Betrayal (14 page)

Forseth lifted his boot and stomped Berengar in the chest, knocking him to his back. He then kicked him twice more in the ribs. Berengar grunted and grit his teeth, taking the pain. Forseth stepped back. “I owed you that from earlier. Pick him up.”

The Elite Guard grabbed Berengar by his shoulders and pulled him to his feet.

“Even if you kill us,” Berengar said, “you will be paid back for your evil. Evil men do not suffer the men that know their secrets and commit their acts of treachery for long. They will cut you all down eventually to hide their deeds and forget their involvement in what you have done. None of them are here to witness it for that very reason.”

Forseth chuckled. “You want a king present for your fall. That can happen. Bring him in.”

A great commotion rose at one of the grand doors. A man was hauled in wearing chains. From their knees Berengar and Nisero could see the man with his white beard and hair. His clothing was in rags and dirt marked his face.

Nisero narrowed his eyes. “The King?”

Berengar started to rise to his feet, but the swords reappeared at the sides of his neck and he lowered back to his knees.

They dragged the King up before the throne, bound in his chains. They dumped him on the flagstone floor next to Nisero, Berengar, and Forseth.

“What have you done?” Berengar growled. “You said you took orders from the King.”

“I don’t believe I said the King actually,” Forseth said, “but to that point, I did take orders from the King, just not this old King. His replacement commands me now. He is the one that coordinated the fall of the old guard, the eastern prince, and this former king of the kingdom. With war brewing in the east, food shortages stirring up the kingdom, and order slowly collapsing, everything is going as planned.”

“Whose plan?” Berengar pressed. “Who did this?”

Forseth waved him off. “That’s not important to you. You two are old guard and should have been killed off long before now. We will remedy that finally. We coaxed you into the palace as planned. I didn’t think it would work, but here you are, just like he said. Now, we orchestrate the assassination of the old King by the hands of those that killed the prince and then the new King can take his place, bringing order to the kingdom and expanding east to boot.”

Nisero looked down at the King who appeared to be unconscious on the floor. “How could you be a party to this?”

“Kingdoms are overthrown all throughout history. You can either be part of the old kingdom or the new kingdom when that transition happens.”

“Is that what your new King told you?”

“It is, in fact,” Forseth said. “Unchain the old King and dress him in his fine robes for his assassination.”

The mercenaries laughed as they dragged the man up by his chains. The King’s eyelids fluttered as the shackles were unlocked from his wrists and ankles. His left wrist in particular bore open sores. He had a dark cut on his right palm. Around all the other joints, the King’s skin was creased in painful, purple lines marking the edges of the cuffs. The flesh on either side of the exposed skin was puffy and pale.

It did not escape Nisero that they themselves had brought in more than a few criminals to be chained away in this manner. Were the situation different, the King himself would have had them locked away for the remainder of their lives. It still stung to see the King treated this way.

“Where have you been keeping him?” he asked.

“I’ve been out looking for you two. Little did I know that you would come find me – twice now, it seems,” Forseth said amicably. “The King’s cousin has had him up in the towers. That’s where you keep royal prisoner’s after all, isn’t it?”

“The King’s cousin.” Berengar looked up from his knees. “Which cousin?”

“I am terrible at keeping secrets.” Forseth shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”

“His own family turned on him?”

Forseth paced in front of his prisoners. “The cousin reached out to willing nobles from exile or perhaps they used him to move on the throne and consolidate their power. The workings of royal politics are complicated and sometime incestuous. It is best to just pick the winning horse and place your wager where you can. Mine paid off. Your old horse is headed to the slaughter.”

“Cousin in exile?” Berengar narrowed his eyes, thinking hard. “Marlex?”

Forseth tapped his foot on the ground, getting impatient. “Let’s get him set up so that we can pose this assassination. This is worse than having both my nagging grandmothers present while I’m trying to work.”

