The words were correct, as were the quiet tone and delivery. “Illthin?” Roger asked, and then he ducked low as the sound of marching soldiers echoed nearby.
“Come along then, ye lazy snoozer,” the silhouette, who was indeed old Illthin, said to Roger, and he tossed a shovel at the man’s feet. “I telled Allheart Desenz that I’d have that tree upturned afore the dawn, and I’m not for getting a beating because a man half me age can’t keep his eyes open long enough to dig a few roots!”
“Is there trouble here?” came a call, and the man leading the patrol moved over to Roger and Illthin, eyeing them suspiciously.
“Only because me worker here ain’t worth the coins I’m payin’ him!” Illthin grumbled. “Ye think ye might give him a few lashes for me, me good Kingsman?”
The soldier eyed Roger wickedly and reached for a club set on his belt.
“Wait! Wait!” Roger pleaded, holding up his hands defensively. “I wasn’t napping. No, I … I had to …” He glanced about to the base of the wall and gave the front of his pants a tug to straighten them.
“All this trouble over a piss?” the soldier snapped at Illthin.
Illthin played his role perfectly, eyeing Roger with an edge of true suspicion. “Long piss, then,” he muttered, and he waved the soldier away. “Get yer shovel, then, ye lazy dog, and if ye got any more in ye needing to come out, ye best do it in yer pants!”
Roger scooped the shovel and fell into a quick step right behind the muttering Illthin. “We’ll never get it uprooted afore the dawn,” the old man grumbled.
The soldier moved back to his patrol, and they took up their march, away from the pair as Illthin led Roger over to an aged tree by the large back porch of the manor house.
“You almost got me beaten,” Roger grumbled.
“Better’n hanged, ye fool,” the old man cackled back. Illthin looked to the ground about the old tree and motioned with his chin for Roger to get to work.
“We’re really digging it up?”
“Until the change o’ the guard, at least,” Illthin explained. “And that’ll be an hour.” He motioned again, more insistently.
It struck Roger as humorous that even though he knew that Illthin was working for his own good, and for the sake of Bishop Braumin, the old man never seemed to be completely on his side. He drove his shovel into the ground, grunting as it clipped a thick root.
Within a few minutes, Roger was breathing heavily, and the strokes of his shovel came more and more slowly.
“Ha-ha,” old Illthin laughed at him. “Are ye goin’ to fall over dead then, Master Lockless?” he asked. “All yer pampered days taken the fight from ye, have they?”
Roger planted the shovel in the ground and leaned on it, staring at the old gardener. “This is no game,” he said. “Though I’m glad that you’ve found a bit of mirth at my expense.”
Illthin’s cackling ended abruptly, and the man’s thin grin disappeared into a suddenly serious expression. “Mirth?” he responded. “Now ye got sweat and mud on ye. Now ye’re lookin’ the part of a worker, and so now ye can go into the washrooms about the cook rooms.”
Roger stared at him for a moment, digesting the logic, and he could only nod his agreement. The washrooms and the cook rooms—that was the area near to the stairwell to the dungeons.
“Bah, we’ll have to wait for morning’s light to get the damned tree down,” Illthin said suddenly, and loudly, and it took Roger a moment to realize that he was speaking for the benefit not of Roger, but of the patrol marching around the corner of the building.
“Just go and get yerself cleaned and get some sleep,” Illthin went on. “And ye meet me back here at the break o’ dawn.”
Roger nodded and leaned the shovel over to Illthin’s waiting grasp; then, with a glance at the soldiers—none of whom seemed overly interested in him or in Illthin—he moved toward the house.
He got inside without incident and began making his way along corridors and through rooms all too familiar to him. The place was mostly quiet at this late hour, but he heard one group of men rolling bones, and another group arguing about the current politics in the kingdom—though none saying a word against King Aydrian, obviously.
Moving silently, using those skills that he had learned as a young boy in Caer Tinella and had then perfected during the powrie occupation in the days of the demon dactyl, Roger took a roundabout and inconspicuous course that brought him inevitably toward the servant quarters of the great house and the stairwell to the lower dungeon levels.
