Swords: 06 - The Third Book of Lost Swords - Stonecutter's Story (22 page)

      
“Why,” replied one of the unhappier officials reluctantly following the Magistrate, “we are seeking the Sword.” The bitter sarcasm in the words was of course directed at Wen Chang. “And I suppose this, in our leader’s estimation, is the very place where we are going to find it.” Then the speaker fell silent, seeing a hard-to-interpret expression pass over the High Priest’s face.

      
Theodore was never the man to adopt a meekly defensive attitude. “By following that man you will never find the Sword,” he taunted, putting on his utmost confidence. He sneered openly at Wen Chang.

      
“I look into your eyes, unhappy Theodore,” pronounced the Magistrate in turn, his face contorted in his most theatrical squint, “and I am persuaded that you lie!”

      
And on the last word Wen Chang pounced forward, with the speed of a striking predatory animal, to seize the High Priest. The victim was so taken by surprise by this direct assault that he made no attempt to dodge until it was too late; and so astounded were his bodyguards that they failed to move to their master’s defense in time to prevent his being seized.

      
A second later the Blue Temple men were galvanized into action. But one of them was met by Prince al-Farabi, and the other tripped up by Lieutenant Komi, who reached ashore to thrust a sheathed sword between the guard’s legs and send him sprawling. Meanwhile the Prince, displaying an impressive speed of thought and hand, as well as considerable strength, had knocked down the other bodyguard and stood over him with drawn blade.

      
Theodore, the High Priest of the Blue Temple, was a strong man too, stronger than he looked. And his training in the arts of personal combat had not been entirely neglected. But neither of those attributes were of any real service to him now. Wen Chang, displaying a master’s skill and a wiry strength that few would have suspected from his appearance, needed only a moment in which to overpower the High Priest once they had come to grips.

      
From under Theodore’s long blue cape there fell out the Sword of Siege, still sheathed, to land with a muffled metallic sound upon the worn planks of the dock.

      
The onlookers gaped at it.

      
Such was the unexpected suddenness with which the Sword had been made to appear that for a moment even Kasimir could almost believe that Wen Chang had produced it through some trick of sleight of hand. But that was manifestly impossible. There was no conceivable way the Magistrate could have concealed such a weapon on his person before his confrontation with Theodore, and no way he could have pulled it out of the bare planks of the dock. The only place the Sword could possibly have come from was under Theodore’s voluminous cape.

      
An instant after the Sword appeared, the Prince cast aside the more ordinary weapon with which he had been menacing the fallen bodyguard, and pounced upon his treasure. With a great cry of joy he unsheathed Stonecutter, and held up the gleaming blade for all to see.

      
The High Priest, caught red-handed with another’s treasure, refused to blush or even to look uncomfortable. In the space of time needed to draw a full breath he was protesting at the top of his voice the high-handed treatment to which he had been subjected. He announced that all present were witnesses to his perfect innocence in the face of false accusations—though no accusations, true or false, had yet been voiced.

      
This was not a good audience for anyone to attempt to deceive with the technique of the big lie. All present were looking at Theodore with guarded expressions, and Kasimir was quite sure that not one of his audience believed him.

      
For the present, at least, no one was ready to indict him either. Prince al- Farabi, having retrieved Prince Mark’s treasure and his own honor, attached the Sword’s sheath to a belt at his own waist, and made loud vows of gratitude to everyone who had helped in any way toward Stonecutter’s recovery.

      
Meanwhile the boatload of Firozpur warriors had pulled out of the way of the launch, which was now allowed to dock. Theodore promptly climbed aboard. He was still loudly justifying his possession of the Sword as the launch, in response to his gesture, pulled away again.

      
And now the Prince no longer delayed a more practical expression of his gratitude. The chief beneficiary of this was of course Wen Chang, to whom al-Farabi promptly handed over his promised reward, in the form of a handful of sparkling, high-grade jewels.

      
Hardly was the Blue Temple launch out of easy hailing distance when in a small thunder of hoof beats the Hetman himself arrived at the dock, accompanied by a small mounted escort. How the ruler had learned of the confrontation taking place here was not apparent, but his vast relief at the sight of Stonecutter was. His first glance toward Wen Chang and Kasimir was by far the friendliest he had yet sent their way.

