Weaving Man: Book One of The Prophecy Series

by Tove Foss Ford

  Watching her, his mind returned to the problem of the coming coup attempt and what he could do to stop it. He couldn’t get to Erdahn; he couldn’t leave Katrin without his protection and Kaymar said Manus and the Duchess of Ernst were closely guarded there. If an assassin got past all the people he had in place now, they would have to get through him before they could reach Katrin. He had not been a working assassin for five years but it would take a very accomplished and brave man to go through Menders.

  If he could get Duke Manus and the Duchess anywhere near him, he could eliminate them himself. It would be best to make it look accidental, to avoid uncomfortable questions. Even if a trail did lead back to him, he could expose the plot and claim it was done for the protection of Queen and country. But he would much rather it look as if the plotters had come to an accidental and untimely demise, with their killer remaining safely anonymous.

  Katrin was coloring one of the wolves a particularly vibrant shade of blue, making Menders smile. Then the smile faded.

  Wolves… now there was something. Yes! Northern Mordanian wolves were fearless and had been known to attack people in buildings, and even railway carriages. His mind began to work on it.

  ***

  My Dear Fahren,

  Your correspondence has been greatly appreciated. It gives me a very clear picture of your daily life in Erdahn. I was most impressed to hear of your recent appointment to the service of His Grace, Duke Manus. This is a great opportunity for one so young and I’m certain you will prosper in this new venture.

  So far it has been a most delightful winter here in Old Mordania. Snow sports are proving very pleasant and popular, even with me despite the cold I have had. Should your employer be seeking to remove from the Capitol during the next month, you might suggest a holiday at his estate near Erdstrom. Though there is good snow cover, the days have been quite clear and comfortable. The trains are going through regularly.

  We are all well here, and look forward to seeing you again. Write as often as you can with all your news.

  In friendship,

  Your old Headmaster, Mister S

  Dear Mister S,

  It was with great relief that I had your note of a week ago. I was very glad to hear of your returning health and enjoyment of outdoor activity, even in this cold weather. I gave your recommendation to His Grace and he felt that it would be just the thing for his own constitution, having been fond of winter sport when he was a boy. He has reason to wish to leave Erdahn at present, as he finds the atmosphere during winter stifling, particularly the fogs. He was glad of the reminder of his country estate and the crisp weather that blesses Old Mordania at this time of year.

  He and his cousin, Her Grace the Duchess of Ernst, will be travelling with myself and several of their closest companions to His Grace’s country home west of Erdstrom on the seventeenth of this month by special train. Since that will bring me near you, I am hoping I will be able to take the opportunity to visit you and your charming daughter. His Grace assures me there will be plenty of time for me to see my parents and brother as well. You know I miss them a great deal, so I’m very excited about this journey.

  Closing now, at one, and will post this in the morning.

  Sincerely,

  Fahren

  I have you now, Manus, you bastard, Menders thought as he perused the note from Kaymar, disguised as a chatty letter from an ex-student to a favorite teacher. Knowing Kaymar’s style, he read between the lines.

  Duke Manus was leaving Erdahn prior to the coup attempt and would go to his estate near Erdstrom to await the outcome. He would be travelling with the Duchess of Ernst and several others by train, and would be in the vicinity of The Shadows at one in the morning on the seventeenth. Kaymar, the Duke’s new, trusted employee, would be with them.

  He took the note to Franz, who read it and raised his eyebrows.

  “Perfect location, the bastard will go right past our door. Just what do you have in mind?” he asked.

  “I’ll cut some wood and feed the dogs,” Menders answered quietly.

  ***

  The Royal Train slowed, then halted on the stretch of track between Rondstein and Erdstrom, twenty miles south of Shadows Halt. There was a particular cutting in the area known to be difficult in the wintertime. A warning lantern hung from a post. Something was blocking the track ahead.

  The engine simmered with escaping steam and the air pumps thumped rhythmically. The fireman climbed from the engine and walked away down the track. He returned shortly.

  “Tree down on the track,” he told the engineer tersely. “We can move it, I think, it’s not very big - but not while dragging this lot.” He indicated the line of darkened carriages. The engine was fitted with a heavy metal plow for just such situations. Best to work without the weight of the carriages slowing things down and risking derailment – or worse, waking the high and mighty folk sleeping the night away in their berths. It was late, just gone one in the morning.

  The men uncoupled the engine and then steamed away to begin the slow and careful process of pushing the tree off the tracks.

  As the engine disappeared, a slender shadow separated from the dark forest nearest the carriages, moving across the snow with feline grace. It sprang onto the platform of the last carriage as the door opened silently from within.

  Menders nodded to Kaymar. The two men moved into the carriage like oiled shadows, turning toward the curtained sleeping compartments.

  Kaymar gestured to one compartment, then drew aside the curtains shrouding another. He stabbed the slumbering Duke Manus directly in the heart, killing him instantly. Menders simultaneously cut the snoring throat of Her Grace, The Duchess of Ernst. Kaymar indicated two other sleeping forms, fellow conspirators of the freshly dispatched pair. It only took a few more seconds to eliminate all the plotters who had wanted Katrin dead.

