Through the Gate: The Chronicles of Cornu Book 1

by L J Dalton Jr

  As time went on Bartrum learned that his father was obsessed with taking down the royal family of Nordia and eventually replacing them with people who would be Porfia’s puppets. One of his most audacious plans was to murder the crown prince and his family. Bartrum thought that this was foolish. It wouldn’t accomplish much and simply invite retaliation. The assassins’ guild might take the contract, but what would change even if they succeeded?

  His mother continued his education. She showed him all of the lotions and the various drugs used in the harem. “Now son, many of these are available and used all over Cornu. Especially, the ones that sensitize the male and yet delays his climax. Women regularly use this when they are fertile. The more spend the man has the better the chance of fertilization. Some of these are used to enhance pleasure. For example, we have potions that raise the desire in both men and women for a short time. They’re effect last for just a few hours. The degree can be adjusted by how much you give. This is something I am using to break those two bitches to my will. Enough and they are begging for relief. It’s rare for a woman to be executed. What most kingdoms do is sell them into slavery for the pleasure houses. They augment the professional companions, those women who are simply not fertile. Some of those women need to learn to be co-operative. There is a drug that makes them desirous of pleasure almost all the time. It is a long-lasting drug and only used in the pleasure houses. Although not only pleasure houses buy such women, there are others that do use it.

  Bartrum did attend a couple of his mother’s training sessions. The women were thoroughly humiliated and placed on the lowest level of the harem. They were forced to pleasure any of the other members.

  One day Bartrum realized that he needed to put his mother in her place. The next time he went to the harem for a training session, he ordered it be done to his mother.

  His mother later told him that, by doing that he ruled the harem. That should be done to more of the harem to continue his dominance. He should not spare her because she was his mother.

  One thing Bartrum had to agree with his father about was that his mother was very inventive in the bedroom. They had just finished having sex after watching the mothers of his rival brothers become exhausted pleasuring each other. His mother called for several of harem to come take them away. The women were not treated well, the other women tugged on their leashes and led them out of the bedroom on all fours.

  When they were alone Bartrum started. “Mother, father is fairly set on doing something about the Nordia royal family. His current idea is to have the crown prince and his family killed. I don’t see how that will put us in a position to put people in place that will allow us to control the kingdom. It may also invite retaliation. I have no doubt that King Fredricke would avenge his family and that vengeance may fall on me. I have no idea what to do, but I fear that father’s plan is too dangerous.”

  “Bartrum, you are right about all of this. It won’t do anything. Why do you think I’ve done what I’ve done to my former rivals? Now, they are the lowest in the harem. Their job is to pleasure the other women in the harem. Or to put on performances like they just did to titillate you and make the sex more enjoyable. The only time they get to sleep with you, a man, is when they please me enough for me to grant them the honor of joining the two of us, when we couple.”

  Bartrum replied. “Well I would suspect that it’s revenge for one thing and secondly you like it.”

  “Well I do enjoy it. Do you think others heard them? They certainly made enough noise.” When Bartrum nodded, she continued. “I wanted them to be heard. I added a mild drug and some lotions to make them more sensitive and they can’t help but cry out. I want people to know what they are doing. Now there is nothing all that scandalous about two women pleasuring each other. It happens all the time. It happens when I send two of your harem to you. It happens all over Cornu. No, I want to degrade these women, not only for personal reasons, but reasons of state.”

  She waited until she had Bartrum’s attention. “No woman in the situation I was in, with a son vying for the throne can be without allies. Allies in the harem and outside as well. The way they have fallen is an object lesson for all their supporters as to what can happen. All of their allies will have deserted them. That is why I have done what I’ve done. They don’t have such a bad life. They are still in a royal harem, which is a high honor and while they don’t sleep with a man as often as they want, they are allowed sexual pleasure.”

  Bartrum looked thoughtfully at his mother. He thought he knew where she was going but he let her go on. “If they were an enemy of the state, I wouldn’t kill them, that would leave them with too much dignity. No displays like you saw tonight would be staged publicly. The drug dose could be increased, and the lotions applied to the correct body parts. They would go at each other with total abandon and the moans of pleasure wouldn’t be faked. There are plenty of places where this could be done discretely yet the word would soon get out.”

  “Alright mother let’s say we captured the crown prince and his family. We could do this with the women. I assume you can find the places to have them perform. What would we do with them afterwards?”

  “After a suitable time, entertaining various crowds and giving ‘private showings’, we’d discreetly sell them into the harems of rich nobles or merchants. There they would disappear. Plus, we would be richly rewarded.”

  “It’s vile and devious, but it would probably work. What about the men?”

  “There is an island, deep in the southern seas near the eternal ice, where the worst of the worst are exiled. No one lives more than a year; we’d send the crown prince there. As to the boy, something could be done to him. He could always join his father.”

  “How exactly would this help us?”

