Assassins of Kantara

by James Boschert

  Once word reached them at the villa, Dimitri and Reza debated the news and their options. They had been desperately trying to figure out how to gain access to Guy, but so far had come up with no solutions.

  “They have probably started on Guy and even now might be torturing him,” Giorgios told Reza, who nodded agreement. The discovery of the absent ship in the morning would only make things worse. Guy would be in peril of his life.

  “We will go in tomorrow when we see the emperor has left. Speed and surprise might do the trick,” Reza decided.

  “We are missing something.” Dimitri said, scratching the top of his head.

  “What is it?” Reza asked. He was impatient to get on with the planning.

  “The Spymaster, Malakis, is going to stay behind. I wonder why? Is the emperor trying to divide those two? He cannot be such an imbecile... can he? If so, what can we do to help that situation along?” Then he slapped the table with his hand. It made even Reza jump. “What?” he demanded.

  Dimitri leaned forward with an excited gleam in his eye. “Reza, could we not pretend to be soldiers sent from the palace?”

  Reza looked skeptical. “I think you are leaving your senses,” he said.

  “Think on it, Reza,” Dimitri urged. “Pantoleon took matters into his own hands, and if Malakis heard about it then he is not likely to be pleased. In his shoes I might want the prisoner for myself.”

  Reza laughed. “My God, Dimitri, but you are beginning to think like Talon!” he considered. “The timing has to be exactly right. After Pantoleon has left but before the alarm can be raised about the absence of the ship, but... it might just be possible.”

  “We will need written orders,” Dimitri said. “I’ll have to forge letters, just enough to get us in and out again.”

  “We will have to spirit Guy out of the city somehow,” Reza said.

  They worked half the night and made sure that their men were fully aware of the objective. Five of the men who were to go were nervous, but the stoical example of Maymun helped steady them, and Reza reassured them that as long as they maintained their calm the operation could work. Even so, they made contingency plans for the eventuality of a disaster. If it went badly, the men were to flee and hide wherever they could; none were to come back to the villa for at least two days. Reza forbade Dimitri to attend the operation because if he were seen it could compromise all future work. Dimitri reluctantly agreed, so Strabo was carefully rehearsed for the role of Guard commander.

  “You must remember to be an arrogant son of a bitch and demand everything. Don’t take no for an answer from anyone at all,” Dimitri coached him, as he used softened wax to extend his nose into an impressive hook and painted on a larger mustache.

  So it was that at dawn the emperor, on time for a change, departed the city of Famagusta with a cohort of cavalry and Pantoleon in attendance. Gabros, having seen his master off, returned to the villa for a leisurely breakfast and then left for the harbor.

  A pigeon arrived on the window sill of the coop at the castle. Rostam was there with Irene; Jannat was slower to rise due to her condition. The message was delivered to an owlish looking Talon, who rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and then blinked them wide open as he read the note.

  At the same time Talon was reacting to his message, a contingent of palace guards stamped along the cobbled streets in hobnailed sandals to arrived at the entrance of the villa recently vacated by Gabros and demanded entrance. The surly and puzzled mercenaries moved to prevent them from getting to the doors. A hook-nosed captain with a huge mustache read out an official looking document that ordered the prisoner, known as Guy, to be released into their custody.

  “You can wait for our leader to come back. He will be here soon,” one of the bolder guards informed them with a rude shrug.

  “I shall do no such thing!” bellowed the officer in his loudest and harshest tones. “You will produce the prisoner or you will find yourselves guests of the emperor. In his dungeons! It is on the orders of Master Malakis who is in charge while the emperor is away that I am here, and by God and the Emperor I shall have the prisoner! Do not dare to disobey!”

  The loud discussion had drawn a couple of the other men from inside the villa, but there was also a crowd beginning to form and they murmured among themselves as they watched this display of wills; clearly they didn’t like the occupants of the villa, but neither were the palace guards popular either.

