The Journey through Ferramoust Ch. 4

Chapter 4. Saidy’s Mission [Saidy]-

Once she closed and locked the door, she quickly began to pull off her maid dress and bonnet, hanging them up by her bed to get some of the wrinkles out of them. She pulled off her soft-soul black shoes and sat them on the floor at the bottom of her bed, and then took off her stockings and laid them on the side table next to her bed. She did all this in the same order every night. Then in the morning, she would take it to the room where the maids would launder it, and she would pick it up by the time she ate lunch.

She started rummaging through her trunk and pulled out a dark grey pair of trousers and a matching tunic that fit her snug. Then a pair of Black stockings and some soft-soul gray shoes, similar to the ones she was wearing before, except these had little sharp metal points sticking out at the spots where the toes sit. These shoes were specially made for climbing walls. Particularly stone walls. She knew that for her mission tonight she would not need black clothes, because the full moon was out. Instead, she would need dark grey so as not to stand out against the wall.

She pulled out a grey bonnet to hide her hair in for the climb; since it was snow white and would stand out against the wall, a satchel that held a few potions that she may possibly have to use and a rope made mostly of water reeds, and finally some gray gloves and knee pads carefully from the bottom of her trunk. These both had multiple tiny blades sticking out from the palms of her hands, allowing her to grip the stone walls easier and climb up them. Same with the knee pads. These would be the last things that she would put on after she slipped out her window to get ready for her climb.

She crossed the room over to a simple open fireplace, to a full-sized mirror that went from ceiling to floor. Next to that was a dresser where she kept items like her brush and her makeup. She wasn't normally a makeup fan, but she knew she would need it to blend in. So, she made sure that every day as a maid she wore simple makeup so that if anybody checked her room, they would not question why she had makeup that she didn't use.

She did not have many colors, for people who did not have a lot of money did not get to wear makeup. So, she bought some as she worked and made money at the castle. She had four colors; white, black, blue, and red. Tonight, she would only need to use the first three of the four.

She started a fire and then went to draw a hot bath in the bathing room. While she waited for the wash tub to fill, she went to her makeup and started mix the colors to get the color she was going to need to blend in with the walls and the night sky. Once the tub was filled and turned off, she applied the makeup on her face and areas of her neck that would be exposed while she was climbing. She would need them both for later, and she wanted the fire to be warm when she came back.

Finally, when all was through and her makeup was on she gently grabbed her gloves and crossed over to the window, pulling the drapes away from the window just enough for her to slip in between them, check to make sure that there was no one in her line of sight. This was hard to do seeing as her room was on the floor level and there were shrubs on either side of her window. So, she opened it up, stuck her head out and checked again to make sure that there was nobody on that side of the castle at all.

Once she saw the coast was clear she climbed out of the window, closed it all except for a crack, leaving a short stick in between the seals just in case it fell and latched itself while she was away. So, anyone who passed by would not see it.

She ducked behind the shrubbery passing quickly behind one, then another, then another, ducking down farther when she got to another window and quickly passed under them. She moved silently. Thankfully the side of the castle that she would need to climb was the same side that she was on. It was also lucky that this was the side of the castle that not many people would be roaming around on, but people liked to take walks, so just to be sure that is why she wore the stealthy colors she had on.

She made it to the corner of the castle and looked up. She could see a faint glow from a few windows, but she wasn’t sure if the Queens was one of them from this angle. The only way for her to know was to start climbing. She carefully put on her knee pads, then gloves while looking around the corner to see if there was anybody close by. She did not know if the guard patrolled on the night of the full moon festival or how long she had until they would pass; if they did.

Earlier that day, she had been told to change the Queens linens which gave her time to make sure that the Queen's window was unlocked and left open with a stick in the window just like hers. But even so, if the queen had noticed it was unlocked and closed it, she had other ways of getting in the room. That's what one of the potions was for.