  Kaymar and Menders hefted the limp and leaden form of Duke Manus, dragging it from the carriage and dropping it in the snow beside the railway line. Menders, wielding a small hatchet, hacked at the carriage door and door frame, making deep gouges like claw marks. Then the two men closed the door before shouldering it open again, snapping the lock and shattering the glass window. Menders took a handful of coarse wolf hair from his pocket and dragged it across the broken glass until several tufts snagged there.

  Leaving the carriage door open, the cousins jumped from the platform and disappeared into the tree line.

  Moments later, the wolves came snaking across the snow, half mad with winter hunger, smelling the blood. They tore at the body of Manus. The bolder ones leapt onto the rear platform of the railway carriage, where the blood smell from within was most tantalizing.

  In the trees, Menders watched without emotion.

  “Our dinner guests have arrived.”

  Kaymar shivered with cold as he tore off his bloody clothes. There would be no trace of the young servant who had travelled with the Duke’s party other than shredded bloody clothing some distance from the train. He dressed in the garments Menders had brought for him as rapidly as he could.

  Menders handed the reins of Franz’s gelding to Kaymar and sprang onto Demon’s back. Demon circled and snapped, eyes wheeling like fireworks, anxious to get away from the snarling knot of wolves congregated around the body of Duke Manus.

  They rode silently away.

  Down the line, the engine shuttled forward and back, moving the tree inch by inch. In the carriage, the hungry wolves feasted on fresh meat. Outside, more snowflakes began sifting down, drifting into pools of rapidly cooling blood.

  ***

  In Erdahn, the news of the brutal deaths of His Grace, Duke Manus and Her Grace, The Duchess of Ernst, third in line to the Throne, was greeted with shock. Horribly, they had been killed by wolves when the Royal Train, en route to the Duke’s country estate, stopped because of a tree down on the tracks. In the absence of the seasoned engine crew, who would have prevented the Duke leaving the safety of his carriage to ascertain t
he reason for the delay, ravenous wolves had attacked the Duke before jumping into the open carriage, killing the Duchess and the other members of the party.

  People from the city just didn’t understand the dangers of country visit in winter. There was far too much danger of being snowed in and not being able to get back to civilization. Really, something should be done about those wild wolves, but they numbered in the millions. It would be like trying to eliminate the Thrun. Such a pity.

  At The Shadows, Menders watched Katrin playing in the snow with Hemmett and smiled. A note on his desk from Cahrin had let him know that the assassins employed by Manus to kill the Queen, Princess Aidelia and Katrin had been eliminated. An additional note was enclosed, a response to a rapidly penned missive he’d sent out with Kaymar.

  Ah Menders, the original Slippery Eel,

  My congratulations on your masterful work on the Manus situation. Wickedly adept and worthy of you.

  I am made aware by your blue-eyed cousin that you are interested in a fair exchange of information and a combining of our networks of sources. I can use your input as to the goings on in Old Mordania and beyond, particularly your Thrun connections. Therefore, consider it done.

  I do find it amusing that you are now playing foster papa for a little girl, but you’ll make a good job of it. She’s a fortunate child. Let’s hope she has some worthwhile potential and lacks the less pleasant attributes that have surfaced in her other family members.

  Should further threats become known to me, I shall send word immediately.

  The best to you,

  Gladdy D.

  The Duke of Manus’ coup was a failure. The Queen was still secure on the Ruby Throne and Menders’ network of informants had increased a thousand fold.

  Most of all, Katrin was safe – at least for now.

  (24)

  Eiren

  A wagon passing The Shadows caught Menders’ eye as he peered through the telescope on the roof. It was the Spaltzes, going to the halt. Eiren was coming home today.

  Normally he and Katrin would have gone too but Katrin and Hemmett had come down with aching fever, a childish complaint most people endured by the time they were ten. Both children had light cases and spent much of their sickroom time constructing tents from Katrin’s bedcovers, in imitation of the Thrun. Unfortunately Lucen had also contracted the disease. In adults it was a grave matter indeed. Menders had gone to the roof for some air after tending the big man, who muttered and tossed in delirium, the fevers climbing very high before they broke.

  No-one from the Shadows had gone near the Spaltz farm of late, for fear of spreading aching fever to the Spaltz children and from there to the entire district. Seeing Eiren would have to wait.

  It was late spring and the trees were fully leaved. They screened Menders’ telescopic view of Shadows Halt. The guard on surveillance duty returned from lunch and Menders went back inside before catching a glimpse of Eiren’s return.

  She had covered herself with glory in her years at teacher’s college, graduating at the head of her class and receiving many honors. She’d been deluged with offers of work, but had turned them all down, determined to come back to The Shadows to start her school.

  Mister Spaltz had overhauled and completely painted the little building she intended to use. Franz and Menders supplied the money for it to be stocked with furniture, books and everything else that a small school could need.

