The Henchmen of Zenda

by KJ Charles

  The fact was, Hentzau could bring life to a funeral home. He had so much of it, that merry young villain. He flirted with Antoinette just a trifle past what was permissible, and brought a real, if reluctant, smile to lips that were too often held tightly against sorrow. He trailed innuendo past me, every speech hiding a challenge under the laughter.

  I watched him. He watched me.

  The first weeks passed without incident, or at least without anything that developed into an incident. It was noticeable that Hentzau kept an eye on Antoinette, as though he wished to find her alone. I made myself her constant companion—I had Michael’s orders, plus a very fair idea of the chivalry of the Ruritanian nobleman towards any lone woman. Since Hentzau was not in the slightest discouraged by my impersonation of a bulldog, the three of us spent a certain amount of time together, which caused me and Antoinette to curse his name, since it meant we could not speak freely. He smiled at me, and I at him, and we both made light conversation and waited for the other to go. He flitted between German, French, and English with as much ease as Antoinette or I.

  “So tell me,” he remarked one day as we walked in the chateau’s small but elegant grounds. “How does a proper English gentleman become a blade for hire?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps you should ask one.”

  He laughed. “Please, Detchard. You are as proper as any Englishman alive—in soul.”

  “I struggle to see how you reach that conclusion from my history,” I observed, finding myself really quite annoyed. I had not lived the life I had to be called proper. “And I am reliably informed I lack a soul.”

  He waved a hand. “To be removed from schools is nothing. You did very well in the British Army, I believe.” I snorted. “Were it not for the cards and the men, I grant you. I understand you have a taste for privates?”

  “I think I see His Grace approaching,” Antoinette said, with just the right tone of cultured disgust, and removed herself from our company, probably to howl with laughter.

  “For God’s sake, Hentzau,” I said. “She is a lady.”

  “She’s a courtesan.”

  “She is still a lady.”

  “What nonsense is this? You will cut throats in back alleys but not tolerate a ripe jest in front of a woman who is all ripeness? You can’t imagine there’s anything you can teach her about men’s peculiarities.”

  “There are still conventions to be observed.”

  “There you have it: proper,” he said triumphantly. “Had you been born with two thousand pounds a year and an inclination for the fair sex, I dare say you would never have broken a law in your life. Do you incline to the fair sex, ever? I suppose not or Michael would not have set you as the dragon to guard his treasure.”

  “I cannot see it is any of your damned business.”

  “Spoilsport. You could let me alone with her, you know.”

  “No, I could not.”

  “I could persuade you? I am extremely persuasive.”

  I replied to that in language more suited to a barracks than a chateau. He only laughed. “I mean her no harm, dogged Detchard.”

  “I don’t give a damn what you mean. Stay away from her.”

  “Five minutes’ private conversation. You may keep a watchful eye from a distance if you like.”

  “Let me make this clear: if you bother Mademoiselle de Mauban, I will kick you twice round the Tower. Do we understand one another?”

  “As I said, proper,” he repeated, apparently unimpressed.

  “Proper or not, we both know who would win a fight,” I said, feeling by now somewhat provoked.

  He gave me an assessing look, one without the usual salaciousness. “Could we have a practice bout, you and I?”

  “I thought one was enough for you.”

  “Not at all. You are my better with the blade, I admit it freely, in skill but also in your tactics. I should like to take advantage of that. I hardly ever meet anyone I consider my better,” he explained, and there was a kind of purity in that arrogance that took my breath away.

  “Michael has bidden me not to fight you.” It was a weak response, and the tilt of his brow told me he thought the same.

  “Really? Come, Detchard. Surely a practice bout—”

  “Our last practice bout was not amicable. Do you imagine the next will be better?”

  He lowered his long lashes, as dark and curled as any pretty girl’s could be. “Perhaps not. I have the impression you don’t like me, Englishman.”

  “I can’t imagine why,” I said, and left him.

