by Guy Antibes
“You’ll have to move some things out. Hera, can we make it livable?”
Both men looked at the woman. “Sure. Can you give me a day to clean and lay in some provisions? It needs airing out, as you can appreciate.”
“I’d like to see it now, if I can, Sovad said.
“Sure, come along. Hera watch things for a few minutes. We’ll go in the back way.”
The men walked outside and around to an alley. About where the back of the shop and Abnar’s living quarters ended, a taller building extended towards the back street. Abnar opened a gate and let Sovad through.
“Business has been good, Sovad. My cold storage is full. The cold weather has helped keep the ice from melting.” They walked up a small flight of outside stairs to a door. Abnar unlocked it, giving Sovad the key, and walked in.
Carcasses hung o thick chains wrapped around the rafters in the center. On all sides, thick layers of straw covered ice blocks harvested the previous winter. The men threaded their way across to the far wall.
Sovad walked up to a board and pushed the knot in the wood. A door popped open. The men walked inside. A long narrow space ran the entire length of the cold storage. At one end, a door led to a kitchen and at the other, a door opened to a bedroom and an inside bathroom. The middle room consisted of a narrow table surrounded by four chairs and a couple of old mis-matched easy chairs closer to the bedroom door. Skylights illuminated the space from the high ceiling. Boxes and assorted junk littered the floor with dust covering all of the furniture.
“Perfect. If Hera doesn’t mind, a little dusting would be wonderful. Does the key still fit the door on the other street?”
Abnar nodded. “It doesn’t work on the door to our living quarters, so you’ll not be going through the shop.”
“I’ll stay here tomorrow night. I could be here a week or two.” Sovad pulled a pouch from his cloak. “Here’s something for you and your wife.”
The butcher opened the pouch and poured a few coins and bits of jewelry into his hand. “Where did you get this?”
“Highway robbery,” Sovad said with a flourish. Both men laughed. Abnar, because he thought Sovad was joking and Sovad, for knowing he wasn’t.
~
“Another dispatch from General Bollet, sir,” the messenger gave the envelope to General Crissor, saluted, and rode back to the Third Army. Crissor looked up at the sky and cursed. Clouds gathered again after a two-day respite.
“Reggor.” The general was on his horse and called to his aide, who presently stood behind some bushes answering nature’s call. “Another message.”
Reggor emerged adjusting his uniform. His boots squelched in the mud as he walked to his mount. Once on, he rode to the general’s side. “Another complaint? Why don’t you just move to the west and go around him?”
“Hmmm. That is a fine idea. We’ll split the forces. I want you to stay with the rear guard. Tonight, let’s go over the maps and plot a course for the healthiest three-quarters of the army to the west.” Crissor’s face brightened.
“I’m afraid only half of our men are fit for duty. It would be so much easier if we could use war machines and steam cars, but they would just sink axle-deep in the mud, sir.” Reggor looked at the mud on Crissor’s mount. “It’s hard enough with horses and wagons.”
“Floaters, Reggor, floaters. Then we could transport ramguns and have some real military force. But that’s for another campaign, eh? We’ll execute our maneuvers regardless. At least my advance group won’t have to deal with the goo Bollet’s men create. If we can only get ahead of him, our army will make significantly much better time. Let’s get cracking.” He would not only get Bollet’s goat, but he’d find a way to beat him to Pent.
~
Panix had just finished his last trap along the road. The army would slow down to an even slower crawl after they ran into the obstacles, giving the dams more time to fill up. He moved back up into the foothills to wait for the army to pass. Grabbing his telescope, he looked at the advancing column.
A unit of cavalry, led by a general, passed first. All the uniforms were the color of the road. Harlan and Panix could slather mud on their cloaks and fit right in. A droplet hit his nose. He looked up as the threatening clouds began to weep.
“Normally I’d hate to see the rain,” Harlan said. “Now it is truly heavens sent.”
