"It is a lovely countryside indeed." Lilliana sighed, wholey uninterested in talking about the landscape.  Her mother's lessons had come back to her in fleeting intervals.  She perked up a little, feigning interest as she spoke.  "I was born, raised and turned here.  I've hardly gotten a chance to see any of the rest of the world.  I should think that there are few lands lovlier than ours.  But yours is a land I should love to enjoy.  From what I have seen of it in books and paintings, it is a floating realm: timeless and full of graceful stillness.  Languishing leaves in the warm moonlight."<br/><br/>As he looked over her, she instinctively arched her neck and gentley pushed her hair away from it, exposing the pale flesh of her neck and shoulder.  It was a bold and almost antagonistic gesture in an almost careless mode of play.  The fact that he had asked how she knew she could be safe with him was almost the perfect golden setting to the pearl of her exposed shoulder.  No better statement could follow than that, and she knew it.  It brought a coy smile to her painted lips.<br/><br/>"I do not know that I am safe with you.  I have only just met you, but indeed my eyes have followed you from a far for what feels like a very long age."  She straightened herself before replicating his actions and leaning back, determined to show him that she could be just as comfertable in a dangerous situation as a woman as he could, a man.  "I am not unarmed, though I should think I shall have no chance to use my brother's... implament of disembodied protectorate.  Only moments before I saught you out, he bade me to bring it with me."  She felt that she had given him more than enough information, but felt it best not to tell him where or what she had.  Instead, she looked upon him with almost challanging and hungry eyes, waiting for his next move.<br/><br/>_________________________________<br/><br/>Thothcapel had her attention drawn from the progress of the party in the great hall by her chief eunuch, who delicately handed her a slip of papaer.  As she read it,  she took note of the name inscribed on the parchment: Ambros Danforth, the head of the Danforth clan, had been witnessed by one of her seven maids, planting silver coffin nails in Lilliana's bed chambers.  The maid, who was watching from the grate in the bathroom, could only catch glimpses and snippets of speech.  Through those glimpses, she could identify a short man with a black beard and mustache that melted into eachother.  The man was wearing dark leather booties and a long red cape stained with mud.  Though the cloak covered him from neck to ankle, there was an ample amount of information to make an accusation.<br/><br/>When the eunuchs the Queen had instated searched the low-ranking lord's room, they indeed found the silver dust, which had not been discovered by anyone other than Eurich and Ijemaru, who had not reported anything to the King or Queen.  Also in the lord's possessions were two stakes, a box of silver coffin nails and a kind of pistol.<br/><br/>Thothcapel smiled like a cat who'd caught a mouse in the act of defiling her house, but rather than going after the man herself, she decided to make an example of him.  It was indeed time for her husband to do what he did best, explode.   Her face broke from it's sleek confidance and into a frustrated worry.  "My love!" She called, grasping at his shoulder and passing him the slip of parchment.  "See what they do to your only daughter?  Look here!"<br/><br/>Aldreth read over the slip, the color from his evening meal rushed into his cheeks.  He stood and unsheathed his own sword.  It, like Eurich's was a sword of silver around a core if steel.  Unlike Eurich's however, he was allowed to have a silver sword, as it was the Kings rite and no one elses.  In a striking, loud bellow he called, "Ambros Danforth! Step forward and be at arms!"  The shout, like a lion's roar, spurred the accused to recoil.  Most in the great hall grew very quiet and watched the two men, dying for the spectacle of bloodshed.  The man finally stepped forth and stood before his King.<br/><br/>"We, your king, have discovered your hand in tretchery.  And though such tactics are to be expected at this time, you were caught!"  The man was quavering in his boots, but tried very hard to make a brave show of it.  "Do you deny the allogations against you?  That you, Ambros Danforth, did make attempts on the life of Our daughter, your Princess Lilliana?"  He stepped from the throne with confidant strides and came right into the face of Danforth.  "Well, do you?"<br/><br/>"N...no, Your Majesty! I did indeed make attempts on the life of your daughter, the Princess Lilliana."  What he didn't add is that he was ashamed he'd been caught and would apologize if he could breath or thought it would do any good.<br/><br/>"Then stand and meet Our judgement!" The King roared again, bringing his sword close to Danforth's head and neck.  The vampire leapt back and began to mist away, but Aldreth took another few hacking blows at him, ripping away chunks of pale and pinkened flesh that had not yet desolved to mist.  Before long the process ceased and Aldreth could claim his prize.  His blade pushed through the thick muscles of the man's neck and rendered his head from his shoulders.  Aldreth picked up the head of the slain man and stared it in the eyes.  "Your punishmen is not complete, knave." He whispered.<br/><br/>Thothcapel beamed with glee as she watched the spectacle unfold.  It reminded her of why she loved him so deeply in the first place.  The guards were summoned and ordered to strap the "victim" to the poles atop the battlements.  The head was to be put on the pike facing the east, alongside the body, so that the man could watch himself smolder into nothingnes when he finally greeted the sunrise.  Before the body was dragged away, Aldreth used the final moments to clean most of the blood from his blade with the man's dirtied cload, careful not to touch the silver.  He returned to his throne with a heavy and satisfied sigh, knowing justice had been done.