[center][h2]The Gilded Cornucopia Public House, Harksmoor, Kingdom of Gwethydd[/h2]
[hider=Tavern][img]http://static.messynessychic.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/tavern.jpg[/img][/hider][/center]

"Alright lad, I think you've had just about enough tonight," 

Maevina leant heavily across the bar of her establishment, jostling the drunken student roughly by the shoulder. He was young, maybe only seventeen or eighteen years, and he was dressed in the typical black accouchements that marked out the students of the academic institution from the townsfolk. Technically they were forbidden by their university authorities from engaging in any form of drinking or other debauched behaviour, but The Gilded Cornucopia, the only public house that was given license to operate within the Inner Plaza that contained the castle and the university, had for many generations been the traditional watering hole of the profligate student.

This one was no similar. He had stumbled bodily to the bar, slurred something about a flagon of sweetmead, then collapsed face first into a small pool of spilled wine. 

"I think it's about time you left," Maevina repeated. She was a broad, buxom peasant type, with a harsh, loud voice and a permanently ruddy complexion. Her mousy hair was drawn back into a functional bun and she was prominently missing one of her front teeth. 

The student finally began to stir into life, reanimating listlessly from his drunken stupor. "I've the money.. jus' one more.." 
Maevina shook her head firmly. "No more. I'm trying to run a respectable establishment here,"

"Respectable?" The lad said, opening one eye. Maevina noticed that his face was still strewn with the canister shot of pimples that marked adolescence. "'m respectable. Don't you know who m'father is?"

"Nay, can't say I do," The landlady sighed impatiently. Most of the students had a complex about being told what to do; especially the ones who came from outside Gwethydd. Many of them had wealthy parents, after all, and probably had not been told what to do for some time.

"One more... just to set me off for the night, madam," The boy roused himself up, offering a toothy smile. Whether it was the honorific usage of the term madam or the sudden increase in composure, Maevina was stirred to pour the boy a tiny tipple of the bitter, pinkish grapefruit wine that the bread-basket kingdom was (in)famous for. He slammed down a silver coin and held it between thumb and forefinger for a minute.

Maevina had turned her back and was starting to clean an errant glass when she heard the boy clamber on top of his stool. She turned to scold him, but he was orating quite powerfully to the assembled crowd, and the landlady stopped a moment out of curiosity.

"Ladies and gentlemen," He declared. The crowd turned, individual conversations pausing to see the source of this interruption. One slattern giggled girlishly for a moment. 

"I propose a toast!" The student said with a flamboyant flourish. "To our king,"

Maevina shrugged. She was turning back around when he finished his toast. "...and his nursemaids! Long live the Queens!" 

The pub fell silent as the boy swigged the pinkish liquid in one gulp, grimaced momentarily, then clambered down from his perch. Eyes were wide with fear everywhere. Even the harlots seemed to have been given pause. 

Maevina's ruddy face somehow reddened even further, and she swept out from behind the bar with surprising speed, hoisting the boy off of his feet by the collar of his black robes, and thrusting him powerfully out of the door of the establishment into the cool of the night. Visibly flustered, she dusted her hands down on her apron, cast a gaze around at her patrons, and slunk back behind the bar. Conversation resumed tentatively some minutes later, but the atmosphere for the rest of the evening felt stilted and uncomfortable. 

Outside, as he clambered to his feet and drowsily bumped his way across the Central Plaza towards the university, the shadows bumped and stirred with anticipation.

[center]***

[h2]Grounds of the Eldva University, Harksmoor, King of Gwethydd[/h2]

[hider=University][img]http://s0.geograph.org.uk/geophotos/01/94/37/1943741_84b4f64a.jpg[/img][/hider][/center]

The students and academics of the university seemed to melt away into the walls as Hiltruda strode confidently through its ancient stone cloisters. They would be visible up ahead, but would disappear into side doors or through narrow passageways as the Queen-Mother made her way down towards the central courtyard. 

The morning was fresh and crisp and small beads of dew clung to the grass that was so painstakingly maintained by the university's formidable gardeners. The courtyard was fully enclosed, surrounded by stone cloisters and dotted with benches. The walls were covered in inscriptions detailing the exploits of famous alumni of the institution; imperial mages, famous battle commanders, influential religious leaders and writers. This was not what Hiltruda was interested in, though.