As the mercenaries released the King’s shoulders after rattling the chains aside, the King toppled forward to his face and knees. It looked as if he were bowing to his captors instead of collapsing from exhaustion.

One of them shoved the King’s hip with his boot, pushing him over onto his side so that he looked to be curled up like a baby. Berengar growled in the back of his throat, but did not make a motion with the swords at the sides of his neck.

“Don’t bruise him any further,” Forseth ordered. “It is supposed to appear that he was still upon the throne ruling and feasting while the people starved and their sons were sent to war. Until these two entered to continue there reign of murder and terror on the kingdom.”

“Then Cousin Marlex steps in to take the crown to be the hero,” Berengar finished for him.

“We’ll be at war,” Forseth said. “Most will just be happy to have anyone upon the throne. If it is any consolation, history will likely mark you as the slayer of a tyrant. King Marlex rose from exile after the fall of the hated King that put him there, in order to save the kingdom that he always loved. Some will view you as heroes even though we will paint you as heartless criminals that plunged the kingdom into a costly war, one that only King Marlex could save us from. History is complicated too because of the politics, I suppose.”

Berengar showed his teeth. “Marlex is not fit to lick the boots of King Ramael.”

Nisero saw hands go to swords’ hilts around the room and the air grew as tense as the drawn strings of the bows in the balconies above them. Forseth waved his hand. “Rest easy, boys. We will have plenty of time to make them pay for their disrespect once the tyrant is slain. I’m just glad the true King was not here to hear such awful curses. Dress him in his finest robes. We need to get on with killing the King… long live the King,” he laughed.

The men laughed with him and hustled King Ramael up to his feet. They stripped off his rags and threw them aside leaving him standing naked. They laid out the robes, belts, cape, and lastly the crown itself sitting on the floor next to the chains.

“Where are his boots?” Forseth demanded.

The men looked around. One of them said, “I can go up to his chambers. Find a pair.”

“One of you, take off your boots and put them on the King’s feet. We can’t have him found slain barefoot in the throne room and expect there to not be questions we can’t answer.”

“Why don’t we take one of the prisoners’ boots, sir?”

Berengar rolled his eyes. “Because when they come in and find our bodies slain after supposedly killing the King, they’ll question why one of the assassins entered the palace barefoot.”

Forseth stared up at the high ceiling in exasperation. “Exactly. Just give him boots, so that we can kill him.”

One of the mercenaries began unlacing his leather footwear.

“Are you going to pretend the King was out hunting?” Berengar smirked at Forseth.

“What?”

“The mercenaries wear boots for creeping around the woods. It won’t look believable,” Berengar explained.

Forseth breathed out between clenched teeth. “Why are you helping?”

“To demonstrate how unprepared you are for all of this, and knowing that even if you get all the details right, this will still fall apart around you after we are gone.”

Forseth motioned to the surviving members of the Elite Guard behind Berengar and Nisero. “One of you, give up your boots already.”

One of the men took his sword away from Berengar’s neck and set it on the floor. He pulled off his boots and tossed them over in front of the King.

The mercenaries pulled the boots on the naked King first. Then, they struggled to get the pants over. As they belted the pants and tucked them into the boots, two men pulled the shirt over his head.

“Straighten his beard and hair a little,” Forseth suggested.

“Do you want us to bathe him?” one asked.

“No, just smooth his hair down a little. We’ll splatter the blood and then no one will notice the dirt.”

“You are a sick, evil man, Forseth,” Nisero snarled. “I’m sorry to have ever known you.”

“I should have left you both to die in the mountains under the sword of Solag.”

Nisero looked away. “You would have lost your command long ago without my guidance.”

Forseth drew his sword. “Finish dressing the King. I want to kill these two myself once the deed is done.”

As more of the Elite Guard gathered the robes and crown, the mercenaries tucked the King’s shirt and smoothed down his beard.

Berengar turned his head. He made eye contact with Nisero and then looked upon the King. “Your majesty, can you run?”

