With the queen's permission, Avarice stood.  He stood there, listening to her speech, including the other's response.  When they mentioned assassins, he was careful not to give anything away, not that he had to try hard.  [i]Don't respond first,[/i] he said to himself, [i]being the first to respond to the accusation will only make them suspicious.[/i]  Shortly afterwords one of the others said as much.  He would have waited even longer for someone else to respond to the charges, but was distracted by a tattooed woman dancing in the middle of the floor, fire coming from her hands.  [i]I'll have to watch out for all of these magic users.[/i] he thought.  Magic was fairly rare in his experience.  The fact that so many with such abilities had come together here had to be the result of there belief in this girl, the royal who was given the power to rule other's lives.

He had to admit, though, that one of the others [i]could[/i] be an assassin.  After all, the mission was too important to Ovorion to risk the queen returning because his assassin failed.  He'd have to keep an eye out to figure out which, if any, were also here for his prize.

"True," he said when the others stopped talking.  "We could have an assassin in our midst, but even if we do he, or she," he nodded towards the huntress/preistess, as she was one of the biggest threats to him. "wouldn't get very far in their mission if they tried anything."  He looked at the Queen.  "You are protected by both a Lord and a knight, both of whom you can trust implicitly, not to mention the rest of us, most of which would be on your side if an assassin attempted an attack.  I've seen the tactics of Ovorion and his Generals in battle.  There's little chance they would risk something as rash as infiltration.  No, it is most likely that we will be ambushed on the road ahead by a squadron of soldiers, or even bandits who have come to collect the bounty on your head."