“For fabulous reward,” Dolgoruki justified.
“Can we clarify just what this reward might be?” I asked. “I’ve been promised titles and palaces and all I have is saddle sores.”
“Any reward is ultimately up to He Who Gives,” the prince said, meaning Tsar Alexander.
“So we’re dependent on royal whim.”
“It’s not even that simple, brother,” Caleb said. “Another ruler has also heard of this palladium and is pressing his own claim and offering his own reward. We might as well share that truth with our Russian partner here.”
“What claim?” Dolgoruki demanded. “What ruler?”
“Napoleon Bonaparte,” I said. “My brother Caleb secretly works for him, and Caleb rescued me and my family for that emperor, not yours.”
The Russian was horrified. “You’re an agent of the tyrant?”
“Which means, my friends,” I blithely continued, “that we’re a fellowship riding into the Carpathian wilderness with two of its fellows diametrically opposed to each other. Caleb is working for France and the prince for Russia. I’m still pursued by Prussia, for all I know. While the woman who gave us this mission is a Polish patriot. Which leaves us with an awkward question: Which monarch gets this palladium?”
There was a moment’s silence, Caleb and the prince eyeing each other.
“First we have to find it, which means finding Cezar Dalca,” Dolgoruki finally said. “Let’s see which of us survives the encounter before deciding whose master gets the spoils.”
“A cheerful solution,” I said. “And it’s just possible that the Gage family will wait in the village while you, Caleb, risk your life for Napoleon, and you, prince, risk your life for Alexander. We’ll watch you climb Dalca’s mountain and toast your health on the way up.”
“I’m afraid that won’t work, Ethan,” Caleb said.
“You’re always the fool,” Dolgoruki added. “It amazes me that you’ve survived this long, Gage, given your naiveté.”
“I’m naïve? You’re the one who bungled an ambush and blundered into a battle at Pulawy you couldn’t win.”
“A blunder contrived to bring your wife here, American imbecile. The outcome of the fight was decided before it ever started. It was staged for Astiza. Izabela was expecting us. We had to have Astiza propose the parley and accede to the bargain to ensure she’d come along.”
“Me? What have you been keeping from us?” Astiza asked.
“I’m afraid you’re the key to Dalca,” Caleb told her. “You’re the only way we can get to him.”
“My wife? I’m the one Czartoryski and Napoleon recruited.”
“As useful as you occasionally are, Gage, you were never the reason our elaborate scheme was put in motion,” Dolgoruki said. “By all reports, the only person who can actually penetrate Dalca’s stronghold is Astiza. The monster is obsessed with beautiful women with witchly powers. You were allowed into the Russian court by the foreign minister so we could use her.”
Vesuvius, Czartoryski had warned me. “Are you mad? Why would I allow my wife to go to the castle of a monster?’
“To get back your son.”
“Harry?” I twisted in my saddle to look back at the pony, even as Astiza moaned. But there was my boy, riding on his fine pony, quiet and erect as—
A palladium. His hood fell back to reveal a small figure made of straw.
Horus was gone.
And then a blow hit my head and all went black.
CHAPTER 19
Harry
The Pig Man told me that if I went high up in his castle, I could watch for Mama. So I do. The bad soldier squats next to me, a chain from my neck to his belt. He has bowlegs, a scraggly beard, dark skin, and puffs a pipe like a dragon. He smells bad because I don’t think he washes. He has a knife as long as my arm, and his boots ring from hobnails.
I don’t know what happened. I fell asleep with the Russian prince and woke up tied to the saddle of the bad soldier’s horse. My head hurt. The bad soldier talked ugly words I couldn’t understand. We climbed and climbed and climbed until it got so cold that I shook. He finally tied a dirty sheepskin on me. When I cried he hit me, so I made myself stop crying.
The clouds were dark and thundery. When we got to the castle I didn’t think anyone would live here because half of it has fallen down. The windows are like dead eyes. A creaky bridge leads across a deep canyon to a castle gate made of rusty bars. The gate squeals. All the bad soldiers are short and thick, with tight caps on greasy hair.
