A Timely Knight

A Lady of Great Importance

Wearing new clothes, Eldon and Tim walked to the library in silence. Both anxious, more than they cared to admit, they remained calm as they opened the wooden sliding doors.

The room's left and right walls hid behind a wide collection of ancient-looking books. Fragile and secretive, they seemed dormant still and Eldon wondered if Tim had ever read one, let alone all of them. A crackling fire burned in between two long windows that led into the garden where they trained. On top of it, the crest of arms of the Lemuel family, a red fox running through a field of silver that Don Anthony created himself, crowned the entire scene.

The woman inside the room cast a large shadow. Almost as tall as Eldon, she wore a tight brown corset over a plain white shirt and a full black skirt that seemed far too heavy to be comfortable. A bowler hat rested on the small table by her side, allowing a drizzle of long and flowy pink hair to graciously fall on her back. Her delicate features reacted with enthusiasm as she locked eyes with them. However, when she opened her mouth, she adopted a commanding tone like the one Timmy used with Bram.

"At last! It is bad manners to keep a guest waiting," she said, walking towards a chair near the fireplace and sitting on it, crossing her legs and tapping her foot to the rhythm of her own restlessness.

"Excuse me?" Tim huffed, eyebrows so raised they almost touched his hairline. 

"Why would I? I can easily forgive your transgression," the woman replied, absently gesturing his words away with her hand.

"Who the hell are you?" Tim slammed the door, startling both Eldon and the woman.

She took a quick look at the silver young man, taken aback by his reaction. Then, puffing and rolling her eyes, she got up and walked towards them, hands on her waist and a defiant look on her face. She assessed them from top to bottom, expressionless throughout. Silenced poured from her every pore, sinking the room in near-total stillness.

"I," she spoke at last while walking towards the floor-to-ceiling windows, "am a lady of great importance for you two. That is if you intend to win the battle to come. I am not certain how much time we have but my guess is about six weeks."

Eldon and Tim exchanged troubled looks and they instinctively clenched their fists. The woman, with her big dress and haughty, upper-class behaviour, looked far from menacing. Yet her commanding and steely demeanour failed to match the silk-covered surface, creating a puzzling and unnerving clash of logic. 

Eldon squinted, grinding his teeth without even realizing it. Her cryptic words now covered his thoughts, becoming his entire world for the moment. She clearly said the battle to come. Could she mean what he thought she meant?

"Your words remain a mystery to us, miss..." Eldon began but she interrupted him.

"Marquise," she viciously corrected, throwing a judgmental look his way. "Marquise Arabella Phoebe Sparks, of Millingford."

An overtly-elaborate curtsy followed her introduction, which Tim answered with a short and forced bow that Eldon awkwardly mimicked. Despite coming from money, he spent next to no time in court and never fully understood or felt comfortable with aristocratic customs.

"Marquise, do forgive our coarse attitude," Tim employes a moderate but clearly insincere tone. "Your visit seems to serve a purpose. Might you be so kind as to explain it?"

The Marquise frowned, her pointy face buried under the shadow of dread.

"Explain it?" She shook her head, eyes lowered to the floor as she paced around the room, mumbling to herself. "I suppose it is logical. I, unlike you, grew up alongside my Master. I understand yours died when you were still quite young. My deepest condolences."