      
“Where did you find it?” the Hetman inquired eagerly.

      
The expression on the Prince’s face lost some of its happiness. “Hidden under the garments of the High Priest of the Blue Temple.”

      
There was no point in the Hetman’s trying to dispute this as unbelievable. Not when he saw confirmation of the unbelievable in every face before him.

      
“A mistake, on his part,” the ruler offered. “Some misunderstanding.”

      
“A mistake, certainly,” said the Prince. “To think that he could get away with such a theft.”

      
“A misunderstanding, I am sure,” the Hetman said. “I trust that Your Highness has no thought of pressing charges?”

      
“If you agree,” conceded the Prince magnanimously to his fellow ruler, “that no charges of any kind will be pressed against anyone else concerned in this matter—then I will consent to press none against Theodore, or his organization.”

      
“Agreed, with all my heart.” Then a slight frown dimmed the Hetman’s joy. “Except of course for the escaped prisoner Benjamin, who is already under sentence of death.”

      
“Agreed.”

      
And with that the gathering on the dock split up, the Prince and a few retainers going to a round of rejoicing at their host’s palace. The Magistrate most eloquently begged to be excused, and the Hetman did not press him to come along.

      
Once they were out of sight of the higher authorities, Wen Chang gave a choice jewel to Kasimir, and promptly made good on his promise to Almagro by sharing his reward generously.

      
“I can use it,” the Captain said. “I am very seriously considering retirement.”

Chapter Nineteen

      
It was about an hour after dawn on the second day of the Festival, which so far appeared to be making good progress despite the lack of a public execution. Wen Chang, after getting a good night’s rest at the inn, had expressed an urge to leave Eylau behind him as quickly as possible. Kasimir, feeling that he could hardly agree with any sentiment more, was going with him. Accordingly the two of them had arisen early, packed up their few belongings at the inn, and paid their bill in full—that was no problem, once a small portion of Wen Chang’s reward had been converted into ready cash. Prince al-Farabi had graciously offered, and the Magistrate had accepted, the continued escort of Lieutenant Komi and his small troop as far as the next city.

      
The Prince himself was not on hand for their departure, having agreed to accept another day or two of the Hetman’s grateful hospitality.

      
Kasimir and the Magistrate, riding their well-rested animals side by side this morning, enjoyed their first real opportunity to talk freely together since the Sword’s recovery. Certain hints dropped by Wen Chang had confirmed Kasimir in his opinion that the inn might no longer be a safe place for the frankest sort of conversations; the Blue Temple had been humiliated, if not wounded, and it was notoriously unforgiving of any kind of debt.

      
“I would like,” said Kasimir, after the first few minutes of the morning’s ride had passed in silence, “for you to tell me a story.”

      
Wen Chang threw back his head and gave vent to hearty mirth. It was a far more open laughter than any Kasimir had heard from him since their first meeting.

      
“I fully intend to do so,” replied the Magistrate when he had laughed his fill. “I was only wondering how best to begin.”

      
“To begin with, do you believe that the Hetman will ever recapture Benjamin of the Steppe?”

      
“I hope that he will not,” said Wen Chang frankly. “And as a matter of fact I consider the Hetman’s chances of success in the matter rather small.”

      
“Oh? I rejoice to hear it. But why is that?”

      
“Well, in the first place, whoever arranged the prisoner’s escape from his cell demonstrated considerable cleverness, and one must expect the same cleverness to be applied to the problem of removing the same prisoner from the city.”

      
“That is true. Well, I have no doubt as to who arranged the escape. And I am still thinking of Natalia. Do you know, in spite of all that has happened, in a way I could wish to see her again.”

      
“You should; were it not for her co-operation in loaning us the Sword for a few hours to trap Valamo, and then returning it honorably when it had served its purpose in the city, you would not have the Prince’s jewel in your pocket now. But she is busy, I assume, devoting herself to the survival of her lover. Or perhaps Benjamin is her husband; the rural folk tend to believe strongly in marriage, you know.”

      
“I should have guessed at the connection earlier,” Kasimir admitted. “She and Benjamin were even wearing similar clothing when I first saw them. And her hair was styled in the same way as that of those foolish women protesters.”

