The Marus Manuscripts

by Paul McCusker

  Anna crawled on her hands and knees to the edge of the gaping hole of old wood and splinters. “Kyle!” she screamed.

  She couldn’t see below. The hole was black except for a swirling cloud that Anna thought was dust from the ceiling plaster. The cloud spun around and around but didn’t clear. If Kyle was down there, Anna couldn’t figure out where he was.

  “Kyle! Are you all right?” she called out. He didn’t answer. Certain he was hurt, Anna got to her feet to run to the stairs. The floorboards in front of her also cracked loudly. The whole floor is going to cave in, she thought. She stepped back, pressed herself against the wall, then slid along to the closed bedroom door. “Kyle!” she cried.

  She felt for the doorknob and prayed it wasn’t locked, suddenly desperate for someplace safe. It turned easily. She pushed the door open and carefully inched backward into the room, turned on her heel to walk in, and was suddenly engulfed in a bright, white light.

  Nobody ever listens to me was the last thing she thought before the light drew her in.

  Kyle instantly realized three things. First, he knew that he’d fallen through the floor but hadn’t landed on the ground below. He was in a sitting position, leaning against something hard. Second, he couldn’t see anything because he was wrapped up in a large cloth. Third, he heard the distinct sound of a sword fight going on somewhere nearby. He was by no means an expert on sword fighting—all he knew he’d seen at the movies—but the sound of men’s grunts and the ching of the sabers hitting each other was unmistakable.

  He struggled to free himself from the cloth entangling him. He pushed hard with his arms in both directions and felt the fabric loosen. Another push, then one more, and he was uncovered. His mouth fell open at what he saw. Two men were sword fighting in the center of an ornate study. One was silver-haired with a thick mustache. He wore an impressive navy-blue uniform with epaulets and gold stitching around the sleeves. The other was much younger, with curly dark hair and a slender, clean-shaven face. He was dressed in a loose white shirt and old-fashioned breeches that tucked into his black boots.

  Kyle stood up. With a glance, he realized he had been sitting behind a thick velvet curtain, his back to a wall containing an open window. It was night outside. What in the world is going on here? he wondered as he watched the two men fight. One thing was certain: The men were not practicing. With each thrust and parry, one tried to wound the other.

  “No one needs to get hurt,” the younger man said. “I want only your medals.”

  The older man wheezed as he dodged the younger man’s sword and said, “And I want only your head!”

  Several voices shouted from the hallway, “Commander! Commander!” Someone pounded on the closed door to the study. The handle turned rapidly but didn’t open. The pounding grew more fierce. They’re going to break the door down, Kyle feared.

  With quick thrusts, the younger man drove the older man across the room until he was trapped against the large white marble fireplace. The fire in it popped and crackled, the flames threatening to lick the heels of the older man’s boots. The younger man suddenly grabbed the older man’s sword-fighting arm and banged it against the mantel with such force that the sword fell from his hand.

  Pressing the point of his sword against the older man’s throat, the younger man said breathlessly, “And now, your medal, please?”

  The older man growled, “You dishonor yourself, sir.”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time,” the younger man answered with a laugh.

  Seeing that he had no choice, the older man grabbed the medal on his chest and tore it from his jacket. “I hope you are satisfied,” he said as he thrust the medal into the younger man’s hand.

  “Completely,” the young man said. “Now, if you’ll forgive me . . .” He grabbed a vase from the mantel and hit the older man across the head with it. The older man fell to the floor. “I’m so sorry,” the younger man said sincerely. With a light step, he spun toward the window and saw Kyle for the first time. He held up his saber. “Hello, lad,” he said. “I didn’t see you there. Please thank your master for his hospitality.”

  “He’s not my master,” Kyle said. For some reason, he wasn’t afraid of the swordsman. “I don’t even know what I’m doing here.”

  The pounding at the door grew more rhythmic. The men were obviously throwing their full weight against it in unison. The wood began to crack around the frame.

