The Crown conspiracy trr-1 Read online

  – 6 -An incomprehensible series of mumbles emitted from the prince from under the potato sack. While they were not certain exactly what he was saying, Royce and Hadrian could tell the prince was doing his best to shout and was decidedly displeased with his situation.

  The cold water backing up from the Galewyr River into the sewer woke him. They were waist deep in it now and while the smell was better, the temperature was not. Looking out through the end of the cistern, the first pale light of dawn revealed the difference between the forested horizon and the sky. Night was melting away fast, and they could hear the Mares Cathedral bell ringing for early service. The whole city would be waking soon.

  Hadrian calculated they were below Gentry Square, not far from Artisan Row where the city met the river. Determining their location was an easy guess, because it was the only section of town with covered sewers. A metal grate enclosed the end of the sewer. Hadrian was relieved to find hinges and a lock sealing it instead of bolts. Royce made quick work of the lock, and the rusted hinges surrendered to a few solid kicks from Hadrian. With the way clear, Royce went out to scout while Hadrian sat at the mouth of the sewer with Alric.

  The prince had worked his gag loose, and Hadrian could recognize his words now. "I'll have you flailed to death! Release me this instant."

  "You'll be quiet," Hadrian replied, "or I'll let you go into the river and we'll see how well you tread water with your hands and feet tied."

  "You wouldn't dare! I am the King of Melengar, you swine!"

  Hadrian kicked Alric's legs out from under him, and the prince fell face down. After allowing him to struggle for a few moments, Hadrian pulled him up. "Now keep your mouth shut or I might leave you to drown next time." Alric coughed and sputtered but did not speak another word.

  Royce returned, having slipped into the sewer soundlessly. "We are right on the river. I found a small boat by a fisherman's dock and took the liberty of commandeering it in His Majesty's name. It's just down the slope in a stand of reeds."

  "No!" The prince protested and shook his shoulders violently. "You must release me. I am the king!"

  Hadrian gripped him by the throat and into his ear whispered, "What did I tell you about talking? Not a sound or you swim."

  "But-"

  Hadrian dunked the prince again, pulled him up for a short breath, and dunked him once more. "Not another sound," Hadrian growled.

  Alric sputtered, and Hadrian, dragging the prince with him, followed Royce down the slope.

  The craft was little more than an oversized rowboat, bleached by the sun and filled with nets and small painted buoys. The heavy smell of fish from the boat helped to mask the stench of sewage. A tarp, stretched to form a little tent used to store gear or to serve as a shelter, covered the bow. They stuffed the prince underneath, pinning him there with the nets and buoys.

  Hadrian pushed off the bank with a long pole he found in the boat. Royce used the wooden rudder to steer the small craft as the river did the work of propelling them downstream. Near the headwaters, the current of the Galewyr was strong, and forward momentum was no problem. They found themselves working to keep the boat in the center of the river as they moved swiftly westward. Just as the sky was turning from a charcoal gray to dull steel, they passed under the shadow of the city of Medford. From the river, they could see the great tower of Essendon Castle, its falcon standard flying at half-mast for the dead king. The flag was a good sign, but how long before they discovered the prince was missing and they removed it?

  The river marked the southern edge of the city, skirting along Artisan Row. Large two-story warehouses of gray brick lined the bank, and great wooden wheels jutted out into the river, catching the current to power the millstones and lumberyards. Because the shallow waters of the Galewyr prevented the passage of deep-keeled ships, numerous docks serviced flat-bottomed barges that brought goods from the small seaport village of Roe. There were also piers built by the fishing industry, which led directly to fish markets, where pulleys raised large nets and dumped them onto the cutting floor. In the early morning light, the gulls had already begun to circle the docks where fisherman had started to clear the lines on their skiffs. No one paid particular attention to the two men in a small boat drifting down the river. Nevertheless, they stayed low in the boat until the last signs of the city disappeared behind the rising banks of the river.

