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Not Exactly The Three Musketeers

Page 28

by Joel Rosenberg


  The important point was to get in and get them down quickly, before they could raise an alarm. The nearest house was down past the road, at the other end of the communal plot, but it wasn't completely out of earshot, and a scream could carry on the cold night air.

  They were almost there, almost in place to deal with the baroness.

  The baronial residence was just over the hill and through the woods. All the peasants here were directly fealty-bound, working and living on baronial farmland in return for a portion of the crop.

  It should be possible to work their way into the baronial Residence and get to the baroness without being spotted. But just after sundown wasn't the right time for that, and they needed some real rest.

  After too many days in the woods, making their way back, they were hardly ready to take on a stealthy entry into the Residence. They were hardly ready to take on half their weight in local soldiers. It wasn't just that Pirojil and Durine both reeked like a pair of boars - but too many days of hiding out and trying to sleep during the day, only moving at night, had taken their toll. Every movement hurt, and while hunger had long since faded into a weak, desperate remnant of what it had been, just the idea of a warm bowl of stew was half worth killing for.

  So Pirojil quietly drew his sword with one hand, snatched up his dagger with the other, and walked down the path to the single door of the thatched hut gently opening - smoothly, but not too fast -the door and stepping inside.

  In the light of the open hearth, a young woman with an old face was reaching into a cradle to replace a sleeping child. Four other shapes lay huddled, sleeping, in a preposterously small bed, raised off the dirt floor by four stubby legs.

  Pirojil was on her in two quick strides, his hand across her mouth.

  "Quiet," he said, his voice a harsh whisper, "and nobody has to be killed."

  The others were stirring, but Durine's harsh voice and looming form quieted them down. Peasants knew what they were to do if bandits invaded their home: cooperate, put up with the rapine, the robbery, and the beating, give over all you had, and you'd probably be allowed to live.

  The logical thing to do was to act like bandits, to give these peasants no reason to think them anything else ...

  Pirojil had done some things in his life that he regretted, some of them bloody, but he had never raped a woman - and he was not about to start by doing it in front of her children, or molest a young girl in front of her parents and brothers.

  "We need food, and we need rest," he said quietly. "We need to stay here for a couple of days, eating and sleeping." They would sleep in shifts, of course, with the family well secured. "Then we'll be on our way, and leave behind this."

  He held up a single gold coin.

  The baby started crying.

  Moving slowly, nodding, the young woman with the old face lifted it up out of the cradle, and, at Pirojil's nod of permission, brought it to her breast. "We'll be no trouble to you," she said. "We'll be no trouble at all."

  Chapter 23

  The Baroness and the Proctor

  Governor Treseen is here, Baroness," the servant girl said quietly, her head lowered. Elanee, fresh and naked from her bath, looked up in irritation, then put a neutral expression on her face. "I'm delighted, of course," she lied. "Please see to his refreshment, and make him comfortable. I'll be down shortly."

  What was it with this man and her bath? She could hardly dip her little foot into some heated water when Treseen, unsummoned, would be at her doorstep with some new problem or complaint. Did he have a spy waiting outside the residence, galloping for town the moment the large copper kettle that heated her bathwater was fired up?

  Outside her window, the sky was dark and cloudy; a storm was coming. Despite that, her riding clothes had been set out; it had been too many days since she had made the trip out to the cave, and letting that go too long was a bad idea. It might find itself more attached to its guards than to her, and that wouldn't be good at all.

  Well, she would have to go riding this afternoon, come what may, but first she would have to dispose of Treseen. She smiled to herself. No, not that way. But it was tempting at times.

  She shook her head as she padded across the floor to her closet. Treseen was pacing back and forth in the great hall when Elanee joined him.

  Details were important. She had dressed casually, in a long skirt and blouse, but not too informally. Details were, as she had tried to teach Miron, everything.

  "Good day to you, Governor," she said. "And what horrific event brings you out here, all perturbed?"

