Don't do anything I wouldn't do, if you ever find anything I wouldn't do. -- Terry Pratchett, Carpe Jugulum

Losradan was not the cleverest member of the royal family. Her parents knew it, her siblings knew it, the people definitely knew it, and even she herself was vaguely aware of it. But that didn't mean she was a complete idiot. She knew when someone was using her for their own benefit. And she knew that Rualnim's motives were not quite as altruistic as she pretended they were. Knowing it didn't mean she planned to do anything about it. She now had someone who was willing to do all the work she couldn't be bothered to do. Whatever her "friend"'s real motives were, Rualnim was too useful for Losradan to risk offending her.

"Are you sure you remember everything you have to say?" Rualnim asked.

Losradan opened her mouth to reply. At that minute the carriage drove over a particularly nasty pothole. The princess almost fell off the chair. Her elbow banged against the side of the carriage, and her teeth clashed together painfully. She managed a faint nod, deciding against speaking until the road was smoother.

The Nirne royal family had several carriages for official use. This one belonged specifically to Losradan. It had been a gift from her parents on her sixteenth birthday. Sometimes she wondered, illogically and spitefully, if they had deliberately given her a carriage that invariably found every bump in the road.

Rualnim, to Losradan's exasperation, never seemed at all concerned by the roughness of the road. She held onto the edge of her chair and didn't bat an eyelid when she was almost thrown off it. Losradan almost wished she would fall off so she would stop looking so unbearably indifferent to everything.

"Remember what I've told you," Rualnim said. "It doesn't matter if you get a word or two wrong. But above all, you must avoid that dreadful monotone! Everyone will think you're bored if you use it."

Losradan suppressed the urge to stick her tongue out at her. She pointedly turned away and looked out the window.

Inland Nirne was a patchwork of low plains that suddenly rose up into high mountains. Around the towns the roads were carefully kept in good condition. But outside the towns, people rarely left the rural villages they were born in. Roads were little-used and gradually fell to pieces. A sensible princess would have taken note of this and reported it to her mother when she returned to court. Losradan only thought about how it affected her, and how it made her journey uncomfortable.

Most travellers would have noticed how, the closer they came to the village, the brightly-coloured fields of agial[1] gave way to dirty, muddy fields where very little grew. Even the grass was a dirty brown colour, and there were large patches of bare earth. Losradan only thought of how ugly it looked.

A choking smell of smoke wafted towards them.

"We're almost there," Rualnim said -- which required very little deduction.

~~~~

Varan found that if she kept beating her wings, she could create enough of a breeze to drive the smoke away from herself. The unpleasant side effect of this was that the smoke was blown in a dozen different directions. Unfortunate passers-by found themselves coughing and wiping their eyes as clouds of smoke billowed around them.

It's not worth the trouble, Varan thought in disgust.

She landed and folded up her wings. The smoke rolled over her like a dirty cloud. She grimaced and tried not to breathe.

At some point of their afterlives, Reapers grew so accustomed to being dead that they forgot to breathe. Varan had not yet reached this point. She had only been dead ten years. Things like breathing and sleeping were no longer essential to her. But she still instinctively continued doing them. Her brain believed they were still necessary. It would take at least another two hundred years for that instinct to disappear. And in the meantime, it made life -- or existence -- very unpleasant when she was breathing less-than-wholesome air.

She covered her mouth and forced herself to stop breathing. It was an odd feeling. She still felt as if she would suffocate without air.

Really, if she couldn't stand being here for an hour, how did anyone ever survive here for an entire mortal lifetime?

People were beginning to make their way out of their small, dilapidated houses. They pushed and shoved their way along the street. They jumped over puddles and stepped around uneven areas of road where stones suddenly jutted out or sank down, as if the roads themselves were intent on injuring the people who lived here.

Varan spread her wings and took flight. She flew over the crowd's heads, following the long line of townsfolk to their destination. Their destination, it turned out, was a two-storey building covered in flaking plaster and paint long since buried under a coat of soot. The windows were blackened and cracked.

Why is everyone coming here? Varan wondered. From the look of this place, it was better suited to being demolished than hosting a town meeting.

A group of men were dragging a rickety-looking table out through the building's door. Some other people, looking and acting as if they thought themselves very important, were getting the crowds to form an orderly group of spectators.

Oh, Varan realised. They're gathering to see the princess. They left it rather late!

If she had known more about rural Nirnian customs, she would have known that they left everything to the last possible minute and considered it a sign of impatience to do anything earlier. She didn't know that, however, and so she shook her head at how late their preparations were.

Finally the carriage arrived. It was escorted by far fewer guards than Varan expected. There were only about ten guards. Carannish royalty never attended official events with less than twenty guards. But then, this trip was made without the queen's knowledge or consent. Perhaps taking more guards would have raised questions.

Varan had never before seen Losradan Drazenmiraevna, Zaiłia[2], Princess of Tiavnoke[3]. She didn't know what she expected. But she certainly didn't expect a short, mousy-looking woman of about thirty.

The princess was the sort of person who made no impression whatsoever. Varan forgot what she looked like after turning away from her. She barely listened to the speech, only catching the occasional word. Instead she stared at Rualnim -- or Niuyínkir, or whatever she was calling herself now.

It was easy to tell Rualnim apart from the rest of the crowd. The people of Nirne had wide eyes and hair that could be almost any colour, but was generally a light brown. Rualnim looked like the average Carannish woman, with her narrow eyes and black hair. There was nothing particularly remarkable about her, either. She stood out only because she was surrounded by people who looked nothing like her. If she had been in the middle of a Carannish town, she would blend in perfectly.

Varan frowned. Was there nothing immediately distinctive about this woman? Some way she could be recognised instantly?

She studied Rualnim's face and hands, searching for a birthmark or something equally unique. Nothing. The woman was infuriatingly nondescript. How was she to pass on an accurate description of Rualnim when that description could fit a hundred other women?

Clothes were one of the least reliable things to go on when searching for someone. All a person had to do was change their clothes, and they would instantly fool anyone looking for them. In desperation Varan took note of Rualnim's clothes anyway. Black trousers. Thousands of people must have those. Black beredoroz[4] over a white shirt. Again, a very common outfit. Her shoes... Hmm. That might actually be useful. She wore dark grey cloth shoes embroidered with orange flowers. They might not be unique, but they were certainly distinctive.

Was she wearing jewellery? No, no necklace or bracelets... Wait. Was that something red glittering at her ear?

It was hard to see. Rualnim's hair hung over her ears. Varan frowned. Red earrings were common enough. But she might as well make a note of it anyway.

One of the benefits of being a Reaper was being able to summon anything she wanted from the Land of the Dead without the bother of going to fetch it. Varan had only to hold out her hand. A notebook and pen obligingly appeared. She scribbled down a description of Rualnim. After a minute's thought she added a rough sketch of the woman's face. True, it wasn't anywhere near perfect, but it was better than nothing.

Varan closed the notebook and flew off. Her first attempt at spying hadn't gone too badly, all things considered. Now she had her normal work to do.

