"I have a confidence to share with you, Ran," he said, giving his glass another swirl in his hand.
In reply, Ran merely raised an eyebrow and waited for Redgrave to speak.
"It seems to be my lot in life to overhear what I don't wish to hear," he started slowly and set his glass down on his desk. "There's no easy way to start this so here it is: I overheard two members of the House discussing their latest scheme outside the Protector's chambers yesterday. It seems they had just come out of discussions with our illustrious leader and they had come to strike a deal that would earn them both a sizeable reward." He paused and looked at Ran, who merely continued to stare at him.
Redgrave slapped his hand on his desk loud enough to startle Ran. The decanter stopper bounced and hit the bottle with a clink.
"With the Protector, dammit it all to Hell!" growled Redgrave. "They mentioned a construction contract up north, with a small firm called Windthrop Construction. Heard of it?"
Ran shook his head in response.
"Well neither had I and so I looked into it. Seems this small firm has been awarded several sizeable contracts with the House and all of it has to do with road maintenance in the Northern Province, my good General of the North!" Redgrave pointed a thick finger at Ran to emphasize his words. Ran was the General of the North and being the General of the North meant that he was also second in command of the Army of the Realm. But being responsible for a region didn't mean he would necessarily know such minor issues as who had been awarded the contract for road repair. It was a trivial activity.
"It took me all day yesterday to look into it without raising suspicion, but it was worth it." Redgrave grew quiet and toyed with the decanter stopper before gently placing it back onto the bottle. Ran followed the stopper with his eyes.
"And why is the Marshall looking into common contract deals?" asked Ran into the silence. It was Redgrave's turn to look quizzically at Ran.
"Because, as you should know, the patrols we send out routinely have been reporting serious issues with the state of the northern roads. The reports cross your desk before mine. So, here we have a firm repairing roads in the north, all at the blessing of our Lord Protector and all his lackeys in the House. And coincidentally, we have reports from our own trusted men stating the roads have been sorely neglected. It didn't add up, Ran. I never would have known what except for hearing the excitement in those two fools' voices. When they saw me they shut up and hurried away like children caught in the castle pantry. That caught my attention. Then I remembered the road reports and so I paid a visit down to Accounts. You know the man who works there? That small insular man called Barges?"
Ran shook his head and seeing this; Redgrave frowned but continued.
"He's an ass. Surprised you haven't had to deal with him. He holds onto coins like they were his own. Bookish fellow, no meat on his scrawny carcass, couldn't hold up a sword if his very life depended on it, hands soft like a girl's." As he spoke, Redgrave played with the stopper in his hands. He stopped and stared at it in surprise, not remembering having removed it from the decanter, and put it down on his desk. He looked at his own rough and calloused hands and laughed. "I asked him to show me the accounts for the firm and he refused me. Refused me! I was dumbfounded. I could only stare at him and watch that smug look on his face. I might have overreacted at that point." And Redgrave smiled in memory. "I might have reached across his desk and brought his face a little closer to mine. Ha! Anyway, he 'obliged' me in the end. Then I had to have the prick explain what the files contained. It took a while but I finally understood what I was reading."
Redgrave poured more whiskey into his glass and took a gulp. "Windthrop Construction is a firm created by those two House fools. The firm is in contract to provide all major road repairs from the city out to the northern port. They are provided a monthly account to draw from that comes directly out of the realm treasury. It all looks up and up at first glance and I forced that gadfly of an accountant to painstaking lengths to explain the official rules that govern the payments. I swear my eyes glazed over more than once! Anyway..." Redgrave grew quiet again. He ran a finger over his upper gums and was dismayed to find that he could not feel them.
"Anyway?" questioned Ran. "What's this leading to, Bill?"
Redgrave glanced up at Ran and grimaced.
