by Dave Duncan
“Rubin suspected that von Fader was hiding the girl…Duchess, I mean. So he burned Fadrenschloss to smoke her out.” Volpe barked a laugh. “I’m supposed to be the warrior in the family, but I have more scruples than he does. Minhea had set up roadblocks to catch her when she tried to escape. I suppose her body and the child’s would have been retroactively found in the wreckage of the coach.”
The conversation was interrupted then. The standard-bearer signaled a turn and led the column off the highway onto a tree-flanked avenue. Volpe blew a warning call on his horn. In a few moments the troop arrived at a stockade set within paddocks and fenced pasture where, to Bellman’s amazement, about sixty fresh mounts stood waiting, already saddled and tethered in lines. Some hands were hastily tightening girths and others were still tumbling out of the buildings to assist. The Royal Guard was never so organized.
“Take your pick,” Volpe said as he dismounted.
Needing no second invitation, Bellman beelined in on a four- or five-year-old chestnut who looked as if he could run all the way to Chivial without drawing breath. A brown-belted junior knight-brother had made the same choice. They met on opposite sides of the stallion’s head and for a moment there was challenge in the air. Then the knight glanced down at Bellman’s sword belt, saluted without the least change of expression, and walked away.
“What do you think of that, big fellow?” Bellman asked as he reached for the stirrup buckles. The chestnut rolled his eyes and said nothing.
There was a slight delay in departing. When everyone else was in the saddle, waiting, the Provost stood deep in conversation with two men, one of whom was Radu. Checking on Bellman, perhaps?
Volpe picked up his story again as soon as the column was back on the highway. “I was taken in like everyone else at first, I admit. I believed in the accident.” The big man laughed. “More wishful thinking! I assumed I had been right after all and the gold-digger commoner had run off with a lover. It even crossed my mind that he might be my idiot son.
“When Fadrenschloss burned, I guessed that Rubin was back to his old tricks. I sent Harald Priboi to investigate, because he was a Fadrenschloss boy and known to the Baron. If he found Johanna was still alive, he was to worm his way into her confidence and keep her out of harm’s way until I could straighten things out in Krupina. Having been a Rubin agent first in this affair, he then became one of mine, just by doing what he was told. He did a fine job if he chivvied her all the way to Chivial.”
So far Bellman had learned almost nothing he had not worked out in his head, which was dangerously gratifying.
Volpe continued, “He sent back word that she had left the boy somewhere in Brikov. Minhea had men rummaging like mad through the archives for the password that would reactivate Knight-brother János. I dispatched Radu to locate the child, and we moved the boy to safety. I’ve sent word to Bad Nargstein and we’ll see his mother gets him back today.”
“That’s very considerate of you, my lord. Her Highness will be overjoyed.”
“She has earned that much.” The Provost fell silent for a while. Hooves beat the mud with a steady beat. “Tell me,” he said at last. “One thing still puzzles me. According to Harald’s reports, the Duchess has been absolutely convinced all this time that I tried to depose Rubin, or even that I had already done so and was masquerading as him. I can see how the locket might inspire such mad notions, but surely she must have had more reason than that?”
“She saw Rubin arrive at Fadrenschloss,” Bellman explained, “and he was limping.”
“Seven save us! That was all? His horse stepped on his toe?”
Bellman risked a smile. “Possibly it was just chance, but he may have been testing. He must have been worried that the fake Duke had been found in the wreckage. If so, and the Baron was not shouting miracle, he must know about the locket, which was damning evidence. Sure enough, the old man was deceived by the limp. The Duke detected his distrust and knew he knew. You following this? The answer was to burn the place down and hope to eliminate Duchess, Baron, and locket all at once.”
Volpe muttered an oath.
“Your nephew, my lord, is a cunning man! As for Johanna, I believe your pessimist principle came into play again. Any woman would be reluctant to believe her own husband was trying to kill both her and their son. Also, you had cast yourself as the villain long ago, if you’ll forgive my saying so.”
