TST (48 page)

Several minutes passed before he worked up the will to kick his boots off and there he lay staring up at the dark ceiling until sleep finally took him in its embrace.

*******

 General Baneford sat in his command tent coddling a bottle of strong spirits, something he found himself doing more and more often. The longer this tedious campaign continued, the more he sought solace by imbibing in the mind-numbing brew. The general was well into the dregs of his bottle when a sharp rapping sounded on the pole next to the tent flap.

“What?” the general bellowed.

A young, wiry rider stepped smartly into the tent and gave the inebriated general a sharp salute. The intoxicated Baneford threw up his hand and let it drop back to his side in return.

“Sir, I have a missive from His Grace, Duke Ulric,” the rider informed the general and handed over a folded sheet of paper sealed in wax bearing the duke’s crest.

General Baneford snatched the message out of the rider’s hand and dismissed him with a wave. He staggered over to the small field table and sat down heavily. The general used his dagger to break open the seal and began to read the contents through his bleary eyes.

General Baneford,

I am swiftly coming to the conclusion that the rather simple retrieval task I have set you upon may be beyond your ability to handle. While you and
my
men have been roaming seemingly aimlessly across the kingdom, others are busily making moves of their own and the king becomes more tightly ensconced on his throne. Your own reward hinges upon the successful completion of the mission I have set you on. For several years you have rode out with a large force of
my
cavalry and more often than not returned empty handed and with fewer men than you departed with! I have allowed you to wear
my
armor to facilitate your success but even with that help, you fail me and continue to lose more of
my
men. You have one last chance to prove to me that you are not completely inept before I replace you and have you digging the privy trenches. If I have not obtained that which I seek by the end of summer, you are finished! Return with my armor or do not return at all!

Your Lord and Master,

Duke Ulric Stanbury III

General Baneford read the scalding missive twice more before he set it down on his. He knew it was never wise to respond to such insults, particularly to your superiors, while in a rage or intoxicated. Doing so often resulted in saying things that you will likely regret whether you actually meant them or not. However, General Baneford’s anger served to burn off much of the effects of the liquor. He grabbed his quill, dipped it into the inkwell, and carefully and deliberately penned his response.

He would have to speak with his men after this and make plans. The general knew he could rely on the support of those with him. He was a good commander and well respected if not liked by the vast majority of the soldiers under him. The general would have to act fast and put together the finer details of his plan later.

For now, he just needed to set this first part in motion. He blotted and sanded the ink so it would dry then sealed it with his own mark. He then called for one of his most loyal men. His man stood at the position of attention a few minutes later while General Baneford gave him the letter addressed for Duke Ulric’s eyes only along with several verbal instructions. The soldier took the letter, put it in a waterproof tube, saluted, and departed camp immediately.

General Baneford sat back down as soon as the messenger left his tent. He imagined the duke’s response upon reading his reply and chuckled. Quietly to himself at first, but it quickly built to a loud belly-shaking bout of hysterical laughter. He looked at the liquid in his glass, saluted the empty air, and downed the remains.

****
EPILOG
****

The rider rode through the gates of Southport without slowing. The guards had no trouble making out General Baneford’s colors and made no attempt to stop him. He rode hard until he reached the stables where all of the duke’s cavalry horses were stabled. The lieutenant had strict orders from the general and hastened to ensure he carried them out.

“Remove the tack from this animal and prepare me a fresh mount!” the lieutenant barked at the stablehands that jumped up to meet the rider.

Lieutenant Desmonde strode into the barracks where he looked for the men that General Baneford told him to seek out. He found two of the officers playing cards and motioned them over where they could talk privately. After relaying the message from General Baneford, the two officers ran off in search of the other men on the general’s list and Lieutenant Desmonde headed for the duke’s treasury minister.

He found the minister in his office pouring over tally sheets and accounting slips, busily flicking the beads of an abacus and writing the sums in a thick ledger. When the minister finally looked up from his accounting book, lieutenant Desmonde handed the hawk nosed accountant the funds request signed and sealed by the general. The minister broke the wax seal and read the contents. His bushy grey eyebrows rose as he came to the sum requested.

“That is a rather substantial amount, Lieutenant,” the treasurer said.

“His Grace is anxious for the general to complete his mission and the general requires the funds to do so. His Grace was most adamant in his latest missive but if you wish to delay me, the general, and the duke even further with your dallying then let the duke’s wrath fall on your head,” Lieutenant Desmonde told the clerk and showed him the angry letter that the duke had written displaying his impatience.

The clerk looked over the second letter and made his decision. “Please wait here, I will get the gold the general requires.”

The clerk returned with two men carrying an ironbound chest. He opened the chest with a large key that he produced from the inside of his shirt and lifted the heavy lid. Lieutenant Desmonde could not hide his look of surprise at the amount of gold the chest contained.

