Three Princes (24 page)

Bismarck asked about the search for orchids and perfumes, although the questions seemed automatic, as though he did not seem to care about the answers. He looked hard at Mabruke’s face as he talked, tapping the rim of his pewter mug on his mustache.

All he would say about his own presence in the Andes was that he was doing research.

“I do not understand why these plagued mountains attract people with research, Herr Graf, if you will forgive my saying!”

“Not at all, not at all. What led you and your professor up here?”

“We were having a lovely stay in Qusqo. Beautiful city, just beautiful. Gold everywhere you look. The professor here, he meets up with some fancy horticulturists.”

Oken interrupted himself to sip the Jägermeister. “Some beautiful women in those horticultural societies, Herr Graf, some very beautiful women!” The two men raised their mugs in salute to beautiful women.

Mabruke looked up from his plate, tilting his head as though curious about this. Oken repeated himself in Swahili. Mabruke nodded, lifted his mug, and sipped. Then he went back to his food.

Oken continued with this fantasy. “Next thing I know, I find myself riding on a sorry nag into the dreariest country. We started out with a native guide, fella by the name of Qusmi.” Oken leaned forward on his elbow, giving Bismarck the classic look of sharing an inebriated confidence. “Everyone says, Qusmi, this lad’s the best guide in Tawantinsuyu, they tell us. If anybody can find whatever weird botanicals my professor wants, this is our man. His name, Qusmi, it means ‘smoke,’ Herr Graf, did you know that? That’s the way he disappeared, in a puff of smoke!”

He made a gesture with his hands to back the word, and Mabruke, with a grin, echoed the gesture and went back to eating.

Oken laughed and picked up the story again. “Just the other night, don’t you know! Scared off by fireworks from some festival or something. Left us high and dry in the hills. Took those scrawny horses with him, too.” Oken gestured to Mabruke, who was busily spreading sweet, white butter on his eighth slice of black bread. “This one, he says to me—we don’t need a guide, my lad! We just follow our noses!”

Oken shook his head, warming to his imaginary tale. “I should have up and followed the smoke! He ran so fast, ain’t even asked for his pay. I knew trouble was coming.”

“These people are unreliable in many ways,” Bismarck said with a slight sneer. The alcohol had brought out his accent, although his gaze was as intense. “I do not know how they created such an empire in this difficult place.”

“You be wise to have your own lads about you, Herr Graf,” Oken said, raising his own mug in salute. “I will sleep soundly for the first night in too many, under your protection!”

Mabruke smiled amiably when the men raised their glasses to each other in salute, and picked up his own to join them.

Oken told him in swift Swahili slang to phrase a credible question about the conversation.

Mabruke asked in Nubian if the mention of Qusmi’s name meant that the graf knew of him?

“My professor, he wonders if you might know of this Qusmi fella?”

Bismarck shook his head. “I do not like these people, these Andeans.” His accent was thicker than before. “I am here only to be away from interference.” A curiously sly look touched his gray face. “My wife does not approve of my research. Here, no one complains of the noise.”

Oken raised his mug again to Bismarck. “Here’s to freedom from the complaints of women!”

Bismarck’s laughter was drunken yet genuine. Oken tapped the pewter mug once against his forehead before drinking to his own toast.

“AMBROSE! WHAT
am I going to do? They’ve all gone insane!” Princess Usqhullu flung herself against the tall, solid frame of Steven Ambrose LeBrun. LeBrun put his arms around her in an automatic gesture. Dawn pierced the windows of his bedroom with a soft, urgent light.

“What have they done now, my little princess?” he said kindly.

The fragrance of her hair, mingled with the sharp intoxication of sun-dried sweat and lingering perfume, woke him more keenly to the moment.

“Kuchillu has killed Father, and put Lucky in the Tower for it!”

Usqhullu quivered with rage and disbelief, then threw her head back and looked up into LeBrun’s face. “You know Lucky. You watched him grow up! You know he would never do that!” The adrenaline of shock woke LeBrun with a cold wash of reality. “The Inca has been killed?” He held tightly to the princess. “How is that possible!”

It was Usqhullu’s turn to draw back and look at him in surprise.

“You do not know?”

LeBrun released her and stood back a pace, his hands on her shoulders, looking seriously into her tearstained face. “Usqhullu, what has happened?”

