Braydon sat in his office looking at a sealed letter. It had taken a long time but it had been written. An exhausted Nela sat on the chair opposite, she had not expected that Baron Abel was so bad at writing letters. It had nothing to do with him trying to be deceitful in his wording, the man’s writing had been hardly legible. And that was the result that Nela gave up on. It had taken three days to get this result.

“How did you manage to oversee him for  three days?” Braydon shuddered when thinking of having to stay in a room with Baron Abel for more than an hour. And his question got a mirthless stare from Nela, it was the first time he could recall not seeing a smile from her. 

“I could not go on any further, it is now readable. If the King can read the contents and the letter has that pig’s seal that is all we need.” Nela sidestepped the question, and Braydon did not want to push her on that. He preferred Nela’s scary smile to that stare, he dreaded to think how anyone could make her hopeless. Even Aran and Gerald combined had only annoyed her. ‘Wait, did she start referring to Abel as ‘that pig’?’

“And what do you suggest we do with him now?” Braydon did not want to keep Baron Abel around. Even less now that he was a deadweight.

“Set him ‘free’.”

“Wait, what?” That was not the kind of response he thought he would get from Nela. The man had almost literally wiped the smile from her face. How could she want something good to happen to him after all that. Not to mention it completely ran counter to all of her previous schemes.

“No, I am not suggesting what you are thinking that I am.” Nela rejected wholeheartedly. Braydon realised that Nela’s distaste for the man had not reduced her rational capacity, he had just reacted too quickly to the words ‘set him free’.

“Then what do you mean by that?” Braydon was all ears to suggestions for dealing with Baron Abel. Especially those that did not include just living with him.

“Here is what I have in mind…”

“Make sure he is nice and ‘safe’. It would be a shame if anything bad were to happen to him on his way to the western kingdoms.” Braydon said out loud for everyone in the castle who was close enough to hear. At the same time he made a motion with his hand, drawing it quickly across his neck. These would be the people ‘guarding’ Baron Abel’s carriage on it’s way to the western petty kingdoms. They had already received much more detailed instructions earlier, Braydon expected that they would return in one or two days from now.

They were stood in the bailey, Baron Abel already sat in his carriage. He had not been able to believe his luck when Braydon had said he could go free, Of course, the western kingdoms were not exactly on the top of the list of places he wanted to be, but anywhere beat that room where he had been forced to write the same letter repeatedly for days. Even having no possessions and being dumped into the hellscape that was the old Ciai territories was preferable to that.

Nela also stood by the side, it was proper etiquette for one aristocrat to bid farewell to another. A night’s sleep had been all it had taken for her smile to return, Braydon almost thought that her mirthless look from the day before was a lie. It was either that or because Mireille had stuck to her like glue after she saw Nela without a smile. It was hard not to smile after spending some time with Mireille. Though Braydon found that when he did so, it was either him, her or both of them that ended up with red faces.

The guards saluted as they turned around, to head out with the carriage. They were followed by a wagon of supplies. Baron Abel was about to embark on a ‘very long journey’ after all. Once the gates were closed again, Braydon turned to Nela and asked her a question he wished he had never asked.

“Between him and Jett Blake, which is worse?”

Baron Abel was having the first good night of sleep he had had in almost a week. Sure, his bed was a carriage seat but it was better than the restless nights he had in Cliforge castle. The dread of writing that same cursed letter had been enough to keep him tossing and turning. What made this sleep especially nice was that it was much warmer than his room in that Viscount’s castle. ‘Wait, warm!?’

Baron Abel opened his eyes to be blinded by smoke. He tried to shout for help from the guards but he was choked by the smoke, unable to do anything but cough. It was much more than warm, his eyebrows were practically being singed. 

The guards looked on at their handy work. It was really quite a beautiful sight to see such a large fire. Fire had its own beauty in a way, when it was controlled and not burning things that it was not meant to. Like now for example. Braydon had insisted that they use all means necessary to get this job done, Nela’s intense stare had shown that she was most definitely in agreement on this point.

The wagon was now mostly empty, save for a few empty crates, camping gear and their food. There was nothing else that had truly been taken in the first place. What had filled up the wagon was ‘supplies’ to make sure that they had done a good job. And they had truly used everything. Sure, it might be overkill for a pyre. But, hey, they had to do something with all of these supplies.

The men had made sure that the horses were far enough away from the fire, so that they weren’t scared or hurt. There was no reason to waste good horses, he was not worth the hassle. Now all that was left was to take the wagon and go back the way they came. The carriage was burnt, and importantly it was outside of Braydon’s territory. There would be nothing that could link him to the act. They would even travel through the night to make sure that everything was perfect. As they were parting one guard started to smell something, he started sniggering when he realised what it was. 

“Do you smell roast pork?”

*chuckle*

“You are imagining things, all we have are dried rations. Why would we take something so lavish on a short mission.”

Darkwood

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