“Under the circumstances,” Volpe said, “I will. Ensign! Signal a trot! Of course, when the fire failed to kill his wife, he sent Kuritsyn after her. He failed to kill her in Blanburg and then lost her, thanks to Harald. Rubin has no patience when he’s in estrus, and he decided to settle for second best. He unveiled the scandal he had set up. He did a good job of it, I admit—shows what a capable man he is when he can be bothered. Soon the whole country knew that the Duchess had eloped with an unidentified man and both she and her child had gone over a cliff.
“It worked. The old Margrave needed a husband for his daughter, and was greedy for a grandson who would inherit both realms, so Frederik’s death made the match more attractive. He agreed to the marriage but insisted on six months’ mourning for his son. Now the time is up.” He looked to Bellman. “Have I left out anything?”
Conscious that the question might be unwise, Bellman said, “Margrave Ladislas doesn’t happen to be another deferred Vamky knight, does he, my lord?”
The Provost’s glare almost blew him off his horse. “Are you suggesting I used an oath sworn fifty years ago to force a man to prostitute his own daughter to my homicidal nephew?”
“No, my lord,” Bellman said hastily.
“Then why ask?”
“Because otherwise I do not understand why Ladislas agreed. I suspect Abbot Minhea had fewer scruples than you.” He knew he should stop at that, but he must know if he had the rest of it right. “I think your approach was more subtle. Trenko being right on Vamky’s doorstep, Vamky would love to see another Vamky man succeed Ladislas. I think you checked through the roll and picked out a promising wellborn younger son to take with you when you went to the funeral. You would not have used any sort of compulsion, I suspect, and no threats. But you could have dropped hints that this young man would make a good military advisor or aide-decamp or something. Knight-brother Nickolaus, my lord?”
The predator eyes studied him as if measuring him for a larder. “You are a dangerously astute man, Herr Bellman.”
“Thank you, my lord,” Bellman said uneasily. Had he overdone it? He wanted to impress the man, not antagonize him.
“How did you find out about Nickolaus?”
“Talking with Her Highness, and with Radu. All I know is that he stayed behind in Trenko and is of gentle birth. The rest was guesswork, truly.”
“Originally Prince Nickolaus, third son of the King of Microsia. Now personal equerry to the Margrave’s daughter. What other secrets have you pried out of Vamky in the last two days, Herr Bellman?”
“None, my lord. I do have one more question—how you came to be locked up in your own castle.”
The mercenary’s face darkened. “I waited too long. I couldn’t be certain that Karl had been the fake husband in the coach, and I was frightened he would turn up alive and make a fool of me. I waited for Rubin’s inquiry to convene, hoping I’d glean some more evidence from that. Before I made my move, I was betrayed. Rubin thinks I’m dead, by the way. I look forward to seeing his face when I turn up at the wedding. Minhea told him I was dead, but kept me alive as insurance. I was his hold over Rubin, partly because I’m officially his legal heir now, partly because I know where the real heir is. Naturally I wouldn’t say. They worked on me a bit, but they could afford to be patient. Any man will talk eventually.”
They rode on for a while thinking their own thoughts. The fields were steaming in the sunlight. Autumn trees shone like beaten gold. Somewhere ahead was Donehof, but was Johanna still there? Had János taken her into Krupa with him? Or had he betrayed her to Rubin? Was she even
alive?
“So what will you do now, my lord?” Bellman asked.
Again Volpe studied him, taking time to plan his words. “I don’t know. Depose my nephew, certainly. Have him certified insane, most likely. Possibly execute him. Proclaim Frederik and declare myself regent, maybe.” Again that sinister, craggy smile. “And certainly find out what you’re up to, Herr Bellman.”
If you sat perfectly still in wet clothes, the parts that touched you eventually became warm. The trouble came when you moved and rediscovered all the other parts. Johanna and Trudy had found a nook near the bottom of the staircase and huddled there, close together for warmth, trying to keep still and not even shiver. Waiting for Ringwood.