  The mercenaries looked stubborn, putting their hands to the hilts of their swords, but the palace guards leveled their spears at them and one of the slimmer men of the squad stared straight at the man who had spoken up. The mercenary saw a smile on the man’s lips and knew what it meant. This one, at least, could kill him in the blink of an eye and enjoy it too. He quailed.

  The confused men looked at one another, utterly bewildered; there was no one to lead them and make a decision. They tried desperately to delay things further in order to wait for Gabros to get back. One even left at the run to find him. “We cannot give you the prisoner. He is ill,” another told Strabo, who sneered and shouted a command to his men, who stamped their hobnailed sandals menacingly forward another pace, their spears leveled. The guards retreated.

  “You dare to disobey the emperor? Then your days here are numbered!” Strabo screamed at them. “Stand aside. I shall take him for myself and you will be crucified in the square. How dare you insult the Emperor! Long live the Emperor!” he bellowed, putting his hand to his wax nose extension, which was beginning to melt under all the strain.

  The small crowd roared back, “Long Live the Emperor!” Someone snickered and received a haughty glare from Strabo, who was by now well into his act. “Get out of here, you scum, before I set my men on you!” he shouted.

  A more reckless wag among the crowd called back, pretending to be frightened. “Ooo, ahhh, I’m so scared! Bet you weren’t so brave on the mountain, were you!” The crowd laughed outright at this.

  Strabo and his men pretended to ignore them. “Sounds like the word has spread,” Reza muttered to Strabo out of the corner of his mouth, trying not to grin.

  A few minutes later two men came to the door, staggering under the weight of Guy, who could barely walk. At a sharp motion of his hand from Strabo, Reza stepped forward with one of the other men and took possession of the prisoner. They half carried him to the squad, which closed ranks around them.

  Strabo glared up at the confused and unhappy thugs on the steps. “Just in time, you louse-ridden scum! You have saved your worthless lives. Now get out of my sight!” he roared.

  Needing no further encouragement the mercenaries vanished behind the doors of the villa, which slammed shut.

  “Go on go home, there’s nothing here for you!” Strabo called out to the mob, putting his hand up to his nose just in time to catch his wax extension, which had finally slipped off.

  The crowd lost interest and began to go about their business, while Strabo and his men marched off in the direction of the palace. No sooner were they well out of sight of the villa than they changed direction and hurried their semi-conscious friend back to Dimitri’s villa. They hustled Guy into the building and sat him down on a chair, where he lolled back. He was in poor shape and both Dimitri and Reza looked at him with concern.

  “Jesu, but I didn’t think we would get away with it!” Strabo grunted, as he sat mopping his brow and picking off the last of the wax. Then he rubbed off the false parts of the mustache with a grunt of pain. “Ouch! Even the crowd was fooled!” he chortled happily.

  “You were magnificent!” Reza told him, clapping him on the back.“You should have seen him, Dimitri! He had them scared witless.”

  “I think it was you who had them scared, Reza. I was watching the one nearest you. He was shitting himself,” Strabo sniggered.

  “No matter. You succeeded, by God. But now we have to take care of Guy,” Dimitri said, after a cursory examination. “I don’t think he will be able to ride.”

  �
��He must!” Reza snapped. “It is the only way and there is no time to lose. Once they discover what has happened they will close the gates and hunt for him all over this town. We cannot be discovered with him here. You will have to make sure that you and your men lie low for a while. It will be like a hornet’s nest overturned.”

  “Guy! Guy! Can you hear me?” Dimitri demanded as he dabbed at Guy’s battered face with a wet cloth.

  Guy shook his head groggily and lifted it to peer through swollen eyes and cheekbones at the men gathered around him. “Where am I?” he asked.

  “You are safe... for the moment,” Reza told him.

  “Reza? Dimitri? What, what happened?”

  “Later, Guy. You must leave the city as soon as possible. Can you ride?”

  “Bedder at sea,” Guy mumbled through swollen lips. “How’d I get here?”

