Soldiers of the Crown

by Stephen L. Nowland

  He was interrupted by a signal from Ronan, indicating that they should keep quiet. Aiden immediately tensed, unsure what the problem was, but then saw the sailor move over to a ladder leading to the surface. A pile of snow had built up at the foot of the ladder, having fallen through the grate above.

  Ronan climbed the ladder as quietly as he could, and paused to listen through the grating. Aiden was doubtful he could hear anything at all, given the sound of the rushing waters at their feet, but nevertheless, the sailor seemed satisfied with whatever he’d heard and carefully opened the grate.

  Aiden gestured for Pacian to go next. The two of them disappeared for a few moments before Pacian waved the rest of them up. By the time they’d all exited the sewer, the sun was starting to set in the west and young people were moving through the streets, lighting lanterns for the evening.

  They were in a narrow alleyway between two very large buildings, though it was far tidier than the lane they’d entered into the sewers from — a strong indication they were in the wealthier part of the city. The stars peeked out between breaks in the clouds above, and the hint of moonlight provided barely enough to see by. The buildings were taller and cleaner, made of white stone and the paving on the roads seemed to be smoother than other areas of the city.

  “We’re about ten minutes from the estate,” Ronan breathed softly, mindful of his voice carrying in the cold air. “It’s not far from the Senate building, though, so there are going to be more guards in that area. This is about as close as I can get us via the sewers, so if we run into any guards, you’ll have to deal with them.”

  “I’ll hang back and make a diversion if we need it,” Pacian advised. “Nel, if you can scream really loud, that’d be a huge help.”

  “I suppose I can muster a convincing scream if need be,” she answered hesitantly.

  “Whatever works,” Maggie concurred. Ronan then proceeded to lead them through a winding series of alleyways, avoiding the main streets as much as possible.

  Despite their earlier precautions, the number of City Watchmen in the area seemed to be minimal, and Ronan had no trouble guiding them around the few he spotted. True to his word, within a few minutes the sailor brought them to a large, spacious-looking building amongst elaborate gardens. He took them on a slow saunter around the perimeter of the property, which was surrounded by a formidable looking barred fence on all sides.

  “That’s it,” Ronan stated simply as they peered around the corner of the alleyway they stood in after finishing their quick appraisal. “Not a guard in sight — maybe the security on this place really is as good as I’ve heard and they don’t bother watching it?”

  “Either that, or they’ve been pulled away to another location for some reason,” Aiden mused, recalling the young spy who had provided a distraction for them earlier that day. “Maybe our friend Kinsey is giving us a hand by keeping the Watch busy. Either way, we’re clear to move in. Just be ready to deal with any servants working inside.”

  “How?” Pacian asked.

  “We’re here on official business,” Maggie suggested. “You’ve still got the letter of authority from the duke, so use it.”

  Without any further hesitation, Aiden walked out of the alley and across the street, heading straight for the front gate. It was locked, but there was a small silver bell hanging next to it for visitors to alert the staff. Aiden rang it and waited patiently for a response. Presently, the front door opened, revealing a middle-aged man. He was dressed as a butler in expensive, dark attire, and his receding hairline ended in thick eyebrows that were drawn together above narrowed eyes.

  “Can I help you?” he called across the six or seven yards between the gate and the front door.

  “My associates and I have come on behalf of the duke to search the premises,” Aiden called. The butler seemed alarmed by this and quickly made his way to the gate.

  “I need proof of this authority,” he demanded. Aiden held up the note with the ducal seal upon it, and after reading it through, the man’s face fell.

  “I see. Very well, you may enter, though I will ask you to at least wipe your feet before stepping inside.”

  “Thank you,” Aiden answered as the gate was unlocked. Falling into step behind the butler, he led his companions in single file through the snow-covered gardens. They were picturesque, but the beauty was mostly lost on the tense group of people passing through. Upon closer inspection, the house itself was very old, and was built in a squared-off style with small windows, archaic compared to more modern buildings like the Fair Maiden Inn. The front door was a large, over-designed affair with gold fluting around the outer edge.

