Impossible Odds

by Dave Duncan

  When darkness came at last, she closed the shutters on the squints so it would be safe to light a candle. Frederik went to sleep to dream of another day of mayhem ahead. She tried to read a book, gave up, and lay down fully dressed with a lantern still lit, knowing that the summons might come at any hour of the night. To her surprise, she was asleep when it did. She came awake instantly, caught up the lantern, and hobbled down the narrow stairs, wincing at the aches in her stiffened muscles.

  The entrance to the foxhole was through the top of a closet. She knelt to slide the bolts and lift the trap, which was so narrow that the Baron could not have climbed up there at any time in the last forty years. He could still stand on a stool, precariously. His head appeared at her knees.

  “All right, my dear?” He spoke in a whisper.

  “We’re very well. It was Volpe! You noticed his limp?”

  “I did. He offered a reward of a thousand Hyrian ducats for each of you.”

  “Is that all?” Johanna said indignantly. “A dukedom cheap at the price!”

  “But it is a great fortune to a drudge or a turnspit.”

  “Of course,” she said sadly. It would have seemed a great fortune to her not long since.

  “He left six men here,” said the disembodied head. “We have girls distracting them, but I mustn’t stay. Anything you need?”

  “Tomorrow, if we’re still here—more toys, fresh water, and a fresh slop bucket.” She did not suggest throwing in a gag for her son; this was no time for humor.

  Frederik wakened her. He was whimpering, not howling, and with luck would go back to sleep. Grunting at her aches and bruises, she rolled over and was about to stuff her head under the pillow when she realized that the bell was jangling. It was a very small bell, emitting a very quiet tinkle. On and on. One ring for alarm, three for all clear—that was the agreed-upon code, but now someone was jiggling the cord continuously. She sat up.

  From far away came a sound of hammering. She surged out of bed, uncovered the lantern, and ran down to investigate. Someone was banging on the trapdoor, trying to waken her.

  Then she smelled smoke.

  Fadrenschloss was ancient; it would burn like tinder. Bruises forgotten, she hurtled back up to the room…gathered cloak, shoes, and her son in his blanket…back down the stairs in the dark…Frederik began wailing at yet another rude awakening. The noise was louder now, jarring strokes of a sledge that she could feel through her feet on the stonework. Before she could even start to struggle with the bolts, they tore loose and the trap flew up with a blaze of light and a gush of acrid, eye-biting smoke. The amount of coughing going on down there suggested a sizable reception committee waiting.

  “Take him!” she cried, thrusting her son into the arms that appeared. Even if those belonged to Volpe himself, being burned alive was not an option. Heedless of the indignity, she slid her feet out through the gap and felt many strong hands grab her and lift her down. She wore only a nightgown and a cloak and her shoes; the hands lingered a little longer than necessary.

  “Captain Aldea, Your Royal Highness,” said a satisfied voice.

  “Thank you, Manfred. In thirty years you have done me no greater service.”

  When the forester had gone, Johanna said bitterly, “You think I was trying to elope with someone.” That was what the world would think. She was ruined.

  “I know you better, my dear. I had seen you earlier that day and you were not plotting any such nonsense then. You would not cheat your son out of his birthright.” He scratched his beard again. “But that may be how others will interpret it. Oh, death! I cannot make sense of all this evil! Surely only Vamky is capable of conjuring that trinket, and the ambush was set up by men from Vamky. If that had been your husband in the carriage, then the murderer had a good chance of killing both him and his son, leaving Volpe as unquestioned Grand Duke and Karl his heir. Men have been hanged on weaker evidence.

  “But the locket changes everything! Someone was masquerading as your husband. What was the imposter trying to achieve? Abduction, most likely. But was he abducting your son, or you, or both of you? Did two conspiracies defeat each other? Did he say where he was taking you?”

  “He said Vamky.” Would she ever have emerged from that gloomy keep? “Or was he just planning to compromise me? If I ran away with another man Rubin could divorce me.” And be free to marry sweet Margarita of Trenko.