  "There've been a whole series of messages from Biemestren," he said, pulling a handful of papers from his pouch. "And there's something very wrong going on there."

  She waved him to a seat as she accepted the papers and sat herself down to read, ignoring him for the moment.

  Treseen, thorough to a fault, had apparently brought every scrap of message that had come over the telegraph and by messenger over the past few tendays. Most of it was trivial - notes of taxes received and due; news of some banditry here and some orc attack there; some reports of rumblings along the borders of Nyphien and Kiar that were probably just cross-border banditry but could be a subtle test; a quick listing of promotions in the Home Guard, as though that was of interest to the entire empire - but she finally got to the message from the chamberlain that the emperor had appointed Walter Slovotsky as something to be called an imperial proctor.

  Now, that was interesting. And quite promising, actually, given the situation.

  "He's a proctor, you say," she said, relishing the word. "There were prince's proctors in the old Euar'den days, you know, Governor."

  Originally they had been merely high-ranking messengers of the Euar'den princes, but when the blood of the Euar'dens thinned, all too many of them became the real rulers behind the throne.

  Had the blood of the Furnaels thinned so within a generation that the emperor needed another hand at his plow? Unlikely.

  "I'm afraid I don't see what you are so" - she didn't want to say "worried," even though he clearly was - "concerned about, Governor?"

  "Walter Slovotsky was the one whom the dowager empress wanted to send to look into the... matter of Lady Leria. Now, suddenly, he's an imperial proctor, and you don't see the problem?"

  Her lips tightened. She didn't care for his tone. "No, Governor, I do not see the problem. We handed over the lady to those three smelly soldiers, as the Cullinane regent and the dowager empress herself requested, and they're off to the capital."

  It wasn't like Leria knew anything important; Elanee had kept it completely isolated.

  It was just a matter of timing, and Elanee's timing was exquisite.

  Treseen leafed through the sheets. "It's not in here," he said. "But it's all over the barony - there's talk of some lady being conducted to Biemestren with a huge dowry."

  She spread her hands. "The land that the lady will inherit is rather large, isn't it? And if I recall correctly," which of course she did, "a company of dwarves has taken up residence in the Ulter Hills - with your permission, Governor?"

  "Yes, yes, yes," he said. "But - "

  "And where dwarves dig, wealth often follows, doesn't it? So she may well come to the marriage bed with a fine dowry, indeed."

  Right now, of course, the governor was collecting the taxes on Leria's inheritance. Elanee was quite sure that a piece of gold, here and there, had managed to stick to Treseen's nail-bitten fingers.

  But what of that? The emperor wasn't going to name an imperial proctor to go punish some slightly greedy governor for a light bit of graft.

  She could hardly say that to him, though.

  And, besides, this all boded very well.

  Imperial proctor, eh? Either those three awful soldiers would not have arrived back at the capital, or they would have arrived with too many questions unanswered. The only thing that had to be avoided was Miron interfering with their getting there, and her son was smart enough to be able to chase them
without quite catching them, contrary though that went to his instincts in other areas.

  So three soldiers and an empty-headed girl would arrive in Biemestren, telling tales of strange goings-on, of being chased by rumors, of attempts to prevent them from reaching the capital that they had, heroically no doubt, just managed to thwart.

  Perhaps the emperor would be sending his newly made imperial proctor to investigate the strange things happening in Keranahan.

  He would have to send somebody.

  Would the emperor send a detachment of the House Guard thundering down the road across the baronies, accompanying his newly named imperial proctor, just to investigate something a bit amiss?

  Perhaps.

  And what would a bunch of soldiers find? Nothing overt. No sign of a barony about to rise in revolt. Yes, Elanee's own House Guard was larger than common, but not large enough to endanger anybody or anything - just large enough to help protect her people from bandits.

  But no, the emperor would not send a troop of soldiers tromping down roads and spreading worry and panic.

  He would send the dragon, Ellegon. Which was just what Elanee wanted. With or without this imperial proctor, she wanted the dragon here.