  Inside was a small foyer, furnished with a hat stand, shoe rack, and a dresser for longcoats and other apparel, all of which were empty. The air was warm and dry.

  “So what’s all this about? The butler asked, clearly nervous about letting them inside. “My master will be most upset with this intrusion into his privacy.

  “Please relax,” Maggie assured him. “We’ll try to be quick and as little bother as possible, so if you and your staff would co-operate, we can be done and you can go back to your duties without further disruption.”

  “This is highly irregular,” the butler complained, looking down at the diminutive woman. “I see no representatives of the City Watch here and your letter, while authentic, it mentions nothing specific as to a search of these premises.” While he spoke, Aiden gestured at the others to start searching the house.

  “We can’t talk about the nature of this search,” Aiden said to the butler, “but if you have an issue with our methods, by all means take it up with His Grace at your convenience.”

  “Well… the duke’s signature is legitimate, and it is quite clear about providing you with what assistance I can,” the butler hedged as Aiden’s companions went about searching the place. “Very well, go ahead, but my employer will have things to say about this when he returns.”

  “Please gather your people into the kitchens, if you could,” Maggie continued, exerting some authority to get them to cooperate. The butler reluctantly did as he was told, calling the staff away from their current tasks and into the kitchen. There were four servants in addition to the butler, and none of them struck Aiden as being much of a threat, so he started to look around the house, leaving Val and Sir William to keep guard.

  The huge dining hall was magnificently appointed, with large, expensive tapestries hanging from the walls and a fireplace on the other side of the room. Although roughly two centuries old, the house appeared to be in remarkably good condition with little sign of aging. Most striking of all however, was the oversized chandelier hanging over the twenty-foot long table, with two dozen candles flickering through sculpted glass providing a mesmerizing effect.

  Ronan was moving along the back wall, searching without success behind the paintings for hidden compartments while Pacian had gone up the nearby staircase to check the top floor. Sayana found a narrow stairwell leading down to a basement and disappeared through a small service doorway. After a few minutes of this, Nellise moved closer to Aiden, making sure nobody else was listening before she spoke.

  “Do you have any idea what we should be searching for?” she asked quietly, prompting Aiden to ponder the sort of evidence they’d be likely to find. It was unlikely the senator would keep any written evidence lying around, unless he was lacking in both intelligence and good sense.

  “Journals, notes, letters… something in the rubbish that he’s thrown out and not destroyed properly… perhaps even signs that he has been meeting with the assassins,” Aiden told her at a normal volume so Ronan could hear him.

  “Nothing like that out here,” the sailor called as he started looking in vases and under furniture. “Course, it was always a long shot that he’d keep damning evidence out in his dining room.”

  “Hopefully Pace is having better luck,” Aiden remarked. “Keep an eye on the servants,” he added, “I’m going to see how he’s doing upsta
irs.”

  Aiden crossed the room and headed up the stairs two at a time, discovering a long hallway at the top with five doors leading off at regular intervals. The sound of someone shoving furniture around emanated from the first door on the left, and peering inside, Aiden saw Pacian had carefully gone through the room from top to bottom. From the nature of the material he guessed this used to be a study, or office, complete with an enormous mahogany desk and cabinets filled with papers.

  “We could be here for hours — look at all these papers,” Pacian griped as soon as he noticed Aiden enter the room.

  “Just stick to searching for vaults or secret compartments,” Aiden advised, daunted by the sight before him. “If the information we need is in those cabinets, it’s going to take days to find it, but I’m betting Johnson keeps his damning evidence someplace safe. Check out the other rooms, I’m going to see what’s happening downstairs,” Aiden said, dejected.

