The cell door squealed as it opened, threads of light piercing the stone’s edges. I pressed my face to the crevices to hear.
“Have they been moved?” Von Bonin asked.
“They’re gone!” said a guard who was not my brother, announcing the obvious. “But it’s impossible!”
“Is this some joke? Is Louis cheating me?”
“Go, go,” I hissed to wife and son. “Feel your way!”
“It looks as if they’ve escaped,” the guard said.
“Would you be so kind as to tell me how, imbecile? And where?”
“Perhaps someone let them go.”
“Perhaps that someone was you, muttonhead?”
“No, no, I locked them in. No one has seen them leave. They couldn’t get through the palace.” There was a puzzled silence. Then, “Look, mortar. They moved a stone! Maybe you can follow.”
Von Bonin took a step, studied the wall, and hesitated. “Crawl in the dark with one hand and one eye, offering myself for ambush? This is your plan?”
“To follow …”
“Where does the passageway go?”
“The storerooms? The kitchens? Who knows?”
“Gott im Himmel, you’re a dumbkin. We’re in a race.” And I heard the door bang and boots thump as Von Bonin dashed back up the stairs.
I scrambled after my family on hands and knees. “We have to get out ahead of the German. Harry, go as fast as you can!”
“Something ran across my hands, Papa.”
“Then crawl back over it. Go, go!”
We scrambled forward, the passageway turning once, and then turning again. “Stairs,” Harry finally reported. “It’s bigger here.”
“Let me go first.” I squeezed by and felt my way up spiral stone steps. There was a door, bolted on our side and not the other. I slid the bolt free and peeked out. A single candle cast wavering light in a deserted pantry. We crept into a storeroom with a brick barrel roof. Shadowy hanks of meat hung from ceiling hooks. Wine and beer barrels were stacked horizontally. Flour and pickle barrels sat upright and jugs crowded crude shelves. The cooks and bakers were asleep. Caleb had timed our reunion to avoid them.
“Just minutes to sneak clear,” I warned.
We ventured into the main kitchen. The stove fires were banked and the copper pans hung neatly. The floor was still damp from the day’s final mopping. Somewhere would be an outside door. The finger to my lips was unnecessary. Astiza and Harry crept like cats.
“A door might be guarded,” Astiza whispered. “Look: A chute for wood and coal.” She pointed towards the shadowy far end of the kitchen, where a ramp led to a hatch that must give access to a supply courtyard. Yet even as she gestured there was a crash of a door flung violently open on a landing above, and the slap of boots as someone hurriedly descended. Von Bonin! We had to hide until he gave up and looked elsewhere. Interestingly, we’d not heard a general alarm. He wanted to hunt us down alone.
Had he not paid Louis? Who was cheating whom?
There were several hutches holding food, china, and tablecloths. The last, the size of an armoire, was empty enough to barely fit the Gage family. We crammed inside and I squeezed the doors shut with my fingers, peeking through the joint.
Steps cautiously approached. Yes, it was the accursed Prussian. Von Bonin was breathing hard, his one good eye peering like a telescope, trying to guess which way we might have gone while being alert to ambush. He aimed his prosthetic arm as he rotated his body, as if pointing to a distant horizon.
“Gage? I’ve run you to earth, haven’t I?” The words echoed in the empty kitchen. He hesitated, not at all certain we were really there.
We held our breath.
“I sense you, American. I can smell you, I think.”
He turned a full circle, examining the room.
I could burst out to try to tackle him, but had nothing but the crude spike.
“Come, save your family. Let’s talk.”
I risked a shallow breath, but felt he could hear the pounding of my blood. A few more seconds silence …
Then—thump.
Harry’s foot bumped the side of our cubby.
Von Bonin cocked his head like a bird. Astiza put her hand over our son’s mouth and I gripped his ankles.
It was too late.
“Ah, the mouse.” The Prussian slowly advanced on our cabinet as his scowl began giving way to a grin. “Gage? I expected your Judas servant would dispatch you, since Gregor took his thirty pieces of silver. But someone murdered him instead and blamed it on you. Well, no matter. Have you packed yourself for delivery?”