Daylight was seeping into the keep, a new day. A very strange new day it would be. Johanna was now a widow. She had watched her husband killed by one of the shadowmen his own evil had created. Volpe was also dead. Frederik, if he lived, was Grand Duke, so who would run Krupina for the next fifteen years or so? Most certainly not the daughter of Erich von Schale—not if the aristocracy had anything to do with it. She would be very lucky to be allowed any access to her son at all. Where was Bellman? Who was the prisoner he had gone to rescue, if not Rubin? And inevitably doubts crept in. Rubin visiting a haunted ruin in the middle of a stormy night was a mind-bending improbability. Had he really felt an obsessive need to watch his wife die and know she was really dead? She struggled to believe that it must have been Rubin. Volpe would not have tried to fight a Blade with a stool. Did Frederik have any blood relatives left? That cousin in Blanburg? He or King Athelgar would be the new duke if Frederik was dead.
Sometime in her worrying she drifted off to sleep, in spite of her cold and hunger and the pain of her wounds, for she was an all-over midden heap of cuts and bruises. Some protector Sir Ringwood had turned out to be…
“Time to rise and shine,” Trudy said. “I want to watch the shining bit.”
Johanna started awake, bewildered. “What?”
“They’re here.”
The sky was bright, scraps of blue between the clouds. Three men were placing a ladder across a gap only a few feet away from her, while others stood watching in the distance—Vamky brethren and Ringwood, who was tattered and bloody and snow-white with exhaustion.
Johanna’s first efforts to move discovered a million aches and cold, wet places, and she shivered violently. Ringwood laid a plank on the ladder, carried another to the middle, accepted a third from one of his helpers, and in moments had built a bridge. He stepped off the near end, bowed curtly to his ward, then grabbed Trudy in what started out to be a passionate hug and at once became an explosion of Oo!s and Ouch!es, and finally happy laughter—happy because pain is a sign of life. The dead feel nothing.
One of the knight-brothers steadied the far end of the squeaking, groaning bridge while the other followed Ringwood across. He saluted Johanna.
“Your Royal Highness, I am Banneret Helmut Schwartz, sent to help you out of this wilderness. I am instructed to extend the deepest sympathy of the Order upon your—”
She nodded. “Who is in charge?”
His eyebrows rose to the brim of his helmet. “Abbot Minhea has taken personal command.” His gaze flickered over her shredded, bloodstained clothes. “If you will come with us, we shall see you receive proper care, Your Grace. We can set up a field elementary to treat your injuries without delay. You may start planning what you would like for breakfast.” For a man forbidden to speak to women except in emergencies, he knew exactly what to say.
She accepted the hand he offered, a powerful soldier hand, well calloused, and he led her across the shaky bridge. Ringwood came close behind her, leading Trudy but ready to grasp his ward if she needed him. It took a long while to move the ladders and planks, leapfrogging gaps across the rock pile to the tower where Rubin had died. The men chopped thistles out of her way, steadied ladders when she had to climb up or down. They led her to the base of the chimney tower, and up yet another ladder.
At the far end of a windy tunnel she paused beside a thick timber door, looking down at a pasture where campfire embers still steamed. A couple of dozen Vamky knights were forming up as a guard of honor, and at least as many were following behind her now, their work in the keep completed. Rubin’s huge eight-horse ducal coach stood ignored in the background. Beyond it lay the paddocks and outbuildings of Donehof, with a backdrop of fall hills and snow-capped mountains. The main house was out of sight, behind the tower. Although the final ladder waiting for her feet ought to look like escape from a deathtrap, she could not shake the illusion that she was leaving freedom behind. For half a year she had been making choices without having to refer them to some man for his approval; now she would be taking orders again. All the beauty of the morning could not quite make up for that.
Muttering, “By your leave,” Ringwood squeezed past her to go first, as if a Blade’s duties included acting as soft landing for falling wards. He was doubly laden, for somewhere in the last few minutes he had acquired a second sword. Both of them had cat’s-eye pommels.
She turned around and began her descent.
Her worry-faced Blade was waiting at the foot of the ladder. “Your Grace,” he murmured, eyes flitting everywhere except in her direction. “I think there may be trouble now. Insist on your royal honors.”