  “You had better figure it out soon,” the young man said. “I don’t think our friends on the other side of the door will take kindly to strangers.”

  Kyle felt a sick feeling in his stomach and looked at the door, just in time to see the older man silently struggle to his feet. He had a fire poker in his hand, and suddenly he lunged at the younger man’s back. “Watch out!” Kyle shouted.

  The young man swung around, raising his guard just in time to stab the older man in the side. The older man dropped the poker and fell to his knees, clutching his wound.

  “Blast!” the younger man said with irritation. “I told you I didn’t want anyone to get hurt.”

  The older man cursed at him.

  At the window, the young man sheathed his sword and leaned toward Kyle. “You saved my life, and I thank you,” he said. “Now, if you have no specific plans, I suggest you come with me.”

  “To where?” Kyle asked.

  “Anywhere but here,” the young man said with a smile and stepped through the window onto the ledge. Kyle followed instinctively.

  “Whoa!” Kyle said when he saw that they were on the second floor.

  Soldiers were gathering on the patio below, holding torches in their hands. One pointed up at them and shouted, “There!”

  “Keep moving and don’t look down,” the young man said to Kyle. The ledge was only about half a foot wide, and they had to balance themselves carefully against the wall as they crept along the side of the mansion.

  One of the soldiers fired a pistol at them. Chunks of granite sprayed the side of Kyle’s face. “Ouch!” he cried.

  The young man reached behind his back and produced a small handgun. He fired a couple of shots down toward the soldiers, apparently not to hit them but only to make them scatter. They did so with a lot of shouts and rude exclamations.

  “Quickly now!” the young man commanded.

  They shuffled to the corner of the building, where they leaped to an adjoining roof. Catlike, they raced along the roof, around another section of the house, and then jumped to the top of a small building. Kyle noticed that this building seemed to be part of a large wall separating the mansion and its gardens from a forest. Somewhere the soldiers were shouting things like, “I think he went this way!” and “No, over here!” But their voices grew distant as the young man led Kyle along a dark stretch of the wall. The young man then knelt down and swung himself from the top of the wall to a horse waiting below. Kyle hesitated.

  “Come on, lad,” the young man said. “You can be sure you’re not welcome here.”

  Kyle crawled over the side of the wall. With helping hands from the young man, he landed behind him on the horse.

  “Put your arms around my waist and keep your head down!” the young man shouted over his shoulder. He then nudged the horse to get moving. They raced into the dark forest.

  How the young man or the horse knew where they were going in the black woods, Kyle couldn’t guess. He knew only to hold on tight and pray they wouldn’t be scooped from the horse by a wayward branch or tripped up by a fallen tree. To his amazement, they weren’t. After a couple of miles, they reached an incline. At the top, they were suddenly surrounded by a dozen men, also on horseback.

  “Did you get them, General?” one of the men asked as he saluted.

  “I did,” the young man said with a hearty laugh. “Is the train ready?”

  “This way,” another man said—and they were all off again.

  As they rode through another forest, Kyle wondered, Where is this place? Have I stumbled int
o some strange fantasy land? They splashed through a small brook and emerged into an open field. Something in the sky caught Kyle’s attention: a brightness more luminous than any full moon he had ever seen. He looked a second time, not believing what he was seeing.

  The sky held two moons. One was large and white, the other nearly half the size and slightly orange.

  I’m not at home anymore, he thought.

  Like Kyle, Anna found herself blinded. But she wasn’t wrapped up in a curtain; she seemed to be in some sort of closet. What happened? she wondered. One minute she was staring into a bright white light, and the next she was sitting in thick darkness. Had she stepped into this strange place when she backed into the room? That didn’t make sense. She had seen through the keyhole a big, empty room, not a closet. Had she fallen along with Kyle and was now unconscious and dreaming?

  She pushed coats and other clothes aside and saw a sliver of light at the bottom of what was certainly a door. She reached for the handle and opened the door just a crack. She heard men’s voices. She stopped, afraid of who the men might be. Maybe they were the men Kyle had seen through the keyhole.

