooth and his presence made her feel safer than she had since her father had passed. So Andrew talked and helped Romi tend to the gardens and, before either of them knew it, the sun was beginning to set.

Andrew sent Romi ahead into the house while he finished the last little bit of the chore they had been working on together. When he was done, he followed. Eric and the others were readying themselves for the evening.
"What's going on here?" Andrew asked, having not been made aware anything was planned.
"Well, brother, we've been invited by the village to a dinner gathering in the main hall at town center and you need to get yourself made to look presentable. Blisters from gardening tools don't match the look we're going for." He smiled and gave Andrew a playful punch in the arm, catching just the right place making his arm go numb for a minute or two.
"No problem," Andrew replied, holding his arm and rushing into a side room with his clothes and returned looking just as his brother and the other two, adorned well for a proper night out.

And so the party left the house, saddled the free horses and mounted the cart. Once all were set, they took the through road to the town square. From inside the house, however, something was stirring; someone was stirring. Inside the main room, from behind the conversation table near the wall, a panel slid back into place, where there had only been a tapestry hanging in place. There, in the darkness, a small bench rested and a platform encapsulated in the space a closet might have occupied. Beside those, a ladder that led into an underground workspace about triple the size; enough room for a built in table, a small shelving unit and a humble amount of walk space. The room was meant to be enough for a full day's worth of occupancy but leaving no space to lay one's head. A lone figure sat at the table, which was covered with small parchments and scrolls ranging from historical documents to ceremonial rites. By candlelight, those eyes glinted and danced as the figure began to write. Once done, the chair was pushed in, candle was extinguished and enough time was elapsed for the smoke to dissipate. The ladder was ascended and latched dispatched and from the darkened room, the figure emerged, letter in hand and out the door towards the village. After all, the gathering might, in fact, garner valuable intelligence and even the darkest gods knew the value of intelligence.

The village had all turned up in force for the wonderful event and, it seemed, no expense was given to the lavish spread with plenty of fresh produce, baked goods, and meats prepared to perfection lining all but the last foot's worth of space around the periphery. Eric, Andrew and their company entered the hall with mouths very much agape. The village leader was an aged man by the name of Matthew and wife, son, and daughter had come out for the event. When the crowd had all found themselves in the hall, he stood from his chair at the head of the table, quieting the masses.

"Alright, everyone find a spot and have a seat," he began. "We are honored to welcome the princes and their caretakers to town this evening and we have come together to give them thanks for re-establishing the markets in the city. As you all know, there were tough times when the markets were put off for harvest hardship, but we thank the princes for keeping us in their thoughts and having the influence to bring us all together once again. Thanks to those who put together this event and those who helped in preparing all of this food both for yourselves as well as for others who cannot afford to do the same. That is the true meaning of community. Long live the princes! Let us fill our plates and glasses in honor of these guests."

The applause moved both princes to the verge of tears. In truth, their reasons for bringing back the markets had less to do with uniting the villages and more to do with paying tribute to Julien, but the byproduct did more to bolster the people's spirits than either one could ever have guessed. Thaddeus, who had been enjoying the revelry, caught sight of a suspicious pair of eyes as he was panning the crowd, but had no intention of alerting his observer, so he tapped Nathaniel and as he whispered into his ear, he pointed in another direction and laughed.
"Near the back exit. We're being watched. Give a passing glance and laugh. We don't want them to know we see them." His voice never carried and Nathaniel gave no indication that anything was wrong to anyone else. Rather than that, he pointed to the punch table and Thaddeus smiled and nodded. Nathaniel stood and walked to the punch table, filling a couple of glasses to near the top and giving the cloaked figure a veiled glance before walking back, handing Thaddeus his cup and whispering in response.
"I don't think we're looking at a man, but I have no real way of knowing unless I want to find myself on the wrong side of a mob beating. Any ideas about how to draw them out?"
Nathaniel let out a massive belly laugh as if Thaddeus had been telling the best story he'd ever heard
at a dinner party.

The cloaked figure remained partially obscured as Nathaniel leaned over Thaddeus in their conversation and, though the cat and mouse routine was entirely seen by only two parties as the princes were otherwise occupied with various conversations with the villagers around the table. Both Thaddeus and Nathaniel wished to put any sort of possible confrontation behind them before the evening wore on. Thaddeus, being the more hearty fighter, leaned back and whispered for Nathaniel to take his seat while he exited the front door, breaking into a full sprint around the backside of the hall. At the back door, a dark cloak bearing a hearthy, fragrance; undoubtedly feminine, but there was no trace as to which direction the owner of said cloak might have gone. He carried the cloak back to their table, placing it on his chair before sitting atop. He needed evidence, after all, and this was, above all else, evidence....they were being watched.