Читать книгу Killingford - Robert Reginald - Страница 7

CHAPTER ONE

“HE WANTS US TO FEEL FEAR”

Anno Domini 1205

Anno Juliani 845

During the early Spring the preparations for the expedition moved forward rapidly. By mid-April, the first contingents of troops were already gathering at Katonaí Field west of Paltyrrha, and on the Feast of Saint Zênôn, King Kipriyán decided to conduct a formal review of the soldiers who had assembled there. An official inspection was ordered for the first part of the morning, at tritê.

An hour before that time, General Lord Feognóst was in a state of unrestrained panic. Thousands of men were milling about on the muddy plain, trying to find their positions. Horses were still being saddled, draft animals had yet to be harnessed, several heavy supply wagons had tipped over, and all was in chaos.

“Get those men in order,” the general shouted at Commander Reményi.

His voice was hoarse.

“And you!” he yelled, turning to the cowering fig­ure of Commander Rónai, “get those bloody beasts back under control.”

Slowly but certainly, the impossible was accom­plished, and the conscripts began to form in orderly ranks, company by company. The few mounts that absolutely wouldn’t cooperate were taken back to the stables, but most were restrained and suitably decked out for parade. Their riders stood stiffly at attention beside their brushed and cur­ried steeds, sweaty and uncomfortable in black leather boots polished to a “fare-thee-well” and bright new dress uniforms that designated, by color and cut, each person’s rank and place.

They were as ready as they were going to be when the king and his sons finally appeared, riding out glori­ously, streamers flying, from Saint Ignatios’s Gate. Kipriyán paused for a moment to look out over the field, his good eye squinting against the sun.

Then he cleared his voice, and loudly intoned: “Very impressive, general. Kudos to you all.”

And he saluted them in grand style.

“Huzzah!” came the general cry, as five thousand men responded as one. “Axios!” they cried. “He is wor­thy! Long live King Kipriyán!”

Then the great monarch, resplendent in his finest military armor, neatly dismounted into the sea of mud that stretched before him, and with his boots squelching, slowly made his way through the ranks, commenting to this man and that on his fine appearance. Finally, he came to the head of the file, saluted the general, and offered his con­gratulations on a job well done.

Lord Feognóst smiled with pride, and bowed in ac­knowledgment, jauntily returning the king’s salute. Then he unsheathed his sword, and carefully placing it hilt-down into the wet ground, abruptly fell on the sharp blade, killing himself almost instantly.

A moment of wretched silence settled over the sol­diers of Katonaí Field as the lifeless body of their com­mander slowly toppled sideways into the mud. Feognóst’s final grin was still frozen on his face.

“Nooo!” shouted the king, leaning over the bloody corpse.

Prince Arkády leaped from his mount and pulled his father back from the gruesome scene.

“Nicky,” he ordered his brother, “take the king back to Paltyrrha.”

Then to the assembled troops, he shouted: “Who’s second in command here?”

“I am, sir,” a shaken Rónai said.

The officer stepped forward and saluted.

“Dismiss the assembly,” the prince commanded, “and sequester the body. I want a death-probe done at once. You’re temporarily promoted to general, subject to confirmation by the king.”

“Yes, Highness,” the soldier said, promptly turning to his junior officers.

An hour later, Arkády received a report from Fra Jánisar Cantárian, the king’s physician, stating that the victim’s mind had been wiped almost completely clean, that there was only the hint of a compulsion, although one had certainly been in force, and that Jánisar could not tell the prince how the deed was done or who had done it.

“That’s not a great deal of help, Ján...,” Arkády began, as he finished reading the doctor’s statement.

“Well, sir, it wasn’t intended to be,” Cantárian said, throwing up his hands in resignation. “Although I’ve certainly tried, I have to admit that this is beyond my abilities. You need very specialized help to scry this kind of magic.”

“Can’t you even venture a guess?” the prince said.

“Only this,” Jánisar said, “that it comes some­where from the east. Out beyond Byzantion, I’d say. That’s speculation, of course, but I think it’s a reasonable one. Although nothing about this business seems at all rea­sonable to me. I also think someone’s mixing magical traditions, which you’re not supposed to be able to do, but there it is.”

“So how do we combat these attacks?” Arkády asked.

The doctor shook his head.

“I wish I knew, Highness. Kill the one responsible, I’d say, although how you find him and how you do the deed are other matters entirely. My only real advice is the obvious one: be careful. Be extraordinarily careful. Your usual defenses won’t work here. You’re better off to em­ploy cold, hard steel. And I’ll offer another guess for you, too: whoever’s doing this will keep on killing over and over again until he’s stopped. He enjoys it now.”

Arkády rubbed his bearded jaw in weariness.

“Who do you think he is?” the prince asked.

Jánisar snorted.

“He could be anybody at court,” the physician said. “He has to have been present often enough to know the people here, to understand their habits and patterns and the routine of court life, and to gain access to them in some in­timate way. This is no outsider, I think. This is one of our own, milord.”

“God’s teeth!” Arkády said. “And here I’ve been thinking that this monster was some fiend from Hell trying to claw his way into....”

“Well, sir,” the physician said, “I very much doubt it. To me everything points to someone with a grudge, somebody who’s been holding a grievance inside for a very long time.

“Just look at what’s been happening,” he con­tinued. “One by one this individual has been attacking dif­ferent members of the government, none of them key per­sons in and of themselves, but each building upon the oth­ers. He wants us to feel fear. He feeds on that fear. He laps it up like a catamount slurping blood. It’s that feeling, that sick feeling, of somebody always watching us, that re­ally spooks me, and makes me think that catching this killer and putting an end to his madness will be a very difficult task indeed. On the surface he’ll look completely normal, just like anyone else. Underneath, of course, he’s mon­strous, but you’ll never know that. Until he makes a mis­take, of course. I just hope there are still some of us left then....”

“What do you mean?” the prince asked.

“I repeat what I said earlier,” the physician said. “This one won’t stop, not ever, until he’s physically or mentally destroyed by one of us. He has a plan that he in­tends to fulfill, a scheme that none of us understands yet, and until we do, until we put ourselves into his mind and comprehend what motivates him, we won’t be able to find him, unless he’s a lot less adept than I think he is. To my mind, this is the worse threat the kingdom has ever faced, worse by far than the Nörrlanders or the Walküri or even”—he laughed—“the Dark-Haired Man.”

Arkády questioned Jánisar for a bit longer, but there was nothing more to be gained from the conversation, and each man had important tasks yet to be accomplished. As he hurried back to the city, the prince wondered in his own mind where this investigation would eventually lead before the great wheel of fate turned turtle once again, throwing them all into another cycle. Perhaps, he mused, it was best not to worry overmuch about such matters. There was an old saying among the commonfolk that fit the situation well:

“Man proposes, but God disposes.”