01 - Honour of the Grave

by Robin D. Laws - (ebook by Undead)

  The streets were deserted. And quiet. The noise from outside the walls was nothing more than a muted, distant roar from here. Every so often, a shutter would edge open, and someone inside a hovel would peer at Franziskus, from the darkness. He took no notice of any of this.

  He practised what he might say to her.

  Why did you do that?, he would ask.

  Then she would say, Do I answer to you?

  And he would say. No, but—

  And she would cut him off and say, No “huts” about it. If anything, you answer to me. If your oath to follow me is worth a jot.

  And he would be at a loss for words.

  So he would not say that. Instead he would take a different tack. He would say, Are you refreshed, after your romp with the prince? No, he would not say “romp”. He would say “gambol”. Gambol sounded even more carefree than romp. Something said between comrades. A backslapping sort of jape, as if he and she were not of different sexes. I trust you had a good roister, he would say to her, as he used to say to his male friends, when he was still part of the regiment.

  Except that he had not had friends in the regiment, not per se. At least, none with whom he could have off-handedly discussed romps or gambols or roisters. He had never been able to laugh about things like that, to treat them as if they did not matter. As if love were a flippant thing, to crumble up and use as the kindling of idle conversation.

  He would not say anything to her. He would act as if nothing had happened. As if he had not humiliated herself by tugging so openly on her arm. By treating her as if he had some claim on her. By once again showing her that he was a thick-witted prig who knew nothing of her world and had no hope of ever understanding or pleasing her.

  He found himself in a cul-de-sac. He faced an empty barn, its door swinging on its hinges. He turned to retrace his steps, but he did not remember where he’d been. He hadn’t been paying attention. He might have come from straight ahead, or from a curving laneway to the left, or he could even have squeezed in from a muddy patch on the right.

  A woman stepped toward him. “Good sir!” she called. She had flaxen hair and wore a gown of green velvet. Her low bodice afforded him a generous view of fine, firm flesh. It took him a moment to remember that he’d seen this woman before. She’d framed herself in a doorway for him, the last time he was in town, on the night they met the Kopfs.

  “Good sir!” she repeated.

  “My name is Franziskus.”

  “And your family name would be? From your strong posture and the refined way that you speak, I know you must be of a noble pedigree.” She spoke in the charming accent of a Bretonnian, turning any hint of an indecorous “th” or “ch” sound into a pliant V or yielding “z”.

  Franziskus could not decide what to do with his hands. He was tempted to find a wall to lean against, to seem less awkward. “I no longer make use of my family name,” he said.

  She parted her lips in mournful sympathy. She seemed to be ready to say something, but did not.

  “Have we been introduced before, milady?” Franziskus cringed at the stupidity of his own words. Of course they had not been introduced.

  She shuffled over to him and extended her hand midair, fingers curved earthward. “My name is Petrine Guillame.”

  He bowed to take her hand and kiss it, but she retracted it as he was halfway through the gesture. Her cheeks coloured. “Beg pardon. I am presumptuous. I have no right to expect niceties from you, Franziskus. You do not know it, but I have wronged you terribly.”

  “I don’t see how you could possibly have—” The wind picked up, bringing the tang of the barnyard from the crumbling stable behind him. “Perhaps we could go somewhere more amenable to discussion—”

  She surged ahead, clasping her hands together. “No, I am afraid that there is no time.” She now stood close enough to him that he could smell the scent she wore on her neck. He could not place it, but it reminded him both of spices and of fruit. A thin skein of hair loosened itself from her pearly headpiece and fell over her forehead. “It is I who paid your enemies, Toby Goatfield and the others, to abduct poor young Lukas.”

  He gasped, a little. “You? Why?”

  Petrine looked down. “Not all women are creatures of resourcefulness and means, like your friend Angelika. The rest of us, when fate abandons us, must favour the possible over the virtuous. To survive, we must seek the protection of powerful patrons. Yet when a woman without means attaches herself to a man of power, she is compromised. She is expected to do things. Sometimes these things are not right, but we have little choice, except to perform, as asked.”

