The Mountains of Montora (The Chronicles of Montora Book 1)

by Ward Wagher

  “I know it is human nature to want to believe other people, but you would think someone in his position would know better.”

  “There is an old saying,” Ciera replied. “Experience is the best teacher, and some fools will have no other.”

  “You know, I do have to give him credit,” Frank said. “He took responsibility for the actions of his men. He could have hung them out to dry.”

  “I wonder what he will say to the duke,” Boodles said.

  ‘Being played for a consummate fool doesn’t do anyone’s temperament any good. I just hope the lesson sticks.”

  “Having your primo guard shot up probably didn’t help either,” Ciera said.

  Boodles chuckled. “I have to admit, Margrave, this was an interesting intellectual exercise until a mortar shell landed about twenty-five feet away.”

  “First time to be shot at, Major?”

  “Yes, Sir. It has a way of focusing your attention.”

  “That it does, Major. I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but there was some comment among the Castle Guard about your performance up on the hill.”

  “Oh. My…”

  “No, no. They were impressed. They said you didn’t even flinch when that shell hit.”

  The major took off a glove and wiped his face with his hand, and laughed nervously. “Then I guess, Margrave, no one saw me trying to clean my underwear, trousers and fanny in the snow. Let me tell you that was cold.”

  “Major, the reason people joke about things like that, is that it is all too common when bullets start flying. Ask Smith about it.” Frank laughed. “For that matter, ask Commander Ciera here.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t do that. It was a rather forcible reminder of why I belong in Logistics.”

  “Once again, Major, you severely underrate yourself. Besides, you missed a perfect opportunity to put Hai on the spot.”

  “If you don’t mind, I will pass on that, Margrave. I value the commander’s friendship.”

  Ciera snickered. “Now we see who is the wise man in this group.”

  They were interrupted by the sound of turbines spooling up. Boodles and Ciera braced to attention. When the earl’s shuttles lifted off, they saluted, as did the formation from the Baltic Regiment.

  After the sound of the shuttles faded away Boodles turned to Smith. “Sergeant, dismiss the troops.”

  Frank turned to Boodles. “Martin, would you join us for supper? Hai will be here and I need to pick your brain about what our precious duke is up to. Sooner or later Willard Krause will come roaring in and we will then indeed be busy.”

  “Honored, Sir.”

  “Please, call me Frank.”

  “Oh, I could not do that sir. It would be bad for discipline.”

  “Then, in private. There is no need to stay so formal.”

  “Watch out, Major,” Ciera said. “The next thing he will do is ply you with liquor. After that he will then try to get you into bed.”

  Boodles looked scandalized.

  “Hai, shut up!” Frank said. “Sometimes you really go too far.”

  “Are you going to send an invoice to the earl for food, lodging and medical care for his troop?”

  “What is this, a change of subject?” Frank said. “No, I didn’t want to add insult to injury, though I was sorely tempted. While the colonel provides protection in exchange for giving the regiment a home, I do have to pay for expended ordnance. I got an invoice from the major’s adjutant. Mortar rounds are expensive.”

  Boodles shook his head. “I would have put it down as a live fire exercise and written it off, but the colonel gave me explicit instructions.”

  “He would,” Ciera said.

  “Once you understand,” Frank said, “that Otto Putin does nothing for free, he is a good friend to have.”

  “You did give us the ammo at cost, right?” Ciera said. “No markup or administrative fees?”

  Boodles snorted. “Same price as we paid, Commander. Although, I cannot guarantee the colonel will not adjust things if it occurs to him.”

  Frank smiled. “It will occur to him and he will try to adjust things. I’ve played these little games with him before. Let’s head back to the keep. I’m getting cold.”

  “I was there, then,” Boodles said.

  “That’s right. You were. I had forgotten about that.”

  Ciera gave Frank a quizzical look.

  “It was during the insurgency on Addison’s Planet. The first one. The Navy had hired Putin’s people to put it down. Putin was billing the Navy back for expended ordnance. He was marking it up forty percent and adding a ten percent handling fee on top of that.”

  Ciera was grinning. “I’ll bet the discussion was lively.”

  “What made it so galling was that we sold him the ammo in the first place. Poor Martin got caught in the middle.”

  “The margrave yells really well,” Boodles said with a grin. “I finally told the colonel if he couldn’t trust me to take care of his logistics, I would resign and he could get somebody else.”

  “And what was the colonel’s reaction?” Ciera asked.

  “He told me to go to hell, but he left me alone after that.”

  “It’s that Germanic or Prussian background,” Frank said. “There is a congenital need to be in control. You just cannot let him push you around.”

