A Company of Heroes Book One: The Stonecutter

by Ron Miller

  Thud by unspoken agreement decides to circle the camp, keeping as far away from the caravans as they can. They have completed half of their circuit when an amused voice from nowhere asks, Running from someone? The voice seems to Bronwyn to be whispered directly into her ear and she jumps convulsively. The voice chuckles, I might have guessed so. Bronwyn would run if she could, but she is exhausted. Her legs simply refuse to answer to her orders any longer and her brain has coasted to a standstill, like an engine whose fire has gone out.

  “Where are you?” she asks.

  Right here! comes the jovial answer. But still she can see no one.

  “Please, I’m too tired to play games. Either show yourself or let us go on our way.”

  Who is stopping you?

  Bronwyn has to admit that is a fair question.

  Do not worry, I am a friend.

  A figure steps out of a shadow that Bronwyn would have sworn was cast on a flat wall. It is a large man, something like a one-quarter scale Thud. He wears high, wrinkled leather boots into the tops of which are tucked the baggy legs of his wide-striped trousers. His broad chest is covered, barely, by an elaborately embroidered vest over a dark shirt with balloon-like sleeves. Teeth, alternately white and gold, glint in the midst of a face as broad and hairy as a buffalo’s. Even in the darkness Bronwyn can see the twinkle in at least one eye. The whole effect is emphatically and deliberately theatrical.

  “You do not have to tell me what you have done. It does not matter: I am friend to anyone the Guards are looking for.”

  “How do you know the Guards are looking for us?”

  “They have been here already. Half a dozen were here an hour ago. Rousted us all out of our honest slumber. Went through every inch of the wagons while we stood outside shivering.”

  “Well, I’m sorry,” she replies insincerely, impatient with all of this self-pity.

  “No matter. Happens everywhere we go anyway, but I appreciate your concern.” If there was irony in that, and there was, she missed it.

  “Are they coming back?”

  “Oh, I doubt that they will be back before morning, though there is no telling, they seems to want you very badly, I think.”

  “They tell you why?”

  “They would never tell us anything! Just a description. I was waiting for you. Did not expect your friend here, though. I do not think they know about it, do you not think so? Is it human?”

  “Of course it’s, he’s human. I think they do know about him now, but I don’t think they know who he is. He saved my life.”

  “Well, well,” the gypsy says to Thud, “good for you! That is all the recommendation I need for you.” Then he says to the girl, “Does it have a name?”

  “My name is Thud and I have a temper, too.”

  “No offense meant!”

  “You must tell us how to get out of the city!” begs Bronwyn, who is too tired not to beg. “We’ve been trying all night.”

  “I can, but I doubt it would do you any good. It is more of what you have already been through; I would have to draw you a map, which I probably can not do, and, besides, the district is as crawling with the damns Guards as a whore is with crabs.” Bronwyn winces daintily at the crude simile, not knowing it would prove to be one of the last times she would exercise such a nicety.

  “I guess we’ll have to chance that,” she says.

  “Why? No need to even worry about it. Hungry?” he adds, irrelevantly.

  “We brought some things with us ...”

  “Pooh! I can guess what you have in that bag, the food of Tamlaght!, the thought makes me ill and my eyes to water. You need some honest food and a rest, for sure. Come along, then.” The man turns and, without a backward glance, crosses the street into the plaza. Bronwyn looks at Thud, who shrugs. The gypsy has a point: of all the places the Guards certainly are at this very moment, this is one place they can be sure the Guards are not. And they are hungry and tired ‘or at least Bronwyn knows she is; Thud looks like he has merely been out on a bracing stroll). So they follows the man as he leads them to the door of one of the dark wagons. He taps at it lightly and a light comes on instantly.

  “Open up,” he whispers. “It is them.”

  After the sound of a latch unlocking, the door swings open an inch and a blurry face peers out above a hand-shielded lantern.