He came to a door, slightly ajar, with candlelight spilling out from within the room. He put his ear to the door, then dared to push it open just a bit and peek in.
Roger froze in place, for the room was not empty. A pair of large men, Kingsmen, were on guard within, one sitting and seeming asleep—or at least very near to sleep—and the other leaning against a cupboard at the far right of the room.
And there, on the left, was the door that led to the downward staircase.
Roger believed that he could get to it without being noticed by the groggy guards, but how then might he get back out, with Braumin in tow?
Roger glanced all around, looking for a solution. His hand went to his belt, where he had a small dagger sheathed, but the thought of attacking the guards was a fleeting one. Once Roger had been a decent fighter. Once …
The thief changed tactics then, inspecting the doorway and the crude lock. With a smile, Roger bent low, moved the door back to its original, nearly closed position, pulled forth a small pick, and worked that mechanism.
Then he peered in again, and quietly slipped into the room. He moved in a crouch, so low to the floor that none of the candlelight spilled over him. A movement to the side froze him in place, but when he finally mustered the courage to turn about, he saw that the source, the man standing at the cupboard, had merely shifted to get a bit more comfortable. Only then did Roger realize that the standing guard, too, was actually asleep, though why he hadn’t pitched over, Roger couldn’t begin to know.
At the cellar door a few moments later, Roger glanced back once to ensure that the guards were not in any way alerted. Then he reached up and gently tried the handle.
The door was locked.
Roger’s pick went to work again, expertly and silently, and a few moments later, he went through the door onto the landing, pausing long enough to secure the door behind him.
He could hardly see the uneven and crude stairway stretching out below him, but there were fires burning below. Roger placed his hand on the wall to his right and started down slowly, grimacing every time a rickety old stair groaned beneath his weight. Soon enough, he was moving along an earthen-and-stone tunnel, speckled with puddles and echoing with the sound of rattling chains and of hammers beating on metal.
Apparently, King Aydrian and his cohorts had reinstated the old practice of having prisoners put to hard labor.
Roger heard the swish and crack of a whip, followed by a pitiful groan, and he knew that other practices had been reinstated, as well.
His stride increased in tempo as he considered that Braumin, his dear friend, might be among those tortured men, and around a few bends and down a couple of side passages, Roger looked upon the jailor and the prisoners. They were in a long earthen room, several standing, chained in a line along a stonework dais and standing before respective anvils. A great hearth blazed before them, and two other prisoners, wearing heavy gloves, moved the rods of metal to the hearth and, when they were heated to an appropriate glow, to the next freed-up anvil.
The jailor, a huge and heavily muscled man, paced up and down behind the dais, a whip in one hand, a short and thick sword in the other. He hurled an insult and then cracked his whip at one of the hammer-wielders, and the poor wretch cried out and fell forward to one knee.
“Bah, get up, ye traitorous dog!” the jailor roared at him, and the whip cracked again, laying the man even lower—which only infuriated the jailor even more.
; “I telled ye to get up!” the jailor yelled again, and he lifted the whip to strike, but then swung about reflexively instead, sensing movement.
The burly man almost got his hand up in time to block the downward chop of one of the extra hammers. Almost, but he got hit squarely on the chest instead, and he staggered backward, tripping over the raised stonework and falling to his back.
Roger was over him in an instant, the hammer raised to keep him at bay. “Where is the key?” the small and dangerous man demanded.
The jailor held up one hand to fend any forthcoming blows, and shook his head with fright, his breath coming in short and raspy gasps.
“The key!” Roger demanded.
“There is no key!” one of the prisoners cried.
“Oh, ye’ve doomed us all!” said another, and the cries rose along the line—or started to, until one voice familiar to Roger rose above the others.
“Master Lockless?” Bishop Braumin Herde asked. “Roger?”
