by Ron Miller
“What’s going on?” she asks.
“I haven’t the slightest idea,” replies Gyven, equally bewildered.
They return to the encampment, where they find the duke and his officers obviously excited. Mathias glances at the princess and Gyven, and in that brief second understands what the two damp figures mean.
“You’ve seen the river?” he asks unnecessarily.
“Yes,” replies Bronwyn, blushing in spite of herself. She thinks she is reading too much in the duke’s question. But, then again, perhaps she’s not. “What’s happening?”
“We’re not sure. It’s always possible that it’s an attack, but if so it’s a damned peculiar one.”
“None of those are naval vessels,” says one of the officers. “They all look like private or commercial craft.”
“That’s so,” agrees another.
“Let’s go on down to the water’s edge and see what happens,” suggests the duke to the princess. “Colonels Benjamin and Zachary, please see that the regiments are kept at the ready.”
Bronwyn follows the duke, and Gyven, without any comment from either about the presence of a common soldier, who obviously is no longer so common, follows them. They arrive where the level shoreline meets the water at about the same time that a large rowboat pulls onto the rocks and a tall, gangling, black-clad figure leaps from it. Even in the waning light he is unmistakable.
“Basseliniden!” cries the princess.
“Hello there,” he replies. “It’s nice to see you again!”
“No thanks to you,” she answers heatedly. “I ought to have you arrested, after you abandoned me in that miserable town. We can still be there, for all you seemed to care.”
“I doubt it,” he contradicts cheerfully. “Not with the professor with you.”
“What do you mean?”
“You got my message, didn’t you?”
“What message?”
“The one I threw through the window of your jail cell. I tied it to a rock.”
“That was you?” she replies, absolutely surprised.
“Who else?”
“But it was gibberish!”
“You mean you weren’t able to decode it?”
“Of course not! The professor worked on it for hours.”
“Should have been nothing to it. I wrote it in a code so that no one else can tell who it is from . . .”
“Well, it certainly worked!”
“ . . . All it said was, and I must paraphrase here, it said something like, ‘Hello Bronwyn, Basseliniden here. How are you? I’m doing fine.’ And then I explained why I had to disappear.”
“And you still haven’t explained that.”
“You know that I was, am, a wanted man. I was a pirate and smuggler. The authorities may have just held you two for vagrancy at most, but if they learned who I was, and I don’t doubt for a moment that my picture was even then hanging in the magistrate’s office, they would not only have locked me up very securely for a very long time, but probably you, too, as an accessory at least and on sheer suspicion at best. And if their curiosity had gotten at all excited about you, it would not have taken them very long to discover who you really were. So you see, I did the very best thing.”
“Well, you could have let me know.”
“I said that I tried.”
Bronwyn is stil1 unwilling to forgive him, but can not at the moment think of anything further to say on her side. So she changes the subject.
“What in the world is going on here, anyway? What are all of these boats for?”
“They’re for you, of course.”
“Pardon?”
“The first thing I did upon leaving Hartal was to make my way along the south coast to the mouth of the Moltus River. I knew that, if there was any chance that any of your army had survived you would eventually rejoin it and set out to complete your original course of action. Well. There are only two approaches to Blavek from the east: one is to swing into the city from the north, using the two bridges, or from the south, which would entail fording the river. The former course would be easiest, except that it would place the bulk of the city itself between you and the palace . . . a formidable obstacle, especially if the enemy knows the city and the invaders do not. Payne Roelt and the king would have plenty of opportunity to escape while their Guards held you at bay. The latter course would provide an almost unimpeded approach to the palace, but there are no bridges across the Moltus downstrearn from Blavek, and the river is almost a half mile wide and too deep to ford. But with that one drawback, attacking the city from the south would be the most expeditious course of action. Payne and the king can be penned in, especially if the exits to the north are to be blocked by a couple of patrols of our own . . . the bridges can just as easily keep someone in the city as keep someone out. All you would need is a way to cross the lower Moltus.
“Well, here it is.”
“But how . . . whose boats are these?”
“Everyone’s. There’s probably not a single captain or fisherman or shipowner in all of Tamlaght who is not represented here. You may not have any idea of the animosity your brother and his friends have inspired.”
“Evidently not. You intend to ferry the whole army, all five thousand men and all of their equipment, across the river?”
“Exactly. And not only that, but I expect to do it before dawn tomorrow.”
“How can you possibly . . .”
“Tut,” he interrupts the princess’ objection with a raised palm, like a schoolteacher. “There are probably a hundred or a hundred and fifty ships and boats out there of all sizes. If they carried just an average of maybe twenty or so men across at one time, they’d only need to make two trips to transfer your entire army. It’s only a half mile or so; they can make as many trips as necessary before dawn tomorrow.”
Bronwyn throws up her hands in defeat. “Go ahead. I’ll have to see this.”
“I certainly hope you will. Shall I give the orders to begin?”
“By all means. Duke Mathias, will you pass the word to your officers that we’ll be crossing the river immediately?”
“Yes, your Highness.”