Once the gloves and knee pads were on, she tested them and the shoes right there close to the ground to be sure that they would hold on to the castle walls. She had not had time to check them since she had been here, too afraid that someone would catch her using them and her plan would fail. But she had used them back in her village, and the mountains that she climbed there had far harder rock than what the castle was made of.

They did work properly, and she began her climb slowly up the wall, staying close to the edge so that she could glance around it and make sure that no one was about to turn the corner. Since she had not been climbing in a few months and the wall that she was climbing was more straight up and down than what she was used to, she struggled to keep her body as close to the wall. As long as she could keep moving, it wouldn't be a problem. The knee pads were only there to help keep her steady as she reached up and dug her gloves into the wall above her.

Her luck kept up until she was about halfway up the wall, when a patrol guard turned the corner and made his way to her corner of the wall. She stopped moving and kept her eyes on him. Her muscles started to strain from the force to staying perfectly still and as close to the wall as possible. Sweat started to bead at her brow, but was instantly relieved and dispersed by a light breeze. This did not ease her worry, though. If he were to look up, there was a possibility that he would see her bonnet, which was the loosest thing on her, swaying in the breeze.

Just when her body was starting to scream from her holding her awkward position for so long, he finally made it under her and turned the corner continuing his patrol around the other side of the wall. ‘Well, that answers my thoughts about them patrolling.’ she thought as she watched him slowly make his way out of sight. She looked around at all the windows before continuing, making sure that she wasn't being watched from an open window. She had no reason for concern because the only lit window near her was the one at the top, which so happened to be the window that she needed to get to.

She continued her climb, now knowing that she had a time limit before the next guard would pass. Now that she knew that there were guards patrolling, that meant that they kept their schedule. She did not have much time before the next guard would come around the corner. She kept climbing, moving one hand over the other, one foot over the other. ‘Hand, foot, knee. Hand, foot, knee.’ She kept repeating to herself slowly breathing in and out.

Finally, moments before the next guard was about to turn the corner, she made it to the Queen's window. It was still unlocked with the stick holding the window open. If she wanted, she could have used the Queen's balcony for her entrance instead, but she figured that that would be too obvious and that the queen would make sure that the balcony was locked before the side window. Saidy glanced around the corner and noticed that the queen was sitting outside on a rocking chair, overlooking the festivities going on below, humming a tune as she rocked.

Saidy quickly pulled up the window, moving the stick as she climbed in head first. She glanced quickly around the room, making sure there was no guard. There wasn't. She silently closed and locked the window, then turned her attention back to the Balcony, where the queen sat. The queen was still rocking her chair and humming a tune. Saidy could hear it better now; she could hear the shaking in the Queens voice. The queen was worked up about something. ‘Maybe she knew what was about to happen?’ Saidy thought looking around the room again, this time looking for some sort of trap and a place to hide as she took off her gloves, shoes, and knee pads, and silently slipped them into her small satchel she had tied at her waist.

The Queen's room wasn't very big, just big enough for a changing area, a wardrobe with several different dresses; All of them different shades of purple, a bed, and a dresser with a stand-up mirror behind it. Just like in Saidy's room the queen had a door that went to her bathing room and the latrine. Saidy looked around and figured out the best place to hide would probably be under the bed.

Before she slipped under the bed, she ducked into the Bathing room, pulling out one of her potions as she went. She crossed over to a small pitcher of water near the tub that was always kept full for the queen to poor if she needed a drink. She poured half of that into the pitcher and turned back to head into the bedroom. As she entered the bedroom, she seen the queen standing up and come back into the room.

Saidy ducked back into the bathing room, cursing herself in her head for not moving faster. She looked quickly around the room and saw a wash closet with a laundry chute where the queen tosses her dirty clothes in and they drop a few levels down into a laundry room used only for the queen. She quickly ducked into the closet, closing it to almost a crack; just enough to see out and decide if she needed to make her escape down the open chute.

