I had to take the good where I found it.
• • •
They camped the night through an ice storm. Someone threw a sheet of canvas over my cage, but as I froze through the night I revised my theory about Oliver not wanting to kill me. Sure he would bring me to justice, but if I accidentally died of exposure along the way I doubt Oliver would fret much over it.
I didn’t sleep much, and once I did, it felt as if it was only for a few minutes before they started breaking camp and the noise and movement around me made sleep impossible. Shortly after, we all started moving down the road. My cart riding in the midst of a score of paid assassins.
At least I had thought it was around twenty armed and mounted men. When I peeked around at what I could see around my cage, the contingent seemed lighter than I remembered from the previous evening. My wagon was still flanked by riders, but when I looked behind, a trio of riders seemed to be falling behind.
Deliberately falling behind.
It took me much longer than it should have to piece together what was about to happen. I plead lack of sleep.
But it is sort of obvious when you think about it. There’s one major problem in hiring mercenaries and assassins and such; whatever the alleged principles of the group involved, they’ve established—by definition—a price on their services. So there’s always the threat of someone coming along and offering a better deal.
The risk doesn’t even have to come from someone with a deeper purse. When you hire a band of assassins, you have to pay all of them. Someone wanting to sabotage your efforts only needs to pay a few of them—for the sake of argument say three of them—better than you are paid.
And given the number of people after Snake Bartholomew’s hide, it was pretty clear that at least one party was willing to make that kind of investment.
The rider to the left of my wagon noticed the stragglers a bit too late. He pulled his horse up and began turning it around as a crossbow bolt suddenly sprouted from his neck. He dropped the reins and his horse stopped in the middle of the road as the wagon kept pulling away. He fell forward and tumbled off the saddle into the road.
I can’t give a truly honest account of the massacre, since I did the sane thing and flattened myself in the corner of my iron cage to present as small a target as possible. I heard the cries of men and horses, and the wagon accelerated as the team drawing it broke into a predictably short-lived gallop. When it stopped, it was sudden and accompanied by the sound of screaming horses and splintering wood as the wagon tumbled onto its side. I rolled into the bars on one side of the cage and didn’t move. The canvas was frozen to the bars in places, and remained draped over two-thirds of the cage, blocking whatever view I would have had.
Around me I heard curses, shouts, the sound of stamping horses, and the clash of metal against metal.
You could cut the déjà vu with a knife.
I struggled with my bonds, but honestly, if I could have managed freeing myself from them I would have done so long before now. The sound of battle died around me, ending with the sound of a horse or two galloping off somewhere fading into silence; silence that was broken by the sound of footsteps crunching in the snow.
Even though I had braced for it, I still winced when the canvas was ripped from the cage with the sound of tearing fabric. One look at the clothing of the men told me who had won the conflict. They weighed their look much more toward highwayman than assassin.
They also appeared vaguely familiar, in the way that most muscular goons tend to look alike if you’ve run into enough of them. They opened the cage and dragged me out, and my sense of familiarity ran deeper.
“Now,” one of them said as he lifted me by the arms. “I hate interruptions.”
“Me too,” said one of his companions as he cut free the ropes on my legs. He gave me a grin that had too few teeth of too varying colors. “Now where were we?”
• • •
I’d say it’s never what I expect, but by all rights I should have seen this one coming from miles away.
A pair of too-familiar goons marched me through the aftermath of a battle that had ended rather poorly for Prince Oliver’s assassins, and only slightly less poorly for the prince—as he still breathed. They had bound the prince’s arms and had set him kneeling in the muddy slush. My goons forced me down to my knees next to him, and the prince gave me a glare that would have given the Dark Lord Nâtlac pause.
“Of course you survived.”
“A surprising number of people want Mr. Bartholomew alive,” I said.
“I hold you responsible for this!”
I shook my head. “Are you kidding? You can lay a lot at the feet of this guy, but you knew how many other people are after him. You’re the one who had the ill judgment to employ a bunch of contract assassins instead of Dermonica military—” Something occurred to me. “The duke doesn’t know what you’re doing, does he?”
Given the intensity of his glare, I found it somewhat surprising that one of us didn’t spontaneously burst into flame.
“And now you’re a hostage. I don’t think he’s going to like that.”
“I will—” He didn’t get to finish the statement because a familiar voice called out, “Snake!”
I turned my head to look up at the face that had first greeted me upon my arrival in Snake’s body. Weasel was grinning.
“You know,” I said, “I never got your name.”
Weasel kept grinning and said, “Like that matters. I take back what I had said about you putting up a fight. Setting up rivals after your head just so they can beat each other silly and you escape in the chaos. It would be genius if it wasn’t completely bloody insane.”
I figured I had a second chance. It was worth a try at least. “I’m not the Snake you think I am.”
“Not this fairy tale again,” Oliver grumbled.
“Let me hear this,” Weasel said, the grin never wavering. “Go on.”
“Snake, Prince Bartholomew, is in the Lendowyn court right now.”
“Indeed? But you look so much like him.”