  “Who is this man, who oppresses you?”

  “You have just come from his manor.”

  “You followed me?”

  She moved to a crumbling wall and heaved her shoulders against it. “Yet another sin I have visited upon you. But this time I transgress in fervent hope of redemption. If the town walls fall, Davio will order poor Lukas slain. As a Tilean, vengeance is his foremost thought.”

  “He does not seem to think the Castello is in much danger.”

  “It is bravado only. Trust me, I know no man as I know Davio Maurizzi. The town will die, and then, so will Lukas. That is why I have been so impudent as to approach you, fine sir.”

  “Please, I am not—there’s no need to…”

  With nimble fingers, she opened a calfskin pouch that dangled from her belt. She withdrew a roll of vellum, tied with a piece of hairy twine. “This is a map. It will take you to the location where Lukas is being held.”

  “He is not here, in the town?”

  “No, the prince would not risk it. To the east, up in the hills, there is a secret encampment, a bolt-hole where Toby and his associates hide, with others of his halfling gang. I have marked how to find it. You must find Angelika, wherever she is, and go with her to this place, and take Lukas from them. Otherwise, they have orders to break his neck, if the Castello falls.” She pressed the map into his fingers, crumpling it.

  He held onto her hands. “But what of you? Will the prince not know you’ve betrayed his scheme?”

  She pulled back and closed her eyes. “Perhaps. But, for once, I must not think of myself.”

  “Come with us, so I can protect you.”

  She turned and hurried down the twisting lane. “No, I cannot put you in further peril.”

  He grabbed her, spun her around. She fell into him. His breath caught in his throat. “But it is not necessary for you to trade your life for Lukas’. Come with us, and we’ll all find safety together.”

  Petrine pushed him away, but he could tell she didn’t want to. “I have not mastered the manly arts, the way your Angelika has. In woods or mountains, I would be but a hindrance to you. Worry not about me. I will find a way. I always have.” With her forefinger, she touched him on the tip of his nose. “It is the nature of existence, that circumstances are never what we wish them to be. Were you and I in another place, with different histories… Your Angelika, she is lucky to have you.” She stepped back, her eyes staring at the ground in front of Franziskus’ feet. It was as if she was drawing a line there, forbidding him to cross. Then, in a twirl of her gown, she had her back to him again, and was fleeing down the street.

  “But she’s not my Angelika!” Franziskus said, watching her go. He’d meant to shout it to her, but it had come out as a whisper, so, in truth, he talked only to himself.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Despite the blanket of quiet that smothered the town, the Dolorosa La Bara bulged with shouting, laughing, coughing patrons. Items of gold, from brooches to chalices, sat heaped on a table, where drinkers frantically threw dice, sweat pouring down their faces. They’d decided, evidently, to at least feel the ecstatic mortification of losing their possessions in a game of chance, instead of giving them up to the soldiers outside the gates. Franziskus, ensconced at the bar on a well-padded stool, wondered what the eventual winner was supposed to do with his haul. Bury it, perhaps, and hope t
o come back later?

  The young Stirlander had forgone his usual ale, electing instead to knock down cups of watered-down rum. It was diluted but burned his tongue and gullet all the same. He twitched his hand at Giacomo, the barman, who refilled him and slid his pennies from the damp wooden counter. Behind him, a hawk-nosed young man in torn mendicant’s robes screamed something about the apocalypse. He’d renounced forever his vows of temperance, though Franziskus suspected that tomorrow morning’s hangover might provoke their abrupt renewal.

  Angelika slid onto the stool next to him. “Evening, Franziskus,” she’d said.

  He hadn’t seen her come in. But, then again, it had been hours since he’d stopped looking at the doorway. “Did you learn anything?”

  “About Lukas? No.”

  Giacomo needed no prompting to set a cup before her, and fill it with brandy.