  “Come on!” demands the hairy man. “Let us in! Do I look like a damns Guard?”

  The face answers with a sniff but stands back as the door opens. The gypsy lets Bronwyn and Thud precede him up the short steps into the wagon. It is as cozy a little room as Bronwyn has ever found herself in. A miniature cast iron stove warms it like a big fat black cat. On its flat top rests a covers kettle from which savory vapors puff. Everything is so cozy, friendly and safe that it actually seems weird. The gypsy gestures for them to sit. Bronwyn fears for the elaborately carved and painted chair that Thud lowers himself onto but it is made of stern stuff.

  “Here you are welcome,” says the gypsy, his grin shining through his grizzled beard like a crescent moon gleaming through treetops. Every other tooth is gold, a decoratively checkerboard effect from which Bronwyn finds it difficult to take her eyes. “And you are quite safe. Henda! Give these poor travelers some food! Can not you see they are tired and hungry?”

  The creature Henda, a shapeless mass of colorful rags from which a pair of bird-like eyes peer, the rest of the face being swathed in a nest of ragged scarves, gives another sniff and begins ladling the contents of the kettle into deep wooden bowls. It sets them before Bronwyn and Thud; the girl thinks she has never smelled anything quite so good, whatever it is. Thud begins shoveling it in without preamble. His head has hinged back from his enormous mouth and it is as though the food is being dropped into the top of an open pipe.

  “Go ahead and eat, Princess, we can talk after,” says the gypsy; he laughs at the surprise on her face. “Do not worry about how I knew; a word here, a word there, the news travels faster than you did. The mystery is why a princess would be chased like a criminal by the Guards. No one can understand that. I cannot, that is for sure!”

  Bronwyn tells the gypsy what she had a day earlier told Thud, more or less, and then elaborated: “As my brother got older, he also became lazier and more stupid. Once he realized that hunting, riding and yachting are activities reserved for his rank, and not chores being forced on him, he became enthusiastic about them. He’s since surrounded himself with a gang of unemployed, aristocratic parasites who term themselves ‘sports’. He discovered that he does have one talent: he’s very entertaining. So he never engages in any activity that requires him to be more than a charming half-wit.

  “Ferenc is a year and a half older than I am. He’s tall and slim and exceedingly good-looking, if you like that type, though I think he’s going to go quickly to fat. He has an ingratiating smile and laughs at everyone’s jokes, whether he understands them or not, usually not, and in a silly giggle that makes me gag. He’s invited to every party and ball where the petty nobility force their inbred daughters on him, it makes me laugh to think what a child by him and one of those glassy-eyed sluts might be like! Musrum! You’d have to keep it in an aquarium. They’re all over him, the simpering idiots, like flies on a dead squirrel.

  “Ferenc’s never has an original idea in his life. Everything he says is simply repeats from what he’s heard, there’s no more intelligence behind his words than a parrot has. His toadies and sycophants think he’s a clever wit, well, they at least act as though they think so. Compared to them, I have no doubt but that he is.

  “He does have certain beliefs: he believes that his right to rule is granted by Musrum; and he believes that the king isn’t simply the representative of the ruling class, but is absolute monarch. These two things, his lack of imagination and originality, and his wholly mistaken conception of the throne, are what make him so dangerous.

  “Ferenc’s fatal weakness is that he can’t stand on his own: he must have someone strong
er to lean on, someone who’ll provide the words he speaks, the thoughts he’ll believe are his own, the reasons and justifications for his actions; who’ll tell him, as though he are only being reminds of something that’s slipped his mind, the things that he must do, when he should do them...and to whom.

