"Your Highness," he says with a respectful but clumsy salute from the left hand. His right arm is in a sling. "How can I be of assistance?" he asks.

"Mind if I sit?" Unless he refuses she'll take a perch on his desk. "What happened to the wing?" She nods to his wounded arm. "Did that happen during the Prince's arrest?"

When she gets to the end she rubs the bridge of her nose as she quiets herself back down to a professional demeanor. "Do you mind if I keep this," she asks Mallory once she has herself under control, "I think my boss should know the unvarnished truth about this." She sighs, "but I think you'd better continue your 'official' version."

She folds the report in half and slides it into a pocket.

Roz looks across the room for a moment as she gathers her thoughts. She runs a hand through her already unruly hair. "Lieutenant, even without reading this," she pats the report, "the King is none too pleased with Trace's actions." This, she knows, is the truth. "After some consideration it was decided that a night in jail would serve the dumb sunova -- " she stops herself, "would serve his Highness right."

"However," Roz continues, "it wouldn't be the best PR for the Royal Family if people knew that a Prince of the Realm was sitting in jail..." Roz sighs, "I know I'm asking a lot, Lieutenant, but do you think you could perhaps lose the paperwork on Prince Trace so that if anyone asks after him it appears that he's already been bailed out?" Roz asks. "If you could see your way clear to doing me that solid I would be in your debt." She finishes with all solemnity.

There is a bustle at the front of the room, and a seedy looking man in a battered coat and a formless blue cap comes walking quickly across the room, clearly headed straight for Mallory and Roz.

"Oh God," Mallory sighs. "Of all people...."

He holds a small book with tattered pages in one hand, and a stubby pencil in the other.

"Amber Gossip?" Mallory says with obvious skepticism. "If this is your newest scam, you've picked a damn funny place to ply your trade, Jimmy."

"You wound me, Mallory," Duncan replies. "I've left me thieving ways behind to follow the siren call of truth and journalism. Now, miz Barimen, do you have any comment on mister Fitzalan's arrest?"

Roz turns to Mallory. "Lieutenant?"

Mallory looks like he's going to make some response to this, probably along the lines of the deception Roz asked him to make... but there is a hesitation while he steels himself to the bald-faced lie.

Roz pulls Mallory along with her if she has to.

Trace is sitting on a bed, his hands manacled to long chains which are in turn bolted to the floor. In the cell with him is an unassuming little man in the process of making a spot of tea on a small, cleverly constructed portable stove. Trace is in mid-conversation with a foppish gentleman in the cell next to him, also (as it turns out) with a manservant sharing the cell. She'd never been under the impression that this was standard procedure.

Roz will notice that a little muscle in Mallory's jaw twitches at Trace's totally unperturbed and guiltless recitation of the days mayhem.

He glances at Ariel, then asks Rosalind, "Do you want the other prisoner moved to a different cell?"

Mallory pulls Ariel up by his collar-stays and frog-marches him out of this cell-block. He protests the entire way, of course, saying "Now see here! I -earned- that cell fair and square! Do you think lewd conduct is effortless? It's an endurance sport my man..."

Mallory takes the guards that usually keep watch over the whole row of cells with him, ensuring that Roz and Trace have complete privacy.

Eventually she turns back to Trace. "My name is Princess Rosalind, I'm the daughter of Corwin," she says, "I work for the King." She doesn't ask who Trace is or pause so that he can introduce himself. "I have two messages for you, one is official, the other personal, once I've delivered them I'll leave you in peace."

Rosalind folds her arms across her chest as she looks Trace over. "Is this how you wanted to be introduced to Amber? Is this where you wanted to spend your first night here?" She nods to the prison surroundings, not unlike prisons anywhere you find them. "Among the stink of past prisoner's urine and vomit? Is this how you always pictured it, forced to submit, brought here in chains?" These are all phrased as questions but it doesn't sound like Rosalind is interested in an answer.

