Trapped with a Way Out

by Jeffery Martinez

  He approached the table slowly, not straying his intent stare, "Not that kind of way out, my Lady. Your rescue requires some finesse, methodical planning, flawless strategy, and clean execution." He let those words sink in.

  This unseated Richard as she put both hands onto her desk and leveled her face to his in one slow, intimidating movement, "I'll ask once more. Who are you?"

  "I would have you guess, first," he stated.

  She laughed viciously from his deadpan expression but obliged. She never turned down an audience to impress, "You're either a traitor to your cause, a sellsword in it for the coin, a trained assassin on a contract, or a bloody fool. Since appearances suggest you know what you are talking about, perhaps intelligent, and a rather alarming lack of musculature, hulking 'sellsword' is out as well as a trundling fool. I would say 'assassin', but your eyes and your manor tell me I am worth more to you alive than dead."

  "Perceptive," he purred. It was then that she realized his demeanor almost resembled that of a…cat? "Very perceptive. You were the brightest of all your siblings. I knew it the moment we heard the church bells ring from dawn until dusk the day you were born."

  Richard felt herself slowly reach underneath the table for her knife, "Last warning: who are you?"

  He plopped down in the seat opposite hers with a silky motion and grinned, "My name ist Shrödinger. I have a wery important mission to save you und one other here. You are in danger, my Lady, as vell as the one vith you who calls himself Sir Vincent."

  Germanic, Richard realized, as all concealment of an accent vanished. "You are with the Order of the Teutonic Knights. I recognized the insignia my father etched for me in his latest letter. Employing your services was one of his better moves, I would hope."

  Shrödinger pouted a moment, "One does not employ the Teutonic Knights. Ve come of our own volition. My people are already at the Hunyadi Castle. It vas thought that you vere to be brought back vith us for safety, but instead he allowed you to join the forefront, something I am still coming to grips vith. Vhy he would risk the life of something so precious und important…"

  She drew out her knife from underneath the table and whispered, "If you do not tell my why you are here, I will scream and the guards will clap you in irons."

  "Easily avertible," he assured her with a feline smile, "Und unnecessary."

  Her mouth floundered open and closed for more threats, but he spoke before she could think up another.

  "If you vish to hear more, then you might vant to comply the rest of the veek by remaining in here. I vill arrange the rest," Shrödinger rose from his seat and bowed graciously. His head suddenly turned, as if he sensed something just outside his periphery, "I must depart before the meat-bags at your door barge in."

  Angered at his manor for leaving without being dismissed, Richard stalled him by hemming and hawing, "What if my importance were to stay on the battlefront, hmm?"

  He shook his head vigorously, "I promise you, your life und Sir Vincent's are reserved for something greater than petty war."

  His voice sounded almost a transparent reflection of personal experience that Richard shuddered once he turned his back. Clearly they wanted her for something. It was when Richard realized she did not hear a door close that her nerves nearly snapped. Her eyes searched the room wildly for the way he left the room, but there was no escape hatch or trap door. She had ruled out those possibilities the first night in her room.

  How did he leave the room?

  An instant later, the guards opened her door. When confronted with a barrage of inquiries, she merely played the fool. If she was going to pursue this, everyone else had to think she did not know what was happening. If there was anything women were trained to do, it was to pretend to know nothing. Inwardly grinning, she grew more and more giddy inside as she played more and more incompetence to the men drilling her with questions.

  What a mystery to solve!

  The Regent took a long gulp of his mead and felt his eyes trail, unfocused on a point somewhere in the distance, passed the soft touch of his wife on his shoulder, passed the room in which he sat, passed the stronghold walls, passed the orange horizon that taunted him to leave his shackles. The map room looked so tired, he noted; so worn out; beaten and scraped, rearranged and spiked back onto the table within an inch of its life. Edges along the corner frayed long ago, the colors distinguishing the armies faded as well.

