As soon as I walked into the tavern my men went quiet. They sat at a long oak table with Nephrite at its head. The men were motionless, some with their tankards almost to their lips. They were terrified of me, and I was glad to see it. A large part of being a commander is making certain your men fear you more than they fear the enemy. A lesson I was certain Nephrite wouldn't learn until it was far too late.

"Good evening, Lord Kunzite," Nephrite said in a haughty voice. "So kind of you to take a break from entertaining your mistresses to pay your men a visit."

"The moongirls are fierce warriors, strong and well disciplined. There is much to be learned by fighting alongside them."

Nephrite nodded. "Is it true Venus is the most beautiful woman in the universe?"

"I'm not sure if she's the most beautiful woman in the universe, but she's certainly the most beautiful woman I've ever seen."

Nephrite chuckled, lapsed into my native dialect, and composed his face to make it appear we were discussing something lewd. My language had no written form and was understood by almost no one. Nephrite had no reason to learn my mother tongue, except to converse with me in private in the presence of our men. When people wonder why I kept him around, despite his transparent attempts to replace me as the king's man...let us just say even naked ambition has its uses.

*Yes, you and your fierce warriors have been making my job increasingly difficult. No sooner do I train a spy to infiltrate the Grand Design than you swoop in and arrest him. I would recommend we coordinate our efforts, but since you are acting without the king's authority...* He made a lewd motion and gave another chuckle

I took a seat near Nephrite so we could converse without shouting. *Spies or not, I need the Grand Design out of the capitol. We are no longer dealing with a lazy mob of malcontents. They've tried to kill the Moon Princess once and nearly succeeded. We can't afford to cut things close again. What have you learned from your spies?*

*I've learned why they want the Moon Princess dead.*

*Oh?* I very much wanted to hear this.

*She is the subject of many doomsday prophesies amid moon cultists. It is said that she will bring about the End of Times. That the sun will swallow up the moon. That an innocent boy will sacrifice his life to save her and she will misuse her powers to resurrect him as a messiah of pure evil. That she will give birth to four heavenly kings, led by a madman, who will rain death and destruction down upon all they encounter. All of these tales have one thing in common, they begin with a betrothal between a princess of the moon to a prince on the earth.*

That idiot girl. *She knows all this and she decided to come here anyway?*

Nephrite shook his head, still playing the ribald drunkard. *She doesn't know anything. Her mother has been careful to keep all of these prophesies from her ears, and the ears of the people surrounding her, so as not to worry her.*

Then her mother was the idiot. *Her people and ours should have been warned!*

*Her mother isn't foolish enough to believe in prophesies* he wore a buffoonish smile but narrowed his eyes at me. *Are you?*

*I've seen more than my share of prophesies come to pass. If for no other reason than because people think they will.*

*There is nothing to worry about in term of further assassination attempts. The moon princess is in hiding. The Grand Design has gotten their heart set on using a particular master assassin, and she has already turned them down. All of their plans of late involve getting this assassin to change her mind.*

*And this assassin. Is her name SH-U-L-A the Deathbringer?*

Nephrite either couldn't hide his startled expression or didn't bother to. *What do you know about her?*

*Only what could be found in books. What do you know about her?*

*Far less than that. I haven't had much time to study. Though, it appears whoever Shula the Deathbringer is, she harbors royalist sentiments. She told her contact that in the interests of keeping the peace she will allow him to live, but if he ever bothers her with another plot against the king, they will be fishing little bits of him out of the harbors.*

*Who is this contact?*

Nephrite sipped his tankard. *As if I'd tell you. I'm sorry. You may still outrank me, for the time being, but I'm the only one of us working under the king's authority.*

*I meant, what is his relationship with Shula?*

*He claims to have been one of her acolytes. They've both since gone into retirement, and they have nearly lost touch, but he claims they are still friendly enough to where she might be persuaded to mastermind a plan for them.*

*This contact. How old is he?* I asked.