Usqhullu was struck dumb with surprise, and the two of them gawked at each other. LeBrun recovered himself quickly and drew her against his chest once again. “Come. Sit down, my dear. You have clearly had a terrible shock. Calm yourself, then you can tell me what has happened.”

He guided her gently to his bed and sat down beside her. He took both her hands in one of his, and with the other brushed aside dark curls clinging to the tears on her face. “Let me get you a drink,”

he whispered. “It will calm you.”

She shook her head, taking his hand and pressing it to her cheek.

She inhaled deeply, drawing strength from his Egyptian calm, then smiled weakly at him. “Ambrose, you are the top Egyptian ambassador in this entire, bloody madhouse of an empire! If you have not been told, then—could it be that it is not true?”

“What is not true?”

“That Pachacuti killed father, and blamed it on Lucky!” “The Inca is dead?”

“Oh, I don’t know what to believe!” Usqhullu flung his hand away and stood with a swift, feral motion, pacing around the room with feline edginess. She began to wring her hands, then stopped with a deliberate shake, only to run her fingers anxiously through the masses of curls fallen loosely about her face.

“Talk to me. Tell me slowly,” LeBrun said to her evenly, patting the bed beside him. “Come sit here, and talk to me.”

Usqhullu stared at him from across the bedroom, her hands caught in her curls, astonishment making her dark eyes wide and round. “Ambrose! I was two days on horse back getting here. The Inca of Tawantinsuyu was assassinated three days ago, and you don’t know about it!”

Hysteria brought a cold and sudden stillness to her. “You don’t know about it.” Her voice had sunk to a whisper. She made the sign of the Holy Mother Tree, then sat beside him on the bed. Her beautiful hands lay helplessly in her lap.

He took her hands in his and pressed her fingers to his cheek.

“Your hands are like ice, my dear Wildcat,” he said. “I know how hot your blood runs. Only the truth could chill you so terribly.” He put his arms around her, drew her close to rock her back and forth, ever so gently, as he had when she was a little girl, crying over her brother’s cruelty. “Talk to me, my princess,” he whispered. The story tumbled out of her in frantic sentences, words piling up and interrupting themselves. She stopped herself, took a deep breath, and said, in one fast, steady rush, “Then two nights ago Pachacuti’s private guard stormed the manor, searching for the two Egyptian princes. Qusmi and I stalled the guardsmen as long as we could, while Runa got them safely off the grounds.” Tears spilled again as she went on. “When Mama was told why the troops were there, she screamed!”

Usqhullu squeezed her eyes shut and put her hands over her ears, as though to shut out the memory. “Oh, Ambrose. It was so horrible. Mama screamed and screamed, until her heart burst, her soul just flew out of her— and she dropped dead right there! His guardsmen took her body away. I could not make them tell me where they were taking her.”

LeBrun ran his hand once through his own thick, graying hair, shaking his head in disbelief. “Mikel Mabruke?”

She opened her eyes and lowered her hands. “He is such a beautiful man, Ambrose. The most wonderfully dark skin I ever saw on a human being.” She let her head drop back to his shoulder. “I was told Prince Mabruke would be traveling in Tawantinsuyu on rest leave.” LeBrun realized that the news brought to him by the princess had to be true. Pachacuti, the Inheritor, had apparently grown impatient waiting for his father to die of old age. Evaluations circulating secretly among the embassies recently had projected this as a possible scenario.

The involvement of Prince Mabruke and Lord Oken, however, had never been part of any scenario regarding Tawantinsuyu’s future course. “If Mikel Mabruke has had to get himself involved in this, then I am afraid we must believe that the Inca and the Queen Mother are dead. I have to stop a civil war.”

“No, Ambrose! Scott and Mik had nothing to do with it! Kuchillu killed Papa—I know it! You know it, too!”

LeBrun nodded solemnly, his face serious. “Of that I have no doubt, my princess. And he has had three days already to put his forces into place. I have to get birds into the air—quickly!”

AMBASSADOR LEBRUN
finished signing the last of the memos, rolled it up tightly, and pressed the wax sealer onto it, holding the silver handle long enough for the wax to cool. He handed it to the secretary waiting patiently beside the desk, with a stack of little memo scrolls on a silver tray.