Roger looked up at his friend, but had to turn his attention back immediately to the jailor, who suddenly grabbed at his leg. Down came the hammer, but the jailor managed to deflect the blow, pushing it out wide and forcing Roger either to let go or tumble down.
Roger leaped back, pulling free of the man, who came up fast and charged at the intruder.
Or started to, for he got hit low across the ankles by the flying form of Bishop Braumin, and he fell headlong to the ground, landing hard right before Roger. He began to get up immediately, but Roger balled his hands together and fell down atop him, driving his hands onto the back of the jailor’s neck.
The man fell flat, facedown.
Roger scrambled past him, up to the confused and frightened prisoners, falling into the waiting grasp of Bishop Braumin.
“Why are you here?” Braumin asked. “Roger, we cannot get away!”
Hardly listening, Roger fell to his knees before the bishop and went to work on the heavy shackle latched about Braumin’s ankles. This was a more sophisticated mechanism than that on the door above, but there was no more proficient lockpick in all of Honce-the-Bear than Roger Lockless—a name well earned!
He had Braumin free in a few moments.
“What about us?” one of the other prisoners demanded.
Braumin looked pleadingly at Roger, who was shaking his head. “There are guards everywhere up above,” Roger explained to the bishop. “It will be enough for me to get you out of here; there is no way that I can escort the lot of you!”
“These are not criminals, but men loyal to me and to our cause,” Braumin countered. “You cannot ask me to leave them!”
That brought some grateful murmurs from the others.
“Then I do not ask,” Roger replied. “I insist.”
The murmurs sounded again, more as grumbles.
“And they will insist that I leave them, as well,” Roger went on, “if they are truly loyal. This is not about your loyalty to them, or theirs to you, Bishop. This is about the need to get you out of here, and out of Palmaris.”
Braumin, his face filthy, looked at him hard.
“While you remain in Palmaris, you are a voice against the people, from all that I have heard, and I know that it is not a voice that truly comes from Bishop Braumin Herde.”
That statement seemed to hit the man profoundly, and Braumin slumped forward, his shoulders suddenly bobbing in sobs. Roger hugged him close and patted him across the back for a bit, until he composed himself enough to look up and look Roger in the eye.
“He possesses me,” the Bishop whispered. “Aydrian, our king. I am not strong enough to begin to deny him. There is no resistance within me. He is strong, Roger, so terribly strong!”
“And that is why you must flee with me,” Roger said, and he looked up so that his determined expression would encompass the whole of the group. “I must get him out of here, to offer a voice against King Aydrian and to stop his voice from speaking for King Aydrian! I ask the greatest sacrifice of you all—that you remain here as prisoners—for the sake of the true kingdom.”
There was some bristling, and a bit of discussion, but Roger wasn’t waiting for an answer anyway. He looked at Braumin, who seemed to agree, and then Lockless pulled the bishop away, suddenly, ignoring the protests and dismissing his own guilt.
Truly it bothered Roger Lockless to leave the men in that predicament, but he knew that there was simply no way he could get them out of Chasewind Manor. He considered unshackling them, just for a moment, but he dismissed that, as well. What would he accomplish by doing so? No good for the men, certainly, though any distraction they provided in their futile flight for freedom might have helped him.
But no. He would not sacrifice them.
He got Braumin back to the stairway, and then up to the door. Roger bade him wait, then slipped into the room.
A moment later, he returned, pulling wide the door and bidding Braumin to follow.
The bishop froze in place, though, watching the writhing of the soldier on the floor, the man grasping futilely at his torn throat.
“Roger, what have you done?” Braumin asked, or tried to, before Roger hushed him, pointing at the second guard, who was sound asleep at the table.
“Do not make me kill another man,” Roger whispered, great regret evident in his cracking voice. “I beg of you.”
The two went through the room, and moved along the darkened corridors of Chasewind Manor, Braumin following Roger’s every movement, often ducking behind drapery or into crannies to avoid the occasional soldiers.
They had almost gotten out of the house when a commotion erupted behind them, first the shout of the jailor, then the cries of, “Murder! Murder!”
