A Company of Heroes Book Two: The Fabulist

by Ron Miller

  She has just wrapped herself when the outer door bursts open with a crash, her rescuers nearly toppling disastrously into the unexpected void. Among them are the duke and the baron.

  “Bronwyn!” cries the former. “What happened? Are you all right?”

  “I think so. My room exploded.”

  Mathias circles the crater, along the narrow rim of floor left, and embraces the shaken princess. The baron braces himself limply against the doorframe, while a dozen curious faces press around him. Bronwyn thinks he looks deathly pale and fears for his heart.

  “Are you sure you’re all right?” repeats the duke.

  “Yes, yes, I’m fine. Let’s just get out of here.”

  “What happened?” repeats the duke once they have gotten to his own room. The baron joins them, still looking wan and elderly, followed by Thud.

  “I have some ideas,” replies the princess.

  “Maybe it was a meteor,” offers Thud.

  “Meteor?” asks the duke. “What are you talking about?”

  “It is just an idea.” He had recently puzzled his way through an article on the subject of meteors which had appeared in the rotogravure section of the Diamandis Clarion Call. No one else recalled the article because it had been published nearly two months earlier, the length of time it had taken Thud to laboriously spell it out word by word. He was inordinately proud of having accomplished this, the first time in his life he had done such a thing, and had been anxious to show off the premiere tidbit of knowledge he had ever gained from a printed page. Bronwyn, the duke and the baron have no idea of what he has done and their conversation continues no wiser.

  “It’s pretty obvious, don’t you think?” Bronwyn says. “Someone’s just tried to assassinate me.”

  “Who’d want to assassinate you?” asks the baron.

  “Good heavens, Baron! You of all people shouldn’t have to ask that!”

  The baron looks confused for a moment, then says, “I . . . I just meant that it might be jumping to a conclusion to assume that it is an attempt to murder you.”

  The princess looks at the baron through slightly narrowed eyes. “What do you think it was? A meteor?”

  “Could be,” interjects Thud, hopefully.

  “No, no, nothing like that,” says Milnikov. “All I meant was, it could’ve been, oh, I don’t know, a leaking gas main, perhaps, or something like that,” he concluded feebly and, realizing the feebleness, slumped dejectedly into a chair. He looked like a suit of clothes someone had carelessly draped over the furniture.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Bronwyn asks.

  “Nothing. I haven’t been feeling well. That’s all.”

  “Do you want to see a doctor?” asks Mathias.

  “No, thank you. It’ll pass.”

  “Suit yourself, but I’d take care if I were you, you look mighty peaked, old fellow.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.”

  “Mathias,” says Bronwyn, “if it is a bomb, how could it’ve been done?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Who could’ve done it, for one thing? We know who must have ordered it, but who carried it out?”

  “Oh. Anyone, I suppose. That is, I trust the staff here, but it’s fairly easy for people to come and go.”

  “It wasn’t so easy for us to get in the first day we arrived.”

  “That is different; you are strangers.”

  “You’re saying it is someone the guards knew, or that it might have been someone in the castle?”

  “I suppose it’s possible, but it could’ve been someone who is not obviously a stranger. I mean, the three of you are a pretty odd-looking crew, and you came marching directly up to the guardhouse and demanded to see me. Of course the man is suspicious. But someone from the town . . . or someone who looked as though he are from the town . . . might not have been challenged. Many people come and go, since there are administrative offices here, and of course there’re the men working on the restoration of the wall.”

  “It’d probably be impossible to find who it was, then.”

  “I’m afraid so. I’ll have inquiries made, of course, but I wouldn’t hold out any hopes.”

  “You know who is behind it?”

  “That doesn’t take much guessing: Payne Roelt and your brother, of course.”

  “They could’ve left me alone,” she says, almost to herself.

  “But you’d already decided to obliterate them.”

  “Yes, but they didn’t know that. Well, it’s war, now.”

  “War?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Literally?”