  The day's light grew strong, as did the pull of the current. Rocks appeared and the river trench deepened. Neither Royce nor Hadrian was an expert boatman, but they did their best dodging the rocks and shallows. Royce remained at the tiller, while Hadrian, on his knees, used the long wooden pole to push the bow clear of obstacles. A few times, they glanced off unseen boulders, and the hull lurched abruptly with a deep unpleasant thud. When it did, they could hear the prince whimper, but otherwise, he remained quiet, and their trip was a smooth one.

  In time, the full face of the sun rose overhead, and the river widened considerably and settled into a gentle flow with sandy banks and rich green fields beyond. The Galewyr divided two kingdoms. To the south lay Glouston, the northern marchland of the kingdom of Warric. To the north was Galilin, the largest province in Melengar administered by Count Pickering. At one time, the river had been a hotly disputed division between two uneasy warlords, but those days were gone. Now, it was a peaceful fence between good neighbors and both banks remained lovely, untroubled pastoral scenes of the late season, filled with hay mounds and grazing cows.

  The day became unusually warm. Being so late in the year, there were few insects about. The cicadas' drone had disappeared, and even the frogs were quiet. The only sound that remained was the soft gentle breeze through the dry grasses. Hadrian reclined across the boat with his head on the bundle of the steward son's old clothes and his feet on the gunwale. His cloak and boots were off and his shirt was open. Similarly, Royce lay with his legs up, idly guiding the boat. The sweet scent of wild salifan was strong in the air, the fragrance more pungent after surviving the year's first frost. Except for the lack of food, the day was turning out to be quite wonderful and would have been even if they had not just escaped a horrible death hours before.

  Hadrian tilted his head back to catch the full light of the sun on his face. "Maybe we should be fishermen."

  "Fishermen?" Royce asked dubiously.

  "This is pretty nice, isn't it? I never realized how much I like the sound of water lapping against a boat before. I'm enjoying this: the buzzing of a dragonfly, the sight of the cattails, and the bank drifting lazily by."

  "Fish don't just jump into the boat you know?" Royce pointed out. "You have to cast nets, haul them in, gut the fish, cut off their heads, and scale them. You don't just get to drift."

  "Putting it that way makes it sound oddly more like work." Hadrian scooped a handful of water from the river and splashed it on his warm face. He ran his wet fingers through his hair and sighed contentedly.

  "You think he's still alive?" Royce asked, nodding his head toward Alric.

  "Sure," Hadrian replied without bothering to look. "He's probably sleeping. Why do you ask?"

  "I was just pondering something. Do you think a person could smother in a wet potato bag?"

  Hadrian lifted his head and looked over at the motionless prince. "I really hadn't thought about it until now." He got up and shook Alric, but the prince did not stir. "Why didn't you mention something earlier!" he said, drawing his dagger. He cut through the ropes and pulled the bag clear.

  Alric lay still. Hadrian bent down to check if he was breathing. Just then, the prince kicked Hadrian hard, knocking him back toward Royce. Alric began feverishly untying his feet, but Hadrian was back on him before he cleared the first knot. He slammed Alric to the deck, pinning his hands over his head.

  "Hand me the twine," Hadrian barked to Royce, who was watching the wrestling match with quiet amusement. Royce casually tossed him a small coil, and when Hadrian at last had the prince secured, he sat back down to rest.

 
"See," Royce said, "that's more like fishing; only fish don't kick, of course."

  "Okay, so it was a bad idea." Hadrian rubbed his side where the prince had hit him.

  "By brutalizing me, the two of you have sentenced yourselves to death! You know that, don't you?"

  "That's a bit redundant don't you think, Your Majesty?" Royce inquired. "Seeing as how you already sentenced us to death once today."

  The prince rolled onto his side tilting his head back, squinted against the brilliant sunlight.

  "You!" he shouted amazed. "But how did you-Arista!" His eyes narrowed in anger. "Not jealous is she! My dear sister is behind all this! She hired you to kill my father, and now she plans to eliminate me so she can rule!"

  "The king was her father as well. Besides, if we wanted to kill you, don't you think you'd already be dead?" Royce asked. "Why would we go to all the trouble of hauling you down this river? We could have slit your throat, weighed you down with rocks, and dumped you hours ago. I might add that such a fate would still be considerably better than what you had planned for us."