  “He could have found easier ways of arranging that!” the Baron protested.

  Johanna avoided his eye. “The imposter knew certain intimate endearments my husband bestows on me sometimes. Only he could know what they were!”

  The Baron harrumphed. “Pardon my crudity, Johanna dear, but you may not be the only woman he has so addressed.”

  “Of course!” Hundreds of them. She should have seen that. With the locket, the imposter might have been anyone, even a woman. Margarita of Trenko, perhaps? One of her own ladies-in-waiting. “He held Frederik!”

  “Does Rubin not do so?”

  “I have never known him to touch his son since Frederik’s naming ceremony.” And his laugh. That had not been Rubin’s laugh. People’s laughs were often distinctive. Had she met that laugh before?

  “Your husband would not put his own son in danger.”

  “Oh, never. He told me just a few days ago he wanted to see Frederik acknowledged as his heir.”

  After a moment’s silence, she realized that the Baron had really been asking her a question. Because she was now the expert in Rubin’s marital behavior. Rubin would not harm his son unless? Unless he had already murdered two wives and wanted to dispose of a third so he could bed the fair Margarita, who was of noble blood and thus available only in legal matrimony…? Staring at the old man, Johanna saw in his eyes the horror that must not be spoken. No one would suspect a man of killing his own son just to dispose of an unwanted wife. Not to mention three innocent companions. But if the Grand Duke had not been in the carriage, could he have been the man on horseback?

  “You are saying,” she said, although Ernst was deliberately not saying, “that the purpose was to kill me and Frederik?” No, that wasn’t right…Ernst had had a whole day to work on this. “Just to kill Frederik? That I was supposed to be here in Fadrenschloss and not in the coach at all? That it was a plot by Volpe to kill Frederik so that Karl could be second in line again?”

  Surely that was nonsense. If Volpe’s code forbade him to depose his nephew, how could he murder an innocent child to promote a dissolute son he despised?

  Then was Karl behind it? He had the most to gain if Frederik died. He would be second in line again. Ridiculous! Karl wasn’t capable of organizing anything beyond a shoddy seduction.

  So?

  So it came back to the fact that Johanna had been present only by accident, when she was not supposed to be, so the fake Duke had been forced to take her also. It was Frederik who had brought the threat of revolution. Restore Volpe to his former place as heir presumptive and the coup danger would fade away. Rubin was not the bravest of men. He hated anything that interrupted his quiet life of studied promiscuity, and what happened to Krupina after his death interested him not at all. From that point of view, Frederik had been a mistake, perhaps a mistake that could be corrected. The fake duke had not known of the ambush, of course.

  She shook herself to banish the nightmares. The Baron was studying her. He looked ten years older than he had two days ago.

  “Advise me, my lord,” she said.

  “I cannot,” he said angrily. “I am too old to straighten such a tangle. There are so many possible explanations! Were there two conspiracies? Or was it a double bluff? Who was the intended victim? Perhaps Rubin did know of a plot to overthrow him. So he sent you and your son off to safety, not realizing that Volpe would go so far as to ambush the carriage. Then where is your husband now? Who rules in Krupa?”

  And dare she go back there?

  “I am not fit to travel yet,” she said.

  “Of course
not.” The Baron heaved his mass off his chair and waddled over to stare out the window. “Daylight!” He sighed. “Neither the coachman nor the woman could be identified. The coach was firewood. But the horses carried the Grand Duke’s mark. By the time we had collected the bodies yesterday it was too late to send word to Krupa, you understand? So I can claim, anyway. But I dare not delay longer. I must send word to the palace today. Now! Someone will be here before dark. If your disappearance is already known, another someone may be here even sooner. This is the first place they will look for you.”

  She saw that she was not merely in danger herself. She brought danger with her like a plague. “You must not take risks for my sake, my lord.”

