Kingmaker

by Rob Preece

  Those who could be disguised as respectable citizens would make their way into the city through the gates. Those who had been branded or disfigured as criminals or thieves would use the alternate paths known only to their peers in Harrison.

  The ex-criminals among them would have the responsibility for preparing the way for the bulk of the army. Ellie and the other ninjas would concentrate on the keep.

  * * * *

  Harrison City looked like a fortress.

  Although it commanded fertile farmlands, the city had been built on a solid stone outcrop that jutted over flat countryside.

  Lookouts perched high on the city walls could see for miles. No enemy could approach the city without being spotted, without giving the city's guards ample time to prepare.

  An army intent on capturing the city would find the path up the hill to the city a nightmare of ambush, avalanche, and broken bridges over deep ravines.

  If that army persevered, climbing hundreds of vertical feet under fire from the city, it would face gray stone walls forty feet tall, and cannon-filled redoubts built into the bedrock of the hill.

  Bringing siege equipment up that nearly vertical rock would be an engineering challenge for the best-equipped army. And Harrison's garrison had laid up enough food to feed the entire city for at least two years and tapped deep aquifers for water that would last indefinitely.

  For over two hundred years, since Sergius's great-grandfather had seized the throne of Lubica, Harrison had been captured only once: when a local lord had rebelled against the king. That lord held out for three years and finally been starved into submission. Since then, every king before Sergius had made sure that Harrison was commanded by his most loyal subjects.

  Ellie noted the barriers as she, Micael, her ‘father,’ and Alys, the older ninja woman who'd been selected as her ‘mother,’ wound their way up the narrow switchbacks from the farming country beneath Harrison to the old city itself. The city was more of a monster than even her worst nightmares. Mark's plan had to work. Because if it didn't, their Free Lubica Army would become an army of the dead.

  Once they got to the top of the hill, Ellie saw the banners hanging from the problem she had assigned herself. Although no army in recent memory had captured the city, doing so would be a futile exercise so long as the garrison kept control of the central keep. The ninja had two equally important tasks: getting the rest of the army into Harrison undetected, and neutralizing or capturing the citadel. Neither seemed possible.

  "Mark is crazy,” Micael signed. “We'll never be able to capture this city."

  Ellie ignored him and smiled at the city guard who had emerged from the gates to inspect their farm wagon.

  "What is your business in Harrison?” he demanded.

  Micael shrugged, rolled his eyes, and made a horrible sound at the back of his throat.

  Alys tched her tongue against the top of her mouth. “No point in asking him. He hasn't talked since the day the blacksmith hit him in the head with his hammer. He's a good man, though, is my Stuart. And a good farmer doesn't need to talk all the time just to make noise for himself. A good farmer understands the weather and the sheep. And sheep don't talk back, if you know what I mean."

  The guard looked like he wished he'd stayed in the guardhouse and sent out another of the soldiers for this particular inspection.

  "So he can't talk? Maybe you'd better tell me, then. Why have a mute, an old woman and a farm girl come to Harrison?"

  Alys gestured at their wagon, which was loaded with a potato-like root vegetable. “It's autumn. We have crops to sell. Not that we have as much as we had hoped, unfortunately. What with young Raphael gone to join the Duke's army in Moray, things have been a little hard on the farm. Micael here is a good man, a good farmer, but I don't think anyone is going to argue that he's getting any younger. And a farm needs a young man around. Someone to give some muscle to the older man's knowledge."

  Alys reached out suddenly and grasped the soldier's biceps. “You look like a handy strong man. Did you ever dream of becoming a farmer? It's a good life, with God and nature working along with you. And you're creating something. Not in the business of killing and minding other people's business like a soldier. No offense, of course. My own Raphael being taken up into the army and all."

  The soldier backed out of Alys's reach. “I'm a soldier, not a farmer."

  "Pity,” Alys said. “'Cause that's the other reason we came all the way to Harrison. With the army recruiting, our little village is a bit short on unmarried men. We thought we'd find a husband for Bertella here. He'd work hard, but the farm would be his once Micael passes on."

