d'enanigans: is calling it "the climax" too on point?

[nothing_to_fear]

This house has a very pleasant room for receiving honored guests.

In the fashion of House Shahrizai, the walls are richly tapestried (though not in identifying colors) and the couches are soft, finely upholstered. He has ordered the servants to stand ready with wine and light refreshment, and readier still to act should negotiations sour.

Jonathan sent a man to wait for Brix; he himself went upstairs to check on Matthieu. Finding him asleep, but well enough and in no danger, he returned to this room to wait.

He is reading a book of plants and their uses as they come in to light the torches.

Comments

[nothing_to_fear]

"Then were I you, I'd speak with Iva Shahrizai."

He thinks briefly of what she would do to him if he ever planned on meeting her again.

"She will be disappointed, I'm sure, by her cousin's broken engagement. And the loss of a Servant of Naamah."

[oneman_onevote]

Deadpan;

"I'm sure."

Havelock steps in idly, scrutinising Jonathan's face.

"Who else?"

[nothing_to_fear]

This time Jonathan pauses.





"Henri Shahrizai de Brest."

[oneman_onevote]

"Why target Brix and Matthieu?"

He continues drawing slowly closer, frowning slightly.

[nothing_to_fear]

Jonathan smiles.

"Matthieu was an accident. A casualty, as it were."

[oneman_onevote]

Havelock does not react.

Visibly.

"A casualty in the cause of what?"

[nothing_to_fear]

"He sees quite a bit, does he not."

[oneman_onevote]

"That is not what I asked you."

(Consider this a warning, Grue de Agen.)

[nothing_to_fear]

Jonathan pauses.

"There was cause to believe he might learn my methods," he says. "Or my intentions. My benefactors thought it better if he were removed from the City of Elua."

[oneman_onevote]

Well, that plan blew up in their faces, didn't it?

"What intentions were these?"

We'll get to the methods in a moment.

[nothing_to_fear]

Well, there are intentions and intentions.

But yes.

Quite.

"To wed the lady Brix," he replies, mild, "and gain access to her resources."

[oneman_onevote]

Havelock raises one eyebrow.

"Truly a goal worth risking execution for."

(Sorry for the sarcasm, Brix! But given that Jonathan clearly doesn't care about her in the slightest, Havelock doesn't feel guilty.)

"In order to do what?"

[nothing_to_fear]

His lips press into a thin line.

"Eventually, my task was to poison her."

[oneman_onevote]

Very even,

"With what?"


And for love of Elua, why?

[nothing_to_fear]

"My own special brew," he replies.

"Matthieu has tasted it for himself. Are the ingredients of interest to you, or merely the effects?"

[oneman_onevote]

"Oh, both. But the effects will do for now."

[nothing_to_fear]

Jonathan's lips curl.

"Terror, dread, strained nerves. Bad dreams. Fever and confusion. It varies, with dosage and individual."

[oneman_onevote]

"Lethargy?"

Since Matthieu had trouble staying awake.

He can think about a poison that deliberately induces terror later.

When he isn't holding a whip within reach of the man's unprotected face.

[nothing_to_fear]

Jonathan's gaze flicks once, deliberately, to the whip, then back to Havelock's face.

Fear is natural.

He likes to think it makes him sharper.

"Perhaps," he allows.

"Though I would call it exhaustion."

[oneman_onevote]

"Is it intended to be fatal?"

And if so... why use something so specific?

Apart from Grue de Agen's apparently partiality for such suffering.

[nothing_to_fear]

"There would be little art in that."

Jonathan's expression now is not quite a smile-- blame the proximity of the whip, perhaps.

"It is intended to unsettle. Permanently."

[oneman_onevote]

Havelock nods, digesting that.



Then,

"Who were the other targets to be?"

[nothing_to_fear]

His eyebrows arch.

"Other targets?"

[oneman_onevote]

"That is what I said."

Even without the complexity of the poison - the plotting for a marriage, going so far as to kidnap Matthieu on the off chance he might see something...

It's too much.

Unless various members of house Shahrizai plus Jonathan Grue de Agen are utter fools, but he thinks not.

His voice is hard.

"Who?"

[nothing_to_fear]

Oh, this one is clever-- he truly suspects, he can hear it in his voice.

Poisons and plans are one thing, but plotting against the realm itself ...

It's a question of whether it is better to preserve some of House Shahrizai's secrets, and somehow attempt to leverage that against everything he's already given away, or to cooperate.

It's not that he expects protection; rather, the opportunity to slip away.

"There was but one I was made aware of," he says slowly.

"The royal archivist."