  She had always had this ability to charm, and it had not only made her a good horsewoman, able to ride the most recalcitrant steed, but it had brought her a baron as a husband, a governor as a devoted retainer, and the loyalty of it. No, she was sure that she couldn't control the mind of the dragon Ellegon for long. But she didn't need to control it for long. She really didn't need to control it at all. She just needed to charm it for a few moments. Just as a distraction, while her men put dragonbaned bolts into its scaly hide and left it dead on the ground.

  It was like gardening, really. You nurtured your plants - whether they were bushes of roses or clumps of leafy dragonbane - by giving them just enough light, just enough water, just enough manure to encourage them to grow. And then you trimmed here and cut there.

  Until you were ready to harvest.

  She spent a few more minutes charming, then dismissing the governor. It wouldn't do at all to seem to be in too much of a rush.

  Her riding clothes were still laid out.

  Normally, she would have chided the maid for that, but this time it was just as well. Elanee didn't see the need to strain her wrist in beating the girl, or her tongue in lashing her, either. The storm had been threatening to break all afternoon; it finally carried out its threat when Elanee and her guards were within sight of the cave and the corral in front of it.

  Above, lightning flashed and thunder roared, sending one of the guards' horses into such a panic that it threw its rider and galloped off.

  Elanee's own mount, of course, remained steady between her thighs, and she guided it down the twisting road toward where the cave opened on the hillside, her guards trailing after her.

  She left her horse outside - her men would unsaddle it and bring her leather inside - and shook her head briskly to clear the water from her eyes. Her teeth chattered with cold, but -

  *I can warm you,* sounded in her mind.

  She smiled. Yes, it could warm her, in more ways than one.

  *But I'm hungry.*

  Be still, she thought, firmly but lovingly. I've come to feed you, of course. Yes, there were still several decrepit old animals out in the paddock, waiting their turn to become food, but perhaps it would appreciate a fresher animal. Like the one that had bolted underneath one of her guards.

  I’ll always take care of you, she thought, every fiber of her being radiating sincerity. It made it no easier that she was sincere this time, but it made it no more difficult, either. I won't let those mean creatures hurt you.

  Light flared down the tunnel, and a wave of pleasant heat washed over her.

  The telegraph stopped its chattering as Walter Slovotsky reached the top of the stone steps.

  Which was just as well, as far as Slovotsky was concerned. He knew Morse, he could follow Morse, but it was a distracting sound. He couldn't keep up a conversation and follow it, but he couldn't totally ignore it, either.

  Moderation sometimes sucked.

  The engineer on duty was a woman Slovotsky didn't recognize. Dumpy-looking, but he gave her the benefit of his smile anyway. There was, after all, no need to deprive her of that.

  She returned it with interest. "Greetings, Imperial Proctor," she said, sliding a folded piece of paper to him. "And a good morning to you."

  "For me?" He had a name, after all, and the mark on the paper was some symbol he didn't recognize.

  "Well, no," she said. "It's for Captain Derinald, but the general said that anything coming in for him should go to you first."

  Which was fair enough, given that Walter had sent Derinald and a troop of cavalry to convey his family to Biemestren. He would have preferred to go himself, but there was a confrontation in the offing with Beralyn, and he figured that he really ought to be around for it rather than let Thomen take the heat.

  Besides, maybe he could make peace with the old biddy.

  Right.

  Fat fucking chance.

  "Well." He smiled. "That sounds fine. Besides, it's not up to the general. I'm the imperial proctor. Anything the emperor doesn't say doesn't go to me, I can have."

  She took a moment to parse that, then shrugged. "Your choice, sir." She leaned against the counter. "If you want copies of everything that comes through here, I've no objection. But you're going to have to get me a team of scribes to copy it all, as I can barely keep up with the traffic as it is." She jerked a thumb at her desk. "I don't mind that the empire flows on a river of paper, but it feels like the whole river dumps out right here."