I heard an animal howl when we arrived, but there was no animal. Instead there was a tube flag like a filthy sock. It is sewn to look like a wolf’s head with a body as long as a snake. When the wind blows it fills and a wolf call comes out.
I hate this place. It smells dead. All the carvings are of dragons and bears and demons. Every corner is dark and dirty. The soldier who chained me won’t say why he’s mean, so I asked him why he lives here.
For a long time he didn’t answer. Then he said, “It’s home.”
We still don’t have a home. I don’t understand why we had to leave Russia, or Izabela’s palace, or why Mama and Papa left me alone. I’m glad Mama is finally coming.
We went downstairs to where it was dark except for torches. There sat the ugliest man I’ve ever seen. I thought of him as Pig Man.
“I will beat you if you’re bad,” the Pig Man said. He’s fat, with shaggy hair and squinty pig eyes so sunken that I can hardly see them. His teeth are pointy, and his voice sounds like a big drum. “I, Cezar, am your master until your mother comes to my banquet.”
“I’m hungry,” I said.
“Maybe we will fatten you.” But all I got was potato and lard.
The bad soldier is named Decebal. He put me on his chain and yanked me like a dog. He always seems mad.
I started to cry again. They said Mama is coming.
We wait. The wolf flag howls and howls.
CHAPTER 20
“It was the only way, brother,” Caleb said.
“You’d never agree to let Astiza go alone,” Dolgoruki added.
“We have a plan,” Caleb repeated.
“That requires all of us,” the Russian assured.
I was dazed and bleeding, a bandage wrapped around my head and a rope tying me to a chair. We were in a rude hovel in the village of Szejmal, somewhere below Dalca’s lair in the mountains above. It was a vile hamlet, or at least I was in a vile mood. The villagers I spied out a tiny window seemed to scuttle rather than walk. All the men were bearded as bears, their hands tough as roots, their squint suspicious. All the women were stolid and homely, scarves wrapped like a wimple around faces as wrinkled as old vegetables. Our room was dim as a cave, and there was this odd distant howling which didn’t sound real. “What happened?” My tongue was as thick as my mind.
“A strategic decision,” said Dolgoruki.
“You couldn’t be reasoned with,” Caleb added. “Astiza will distract the enemy.”
My head pounded where they’d clubbed me. “Where’s my wife? Where’s my son?”
“Conferring with Cezar Dalca.”
“Conferring? I thought he was a madman.”
“He’ll listen to women,” Dolgoruki said. “He’s fascinated by them.”
“And women always go to their children,” Caleb added.
“We hated our choice, but it’s carefully calculated.”
“Astiza will keep him occupied while we sneak up from behind.”
As realization rose, so did my fury. This was the worst treachery I’d ever encountered, engineered by my own brother! I wrestled my bonds, the chair banging up and down. “You sent my wife alone?”
“As soon as you agree we’ll go get her,” Caleb said. “We’ll take Dalca by surprise, grab the palladium, and vanish. Much better than fighting our way.”
“It was all planned from the beginning, Gage,” the prince said. “I know we haven’t shared everything, but discretion was necessary. The castle is too strong for the three of us to assault directly. There’s also no way for we men to win Dalca’s trust. He’ll only admit women who intrigue him. We sent word of Astiza’s learning and powers, and it turned out he’d heard of her. Your wife has her own fame. She agreed to rescue Harry.”
“And what in Hades did you do to my son?”
“Drugged and sold to a Szekler guard, who you thought was a shepherd. Dalca has to believe we’ve turned on you.”
“Believe? Betrayal is exactly what you’ve done!”
“I know this looks callous,” Caleb said. “But without Harry held captive, Astiza might never have agreed to meet Dalca alone. And even if she had, you might have forbidden it.”
“So we relieved you from having to choose,” said Dolgoruki. “She’s to help let us in the back way. We have another informant.”
