19.01.2029
In the early days of the new year, Queen Lyssa steps off her flagship at the port in Zalli. Rather than coming home to a coup, she receives an enthusiastic welcome on the wharf. In fact, everyone seems to meet their well-travelled sisters with reverence and curiosity about their epic voyage. Some are more forward than others.
"What's up with the getup?" Phaedra asks her mother, tugging at a baggy silk sleeve.
"Befitting a queen, don't you think?" Lyssa counters with a smirk. She takes a good look at her daughter and sighs: "It's good to be back."
Ambling after the queen, Inanna thumps her macuahuitl onto the ground and stops to survey the welcoming committee with mighty disinterest. "So, what you've been up to while we were gone? Sitting on your ass like usual?" she scoffs at her sister.
"Actually," Calypso interjects – then pauses to greet Lyssa with a strong warrior's embrace. Holding her queen's shoulders as if getting a good look at her, the appointed regent smiles: "Everyone have been quite inspired by your expedition and have taken to the seas to raid far and wide. Your daughter here even sailed for Ulthuan and braved the gates to their island."
"That sounds awfully risky," Lyssa tuts, patting Phaedra's cheek – much to the young woman's embarrassment.
"Mother, please. I know what I'm doing. Calypso made me Chancellor and everything!"
The Jaguar of the Sea answers Lyssa's questioning look with a quick smile: "It is up to Your Highness to decide if she should continue to serve on the council, of course. But I must say, your daughter has been an inspiration to everyone.
"Even Belyse is getting in on the action," the regent laughs, shaking her head at the thought of the drunken matriarch leading a fleet. "Last I heard she was heading north, sailing in your footsteps."
"No one's returned with... nearly this much stuff, though!" Phaedra exclaims, marvelling at the exotic goods being unloaded from her mother's ships. "What is
that??"
Lyssa turns her head and looks at a horned creature bellowing mournfully as it is led down the docks. "It's a 'cow'. They make for really good eating and we might be able to breed them."
"Surely they are fearsome battle mounts as well?" Calypso asserts, studying the animals' horns.
"No," Inanna laments with a sigh of lingering disappointment that has yet to subside. "They're pretty much just for making food."
The queen surveys the crowd once more, doing a regal sweep of her luxurious robe to cover up the pause. "I can go through everything we've discovered later. Perhaps over dinner – there are many things I can't wait to show you. Now... do you mean to tell me everyone else is too busy raiding to come greet their queen?"
"Priestess Feidlimid and your daughter Maya are no doubt on their way from Kavana as we speak," Calypso explains, motioning for Lyssa and her entourage to follow her.
While they walk towards the main keep of Zalli fort, the regent goes on to tell her queen about the work those two have been doing in the recently reconquered Triad Islands. As commanded by Lyssa before she left for the East, efforts have been made to restore the islands properly to Amazon rule.
Although Feidlimid's proselytizing has largely been fruitless amongst the infidel foreigners still living there, steward Azu can report that the largest island has cast off its pirate trappings. While controversial, she maintains that as governor of the islands' only real town, Maya has done much by integrating its inhabitants. Foreign women have excitedly adopted Amazon customs under her guidance to improve their station – and no doubt get back at their wretched menfolk. While not all the inhabitants of Xocibiki – the largest of the Triad Islands – can be called true Amazons, at least the atmosphere is a lot less foreign. And after all, the legends say that the Amazons have taken in honourable women into their ranks before. And those that refuse to cooperate... well, there's always room for more slaves.
"Meanwhile Kriemhild has her work cut out for her trying to hold on to her recruits. Seems all the youngsters want to do these days is go sailing," Calypso chuckles. From the ramparts of the fort, she looks down on the huge amounts of food, finery, curios and more still being off-loaded and sorted. "They won't be any less eager once they hear of this. Not that everyone has seen success..."
"How do you mean?" Now that the local servants have finally figured out how to tap one of the kegs of strong export beer they brought back with them, and she has a full goblet of the stuff in her hand, Lyssa is feeling much more comfortable.
"Tisiphone returned from Ulthuan two days ago," Calypso says solemnly, eyeing the drink Lyssa just thrust into her hands warily. "The elves captured her during a raid and... before they released her they put her eyes out!"
"Oh what a terrible tragedy," the queen says nonchalantly. Thoroughly unmoved by her rival's unfortunate fate she takes a big swig from her cup and looks out at the myriad masts silhouetted by the setting sun. Yes, nothing but good news.
