Worse by far than knowing nothing was knowing a snippet of something, because although you possess a nugget of potentially crucial information, that was all you had; a piece of essential knowledge divorced from the larger whole. “without contact, releases it…” Who had it been who had said it? Odion slid a calloused palm over his sweat slick forehead, cursing his mud for brains for his inability to recall, to hold the image in his mind’s eye. Every moment he came close, ripples would form and just like the mirror of the pool, the coherence was lost.<br/><br/>What was it? All that the young captain of the royal guard knew was that it was to be delivered to someone significant, why else had those words been uttered in the antechamber linking the royal apartments? Would that he had not had Shed’s blessing to have been passing by the threshold at that particular moment. He had not recognised the voice, but he knew it was not someone from the palace. People laboured under the misapprehension that in wandering the halls or standing sentry, palace guards heard nothing but the mind numbing monotony of their duties, but that was not so. Tutored in the necessity of being constantly aware at all times since his early childhood, the son of a disgraced palace guard turned smuggler and his favourite whore had begun a personal catalogue of faces, names and more importantly voices. Honing his innate retentive capability as a junior member of the palace guard, Odion had built up a list of all those who resided and worked within the royal household on a daily basis. The speaker had not been from the palace, of that he was certain.<br/><br/>That was why he hated festival days such as the one that was now almost upon them. Celebrations invited guests, and guests were strangers, unknown, not to be trusted, a potential viper in the nest he was now tasked with keeping safe. Rising from his pallet, the dark of post dawn still suffusing his room, the man known to his close friends as Odi, reached for the flint that lay next to the heaping of tinder, striking it once, twice, three times before a cascade of sparks caught. Lifting the oil soaked torch from its sconce, he waited for the hungry flames to creep greedily, engulfing the fist sized treat waiting for it, throwing back the darkness with a scant beacon. Returning it to its original position, Odi, inhaled deeply. Perhaps a run would help, yes, sleep lay fat within his mind, reluctant to be shooed away, surely the lash of activity would finally displace the sluggards.<br/><br/>It had sounded innocuous at first, those words without context, but that was when he heard the word that drove him into the adjoining room; the mention of musamam, poison. That word, regardless of the context, whether it was said in jest or with a straight face was sufficient to send alarum bells ringing in his mind. Poison never, ever indicated a good outcome, any neket iadet knew that. Usually the place would have been frequented by servants going about their preoccupations, or taking a break, during their apportioned social periods, but nek, on that day, the place was thronged with a pestilence of comers and goers, all having some business or other within the palace of the lake gardens beyond. How was anyone supposed to keep a lid on the situation when so many rogue elements were introduced so blithely? Nodding acknowledgement to several other guards who, like him were going through the forceful rejection of sleep in preparation for their daily duties, his words locked behind his teeth; he had never been one to waste such precious pearls scraped from the dirt.<br/><br/>What made matters worse, naturally, given his ill luck, was the fact that such a thing would have to occur during the stewardship of the kingdom’s pharaoh-in-waiting. The thought of such a debacle troubling the princess, the crease that he hated taking up smug residence between her immaculately plucked eyebrows was enough to have him kick a cat, Bast be damned. His first instinct, once he had failed to discern the speaker was to instigate a stop and search , procedure, establishing a perimeter around the palace grounds, but to what effect? By the time it would have taken him to rally the royal and palace guards, the viper would have likely slithered clear. Such a course of action would certainly cause as disruption, and if there was one thing her highness, the queen abhorred more than most other things she despised, it was disruption, particularly on the eve of her birth day, of all days. Protocol be damned though, what use would observing the pointless niceties be if someone wound up dead? Granted while it was as the sophists said, death was a natural part of life, but Odi knew he would risk the waters of the duat and the fury of Sekhmet herself before he would allow a death on his watch, on Nanu’s watch.<br/><br/>To the best of his ability, he had tasked several of his most trusted lieutenants to conduct a thorough search. “But remember, be subtle!” he had warned. “Igniting a fire in a grain house without ascertaining whether the cobra is within is liable to result in a swift visit to the field of reeds, our queen, as you know, will not take kindly to a scandal with nothing to show for it.” Returning to his quarters, Odi retrieved his bathing attire and made his way to the bath house. Only partaking of a cursory dousing, with time of the essence, he returned to his room, girding himself for the day, strapping his leather and royal guard garb with deliberate preciseness, unsheathing his khopesh and giving it a few swings, snorting his exertion before returning it to its sheath and hefting first one than the other of his 2 daggers, hurling one and then the other at the shredded practice dummy in the corner, smirking as a further pair of wounds saw the hapless sack man leak sawdust. Finally, he lifted his quiver onto his back, tested the tension of his predator bow and added 2 more wounds to his uncomplaining target.<br/><br/>His mood was not improved by the unhelpful reports he received in the planning room reserved only for the captain of the royal guard and his watch officers. To their credit, his men had been commendably thorough, but even so, no sign of their poisoner and what it was that had been or would be poisoned had come to light. There was nothing for it then; while it had never been his intention to keep the princess in the ignorance of the shade, he had not involved her out a desire to not add to her concerns. In hindsight, perhaps he should have, at the very least consulted her, but had that been the case, he would just as easily be accused of failing to perform the role entrusted to him. His duty, his purpose, his very reason for existence was to keep the members of the royal family safe, her chief of all. Odi had tried, many times before to justify his prioritizing of her as being the natural obligation in the absence of the Pharaoh on his campaign south to crush the bandit infestation threatening to erupt into full scale insurrection. He had tried, and failed. Naturally it was not his place as a mere dust bastard, to be dreaming of a union with the future ruler of The Nile Lands, but nobody had been able to convince his heart otherwise.<br/><br/>As he neared the banquet hall where the crowds were centred, Odi began to feel that familiar sensation of being trapped. Growing up on the crowded streets of the capital, being in a crowd had come to be second nature to him, but that did not mean he loved it, and even now, the old unease returned, not helped at all by the feeling of dread he felt festering in his guy like a bad meal. As usual, the antidote to any misfortune he faced was her smile, and as he felt his own mouth muscles lift in an alien configuration, he deftly caught the spinning blade out of the air, adding it to his belt, intent on returning to her, inclining his head to acknowledge the servant girl’s greeting. “Your wish is my command, as ever your highness, I-“ Curse the tedious intricacies of such feckless festivities; an almost audible growl of frustration left his lips as the servant jockeyed for her attention but naturally he could not blame her, she had her duties to perform and she was not to know the urgency of his need to interlocute with the most important woman in the kingdom right there and then. “Your highness, if I might have a word,” he began, inserting himself expediently into the gap in her attention, “I- your highness.“ Of course Rami would choose that very moment to make his presence known and giving what must have been his most grudging nod, the frustrated captain of the royal guard watched as once again the one with the power to avert catastrophe vanished from his sight. The only saving grace was that, as captain his place in such matters was next to the royals he was sworn to guard, and giving his attired a clipped run through, he strode lock step into the hall. “You know your duty, should something be amiss, do not let anyone out or in.” he growled at the guard who saluted crisply by thumping his spear butt on the floor. His perspective suddenly narrowed dramatically; the fact that no commotion had been forthcoming thus far only meant one thing; the poisoning would happen within the very chamber he was entering, the very chamber where 3 members of the Egyptian royal family were.