  Reza ignored him and turned to Dimitri. “Where are the horses?”

  “They are being held by Maymun outside the gates.”

  “I’ll need help, I’ll take Maymun with me. Guy is going to be difficult to keep on a horse.”

  “Yes, all right. God help us, but we must get him going now!”

  “Put him in a cart and we will try to leave with him under something. They don’t care much what goes out, more about what comes in,” Strabo suggested. “Food comes in but shit goes out, if you get my meaning.” He chuckled at his own wit.

  They left through the city gates with Guy buried under a pile of horse manure, with a space made for him to breathe, with Reza and Maymun on horseback leading a pack animal. One of the natives of Famagusta drove the cart. He would be returning later in the day with an empty cart. The guards at the gates barely gave them a glance, turning away from the odious stink as the cart trundled by.

  They drove without appearing to hurry towards a copse of woods about a league from the city, where they stopped. Guy was hauled out of the pile, bundled onto the largest horse and tied onto the saddle, after which they set off for the castle at a canter, Guy swaying in the saddle as they went.

  The empty cart was driving back through the city gates as a highly agitated Gabros was leaving the harbor, livid with rage that the ship had disappeared overnight, along with all its crew and the men who should have been guarding it. No one could tell him what had happened; the ship had vanished as though by magic. This spoke of witchcraft, and he was beginning to guess whence that came. He shook his head. Pantoleon should not have underestimated that Talon.

  He arrived back at the villa to find his men milling about in the house unable to coherently inform him of what had happened earlier that morning. He grabbed one of the men by his front and lifted him off his feet, he was so angry, and shouted, “Tell me this is not true! You allowed the Emperor’s men to take the damned prisoner away?”

  They nodded, dumb with fear. Gabros was not a man to anger quickly, but when he did it was a fearsome sight to behold. “You stupid, stupid cowardly fools!” he ranted, and threw the man backwards against the wall, reaching for his knife. Just at that moment they all heard a shouted order outside on the street and another of his men came running into the front room.

  “They are back!” he said, his voice shaking with nervous tension. “Those crazy palace guards are back!” he sounded incredulous.

  In a few swift strides Gabros was at the front door staring down the steps at the group of armed men gathered at the base. The leader, a scruffy hulk of a man with a huge nose, shouted up at him.

  “Orders to pick up the prisoner and take him to the palace! Where is he? Bring him out, in the name of the emperor!”

  Gabros and his men gaped. Recovering himself enough to shake his head and glare at the man, Gabros called back, “Your men have been here already and taken him.”

  “No we haven’t, you piss pot. We’ve only just got here. Bring out the prisoner or I’ll come and get him.”

  Gabros by now was thoroughly confused and angry. The loss of both the ship and his prisoner made him reckless.

  “I have already told you, you mindless turd! You came for him earlier and we gave him to you! Now piss off and leave us alone.”

  “Don’t you tell me to piss off! I’m not a... whatever turd either!” Asanes shouted back, deeply offended by the insult. “I’m here in the name of the Emperor and by the orders of Malakis,” he bellowed. Gabros had seen Asanes before lurking about in the palace, which gave credence to his mission, but there was still the puzzle as to who had taken the prisoner earlier. To make matters worse, a curious crowd was beginning to gather.

  “Wot happened? Did you lose the prisoner on the way home?” came a voice from behind the gathering.

  Asanes glared at the speaker. “Take names, we will arrest them when we are done here,” he snarled.

  Someone overheard him and the crowd rapidly dispersed.

  Asanes and Gabros were almost nose to nose at this point, their bearded faces infused with blood and distorted with anger. “I told you, we don’t have him. I swear to God that we gave him over to your men earlier, so don’t come here and tell me that your left hand doesn’t know what the damned right hand is doing!” Gabros snarled. Then realization began to dawn.

  “You really don’t have him, do you? Oh my God, this cannot be right!” he muttered and slipped out of range of Asanes’ huge hands reaching for him. Gabros whipped out his dagger and was now pointing it at his antagonist.

