King of Foxes

by Raymond E. Feist

  “Really?” said the Duke, smiling. He turned to Special Captain Havrevulen and said, “What do you think, Captain?”

  In neutral tones the Captain said, “I think we should fortify Inaska and send a strong message to Salmater.”

  “So do I,” said Kaspar. He looked at Tal. “You’ve done well, young Hawkins.” To the Captain he said, “Draw up plans to fortify Inaska and get them to me by tomorrow.”

  The Captain bowed and departed.

  To Tal, Kaspar said, “I want you to start tomorrow in incorporating this information on our maps. Bring them up-to-date.” He leaned back in his chair and said, “Clean up and rest before dinner. That will be all.”

  Tal bowed and departed. He returned to his quarters and found a hot bath, and Amafi, waiting.

  “Magnificence, next time you must take me with you; _______________

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  you need eyes watching your back.” Amafi lowered his voice. “The servants hear things. This is not a happy place. Many political rivals and much plotting.”

  “Your command of the language is improving, I see,”

  said Tal as he slipped into the hot tub.

  “You command, I obey, Magnificence.” Amafi started soaping a large cloth and motioned for Tal to lean forward so he could scrub his back. “It is to my advantage that most here don’t realize I’m learning fast, and think me ignorant of their tongue. So they gossip and let things slip.”

  “So, what have you found out?”

  “The entire household is afraid of that man, Leso Varen. Those who serve him are in and out, do not linger.

  The only people who visit with him are Duke Kaspar and sometimes the Lady Rowena.”

  “Hmmm,” Tal said, wondering what Rowena might be up to. He observed the instructions of the Conclave and made no attempt to speak to her outside the normal social contact that resulted from them both serving in Kaspar’s court. When a dinner or some other function brought them together, both observed their roles impec-cably, and neither hinted at their prior relationship. Still, Tal had to admit to devoting a lot of time to considering what her mission might be. That she was spending time with Varen piqued his curiosity.

  Amafi went on, “No one has said Varen had done bad things, but it is a feeling of those here that he is a wizard and a bad man.”

  “I’ll concede that point,” said Tal. He took the cloth from Amafi and continued washing. “What else?”

  “Most of those who have been here a long time remember Duke Kaspar as a different man; the older servants talk about him as a boy. Most blame Varen for Kaspar’s changed nature.”

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  “A man makes choices,” Tal said.

  “True, but what choices a man makes depends on what choices he is offered.”

  “You’re occasionally profound, Amafi.”

  “Thank you, Magnificence. Duke Kaspar is devoted to his sister. The Lady Natalia is refused nothing. She likes men, horses, fine clothing, and galas. There are many entertainments here in the citadel, at least one a week. Many seek her hand in marriage, but Kaspar is keeping her for a special alliance.”

  “He wants her to be Queen of the Isles, I think,” said Tal.

  “I am no expert on politics, Magnificence, but I think that will not happen.”

  “I agree,” said Tal, standing.

  Amafi wrapped him in a towel, then asked, “What is your pleasure until supper, Magnificence?”

  “A bite. You go fetch some bread, cheese, and wine while I dress myself. Then find that page, Rudolph, and tell him to come here. I think it’s time to see more of the citadel.”

  “More?” Amafi shrugged. “I thought you had seen it all.”

  Tal smiled. “Hardly. There are things here that I have only imagined, Amafi.”

  “Very well, Magnificence. I shall do as you command.”

  Amafi bowed and left the room, and Tal finished drying off. There was so much to learn, if only he could manage to stay alive long enough to learn it.

  __

  Tal followed Rudolph. The boy took him through a hallway that was clean but rarely used. “These quarters are _______________

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  empty, Squire,” said the boy. He reached the farthest door and rattled the handle. “All locked up proper, sir.” He turned around. “Well, that’s it, then. You’ve seen it all, from one end of the citadel to the other.”

  Tal smiled. “Not all, I warrant.”

  “Well, all the stores back inside the caves . . .”

  “Caves?”

  “There are caves used as storehouses behind the citadel, Squire. Big nasty, drafty dark places, and some of them I hear go back for miles. No reason to go there, but if you must . . .” He started to walk.

  Tal put his hand on the boy’s shoulder, restraining him. “No, some other time perhaps. How do I find these caves?”

  “There are several entrances, Squire. One lies behind the armory, but that door is always locked and only Captain Havrevulen and the Duke himself have keys to that door. There’s another one behind the kitchen, through a door that’s behind where you go to dump the kitchen waste to the midden, and there’s another one down off that old room I showed you that had all the different furniture in it that we keep around for Lady Natalia when the mood strikes her to change things. Then there’s the dungeon, but you don’t want to go there.”

  “No,” agreed Tal.

  “There’s one other door that comes up somewhere else, but I don’t recall exactly where.” He looked at Tal and said, “I’ve shown you everywhere I know about, sir.

  All that’s left then is the wizard’s apartments, Squire, but you don’t want to go there either.”

  “I’ve been there,” said Tal to the boy’s openmouthed amazement. “No, I was thinking of the servants’ passages.”