The honor guard no longer looked much like an honor guard. A dozen men were lined up on one side, a dozen on the other, and a twenty-fifth stood at ease in the center, waiting for her. She had never seen the Abbot in military garb before, and might very well have failed to recognize that bland, unremarkable face under the helmet. He was not fat, no worse than chubby, and his features were as smooth as a boy’s, their apparent youth belied by gray-flecked shrubby eyebrows. She did not trust a face without worry lines.
He smiled as she approached with Ringwood on her right and Trudy on the left, Trudy carrying the Count’s broadsword as if it were a personal souvenir. Last survivors of an interesting evening, Johanna thought.
“Good chance, Frau Schale. I gather you have had an unpleasant night.”
“Minhea, isn’t it?” she said. Ernst van Fader had admired Volpe in some ways, disapproved of him in others, but he had never had any use for the Abbot. “Where is Lord Volpe? Has he been notified of his nephew’s death?”
The Abbot’s smile persisted. “Of course you have been away…Lord Volpe predeceased his nephew by some weeks.”
Trudy coughed a warning.
“And his son, Lord Karl?” Johanna asked.
“Ah, yes. You will be asked about Lord Karl’s disappearance.”
“So there can be no doubt that my son is now Grand Duke. Where is he?”
Minhea’s eyes seemed to glaze. “If you don’t know, then it doesn’t matter, Frau Schale.”
Too late she saw her error. She should not have admitted her ignorance. “I am Dowager Grand Duchess Johanna and will thank you to remember it.”
Minhea shook his head, sending rays of morning sunlight streaking from his helmet. Suddenly his smile seemed more genuine, as if he had discarded some trifling doubts and was free to enjoy himself. “Were there a Grand Duke Frederik of Krupina here to confirm your status, lady, then that would be so. We could see your injuries healed, provide food and clean clothes. Then your coach would rush you without delay to Krupa to attend to the formalities attendant on the death of your lamented husband, proclamation of national mourning, and so on. Absent the child or proof he still lives, you are nothing but a suspect in a sensational murder case.”
Twelve men on either hand and another score or so descending the ladder from the keep forming up behind her. What odds on a Blade and two women with three swords amongst them? After all she had been through, must she accept failure now?
“All three of you are at least material witnesses,” the Abbot said. “Banneret! Disarm the prisoners.”
“I am a Chivian Blade!” Ringwood said sharply, too sharply. “I cannot submit to disarming. I beg you
not to throw away lives by making the attempt.”
Minhea laughed softly. “I have fifty lives to throw against your one, boy. Your bravado jeopardizes these girls as well as yourself. Drop your sword on the grass, boy.”
“Never!”
The ground trembled.
A horn sundered the peace of the morning.
Around the mass of the keep, which had concealed their approach until that moment, thundered a column of Vamky knights. They and their foam-flecked horses were gray with mud, but their blue cloaks streamed in the wind and sunlight flashed on their helmets. As they curved around and came to a halt in a double line behind the Abbot, Johanna recognized the leader, the one with the horn.
She had never thought she would be happy to see Volpe.
The horn spoke again. The riders’ swords flashed from their scabbards. Echoes died. So, perhaps, did the hopes of Abbot Minhea.
“You were telling fibs, my lord,” Trudy told him.
He had his back to them now, so Johanna could not see his face, but something about the way he was standing suggested that there was no longer a smile under the brim of his helmet. When he shouted a command, his voice sounded slightly off-key, even to her.
“Troop, sheath swords! Prepare to dismount!”
“As you were!” the Provost countered. “Disregard that man.”
“I have overall authority in the Brotherhood, Volpe!” Minhea screamed. “They will obey my orders. You will be brought to trial.”
“You are a murderer. You confined and tortured me without authority.”
In almost perfect simultaneity, Abbot and Provost pointed at each other and shouted, “Arrest that man!”
The Brotherhood stood divided.
Ringwood’s hand went to his sword as if he were about to intervene. Johanna caught his wrist. “Wait!” The numbers were about equal, but a swordsman on foot was no match for one on a horse. And if it came to a battle, she was going to be caught right in the middle of it.