Lyssa nearly drops her precious beverage when a young Amazon comes flying out onto the ramparts. She's running so fast she nearly goes over the battlements before she manages to come to a halt in front of the queen.
"Your Highness! The spymaster... Cassiopeia... found her... Your Highness, she's dead!"
* * *
21.01.2029
The small room is silent but for the swish of the light linen dress flowing through it. While enamoured with the flashy silks and satins also taken from Estalia, Queen Lyssa has found this loose-fitting garment quite suitable to hot and humid Amazonia. Especially for returning to the palace; she must have forgotten just how many steps there are to the upper quarters.
Worried she might start sweating just thinking about it, Lyssa consoles herself that she is inside now. Inside the palace and in the quarters of her late spymaster. She had barely set foot in Amazonia before word came that Cassiopeia's corpse had washed up on Ganaina's shores. How she ended up there was anyone's guess. However, a rather obvious clue was that, in addition to her body being battered and bruised, she had arrows of Elvish make sticking out of her gut.
Others might consider the case open and shut, but Lyssa did not like the theories one bit. Even if Cassiopeia had tangled with the High Elves of Ulthuan to uncover their secrets without anyone's knowledge, the queen was certain she would be too cautious to get caught. And even if she
was caught, Lyssa always assumed her spymaster would be shot in the
back, running away like a coward at the first sign of trouble.
The queen quickly appointed a new spymaster, of course, but this Valli has yet to find anything. No matter how well Maya says they cooperated on integrating Xocibiki. Not that Lyssa has had much time to talk to her daughter since coming home. She had invited Maya to feast with her upon her return, but Cassiopeia's untimely demise had ruined those plans. After all, what is the point of having all this foreign booze and finery if one cannot use it to throw extravagant parties? But with her underlings failing to come to the bottom of the mystery, it falls upon the queen herself to solve it.
Of course, spymaster Valli has already looked through the room. How Lyssa intends to succeed where she failed is anyone's guess, but true to form the queen has an unshakeable confidence that she will set things right... somehow.
So far she has found nothing, however. Nothing but a few personal effects, all arranged so neatly it's almost offensive to the notoriously lax Lyssa. Cassiopeia was far too paranoid to leave anything incriminating – or illuminating – just lying out in the open.
Tracing the edge of Cassiopeia's writing desk with her palm, Lyssa sighs when no solution seems willing to just manifest itself. Simply idling at this point, her eyes are easily distracted by the food plate sitting opposite her. The queen forces herself to refocus on her objective, tearing her gaze away. For a lack of anything better to do, she examines a small decorative bowl with an intensity at odds with how utterly unremarkable it is. Turning it upside down in her hand, Lyssa furrows her brow. It is more theatre for an audience of one – herself – than anything else.
Having demonstrated her thoroughness, Lyssa grumbles to herself and puts the bowl down. Then she turns her attention to the multicoloured straw mat covering most of the tabletop. Her fingers play over it, looking for an esoteric clue in its texture that will answer everything.
Unaware that her other hand has been wandering, Lyssa realizes she is chewing on a pie from the plate on the table. Before she can stop herself, pain shoots through her jaw as she bites down on something hard. Angry rather than worried, she quickly spits out the offending object and glares as it settles on the desk. A small metal cylinder, the queen doesn't care that it might be an assassin's tool and snatches it up. A lid at one end pops off with a quick flick of her thumb, revealing a tiny scroll inside.
Licking crumbs from her lips, Lyssa unfurls the hidden message. She scowls as she starts reading, the pain in her teeth still lingering.
My Queen, the tiny scribbles read.
If you are reading this, I'm dead.
I have discovered a plot, but now fear I will not leave this room alive. The last couple of days I have seen the same male following me around. They say I imagine things, but he is outside even as I write this. I can feel it.
Lyssa squints to make out the purported plot, gasping once she makes out the words.
...details in the other messages so you may root it out, the scroll continues.
Long live Amazonia. It has been an honour serving you, Your Highness.
P.S. You should not eat things you find in a spymaster's office.
Crumpling the letter in her fist, Lyssa feels her pulse racing. "After all these years..." she exclaims in disbelief. Frantically she unwraps the other pies and digs out the remaining messages. Holding the tiny cylinders in her palm, the queen smiles at the former spymaster's thoroughness: "Good girl!"
Clutching the extra messages tightly in her hand, Lyssa makes to leave but stops at the door to look at the room one last time: "You were too bloody talented to deserve this..." she mutters, then barges through the doorway with terrible purpose.
"Guards! Get me Kriemhild; spymaster Whatshername;
everyone! I need to
finish something!"