A Company of Heroes Book Three: The Princess (21 page)
Read A Company of Heroes Book Three: The Princess Online
Authors: Ron Miller
“Hello there,” he replies. “It’s nice to see you again!”
“No thanks to you,” she answers heatedly. “I ought to have you arrested, after you abandoned me in that miserable town. We can still be there, for all you seemed to care.”
“I doubt it,” he contradicts cheerfully. “Not with the professor with you.”
“What do you mean?”
“You got my message, didn’t you?”
“What message?”
“The one I threw through the window of your jail cell. I tied it to a rock.”
“That was
you
?” she replies, absolutely surprised.
“Who else?”
“But it was gibberish!”
“You mean you weren’t able to decode it?”
“Of course not! The professor worked on it for hours.”
“Should have been nothing to it. I wrote it in a code so that no one else can tell who it is from . . .”
“Well, it certainly worked!”
“ . . . All it said was, and I must paraphrase here, it said something like, ‘Hello Bronwyn, Basseliniden here. How are you? I’m doing fine.’ And then I explained why I had to disappear.”
“And you still haven’t explained that.”
“You know that I was, am, a wanted man. I was a pirate and smuggler. The authorities may have just held you two for vagrancy at most, but if they learned who
I
was, and I don’t doubt for a moment that my picture was even then hanging in the magistrate’s office, they would not only have locked me up very securely for a very long time, but probably you, too, as an accessory at least and on sheer suspicion at best. And if their curiosity had gotten at all excited about you, it would not have taken them very long to discover who you
really
were. So you see, I did the very best thing.”
“Well, you could have let me know.”
“I said that I tried.”
Bronwyn is stil1 unwilling to forgive him, but can not at the moment think of anything further to say on her side. So she changes the subject.
“What in the world is going on here, anyway? What are all of these boats for?”
“They’re for you, of course.”
“Pardon?”
“The first thing I did upon leaving Hartal was to make my way along the south coast to the mouth of the Moltus River. I knew that, if there was any chance that any of your army had survived you would eventually rejoin it and set out to complete your original course of action. Well. There are only two approaches to Blavek from the east: one is to swing into the city from the north, using the two bridges, or from the south, which would entail fording the river. The former course would be easiest, except that it would place the bulk of the city itself between you and the palace . . . a formidable obstacle, especially if the enemy knows the city and the invaders do not. Payne Roelt and the king would have plenty of opportunity to escape while their Guards held you at bay. The latter course would provide an almost unimpeded approach to the palace, but there are no bridges across the Moltus downstrearn from Blavek, and the river is almost a half mile wide and too deep to ford. But with that one drawback, attacking the city from the south would be the most expeditious course of action. Payne and the king can be penned in, especially if the exits to the north are to be blocked by a couple of patrols of our own . . . the bridges can just as easily keep someone
in
the city as keep someone
out
. All you would need is a way to cross the lower Moltus.
“Well, here it is.”
“But how . . . whose boats are these?”
“Everyone’s. There’s probably not a single captain or fisherman or shipowner in all of Tamlaght who is not represented here. You may not have any idea of the animosity your brother and his friends have inspired.”
“Evidently not. You intend to ferry the whole army, all five thousand men and all of their equipment, across the river?”
“Exactly. And not only that, but I expect to do it before dawn tomorrow.”
“How can you possibly . . .”
“Tut,” he interrupts the princess’ objection with a raised palm, like a schoolteacher. “There are probably a hundred or a hundred and fifty ships and boats out there of all sizes. If they carried just an average of maybe twenty or so men across at one time, they’d only need to make two trips to transfer your entire army. It’s only a half mile or so; they can make as many trips as necessary before dawn tomorrow.”
Bronwyn throws up her hands in defeat. “Go ahead. I’ll have to see this.”
“I certainly hope you will. Shall I give the orders to begin?”
“By all means. Duke Mathias, will you pass the word to your officers that we’ll be crossing the river immediately?”
“Yes, your Highness.”
“And that Captain Basseliniden’s orders during this operation are to followed exactly?”
“Yes, your Highness.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
AN UNFORTUNATE REUNION
The crossing of the Moltus went exactly as predicted by Basseliniden, and long before the early summer dawn of the following day the army and all of its appurtenances had been transferred to the opposite shore. Less than a day’s march now separates Bronwyn’s forces from Blavek, or, more importantly to her, from Payne Roelt and her brother, the erstwhile king. Much if not all of her old initiative and confidence has returned to her and she sees no reason why the invasion of the city should not begin immediately.
