by Ron Miller
The duke noticed that although the man is on the road, miles from any town or village, he had been carrying no baggage of any kind, not as much as a parcel.
“Excuse me, sir,” asks Mathias, “but I would like to ask you a question or two.”
“You would?” the man gulped. An oily sweat oozed from his face, matting the few strands of hair he possessed into glossy sinuosities, as though he had dribbled black ink onto the parchment--like skin of his bald head. He blinked his good eye as it filled with the greasy, salty fluid. His other eye, a fishy orb, like a pearl of cooked tapioca, remained open.
“Is something wrong?”
“Oh, no, sir! Nothing’s wrong!”
“You don’t look well.”
“I, ah, it’s just a touch of the fever, sir. Picked it up during the wars.”
“Shouldn’t you be seeing a doctor? Should you be on the road like this?”
“Oh, I, ah . . . it’s for my health, sir. Can’t stand the, ah, sea air. Brings on my old fever, as you can plainly see. I’m, ah, going to see a, ah, my doctor in the, um, city.”
“Who’s that?”
“Who’s what, sir?”
“Who’s your doctor, man?”
“I, ah, it’s, ah, he’s really my, ah, brother’s doctor, sir. Don’t, ah, know his name right offhand, sir.”
“Hm. Well, I won’t delay your medical attentions much longer. Tell me, though, have you seen anyone else on the road this morning?”
“Other than you, sir?”
“Of course.”
“Why, ah, no, sir.”
“We’re looking for a girl, a young woman.”
“Well, sir, ain’t we all, sir?”
“No, no. I’m looking for someone particular. Someone I know.”
“You are, sir?”
“You haven’t seen her, by any chance?”
“Oh, no, sir!”
“You seem pretty certain about that. She’s quite tall, slender, dark reddish-brown hair, rather short, green eyes, probably wearing a black leather jacket and trousers.”
“Doesn’t sound familiar, sir.”
“Probably with a very big fellow, looks like a cross between a giant and a circus fat man?”
“Mm, don’t think so, sir.”
“Her name is Bronwyn.”
“Bronwyn, sir?”
“Yes, the Princess Bronwyn, my fiancée.”
At this last utterance the man, without another word, broke and ran. At a gesture, the duke’s men rode him down and within a minute had the limply struggling figure back before their master. Fish-eye Gunther, for it is indeed truly him, fell to his knees in an attitude of abject supplication. He wrung his hands and face pitiably and a circle of perspiration and oil spread slowly around him.
“Oh, Musrum!” he wailed. “I didn’t know! I swear I didn’t know! Have mercy on me, sir! They didn’t tell me nothing! I didn’t ask no questions! I hardly saw her! I didn’t know who she was! I didn’t know what is going to happen! I didn’t say anything to her! She didn’t tell me who she was! Oh, Musrum! Those terrible villains! If I had known who she was, sir, I would have defended her with my very life! Yes, I would have! Oh, the Princess Bronwyn, sir! Your beloved fiancée! If I could only help! But I am wallowing in ignorance, if your Grace can only forgive me, just wallowing!”
“Give him a crack, will you, sergeant?” requested the duke.
“Gladly, sir,” he replies, leaning from his saddle and giving Fish-eye a smart blow on the crown with his whip handle. Fish-eye fell onto his back as though thunderstruck. From this position, spread-eagled on the hard-packed dirt like a squirrel that had met a fast express, he spoke again, with noticeably greater calm.
“Ah, yes, sir, now that I’ve had a chance to think about it, I believe I do recall the lady.”
“Where is she?”
“I really don’t know, and that’s the truth, sir. I is just paid to look the other way. She is coming to look for someone named Pataskala, I run a rooming house for sailors, you understand, they knew she is going to come for him . . .”
“They? Who?”
“I don’t know, sir, I really don’t. I never saw them before. Pataskala cleared out and they waited for her in his room. They told me I didn’t know nothing and I believed them. I swear on my sweet mama’s grave, sir, I didn’t know who she was!”
