CHAPTER 31: FINAL PREPARATIONS
The sound of wind woke Havant, who rose and opened his front door to check the sky. They didn’t need a storm to move over Caernford and potentially cancel the dinner at the Kolsko estate or leave the roads south muddy enough to slow or even stop wagons, the strike teams’ primary escape method. His initial dismay at the wind eased when he saw the clouds move on, with a clear sky coming his way.
Havant entered the semaphore station office as planned, with the sun just below the eastern hills. Overhead, he heard footsteps and dull thumps on the roof, as other assistants brought out panels in preparation for the day’s first messages. The station sat on a hill southeast of Caernford, the city’s towers and taller buildings’ roofs visible over another hill. The station had clear views to flanking stations six miles northwest, five miles southwest, and seven miles southeast. The Caernford station was one of only seven stations in the entire network that handled three-way traffic, because it received messages from all stations north of Keelan Province and passed relevant messages on to Gwillamer Province to the southwest and Mittack Province to the southeast. It was not the busiest station, since two of the links only connected to single provinces. The stations at the capitals of Orosz, Stent, and Moreland provinces passed on so many messages that those three stations had separate panel arrays for each direction. In comparison, Caernford’s single array had its orientation rotated to align with the direction of transmission.
“Esyl, you’re in early,” the station manager called out. “You weren’t due back until midday.”
“That’s what I thought, too,” Havant said in his “I’m the innocuous assistant” voice. “I got back early, so I came on in.”
“I’m glad you did. We still have a pile of messages that came in late yesterday and we didn’t get delivered. A number of them need distributing to Caernford shops and tradesmen.”
“How about for the hetman?” Havant asked nonchalantly.
“Naturally. Almost half were to or from Hetman Keelan. None of the late ones yesterday were marked urgent, so I held on to them until we had someone to take them to the manor. They went out not ten minutes ago.”
Narth damn to eternal fire! Havant cursed to himself. If I’d woken a few minutes earlier, I’d be on the way to the hetman’s manor right now!
The manager rose from his desk and went to a bench with a row of twelve two-layered wicker baskets lined up. Each basket held messages for a specific part of Keelan Province, the Gwillamer and Mittack provinces, and three sections of Caernford. The upper layer held messages coming from, and the other layer contained messages going to. The hetman had a basket to himself, larger than any of the others.
“Here you go,” said the manager. “These for northwest Caernford. Be on your way.”
Havant must have revealed his disappointment at being ten minutes late.
“Don’t worry, Esyl. The day’s still young. There’s bound to be another bundle or two for the hetman before we shut down for the night.”
Havant forced a laugh. He’d let slip, even if only a hint, his special interest in delivering the hetman’s messages on this day. Part of his plan was for the team to burn semaphore stations, as the strike team fled back to Salford. He now wondered whether they should include burning the Caernford station and if he should eliminate the manager to avoid any suspicion arising from his interest in Keelan Manor.
Havant took the set of messages from the manager and raced to deliver them, to be back for the next messages to the hetman. At late morning, a message to the hetman came in from Hetman Skouks. Havant grabbed it and headed for Keelan Manor.
At the 12th bell, Havant pulled up at the rail in front of the manor. The front door slammed open, and Mared Keelan raced out.
“Hi, Esyl! I didn’t see you deliver any of the messages yesterday or the first ones this morning.”
“Couldn’t yesterday,” Havant said, “but today I finally couldn’t wait any longer to get a glimpse of a certain charming young lady.”
Mared giggled. “You shouldn’t let Father hear you say such things.”
“It’s worth the risk!” exclaimed Havant, feigning a noble pose. “But, alas, yes, I do have messages for your father. Is he inside?”
“Yes, in his office. I imagine he’s working on the last batch of messages, so he might not be happy to see more.”
Havant followed Mared inside and down the hallway to Culich’s office. She knocked. “Father, it’s someone to see you.”
“Come on in,” Culich called out.
Havant entered the office, and Culich frowned to see the semaphore assistant. “Hello, Esyl. I hope you have good news.”
