“Come in, you must be Samual. I am Norbrat and this is my wife Annaray. I apologize in advance for our humble meal. However, we do the best we can on the money I make I hope that you can change that.” Samual thanked him and they then sat down to a meal of roasted mutton and vegetables with dark bread and weak wheat beer.
Samual started the conversation slowly. “Tell me Norbrat what do you think of your king’s son, Roddrick, marrying a princess of Nordia?”
Norbrat looked at his wife who nodded. “I wouldn’t go trumpeting this from the rooftops, but neither of us hold much love for our king and his family. I don’t know anything about this princess or her family. But I would happily do something to put a hex on this marriage. If my understanding is correct, Roddrick would eventually be the prince consort when his bride finally ascends the throne. This is much too good for both he and his family. They have unfairly marginalized our family for generations. You can see the result for yourself. We aren’t poor but we aren’t well off either. In other kingdoms a family such as ours would live much better.”
Samual took the leap. If it failed, he was willing to kill both of them and flee. “I have clients who feel the same way about the King of Nordia and his family. They would like to take some drastic action against them. This would require someone willing if necessary, to take some risks. Note that I said if necessary, it may not be needed. If it is, the person we are looking for must act decisively. Then this person will have to ‘die’ and move to a kingdom south of Sud, where suitable employment would be found. After, this person’s ‘death’, the grieving widow would have leave here as well. Should it not be necessary to act, this person would receive a reasonable amount gold. Some of that gold would be paid in advance. Most of it would come after the fact so as not to raise suspicion. Should action be necessary the reward would be much more.”
Once again Norbrat and his wife looked at each other. After some silent communication Norbrat asked.
“Exactly what would that person have to do to earn that gold?”
“That is the crux of the question isn’t it? The first part is that this person must arrange to be the head of Prince Roddrick’s escort to Nordport. Without that we have nothing further to discuss.”
“Not a problem. I am the head of the guard assigned to the Prince. I will lead the escort to Nordport.”
“Good, I have six men, mercenaries, that I want you to take into the guard and take them with the Prince To Nordport. I’ll send them a couple at a time over the next few weeks. Will that be a problem?”
“Not at all, the guard is always looking for men. Patrolling in the north in brutal, especially in winter. Bringing in experienced men will be no problem. As to the escort, I pick the men.” replied Norbrat.
“Hopefully just having the men in the escort is all that is required. If for some reason should the prince’s betrothed was in danger he would need to ride to her rescue. Could you convince him of that?"
"Samual, it would take no convincing, Roddrick is no coward. I’d have to tie him down to stop him from doing that. Why would you want us to ride to their rescue?”
“Norbrat, the reason is to kill his betrothed, her sister and brother and her parents. If Roddrick dies as well, then that is none of my concern. The mercenaries will do the deed. You just have to make sure that they are put in a position to do that. I would expect that you can accomplish that. After that you must flee in the confusion. There will be a route that you will be given before you leave Nordport. Later an agent will give information to your wife so she can join you. What do you say?”
Norbrat and his wife sat stunned at the revelation. “How much gold are we talking about?” asked his wife.
Samual gave them the amount for just adding the mercenaries, then the much greater amount for the assassination.
Norbrat and his wife started to quietly discuss it. Samual stood up and walked to the other side of the room to give them a semblance of privacy while they discussed it.
After they finished Norbrat looked at Samual. “I’ll do it.”
Samual gave them a small purse with gold in it. They opened it and looked at it greedily.
“You must be very frugal with this. Anyone living above their means will be immediately under suspicion. I doubt even your king employs incompetent torturers. Best that it be put away in a strong box. You my dear lady can take it with you if you need to go join your husband. Thank you and I will take my leave.”