It was a sight that warmed Panix’s heart too. A horse collapsed to the ground after walking into the first sinkhole. He wasn’t thrilled to see them slice open the horse’s throat. The episode halted the entire column. He couldn’t imagine how one stopped a column a quarter-league long. The horse’s blood colored the mud. Men were brought up to move the carcass off the road.
Panix saw that as an opportunity to use another of the new spells the both of them had devised. He’d also found that he could advance the spoilage of food. It was a cruel thing to do, but he only had to touch the bumpy line through the bristle of his hair to remind himself that those soldiers were his enemy.
Putting the telescope back up to his eye he saw the entire van, including the general, go down when they unwittingly stepped on his slick mud. Horses were fighting for purchase and at least ten were unable to rise. Harlan laughed at the scene. Panix failed to see the humor in the beasts’ misfortune.
The day’s light began to fail when horses and men were pulled from the mudslick by ropes. A sling held up the general’s injured arm. Another horse had to be destroyed and it looked like three cavalrymen were carried off on stretchers. The army stopped for the night.
Evidently the army, just stopped where they were to camp on the road or just off to the side. As night fell, the pair hiked down to the column. Their cloaks, faces, and hair were now colored with mud. They passed the mess wagons and saw the men butchering the horses. Panix wore himself out casting spoilage spells on the food. They walked to another set of mess wagons and Panix did the same thing. As they were closing in on the rear, they heard that the Seventh Army was close at their heels.
“Should we leave for Gerrel now?” Harlan asked.
“Our work isn’t done yet,” Panix said. “With two Murgontian armies now in Gerellia moving towards Pent, we’ve got to do something to stop them here.” They were as close as fifteen days away from the border. They had to take care of this army, and then find the other. Panix couldn’t ride to Gerell when action was needed now.
He used another of his spells to weaken the wagon wheels. No floaters for the Murgontians. Panix was glad for once Murgontia didn’t embrace magic. With floaters they could even use soldiers to move their loads. He walked back up the line weakening the wheels and the spares. The wheels would be breaking within half a league.
They didn’t even talk when they reached their little camp. Worn out by the night’s magic, Panix went to his tent and collapsed while Harlan kept watch.
~
“A good intelligence service operates best with the best people,” Moshin said.
“But why do you put up with Quill Vent? Panix wouldn’t say much about him, but there are plenty of rumors in the palace about him being a drunken spy.”
“Do you understand politics, my dear?” Corilla said, embroidering in a corner.
“Unfortunately, yes,” Lorna said. “Politics is why I am staying with you and Blox and his cousin are in the Pent embassy.”
“Intelligence means you have people following other people around all the time. Tobet has been in contact with an agent of ours in Murgontia.” She said it offhanded as if everybody already knew. Lorna sat there in amazement.
“Uh, how do you know Nirov doesn’t know?”
“We know his every move. No one from the Pentish embassy has ever contacted Nirov. However, Pokkan’s agents have walked into the Pentish embassy a number of times in the last six months.”
“Is this why the Marquessa is in close touch with you?”
“That’s right. And that’s why we’re happy you are here, to learn a few things before you go back
.”
“I have one other surprise.” Corilla smiled. “Your friend Sovad just might be in town. A man matching his description met with Nirov yesterday. We think he is Murgontia’s top assassin. We’ve never been able to confirm all of his kills, but a man, with his size and coloring, has been associated with assassinations in all kinds of places throughout Dornna for over twenty years.”
~
Sovad stood across the street from the Gerellian Palace’s tradesman entrance. Carts went in and out all morning. The gate had an iron grating always in a raised position with steel clad wood doors on rollers. The doors moved between two walls, being pulled by chains and a pulley operated above on the Palace wall’s catwalk.
Many might be intimidated, but a door open most of the day could never be a barrier to a master assassin. It wasn’t getting in the castle that was the problem; he still had to figure out the method and the opportunity. He’d love to use his favorite tool, the glass-encrusted garrote. He’d made it famous as a Murgontian assassination weapon, but this time, he was expected to make the work look like something Pent would do.