“And that Captain Basseliniden’s orders during this operation are to followed exactly?”
“Yes, your Highness.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
AN UNFORTUNATE REUNION
The crossing of the Moltus went exactly as predicted by Basseliniden, and long before the early summer dawn of the following day the army and all of its appurtenances had been transferred to the opposite shore. Less than a day’s march now separates Bronwyn’s forces from Blavek, or, more importantly to her, from Payne Roelt and her brother, the erstwhile king. Much if not all of her old initiative and confidence has returned to her and she sees no reason why the invasion of the city should not begin immediately.
“We can be in Blavek by nightfall,” she tells Mathias.
“That’s true,” he agrees, “but what good would that do us? We can’t effect a successful attack in the dark . . . we’d be throwing away any advantage we might have gained.”
“But if we wait, Payne Roelt will know that we’ve crossed the river and are ready to attack the palace directly. We’ll have lost the advantage anyway.”
“As to whether or not Lord Roelt knows of the present circumstances, that remains to be seen. I for one would surprised if he didn’t already know or is not about to know.”
“Professor,” the princess greets the tall scientist as he joins the headquarters group, “isn’t there some way we can attack the city tonight? Don’t you have some sort of electrical light or something?”
“No, nothing like that, I’m afraid,” he replies, and the princess’ face falls with disappointment, and a little embarrassment. “I have something much better.”
“You do? What?”
“I’d much rather show you when the time comes, than try to explain now.”
“You’re saying,” interjects the duke, �
�that with this . . . device . . . of yours we can launch an attack at night?”
“Certainly.”
“See?” says Bronwyn. “We can take advantage of our shortcut. Even if Payne knows or learns of where we are, I’d bet anything that he is expecting us to attack from the north. And if he did, he has all or most of the Guards blockading tbe bridges and streets on that side of the island. He can’t effectively reorganize everything in just one day. Payne has a hard enough time organizing his own life.”
“It’s your army, your Highness. What do you want it do?”
“I want to attack Blavek now!”
“Then I’ll give the orders.”
Bronwyn feels glorious, righteous and vindicated, what would probably be a fatal combination of emotions for most people. And, indeed, some cautious nodule in her intoxicated brain is trying to make her aware of that, but is soon argued into submission by the rest of her grey matter, pounds and pounds of it, telling that remaining conservative, dissenting teaspoon or two that if she feels the way she does, that she’s certainly earned it.
The highway is a broad and well-maintained one, though it is no less dusty than the country roads they have been traveling. A yellow column rises vertically into the still air above the army like a somber banner.
Bronwyn’s sense of righteousness is nurtured and encouraged by the state of the countryside around her. She had seen a great deal of the depressed conditions of the land and people in her circuitous journey from Hartal-around-the-Bend to Blavek, but nothing has quite made the impression as does seeing the once-familiar environs of the capital reduced to poverty and ruin. The few churches she sees are empty shells, their wide open doors and windows revealing black, lifeless, gutted interiors. As she passes, ragged groups of people in ragged clothe emerge from tbeir ragged houses to cheer her, raggedly. The feebleness of tbeir gestures and cries both sadden and sicken her and she feels the righteousness of her resolve strengthen in inverse proportion to her subjects’ condition.
Toward evening, as the sun sets in a cloudless, hazy sky, the princess sees the looming blocks of the Transmoltus District. An almost overwhelmingly physical sense of dread sweeps over her, in spite of the heat, a damp chill congeals her spine, like a snake in a sudden frost. There is nothing more amiss than the absence of the dark pall of coal smoke that normally hung over the district like a shroud, yet more than anything else the princess has seen this seems to symbolize the moribund state of Tamlaght; the lifeless, motionless grey piles seem to her like the dead heart of her nation. How can she ever start it beating again?
The road swings to the west of the quieted industrial area and it is here that Bronwyn and her army meet the first representatives of her enemy: three mounted Guards under a white flag. Bronwyn signals the duke, and the duke brings the procession to a halt, fifty feet from the three men. They wait while the middle Guard rides cautiously forward, stopping halfway between the two groups.
“I have a message for the Princess Bronwyn,” he says.
“What is it?”
“I cannot say. I’ve only been instructed to leave this with you.” He holds up a square white box, about ten inches or so on each side, and then leans from his mount to place it carefully on the ground. Having done so, he retreats carefully to rejoin his companions. After waiting for a moment, they turn and ride back toward the city.
Bronwyn begins to spur her horse forward but is stopped by the duke. “I’d better send one of the men. That can be anything out there.”
“A bomb?”
“Who knows? How much do you trust Roelt?”
“Send the man.”
An unhappy-looking soldier is volunteered; he approaches package as though it were rabid. Bronwyn scrupulously watches his every move as the man kneels and takes a knife from his belt The package is, she realizes, wrapped neatly in white paper and tied with string. After cutting the latter, the soldier peels back the paper, revealing an ordinary-looking cardboard box. The princess can see the man swallow. He removes his cap and wipes his brow. He lifts the lid of the box as though expecting it to be filled with snakes or scorpions, at the very least, which it might well have been. Nothing happens and once again he pauses. The box is packed with shredded tissue paper or excelsior, as she can see when the soldier begins to lift handfuls of it from the box. Suddenly, with a sharp cry, the man leaps to his feet, backwards, almost falling over in his haste. The princess pulls back on her reins, more than half expecting an explosion.