  "Oh, mama.” Ellie managed a sigh and blinked her eyes toward the soldier. She hadn't done very well at this on Earth and most of the guys she'd gone to school with were either intimidated by her martial arts skills or just not interested in a woman who had her own ideas. But Alys had coached her and she was willing to give it a try.

  Alys reached over and grasped Ellie by the mouth, pinching her cheeks together to show her teeth.

  "Take a look at these, soldier-boy. Every one is still there. And strong? Bertella here could lift an ox. Doesn't have much in the chest department but a couple of babes and she'd grow into it is my thinking. A man could do worse than have a wife like Bertella."

  Ellie managed a smile. “Ooh. A handsome rich soldier would make a right husband."

  If the soldier could have sunk into the ground, Ellie thought he would have done that.

  "Enough. What's in the cart?"

  Although they'd flustered him, the soldier gave the cart a thorough inspection, digging deep into the piles of tubers to make sure they weren't smuggling weapons or people into the city.

  He ignored Micael's staff and the farm hoe, but confiscated the sickle Ellie had thrown in just in case, and so they wouldn't be suspiciously innocent. “Ask for this when you leave. No weapons allowed in the city."

  "Weapon?” Alys cackled over the world. “That's a sickle, lad. You use it to harvest the grain the good lord chose to put in the fields."

  "You aren't going to find any grain here in town, mother. So we'll just watch it for you."

  With that, he presented them with a pass that allowed them four days in the city and stepped back to inspect the next arrivals.

  Micael urged the mules into the narrow cobbled road that led into the city. Three-story gray-stone buildings overhung the highway—which would barely have been classified as an alley back in Los Angeles. Heavy wooden doorways guarded windowless homes. Even if they breached the city gates, their army would be trapped in the narrow streets and slaughtered by archers from above.

  But Ellie didn't plan a frontal invasion. They'd succeeded in their first challenge—getting past the guards. That was the easy half of the challenge. No one in their army had ever been inside the keep. Unlike the city, the keep was the exclusive preserve of the nobility, their servants, and the city garrison. Farmers, peasants, conscripted soldiers, and ordinary workers were about as welcome there as an ex-boyfriend at a wedding.

  Ellie was about to suggest turning into a disreputable looking tavern when a clatter of iron-shod horse hooves sounded behind her.

  She turned—and looked directly into the face of Baronet Arnold.

  Busted.

  Chapter 18

  "Princess Ellie. I thought—"

  Before he could warn the couple of soldiers who rode behind him, Ellie threw herself into Arnold's arms and kissed him.

  He seemed frozen in shock for a moment, but he was a twenty-something-year-old male. It didn't take him long to catch the idea and kiss her back.

  His lips felt nice on hers, warm and with just enough yield to make them pleasant. And he knew how to kiss.

  She felt a little dizzy before she decided she'd put on enough of a show and shifted her lips to his ear. “Tell your buddies that you need some time alone with the amorous farm female."

  "But—"

  "Do it if you want to l
ive."

  She hadn't taken a chance at carrying a dagger through the gates but he didn't know that. Nor that she wasn't sure she could kill Arnold just to keep him quiet. He had been the first friend she'd made in this world.

  Fortunately, he nodded and she didn't have to make that choice.

  "I seem to have made a special friend,” Arnold said. “Go about your business and I'll join you in the guardhouse in an hour."

  "An hour?” Ellie pouted her complaint.

  "In, perhaps, three hours. Maybe tomorrow.” Arnold amended to the laughter of the guards. “One must never underestimate the romantic needs of a farm girl in the big city for the first time."

  "What about her parents?” one of the guards demanded. “Want us to cart them off to prison? That way they aren't likely to cause any objections for you."

  "Objections,” Alys cackled. “We came to Harrison to find a husband for our little Bertella. It looks to me like she's found one already."

  The guards exchanged a couple of nudges but kept their mouths shut. Apparently they thought it a great joke that a peasant woman would mistake an aristocrat for a marriage opportunity.