  The prince considered this for a moment. "So it's ransom then. Do you intend to sell me to the highest bidder? Did she promise you a profit from my sale? You're both fools, if you believe that. Arista will never allow it. She'll see me dead. She has to in order to secure her seat on the throne. You won't get a copper!"

  "Listen, you little royal pain in the ass, we didn't kill your father. In fact, for what it is worth, I thought old Amrath was a fair king, as far as they go. We also aren't ransoming or selling you."

  "Well you certainly aren't trussing me up like a pig to get in my good graces. Now exactly what are you doing with me?" The prince struggled against his bonds but soon found them too tight to bother.

  "If you really want to know," Hadrian said, "as strange as it may seem, we are trying to save your life."

  "You're what?" Alric asked stunned.

  "Your sister seems to think someone residing in the castle-the same lot that killed your father-is plotting to kill everyone in the royal family. Because you would be the next likely target, she freed us to smuggle you out for your own safety."

  Alric pulled his legs up under him and worked his way to a sitting position with his back resting up against the pile of white and red striped buoys. He stared at the two of them for a moment. "If Arista didn't hire you to kill my father, then exactly what were you doing in the castle tonight?"

  Hadrian provided a quick summary of his meeting with DeWitt to which the prince listened without interruption.

  "And then Arista came to you in the dungeon with this story asking you to abduct me to keep me safe?"

  "Trust me," Hadrian said, "if there was another way to get out of there, we would have left you."

  "So you actually believe her? You're dumber than I thought," Alric said, shaking his head. "Don't you see what she's doing? She's out to have the kingdom for herself."

  "If that were so, why would she have us kidnap you?" Royce asked. "Why not just have you killed like your father?"

  Alric thought a moment, his eyes drifting to the floor of the boat and then he nodded. "She most likely tried, only I wasn't there." He looked back at them. "I wasn't in my room last night like I usually am. I slipped out for a rendezvous with a young lady and fell asleep in her room until I heard the noise. It is very likely an assassin did come to my room, only I was not there. After that, I had a guard with me at all times until Arista convinced me I had to come alone to the kitchen. I should have known she was betraying me."

  He swung his bound legs into the mound of nets. "I just never thought she could be so cold as to kill our father, but that's how she is, you see. She is extremely clever. She told you this story about a traitor, and it was believable because it was true. She only lied about not knowing who it was. Once her assassin missed me, she used you. It was more likely that you'd agree to a kidnapping rather than murder, so she set you up."

  Royce did not answer but glanced at Hadrian.

  "There was this boat," the prince went on looking around him, "perfect for your needs waiting at the river's edge."

  Alric dipped his head at the tarp next to him. "How nice to have a boat with a cover like this to hide me under. With a nice boat, and a river, you wouldn't be tempted to stray off the water. You can't go upstream from the city. The headwaters are too rough. You have to go toward the sea. She knows exactly where we are, and where we'll be. Did she say where to take me? Is it somewhere down this river?"

  "Lake Windermere."

  "Ah, the Winds Abbey? It's not far from Roe, and this river travels toward it. How convenient! Of course, we'll never make it," the prince told them. "She'll have killers waiting along the bank. They will murder us. She'll say you two killed me just as you killed my father. And, of course, her guards killed you when you tried to flee. She'll have a wonderful burial for me and my father. The next day she will call Bishop Saldur to perform her coronation."

  Royce and Hadrian sat in silence.

  "Do you need more proof?" the prince went on. "You say this fellow that hired you was called DeWitt? You said he was from Calis? Arista returned from a visit there only two months ago. Perhaps she made some new friends. Perhaps she promised them land in Melengar in return for help with a troublesome father and brother who stood between her and the crown."

  "We need to get off this river," Royce told Hadrian.

  "You think he's right?" Hadrian asked.

  "Doesn't matter at this point, even if he's wrong, the owner of this boat will report it stolen. When news leaks out that the prince is missing, they will connect the two."