  “Well, my brother found his alter ego in Lord Payne Roelt. He’s the only son of the elder Payne Roelt, the Earl of Swynborn, a powerful baron. Payne, who’s only a year younger, I think, has been a playmate of my brother’s since childhood. Even in my earliest memories I can recall how Payne controlled Ferenc’s every thinks and action, as though my brother are a hound and he the master. Payne has, has, a way of suggesting things to Ferenc in such a way as to make Ferenc think they came out of his own head. And when Ferenc finally gets the idea that’s been plants and speaks it aloud or carries it out, Payne laughs and says, ‘Good boy!’ as though he are delights with a puppy that’s just learns a new trick! And when Ferenc smiles at him in that simpering way, I know that nothing in the world has pleased him more than the thinks that he’s won Payne’s approval. It’s just sickening.

  “Payne is everything my brother isn’t. His intelligence is diabolically reptilian; he’s ingratiating, suave and urbane. He’s a clever and plausible diplomat: he creates intensely loyal friends and can win the support of his enemies before they even realize what’s happens to them. Afterwards, they can’t think what could’ve caused them to ever dislike such a clever, courteous fellow, until they unwittingly cross him.

  “Payne’s a smallish man, almost a full head shorter than I am, slightly built, almost fragile, and very pale. Nevertheless, he’s very strong. His physical power and stamina’s probably not rivals by anyone outside the Guards; I’ve seen him outride the best of them. He not only has great psychical power, but a scheming intelligence to go with it. He can convince anyone of anything. Yet Payne has only one motive for everything he does: his passion for wealth is overwhelming. His interest in gaining power over the throne is only in the wealth it’ll ultimately gain him. He has no real desire for power in itself. He needs power only to wring every poenig possible out of the throne and the country. He’s absolutely blind to everything else.

  “My brother’s so enamored of his ‘protégé’ that, ever since our father died, he’s lavished enormous wealth and property on him. The drain on the state treasury’s been a scandal. Ferenc’s taken every possible step to prevent the Privy Council from meeting since the king’s death, from fear that they’ll discover exactly how much he’s been spending on Payne. He doesn’t realize that this has probably cost him money in taxes they might’ve been convinced to vote for his use. He’s made Payne the household chamberlain, and Payne’s used this position to loot the palaces and to juggle the housekeeping accounts so that most of the money goes into his own pockets.

  “Payne’s created a wall around Ferenc that’s virtually impenetrable without Payne’s knowledge and permission. No one sees Ferenc unless Payne knows about it. No one speaks to Ferenc without Payne being present. Since his correspondence wearies and bores my brother, he is glad to let his aide gradually take it over. Now neither letter nor proclamation is issued over my brother’s signature that’s not been written or dictated by Payne. My brother sees no correspondence that’s not first passed through Payne’s hands. If it contains anything he feels Ferenc ought not to see, it’s destroyed, or sometimes rewritten. Payne has a veritable army of spies and informers throughout the city, who keep him apprized of even so much as a single word that might be spoken against him. The response is instantaneous and permanent.

  “Ferenc’s absolutely unaware that any of this is taking place. He’s so happy in his dreamy world of dances and parties and yachts and hunts that he isn’t aware of the cage that Payne’s built around him, and, truthfully, probably wouldn’t care if he does. Payne doesn’t begrudge my brother his mindless, simpering ‘friends’, he knows that they’re as harmless as they are brainless. They’re the toys he uses to keep a simple-minds child happy and uncomplaining.

  “The barons, the landowners, are intensely jealous and afraid of Payne’s influence and power. Half of them would like to see him disposed of, by force if necessary, perhaps even by force regardless. The others advise waiting, thinking perhaps that some of our father’s belligerence will eventually manifest itself in the prince and he’ll banish the interloper himself, fat chance of that ever happening. I think Payne enjoys seeing the baronage split and fighting amongst itself, something I wouldn’t doubt he’d planned all along.

  “What’s made all this so dangerous is the constant threat of war from the north. Crotoy is perfectly aware that the heartblood is being drains from this country. What Payne’s been doing has been no secret from Crotoy’s barons. You probably know this, but Crotoy is not a wholly alien nation; we have a common language and a common heritage since three hundred years ago we are a single people. Bloodlines cross the border at every social level, but especially among the nobility.