He was unhappy with the note Nirov had sent him. Was the boy asleep when the lessons on tradecraft were taught? One just didn’t write down every little detail for an operation that was not to be traced back to you. He’d make the boy pay. He wouldn’t burn the note; one never knew when it might come in handy. Perhaps Foreign Secretary Pokkan would like to take a peek. It might be worth something to him, but Sovad didn’t need the money. He had plenty stashed away in the various capital cities of Dornna, including Gerell and Pent.
No time like the present. A line of carts waited at the gate to get in. A group of guards talked to the drivers and let people in and out. Sovad walked along the line to a man driving a cart laden with sacks of vegetables and struck up a conversation.
“I’ve just arrived in Gerell and could use an extra penny or two. Want some help with those?” He smiled his most earnest smile.
“Sure, you can sit right next to me.” That’s all it took for Sovad to get into the palace. He helped the man unload first, of course. One needed to keep one’s commitments.
The talent to walk the corridors of power undetected requires the proper posture, something long perfected by Sovad. He found a metal tray left on a chair, picked it up and put it underneath his arm. He was now armed with a servant’s invisibility, instantly dismissed by all who laid eyes on him.
He overheard a pair of nobles talking about the new phaeton the King had recently received from his cousin, Tisano. He was planning on taking it for a spin the next morning, rain or shine. Sovad smiled as he found a use for his glass-encrusted garrote, except it wouldn’t be caressing a neck.
He found his way to the stables. A high-sprung yellow phaeton with a single bench seat and huge wooden-spoked wheels filled up a corner. Hiding the silver tray, he picked up a cloth, walking over to the beautifully-made yellow conveyance. Sovad made a note on its design. He might want one just like it, perhaps red rather than yellow.
He started polishing the woodwork. As he worked, Sovad made his way to the far side of the coach against the wall. He started on the wheels, and pulling out his garrote, he used it to saw on the spokes. The cuts were easy to hide as he pulled the garrote around the back of each spoke and cut from the back. Not too many cuts and not too deep, but enough for a good accident, especially if the King drove fast. When he saw someone in the yard he ducked his head and went back to his polishing. No one questioned his presence around the King’s toy.
When done, Sovad used the towel to remove all traces of sawdust and walked away, towel over his shoulder. He grabbed his tray and walked out. When back in the kitchens, he laid the tray down on a worktable and left. The guards didn’t even question him as he walked out of the castle grounds, whistling a Pentish tune.
He picked his bags up at the inn he’d stayed the previous night and bought some supplies. Just before dark, he made his way to the back of Abnar’s shop along the cobbled alley used for deliveries to the back of various shops on either side. He used the butcher’s key and entered the cold storage. A little shiver shot through him in the frigid air of the ice-cooled room. Sovad spelled a tiny airlight and tried his best to keep away from the hanging meat and pushed the knot in the wall to enter his hideaway.
Sunlight limped through the skylight at day’s end. He collapsed the light and lit an oil lamp with flint and steel.
Sovad took the lamp to the kitchen and smiled at how well Hera took care of him. Sovad and Hera went back to Assassin’s Guild days. She had retired from the Murgontian service as soon as she bore her first child. Sovad was never quite sure if the girl was Abnar’s or his. It didn’t matter. The butcher, a native Gerellian, was the best of men and helped his wife in her work, while she was active. They’d moved here, from a little town closer to the Murgontian border, a decade earlier.
Sovad fixed a meal in the kitchen. The kitchen had gas burners piped in from Abnar’s kitchen on the other side of a double wall. As he ate, he wondered if this would be his last job. He wouldn’t predict what would happen after the king’s death, but he doubted that success in Gerell wouldn’t be enough to offset two failures in Pent.
Sovad didn’t know if he could actually retire, but he certainly had the means to. He struggled with the thought of fulfilling another assignment. The Council, meaning Uven, wouldn’t let give him the free rein he had heretofore enjoyed. Kevox Mirrok should be in Gerellia. The simple fact that he had to work here, under Nirov, shouted out his weakened position in Murgontia.
