by Jon Kiln
Captain Berengar opened the door and stepped out. Nisero started to follow, but then realized that he did not have his pike. He looked around the floor not seeing it at first. They should have done a better job of storing their bundles, he thought. The man would notice as soon as he came in.
Nisero spotted the dark, narrow pike on the floor. The lieutenant broke his paralysis and grabbed up the largely ceremonial version of the weapon.
He scrambled out and took to the opposite side of the fold down steps from Berengar. The captain said, “I thought you had backed out on me.”
“And let you have all the fun? Never,” Nisero replied, staring forward at attention.
***
The Duke smoothed down the front of his fine, dark garments on both sides of the gold encrusted buttons. His black beard was sculpted down into a tight, severe point like a cone.
He was surrounded by other nobles of lesser rank that Nisero did not recognize. Nisero supposed that Caffrey was technically of lesser rank than the Duke, but the lieutenant had a sense that Lord Caffrey carried far more power, influence, and threat than many men above him. They did not seem to carry themselves with the same air of danger that Caffrey had about him.
As Nisero’s eyes traced over the Duke, he thought about the fact that this entire plan was built off of the fact that Caffrey had made an offhanded comment about a Duke profiting from the betrayal. It was a shaky reasoning at best for what they were about to attempt.
The other soldiers surrounding the men and walking with them concerned Nisero more. They had not planned on dealing with personal guards. These men wore light armor marked from use. They were not regular army and there was nothing ceremonial about them. These were men hired or assigned to protect. The Duke was the highest rank present, so they might all enter the carriage with him. There was certainly room enough and Nisero counted ten. They would not be able to take all of them and as soon as the actual driver was discovered tied on the floor, their plan would be foiled.
There was not much chance of them running through the camp and escaping in one piece even in the back sections occupied mostly by farmers. They would also have Arianne in tow.
He fought to keep his composure. The Duke and other men paid little attention to Berengar or Nisero in their ceremonial décor. However the Duke did eye Arianne on the bench above for a long stretch but then looked away. Nisero thought he read suspicion, but it could have been the perpetual face of disgust that many nobles seemed to carry when their faces were at rest.
The Duke approached and stepped up onto the first step leading into the carriage. He stared inside for a moment between Nisero and Berengar before turning back around to face the lower nobility now gathered up closer. Nisero thought about the bundles in the floor. He heard a thump that vibrated through the carriage’s body behind him. He thought that might be the driver putting up a fight again, but it might have been one of the horses kicking against the harnesses.
Nisero became aware of the eyes of the fighting men drifting across his face. If they were worth a fraction of what they were paid, they’d be eyeing the guards on the carriage more closely than they were. Nisero did not know or recognize any of them, but that did not mean they would not recognize him from previous campaigns or from the posters that covered the kingdom.
The Duke spoke in a deep voice. “This army will need to be ready to move at a moment’s notice. That goes for regular fighters as well as conscripted men. I do not need the divisions under my charge to draw any negative attention for falling out of ranks. They can all fall bloody on the field of battle, if it comes to that, but I will not be made embarrassed by a misstep or stumble on the march. Hear me?”
The others mumbled their agreements. The fighting men turned their attention out beyond the road. That was good form in practice and for Nisero personally, but they should have been searching the carriage as well.
“I am away then,” the Duke said as he turned and entered. “I may be back from the capital in time for the march, but I expect perfection whether I am here or not. Failure is the business of the lords of lesser dukes and not for men that answer to me.”
The men babbled their farewells.
Nisero and Berengar exchanged a quick look, waiting a beat. They fed their pikes back through the opening and nearly scrambled up inside together. Nisero pulled up the stairs and Berengar closed and latched the door. The lieutenant tried not to make eye contact with the men outside as the door latched.
Berengar walked up behind the Duke as Nisero thumped the forward wall with his pike. He heard the reins snap and the leather around the horses strained as they struggled to bring the weight behind them into motion. The carriage began to roll, but not nearly quick enough for Nisero’s tastes.
The lieutenant glanced out the window seeing the lower nobility and their guards wandering back toward the banners over the staging areas. They were leaving, but not fast enough for Nisero’s liking. If the next bit got loud, they would surely hear.
“What is this?” the Duke questioned.
Nisero dropped his pike and turned.
“Duke Aedwrath?” Berengar walked up beside the noble.
Aedwrath looked from the bundles and discarded cloaks on the floor to the man tied and gagged on his side in the corner. The Duke was processing the scene slowly. He was not moving to flee or struggle yet. “What is going on here?”
Berengar drew his sword and lifted the blade up under Duke Aedwrath’s chin. The Duke took a step away, but the captain seized the man’s bicep and turned the sword to rest the point under the Duke’s chin, lifting his head at an awkward angle.
Aedwrath opened his mouth and sucked in air. Nisero glanced out through the window at the soldiers walking wide around the wagon rolling past them on the road. They were mere steps from the door were the Duke to begin screaming.
Berengar moved his hand up and gripped Duke Aedwrath’s shoulder. He pulled on the joint as he added pressure on the point against the soft flesh of the noble’s throat. Aedwrath let out a choked sound that ended in a groan, but no scream.