“I don’t think it’s anything to worry about, Hetman.” Havant lowered his voice to a conspiratorial level. “Hetman Skouks asks why he hasn’t received any of the new 12-pounders yet.”
The semaphore station staff obviously knew the contents of messages, because they received and sent all messages. Only a very few had been written in simple codes. Most were plain text.
“Crap,” said Culich. “He sends me an ‘urgent’ message every couple of days. Let’s do this, Esyl. Every time Hetman Skouks sends me something, no matter how he rates the urgency, if it isn’t about something going on at the moment, something I really need to know about immediately, just put it in a not-urgent pile.”
Havant managed a friendly smile. “Is there a return message?”
“Not to Skouks. Let’s let him stew a couple of days. If I answer right away, he’ll only send something else. This way, it’ll be several days before I hear from him again. But I do have several messages I need to get out, so if you wait a while I’ll give them to you.”
“Of course, Hetman. I wonder if Sem Mared will manage to find me a fresh biscuit or two.”
He needn’t have wondered. Mared was pacing outside the study door.
“Are you staying a while? You promised to tell me more about the latest rumors in Caernford—the ones you can share that don’t come from semaphore messages.”
“I’m sure I can dredge up a few new rumors,” said Havant. “Naturally, a biscuit would help considerably.”
Mared let the way to the kitchen, and Havant proceeded to pass on a few tidbits of gossip before turning the exchange to Hetman Keelan’s plans.
“I thought I’d heard the hetman might be traveling,” said Havant.
“Oh, no,” said Mared, “not for a few days. Father wouldn’t travel today, since tonight is Maera’s birthday dinner at her and Yozef’s house. We’re all going, and I’m excited about the shawl I found for her in a Caernford shop. I hope she likes it. It’s got several shades of green she favors.”
Havant almost dropped the hot buttered biscuit, after he’d just taken a large bite. He swallowed, cleared his throat, then asked, “So the hetman’s whole family will be at Ser Kolsko’s tonight? I assume the dinner will be about the same time you usually eat, at the twentieth bell?”
“Well,” said Mared, “I don’t think Yozef and Maera mind the time, but Father’s habit is so strong, he gets grumpy if evening meal is even a few minutes later. I’m sure we’ll be sitting down before the twentieth bell finishes reverberating.”
“Sounds like an enjoyable evening and not too many people. I assume the hetman’s guards will go with him? You can’t be too careful.”
“Oh, yes. There’s usually four of them around, no matter where Father goes. One of them will stay here, though, to be sure no one gets in the manor while we’re gone.”
“And Ser Kolsko? He must have guards.”
“No as many as Father. His Three Shadows usually take turns, one at a time.”
“Three shadows?”
“The three men who came with him from Abersford. Carnigan is big but fun. I like him. Wyfor is also fun at times, but Mother feels uneasy about him. Something about his history. Then there’s Balwis. I’m not sure about him.” Mared lowered her voice and leaned closer to Havant. “If I didn’t know better
, I’d wonder whether he has eyes on my sister Ceinwyn. I caught him looking at her with a strange expression the other day.”
Havant couldn’t care less about Mared’s other sister, but there was a chance to catch the hetman and Kolsko together after dark! He continued chatting with the girl, his mind plotting how to get a change in plans past Uzcil without too much argument.
One less hetman guard and only one for Kolsko, so no difference. Uzcil can’t bitch about that. I don’t know the Kolsko property that well. I’ve only been inside their new house once, while they were building it. I can remember the general layout. That should be sufficient. It’s too good a chance to pass up.
Fortune smiled on Esyl Havant, whose Narthani name was Istem Sokulu. During the 14th hour, a semaphore message came for Yozef Kolsko. It was from Abersford and merely alerted Kolsko that a movement of equipment would leave Abersford the next day, as previously planned. The station manager had briefly left the station, allowing Havant to claim he didn’t know whether the message was urgent or not, so, to be sure, he had decided to deliver it immediately. Even more fortunate, when he arrived at the Kolsko house, Yozef and Maera Kolsko were absent. He turned on innocent charm to convince one of the women at the house to show him their beautiful new dwelling. She demurred at a complete tour, saying babies and another woman were asleep in the bedroom wing, but she showed him the portion containing the kitchen, dinning room, and great room—where he expected all the evening’s diners to concentrate.