  Ellie forced herself to relax, pressing her body against Arnold's.

  "I'll make sure they cause no problems,” Arnold announced. He tossed a tiny gold coin in Micael's direction. “Head into that tavern and enjoy a drink and a meal on me. I'll get better acquainted with, uh, Bertella."

  * * * *

  "What the devil are you doing here?” Arnold demanded. “Last I heard, you were captured by the Rissel."

  He'd led her to a deserted stone building that had once been a livery stable and still stank, faintly, of horse piss, human sweat, and hay.

  "You mean after Sergius sold me to them?"

  Arnold shook his head. “You pushed him too far that night at the banquet, but he relented and set you free before morning. Unfortunately, the Rissel captured you before you were able to return to the army camp."

  "Is that the story he's telling?"

  Arnold looked surprised. “It isn't the truth?"

  "Of course it's not the truth. He turned me over to the Rissel himself."

  "What about the rumors you're destroying our civilization? Do you really want peasants to stand judgment over lords and to burn all of the monasteries and churches?"

  She put a finger to his lips. “Listen to me, Arnold, Sergius is lying or exaggerating. He, his uncles, and the bishop decided that I was too dangerous and they got rid of me. When I escaped, I sent them a new set of demands. That all people be given basic rights. That no one be killed simply because they were inconvenient to the king or a noble. That monks be allowed the lands they worked themselves rather than becoming feudal lords."

  Arnold sat down, hard.

  Ellie straddled an abandoned manger and faced him. “Sergius made me a deal, Arnold. You were there. If we captured Dinan, he was going to announce a parliament that would include the common people. He signed and sealed the agreement and then, when Mark's plan helped us destroy Dinan's garrison and the city came over to us, I called him on it. We'd done what he asked of us, but he refused to keep his part."

  "Maybe, but—"

  "Here's the thing, Arnold. What I asked him for originally was a halfway measure, a sop for my conflicted feelings. And that deal is off the table now. The new deal is everything we demanded. No compromises."

  "But Sergius will never agree to that."

  "Then we'll find a new king who will. Or make one."

  Arnold looked suspicious. “And would that new king be a queen? The returned princess, stepping up to her ancestral role?"

  Ellie laughed. “I won't deny that I might have considered it for a minute or two. When I was growing up, my parents read me fairy tales about the poor serving girl meeting her prince and becoming queen. But those were fairy tales, not reality. I'd be a terrible queen."

  "So you're just going to turn our society upside down and then go back where you came from?"

  She shook her head. That had been her goal once. Los Angeles had been home. She'd had friends there, been part of the extended martial arts community. But she'd made up her mind, had committed herself to this new country.

  "I'm not going anywhere. I'm going to stay here and live with whatever we create. If Sergius, or whatever king agrees to the new bargain, thinks he'll go back on the agreement, I'll be ready to hold him to it. But this time, I'm not going to rely on a piece of paper with his signature. I'll be watching with magic and with an army. The next time a king gets crowned, I'm going to make sure there isn't any shortcut. We'll use the magic that binds him to the people and to his word as much as it does the people to him."

  Arnold looked around the deserted stable. “I don't see any army, Ellie."

  She pulled the dagger from Arnold's belt and stepped closer to him. “Arnold. I know you can't help being a noble, with the crazy ideas you had drummed into you when you were a child, but believe me, I have an army. And right now, you're a danger. Not just to me, but a terrible threat to everyone and everything I love in this dimension, and to all of the ideals I've been fighting for. So, I'm going to give you a choice. You can join us, or you can die."

  She willed herself to stay relaxed, not to let the pain of her decision show on her face. She liked Arnold. She'd liked kissing him, even. And killing him because he stood in the way of her political goals was far too close to what the Duke of Harrison had done to her parents. But there was no way the Free Lubica Army could hold him captive. If he escaped and warned the guards that she was in Harrison, she'd be betraying everyone who had believed in her—and the ideals that she'd fought for and had lost so many soldiers for.