I roared and rocked furiously, the chair crab walking across the dirt floor. “By all that is holy and profane, I’ll kill you both!”
“You need us both,” Dolgoruki said.
“We’re the only hope of getting your family back,” Caleb added.
I toppled over, gasping. The ropes cut my flesh. My head pounded, and my hands were numb. I was sick at my own stupidity.
I saw it now. My jealous brother told by the French of long-lost Ethan and his fabled wife—a brother still grasping at revenge for a wrong I’d committed decades before. If Caleb couldn’t have his life’s love, I wouldn’t have mine. The jailing at Jelgava and the skirmish at the Sibyl Temple had all been part of an elaborate ploy to get us within range of Cezar Dalca and risk Astiza in the brigand’s clutches. All for a preposterous legend.
Did Czartoryski know of this monstrous plan? Parts of it, perhaps. Izabela had heard of this Trojan icon, and suddenly men at odds with each other politically were united by greed to seek the palladium. My boy kidnapped, my wife sent to hideous peril, and myself knocked unconscious. What bitter irony that in escaping villains in St. Petersburg and Jelgava, we’d traveled with even worse ones to the Carpathian Mountains. And now I couldn’t stop any of it.
I looked at them balefully. Their return stare was cool and firm.
“There’s no other way into his castle, Ethan,” Caleb said. “Its drawbridge is guarded by a hundred henchmen.”
They knew how badly they’d crossed me, and must be calculating how many hours I’d be incapacitated by rage before I’d relent and help them rescue my family. But my memory was long, too. Yes, I’d wronged Caleb many years ago. But that was a stupid tryst, and this calculated plot put my wife and son in mortal danger. Could I kill my own brother? It had now become a possibility. Cain and Abel had turned from fable to instructive history.
Yet I was trussed and helpless.
“I know you hate me right now, brother, but work with us for the next perilous hours. All can triumph if each does his part. Work with us to rescue Astiza and Horus and fetch the palladium, and we can live happily afterward, rich and satisfied.”
“You can’t even agree which nation gets it.”
“The highest paying one,” Caleb said.
“Russia will show the most gratitude,” the prince added. “You’ll get your title and I’ll be first among equals to the tsar.”
Dolgoruki I could kill without pity. Caleb with fury.
But suddenly a new realization flooded in and I looked at the two of them in horror and amazement. I’d been used, all right, but far more diabolically than I’d thought.
“Wait. Dolgoruki, it wasn’t the tsar who told you to fetch the notorious Ethan Gage and his family to Russia after we fled Bohemia, was it? The tsar would scarcely have remembered me after the disaster of Austerlitz. But you rode back to Napoleon’s lines with me, and you remembered being played the fool by the French emperor and the renegade American. And as revenge, it was your idea to bring me to Russia. You, Dolgoruki, the royal Russian fool. The man I dismissed as an arrogant idiot. You plotted this for months. Plotted with Czartoryski. Steps ahead of us all.”
“Finally you begin to see, Gage. Having wrecked my reputation, you’re going to help me restore it. After the battle I was wracked with despair. How to redeem myself? And then I heard a legend of an ancient relic that conveyed invincibility, and remembered your devious greed, and heard of your reputation as a treasure hunter with a remarkable wife. I knew you’d trust Czartoryski in a way you’d never trust me. And then the minister secretly contacted the French, and the French your brother. So yes, everyone has manipulated you from the beginning. I thought a hundred times it could all go wrong. I thought you’d drown in the Neva, or be captured by the Prussians. But no, your reputation for dumb luck is well deserved. Perhaps you’re invincible yourself.”
“This is a sin, using us. You’re tempting Satan.”
“All sides worked to bring you here, Ethan,” Caleb said. “You know that Astiza believes in fortune and destiny. This was destiny tripled. It’s good luck what’s happened, not bad.”
My mind whirled, trying to piece back just how I’d been directed. “You left the skis to point our course to Russian pursuit,” I said to Caleb. “Izabela knew the Russians would come to the Temple.”
