The Tattered Banner (Society of the Sword Volume 1) (57 page)

C h a p t e r   5 7

THE FINAL INTRIGUE

T
he afternoon had become early evening when a carriage appeared on the road from the city. The Duke was resting in his tent and Soren’s hands went instinctively to the hilts of his blades. He watched the carriage make its way toward the camp until finally it arrived. He was a little touchy about security, only having four men of the New Guard, a few dozen soldiers and the men of the Duke’s retinue, who were of no fighting value with him. The arrival of the carriage concerned him.

When Alessandra stepped out of it, he could not help but feel that this was a complication that he did not need. His mind bubbled with reasons for her being there, one of the aristocratic officers having hired her services being toward the top of the list. She caught his gaze, took a deep breath and approached him.

‘I need to talk with you,’ she said uncomfortably.

‘What could you possibly need to say to me, now of all times?’

‘The war is what makes it all the more pressing. I had to speak with you before the fighting starts. I received this letter yesterday evening and set out at first light. I didn’t expect to happen upon you so soon to be honest,’ she said. She held up a letter with a broken red wax seal. He was torn between not wanting to talk to her and desperately wanting to talk to her. He allowed his curiosity over the letter to sway his decision.

‘I don’t know what it is you need to say. I’ll listen, but be quick, I have duties to attend to,’ he said. He gestured for her to walk alongside him.

‘This letter. It’s from our patron, Lord Amero.’ She placed a bitter emphasis on the words ‘our patron’.

‘What did he have to say?’ Soren asked.

‘He told me the truth, for once. He told me why you disappeared that summer, why you had to go. He apologised for what he did,’ she said.

Soren let out a sarcastic laugh. ‘Finally it seems he’s discovered a conscience.’ It gave him pause for thought. It just didn’t seem likely.

‘I felt that I had to come to set things between us to rights, before the fighting started, in case… I couldn’t leave this unsaid. After you disappeared I went to him to find out where you were. He said that you’d just gone. That he had no idea where. I was upset, and he was kind. He said that he felt bad for what had happened and that if I ever needed help I had but to ask. A few weeks later, the Don’s thugs came around. My uncle hadn’t been paying his protection money. They killed him and my aunt and burned the tavern to the ground. I managed to get away. I was so afraid and confused. I had nowhere to go and no one to help me. I remembered what he said, so I went to see him. I thought he might find me a job as a maid or something. Well, you know how that ended up.’ She smiled bitterly. ‘I didn’t think I’d ever see you again. I really didn’t. But I never stopped loving you.’

Soren’s brain was racing furiously to answer an amorphous question that was floating around in his mind. In Soren’s time of knowing him, Amero had never done anything positive for another person unless it was a consequence of his own selfish plans. What had changed? Soren looked at Alessandra, studying her closely. She seemed confused by his scrutiny. What was her role in this? Was she part of something that she wasn’t aware of also? What did Amero have to gain by playing with his head like this?

The impact of her words was like a kick to the stomach and he was finding it hard to think clearly. His love for her was so intense that resisting it made it feel as though his heart was being crushed in his chest. He did not doubt the sincerity of her words. He could hear the heartfelt honesty in her voice. He wanted to believe her more than anything in the world, and he did. But something was amiss, and he could not shake that feeling off. Why had Amero waited until now to send the letter? He was being played again and he could not allow it to happen.

Soren began walking quickly toward the Duke’s tent, breaking into a run as he went and leaving Alessandra standing where she was in confusion. He pulled the door flaps apart and looked in, his heart dropping.

‘Alarm!’ He shouted at the top of his voice. Two guards rushed to him, while others made for their arms around the small camp. Soren turned to one of them, whose face had paled at the sight. ‘Get word to Lord Dragonet. The Duke is assassinated.’

The guard nodded and left, leaving Soren to look back on the scene before him. The far panel of the tent had been cut, allowing a blade of light into the otherwise dull tent. Two attendants lay dead on the ground; there was no sign of a struggle, indicating the speed with which they had been killed. The Duke sat on a chair beside his morning table, his head lolling back with his throat open to his backbone. An assassin who had killed three men in such silence was a skilled professional who would be long gone. Or he could be one of the men in the camp, disguised and unidentifiable.

