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As a servant, one saw and heard a lot of things that other people missed, especially if one was in the service of His Imperial Majesty, the Emperor of Nilfgaard, King of Cintra, Lord of Metinna, Ebbing and Gemmera, Sovereign of Nazair and Vicovaro, Emhyr var Emreis, also called The White Flame Dancing on the Barrows of his Enemies by friends and foes alike.
When he walked through the servants' corridors, Mererid made it a habit to always listen attentively to the conversations of the other servants. One could never know what useful things he might pick up. The court was a viper’s nest and His Imperial Majesty needed every advantage he could get to always stay one step ahead of his enemies. Mererid was happy to do what little he could to make the burden that laid on the Imperial shoulders a little easier. If it meant sifting through the servant’s gossip until he found one or two pieces of information that proved useful, then he would gladly do so. Sometimes he would also, quite by accident, pick up other things. Things he should probably report to His Imperial Majesty but refrained from doing so. There was no need to bother His Imperial Majesty who was always insanely busy, especially since his daughter Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon var Emreis, Heiress to the throne of Nilfgaard, Princess of Brugge, Duchess of Sodden, Suzerain of Attre and Abb Yarra, had taken her rightful place at his side.
Just this morning, when he was fetching breakfast for His Majesty, Mererid had picked up a conversation between a manservant and one of the kitchen maids who had just entered the kitchens together.
“I don’t care if she’s nice. My master says the Princess is an uneducated Northern bitch and he’s right,” the manservant said to the kitchen maid, as Mererid was waiting for the tea to finish steeping, standing in a dark corner of the kitchen. He had perfected the ability to see everything while remaining unseen himself a long time ago and he liked to practice it whenever he could. Sometimes the effort paid off.
“But she is the true Heiress!” the girl exclaimed.
“He knows that. But he said that, in turn, this meant that the Emperor has…” Mererid noted that the man’s nose wrinkled in disgust as he searched for a proper phrase, “procreated with a Northern woman, princess or not, instead of some proper Nilfgaardian woman! He has spoiled the royal bloodline. And isn’t that the truth, Stinla? He could have married any noble Nilfgaardian woman and instead, he went to those Northlings! I hear they wash themselves only once a month and he found it in himself to…” again the man seemed to grimace in disgust, “touch one of them and produce a child with her! My master says the Emperor is unfit to rule over Nilfgaard since he obviously doesn’t care for its people and he will do something about it! He only needs a few allies to overturn him!”
The kitchen maid recoiled and hissed sharply, “You stop that right now! This kind of talk will get your master killed! And you as well, if you don’t stop spreading this nonsense! Now, take what you need and get out! And be glad that I’m not reporting you!”
The man grabbed the kitchen maid harshly by the arm and hissed back, “Take care, Stinla! It would be very unfortunate if you had a sudden accident. Those kitchen knives are quite sharp,” then grabbed a plate of food and marched out the door.
“I know how to handle a knife just fine! But you should take care of your privates if you dare to talk to me ever again!” The kitchen maid called after him as the door slid closed. Mererid nodded internally. Good girl. He’d keep an eye on her. Then she huffed, grabbed a basket and went out the backdoor towards the gardens.
Once he was sure that everyone was gone, Mererid emerged from the shadows, calmly removed the herbs and fruit - apple, peppermint, oranges, pomegranate seeds, a dash of citrus balm - that were steeping in the tea, laced it with only a bit of honey - Emhyr didn’t like his tea too sweet - and picked up his own tray to serve His Majesty breakfast.
For a moment, he wondered if he should tell His Majesty about it. If he did, His Imperial Majesty would send the Impera to do a cursory investigation, find the noble guilty as well as - by extension - all of his servants and have them executed. If his family could claim plausible deniability and threw themselves at the Emperor’s feet, they might just escape the Imperial wrath. In any case, His Majesty would acquire another gravestone in the process and add it to the ballroom floor. Mererid knew from the complaints of the other servants just how hard those were to clean, with all the nooks and crannies and the writing on them. After every Imperial ball, they had to scrub the gravestones clean. It was a hassle since it took far too long and left the maids and servants with sore and bloody fingers. The servants had begged Mererid to try to keep His Imperial Majesty from acquiring any more gravestones, with due respect, of course, and only if it suited His Imperial Majesty. Mererid had promised to try because the thing with the gravestones in the ballroom had long since ceased to be a morbid, but effective joke and had become an unhealthy obsession instead. Sometimes, even His Imperial Majesty needed a little inconspicuous steering.
So, Mererid decided, telling His Imperial Majesty about that conversation would only yield unfavourable results and was, in addition, completely unnecessary. Mererid would deal with this himself - after all, he knew who the master of this particular manservant was.