"You injured people today, GOOD people, police officers among them who were doing nothing but trying to keep their city SAFE for their fellow citizens -- and for WHAT? For your own personal pleasure? For some immature enjoyment? What gave you the right to come into their city, spoil their public spaces, and tear their bodies up? These are our people but they don't share our resilience, our ability to regenerate; they're weaker than we are -- when you hurt them it MATTERS," Rosalind says with a passionate vehemence. "But you don't care about that, do you? All you care about is having a laugh, isn't that right?" Again, it doesn't sound like she's interested in your answer.

"You'd better START caring," she continues, "because what you did today has ramifications beyond the people who were sent to the hospital, beyond the ruined monuments and the property damage. Your frat-boy antics have played right into the hands of the King's political opponents here. You've become the poster boy for everything they say is bad about the royal family and the King is going to have to spend a considerable amount of time playing politics to make up for the lost ground that you pissed away today. If you had any idea how much the King HATES playing that kind of politics you would have a small inkling of how disgusted he is with you right now."

"So much for what the King wanted me to tell you," Rosalind steps closer and takes hold of the bars, "now let me add something personal to all of this."

She looks Trace straight in the eye. "Ana was someone that I was proud to call a cousin. More than that, she was my friend," Rosalind's eyes are bright with emotion, "she gave her life to defend those who were weaker than she was and her memory deserved better than to have her funeral procession ruined by your pathetic misadventures. By some accident of birth, you're going to be allowed to attend her funeral but your drunken antics make it clear to me that you aren't worthy to stand in the same room with her bier. I don't think you'll ever be worthy -- but that's a choice that's up to you."

Rosalind steps away from the bars and turns to leave. "I'll be back in the morning to bail you out."

With that she leaves.

If you care to look back, he is sitting on the edge of the filthy cot, his arms outstretched over his knees. The chains leave him barely enough room to do this, and it takes up every bit of slack available to do so.

"It's too long. By the time you finished, I realized you were trying to provoke me into showing what I'm really like. If you'd stopped about halfway through, it would have worked nicely."

He closes his eyes. "I expect a better speech at the funeral."

When she's well away from Trace's cell she allows herself a smile.

After the visit with Trace, Roz gives Duncan his interview.

While Roz is still looking around the watch room, trying to figure out where Duncan and Mallory have gotten to (perhaps two minutes after she left Trace) there is an echoing clatter from the cell-block, as if someone were rattling chains loudly.

"Ah, that was quick," he says when he sees her. "I'm surprised he didn't have more to say. Seems the type of talk your ear off."

She turns to Mallory. "No doubt the police impounded his ship, right? Well, you have my permission to sell it to pay for the medical care and property damage he's caused. When he was booked in did you remove his personal effects? If there was a deck of playing cards or weapons or anything like that, I would be more than happy, as the representative of his family, to take care of them." Roz is grinning now.

Five minutes later, he walks into the door of the coffee room, two guards flanking him from behind, their truncheons in their hands. Roz turns from looking out the window at his approach. At the same moment, clearly coordinated, guards take up station in the other doorway from the room.

The kindness is gone from Mallory's face. Instead there is a cold and restrained anger. "Miss Barimen," he says officiously, "Come with us. We'd like to ask you some questions regarding your part in Fitzalan's escape."

...and Roz proceeds to lay it all out for Mallory with all of the "unfair weaponry" she has available to her: she'll make an impassioned argument about being innocent until proven guilty, about evidence overweighing hunches and fears, about actions speaking louder than words, about the actions she's shown him in respect and courtesy. Then she then she hits him with the dire, and dismal consequences of arresting her, how embarrassing and scandalous it would be for the King, how, once she was found innocent, all that embarrassment and scandal would come rebounding back onto him for his blundering arrest of someone doing the King's duty, he would be made a laughingstock, his career would be over, how it would be hard for him to find even a non-law enforcement job. And then she gives him a way out of the situation as she tells him that she understands where he's coming from, she understand his anger at the jail break, she respects his ethics, and his career as a police officer, and that's why, if he makes no more of the matter, she's willing to let the matter drop and no more will be said about it.