Samual left. He never ceased to be amazed how greed and envy could blind people to danger. Did Norbrat seriously think that he would survive this. The assassins didn’t expect to if they were forced to act. But they were some sort of fanatics being part of the assassins’ guild. If there was no need of them, they would kill Norbrat and Roddrick in Nordport then do as much damage as they could in the palace until they were cut down. Who knew, they might even be able to kill the king. If they did have to kill the royal family because the bandit had failed, the assassins would keep killing until they were killed. They may not kill all of their targets, but enough. He imagined that given the chance Norbrat would kill Roddrick. That would seal his fate for sure. His wife would not survive long after him. Some calamity would befall her, and her child would be an orphan for a while. No doubt some family would eagerly take the child and raise it as their own. Children on Cornu were a precious commodity. The gold he'd given them was the last they'd ever see from him.
The next morning, he rode out of town vowing never to return.
Recruiting Bart.
Bart had been born and raised in a farming community in the Kingdom Leeland, north of the Sud Mountains on the shores of the Western Sea. He’d been a bright and ambitious child, who had no love of farming and didn’t want to stay and be a farmer his whole life. As a male child he was important to the village and there were endless arguments with his parents as he grew older about him staying in the village. One night when he was 18, he secretly packed his belongings and snuck away. At first, he wandered around doing odd jobs until he fell in with a group of bandits that prayed on travelers and small merchant caravans. Bart had found his calling.
His native intelligence and cunning served him well. Over the next 40 years he went from being a member of a gang to a leader. Now he had almost 90 men under his command and ruled over a fair-sized alpine valley hidden in the depths of the Sud range. He had two key lieutenants Kornin and Raudolph. Kornin led some of the raids and was his second in command. Raudolph helped with the planning and handled all the logistics as well as profitably disposing of the gang’s plunder. This particular day Raudolph was returning with a few men from a trip to dispose of some goods they recently taken from a Leeland Merchant. With the money he purchased supplies and other items the band needed. He also had a fat purse from the excess profits.
Bart waited for him on the porch of his house. Raudolph was a small wiry man with dark hair and piercing intelligent eyes. He could hold his own in a fight, but his real value was in his skill disposing of their ill-gotten gains, handling supplies, providing intelligence and helping to plan the raids. As he rode up, Bart stepped up to his horse. “Well, Raudolph, I see you got supplies for us. What news do you have?”
“Bart, I don’t want to speak about it out here, but you should send for Kornin and we can discuss it inside.”
“Uhm, I’ll send for Kornin, come in and you tell me about it.” He turned to one of the young girls and instructed her to find Kornin and have him come to see him. With that done he went inside followed by Raudolph.
“Something to drink, get the dust of the road out of your throat?”
“No, I’ll pass until we all have a chance to talk to Kornin. Just water if you please. Here’s what’s left over from buying supplies.” He tossed a heavy purse on to the table.
Bart picked it up and weighted in his hand. “This looks quite good, as usual you’ve done well. I’m very curious about this but I’ll wait for Kornin.”
The two men sat and Raudolph gave
Bart a run down on how much the stolen goods brought in, what supplies he’d purchased and any information that he’d picked up about potential targets. Bart was very careful. He would go after two or three large hauls a year spread out along the width of Landia, plus a few smaller ones. He had a few rules. First, kill the minimal number of people that you could. Keep to targets that were close enough to the mountains. Use overwhelming force. Since the raids hit each kingdom only occasionally. While he was a problem, he wasn’t enough of a problem for any one kingdom or group of kingdoms to ban together and make a determined effort to get him. The raid on Nordia taught him that violating his rules led to heavy losses. He was greedy just not to greedy.