“I needed a battle so I could desert my command with a good excuse,” Dolgoruki said. “My men will report I was forced into a temporary truce to save their lives. I’ll return a hero.”
“Some of those men dead or wounded.”
“Destiny has its casualties.” He looked impatient at my reluctance to forgive all and merrily press on. My wife and son in danger, treasure waiting, companions primed for action. Fait accompli.
“This Dalca and his women,” I finally said. “Why? Is he some kind of lovelorn obsessive? A wicked de Sade? I thought you said people who went there never came back. Do only women go there? Do they never return?”
“Men have tried to gain admission without success,” the prince said. “It’s only pretty young women he’ll entertain. But not, we think, for sex.”
“You think? My God, you’re the most scabrous scoundrel, a pit of iniquity, a moral monster! Both of you! Why would any woman go near that place if not coerced by the abduction of her child?”
Caleb picked up a knife and eyed its point, and at first I was afraid of what he might do. But he was eyeing my bonds. “Your indignation is understandable, Ethan. But we’re wasting time now that you’re awake. It hardly matters why they go there. The point is that they never come back. So Astiza has entered his lair and we must rescue her.”
“But they must always come of their own free will,” added Dolgoruki. “It has to be, or he won’t accept them. He invites them to his banquet.”
“He promises them immortality.”
CHAPTER 21
Astiza
I was invited to a women’s banquet in what, from a distance, appeared to be a ruin. Balbec Castle is a fossil that must date from medieval times, since the centuries have pitted its walls and its windows are dark arrow slits. Some of the parapets have collapsed into rubble from age and neglect. The fortress overlooks a narrow shepherd’s pass in the Carpathians once used by barbarian raiders, but this threat is as anachronistic as the castle itself. Yet while the aerie is too high and remote for ordinary life or commerce, it is useful as a remote hideaway.
A sinuous ridge wound ten miles upward from village to castle, the world brown and gray as I rode my horse up the rocky path. Lingering snow patches were old and dirty. In the last mile the vegetation disappeared entirely except for lichens on wind-scoured stone. Taller peaks cast Balbec into gloom, and swirling cloud gave it a malevolent air. Thunder rumbled constantly, as if lightning was curiously attracted to its towers. A mournful keening rose and fell with the wind and, as I drew nearer, I saw that the cry’s source was
a curious flag. It was a tubular wolf’s-head standard that inflated like a Chinese banner and howled with every breeze.
I trembled with anger that our ‘fellowship’ had gambled my son’s life in this foul place. Yes, I will lead my family out of Balbec Castle. But not necessarily Caleb and Dolgoruki.
My journey began with an invitation. In the deepest dark of the previous night, a leather binder had been slipped under our crude door in the village of Szejmal. Inside was a parchment invitation inked in red from a careful hand.
If you seek unity, come to my castle before sundown tomorrow. Instead of a signature, there was the outline of a wolf.
And under that, Alone, to my Banquet of Immortality.
Or he dies.
I left while my husband was still unconscious, reluctantly admitting to Caleb that yes, Ethan might not let me go if awakened. Our resulting plan is quite mad, but Caleb and Dolgoruki have essentially burned our ships and bet all on desperation. Somehow I must distract and bargain with Cezar Dalca. Somehow I must employ my son.
Caleb promised the men will follow but he wasn’t brave enough to even face my gaze. I’d thought his odd glances had been from male desire, but now I know better. He’d planned my sacrifice from the beginning. “Soon, all debts will be balanced,” he promised.
“The woman in Philadelphia? Is that was this is about?”
“It’s about putting things right.”
“You preached reconciliation.”
“I strive for it, but also for justice.”
“Only forgiveness frees the heart. So I forgive you, Caleb.”
He winced as if I’d slapped him.
“But I can never respect you. All you’ve accomplished is to prove you’re a small man, much smaller than my husband or son.”
“Astiza—”
“No antique icon is worth eternal damnation.”
“Can’t you see? This is for all of us.”
The Trojan Icon (Ethan Gage Adventures Book 8) Page 17