He reached with his good arm to open the hutch and then thought better of it. What if I sprang?
He aimed with his stump, the muzzle hole looking like a cannon, but didn’t fire. A shot would bring others running and he wanted the Grunwald swords for himself. Instead, the wicked blade snapped out.
“But we should shake hands first, I think. Unless you surrender.”
We said nothing.
The hutch was cheaply made, its door thin birch. Von Bonin paused just a moment, savoring our suspected helplessness, and then lunged. With a grunt he rammed the blade into the cabinet, shoving through the joint where the doors met. I pushed Astiza and Harry to one side and I leaned to the other, so the short sword squealed between us. We all tried not to gasp. A thread of light picked out the sharp edge.
Von Bonin paused just a moment and then wrenched his blade back out and checked for blood. Nothing.
“This is a game, yes?”
He stabbed again, harder this time, smashing the wood in the middle of the door on my side of our hiding place. I twisted just enough. The steel sliced my shirt, licking my skin and drawing blood. The blade was thin enough to quiver from the impact. “Yes, I will whittle.”
The English have phrases for men like the Prussian: Mad as a March hare and savage as a meat ax.
He yanked his prosthesis back and inspected it. “I felt something, American. Do you wish to come out, or will you have your family oil my appendage first? A little lubrication from your flesh?”
Von Bonin slammed the blade in a third time, this time piercing the other door. It came within a whisker of my wife’s breast, and a hand’s width of my son’s eye.
That was enough.
I kicked hard as a mule behind me, splintering the cabinet’s back. Astiza squeezed Harry, who had begun bawling.
“Ho! Yes, you finally say hello? So I say hello back.” And he pulled and rammed again, through the thicker wood at the door’s edge, the board splintering and Harry yelling from behind Astiza’s hand.
“No, still shy?”
Von Bonin leaned backward to pull the blade out, but the thicker wood clung. He pulled to unstick it, slightly tipping the hutch toward him. So I kicked again, roared “Forward!” and pushed the cabinet away from the stone behind us with all the force I could muster. In throwing my weight at Von Bonin, Astiza and Harry were toppled to do the same. The hutch leaned, the Prussian roared a curse as his trapped prosthesis twisted, and then the armoire crashed on top of him. There was a twang as his sword snapped and Von Bonin screamed as the device ground against his amputation. Now its gun did go off, the report dampened as he shot into the wood, narrowly missing us. I bucked up and down to slam the doors on him, listening to him groan in pain, and then thrust upward with my torso, breaking the back of the cabinet to smithereens. It was like bursting the ice in a river, or lurching out of a casket. Astiza came up too, pulling Harry with her, all of us balanced on the ruins of the hutch and the prone Prussian. Von Bonin had gone quiet. Was he dead?
I snatched the spike from my waist to make sure.
Astiza grabbed my arm. “If you kill him, the pursuit from the other Prussians will be relentless. He’s finished, and his failure will ruin him in Berlin. Let’s
get the swords to Poland.”
Shouts from above. Guards had heard the shot. I hesitated.
“Ethan, we’ve no time! He’s more crippled than ever. We have to get out of here.”
We heard a stampede above, pounding feet and clanging weapons. People were coming down the kitchen stairs.
“Damnation,” I muttered.
“No profanity in front of our son. No murder, either.”
So we kicked free of the broken hutch and dashed for the chute. Up we climbed, dirty in moments, and threw back its outside door to crawl into snow. I jammed the spike beneath the hatch handles to lock it shut.
It was freezing outside and we had no coats. I glanced for sentries but saw none. The soldiers were rushing to the clamor in the kitchen, I guessed.
We crept along a wall. Behind, a bullet punched through the hatch to no effect. New movement caught my eye and I watched a sleigh at the other end of the estate race for a bridge that led from the island toward the main highway, soldiers running after it, its driver lashing the reins. Who the devil was that?
Ahead were the trees. I was about to sprint when Astiza stopped me with her hand, her voice insistent.
