Assassin

They say the best way to a man's heart is through his stomach. It's not the most direct route to try to stab your blade in through the upper abdomen, around the ribs, and into the chest cavity. However, it does involve more in the way of skill and less in the way of hoping your blade doesn't just make a shallow gash while trying to go through the ribs. Also, a gash along the ribs will at best stun the target, while an upward abdominal thrust will almost certainly have dire results for the one afflicted, even if you do miss the heart.

Our assassin, however, could not afford to miss. She had lured her target into a corner of the garden that was well hidden, but it would only take one yell to bring the other guests. She had to be silent and perfect on the first shot. She wouldn't be able to go for the abdominal shot anyways; first because the barons embrace wasn't going to be letting her move from against his front any time soon; second, her dagger wasn't long enough to find the heart from that direction. There also was no way she would be escaping with his blood on her. The wound had to be away from her and somewhere that wouldn't spurt blood on her hands.

Convincing him to meet her in this corner without anyone knowing who he was meeting was done for her by the baroness having several friends at the party. He wouldn't want his wife suspecting much until he decided whether he had found an adequate replacement for her yet. Her left hand probed the back of his neck until she found just the right spot, the hollow where the skull meets the first vertebra. She kissed him deeply, brought her blade up, held him tightly, then deflowered his spine.

The cord was severed neatly and painlessly. One moment he was voracious, ready to consume her; the next he went limp, and she was lowering him to the soft grass. She wiped her blade on his handkerchief, hid it again, and walked her swaying gait away.

She reached a dark enough deserted corner, where even if someone were to come around a corner and see, they would only think it a trick of the shadows Then she changed. Dark hair turned grey, her face elongated, crows feet and laugh lines formed and deepened, curves began to sag ever so slightly, her jaw and nose grew more pointed, and a widows stoop started in her spine. There was no reason for anyone to have known the baron would have been meeting his mistress, but there was no reason to risk ruining her payment when precautions were built into her anatomy.

There had been little reason for the baron to hide what he was doing at the party. His wife already knew, and although the rumors were inconsistent as to who the partner was, the grapevine of the city Imsalan ensured that anyone who cared, and many who didn't, knew that he was having an affair. The girl was a young distant cousin of the baroness who had been sent to the baroness to be one of her ladies. Ambition and impatience had led the girl to grow tired of currying favor with the baroness when she saw a faster way to curry very different favors with the baron. The silly thing had been sent back to her home in disgrace with warnings that if the baroness heard of her again, the next anyone heard of her would be a eulogy. It was quite important to the assassin that the young lady stay disappeared, for part of her payment was the strumpets place in the imperial court. The baroness; however, had been quite adamant that her cousin was not to be killed if it could be avoided. Her house was losing numbers fast enough as it was.

The baron; however, would have to die. The dangerous idea, that husbands married into one of the powerful houses could pick and choose who can rise to the top, could not be allowed to flourish. Everyone would know why he died, but the mystery would be how.