The queen entered the washroom and made her way to the wash tub, still humming that same nervous tune Saidy had heard a few moments before. It started to make her feel nervous as well. The queen turned on the water to fill the tub and started stripping off her clothes layer by layer. Saidy wanted to turn away for this, but made herself watch; just in case the queen headed to the wash closet. She didn't as Sadie had figured, but she had to be sure. Queen Mylah dropped all of her clothes lazily to the floor.

Before the tub was completely filled and after she had taken all of her clothes off, the queen stepped into the tub and sat down. The only thing left visible on her was her shoulders and her hair, which was hanging outside of the tub so it wouldn't get wet. Once she was in the tub and it was filled, she turned it off, started to relax a little, and the tune she was humming slowed and became more confident and calming.

Saidy stood crouched over in the closet, not allowing herself the comfort to move, fearing that the queen might hear her. She didn't know how long she stayed there for; but it was for a very long while. She watched the queen through the crack of the closet door. She knew if she had to, she would stay there all night.

After a while she saw the queen reach for the pitcher and a cup sitting next to it and pour herself a drink. Saidy couldn’t believe her eyes. She had hoped that she would've been able to slip in and out before the queen drank the poison. The last thing she wanted to do was hear the queen take her last breath. Saidy took a silent breath to prepare herself. Deep down, she knew that this was probably the best way for it to happen.

The queen filled the cup all the way up and then took a couple of gulps of the water. Then slowly poured the rest on her naked torso, cooling herself down. Saidy knew that now either way the queen’s life would be gone in just a few more minutes. The poison was laced with an extremely strong sleeping crop so she would fall asleep before she would die, she only needed a drop or two for this to happen. But Saidy had emptied half the potion, just to be sure. This gave her the advantage of it being peaceful and quiet.

As if to confirm what Saidy had hoped, the queen’s humming started to get softer and her head started to bob as sleep overtook her. The queen must have realized something was wrong because her head snapped up and she picked up the cup, sniffed it and moaned, “No... Oh, no, no, no, no. Not yet.”

Saidy heard the queen let out a sob and whisper, “Whoever you are, I forgive you for what you have done to...” She never finished her sentence. Sleep overtook her as her body slumped back against the back of the wash tub and slid further into the water; her head almost completely submerged. ‘And death was soon to follow.’ Saidy heard those words echo in her head over and over, willing them to be true.

She stayed still and silent for a while longer just to be sure. She watched the queen for a while to make sure that she didn’t move again, before pushing the closet door open, double-checking the rooms to be sure they were alone, and making sure the lights were off and the balcony door was ajar, but the satin purple drapes pulled shut. She wanted it to look like the killer had slipped in and out through that door, to draw attention away from the windows.

She stoked the fire and added a log, to add a light glow to the room and then took out her rope and slipped out onto the balcony slowly in a low crouch, making her way to the edge and peering over the side to see if there was anyone a little to close in the dark that may see a rope being tossed over the edge. She securely tied the rope to a post on the balcony then placed her feet on two sturdy posts and pulled back with all her little might to put a strain on the rope so it actually looked like someone had used the rope.

After she was sure of the rope, she crept back over to the edge, checked again to see if the coast was clear, then lowered the rope down until all the slack was out of the rope and the knot slowly turned toward the outside of the balcony. After that she slipped back inside the room, looking around as she went. This was the first thing she was taught when she started learning “The family business” and it was glued so much into her mind, she did this every time she entered a room. It had been a hard trait to control when she started working for the queen, but she played it off as her family taught her to look out for Remo’s.

Nothing was out of the ordinary and the room was clear. Same with the bathing room. Not once yet did she look at the queen’s face; she couldn’t. She gathered the Queens clothes off the floor and walked over to the wash closet that held the chute where the queen tossed the clothes down to be washed. She looked down the chute to see how far of a jump it would be. But it was dark all the way down. This was good news and bad news for Saidy. the good news was at the maids weren't in the laundry room right now. The bad news was she didn't know how far she would fall or if she would hurt herself. She had never been in the Queens laundry room before.