“You and your brother collide?” she whispered. “It’s either magic or conspiracy. Can we trust him?”
“Everyone tells me not to trust. Remember?” I kissed her. “But now we have no choice.” Then we rushed across the gardens, feeling hideously exposed. No one shouted.
I looked back just once. The palace loomed cold and seemingly watchful. There were muffled shouts. Candles and lamps passed by windows. Doors opened and slammed. But the activity was concentrated on the far side of the palace where I’d seen the sleigh. For a moment, at least, we’d escaped notice. I looked at our tracks and gave a silent prayer for more snow.
The grove of pines we ran to was dark as tar. We stopped, uncertain what to do next.
A voice hissed. “Here, brother! You look underdressed!” Caleb met us with coats, hats, and mittens, which helped overcome our doubts. “Did you have any trouble?”
“Von Bonin discovered we were missing and tried to stop us in the kitchens. Something fell on him.”
My brother gave just the faintest of smiles. “Will he be getting up?”
“Not for a while. He was disarmed. Literally.”
“Ah. A Gage handshake.”
Caleb had brought knapsacks with food and a device I’d never tried—skis. These were skinny wooden boards nearly nine feet in length, upturned and pointed at the front, and cambered so that they arched where one put the foot. A leather strap held the toe of a boot. I’d seen a few of these odd devices when crossing the Alps, but never had used one.
“The Swedish army can cross a snowy forest in winter faster than a grenadier can march it in summer,” Caleb said. “Here, wooden poles to help balance.”
“We don’t know how to ski.”
“If you can walk, you’ll learn. I brought short ones for your son. It’s hard work at first, but with practice you’ll glide.”
“You can teach us in ten minutes?”
“Or ten days.”
“You’re coming with us? What about King Louis?”
“I suspect I’ve ended my employment at Jelgava. And I’ve always envied the stories of my adventurous brother and his fabulous treasures. Though why you haven’t retired to a castle, I don’t understand.”
“It’s Greek tragedy. I keep trying to rectify our fortunes.”
“And your plan to do so now, Ethan?”
“By completing a mission to Poland and gaining a title.”
“A noble Gage?” He laughed. “A contradiction, I suspect. But, let’s see how far we can get you toward your goal. We’ve a head start. I recruited a disgruntled servant who was planning to quit anyway, and helped him steal a sleigh to drive west toward his Dutch homeland. Any pursuit should follow. The man’s a gambler, like you, and betting he can outrun royalist pursuit long enough to sell the vehicle, pocket the proceeds, and start anew.”
“Caleb, you’ve already risked too much,” Astiza warned. “It’s extraordinary that you and Ethan have had this rendezvous. But you face ever-greater danger if you come with us. We’re fugitives, with contraband that powerful people desire.”
“Which means, Madame Gage, that you have no chance without my expert help.” He broadly bowed, the gesture waist deep. “I think your family’s problem is that you always find yourselves alone. Well, now you have a brother, considerably more handsome and wise than wretched Ethan.” He grinned at her for a fraction more than necessary, and I noted that fraction. My wife is very pretty, and Caleb and I have had a difficult history. What was it that he really wanted?
“You’re not very wise if you accompany my wretched husband,” she quipped in return.
“Brave, then. Desperate. Greedy. I’m betting he’ll lead me to riches.”
“And lose them when found.” Her laugh caught because we were so weary and frightened. The banter was release.
“Your demand for half our reward is certainly bold,” I said, reminding them how fraught this partnership was.
Caleb clapped me on the shoulder. “All right, I’m neither handsome, wise, nor brave. Just curious, little brother. I’ve been a drifter my entire life and now fate has given me purpose. What’s this contraband Astiza speaks of?”
“Relics I’ve hidden across the river. We need to get them to Poland. They aren’t precious themselves, but apparently they have symbolic value to certain rich people.”
“God bless the eccentricity of the wealthy! There’s no time to waste; shoulder your gear. Harry can ride on my back for now while you two learn the skis. When we get some distance I’ll teach him, too.”
Caleb had a musket slung on his back. “Is there another gun?”
“Didn’t think to bring one, brother.”