“We are traveling with you to the capital,” Berengar said harshly. “We can enter using just your carriage, if taking your life proves to be a necessity. Are you going to make it necessary, Duke Aedwrath?”
The Duke glared. He swallowed, making the sword bob slightly in Berengar’s grasp. “I will not venture to make you believe so, but I do not know how scoundrels think.”
Berengar smiled. “Back up and sit on the bench. Do not shout out or act as if you are about to do so or you will leave me no recourse.”
Aedwrath shuffled his feet backward and sat down on the bench by Berengar’s guiding. “Who sent you?”
“First things first,” Berengar said. “Put your wrists together behind your back.”
As Aedwrath complied, Nisero approached with a section of rope. He tied the Duke’s hands behind his back as Captain Berengar held the sword to the noble’s throat.
“What is it you two want?”
Berengar leaned him back against the back of the plush bench. “Cross your ankles over one another.”
Aedwrath complied as he stared at the driver tied and gagged on the floor. Nisero used another section of rope to bind the Duke’s feet. Berengar affixed a strap across the Duke’s chest and bound him to a pole along the wall behind the back cushion of the bench.
Duke Aedwrath struggled slightly as Berengar tightened the strap and then sheathed his sword. “How do you two invade the King’s army and waylay my driver? Who is out there on the bench and where are you taking me?”
Berengar took a step back and leaned against a column near the center of the massive quarters inside the rocking wagon. “You can remain ungagged while we speak and answer each others’ questions, but if you become uncooperative, you can be silenced like your driver in the floor over there, or worse.”
“If you wanted me dead, I’d already be dead,” Aedwrath said, unfazed. “Now tell me who you are.”
>
Berengar scratched between the scalloped collar and his neck, but did not remove it. “Do not be so sure that I do not want you dead for what you have done.”
Aedwrath shifted inside his bonds, but could not seem to get comfortable and stopped trying. “What is it you want? Ransom?”
Berengar shook his head. “We want to prove our innocence.”
Aedwrath snorted. “I think that particular wagon may have rolled home when you seized mine in this manner. Where are you taking me?”
“I told you,” Berengar repeated. “We are going with you to the capital.”
“Are you spies from the eastern empire?”
“No. Do you really have no idea who we are or why we are here?”
“I have great wealth,” Aedwrath boasted. “Whatever you are being paid, I can increase the fee considerably to merely walk away.”
“Caffrey sent us to you.”
Aedwrath narrowed his eyes and looked back and forth between the two men. “Lord Caffrey sent you?”
“We questioned him and he indicated that you were a dark man that planned dark things.”
“That makes no sense,” Aedwrath disputed.
“He was informed of the ambush on the Elite Guard and the assassination of the prince outside his manor from advisors to the King themselves.”
Aedwrath scoffed. “The King has many advisors.”
“So you do not deny that’s where the order came. You just contend that there are many dark men that could have sent it.”
“What is that to you, and how does taking me to the capital bound in my own carriage change anything?”
“I watched my men cut down for the betrayal. I have been accused of orchestrating it myself,” Nisero said. “It means a great deal to me to uncover the truth.”
Aedwrath’s eyes widened. “So, that is why you need to enter the capital in my wagon. I am a bit baffled at what you think you will do after arriving that will matter at all. You can step outside and surrender to get the same result you will earn for entering in this manner.”
“We want to expose the men that are truly behind the deaths of our brothers in the Guard,” Berengar said.
“But not all were killed, were they? And not all then were truly your brothers in the end.”
“What are you saying?” Nisero asked.
“I am saying that if you intended to put your hands on the betrayers to expose them, you passed them over with your own compatriots in the Elite Guard to put your hands on me.”
“Did you pay Forseth and the others to turn on the rest of the Guard and to lead the prince into the ambush? Was it blackmail?” Berengar pushed for answers.
“What does that matter?” Aedwrath sneered. “If I told you we held their families hostage, would that somehow make the deaths more palatable to you?”
Nisero was becoming frustrated as this was going nowhere. “You admit to being a part of it, Duke Aedwrath?”
Aedwrath spat on the floor of the carriage between himself and his captors. “I do not bother myself with even knowing the names of men like you nor your corrupt betrayers. I would not dirty my hands with the exchange. I merely set other men to lead the war that is sparked and I position myself to advance when others fall. Men like you will never be able to understand men like me. You crawling insects ask me who, and how, and why, and I just roll my eyes and tell you to rebuild your meaningless hill or just die. Either choice is far easier than trying to make you understand things that go on so far above your station. And I am an Arch Duke, if you care to begin by showing me the respect of getting my title correct.”
Nisero looked to Berengar who turned away from the Duke.
Berengar lifted a rag from the remains of his bundle. Duke Aedwrath shook his head. “No. Don’t. That’s not necessary. I’ll tell you more. I can help you in your cause.”
Berengar wrapped his fists in the corners of the rag and forced the middle between the noble’s teeth. He tied it off behind the man’s head and stepped away. The Duke whimpered as the captain sat down on one of the benches next to where the driver lay.