“Run on!” Roger bade the bishop and he shoved the man ahead, driving him toward the back door, then out into the night, pursuit growing all about them.
They ran to the back wall. “Go! Go!” Roger told the man, pushing him up the wall as he grabbed its top.
Braumin, who had gained far too much weight over the years, struggled mightily to pull himself over, with Roger pressing behind him. “Brother Hoyet is in the shadows awaiting you,” the man explained. “Run to him!” With a final heave, Roger got the bishop atop the wall.
Braumin hesitated, looking back at him and reaching down to offer his hand.
But Roger shook his head and moved away. “Go!” he bade the man. “Go and be quick!”
Roger turned and ran the other way, and before he had gone halfway across the yard, he heard the cries of the guards and knew he had been spotted.
So he kept running, putting as much ground between himself and Braumin as he possibly could. He rushed about the front corner of the great building, only to turn about and scoot the other way after nearly running into a group of guards.
He headed for the nearest wall, but had to turn again as another group appeared, angled to cut him off. He veered back to the other side, but those directly behind him were peeling wide that way, sealing him in.
“Wait!” Roger bade them, turning about and stopping fast, holding up his hands defensively. “Wait! I can explain!”
A soldier rushed in past the intruder’s upraised arms, lifting his short sword as he came on, and Roger felt an explosion of agony across his skull.
And then he knew no more.
As soon as word of the escape reached him in St. Precious, Marcalo De’Unnero knew exactly where to turn. He had known something was brewing, for his spies had watched Destou and Hoyet, and had quickly identified the other brothers who were in with the potentially traitorous pair. But the brazenness of their move—breaking Bishop Braumin out of the most secure prison in the city!—surely surprised De’Unnero. He had thought that the monks had been planning their own escape from Palmaris.
De’Unnero was out of the abbey in moments, and given the movements of those watched monks over the previous days, he had a fairly good idea of where to look.
All the city was coming alive by then, with soldiers running a
bout the streets and others riding hard to and fro, calling out.
De’Unnero ignored the clamor and moved into the shadows of an alleyway. He felt the beast rising within him, and he did not try to fight it.
A great cat came out of that alleyway, speeding for the riverbank area where Brothers Hoyet and Destou had been spotted two nights earlier. He knew that they would try to get Braumin out of the city as quickly as possible, across the river and on his way to St.-Mere-Abelle.
Along the bank, the tiger slipped into the shadows and noted the approach of a small craft. The part of him that was still a reasoning being resisted the urge to leap out into the water and overtake the small boat, slaughtering the boatmen. His caution was rewarded a few moments later when three forms came scrambling down the bank, two pulling the third along.
They splashed into the water and toward the boat, then cried out in terror as the great cat charged toward them, leaping for the haggard form in the middle of the trio.
Without the slightest hesitation, the other two, Hoyet and Destou, shifted to intercept, pushing Bishop Braumin away. The pair of younger monks lifted weapons to defend, but the weretiger crashed in hard, sending all into the river.
“Run on!” Hoyet cried.
Bishop Braumin eyed the approaching boat, but hesitated, looking back at the pair, who were struggling wildly to keep the tiger engaged.
“Make not my death irrelevant!” Destou cried, and his last word was jumbled as the cat reared before him and swatted him across the chest with its killing claws.
Braumin cried out and staggered ahead, crashing against the boat, which started away before he had even managed to scramble aboard, one man grabbing him to hold him fast against the hull, the other working the oars furiously to get the craft out into the faster current.
Bishop Braumin looked back to see one man, Hoyet, standing before the cat, a small sword flashing before him frantically.
And then he was down, the tiger leaping atop him and bearing him beneath the dark water. All was quiet for just a moment, then there came another splash as Brother Hoyet’s lifeless body bobbed up suddenly, then settled, floating on the current.
DemonWars Saga Volume 2: Mortalis - Ascendance - Transcendence - Immortalis (The DemonWars Saga) Page 205