Kornin arrived and greeted Raudolph, then the three men sat and Raudolph started with his story. “I was at an inn about two days ride south of here, disposing of the last of our loot. The innkeeper there is a good fence; I had no doubt that he had a distribution network, but beyond that I didn't know and didn't care. We were sitting in a backroom of the inn, when another man walked in. I thought that it meant that there were some sort of guards out there and I was done for. Instead, the inn keeper introduced me to him as his boss and the real owner of the inn. Said his name was Samual. He told me that he had an important yet dangerous job that he wanted us to undertake and he’d like to come and talk to you himself. He seemed to know where our valley is.” That brought shocked expressions to the faces of the other two men. Raudolph continued. “He gave me 50 gold sovereigns and said that if it was acceptable, I should meet him at the inn in a week and then a week later he’d come here. If I don’t meet him then he’d know you weren’t interested.” With that he took out another pouch opened and poured the gold out on to the table. “We can keep this for our trouble. One more thing, he said that we’d have enough to live in luxury for the rest of our lives”
Kornin was the first to speak. “I don’t like this. I don’t like it all. We have to consider silencing this Samual and your fence permanently.”
“Kornin, that’s a good thought and there are plenty of times when that’s exactly the thing to do. I don’t think his is the time for it.” Replied Bart. “We need to think this through. Keep this to yourselves and we’ll meet back here for breakfast.” With that Kornin and Raudolph left and Bart sat thinking long into the night.
The next morning the three men gathered for breakfast. They ate mostly in silence. At the end Bart turned to Raudolph. “Well my friend what do you think?”
Raudolph considered it for a moment. “I’m not sure. I’m almost positive he knows the way to our valley or knows enough to find it fairly quickly. I don’t like that at all. This man has been our fence for several years, even if we didn’t know it. That means he can’t be totally honest. He has given us a couple of leads over the years that lead to some nice hauls. You have to wonder if he had us hurting his competitors. Whoever this Samual is and I doubt that is his real name, needs to be taken seriously.”
“I see” said Bart. “What about you Kornin?”
“I’m less sure that killing him would solve our problems. If we did, we’d have to assume that he has something planned to pay us back. We’d probably have to find another place and I’m not sure we could find such an ideal place. One thing I am sure of is that he’s offering us so much in payment, then whatever he wants is very, very dangerous.”
Bart sat back. “I agree with both of you. I don’t think we can kill this man. I also don’t think he would betray us. If we had more time, I’d like to find out who really is. The question is do we want to get involved? If he comes here, we’re committed. Something like this, he can’t let us stay around to talk about. The three of us would be the ones he’d really want dead. Everyone else, it wouldn’t matter so much, unless they knew. What do you say to listening to him? Remembering that once we know we can’t back out.”
They all sat for a few minutes. Then Kornin spoke. “I think we need to listen. I don’t see that we have much choice. He knows too much and if one of the kingdom’s doesn’t have to look high and low for us they’d come and wipe us out. I’d bet that if we don’t listen to him at some point that will happen to us.”
Raudolph nodded. “I’m afraid Kornin is right we have no choice.”
“I’m forced to agree with both of you. Raudolph, go tell this Samual he can come here. He’s to bring no more than two guards with him.”
Two days later Raudolph left the valley with two men and headed towards the inn. Once he reached the main road he was observed by one man hidden in the woods. The man waited to see if any more men would follow. When nobody else came out the man was satisfied. He wrote the number 3 on a piece of paper. The paper was attached to a homing pigeon and the bird released. A little over an hour later the pigeon arrived at Samual’s inn.
The innkeeper brought it to Samual. He read the short message and smiled. He’d researched this carefully and Bart’s band was the one that could carry out his plan and provide some distance from himself. Otherwise he would have been forced to hire mercenaries and find someone to lead them. That would be a much more difficult proposition. He did feel a moment of regret that the innkeeper and his family would have to die. Once the raid was underway there would be an unfortunate fire that would kill all of them.
Rudolph and the two men with him followed the rarely used road out of the valley. They camped for night just before it joined the main east-west road south of the Sud. When they reached it early the next morning they turned west towards the inn. After some six hours on the road they arrived. Raudolph planned to spend the night and then return to the valley.
