A Conspiracy of Kings (10 page)

“That doesn’t help me, does it? My long knife needs
to be polished and honed and its sheath oiled.” He looked sly
and pleased with himself. “We are to wear them to
dinner.”

I swallowed, my mouth dry. I had meant to be reunited with my
father. I had meant to whisper in his ear and then slip away to the
stables to meet him when he left. My father was the baron’s
guest, and though I knew that Hanaktos was a traitor, it had not
occurred to me that he could fail to honor the most basic law of
hospitality. Still, if Berrone’s brothers had been told to
wear their knives to dinner, I had to believe that my father might
not leave the dining hall alive.

“I—I can hone and oil it for you, master,” I
heard myself say.

“Can you? Have you done it before?”

“Yes, master.”

“Come along, then,” he said. He strode away without
another word to his sister, and I rose to follow him.

I
had expected the men to be in a private dining room
on couches, my father alone with the baron and his murderous sons,
but the household was eating at the long tables in the great room.
My father was there, with the men who had accompanied him. Most of
them I recognized; the rest I knew by their uniforms. They were
scattered in ones and twos down the length of the tables, with the
baron’s men on either side. None were at the head table, not
even my father, an insult so stunning I was surprised he had
tolerated it. He was flanked by two beefy guardsmen and looked
smaller than I had ever seen him.

The head table held only Baron Hanaktos and male members of his
household. His eldest son sat beside him, but the other sons were
at the lower tables. The baron’s insult would work against
him. As a mere houseboy I couldn’t have approached the head
table, but I could easily make my way to my father.

With an amphora under my arm, I moved from man to man along the
table, pouring out the wine. My father saw me drawing nearer, and
each time I came to his eye, he looked away with no sign of
recognition. I admired his self-control until I bent close and
said, just loud enough to be heard over the roar in the room,
“Baron Hanaktos means to kill you tonight.”

My father jumped as if I’d stuck him with a white-hot awl.
He had watched me filling wine cups all the way down the length of
the table without any idea who I was, and only by my voice did he
know me. He was swinging around to look up into my face.

“Hold still,” I hissed in his ear, and he froze,
either because of what I’d said or because he had succeeded
in turning enough to see me over his shoulder.

“The household is wearing knives,” I said. “I
will tell each of your men to be ready to fight when I drop my
amphora.”

I wasn’t sure he was listening. His face was growing
darker and darker. I’d seen him in a rage often enough to
know that the next words out of his mouth were going to be easily
audible over the roar of the room. Hastily I tipped the wine cup
onto the table, hoping that anyone looking just then might have
thought the spill preceded my father’s anger instead of
following it.

“Sorry! Sorry!” I said loudly, and leaned in close
enough as I wiped up the spill to snarl, “Hold your
tongue!” under my breath.

That was something I’d never imagined doing, even in my
freest flights of fancy, and my father was stunned silent. He sat
motionless while I first used the cloth I had over my arm to wipe
up the spill, then refilled the wine cup and pushed it into his
hand. He took it mechanically, still staring at me.

“Be ready when I drop the amphora,” I said, and
started to move on. His iron-hard grasp closed on my wrist, and I
almost despaired, but he only emptied his cup in a single gulp and
put it on the table to be refilled, his face blank. As I leaned to
fill the cup, I felt a weight drop into the pocket stitched to my
tunic.

Stepping back, I reached with my free hand and hunted for what
I’d felt. I knew it as soon as I touched it, his lion’s
head ring, to show his men in case they didn’t recognize me,
either.

Hastily I moved to the next man. I didn’t dare look toward
the head table, where the baron sat. I doubted that he had heard
anything of Timos’s story—there was no reason to
mention something as trivial as a houseboy’s fabricated story
to the head of the household—but I still didn’t want to
catch the baron’s eye. I moved on to the next man, and the
next. There were no ladies present. It wasn’t going to be an
event for ladies.