“That should get things started, Clarence,” LeBrun said. “Once you have delivered these to the aviary, go directly to the hotel and request that the gentleman in the Etruscan Suite come to my office at his earliest convenience. Do this in person, Clarence. Speak to no one else of your purpose there. Take Cornelius with you, and have him remain there, so that he can accompany the gentleman and his men to my office. When you return to the embassy, report to me at once. I have a much longer report to dictate for Her Majesty.”

Clarence bowed and strode out. His rust-colored eyebrows were drawn down sharply in concern. The ambassador had rousted him out of breakfast with his wife, and nothing but a matter of the utmost gravity would have permitted such a discourtesy.

While hurrying through the halls of the embassy office building, Clarence reviewed LeBrun’s curt explanation for the unusual intrusion into the morning sunlight on their private balcony. Most disturbing of all, Clarence realized, was that the ambassador had dressed in haste. He wore no tie, no makeup, and his hair was mussed.

Clarence ran his fingers through his own tousled red curls and debated stopping at his quarters to make himself more presentable. The urgency of LeBrun’s words quelled that thought quickly. “The coup has struck, Clarence,” he had said, “the most severe scenario, beyond projections. Mabruke and Oken have been implicated. We have to get birds in the air.”

Most alarming, however, was the number of multiple avian messengers requested for contacting the embassy network, as well as the request for an escort of trained eagles. Birds of prey in this country were a constant threat, so copies were a regular part of quick messaging. The numbers today, as well as the escort request, implied the deliberate threat of trained predators, directed intentionally at the Egyptian birds.

When Clarence reached the aviary, he tapped gently with the knocker, a silver pigeon with half-opened wings. He waited, impatient despite knowing that entrance to the aviary required preparation. The birdmen insisted that their charges see no other humans in their territory, only their handlers.

When the door opened, he stepped briskly inside and bowed to the attendant, then broke pre cedent by speaking. “This is a crisis. Your birds may be deliberately hunted.” He gestured with the tray and its pile of message tubes. “You see by the numbers. They will need eagles with them as guard.”

The attendant was a young man, Charles-Anton, in apprenticeship. He had already achieved the detached, birdlike stillness that marked the birdmen guild. Clarence recalled him as a lively lad when he first arrived from the academy in Paris. At this news, a bit of that youthful energy emerged. He nodded, wide-eyed, and took the tray to the bin, sorting the little scrolls rapidly into the proper puff- tubes.

Clarence let himself out and hurried on to the entrance to the staff quarters to collect Cornelius. He realized that he would be repeating LeBrun’s interruption of the breakfast meal on the sunny balcony of Cornelius and Cornelia.

“That is what assistants are for,” he said to himself with a sigh.

OKEN PROWLED
the perimeter of their generously sized guest quarters, doing his best to look like a bored idiot pacing his room. This was not presented as house arrest, yet every instinct in Oken told him that it was.

His suspicions had awakened that morning when Bismarck did not join them to share their breakfast meal of fried sausages and onions, sauerkraut and freshly baked rolls with sweet butter and honey. Corporal Hintermann would say only that Herr Graf was dealing with a supplies issue, and looked forward to a hunting expedition with his guests when he returned.

“Hunting,” Oken had said in surprise. “What is there to hunt about here besides orchids?”

“Birds, mostly, mein herr,” Hintermann said. “Closer to the Urubamba River, there are several breeds that are quite tolerable eating.”

“What kind of gear?” Oken looked at Hintermann as if eager for details of equipage. “I’m pretty good with a bow and a throwing stick.”

“Herr Graf will bring what is required.” Hintermann poured tea with untoward concentration. “You might prefer, mein herr,” he said finally, “to be dressed for hiking, when the graf returns.”

“Good, good.” Oken picked up the cup of tea and inhaled the aromatic steam with a show of contentment. Mabruke echoed the gesture with his own cup, then nodded just enough to declare silently that he smelled nothing treacherous in Hintermann’s brew.

“I think I’ll take a walk while we wait for the graf to return,” Oken said then. He said that again in Nubian, and Mabruke nodded.

“I do think Herr Graf would prefer that you remain within the compound,” Hintermann said before withdrawing.

Oken had begun then to understand Mabruke’s dismay at being underground.