“Yes, this is his body, but my name’s Frank Blackthorne . . .” I was able to relate the broad strokes of my story without interruption. Unlike Oliver, Weasel didn’t seem to have any emotional investment in beating me into a pulp.
I finished my latest iteration of my tale and Weasel gave me a slow clap. “Bravo. Bravo, Frank. Bravo.”
I sighed. I really had no reasonable expectation that I’d be able to convince— “You called me Frank?”
Weasel stopped his applause. “That’s your name, isn’t it?”
“You don’t actually believe this lying bastard?” Oliver choked out.
“Oh, I don’t trust him a bit. I’m sure that he’s regaled us with his share of lies and half-truths. But . . .” Weasel leaned conspiratorially toward Prince Oliver. “This guy isn’t Snake.”
“How can you say that?”
“Because if this guy is the legendary Snake, the lost Grünwald heir, why are there so many rumors of Grünwald agents slipping into various cities in various domains—places with a history with our outlaw prince—and slipping back out more heavily laden than when they arrived? Why are these agents, so obviously of Grünwald origin, going in the direction of Lendowyn rather than their own homeland? Hmm?” Weasel bent to stage-whisper in Oliver’s ear. “And you’ve been preoccupied, but I suspect your father has noticed that poor, weak little Lendowyn has been raising quite an army.”
It suddenly fell into place, the final nagging question of why Snake had been massing wealth far beyond what any one person might ever need. Snake’s string of more and more spectacular thefts had a larger goal in mind. It always had.
“He was always working to finance an attack on Grünwald,” I said quietly. “He wants to take the throne.”
“No,” Oliver said. “That
doesn’t make sense. We have him right here!”
Weasel clucked his tongue as he straightened up. “And that’s the problem with aristocrats right there. Can’t admit they’re wrong.” He waved one of his goons over. “Now, Mr. Frank Blackthorne, I have a proposal for you.”
“What?”
“I’m an independent businessman. At the moment I am at a decision point. Now, we may agree about who you are, and who Snake is at the moment—but the prince here demonstrates exactly how convincing your tale is to those with an emotional tie to the fate of the Bastard Prince Bartholomew. So I could, with a minimal risk to my humble self, return to the White Rock Thieves’ Guild with you and receive significant compensation.”
“But you know I’m not who they want.”
Weasel shrugged. “It matters little to me that they’ll be unable to extract the information they want from you. They’ll slake their thirst for vengeance at least, and I’ll be able to justify the expense of tracking you down in the first place.”
Prince Oliver muttered something about there being some justice in the world. If my hands weren’t tied, I would have been tempted to punch him.
“But there’s another possibility,” Weasel said.
“What?”
“I’m a businessman. I have no particular tie to the White Rock Thieves’ Guild, they simply offer the highest bounty for your particular skin. Could the Dermonica scion here offer me more, I would gladly hand you back to him.”
Oliver brightened. “I can offer you—”
“No, you can’t,” Weasel snapped. “I know what you were paying.”
“If I petition my father, I know I can—”
“Pipe down, sonny.”
Oliver started to say something, and one of Weasel’s goons grabbed him and placed a dagger against his throat. The prince satisfied himself with glaring at Weasel.
“Where were we?” Weasel said. “Yes. You see, I have a more risky option, but potentially a far more lucrative one. And let’s just say that if I was averse to all risk, we wouldn’t be talking here.”
“What is it?”
“It has been pointed out to me that if our friend Snake is within the Lendowyn court, and if he is indeed massing all his ill-gotten gains to finance an attack on Grünwald, then it logically follows that the spoils from several of the most notorious thefts of the past century are now being collected in one location. The wealth of several nations, unimaginable in scope, hoarded in the only place that our bastard prince would trust.”
“Where?” Oliver croaked out involuntarily, wincing at the point of the knife.
“Snake has become the Dragon Prince of Lendowyn. Those he knew would be disloyal to him, he sent on a mission to save the missing princess, only to be immolated in an attack that has almost certainly been laid at the feet of Grünwald. Those he knew would be more loyal to the king, and the king himself, have traveled to the other side of Fell Green to ‘save’ the actual princess. Left in the halls of Lendowyn Castle are guards loyal to the Dragon Prince, the lost prince of Grünwald—numbers that are unquestionably swelling as his agents return with his wealth. Where else would he store that wealth but within the treasury of a fortress filled with his loyal troops, guarded by a great and terrible dragon?”
Okay, that makes sense . . . “You were talking about a more risky option . . . You don’t mean . . .”
Weasel laughed. “Of course I do. The people who pointed most of this out to me also pointed out to me how Frank Blackthorne is actually more valuable than the absent Snake. I have here before me someone who knows that fortress, and knows it with the access of a royal and the mind of a thief.”
“You mentioned it yourself,” I said. “There’s a dragon.”
“A dragon you have your own reason to confront. How else will you make him don the accursed jewel?”
“Damn it!” I snapped. “That’s enough. How can you possibly know all this?”
