Knightress

Chapter 33

The council had been patiently waiting for Prince Jotham to arrive for the meeting. They couldn't commence without the heir and the reason for the little patience that they had was because Jotham had never been late for a meeting before. The council hall consisted of two seating areas with rows upon rows of benches, Laura sat in the first row of the second section with the officials, her arms were crossed as she glared at the door with annoyance.

Andreas descended the platform and came to her, "do you think he escaped?" He whispered.

She nodded slowly, highly irritated by that fact herself, Andreas sighed at her response. He left her side and instructed that a servant search for Jotham, the servant came back nearly an hour later and reported that Jotham was sighted leaving the castle. "He has escaped, we still have to expose him even if he isn't here." Laura told Andreas.

He agreed with her reasoning and rallied her words to his father, with a single raise of his palm the entire hall was silenced. He greeted the congregation in a voice of high authority, an hour was spent with the King's new secretary reading through the agenda, an official reading the minutes of the most recent meeting, checking those in attendance and explaining the reason for the sudden meeting. The official passed the podium back to the King who then handed it over to Laura.

Her gaze swept the room, meeting every confused face present, apart from the confusion of where the heir could have gone at such an hour, they all looked quite peaceful. They stared at her expectantly and patiently, eager to hear what news the head investigator of a pending case has to say. Her heart ached for their innocent souls, the news she bore would break their hearts and numb their sense of trust but it had to be said. She stationed Andreas' laptop on the podium, she typed quickly, going through the folder she had created and hidden, she clicked the enter button and files upon files of her data enlarged on the screen. She smiled inwardly as she scrolled through all of them.

~FLASHBACK~

Laura tested the handle of Andreas chamber door, pleased that he had left it open for her like he said he would. She told him she had documents which needed his signature, at the time he was doing other Prince duties and told her to leave it on his desk. She entered with her pouch slung over her torso and the single paged document in hand, she placed it well infront of his chair and took a seat in it herself. There was no need for her to rush, she had permission to be in his chambers and even if she didn't no one would think it strange for Laura to be there when she was almost all the time.

The field that she found herself in was unexpected, she never knew that she would one day be an investigator, the thought never even came to mind. She upgraded from finding out people's deepest secrets to use for her own personal gain to uncovering plans against the Cyprise royal family, tracing down spies and capturing rebels. Her last encounter with Prince Jotham left her worried, he threatened to ruin her, get her kicked off the Legion, turn everyone against her, she told him to do his worse but then the question occured to her; what is his worse?

She pulled open the bottom drawer and fished out Andreas' laptop, placing it on the desk, she unstrapped her pouch and got out her recorder with it's cable then connected it to the laptop. At this point anything could happen, she had to cover herself and ensure that she was ready for whatever Prince Jotham planned against her.

She typed away on Andreas' laptop, transferring every audio into a folder, her recorder was a dire part of her whole existence. That little device carried truths that could ruin and break people, years and years of effort and snooping was stored in there, everything she had against Jotham and the case was there, they had to be well secured. Once everything had processed she zipped the folder and returned the laptop to the drawer.