  But it wasn't the current state of his dominion that slowly corroded away his mind. It was a single thought that poisoned the well; the thought of his Royal Advisor stabbing him in the back multiple times, over and over. How could a bond made in blood be tossed away like garbage? How could a friendship, which persevered through all manner of hardship that nearly crippled a kingdom, simply dissolve? Such disloyalty sickened the Regent where he sat, nearly forcing his gag reflex as he heard the unbelievable truth. Glancing to his son who delivered the news along with the two witnesses who informed that two more Lords were involved in the betrayal, the Regent sighed and sat up straighter in his seat, swirling the contents of his drink with resigned hatred and incredulity.

  A week. It had taken him a full week to believe such treason, numerous meetings with his witnesses and his son leading point on the investigation, and hundreds of arguments about the validity of it all; but as the evidence piled against Lord Rodriguez, even the Regent could no longer ignore what had first seemed a preposterous accusation.

  Ladislaus stood a few feet away, as did William and Pip. Unsure of the possible magnitude of their leader's temper, the three kept their distance for the time being. Standing quietly in silent anticipation for whatever was to come of this fiasco, Ladislaus threw a supporting smile to Costel and Zargo who were both clearly contemplating the nature of their deaths.

  William felt an encouraging squeeze on the shoulder from her elder brother. Her head was about to turn and meet his eye when the two double doors that acted as the one entryway into the room opened with a loud creak.

  Pip motioned for them to bring the detained forward and into the center of the room. It chilled a few degrees when Lord Rodriguez straightened up and faced his accusers with radical vehemence. His eyes looked absolutely fearless as he spat out a mouthful of blood, denoting powerful resistance to his imprisonment.

  Without delay, the Regent started, "Lord Leroy Rodriguez, you have been imprisoned and detained for the accounts of several witnesses who tell me that you have conspired against your kingdom, leadership, and faith. I have been presented with what seems like indubitable evidence that you have dabbled in treason."

  Rodriguez squinted through his swollen purple eyes, "I nearly fulfilled my mission, too."

  A silence befell the room. The Regent's confliction and doubt within himself evaporated as he slowly rose, "Pray tell, what mission?"

  Standing a little straighter, Rodriguez felt no need to hide any longer, "With respect, my Lord, it is easy to make deals with the Devil once you are damned. We could not outright kill two renowned families of nobility, so instead we organized a plot that would set both families against one another."

  "A plot?" pursued the Regent, this time with more force in his voice, "Was it you who set the assassins upon us? Was it truly you who nearly killed my boy and murdered my whole family? Will you take the name 'Destroyer of Lineages'?"

  Shaking his head like the Regent was a simpleton, he answered, "Nay, this started long before you ever realized the trap you stepped into," Rodriguez dared to smile, "All of you are puppets to the inner workings of a mastermind; the cogs in a wheel of his machinations to obtain religious domination; pawns in a game of world chess, of which there is one leader who will succeed."

  William, her mother, Ladislaus, and Pip all traded anxious glances the further Rodriguez named them. Surely, there could be no sense in his incoherent and disjointed meanderings of each person participating in some higher being's goal of what sounded like fanatical, hegemonic world subjugation by way of religious ideology and fear. No hu
man being could possibly rule the world. After a long, uneasy pause, the Regent spoke.

  "Elaborate, please," their leader insisted.

  "Do you remember the events of the year of our Lord, 1447. November, to be specific?"

  The Regent tightened, "The year of Sir Vincent's pain, I imagine."

  Rodriguez chuckled, "You willingly murdered his father after he was forced to sell his two favorite sons to the very people he swore to defeat."

  "Precisely! He swore! He swore his loyalty to Christianity and then pledged to Islam. He was a traitor!"

  Rodriguez outright laughed this time, egging his leader's temper further, "Yes! Good! He swore to defeat Islam. I could be wrong, but in order to actually defeat a rivaling religion, one must first obtain the numbers to do so, say, after he calls upon his King to help him…?"

  The Regent roared in anger and smacked the models off of the map table, approaching his enemy with blistering fury wrapped in a whisper, "Sir Vincent's father did ask for our help, yes. But we, ourselves, were scrapping by with our own dwindling numbers! We were not expected to stretch our strength so thin it would snap, else the kingdom would have fallen!"

  Rodriguez leaned in and whispered back with chilling finality, "Your kingdom, my fearless leader, has already fallen."