"Those two assholes are taking money right out of the Treasury, Ran! But that's not the worst of it! It took a while to sort it all out, but in the end the trail is clear. The money leaves the treasury and is provided to those two men to provide to the firm. Except there is no record of the money being transferred from them to the firm. To get to the truth it cost me some of my markers, but the details, let me tell you! You'd be surprised how hard it is to look into the financial records of House members. But there it was. The money was being funnelled to another account. An account called 'Windthrop' which at first glance seems legit, but once you scratch the surface you can see that 'Windthrop' in this case is not this false construction firm.
"And that got me looking for more. It wasn't hard once I started. I had Barges hauled off to gaol and ordered a couple of my most trusted officers to start searching for more like it. It's everywhere – rampant! Almost all the house representatives are taking money out of the treasury and funnelling it to "Windthrop". Thousands of coins! And it's been going on for years. It's a den of thieves!"
A cold glint shone in Ran's eyes that Redgrave assumed was a reflection of his own anger. He watched Ran look pensive and stroke his goatee in thought. "Years, you say? But what is this 'Windthrop' account, Bill?"
"That's the real problem. 'Windthrop' is none other than our Lord Protector." The words hit the air like a thunderclap. Ran froze in his seat and blinked at what had just been revealed.
"The Lord Protector? Are you sure?" he asked in a hiss, showing the first real emotion since he had come into the room. A cold calculating look came over Ran's features.
"Positive. I had my men go back through ten years of records before I stopped them, for I'd seen enough. Barges is in cells. He knew and it showed in his eyes. And of course he knew! He controlled all the accounts. All of them! He created them. Moved the money around. I can still hear all his arguments, his attempts to distract me, pleas to leave it to him, all efforts to stop my investigation. It was all there to see. Which is why I sequestered the bastard and brought my own men in. Good men, too. Trustworthy, no ties to the Protector."
"But how can you be sure, Bill? What details led to the Protector? Tell me what you know. All of it."
"Humph," grunted Redgrave, glad to hear the interest in Ran. "It was the name 'Windthrop'. I'd heard the name before during the early stages of the Revolution. Shortly after I had taken the King to the tower, remember that?"
"How could I forget?" murmured Ran.
"It was something the Protector had said to no one in particular back then, amid all the chaos. I don't think he knew I stood just near him at the time. He had whispered, 'This day will live in infamy and this time the Windthrops will get their due'."
"He said that? Windthrop?" asked Ran quietly.
"Yes, it struck me as odd at the time but I had tucked it away in my head and forgot about it until yesterday morning when I heard the name again. Windthrop. At first I thought it would lead to the Windthrops in Turgany, but it didn't seem right since Barons are not allowed to invest in other provinces. So hearing it yesterday and thinking back to the whisper from the Protector, I thought: what a strange name for Healy to state at the time. With nothing linking Baron Windthrop to anything, I thought to examine the lineage book in the library. And surprise, turns out that Windthrop was the Protector's grandmother's maiden name! Linked to Baron Windthrop of course, down in Turgany, but by name only. The Baron is his cousin, a few times removed – I can never figure family shit out. Three times removed? Bah, no matter. And Baron Windthrop and the Protector hate each other, don't they?"
Ran nodded. It was a well–known hatred in the Realm. Turgany su
ffered for it and saw little in the way of political favours out of the House. The Turgany province representatives were typically absent from the House. No one missed them.
"What do you plan to do, Bill?" asked Ran.
"I've no fucking idea, Ran! Why the fuck do you think I called you in here? You're the tactical genius! You tell me!" shouted Redgrave. The drunken slur that had started in his voice was becoming more pronounced. Redgrave raised a shaking hand to wipe at his face to clear his thoughts. He felt oddly numb all over. He ran his tongue over his teeth.
Ran rose from his seat and grabbed the bottle of whiskey, emptied what little remained into Bill's glass and sat back down. Bill mumbled his thanks and drained his glass in one gulp. As he went to place the glass on his desk he lost control of the glass and it dropped from his hand to shatter on the stone floor. Bill squinted down at what he had done and observed the fine shards of glass that lay strewn across his floor.