The innkeeper met them and had the two men with Raudolph taken to their rooms. He took Raudolph to the backroom where Samual was waiting for him. The two men greeted each other. Samual could tell that his guest was wary. So, he waited for the other man to say his peace. Raudolph looked at him and started. “Samual, or whatever your name really is, we’ve discussed this situation and have come to the conclusion that you can come to our valley with no more than two other men. You’ll have to bring enough gold to convince us that it is worth it to us. This is a dangerous game we are involved in and we must be assured that whatever task you have for is both doable and worth the risk.”
“I can understand your concern. I looked carefully at this and I’m convinced that your group can carry this out. Failure could well mean my death as well as yours. I will be in your valley in two weeks with sufficient funds to convince to carry out this mission. Please enjoy the rest of your stay.”
With that Samual called for the innkeeper who took Raudolph to his room. Meanwhile Samual made plans to leave immediately in the morning, collect the gold and head back to Bart’s valley. It would be a hard two weeks of traveling. He wondered for the first time if he was out of his mind to have become involved in this in the first place. But that was done, the die was cast so to speak, and he needed to do everything in his power to make sure the plan worked.
When Raudolph arrived back at the valley he let Bart know that Samual would be there in two weeks. Bart simply nodded.
Two weeks went by and the sentries notified Bart that three men were coming up the trail to the valley. Bart assumed that this was Samual and his guards. Eventually, the three men rode up, with three two pack horses. Bart had one of his men take the bags to either the guest quarters for the guards or his house for Samual. One of the trunks, Samual’s guards took themselves into the house. It was heavy. Bart assumed it was gold and silver. He sent two young women to entertain Samual.
After Samual had cleaned up, they met in Bart’s sitting room. “Bart this is very nice and thank you for the company. This is out of the way, but very comfortable. Let’s get down to business. It’s very simple I’m going to give you a lot of money to capture the crown prince of Nordia and his family. Once you have them, you’ll bring them to a valley in the Sud. You’ll be given enough gold that you all can live very well for the rest of your lives. The key is they need to be alive. I’ve spent
almost two years planning this and I’ve got it all worked out.”
“My God man, the crown prince of Nordia and his family. How are we going to get them? Try and storm the palace at Nordport. Folly, pure folly.”
“No, my friend they’re coming to us, almost. Every two years they do a grand tour of the kingdom. There is a spot between Great Falls and Midport that is perfect. I think you and your men know it well. You raided two caravans there a few years ago. Unfortunately, Duke Edwin ran your men down and killed a lot of them. You still got the loot. Here’s the complete plan. How you will proceed, where we’ll meet you and how much you’ll get.” With that he handed Bart a large package of papers. “Please study this and we can talk tomorrow. When you get the family you'll bring them to a valley, it's in the plans. We need them alive. As an added reward you can keep the youngest daughter as your play thing.” With that Samual got up and left.
Bart called his lieutenants in and together they carefully went over the plan step by step. After a few hours of discussing it, Bart finally asked. “What do you think?”
Kornin answered first. “It’s a bold plan. On first hearing about it, it’s pure insanity. But looking at the plans this man has laid out it’s very possible to pull this one off. We’ve got an ambush site I know. I agree with this Samual, that horses would make it easier to be spotted and we'll have to walk to the ambush. We’ve got more men and a quick way back to the Sud. The royal family will provide the transportation. We'll use their carriages and the horses of the guards. It will be a quick run up to the valley. We'll be to far away for anyone to react. Any extra men can walk out. Nobody will be looking for anyone on foot. I assume that I will hold Vinfarm. That may be the toughest job.”
Rudolph looked at both men. “I’m going to be back here doing the logistics. This I can do. I’ll need to start working on a place for us to run to as soon as this is done. Nordia will come for us, they won’t care about losing men as long as they can get us. They have an idea where this valley is from our men that they captured. This isn’t a crime were they just execute you. They execute you slowly.”
Through the Gate: The Chronicles of Cornu Book 1 Page 23
