The Last Benediction in Steel

by Wright, Kevin

  “Might I assume it would cause a problem?”

  “Yeah,” I said slowly, carefully, “it would.”

  Prince Palatine pursed his lips.

  “And not to put too fine a point on it, my Prince, but I’m not so gallant a knight that I wouldn’t hurl a cripple headfirst out a window.” I held up a hand. “Defenestration is the word.”

  “Well, I… I thank you for your candor.”

  “You’re most welcome.” I bowed. “And I’ll ask you to remain in your room. Or the library, I suppose.”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  “I could knock you around a bit so your people know you didn’t give in too easily?”

  “A grand gesture, Sir Luther, and I thank you again, but I’ll pass.” Prince Palatine gripped his book tight. “Benefits of being a cripple. No one expects anything of you and so you can never disappoint them.”

  “Sounds wonderful. Might try it sometime.” I glanced at his book. “More trouble sleeping?”

  “I fear I shan’t. Not tonight. Maybe not ever.”

  “Not Ockham?”

  “No. My family treatise. I found it in the vault. Under lock and key. It is perhaps, what you were looking for earlier.”

  “Any hints as to the maelstrom churning?”

  “I…I’ve only just started.” Prince Palatine adjusted the large tome. “I need something to occupy my mind. Something to make me forget, even if only for a short while.”

  “Let me know if you find anything useful. Anything about strigoi.”

  “Strigoi?” He frowned.

  “Yeah.”

  In the courtyard below, the same someone screamed bloody murder. Or its near approximation.

  “You saw what my father did?” Prince Palatine shuffled to the window. “To the tent city? The refugees? His people? His own people?” Prince Palatine shook his head. “His last order to those … those…” He swallowed. “Clear them out. Forthwith. My father’s final act. The exodus and murder of his own folk.

  “No wonder everyone hated him,” Prince Palatine spat. “Patron saint of half-measures. Blotted ink. Of clipped oaths. What kind of man takes in those he’s sworn to protect, only to turn them out? And at the end of a spear?”

  “The kind of man who’s like most,” I said. “A little good. A fair cut bad. And a lot of nothing in between.”

  “He was the keeper of the law.”

  “Maybe he was thinking of you and your brother when he drove them out?” I shrugged. Jesus. Why the hell was I defending him? “Maybe he did it to protect you? Shit. I don’t know.”

  “And does that make it right?”

  “You got something you want to say to me, kid?”

  “My father’s last thoughts… Mother of Mary.” Prince Palatine fumbled his tome, almost dropping it. “What you said before. I can’t not think of them. His last moments. The look of horror. Sheer terror. Oh, Lord…”

  “Here.” I offered up a flask of something from Sir Alaric’s nightstand. At the grimace on the kid’s face, I heard the blade scrape past bone as it sank into King Eckhardt’s chest. Schlunk. Could hear him screaming. Thrashing around. Kicking. Then not. “Might take the edge off.” Just to be sure, though, I took a pull.

  It passed.

  Prince Palatine limped over, cane in hand, grasping onto the foot of the bed. He took the flask, a furtive sip, and plopped down at Sir Alaric’s feet. Sir Alaric rolled over, his arm flopping. He licked his chops, farted prodigiously, then settled into snoring.

  “Don’t think on it too hard,” I said.

  “But you just said—”

  “Using me as a model for successful living’s not liable to help you achieve it.” I stared at the flask in his hand. “Take another pull, and when you’re done, kill the rest. Doctor’s orders.”

  “A-Alright.” Prince Palatine took another sip.

  “My brother likens it to walking barefoot along a rusted razor.” Mouth watering, I stared at the flask. “The more you keep balance, try not to fall, the deeper the cut.”

  “Being a king?”

  “King? No.” I waved a hand. “An afternoon stroll. I’m talking about being a good man.”

  He glanced up at me. “You’ve had some experience?”

  “A while back, I had some notions about what a good man was supposed to be, what he was supposed to do, how he was supposed to do it.”

  “And what happened to those notions?”

  “More often than not, they got all those around him killed.”

  We skulked in silence through the night. Bone-weary and broken, we escaped the Carpathians with little more than our lives and the rusted armor clinging to our bowed backs.