The King’s eyes blinked and he turned his attention on Berengar, but did not speak. All the men in the room froze in place. They held robes, capes, and a crown. Some of them turned their eyes to Forseth, looking for guidance.

“What are you doing?” Forseth snickered.

“I’m asking the King,” Berengar replied, “if he is well enough to run. Once I kill you and we make our escape.”

“You are a fool.”

Berengar kept his eyes on the King. The King gave a slight nod.

Captain Berengar sprung into action.

Berengar faded away from the sword that was still at his neck. Still, he took a slice across his cheek that opened and bled, and would likely create a new scar as a companion to the old one on the other cheek.

Forseth was surprised, but already had his sword drawn. Instead of unsheathing his own, Berengar snatched up the sword left on the ground by the Elite Guardsman that had given up his boots.

Captain Berengar came up and around in full swing. Forseth managed to brace his blade to parry, but Berengar still overwhelmed Captain Forseth and slashed across his chest at the level of his collar bones. The top of his shirt folded away and began absorbing the blood.

Forseth let out a strangled gag and staggered into the unoccupied chairs at the banquet tables. As they spilled heavy to the floor with echoing crashes, Berengar charged, leaving Nisero to believe that Berengar was more bent on vengeance than actually saving the King.

The terror in Forseth’s eyes read that he saw the same intent. Forseth lost the grip on his sword and rolled underneath the table, knocking over the chairs on the other side as he retreated. He hit his head on the solid underside of the table, making plates and empty glasses jump above.

Arrows stabbed into the table top from the balconies in both directions. One broke through the center of a plate, planting into the table and quartering the platter into jagged pieces. Another pierced a tilted chair just shy of Forseth’s own skull.

Forseth scrambled along the floor between tables toward the great doors. “Take them! Not me, you fools!”

Berengar tipped the table spilling the crockery, crystal, and flatware onto the flagstones with an ear piercing rain of crashes. He dropped behind the table as arrows slammed into both the top and the underside.

While Berengar had pursued Forseth, the Elite Guardsman whom Nisero had commanded and fought with for years stared in shock at Captain Berengar’s blood running down the edge of his blade.

Nisero dropped his hand to the hilt of his sword while still on his knees. Part of him hoped that this man might find his honor again and join Berengar and Nisero in saving the King from Forseth, the mercenaries, and the dark men that had sided with Marlex against the rightful ruler of the kingdom.

As the man lifted his sword and took a step toward the action, Nisero still hoped the target was Forseth and not Berengar. By the time Forseth was scurrying away from the action, leaving dribbles of blood from his wounded chest, the guardsman was still bearing down. Nisero knew that his hope was misplaced.

An arrow zipped past Nisero’s eyes close enough that the feathered tail scratched the bridge of his nose. The bolt skipped across the floor into the corner of the throne room.

The lieutenant sprung into action. He drew his sword as Berengar overturned the table which masked the sound of his blade and swallowed all other noise in the room. The man was focused on Berengar as Nisero charged from the side.

As the arrows struck the overturned table, Nisero swung into the side of the treacherous guardsman’s head. He felt the rage in his own slash, feeling all the frustration and anger flow out through his arms gripping his sword. The blade opened the guardsman’s smile up to his ear on one side of his head. More than the cut, the force of the blow spun the man twice before he dropped to his knees, facing Nisero.

The guardsman dropped his sword and lifted his hands. Nisero read fear on the man’s damaged face, but also maybe regret and guilt. He considered forgiveness.

Another arrow whizzed past Nisero’s ear close enough for him to hear it cut the air. It drove into the chest of the guardsman on his knees. The man folded into the force of the arrow and crumpled to the floor.

Berengar pushed the overturned table across the room, knocking over other chairs and tables with a crash. Men backed away to avoid being smashed by the falling furniture. Arrows skipped off the edge of Berengar’s battering ram.