  Whoever they were, they didn’t sound happy. They were in a full-blown shouting match. Anna tried to position herself to see what was going on. She caught a glimpse of one man pacing back and forth on a colorfully patterned carpet in front of several tall windows covered with white curtains. He was a large, older man with wild, brown hair and a heavy beard and mustache, all streaked with gray. His arms were clasped behind his back, except when he occasionally gestured frantically with his right hand. He had a set frown on his brow.

  “I can’t believe what I’m hearing!” the man shouted in a low, lionlike voice. “My own son plays the fool with me!”

  Another man, this one much younger, stepped into view. He had all the looks of the older man, except he had nicely groomed, wavy hair and a thin mustache. Anna knew instantly that the young man was the son of the elder. Both were dressed in old-fashioned uniforms, the kind Anna had seen in her history textbooks. The coats had epaulets on the shoulders and an insignia of an eagle on their chests. She thought for a moment and remembered from historical movies she’d seen that men wore uniforms like that in England and Germany back in the late 1800s. She couldn’t imagine why anyone would wear such clothes in 1958.

  “Father, listen to reason,” the son pleaded.

  “Am I not the king?” the older man asked, gesturing wildly. “King Lawrence! Doesn’t that mean anything to anyone? And aren’t you my successor? Will you not be King George one day?”

  The prince didn’t answer. He leaned against a large wooden desk and folded his arms. His expression was one of weariness, as if he knew that there was no talking to his father when he got like this.

  The king continued, “So what am I to think when the people of my nation talk about one of my generals as if he should be king instead of me? Eh? Answer me that!”

  “You know how people are,” Prince George appealed. “They’re fickle. General Darien is everyone’s hero now. People talk like that about their heroes.”

  “They once spoke about me that way—and I was made their king as a result!” The king slammed his fist against the desktop. “Don’t you see it, boy? All Darien has to do is simply hint that he would like to be their king, and we’re done for! We’ll have a revolution!”

  Prince George shook his head and said, “But Darien wouldn’t do that. Darien has no interest in being king. His allegiance is to you, Father. He knows you are the man selected by the Unseen One to be king of this country. He honors that. He honors you. Why else would he win so many victories against the Palatians in your name?”

  “Your friendship with him has made you blind. He will betray me—and you—and our entire succession.”

  “Why worry about our family? With his impending marriage to Princess Michelle, we’ll all rule as a family anyway.” Prince George drifted toward a large bookcase and looked as if he were going to choose a book from the shelf.

  The king laughed without humor. “He’ll marry Michelle if he fulfills his vow.”

  Prince George turned to him. “That was a ridiculous vow, and I’m sorry you let him go through with it. Imagine letting your best general risk his life to retrieve a few medals—”

  “One hundred medals is not ‘a few.’ It will be quite impressive if he can get them without dying in the process.”

  “But to dare him like you did! What could he do but accept your dare?”

  The king spread his arms. “Darien is a peasant at heart. To marry the daughter of royalty would have seemed above his station. He had to do something to prove himself to us. Asking him to retrieve 100 Palatian medals seemed reasonable.”

  “Are you sure you weren’t hoping he’d get killed along the way?”

  The king looked deliberately at his son and said, “Whatever happens will be Darien’s doing, not mine.”

  “But to go through all that for Michelle,” Prince George said, exasperated. “She’s beneath him!”

  “Be careful what you say about your own sister. She’ll keep Darien in his place.”

  “Mary was the one for Darien, and you know it.”

  “I needed Mary to wed the prince of Albany. It was good politics and good for our nation’s security. With Albany as an ally, we’ll be much safer in the Northern Territories.”

  “It was unconscionable to promise Mary to Darien, then give her to Albany,” Prince George persisted.

  The king shrugged. “You’ll learn one day that the king must make many hard decisions for the sake of his people.”