"Whoops..." He laughed.
Ran remained seated. He didn't have to wait long and watched as Bill's head hit his desk with a surprisingly heavy thud. Ran sighed and rose from his seat, opened the door and beckoned to the two men who waited outside wearing the uniforms of the Lord Protector's Guard. They quietly came around the desk and took Marshall Bill Redgrave, hero of the Realm, under each arm and hoisted him unceremoniously out of his seat and carried him, feet dragging across the floor, and out of his office.
Redgrave woke up in near darkness and feeling cold hard stone under him, knew immediately that he wasn't lying in his own bed. He tried to stretch out his legs and encountered a wall with his knees still bent. Confusion filled his thoughts until the strong smell of rotting hay overwhelmed his nostrils and combined with the sharp pounding in his head threatened to make him violently ill and he concentrated on that. He swallowed against the urge to vomit, but he failed, and he felt saliva aggressively squirt into the back of his throat before he quickly rolled over and forcefully emptied his stomach onto the stone. His vision shot full of internal bright lights and his head threatened to explode with the increased stabbing pain that came with the effort. He felt his stomach seemingly clench hard against his backbone and this was quickly followed by yet another violent spew onto the floor. He spent the next thirty minutes dry heaving again and again until all the muscles in his stomach were torn.
Fully spent and emptied, he rolled over onto his back, knees in the air. Sweat coated his body sour and slick and he waited in vain for the pain to subside. His thoughts were addled. He had no idea where he was or why. He simply wanted relief from the pain.
The smell of his acrid puke stopped all wonderings of where he lay and he was once again consumed with trying to void an already empty stomach. After a time, he could smell bile and the unmistakable coppery smell of blood and he knew he had torn something in his stomach. He flopped back onto his back and mercifully succumbed to the pain in his head and fell unconscious.
When he woke much later, the pain in his head was still pounding with an unearthly intensity, but he could think past it now. He raised a hand, unknowingly covered in his own vomit and with pieces of hay matted onto it, to wipe his brow and then wiped his hand in disgust on his tunic. The feel of the rough loomed tunic surprised him and he realised he was no longer wearing his finery. He cracked his eyes and in the thankfully dim light he realised he was in a windowless gaol cell deep in his own dungeon in the castle. Panic set in and he thought quickly on how he could have ended up here and struggled to remember recent events. He had met with Ran and then...and then...nothing.
With sudden clarity he then knew that Ran had drugged him with his own whiskey. He had been set up and betrayed by his closest colleague: Ran Pawley. A stalwart, humourless man with more honour than brains. Now a traitor. Ran Pawley, the General of the North. Of course he was complicit in the embezzlement. He saw the reports. He knew the roads weren't being worked on. Of course he knew.
I am such a fucking idiot, he thought and a weariness over took him until he suddenly remembered his wife and children and he found himself at the cell door banging on the thick, locked, wooden door until his fists bled, yelling for someone, anyone, to attend to him. He had to save his family! Warn them!
Silence was his only answer to his cries and yet he kept screaming and pounding on the door for hours.
Without sunlight to mark the days and nights, Redgrave's days became one long blur until he no longer knew just how long he had been locked up with any certainty. Three of those initial days were how long it had taken before the effects of the drug had worn off and left his head clear of pain. Food was brought to him once a day in a small bucket pushed through the small opening at the base of the door. Whomever delivered it said nothing and did not respond to his cries and pleas. He had long ago stopped the effort.
He had been given a bucket of the slop forty–three times thus far and he pretended they counted the days. But he understood the practice. Prisoners were fed at odd times to help break them of a sense of time and to disorient them. He felt it had probably been only thirty days since he had been locked up.