“I am weary of sifting through the double speak of nobles,” Berengar said, resting his eyes. “This will be a long trip. I need a break before you lie to me further.”
Chapter 12: Prey and Snares
The people gathered in the square near the fountain. The roar of conversation rolled through the growing crowd. Their cacophony of voices echoed back off the stone and marble edifices constructed generations ago. Others gathered along balconies and flat rooftops on wooden structures.
The grand wagon sat askew near the fountain with the carriage door hanging open. A few men ventured close enough to look inside. They were as amazed by the décor as they were the driver, tied on the floor around discarded guardsmen uniforms, stinking of his own filth. They were tempted to help themselves to the unprotected treasures within but were restrained by fear that this might be some elaborate trap.
A few children came close enough to pet the eight horses still harnessed to the front of the wagon, waiting patiently to be unhooked and stabled.
Most eyes were on the man hanging aloft above the roof of the abandoned nobleman’s wagon. His clothes were discolored and marred by sweat and urine. The rope that held him was looped over the arm of a twenty foot statue in the midst of the fountain. The tribute to one of the earliest kings of the kingdom, now deified among the temples and the lore of the kingdom’s origins.
The rope that suspended the man wrapped up around the god-king’s stone arm and then around his chest and face. The people marked themselves with motions meant to cast away curses and hexes at the desecration of the statue even though most of them paid little attention to it, ate their lunches under it, and neglected to even clean bird droppings from the edifice.
The suspended man was tied by his feet and hung upside down with his hands still bound behind his back. He had a rag tied in his teeth for a gag. His eyes rolled up into his head and he issued weak grunts of pain and exhaustion as he waited for someone to free him, swinging to and fro in his inverted state.
A small compliment of constables pushed into the square. They fought their way through the thick crowd and began pushing harder as they drew closer to the scene.
Berengar picked off another piece of dried fish where he and Nisero sat. They were shrouded in their cloaks, casually sitting along a wall in the shade of a brothel.
“That took all morning,” Nisero grumbled. “Hours. We could have walked through the city and out the other side in that time.”
“It was worth knowing,” Berengar said as he licked the salt from his fingers.
Nisero watched the scene where the constables searched around the wagon and entered to untie the driver. One man climbed on top and tried to jump up to free the Duke, but failed. Nisero did not think they had yet recognized the man as Arch Duke Aedwrath.
“They will tell the authorities it was us, and then the city will be locked down,” Nisero guessed.
“I’m not so sure,” Berengar disagreed. “They had a checkpoint on the roads entering the capital as we expected, but they did not bother to search inside when we met them at the door of the carriage.”
Nisero grinned. “You did tell them that the Duke was in congress with a lady friend.”
Berengar shrugged. “I said two lady friends. I’m surprised that they did not search out of curiosity.”
“No one wants to be on the bad side of a Duke.” Nisero glanced at the brothel behind him. “I could use the company of two lady friends right about now.”
Berengar gave a short chuckle. “I don’t think you could handle two at once.”
Nisero watched the constables wade into the fountain and scale the base of the pseudo-sacred statue to reach where he and Berengar had tied the rope.
“The army units on the checkpoints did not venture in to investigate,” Berengar said as he watched the spectacle. “The state of the Duke and where we put him could have been viewed as a threa
t to the crown.”
“I thought as much, sir.”
“But it still took half a day to get a response, and then it is only a small group of constables,” Berengar continued. “The city is undermanned.”
“Meaning?”
“The checkpoints are little more than a show meant as a basic deterrent. I would say at least half of the constables and private fighting men have been called up to the regular army and are out on the staging grounds, more than a day’s journey away. Possibly more than half of the city’s usual compliment.”
“If that were widely known,” Nisero considered, “the capital could be in grave danger – quite vulnerable… especially in times like these.”
Berengar took another bite of fish. “An odd act by a king that was seeking to stir up trouble by subterfuge and assassination.”
“What are you thinking, captain?”
Berengar savored the saltiness and licked his lips. “I don’t think we know enough yet to see who holds the end of the rope on this very complex snare. I’m not certain the nobles that were involved know all the twists and turns of the trap either. But I’m not sure. Men like Caffrey and Aedwrath stink of guilt even after a warm bath, I think.”
Nisero sighed. “We should be wary to keep our feet clear.”
The knot came loose under the constables’ hands and the rope snaked around the body of the statue as it unraveled. No one thought to stand under the Duke on the wagon, so he fell on his head and crumpled to his side. A gasp spread through the crowd as the constables splashed back through the fountain toward the wagon.
Berengar snorted. “They are lucky they didn’t break his neck.”
Aedwrath moved his legs and rolled to his side. He groaned loud enough for them to hear across the square, but he did not move again.
“They don’t appear to be the most capable,” observed Nisero. “Once they know we are afoot, they may call in better men.”
“I don’t know. They are not combing the area looking for suspicious figures. They are not questioning anyone. There is a certain level of competence that is required to know that help is needed. If they don’t think to ask, no one will volunteer to take on the task.”