Nisero ducked in beside the captain and helped him shove the table toward the men holding the King. The ones that failed to back away were plowed over. Nisero heard leg bones snap before they began to scream.

Nisero grabbed the King and pulled him behind the cover of the table.

Two mercenaries raised their swords and approached. They stepped over their comrades on the floor who were clutching their twisted limbs.

Berengar came up with a broadsword in each hand and stabbed into the guts of both men underneath their swings. The captain had yet to draw his own sword. Nisero saw that one was the guardsman’s sword Berengar picked up earlier and the other was Forseth’s discarded weapon. Instead of withdrawing the blades, Berengar used the swords to lever the men and swing them out, one each on both sides of him. Arrows intended for Berengar pelted into the backs of the impaled mercenaries.

A barefoot guardsman grabbed up a sword on the floor from one of the broken mercenaries. He swung in at Nisero. The lieutenant squared himself in front of the King and brought his sword up to block the blow. The guardsman drove forward and twisted his blade against Nisero’s hilt guard, pushing Nisero to the side.

Nisero stomped the heel of his boot down on the man’s exposed toes. As the man screamed, Nisero rolled his elbow out and forward into the guardsman’s nose. As blood exploded around the man’s face from the impact, he staggered back.

Berengar shoved the mercenaries away, leaving the swords in their guts. “Let’s go. Turn the table so the exposed side is to the wall. We’ll go out the way we came. Can you manage, my King?”

“I can.”

Berengar, Nisero, and even the King seized the legs of the table and twisted it toward the wall. They pushed sideways toward the corner, past the throne and toward the drapery leading to the kitchen entrance. Mercenaries scattered out of their path. Arrows battered the top turned out toward the hall.

“Keep your head down below the edge!” Nisero shouted.

“Be careful!” Berengar yelled. “We’re getting close to the wall.”

They slammed into the corner with jarring force. The table wedged into the corner over the drapery. Nisero stumbled down to his knees and the King went to his side. Nisero felt the impact in his bones and his head ached.

Berengar took the King by the shoulders and wrestled him to his feet without much grace. The King’s feet shuffled under him, making Nisero think that the boots might not be the right size.

Mercenaries and surviving Elite Guardsmen regained their feet and their weapons, charging the trio’s position.

“We need to go, your majesty,” Berengar advised.

“I can make it,” he replied.

Berengar swept aside the drape and led the King through. Arrows bounced off the stone of the wall to the side of the opening and on the floor in front of the barrier of the table. Nisero surmised that the angle did not serve the archers above, but he was not interested in waiting for them to adjust their aim.

Berengar led them down the narrow stairs into the darkness behind the throne room. “Stay close between us, your majesty.”

Nisero took up the rear, running as quickly as the men in front of him would allow. He glanced over his shoulder repeatedly, watching for the attackers to leap over the table and follow.

As they approached the light, a man stepped into their path bearing a cauldron of soup in his meaty hands. His face went as white as his dirty apron when he saw Berengar barreling down at him out of the darkness.

“Has the feast been delayed, sir?”

Berengar heaved the cauldron over in the air with one hand, washing a wave of boiling broth out. Other servants scattered back into the kitchen ahead of the wash. The large servant let go of the pot and let it bounce with a gong-like ring off the stone. Berengar shoved the man out of the way, tracking through the soup.

“If any of you still hold loyalty for the true King,” Berengar urged, “take up every sharp object and stall the men chasing behind us.”

Berengar charged up the next set of steps without waiting for an answer. The King followed with his fingers clawing at the wall on both sides, struggling to keep his balance and to keep up. Nisero did not hold up much hope that the kitchen servants were prepared to take up arms to defend the King in battle. They stared in wide eyed shock. Nisero left them and ran up the dark stairs in the narrow pass behind the King.

They emerged in a wider passage and Berengar led them toward the stairs that would take them back up to the bedroom and their escape rope. As they reached the torch light, men armed with spears and swords flooded the hall from the direction of the throne room, blocking off the stairs and their intended line of escape.