The food was always the same: a miserable kind of thin, cold broth containing little in the way of meat or vegetables, and with a small solitary piece of bread floating near the top of the swill. But Redgrave ate it all nonetheless. His hunger and thirst had become a constant, unwelcome companion to him and he found that he now waited on the buckets with an eagerness that shamed him. A short lived joy had been returning the buckets full of his piss and shit but that had stopped when his food was placed back in the same unwashed buckets.
His cell was square and was too small to let him stretch out to his full length on the floor. He could touch either wall with his arms barely stretched out. He could stand to stretch, but the fatigue that filled his body yearned for him to lie down and stretch out full on the floor. The gaol cells were designed that way for a purpose, he knew, to torment the occupants. That he was unable to lay flat and stretch out completely would sometimes fill him with such distress that he could barely get himself back in control. His uncontrollable whimpering often forced him to bang his head against the door until he stopped.
It was a door that mocked him. It was only three inches thick at most. A small opening in the bottom that allowed his small bucket of food to be passed through but that was all. A small, barred window lay just above his eyes if he stood on his tiptoes and robbed him of any ability to look out into the corridor beyond. Little light came through that opening and by the flickering; it was a simple torch farther down the hall. He had barely enough light to be able to see his own physical decline. He knew he had been placed deep in the dungeon. In the area he himself had used to break hardened criminals in the past. No one shared a nearby cell. No one answered his cries.
Redgrave could no longer yell or scream. His throat was torn beyond making any more noise louder than a rasping whisper. He had broken his small finger in his right hand by banging it on the door and something was wrong with his left hand that wouldn't let him straighten the fingers. The pain from them kept him from sleeping. Not that he could sleep without exhausting himself first. He thought constantly of his wife and children and sobbed most times uncontrollably while imagining the worst.
He had moved past hate and anger and only sorrow remained. Thoughts of seeking vengeance on Ran and his betrayal had long faded. He cursed himself for the fool that he was. He should have known better. He should have stayed clear of it all. He should have ignored what little of his honour remained, and had demanded of him, and walked away from the "Windthrop" issue. But he hadn't. And now his family would pay the price. His despair was complete. He thought vainly for a way to warn his family. He tried to convince himself that someone would warn them after realising what had happened to him. He tried talking to the silent ghosts that served his bucket of slop but no one ever answered. He knew he lied to himself. No one cared and no one would come to save him. He was doomed.
Redgrave spent his time imagining h
is execution and rise back to power and redemption. More often than naught he imagined that a simple gallows lay before him, its noose beckoning to stretch his neck with a rough caress on his skin. He would be standing in front of a crowd of jeering people, eyes thirsty for blood and death, and he would proclaim his innocence and point an accusing finger at the Protector. He would convince them with strong words and they would rise in anger and throw down the evil bastard and he would triumph. He would turn and see his wife and children looking up at him with admiration in their eyes. And then reality would return. His fantasies always left him sobbing in the corner of his cell.
He kept his back pressed up against the wall with his legs extended out straight. It was the only position that afforded him any comfort. He thought often of killing himself and how to best achieve it. In the end he knew he was a coward and would not be able to follow through. And despite everything, he harboured some glimmer of hope and his desire to live always won out in the end.
And time passed painfully slow.
Fourteen
Munsten, 888 A.C.
WHEN THEY FINALLY came for him he welcomed it with profound relief. Redgrave's food bucket count had risen to fifty–eight, but he was no longer sure of the correct number. But something new was happening and that was better than the nothing world he was mired in. As the two guards opened the door, he struggled to rise but he was surprised to find that he could no longer stand on his own. They had to prop him up on either side and carry him out the door and down the long corridor with his legs dragging uselessly behind him. The light from the torches blinded him and he closed his eyes and cried out against the intensity. He could not make out who carried him except he knew with a certainty, born of years of working with them, that these were men from the Protector's Guard. Neither spoke to him.
Duilleog (A New Druids Series Book 1) Page 23