  A FEW DAYS LATER MICHAEL was obliged to attend to business in Strelsau. He took Lauengram and Krafstein as bodyguards, and Toni for his own reasons. De Gautet accompanied them in order to see a tailor, and that left Bersonin in his alchemical cell playing with poison, me, and Rupert of Hentzau.

  Michael spoke to me before he left. “Keep an eye on Hentzau in my absence.”

  “Do you have any new grounds for your suspicions?” I asked. “Hentzau seems to me a shameless young hound, but I have seen no duplicity or ulterior motive yet. I think he’s here for the adventure of it.”

  “Perhaps,” Michael said. “But he rides to Zenda to post his letters. Letters to Strelsau.”

  He had not shared that with me before. I nodded. “He may be hiding the identity of a correspondent for a number of reasons, of course. And he takes any excuse to ride.”

  “Oh, I dare say he is a fine horseman,” said Michael, who was not, in a dismissive tone. “Nevertheless—”

  “I shall watch, Your Grace. Consider me your eyes and your right hand in this.” Fulsome pledges do not come naturally to me, I may say, but they went down too well with the duke to be omitted.

  Michael seemed satisfied. “Tell me what he does when I am not here; if he seeks to meet anyone in private. Tell me what he wants.”

  The party for Strelsau duly set off early in the morning. Bersonin hid himself away in the Tower at once; one of his few redeeming qualities was that he was as reluctant to have my company as I was to have his. I was alone in the chateau but for Hentzau.

  My first instinct was to raid Michael’s private rooms for papers. I restrained it, wanting to be sure I was unobserved. Moreover, even as Michael had tasked me to watch Hentzau, it would not have surprised me in the least to learn that he had tasked Hentzau to watch me—or put the servants on both of us, come to that. Michael Elphberg was not a trusting man.

  I decided my best course was to be what I seemed: the loyal henchman. I therefore prowled the grounds, put in a couple of hours on the practice yard to keep myself in fighting trim, went for a ride around the duke’s domain, and returned some way past noon with an appetite for my luncheon, to discover Hentzau in a padded silk dressing gown. Apparently, he had just got out of bed.

  “You’re an idle hound,” I remarked, with the moral superiority of a man who has done his work for the day.

  “You’re excessively keen,” he growled. “What are you running around for, with the duke absent? What’s that thing you English say? When the cat’s away, the mice will stay in bed as long as they choose.”

  “You won’t improve your fighting skills that way,” I pointed out. “Or any other.”

  He glowered at me. “What, precisely, is the point of getting yourself kicked out of the Army, taking up as a blade for hire, and then living like a monk? Why would I get up at reveille to train if I don’t have to?”

  “Because if you don’t, you’ll lose to the men who do. Youth only carries you so far, Hentzau; the rest is hard work.”

  “God, I dislike you,” he said. “Will you give me that practice bout, then?”

  “Only if you earn it. I’m not wasting my time on a bleary-eyed, bacon-stuffed layabout.”

  He paused in the act of lifting another forkful of bacon to his lips and gave me a look so full of affronted dignity that I could not help but laugh. “Very well. I shall ride off my breakfast—”

  “Luncheon.”

  “—
breakfast, and we could practice at, say, four o’clock?”

  “You plan a long ride.”

  He shrugged negligently. “It appears to be a beautiful day, and as you have so elegantly hinted, I should benefit from a little healthful exercise.”

  I agreed to that, and we finished our meals in relative peace.

  He did indeed set out on horseback once dressed. I watched him go from the top of the Tower. It had a commanding view of the area, and I had a telescope. I could track his progress a fair distance, and by the time I lost sight of him, I was quite sure that Hentzau’s healthful exercise was taking him, not through any of the open countryside or pretty forest paths, but directly to Zenda town. Interesting, I thought, and wondered if Michael’s suspicions had any ground.