“We can be in Blavek by nightfall,” she tells Mathias.
“That’s true,” he agrees, “but what good would that do us? We can’t effect a successful attack in the dark . . . we’d be throwing away any advantage we might have gained.”
“But if we wait, Payne Roelt will know that we’ve crossed the river and are ready to attack the palace directly. We’ll have lost the advantage anyway.”
“As to whether or not Lord Roelt knows of the present circumstances, that remains to be seen. I for one would surprised if he didn’t
already
know or is not about to know.”
“Professor,” the princess greets the tall scientist as he joins the headquarters group, “isn’t there some way we can attack the city tonight? Don’t you have some sort of electrical light or something?”
“No, nothing like that, I’m afraid,” he replies, and the princess’ face falls with disappointment, and a little embarrassment. “I have something much better.”
“You do? What?”
“I’d much rather show you when the time comes, than try to explain now.”
“You’re saying,” interjects the duke, “that with this . . . device . . . of yours we can launch an attack at night?”
“Certainly.”
“See?” says Bronwyn. “We can take advantage of our shortcut. Even if Payne knows or learns of where we are, I’d bet anything that he is expecting us to attack from the north. And if he did, he has all or most of the Guards blockading tbe bridges and streets on that side of the island. He can’t effectively reorganize everything in just one day. Payne has a hard enough time organizing his own life.”
“It’s your army, your Highness. What do you want it do?”
“I want to attack Blavek now!”
“Then I’ll give the orders.”
Bronwyn feels glorious, righteous and vindicated, what would probably be a fatal combination of emotions for most people. And, indeed, some cautious nodule in her intoxicated brain is trying to make her aware of that, but is soon argued into submission by the rest of her grey matter, pounds and pounds of it, telling that remaining conservative, dissenting teaspoon or two that if she feels the way she does, that she’s certainly earned it.
The highway is a broad and well-maintained one, though it is no less dusty than the country roads they have been traveling. A yellow column rises vertically into the still air above the army like a somber banner.
Bronwyn’s sense of righteousness is nurtured and encouraged by the state of the countryside around her. She had seen a great deal of the depressed conditions of the land and people in her circuitous journey from Hartal-around-the-Bend to Blavek, but nothing has quite made the impression as does seeing the once-familiar environs of the capital reduced to poverty and ruin. The few churches she sees are empty shells, their wide open doors and windows revealing black, lifeless, gutted interiors. As she passes, ragged groups of people in ragged clothe emerge from tbeir ragged houses to cheer her, raggedly. The feebleness of tbeir gestures and cries both sadden and sicken her and she feels the righteousness of her resolve strengthen in inverse proportion to her subjects’ condition.
Toward evening, as the sun sets in a cloudless, hazy sky, the princess sees the looming blocks of the Transmoltus District. An almost overwhelmingly physical sense of dread sweeps over her, in spite of the heat, a damp chill congeals her spine, like a snake in a sudden frost. There is nothing more amiss than the absence of the dark pall of coal smoke that normally hung over the district like a shroud, yet more than anything else the princess has seen this seems to symbolize the moribund state of Tamlaght; the lifeless, motionless grey piles seem to her like the dead heart of her nation. How can she ever start it beating again?
The road swings to the west of the quieted industrial area and it is here that Bronwyn and her army meet the first representatives of her enemy: three mounted Guards under a white flag. Bronwyn signals the duke, and the duke brings the procession to a halt, fifty feet from the three men. They wait while the middle Guard rides cautiously forward, stopping halfway between the two groups.
“I have a message for the Princess Bronwyn,” he says.
“What is it?”
“I cannot say. I’ve only been instructed to leave this with you.” He holds up a square white box, about ten inches or so on each side, and then leans from his mount to place it carefully on the ground. Having done so, he retreats carefully to rejoin his companions. After waiting for a moment, they turn and ride back toward the city.
Bronwyn begins to spur her horse forward but is stopped by the duke. “I’d better send one of the men. That can be anything out there.”
“A bomb?”
“Who knows? How much do you trust Roelt?”
“Send the man.”
An unhappy-looking soldier is volunteered; he approaches package as though it were rabid. Bronwyn scrupulously watches his every move as the man kneels and takes a knife from his belt The package is, she realizes, wrapped neatly in white paper and tied with string. After cutting the latter, the soldier peels back the paper, revealing an ordinary-looking cardboard box. The princess can see the man swallow. He removes his cap and wipes his brow. He lifts the lid of the box as though expecting it to be filled with snakes or scorpions, at the very least, which it might well have been. Nothing happens and once again he pauses. The box is packed with shredded tissue paper or excelsior, as she can see when the soldier begins to lift handfuls of it from the box. Suddenly, with a sharp cry, the man leaps to his feet, backwards, almost falling over in his haste. The princess pulls back on her reins, more than half expecting an explosion.
