by Jon Kiln
“You will be cut down for these crimes.” Caffrey pushed out the words with breath, but no voice.
The man seized Caffrey by his clothes and shook him. The noble squeaked and his teeth clacked together over the tip of his own tongue with a rush of hot pain. The skin on his face tightened and ached with the shock of it, and Caffrey gagged on the taste of his own blood.
His spectacles tumbled off his face and fell to the floor between them.
The man lifted the noble off the ground, ripping his silk robes, and then slammed him down on his back. Caffrey landed on the thick, imported rugs on the floors of his library, but the impact still drove the air out of his lungs and threatened to wrap him up in darkness.
The robber’s boot planted on the glasses, crushing them with a sickening crunch.
The man slapped Caffrey across the face and brought the noble back into the moment, alert more from the shock and affront of it all than from the pain.
“How… who do… who are you?” Caffrey demanded with a cracked voice.
“I am Captain Berengar,” the man declared, leaning down and staring Lord Caffrey in the face. “Formerly of the Elite Guard to the King. I have dedicated my life to cutting down evil men and rooting out injustice from the dark corners where it tries to hide. And now I have come for you.”
“I know you.” Caffrey winced as the deep cut on the tip of his tongue found the edge of a tooth. “I was at the ceremony where they pinned a cheap, iron medal upon your uniform. This act of treachery against the nobility of the kingdom is a far cry from that grand day, captain.”
“All but a handful of the Elite Guard were cut down at your gate by a coordinated ambush,” Berengar said over Caffrey. “I will cut down those responsible and expose the truth. I can do that with you, or with the truth you lead me to in exchange for your skin.”
“So, I give you names,” Caffrey said, “and you walk out of my library leaving me to live. Is that the proposal?”
“It is the best offer you are getting tonight, Lord Caffrey, and the window on an agreement is closing.”
“Then I give you the King himself. He is the top of the chain of command for your conspiracy.”
“The King ordered his Guard to be murdered in the night, along with the crown prince of the eastern empire?” Berengar asked in disbelief.
“The King gives all orders on life and death,” Caffrey said from his place on the floor. “How many times and how many people did he order dead at your hand, captain? May I stand?”
“If you think you are brave enough, you can try, but it is my will that you remain right where you are.”
Caffrey made no motion to rise. The second man circled around the scene and stood by the shelves on the far side of the room where he leaned. One of his boots rested on the bent edge of a torn page where the book lay scattered and destroyed about the floor. Caffrey turned his head toward the second man and gritted his teeth. He stared at the offending boot as he spoke. “I know you too. Your picture dons many trees and posts throughout the kingdom, Lieutenant Nisero.”
“It is not the best rendering,” Nisero remarked. “One might have to already know me to recognize me from that picture.”
“Perhaps,” Caffrey said, “but many search for you and will find you for your part in the terrible crime that brings you two crashing into my library. Or is it still three, since your swollen daughter joins you in your banditry, captain?”
Berengar grabbed Caffrey by the throat and squeezed him against the floor. The noble’s eyes bulged and his face went from pink to red to purple. Lord Caffrey’s tongue protruded from his mouth, showing the dark cut on the tip. The noble choked out the words. “You will pay.”
“If you don’t want my hand on your throat,” Berengar snarled, “then remove it yourself.”
Caffrey’s hands stayed at his sides and he hissed through his constricted airway. “What is it that you want to know?”
Berengar relented on his grasp, but kept his fingers wrapped around the curve of the man’s throat as proper color slowly restored to his face. “How do you know about my daughter?”
“I pay large sums to be kept in the know. There is no more valuable knowledge in the kingdom at the moment than your comings and goings. I know you questioned your man, Forseth, dangling from a snare in the woods like a hobbled peacock.”
“Did you know we were coming for you?”
Caffrey appeared pensive, but did not answer.
“I did not have a hand in killing those men,” Nisero said.
“Do you break into my home, destroy priceless heirlooms, assault me, and stand over me threatening my life to argue your innocence to me, then?”
“You said we would die for our part in all this,” Nisero clarified. “I did not do anything nor conspire with anyone.”
“Your part and your crime, Lieutenant Nisero, was having the nerve and the great misfortune of surviving. It is a crime that powerful men simply cannot forgive you for doing.”
“Powerful men like you?” Berengar asked, still holding Caffrey down by his throat.
“There are no men like me. Powerful men come to me when they are not nearly powerful enough. I am in a class unto myself.”
“So unweave the mystery for me, Caffrey, in exchange for your life.”
“Is that what your man Forseth told you? That I was the key to the mystery of why the Elite Guard and the eastern prince and heir had to die?”
“He told us lies, so we come to you to find truth,” Berengar said.
“Truth is an expensive prize with sharp edges,” Caffrey replied. “Most men claim they want it, but very few truly do. If you let Forseth live after suspecting his part in the betrayal and after knowing that he lied to you, then why would I believe that you possess the iron to kill me, a noble, for the same offenses. The only iron you seem to hold, captain, is that which was pinned on your chest.”
