The next day, a great procession came through the streets of the town, headed by the coach that bore Band to his keep deep in the rock face. Duet watched it go by. There were bars on the windows, bars on the doors, even bars surrounding the driver in a narrow cage. The reasoning for which was immediately elucidated by a barrage of cobblestones that shook it nearly onto two wheels sideways.
Inside the carriage, Duet saw the shadow of the detested lord laugh, and motion to his driver.
The driver turned to the crowd and bellowed in a cracked voice: “His lordship requests that you spread out more! The rocking was very restful!”
There was a murmur of discontent from the crowd. One or two people started prising up more cobblestones, but stopped. What good would it do? He laughed at cobblestones.

The jangling individual that walked up to the gate of the keep was hardly recognisable as the same one that had crossed the dusty track to the city the day before: loaded down with rings, torcs and necklaces of gold and silver. Only the cane, with its core of cold, vicious steel, was the same.
“Tell your master,” said she to the guards at the mighty gate, “That Baroness Du-Ouette of the Markh has come to meet with him.”

“My guards tell me you entered the town as a commoner,” said Band, sitting down at a grand table for his dinner. The great hall was a cold, borderline ascetic venue, uncarpeted, unadorned. The home of someone who had no interest in being there whatsoever.
“You know how things are on the road, my Lord,” said the Baroness. “It is often safer to travel alone in secret than with a retinue of a hundred.” She was standing before the top table, drawn up to her full height. She let her natural accent creep a little more into her voice. “Although I admired the security of your carriage when you arrived this morning. The resilience is remarkable.”
“Quite, quite brilliant work. From a Secor forge, you know. Not the kind of thing you can get out here in the sticks,” said Band, sipping a horn of wine. “Please, Baroness. Sit. I know I have a reputation among the folk of this town. They say I want war with the Markh. Not so.”
The Baroness sat. “It is a beautiful country,” she said cautiously.
“It is. So much more beautiful than this rock, don’t you think?” said Band. “Wine?”
She accepted the proffered horn, an ancient drinking vessel. She had never seen one used in earnest before. “I hail from the north, the White Forest region. We have had difficult years.”
“Difficult?”
“Trouble with… uprisings. Rebels. I myself was expelled from my own territory.”
“I am sorry to hear that,” said Band, and she could see the calculations in his face. The White Forest was deliciously close, he was thinking. And if he could wrangle an invitation from this poor naive woman, they might even be welcomed. Welcomed at first…
“You have some experience in these matters, it seems,” said the Baroness.
“Oh, well, you know how peasants are. The common rabble. Your average peasant hates anything it doesn’t understand, and that includes the like of you and I. You have to give them a good thrashing, like a dog, you know? Let a dog to its own devices and it gets to the idea that it’s your master and not the other way around.”
“You let them throw those stones at you this morning,” said the Baroness.
“They’ll soon feel the bite of the birch-rod,” said Band. “They know that. My soldiers have good memories. And sharp blades.”
The Baroness’ stomach lurched. “You’ll kill them?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You can’t go around killing your subjects for something as mild as a riot. You’ll run out of subjects before long,” Band said, chuckling and tearing at a leg-sized lump of game with his fork. With his mouth full of crisp boar, Band continued: “A hand is enough to stop them from ever throwing a brick again.”
“You’re very wise, my lord,” said the Baroness. “If my family had had a knight of your calibre commanding our armies…”
“Ah, an unhappy notion indeed, my lady! For then I should never have had the pleasure of your company,” said Band, lowering his face and looking up from under lascivious eyelids at her.
“You flatter me, but I am afraid I make for very dull company.” she said, deploying the perfect amount of demure self-depracation to hook him once and for all. She pursed her lips subtly. “I should like to know more about you, though. My lord.”
He was leaning forward now. She had him! “I should like very much to show you,” he said. “You must stay here at the keep. My maidservant is dreadfully underworked.”
“I am afraid I already have a room engaged in town,” said the Baroness shyly. “It would hardly be befitting to accept such an offer from a man I am barely acquainted with.” She hid her face behind her hand, an affected display of shyness.
“Such quarters must surely be murder on such a… refined figure as yourself,” said Band. Well practiced in courtly ways, she thought. No doubt honed on a succession of debutantes and ladies-in-waiting. She banished that thought from her mind as her breath caught in her throat and her cheeks reddened ever so slightly.
The besotted, despicable lord showed teeth in a cruel grin. He had her! This silly girl who had not known softness and warmth in who knows how long, she would fall into his arms in days. She would beg him to rid her of her little ‘problem’, and he would graciously oblige on but one condition: that she become his bride and transfer her lands to him.
The Baroness saw all this written across his face for half a second; then he was all sweetnesses.
“Hmm… very well,” she said. “But you simply must show me around this place! I won’t hold with being escorted around by the guards. I would feel like a prisoner.”
Band laughed. “Nothing could be further from the truth. Indeed, I am your prisoner my lady – prisoner of your great wit and beauty!”
Laying it on a bit thick, don’t you think? When her face was turned away, the Baroness allowed herself a private smirk.

As they crossed the courtyard to the heart of the keep, where Band’s dark dealings were conducted in a great black office, a scribe came running across the sand to meet them. His robes trailed behind him as his careful pitter-patter gait brought him closer with deceptive speed. In his hand he clutched a small note.
“What is it?” snarled Band. “I’m very much occupied taking care of the Baroness here.”Sir! The salary for the keep guards – they’re becoming restless,” gasped the scribe. Band grunted.
“Always, always there are people to be paid. And never enough gold to go around. Let me approve it and get my damn men their money.”
The scribe unfolded a wooden contraption hanging around his neck – it was a portable writing-desk. He laid the note on it and produced a stick of red wax from a compartment. With the aid of a small metal contraption, he lit a wick that stood out of the end of the wax and let it drip onto the document. Into the blood red glob of wax, Band pressed the ring on his index finger.
“Thank you, sir. I’ll get this to the treasury right away,” said the scribe, collapsing the desk back against his chest.

That signet ring… the Baroness could see a use for that. She followed Band into his sanctum – the black office. This was the only place in the keep that seemed alive, scribes scurrying back and forth with rolls of paper clutched under their arms. The desks, the floors, even the walls, were all paneled with the same obsidian-coloured wood.
“I’ve never seen wood like this before,” she said. “It must have been very difficult to find.”
“Lystern blackwood,” said Band. “Comes across the sea to the North… completely fireproof.”
“Really?” said the Baroness. She drew in a breath and stepped closer to him. “It’s quite strange-looking, isn’t it?”
The hated knight gently put a hand on her shoulder and turned her towards him. He took her hand in his and leaned forwards.
“I find you endlessly fascinating, my lady,” he breathed. The scribes had disappeared into the shadows, and the atmosphere seemed to be closing in around her. She put her other hand on his and did her best to look sweet and innocent.
A crash behind her – she yelped, turned to face it – a box of papers had fallen off the jolted desk to her back. She quickly retracted her extended foot as if she had had nothing to do with it.
“I don’t like it in here,” she said. “May I go to fetch my things from the inn?”
“Go! Go! By all means!” said Band bitterly. Then he calmed down, and waved her away.

She turned the signet ring around so the seal faced inwards as she passed the guards and made her way back through the streets.