  He hurried down to the ground floor without waiting for a response from his friend, and glanced at the butler and his staff being watched carefully by an increasingly impatient Valennia. There was something odd about the expression on the butler’s face that irritated Aiden, a kind of haughtiness that alluded to a sense of satisfaction concerning their failure to uncover evidence against the senator.

  “Tell me you found something,” Aiden asked of Ronan, who was emerging from the kitchens with patches of flour on his dark longcoat and gloves. He shook his head slightly in reply.

  Aiden had genuinely thought they would uncover the Senator’s links to the assassins and the greater conspiracy against the Crown somewhere in the house, but now the prospect of ruining Sir Godfrey’s carrer, not to mention other possible consequences for Aiden and his companions was a very real possibility.

  “If you are quite finished tearing up my master’s home,” the butler remarked, “I will direct my staff to begin cleaning so it will be tidy for when he returns and destroys what remains of your lives.”

  “Speak again and I will remove your tongue,” Valennia said in a voice filled with promise. Aiden noticed Maggie over near the basement trying to catch his attention during the tense moment, so he walked over to speak with her.

  “Aiden, Sy thinks she’s found something downstairs,” she said, trying to keep her voice low.

  “Some good news I hope?” he asked quietly.

  “I’m not sure, but it seems a little strange to me,” the raelani druid replied, her tiny brow furrowed in thought.

  “I saw that look!” Valennia suddenly shouted, causing everyone in the room to stare at her in astonishment. She was pointing an accusing finger at the butler, who shied back in terror from her fury. “You know something, servant. Speak!”

  “I have no idea what you are talking about!” he cried.

  “Val, what the hell are you doing?” Aiden exclaimed.

  “When Margaret spoke of a discovery downstairs, this one flinched. He fears what you will find down below.” Aiden initially hesitated to take her word for it, but when he saw the butler was clearly uncomfortable, he knew Valennia was on to something.

  “Keep an eye on them while I go and check it out,” Aiden advised. “Ronan, come with us.” The sailor followed him and Maggie down the narrow stairs, ducking their heads to avoid the low ceiling along the way.

  Maggie led them along a short passageway and through an old wooden door into a sprawling chamber. Away from the warmth of the fires upstairs, the basement was freezing with icicles forming on the ceiling. Aiden shivered in the bitterly cold air as they continued along, walking between shelves filled with casks of wine and blocks of cheese hanging from the ceiling until they finally found Sayana in an open area at the end of the room.

  She was inspecting the walls, moving her palms slowly over the ancient stone blocks. On the floor around her were a dozen sleeping pallets and a pile of blankets in the nearby corner. The implications were obvious.

  “Do you think the assassins or their associates stayed here?” Aiden asked, suspecting the truth.

  “There’s no direct evidence of that,” Maggie explained, looking around with her hands on her hips. “But Sy found a few faint tracks on the dust and said they were similar to the ones she saw when we took down Holister.”

  “I think there could be a hidden door,” Sayana said to them. “There are no signs of those footprints near the basement door, and it is unlikely they could have entered or left the house through the front door without someone noticing.”

  “I think whoever was here, left only recently,” Maggie added. “Call it a hunch.”

  “I’ll take what I can get at this point,” Aiden breathed. “You, Val, and Sy have done some great work here.” Sayana suddenly stopped, and began carefully following a crack in the wall with one delicate finger until she had outlined what appeared to be a door, cunningly hidden in the stone.

  “My turn,” Ronan suggested, moving in to carefully examine the discovery. Aiden’s feeling of relief quickly turned into one of caution, for if the assassins had been here only recently, then something was afoot.

  “Should we send word to the duke about this?” Sayana asked as she watched Ronan figure out how to open the door.

  “There’s not enough here to get the senator into any kind of trouble,” Maggie said, shaking her head. “We’d need solid evidence to have even a chance of putting him away, and a few beds hidden in the basement just won’t cut it.”

