The Price of Blood

Chapter 8: A Little Too Late

Giselle drummed her fingers on the arm of her chair at the head of the table as she waited for everyone to enter the room. Thus far, only two of the five captains of the Knights of L'Oriath present in Tru'Lis had arrived. The long meeting hall table had room to seat over fifty people. Her seat was where the Knight Commander would typically sit during important meetings. Seeing as he was currently not present, that put Giselle as the highest-ranking person in the room.

Auguste sat to her right, hands folded politely in his lap as he waited patiently. Captain DuHain sat several seats away, apparently knowing that he was about to receive a severe tongue-lashing. He kept his head down, refusing to look anywhere even remotely close to Giselle's direction. His curtain of wavy brown hair hanging down in his face did little to hide the embarrassment evident in his eyes. Captain Lambert sat next to him, his blond hair tied up neatly in a bun. He had not hesitated to occasionally glance in Giselle's direction despite the glare he would receive each time. Mostly, he also kept his head down and whispered quietly to DuHain.

"Where is Dyanna? And what about Fauste and Vaughn? I thought they knew the meeting was today?" Lambert whispered, loud enough for Giselle to hear.

"I don't know," DuHain hissed to his fellow captain. "I told them several times to be here by now."

The doors to the meeting room opened. Three more captains quickly entered the room, doing their best not to appear out of breath as they hurried to take seats at the table opposite DuHain and Lambert.

"Good morning, Ladies and Gentlemen." Auguste regarded the tardy captains with a polite but serious gaze. Giselle was not so gentle in her display of disapproval as they all bowed their heads and mumbled apologies for being late.

"Does Commander Allard allow such tardiness under his watch, First Captain DuHain?" Giselle asked once she had shot a scolding look to each of the chagrinned captains.

"No, Duchess. This will be disciplined after our meeting has concluded," DuHain said meekly, reluctantly raising his gaze to meet hers as he spoke. He quickly looked back down at his hands that he had folded tightly on the table in front of him, a subtle pink flush of embarrassment tinging his ears bright pink. He flinched as Giselle rose from her seat and began to pace a slow circle around the table

"The lords of the city should be with us shortly. While we wait for them to join us for the main reason for our visit, I want to make a few things incredibly clear to the five of you. The empress is not happy with what has happened in the city over the last month. Nor am I to hear that you all have been complacent enough to allow anything like this to happen while your Commander is away."

"Please, Lady Labelle, we are doing our best. But without the Commander...." Captain Zhovda lapsed into silence when Giselle fixed her with a warning glare.

"What about the Commander's absence warrants such negligence, Captain Zhovda? Are you all so incapable of thinking for yourselves?" Giselle asked. "Three dozen people are dead or missing. Lord Gaimunth and Lady Isendra are lucky to be alive. Had you been more proactive in patrolling the city, none of this would have happened."

"We're already stretched thinly, Lady Labelle. Between werewolves to the north and vampires along the southern border, we barely have enough people to spare that aren't assigned to protecting the leaders of the city." Captain DuHain seemed to have suddenly found his confidence. He kept his head up when Giselle stopped to look at him, but his brown eyes betrayed his nervousness. After a few moments of staring at each other, he lowered his head again.

"I believe the rich can fend for themselves well enough, Captain DuHain, if the records I've been going over are accurate," Giselle said. Auguste, as if to emphasize her point, shuffled the papers in front of him. "The only people of this city that should be under the direct protection of the Knights are the lords and ladies. Anyone else is a drain on precious resources that could be better spent elsewhere. It may bring in additional funds to treat your men like blades and mages for hire, but when you serve under the imperial crown, we'd like to see a bit more decorum from such a venerated Order like yours.