“What is it?” she calls.
The man does not reply to her directly, but rather to the duke. “Sir,” he calls, in a strangled voice, “it’d be best if you’d come here.”
“What is it?” Bronwyn repeats.
“I’ll see,” the duke says. “Wait here a minute. If it’s all right, I’ll call you.”
He dismounts and, with a half-dozen long strides, joins his man. Using the tip of his saber, he lifts back the lid of the box. Tbe princess can see his face go ashen, and the muscles around his mouth and in his neck becoming rigid. He looks up at her and she knows that he is uncertain what to do.
Deciding for him, and before he can prevent her, she climbes from her horse and joins him. Without a word, she glances at his face, which is frightening, and then turns to the box. The duke makes no attempt to stop her.
She kneels, lifts the lid and, for the first and only time in her life, collapses in a dead faint.
She had seen, packed neatly in a bed of rock salt, like a slab of mail-order bacon, the severed head of Baron Sluys Milnikov.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
BULLETS AND BILLETS
The siege of Blavek began immediately.
When Princess Bronwyn finally stands within sight of the tall buildings on Palace Island, for the first time in well over a year, she is unsure of the emotions she feels. They are not the ones that she expected, and their unfamiliarity is disturbing, like threatening strangers whose faces seem to ring a jarring bell.
The palace buildings do not look as she has remembered them . . . nor even as she had last seen them; but how can they have changed so much? They are black, lifeless-looking shapes hulking against the twilight sky. Only a few lights glimmer bleakly within the plain silhouettes. They possess neither grace nor inspiration nor even the subtle attractiveness attained by the purely functional.
She does not feel the elation that she had expected, either; only a kind of weary, vaguely disinterested relief. She is a little disappointed that such a long-awaited occasion should bring her so little satisfaction, but that is the fault of Payne Roelt, too, and something else she can hold against him. His villainy has become so appalling, so monumental, that it has lifted the task that she is performing from mere personal vendetta to a kind of religious duty she feels compelled to perform. It is the
compulsion
, however, that spoils it for her.
The causeway lies directly ahead, about a quarter of a mile distant, with the black, shapeless, fuming corpse of the Transmoltus District to her right and a parade ground and a few scattered buildings to her left. A high barricade, composed, it appears, from scores of overturned wagons, vans and carts, has been erected at the narrow gate; that and the squat, massive towers that flank it effectively block entrance to the island and the city beyond. The Slideen is far too deep where it rushes beneath the palace to ford, especially on the downstream side where the deep channel of the harbor begins.
The bulk of Bronwyn’s force has arrayed itself in a quarter-circle whose concave side faces the barricade. The remainder has been subdivided into companies given the task of taking and holding the Guard barracks at the mouth of the nearby Muchka River and of securing, or at least containing, the Transmoltus District.
The sky is absolutely cloudless and night falls swiftly. The plum-and-indigo dome looks infinitely distant. It will be hours before either moon rises. The palace retreats into the blackening borizon like a cornered animal, its presence betrayed only by a dozen lighted windows. Dim reddish glows from lanterns scattered among the Guards mark the outline of the towers and barricade. She cannot imagine how an effective attack can be mounted in such complete darkness. Yet if they wait until morning, General Praxx will have have had time to pull in the Guards now positioned along the upper Moltus. It is also unlikely that Praxx would expect an attack after dark, so that if it is possible to do so the surprise would be greatly to their advantage.
Even with the coming of darkness, the heat of the day remained, if anything made worse by the onset of a suffocating humidity. Bronwyn takes off the peaked cap that had been shading her eyes and tucks it under her saddlebag, and unbuttons the front panel of her uniform jacket. She shakes her damp hair free, but there is little relief from the muggy atmosphere.
She rides to where Professor Wittenoom is unloading his wagon, with the aid of a few helpful soldiers, who seem vaguely and uncertainly overcautious of the mysterious cargo.
“Hello, your Highness,” he greets her, as he oversees the handling of a long, coffin-like crate. “I think I’ll be ready momentarily.”
“May I help?”
“Thank you, but the apparatus is really simplicity itself. We’ll be set up in two-thirds of a jiffy. You’re more than welcome to watch, however.”
