“All right. Good, Katrin. Now, I’ll show you what we’ll do with that. Hold the handrail. No, don’t go back up – watch. Watch me, Katrin.”
To her amazement, he boosted himself to stand on the handrail, clinging to the carved masonry decorating the edge of the ceiling with his left hand.
He reached out with his right hand and got a grip on the hook. The muscles of his arm bulged as he wrestled with it, looking as if they were going to tear through the tight fitting, padded coat Borsen had made for him, to make him look like a dried up old clerk.
He wrenched the hook back and forth, as crumbling plaster and stone dust rained down.
“Damn it!” Menders twisted the hook relentlessly, eroding its moorings – then, with a final vicious twist, it was free, clutched in his bleeding hand.
He dropped from the handrail with a dancer’s grace and flexed his right shoulder. Then he held out his hand before Katrin’s eyes, the hook held tightly in it.
“Now, this is what we’re going to do with it,” he said. He drew back his arm and hurled it with all his might through the window on the landing above.
Katrin stared at him, her mouth open. Then she smiled, ever so slightly.
“Glass is cheap,” she said.
He used a handkerchief to staunch the abrasions on his palm. Then he looked up at her again as he settled his dark glasses back on his nose.
“Now you can walk down the stairs with me – like a Queen. I know you’re afraid, that removing that hook didn’t fix everything. This is something that must happen, Katrin. Now, one stair at a time.”
He held his bandaged hand out to her. She took it.
She took one step. Then another.
***
“Where’s Hemmett?” Katrin asked as Villison and several other of the Guard joined them on the ground floor.
“He’s at The Shadows. He asked for several more days’ leave,” Menders answered. “The carriage is waiting outside the door. We have to hurry or we’ll miss the train.”
“Train! You didn’t say anything about going on a train!” Katrin cried.
Menders shook his head and she knew he wasn’t going to give in to her fear.
She walked beside him. It was only a short distance from the front door of the Palace and the carriage. Once in the conveyance, she pulled down the shades, but Menders simply put them up again.
“This is the end of all that,” he said firmly, though his tone was kind. “Don’t pull them down again.”
Katrin sat silently all the way to the station, looking straight ahead of her, avoiding the windows. Menders wrote in his notebook, changing his handkerchief bandage once. When they arrived at the station, she saw that her Council ministers were already there, as were several military men.
She sat firmly where she was. She couldn’t go out there!
“There is no time for this, Katrin,” Menders said, taking her arm in a strong grip. He began pulling her out of the carriage. She tried to pull away, but he was stronger. She was being dragged inexorably from the vehicle.
“Do you really want me to drag you all the way?” Menders asked when she was halfway out. That made her step down under her own steam.
The Council members looked amazed. They all sketched bows before Menders showed her to the Royal Carriage at the end of the train. She struggled up the steps in the heavy clanking gown, then huddled in a seat, seeing and hearing nothing because she was so frightened.
“All right, my dear,” Menders said after rebandaging his hand again. He settled himself and opened a case he’d been carrying, “I need to tell you something about this device we’re going to see. This information hasn’t been given to the Crown. It’s come to me through Menders’ Men.”
“Why did you change the bandage again?” Katrin whispered.
“Pulling you along opened the wound,” he answered. “Are you ready to listen to me?”
Katrin managed a tiny nod.
“Could you do with a drink of water?” Menders asked. She nodded again. He fetched a glass for her from the fountain at the end of the carriage, then reseated himself, picking up a sheaf of papers.
“Now, the bomb is made from a substance called Thermaline, which is refined from Therminus, a raw mineral that was recently discovered. It’s found, at least so far, only in the Stormvern Mountains, which as you know, is the large mountain range in the far eastern part of Mordania.”
“Yes, I know,” Katrin breathed, determinedly looking at him, and avoiding the windows. The train lurched forward suddenly with a great hissing of steam. She gasped.
“That engine driver should be flogged. He’s burning the rails,” Menders remarked companionably. “Now, apparently the process of refining Therminus into Thermaline is very risky. A number of people have blown themselves up trying it. At this point, there is only a small amount of refined Thermaline available. It can be used to generate enormous amounts of power and would be very useful in providing electric power for lights and to operate machines without using coal fuel to create steam pressure. Unfortunately, our military and scientists are far more interested in seeing just how big an explosion it can produce. They have used it to manufacture bombs.”
Despite her fear, Katrin felt interest and concern. The spectre of war was always with Mordania because of the centuries-long hostility with Artreya. The military forces of both nations were always looking for new ways to kill people.
“This test is the first official one,” Menders went on. “There have been others with small bombs that were done in secret.”
“Why haven’t we been informed?” Katrin asked. Menders looked at her, and said nothing. She knew, of course – the Queen was not a player.
“This test is being carried out a hundred miles from Erdahn,” Menders went on. “We should be there in a couple of hours.” He reached over and placed the sheaf of papers beside her on the seat. She could see that much of the handwriting on the pages was Kaymar’s.
