“You can fret later. First we have to find a way out of here and warn everybody about what the enemy knows,” Aaron replied. “By the way, what do they know?”
“I told Bosh everything, so I don’t see why you shouldn’t know either. King Basil is going to move his armies the day after tomorrow to counter an attack by Drogin’s troops planned several days from now.” William quickly explained the particulars to Aaron. “But if Drogin finds out, Eucádus and the others will be marching into a trap–and it’s all my fault.”
“I’ll share the blame,” Aaron said. “If I hadn’t taken you into town, none of this would be happening.”
“But it was my idea to accompany you there, and all because I was bored.” William was disappointed with himself all over again. “If I had stayed in Montavia we wouldn’t be in this mess.” He thought hard for a moment, considering exactly how they had landed in their curious predicament. “I was wondering earlier about who identified me to Bosh and the others. Someone at the estate or among the armies must have let them know that I was a prince and what I looked like. How would Meklas have spotted us along the main road otherwise?”
“I was thinking about that before I fell asleep,” Aaron said. “But I’m sure a lot of people both inside and outside the estate are aware that you’re a prince.”
“True, but Bosh also knew that you worked in the kitchens. He called you a kettle scrubber, didn’t he?”
Aaron grunted. “Yeah, just before he put a knife to my throat. But many people know you’re a prince and that I work in the kitchens. It doesn’t narrow down the list much.”
“Not really. I think that–”
Suddenly William heard voices outside and jumped up. He ran to the doors, and though they were securely barred from the outside, he could still push them open just a crack to allow him to peer outdoors into the unfolding morning. Aaron stood beside him, anxiously awaiting a report.
“What do you see, Will?”
“Looks like Bosh and Gelt are unhitching the horses from the wagon,” he said, one eye pressed to the narrow slit between the doors. “Meklas and two other men are talking to them. That other pair must have been living at the farmhouse already.” He glanced at Aaron. “It seems that Drogin planted his spies all over Rhiál before he started this war. How are we supposed to know who to trust?”
“Let me take a look,” Aaron said as William stepped aside. A moment later the boy watched as Bosh and Gelt snapped the reins of their horses and galloped down the dirt road, disappearing beyond a thicket of trees in the gloomy morning. “There they go, ready to send word about King Basil’s plan.” He turned his head, glancing anxiously at William. “What do we do now?”
William shrugged, searching for an answer.
Aaron heard the shuffle of footsteps about an hour later and raced to the doors, staring through the space between them. “Meklas is coming with one of the other men.” He glanced at William who was now visible in the morning light seeping through the upper windows. “I think it’s breakfast time.”
Moments later, the wooden bar was removed and the barn doors were opened. Meklas stood with a small cloth sack and a bucket of water. The other man, armed with a knife, stood silently in the background. Meklas tossed the sack to William.
“Bosh said I had to feed you, so eat up,” he snickered. He set the bucket of water inside the doorway. “Enjoy your beverage, too.”
As he turned to leave, William called out. “Where did Bosh and Gelt ride off to? They seemed in a hurry,” he said with a peculiar grin that caught Meklas’ attention.
“Were you spying on us? You might be a prince, but that doesn’t count for much here.”
“I was just wondering where they went. I assume to pass along that valuable information I provided,” he said with apparent delight, glancing at Aaron with a grin. Aaron, who appeared baffled by William’s relaxed demeanor, nodded as if in the know.
“That’s exactly where they went,” Meklas said, annoyed at William’s show of bravado and slightly unnerved that the prince seemed less than concerned that King Basil’s war plans were being revealed to the enemy.
“Glad to hear it,” William said with a pleasant smile. “Now leave us so Aaron and I can enjoy our meal, sparse though it is.”
“You do that, prince,” Meklas muttered as he began to close the doors.
William laughed. “Not quite a prince, but I suppose it doesn’t matter now that Bosh has left.”
Meklas exhaled through clenched teeth as he slammed the doors shut, aggravated that he had to watch these two. Yet something about William’s sudden change in attitude bothered him. He glanced at the man with the knife standing behind him, silently seeking his opinion before he yanked open the doors once again. He glared at William.