“Sergeant,” says the duke through clenched teeth, “immobilize this man; we’ll take care of him later.”
They continued on to Diamandis Antica at a gallop, leaving Fish-eye tied up by the roadside, considerately in the shade, with a note attached requesting any passersby to please ignore him, thank you very much, signed: Duke Mathias.
Unfortunately, the trail ran out in the port village. There is no sign of either the princess or Thud at the rooming house. Mathias sent his men to comb the town and it is quickly learned that Thud had been something of an attraction that morning. An innkeeper informed them that not an hour or two earlier he had sent the big man down to the docks to look for the Princess. When Mathias and his men arrived at the pier, the freighter is only a smear of dark smoke at the horizon.
Did anyone know what the ship’s next port of call would be? No one knew.
Mathias returned to his capital, picking up the delirious Fish-eye on the way, and also taking with him a grim resolve.
In the duke’s long career, he has served in and commanded armies for all of his neighbor states, even spending nearly half a year at one time training the army of the .infamous Badaud Alcatode in the newly developed techniques of modern trench warfare, and so successful was the result that he is almost universally respected, admired and honored. It is to his credit that this holds true even for countries he had commanded armies for in one war and against in another. He immediately sends word by way of secret emissaries to Mostaza, Ibraila, Udskaya, Fezzara, Crotoy and, very secretly, to certain friends in Londeac.
Quickly, so quickly that it surprises even the duke, men, equipment and supplies begin to pour into the duchy by every possible route. Ships arrive with registries in ports as distant as eastern Peigambar and soldiers from insignificant duchies so small they are not even accorded a distinct color on most maps. The ships range from little brigs to a big five-masted barkentine to a slightly seedy passenger steamer. All are privately owned and not responsible to any government. Soldiers range from highly trained and well-equipped mercenaries from Londeac to ragged mountain warriors from Udskaya to wild-eyed and hyperactive horsemen from Ibraila. Supplies arrive as well: wagon after wagon, carload after carload of fresh and preserved food, equipment, ammunition and weapons, clothing, blankets, to say nothing of hundreds of horses.
In the week following Bronwyn’s abduction, Diamandis has been transformed: its every square is crowded with men, as is every open field in a five-mile radius from the castle. Eleven ships float in Diamandis Antica’s harbor, more traffic then it has seen in twenty years. Some of them have brought in troops and supplies and others have been donated to transport the invading force.
The plan is simple: steam and sail from Diamandis Antica up Stuckney Bay to Glibner and then march the remaining two hundred and fifty miles to Blavek. Although Londeac is only separated from Tamlaght by ten miles by the Strait of Guesclin, one could see either country from the opposite side on a very clear day, there is no possible way to cross that meager distance by water. The strait is a sheer-walled canyon through which, seasonally, pours the icy waters of the North Mostaza Sea. Funneled into this narrow channel, the current forms a raging barrier of water nearly one hundred miles long. There have been discussions among the more enthusiastic and optimistic engineers of Londeac concerning the possibility of bridging the strait, but that project, feasible or not, was not something that immediately makes the duke’s problem any simpler.
When Bronwyn returns to Lesser Piotr, she is amazed. Both she and Basseliniden think with some good reason that the duchy has been invaded. They have sailed into the tiny harbor in the pir
ate’s schooner, the Barracuda (he had apologized for the overly dramatic name, blaming it on the necessities of professional image), with the submarine boat Torpedo in tow. So busy has the port become that no one paid the slightest attention to their arrival. There are fourteen other ships in the crowded harbor: the sailing ships are three schooners (not including the Barracuda) a five-masted barkentine, a bark, a sloop, two small brigs and a brigantine; the steamers include two passenger steamers and a freighter. Basseliniden and his crew are a little confused as to what is going on and most of the people around them consider the newcomers to be something of a nuisance. Their every attempt to ask questions is met by abruptness or an answer that is incomprehensible.