Mabruke was on the bunk, stretched out on his back, hands folded behind his head, pretending to meditate. Oken frowned at him as he paced by. Perhaps he really was meditating. Or napping. Guild rules: Water when you’ve got it. Nap when you’re safe.

There is no safety, Oken reminded himself. There was certainly no safety here. There was, however, an extraordinary bit of information: Graf Otto von Bismarck was shooting off rockets in the Andes mountains. Big rockets. Ones that exploded. The map in the common room had an ominous red circle drawn around Memphis, which was a rather large, weighty bit of information. Oken paced to keep from staggering beneath it.

His contemplation of their situation was interrupted by a brisk knock.

Mabruke sat up at once. His eyes were not the least bit sleepy.

Oken strode up to the door, then made himself stand calmly for two seconds. Never show haste to servants. When he opened the door, Bismarck’s aide was standing at parade rest.

“Hintermann, good afternoon!” Oken said amiably.

Hintermann bowed curtly, clicking his heels. “Herr Graf wishes to speak with you, gentlemen, regarding some black orchids. If you would care to join him in the workshop?”

Mabruke sat still, smiling, looking back and forth between them, waiting for Oken to translate.

Oken repeated this in Nubian, making his voice sound pleased.

Mabruke put on his jacket as he stood up, fastening it as he joined Oken at the door.

The entry to the workroom turned out to be one of the many locked doors along the corridor. Hintermann opened it with an iron key. There were many keys hanging from a chain on his belt. He stood back at attention, waiting for them to enter.

They went in, finding themselves on a landing before a brief staircase cut into the stone of the mountain. Oken was immediately reminded of the tunnel through which Runa had led them in their escape. This was clearly the same superb workmanship, the same furnishings and lamps. The golden braces that held the spinglass lamps looked as though they had been converted from torch holders, the stone behind each blackened with centuries of soot.

The door closed behind them and Oken turned, expecting further instructions from the corporal.

They were standing alone. Mabruke knelt, looking around carefully for signs of wires or lenses. He stood, and they descended the stairs. At the bottom, the corridor went in both directions, but only one was lit. They walked down this side by side. Mabruke pointed to the sculpture holding an empty censer dish. The little werecatinfant was crouching in fear of the smoke he held in his fist.

There was only one door, at the end of the corridor. A pair of guards stood at attention on either side. Oken felt sorry for them. The air in here was muggy, and their uniforms were leather and wool. Beads of sweat decorated their foreheads and dripped from their chins. The soldiers opened the door, standing aside to let them enter, closing it behind them with echoing finality.

They were in a large, round, underground workroom. Long stone tables were set in a cross pattern in the center, cut from the same stone as the floor. These were bare, and looked recently cleaned. Engineering toolboxes of brushed stainless steel lined one section of wall, rows of flat drawers with security locks. Despite the austerity, the scent of the courtyard’s burnt metal hung in the air. The only sound was the background whirr of ventilation fans.

The wall directly opposite had a glass panel covering the top third, showing a haeka-glass view of the platform in the courtyard. Bismarck stood beforethis view, hands clasped behind his back.

“Come in, gentlemen,” he said quietly, without turning around. “Stand with me.”

They did not dare look at each other. Haeka-glass meant they could see, and be seen. “You’ve got yourself a peaceful place to work, Herr Hraf,” Oken said, looking with interest at the haeka-glass view. “Isn’t that the way we came in?”

Bismarck nodded.

Mabruke let Oken lead. He also let Oken stand between himself and Bismarck. He folded his arms across his chest, tilting his head to smile at the glass. He tilted his head the other way, leaning toward Oken to ask pleasantly in Nubian, “What is he waiting to see?”

Oken turned to Bismarck with a smile. “The professor wants to know what we’re waiting to see?”

Bismarck did not move. “Wait.”

“How intriguing,” Oken said, working his smile despite the alarms set off by Bismarck’s tone of voice.

The three stood in silence for only a minute, no more. Bismarck’s soldiers came into view, marching in single file. They lined up on the right side of the barricade, standing at arms. Oken noted that they were in fancy dress uniform, embossed brass buttons, shoulder braid, and helmets with a spike on top.

The barricade rose.

Oken tensed, trying to see who stood outside the walls. The afternoon sunlight was harsh on the foreground of the soot-blackened courtyard.

