What struck her first was how much everything smelled.

Stepping off of the train from Bullmark, Aselaine could nearly taste the people around her, the steam rolling off of the engine, the various wares being hawked on the street a few yards away. All around were folks she could not organize in her mind, as varying as snowflakes, some looking even a bit dangerous. She adjusted the single bag hanging from her shoulders, the weight of the Derringer a small comfort in a strange place.

The attendants had already unloaded her trunk onto the platform; a single coin had it brought to the wide front portico for her. Not even a second glance at the foreign mint. Satisfied, Aselaine leaned against one of the decorative pillars to wait.

----------

"What do you mean she's gone?"

The Head of Internal Affairs was apoplectic. He brought a meaty fist down onto the desk, upsetting several ink wells. His assistant rushed forward to rescue sensitive reports and lists, dodging blows as Jounen flailed at movement on his blind side.

"Dammit! Get away from--ah, it's just you," the Head gave his terrified assistant a pat on the head. She was his third since promotion; underlings often complained of unprovoked assaults as the retired General lashed out at anything that approached him from the left.

Jounen turned his good eye--with all of its wrath--back to the gentleman standing before him, easing back into his seat. "You had better have an exception explanation, Arceneau."

Roderick Arceneau stood straight, his confident bearing contrary to the news he had delivered to the Internal Affairs office. The daggers he was receiving from Jounen would have had a lesser man shaking. He only brushed invisible dust from his vest with one gloved hand, the other hidden in the pocket of his slacks. He was as old as Jounen, black hair silvering at his temples.

"She has fled the country," Roderick said simply, his eyes like ice. "And there is nothing you can do about it."

Jounen inflated with indignation, the medals glinting on his lapel. "We are not completely incompetent, Arceneau. An expatriate bitch will not be difficult to retrieve."

He was infuriated as Roderick pulled a pipe out of his pocket, tapping it against the front of the desk. "Your men have intercepted communications to Feurn from Isengaard and Malchon," he said slowly, as if addressing an idiot. He motioned to Jounen's assistant, who pulled out the appropriate pieces of parchment from the stack off of Jounen's desk. He shuffled through them, scanning the coded pages he had already committed to memory.

"She has been developing contacts in both countries without the Empire's knowledge," Roderick informed him, his sneer evidence of his opinion. "They have invested much in the Duchess and Feurn. Just as much as his Majesty." He looked up at Jounen with knowing eyes.

The retired General suppressed a shiver. "That is... classified."

Roderick struck a match against the rough wood of the General's desk and lit his pipe. "General Jounen," he would lean over the desk, too close for the big man's comfort. His assistant watched them both warily. "You have done your job well. Your lackeys managed to keep up with the wayward Duchess up until she got onto that train south. However, Imperial influence has no hold beyond the Northern continent. Your beauracratic antics are no longer reliable."

Jounen sputtered and knocked his chair back in a rush to his feet. Roderick eased back and continued. "I assure you, she will be caught, but she is far beyond your reaches now." He held up the reports and puffed from the pipe. "If you value your reputation, send men into Ivengaard and Malchon. If you value your life," he let out a sigh of smoke. "You will write reports describing her activities in either."

"False reports?" Jounen went cold. Roderick only watched him, seeing the gears working in the old man's mind as he realized that the King had no clue that the most dangerous woman in the Empire was out of their reach. "Where is she?"

Roderick dropped the reports onto a corner of the desk where ink had not spread. "Into anarchy." He replied.

That meant nothing to Jounen. "And Feurn?"

The other shook his head slightly, so small a movement Jounen may have imagined it. "So far, neither your men or mine have intercepted communications from the Duchess Aselaine to her Steward."

Jounen nodded. Feurn was a flourishing fiefdom, on the Empire's southern border, nestled in the hills and mountains. It was unique in that it did not rely on trade to care for its people, the soil and resources enough to insure some mode of independence. It was also a constant worry for the General, in that his Majesty's madness resulted in paranoia about his outer territories. The Duchess's compulsions were not helping.

Roderick tapped the pile of reports. "Take care to read what your men bring you more carefully," he advised, his cold eyes boring into the General. His heels sounded harshly on the wooden floor as he turned, slamming the door behind him.

There was a clatter, and Jounen's head whipped about. His assistant was picking up the ink wells she'd dropped, her eyes on the door. Jounen sympathized.

No one was quite certain where Arceneau had come from. The King found him invaluable, and even Jounen could begrudge the man his talent. He wormed his way in places that others could not dream of, and only he seemed about to sooth the King in his fits.

However, the man had a fascination for the Duchess. She had been a source of ire for him for years, and as Jounen thought back, he had been involved in the assassination that had ended the lives of the last Duke and Duchess. It was Arceneau's involvement that insured it had gone off at all; there was no way to trace it back to the Empire.

Jounen suppressed a shudder and glared at the opaque glass of his doorway. Resentment for Arceneau ran deep through the beaureau, mostly because the man's closeness to the king allowed him to operate above the law.

What chilled him most, as Jounen gathered the reports, was that Arceneau always knew more than what he told. The Duchess had been under the radar for most of her life, but as she grew more bold, Arceneau grew more adamant in his obsession. In an expansive country ruled by a mad king, the one who controlled him held the most power. Whatever personal vandetta either of them operated, it did not bode well for the Empire.