“Let’s go and see the Nest. Is it on the road going north from the crossroads ahead of us?”
“Yes. How much do you want? My purse is open.”
“For a job like this, I will deal directly with Cleyre, and we never talk money.”
Nicolas squinted his eyes for a few moments. A Wraith working without payment. That’s the strangest thing I’ve heard in a while. What am I missing here? Are they … lovers? He is not weak, but I would prefer Codrin as her husband and the next Duke of Peyris. “Fine, I will send three couriers to warn Codrin. He may still help us.”
“I will take care of that. He is not in Severin right now. Let me prepare my men. There are a few more in the forest. I need an hour. Rest your soldiers until then.”
The next group of riders on the road was led by Phillip and Boldur. “There are some new developments, and I will ride to Peyris,” Codrin said, when he reached them. “Phillip, you take command of the army. Boldur and Valer will second you. Send couriers telling Vlaicu to join us.”
“I smell a fight,” Boldur said. “A different one.”
“You have a good nose. At the crossroads ahead, you will continue north. When you pass the border of Peyris, there is a large forest right to the east.”
“I know it,” Boldur said.
“You camp there and wait for me. I will return in a week.”
Within the promised hour, Codrin rejoined Nicolas, bringing fifty men with him, making the Spatar scratch his head, though it was still covered by his helmet.
Chapter 14 – Codrin
“Open the gate!” Vlad shouted, knocking at the wet planks. The sound echoed soggily into the night. He waited patiently, but there was no answer from inside. “Open the gate!” he repeated, and used the hilt of his dagger to knock. He stuck his ear to the wood. Nothing. He started to bang the gate with his dagger, in a rhythmic way. One minute passed, then another. Rain hissed on the stones of the wall above, falling water splattered on the slippery cobbles, then trickled down into the cracks in the road.
“They are probably sleeping,” Codrin whispered. “I wouldn’t be surprised. Snail is in charge.”
“What do you want?” an angry voice finally asked from inside. It sounded muffled through the thick wood, and half asleep.
“I have a letter for Seigneur Veres.”
“Could you not find a better time to deliver it? It’s an hour before midnight.”
“We are soldiers. Do you think that Seigneurs and the like give a damn for what we want, and when we want to ride? The letter is from his mother, the Grand Signora of Arad. She sent us on our way at midnight; we have arrived at midnight, and the road was dangerous. Some robbers attacked a caravan not far from here. They killed almost everybody.”
“Wasn’t his mother in Severin?”
“She was, but now she has found a more powerful husband. I am sure you’ve heard about Orban. His horse is more important to him than a hard working soldier like you and me. We are wet, and we saved two boys from the caravan. They are the only survivors. Them and two small barrels of wine from Tolosa.”
“They have good wine there.”
“I never drank better. It was meant for the Duke of Peyris. We all feel like Dukes now,” Vlad laughed. “Open this damn gate; we are freezing our asses off in this bloody rain.”
“You can’t deliver the letter today. Seigneur Veres is occupied with his woman, and has asked to not be disturbed.”
“Why should I care about his woman? Let us sleep in the barn, and we’ll share some of the wine with you. It warms your blood better than a woman.”
“We are not allowed to open the gate during the night.”
“How many of you are there? We can share the wine. One barrel for you, one for us. Just give us a place with some dry straw.”
“Seven people. A full barrel, you said?”
“Forty jugs of the best wine you ever tasted.”
“How many of you are out there?”
“Four men and two boys, the poor little mites we saved from the robbers.”
The voice of the guard went quiet, and Vlad stuck his ear to the gate again. Their voices muffled, he could hear men speaking inside, but he was able to understand half of the words and to deduce the other half.
“I am from Tolosa,” one man said. “It’s a sunny, dry place, nothing like this wet hole. We should call this place the Swamp, not the Eagle’s Nest. There is no better wine than ours.”
“I don’t know, man, we are not allowed to open the gate, starting three hours before midnight. It’s close to midnight now.”