  “Once Payne made an enemy of our barons, the barons of Crotoy knew all about it as well. They’re all too aware of what’s most angers our baronage: that Payne’s effectively disarms the army. With no money for weapons, uniforms, food or pay, the army’s gradually disintegrated. What’s left has nothing to fight with, even if it wants to. On the other hand Payne’s created the Guards, ten thousand of them!, and they’re well fed, well paid, well-trained, well arms and powerful. They’re Payne’s personal army, answerable only to him and intensely loyal. I’m sure they’re the only thing that’s kept him alive to this day. He’s all too aware, I’m sure, that the barons would like nothing better than to see him dead.

  “Anyway, Crotoy knows that our army is ineffective, and that the nobility is busy fighting amongst itself: the barons against a vapid, useless monarch, or monarch-to-be, that is. Can you imagine Ferenc leading an army into battle? Neither can anyone else. Already, Crotoy’s made exploratory incursions onto Tamlaghtan soil. It has arms camps on our side of the border, and not a soul has tried to stop them.

  “My cousin, Piers Monzon, is on his way to the border now, with a small army the barons have raised, to see if it’s not too late to do something. Piers is my first cousin. He’s a powerful man, probably the most powerful of all the barons. He’s hereditary High Steward of the court, which would make him regent in Ferenc’s absence or incapacity, and holds half a dozen earldoms. He’s a big, charismatic, physical man. We’ve always liked one another an awful lot; when I is a young girl, I spent more time with Piers than with my own father. It is Piers who taught me to ride and shoot, for example. It’s my greatest pride that he once told me he thinks I is the best swordsman he’d ever trained. Unfortunately, Cousin Piers has nowhere near Payne’s cunning and intelligence. Payne can easily outthink him; Piers’s brain is just too plain and honest.

  “Be that as it may, Cousin Piers has the undiluted respect of the other barons. Not one of them has a greater hatred for the leech that’s attached itself to Tamlaght than has Piers. He’s the leader of a formidable opposition.

  “Well, that more or less brings you up to date; there’s only one more incident to tell you about, and then you’ll understand why I am in need of Mr. Mollockle’s rescue yesterday.

  “Three weeks ago, a group of barons decided that they’d had enough of Payne. Without the knowledge of Piers or the other barons, they invaded Payne’s estates. These barons have pools their militia into a small army of about five hundred men. All of them changed their distinctive uniforms for civilian clothing. If it aren’t for their orderliness and economy of action, anyone would’ve taken them for a mob of countryfolk, which is what they has intended.

  “In two nights of deliberate, organized pillaging they destroys hundreds of thousands of crowns’ worth of Payne’s property. Fifteen manors were burnt to the ground; tens of thousands of sheep, cattle, oxen and horses disappears or were slaughtered; yachts were burnt to their waterlines. Art, jewelry, silver, clothing, all vanished or were de
stroyed.

  “Payne is in a paroxysm of fury; the barons, and he knew perfectly well who’d been behind the raids, had knowingly or inadvertently hit him where it hurt the most. He made the error of taking his complaint to the Privy Council, I suppose because he believed that he owns it and controls it. He might’ve been right, except for one thing: he found the barons waiting there for him. With the strength of the nobles behind them, the chancellors of the Privy Council found the courage to confront Payne. The barons read a list of their grievances, enough to have sent any other man to the gallows a dozen times over.

  “Unfortunately, by this time, my brother heard what was happening to his friend and hurried to the chambers. Confronted by the man who is soon to be their monarch, the chancellors began to waver. They thought they were caught between the baronage on one side and loyalty to their country on the other, in the person of the prince, who begged with surprising eloquence ‘coached, I suspect!) for the life of his chamberlain. You must remember that the one man, Piers Monzon, who could’ve possibly swayed the Council against Ferenc was hundreds of miles away in the north. They opted for merely exiling Payne.