He walked back to the bedroom and smiled. Clean sheets. Hera did her job. He laid back and decided this Gerellian assignment would indeed be his last. He’d find somewhere safe to live out his life and leave Murgontia behind.
~~~
Chapter 21
Panix woke up to more rain and chewed on some trail bread. Harlan lay sleeping in his tent after a night on watch.
He broke his side of the camp, loaded his packhorse and rode down closer to the road in the dim morning light. He could barely make out the army camped below and scanned the column. Perhaps he’d spoiled their day, Panix thought, wincing at his little joke.
He worried about that other army. What could he do to stop them, the stomach-twisting spell? No. He had to get closer to work that magic and he could only apply it one soldier at a time. He decided to let Harlan sleep a bit more as he made his way south along the trail.
The rain made the going tougher. Since the armies were north of Gerell, if they were going to invade Gerellia’s capital they would have left the Pent road some time before. They were indeed heading for Pent. He revised the army’s progress. They’d be three or four more weeks on this road if it didn’t dry out quickly.
He stood looking down with his telescope. The rain pounded on the hood of his cloak.
“Stay right there.” Panix could feel the point of a blade in his back.
“I’m staying.” He collapsed his telescope and raised his hands.
“Turn around,” his captor said.
Panix turned around and saw three soldiers. Even though their clothes were encrusted with mud, Panix noted that their uniforms were cut differently from the men below. Scouts. They searched him for weapons and after finding none other than a knife at his waist, they let him put his hands down.
“What are you doing here?”
“I was up here looking at the vegetation. I’m from the Gerellian Agricultural Ministry.”
“Can you prove it?”
Panix looked at him quizzically. “Why should I prove it? I’ve never been asked before. You’re the Murgontians aren’t you? Here to play games or something. I don’t really keep up on all that political stuff.”
“He doesn’t have any weapons in his belongings, sir,” one of the men said after going through Panix’s possessions.
The man in charge looked at Panix. “You’re coming with us.”
~
The look on Moshin’s fac
e would have fried an egg. “King Tomlano has been killed in his new carriage. A stranger was sighted leaving the palace whistling a Pent song, so naturally, Roccoa is calling for war with Pent.”
The news deeply upset Lorna, but Corilla took the news evenly. “Sounds like the work of our Murgontian assassin. What caused the accident?”
Moshin paced the room. “The wheels on one side were cut halfway through. Enough to stay intact at low speed, but the King wasn’t about to drive the racy little thing slowly. He was careening around Gerell, scaring the populace. He was making a sharp turn when the wheels failed. The King was thrown against a building and didn’t recover from his injuries.”
“Can we get a magician to look over the wheels?” Corilla said. “That kind of thing is beyond my talents. You? Do you know of anyone in Gerellia?”
“I’ve got some talented magicians, but like you, this kind of thing isn’t their specialty. Can we get someone transported from the Academy?”
Moshin rubbed his chin. “I’m not so sure they would. The Academy wants to be as neutral as possible. I’m here only because I evaluated magicians in Bentonnia.”
“Perhaps we should get Panix here. Who knows where he is right now? Probably spying on Murgontian troops, like he is supposed to. We could send him a message. I’ll talk to Boidan and make sure no one tampers with the phaeton.”
“Is there anything I can do?” Lorna asked, feeling helpless listening to these experienced agents talk. A king had been assassinated and these two cast the horror of that aside and began talking strategy. All of the talk of magicians and Pent made her feel left out, but as they talked Lorna quickly realized she didn’t have the experience to add any thing. Her background in the foreign office and in South Pent consisted of following orders. Moshin and Corilla were solving a problem. She’d never been exposed to this level of intelligence and it thrilled her, so she sat back and just observed until Corilla spoke to her.
“You can run over to the Pent Embassy and tell Blox and his cousin what’s happened. It will be instructive to see how they react.”
