The Duke Abides

by GrassAndClouds2

Opening Gambits

It had been a while since Greengrass had done this sort of work. He’d used Notary for it, as well as his other agents. But he didn’t have them – Notary had quit, as had his other employees, and Puissance had snapped up his old network of spies and loyal servants – so he’d have to do it alone.

“Besides,” he told himself, “I’ve done this before. I can do it again.” He grinned. “I’m getting back in the Game, and that’s what matters!”

He trotted out his door. He felt invincible. Nothing could stop him now!

###

Except, as it turned out, a locked door.

Greengrass frowned as he examined the pesky obstacle. It was a standard door, wooden, with an old keyhole that could probably be picked in about thirty seconds by a competent thief. Notary could have done it in fifteen, he was sure, and his expert, Lockpick, in about eight.

Greengrass tried the door, but merely hoping that it would unlock itself wasn’t enough. The door remained stubbornly closed.

After the CCPS meeting had concluded, Greengrass had drifted near some of the ponies that had stayed behind and mingled. Two of the ponies had been discussing having to put up with ‘obnoxious guards who take them for granted,’ and one had smelled strongly of garbage. That had brought to Greengrass’s mind the idea that this pony might be one of the barracks janitors. Because weapons and sensitive materials were stored in them, the barracks had separate janitors from the rest of the castle, and it seemed likely that one would be dissatisfied enough with the arrogant Guards to join the society. As such, Greengrass had hit upon the idea of slipping into the barracks and trying to identify him; that could be a key first step in ascending in the group and joining the inner circle.

If only he could get in.

“Okay,” he muttered. “I can start a ruckus out here, wait for them to come out, and sneak in behind them… but then the pony I’m looking for will be out here too, in the middle of whatever I do. I can pound on the door and demand entry, but I don’t think—“

“Can I help you?”

Greengrass turned to see a Royal Guard. He couldn’t place the Guard’s name; he was probably new. There had been a rash of hiring after Corona’s escape from the sun, and many of the Guards were still relative neophytes. And he wouldn’t recognize Greengrass; the stallion was in disguise – coat dye, mane dye, and a fake cutie mark of a smiley face (a store in town sold novelty fake cutie marks, useful for foals who wanted to pretend they had gotten their marks early, or pranksters who wanted to secretly put them on their friends and tease them about having gotten cutie marks shaped like toilets or rocks). So he wouldn’t know that Greengrass was pony non grata in the castle.

Hmm. He could use that.

“Yes, I’m supposed to be in there right now but the key they issued me doesn’t work.” Greengrass took a random key out of his saddlebag and gestured it at the door. “I’m worried that if I’m much later, the Captain will be angry. I’m sure you know how he gets.”


The Guard smiled at that. “Captain Armor’s on the practice field right now.”

“I know – I’m not supposed to meet him, I’m supposed to be setting up my presentation in there. If it’s not ready when he gets back, well, that’s bad for me. Can you let me in?”

“Sure. Pass?”

The Guard passes were extremely difficult to forge, for obvious reasons. The actual physical pass itself was challenging, though not beyond Greengrass’s capabilities – forging documents was an important skill for a politician. But the passes were imbued with a magical beacon as well, cast by Shining Armor himself. Greengrass didn’t know the spell, and even if he had, he would have needed a unicorn to duplicate it.

But the guard wasn’t a unicorn. That didn’t mean that he couldn’t verify the pass, there was probably some way to do it, but if he was new, and…

“Here.” Greengrass took out his forged pass. It looked accurate to the eye, though it didn’t have any magic. “Can you let me in now?”

“One sec.” The guard placed the pass against the wall, then tapped it in a specific spot. As Greengrass had expected, nothing happened.

“Okay? Now?” asked Greengrass, as if everything was fine.

“It’s not giving…”

“What are you talking about? Shining tested that spell in front of me to make sure it was working – it was two nights ago, in his personal quarters, on his coffee table. Aren’t you doing it right?”

“I’m trying!” said the flustered guard, tapping it again. “But…”

“They told me that if I had the pass, even if the key didn’t work, somepony would be able to let me in!” said Greengrass, allowing some stress and frustration – and just a hint of panic – to creep in to his voice. “I was counting on this, it was vital…”

As he ranted, he carefully watched the guard out of the corner of his eye. The guard would, of course, be considering strongly the possibility that he really was screwing up triggering the spell on the pass – he wasn’t a unicorn and couldn’t sense those things. He, who was new, would worry that he might really refuse to let in an important visitor, and that he would be punished or look stupid. He would think that Greengrass had called his Captain by just the name ‘Shining’ and had visited his residence, which implied a close personal relationship. And he would say…”

“Alright, alright.” The Guard unlocked the door. “How long will you be?”