The hell he didn’t.
“You don’t care where we’re going?” my wife asked him.
“I care that it prove interesting. I care that I do something good for once in my vagabond life. I care that I, a man without a family, has by miracle found one.” He knelt in the snow. “So let me strap you in, Astiza. We’ll ski to this secret cache of yours and into the forest beyond. I smell more snow and by dawn it will cover our tracks. We’ll have all of Latvia and Poland to hide in.”
“You leave Louis so readily?” I asked. “Without your pay?”
“Well, payday was two days ago. I borrowed a little more from a guard strongbox, and have another patron in France who promises to pay still more. I’m as mercenary as you, brother, and keep track of accounts. The real reason I’m volunteering is that I was never really employed by Louis XVIII.”
“What do you mean? You were his sergeant-of-arms.”
“While working, in secret, for Napoleon Bonaparte.”
CHAPTER 14
Astiza
I’d married a man, not his family. Ethan had spoken very little about his relations. Now his brother had materialized in the unlikeliest of places and saved us in the timeliest of ways. I was intrigued. I was charmed. I was wary.
Caleb had been a sailor, and like a ship navigating at sea he used a compass to steer us a southern course from Jelgava toward Czartoryski’s ancestral home at Pulawy, between Warsaw and Lublin. This was a journey of nearly four hundred miles as the crow flies, crossing several rivers. It seemed immensely longer as we wound through woods, wintry fields, and frozen lakes. A modern coach or sleigh can race as fast as nine miles each hour. We were lucky at first to manage one.
Fearful of pursuit, we didn’t seek a cabin the first few evenings lest a peasant betray us to Louis or Von Bonin. The initial night we napped briefly in a shallow cave, and the next I lay with Harry in a hollow log. The men took turns standing sentry. It was too cold to sleep soundly and our rest was ragged.
Dur
ing the day we struggled to ski. Initially Caleb tied Horus onto his back alongside his musket, but this was exhausting and our son was eager to learn. In short order he was skiing better than his parents. Caleb betrayed the impatience of the amateur teacher as Ethan and I labored to master the unwieldy planks of wood, but he won me over by being encouraging to Horus. “Right, lad, we won’t leave you behind. Here, a slope to slip down! That’s my boy! The grace of a Gage, eh, Ethan?”
Yet the harder Caleb worked to win our trust, the more cautious Ethan seemed. We still weren’t certain who our friends and enemies were. All we could do was run.
The first week of travel took us less than a sixth of the way to Pulawy. Yet we slowly gained skill, and exertion shoved aside worry. In time, skiing was fun. Any dip let us glide as if getting a push from angels. We ascended hills by crisscrossing their slope. The quiet of our swish through barren woods made us as furtive as deer. There was peace in schussing far away from schemers. Each mile away from Russians and Prussians lifted my heart. Each evening campfire promised hope.
Winter was also slowly loosening its grip, the sun climbing noticeably higher and the snow softening. We complained good-naturedly about its increasing stickiness.
So why did I feel so apprehensive? The long nights still squeezed. More importantly my foresight came unbidden, a premonition that our trials were just beginning. The brothers had some kind of history. We’d once more escaped, but to what?
“Did Napoleon order you to adopt us, Caleb?” I asked.
“He predicted that you’d adopt me, Madame.”
“But how did he know we’d meet?”
“Because the French work with Czartoryski.”
“Who is on who’s side?”
“It is a contra dance, with multiple partners.”
Caleb is nearly as tall as Ethan and thicker, with broad shoulders and sturdy arms, his torso hard as a saddle and his hands callused. He moves without wasted motion, and seems as inexhaustible as a dray horse. Pirates would pick him as captain. Women would be intrigued. Ethan had more drawing room charm, but Caleb has the rugged cheer of a mercenary. He skied off periodically to hunt game and “liberate” provisions from rich manor houses, his cocky manner that of a merry robber. In fact, my new brother-in-law was so hearty that he left us wondering how much of his manner was natural and how much was acted.
The Trojan Icon (Ethan Gage Adventures Book 8) Page 11