[b]Lady Zamanu[/b]
[i]"the Woods Witch"[/i]

Zamanu is originally from Caphad. 
She is purposefully obscure about her age, but she looks to be in her late thirties to early forties.
She stands at 5’4 (162cm). She has olive skin, dark eyes, a good, youthful complexion and thick black hair.

Zamanu was initially an itinerant herbalist and trader in magical reagents who made a fortune while operating at the court of King Odrossyan and was ennobled for her charitable donations and foundations throughout the kingdom. A visible personality in the capital and at the court, Lady Zamanu is said to owe her fortune to the Synod and definitely owes her status in the kingdom to King Odrossyan, to whose court she has been attached for some years. 

Lady Zamanu is a natural enemy for the Darkwatch, owing as she does her position and power to the magical elite and the rise of her fortune to the civil war between the king and his older brother. Her taste for extravagance and excess have made her a target of derision for some in the capital, while gossip about her supposed links to the Synod and the sometimes shadowy nature of the ingredients she purveyed through her work has earned her the enmity of The Darkwatch. 

The moniker ‘The Woods Witch’ originates from the pro-Darkwatch camp, who paint Zamanu as a seductress, a poisoner, and a dark apothecary. In the heated days leading up to the assassination of the king, Zamanu, increasingly under threat of attack herself in the unsettled streets, has shut herself up in her urban manse a short distance from the palace:


*

[hider=IC]
She laid the comb down on the ivory tray and cast her unrepentant gaze into the looking glass. “That’s an aristocrat,” She said aloud, half an accusation, half self-admiration. The gown was truly an exquisite one - floral silk with wide, puffed upper sleeves folding into fitted lower sleeves of white silk. The chemise was a mid-neck with borders defined by a silver chain with tiny shining stones of emerald. Below was a multi-layered silk skirt patterned with brocade depicting a scene of forest bounty - vines and leaves and roses interspersed with the figures of flying birds and foxes standing on their hind legs. She wore a bracelet of pewter set with a large aquamarine stone, and a heavy silver necklace set with a dozen equal sized rubies. On her head she wore a plain silver circlet, her long hair tied back into a heavy braid and covered with a net studded with pearls. 

Zamanu moved quickly over to the other side of the room, her shoes loud on the stone. Outside, through the window, she watched as the streets thronged with frenetic activity. She leaned forward to open the latch, almost unseating a large globe from its table in doing so. The sounds of the city rushed in, four floors below, the horses and people sounded the same as ever. She sighed heavily, looking around at the chamber. 

Her eyes settled on the pewter tea service - she had just had some new purple grassflower tea from way out west, it had a real relaxing effect. In fact she’d been using it these last few weeks to get through the stress of being shut up here in the manse with just her servants for company. Most days she had just lolled around in the garden on one of the benches, smelling the fresh flowers and watching the butterflies flutter past. She figured that way if the Inquisitors stormed in they could kill her without her feeling any pain. She had lots of ways to make that happen, anyway.

Zamanu’s thoughts were interrupted by the mahogany door on the other side of the room crashing open with unparalleled urgency. Her porter stood on the other side, breathless and red in the face. “My lady, the king is dead,” 

The Lady Zamanu’s eyes drifted from the tea service up to her servant. This was not going to be an easy outfit to pull this off in. She took a deep breath. 

“Harmalon, I want you, Gyrtha, Mindira and Byrinalthos to strip yourself of your livery-” She gestured to his green brocade uniform. “-burn it, go back to your families, pretend you never knew me. Each of you take something expensive from the house to sustain yourselves,” He gawped at her. “I had planned for this.” She added after a moment: “The vases are the most expensive,” then crossed the room, past him, and started down the corridor into the depths of the house. 

He called after her: “My lady, I’ll come with you, I pledged my--” but she cut him off, turning back and casting him with a dark look that stopped him in his tracks and wiped the expression off of his face. 

“Harmalon, you’re a boy with a sick mother, just a little boy. These people will kill you, and they won’t have the good manners to do it quickly. Go home, get out of this. Lucky you that you can!” She threw her hands up and clattered away down the stairs.

*

“They’re saying this is the fault of the Synod, but I contacted Mata-Matusala myself immediately - I scryed him from the study - and he seemed to be sure this was a set up by Valens,” Zamanu and her last servant, her long-time companion Navarri, were packing items into a small brocade bag. “There’s no way up to anywhere near the palace right now,” Navarri added.

“No, that’s just the Darkwatch story for the convenience of the coup. It’s them, and the king’s brother - they killed the High Almoner of the Silver and the Low-Magus Chamberlain and they were both through-and-through Synod and you know it,” Zamanu said with some impatience. She looked at her attendant, tall and thin, ten years older maybe - Navarri wore a simple black robe belted with a silver circlet, and two silver bangles at her wrists. From her bangles dangled little charms decorated with fox heads and acorns. Zamanu had removed all of her jewellery and wore a large black cowl over her dress. “There’s no knowing how long we’ll have to leave the city, but I know we won’t be welcome here anymore,”

“How much can we take--” The door banged somewhere far downstairs. Navarri took a couple of quick steps over to the window and her pale face went paler. Zamanu shook her head. Whitecoats. She drew a hand dramatically to her head. “They’re come to burn the witch alive,”

Downstairs there were the distant sounds of raising masculine voices. Zamanu hoisted herself up on the window seat and looked out from over a plush cushion. Down below, a crowd of men - some in Darkwatch uniforms, but some peasants, even some burghers she recognised, were gathered. Some held swords and clubs, machetes; crude weapons. They did not mean to even assassinate her with magic. The indignity.

The two women moved quickly, picking up the few small bags they’d packed. They passed through gilded rooms - a drawing room draped with a rich, verdant fabric depicting tigers and monkeys and fruit orchards, a dining room set for twenty with broad windows overlooking the central avenues and boulevards of the city, which glowed orange with the colours of rebellion and insurrection. The light fell in soft shafts over the hard corners of Navarri’s face. They reached a parapet, and climbed a winding spiral staircase to the top, to a small cramped room that smelled of mushrooms and mouldy old books. Zamanu found a book tucked away at the back, a black leather bound copy, opened it, and withdrew a long, plush pink feather. 

The two women looked at each other and as the sounds of thudding grew louder downstairs Navarri touched a pale finger to the feather and silently, with their bags, they vanished.[/hider]