“Just a few minutes to get things set up. Thanks!”

Greengrass entered the quarters, set his saddlebag (full of junk) on a table in the middle, and hurried over to the janitor’s office. The barracks were deserted; most of the Guards were training at this time of night, and those that weren’t were either on vacation, on sick leave, or on guard elsewhere in the castle. This was thus the perfect time for the janitorial staff to clean the place, and thus the best time for Greengrass to sneak inside.

A few ponies were by the janitor’s office. One was too tall, one too fat, one a mare, and…

“Guess I gotta mop up the sweat again,” muttered the fourth.

Greengrass smiled. That was it. That was the same voice. (Well, he was pretty sure it was the same voice. That would have to do.)

“Excuse me,” he said, approaching them. “I’m giving a presentation. Could you,” he gestured at the CCPS pony, “Help me get a table moved around?”

“Sure,” grumbled the pony, walking over with Greengrass.

“Thank you! I’m Salescolt. What’s your name?”

“Mopmaster Swish.”

Greengrass had what he came for. Now it was time to leave. He—

The barracks door opened, and a unicorn came in with one leg in a cast and a large bandage wrapped around her horn. “Evening,” she called out. “Don’t mind me, just got a bit clumsy on the last lap of the obstacle course.”

“Oh, Icemare! Could you look at this?” The first guard, who had been working on some paperwork on his bunk, trotted over to her. “I think this pass is malfunctioning.”

Uh oh.

Greengrass hastily excused himself from Swish and, using the rows of bunks as cover, maneuvered his way around to the barracks entrance. He’d had an escape route in mind, of course, thanks to his knowledge of the castle’s architecture, but it wasn’t optimal. If he could just sliip out of the room.

“What are you talking about? This pass never had a spell on it. It’s a fake.” The unicorn frowned. “Where did you get it?”

Greengrass took off at a dead run.

He made it out of the door before the guard yelled, “GET BACK HERE!” and took off after him. Greengrass fled at a dead run for the stairs. If he could get down them –

He almost made it.

Greengrass heard steps from far too close behind him, and turned just in time for the earth pony guard to tackle him. Greengrass cried out as he banged his shoulder against the ground, and then they were both skidding down the stairs.

BONK. Greengrass yelped as his head hit the wall. He’d be feeling that for a few days.

But the fall managed to get the guard off of him, and Greengrass was able to get to his hooves and make it to a small closet. There was another door on the other side which led to an old, disused passageway, and a large vent in there that led to a laundry room a few floors down. If he got there, he’d be safe.

Into the door, out the other one, and into the vent just before the guard entered the passageway. Greengrass watched and waited for the guard to run past the vent before he backed down it and made his way to the laundry room.

I got bucked and banged up a lot less when Notary was here, Greengrass thought to himself. But that was no way to think; sure, he might want Notary’s help again, but he couldn’t have it, and that was that.

He groaned. He had to keep going; he wanted to find out two more names today. And he had to ditch this disguise too. But first… a painkiller might be in order.

“Wait a minute. You’re not the famous chef Pomegranate Passion! You’re a fake!”

Greengrass looked up from the stew he was mixing. “Excuzes-moi?” he demanded. “And just who do ze think ze are? Hmph!”

One of the other ponies Greengrass had eavesdropped on after the CCPS meeting had mentioned working in the castle kitchens. Her cloak had shifted, and Greengrass had caught a glimpse of her cutie mark, a ladle. So he’d changed outfits, put on a fake cutie mark of a durian, and bluffed his way into the kitchens in the guise of being an ‘expert’ who had been brought in to show them a new dish.

But he hadn’t found that pony yet. Of course, it could be her day off or something, but it was still frustrating. And now it looked like his disguise was failing.

“I,” said the objector, “Am the chef in charge of this kitchen! I know cooking, and you clearly don’t! Look – right there, you used the wrong spoon to stir that pot!”

Seriously? “A true chef knows that, rather than being bound by ze hidebound rules of ze traditionalists, we must improvise and forge our own rules!” said Greengrass.

“I don’t think so—“

“Anyway,” said Greengrass, resolving to push harder, “I think now is ze time for ze serving! The dish must be carefully ladeled into ze bowls. Is there any pony in here with ze penchant for ladleing?”

After some murmuring, one pony with a ladle cutie mark did approach. Greengrass nodded to himself; this was the CCPS pony. “What is your name?”

“Nourriture, sir.”