  “Maggie, bring the others down here if you could,” Aiden asked of her. She hurried up the hall to the stairs, leaving him with Sayana and Ronan for a few moments.

  “This is going to be awkward, isn’t it?” Ronan observed, still tracing out the edge of the door. Sayana crossed her arms and looked cooly at Aiden, as if daring him to say what was on his mind.

  “Look, I just want to know if we can work together without a problem,” Aiden stated plainly. “The last thing we need are distractions, considering the type of people we’re dealing with.”

  “I’m fine,” Ronan shrugged.

  “I’m so glad to hear that,” Aiden drawled.

  “It sounds like you’re the one with the problem,” Sayana remarked.

  “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry,” he apologized. “I’m not the best at dealing with women.”

  “I am,” Ronan smirked.

  “Not really,” Sayana said, her voice barely more than a whisper.

  “Wait, what?” Ronan blanched as the sound of footsteps returning down the corridor interrupted their delightful conversation.

  “You didn’t have to be so intimidating toward those people,” Sir William warned Valennia as the rest of their companions approached. Ronan and Sayana went silent, and Aiden felt the need to smack himself on the forehead for making this worse instead of better.

  “They work for the man you consider to be a traitor, and you would have me coddle them?” the Akoran woman shot back.

  “I suppose we should be thankful you didn’t kill one as an example to the others,” Pacian remarked dryly.

  “Do you think that would have worked?” she wondered, sounding disturbingly genuine.

  “Rest assured, I made sure they are simply locked in one of the rooms upstairs,” Sir William said.

  “Enough,” Aiden barked as they arrived at the sleeping area, sensing an ominous trend in the diverse group. “Ronan, can you get that door open?”

  “Yeah, sure,” the sailor muttered, fidgeting with a piece of the stone wall until it slid open to the rumble of stone against stone. Beyond the door was a narrow stone tunnel, and the sounds of water rushing became distinct and clear.

  “A secret passage,” Sir William remarked. “I wonder if it was part of the original construction.”

  “I doubt it,” Ronan murmured. “The sewers weren’t built as part of the original city, and I’m afraid that’s where this door leads to, if my nose isn’t mistaken.” A quick whiff told Aiden that this was indeed the case, and he recoiled slightly at the stench.
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br />   “Was there any sign the door was opened recently?” Maggie asked.

  “Hard to say,” Sayana replied with a shrug.

  “We follow it and find out more,” Pacian suggested, moving ahead to be the first one down the tunnel. Valennia followed, and one by one they filed through. Aiden re-summoned his arcane light, placing it on his sword and holding it like a torch to illuminate the passage. It was dank and mouldy, and more than a little cloying as most of them had to stoop to avoid scraping their heads along the low ceiling.

  The sound of rushing water increased in volume until eventually the tunnel ended abruptly and they emerged onto the walkway astride the turgid flow of the aqueducts. They stood at a junction, with the vast network of the sewers leading off in three directions.

  “The scrapes on the floor show this door was opened within the last hour,” Valennia reported, crouching down to look closer at the filth-encrusted stone. “There are obvious tracks here, but it seems whoever passed this way tired to cover them. Our prey knows they are being followed, though they did not count upon a tracker of my talent pursuing them.”

  “Where do the tracks lead?” Aiden asked, daring to hope they might be able to pick up the trail. If they could find these assassins and capture or kill them, it would vindicate their quasi-legal search of the Senator’s home. Valennia carefully examined the stone further, taking a few moments to follow the markings before answering.

  “Many passed this way,” she explained absently. “They are wearing armour… and they all move in that direction,” she finally answered, pointing across a small walkway that led to the other side of the tunnel. She moved ahead, being careful to check the ground every few yards to ensure they were on the right path.

  Aiden’s sense of direction underground was terrible and he had no idea of where they were heading, but after ten minutes the trail suddenly veered into a dry, narrow passageway off from the main system, ending in a solid stone wall.