After about fifteen minutes Katrin picked up the papers and tried to look through them. She found she couldn’t concentrate, as had been the case whenever she tried to read lately. She would want to read, but a terrible weariness kept her from maintaining enough enthusiasm or interest to finish anything.
She finally put the papers down. She sat. In the dress it was almost impossible to do anything else. She could hardly move about in it, and she was so frightened that she couldn’t budge from her seat.
Suddenly she spoke.
“Menders? I’m sorry pulling me opened that wound on your hand. You won’t have to pull me again – but I might take a while to do things. I’m so frightened. But I’ll do them. I don’t want you to be hurt.”
She went back to looking at the far wall of the carriage.
***
Menders maintained the guise of being absorbed in writing in his notebook while covertly watching Katrin and feeling his heart sink.
As Hemmett had said in the worst of his grief after Katrin had been tortured, she was broken. Body, mind and spirit. She’d begun to come back to a semblance of herself after the Suspension Ritual, but then Aidelia had summoned her to Court. Since then he hardly even recognized her. It was hard to believe that six years of her life and his had passed while the Katrin he knew disappeared, leaving in her place this pale, puffy stranger mired in lassitude.
He’d watched her trying to read the papers he’d put beside her. She did try, but it was obvious that it wasn’t so much a case of wouldn’t, but couldn’t. She couldn’t focus her mind. Katrin, who as a girl had to be hauled away from a project or book she was interested in, couldn’t focus her mind long enough to read through a sheaf of fifteen pages.
Time for it to stop. He’d been running like a mad thing for thirty years, trying to do more than one person ever could. Katrin was destroyed, despite thirty years of continual vigilance and protection. It was not her fault, poor darling. She didn’t deserve what had happened, what was happening. It had to end, before the love he felt
for her was as destroyed as she was.
He was going to force her to abdicate, kill Glorantha’s father so that he would not be Regent and disband Menders’ Men. Then he would take Katrin and Eiren and go someplace where no-one had to be Queen or the power behind the throne. Let Katrin walk in the sun and try to regain something of herself. Give Eiren the time that had been stolen from her for so many years. Have a quiet life free of intrigue, espionage and endless, ceaseless vigilance.
It was decided then. No more.
***
Katrin clung to the railing of the Royal Carriage steps as she tried to negotiate them in the enormous, heavy dress. No matter how she tried to manage, the weight pulled downward so badly that she had to step back onto the small platform outside the carriage door.
“If Hemmett was here, he could just lift me down,” she quavered, terrified that she would fall.
“Let’s not begrudge him a few days off. He did just lose both his parents,” Menders responded quietly. “I’m not nearly as large as he is but I can manage to help you down. Give me your hand and don’t worry about leaning on me. Come on, Katrin.” He looked up at her and smiled suddenly. It had been so long since she’d seen him really smile.
“It’s all right. Let me take the weight. Now, step down and shift your weight to that foot. Good! Now bring the other foot down to that step. Take both my hands and lean against me. That’s it. Two more steps and we’re there. Gods, this dress is heavy!”
“I hate it,” Katrin said faintly.
“I don’t blame you, my little princess,” Menders answered, and she felt a slight lifting of the terrible weight on her heart. It had been a long time since he’d called her that. She’d missed it.
Then she was standing beside him in the snow. Menders wrapped her furs around her and she was grateful for them. As heavy and cumbersome as the dress was, it was far from warm. It was bitterly cold here, in an arid part of Mordania west and inland of Erdahn. The milder winters of Erdahn had spoiled her. She used to bear cold greater than this at The Shadows with ease.
The Council, military officers and scientists were milling around near the train engine. They paid no attention to her or to Menders. There was nowhere to sit, no building nearby. Villison and the rest of her Guard were standing around looking rather furtive.
She looked around the bleak landscape. It was treeless. Barren rock and soil showed through patches of snow. In the distance, there was a small metal shed and a rickety looking tower. Katrin wondered briefly what they could be.
About a mile from the tower, she could just see a dreary looking village. She thought about asking Menders for his binoculars – he always had a pair with him – but didn’t really want to bother all that much.
“Just sit here on the lowest step,” Menders said after a while. “Corporal Villison, could you attend the Queen please? I need to have a word with these… gentlemen.”
Katrin actually smiled when Villison sniggered and winked at her. Only Menders could so effectively make the word ‘gentlemen’ sound as if he’d said ‘bastards’.
“Mornin’, Your Majesty,” Villison said softly. “Care to sell me that dress? I’ll give you eighty florins for it.”
“If I wouldn’t freeze to death, it would be yours,” Katrin said just as softly.
“I think it would make an elegant cover for a boiler meself,” Villison quipped. Katrin bared her vampire teeth at him. They’d been brought along and she’d clipped them on before leaving the carriage.
“Oh charmin’! A smile I’d fall on me sword to avoid,” Villison sniggered and Katrin was astonished to feel a small chortle of laughter in the depths of her belly.
Villison, not to be outdone, proceeded to whistle “The Smile I Love” between his teeth while they watched Menders speaking forcefully to the little knot of men near the engine and then come stalking back to them.