I bent to whisper into the ear of each of my father’s men
as I poured the wine, and showed them his ring, holding it in my
fist and opening my fingers briefly to allow them to see it. When
I’d worked my way around the table, I left the dining room.
My father’s small group of men had no chance against an
entire megaron. They needed to escape, and quickly. I left my
amphora in a niche and ran down the flight of shallow steps outside
the great room to the pronaos of the house, where the doors out to
the forecourt were standing open. No one took any notice of me as I
cut across to the narrow gate at the top of the ramp that led down
to the stables.

The baron liked his horses, and the stables were extensive.
There was a separate shed reserved for guests’ animals, and I
went there first to find a stable boy. “The baron’s
guests leave early. Bring the horses up.”

The stable boy was already nodding in compliance and getting to
his feet when someone behind me spoke.

“Since when did you become a houseboy, slave?”

I turned slowly. It was the soldier who had beaten Dirnes and
cost me the skin off my back.

He smiled unkindly. Unsure how to react, the stable boy looked
from one of us to the other. I was at a standstill. I
couldn’t bluff my way past the soldier, and I couldn’t
bully him as I had Timos. I could attack him, but I wouldn’t
win, and while we were fighting, the stable boy would run screaming
for help.

The soldier knew it, and his smile broadened.
“You’ll come with me to see the captain,” he
said, and nodded toward the open doorway of the stable. Swearing
under my breath, I walked as he indicated. As I passed outside, a
dark movement at the door frame caught my eye. I stopped abruptly
and said over my shoulder to the stable boy, “He’ll
find out about you soon enough.”

The soldier also stopped, as I’d hoped he would, and
turned back to the stable boy, who was protesting his innocence but
backing away nonetheless. The soldier grabbed him by the collar and
pulled him along through the doorway, where Ochto, his face
obscured by a piece of cloth, hit the soldier from behind and
dropped him like a sack of dirt. Dirnes, coming from the other
side, was naked to the waist and had his shirt in his hands. He
wrapped the boy’s head with it. There was a muffled cry, and
then Ochto dropped the stable boy as well.

“Did they see us?” Dirnes asked fearfully.

Ochto shook his head.

“Get his feet,” he said.

He and Dirnes carried the soldier into the feed room. I lifted
the lightweight stable boy on my own, even as I asked Ochto what in
the name of all that was sacred he thought he was doing.

“Helping you,” said Dirnes.

“Why?”

They put the soldier down, and Ochto straightened to look me in
the eye. “Because I know nothing about kings and princes, but
I know men.”

“Are you
mad
?” I asked.

Ochto shrugged. “In a few minutes I’ll have to go up
to the kitchens to tell the steward that you are missing.
I’ll tell him that when you didn’t come in for the
night, I suspected you had run off and sent Dirnes to see if
you’d been incapacitated at the abattoir. I’ll say I
followed him, and when we found nothing, we came back together. I
doubt the steward will pursue it.”

Indeed, he would not. I had forgotten that in order to report me
missing, the steward would first have to tell the baron that
he’d been keeping secrets for his daughter. “Tell
him”—I licked my lips—“tell him, least
said, soonest mended.”

“You’ll want to find another stable boy
quickly,” Ochto advised. Dirnes pulled his shirt back on and
nodded to me; then the two of them headed back down to the
barracks.

“Come with me!” I said after them.

They paused, even as I reconsidered. I might not live out the
night, and no one knew of their part in recent events. “If
you like,” I added lamely.

Dirnes waved farewell.

“You know where to find us,” said Ochto, and they
disappeared into the dark.

So, I found another hand in the stables and told him that the
horses were wanted, and then I made my way back up the forecourt of
the megaron and from there to the great room.

I’d collected my amphora, and I began pouring wine again.
When I reached my father, I told him of the horses and then
continued working my way along the table. I’d made it only
halfway when I looked up from a cup I was filling and saw Timos
standing in a doorway opposite. He stepped out of sight, but
he’d seen me, I was certain. There was nothing I could do
except continue on to the next of my father’s men, skipping
everyone between, and hoping none of the slighted drinkers called
me back.