  Pulling back, the Regent slowly clasped his hands around his advisor's neck, ignoring the plights of his family, "Elaborate."

  The detained continued with unrestrained alacrity, "That year was the first of hundreds of preparations to turn two noble houses against one another."

  "Two houses?" Ladislaus cut in, "The Hunyadis and the Draculs?"

  Rodriguez nodded, "Under the Pope's consent, we were ordered to stay our weapons as Sir Vincent's father begged his King for help, as he begged the great Janos Hunyadi for more men, as Ottomans ransacked and took Vincent from his father, and subsequently as Lord Hunyadi then took the father's life for allowing it."

  Ladislaus saw his own father waver, on the brink of insanity, before his fingers fell from Rodriguez's neck so he could continue.

  "We were hoping that Janos would be the one to kill Vincent's family, knowing that if Vincent weren't openly killed by the Ottomans he would seek vengeance on the Regent and likely kill the entire Hunyadi lineage as equal payment, but Lord Vincentislav II, protector of Wallachia today, murdered Vincent's family instead. Hence, why Vincent seeks his family's vindication through the death of Lord Vincentislav II and not the Regent," he paused, "…a minor setback.

  "When the Ottomans simply took Vincent as insurance instead of killing the boy, something we all hoped would happen, it was clear that we needed to interfere with fate once more as the puppet-masters. Back then, other wars and rebuilding from crusades hindered our preparedness, so we waited and strengthened our numbers for what was to come in the future.

  "In his youth, Vincent was, for that moment, not perceived as a threat, and one couldn't blithely stomp his way into Edirne, the heartland of the Ottoman Empire, to kill Vincent. So, we waited."

  "For what?" the Regent questioned.

  "For the perfect opportunity to finish what we started," he stated matter-of-factly, "It was clear we had to interfere once more after you failed to kill Sir Vincent while he was protector of Wallachia. You drove him out a year or so ago, yes, but then you forged an alliance with him hoping to gain knowledge of the Ottomans and their tactics. We had wished you would kill him and be done with it, but an alliance?" he closed his eyes to accent his incredulity at the thought.

  The Regent shook his head, feeling himself suppress an urge to draw his sword. He first had to hear, know, and understand before that was an option, "Nevertheless, why? Whyour two houses? Why so hell-bent on setting us against one another to destruction?"

  "And who is this 'we' you keep referring to?" Ladislaus added.

  Rodriguez breathed in, "Sometimes, God allows what He hates…to accomplish what He loves," he tilted his chin up towards Ladislaus, "You ever heard of the Order of Iscariot, boy?"

  "As in Judas Iscariot? The apostle who betrayed Christ for thirty silver coins?"

  His whole body relaxing, Rodriguez welcomed the disgust in Ladislaus's voice and responded with an affectionate tone, "Aye, the very one. We are an organization aimed at… exterminating the unclean."

  "What makes my house so 'unclean'?" the Regent snapped.

  "Your blood."

  "…blood?" the Regent paused in disbelief, "My blood? Unclean? As in… tainted?"

  "The Iscariot Organization has finally traced a potent strain of cursed blood down to two noble houses. Our members have kept the well clean for centuries, but certain strains of cursed blood that may have come from the very betrayal of Judas Iscariot himself have poisoned this otherwise perfect well. Others argue it came from the fall of Adam and Eve; God cursing Man for what he had done. Regardless, they exis,t and members who have this… this marred taint inside of them have the capability of turning into twisted images of their former sel–"

  "Outlandish! Heresy! What you speak of is a mad man's ramblings!" the Regent laughed and shook his head, "You are a delusional fool. I'll ask again: why our two houses? Why set us against one another?"

  Rodriguez sighed, clearly angered, "Fine. I'll tell you what you wish to hear: such is the game. Politics and influential families with status and power complicate matters, but what they all have in common is that they all wish to rise triumphant from the other houses. If the goal isn't the Kingship itself, then said triumphant house always wants the most recognition and favor in the eyes of the King, thereby gaining the most power. This organization wanted to wipe out all competitors so we could stand at the King's shoulder and whisper into his ear our will, poison his mind, and corrupt the kingdom," he inhaled, "Was that all right?"

