He came at night because he was still, at heart, a romantic. Also, because he believed that his royal highness, King Mayhew Kestrel, would be more inclined to take notice of someone requesting his audience when most decent folk were holed up in their homes, doing their darning by the fire or yelling at restless children to go to sleep, else there would be no gifts tied to the Festival tree\'s branches for them.
He\'d headed back for Oberon the second he\'d heard the news of the previous king\'s passing, knowing that there was much in store for the likes of him there, now that the tables had turned. He\'d had to go back to whoring to make his way but now, with a warm light shining through the darkness - so to speak - he knew those days were done.
Even making haste, it had taken him moons to get from the hole he\'d ended up hiding in, back to the city he knew. His mother, the thankless bitch, turned her nose up at him when he requested asylum and slammed the door of his own home in his face. It hadn\'t taken her long to infest his classy little hovel with her stench and his cherubs were scattered to the four winds; with Talon\'s bite full upon the city and the best of work available, too.
Still, Phinneus consoled himself with the thought that he would have better, do better, be better than all the likes of them, once he was seen as a familiar face. No-one knew of his secret, for he\'d managed to keep his loose tongue tied on that score (being driven out of the city before he could reveal the grandness of his coup had helped, mind), so wouldn\'t they all fall about in shock when they saw him swathed in pretty robes and housed in the palace itself? He hoped his mother fainted dead from shock, the sleazy tart.
He\'d prepared himself as best he could for this night. His clothes were tatty beneath his fine black cloak, his face more gaunt than when Hew had seen him last, for his food had not come nearly as regularly these past many moons, so his square jaw was now extremely pronounced. His face was unshaven, rough stubble covering his cheeks and chin and there were dark crescents beneath his eyes (mostly because he\'d slept in gutters the past two nights he\'d been back, since none would touch nor trust one such as him - they all knew him to be a wanted scoundrel and believed themselves in danger should they be found hiding his likes).
Walking up to the gates of the palace had been hard; every fibre of his being twitched for him to run when the patrolling guards looked curiously at him, but he wasn\'t stopped. There was an open policy of welcome in the new king\'s governing of his home and Phinn was counting on it as a way to get in. Of course, if that red-headed wench sighted him and recognised him, he didn\'t think he\'d be so lucky, but he\'d heard rumours that the old captain was nursing her own misery - a dead husband and a new babe - so he didn\'t think he\'d have too much trouble from her tonight.
Keeping his cowl up all the same (to hide the desperate look of him beneath the pristine black), he knocked on the door and was sure to keep to the shadows when it was opened. Using his best noble accent (for he\'d trained it into himself while away, having little else to do with his nights besides listen to nobles moan while he was down on his knees between theirs), he spoke in relaxed and mellow tones - as if he had every right to be there, even if it was just after nightfall and their royal majesties (for he\'d heard about the bitch bride... oh yes, he had... but he didn\'t foresee some foreign-born tartlet being a problem for him) were likely just settling down to their supper.
"Please tell His Highness that Albert Phinneus would like just a moment of his time, if you would. I\'m newly returned to the city and would like to see a familiar face - oh, and to pass on my commiserations, of course," he added hastily, his accent slipping slightly when he rushed his wording.
It brought only a minor frown to the forehead of the page who\'d greeted the cloaked figure at the door, but he invited him in to take a seat in one of the plush waiting chairs in an ante room just off the foyer, promising to deliver his message anyway. Bowing out of the small greeting room, the page then passed the standing guards and went in search of King Kestrel, expecting he would deliver the visitor\'s message and be given one to return to him, but that the man would get no further this night. Very few of the visitors ever did because there\'d been so many of them since King Morgan died, a veritable army had marched through the palace doors wishing to give the Prince-cum-King their condolences. Only a handful had found an audience in all that time.
Upon finding King Mayhew, the page bowed formally with a click of his heels and delivered Phinneus\' message verbatim before straightening up, a bland expression upon his face as he waited for the order to send the man away at such an ungainly hour - with a polite message of thanks, as was the king\'s custom.