  “It’s interesting to me that you make these ‘hard decisions,’ and they all seem designed to hurt Darien.”

  The king smiled wryly. “Is Darien not man enough to handle it?”

  “Darien is a great man!” Prince George exclaimed sharply. “And he will be loyal to you no matter what you do to him.”

  “We’ll see about that,” the king replied.

  Prince George faced his father and said softly, “You continually wrong a man who has done you no harm. There are others in your army who need closer watching.”

  “Like whom?”

  Just then the phone on the desk rang, the bell loud and shrill. Prince George picked up the receiver. “Yes?” He paused, listened, then frowned. “Send him in.”

  A few seconds later, a uniformed man with short-cropped hair, handlebar mustache, and a scar on his cheek entered. “Sire,” he said with a quick bow.

  “General Liddell,” the king said. “What news do you bring?”

  “I’ve received word from the Palatian border that General Darien has successfully returned from his mission and is on his way home to the capital by train. He’ll arrive here tomorrow.”

  The king’s face turned red. “What?” he roared.

  “That is good news!” Prince George said with an eye to his father. “Did he capture the 100 medals?”

  “I don’t know,” General Liddell said as he moved toward the closet. Anna shrank back, afraid he would see her through the crack.

  “I’m sure he did!” Prince George clapped his hands happily. “If you’ll excuse me, Father, I’d like to make arrangements for a feast to celebrate Darien’s return.”

  The king waved a dismissive hand at him. Prince George strode out, laughing as he went.

  The king slammed his fist on the desk again furiously. “What will it take to get rid of this man?” he asked.

  “What would you like me to do, my king?” General Liddell asked.

  The two men gazed at each other for a moment. “There are things we can discuss,” the king said.

  General Liddell smiled. “I’m sure there are. You need only say the word.”

  King Lawrence gestured to his general. “Let’s walk in the garden for a while.”

  The two men left.

  Anna waited a moment and tried to sort out everything that had happened. It was more than she could cope with. Where was she? Who
were these people? How did she get from an abandoned house in the middle of the woods to this fancy room?

  It was a dream, she decided. And the best way back to the real world was to get out of this closet—and out of this house. She gently pushed the door open, peeked around to be sure she was alone, and tiptoed across the room. The décor was more awesome than she could see from the closet. There were busts on marble pedestals in every corner, large sofas and chairs with upholstery of intricate tapestry, glass-covered bookcases, and an enormous fireplace. An ornate clock chimed in the corner. She gaped at the room, wishing she had time to look it over more thoroughly. She opened the door slowly and stuck her head into the hall. Suddenly, large hands grabbed her roughly.

  “Just as I suspected,” General Liddell growled from behind her. “A spy.”

  The king, who stood nearby, clucked his tongue. “However did you see her in the closet, General?” he said. “You’re amazing.”

  “I’m not a spy!” Anna protested.

  “Notice how oddly she’s dressed,” the king said, “as if she wishes to be disguised as a boy!”

  Anna glanced down self-consciously at her blouse with the torn sleeve and her smudged pants. “I’m not disguised as a boy,” she insisted. “These are my clothes.” She added with a heartfelt plea, “You have to help me! I’m lost.”

  “Lost in the king’s palace?” the general asked suspiciously. “How is that possible?”

  In a torrent of words, Anna told the general and the king about the old house and the bright white light. They laughed at her.

  “Normally we put spies to death,” General Liddell said.

  Anna began to cry. “I didn’t do anything wrong. I don’t know how I got here!”

  The king looked over Anna carefully, then told General Liddell, “Give her to Titus. He’ll know what to do with her.”

  General Liddell pulled Anna through the palace, up and down several flights of stairs, and down a long, dark hallway until they were in a quiet, nearly deserted section. He opened a large, wooden door that led into a little-used courtyard. Across the dirty pavement, past a dry, cracked fountain, sat a broken-down shack. “Titus!” the general shouted.