The Melancholy Imp

The parlor maid watched him go, the wicked grin on her face fading. When she was certain he was out of sight, she pulled the small package she was carrying from within her robes and cautiously headed down the hall after him. Stupid, she thought, I should have let him pass. Now I'll be delayed following him; and me late already. She clutched the package closer to her. The Diviner would know what to do.

Gnash grumbled quietly to himself as he reached the laundry. None of the other imps spared him a glance as he heaved the heavy linens up onto the shelf with a grunt, a sign of how tense things had become since the Patriarch had fallen ill.

Of course, the fate of the Patriarch was hardly a daily concern of imps, but no citizen could shake the feeling that things had begun to decline when he took ill, and didn't show any sign of stopping. Even the King and Queen seemed lost nowadays - he in exile and she constantly distracted. And whatever it was that had befallen the oldest man in the Kingdom, they had better cure it soon or it seemed the whole land would suffer the inevitable consequence.

Finally relieved of his burden and thus deprived of an opportunity to dawdle, Gnash turned dutifully and headed off to the great hall to help with the dinner preparations, his head still throbbing.

Linala had followed the imp as far as the laundry door to make sure he didn't try anything. Satisfied that the dirtied linen was indeed being rewashed she clutched her package tightly in one hand, picked up her skirts and then ran back in the opposite direction.

Swishing past a number of servants and narrowly avoiding knocking the head butler clean over (for which he had awarded her one of his most disapproving glares) she landed outside the Diviner's study with only a few hairs out of place and a great deal less late than she would have been. She had gone to some trouble to get this appointment, and could not afford to be tardy.

Taking a deep breath to calm her pounding heart she knocked timidly on the huge oak door and waited.

"Come!" came the distant command from within, and she pushed into the room with only a slight hesitation. "You are late, young woman." The Diviner had his back to her, leaning over some leather-bound volumes on one of the bookshelves, and his matter-of-fact tone betrayed little of his thoughts on the matter.

He was a wiry little man with a wrinkled brown raisin of a face, always screwed up with one profound thought or another. His white hair and beard fell in almost transparent wisps all about him, straggling this way and that as if possessed of its own free will. He was a kind man at heart, or so it was whispered, but his abrupt manner and constant fidgeting made Linala nervous.

"Yes, Sir," she mumbled out, crinkling her nose at the musty old book smell of the room. Didn't he ever have a maid in to clean?"

"Well then? I don't have all day, dear; I am a busy man," he replied, turning to peer at her with raised eyebrows.

***

In a hidden chamber deep beneath the laundry, an unusually small imp entered a darkened room and carefully approached a seated figure in the shadows.

"I hope you have something good to tell me?" inquired the figure in the chair.

"They...are being delivered, Sir... as we speak, actually," he replied nervously

"They?"

"I...I have also taken the liberty of having a package delivered to the Herbalist, my Lord," he said with confidence, yet shuffled his feet, waiting for the expected outburst. "He is an acquaintance of the Diviner, thus I decided?"

"For this once, I shall let that pass," the seated man rose, cutting him off, staring down at the small creature. "You have shown initiative, but in the future... check with me first! Now, you are sure that no other has an inkling of what is to come?"

The small imp at last felt his feet on firmer ground. "Of course, my Lord, whom else would know?"

"Whom else indeed?" agreed his master.

***