She tossed down the Queen's clothes and listened. She didn't hear anything aside from the flapping of the clothes down the chute and then the lack of noise when they hit whatever surface was below. Thankfully, the chute's walls were made of stone like the walls of the castle, so she should be able to climb down and hopefully get to the level with the laundry room before having to drop the rest of the way down.

She pulled her shoes, knee pads and gloves out of her satchel and carefully pulled all of them on aside from the gloves. After she did that, she took one more glance around the room, her eyes landing on the queen. A tear dripped down her cheek as she said a prayer to whatever spirits maybe listening, hoping that she died with as little pain as possible. She had liked the queen. She was a fair and just woman whose soul was even more beautiful than her skin.

Saidy had been warned about not getting too close to the queen though. And she swore to herself that she wouldn’t. ‘She isn’t even my queen.’ She reminded herself bitterly as she turned away, closing the wash closet, pulled herself into the chute and positioned her feet and knees to dig into the walls of the chute to hold herself in place as she pulled on her gloves, and slowly started her descent down the chute.

As she had hoped, the chute ended in the laundry room, but looking down in the dark room she couldn’t see how far the drop would be, or if there was a hamper of clothes that she would fall in. She slowly pulled one foot down below the chute opening, then the other letting her legs dangle in the open air and finishing pulling herself down to where only her hands were in the chute and prepped herself for the fall; then let go.

She landed on the ground, knees bent, letting them absorb the fall, then rolled back on her butt, arms out in front of her. She normally would have rolled on her side or forward, but she was trying not to make marks on the floor with her climbing equipment. She sat there for a second letting her eyes adjust to her moonlit surroundings as she pulled off her gloves.

She was in an overly big empty room aside from the washing bin, drying rack, and a couple of carts. One cart had a few shelves that held the queens clean clothing to be brought to her room in the morning. The other had no top, but a cloth was tied around each corner and looked like it held the dirty clothes when the queen tossed them down the chute. Luckily, whoever did the laundering must have forgotten to move it back. If they had, it would have been torn by Saidy’s fall. She picked up the clothes that she had tossed before her and dropped them in the hamper and moved the hamper under the chute where it belonged.

When she was done with that, she made her way to the window, and observed the locks on the window for a minute before smiling. The mechanisms for these windows were made by the Earthlians and the locks reset themselves once the window was closed. She pulled the window up and looked down at the ground below. She was back on the side of the castle wall that she had originally started with and about a third of the way down. Now she just had to wait for the next guard to pass and then she could start her descent the rest of the way down the wall.

She looked up at the sky and seen some dark clouds on the horizon. It looked like it was going to be a gloomy day. Fitting. She thought as she looked down again and caught sight of a guard rounding the corner and making his way across the grass. She knew soon that the sky would turn grey, then the sun would be coming up, but now she knew that it would be hidden by storm clouds. And she would have to go and “Wake the queen” for her breakfast and find her majesty dead and pretend to be devastated. That is, if the guard didn’t check on her first.

When the guard rounded the other corner, she quickly pulled herself halfway out of the window, pulled on her gloves, and closed the window. She heard the lock click back into place and as quickly as she could quietly crawl down the wall. Once she got within 15 feet from the ground, she pulled her knives from the side of the castle wall and dropped the remainder of the way, knowing she didn’t have much time before the next guard would round the corner.

Once on the ground she pulled off her gloves, knee pads, and shoes, placed them in her satchel, and made her way back towards her window; staying as close to the wall and crouched as far down as she could. When she made it to a bush, she would peak out to see if a guard was coming. Once the next guard rounded the corner, she stayed hidden behind the bush until he had passed and rounded the next corner.

She was still a few windows away, but before she finished heading to her room, she set to work burying her satchel as close as she could to the center of the bush. She didn’t want a groundskeeper to be trimming the bushes and see her fresh hole full of her death toys. She would be alright if they found them, but she really didn’t want to part with them, if she didn’t have to.