The treasury minister began piling gold coins onto a large balance scale by the handful then set very precise weights on the other end until it balanced perfectly. The minister wrote the number down in his ledger, dumped the coins into a strong canvas sack, and then repeated the process several more times until he pronounced that the entire requested sum had been distributed.

The lieutenant signed for the withdrawal, and with four small but heavy sacks of gold tucked under his arm, returned to the stables where he found more than two score of men mounted and ready to depart. He distributed the gold between the two other officers before handing another sealed letter to one of the stablehands.

“You are to ensure that the duke himself gets this letter no sooner than one hour from now,” he ordered the groom. “If you cannot deliver it yourself then get one of the duke’s pages to bring it to him, but no one but the duke is allowed to read it. I have men watching you. If you try to deliver the message before an hour has expired, I have given them orders to kill you. Do you understand?”

The groom swallowed hard and nodded. The young man sat down nervously as the soldiers rode out into the night. The stablehand waited nearly two hours before he moved from his stool just to be certain that enough time had passed.

He walked slowly to the castle where a pair of guards stopped him at the large door that led inside. One of the guards called for a page and waited. Within moments, a young man came to the door where the groom gladly passed along the letter addressed to Duke Ulric.

The page sprinted down the corridor with the missive in hand until he came to a stop in front of the duke’s study. Taking a deep breath, he rapped loudly three times on the dark mahogany doors and waited for permission to enter. The page pulled down on the brightly polished brass door handle and walked in. Duke Ulric stood in front of a large stone fireplace burning brightly and filling the study with its warmth. Another man was standing nervously a few feet away.

“My Lord Duke, I have a message for you from General Baneford,” the page recited formally.

The duke motioned for the page to bring it to him then dismissed him with a wave of his hand. As soon as the page left and closed the door, Duke Ulric turned back the travel-worn man.

“Now explain to me exactly how you and your men bungled a simple kidnapping,” the duke demanded menacingly.

The bandit leader cleared his throat and shuffled his feet. “Everything was going exactly to plan, Your Grace. We disabled the coach and killed most of the guards within seconds, but then a wizard suddenly attacked my men and me. We tried to slay him as well but he was exceptionally powerful and killed nearly all of my men with magical lightning and hellfire,” the man answered nervously.

“Get out of my sight, you useless sack of excrement before I lose what little patience I have left and have you strung up and beaten to death!” the duke seethed.

The bandit leader made a hasty bow and fled from the room.

Duke Ulric hoped that the general was going to tell him that his mission was almost complete. He was in far too foul a mood to read anything else. He broke the wax seal and read its contents. The more he read the redder his face became. By the time he reached the end of the message, his hands shook and his eyes bulged in rage.

The guard raced down the hall in search of Lord Alton, the duke’s chamberlain. He pounded furiously on the chamberlain’s door until it opened.

“What is all this commotion?” Alton demanded.

“Milord, the duke is in a rage and we do not know what to do,” the guard stammered.

“What has happened?”

“I know not, milord. The duke received a missive and since then we have heard only screams of rage and destruction from within His Grace’s study,” the guard explained.

Alton lifted the hem of his robe and walked as swiftly as his old legs would carry him towards the duke’s study. As he drew near, he could hear the duke’s shouts of outrage and fury and the crashing of furniture. Lord Alton reached out tentatively for the door handle when the door suddenly swung inward with a crash. Duke Ulric stalked out cursing, tearing down tapestries, paintings, and kicking over planters as he unleashed his rage down the hallway.

The chamberlain crept into the study and gasped in shock as he beheld the level of destruction. Not a single book remained on the shelves. Several of the bookshelves themselves lay toppled onto the floor and lay on their face amidst the scattered books they once held.

The curtains and tapestries that decorated the walls were all torn down, paintings had been slashed and the furniture had been hacked apart with one of the decorative swords or axes that once hung on the walls but were now strewn about the destroyed study. Lord Alton saw a piece of parchment bearing a broken wax seal sticking out from under a pile of books and pulled it out. He quickly saw that it was a missive from General Baneford and was shocked at what he read.

Duke Ulric of Southport,

For fifteen years I have been your ever-loyal commander of forces. In that time I have carried out every command you have issued without failure or question no matter how dubious that order may have been.

For the past six years,
my
men and I have scoured the countryside on your orders so that you may ascend the throne and rule over all of Valaria. I have raided tombs, delved through caverns, and killed the king’s own guards to recover your precious armor so that you may usurp the king for his throne. I have watched many of
my
men die valiantly in the name of your cause yet all I have ever received from you was complaint after complaint for how long it was taking me to secure
your
throne.