  "You'd really kill me, Ellie?” He didn't look scared, just sad.

  That shouldn't have surprised her, of course. Arnold might not be the brightest candle in the chandelier, but he wasn't a coward. And he'd been brought up with ideals of loyalty that ran as deeply as her own.

  "If I have to, I'll do it, Arnold."

  "Then you'll have to try. Because I pledged fealty to Sergius. If I turn against him now, I'll be foresworn, and damned.

  * * * *

  Arnold stayed seated, but he moved his right hand to the hilt of his sword. If she didn't kill him on her first strike, he would kill her.

  "You swore your allegiance to an oathbreaker, Arnold. To a king unworthy of you."

  He shrugged. “I believe you, Ellie. And I wish now I were free of my pledge, that I could throw my support behind you. But my oath binds me. How would I be different from Sergius if I abandoned my fealty for the sake of convenience or of my life?"

  Ellie could think of several differences, starting with the fact that Sergius had broken his promises first. None of them would convince Arnold.

  "You're an honorable man,” she told him. “More honorable than Sergius deserves. I'd truly hate to kill you. If I captured you, would you give your parole, your word that you'd keep our secrets and stay our prisoner?"

  He looked sad. “You can't capture me, Ellie."

  "I'm speaking hypothetically, of course,” she lied.

  Arnold sighed. “Sure, Ellie. If you captured me, I would give you my parole."

  She sighed too, but in relief, not frustration. Then she gave the sign for the drugged blowguns.

  The two soft puffs sounded loud to her because she was expecting them.

  Arnold slapped at his cheek, spun around, his sword already drawn, and advanced on the shadowy figures who had come up behind him while he and Ellie had talked.

  Micael and Alys split up, backing away quickly, waiting for the magically enhance drug to take effect.

  In an effort of pure will, Arnold almost reached Micael before he finally collapsed.

  "He has to die. Nobles don't keep their word to common people,” Micael warned her as he picked up Arnold's limp body and tossed it over his shoulders. “I know he was your friend. Let me kill him and you'll never have to think about it again."

  Elli
e shook her head. “Arnold will keep his promise. He's the most honorable guy I know. I just wish we could get him on our side. Right now, Sergius can portray us as disaffected peasants and uppity bandits. If we can win the support of even a minority of the nobility and merchants, we'll be unstoppable."

  "If wishes were cannon, we'd knock the keep down. As it is, we're wasting time."

  "Not completely. This old stable looks like a decent meeting point. Let's haul in the wagon and get started.

  * * * *

  Getting started meant cutting open the tubers and pulling out the coin that had been inserted into each one. They were going to have to deal with thieves and the corrupt. Everything they'd plundered during the months of their rebellion had been gathered for the bribes they anticipated paying.

  After a couple of hours of that, Ellie took a break. They'd given enough time for more of the proto-ninja to infiltrate the city, to begin to make their contacts with the underworld. Most of them had brought some money, but they'd need more.

  Ellie made her way through the city locating each of the meeting places they'd agreed on, then used Micael's sign language to soundlessly tell the other ninja where they'd gone to ground. Some rebels signaled back to her and she slipped them small bags of gold to pay bribes to anyone who could help them infiltrate more men, who could provide a distraction when their attack finally came.

  She searched out the local blacksmiths and had the few ninja who'd used mercenary disguises buy what weapons they could find.

  It was easy for a dozen disguised ninja to infiltrate the city. At harvest season, there was always a fair amount of traffic. But even complacent guards would become curious if thousands of people, no matter how convincing their disguises, suddenly appeared at the gates of the city.

  The ninja had been trained to blend in, to wear disguises, and trained and spelled to stand up to enemy questioning. The rest of the army would have to be snuck in and hidden. And for that, they'd need local help. Getting local help required two things: lots of money; and the force to appear even more threatening than the city guards. Because the smugglers and thieves they'd be dealing with would almost certainly be willing to take their gold and cheerfully sell them out to the guards.