  “The serving ways? But none of the gentry want to know about those. Even I don’t know all of them, sir.”

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  “Why don’t you show me what you do know?”

  Rudolph shrugged and walked past Tal. “This way, then, sir, but if you ask me, it’s a bit odd.”

  Tal laughed. “Then why don’t we keep this between ourselves?”

  “Mum’s the word, Squire,” said Rudolph as he led Tal toward the kitchen.

  __

  An hour later they walked through a narrow hall barely wide enough for Tal to move through without his shoulders brushing a wall. Rudolph held a candle up. “This leads to the Duke’s quarters, Squire. Can’t go too close, unless we’re summoned.”

  As Tal had anticipated, there were passages out of sight of the residents and guests of the citadel that were used by the servants to fetch and carry all sorts of things. Laundry and food, soil buckets and water were lugged through these narrow hallways, so as not to in-convenience the residents and, as Tal knew, they were often used as shortcuts from one part of the building to the next.

  He suspected that more than one noble had skulked through these passages on his way to the bedroom of a visiting noble’s wife or daughter, and more than one pretty maid had made her way toward a nobleman’s quarters that way as well.

  They passed a ladder, and Tal asked, “Rudolph, where does this lead?”

  “Next floor up, Squire,” the boy answered, now very bored with exploring.

  “I know that, boy. Where on the next floor?”

  “Can’t say as I rightly know, sir. Most of us don’t use _______________

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  the ladders. Some of ’em are so rotten with age, you can fall and break your neck. When you’re carrying a tray or a bundle, you can’t climb up or down. So most people don’t use them.”

  Tal closed his eyes for a moment, calling up what he remembered of the passages above, and had a fair idea of
where that ladder exited. As he suspected, while entrances below in the citadel—primarily in the kitchen and laundry areas—were regular doors, almost all the exits above were disguised as wall panels or behind closets or through doors behind tapestries. He wondered if even the Duke even knew all these passages, though he found it hard to believe that a man as thorough as Kaspar would remain ignorant of what could turn out to be a vulnerability; but on the other hand, even the smartest people took too many things for granted, and if Kaspar’s parents had been ignorant of all these byways in the citadel, then Kaspar might be as well.

  They moved on through the dark tunnel, and Tal decided he would return to these tunnels and explore on his own some time soon. Just as he would visit the dungeon and the caves as well.

  The only places he would give a wide berth were Kaspar’s apartment and the rooms occupied by Leso Varen.

  Tal said, “I think that’s enough. Show me the fastest way back to my room.”

  “Thank you, Squire,” said the boy, not hiding his relief. “The housecarl’s going to beat me if I don’t get back soon.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll tell him I required your services.”

  “That’s all right, Squire. It won’t do me any good. My master reckons I’ve got to learn to be in two places at once sooner or later.”

  Tal laughed and followed the boy.

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  __

  Tal stood silently, feeling something akin to triumph. He was in the mouth of a cave, looking across a deep ravine still shrouded in darkness as the early-morning light began to illuminate a cliff face less than a half mile away.

  Looking down, he felt almost giddy with delight.

  A few days after returning from his mission down to the Southern Islands, Tal was called into Kaspar’s presence and informed they would be hunting for a week starting the next day. Tal had instructed Amafi to prepare his travel bags, had secured new strings for his bow from the Duke’s armory and chosen two dozen arrows. Then just before dinner, his stomach had rebelled, and Tal had come down with a murderous stomach flux, either from something he had picked up on the way back from the Southern Islands or something he had eaten that morning. Tal had spent the day in bed or in the garderobe. He couldn’t even keep water down without having it come right back up.

  The Duke’s healer had come to see him, giving him a foul-tasting concoction to drink, but Tal vomited that back up a minute later. Shaking his head, the chirurgeon had prescribed bed rest and waiting it out. He had informed the Duke that Tal would be bedridden for at least three days. Kaspar then sent a note wishing Tal well and inviting him to join the party in a day or two should he quickly recover.

  The afternoon after Kaspar’s departure, Tal had endured a fever for half a day. He had awoken thirsty, and the water had stayed down. He had rested for that night, and the next morning informed Amafi he would not be joining the Duke immediately. Then he decided to use _______________

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  the time he had to explore further the caverns and caves behind the citadel.

  Dressed in black, carrying a lantern, he had slipped out that night into the lower basement of the citadel, quickly negotiating the servants’ passages and making his way to the pantry. Since the Duke and much of his household were out hunting, kitchen activity had been at a minimum, so he easily avoided the few cooks’ helpers working late at night, located the ancient caves Rudolph had told him about, and explored them. As the boy had promised, some went on for miles. His first night had been difficult, for while the fever and flux had left him, he was still feeling weak.

  On the second night he had found a long tunnel un-marked by any sign of human passage for a very long time and followed it to a huge gallery with three passages leading eastward. One of them contained a barely noticeable draft of air, and he had followed it.