Imperial Tawantinsuyu troops marched through the barricade, turning sharply to the raised walkway on the left and out of sight into the common room. Their armor was black,with red sacred letters. Black feathers adorned their helmets. Each had puma-painted faces, and black gauntlets with claws at the fingertips. One guardsman, taller and more elaborately armored, strode in behind them. The puma-paint on his face was red, and he carried a long sword in a sheath on his belt. His vicuña boots had puma faces. Three more rows of puma warriors marched in behind him, then more. Oken counted eighteen.

“Holy Hathor!” he heard himself exclaim out loud, with clear excitement. “You do have some fancy guests here, Herr Graf!”

Bismarck made a noncommittal noise.

Mabruke said in the patois of Yadir’s village that this was surprisingly similar to his father’s own Nubian guard.

For the first time, Bismarck inclined his head to look at Oken, clearly awaiting translation. Oken met those cold eyes with an easy smile. “Reminds him of his father, out on a big day.”

Bismarck held Oken’s eyes for what seemed endless hours. Then Bismarck made a deprecating smirk and turned back to the haekaglass.

Mabruke flicked Oken a look that told him to continue.

Before Oken could pull his nerves back from the chill in that iron-hard gaze, Bismarck said, “General Hukuchasatil will join us in a minute. You will kneel when he enters the room.”

“Dancing to the tune, Herr Graf!” Oken said pleasantly. He repeated that in Swahili to Mabruke. He would have smiled at the look on Mabruke’s face, were it not for the depth of the sinking sensation that assaulted his middle regions.

Guardsmen surrounded Hukuchasatil as he entered the workroom, then lined up around the perimeter. Two warriors stood directly in front of the door, blocking it.

Oken and Mabruke dropped to one knee as soon as the general crossed the threshold, resting their left arms across the upraised knee and bowing their heads. Both wondered if they would still have their heads attached when they left this room.

“These are your guests?” Hukuchasatil said as he stalked toward them.

Bismarck had not kneeled. “Scott Oken and Mikel Mabruke.”

“They wish to find black orchids here in our mountains?”

“So they claim,” Bismarck said.

Oken could not see Bismarck’s face, but the sneer in his voice was audible.

Hukuchasatil strode up in front of them. Oken found himself staring back at puma eyes snarling from his boot tips. “What is it you wish to know about black orchids?” The general’s Trade was stilted, almost halting. The arrogant hatred, however, was vividly clear in every syllable.

Mabruke muttered under his breath in Nubian, “Hold your cover.” Then he straightened his back, raising his head, and looked straight at General Hukuchasatil, “Black orchid is the code word for those loyal to Madam, and to Her Divine Destiny.” He spoke in clear Trade.

Oken made himself look up at Mabruke in feigned astonishment, as though he had never heard his professor speak in Trade.

“You did come here to spy on me!” Bismarck said angrily, taking a step toward the kneeling men. “She sent you here to spy on me!”

Mabruke turned his head only enough to look at Bismarck. “You have had too many failures, Herr Graf. Victoria does not approve of failure.”

Oken had a flare of admiration for Mabruke’s nerve, a brief hope that they might carry this off. That was abruptly dashed when Hukuchasatil slapped Mabruke across the face, hard enough to throw him to the ground.

“You are spies for the Pharaoh. This fool believed you. The Glorious One, Pachacuti Inca, is no fool.”

Every ounce of control was needed to keep Oken from jumping Hukuchasatil. Suicide, however, was banned by his contract with the guild. Mabruke did not get up. He signaled Oken to remain still.

“He may be telling the truth,” Bismarck said coldly. “Madam can be devious.”

“All women are devious,” Hukuchasatil said with an iciness that made even Bismarck step back. “You are a fool to take orders from a woman, Herr Graf, even a queen. The Glorious One, Pachacuti Inca, tolerates you because you wish to make an end of Egypt. If you cannot, the Glorious One may cease to tolerate you.”

Hukuchasatil ordered his guards in sharp Quechua to arrest the spies. Oken did not need to know the language to understand the intention.

Then Hukuchasatil spoke again, in clear, hard words directed to the men at his feet. “Pachacuti Inca, the Glorious One, will personally cut out your beating hearts, as offering to the ancestors you have offended.”