Morana watched carefully through a veil of hay at the proceedings. The captured assassin was defiant, as they all were, standing in his chains and awaiting to be brought forth onto the grand stage where he would stand beneath the noose. The gypsy girl watched dispassionately as the throng grew. The common folk always loved a good execution. They simply couldn't resist the spectacle. In a life of toil and drudgery, little provided more comfort than watching someone suffering worse than you were.
As she watched a white hooded spectator sidled closer to the wagon, hands caressing his own forearms nervously. Morana waited silently as he came closer and closer. Then the young man braced himself to climb into the wagon of hay she was hiding in. Foolish assassins, they always loved hiding in hay filled wagons. At the last moment Morana reached out and pulled the assassin into the wagon with her, nothing more than the rustle of hay to signal the man's disappearance. In but the blink of an eye she had a knife against the young man's throat and her legs wrapped around his torso.
"What is the plan to rescue your friend?" she whispered softly, sliding the knife's edge up and down his jugular.
The boy said nothing, his fear drying his throat and forcing him to swallow despite himself. It drew out a bead of blood against his pale skin. She then kissed him, drawing her lips slowly along his.
"You could live," she promised him, "and I could make it worth your while, both in coin and... with other things."
Again the boy said nothing, simply staring into her green eyes blue eyes defiantly. She grimaced and thrust her blade up to the hilt into the flesh behind the base of his jaw and up through the open cavity at the base of his skull. With a savage twist, she enlarged the wound and ensured it was fatal.
"Unfortunate," Morana said to the dead boy and kissed him again on the lips before wiping off her blade on his clothing, "I greatly prefer making people rich than killing them."
Moving quickly, she slipped out of the hay and made herself into one of the assembled crowd, watching the impending execution. There would be other assassins out there somewhere. They wouldn't have sent a lone boy, barely trained, to do such a job.