Kapitel 10: 10
Inri clutched the book to his chest, it's size making any other method of carry unwieldy. Especially as he was still clutching the amulet in his left hand. [Note to self: find a piece of strong or something.]
He did not expect to encounter anyone beyond a few servants as he wended along the cobbled and paved and mosaic-clad floors that took him from the outer paling of the palace proper to the innermost building.
[One wall encircled the chaotic outcroppings of buildings within the palace ground. Another, partially in ruin and patched with wooden pales more suitable for a sheep pen than a seat of power, surrounded the palace proper. The buildings within were shaped roughly into three rings, with passages offset for defense. It was not only the early hour that made traffic light but that seven or eight generations ago the palace ground had been reverse-decimated* by a plague that left the rest of the land almost untouched. This resulted in a much diminished royal family and a certain slow-waning superstitious hesitancy amongst the peasantry against taking work at what was henceforth known that the Yeller Palace, named after the jaundice the disease caused before it killed.]
Just outside the door to this building--where the king, queen, elder princes, and their families resided--the guard quite unexpectedly did not hasten to open the door. The gangly guardsman, with ruddy hair, did not look familiar. He also did not look accommodating.
"New, are you?" Inri inquired politely.
"Yes, my…. lord."
Inri sighed, as well as he could with a heavy book pressed to his chest. "If you could get the door, I am on my way to the library."
The man's face flushed. "M'sorry, my lord. I was told that the house as such is under seal of crown. That's due to the arrival of the ship-wrecked princess, which I… am not meant to tell anyone about. Shit. I mean… sorry. I mean, I can't. Open the door, that is."
The hairless cat looked appraisingly at a high and tiny window over the great door. With an unexpected amount of agility given her age and state, she bounded, kicked once off the scarred surface of the wooden door, and shoved herself though it. Her light body landed with a barely audible third on the other side.
"I… uh," the guard stammered. He then seemed to decide to ignore that little event. Turning back to Inri he explained, "It's that I was told a seal of crown means no-one to come in but a crowned head of their attendants, and what I was told…"
"...That I am only a prince by courtesy." Inri felt his jaw tightening. [This lack of princely title might cause more trouble than I anticipated. Also, I wonder who made such a point of making it known to this guard a mere day after my change of status.] "Would you accuse your king and queen, my royal parents, ever of a lack of courtesy?"
"I… ah."
Inri stood quite still and looked at the man with outward equanimity. It seemed to be having little effect, but after a few moments, the man frowned and flinched slightly. The guard took a step back, his heel hitting the great door. He then quickly turned and took the iron handle and pulled it back. His face had shifted from awkward obstinance to nervous obedience almost in a moment.
The wide door creaked open, revealing hallways in which the sparse night candles were still lit.
[They should have been doused by now, surely? It is early but still after dawn. I have enough going on in my own life without having to deal with intrigues at court as well.]
Inri nodded but did not look at the guard as he stepped inside. The cat preceded him down the long gallery to the hind-stairs and all of the way up to the third floor. It did not occur to Inri to wonder how she seemed to know where he was going. He wasn't really thinking about much more than getting one foot in front of the other in that moment. The flecks of green were faded from his vision but a heavy headache was setting in that thumped in time to his pulse. The floor felt like it was shifting like the deck of a ship in swells.
He did manage to spare some thought for the alleged shipwrecked princess. Only a small part of Tellus could be said to touch the coast, and it was that some days travel from the palace. Shipwrecked princesses belonged more in myth and stage-play than reality. Nor was there any reason he could think of why one could get from beach to palace in good order but need extremes of protection once inside the gate.
His train of thought, such as it was, was interrupted by a sudden and urgent desire to throw up. [Whatever this book did to me is causing one hell of a hangover.] Looking around he saw nothing but stone and doorways. Inri hurried towards the library in the hope of finding some more dignified location, one where servants would not be stuck with mopping the results from the floor, and gossiping about the cause of it.
As he started to draw close to the library the amulet began to feel strangely warm in his hand. With the heavy book awkwardly under one arm, he flung the library door open.
Inside the tall and spine-clad room, a young lady spun towards him. She was tall and handsome with profuse brown hair worn loose over a heavy velvet night-gown. It looked a lot like his late grandmother's dressing gown, probably because it was. Her wide eyes were grey-green like river stone and her teeth… somewhat pointed.
[Wait… what?]
Inri slammed the door behind him, barely avoiding a rather sudden severing of the hairless cat's wizened tail. He opened a drawer in the writing bureau pushed against the wall to his left and vomited profusely into it.
[*Reverse-decimated in that it was nine of every ten that died, not one. Being merely decimated would have been a much better fate.]
Wöchentlicher Energiestatus
-- Power-
Rangliste 
-- Power-
Stein