Berengar tightened his grip again and elicited a gurgle from Caffrey. Berengar leaned down closer. “I have a deep affection for Forseth. We spent many years killing lesser men in fine robes together, earning me that medal you saw pinned that day. I did not keep the trinket, but I still have a habit of killing lesser men. Have I done anything tonight to make you believe that I view you in any type of regard?”
“I told you it was the King,” Caffrey reiterated. “Go to his throne room, tear his robes, and pin him to the floor of the palace by his throat, if you are so brave and righteous.”
“Why would the King order the deaths of his men and the assassination of a foreign prince, Caffrey? Explain it, if this is your argument.”
“What is there to explain, captain? Every time a king sends men into battle, he is ordering their deaths. Taking the lives of men under him is the daily work of a royal. And every war between every kingdom in all of history has been to cut down those that would seek to take a throne. If you do not understand that much, you are not capable of grasping the nuance of political intrigue.”
“Perhaps the destruction of the King was your goal, Caffrey. Maybe you set us upon him as a part of your plan for overthrow.”
Caffrey managed to roll his eyes even with the captain pinning him to the floor. “What would I have to gain by the destruction of the kingdom? Look around you, fools. Does it appear that I thrive on disorder? Does my wealth expand in a collapse of the entire system? Smart men and powerful men will always find a way to profit in and from war, but I have no need to rip apart two lands to further my own agenda. Men at my level don’t have to resort to such lows to get what we want or need. I don’t kill kings; I lead them about as if I have a ring in their noses.”
“Who profits then?” Berengar pried.
Caffrey sighed. “The King profits. His army grows in war. His pillage and plunder increases. His power expands as he identifies enemies within and without. You stand no chance of righting this situation because you have no capacity to deal with the truth of it.”
“Tell us the truth and we will decide in what manner to deal w
ith it,” Berengar insisted.
“This is the entire reason of why your efforts here are pointless. I have told you the truth plainly and you do not choose to believe it. You have no scale on which to weigh the difference between truth and lies. You work your way up the predatory chain hoping to find answers from the man that gives orders to the man that gives orders to the man that carries out orders. I tell you to go straight to the top and demand your answers, if you want them so badly. But you are given pause because you see the fruitlessness of storming into the throne room with two against the world. That is where this ultimately leads, if anywhere.”
“Who gave orders to you about the ambush outside your gate then, Caffrey?”
Caffrey narrowed his eyes at Berengar. “I resent that you think I take orders from any man. They send me messages, but I am ordered by no one.”
“You appear to be doing what I say.”
Caffrey actually snorted and then coughed. “Stay as long as you like, if you believe you have what it takes to maintain this position of influence, captain.”
Berengar shifted his weight and frowned. “Who sent you the message that the ambush was to occur?”
“The King sends his orders of dark doings through his dark men so that he does not have to dirty his hands, lips, or name with the deeds directly. And you still have failed to ask me whether I actually had any involvement in the treachery of which you accuse me—deeds which I have already told you that I did not need for profit and did not desire for instability.”
“Innocent men usually decry their innocence without having to be prompted to do so.”
“But so do the guilty,” Caffrey declared. “And I beg to differ in that innocent men often choose to remain silent. I also suggest that a man can be guilty of any number of things while not holding guilt in the one thing for which you might accuse him. I might propose that I fall in that latter category. For what man in this world can claim pure innocence if he has lived longer than a year?”
“So you are innocent of the betrayal and innocent of involvement in the underlying conspiracy it represents? That’s what you claim, Lord Caffrey?”
Caffrey shrugged his shoulders with his back on the carpet and then winced. “It is what I would say whether I was guilty or innocent. So until you find your magic scale that can weigh truth against lies, my denials are as pointless as your questions.”
“Some men have physical tells for their lies,” Berengar stated. “I have questioned my share of liars in my time. Liars have tells, and truth has a ring.”
“If you are having to question your closest brothers-in-arms while hanging them upside down from a tree, Captain Berengar, I would question your sense of lies and truth which preceded that moment. Every man thinks he can judge character and every man is fooled throughout his life.”
“Did you know or meet with Captain Forseth before the night of the ambush?” Nisero interrupted.
Caffrey turned his gaze in the lieutenant’s direction. “A good question, but no way to rightly assess my answer, as I said.”
“Answer anyway,” Berengar ordered.
“I did not know who had been chosen to survive that night. Men simply arrived at my doorstep and waited for the deeds to be finished,” Caffrey said. “I did not even let the scoundrels in to taint my halls. A man that entertains a corruption against his fellows will typically do so again and again for ever descending prices. I did not wish to take the chance that one of the betrayers of the Guard had been bribed to cut me down, by some paranoid duke seeking to still all tongues.”
Berengar and Nisero exchanged dubious a look.
“I can’t believe it,” Nisero turned away. “I don’t want to believe it.”
“But does it ring for you?” Caffrey pressed. “Is it the music of truth you so wanted to hear?”
Nisero thought back to a similar taunt Berengar had given about truth when he and his daughter had been arguing. It stung to hear it turned back upon them.
“So you knew of the betrayal,” Berengar said, “but claim you did not directly participate nor profit yourself.”