  “He gets away with it a lot,” Boodles said. “The only people in the regiment who aren’t afraid of him are the sergeants. They won’t let him mess around with them. I guess I don’t either.”

  “Which is probably why you are here,” Frank said.

  “In other words, he got me out of the way?”

  “No. Well, not necessarily. It’s because he trusts you,” Frank said. “Seriously, you know how he honors his retirees. You are here because he knows you will take good care of them. If you wouldn’t back down before him, you probably won’t for anybody else, either.” He turned and walked towards the Jitney. “You two can stay out here and jaw all night, if you want to.”

  Joe Wilson had been an orbital steel worker and general construction hand before a winning lottery ticket financed his purchase of the Paravel lands, along with the castle and the earldom which accompanied it. He was considered one of the good lords. He invested in his lands and ruled with a light hand. Cash was a little tight at the moment and so his normally good judgment was weakened when the duke approached him with the proposal to invade Montora. While he was furious with himself for getting suckered into the project, his rage at the duke was incandescent.

  “So while you were sitting in your castle in Cambridge swilling your booze, the margrave was kicking beans out of my troops in the mountains. When, My Lord, had you planned to tell me Nyman had a professional mercenary regiment parked up there?”

  “Take it easy, Joe. The regiment is on Addison's. All they have in Montora are the wives, kids and retirees. I offered you a juicy opportunity.”

  “Those retirees, Milord, are better than any militia on this planet. I set up my people and ran them into a buzzsaw. To what end?”

  “Don’t make excuses about your failures,” Roma said.

  Wilson jumped out of his chair and put both hands on his desk as he leaned into the video pickup. “I would like to invite you to come out here and say that to my face, Guilietto. I don’t know who is more stupid, you for coming up with this insane stunt, or me for going along with you. Fifteen of my people are dead. Do you hear me? Dead.”

  “Come now, Earl Paravel, you really need to maintain some perspective. Sometimes the little people get caught in the gears. What they then do is provide the grease which lubricates the business of nations.”

  “That does it! I am going to come to Cambridge and kill you myself!” And he disconnected.

  About two hours later Wilson’s seneschal stepped in his office. “Prime Minister Foxworth craves a few moments of your time over the comm.”

  Wilson looked up in disgust. He threw his stylus down on the desktop. “What els
e can go wrong?” He made three tries at stabbing the button on his comm set before he made the connection. “What is it, Foxworth?”

  Foxworth’s eyebrows raised slightly. “I understand there was a… heated conversation between you and our beloved duke a little while ago.”

  “I just wish you had talked to me before I let him talk me into that idiotic stunt in Montora.”

  “If I had known about it, I would have. My primary job is keeping the duke out of trouble, but he has gotten very good at slipping past me.”

  “I am just so mad at myself about this, I could spit. On top of that, I had the honor of explaining to the widows and orphans that Da would not be coming home again. Ever. These were my people, Foxworth. I killed them. And it happened because of my greed. And then I had to apologize in person to Montora for playing the fool.”

  “He seems not the type to carry a grudge,” Foxworth said.

  “That is not the point! Roma talked me into attacking a fellow lord simply for the loot. I simply don’t know what I was thinking. I am just glad my Da is no longer alive to see what I have done. He was so proud of me when I spent my lottery winnings on the estate.”

  “Did you really threaten to kill the duke?” Foxworth said quietly.

  “I was on my way out to the aircar when my seneschal stopped me. Somehow.”

  “Understand that the duke has this irrational desire to kill the margrave and take the lands. Yours was not the first incident.”

  Wilson leaned forward and rested his face on his finger-tips. “One hears things. I tended to discount it – it was so far fetched.”

  “Do you still believe that?”

  Wilson snorted. “It doesn’t say a lot for me either, does it?”

  “Duke Hepplewhite is very smooth and believable. He has long years of practice.”

  “How did he ever land the duchy?”

  “It’s a long story. I’ll tell you about it sometime. For the moment, please let me know if he approaches you again with any schemes. I try to stay a step ahead of him, but it isn’t easy.”

  “I seem to be thinking rationally again. I am not going to fly over there and kill him, Prime Minister. Lord knows he deserves it.”

  “Thank you, Earl Paravel.”

  “But it would not be wise to allow him to visit Castle Paravel anytime soon.”

  “I understand. He is currently in his apartments attempting to induce ethanol poisoning, I think. Thank you for your time.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  “Gerry, what is the mechanism for removing a duke?”

  Frank was working at his desk and Gerard Blakely had stopped in to lay a couple of data chips in the in-box.

  Blakely turned back around and stuck a thumbnail between his teeth. “And this is apropos of what exactly?”

  Frank leaned back and clasped his hands behind his head. “After this last episode I got to thinking maybe we were taking the wrong approach to the problem of our duke. We are all well aware things cannot continue.”

