The mere mention of it brought a wave of frustration to Arthur.
"The horse I commandeered was clearly superior to his in every way, but as luck would have it, the beast had just finished a race. Not only did I lose the man, but I nearly ran the poor creature to death."
Haxor clearly hadn't expected such an answer. He choked on his mead, coughing violently as the amber liquid went down the wrong way.
"What? You... you nearly had him?"
Once Arthur confirmed it, the Mayor's face collapsed into an expression of pure chagrin.
"Had I known you were so close on his heels, I would have made sure a fresh mount was waiting for you at the city gates..."
Arthur thought to himself that the Mayor was likely losing his wits from the stress. Even the assassin probably hadn't planned on a high-speed equestrian escape; how could Haxor, a mere civilian administrator, have possibly foreseen it?
"Though he slipped away, it wasn't a total loss," Arthur said. He pressed his palm lightly against the dark wooden table. With a faint shimmer of magic, an illusionary map of the surrounding terrain materialized on the mahogany surface. He pointed to a specific fold in the hills. "There. That's where the bastard managed to shake me, behind that ridge."
"I'll send men to search the area immediately!"
The lead gave Haxor's spirits a slight boost, but only a slight one. East of Cintra, the hills and woodlands were so dense that even the finest accountant couldn't count them all. Once a man vanished into that green sea, he was as good as gone.
"Speaking of which, why are you here?" After answering Haxor's questions, Arthur voiced his own confusion. What he meant was: if the Shadowblades knew he had chased the assassin out of the city, why hadn't they intercepted him at the gates instead of waiting at the inn? In the world of intelligence, every minute of delay saw the value of information plummet.
This time, it was Haxor's turn to look utterly depressed.
"We had intended to do exactly that. But King Eist himself forbade it. He said you were his savior and a man of honor; he wouldn't allow us to be 'rude' or treat you like a common suspect. He said it would ruin the 'spirit of brotherhood' between men..."
Fine then. If the king who was actually targeted didn't care about efficiency, what could anyone else say? Arthur could only manage a few dry chuckles and offered a forced compliment.
"Your king truly possesses... the quintessential spirit of a Northern adventurer."
While Arthur remained nonchalant, the aftershocks of the incident were a tidal wave for the rest of the city.
Though martial law was technically restricted to the North Ward, the rest of the city was turned upside down in short order. Throughout the afternoon, squads of fully armored knights thundered through the streets. A dozen people were hauled away from the Moonlight Moss alone.
A small fraction of them would be released unharmed a few days later, suffering from nothing more than frayed nerves. The rest, over the next six months, would gradually be charged with crimes ranging from embezzlement to high treason.
But the citizens of Cintra had no way of knowing that at the time. To them, it appeared that the royal house's fury had been ignited by the assassination attempt, leading to a policy of "better to hang an innocent than let a guilty man go."
The townspeople huddled in their homes behind barred doors and shuttered windows. Whenever the sound of galloping hooves approached, they would drop whatever they were doing and hold their breath, terrified to make even the slightest noise. Only when the hoofbeats faded into the distance would they dare peer through the cracks in their shutters.
Yet while they trembled in fear, Arthur's party remained perfectly composed. Taking advantage of the rare silence, they visited several of Cintra's most famous landmarks, enjoying the unique pleasure of having the scenic views all to themselves.
It had to be said that Queen Calanthe's people were remarkably efficient. Less than two days after the assassination attempt, the knights were no longer seen prowling the streets for suspects. Of course, neither were any pedestrians the entire city remained shrouded in a heavy, eerie silence.
It was under these circumstances that Arthur received his next contract.
"What? You want me to be the King's bodyguard?"
Arthur's exclamation bounced off the walls of the Moonlight Moss's main hall, sounding hollow and chaotic in the vast space. "Does the King not even trust his own personal guard anymore?"
Haxor wore a miserable expression, his fingers digging deep into his hair. "Asking you to act as a bodyguard isn't about the actual protection. It's about sending a political signal telling the public that the storm from the assassination attempt has passed."
"Did you catch the assassin?" Arthur's eyes lit up. He was quite curious about that man; he had a nagging feeling that the maneuvers used during the escape weren't something an ordinary person could pull off.
"Of course not. We haven't even sniffed out his accomplices," Haxor replied, looking utterly defeated.
Arthur grabbed the bottle from the table, poured a glass of mead for the Mayor, and asked in surprise, "If you can't find the assassin, what about the sorcerer who provided the magic scroll? No leads there either?"
The scroll Arthur referred to was the one the assassin had dropped and shredded before hijacking the horse. According to Mousesack's reverse-engineering, the scroll was enchanted with a Short-Range Teleportation spell. Although it was a single-use item, it only required basic magical knowledge to trigger. Even within sorcerous circles, such an item was considered high-end merchandise.
In Arthur's mind, the more high-end an object was, the more complex the chain of custody behind it should be, making it theoretically easier to trace. He wasn't just surprised they hadn't found the sorcerer; he was startled by the sheer weight of Haxor's frustration. Just how deep were these waters that they could break a shrewd bureaucrat like him?
Haxor tilted his head back, draining the glass in one gulp. After venting a string of foul curses, he finally revealed the truth.
It turned out that as soon as Haxor saw the scroll, he had used the court mages to contact the Chapter of Sorcerers, hoping to identify which mage had crafted the work. His plan was simple: find the creator, identify the buyers, and work backward to find the assassin.
But all those efforts were permanently shelved before they could even begin. The Chapter had not only refused to assist, citing the "protection of practitioner privacy," but the remnants of the scroll had mysteriously "gone missing" due to "improper storage."
"If it were truly lost, I could accept that," Haxor said, his agitation growing as he grabbed the bottle to pour himself another. "But that very same night, those bastards suddenly sent the remnants back, claiming they'd 'found' them in the archives. As for the creator? They did a search and claimed the craftsmanship didn't match any of the mages authorized for such business. They suggested it might be Nilfgaardian handiwork."
Arthur felt a surge of irritation on Haxor's behalf. "How could the response change so drastically in a few hours?"
"The first time we sent it, it was in my name. The second time..." Haxor exhaled a breath heavy with mead, looking weary. "The Chapter has eyes and ears everywhere. They eventually realized where the scrap truly came from. Out of respect for the King's face, they deigned to 'cooperate' minimally."
Arthur nodded. The Chapter's conduct was indeed disgraceful; it was no wonder Haxor was fuming.
"Still... what does any of this have to do with me being the King's bodyguard?"