“Captain, are you the kind that sees failing to intervene in the evil of other men as a form of evil in and of itself?”
Berengar let go of Caffrey’s throat and stood over him. His neck showed a crimson rash from the captain’s chokehold. Caffrey rubbed at his own neck and showed his teeth.
Berengar said, “Most right thinking persons recognize such a thing as evil. The fact that you pose the question suggests that you see the logic in it as well. The possession of knowledge brings with it the responsibility of that possession.”
“I pay well for knowledge and possession.” Caffrey rose up to his elbows, but remained on the floor. He looked toward the remains of his book and sighed. “If I gain something of value for the great cost I put into attaining it, I believe I have a right to act on it, but no responsibility to men that lack the resources or the foresight to gain the knowledge for themselves. The message about the coming violence at my gate was merely a respectful informing of the temporary inconvenience. It was not an invitation to participate.”
Berengar took a step forward and Caffrey fell back to the floor with his hands up before his face. “What are you about to do, captain?”
“I’m going to make you fully understand that you are indeed a participant now.”
“I have answered all your questions truthfully.”
Berengar nodded slowly. “And now you need to learn that having knowledge and failing to act is itself choosing the wrong, and bears real consequences for yourself and others.”
Caffrey scooted along the carpet away from Berengar. “You will not get away with this violence.”
Berengar pursued at a leisurely pace. He picked up one of the loose pages from the remains of the book on the floor. Caffrey sucked in breath to speak again, but Berengar crammed the page into Lord Caffrey’s mouth until he gagged on the vile, dusty taste of it.
Berengar held Caffrey’s jaw closed on the wet paper. “You should have said those things to the dark men sending you dark messages.”
The doors to the library boomed loudly as they were struck from the outside. The wooden frame splintered but held as Caffrey’s men battered and shouted outside.
“Captain, we need to go,” Nisero urged.
Berengar patted Caffrey’s cheek. “I will come back. If I find that you have lied, no amount of wealth or power will protect you from the wrath you have unleashed. Do my words have the ring of truth, Lord Caffrey?”
The two men ran across the room and up a spiral wooden staircase to a balcony bearing a second section of shelves. Caffrey rolled to his stomach and watched. The two men drew their swords and smashed out the colored glass in the window frames before stepping through into the night air.
Caffrey smelled moisture in the air and he thought about all his books.
Lord Caffrey spit out the ruined page and ran up the spiral stairs. The men still battered the solid doors behind him. He looked out over the broken widows and saw the ropes dangling from the second floor ledge. Three riders galloped away across his land in the dark.
Caffrey considered whether he should send warning where he thought they were probably going next. He whispered to himself. “I want you and your target both to experience the nasty surprise you have coming.”
Caffrey straightened his torn robe and descended the stairs as the impacts still sounded from the doors. “Hold on, you fools. I do not need my entire library destroyed this night.”
Chapter 11: Dark Men Do Dark Things
The soldiers gathered on the plain across both sides of the roadway, facing east. The horses and wagons were loaded for war.
Nisero recognized the looks of fear and excitement on the faces of men from ordinary walks of life conscripted into service. Their full complement of training had probably been a speech about war and service to the King, if even that much. Their immediate officers probably had little more war experience. These men w
ere gathered for numbers and the intimidation of mass.
If actual bloodshed began, the men would be little more than pawns. Nisero was not sure that the eastern kingdom wasn’t doing the same thing. They had been at war with their neighbors for far longer, so chances were that the former farmers and merchants’ sons that still lived within their ranks were far more seasoned than these green civilians in borrowed war garb.
The typical hope of such displays was to bring foreign kings to the negotiating table. Men would then return to their farms and families, claiming to be disappointed that there was no fighting, having no knowledge of the terms of the peace. In reality, they were exhausted from their terror and relief. Then, they told lies over ale of how many enemy heads they removed on the field of battle.
Nisero was not sure how well this tact would play, if the eastern kingdom did march on the border. He did not recall the last time any king had come to war over the murder of his son and heir. The lieutenant did not know the ways of kings like the ways of common men, but he had to imagine that the blood ran hotter and the taste for vengeance would be harder to sate.
He had only witnessed a handful of large scale displays used to sue for peace in his time. None of those had compared in size to these ranks of farmer soldiers. The Elite Guard had been more often sent on pursuits and strikes where peace was only to be found on the other side of violence, and sometimes not even then.
Nisero bowed his head inside his hood. He and Berengar made their way through the conscripted ranks’ camp behind the staging area of the regular army. The risk of being identified was far less than among men with whom Nisero had served and even commanded in various campaigns. With the recent effort to track him, he was not sure how much less the risk was though.
He wondered if Captain Forseth and the surviving Guard were present. He wondered about Arianne’s husband, Dreth. At the very least, none of them seemed to expect Captain Berengar and Lieutenant Nisero to be walking through the midst of the King’s army.
Nisero’s mind drifted to the words of Lord Caffrey on the floor of his library not two days earlier. Conspiracies, lies, murder, and betrayal that might go up as far as the King himself was included in the accusations. The one thing Caffrey said that Nisero fully believed was that he had no way of measuring the difference between a lie and the truth.