“What do you mean not quite a prince?” Meklas asked. “Are you taunting me? Bosh said I wasn’t to kill you, but he said nothing about teaching either of you a lesson.”
William raised a hand to calm Meklas. “All I’m saying is that I’m not who you think I am. I’m neither a prince of Montavia nor a prince from anywhere, for that matter.”
“Oh? And why should I believe that?”
William fished out a piece of bread from the sack and tossed it to Aaron while helping himself to some as well. “I don’t really care if you believe it,” he said while eating. “All I needed was for Bosh to believe it so he’d deliver the false information I gave him. Worked like a charm!”
“You were a good actor,” Aaron said, playing along with William’s ruse though not quite sure where his friend was going with the act.
Meklas swallowed hard, unable to determine if William was lying or not. “What do you think?” he said, referring to the man behind him. “This one here wants us to believe he’s not a prince.” He glared at William. “You think I’m falling for some scam that you tricked us into delivering bad information? Do I look that stupid?”
“No comment,” he muttered.
“Well I’m not falling for it! You’re stuck here,” Meklas replied, “at least until Bosh returns.”
“If he returns. He’s doing exactly what he was set up to do,” William said. “Aaron and I are here because our contact wanted you to find us along the docks. This was all a scheme to infiltrate your group.”
Meklas breathed heavily as William’s words raced through his mind. The man behind him appeared uncomfortable, wondering what to believe.
“You think he could be telling the truth?” he whispered.
“Of course not!” Meklas sputtered. “It’s a ploy to escape.”
“It’s no ploy,” William assured them. “I’m guessing that Aaron and I are dead regardless of what happens, so I just wanted the pleasure of knowing that you know you’ve been duped by our contact. Your befuddled expression makes it all worth while. And when King Basil’s men either arrest you or slay you, why, that will be sweeter still.”
Meklas was about to slam the doors shut, knowing William was purposely provoking him, when the tightness in his facial muscles suddenly softened as he figured out the prince’s subtle line of attack. “Ha! Your contact, as you say, couldn’t possibly be your contact, and therefore I now know your story is false. Nice try, prince.”
The armed man started to laugh. “Yeah, Nyla is one of us, so how could she be a spy for you?”
“Quiet!” Meklas snapped.
“Maybe we turned her allegiance to us,” Aaron responded matter-of-factly. “Everybody has a price.” The expression upon his face didn’t reveal a flicker of surprise at the mention of Nyla’s name. Inside, however, he felt cold and angry, learning that the woman he had worked next to for several months in the King’s kitchen was a conspirator.
“Like that would ever happen,” the man continued. “Bosh’s wife would never–”
“Would you please shut up?” Meklas said, spinning around and locking gazes with him. “They already got the information they wanted as soon as you opened your big mouth the first time! Why give
them any more?”
“What?”
Meklas shook his head and sighed. “I’ll explain it later.” He looked up at William and Aaron, surprisingly calm. “Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter that you know about Nyla’s identity, because as you said, the both of you will probably end up dead. So enjoy that bit of knowledge in the time you have left, for all the good it’ll do you.” He offered a cold smile before slamming the doors and barring them shut. He walked back to the farmhouse with the other man.
Inside the barn, William noted a look of shock and disgust upon Aaron’s face, sensing the betrayal the boy was feeling. “At least we now know who arranged our abduction, though it doesn’t bring us any closer to getting out of here.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Aaron replied, his mind elsewhere. He wandered over to one corner of the barn and dropped down on a pile of hay, tossing his piece of bread aside. “I can’t believe Nyla is a spy.” He glanced at William. “That was a fine bit of deception against Meklas, though I must confess that I’m disappointed with the results. To think I was rather fond of that woman despite her stern manner.”
“Nyla apparently fooled a lot of people, including King Basil,” William said as he looked about the barn in the growing light and sighed. Aside from several piles of hay, there were three empty horse stalls and little else inside. And even if one of them could somehow scale the walls to reach one of the windows, both openings were too small for either one to fit through.