  “I’m tired of all this intrigue. I want to raise an army and wipe those two pills off the face of the earth.”

  “I suppose it’s possible. But what country would want to declare war on Tamlaght? What would they gain?”

  “That’s true, Princess,” adds the baron. “Forgive me for putting it this way, but no nation is going to war just for your sake.”

  “I wasn’t suggesting that they do. I says that I want to raise an army, not that I want anyone to declare war on my behalf. This is my war; I declared it. I’ll hire the mercenaries and ships myself.”

  “Those things’ll cost a great deal of money. Millions. Armies don’t come very cheap anymore.”

  “I’ll get the money. I’ll have it afterwards, in any case.”

  “Mercenaries don’t work on credit.”

  “Well, I don’t think that she’ll really have to worry much about that, will she, Baron?” says the duke.

  “What?”

  “Raising money for her invasion, I mean. I can underwrite most of it, surely. It’d be easy to disguise the source of the funds, you understand why I’d have to do that, don’t you, Bronwyn?”

  “Of course.”

  “And, Baron, you are only just telling me how you had large bank accounts in Toth and Spondula. Just the other day you are discussing ways to get access to them secretly.”

  “Yes, but . . .”

  “So I know the princess can count on you for support.”

  “Well, of course, but . . .”

  “Now, Bronwyn, an army’s one thing, but you’re going to need good officers to run it. I can recommend several whom you can trust. I have some not inconsiderable experience at this myself. I can hire my own services through an intermediary. Now, you just can’t have armies invading other countries willy-nilly. They have to be there for some reason. I know you want to physically demolish those villains, and rightly so, but there must also be a symbolic aspect to the invasion as well. Otherwise, you might as well hire a gang of thugs to beat the two of them into a smoothly uniform paste. The citizens of your country would certainly resent the presence of a few thousand soldiers tramping across their countryside on a personal vendetta. It would do little good to wipe Payne and Ferenc out at the expense of turning the whole country against you. Therefore, at the very outset, it should be made clear that the army is there to represent not only your interests but the interests of the people of Tamlaght.”

  “I couldn’t agree more!”

  “Good. I think, then, that with the baron riding at the head of the army . . .”

  “Wait a minute,” interrupted Bronwyn.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “If the baron’s leading the army, where am I?”

  “Here, of course. Why?”

  “No. Absolutely not.”

  “What?”

  “This is going to be my army . . .”

  “Of course it is. That’ll be made perfectly clear. It’s the whole point of what I is trying to say.”

  “You want the army to represent me. I don’t intend to be represented, I intend to be there.”

  “There’s something to be says for that,” interjects the baron.

  “That’s impossible,” says Mathias, with some annoyance. “You can’t lead an army.”

  “Why not? I know the way to Blavek.”

  “Well, who d
oesn’t? But what do you know about military command?”

  “What do I have to know? I’d have officers for that. I only need to tell them, ‘I want to go to Blavek. I want Payne Roelt in prison and my brother thrown off the throne . . .’”

  “That rhymes!” says Thud.

  “ . . . and it’d up to them to carry out my wishes in the most expeditious manner. That’s what I’d be paying them for.”

  “Good heavens, Bronwyn, d’you really know what you’re talking about?”

  “Yes, I think so. Why? Do you think I don’t?”

  “Perhaps. You imagine that this is all going to be some big, romantic adventure. If nothing else, you’re talking about being virtually alone among thousands of the most repellent men on the continent.”

  “So?”

  “So? I can’t let you do that!”

  “I’m not asking you to let me.”

  “I won’t allow it!”

  “How can you stop me? You don’t plan to help me raise the money, then?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “The only way I won’t go at the head of my own army is if there is no army. So the only way you can stop me is to keep me from getting an army.”

  “I won’t go back on my promise, but neither can I let you go!”

  “Only if you can figure out how to stop me; but honestly, I can’t imagine what you can do to prevent me.”

  “It’s going to be incredibly dangerous.”

  “Don’t forget I is nearly blown up an hour ago. I think you’re more upset about that than I am.”

