He plans to do it here

Mika's hopes fell as she saw the High Priest clear the dishes off one end of the table. He planned to do right here!

“OK, Sister Mika.” The disgusting man gloated with barely disguised lust as he pointed to the edge of the heavy table. “Lift your skirts and bend over the table here.” He rubbed his thick palms together as he added “It gives the church no pleasure to discipline our children, but let's put this episode behind us as quickly as possible.” Mika stepped closer, pulling her robes up past her knees in apparent compliance, but also to ease the swift drawing of her blade.

“Your Holiness?” Mika asked as demurely as she knew how. “Maybe we could do this in a room with more privacy?” She could see Beldan was tempted, his hands even brushed the small lump that was tenting his robes, but after what felt like an eternity of suspense he simply chuckled and tapped the table top.

“Maybe some other time when you need further chastisement my dear.” This was it then. Mika nodded submissively but before Beldan reached her she had the blade in her hand and stabbed at the High Priest's chest, almost laughing at the stunned look of surprise on the man's face. Then it was her turn to be surprised, because even though the razor sharp point of the blade easily pierced the golden embroidered robes of office it hit some kind of protective layer before driving through the man's ribs and into his left lung.

“Assassin!” Squeaked the High Priest in terror, “Guards, to me!” In spite of the man's large size, Beldan could still move with surprising speed. He spun away from the table and bolted to the far side of the great hall past the rapidly closing sentry. Mika was fast on his heels but had to take the time to deal with the Holy Guardsmen. She tore open the trapped scroll-case just as the guardsman stepped in her path and one gasp of the thick cloud of grey powder was all it took to disable the man. But the time, as short as it was had been costly, by now Beldan had reached the far side of the room and was pulling open yet a different concealed door. Mika leapt after her target this time swinging her blade at the exposed skin of Beldan's neck. Unlike when she struck at the target's chest her blade was not stopped by his unseen armor, it sliced cleanly through his robes and into the heavy folds of fat and tissue high on his shoulder.

The blade sliced deep, but not deeply enough and before Mika could strike again, the High Priest was slamming the door shut between them. Damn! Mika knew she had failed; now her attention reverted back to the remaining guardsman who was closing fast and bellowing at the top of his lungs at the same time. He carried his halberd with a grim seriousness that worried Mika just as much as his size and strength. Mika had one trick left, literally up her sleeve, a small cylinder with a ring at one end was tucked into a special pocket in her robes. She pulled the pyrotechnic device and tossed it in the air just as it exploded with a loud bang and a blinding flash of white light.

Mika was ready for the flash, but the guard was staring directly at the small object as it arched through the air and Mika saw him blinking furiously as she rolled under his flailing pole-arm and sprinted to the small hidden door that she had seen the serving girl use. Just in time! She saw the huge double doors of the great chamber open as she pulled the service entrance shut behind her. Mika was in a dimly lit plain corridor with none of the ostentation she had seen in the other parts of the Holy Palace; several doors led to what looked like storage rooms but at the far end of the hallway she could see and hear the hustle and bustle of a working kitchen.

“The High Priest is being attacked!” She announced loudly to the startled workers in the kitchen, “Please, someone needs to save him. Grab what weapons you can and fight your way into the great hall.” It spoke well for the discipline of the Church that all twenty or so of the servants grabbed knives and rolling pins and rushed to the defense of the High Priest, that they must surely despise, leaving Mika alone in the great kitchen.

It took Mika no more than twenty seconds to lift the reversible robes over her head and pull them back on with the white side out. She secreted the hemp cords of an initiate in the robes and by the time she reached the far door of the kitchens she was wearing the scarlet cords of a Herald. With her hood pulled over her distinctive golden locks she headed out the delivery door of the server's wing of the Holy Palace and into the streets of Telnon.

Mika knew she should head immediately to the designated safe house, but a nagging thought kept popping into her head. If Beldan couldn't find her, wouldn't he vent his wrath on Winlay? If she had successfully killed the High Priest, it might not have mattered, but Mika had seen the look in his eyes when he spoke of Winlay, the sick bastard was obsessed with her. Could she live with herself if she left her new friend to pay for her failure?