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If the throne was a lonely place, why did people keep bothering her?
“Enter,” Astele barked, putting down yet another report on what little the Guild knew about Duke Ravengard’s disappearance. A kidnapping, it seemed. Couldn’t the self-righteous fool walk in a straight line down an Upper City street without getting into trouble?
Lady Croup opened the door with a respectful nod, Zenovia Dawg of all people on the other side, wanting… something. They all wanted something.
As Zenovia began to speak, Astele’s lips pursed in irritation. She was Guildmaster, queen of the Baldurian underworld in all but name, Nine-Fingers Keene herself… And still, everyone from the lowliest sparrow to the Council of Four saw fit to interrupt even the time she had specifically scheduled to get to the bottom of her pile of reports.
Zenovia was sensible, and competent, and a better operative than the vast majority of the Guildhall. So what she wanted would at least presumably be somewhat intelligent. But still… Could Astele not have one hour of peace?
Was this what she had fought for? Years of working herself up, slowly acquiring clout and respect, acquiring power, all for the sake of… being interrupted by people who should have known better?
Astele’s gaze strayed to the falcon in its golden cage, staring beadily right into her eyes, as if it knew, as if it saw her. She blinked and turned back to Zenovia, to her job, the thing she should be focusing on.
It’s just a bird, she reminded herself. Just some stupid raptor gifted by a dumber patriar.
The bird squawked, as if indignant at the unspoken insult.
Astele waved over Lady Quinsy to cover the cage with a cloth. Apparently it was better not to stress them too much. Why a bird would have cause to stress when its life consisted of nothing but eating, cawing, shitting and glaring was beyond her comprehension.
“My apologies, Dawg. Please, continue.”
She was allowed to finish the Ravengard report and half of her next, before another interruption.
“Enter!”
Rakath Glitterbeard? If the gods had given this man the sense of a common gutter rat…
The falcon screeched angrily from behind its cover, as if in agreement.
Astele couldn’t decide if she empathized with the ridiculous creature, or wished for it to simply stop, with violence if necessary. She carried a number of knives on her person even in the safety of her own quarters, it would be easier than breathing to slice it in half or wring the irritating fowl’s neck.
Please do fuck off, Astele longed to say. Kindly kiss my ass on your way to the deepest of the Nine Hells. I don’t have time for idiots, and I seem to be surrounded by nothing but.
“And why is that my problem, Mr. Glitterbeard? The Counting House operates independently. I cannot be seen to interfere in everyday procedures, much less publicly so. So what, exactly , do you want from me?”
Oh, everything and nothing as it turned out. No news there. Glitterbeard was a useful lackey, but by the gods, the man was unable to think a thought without a wait period of five business days and a ten-page memo outlining exactly how and why a thought ought to be produced.
Eventually, Glitterbeard left. He wasn’t even kicked out on his dumpy dwarven arse, even if she had been severely tempted to ask Lady Ague to do the honors.
Astele rubbed her temples as she tried to focus on agricultural projections and the political impact of the potential admission of Luskan into the Lord’s Alliance. Gods, it was too early for a drink, but some days it proved tempting.
“Kak-kak-kak-kak-kak!” The falcon’s little cackle was undeniably mocking, and Astele flinched so hard she almost knocked over her inkpot.
“Guildmaster? Are you well?”
“I’m fine, Flux,” she muttered, then sighed. “It’s just that damnable bird… ”
Another cry. Would it stop?!
“Would you like me to remove it for you?”
“No, no, it’s… Bring me some water, would you? Ice cold. And maybe a headache remedy.”
“Yes, Guildmaster.”
She’d just been reading too much, in the low, spotty lighting of the Guildhall. She hadn’t been getting enough sleep. Skipped too many meals, picked at too many more while hunched over her work.
Can’t Baldur’s Gate hold itself together for one day so I can have some rest?
Oh, but she knew perfectly well she wouldn’t rest even if the opportunity came to her gift-wrapped.
No one else will do it, so I must.