  “Well, why shouldn’t I be upset? And you are, too. If not, you should be!”

  “I’m so angry I want to bite someone, but I’m not frightened. I think you’re just scared simple.”

  “That’s not fair! I’m just concerned about your safety. I don’t want to see you hurt.”

  “Oh, yes? I’d probably be safer on a battlefield than in my bedroom here,” she pointed out rather brutally.

  “Baron! Can you talk some sense into her?”

  “I would if I agreed with you, but I’m not sure that I do. Besides, you forget that it’s not really my place to tell her Highness what to do.”

  “Well advise her then, for heaven’s sake!”

  “All right. Princess, the duke would rather that you stayed here while I led the army in routing Payne and Ferenc out of Blavek.”

  “Forget it.”

  “There. I tried,” says the baron, with a shrug.

  “I forbid it!”

  “How?” asks Bronwyn.

  “Damn it!” the duke cries, finally losing his temper. “You’re the most stubborn person I’ve ever met!”

  “You’d know best about that.”

  The duke paces the length of the room three times, which brings him to the far side, opposite the princess, who has been watching his well-regulated fit with an uneasy mixture of annoyance, amusement and tolerance. The resulting expression is pretty much indistinguishable from a condescending smirk and Mathias has to muster all his strength to keep his voice even and his words civil. He clenches his fists at his side and speaks from a face as pale as the princess’ own.

  “Look here, Bronwyn . . . if you cared at all about me . . .”

  “You? What do my feelings about you have to do with this?”

  “I’d hoped that you did have some feelings about me . . .”

  “ . . . and the only way I can show them is to allow you to tell me how to run my life?”

  “It’s my feelings about you that I’m speaking of.”

  “Go on.”

  “Well, you must know how much I care about you.”

  “I thought I did, anyway.”

  “All right, Bronwyn. I’d hoped, you know that I did, that you’d eventually choose to live in Lesser Piotr, perhaps even as its duchess.”

  “Yes, I know, we talked about that. In spite of this conversation, it’s still an appealing idea. Why shouldn’t it still be?”

  “Well can’t you see that I can’t let you put yourself at such risk?”

  “It’s my decision, isn’t it?”

  “Not if you’ve agreed to marry me, no. I forbid it. I absolutely forbid it. You’re a woman, not some guttersnipe of a tomboy, and it’s about time you realizes it. It’s not your place to do these things. It’s not dignified, it’s not womanly. I absolutely forbid it. That’s final.”

  Bronwyn gets slowly to her feet. Her eyes are splinters of green glass embedded in a face as sleek and white as wet chalk. She is nearly as tall as the duke and, though they are still ten paces apart, her eyes seem to emit steel wires that transfixed him like a chunk of mutton on a shish kebab.

  “What did you just say?” she asks, rhetorically, her voice even, low and preternaturally calm.

  “I . . .” . . .

  “Don’t say a word. Are you telling me what I can or cannot do?”

  “No, I . .”

  “Don’t interrupt me. I have no intention of becoming another decorative piece of furniture around here or anywhere else. I spent the first eighteen years of my life being a decoration, being told that I’m not good for anything else, being told, for Musrum’s sake, that I’m not as good as my brother. And not just because he’s male, more or less, but just because he happened to be born first. Well, I’m better than that. I’ve proved it. Do you have any idea what those blisters back in Tamlaght have done to me? I’ve told you enough times: you ought to know. Well, do you think for one moment that I’m at the end going to sit back and allow someone else to do what I have every right and intention of doing? I’ve earned the right to defend myself and I’m perfectly capable of doing so.”

  “Well, we’ll have to talk about this.”

  “We have just talked about it.”

  “You’re not being reasonable about this, Bronwyn. You’re just a girl . . .”

  “That’s enough! You says you’d help me. Did you mean it?”

  “Well, yes, I suppose so . . .”

  “Then there’s nothing more to say, is there? And please try to refrain from public familiarities. My name is Princess Bronwyn.”

