Agamemnon found Lady Kingsley standing in the Church of the Fallen Sword. She was leaning against the cold stone wall, staring out the plain glass window at the setting sun. She turned when she heard the priest approaching, straightening her posture and blinking to adjust her eyes to the dim light inside the unlit church.
"Agamemnon," she said, her voice rasping where it had been precise only a few days ago. Agamemnon had never really considered her to be old, but right now, with her nearly white hair and angular face turned gaunt, wearing the tabbard of an old god, she looked like a tired, old woman.
"Lady Kingsley, I may have found your sword." He looked at her, waiting for a reaction; her breath quickened a little, her eyes sharpened perhaps, but that was it. "I can't be sure," he said, pointedly. Still the paladin said nothing. "See, the thing is, I can't remember what your sword looks like. I know we've talked about it several times, I am certain you have described it to me, but for some reason, I just can't recall the details."
"There are some things I have not told you," Kingsley said, possibly with some slight embarrassment, though her face remained stoney and unreadable.
"Is that so?" the priest replied sardonically. "Only I'd started to suspect that might be the case."
"I ... cannot explain. I ask only that you trust me. I hope that you can."
Agamemnon dropped onto a pew, rubbing his eyes tiredly. "Sure." He looked up at Kingsley, looked her in the eyes. Somewhere between paranoia and naivety was trust, and if Agamemnon was any judge of character Lady Kingsley, as hard as she tried to hide her emotions, was driven by two things: desperation, and sincerity. "I do trust you," he told her, equally sincere. She smiled briefly in acknowledgement and gingerly sat down on a pew, facing him. "If it were just a matter of carting back every sword we found so you could sift through them, I am sure Mort would be delighted. Unfortunately, it's not that simple." The paladin waited patiently for him to explain. "We believe the sword is in the possession of some High Priests of Orcus."
"But why would they ... How do you know this?"
"I can't be certain because I can't recognise your sword, but they showed us what they said was the sword they took from you."
Lady Kingsley frowned. "And you believe them?"
"I do. In the circumstances I believe they were being truthful, about that point at least. They retrieved the sword from very close to where you believed it to be, and given that it appeared to be a poor-quality, severely damaged mundane hand-and-a-half, they had no reason to believe the sword was of value. I scried for the sword, and this is the woman that divination showed to me. If my reading of the situation was correct, they, at least, believe this is your sword."
Lady Kingsley straightened her hair distractedly as she thought. "I see."
"Whether they are correct in their belief, of course, I cannot say, since I don't know what your sword looks like."
The paladin nodded. "It is my sword."
"Okay. Good. I believe you. Now we can think about getting it back. I wasn't prepared to trade until I was sure it was the right sword."
Kingsley frowned. "Trade? With the Orcusites? For my sword?"
"Yes, see, this is where things get a bit complicated. These guys are well out of our league."
"But you prevailed, or you would not be here."
"Well, we escaped." Agamemnon shook his head. "Actually, we didn't even escape. They let us go."
"What?" Kingsley looked agitated, almost angry. "Why would they do that?"
"It was something less than our proudest moment. They ... urgh." Agamemnon fell forward, gasping for air as a pain, not quite agonising but severely discomforting, pounded in his stomach. He felt ill. "Ah. Right. Of course."
The paladin reached for him in concern. "Priest, are you injured?"
Agamemnon looked up at her. "Yes. I am wounded - and not just my pride, it seems. It was a very difficult encounter. Eryk, one of our compatriots ... he did not make it, so when I say that we got off relatively unscathed you will appreciate that we cannot return and wrest your sword from the hands of the High Priests of Orcus. The task is too great for us as we currently are.
"However," he said reassuringly, seeing the look of pain on the drained paladin's face, "the sword's cunning masquerade and our own tendency towards the accretion of baubles means there is an alternative: they will trade your sword for a holy symbol of Orcus which we picked up some time back."
"A holy symbol?"
"It's complicated, but the Orcusites are sticklers for ceremony and formality and there's a bit of a power struggle going on down there, in which this particular artifact carries some weight. We're fortunate in that the priests we met want the holy symbol in order to gain power against the other Orcusites. It's not an ideal solution, but given the circumstances I think we can -"
"No."
Agamemnon looked up. "No to what, exactly?"
"No, you will not trade this item for my sword." She almost spat the word 'trade', a look of disgust on her face.
"... okay, I confess to being just a tad surprised at your position on this issue. I kind of thought -"
"I said no!" She was on her feet now, one hand angrily gripping the hilt of the sword Agamemnon had given to her, gripping it so hard her knuckles were bone white.
Agamemnon put his hands up soothingly. "And I respect that. There will be no trade, you have my word on that."
Lady Kingsley seemed a little taken aback at her own vehemence, and sat back down, her face once more stoic though there was colour in her cheeks for the first time in over a week.
"I am sorry, but you cannot give to these monsters anything which benefits them in any way. How could I wield my weapon knowing that it had been used as a bargaining chip by the forces of evil in their own selfish pursuit of personal power? That is unworthy. I would not disrespect my sword so, nor the faith put in me by Muir."
Agamemnon nodded. "Of course. And allow me to apologise for not being more sensitive to your commitment to your faith. The last paladin with whom I was close was a lot more pragmatic about these matters."
Lady Kingsley shook her head and made some attempt at a smile, but she once again looked weak, ill and old. "You have caused no offense. But I am adamant."
"Understood." Agamemnon sat back, clutching his stomach where mild spasms still made his breathing difficult.
"Lady Kingsley, would you care to join me for a drink?"
"I confess I may not be suitably ... robust for an evening in the local establishment."
"The Sabaton wasn't what I had in mind. I have a bottle of golden ei-fe'en which I brought back from the Green Wold, and which I think might be a suitably refined libation for an evening's discourse on clerical matters."
The paladin smiled. "That sounds nice. I have not had proper elven brandy in some time."
Agamemnon stood, extending his arm and smiling. "My lady?"
Lady Kingsley stood and took his arm. She weighed almost nothing. "Please, call me Kingsley."
"That's you're idea of informality? Dropping the 'Lady'?"
"I'll drop you in a minute. I don't need my sword to do that."
For the second time there was some colour in her cheeks, and some spark in here eyes. 'At least that's something,' Aggy thought as they made their way to Laniss' library.