“Hold there! Drop your arms and surrender!”

Berengar cursed.

The King pulled Berengar to the side. “This way.”

The trio fled down a dark corridor and around the corner onto the perimeter of the palace. They looked out barred and double paned windows overlooking the gardens. Nisero and Berengar had to climb past them on their way in.

The sound of warriors charging into the passage behind echoed off the walls.

“We need to get out of the palace, your majesty,” Berengar prompted. “They probably have the main doors. We have a rope on the top levels.”

“We don’t need to go up.” The King heaved for breath. “We need to go under.”

He opened a door and led the men in before closing it and turning the lock. Nisero saw a library with a broad mouthed hearth and shelves of books and scrolls. A mural showing the kingdom was etched high on the stone of the wall. He thought the kingdom’s borders were bigger than what this map showed, so he was not sure how old the carving might be.

What he did not see was an exit.

Berengar began shoving furniture in front of the door.

“Don’t bother,” the King said. “I could have been out long ago, if I had not been caught unaware before I could get to one of these rooms.”

“Your majesty?” Berengar turned as he slid another sofa into the door.

The King twisted one of the small busts on the shelf until it clicked and then he pushed. “Help me. I’m not myself yet.”

Nisero joined in pushing the shelf and Berengar fell in on the other side as the shelf slid back into the wall. It opened onto another dark passage with stairs leading down, more narrow than the servant entrances from the kitchens.

They entered and the King waved back. “Close it until you hear it lock in place.”

Berengar and Nisero obeyed, sliding the shelf back over the opening from behind. The light vanished, plunging them into darkness. They continued to push the shelf back in flush until they heard the pop. They heard voices shouting from through the wall but could not tell from what room they arose.

Out of the dark, three sparks popped followed by the flare of a lantern. The shallow light filled the narrow space. The King lifted the lantern casting a ghostly glow over his sallow face. His wild beard did not seem fitting of royalty at all. “Let’s be away. Your courage in lifting me from the hands of traitors and the jaws of death will not be wasted.”

The King negotiated down the stairs spiraling into the stone with the captain and the lieutenant close behind. The walls went from block to pebbled stone to carved bedrock. The air cooled noticeably and the lantern flickered like the flame was struggling to find air to burn.

They left the stairs and followed a rounded tunnel that appeared to be carved out of the solid rock below the palace. They passed a few spots where moisture seeped from cracks in the curve of the rock wall and ceiling. The smooth stone under them was slippery when wet.

The King’s voice echoed back with a little more strength than previously. “Captain Berengar, if I bring us up outside the palace, do you have a way to get us out of the city?”

“We dug in under the garden wall on the parade ground side. We can find a way out from there.”

“This tunnel will take us to the cellar of an apothecary. We will be able to slip past him to the streets outside unnoticed. I would not recommend trying to stay hidden among his barrels of herbs. We will be a few avenues away from the palace grounds. Do you have options from there, gentlemen?”

“We have a place where we can hide temporarily,” Berengar said. “I don’t believe they are aware we were there. We’ll figure out how to get out of the city just like we figured out how to get in.”

The King sighed. “I am thankful to still be alive and now free again. I had not expected to be and had not planned to be. Though I have no good idea for staying that way.”

“Yes, your majesty.”

Nisero dared to speak. “We have had some practice operating under those conditions, your majesty. Maybe we shall be able to hold out long enough to see justice returned to the land.”

The King nodded, showing only a hint of his profile. “Such are the conditions for becoming legends. I would have been satisfied to have a quiet reign with a short history in the chronicles of the kings.”

“Yes, sir,” Berengar said.

The King paused and leaned on the curve of the wall. “Could one of you carry the lantern? We are getting close, but I am spent from my ordeal, I’m afraid.”

The lantern shook in his grasp and Captain Berengar took it from him. “Sir, do you need one of us to carry you?”