Samantha  woke to yet another candlelit room.  Was it dark already?  She blinked her eyes twice to let them adjust, then sat forward and rested her arms on her knees to think.  So, she thought to herself, I’ve been assigned my highest paying job since I started in the business.  Now I’m waking up in what I suppose is his bed after falling asleep in his arms in the meadow where we met.  She wondered silently what the following days might bring while she would figure out a way to end his life inconspicuously without anyone being able to trace his death back to her.
The large wooden door squeaked a little as it opened and Samantha didn’t bother to hide herself from whomever her visitor might be.  A young blonde woman in a flowing blue gown stepped into the room and stopped just inside the door.  “Oh, I apologize, I thought you might still be sleeping.”
“No, just awakened,” replied the hired assassin.
The other woman, average height, and probably near the same age as her, fiddled with a bundle of fabric in her arms before setting  it on the end of the bed.  “Dinner is nearly ready, and I thought you might like to join us.  I brought a clean dress for you to wear if you’d like.”
Samantha looked at what she, herself, wore, and noticed a nightgown she hadn’t packed.
“It’s mine,” replied the blonde, “I mean, the dress and the shift, they’re mine.  I thought you might be more comfortable out of your riding clothes when my brother carried you in asleep.”  She chuckled to herself.  “He was going to carry you to his room, but I insisted you share mine instead.  It’s been so long since I’ve had another woman to associate with outside of our staff!”
Samantha couldn’t help but to laugh right along with her, for she, too, had gone without female companionship for some time, and was relishing the time she now spent in it.  She found herself thinking she might like it here, but redirected her thoughts upon remembering her reason for being in the castle in the first place.
“My name is Elizabeth Fergusson,” the other woman introduced herself.  “Nick said your name was Samantha, am I correct?”
Samantha nodded and slid from the bed, offering no more than that information, but Elizabeth would have none of that.
“Which family are you from?” The other woman questioned, pressing Samantha for her last name.  She was obviously concerned regarding a stranger in her home, despite her initial acceptance of female company.
Samantha didn’t bother hiding her identity, for what difference would it make?  Even if Lady Fergusson recognized her lineage, it was doubtful she’d see any reason to distrust her, so she answered, none too politely.  “The family name is Iscariot, if it pleases you to know.”
Elizabeth seemed taken aback by the knowledge.  “Then you – you – you must be related to…”
“Yes!” Samantha shouted, anger filling her.  “My father is the infamous Sir Troy Iscariot, king of villainous beings, and nightmare to those from whom he stands something to gain.”  Her face turned beet red when she spoke.  “And I hate him with all of my being!”  Samantha knew better than to lie, that was one moral principle to which she stood true, and of this information she told no lie.  “He has stained my existence with his treacherous acts, and now I walk the earth afraid I’ll die by the hand of his enemy!”  She didn’t add that she had followed in his footsteps; that would remain her best kept secret outside of the dark circles she frequently traversed.
It would seem to anyone who witnessed the change in attitude that the petite blonde softened to the other woman’s tragedy.  She approached Samantha, who now fought tears, and wrapped her arms around her lovingly, allowing for a yet unseen onset of sobs that shook her entire body until she fell against her host, exhausted.  When the unrelenting emotional outburst finally subsided, Samantha wiped the moisture from her cheeks and grinned in a futile attempt to disguise her pain.  “Please,” she begged, “don’t let on to anyone else that I’m human.”  A grin crossed her face, soon to be matched in the other woman’s.
“No one will know,” Elizabeth promised, wiping a few unshed tears from her own eyes.  “It will be just between us girls.”