An enormous willow tree occupied by the centre of the courtyard, with a stone bench sheltered from the sunlight by the spindling and hanging limbs of the tree. Underneath, Hiltruda spied a black figure with their back to her, with lace gloves clasped over the glinting diamond head of an ebony cane. She approached, sitting elegantly and casually as if she were in her own home.

Her sister-in-law did not make a physical notion of greeting. Princess Alissera's voice was one of her many attributes that had been ravaged by her life-destroying illness, and when she spoke it was in a low, raspy whisper. "It is so unfortunate," were her first words, as she nodded from beneath her thick veil to the scene in front of her. On the other side of the courtyard to where Hiltruda had entered, a crowd of scholars was assembled around a black and red shape. It lay at the foot of the enormous bell tower which towered over the otherwise low lying buildings of the university. Among the crowd was the chancellor Eldarhar, who scratched his head with a surprisingly low amount of concern.

"They must enforce their rules more stringently. I worry for the future of this institution,"
 
"How did he fall?" Hiltruda asked with only a small amount of interest.

"Drunkenness. He had been engaging in licentiousness at the The Gilded Cornucopia. He climbed after being thrown out by the landlady and then he..."

Alissera flicked a finger over the diamond atop her cane. "...he fell. Very tragic, really,"

Hiltruda nodded slowly. Even after all this years, Alissera still had the capacity to instil fear in her. She was a dangerous woman; her loyalties were so indiscernible, and Hiltruda still dreaded to enquire as to her particular involvement (or lack thereof) in the mysterious demise of her husband Aethlar V.

"The King is going away, to the capital," Hiltruda commented in a non-committal manner. "For the election,"

"Indeed," Alissera said, tilting her head towards her sister-in-law in a way that led Hiltruda to believe that she had finally taken her eyes off of the crumpled body of the dead student. From this close it was possible to make out some of the Princess' features; the leathery, pinkish, shiny texture of her skin and the yellowed, bloodshot whites of her eyes. "Is his cortege organised?"

"Not yet," Hiltruda conceded. 

"Very well. Eadrith must remain here; she is heavy with child. The time of her confinement will come soon. You must oversee this. The regency will be in the name of Lethlin, naturally, who I trust remains loyal to his dear family and will be pliable?" Alissera fired off the instructions with such rapidity that it was obvious that she had already formulated this plan before the meeting.

"I agree," The Queen said with a nod. "I will sign the temporary regency act myself. Aethlar will also," She paused for a moment. "I had the thought that he might take the bastards,"

"Eadgifu and Gaewin?" Alissera rasped with surprise. "Why?"

Hiltruda suppressed a smirk. She knew that Alissera was particularly close to the boy, Gaewin. The Queen-Mother's banishment of their mother Alysandra from the capital had been a point of contention between the realm's two most powerful women for some time. "Representatives from every major house will be present. Is it not high time they married and made lives of their own, outside of Gwethydd?"

Marriages had been mooted for Eadgifu especially among the scions of the most powerful Gwethyn houses, but Hiltruda had purposefully had them all sabotaged. Eadgifu was beautiful and sultry, with the silvery-white hair and violet eyes common to the Ygrissians. She was also intelligent. That was dangerous. 

"Very well," Alissera conceded, her voice brittle with disappointment at having been rooted out by her sister-in-law. It was well known that Lord Gaewin was her creature first and foremost. "Surely then, Haldetrude should also go? She will be worth even more on the marriage market,"

Hiltruda suppressed a sigh. She had seen this coming. The table was being forcefully swept clean of pawns. "Yes, she must go as well,"

"Then it is settled. The King will ride out with Princess Haldetrude, Lord Gaewin and Lady Eadgifu at first light,"

"Indeed," Hiltruda stood and gave a small smile. "I shall go and inform him of the decisions that he has just made, then,"

Both women shared a laugh in the empty courtyard. Those assembled around the grisly remains of the dead student heard it, carried on the wind, and shuddered.