*Is that important for you to know?* Nephrite asked.

*It might be.*

*He's around fifty.*

For a moment I just sat there, trying to take in the possible implications.

*You seem troubled.* Nephrite said.

*The original Shula the Deathbringer's acolytes tended to be boys in their teens. She died a quarter of a century ago. This acolyte is too old to fit the standard pattern, which might make this copycat harder to spot.*

*Who said anything about a copycat? This contact insists she's the original.*

*The original died.*

*No, the original was broken in a hundred places, but she survived. Or so he claims. After the attempt on her life, she was rendered lame, the lower left half of her body completely paralyzed. Her followers held a funeral and mourned her since Sh-u-l-a the Deathbringer had died for all intents and purposes, but he insists her mind has remained first rate so she has moved to the capitol and gone underground, working as a consulting assassin.*

Interesting. So Shula had gone from being a girl with a red braid to an aging matron confined to a chair in some den of iniquities.

She might have gotten sneakier, but she certainly wasn't less subtle.

Assuming this contact was telling the truth and not merely trying to milk the Grand Design for their considerable monetary resources.

Nephrite reverted to the common language. "Hey, Jadeite. Show Commander Kunzite the box."

The table howled and Jadeite frowned. "I'd rather not."

"Oh, come on. What's it good for except as a tavern story?"

Jadeite's scowl deepened as he placed an ornate chest on the table. It was polished sandalwood, about a foot deep, a foot tall, and two feet wide. The entire chest was inlayed with a gold filigree showing swords and roses.

"Tell him the story!" several voices commanded.

"You tell him the story," Jadeite said, and lapsed into a sulk.

Nephrite smiles. "Jadeite was playing dice with a couple of merchants. He was winning quite handily. But one of the merchants wanted to keep playing, and he had no more money. Or so he claimed. He offered to sell Jadeite a cask full of pearls to Jadeite for a mere hundred gold. They even opened it to show him the pearls inside. He insisted it was worth over four hundred gold. Jadeite managed to bargain him down to ninety, under the condition that they could always buy it back from him him if their luck changed. Their luck did change, but they took off without buying the chest back."

"Show him why they didn't buy the chest back!" the voices chanted.

Jadeite glumly opened the chest to show the pearls inside. Even in the dim tavern light I could see they were pierced through for use as embroidery or buttons. Then he pulled a small concealed lever on the side and the chest unfolded into tiers.

The top contained pearls, of course.

The next contained tiny colored gems, in every color of the rainbow.

The one below that contain sewing supplies: gold scissors, needles, jeweled pins, thimbles, sticks of teal colored chalk, embroidery loops, and many other things I didn't recognize since I don't do my own sewing.

All of the rows below that contained spools of silk thread. Many, many spools of thread. In every color imaginable.

The table laughed cruelly at Jadeite's bad fortune.

"So you see, Jadeite's chest of pearls turned out to be a sewing kit," Nephrite said.

Jadeite smirked. "A very nice sewing kit, but one you could buy in most harbors for twenty gold or less."

Perfect.

"The tale is about to get funnier," I said. "I'll give you one hundred gold for it."

The laughter stopped.

"It's not worth a hundred gold," Jadeite said.

It seems his fear of me was enough to overcome both his greed and his pride.

"I'm well aware of that. Twenty is for the kit, eighty is for the story that goes along with it."

Still the fool was either too cowed to let me cheat myself or didn't know when to shut his mouth and count his blessings. "I don't understand."

"I've been meaning to buy a gift for someone, but I needed for there to be an amusing story behind it."

"And is this someone a blue eyed blonde moonmaiden by any chance?" Nephrite asked.

"Perhaps," I said.

Nephrite sighed happily and shook his head from side to side. "A hundred gold for a sewing kit. It must be love."

I gave the whole table a baleful smile. I didn't even have to tell them not to make mention of it to her. All of them, including Nephrite knew enough not to approach their commander's woman for conversation.