  “The royal family would need to replenish itself. The king’s daughter with her husband would move from Great Falls to take up the duties of the next in line in Nordport. She has two young daughters. One would be the heir the other would rule in Great Falls. Other families would be reluctant to put their children into a situation where something like we did to the crown prince could happen to their children. This is where your brother comes in. He would be of age to possibly marry high up in the Nordia nobility.”

  “Yes, he needs to be kept safe and if this is to go on, to come here to become our ally. That is dangerous. He could be just as much of a danger as an ally.”

  “I believe that I can talk to his mother and she would see the advantages. Such a union would be much more advantageous to her and her child than anything that currently would be available. Our problem is we need to have suitable brides ready as well. You will need to start producing children. I will make sure the most fertile women are brought to you, when they are ready. They will need more education than is normal for our women, to be attractive to the northern kingdom.”

  “I need to think about this and also how to approach father with this idea.”

  His mother left to allow him the time to think. She was thankful that her son was smart and suitably cautious. Her job was to provide the necessary cunning for him to succeed.

  Bartrum spent a long time sounding out his father on the plot against the Nordia royal family. He made sure his father considered all the downsides of the plan. After a while, his father was starting to doubt the effectiveness of an outright attack on the family. Once, that groundwork was laid, Bartrum proceeded to layout elements of the plan that he and his mother had come up with. His father never realized that the plan was almost fully formed. The king thought that he and his son had come up with it over the course of months of talking.

  Once, the king called in his chief spy master, Seldin. The man was not physically imposing, being very average both in stature and looks. Bartrum, knew that the looks were deceiving. That this man was one of the most dangerous men in the kingdom. He ran his father’s internal spy network. Anyone found to be a dangerous dissident soon had a fatal accident of some kind. He also ran the kingdom’s
agents throughout Landia. Most of the kingdoms had agents in the capitals and many of the large cities. Their job was to look for trade opportunities, gather intelligence on the other royals and steal any secrets that might be valuable.

  The king explained what he wanted to do. Seldin kept his face neutral. He didn't wan to let on that he'd taken aback at all by the plan. He considered it for a few minutes. The king and Bartrum waited patiently for him to finish thinking. When he was done, he said. “An audacious plan, your majesty. It just might work. I would strongly suggest that we do not organize this. It would be too easy to trace it back to us or even discover it. No, we need to engage a third party to do the organizing. We supply the gold and silver to pay for it. There are probably three or four men in Landia who could organize this. They would have to be approached in such a way that they can’t be sure who is their paymaster. I have a man, who is used only for the most sensitive missions. No one knows that he works for me. Everyone thinks that he is a scholar, he is but he is also a very effective spy. In fact, he doesn’t even live in the kingdom. Our best chance to take the crown prince and his family is when they participate in the Grand Tour. They travel the whole kingdom for several months every two years. The next one is scheduled for three months from now. We could never be ready by then. Plus the son will not go on this tour, he will be old enough for the next one. We’ll need to go after them on the next one.”

  The King and his son both agreed that it sounded wise. Seldin was directed to start the process. After he left, Bartrum turned to his father. “This is going to be costly. We also need a plan to eliminate anyone who knows about the plan, if it fails.”

  The King smiled. “You are obviously taking lessons from your mother. She is one devious woman. I believe that you are starting to understand what needs to be done.”

  When Seldin left the king and his son, he went to his office in the palace and spent a long time staring out the window, thinking. This had all the markings of a plot that came from Bartrum’s mother. She was dangerous. He suspected that plan Bartrum used to kill his brother came from her. There was no doubt, that the woman had planned for most eventualities. He needed to do two things. First contact his scholar and get him looking. The second was to accelerate his plans to leave the kingdom and assume a new identity. He doubted that the king would let him survive this attempt on Nordia, whether it failed or succeeded. If the king didn’t, the boy and his mother would make sure he died. He needed some insurance as well. He’d work on that.

  The next thing he did was to arrange to travel out of the kingdom. He would have to spend several weeks on the road and contact his scholar. Seldin, didn’t know the man’s real name. He had an idea where he lived, but he never pressed the issue. His normal method to contact him was to travel to a certain inn in Tantulus and then wait until the man showed up.

  After a week’s journey by carriage, Seldin arrived at the inn. He passed a coded message to the proprietor and then settled in to wait. Twelve days later the scholar arrived. He and Seldin never meet in public, but they did meet in the proprietor’s quarters. When Seldin told him what he wanted, the man sat and looked at him. “My friend, I fear that neither of us will survive this unless we are careful. This will cost a lot of gold and silver. Do you have it?”

  “The funds will be more than sufficient. I was not given a blank check, but within reason I can get all the funds I need from the treasury.”

  “Good, this is the next to the last time we will meet. I’ll have someone contact you as to when and where we will meet. I will tell you how much gold and silver to bring. It will be a very substantial amount. The proprietor will only be able to tell you the next person in the line of communication to me. Once I have made the arrangements, I will be moving far away. Even knowing about this is dangerous. I think I know the man that you will need. Oh, please make sure the gold and silver come from a number of different kingdoms. If they are all from your kingdom, then even an idiot can figure out who is behind it.”

