Betrayal (12 page)

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.”

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 threat 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.”

“Arch Duke Aedwrath might make enough noise to bring soldiers in for our heads.”

“That may be true.” Berengar offered some dried fish from the basket to the younger man.

Nisero sniffed and looked at the scant remains. “Are you enjoying your meal, captain?”

“It is a little more aged than I like. The selections were few, and the price was a touch steep. I’m thinking there is not a steady supply coming into the city for some reason. I get the impression from your tone that I should not be enjoying my food. Is that it, lieutenant?”

“Throwing around the Duke’s coins might not endear us to him further.”

Berengar shrugged and set the basket aside. “As Aedwrath said the first day, he has plenty of money. Being bandits is not cheap.”

One of the constables walked the driver out and sat him on the ground. The men on top untied the Duke. Aedwrath shoved their hands away and tried to stand, but then collapsed to his back on the roof again.

“We should move along before they tell their stories,” Nisero suggested.

Berengar wiped off his fingers on the front of his cloak. “Come along then.”

They slipped around through the crowd and down the western avenue called Golden Hawk.

“I’m not sure what you see as our next move.”

Berengar remained silent for several steps. The avenue cleared out and the crowd thinned as they walked farther from the square. It was not normally one of the busier destinations in the city but the display they had put on for the people had drawn more than the usual attention. Nisero noted that word had spread through the city far faster among the common people than the reaction of the constables indicated.

Berengar finally said, “We’re going to have to approach the King.”

“And do what exactly? Hang him up by his feet?”

“That probably would not be received well,” Berengar murmured.

“No, it would not, sir. But not much of anything we would say or do entering the palace would be received much better.”

“If we were able to approach him and deliver a message without doing him harm, I think that would go a long way to proving our innocence to the one man above all that we need to believe it.”

Nisero rolled his head inside his cloak’s hood, stretching his tired neck muscles. “I do not know that we will find much impression in breaking into the throne room, and then stopping short of killing the King as our plea of innocence. If he is even indirectly involved as has been implied, he might already know of our innocence with no desire to allow it to be proven. If our deaths or imprisonment serve to pacify the eastern kingdom or advance his war agenda, I’m not sure that our guilt or innocence in reality will matter much.”

“That may be true,” Berengar agreed.

Nisero hesitated. “You still intend to try to enter the palace, don’t you?”

“I do,” he said. “I believe it is our best play. We just need to be sure we can get back out again.”

“Well, sir, if we accomplish the impossible by getting in, then doing the impossible a second time would be that much easier.”

Berengar slapped Nisero on the shoulder. “That’s the spirit.”

They turned into a dark archway and followed through into an open courtyard. Three floors of tenement room doors looked out over balconies on the central yard. Children played and eyed the two men as they passed. Women sewed and beat stones against wet cloth. They glanced to the side as the men passed, but did not look on them fully.

An older man with his shirt off and scars across his tanned back sat on an overturned bucket carving, shaping, and bending a staff of wood that Nisero thought might be for a bow. He did not look up from his work at them at all.

As Nisero took the stairs leading up to the second level, he thought that any one of these people might give them up if constables came through asking for people fitting their description. If enough reward were involved, it would be a near certainty.

Nisero bore little hope that the peasants’ hatred for authority would go very far. Maybe the lack of manpower that Berengar’s stunt had exposed would be enough to keep them hidden. He still saw the stunt itself as being the prime to bring in more manpower where it was lacking before.

As they crossed the balcony and rounded the corner, Nisero said, “I think you misunderstand the state of my spirit, sir.”

“No, I read your meaning exactly.”

“What is it that you hope will occur then?” Nisero asked. “Do you expect the King will grant us pardon on the spot where we enter as burglars and then will grant us a feast as he agrees to engage the east in war on our behalf?”

“I think a feast may be a bit much to ask with the shortage of fresh fish in the city,” Berengar remarked.

They climbed the stairs to the third level and rounded the corner to walk along the front edge of the tenement block.

“I don’t sense that you have a desire to explain yourself, sir, nor to dissuade my concerns,” Nisero said.

They stopped at an unmarked door two from the corner. Berengar gave a particular pattern of a knock. “I think the King may well realize that there are movements being made by powers below him. I’m not convinced that men like Caffrey and Aedwrath are acting on behalf of the King as they imply. The effort to capture you for the crime of escaping with your life may well be an effort to keep you from bearing witness of the events from that night. I do not think the men that operate in the dark believe that we would make this play to speak to the King directly. After what I’ve seen today, I believe we might be able to sail this strait and reach the King in the very vacuum created by the war threat that evil men have created. This may be our chance.”

“They do not think we will do it, because it is a truly insane ploy.”

The door opened and Arianne peeked around from behind it. “Will you two get inside? I can hear you talking from in here. You have all the stealth of two drunken aunts.”

They walked inside and she closed and barred the door behind them.

“I think there may have been some form of rum soaked into the fish we ate as a preservative,” Berengar realized.

“You do seem nearly jovial, father. I don’t like it.”

Berengar unlatched the window and opened the shutter boards out part way to allow light into the room. They were one level above the street. Berengar chuckled. “I actually have a glimmer of hope. Maybe that is what you see that disturbs you both so. I’m sure something will come along to tamp it back down. Do not worry.”

Arianne sat down on the edge of one of the beds. “Are you sure it is wise to have that window open?”

Berengar waved her off as he sat down at the table in the center of the single room. “Unless the constables are riding birds, they will not see in here and I am not convinced they have the capacity to know they are searching for us even if they saw us.”

“We are running low on supplies,” she said. “You should have bought more on your way back to avoid a second trip.”

“We will need to buy a great many things for what we have coming ahead.”

Arianne looked back and forth between the two men. “What have you got planned?”

Nisero gazed out the window at the avenue below them. A group of men started shouting and pushing. The merchant yelled, “I have no grain. I can’t help you. Leave me be.”