I spoke to three more of my father’s soldiers, but they
were the last because Timos was waiting for me at the end of the
table. He’d gone to get help and was flanked by several husky
housemen. I dropped the amphora, hoping to touch off the fighting,
but to my consternation, one of the housemen caught it. He then
passed it to Timos, who held it tight. Strong hands gripped me and
began to heave me across the floor. I drew my breath to shout, but
someone covered my mouth. I tried to bite the hand that was
stifling me, but its owner just ground it harder against my mouth,
forcing my lips against my teeth. I dug in my heels and surged
against the men, sending all of us crashing into Timos. The men
holding my arms pulled me back again.

It takes more time to tell of it than to live through it. The
whole great room was frozen in surprise, but I knew that at any
moment the baron would recognize me or would signal his men to
attack, while my father’s men hesitated, waiting for their
signal, and Timos was still clutching the amphora to his chest like
his lost reputation. I threw myself forward again, trying to hit
him with my shoulder. Finally, he lifted the amphora high to keep
it safe, and I kicked him hard where it would hurt the most. The
amphora dropped.

It smashed on the tiles, and the room exploded. Benches tumbled
over, and men shouted. My father’s voice rose over the rest
as he shouted for his men to press for the forecourt. The hands
holding me weakened, and I struggled free. My father was soon
surrounded by his men and began forcing his way to the doors. There
were smaller fights all over the room, but the element of surprise
was no longer in the baron’s favor, and enough men knew that
the horses were waiting. They had a goal to reach instead of
standing their ground to fight to the death surrounded by
enemies.

A man came at me with a knife, and I punched him in the face
with the accumulated force of a thousand thousand shovels full of
dirt. His eyes rolled up as he slowly tipped backward. Poor Timos
was still crouched on the floor, and I stepped over him to grab the
shoulders of another man and throw him aside. Ahead of me was
someone I recognized, Hanaktos’s son Kimix. I called his
name, and when he looked up in surprise, I punched him, too.

By this time the fighting had spilled through the doors of the
great room and down the steps into the entryway of the megaron. I
hurried to catch up, dodging between knives and delivering a blow
or two when I could, but mostly just grabbing my opponents and
tossing them into each other in order to get past.

Outside of those at the dinner, no one seemed to have known of
the baron’s inhospitable plans. The guards in the forecourt
certainly didn’t know whom to fire upon. In all the
confusion, there was no organized attempt to stop us. My father and
I were side by side as we raced down the steps toward the waiting
horses. I snatched a set of reins from a startled stable hand and
scrambled into a saddle. The gates of the court were still standing
open. I turned my horse toward them as the baron himself appeared
on the porch above me. Our eyes met, and in the flickering light he
knew exactly who I was. He launched himself from the top of the
stairs and nearly knocked me from the saddle. Dropping to the
ground as the horse reared, he ruthlessly used the long knife he
carried to stab the animal in the belly. The horse screamed,
tottered on its back legs, and slammed to the ground. I rolled
away, struggled to my feet, and raced for the gates, Hanaktos not
far behind me. The gates were too far away, and there was no
sanctuary behind them anyway, so I turned to face the enraged baron
as he raised his knife in a brief moment of triumph.

My father rode him down. His horse’s shoulder sent the
baron flying, and my father’s hand was in mine before I was
aware of reaching for him, and then he was pulling me up behind
him. Arrows and crossbow bolts clattered on the stones around us as
we raced for the gates, and then we were safe in the darkness
beyond.

Trusting the horses to keep to the road, we rushed downhill. At
the bottom of the hill, the road divided, one part going on into
the town and the other circling outside it. We stopped there, to
listen for pursuit and gather our bearings. The darkness that had
hidden us from enemy fire was treacherous to us as well. The horse
was staggering under our weight, and my father leaned forward to
thump its shoulder in appreciation. The other riders stopped beside
us, their horses stamping and jostling. Several men bent to catch
up the reins of riderless animals, their owners lost to the
quarrels and arrows shot from the megaron or perhaps lost in the
megaron before my father’s men reached the courtyard. By ear
as much as by eye, I counted. Only ten of the fifteen men my father
had brought were with us.