  Eiren had worked incredibly hard, taking on more studies than the teachers’ college curriculum required. Her letters over the years had reflected the rapid expansion of her intellect. Menders would miss receiving them. They had been a constant source of amusement and amazement, because the young girl had forged ahead so quickly. Over time her letters had grown longer and erudite, no longer chatty missives about weather and classmates. Instead, they became considerable windows into Eiren’s views on religion, philosophy, science and the arts – whatever happened to be the topic that engaged her bright and enquiring mind at a particular time.

  Menders wended his way to Katrin’s room, where whoops of laughter let him know the invalids probably needed to be reined in a bit.

  Sheets festooned the room, propped on anything that would hold them up, including Menders’ chair from his office. Hemmett was sitting cross-legged in one ‘tent’, trying to imitate Tharak’s impassive mien with little success, while Katrin pranced around on an invisible horse, giving a great show of horsemanship.

  “For sick children you certainly make a lot of noise,” Menders said, leaning against the doorjamb and grinning.

  “We aren’t sick!” Hemmett declared. “Time to let us go outside!”

  “Oh, you aren’t sick? Who was aching and miserable last night and cried and had to be held and rocked?” Menders asked, ducking down and crawling into the ‘tent’. “And who said you could take my chair?”

  “I did,” Katrin said, crawling in behind him. “You weren’t sitting in it, so I thought you wouldn’t mind if we used it.”

  “Get your brush, your hair is a mess,” Menders told her. When she returned with the requested item, he undid her frowsy braids, and began brushing through the rich golden waves. While she was really sick, her hair got into a horrific tangle, which had taken ages to brush out, an experience neither of them wanted to repeat.

  “Rat’s nest, rat’s nest!” Hemmett chanted teasingly. Katrin made a face at him.

  “Enough of that,” Menders warned. To keep them distracted, he began on another episode of the fairy tales he constantly spun for Katrin, about the Dark Knight and his beloved Princess, who had all sorts of adventures involving dragons and evil kings. Hemmett nodded off soon, his head pillowed on Menders’ thigh. Menders finished with Katrin’s hair, braided it neatly and then let her settle back against him as he had the Princess outsmart a terrible wizard and free the Dark Knight from a deep dungeon full of bones.

  “That’s the best story you’ve told yet,” she sighed rapturously. She loved the fairy tales and would listen as long as Menders spun them out.

  “Glad you liked it, Little Princess,” he smiled, putting an arm around her. “I saw Eiren coming home when I was on the roof.”

  “How did she look?” Katrin asked, looking up at him with a delighted smile.

  “I didn’t actually see her, I just saw her family going past and the smoke from the train. I came down before they went back on their way to the farm.”

  “Can’t we go over there tonight?”

  “No. I explained to you that you can’t carry this sickness over to them.”

  “I thought I was better.”

  “Not that much better. You have to wait a while longer, I’m afraid, at least two weeks.”

  “Two weeks,” she sighed disgustedly.

  “I’m afraid so. Work on making them pass quickly, stay busy and you’ll be seeing Eiren before you know it.”

  “I wonder if she got taller and if her hair is as long as mine,” Katrin cogitated.

  “Very likely. My legs are going to sleep, so let’s get out of this Thrun tent and get Hemmett to bed, shall we? You go ahead.”

  ***

  Two weeks later, Mister Spaltz dropped in. He sat around with some of Menders’ Men for a while, won considerable money from them in card games, then grinned at Menders.

  “Now that everyone here is over the aching fever, you should take a jaunt by Eiren’s school. The older children are working the farms, of course, but she has the younger ones at school now. They’re having a wonderful time and she was saying the other day that she regretted not coming to see the Princess and yourself before now, but didn’t want to risk bringing the fever back to the little ones. She lets the children go at a little before three.”

  “I’ll make a point of it,” Menders said. “I’m glad to hear it’s going well.”

  “Oh, it is indeed. I want to see about getting a stove in there for them before autumn. We have one up at the farm just sitting in the barn. I might borrow a couple of your men
to help with that.”

  “You’re welcome to them.” Menders accepted a puff off a newly lit cigar and poured another glass of wine for Mister Spaltz.

  He’d intended to go by the school but the usual welter of summer work had sidetracked him. Best not to delay longer or Eiren would think that he might be offended or avoiding her. He was eager to see what she was doing. Demon was itching for a good run, so the next afternoon Menders let him gallop to his heart’s content across the estate, coming back by way of the school at three in the afternoon.

  As he approached, a knot of children came scuffling and prancing through the school door. They ran over to him.

  “Behave yourself,” he admonished Demon, glad he’d let the farlin run off most of his cantankerousness.

  “Be careful now,” he warned the children, who were gleefully holding up papers and books for him to look at, with a chorus of “Mister Menders, look at my book, look at my paper, Teacher said it was good!” He admired and praised the proffered items and then watched as the children ran away down the road in a bunch, skipping and running, papers flapping and falling to the ground.

  He hooked his leg around the pommel of his saddle, making himself more comfortable, and looked over toward the school.

  A woman came through the door with an armful of books, turning away from him to fasten the latch. Menders wondered who she could be – Spaltz had not mentioned there being an assistant. Menders made a point of knowing everyone who was on the estate, so his interest was piqued and his senses alerted.