Jigsaw Puzzle

Duke Zular looks on as the guards and servants laugh and shout in joy as Duke Dredrick, Fred 1, and the strange and large man known as Probe are ushered into the main hall.

Zular was not happy in the least, he liked the Duke being away (and Fred being DEAD), but hid it behind a smile...

Probe's eyes met his as they roved over the room, and locked. The towering figure smiled...a smile that didn't reach his eyes. He then made a small nod and turned back towards the front of the room.

Anything else this giant might have inside his heart, one thing was certain. The one known as Probe DIDN'T have any liking for Duke Zular.

Despite himself, the young duke shivered as he exchanged looks with the inordinately tall stranger.

Then Zular's jaw almost dropped open in open and unguarded surprise as the room goes deadly silent as a young woman walks through one door as another (older) woman walks through another door into this court room/reception area. Both bear the last name of D'Honaire. The older woman, Lady Champlaine, obtained it from marriage. Lady Fredrina obtained her family name from birth.

But she's DEAD! Zular's mind yammered silently. My assassin had primed her with a dose of Quil root powder in her breakfast a week ago. Then, she finished the job by drinking that Charlinet laced of wine at the social gathering three days before today!

A little warning bell was going off in the slippery duke's mind, warning him that Hel was about to pay a call...and she had brought her father along. In the parlance of Probe's world, that saying translates into: "All Hell was going to break loose!"

Fredrina, meanwhile, had just been walking into the Hall, intent on having a LONG discussion with Mother and Father of what she had learned and heard of a certain young duke's plans for the future of Allaria (with HIM being at on the throne) . One fact in particular was SURE to earn Duke F***ing Zular a noose was the fact that he had had somebody either switch or diddle Fred's map.

Fredrina paused as she noticed that the room was ghostly quiet. She saw everyone was staring at her strangely, including her parents and...

1. "Fred?!" Fredrina-he young woman born upon May the twelfth-gasps, dropping the handful of notes of facts she had gathered on Zular as the man in question dashed out a side exit.

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