It is some time, therefore, before the princess discovers that Mathias had declared war on Tamlaght.
Leaving the crew of the Barracuda behind, she and the captain go directly to Diamandis, on a road now crowded and churned to dust by wagons, carts, cavalry and foot soldiers traveling in either direction, with Bronwyn’s amazement growing with every mile.
Her arrival in the capital is tumultuous and emotional although there is an odd cast to the joy the princess and the duke feel at their reunion.
“Mathias!” she cries at her first sight of the young duke.
“Bronwyn!” he also cries, taking her hands in his. “My God! what happened to you?”
“That’s too long a story to tell right now . . .”
“It is Payne and your brother, wasn’t it?”
“You must’ve already deduced that, seeing what’s going on in the duchy. My stars, Mathias, it looks like you’re preparing for a full-scale invasion!”
“It’s a little deceiving: there are fewer men than the confusion makes it appear. You’ll see when things get organized and settled down. Ah, who is your friend, here?”
“Oh, I’m sorry! Mathias, this is Captain Basseliniden.”
“I’m very pleased to meet you,” says the duke. “I’m given to understand you had something to do with the princess’s safe return?”
“What little I did is only my pleasure and duty, your Grace.”
“The captain is a . . .” begins Bronwyn.
“A maritime entrepreneur,” finishes Basseliniden.
“Well,” answers Mathias, with an odd look at the tall man, “come along, both of you; you must be famished, I’ve ordered a luncheon that’s about to be served.”
“I’m anxious to see Thud and the baron,” says the princess, following the duke. Mathias pauses and turns toward her.
“Ah, well, that’s something we ought to talk about while we eat.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’ll discuss it in a minute.”
“No, I want to know now. What’s wrong?”
“I think you should get something to eat first. We can talk then.”
“Stop patronizing me. I want to know what’s wrong with Thud and the baron.”
“Nothing’s wrong that I know of.”
“Then what can’t you tell me?”
“I can’t really tell you anything. That’s basically the whole point: I have no idea where they are.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know where they are?”
“That’s it. Thud never returned from that irresponsible action you took upon yourself more than a week ago, and the baron’s been missing almost as long.”
“You’ve no idea where they are?”
“Not a clue. Well, except for Thud, that is. It seems he may have left on board a freighter called the Princess the day after you disappeared from the castle. Whether he left voluntarily or under duress, I have no idea. The baron . . . well, the baron is just gone.”
Bronwyn doesn’t know how to accept this blow. For the past several hours she has known an elation and optimism she has not felt for more than a year. The maddening uncertainty about the future has seemed to have vanished. Seeing the gathering army and fetal navy has raised her expectations to the remaining one of the only two levels her expectations ever achieved: absolute joy or absolute depression. There are seldom any grays in Bronwyn’s world.
The elation and confidence she has been feeling are instantly wiped away by the feeling of despair created by the news of her vanished friends.
“Bronwyn?” asks Basseliniden. “Are you all right?”
“No, I’m not. What am I going to do without them?”
“Just what we’ve been planning to do,” replies Mathias. “The fact that they’re missing doesn’t make any difference.”
“You would say that.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“You have no empathy whatsoever. Two of my best friends are gone; doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
“Well, of course it does. I’m sorry to see you so upset. But it’s still only two people. Whether they are here or not wouldn’t’ve made any difference to the success of the invasion.”
“It makes a difference to me.”
“I don’t see how.”
“That’s what’s wrong with you.”
“Wrong with me? You accuse me of having no empathy, but look at yourself. You’ve had this fixation, this goal, that you’ve been looking at as though you had some sort of tunnel vision. You’ve not been able to see anything else than that. You’ve been totally oblivious of anything that goes on around you that doesn’t directly relate to achieving whatever it is that you’ve decided you want. You’ve never considered for a moment what the cost may be to anyone else, not for an instant. Look at you right now: you’re more worried about your loss as far as Thud and the baron are concerned than you are about what might’ve happened to them.”