Several of the professor’s devices have already been erected, she notices; a row of a half-dozen or more tall tripods upon which rest one end of a long black iron tube about six feet long. Beside each of these is an open crate. Among the excelsior she can just make out rows of short black cylinders, each two or three feet long, a nest of sinister-looking eggs.
The professor and his men carry their wooden crate to one end of the row, where they set it upon the ground. From it they remove the parts for another tripod. Bronwyn notices that the raised end of each of the black tubes is pointed in the direction of the palace. She dismounts and joins the professor.
“What are those?” she asks, pointing to one of the crates.
“Rockets, your Highness.”
“Rockets? You mean like fireworks?”
“Something like that, but vastly improved, as I hope you’ll soon see. You may have noticed the the elimination of heavy guide sticks.” She hadn’t, but when she looks she does see that the rockets lack both the conical cap and long wooden stick she would have normally expected. To her eyes, they look like nothing more than cast-iron pipes.
“Is everything ready?” the professor asks one of the soldiers, who has approached, saluting.
“Yes, sir. Ready for your order, sir.”
“Very good. Stand by. Well,” he says to the princess, “we’ll have to see if our good duke and his men are prepared. If so, then I see no reason why the attack cannot begin at once.”
“How are the rockets going to help? A distraction?”
“I certainly hope so!” chuckles the professor, with a knowingness that aggravates the princess.
The duke, they discover, is ready, game, if a little dubious The professor reaches into an inside pocket of his long coat and removes a miniature rocket, one that resembles more the fireworks with which the princess is familiar than it does the blunt cylinders still half-buried in their cushioning excelsior. Propping its stick against a brick, Wittenoom strikes a match and touches the flame to the rocket’s fuse. It sputters for a second, then vanishes with a hiss. Bronwyn follows its sparkling trail, which ends with a little flash and a pop.
That’s it?
she wonders. Almost immediately Bronwyn sees flares of light from the scores of tripods that are arrayed ahead of the massed army. Simultaneously from each there is a loud rushing, hissing sound, much like that of the little rocket, but greatly magnified, like a locomotive letting off steam.
Enormous plumes of sparks shoot into the sky, one from each of the iron tubes, at the aft end of which are brilliant orange jets of flame. These rise into the air at a prodigious speed, arcing high over the ramparts of the barricade. At the apex of their flight each rocket explodes with a sharp bang, releasing an intensely bright flare. Bronwyn can see that these are suspended in the air beneath little umbrellas.
These dazzlingly white lights illuminate the area below as though it were day. The princess can clearly see figures atop the barricade looking into the sky, shading their eyes against the sudden, unexpected glare.
As quickly as the first salvo of rockets has been launched, there follows another, then another. Simultaneously, there is a brassy blare from a trumpet; a complicated series of notes that Bronwyn does not recognize but rightly assumes is the signal to charge. There is a roaring shout from the army behind ber.
Meanwhile, the rockets not only keep up the illuminating flares but the professor now alternates them with other, seemingly more powerful missiles that fly in flatter trajectories; they shoot over the towers and fall onto the palace itself where they explode with startling violence, mixing smoky red billows with the actinic glare from overhead. The rocketeers lower their launching tubes a few inches and fire another salvo; this time the trails of sparkling fire trace almost flat lines, shooting nearly parallel with the ground at a speed that amaze the princess, until, the flaming lines converging, they hit the face of the barricade. The explosions occur almost simultaneously, blending into a single, prolonged roar. A sheet of orange and yellow flame erupts, among which Bronwyn can see massive chunks of rubble, sandbags, lumber and bodies, the latter spinning like little black cartwheels.
The rocket batteries repeat this performance once more before the charging soldiers reach the wall. Another half-dozen aerial flares reveal an enormous, ragged gap in the barricade, through which pour the duke’s men, like a flood from a breached dam. Now the princess can hear the rapid, staccato popping of guns.
The princess is absolutely dumbfounded.
The duke reins his horse in beside her.
“Are you ready?” he asks.
“Ready?”
“This is your war, remember. If you’re planning to join it, come on.”
The duke’s last words are almost lost to her as he spurs his horse and it leaps away; Bronwyn is right behind him before she even fully realizes what she is doing.
As though in a dream or nightmare, she sees the flaming rocket batteries rush past her, their operator’s faces as lurid as demons. Columns of men whip by, their flame-lit faces combined by her speed, blurred into long, pallid banners. Billows of acrid smoke sting her eyes and throat, the long pennants of flames as though she were in the midst of a hail of comets. High-pitched buzzes zip past, and her clothing is snatched and plucked at . . . bullets, a disinterested part of her brain calmly notes.