“We have to get back to the estate and warn the King.”
“Warn him about Nyla and his compromised plans,” William replied, taking a seat next to Aaron. “Bosh won’t keep us around the moment he realizes we’re no longer of any use, so we’ll have to make a run for it the first chance we get. I’d rather die escaping than just sit here waiting for them to finish us off at their leisure.”
“Agreed,” he said with a determined nod, hoping that William didn’t detect a wave of fear and dread washing over him.
William hoped that Aaron couldn’t sense similar feelings tormenting him as well as they faced the slow march of hours ahead.
The shadows had deepened when William and Aaron woke from a deep sleep sometime before sunset. They noticed that another sack of food and more water had been placed on the ground inside the doors. William smirked.
“I guess we were both so tired that we didn’t hear Meklas,” he said, wandering over to see what provisions their captors had provided. “More bread, some apples and something that looks like a piece of dried meat. I suppose it could be worse.”
“It will be if we don’t get out of here,” Aaron said. “That means we have to pay attention. No more sleeping the hours away.”
“I don’t think we could help taking that last nap,” he replied, tossing Aaron an apple. “It sneaked up on both of us. We desperately needed rest. But now that we’re refreshed, let’s think logically about our predicament. We haven’t much time–and neither do our friends.” William sat down and munched on an apple himself. “So, any ideas?”
“I was hoping you might start the discussion,” Aaron replied.
“Very well,” he said as a stream of air escaped his lips followed by a protracted and anxious silence. “I have a feeling it’s going to be a long and dreary night.”
Meklas trudged to the barn the following morning beneath a cold, gray sky, carrying a sack of food and muttering under his breath. Another man from the house followed him with a wooden pail filled with water, equally irritated with their task.
“Bosh better send word today about what to do with these two urchins or I’ll start taking matters into my own hands,” Meklas said as he approached the barn doors. “Are you with me, Hank?”
The man behind him shrugged. “I don’t know. If swords are about to be unleashed near the capital, I think we’ll be safer here until it’s all over one way or another.”
Meklas scowled, disappointed by his associate’s attitude. “I’m dying of boredom on this farm. I’ll take my chances back in Melinas. You can sit here and rot for all I care.” He removed the wooden bar from the doors and opened one of them wide enough to let in some daylight, dropping the food sack on the ground. “I want to see what all our hard work has been building to over this last year or so.”
“I just want to be paid,” Hank bitterly replied.
“That’s all you ever think about. I…” Meklas paused as he scanned the interior. He opened both doors as wide as he could, allowing the full light of day to flood inside. His heart pounded when he saw neither one of his charges. “What?”
“What’s wrong?” Hank asked, stepping up beside him. When he saw no sign of either boy and noticed that two long boards from the horse stalls had been pulled apart and were leaning against a wall below one of the windows, he expected nothing good to come of it.
Both men rushed in, fearing that William and Aaron had escaped through the window during the night. Meklas held up a hand, signaling Hank to be quiet. “Those openings are too small even for them,” he said, studying the boards placed against the wall. “And even if they had managed to shinny up those planks, they still couldn’t have reached the window.” He smiled like a snake. “They’re still in here.”
As Hank surveyed one side of the barn, Meklas scouted out the opposite end, quickly drawn to a large pile of hay near one of the busted stalls. As he cautiously approached, he noted a small, dark patch protruding from the hay, guessing it was the tip of a boot. He snapped his fingers to get Hank’s attention while at the same time leaning in closer, his hand reaching for a dagger at his side. But before he grabbed his weapon, a narrow length of board suddenly shot out from underneath the hay like a fist and hit Meklas squarely in the jaw, sailing him backward onto the hard ground where he wailed and writhed in pain. William jumped up from beneath the hay and brandished the piece of wood like a sword as Hank stormed at him with his dagger unsheathed.
“I’ll fix you!” he cried, his face contorted in anger as he prepared to lunge at William.
“That’s what I was hoping for,” William said with quiet confidence, raising the piece of wood as if ready to strike.