  The Baron remained at the window, a monolith staring out at the mountains. “No risk. Very few people know you have come back, and I swore all of them to secrecy. You could be wandering in the woods or sheltering in some charcoal burner’s cottage.”

  “No!” She rose, and was at once reminded of her aches and bruises. “You must not take the risk!”

  He turned to frown at her. “Do not be foolish, Johanna. It is no risk for a few days. Your husband told you that rebels were about to seize the palace. You were abducted by someone unknown. Your husband is dead. He tried to kill you. His uncle tried to kill you. Not all of those statements can be true, but any one of them is enough excuse for you to remain in hiding until you know it is safe to emerge. I ordered the foxhole made ready.”

  “But hiding the Grand Duke’s wife from him must be treason at the least!”

  “Nonsense. Hiding her from rebels is true fealty. Fadrenschloss will give you sanctuary, and I will hear no argument.”

  She was back to being a child again. She went to him and hugged him.

  III

  From a Check to a View

  • 1 •

  A panicky moth swooped around a candelabrum and came within reach of Ranter. His hand flashed out and caught it, crushed it. “I never heard of fireflies,” he said.

  “Why would you?” his ward asked wearily. “You are not a soldier.”

  She was courageous and determined and honorable, and now Bellman could add patience to her catalogue of virtues, for this was at least the sixth time Ranter had interrupted her story. The others had seen that she preferred to tell it in her own way and had respected her right to do so, but not Ranter. Subtlety worked no better on him than Ringwood’s threats did.

  The windows were still dark, but morning was near. Bellman’s eyelids felt as heavy as boots; even the Blades looked as if they could use a rest, and Sister Trudy was limp and unfocused. Ringwood took advantage of the break to rise and attend to some smoking candles, snuffing them and replacing them with new ones.

  “If you were a king or a prince, Sir Ranter,” the Duchess said, “besieging a castle, your best option would be to hire the Vamky Brotherhood. It has many secret military conjurations. One of them is the firefly. How could any stronghold withstand fireflies?”

  Ranter said, “Oh. And that’s what shadowmen are for, too?” He was not stupid, just thoughtless. “How do they put shadowmen inside a castle?”

  “We don’t even know how they got them into this place,” Ringwood said. “Please carry on, Your Highness.”

  Bellman thought of being shut up in a besieged fortress haunted by shadowmen and then tried not to. Castles had dungeons and cellars where the wraiths could lurk forever. As for a firefly, that would work like a ferret in a rabbit warren, sending defenders leaping out of every window. He wondered how much the brethren charged for their deadly services.

  “We are tired and the hour is late,” Johanna said. “I just wanted to take the chance while the Baron was not present to explain why you must not suspect him of betraying me. Sometimes he still treats me as a child, but that is just his way. He is very old, remember. He has lost everything. Dispossessed, exiled, and proclaimed a traitor after a lifetime of honorable service! I forgive his little tantrums.” She smiled. “I have talked too much and you have listened too long. Later today I’ll tell you about our journey from Krupina, and we can discuss how I can get back there.”

  “Don’t bother,” Ranter said. “You are not going back there.”

  Bellman had been waiting for something like this.

  The Duchess’s smile thinned and then vanished. “You will not speak to me like that, Sir Ranter!”

  “If I have to I will. Ringwood and I are sworn to keep you safe. We won’t let you go stumbling back into that snake pit.”

  Johanna rose to her feet, face flaming. “You will do as I say.”

  Bellman stood also. Ringwood turned from the candles. Ranter just leaned back on his chair and smirked.

  “No, you will do as we say! Our loyalty is to our King, not to you. We serve the Pirate’s Son by keeping you safe. Didn’t Grand Master explain that?”

  “Be silent, Ranter!” Ringwood said. “This is neither the time nor place.”

  “It’s as good a time as any!” his ward snapped. “Understand that being a duchess brought me no joy and my husband is almost certainly already dead. Volpe can have Krupina so far as I am concerned. But my son lives. I left him in a safe refuge and my first duty now is to go and recover him. My second is to see that he comes into his inheritance, for he is either the rightful heir or already the lawful Duke. For his sake, the traitors must die. That is my mission and you two will assist me. I will accept no argument on that. If I must ask King Athelgar to issue you the necessary orders, then so be it!”

