Tommy
04-04-2006, 05:51 PM
Okay, this is my first shot at writing in a REALLY long time. So please don't be too harsh. This first bit is just mainly set up, and shaping the world a little bit. I hope you like it.
The bar was dirty. It was inhabited by a few drunken louts who were in the process of inebriating themselves enough to fall sleep. Obscenities were hurled back and forth between the patrons all of whom were too lazy to get up and settle their differences with fists. Into this dark and murky atmosphere stepped a man in a blue cloak. The cloak’s hood was pulled over his head rendering his face in almost total shadow. He calmly made his way around the various tables to the furthest and darkest back corner where a young woman sat facing the wall.
The woman was wearing a low cut Italian dress, but she was obviously of Mohammedan descent. She raised her glass of beer to him as he sat down.
“King Joska, always a pleasure.” She said in perfect Hungarian.
“Delilah, I told you to not call me that in public.” He said as his mouth turned into a frown.
“My dear friend, we are surrounded by your drunken subjects all of whom are intent upon fighting with each other, I highly doubt anyone in this room has ears good enough to pick up our conversation,” she said with a smile.
“So I take it you have been in Italy?” Joska asked pointing at her dress.
“Lacriza Borgia sends her love.” Delilah said smirking.
“Quite an accomplishment considering how long she has been dead.”
“Well dead as she is, her diary is not.”
“And what would I care of in a diary written by the Pope’s bastard daughter?” asked Joska incredulously.
“Well are you not always looking for some new weapon in case the Khan decides to invade your domain yet again?” Delilah asked.
“And what would dead Italians know of such weapons?”
“Well it seems Cesare Borgia was excavating the old residence of the Pope and found some sort of potent weapon. Using this weapon he was able to subjugate most of the Italian peninsula, right up until his poisoning. Upon his death bead he split the weapon in two, one part he gave to the Catholic Church and the other he gave to his beloved sister to hide. Which she did, rather successfully I might add. Up until this surfaced,” At this point Delilah removed a small leather bound diary from underneath the folds of her dress.
“And what use would I have of half a weapon?” asked Joska.
“Despite being halved it seems this device still holds phenomenal power. Enough that Hungary could possibly expand for the first time in centuries. Plus I am sure we could procure the other half from the Pope’s vaults,” she said with a smirk.
“So you have this part?”
“Sadly no. Word got out prior to my arrival in Italy. Everyone is after it. The sultan, The Khan, The Pope, there are even rumors that,” she moved in and barely whispered, “She is after it.”
“So you don’t have this part?” He asked as he leaned his chair against the wall.
“Well, not right at the moment. I got out and hopefully they are all on my trail. I left the item’s location with a trusted accomplice who will bring it to your castle.”
“If this ludicrous story of yours is true then I might finally be able to throw certain yokes off the ox that is my country. After all there is one prize I have been lusting after for some time,” he smiled sweetly.
“You can’t mean…”
“Yes, I would reach out my hand and pluck Latvia.”
“That is a foul country, filled with demons and witches. And she rules over it all. The sun never shines there!” Delilah’s face contorted into a look of shock.
“Foul though it may be, the port of Riga is the only access point for supplies for the entire eastern provinces of the Khan’s kingdom. With it, our poor nation could become richer than any other on this miserable earth. We have waited too long for an opportunity like this to pass it up.”
“What opportunity? No mere weapon would make invading Latvia anything less than Suicide?” Delilah asked horrified.
“This,” Joska said as he handed her a sheet of parchment from his cloak. “It is a summons to speak with the Pope in Avignon. We are mere months away from having a crusade declared. And unless we can launch a preemptive attack, I will be forced to lead my troops into a war I do not wish to fight.”
“Do you know what they say about her in whispers across the palaces of the Sultan? They say she is a god of the old Pharaohs who so offended Ra that he cast her to the earth and decreed that the Sun would never shine on her again. She wandered the lands traveling north where she found a nest of demons. And that is the nation you think to invade?” asked Delilah.
“Merely stories told to frighten small Mohammedan children into good behavior,” Joska said dismissively. “I do not really believe that there is some queen of Latvia. It seems more like a story told to halt the expansion of the Khan. However if there was a Queen of Latvia, I suppose someone would have to eradicate her, and even if there wasn’t some one would have to gather intelligence about Latvia’s defenses,” King Joska said raising an eyebrow.
“I might have been your assassin and your spy in the past Joska, but I will not do this for you,” she said sternly.
“You are the best. The best in the whole wide world. You somehow travel twice as fast as all others, you are as silent as a cat, and you are smarter than all the learned men in this kingdom together. You are capable of this.”
“I am not doing it.”
“Do this for me, and I will not only make you queen, I will grant you governorship over all of Latvia once it is mine to give.”
“Queen?” she asked in a hushed tone.
“You would no longer be that wretched thing you were all those years ago in Cairo. All would bow to your grace.”
He watched as a million childhood fantasies played out on her face.
“All right. I will try this.”
“Good, I will leave word with our mutual acquaintance to supply you when you leave. For tomorrow I must ride to Avignon,” he said as he stood.
There was a whistling sound, and he caught a gleam of light. Suddenly in Delilah’s upraised hand was a knife pointed at his chest. “Be careful,” she said, “I won’t be with you to catch things.”
