63 Distress Part 2

Wishing to know what was happening, he walked to the end of the hallway and asked one of the guards on duty about it.

The man coughed and waved a hand in front of his nose. "Nobles visiting I guess. All I know is that the earl and his wife are there."

That made John curious. While the earl worked a lot, he rarely received any visits from other nobles. Most of the work was done from his office upstairs with the help of Alon, his chamberlain. Usually, he'd only work from the throne on Diusdays when he listened to the petitioners.

John stuck his head through the doorway to take a look into the throne room. None of the guards tried to stop him, though they looked visibly bothered.

The throne room looked as grand as ever, with a tall ceiling that reached up to the second floor and banners in the Westbrooks' colors hanging from the walls. Sunlight through the windows and over the smooth stone floor. Hagen sat at his throne atop the dais. Alon stood to his right while Athalia was by his left.

Hagen didn't have many courtiers, with most of his retinue being posted throughout the city, acting as his eyes and ears. Their only interaction with the Earl happened at the start of each month when they reported anything of note to him. These reports ranged from the grain prices to the production of the mines, and also any unusual movement inside the city. As such, the throne room always seemed to have too much free space, even when in use.

Under the guards' watchful gazes, two men and a woman approached the throne. Their clothes looked fine although certainly not as good as a noble's. None of them had any jewelry either.

The middle-aged woman to the left had her dark hair cut only a few inches short. Her face looked somber, though John suspected that was her usual expression. The man to the right looked younger and he had a blue sash over his robes. His rough black hair contrasted with a perfectly shaved faced and well-groomed clothes. Something about the man looked familiar to John but, try as he might, he couldn't figure out where from. As for the man at the center—

John's heart skipped a beat. His breath got stuck in his throat and he felt like he was once again suffocating. How? How could that be?

With a limp, the frail man at the center led the other two towards the dais. His right sleeve fluttered with his steps as if he had nothing underneath.

John knew that was exactly the case. He knew it because his mother was the one who ripped out the man's arm before killing him. Or at least that's what John thought that had happened.

The man stopped a couple of steps from the dais. He bowed his head while the man and the woman dropped to one knee. "My lord Hagen, it's a pleasure to see you again," he spoke in a raspy voice that John was never able to forget.

Hagen nodded his head with a smile that failed to reach his eyes. "The feeling is mutual Vasilis."