Her horse makes two breathtaking bounds, as though inspired by the rockets that still arch overhead, and then she is through the wreckage of the barricade. The sound of her horse’s hooves immediately change from the muffled thundering of the hard-packed earth outside to the metallic clatter of the plaza’s cobblestones. For a moment she allows her mount to circle as she lets her bearings catch up. She is barely aware of the milling throng around her, silhouetted like shadow puppets against the orange curtains of flame.
The noise is tremendous, a palpable, physical presence that has neither source nor direction; shouts, screams, the shrieks of wounded and dying horses, the banging of pistols and rifles, the whistling, whining and buzzing of bullets as they zing past her or ricochet from the cobblestoned plaza, the thundering explosions of the rockets, all stirred into a single overwhelming, consuming sound. There is nothing around her that looks familiar, either; all is flashing shadows, bursts of light and flame, confusion and movement.
A hand clutches at her boot and she kicks it away. She unconsciously pulls her saber from its left-hand saddle-mounted scabbard, and the next time a hand clutches at her she swings on it with the devastating blade.
As her horse pirouettes she catches sight of the central hall of the palace and digs her spurs into the animal’s flanks. The stairs and door are separated from the plaza by a tall iron fence and ornamental gate, which is closed. No one else has gotten further beyond the barricade, or this close to the palace, as Wittenoom’s rockets are falling everywhere like meteors. They explode with deafening
bangs
, showering her with sparks and débris. Pieces of iron and shattered cobbles sting her legs and face. Her bucking horse rolls its eyes with panic and it is as much as she can do to keep as in the saddle. She feels a sudden sharp sting on her cheek and nose, and when she touches her face her glove comes away bloody.
The gate is closed but, as has been mentioned and as the princess well knows, the fence is mostly ornamental,. Following it away from the battle, and, fortunately, beyond most of the falling rockets, she turns a corner at the end of the long building. She enters a kind of short, broad passage between the main palace and the Privy Council annex to her left. Ahead she can see the black rim that marks the edge of the island-bridge. Beyond is the dark skyline of the city. As she rounds the corner the sounds of the battle become muffled, echoing hollowly between the walls. At the end of the passage is a low parapet that overlooks the Slideen, invisible in the darkness and looking like a bottomless black gulf. To her right is a stone wall that connects the rear wall of the palace with the parapet. The wall is scarcely five feet high. Beyond, she knows, is a formal garden, built upon a semicircular projection of the island. Backing her horse to the far side of the alleyway, she spurs the beast and holds on for all that she is worth (which she of course knows is quite a lot). The brave animal, to the princess’ great relief, sails over the wall like a kite, landing in a colorful shower of dismembered flowers. Ahead, and about midway along the rear of the palace, is a raised patio and beyond that are tall glass doors. Her horse clambers up the broad steps to the patio, then bursts through the doors with one blow of its powerful hooves . . . reminding Bronwyn of a similarly dramatic entrance she had once made. Disappointingly, there is no one to witness the reprise.
She finds herself now in one of the vast ballrooms, dark and made even gloomier by the faint light that comes from the open doors opposite her.
She dismounts, her feet crunching on the broken glass that carpets the glossy parquet floors. She takes her saber and, from a holster mounted on her saddle, a fifty-caliber Minch-Moappa, her weapon of choice, or at least of habit.
She waits for a moment, but there is no response to her entrance, which must have been heard, she thinks, from one end of the palace to the other. Cautiously, she moves toward the lighted doorway. Beyond is an arcaded hall, glimmering like a petrified forest in the firefly candlelight. That same part of her brain that has been acting as a disinterested observer takes a moment to notice that the once-glamorous palace now looks tawdry and threadbare, plain and colorless. Can it have changed so much in just two years?
Her heart pounds like a triphammer, and trying to calm it makes her gasp for breath. Still, there has been no one at all. She makes for the broad staircase that curves up from one end of the hall. It leads to the apartments on the second floor; she takes the steps carefully and deliberately. The stairs deposit her on a mezzanine from which corridors extend to the left and right. She chooses the left one at random. She can hear the sounds of the fighting outside because she is closer to the front of the building now, or perhaps because the fighting is growing closer, or both. She does notice that the rocket bombardment has ceased and only the sporadic
pop pop pop
of gunfire and the clatter of swords remain.