“Tell me what it is you want to do for His Highness.”
“It is true that I lived in the northern district of the city and that I occasionally went to the Covert Trumpeter to get a drink, but I didn’t lose all my possession because of gambling. Furthermore, my wife also didn’t run away with someone else…” Hill gnashed his teeth, “The truth is, it was Timothy who caused her death!”
The story really wasn’t that complicated, which allowed Theo to quickly come to understand the sequence of the events.
He and his wife originally were members of the “Dove and Cylinder” an acrobatic troupe, who often performed in King’s City’s inner city. The acrobatic troupe wasn’t that big; they only had seven members, and the atmosphere between them has always been very harmonious. His wife was the only woman in the group, and had also been unanimous pursued by everyone. But in the end, Hill became the victor, finally winning her heart. Afterward, their married life was very sweet, and not much later the both of them had saved enough to buy a house in the inner city. But all this was destroyed by Timothy’s witch-hunting operation. Under Langley’s leadership, the patrol acted like a bunch of mad dogs, recklessly capturing those under suspicion, and his wife just happened to be one of those who had been unfortunate enough to be captured.
Hill Fawkes had thought that as long as he paid the ransom money, he could get his wife released, or if that proved impossible at least see her face to face. However, even though the prison warden accepted the ransom, not only did he not release her, he even refused his request to let him enter the jail and see her. He only tried appeasing him by saying that he only had to wait a while until they confirmed that his wife wasn’t a witch, and she would naturally be set free afterwards. So when the warden informed him that he should come to the jail to get his wife, he never expected that the situation would take a sharp turn for the worse, leaving him to find the scarred corpse of his wife.
When Hill angrily went to Langley to demand an explanation, the final result was, the prison head and his guards had merely been sentenced to ten lashes, and received a fine of twenty-five silver royals, while he was given three gold royals in compensation. This kind of sentencing was totally unacceptable for Hill; he even went so far as finding the highest person in charge, Sir Weimar also known as “Knight Steelheart”, but even this was to no avail. Sir Weimar could only tell him that Langley was Timothy’s cronies and that the new members of the patrol were also all his lackeys. Furthermore, the witch hunt was His Majesty personal order, so even Sir Pail, the Minister of Justice could not speak out against it.
Thereupon Hill decided he would make the New King pay, never anticipating that his former partners in the acrobatic troupe would actually support him. However, as a group of acrobats without any form of combat expertise, wealth, or troops under their command, it was almost impossible for them to carry out their vendetta against the King. The only possible way to harm him that Hill could think of was collecting intelligence about Timothy and giving it to his enemies, like the Queen of Clearwater Garcia Wimbledon. For this, they had all joined different groups of street rats, and decided to collect any clues the could find concerning the new King.
This was also the reason why he secretly monitored all of Theo’s movements. In case that Timothy wanted to get rid of the refugees, he had to try to stop them as much as possible. But he was too slow before he could take action, the demonic plague had broken out, and Theo suspended the transportation of the refugees. But today, Hill discovered that they had started the operation once again. And in order to investigate, he straightforwardly disguises himself as a refugee and succeeded in mixing in with the crowd. Resulting in the discovery that in truth Theo was actually serving Roland Wimbledon, the 4th Prince of the Kingdom of Graycastle.
Who, without a doubt, as a qualified competitor of the Throne of Graycastle, was also an enemy of Timothy.