  As if on cue, the telegraph sitting on her desk started up chattering again, and she turned to answer it. "But you'd probably better look at this one soon. It's from one of the Cullinane men. Kethol."

  Cullinane? There was no telegraph station at Castle Cullinane. Eventually, of course, all the baronial capitals would be wired, and the larger towns and villages, as well. But miles and miles and miles of telegraph wire took maintenance, and right now most of the lines ran along the major roads into occupied Holtun, where the occupation troops could at least note where the lines went down.

  He opened the paper and read quickly. New Pittsburgh, eh? How had Kethol and the others gotten themselves over there? And why?

  Oh, really.

  Very strange, indeed.

  Hmmm ... maybe there was a way to use this to advantage, and even win a few points with that soured old Beralyn. She received him in the throne room, alone. He wasn't sure if that was a good sign or not. Well, it was a better sign than her meeting him with a bunch of soldiers pointing swords, bows, flintlock rifles, and pistols at him would have been, but he wasn't sure how much.

  The years had taken an unattractive old woman and made her downright ugly. She reminded him vaguely of a cross between Elsa Lanchester and Winston Churchill. There was something about the droop of her frown that accentuated the bagginess under her eyes and chin. Her hands, knobby-knuckled with age, lay folded in her lap.

  "Good afternoon, my Lord Imperial Proctor," she said, the sarcasm only in a vague undertone. "You have asked to see me."

  "Yes, I did," he said.

  "You're seeing me."

  "I'd like to make a peace between us."

  "Of course," she said, her voice caustic in its casualness. "Nothing could be easier, Proctor."

  "You'll need to see this." He took a step toward her, Kethol's message held out in his hand.

  She waved it away. "I've never learned this Englits of yours," she said. "To read or to understand. Why don't you read it for me, if you think it's important."

  She hadn't taken much of a look at it if she hadn't noticed that it was written in Erendra, and not in English, but maybe that was her strange way of offering an olive branch?

  Probably not.

  "Well," he said, "it seems that there is, or was, something strange goi
ng on in Keranahan. Somebody expended a lot of effort either to make it impossible for Kethol, Pirojil, and Durine to bring this Lady Leria here, or to make it seem like it was supposed to be impossible."

  Wheels within wheels, and it was only because Kethol and the others were as good as they were that they had survived. It was fairly crafty of her to make this a Cullinane problem. He had no doubt that Beralyn was responsible for putting the hounds on their tail, and it was entirely possible that an imperial proctor, with a bit of digging, could find out how she had done that.

  So he wouldn't. But there was no need to tell her that. Thomen was her son, but sending men out to get killed merely to embarrass somebody, well, that was a bit much. She was already jealous of the way Walter and the Cullinanes had the emperor's ear - with some work, this could relegate her to the status of a crazy old woman whose son would tolerate her, but that was all.

  Maybe. Did she want him to find out? Or did she just want to close the books on this?

  "So you admit I was right?" She nodded. "It sounds to me like there's something, something seriously wrong, going on in Keranahan, and the girl was just part of it." She dismissed her original claim, that this was all about Leria, with a convenient wave of her hand.

  What it sounded like to Walter was that Beralyn had reasons to make herself look good at Cullinane expense, while Baroness Elanee had every reason to want to force a young noblewoman into a marriage that would enrich her own family.

  But he shrugged. I'll let you be right, old lady, if you'll let me just be wrong.

  He'd want to get over there, anyway. Durine and Pirojil were liable to make a whole lot of trouble, and when this just turned out to be some political maneuvering by two noblewomen with more ambition than sense, that could make things sticky. As in the stickiness of newly shed blood.

  How best to find them? They would be making every effort to avoid leaving tracks.

  *I think that can be managed.* Flame roared outside. *Castle Keranahan, here we come, eh?*

  Walter Slovotsky smiled. The last time he had ridden on the dragon's back was to sneak into Castle Biemestren, with Ellegon standing by to haul them out if things got sticky; the time before that, it was in fear that he would arrive at Castle Cullinane to find his family dead.

 

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