“I do care!”
“Oh? You have a peculiarly personal way of showing it. I honestly believe that if either one of them got between you and what you want, you’d walk over him without hesitation. And what’s worse, you’d rationalize it and justify it to yourself until you believed in your heart that you’d done the right thing. You see things so clearly that you can neither admit nor even comprehend that someone else may see things differently.”
“That’s not fair!”
“Perhaps; but you haven’t says it wasn’t true.”
Bronwyn chews her lip: of course it is true, but that doesn’t mean that she has to admit it either to herself or to anyone else.
“Princess,” offers Basseliniden with an embarrassed cough, “perhaps we’re all losing sight of what’s most important.”
“More important than Thud and Sluys?” she asks tautly.
“There’s nothing that can be done about either of them at the moment, is there? At least not until we know more. I’m not suggesting that you forget about them, of course not, but there are other, more immediate things that need to be done. And most of these things will help materially toward discovering what’s become of your friends.”
“He’s right,” says Mathias.
“Yes, he is,” replies Bronwyn.
“Shall we go on with our luncheon?”
“If you wish.”
They continue their discussion over the meal. Mathias explains that he has sent a call to his neighboring states, even to Londeac, where there are many companies of semilegal mercenaries. Aid began arriving almost immediately, most of it unofficial. In less than ten days he already has most of the men and supplies the campaign requires, and the eleven ships at Diamandis Antica are more than sufficient to carry his army to Tamlaght. Another week will see him ready to launch his expedition.
“I would like to make a suggestion, your Grace, if I may,” offers Basseliniden.
“Of course.”
“Well, perhaps two suggestions. First of all, I’d like to offer the services of my ship and crew. They’re very experienced, ah, fighting men. This offer includes the use of my submarine boat, the Torpedo.”
“You have a submarine boat?”
“Well, yes . . .”
“That’s generous of you,” puts in Bronwyn.
“Ah, yes,” say
s the duke, “thank you very much. It is very, um, generous of you.”
“The second suggestion is a little more mysterious. I’d like your Grace’s permission to contact one of my own friends whom I can promise you will be worth any hundred soldiers.”
“Well, that’s an intriguing promise. By all means; I’m certainly in no position to turn away assistance.”
“Do you think, then,” asks Bronwyn, “that we’d be able to leave for Tamlaght in a week?”
“We?”
“Yes, ‘we.’ You’re certainly not going to keep me from going.”
“This is ridiculous. We keep coming back to this over and over again. I thought it is settled weeks ago.”
“I can’t imagine what gives you that idea. Unless you think that you can settle things by proclamation.”
“I don’t; this is just something that you simply cannot do.”
“How do you propose to invade Tamlaght without me?”
“What do you mean? It’s exactly what I do intend to do.”
“And if I disown what you’re doing? If I publicly condemn this action? What then?”
“I’m doing this for you!”
“What if I don’t want it?”
“But I can’t very well stop this now; there are too many commitments!”
“Difficult position, isn’t it’?”
“But it must be done! There’s a moral responsibility to put a stop to Payne Roelt . . .”
“I couldn’t agree more.”
“ . . . and think of what those blackguards have done to you!”
“That’s exactly it! They’ve done this to me!”
“What’s the difference? If the army’s acting in your name, what difference if you’re at its head or in Diamandis?”
“I’ll be there!”
“Sir,” Mathias says, turning to Basseliniden, who has been observing the exchange with some amusement, “can you explain to her that there’s no real difference?”
“I wish I could, your Grace, but, after all, it is her grievance. You’ve only made it yours by proxy. I think that she perceives the army as her weapon and you as the finger on the trigger. She must be there to aim it. Since you asks my opinion, even though you must now be regretting it, I believe the princess has every right to what she’s asking. Tell me, Princess, who first suggested the invasion of Tamlaght?”