  —War-Journal of Prince Ulrich of Haeskenburg

  Chapter 41.

  SOME BLACKGUARD out in the courtyard was wailing something awful. And with fair-good reason.

  In the midst of the great hall, Karl sat at the dinner table, littered with weapons of various types, sipping from a mug, cradling his crossbow like a babe as he stroked a hunk of wax along its string. Shunk… Shunk… Shunk…

  I glanced at the weapon of war. “Gonna play me a tune?”

  “Sure.” Karl snatched an apple off the table and tossed it my way. “Balance it on yer head.”

  “They stopped chopping down the door.” I caught the apple. Deftly. Dashingly.

  “Yar well, we had a good talk.” Karl continued waxing the string. “They agreed to stop chopping, and I agreed to stop shooting.” He thumbed over his shoulder at one of the murder holes flanking the front door.

  “Ah,” I took a bite of the forbidden fruit and snatched a peek, “ever the master of the high art of compromise.” One of the Prince’s retinue sat in the mud, a crossbow bolt through his thigh. It was Taran. I sighed. “Poor bastard can’t catch a break.”

  “Catches crossbow bolts just aces.”

  “Well, we all play to our strengths.” I snatched a crossbow off the table, ran my fingers along its stock, the string, inspecting it stirrup to tiller. It was a gnarly old bastard. Big. Powerful. Weathered. Suffused with a grim sense of purpose.

  “I shuttered all the windows. Latched them.” Lady Mary marched into the great hall, the King’s majestic crossbow cradled in her arms. “But there’s too many. With but a ladder and axe it’s but a matter of time”

  “Yeah,” I said. “How’re Ruth and the kids?”

  “Distraught. Disheveled. Shattered.” Lady Mary pursed her lips. “Glued to her beloved’s side. On the verge of insanity.”

  “So about the same?”

  “Yes,” Lady Mary conceded. “What was it you saw in the King’s chamber?”

  “Same as you.” I stuck my foot in the crossbow stirrup and pulled the string back, locking it in place with a satisfying click. Only sound more satisfying? Pulling the trigger. “Nothing to speak of.”

  “Nothing to speak…?”

  “Yeah.” I scanned the table, the deadfall of weapons inter-stitched haphazardly across it. “See any bolts?”

  “Here.” Karl tossed me one.

  “Thanks.” I caught it, loaded it, took a breath.

  “And what did you make of the nothing?”

  I opened my mouth to reply—

  “Sir Krait!” someone bellowed from outside. “Is that you? C-Can you hear me?” It was Prince Eventine. “Please, sir, my mother … she is freezing out here. And Taran, he is dying, I think. I beg of you, open the door for their admittance, if not the rest of us. And please, do no harm to my brother.”

  “He’s coming down,” I said.

  Karl scowled. “Who?”

  “Jesus. The bloody cripple.”

  Karl shrugged. “Who cares?”

  Exasperated by my trollish cohort, I hollered through the murder-hole, “No harm’ll come to your brother. You have my word.” For whatever my word was worth.

  “M-My thanks. Is he there?”

  I could see a crown sitting loose and uneven on his brow.

  “He’l
l be here soon,” I called. “They coronated you out there?”

  “Aye.”

  “Congratulations.”

  “I … well … thank you.” King Eventine looked down, away, his crown slipping. “An impromptu ceremony in the chapel. It was quite … brusque.” His first act as King? To come begging at his own front door. Auspicious, a word that did not come to mine. He crept forward at a half-crouch, his arms up, hands empty, open, up. “Please, I beg of you, don’t shoot. I’m coming to the door. I understand things got … heated.”

  “Heated?” I caught a glimpse of Sir Gustav lying like a log out in the dark. He was still dead. “Yeah. I suppose so.”

  “Tell him to open the door!” the Queen screamed from beyond the dark.

  “Mother. Enough!” King Eventine turned. “Please!”

  “Your mother can scream.” I blocked the murder-hole and turned to Lady Mary, whispering, “Mind going up to Her Majesty’s rooms? Take a quick look through them.”

  “Anything in particular?”

  I fixed her a deadpan glare. “Make sure her wardrobe’s still in fashion.”