  “Stop! Stop!” he yelled at Asanes. “Don’t you see? We’ve been tricked!”

  “The bastards tricked us,” he repeated, stamping around in fury. “You must believe me when I tell you before God that we did hand the prisoner over to some men. They said they were from the palace. You don’t know anything about that?”

  Asanes, being somewhat slow, was still hung up on being called a mindless turd, but even he began to realize that all was not as it should be and that this offensive man was trying to tell him something.

  “You have to shut the gates and stop anyone from leaving the city!” Gabros shouted urgently at him.

  “Why?”

  Gabros rolled his eyes. “Because they have escaped and are taking him to the castle on the mountain, that’s why!” he snapped. “I’m going to see for myself if he is here or not!” Asanes glared stubbornly at Gabros.

  Gabros threw his hands in the air and groaned. Who was this great oaf? “Oh very well. Come on in. Just you. I’ll prove it to you and then you must listen to me.”

  Asanes told his men to wait and followed Gabros up the stairs and into the house, past the sullen mercenaries and frightened servants, down the stairs to the basement.

  Gabros kicked the door to Guy’s former cell open with a booted foot and said, “There! I told you he was gone. Now will you listen to me? Have the gates shut now, before it’s too late. For the sake of Saint James’s holy bollocks, do it now!”

  The sense of the order percolated through the dense mass of Asanes’ skull; there was something very wrong, and the least he could do was to shut the city gates.

  He returned to his men, who were facing off against Gabros’s men, fingering their sword hilts and spears and sneering at one another, ready for a brawl.

  “Go and tell the sentries to shut the gates and stop anyone from leaving. Hurry up about it, or I’ll have your hides!” he shouted at them. “I’ll clear it with Malakis. He won’t be pleased,” he warned Gabros with an ominous glare.

  Gabros couldn’t think of anyone who was going to be pleased, but somehow he had to redeem himself. First the ship and then its captain spirited away right under his nose. How was he going to explain this to Pantoleon when he came back?

  Asanes threw an insult at him and hurried off with his men, seeing no point in staying any longer, leaving the mercenaries to stew. Gabros stood on the steps, thinking furiously. Then he decided to go to the gates himself and find out if anyone suspicious had already left. The way things were going, it wouldn’t surprise him one bit if the fugitive had just walked out of the gates in broa
d daylight. Except, he thought with some satisfaction, the man was hardly in any condition to walk anywhere.

  “Mount up!” he called to his men, then ran towards the back of the villa to get his weapons and his horse. “I’ll find that bastard if it’s the last thing I ever do,” he muttered to himself. “And then God help him and whoever is with him.”

  He led a party of ten men off towards the gates of the city. They clattered up on their horses just in time to see the gates closing. Asanes was not there, but some of his flunkies were standing about.

  Gabros dismounted and walked over to the guards.

  “Did any of you see a large man ride out today, in the last hour or so?” he asked pleasantly enough. “He may have been in the company of one or more others.”

  “Who the hell are you?” demanded one of the gate sentries.

  It was too much. “I’m the one who is going to tear your balls off with a set of tongs and then open your guts with a wooden spoon!” Gabros roared, drawing his sword at the same time. The frightened guard fell back among his comrades, who were as startled as he.

  There was the ominous sound of swords leaving sheaths as his men behind Gabros drew their weapons in support. The guards hesitated. They were outnumbered by the horsemen two to one.

  “It’s all right, comrades,” one of Asanes’ men called out. “They are looking for the same man we are.” It helped to defuse the situation, but everyone was tense and fingering their weapons.

  “Well, did you see anyone like that?” Gabros demanded again.

  The only riders we have seen went by about an hour ago. They were farmers with a cart full of horse shit,” one of the sentries volunteered.

  “Cart? Riders? How many?”

  “Two, I think. No three, one was driving the cart.”