He pressed on and quickly reached the door that should lead up to the privy apartment.  He carefully tried the handle and found, as he had hoped, that it was locked.  He smiled to himself – that seemed to confirm that his information was accurate and that this would indeed lead him to de Giselles. He pulled a couple of tools from his pouch and within a few seconds the latch clicked and the door swung open.  He slipped through into an area around 5 feet deep and the same wide and closed the door softly behind him.  Looking around, he found that a staircase led off to the right and, to his surprise, did not spiral as he had expected but curved gently rightwards, matching the curve of the hall.

The staircase rose slowly, with similar sized landings every ten feet or so.  Queetch was slightly concerned to see that each landing had a small window looking into the hall – he had seen no sign of these in the darkness on the other side and wondered if there were other spy-holes.  Probably, he thought, but the bretonnians were unlikely to have guards crouching in dark passageways when they only had one, and a not particularly alert one at that, on the front door.  And he had heard no sign of an alarm being raised, which he surely would have done had he been seen.

At the sixth landing, the staircase turned inwards again and rose to a wider landing that must have been close to the centre of the tower.  Here two doors led off to the left and right and the staircase continued climbing behind him.  Choosing the left-hand door, Queetch found himself in a kitchen and pantry, with another door leading out from the far corner.  Through this was a small, private dining room with an arched passageway exiting it, again from the far corner.  The bretonnians obviously believed in making intruders walk!  He passed through the arch and found a door on his left and another arch ahead.  Easing the door open, he saw a chapel with a statue of the Lady of the Lake that seemed to look sternly down on him as disapproving of his presence there.  Quickly he closed the door again and shook himself to try and get rid of the feeling that the goddess had actually seen him.

Through the arch in front, he found a withdrawing room, his eyes going straight to the far corner to find the door that he knew by now would be there.  He crossed the room swiftly and entered a library filled with many books.  He had heard that bretonnians were semi-literate, but that was clearly not the case with de Giselles – but maybe that was to be expected from one who had shown himself such a worthy adversary over the years..  He crossed back towards the centre of the tower to the door that stood in the opposite corner of the library, and returned via that door to the landing.  Obviously the bedchamber was to be found on the next floor.

The staircase returned to the outer wall, then turned about on the landing to approach another landing similar to that below.  Looking up the stairs that ran up from this landing, the assassin could see a doorway rather than a landing at the outer end., and the shape of the ceiling seemed to indicate that there was no matching staircase returning to the tower centre on the floor above.  He reasoned that it must enter a spiral staircase there, which would presumably lead to the privy guard who were, according to his information, stationed on the floor above the two floors of the privy apartment.  This much his informant had known, but of the internal layout of the apartment he had been ignorant – or had somehow concealed any knowledge he had of it despite the care the skaven interrogators had lavished upon him.

This landing had two doors, just like the one below.  Again, he chose the left and entered an office.  More bookcases lined the walls, and the desk was covered with papers, but he slipped past to the far door – placed as on the previous floor on the outside corner of the room.  This brought him through to a dressing room, complete with garderobes in the outer wall.  He advanced carefully now, for he knew that the dressing room would normally be found next to the bedroom, slipping quietly past wardrobes and comfy chairs until he reached the chamber door.  Taking infinite care, he opened the door slowly and silently to see before him a large four-poster bed, canopied and curtained with silk drapes that seemed to shimmer in the faint starlight that came through the window.