      
“Perhaps not so foolish. Whether or not they were aware of what part they were playing, they served admirably to distract the authorities from the real rescue effort.”

      
“And their partial destruction of the gallows—”

      
“Made its rebuilding necessary. And the hammering sounds occasioned by
that
covered the thudding sounds emitted by Stonecutter as the tunnel was dug up to the prisoner’s cell. Yes, all in all, a very well-organized escape.”

      
“You implied, earlier, that there was a second reason why the escape might very well succeed?”

      
“There is. I doubt that the Hetman will push his search for Benjamin as hard as he might, now that the escape is an accomplished fact, and he’s had a chance to think matters over.”

      
“And why is that?”

      
“Of course his pride was touched by the escape. But now that he has at least hints from the Prince that Benjamin’s continued survival pleases him, and pleases certain other powerful people as well, it is not an unmixed curse. Perhaps by now al-Farabi has even had time to suggest that allowing poor farmers to vote on matters that concern them greatly might render the task of the radical revolutionary more difficult.”

      
“I can see that this custom of voting might ultimately present a great threat to any ruler.”

      
“Indeed. I am not sure that either of the Princes has thought that far ahead himself … in any case, I expect the Hetman is still making a real effort to recapture his victim. He is just not pressing that effort as urgently as he possibly could.”

      
“Well, I repeat that I join you in hoping that he does not succeed.”

      
“We shall see.”

      
“And you are sure that Prince al-Farabi shares our hopes.”

      
“My dear Kasimir, I am very sure of that. Almost from the very beginning I suspected that might be his position. The Prince is a worthy man, though there are times when he displays a lamentable tendency to overact.”

      
“Did you mean to say ‘over
react
,’ Magistrate?”

      
“I meant to say just what I said. I only wish that there were many other princes who had no worse faults.”

      
“The implication being, of course, that Prince al-Farabi has been taking a leading role in all this theatrical performance with Stonecutter.”

      
The Magistrate nodded. “Some days ago I became convinced—it was a gradual conviction—that the original theft of the Sword from your caravan’s encampment was only a deception, intended to prevent suspicion falling on the two good Princes, Mark and al-Farabi, when it became known that Stonecutter had been used to effect the escape of the prisoner Benjamin.”

      
“My own conviction on that point was much more sudden, but I fear that it took place much later than yours. Tell me, how did yours begin?”

      
“It began with an oddity. With an event that at first seemed not only inexplicable but meaningless—I refer, of course, to the cutting of the double slit in your tent wail.”

      
“Ah.”

      
“Yes. From the moment you reported that puzzling detail, I suspected that all was not as it seemed regarding the theft of the Sword. Yet the more I talked to you, the more firmly I was convinced that you were telling me the truth as you saw it.”

      
“Indeed I was. I see now that I had been recruited and used without my knowledge; that it was arranged from the start that I should be a witness to the supposed crime.”

      
“And the best kind of witness. Respectable, believable, while at the same time—forgive me, Kasimir—not overly imaginative. Honest and disinterested, a young man who would have no reason to lie about anything he saw or heard. And the plan to use you as a witness of course succeeded—even though the ‘thief’ had to make more than one slash in the tent wall to wake you up.”

      
“Ah!” said Kasimir, and shook his head, remembering. “But suppose I had wakened at the first whisper of sound inside the tent, and grappled with the intruder?”

      
“Then there would have ensued noise, shouting, a general alarm. I do not doubt that within moments the tent would have been filled with struggling bodies. Somehow, in the confusion, you would have been pinned down while the thief contrived to make his escape with the Sword. Doubtless his success would have been ascribed to magic.”

      
Kasimir thought about it briefly. “No doubt you are right,” he said.

      
“Yes, I have no doubt of it. If ever we have the chance to talk all this over freely with al-Farabi, he will, I am sure, tell us that the man who took the Sword that night was one of the most trusted members of the caravan, wearing a mask so that you should not recognize him. If you had noticed his absence after the Sword was gone, you would have been told that he was one of the party sent out into the desert to try to track the thief.”

      
“No doubt,” said Kasimir again. He let out a faint sigh.