  It had taken him three nights of exploration, but at last he had discovered the exit where he now stood. He put down the lantern and studied the crevasse that the maps in the Duke’s library clearly marked as the biggest barrier across the escarpment. High above he could see the brightening sky between the two opposing faces of the deep cut in the earth. And directly across from him Tal saw something totally unexpected, a pathway down from the opposite side of the crevasse. He moved to the edge of the entrance and looked down and beheld another stone pathway leading down. Tracing the route with his eyes in the early-morning light, he saw what he had never dreamed might exist: the means of traversing the chasm that had safely guarded the rear of the citadel for ages.

  The paths were not natural. Some ancient war chief or early Duke of Olasko had cut those narrow paths into the _______________

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  face of the cliffs. They were little wider than goat trails, but two or even three men abreast could walk down one side and up the other. They were not marked on any documents in Kaspar’s library. Tal judged that some past ruler had wanted to make sure there was a fast way out of Opardum that few, if any, besides himself knew about.

  Tal made his way carefully down the path to the bottom of the cliff. It was not a difficult journey, although the descent was steep, for the path was wide and free of ob-stacles. At the bottom he found a pair of stone pillars. A matching pair mirrored them on the other side of a broken, rocky gully. Once in the past water must have flowed through this part of the gorge, Tal decided, but at some later stage the water source had been diverted or dried up.

  He negotiated his way across the broken gully to the other side and looked up. It would be an annoying climb to the path above, but he could manage it if he wished. He knew he wouldn’t bother: because when he came here next, it would be from the other side with a company of engineers who would have a bridge across the gully in a matter of hours.

  Tal started back. It would be dark before he reached his room, and Amafi would keep servants away from his

  “sleeping” master, fighting off what was going to turn out to be the last of his fever. Tomorrow Tal would awaken sufficiently recovered to join Kaspar on his hunt, and no one would know that he had discovered the citadel’s glaring weakness. For a moment he considered telling Amafi, then decided against it; he could not confess what he didn’t know. Besides, no matter how loyal the former assassin had been since coming into Tal’s service, Tal wasn’t certain he would always remain so.

  Remembering the story Nakor had told him, of the scorpion who had killed the frog crossing the river, thereby _______________

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  dooming himself as well because it was his nature, Tal decided that Kaspar might not be the only scorpion Tal had to contend with.

  Since killing Raven in the Land of the Orodon, Tal had dreamed of how he might defeat Kaspar. He had imagined finding him alone and killing him with a sword in hand, telling him who he really was at the last. He had imagined sneaking into his quarters in the dead of night, using the hallways and servants’ passages to win his way past his guards. Now it seemed he might have another choice. He felt positively buoyant as he made his way back through the caves.

  __

  Tal sat in mute amazement as the servants brought in the bear. It had been given to a taxidermist in Roldem, who had prepared the trophy for display, and had been delivered the day before Kaspar and his companions returned from their most recent hunting trip. The bear rose up on his hind legs, his muzzle set in a snarl. The assembled nobles and privileged commoners of Opardum gawked at the creature.

  “My lords, ladies, and gentlemen,” declared the Duke,

  “my view of this animal the last time he rose up like that was lying at his feet, as he was preparing to devour me. I would not be here this evening if it hadn’t been for the quick and heroic action of the newest member of the court. My friends, I present to you Talwin Hawkins, my emissary at large.”

  He motioned for Tal to stand. Tal d
id so to a round of polite applause. He sat down again as quickly as he could.

  Kaspar went on to add, “This bear will stand on display with the other prizes in the Trophy Hall, with a plaque _______________

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  detailing Squire Hawkins’s noble achievement. Now, please continue with the festivities.”

  A low buzz of conversation returned to the room. The officer next to Tal, a Lieutenant Adras, said, “Good luck, Squire. None rise so fast as those with luck.”

  Tal nodded. Natalia glanced over at him while pretending to be listening to a story one of the Duke’s senior advisors was telling. She threw him a quick smile, then returned her attention to the courtier.

  The lieutenant said, “Slowly, Squire. Our lady is known to . . . let’s leave it that she rarely takes prisoners,”

  he finished with a chuckle.

  Tal looked at him. “Really?”

  “Not that I have firsthand experience, you understand, Squire. I’m merely a lowly lieutenant of cavalry, not even a member of the Household Guard. A few of us are allowed to dine here from time to time, but I expect my next turn will be a year or more coming around.” He pointed to the far end of the table, where Special Captain Havrevulen dined, and said, “Our esteemed Captain Quint is the only soldier in the duchy who would think of so lofty a prize. The rest of us may merely gaze on in adoration.” He sat back, appraising Tal. “You, Squire, have noble lineage, are Champion of the Masters’ Court, and—judging by the size of that bear—no mean hunter.

  Since our lord and master is not given to overblown praise, he is also in your debt. So you have a chance, slim as it might be, to court our lady.”

  “The lady is the Duke’s most important treasure,” observed Tal. “She will be wed to whichever ruling prince most advantages Olasko, I’ll wager.”

  With a laugh, the lieutenant said, “You’re no country boy, Hawkins, that’s for certain.”