“And who will know? The captain didn’t come to inspect us this evening. He did not want to dirty his boots. The food came late, and it was cold. We deserve some good things. Since we came here we’ve had only bad food and almost no wine. The Grand Seigneur is interested only in his woman; the captain is worried about his rheumatism. Nobody cares about us, and nobody will know what we did. And they have a letter from his mother. Snail will be happy tomorrow.”
“Fine,” the man who seemed to be in charge finally said. “Everybody, spears and crossbows. I don’t want any surprises. They will come in one by one and leave a barrel here. I will open the gate,” he said to Vlad. “You will come inside one by one, and you will leave a barrel here with us. Understood? We have four spearmen and two crossbows, so don’t try anything.”
“Fate bless you, man. After all this rain even my bones are wet, and my sword is rusted. You heard the captain.” Vlad shouted his last words. “Arrange yourself in a line. The horse with the wine in the middle of the row.”
The gate creaked loudly, and the men at the gate cursed, afraid of waking the captain. Vlad was the first to enter, followed by Damian. Codrin and Nicolas were the last. Pintea and Lisandru walked with their knees slightly bent to look shorter, one taking the horse by the halter, the other one keeping a hand on the barrels, which were tied with ropes to the large horse.
“I know you,” one man said and stopped Vlad, pointing the spear at his neck. He was one of the three soldiers Bucur had given to Veres.
“I am a protector. Many people know me.”
“Are you from Severin?”
“Yes, I was there for a while. Lady Jara knows me, that’s why she trusted me with the letter.”
“But you worked for Codrin.”
“That’s right,” Vlad spat. “I worked for him, but since he is now a great man, he no longer remembers the little people who worked for him in the past.”
The horse carrying the wine finally arrived in front of the gate leader, and his eyes sparkled; the barrels looked larger than he expected, and he touched one, his fingers trembling slightly.
“Boys,” Vlad said, “unload one barrel. You are caravan people; you know how to do that stuff.”
Lisandru, who was the youngest, untied the ropes of the barrel on his and the gate leader’s side. “Could you please help me?” he asked one of the soldiers close to him, a tremble in his voice. “We are not as strong as you.”
Two men answered his plea, instead of one, and they carried the barrel with the care a mother gives to her child.
“Where is the barn?” Vlad asked.
“It’s not far from here; I will give you a man to escort you there.”
“Thank you, man, you are a good hearted soldier.”
On the path toward the barn, Codrin and Nicolas walked together, trying to assess the place, in the low light of a few torches stuck here and there on the walls.
“Last time I was here, my bones were fifteen years younger. That should be the entrance into the main house,” Nicolas whispered, pointing to a sturdy door on the left. A small torch was stuck in a sconce, and a sentry stood just under it. “The barn should be on the right and the barracks too.”
“There is no place for your horses in the barn,” the soldier said. “You can leave them in that hut.” He pointed to something on his right with his torch, though no one could see what he was pointing at. “You ca
n sleep there.” This time he pointed at a smaller hut which was visible, with piles of fresh straw in it.
“Thank you,” Vlad said. “We need some sleep now. Enjoy the wine.”
“Show me where you think the captain sleeps,” Codrin said to Nicolas, when the soldier had gone.
“See that small window with a lit candle, sixty paces from the gate, on the left? There is a stairs going to a terrace. That’s the best room, apart from the ones in the main house. I think the captain sleeps there, but I can’t guarantee that, and judging by the light, he may not be asleep. Old, grumpy Ferko has some sleep issues. Be careful, his sword is still young.”
“Lisandru, come with me.” Despite being the youngest, Lisandru was the most advanced in Assassin’s training of all of Codrin’s men, and he moved with the agility of a lynx.
“What are you planning to do?” Nicolas asked, uncertainly.
“I will tell him that we have two urgent letters, one from Veres’s mother, and the other one from the Duke of Peyris. Before we go, all of us should dress in Peyris colors. Give me the name of a captain from your army, someone Ferko doesn’t know well,” Codrin said, after taking off the pelerine and replacing it with the insignia of a captain from the Duke’s army. “A captain who would not raise suspicion by carrying important letters. A tall one,” he added.