  “Blades don’t take orders from anyone,” Ranter said before Ringwood could speak. “Your baby is not our concern. Send Bellman to fetch him if you like. We’ll ask the Pirate’s Son to grant you a small pension and find you a safe cottage somewhere, and that will be that. The Baron and his two flunkies can go boar hunting blindfolded if they want, but you stay here in Chivial. Incognito.”

  She turned to Ringwood as if expecting him to deal with this insubordination. Bellman wondered which of the two he pitied more, ward or Blade, both of them bound for life to that oaf. Poor Ringwood had been growing more and more gloomy and hangdog as her story unfolded. He must have known from the start that he was a boy being sent on a man’s mission, but now he knew he needed an army, and what army in Eurania would be willing to challenge the fearsome Vamky Brotherhood on its home ground? If he were years older, if he had completed his Ironhall training and commanded a team of a dozen first-class Blades who all fenced like Sir Cedric, the odds would still be impossible. The Duchess was deluding herself.

  Then she looked to Bellman for support, making him want to howl—in sorrow and frustration and rage. He wished desperately that he had some comfort to give her, but everything Ranter had said was correct. Even if her Blades personally wanted to help her with her quest, their bindings would probably force them to block it. That was a problem for another time, when they were not all so tired. Meanwhile the best he could do was to distract her.

  “I have some questions about the Baron, Your Highness, which I’d prefer to ask while he is still absent. These previous attacks on you, after you left Fadrenschloss and before you came here, to Chivial. Where did they occur? Were they all made by shadowmen?”

  She frowned, puzzled. “One was—in Blanburg. In Brikov, Cosanza, and Château Bellçay they tried other methods. Why?”

  “You said earlier that those attacks were sent from Krupina, implying that the conjuration was being performed in Vamky. Master of Rituals told me he had never heard of spirituality being effective at such a distance; it’s almost always confined within the octogram, as you know. Most likely somebody nearby was responsible, he said. They might have brought a conjurement that they could activate, but someone would have to release it close at hand.”

  “You are an expert in conjury, Master Bellman?”

  “No, Your Highness. But the weather is not the same everywhere. Starkmoor can suffer a blizzard when the sun is shining in Grandon. So how could Lord Volpe or his helpers back in Vamky
have known the sky was dark enough for shadowmen that night, here in Chivial? Who suggested to you that the attacks were being sent from Vamky?”

  She hesitated before saying, “I don’t remember.” That meant she was defending the Baron. “You mean someone’s been following us?”

  No, he did not mean that. “Did you not try to cover your tracks?”

  “Of course we did.”

  “On your travels, how many rulers have you asked to help your cause?”

  The lady had not been born to wear a coronet, but she had learned not to expect interrogation by her own servants. She flushed. “What is the purpose of these questions?”

  “I’ll show you in just a moment, Your Grace. Believe me, they are very important. Let me rephrase the last one. How many times did you receive a sympathetic hearing, and where?”

  She flinched, confirming his suspicions. But then her doubts were suddenly directed at him, and even Ringwood was eying him darkly.

  “Who have you been talking to?” the Duchess said. “Answer me!”

  “No one, Your Highness. It was only a guess. One thing that surprised me was how readily you accepted the imposter’s story when he came barging into your bedchamber in the middle of the night.”

  “Master Bellman!…” She reined back her anger and continued in steadier tones. “I told you that the Baron had warned me that very day that such a coup was possible.”

  “Yes, you did,” Bellman said unhappily. “And without his warning, how would you have reacted? Another thing. Manfred found a locket. The baron identified it as a conjuration. How? Did he try it on in front of a mirror? A woman might do such a thing; why would a man? Does he suspect everything he sees of being enchanted?”

  “What are you implying?”