  “Right.” Lady Mary swallowed, nodded, bolted.

  “Open the cursed door, you blackguard!” the Queen screamed.

  “Apologies, Sir Krait,” King Eventine confided through the murder hole. “My mother’s … upset.”

  “I noticed.” I muttered behind to Karl, “How long you hazard til they fetch a ladder?”

  “Idiots. But still,” Karl scowled, “not long.”

  “Krait, you bloody bastard!” The Queen raged against the blowing gale, her cloak clutched about her, ends rippling, whipping, cracking like whips. What the hell was she doing? Was it acting? Or had it been with me? I could see von Madbury leering as he whispered in her ear. “I’ll have you skinned alive! Br-Broken on the wheel! Hanged by your throat like a c-common thief!”

  I figured the three mutually exclusive at most and overkill at the least, but I withheld comment.

  “Will you g-grant us entrance?” King Eventine stuttered through the murder-hole.

  “Got to be honest,” I said, “your mother’s making me nervous.”

  “Hey Stupid,” Karl growled.

  I turned reflexively. “Yeah?”

  Karl thumbed over his shoulder.

  “Took your time,” I said.

  “Sir Luther, forgive me…” Prince Palatine stood clutching the door-jamb, breathing heavy. “The stairs are rather … steep. By your leave?”

  “Kid, you’re right on time.”

  “What aid might I provide?” Prince Palatine straightened, found his balance, started forth.

  Raising his crossbow, Karl subtly tipped his distrust by aiming at the Prince’s head.

  “Easy.” I raised a hand.

  Karl deigned not to shoot but didn’t lower the weapon.

  Prince Palatine didn’t seem to notice, and if he did, his blood was ice-water.

  “Krait, you traitorous blackguard!” the Queen-Mother railed.

  Prince Palatine glanced at me in question.

  “She’s having a rough night,” I said. “You looking to get your feet cut?”

  “To the bone,” he answered.

  “Go ahead then, kid.”

  “Mother!” Prince Palatine called. “Mother, please! Calm yourself.” He gimped forward, using the table and chairs to aid him until his face was pressed to the murder hole. “Brother, I’m here. Unharmed. All is well.”

  Which might’ve been a slight overestimation.

  “Alright.” King Eventine, blue-lipped and shivering, reached a hand through the murder-hole and gripped Prince Palatine’s hand. “Good. B-Brother. Excellent. You … you saw what was done to father?”

  “Aye.”

  “P-Please, Sir Luther,” King Eventine pleaded, “n-name your terms and they shall b-be met.”

  “I’m fair certain your mother’s gonna order my head off the instant you’re all back inside,” I said. “I’d like proof against that.”

  “On the contrary,” King Eventine drew himself up, “I think with a little civility and a can-do attitude—”

  “Krait, you soulless reptile!” the Queen-Mother screeched.

  I cocked my head. “Is that a ‘can-do’ attitude?”

  Karl snorted like a wild-boar, which helped the proceedings, tremendously.

  “I’d say rather not,” Lady Mary scowled as she entered the hall. Offering a curt shake of her head, she mouthed, “I found nothing,” and plopped in a seat across from Karl, the King’s crossbow gripped in her lap. I felt as though a portion of her wanted the bastards pouring in through that door. I’d hazard it for a fair-sized portion, too.

  “I-I…” King Eventine stuttered.

  “Brother. Krait. Please.” Prince Palatine licked his lips. “An accord can be met. Must be met. Tell mother to take a stroll down to the gates and back. To keep warm. Or better yet, seek shelter in the chapel. It’s cold but she’ll be out of the wind, at the least.”

  “I told her. Sh-She won’t listen. She refuses to cower, she says.”

  “By the blood! You’re King now. Act like it. Demand it.” Prince Palatine thrust his arm through the hole and pointed. “Go!”

  “But, I…”

  “Go!”

  King Eventine let his flaccid argument hang limp as his head, marinating in despondence a moment before he broke fully and marched off. “Mother!”