  She sipped, and stuck out her tongue. “This is hard to take, after that Angoumelle.”

  “Did you enjoy his finer vintage, the one he had upstairs?” Franziskus regretted the words as soon as they passed his lips. Or rather, their tone gave him away; he’d meant to sound offhand and comradely, but sarcasm had crept in anyway.

  “We didn’t get to it,” Angelika said. She set her brandy down and peered into it.

  “So he continued to deny any knowledge of the boy?”

  She nodded.

  “You didn’t believe him, I hope.”

  “You think me the sort of person to lose all reason over a glittering pair of grey eyes and a lovely wolfs grin? Please!”

  “Then why did you—” He caught himself short. He thought everyone in the bar would be looking at him, after this outburst, but the volume of his voice was nothing compared to the hysterical bellowing around them, so not a single head turned their way. He finished his drink and slammed the cup on the bar. Angelika looked at him with obvious disgust. “Pardon my indiscretion,” he said.

  She did not give him the relief of a reply.

  He tried to catch Giacomo’s eye, but the barkeep was occupied with the unintelligible shouts of a fat-cheeked dwarf across the way. “It merely seems inadvisable to… to render yourself… vulnerable to the very person we suspect of being our adversary. Not just suspect—we have good reason to believe—”

  “I’ll be my own judge of what’s safe,” she said. “Besides, one thing has nothing to do with the other.”

  “Don’t think that I think I have any sort of claim on you,” Franziskus said. The rum made him feel apart from himself, like it was some other fellow he could hear talking to her. He wondered why someone didn’t make this fellow shut up before he dug his grave any deeper. “Because far from it. I don’t and I wouldn’t want to. The man’s a villain, and I don’t understand. But, as you’ll remind me, what right have I to understanding? You just want me to go away, don’t you?”

  “We should get you home to bed, Franziskus.”

  “That’s what this was about, wasn’t it? Your reminding me of how unwanted I am here.” He stood up, weaved, and slumped over, leaning on the counter for support. “You didn’t want him at all. He was just to hand, that’s all. To teach me a lesson. A lesson I deserve.”

  She clapped him on the arm. “Stop talking, Franziskus.”

  He slumped back onto his stool. “See, that’s what I keep telling myself, that I should stop talking. But there’s something I keep meaning to get to, except that we haven’t got to it yet. The point is, I have this.” He slapped the map, its neat roll now crushed flat, onto the counter. “While you were—off doing what you were doing—I was on Lukas’ trail.”

  She propped him up on the way home to their rented hovel. In the morning, she fed him a greasy meal of sausage and egg, and asked him if he remembered, perchance, who had given him the map that supposedly led to Lukas.

  “That I clearly recall,” he said, massaging his temples, “it’s what happened later, after I started to drink, that eludes me.”

  “Which is for the best, believe me.”

  “The woman’s name is Petrine Guillame.” He recounted his meeting with her.

  “She hired Goatfield?”

  “She serves Davio, as his executor of dirty dealings.”

  “And you think she was honestly remorseful? That it wasn’t a trick of some kind?”

  His eyebrows hurt. He wiggled them around. “I believed her at the time. But who knows?”

  “Davio acquainted me with several of his good qualities, but, still, he styles himself a prince, so he can’t be taken at his word.”

  “Who do we believe, then? Should we flip a coin?”

  “Either of them might be lying. But this woman of yours, she at least has given us a direction to go in.”

  “But you’re saying it might be a trap.”

  “Was she as beautiful up close as when you saw her in the doorway?”

  “Yes.”

  “And she seemed willing to fall into your embrace?”

  He shrugged. It hurt to shrug. “I wanted to think so.”

  “You should have pressed your case, and found out for sure.” She picked up her pack and took out its contents, laying them out on a rough-edged pine table. “You’re one to freely dispense advice, Franziskus. Would you like to hear some, in return?”

  “Not really, but proceed, anyway.”