Astele sighed and flipped the page. Luskan, Luskan…
“Lady Guildmaster?”
“Are you shitting me?” Her nostrils flared with irritation. She took a deep breath, holding for a count of five before expelling it through her nose. “Enter!”
A blistering godsdamned Zhent. Some low-level operative with more balls than sense, returned after a period away to find the local terrain unrecognizable.
And she wasn’t even offering to turn her cloak. What possible use could Astele have for her?
“Please, do tell me why I shouldn’t kill you on sight.”
Bla bla bla, Beholders in enchanted containers, treacherous underlings, kidnapped painters, what did it matter?
Astele cut her off with a sharp hand gesture. “Stop talking.”
“But, Guildmaster-”
“I told you to stop talking. ” She didn’t raise her voice. She didn’t have to.
One of Lady Lockjaw’s knives unsheathed with a quiet snick of steel on leather.
The Zhent stopped talking.
“Now, either get out, and be grateful I let you leave with your life, or make yourself useful.”
Astele sunk back into her chair with a groan. Her Ladies would take out the trash.
“KAK-KAK-KAK-KAK-KAK!” the bird cried, high and mocking.
Her eyelid twitched.
Astele stormed over to the cage, tearing the cloth off. “Would you bloody well STOP IT?!”
“Keee-arr!” the falcon screeched at her, its eyes all too knowing.
“What in the hells do you know, anyway? You’re just a stupid glorified chicken.” She should have it killed. Sold. Taken to bloody Chult.
The bird just looked at her.
Astele Keene, Queen of the Underworld, broken by a bird. You’re better than this.
“Kaw,” it cried again, but this time the sound was more sad than anything, almost plaintive. Its eyes saw too much.
“Pathetic creature,” she muttered. “Just a bird in a pretty little cage. Who gives a hunting falcon to someone who lives underground, anyway?”
“Ker-kaw-ker-ker!”
“You’re probably sick of it, aren’t you? You’re supposed to fly free, to hunt, to kill as you please, and instead you’re stuck down here.”
Astele stuck one ungloved hand through the bars of the cage, expecting the bird to bite, to thrash, to fight. Instead, it simply… let her. She stroked its head with a gentleness she’d almost forgotten she possessed.
“What’s that saying, birds of a feather… We have a few things in common, no?”
“Kaw?”
It was a clear, bright day on the surface, only mid-afternoon. It was so easy to lose track of such things after days in the darkness.
This part of the Lower City was… idyllic. A park, filled with families, schoolchildren, young couples. Another world, in truth.
Astele accepted the falcon’s cage from Lady Ague, heavy with excess gilding, and set it on the ground. It took a few moments of fiddling with the poor engineering to open the door, the stupid bird simply blinking at her as she stepped away.
“Go!” she ordered it. “Shoo! You’re free, you foolish chicken, so go!"
“Kak-kak-kak-kak!” It didn’t move an inch.
She was on the brink of screaming in frustration. Instead, she shook the cage, enough to dislodge the bird from its stupid little stick, and it finally, finally flew off.
“Right. Is there anything else we should attend to, ladies?”
“Kaw?”
That stupid fucking bird still hadn’t left. It had circled around, and come back.
“Are you quite literally too unintelligent to live?” Astele reached reflexively for a dagger as it approached, raising it in the bird’s direction.
“Kee-eeee-arr!” The foolish creature landed on the leather-wrapped hilt of the well-used weapon, something in its eyes triumphant. “Kaw!”
Was it truly a cage, if it’s one you chose for yourself? Is it a prison if you return to it, over and over, and are free to leave at any time?
Astele eyed the bird skeptically. “I still think you may be brain-damaged.”
“Kak-kak?”
“But given my current crop of operatives, that clearly isn’t enough to disqualify you from joining the Guild.”
“Keeee-arr!”
“Welcome aboard. I suppose I’ll have to see about getting you a name… Unless ‘stupid bird’ suits you better.”
The bird screeched, indignant or pleased.
It was still smarter than half the Guildhall.