  We met in the practice yard that afternoon. Hentzau arrived a good fifteen minutes late, and looked warm, as though he had hurried. “I beg your pardon, Detchard. I rode longer than I thought.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “Oh, up in the direction of Tarlenheim, along the bridle path that tops the hills. It’s a good clear ride.”

  “Yes, a marvellous view. And it’s pleasant to be out of the bustle of a town,” I agreed experimentally.

  “God, do you think so? I can’t bear the silence of the countryside, it’s like a flowery graveyard. And views are all very well but, you know, one can buy paintings for that. Give me town any day.”

  “Then you should go to the town.”

  “Dear fellow, I pray daily that Michael will take us all back to Strelsau,” he assured me. “Shall we have that bout?”

  I chewed over his words as we measured the foils. I knew the route to Tarlenheim of which he spoke, and he had not taken it; he had also avoided two clear opportunities to mention he had just been to, or near, Zenda town. I had no idea what he was up to, though I suspected it was no more than some illicit affair with the mayor’s wife or daughter—or both, or indeed the mayor himself for all I cared. It scarcely mattered. To secure Michael’s trust, I was quite ready to use Rupert of Hentzau’s love life as a burnt offering.

  We fought for a couple of hours, until the evening chill drew in and the light began to go. Hentzau put his mind and his back into it, and tested me sorely at a couple of points. That handsome face and the rakish posturing hid a powerful desire to excel, and I found myself enjoying the role of teacher with such a pupil.

  When I think back to my months in Zenda, the memories that come most readily to mind are of those times on the practice yard. The setting sun catching the foils with golden kisses, the smell of dust and male sweat; feet scuffing on hard ground, harsh breaths, the hiss and scrape of blades and an occasional wordless shout of triumph. The sheer animal vitality of Rupert Hentzau, intolerably lovely in a loose white shirt with his throat bare, probing me for any weakness and smiling like a devil while he did it. And the constant aching pulse of my desire, throbbing in my belly like a burn that would not heal.

  I had wanted him since I saw him, with a raw hunger that built by the day and whispered bitter temptation at night, and the unguarded physical pleasure of our sword-dance did nothing to dull the edge of that wanting. But desire is nothing; even a dog can be trained to control its urges. I needed to get to Antoinette’s child, and that left no space for dalliance when Michael was such a jealous master.

  The damned inconvenient, interfering, inbred son of a bitch. I added another mark to the tally against him, to be paid off in due course, agreed to another bout with Hentzau on the morrow, and strode off to sluice myself down with cold water in peace.

  It was a frustrating time. I had hoped to get into Michael’s private rooms in his absence. Toni had searched already, and she was faster, quieter, and more experienced than I (she had obliged the French government a few times while the Prussian ambassador was in her thrall), so I doubted I could find what she could not, but it was at least possible that Michael would keep the secret close only while she was present, and feel no reason to be so careful in her absence. But his apartments were well secured, with an excellent new lock on the strong door, and the windows were shuttered in his absence. I have never been able to acquire any facility at picking locks, and I knew that any attempt to force the door or break a window would be detected, if not in the act then certainly afterwards.

  I wondered whether I could use Michael’s suspicions and blame Hentzau for any intrusion, possibly cutting his throat first to prevent inconvenient denial, and decided against it as unlikely to convince; he wasn’t a surreptitious-burglary sort of man. It is often possible to circumvent these problems with a payment to the servants, but I dared not, feeling sure that they would be quick to report back to our master. In fact I found myself in the position of Tantalus in every way, with my desires dangled temptingly in front of me, yet ever out of reach.

  A night-time assault from the outside was the only option, I concluded. Windows above ground level rarely have the most secure fastenings, and shutters are often latched rather than locked. A piece of thin flexible metal can usually deal with that, and my larcenous skills certainly stretched so far. The only question was how well secured Michael’s windows were, and I would need to get up to the first floor, from the outside, to find out.