      
“But as matters actually went, you did not jump up and grapple with the intruder. Instead you watched, still half asleep, as he extracted the Sword from the pile of baggage and made off with it. Moments later the alarm was sounded on schedule. The plan was off to a good start.

      
“The next step it called for was the freeing of an important prisoner from the road-building gang—I suppose he was someone who knew the layout of the prison cells within the palace, so that a tunnel could be dug out within the narrow compass of the walls. Another person with knowledge just as good must have been found eventually, or the plan could not have succeeded.

      
“But the prisoner was freed as planned, from Lednik’s rather sloppy control. And then things immediately began to go wrong.

      
“The problem was that the two men who were now carrying the Sword began to improvise. Their next step ought to have been simply to carry Stonecutter into the city and deliver it to Natalia and her people, who were waiting for it. They would have been able to start digging the tunnel at once, with a good margin of spare time before the morning when the execution was scheduled. That would have avoided the need for last-moment heroics, and an escape completed barely minutes before dawn on Festival morning.

      
“But instead—sudden improvisation. For some reason the two decided to detour to the stone quarry, and release another comrade imprisoned there. There would have been certain advantages in being able to enter the city three strong instead of only two. And perhaps the prisoner at the quarry was a special friend of one or the other of those who were carrying the Sword.

      
“But those two had not reckoned with Foreman Kovil. That red-haired man was of a very different stamp from the easygoing boss of the road gang. Kovil was not only greedy and ruthless, but treacherous, bold, and resolute as well. When the Sword was shown to him he saw in it a chance to trade the life of a petty prison tyrant for that of a wealthy and successful adventurer; and to seize that chance he did not scruple to commit a double murder.

      
“He had no real chance, of course, of being able to keep his crime a secret from the other men at the quarry, guards and prisoners alike. But those who knew the secret had no reason to reveal it, and every reason to cooperate with the man who still held their lives in his hands. Mere silence was not enough; Kovil needed a couple of more active accomplices, both in the killing and afterward, when he took the Sword into the city to convert it into more useful wealth.

      
“He thought his second-in-command, Umar, would do to mind the quarry until the sale of the Sword should have been somehow completed. But he needed and wanted one more man. Someone to stand with him and protect his back while he negotiated the secret sale of a tremendous stolen treasure. And then Kovil made his own fatal mistake. Though probably from the start there was no doubt in his mind as to which man he would choose for a job like that.”

      
“The Juggler,” said Kasimir, and shuddered faintly.

      
“Indeed. Kovil went into the city with Stonecutter in hand, and the Juggler at his back, and tried to sell the Sword. Whatever might have been the details of that first bloody skirmish on the waterfront, when it was over only one man was left alive—the Juggler, with the Sword of Siege now in his own hands. In one way or another Kovil had fallen victim to the same treachery he had dealt out to others.”

      
“Meanwhile,” Kasimir put in, “Natalia and her people had been expecting the Sword to be brought to them. And when it failed to arrive—”

      
“They became alarmed. Then they heard about the killings on the waterfront, probably from someone who had actually seen the Sword in the Juggler’s hands. And they knew that he had it and would almost certainly be trying to sell it quickly.”

      
“And when did you come to an understanding of all this, Magistrate?”

      
“Alas, with painful slowness! At the start of course I came into the situation by accident, and through your efforts to be helpful. Al-Farabi could scarcely refuse my help, but he sent his most trusted subordinate into the city with us to keep an eye on us.

      
“As soon as I learned that the prisoner freed from the road gang was political, and that a connection was implied between him and Benjamin of the Steppe, I thought I understood the beginning of the story. After seeing al-Farabi at that conference in the palace, where he seemed more genuinely worried than before, I was sure of it. Since I sympathized with Benjamin, and with Princes Mark and al-Farabi, my task then became not simply to find the Sword, but to cause it to be used according to the original scenario, before being returned to its rightful owner.”

      
“The original plan being of course to free Benjamin.”

      
“Of course.”

      
“And when did you tell the Prince that you had discovered his deception?”

      
“That came a little later. In beggar’s guise I also managed to establish contact with Natalia and her group. I persuaded her to loan me the Sword for a few hours to get rid of Valamo, who had learned of the tunnel into the prison and was threatening to reveal it to the authorities—unless he was paid off very handsomely.