  A punch to the face hit his cheekbone hard, causing more swelling to rise up Rodriguez's head and blood to run down his nose and mouth. This time, spitting out a tooth, his deranged smile infuriated the onlookers who did not restrain their leader from landing another blow to his prisoner. A few more fist throws and the Regent ceased seeing red as he forced himself to breathe deeply and turn away. Resigning back into his chair, and somewhat stunned he had stooped so low as to beat an old friend, he let his son take point with an agreed look.

  "Regardless of whether your ramblings are true or not, was this organization behind the recent attacks? Were you behind the assassins?" Ladislaus began, hungry for answers he had been yearning for since he first regained consciousness.

  Rodriguez coughed out a few more mouthfuls before answering, "You assume they were Lions of Ismail, but they had been wiped out long ago. We, the Iscariot Organization, kept their insignia for safe-keeping in case we needed to use them."

  "Another way to keep yourselves secret and to continue the façade," Ladislaus pieced together, "It was Iscariot who played the assassins. It was you who let the one assassin into the castle, and it was you who betrayed us," he paused, "Then how did you convince the two Lord Ulrich's to betray us?"

  "Simple minds with simple goals, no matter how treasonous their desires, are so easily persuadable, too."

  "They wanted the Regency?" Ladislaus pieced together.

  "They were simply pawns to turn your watchful gaze away from me," Rodriguez corrected angrily, "But they are not your allies either."

  Taking a step back, Ladislaus looked at the whole picture, even if it was a bit fragmented. Glancing at his mother, sister, and Pip, he closed his eyes and concentrated. "So," he began, "Here we are, on the brink of war with the Ottoman Empire, and all I see are enemies every way I turn."

  Correcting his posture once more in indignation, Rodriguez spat, "We do not willingly ally ourselves with the Ottomans, but on this front of exterminating a tainted bloodline we had no other choice. We cannot risk you to continue living."

  It was that last sentence that made the Lord's mind snap to someone, "What of Richard…and Sir Vincent? What now?"

  "As if their presence on the battle
front isn't already putting them in enough danger," Rodriguez chuckled, "But yes, we have kept a line of communication open with the Ottoman Empire. I suspect Sir Vincent and Richard are at their mercy now…"

  "What does that mean?" Ladislaus picked up on the trailing end to Rodriguez's sentence, but all the man replied with was a solemn bow, as if giving recognition to an opponent before one or the other died in battle.

  An ominous clue, perhaps? Ladislaus's gut told him as it upturned in impending dread.

  A moment later and the Regent charged at Rodriguez.

  "Under attack?!" Vincent shouted, "What do you mean under attack? How? Where are our scouts, reinforcements from the north, our numbers farther south?"

  "I'm sorry, Sir, but we were outnumbered and slaughtered! They were hot on my heels as I approached the village!" a messenger skidded to a stop before a hail of arrows rained down on them.

  Taking cover behind a stonewall, Vincent closed his eyes while the rush of wind from the arrows hit its side in a clatter of wood and tipped metal. Quelling a rather alarming uprising of panic, he focused on his prime directive: defending his position. Their numbers were far too thin to fight the Ottomans out in the open field. Here, in the village of Calarasi, they had the advantage of fighting on the home front, on their territory, and had the defensive upper hand. Fortunately, the inhabitants of Calarasi had long since departed from it previously in the week.

  "Soldier, I need you to grab all of our reinforcements and concentrate them within our location here. We can use this town as our shelter. Get me archers at every rooftop and tell cavalry to disperse into mobile groups of ten, no more. Infantry is to take stands at every other street corner and dig into a home as shelter. I want us to use guerilla warfare. There is no other way to win this! I will spread the command as well," Vincent directed him out of another wave of arrows as he ran in the shelter of pathways within each shop and store to the other side of Calarasi.

  Damn longbows, Vincent thought. He knew they were used with no particular accuracy. With their range, the longbow didn't need to be accurate. That was the advantage of long-range weapons. They were meant to be pointed upwards and shot in the general direction of the enemy. The arrow could travel farther distances and faster than any horse, and if shot near the direction of a heaping army, it would most certainly find a target.