“Ferko’s sight is no longer what it was. Use captain Velasque’s name.”
“Describe Ferko for me.”
“He is only fifty-five years old, but his hair is almost white. He is missing a finger on his left hand, and he has a ring with a black gem on his right. There is nothing else...” Nicolas shook his head in the low light.
“I need a bit of time to prepare myself,” Codrin said and walked away. Leaning against a wooden pole and out of sight, he stared at the lit window until it melded in his vision. Eyes closed, he could still see it, and he let his mind float free. The Farsight came easier, this time; the more he trained as a Seer, the easier it became to let his mind flow, in that strange trance. Soon, he found himself in front of the window, passed through it, and looked at the white-haired man sitting at the table with a glass of wine in his left hand. A finger was missing. Codrin returned from his trance, and it took him a while to orient himself again in the half darkness.
Getting to Ferko’s room took a while. They had to avoid the light spread by two torches on the walls, and sometimes he and Lisandru had to go on all fours. In front of the door, Codrin breathed deeply. Once. “Cover me,” he whispered to Lisandru. “Some soldiers may leave the guard room, and no one must see me from the gate.” He knocked at the door, gently, careful not to disturb the night. After a minute, he knocked again, a little louder.
“Who is it?” a morose voice asked from inside.
“Captain Velasque from Peyris. I have two urgent letters from the Duke and Seigneur Veres’s mother.”
“What is so urgent? And how did you enter in the fortress?”
“How should I know, Ferko? I am just a captain, like you, and I rode day and night to get here.”
The door opened, and Ferko loomed in view. “Velasquez?” he asked, a touch of doubt in his voice.
“Yes,” Codrin said, and his dagger pierced the man’s heart. He caught the falling body in his arms, embracing it, and entered the room. “Close the door,” he whispered to Lisandru. Inside, he arranged Ferko’s body in the bed and waited a few minutes before taking the dagger out of his chest. A small flow of blood followed and quickly stopped. He covered the body with the blanket. Ferko looked like he was asleep. “You have never slept better, Ferko. One bastard less to help the Circle punish a defenseless woman. It’s a pity that you were a soldier once.” Before going out, Codrin extinguished the candle and, three minutes later, they were back at the barn.
“Now it should be easier to get inside the house,” Nicolas said. “I think I know the sentry at the main door of the house, but the gate is our biggest concern.”
“Yes, we take the gate first, but we will wait until the wine does its job. We will attack at midnight. We can rest until then. Pintea, you are on watch. Wake us up at midnight,” he said, though he knew that no one would sleep.
“Wake up!” Tulis shouted. “Wake up you lazy worms, our shift starts soon. I know that you want to sleep, and so do I, but that dirty old gate is waiting for us. The cold, dark, unpleasant gate of the Eagle. She is our precious lover.”
Some men jumped from their beds, some woke up slowly. Tulis waited patiently for a minute, then walked briskly toward a man who was still sleeping. There was a carafe of water close to the bed. Without hesitation, he poured the water onto the head of the sleeping man.
“Alert, we are under attack!” the man cried and jumped out of his bed.
“There is no alert, Albi. Get dressed; we need to be at the gate in ten minutes.”
Albi looked daggers at him, water still dripping from his hair, but said nothing.
“Next time you don’t get up in time, I will use a lump of wood to wake you. Move.”
Morosely, the six guards left the dormitory and went to the hall to pick up their weapons. Still yawning, they took four spears and two crossbows from the wall, standard gear for a gate squad from Peyris.
“Line up,” Tulis ordered, and the men formed a row in front of him. The chief walked slowly, scanning his men one by one. “Close your mantle.” He touched the neck of one soldier with his stick.
“It’s dark...” The soldier shrugged.
“We serve that great man in there.” Tulis pointed in the direction of the main house with his stick. “But we are still soldiers of Peyris.” Each word was accompanied with a strong tap on the soldier’s helmet, and the soldier complied quickly, trying to avoid another knock on the head. “Good, you look like soldiers now. Torches.”
The two men who were the torch bearers for the night took them from the designated place, went back to the dormitory and lit them in the fireplace.