Lauret Aep Gedlim was just finishing his evening meal, which he consumed distractedly while writing a few letters, when he was disturbed by a knock on the door. He didn’t expect anyone - Alvir wouldn’t be back to collect the remnants of his meal until much later - so he gripped the dagger that was laying on the desk in front of him as he bid the person to enter, fixing the dark corridor leading to the entrance of his suite with a sharp gaze. One could never be too careful at court. The door opened and a sliver of light fell into the entrance, illuminating the outlines of a person in the doorway, which, two steps into the room, revealed itself as the Imperial Chamberlain. Lauret racked his brain for the man’s name but couldn’t remember. Something with Mer... Merwet, probably? With a mental shrug and a silent sigh of relief, he let go of his dagger, feeling slightly disgruntled at his own overreaction.
“Yes, Merwet?” Now that it was clear that there was no threat, he was impatient to get back to his letters. If the Emperor required him, then he could at least call for him at a more civil hour, Lauret thought in annoyance.
“His Imperial Majesty sent me to inquire on His behalf if you have need of anything.”
Ah, just some nicety to butter him up. After today’s meeting, the Emperor must have realized that he, Lauret Aep Gedlim, was an important man to have at his side and a clever strategist. Maybe the Emperor was even considering him as a candidate for marrying the Princess. Lauret almost chuckled to himself. As if he ever would touch that Northern whore with a ten-foot pole.
“Thank you, Merwet. I have everything I need. You can tell His Majesty that I am very pleased with the service in the palace.”
Recognizing the dismissal, the man bowed with an elegant, but nevertheless sloppy move that didn’t go deeper than his knees and turned around to walk back towards the entrance. The carelessness he showed was an unusual affront. From what Lauret had seen, normally the man was nothing but correct. He wondered if he should bring it up with the Emperor, but decided against it. He shouldn’t draw any undue attention to himself at this point. His main goal was to convince people that the Emperor and his Northling daughter had to go. Besides, the man would be easy to remove or punish once the coup was done. With a sigh, Lauret went back to his letters, only listening with half an ear to the retreating steps and the closing of the door.
Lauret Aep Gedlim kept writing letters deep into the night. He addressed them to various nobles and politicians in Nilfgaard, who would certainly support him if they read his account, detailing the atrocities he had seen at the palace. Just the other day he had seen the Princess walk around in trousers! And with a sword in hand! He still shuddered at the mere thought.
Alvir had come and removed the remnants of his dinner, then asked to be dismissed for the night. He had been reluctant to allow him to go since all night he had felt as if he was being watched. Rationally he knew it was only nervousness at the fact that his actions tonight could be seen as treason and if the Emperor was a better man, he might even feel guilty for it. But, even if he only did this for the good of the Nilfgaardian people, the knowledge made him tense, causing him to snap at Alvir at every opportunity. After the man had dropped a jug of wine startling Lauret so badly that he spoiled the letter he was currently writing, he shouted at him for his carelessness, made him clean up the mess and then dismissed him for the night.
By now, the candles were already burning low and his eyes were hurting from the strain of writing in the flickering light. Just one more letter, he thought, then he’d go to bed, too. He slid aside the letter he had just finished and pulled the next parchment to himself, dipping the writing feather into the ink.
Suddenly, there was a move in his field of view and then something was cutting painfully into his throat, restricting his breathing. In a panic, he scrambled, tried to get to his feet, tried to grab his dagger, but it was futile. Whoever stood behind him only increased the pressure in response and used the momentum to pull him back against his chair. Now that the desk and his dagger were out of his reach, his hands were scratching at his own throat, trying to remove the wire that was choking him. His heart was pounding in his chest and the fear made him dizzy. Black spots were already dancing in front of his eyes. In a final bid for his life, Lauret tried to shout for help but couldn’t get any air. Then the darkness engulfed him.
When it was done, after only a few seconds of desperate, but useless struggling on Aep Gedlim’s part, Mererid let the body slump forward onto the desk, careful not to make a sound. The thin wire of the garrote slid smoothly through his fingers as he unhurriedly used the wooden handle to wrap the loose end around the leather band on his wrist again, securing and tucking it in, so it once again looked like an unremarkable bracelet. Weapon secured, he reached for the bunch of letters and leafed through them. Each letter was increasingly more delusional than the last. It was pathetic, really, especially his grammar.
Reading the letters confirmed what Mererid had suspected. Lauret Aep Gedlim had no allies yet and Mererid had been able to nip this conspiracy in the bud. All things considered, the man should have been thankful to Mererid. He could already tell that at least three of the intended recipients of the letters wouldn’t have hesitated to denounce his pathetic attempts at a coup d'état in the hopes of gaining favour with the Emperor. In that case, Aep Gedlim’s death, ordered by His Imperial Majesty, would have been long and torturous, instead of quick and efficient. Emhyr var Emreis was more creative in his choice of execution methods than Mererid could ever be.