  “Fair enough. I will wait for you instructions. Oh, I’ve got the coin from several kingdoms. That won’t be a problem.”

  With that the two men left. Seldin to go back to the palace to await instructions, the scholar to go wherever he went.

  Samual.

  Samulin sat at his desk and went over the books of his trading operation. His office was over his main warehouse in the port city of Cape Fromm. Samulin was a trader, he brought goods from kingdoms in the south of the Sud range to the kingdoms to the north. He then sold them for a profit and brought northern goods to the south. It was a lucrative business and Samulin had done well. He had another even more lucrative business. He ran what on earth would be called an Independent Intelligence Agency. Spies for hire. He could have lived a good life on his trading business alone. But he had two vices that drew him to the illicit trade. First, he was greedy. No matter how much he had, more was always welcome and sought after. The second one was the challenge and the excitement that came from his second endeavor.

  Samulin ran operations all over the continent. He carefully screened his clients and charged large sums of money. Secrets had been stolen, items smuggled and on the occasion someone died. In those rare cases, he’d turned to the Assassins’ Guild. This was a small and highly secretive organization that for a very hefty fee would send an assassin to kill a designated person. The royal families used them to eliminate an incompetent heir or not so incompetent heir. In some of the kingdoms, succession was the last person standing. The assassins were even willing to take on what were really suicide missions. A mission where after they killed, they had little if any chance of escape. If captured they had poison on their person and committed suicide. How they recruited these people and what motivated them, he had no idea. But they did make Samulin very nervous.

  He was due to meet a man who had a very sensitive contract. There had been a long dance that went on between Samulin and this man. He didn’t know who he was or who he represented. All he knew for now was that it would involve one of the royal families. Samulin was leery of the contract. But his love of money and the opportunity to pull of such an audacious strike were simply too much for his greed and ego.

  The man arrived at the appointed hour and Samulin greeted him and they sat down to talk. As his contact laid out the details, Samulin was more and more astonished. This was a strike to cripple the royal family of Nordia, the best run and one of the wealthiest kingdoms on the continent. He was basically given a blank check and at the end would be paid a king’s ransom. Left unstated was that if he failed the penalty would be death. Probably delivered by one of the assassins of the Assassins’ Guild. He was arrogant enough to believe that he wouldn’t fail and if the unexpected happen he could escape the guild.

  After hearing what he heard, he started to plan. It took days, but in the end, he had what he thought would be a successful plan. Samulin kept several aliases that he used. Each was close enough to his own name that he would always turn when called. For this he would have to change his appearance slightly. The oiled mustache would have to go, and it would be replaced with a fuller beard. He picked an alias he hadn’t used much, Samual, a trader. He had two years to accomplish this. Enough time to get everything ready.

  Backup.

  Samual was a careful man. He always had at least one backup plan and many times several in case his primary plan failed. The bandit charged with capturing the royal family was his primary plan to accomplish his mission. While his employers wanted to kill and humiliate the royal family, they would settle for killing as many as possible. Samual was confident that the bandit would succeed, but if fates went against him than killing the family was the next best thing. If the bandit failed, the royal family with depleted guards would head for Resting Lion Inn and await reinforcements from Midport. It was at Midport that he would need to strike again. He had hired a half dozen assassins to infiltrate Midport and attack the royal family. The assassins didn’t know the identity of who they were going to
attack until the last moment. The problem was positioning them without them being noticed.

  If the royal family arrived at Midport after having survived an attack, there would be heightened security. He would need a way to get the assassins into Midport and near their targets without raising suspicion. He had come up with an audacious plan. The assassins would be part of the ‘rescue’ force coming from Nordport. To do that they needed to be accepted as part of the soldiers sent to Midport to rescue the royals. Given enough time he could possibly insert one assassin into the guards, but six was out of the question. He knew that he couldn’t suborn any of the King’s men. First, the risk of betrayal was too great. For another, the King and his family were loved and respected throughout the kingdom. He needed another plan. That’s why he was on his way to Naldalia, the capital of Modia, a small kingdom in the north. While small it did have one great advantage. Their king had sired two sons and one of them, Roddrick was going to marry the eldest daughter of the crown prince.

  Being far away from Nordia, meant that men could be bought. He had quietly looked in the city for someone that could be bought. A few of the kingdoms had covert agents in the Modia. These people were also willing to take extra money on the side. Through them he’d discovered the perfect man. Norbrat was a captain in the king’s guard. He was the last child of minor noble. The family held a secret grudge against the king and his family for some generations. Samual didn’t even try to understand the reason behind the feud. It was one lever that he had over the man. The other lever was lust for gold and more power. Norbrat wanted money and the life that could give him. The man was married to his second cousin and she held many of the same opinions.

  There were only two respectable inns in Naldalia and Samual was staying at the one nearest to the palace, such as it was. His first evening there and he hoped his last, he went to Norbrat’s house for dinner. Both Norbrat and his wife were there. She had a two-year-old who had previously been put to bed.