  With a strangled cry of almost superhuman exasperation, the duke flings himself from the room, unknowingly benefitting from a fortunate automatic reflex that causes him to open the door before passing through it.

  “A little hard on the lad, aren’t we?” comments the baron as he blows a negligent smoke ring at a bust of Mathias’s grandfather.

  “Oh! he just infuriates me!”

  “He only thinks that he’s protecting you.”

  “Who asked for his protection? I’m not a fragile objet d’art for him to lock into some curio cabinet. Besides, he’s not really thinking of me. He’s just worried about how it’s going to look if his duchess-to-be is seen wearing trousers or carrying a revolver.”

  “Isn’t that something to consider?”

  “Who cares? This duchy is only what? four or five hundred square miles? And mostly farms at that. What about the Empress Shoongler of Peigambar? She led her own armies into battle, wearing armor and everything . . . she even had armor made to fit her when she is pregnant . . . and she’s a national heroine.”

  “Yes, yes, I know, I know. But that’s Peigambar and that is a long time ago. You’ve got to try and look at this from the duke’s point of view.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know,” Milnikov answers with a sigh.

  “Is it time to eat yet?” asks Thud.

  “What do you think I should do, Thud?”

  “Huh?” Being asked for advice is something new and Thud needs to buy more than a few seconds’ worth of thought, which for him an inarticulate sound and a blank expression readily purchases in wholesale lots. The princess had never before solicited his opinion about anything. Thud isn’t certain if he even has any opinions. His query about the proximity of luncheon is about as deep a judgment as he has ever devised. However, this is not to say that Thud is not capable of abstract t
heorizing; who really knows of what Thud is capable? Certainly not Thud himself.

  “Should I do what Mathias wants,” Bronwyn elaborates, “or should I do what I want?”

  “Why would you do what Mathias wants?”

  “I guess because I love him.”

  “Does he love you?”

  “I don’t know; I thought he does.”

  Thud ponders that for a long moment.

  “Does he do what you tell him to?”

  “I don’t know if he’d do something like this, though he’s told me many times that he’d do anything for me.”

  Thud has to think even longer.

  “If he’ll do anything for you, then why doesn’t let you do what you want?”

  “That would be too logical, Thud.”

  A peculiar shudder quivers the big man’s body, as though someone had just thumped an enormous gelatin mold. It is a shiver of delight at being told that he has just come up with an idea that is too logical. What next?

  “Why don’t you just do what makes you feel happy?”

  “I don’t know what that’d be, Thud.”

  “I mean happy forever, not happy now.”

  Bronwyn looked at the giant for a very long moment.

  “Thud, I’ve never told you that I love you, have I?”

  “No.”

  “Didn’t someone mention that they are hungry?” asks the baron.

  “I did,” replies Thud.

  “Then shall we adjourn?”

  * * * * *

  Several days pass before Bronwyn sees the duke again. Things are palpably different, which she regrets less than she might have expected. Mathias is much too much of a gentlemen to go to any extremes over the matter, he is cordially polite without ever becoming overly formal, a gesture Bronwyn might have resented but for the cheap expression of hurt feelings it could easily have been.

  Three weeks separated Bronwyn’s wholehearted surrender to the reptile and the detonation of her sleeping chamber. In that time she has grown to be almost passionately fond of the young duke, or so she has thought. There are neither many waking nor sleeping moments when the two are not entwined. They go everywhere together and every moment spent away from the duke has made Bronwyn nervous and irritable. As soon as he leaves her sight she begins looking forward to seeing him again and begrudging each interfering minute that separates them. She has never been in love before and enters into the unfamiliar enterprise with all the enthusiasm and abandon of any newly converted amateur. She possesses reservoirs of maudlin sentimentality she has never dreamed existed; some critical function of her brain foregoes its duty and its dereliction allows her to regress into cooing baby-talk and saccharine fondling. The cuteness of it all would sicken her had not her objectivity been anesthetized.