Next, ever the thorough and diligent servant, he searched the suite but found no further evidence of the man’s treason or any hints about allies or co-conspirators. Satisfied with his work, Mererid slipped out of the room into the hall of the guest quarters which was empty except for two guards at the end of the corridor. Working as a servant really was a boon. As a soldier, he had to take care that he didn’t get caught taking out sentries, while here, as the Imperial chamberlain, no one took notice if he walked around at odd hours. The Emperor was known for working through the nights if need be and it was only natural for Mererid to provide for him at every hour of the day or night.
With a smile, Mererid bid the guards good night as he walked by. He looked forward to his own bed. But first, he needed to burn the letters.
The next morning, the body of Lauret Aep Gedlim was discovered in his suite. He had been strangled and the only evidence left behind was a thin mark around his neck as well as a small line of blood where the wire had nicked his skin. The culprit was found rather quickly in his own manservant Alvir, who kept denying that he had anything to do with his master’s death, even though he had been the last one that the guards had seen enter or leave his master’s suite. They even noted that they had heard Aep Gedlim shout angrily at Alvir, who, a while later, left his master’s rooms in agitation. They even found clothes with a few dark red stains on them in his rooms. As it turned out, Emhyr var Emreis, who had been supposed to meet with a delegation from Orfier that day, didn’t have much patience for an interruption to his schedule caused by a murdering servant and didn’t wait for more evidence. By early afternoon Alvir’s corpse was dangling from the gallows at the Millenium Square, while the crowd cheered below.
It was evening and as usual, Mererid was in the Imperial quarters, helping His Imperial Majesty to remove his heavy court robes and insignia. Currently, he was holding the chain of office, ready to put it away in its box where it would rest on a velvet cushion until morning.
“Mererid,” His Majesty suddenly asked, “you don’t happen to know anything about the murder of Aep Gedlim, do you?”
Mererid had long ago learned that it was unwise to lie to The White Flame, but he also knew from experience that evasion might work.
“The servants said that it was no wonder that he snapped, Sire. Aep Gedlim apparently had been a difficult master. The maids kept complaining about him.”
He put the box on top of the dresser, then turned around and respectfully approached the Emperor, lifting his hands to carefully undo the myriads of buttons and buckles that held the heavily padded overcoat.
His Majesty hummed in response, then noted, as if unrelated, “My schedule was strangely empty this morning, Mererid. That is until I had to deal with a murderer.”
“A curious coincidence, Sire. No one could have known that the delegation from Ofier would suffer from acute indigestion and be unable to attend the meeting you had with them.” He lifted the heavy overcoat from the Emperor’s shoulders, making sure that none of the buckles caught on the fine black cloth of the Imperial undershirt in the process, and added, as an afterthought, “I’m sure the food is very different there.”
He heard Emhyr huff in amusement behind him as he turned and put the Imperial overcoat away to be brushed out by the maid later on. As he carefully draped the expensive cloth onto its stand, whose wood creaked ominously under the weight, he imagined the smile that might just grace Emhyr’s lips right now and allowed himself a smile of his own.
When he turned back, Emhyr had already put on a more comfortable shirt - and dropped the undershirt he had worn onto the floor. It was a bad habit of his that Mererid had never been able to break, he noted with fondness. He walked up to Emhyr, intending to pick up the shirt that was stitched with gold and certainly was too expensive to lay about on the floor when Emhyr reached out and wrapped his fingers around Mererid's wrist, right where the leather band with the garrote rested against his skin. Mererid froze and looked up at Emhyr. The face that met him was stern and grim, as always, but the eyes were dancing with a merriment that only a few were privileged enough to see. The sight threw Mererid back to a moment many years ago when an unruly child had poked out his tongue to him and he, a young man himself back then, had retaliated in kind. It had been quite foolish, but it had turned out to be the best decision of his life.
Emhyr’s dark but gentle voice ripped him from his memories.
“Mererid, I won’t ask any questions but tell me this: is there anything I need to be aware of? For your safety or mine?”
Mererid almost felt insulted at the suggestion. “Of course not. You know me better than that, Emhyr.”
Emhyr only nodded and turned away with a smile on his face, squeezing Mererid’s wrist once before he let go. “Indeed I do, my friend.”
Fondly shaking his head, Mererid bent down to pick up the shirt, set it in the basket to be fetched by the laundress and went to the kitchen to make sure dinner would be ready in time. A servant’s duty never ended and he would gladly do his for as long as he lived.