The tent had the tangy metallic stink of blood. Soren turned and stepped away from the tent. His eyes met Alessandra’s. Her face was pale and shocked. Her role in the assassination had been unknown to her; looking at her he was sure of that. He gestured with his head to her carriage.

‘Go now. Quickly. Get what you need, leave the city and don’t come back. You are part of this now, knowingly or not and you’ll pay for it with your life if you stay,’ he said, his voice flattened by complete and utter defeat.

‘What about you? Come with me, we can escape together,’ she said hopefully. ‘Please.’

‘This lies at my feet. I have to stay. I’ll come and find you if I can. Now go, quickly!’ he said. She nodded solemnly, tears welling in her eyes, but she did as he said and walked to the carriage. As she stepped up into it and shut the door behind her, Soren rushed forward. He reached through the window and took her face in both hands. He kissed her. He could feel her tears on his cheek. He pulled back.

‘Drive on!’ he shouted to the carriage driver. As it jolted to a start he let go of her and stepped back off the running board. As he did, he spoke to here one last time.

‘I love you.’

C h a p t e r   5 8

AN UNWANTED REUNION

D
al Dragonet came galloping into the camp with five men. He dismounted and walked quickly to where Soren was sitting on the ground, cross legged and completely dejected. He cast a glance at Soren but continued past and into the Duke’s tent. He emerged a few moments later with a grave look on his face. The five men who had ridden in with him had gathered outside the entrance and they parted to let him pass.

He knelt down beside Soren and looked at him intently. He made to say something, and then stopped. He shook his head and stood, turning to his men.

‘Pull down his banner and bring it to me,’ he said, ‘and arrest the Banneret.’

Soren didn’t struggle. He slipped his sword and dagger from their scabbards and handed them, hilt first, to dal Dragonet.

‘I don’t know what part you played in this, if any, but he was killed on your watch. At best you’ve failed in your duty.’ He sighed deeply. ‘I’m disappointed in you. What else is there to say?’

One of the men brought Soren’s banner to dal Dragonet. He held it in his hands and looked at it gravely before looking back to Soren.

‘I’ve never had to do this before,’ he said, with a pained look. With that he took his dagger from his belt and roughly cut through the crumpled banner several times before handing it to Soren. No more needed to be said. Soren’s banner was torn asunder by one of his peers, signalling his dishonour and damning him for it.

Dal Dragonet turned back to his men. ‘Hold him under guard and send for a gaol wagon and an ambulance from the city.’

The gaol wagon did not have any windows so it was only the sound of the wheels clattering on cobbles that let him know that he was back in the city. He was less afraid of his fate than disappointed in himself for having allowed Amero to so easily get the better of him. It was beyond doubt now that Amero had been behind it all and that his seemingly good act of telling Alessandra the truth was in fact another one of his manipulative schemes.

There were so many pieces that fitted together now. Princess Alys had said that Chancellor Marin was against a war, and yet they had killed him for the stated reason of securing peace. Dal Dragonet had not been familiar with General Kastor, whose orders now seemed to have been designed to stir the people up against the Duke. He must also have been involved in the plot. That unrest gave Amero the opportunity to take the stage and once again become the champion of the people. He had seen Emeric the day of the attempted assassination in the city, he was sure of that now, although at the time he had not been. It all seemed to make sense but for one thing. Amero could not become Duke by having the old one assassinated. There would still have to be an election, and Amero’s family would not be eligible to run for another generation. Nevertheless, whatever his motivations, it was done, and at his whims, Soren had been made and undone.

He was hauled out of the wagon in the courtyard of the old castle, which sat on top of the cliff over-looking the bay. The sun was setting, and although it hurt his eyes after the darkness of the wagon, he watched it and took pause in its beauty, not knowing if he would ever see such a sight again. He was shackled at wrist and ankle and shoved unceremoniously forward by his guards. From the courtyard it was into the castle and down into the dungeons. They led him through a labyrinth of passages before stopping by one of the heavy oak doors that lined it. They took off his shackles, shoved him into the small room that lay on the other side of the door. He tensed as he waited for the inevitable sound of the thick wooden door slamming shut.

Time lost all meaning in the small, dark room. He was not sure how many times a day he was being fed, so counting meals was useless. After six or seven he had lost count anyway. It was difficult to discern between the meals he had, those he dreamt of and then to remember how many there were. Life blurred into one big void.