But just as Hank was about to leap onto the hay, Aaron burst out from beneath another pile behind him, wielding a piece of wood from the horse stall. With all his strength, he slammed it against Hank’s upper back, causing the man to stand up straight as if an electric shock had surged through his spine. William didn’t miss a beat and heaved the end of his weapon into Hank’s stomach like a battering ram an instant later, collapsing him to the floor.
“Let’s get out of here!” William cried, swiping Hank’s dagger. He leaped off the pile of hay and grabbed Aaron by the arm and headed for the doors, taking the sack of food with them on the way out.
They slammed the barn doors shut and barred them closed with the heavy piece of wood, the cries and groans from Meklas and Hank fading in the background. Without a word, William signaled for Aaron to follow him into the nearby woods where they ran through the trees and undergrowth for several minutes before stopping for a brief rest.
“Why didn’t we grab their horses?” Aaron asked when he caught his breath.
“Thought about it,” William replied, wiping beads of sweat off his forehead. “But I didn’t want to risk getting the attention of that other man still inside the house. We’ll be safer in the trees until we put a few miles between us and them. If they don’t know which direction we went in, it’ll be impossible for them to track us down.”
“Do you know which direction we’re going in?”
He looked around and shook his head. “Not really. Do you?”
Aaron offered the same answer. “Still, we’re better off lost than imprisoned.”
“Absolutely. Now we have to get unlost,” William said encouragingly, “and find our way back to Melinas. We have to warn King Basil that the enemy will strike first. Let’s go!”
Like a pair of jackrabbits, the two young men raced through the woods, hoping that time an
d good fortune were on their side.
Eucádus and King Cedric met with King Basil on the night before the combined armies were to set out north and south. If everything went according to plan, they would engage Drogin’s troops two days from dawn tomorrow in surprise attacks. The trio went over the particulars one last time as they enjoyed a light dinner in King Basil’s room. The monarch was highly alert and acutely aware of the details regarding the upcoming maneuvers, yet an air of distraction hung over him. Eucádus and King Cedric empathized with his state of mind for they were experiencing it as well.
“No word on either of them?” King Basil asked after they finished discussing military matters.
“Nothing,” Eucádus said. “Another scout returned and made a report less than an hour ago. There are no signs of William or Aaron anywhere in Melinas.”
“It has been two full days since they left for their walk,” King Cedric added. “Dozens of people have been questioned in the streets and along the shore, and though a few knew who Aaron was, none reported seeing him or William on the night of their disappearance. It is most troubling. Are they hurt, lost or abducted?” He paused, not wanting to vocalize the one thought on everyone’s mind. “Or dead?”
“If that should be the case…” King Basil rubbed a quivering hand across his face, unable to continue.
“We all feel responsible,” Eucádus replied, sensing his fragile state.
King Basil nodded, regaining his composure. “Yes, but maybe tomorrow will bring better news when the morning sun is high. I have no choice but to believe that.”
Eucádus watched silently as the King took a sip of tea, noting to himself how old the man appeared. He locked gazes with King Cedric, each realizing that the other had no idea if William or Aaron would ever return.
Dawn broke cold, gray and foggy the following day. A thick, swirling mist covered the lake and shoreline as it had for the past several mornings, seemingly freezing time itself in Melinas and on the adjacent fields until the sun could rise high enough to burn off the ghostly white vapor. Eucádus stepped out of the estate into the grim silence, the damp mist caressing his face upon a soft breeze. In the east, he could barely discern the outlines of the masts on the tallest ships, their tips protruding through the fog only to greet dreary, overcast skies. To his south, he noted the eerie flicker of bonfires in a sea of thick, white mist among the troops. It seemed as if hundreds of eyes were staring back, tormenting him from deep inside a restless dream from which he could not wake. Forgoing a meal inside the estate, he decided to wander among the soldiers and have breakfast with some of them, sensing an anxious expectation pervading the ranks. Everyone would be on edge today, awaiting King Basil’s order to move out and confront an uncertain fate in this most mercurial time in their history.
Nicholas Raven and the Wizards' Web (The Complete Epic Fantasy) Page 64