“Ah, good, and—“

Another pony entered the room, whom Greengrass recognized as the head of catering and kitchen scheduling for the castle, and the head chef turned to her. “Excuse me, but did we actually have an expert scheduled to come in and,” he sniffed, “Train us?”

“Uh, no…”

“As I thought. You are an imposter!”

Greengrass smiled winningly, then ran for the door. The saucepan only caught him a glancing blow on the head.

###

And so it went. Greengrass visited a gambling parlor to find a frequent customer, a café to locate a waitress, and even the sewage department on the outskirts of Canterlot to find a worker. In each case, he was able to get the name he wanted. But he also suffered quite a bit in doing it.

I’d try to find Notary, but she’s not going to come back on my say-so. I need to prove that I’ve still got it… he grumbled to himself, as he sat in his bed with an ice pack pressed to his head. Who would have thought that such a slim, little waitress could buck so hard?

But he had the names; that was what mattered. He could implement his next step very soon indeed.

###

“You have everything you need?” asked Majordomo.

“Yes,” said Notary. She adjusted her saddlebag, which contained the various tools and documents she thought she would need. “I’m still curious as to how Fisher obtained this information.”

“He has other spies,” said Majordomo. “And you don’t need to know more than that.”

Notary raised an eyebrow. “We’re on the same side.”

“Let’s just say I’m not fully convinced of that.” Majordomo smirked. “Don’t get arrested.” And he turned around and walked back into Fisher’s office.

Rolling her eyes, Notary trotted out into the Court. Fisher’s information had told her what the group was doing, and how they acted. She had to do something similar, enact some kind of of act of sabotage of her own, to get noticed by them so that they would trust her--preferably without getting caught by the actual security forces in the castle.

But that wouldn’t be too difficult. This was what she did.

###

Notary had come up with four possibilities for sabotage which the Archduke had approved of. First was the castle’s food.

Notary slipped into the kitchen, which seemed to be a bit more chaotic than usual for some reason. She took advantage of the commotion to make her way to the back of the room, unnoticed by all. She quickly found herself by the pantry door, and she entered without fuss.

The large box in the back of the pantry was for rare and special ingredients; the foods that Princess Luna had prepared when she was to entertain foreign dignitaries, for instance. Spoiling them wouldn’t cause any major fuss in the cancel, since the foods weren’t slated to be used for a while, but the servants and cooks would know. Word of that problem would get out, and that was a good start.

Notary picked the lock to open up the box, and then began to scratch the runes off of one of the sides. It didn’t take much before they flashed and stopped glowing – after all, it wasn’t like anypony had really thought that somepony would attack the box.

There. Notary sealed the box and trotted out of the kitchen. One job down.

###

Second was weather.

Notary was not a pegasus, but it wasn’t too difficult to break into the Canterlot Weather Bureau. The lock would have been tough, but there was a small vent in one side that Notary was easily able to pry up. The vent was wide enough to easily crawl through, and by the time Notary had popped out the other end, she was in the middle of the complex.

She took out some papers from her bag that indicated a forged weather schedule, identical to the real schedule except for a single unapproved rainstorm. This would only affect the very outskirts of Canterlot, and even then not very much, but it would still be noticed by the ponies involved. They would complain, they would grumble, and that was all Notary needed.

“Hey!” A pony poked Notary. “You, get these reports to Rushing Wind’s office, pronto!”

“Yes, sir!” said Notary, a peppy lilt in her voice. She accepted the papers, looking up Wind’s location on an office map, and trotted in that direction. The best disguise was to do actual work; the Duke had taught her that, and she’d found it to be true.

The papers were dropped off. Notary rapped on the weather manager’s door and told him that his ex-wife was at the door screaming about something (Notary had done some research during the day; the weather manager’s marital problems had been tabloid fodder for months). She caught the door as he ran out and quickly searched the office, replacing one date on the big weather calendar mounted to the wall and the smaller backup one that he had in his desk.

And then she was casually taking a few papers to the front, slipping out the door, and moving to her next target.

###

Third was clothes.

Notary had a special disdain for Upper Crust Tailors, which was practically the official clothing store of the Court. They had been one of Greengrass’s closer allies, and one of the first to vehemently distance themselves from him after his fall. They blamed him for all manner of things, most of which he hadn’t done, and published a self-righteous editorial about how good it was that bad ponies like Greengrass were removed from the Court. Now it was time for a little payback.

Easy. Stay focused on the job. Don’t do too much; if the guards investigate, that’s going to cause problems. Just enough to get some rumors started.

She didn’t need to break any locks to enter the store; she just put on a fancy hat and dress and walked in. “Excuse me. I was looking for a new hat?”