  “You are correct, Margrave. Our failing, as I see it, is once we dispose of whatever the current plot is from the duke, we assume the problem is licked and retreat back into our little mountain estate.”

  “Exactly. I think it is abundantly clear the duke is not going to stop his machinations as long both he and I are still alive. Foxworth has tried his hardest to sit on the him. I have made some very direct threats – even left him having to clean a load out of his pants. And he goes right back to it.”

  “What will it take to get through to him?”

  Frank shook his head, then moved his arms in front of him and stretched, bending his fingers backwards as he did. “We are not going to get through to him. I was sitting here thinking about it and remembered we had our own expert on feudal law right here in Montora.”

  “I would hardly qualify myself as an expert, Sir.”

  “You know more about it than anybody else around here. So, Mister Expert, how can we take a new tack and solve this in the courts. If we do not, I am very much afraid I am going to have to do something really drastic.”

  “I am surprised you have not already,” Blakely said. “There is no question you have the forces to do it.”

  “Two problems, Ger. One is dealing with the aftermath, which would be messy. The other is I gave my word to Admiral Krause I would try to keep a lid on things. He is right in recognizing civilization is hanging by a hair’s breadth out in this sector.”

  “Could you make him disappear?” Gerry raised his eyebrows.

  “We could, but nobody would believe it was an accident or that we had nothing to do with it. Thanks to his brother and the admiral, Duke Hepplewhite is relatively safe.”

  Blakely frowned. “Let me do some research, Sir. I am sure there is precedent somewhere. Unfortunately, it would have to go before an admiralty court, and the results would be unpredictable.”

  “See what you can find out. I would like to keep that option in my back pocket, should the opportunity present itself.”

  “Yes, Sir. May I call your attention to the chip on the top there? Daphne has been correlating some numbers. Our tolls on the Cross-Montoran Turnpike are very low. Traffic analysis suggested the tolls are not being collected, or are not being remitted in total.”

  “Another problem to look at, Ger? The Turnpike is the one that goes across the flatlands between Cambridge and Paravel, right?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “That is way the heck to the south of here. How come there isn’t a spur that comes up to the village?”

  “Well the history of the thing is a bit odd, Sir. It actually predates the establishment of Montora. One of the early dukes had it put in as a commercial corridor to Paravel from Cambridge. Later the margraviate was carved out by another duke to raise money. I have never been able to uncover the reason they drew the lines so far to the south.”

  Frank slid a few items around on his desk display and brought up a map. “That’s what, 400 miles to the south? Since I am nominally collecting tolls, I guess that means I’m responsible for maintenance, correct?”

  “Yes, Sir. Some work is usually required every spring.”

  “We’ve been so busy up here there has been no time to take a tour down there. The snows have been gone for what, three weeks? We could probably drop down there anytime now without freezing ourselves.”

  “Would you like me to set something up?”

  “Please do. Coordinate with Eden and Smith & Jones. I suppose we ought to let Major Boodles know about it too.”

  “May I suggest, Margrave, we keep knowledge of the trip close. We can slip down there and back before word gets out.”

  Frank nodded as he pondered this. “It is really pathetic for a margrave to sneak around in his own lands.” He thought some more and shrugged. “On the other hand, there is no need to stir up any more trouble than absolutely necessary. We ought to look for some ways to play mind games with the duke, though. If he gets the idea we are going to slip into Cambridge through the back door, he may go through some more laundry.”

  “Would that be wise?”

  “I don’t know, Gerry. I just get so tired of holding my breath to see what the idiot is going to do next. Maybe if we keep pushing him, he will end up in the loony bin. He really is a pathetic sot. Sort of like a rabid dog.”

  “Very well, Sir. I will start planning a trip. The information will be held close.”

  ‘Thanks Gerry. Now let me get back to work here. The stuff’s been piling up faster than I can deal with it.”

  “The price of success, Sir. Just think how bad it would be if we didn’t have Daphne.”

  “Don’t remind me. We are probably going to have to hire another clerk or something if business keeps improving.”

  “Is that a bad thing?”

  “Not in and of itself. But it’s a struggle to keep the revenue rising faster than the costs. And sooner or later Gloria Vos will go home, and we'll lose that help.”

  “H
ave you asked Mr. Vos to move his operation up here, Sir?”

  “No, Gerry. It wouldn't make sense for him. The center of gravity for business is still Cambridge.”

  “I will leave you then, Sir.”

  Frank was already looking down at his desk as Blakely eased out of the door. He sorted through several items, then picked up his comm. “Mrs. Marsden, I would like to have a candlelit dinner for two with my bride. Can you work something special up for us?”