  For the gale wind, I couldn’t hear what oratory masterwork King Eventine was weaving, but I could read it in his every move. He was pleading for the Queen-Mother to listen. To accede to his demands. And I could read her acid-tongued counter. She was caught between a rock and a hard place. Ignore her newly crowned son’s inaugural decree and emasculate him before all of his men? Or acquiesce, ceding the last vestiges of her own waning power? She stood there in the cold gale, a visage of impotent rage frozen across her face before finally storming off toward the chapel.

  “What is it you want?” Prince Palatine swallowed.

  “Like I said before, to get me and mine out of here alive. And I want safe passage down to the Ulysses.”

  “It was my understanding she’s not yet seaworthy.”

  “You were misinformed,” I lied. While the Ulysses was still more of a water-born sieve than ship, there was enough lumber to clap something together that might ferry us across the river. Certainly, there was enough to get to the bottom.

  Prince Palatine’s eyes glimmered. “And I wish my father’s murderer hunted. Captured. Executed.”

  “So go find him.”

  Prince Palatine grimaced.

  “You heard what I said.”

  “So say something else,” Prince Palatine said. “Say you’ll stay. Say you’ll do it, and I’ll grant you the safety you desire. You have my word.”

  “Last I checked, you ain’t king.”

  “My brother—”

  “How about von Madbury?” I poured it on. “What assurances can you give against him? And Brother Miles? Sir Roderick and all the others? They’ve tried clipping my wings twice already.”

  “Allow my mother inside along with Taran.” Prince Palatine glanced at his brother. “The others shall remain outside.”

  “Raw deal for them.”

  “Indeed, yet they shall endure.” Prince Palatine gripped the edge of the murder-hole. “They must.”

  I glared outside.

  “Sir Luther, say you’ll do it. Say you’ll stay. Say you’ll find my father’s killer.”

  “Von Madbury.”

  Prince Palatine winced as he adjusted awkwardly. “We … we’ll figure something out. I swear it.”

  Outside, the men huddled in a scrum, shivering under the greying light of early dawn.

  “Fine,” I said, “I’ll do it.”

  “I have your oath, then?” Prince Palatine asked.

  “Just said the words, didn’t I?”

  “Alright.” Prince Palatine extended his good hand.

  I shook
it.

  “K-Krait, I…” King Eventine returned, dancing on his toes, rubbing his arms, his misted breath obscuring his face. “Eh? What?”

  Prince Palatine apprised him of our deal, and King Eventine looked relieved if somewhat ashamed when a voice from beyond cried, “Oy, there’s a blackguard scourger come calling.”

  Von Madbury rose as a figure, a scarecrow of a man, stumbled from the yard, past the breaking-wheel, and up toward the Schloss.

  Shit.

  I could read it in his form, his gait, his every move.

  It was Stephan.

  “Why the hell—?” I gagged back.

  “What is it?” Karl was on his feet, crossbow in hand, making for the murder holes, looking to reinforce their name and primary function.

  Von Madbury drew his sword. The rest followed suit.

  It careened downhill from there.

  Stephan saw the gathered retinue, a stuttered hesitation in his every step, yet kept trudging onward.

  “Run!” I yelled, my voice was lost to the gale.

  Von Madbury was up and lurching off, the others loping along like a pack of clockwork jackals, each one stumbling on despite stiff joints, cold bones, frozen blood.

  “Run, you bloody fool!” I hollered.

  “Is it Stephan?” Lady Mary breathed by my side, crossbow cradled, nestled, ready.

  Cursing beneath my breath, I drew Yolanda and laid a hand on the door-latch.

  “Lad…” Karl turned for his thane-axe.

  “No. You stay. Hold the door.” I slammed it with a fist.

  “Odin’s eye.” Scowling, Karl stomped back for the murder hole, waving me on. “Fuck it. Go. Fuck!”

  “Yeah. Exactly.”

  “Sir Luther…” Lady Mary swallowed.

  “I’ll do my best.” I cocked my head toward her murder hole. “See its purpose fulfilled, if it comes to it, though, yeah?”

  I caught a glimpse of her, pale and wild-eyed, an instant before the door shut and I was left standing in the blaring cold.

  By the time I trudged over to the huddled scrum, my brother stood restrained among them. Harwin and Brother Miles had him by the arms while Squire Morley giggled like an imp as he hammered him in the gut. Stephan retched and made to wilt over but was forced upright. Squire Morley belted him again.