The salespony took a few moments to notice Notary, which gave her time to examine the merchandise. She didn’t usually wear that kind of thing, and so wasn’t entirely sure on how to evaluate it, but on the whole it didn’t impress her. The dresses were frilly and would get in the way of any real physical activity. She couldn’t imagine crawling through vents or climbing up through rafters in one of them.

“Oh?” said the salespony at last. “A new hat? Well, we’ve got plenty of those!”

Notary went through the store, selecting several large hats – and into each one, she stuffed a small dress or other item of clothing. Then she went into the dressing rooms with the items and took out a small bottle and brush from her bag. It was but the work of a few minutes to apply the green, fuzzy-looking dye to the outfits.

Then she went to the clerk, thanked the clerk for his time and said that she’d come back in a few days with her decision, and by the way, there were a fair number of outfits in the dressing rooms that really should be reshelved.

She left, nodding. The clothes would go on the racks. In some time… probably a few hours… somepony would notice the paint that looked like mold. There would be a small panic and the store would be closed for a few hours, throwing off the plans of the nobles who wanted new clothes, until a fungal expert showed up to tell them that, no, it was just an odd dye – probably spilled on the clothes in the factory.

Notary smiled. One to go.

###

Last was music.

Notary looked at her tools, then into the next room, where Octavia Philharmonica had left her cello for a few moments.

I don’t think so. Three’s enough. Notary was not as… eager as her former employer had been, and she was somewhat more risk adverse. Octavia could hear Notary coming even when Notary was being as quiet as possible, and besides, she checked her instrument fanatically. No matter what Notary did to it, it would be fixed before her next show.

So Notary turned around and began heading back to Fisher’s offices. Yes, she had certainly done enough.

###

“Good job,” was all Fisher said, when he informed her what she had done. “So they know you exist now.”

“Yes. As you said that you had a lead already on a few of their identities, I can simply perform another act of sabotage while they are around.”

“Perfect.” Fisher returned to his work. “But back to your official job…”

And so two hours passed before Notary was dismissed. Afterwards, Fisher mused at his desk. “Majordomo.”

“Archduke?”

“Has Golden Breadloaf arrived yet?”

“Five minutes, archduke.”

“Hmph. He’s late…”

Breadloaf appeared, smiling weakly. “Archduke. I need your help. The ingredients I was storing in the castle kitchens, the rare fruits, apparently they’ve spoiled. Your fruit import business could bail me out. I’ll pay you--“

Fisher cut him off with a growl. “I’m not susceptible to bribes, Breadloaf. I have more important things to do than picking the pockets of the Canterlot merchants. I want your political support. I know you’re close to Fragrant Posey. You will lean on her to support the Special Forces.”

“Your personal army? I can’t—“

“They aren’t mine!” Fisher scowled. “I created them, but they work for the castle now.” This was a sore spot for him – sometimes it seemed like the chief impediment to their obtaining political support wasn’t Trixie, but fears that they would serve Fisher’s selfish desires and not the government’s purposes. Could nopony conceive of the idea that Fisher was selfless, and the USF too?

“I… I wasn’t—“

Fisher turned back to his papers.

“Alright! I just – I need those tonight or my restaurant can’t open!”

“You’ll have what you need.”

After Breadloaf, as well as a representative from Upper Crust’s store (who needed some PR control due to the ‘mold outbreak’) had come and gone, Fisher chuckled. Yes, Notary certainly was a useful mare to have around. She had the perfect set of skills to be a useful piece for him, and lacked that certain big-picture intuition that would have let her see how he was using her.

After all, all good servants could be split into two groups. Those who accepted that they were his pieces, and those that didn’t know it. Notary was in the latter group, and she’d do quite well there, whether as an attacker, defender, or sacrifice. She was flexible, that was the thing, like a…

“Rather knight-like, I’d say,” mused Fisher, moving a piece on his board. Yes, that fit Notary well. She could sneak around the other pieces, winding up in places where she probably shouldn’t. She wasn’t as useful to him or the country as the Special Forces or Majordomo, but certainly more useful than most of his clerks and grunt employees. And, of course, the thing about knights was that they were generally the most useful at the beginning of a game.

By the end, they just didn’t matter as much.

Author's Note:

You may have noticed how this chapter begins this story's most prominent theme: Greengrass suffering amusing physical injuries. I think it's safe to say this will continue.

As mentioned before, Fisher is more a bwa-ha-ha villain in this story than elsewhere. I know it doesn't fit his personality, but to be honest, it was a blast to write him as a total jerk.

Comments

[RK_Striker_JK_5]

The injuries will continue? Huzzah!