“Let’s go,” Tulis ordered when the torch bearers returned.
The guards turned smartly to the right, and left the barracks through the large door, just as the horologe announced the coming of midnight. The wind blew, making them curse the night shift. In front of the barracks, they gathered in line, waiting for Tulis, who came and reviewed his soldiers again, though there was not much to see in the trembling light of the torches. He was both an old hand and an irritating pedant. There was nothing the soldiers could do.
“You should eat something,” Veres said to Cleyre, his mouth full. “I like round women. You are a bit skinny, right now.” It was his first visit for a week.
Beaten and raped again, just a few minutes before, Cleyre could not answer. During the last week, she had made plans to escape, but Reymont and Dizier had taught Veres to be careful. There was nothing in the room to help her. She was also almost naked, dressed only in a silk shift that barely reached her knees, one strap cut, revealing her breast. Veres did not leave any of her other clothes within reach. She was at least lucky that it was still warm. From time to time, she ate something. Only when she was alone.
“I am an important man.” Veres pressed a finger to his chest. “I have done dangerous things for my friend Bucur, the Candidate King, and for Maud, the Master Sage of the Circle. For them, I killed Senal, the Secretary of Severin, and Pierre, the Spatar of Tolosa. I am a hard man, and they know it. Soon, they will make me Grand Seigneur of Midia. The title belonged to my father, but he was weak and lost it. I will not lose it. They told me that you are an intelligent woman, though I don’t know why. You must negotiate a good dowry. Do you understand?”
I must please the idiot. “Yes, Veres, I will receive a good dowry which will make us even stronger.”
Satiated, Veres came to bed, and groped her breast. “A bit of sleep and we are ready to do it again. Are you ready, wife? I like that fire in your eyes when I am inside you. It warms me.” He grabbed her arm, despite her desire to ignore everything he was doing to her, she moaned
from the pain. Her wrist was swollen, and bruises were everywhere on her arms and body. “I am afraid that I did not hear you,” Veres said, and twisted her arm harder. A cry escaped her and tears ran down her face. “You have a nice voice. Sleep well, wife.” He lay back, their almost naked bodies touching, and fell asleep in a few moments.
Cleyre tried to move away from him, but she was too weak. She closed her eyes and tried to ignore his body and her pain. In his sleep, he passed an arm over her and cupped her breast. She could do nothing, not even raise his arm. I have to wait, she thought. I can’t strangle him with an injured wrist. Next time, I should be more careful.
That evening, when Veres returned, Cleyre was ready. She had practiced, against the pillow, how to strangle him with her chain. When he ordered her to undress, she smiled and tried to comply, pulling her shift off slowly. It backfired. Veres reacted like an animal, grabbed her arm and threw her onto the bed, twisting her wrist again. When he had finished, her wrist was swollen, and her arm useless. A few tears ran down her face. He did not see them.
Codrin reached for Flame, his short word, and gripped the rough handhold tight. He sensed it was almost time, and slowly unsheathed Shadow, his long sword, too. It produced a short hiss. That released some tension. The man behind him did the same and the next. Night fighting was particularly dangerous. Accidents and surprises were commonplace. In Arenia, it was almost an unwritten rule that night attacks were never undertaken unless under desperate circumstances. That’s what we face now, Codrin thought. The Assassins were different; they often used the cover of the night for their stealth attacks. Sometimes, he had issues in reconciling both strategies.
“We go now,” Codrin whispered when the horologe rang for midnight.
One by one, they slipped like ghosts through the night, avoiding the places lit by the torches on the wall. There were only two torches, luckily. Close to the gate, Codrin stopped and used his Farsight to look into the guardroom: the men were not dead drunk; they were in that foggy state of mind which begs for more wine. For the first time, he observed that he could not hear anything while he was in the Farsight trance. Maybe because I am untrained, he thought. He returned to his body and kept his eyes closed for a few moments. There was always an unpleasant moment until his mind recovered from that strange duplication of self. Involuntarily, his hands tightened on the hilts of both Shadow and Flame.
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