From behind me I heard a familiar voice say, “We told him.”
I turned around and saw Grace and the rest of the girls standing in among Weasel’s goons.
Thea smiled and waved at me. “Hi, Frank.”
CHAPTER 28
“What are you doing here?”
“We followed you,” Thea said.
“It wasn’t difficult,” Grace said.
“Since we’ve been following the prince here since his ambush,” Weasel said, “it was inevitable that we would find your distaff allies following him as well.”
“We found you,” Mary said.
“We can call it a mutual discovery.” Weasel shook his head. “Along with a number of very interesting conversations.”
I turned to Grace. “Why? You didn’t need to get involved in this again.”
Grace snorted. “You offered us a share of Snake’s treasure when we got to Lendowyn. You’re going to make good on that.”
I opened my mouth, and closed it. That almost seemed reasonable.
Almost.
I was left wondering if a half-dozen teenage girls had decided on their own to pull my bacon out of the fire, and if that was the case, I was completely unable to articulate how I felt about it.
“So?” Weasel addressed me. “We have two possibilities on the table. You help us plan a theft of the Lendowyn treasury, or I introduce you to the White Rock Thieves’ Guild and you can try persuading them not to disassemble your carcass joint by joint.”
I sighed. “You knew what I was going to answer or you’d never ask the question.”
“Perhaps, but what I’ve heard about Frank Blackthorne does not suggest a completely flawless capacity for decision making.”
“So you’re going to insult your new advisor?”
“Am I wrong?”
“No,” I said. “But that is why I’m agreeing to your suicidal scheme.” I asked a nearby goon, “So can you untie me now?”
Said goon reached down and sliced my bonds apart with a flourish that made me wince. I rubbed my wrists as I looked over at Oliver. “What about him?”
Weasel made a gesture and the goon holding Oliver lowered the dagger at his neck. “Hostage for Dermonica’s good behavior. We’ll let him go once we’re safely out of his father’s reach.”
“If you want safety then you’ll release me immediately!”
Weasel walked up and tore a necklace from Oliver’s neck. He handed it to a nearby goon. “Ride to the Dermonica court and explain that Prince Oliver is our honored guest and will be escorting us during our stay in this fine country.” He waved over another pair of goons. “See our guest to his accommodations.”
“You’ll pay for this.” Oliver spat as the two goons lifted him to his feet. “Along with him!”
Weasel chuckled. “Note please, that I did not tell my man to inform the duke of your unilateral excursions into neighboring kingdoms. Or was your bloodshed on foreign soil diplomatically sanctioned?”
Oliver continued to glare as the goons led him away.
“I thought not,” Weasel said. He turned to face me and the girls, who had walked up to flank me. He looked us all up and down. “You have interesting allies, Frank Blackthorne.”
“I collect them,” I said. “It’s a hobby of mine.”
“Keep them out of trouble while we plan this thing.”
“I think they can take care of themselves.”
“I’m sure,” he said. “But this job will require more men than I have here, and I would not be happy if the new men and your girls took care of each other.”
Grace stepped forward. “What exactly do you mean by that?”
“Anything that you care to make of it,” Weasel said. “You chose a rude profession.” He waved dismissively. “One of my men will take you to a tent. Eat, rest, we start planning this evening.”
When he said “a tent” he didn’t
misspeak. All seven of us were crammed into a single canvas pavilion. I counted five bedrolls and resigned myself to having a chilly night. Mary threw her pack down in one corner of the octagonal tent in obvious frustration. “I don’t believe that rat-faced ass—”
“Ass-faced rat?” Thea said, sending Rabbit into a fit of rather strange-sounding laughter.
“There would be no job, nothing to plan, if we hadn’t shown up.”
“Calm down,” Grace said. “The plan worked.”
“Guess I shouldn’t expect any more from someone who dealt with White Rock.”
“Shouldn’t expect any more from a man,” Grace said.
“Um.” I cleared my throat. “Man here.” Rabbit had almost stopped laughing, but she took one look at me and started again.
“Speaking of which,” Krys said, pointing at me. “Shouldn’t someone talk to Princess Frank about the plan?”
“What plan?”
Grace smiled. “Well, you can get our rat-ass into the Lendowyn treasury, right?”
“That seems to be why I’m not tied up in a burlap sack heading back north.”
“So what would it take to set things up so that we get there first?”
“What?”
“You think they’re going to let us have a share?” Mary said. “The oaf can’t even share credit.”
“So we quietly slip in first,” Grace said. “Take our share before that oaf can object. Even better, his men can be a distraction covering our escape.”
“You realize this is insane,” I said.
“You owe us,” Grace said. “Not to mention you promised us a share of Snake’s treasure in Lendowyn.”
“And if he figures you’re double-crossing him—” I started.
“He won’t,” Krys said. “He’s too busy double-crossing us. A bunch of girls? I don’t think the possibility would even occur to him.”
I looked around at all of them. Rabbit had stopped laughing, and even Thea wasn’t smiling anymore. “You’re serious,” I said.
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