  I went that night, losing no time. Michael’s party was supposed to be absent for a few days, but he was always erratic and Zenda was not a great distance from Strelsau. I waited until three in the morning, when the castle was silent and sleep is at its deepest. Bersonin was in the Tower that night. Michael’s windows faced the moat and the ancient building, so I had to hope that he was asleep; I saw no glimmer of light from the narrow windows. Hentzau slept on the first floor, a few rooms away from Michael. He and Lauengram were lodged there while the rest of us had smaller quarters on the second floor, I suppose to make the point that Ruritanian nobles were superior to hired killers. It saved me trouble. I went cat-footed along the dark corridors from my room to find the staircase that led to the roof, and let myself out into the chilly spring night, working my way around the parapet to avoid tramping across a servant’s ceiling. It is remarkable how heavy a tread on a roof can sound to a listener below.

  I reached my goal, the edge of the roof above Michael’s rooms, and tied my rope: a thin, strong piece of cord, dyed black, that could take my weight and more. There was a waxing moon, which gave plenty of light for my work. I lashed the cord firmly to the parapet, since nothing sturdier seemed available, testing the ornamental stone to be sure it was firmly fixed, and then I went over the edge and down.

  It had been a while since I had climbed a rope, and my arms and shoulders protested vigorously. I took it slowly anyway, despite the temptation to slide down and relieve the strain, not wishing to risk making a noise. The castle grounds were not patrolled at night, so I should be safe if I kept my silence.

  I wall-walked the last few yards (accidentally swinging into and smashing a window on this sort of job is a thing you only do once). Michael’s window was of the French style, with narrow full-length glass doors and a balcony. I found the stone rail with my feet, lowered myself to stand on the balcony and let the strain recede from my arms. With my breath back, I set about trying the fastening of the shutters.

  They were, to my satisfaction, latched rather than bolted from the inside, and after a few moments’ work, I flipped the latch up with a clack that echoed in the silent night, and eased a shutter open. The room inside was pitch dark; I saw a vague shape of my own reflection in the glass-paned doors. I took out my metal strip, and set out to discover if I could coax the doors open.

  A good fifteen minutes later I concluded I could not. I am aware that this rarely happens in exciting narratives of derring-do and adventure, but nevertheless it happened now, and if that failure exasperates the reader, imagine how I felt. Michael bolted his French doors securely at the top and bottom, and unless I broke several panes of glass, I would not get in.

  I was wondering whether to try another window, which would involve eith
er jumping the considerable distance to the next balcony or climbing up my rope and lowering it again several feet along, when I heard the scrape of a foot on dry ground.

  I froze. There was little chance that any night-walker would fail to notice the open shutter revealing the dark window, since the chateau was built of pale stone and the shutters painted yellow, but my black-clad form might be invisible against the glass. Or it might not. I had a knife strapped to the small of my back, and if I could catch my observer I could cut his throat and throw him in the moat without trouble, but it was a long way down from the balcony to the ground, too far to jump. I would need to climb, and the watcher would have plenty of time to raise the alarm.

  In that case I should have to run for it anyway, and therefore, perhaps I should kick in the window, search while I could, and fight my way out. Hentzau was the only worthwhile opposition in the castle at the moment, and he had drunk well at dinner; he would be slowed and sleepy.

  Those thoughts came far more quickly than the words to tell them. I was just tensing myself to put a foot to the French doors when I heard another noise, even quieter. I turned this time, and just saw a shadow of movement as someone or something retreated round the corner of the chateau.

  I shoved the shutters closed. There was no way to latch them from the outside, but that was too bad. I sprang for my rope and swarmed up it like a sailor, hauling myself up with arms and legs, ears straining for the shouts that would raise the chateau. None came. I made it to the top, panting, swung myself over the parapet, unlashed my cord, and went as fast as I dared over the roof without thundering. No point waking the house with my footsteps.