“What is it?” she calls.
The man does not reply to her directly, but rather to the duke. “Sir,” he calls, in a strangled voice, “it’d be best if you’d come here.”
“What is it?” Bronwyn repeats.
“I’ll see,” the duke says. “Wait here a minute. If it’s all right, I’ll call you.”
He dismounts and, with a half-dozen long strides, joins his man. Using the tip of his saber, he lifts back the lid of the box. Tbe princess can see his face go ashen, and the muscles around his mouth and in his neck becoming rigid. He looks up at her and she knows that he is uncertain what to do.
Deciding for him, and before he can prevent her, she climbes from her horse and joins him. Without a word, she glances at his face, which is frightening, and then turns to the box. The duke makes no attempt to stop her.
She kneels, lifts the lid and, for the first and only time in her life, collapses in a dead faint.
She had seen, packed neatly in a bed of rock salt, like a slab of mail-order bacon, the severed head of Baron Sluys Milnikov.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
BULLETS AND BILLETS
The siege of Blavek began immediately.
When Princess Bronwyn finally stands within sight of the tall buildings on Palace Island, for the first time in well over a year, she is unsure of the emotions she feels. They are not the ones that she expected, and their unfamiliarity is disturbing, like threatening strangers whose faces seem to ring a jarring bell.
The palace buildings do not look as she has remembered them . . . nor even as she had last seen them; but how can they have changed so much? They are black, lifeless-looking shapes hulking against the twilight sky. Only a few lights glimmer bleakly within the plain silhouettes. They possess neither grace nor inspiration nor even the subtle attractiveness attained by the purely functional.
She does not feel the elation that she had expected, either; only a kind of weary, vaguely disinterested relief. She is a little disappointed that such a long-awaited occasion should bring her so little satisfaction, but that is the fault of Payne Roelt, too, and something else she can hold against him. His villainy has become so appalling, so monumental, that it has lifted the task that she is performing from mere personal vendetta to a kind of religious duty she feels compelled to perform. It is the compulsion, however, that spoils it for her.
The causeway lies directly ahead, about a quarter of a mile distant, with the black, shapeless, fuming corpse of the Transmoltus District to her right and a parade ground and a few scattered buildings to her left. A high barricade, composed, it appears, from scores of overturned wagons, vans and carts, has been erected at the narrow gate; that and the squat, massive towers that flank it effectively block entrance to the island and the city beyond. The Slideen is far too deep where it rushes beneath the palace to ford, especially on the downstream side where the deep channel of the harbor begins.
The bulk of Bronwyn’s force has arrayed itself in a quarter-circle whose concave side faces the barricade. The remainder has been subdivided into companies given the task of taking and holding the Guard barracks at the mouth of the nearby Muchka River and of securing, or at least containing, the Transmoltus District.
The sky is absolutely cloudless and night falls swiftly. The plum-and-indigo dome looks infinitely distant. It will be hours before either moon rises. The palace retreats into the blackening borizon like a cornered animal, its presence betrayed only by a dozen lighted windows. Dim reddish glows from lanterns scattered amo
ng the Guards mark the outline of the towers and barricade. She cannot imagine how an effective attack can be mounted in such complete darkness. Yet if they wait until morning, General Praxx will have have had time to pull in the Guards now positioned along the upper Moltus. It is also unlikely that Praxx would expect an attack after dark, so that if it is possible to do so the surprise would be greatly to their advantage.
Even with the coming of darkness, the heat of the day remained, if anything made worse by the onset of a suffocating humidity. Bronwyn takes off the peaked cap that had been shading her eyes and tucks it under her saddlebag, and unbuttons the front panel of her uniform jacket. She shakes her damp hair free, but there is little relief from the muggy atmosphere.
She rides to where Professor Wittenoom is unloading his wagon, with the aid of a few helpful soldiers, who seem vaguely and uncertainly overcautious of the mysterious cargo.
“Hello, your Highness,” he greets her, as he oversees the handling of a long, coffin-like crate. “I think I’ll be ready momentarily.”
“May I help?”
“Thank you, but the apparatus is really simplicity itself. We’ll be set up in two-thirds of a jiffy. You’re more than welcome to watch, however.”
Several of the professor’s devices have already been erected, she notices; a row of a half-dozen or more tall tripods upon which rest one end of a long black iron tube about six feet long. Beside each of these is an open crate. Among the excelsior she can just make out rows of short black cylinders, each two or three feet long, a nest of sinister-looking eggs.
The professor and his men carry their wooden crate to one end of the row, where they set it upon the ground. From it they remove the parts for another tripod. Bronwyn notices that the raised end of each of the black tubes is pointed in the direction of the palace. She dismounts and joins the professor.