  “Pleasure is rare enough in this world, Franziskus, and we all end up in our graves sooner than we think. To hell with what the priests say: few joys are more intense than that of skin against skin. If you get a chance with one who quickens your heart, take it.”

  “She was in distress.”

  “A little upset can heighten the sharpness of it.” She opened the larder door in search of dried meat. An under-nourished rat scurried deeper into the cupboard; tiny bits of salami lay scattered across the shelf. She closed the door. “We’ll have to get provisions from the stalls, outside.”

  “There has to be more to it than that, Angelika. More than the physical.”

  “So say the poets. But I say, to hell with them.”

  They headed to the gate, which was still open to allow the last few refugees to exit. Not wanting to give up their property to the Averlanders, they scaled the Castello wall to angle past the checkpoint. Even so, a stray soldier challenged them, and they had to buy his silence with silver shillings. They stopped to purchase field rations from one of the vendors and then vacated the siege camp. They hiked across the valley floor and up into the hills, as Petrine’s map indicated. Initially, Franziskus worried he might collapse on the trail, but the exertion did him good. By mid-afternoon, they neared the site of the bolt hole. According to the map, they had another half-mile or so to go, up the overgrown road they’d been travelling. Like the rock cut back at the Castello, this old road was a remnant of ancient dwarf engineering.

  “Smoke,” she said, pointing to the sky. A thin white stream snaked thirty feet above the treetops before dispersing.

  Franziskus looked at the map again, wishing there were something on it to suggest exactly what form Toby’s hideout took. Petrine’s “X” lay off to one side in what looked like a small clearing. They left the road, avoiding a patch of rash-weed, and walked through tall pines. They followed the smoke to find the clearing.

  The smoke rose from a hole in the earth, its sides dense with bushes and large, leafy plants. It looked like it might have been an old sinkhole, now overgrown. A fence of poles and wires surrounded it. They looked around them to see if they were being watched. Side by side, they edged out from the woods. Angelika pointed to a squarish patch of ground ahead of them, where the weeds and grasses stood out from those immediately around them. They skirted it, but got close enough to see that it was a pit trap.

  Chimes and bells, mostly of brass, that were dangling from the wire fence, rang out gently. If they touched any of the wires, the chimes would clang violently, alerting the bolt hole’s inhabitants.

  Angelika bid Franziskus to go first. She had the better chance of succes
s, but there was no point in her carefully making her way past if he was going to set it off anyway. He gave the wires a serious look, clasped his hands briefly together, then slowly contorted himself, lifting one leg, then the other, insinuating his way through the fence. Angelika gestured her approval and slipped between the wires after him.

  They drew weapons and crept to the hole’s edge. They peered in. A roof of planks sealed the hole off, about ten feet down its sides. Around the back, they could see a set of metal stairs, obscured by foliage. It led to a trap door in the planking.

  “How quietly can you step?” she whispered. Angelica was now at the bottom of the stairs. She reached out with her boot and tested the planking as if it were a pool of water. She shifted her weight onto the platform. It creaked. She stopped. She let her other foot lightly down on the wood. It cracked. She heard banging below. She stopped. The banging ended. Then there were voices. Her weight was too far forward for her to keep her balance. She shifted. The boards made a complaining noise. She held her breath, and waited.

  When some time had passed, and no sound had come up from below, she took another daring step toward the trap door. The board beneath her feet stayed solid and silent. She took another step. And another. And another.

  When she stole a third step onto a new plank, it groaned like a banshee. She hesitated, alert for sounds. When none came she sprinted the remaining distance to the trap door. Angelika placed her fingers on the rope handle and tugged. A distinct metallic click sounded. The door was latched from the inside.

  A muffled voice emanated from the depths. Angelika couldn’t make it out, but it was a male voice, and could have belonged to either Toby or Henty. She held the handle tight, to keep it from rattling. The shout from below was repeated; Angelika thought he said, “Who goes there?” or something like that.