When Havant had ridden out of sight of the house, he stopped and drew diagrams of the interior and the grounds. His memory was sharp, but he left out one feature of the main hall, an omission to later have consequences.
In late afternoon, Havant picked up a final four messages to deliver into Caernford. He rushed the deliveries, then returned to his house on the eastern outskirts of Caernford. He had maintained polite relationships with residents of the few houses within eyesight, but none so close as to encourage curiosity. The neighbors were accustomed to his irregular comings and goings, so none who saw him that day thought anything odd when he came home, then exited his small barn fifteen minutes later with full saddlebags tied to one horse and packs on a second saddled horse. He hefted a pack to his back, mounted the first horse, and headed south, leading the second horse. The few people who noticed him assumed he had gone off on some business related to the semaphore lines.
Three miles east of Keelan Manor and the Kolsko estate, Havant uncovered a cache he had hidden deep within a thicket. He’d tried to plan for any contingency, and if things went wrong, he would come here for a fresh horse, food for a sixday, water skins, weapons, and heavy clothes appropriate for the mountains that straddled the Keelan and Hewell border. There, he could hide until he figured out how to get back to Preddi.
After staking out the second horse so it could graze alongside a small rivulet, Havant rode cautiously to within three hundred yards of the Kolsko house. He watched for thirty minutes through a small telescope, carefully re-familiarizing himself with the grounds and the structures. The only people he saw were an older man working around the barn and two women, one of whom held a baby and sat on the veranda breastfeeding. Uzcil and his men waited only seven miles away. To get to the house, the men would come in the two wagons that had brought them from Salford. Little or no traffic occurred after sundown, and anyone whom they met would assume they were trying to reach Caernford. A half-mile from the target, they would leave the road, conceal the wagons, and hike the rest of the way. Afterward, they would return to the wagons and push hard to the south, destroying several stations of the semaphore line south toward Mittack Province.
Havant had also privately discussed with Uzcil the possibility of alternative transportation. Both of them assumed the attackers would not go unscathed. Depending on the number of members killed or wounded, they might take horses at the Kolskos’, along with those of the Keelan family and their own wagon horses, and ride by horseback toward Salford. They wouldn’t take any seriously wounded men with them to slow the pace. Such men would be sent on to Narth with a martyr’s death.
Havant took a last look at the grounds, then hiked back to where he’d tied his horse and made his way along game trails and creekbeds, a route he’d scouted out when the target location was the hetman’s manor, but it would serve as well for Kolsko’s house.
At dusk, he reached the strike team’s location. Each man had his gear spread out on a raincover. Uzcil and an older man walked among the other men standing or sitting near their equipment. In front of each man, Uzcil and the man Havant assumed was a senior soldier would pick up something, inspect it closely, and then either place it back or point out something to the man. Havant couldn’t tell what the men said, because everyone spoke softly to prevent sound from traveling outside their rocky enclosure.
Havant walked closer to one of the raincovers. On it lay a short-barreled musket. All of the action would take place at close range, so they didn’t need longer barrels, and they could maneuver the shorter barrels more easily inside buildings. Next to the musket lay three pistols. Uzcil had told Havant that they intended to drop each pistol after firing. As with the muskets, they assumed that they would have little time or need to reload. Everything after the firearms would be hand-to-hand combat, with the short sword, the knives, and the cleaver-like small hatchet Havant saw on several raincovers. Three men had inch-and-a-half-bore shotguns, instead of muskets, and three more men carried axes, along with muskets. They would use both shotguns and axes to deal with locked doors.