~~~~

Rualnim, unaware that a Reaper had now so much -- or so little -- information about her, felt that the day had not gone as badly as she had feared. True, Losradan would never be a great speech-maker. But that would ultimately be Nirne's problem. The princess now had a list of the miners' complaints. She could do whatever she liked with them. That was none of Rualnim's concern. All that mattered to her was getting power and influence. She had now gained plenty of that. But she needed more.

No matter how honourable a person pretended to be, there were very few people who wouldn't do something if they were bribed to do it. What she needed was to get Losradan accepted back into court. The best way to do that was to bribe someone, probably a Grand Duchess[5], to raise the subject with the queen. It shouldn't be too hard to do. Both the Grand Duchesses were very fond of their nieces and nephews. Their brothers were less inclined to think well of Losradan, so applying to the Grand Dukes would be a waste of time. But perhaps Grand Duchess Golzhela would help.

This thought occupied her mind as the carriage began its journey back to Losradan's home.

"I think that went very well," the princess said cheerfully.

Rualnim didn't bother to answer.

~~~~

"Good work," Death said when Varan reported back. She raised an eyebrow when she saw the sketch. "I don't think that will be much help to anyone, unless you want to tell Kilan to look for a circus freak. No one should have such enormous ears and such tiny eyes."

Not even Death's sarcasm could depress Varan for long today. "I'll go back tonight and see where Rualnim's staying. Then Kilan can send his spies to look around."

"You have some very odd ideas of how long it takes to travel to Nirne," Death said dryly. "Well? Why haven't you gone to tell Kilan? And Gialma too, since I've no doubt you'll tell him anyway."

~~~~

There was something very odd about seeing your dead sister sitting at the table, dressed all in black with wings like a raven's, calmly drinking tea and asking for the sugar. Kilan was used to Death's visits. He should be used to Varan's by now. But somehow he found this more surreal than any of the times he'd met Death.

"You did what?" Kilan asked incredulously, pushing the sugar bowl towards her.

Varan didn't bother with anything as mundane as spooning the sugar into her cup. She picked up the bowl and poured almost half of it into her tea. "I spied on a traitor who's trying to cause trouble in Nirne."

Kilan would be a very poor emperor if he didn't know a great deal about Nirne. He knew its history, its royal family, its main imports and exports, and its relationship with Carann. He knew it was determinedly neutral in all international disputes. And he knew that it had a good few economic troubles. "What sort of trouble?"

Varan poured herself more tea. "Family trouble. She's trying to set the heir to the throne against the queen."

Disturbing, but hardly important enough to a Reaper to interfere. "And... why are you interested in this?"

"Because Death says it'll be a disaster for Carann if Losradan gets the throne."

Chapter Footnotes:

[1] agial = A sort of plant similar to oats. It has a very bright yellow stalk.

[2] Zaiłia = Title equivalent to the Russian "tsesarevich/tsesarevna", meaning the designated heir to the throne.

[3] Princess of Tiavnoke = Tiavnoke is the province governed (in theory, at least) by the heir to the Nirnian throne. The title is the equivalent of the British "Prince(ss) of Wales".

[4] beredoroz = Nirnian garment similar to a waistcoat.

[5] Grand Duchess = The Nirnian title mezheleu, translated roughly as Grand Duchess, means the sibling of a reigning monarch.