  Hadrian stood up and looked downstream. "If I were them, I would send a group of riders down the river bank in case we stopped and another set of riders running fast down the Westfield road to catch us at Wicend Ford. It would only take them three or four hours."

  "Which means they could already be there," Royce concluded.

  "We need to get off this river," Hadrian said.

  – 7 -The boat came into view of Wicend Ford, a flat, rocky area where the river widened abruptly and became shallow enough to cross. Farmer Wicend had built a small stock shelter of split rails close to the water, allowing his animals to graze and drink unattended; it was a pretty spot. Thick hedges of heldaberry bushes lined the bank, and a handful of yellowing willows bent so low toward the river that their branches touched the water and created ripples and whimsical whirlpools along the surface.

  The moment the boat entered the shallows hidden archers launched a rain of arrows from the bank. One struck the gunwale with a thud. A second and third found their target in the royal falcon insignia emblazoned on the back of the prince's robe. The figure in the robe fell from view into the bottom of the boat. More arrows found their marks in the chest of the tiller man, who dropped into the water, and the pole man, who merely slumped to one side.

  From behind the screen of bushes and willows, six men emerged dressed in browns, dirty greens, and autumn golds. They entered the river, waded out, and caught the still drifting boat.

  "It's official, we're dead," Royce declared comically. "Interestingly enough, the first arrows hit Alric."

  The three of them were lying concealed in the tall field grass atop the eastern hill overlooking the river upstream of the ford. Less than a hundred yards to their right lay the Westfield road. From there, the road ran along the riverbank all the way to Roe, where the river joined the sea.

  "Now do you believe me?" the prince asked.

  "It only proves that someone is indeed trying to kill you and that they are not us. They're not soldiers either, or at least they aren't in uniform, so they could be anyone," Royce told them.

  "How can he see so much-the arrows, their clothing-I can only see movement and color from this distance?" Alric asked.

  Hadrian shrugged.

  The prince was now dressed in the clothes of the steward's son: a loose-fitting gray tunic, worn and faded wool knee-length britches, brown
stockings, and a tattered, stained wool cloak which was too long. On his feet, he wore a pair of shoes that were little more than soft leather bags tied at his ankles. Although no longer bound, Hadrian kept hold of a rope tethered around the prince's waist. Hadrian also carried the prince's sword for him.

  "They're moving in on the boat," Royce announced.

  All Hadrian could really see were shadowy movements under the trees until one of the men stepped out into the sunlight to grab the bow of the boat.

  "It won't be long before they discover they've only killed three bushels of thickets wrapped in old clothes," Hadrian told Royce. "So I'd be quick."

  Royce nodded and promptly trotted down the slope toward the stock shelter.

  "What's he doing?" Alric asked in shock. "He'll get himself killed and us as well!"

  "That's one opinion," Hadrian said. "Just sit tight."

  Royce slipped into the shade of the trees, and Hadrian immediately lost sight of him. "Where'd he go?" the prince asked with a puzzled look on his face.

  Once more Hadrian shrugged.

  Below them, the men converged on the boat, and Hadrian heard a distant shout. He could not make out the words, but he saw someone holding up the Alric-bush complete with arrows. Two of the men remained with the boat while the others waded toward the bank. Just then, Hadrian caught sight of movement in the trees, a train of tethered horses trotting up the slope toward them. From the bank came shouts of alarm and cursing as the distant figures struggled to race across the field and up the hill.

  When the horses drew nearer, he spotted Royce crouched down, hanging between the two foremost animals. Hadrian caught two of the horses, pulled the bridle off one, and quickly tied a lead line to the other horse's halter. He ordered Alric to mount. Angry shouts erupted as the archers spotted them. Two or three stopped to fit arrows but their uphill shots fell short. Before they could close the distance, the three mounted and galloped toward the road.

  Royce led them a mile northwest to where the Westfield and Stonemill roads intersected. Here Hadrian, and by default Alric, rode west. Royce, leading the train of captured horses, stayed behind to cloud their tracks and then rode north. An hour later Royce, with only the horse he rode, caught up with them. They turned off the road into an open field and headed away from the river, but still moved generally westward.