“I don’t like it,” snarled the strike leader that evening, as he and Havant sat apart from the other men huddled around several banked fires. He didn’t trust the agent, no matter how much confidence Assessor Hizer and Brigadier Zulfa had expressed in the man. Havant might be an exceptional spy, but Uzcil suspected the man would sacrifice the entire strike team, if it meant succeeding in their mission. Not that Uzcil was uncommitted, but he believed the risks balanced the chances of success, whereas he worried that Havant would throw them into danger, even if the odds of completing the mission were miniscule.
“Neither do I, Captain, but the Great Narth provides us with the opportunity to hit both men at the same time. Who knows the ways of God?”
Havant’s ingenuous piety stemmed from noticing the tattoo on Uzcil’s right forearm, a symbol signifying that as a youth, the captain had attended a Narth school for prospective priests. Obviously, the man’s life had taken a different path, though Havant’s experience told him such early indoctrination usually lingered.
“The only thing that changes is the building. Kolsko’s house is only a half-mile away and hardly a detour from the direction we’d be going anyway. I’ve been to the house many times and know it well.”
Havant figured Uzcil would never know his fabrication. He had been in the house only twice, once while the frames were still visible and his visit earlier that day. Even if the scouting was not as detailed as he would have liked, the strike team would enter the house and so overwhelm resistance that the team would only risk more casualties among themselves, something of no consequence to Havant.
The strike leader went to check on his men, then came back to Havant. “Everything is as ready as it’s going to be,” said Uzcil.
Havant waited for the captain to say more. He sensed the man was unsettled. “Last-minute worries, Captain?”
“Not of the men doing their duty, just wondering how many will be alive by midnight.”
“And you are conflicted because the chances of escape will be better if not all survive?” said Havant. He and the strike leader had discussed the escape plan, and returning to Salford by wagon was less than optimal. If they had fewer men, and all were mobile enough to stay on a horse, their chances of escape increased. They could leave the wagons and use the light saddles they’d brought with them, to ride the horses they had to near death and then steal others on the way. By moving fast, they would outrun any word of what happened in Ca
ernford or about a group of horse thieves.
Havant wanted to placate the officer and get him focused back on the mission. “Narth will guide us, Captain. No use worrying about choices yet, since we won’t know the options until tonight.”
Uzcil grunted and grimaced. “I know, it’s just . . . well . . . ” He thought better of what he planned to say and slapped his pant leg with the gloves he held. “Time to tell the men to get some sleep, even if only a couple of hours. They need to be as rested as possible, and those still alive won’t be sleeping again for quite some time.”
CHAPTER 32: OUT OF THE DARK
Kolsko House
The sight was incongruous, and one that few people could have imagined two years ago: two-year-old Morwena Walstyn, Gwyned’s daughter, laughing as she pretended to ride a horse, was actually rocking up and down on one of Carnigan Puvey’s large legs. The little girl’s delight and her mount’s doting visage made Yozef look in amusement to Wyfor Kales, sitting next to him. Even Kales’s normally jaded nature softened at the sight, although Yozef wasn’t sure whether it was the influence of Kales’s wife, Teena, who sat next to Wyfor on the veranda and had a hand on her husband’s shoulder.
Teena Kales is not tiny, was Yozef’s thought when first meeting her. Slightly taller than her husband and forty pounds heavier, Teena was a match for the wiry and disreputable Wyfor. A widow who had owned and operated a bakery in Abersford before the couple moved to Caernford, she immediately opened another bakery and was by all accounts an immediate success. She brooked no nonsense and could sound gruff but was kind in a way that no one could pretend. Yozef wondered how they’d gotten together and what exactly their mutual attractions were, but as for their bond, there was no question.
A week earlier, Kales had been hesitant about the invitation to attend Maera’s birthday dinner, initially trying to excuse himself as not being a family member. Yozef had launched into reasons why Kales should come, when Maera settled the issue by telling Kales he was coming and his wife was invited, too. Kales deferred his objections when Maera said she’d stop by Teena’s bakery to be sure the couple attended.
Heavier Than a Mountain (Destiny's Crucible Book 3) Page 42