She hurled the knife backwards out of her hand and into the flash of a man who was reaching for a second knife.
The bar was dirty. It was inhabited by a few drunken louts who were in the process of inebriating themselves enough to fall sleep. Obscenities were hurled back and forth between the patrons all of whom were too lazy to get up and settle their differences with fists. Into this dark and murky atmosphere stepped a man in a blue cloak. The cloak’s hood was pulled over his head rendering his face in almost total shadow. He calmly made his way around the various tables to the furthest and darkest back corner where a young woman sat facing the wall.
The woman was wearing a low cut Italian dress, but she was obviously of Mohammedan descent. She raised her glass of beer to him as he sat down.
“King Joska, always a pleasure.” She said in perfect Hungarian.
“Delilah, I told you to not call me that in public.” He said as his mouth turned into a frown.
“My dear friend, we are surrounded by your drunken subjects all of whom are intent upon fighting with each other, I highly doubt anyone in this room has ears good enough to pick up our conversation,” she said with a smile.
“So I take it you have been in Italy?” Joska asked pointing at her dress.
“Lacriza Borgia sends her love.” Delilah said smirking.
“Quite an accomplishment considering how long she has been dead.”
“Well dead as she is, her diary is not.”
“And what would I care of in a diary written by the Pope’s bastard daughter?” asked Joska incredulously.
“Well are you not always looking for some new weapon in case the Khan decides to invade your domain yet again?” Delilah asked.
“And what would dead Italians know of such weapons?”
“Well it seems Cesare Borgia was excavating the old residence of the Pope and found some sort of potent weapon. Using this weapon he was able to subjugate most of the Italian peninsula, right up until his poisoning. Upon his death bead he split the weapon in two, one part he gave to the Catholic Church and the other he gave to his beloved sister to hide. Which she did, rather successfully I might add. Up until this surfaced,” At this point Delilah removed a small leather bound diary from underneath the folds of her dress.
“And what use would I have of half a weapon?” asked Joska.
“Despite being halved it seems this device still holds phenomenal power. Enough that Hungary could possibly expand for the first time in centuries. Plus I am sure we could procure the other half from the Pope’s vaults,” she said with a smirk.
“So you have this part?”
“Sadly no. Word got out prior to my arrival in Italy. Everyone is after it. The sultan, The Khan, The Pope, there are even rumors that,” she moved in and barely whispered, “She is after it.”
“So you don’t have this part?” He asked as he leaned his chair against the wall.
“Well, not right at the moment. I got out and hopefully they are all on my trail. I left the item’s location with a trusted accomplice who will bring it to your castle.”
“If this ludicrous story of yours is true then I might finally be able to throw certain yokes off the ox that is my country. After all there is one prize I have been lusting after for some time,” he smiled sweetly.
“You can’t mean…”
“Yes, I would reach out my hand and pluck Latvia.”
“That is a foul country, filled with demons and witches. And she rules over it all. The sun never shines there!” Delilah’s face contorted into a look of shock.
“Foul though it may be, the port of Riga is the only access point for supplies for the entire eastern provinces of the Khan’s kingdom. With it, our poor nation could become richer than any other on this miserable earth. We have waited too long for an opportunity like this to pass it up.”
“What opportunity? No mere weapon would make invading Latvia anything less than Suicide?” Delilah asked horrified.
“This,” Joska said as he handed her a sheet of parchment from his cloak. “It is a summons to speak with the Pope in Avignon. We are mere months away from having a crusade declared. And unless we can launch a preemptive attack, I will be forced to lead my troops into a war I do not wish to fight.”
“Do you know what they say about her in whispers across the palaces of the Sultan? They say she is a god of the old Pharaohs who so offended Ra that he cast her to the earth and decreed that the Sun would never shine on her again. She wandered the lands traveling north where she found a nest of demons. And that is the nation you think to invade?” asked Delilah.
“Merely stories told to frighten small Mohammedan children into good behavior,” Joska said dismissively. “I do not really believe that there is some queen of Latvia. It seems more like a story told to halt the expansion of the Khan. However if there was a Queen of Latvia, I suppose someone would have to eradicate her, and even if there wasn’t some one would have to gather intelligence about Latvia’s defenses,” King Joska said raising an eyebrow.
“I might have been your assassin and your spy in the past Joska, but I will not do this for you,” she said sternly.
“You are the best. The best in the whole wide world. You somehow travel twice as fast as all others, you are as silent as a cat, and you are smarter than all the learned men in this kingdom together. You are capable of this.”
“I am not doing it.”
“Do this for me, and I will not only make you queen, I will grant you governorship over all of Latvia once it is mine to give.”
“Queen?” she asked in a hushed tone.
“You would no longer be that wretched thing you were all those years ago in Cairo. All would bow to your grace.”
He watched as a million childhood fantasies played out on her face.
“All right. I will try this.”
“Good, I will leave word with our mutual acquaintance to supply you when you leave. For tomorrow I must ride to Avignon,” he said as he stood.
There was a whistling sound, and he caught a gleam of light. Suddenly in Delilah’s upraised hand was a knife pointed at his chest. “Be careful,” she said, “I won’t be with you to catch things.”
She hurled the knife backwards out of her hand and into the flash of a man who was reaching for a second knife.