This didn’t take her very long; she didn’t want to dig them too deep in case she needed to make a quick escape. She crossed under the final few windows, and made it back to her window. Her stick was still sticking out the side. She pulled the window open and crawled head first facing away from the room and kicked the dirt off her stockings as she pulled herself inside, then closed the window securely.

Immediately following her usual scan of the room, though this time she was positive she was alone, she walked over to the fire and began peeling her clothes off. She started with her stockings and ended with her bonnet and shirt crumpled together and tossing them into the fire. She stood there naked, stoked the fire some, and watched the clothes burn.

She shivered, even though she was standing in front of the fire. She had just watched her first person die. And she wasn’t even brave enough to look her in the eyes when she did it. The reality of it started to hit her, her shoulders began to shake, a soft sob escaped her lips, tears now pouring from her eyes. She crouched down and hugged her knees, trying to calm herself down, her eyes glued to the fire. The flames licked the clothes greedily, turning them quickly from stone grey, to charcoal black, then finally crumbling to the bottom of the pit as it changed to ash.

Even after the flames had devoured the clothes, she stayed frozen as if made of stone. Slowly feeling her body go numb as she replayed the queen's last moments over in her head. The queen said she forgave her and that stung. She wanted the queen to hate her. Her momma always said her first kill, no matter how little she was involved, would be the hardest. She didn’t think her momma expected her first victim to forgive their killer. But then again, how many people can get away with killing someone who could see the future, let alone a queen.

She stood and tossed the fire stoker to the corner of the room, letting it clatter to the floor and let out a frustrated growl. She caught herself before getting too loud, took a deep breath, crossed the room, picked up the stoker and put it back in its holder. Then she headed to take her bath. She had to get all that makeup off of her and the dirt from under her nails. It was almost time for her shift to start.

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Saidy made her way from the mess hall with a platter of fruit and cheese in her hands; up flight after flight of stairs until she reached the top flight of stairs where the queen’s room was. When she rounded the corner, she saw two guards posted outside the queen's door, but both were dozing off. They had their heads down and didn’t hear her make the corner. She slapped her feet on the ground enough to make noise, causing both their heads up quickly, eyes suddenly alert and looking for the source of the noise. She lowered her eyes as they did that, so not to embarrass them. She didn’t want them to know she had caught them dozing off.

When she was within a few feet of the door she stopped, lifted the lid of the platter and showed them the queen’s breakfast; mummered a good morning to them both before popping a grape that the guard picked out into her mouth. They watched her as she ate the grape. This was a normal precaution. Any food or drink that came to the queen's room had to be taste tested, first by the person preparing the food, then by the maid in front of the guard before entering the room.

Once they were sure that Saidy wasn’t going to drop dead in front of them, they knocked on the queen's door, announcing Saidy’s arrival. Normally the queen would answer, always awake before her maids. Today there was silence. Saidy put on a slight frown when there was no sound. The guards knocked again. Nothing.

“She may be in the bathing room. Go on in, and make sure you announce yourself... loudly.” The guard on the left said as he opened the door.

“Yes sir.” Saidy said, giving a small curtsy before entering. The room was empty of people, and a fire smoldering across from the queen's bed. A cool breeze came through the room from the open balcony, causing Saidy to shiver. “My Queen? I have brought you your breakfast this morning.” She called loudly as she set the queen’s platter down on the table. She gave herself a couple of seconds of silence before heading to the wash room and continuing, “Queen Mylah? Can you hear me? Are you ill?”

She slowly entered the bathroom at got her first real look at the dead queen, her body slumped in the water, half her face now submerged in water, eyes open and empty but looked as though to be staring at Saidy. Blood was trickling from her mouth and swirling slowly in the water, which was now a slight pink color.

She thought that the queen had died in her sleep. It looked like the queen had stayed awake until the very end. It was creepy to look into those dead purple eyes.

Saidy took a deep breath, tears stinging in her eyes, and let out a blood curdling scream.