“They’ll proceed shortly, I’m told,” he announced darkly. He drew off his gloves and handed them to Katrin, who pulled them on gratefully, while Menders stuck his hands in his pockets. She hadn’t even thought of gloves. It had been so long since she’d been outside at all, except for visits to the Tower Garden. How long had it been?
There was a flurry among the men at the engine end of the train, a brief conclave. Then one came toward them reluctantly. Katrin rose from the step.
“The test is about to commence, Your Majesty,” he said from a distance of about twenty feet. Then he remembered to bow. Then, still bent over, he turned and began to retreat rapidly, gradually rising to an upright position.
“Well of all the absurdities,” Katrin muttered. Menders shook his head in disgust.
“Truly polished, ain’t he?” Villison grinned. “Nice view of his backside walkin’ away.”
The men near the engine roiled around a bit more and then lined up, facing the metal shed and tower.
“They tell me it will be set off electrically…” Menders began.
He was interrupted by a terrible, high-pitched whine that made them clench their teeth. Katrin saw a couple of the Guard covering their ears. She did the same.
There was a brilliant bright light. Menders cried out in pain and covered his eyes. Katrin felt as if her eyeballs were being pushed back into her head. The contraction of her pupils was agonizing. She closed her eyes in panic.
Sound forced her eyes open again – a roar so loud that the ground jolted beneath her feet. She knew she was shrieking in pain from the onslaught on her eardrums, even through her hands, but she couldn’t hear herself. She couldn’t see, still blinded from the incredible, bright light.
Then a mighty wind hit her, so powerful that it blew her, massive dress and all, onto the steps of the Royal Carriage. It was hot, in this cold place! She could feel the carriage rocking on the track and wondered briefly if it would tip over and crush her.
Suddenly she felt a hand close over hers. She gripped it. She was hauled upright against the wind. Strong arms helped her away from the railroad carriage, then went around her and held her securely.
Menders. She put her arms around him and held on with all her strength until the wind died and she began to be able to see a bit around the edges of her vision. Her ears felt as if they’d been stuffed with wool. She felt, rather than heard, Menders speak to someone. Then she felt his hands on her face and he was speaking to her.
“Katrin, can you hear me?” he asked. She could, as if he was very far away, underwater.
“Barely,” she said.
“What do you see?”
“It’s coming back. It’s still black in the middle, but more coming around the edges,” she replied, knowing it didn’t make much sense. She was unable to put words together more effectively. Her head was spinning.
“Let’s get you into the carriage,” Menders said, his words fuzzy and faint. Someone took her left hand and he held onto her right. She started to climb the steps of the carriage.
“It’s gone!” Villison must be shouting. She could hear him more clearly than she could hear Menders.
She turned and tried to focus.
“What’s gone?” she asked, wondering how loudly she was speaking. Her ears were roaring now, as if she was hearing a miniature version of the terrible blast of the Thermaline bomb.
“The village! It’s flattened!” Villison answered.
***
Menders slammed open the door of the saloon car, where the military and Council were celebrating the successful detonation of their horrible device. His violent entrance made them all fall silent. The only sound was his rapid breathing.
“Why wasn’t the Queen warned about the light and the noise?” he said in a low tone that carried to every square inch of the carriage.
There was much exchanging of glances and shuffling of feet. Apparently, none of these men were suffering the after effects of near-blindness and near-deafness that were affecting Katrin and several of the Guard.
Menders was fearful there might be permanent damage done. He�
��d closed his eyes in reflex quickly enough that his vision was only slightly affected and was clearing rapidly, but his ears felt as if there was water in them.
“We… ah… we seem to have underestimated the strength of the blast,” one of the scientists ventured. “It’s unfortunate that the Queen suffered some ill effects, but they should be temporary.”
“I notice no-one here is suffering such ill effects,” Menders replied coldly.
More shuffling and averted eyes.
“What has happened to the people in that village?” Menders continued. “The Queen wishes to know how many people were hurt so help can be sent to them.”
“Ah… we haven’t gotten a figure… we didn’t realise that the blast would affect the village.”
“Liar.” Menders wasn’t going to listen to more. “Why haven’t you sent someone to see to the injured?”
“We will be going there in a few moments, sir,” Reinhart, the Minister of Defense answered. “There is a siding there and a turntable for the engine. We will appraise the situation then.”
“You are to report casualty figures to the Queen immediately upon your ‘appraisal’ of the situation,” Menders ordered, removing his glasses and raking them all with his eyes. He couldn’t see them clearly, of course, but they didn’t know that.
His white eyes had their usual effect. The carriage was silent, and the people within it were very uncomfortable indeed.
Menders slammed back out.
***
Katrin looked out the window of the Royal Carriage as the train pulled up to what had once been a village full of little houses, with a small train station. The platform was still there, but the office was gone, as was most of the village. There were only a few walls standing. There was no sign of life.
Katrin rubbed her eyes. They felt sandy, but her vision was clearing now and she could see fairly well. The train was passing the platform and moving onto a siding. She could see into what was left of the village. She squinted, trying to see if anyone was moving about.
Love and Sacrifice: Book Two of the Prophecy Series Page 74
