CHAPTER FOUR
A FAREWELL
Baron Milnikov paced his cell nervously and precisely; it was neither more nor less than ten and a half paces plus a fingerwidth in one direction and eleven paces and two finger-widths in the other. His thoughts were occupied by betrayals, as well they might be. He had been terribly betrayed by Payne Roelt and his gang, which had been accomplished at the cost of his only daughter’s life, or so the villains were trying to convince him; and he in turn had betrayed Princess Bronwyn, whom he had loved openly as a daughter and secretly and painfully as a woman. And, so far as he knew, this had cost her her life as well.
His enemies were obviously taking no chances with him. His cell was in the bottommost dungeons of the palace. Its walls were made of massive blocks of dark grey stone, set without mortar, and so large that only eight or nine composed each wall. The rough surfaces were perpetually moist; thin threads of water dribbled down them constantly, forming puddles on the uneven stone floor that never dried. The stones were slimy with an evil-looking grey-green algae, and his clothes were becoming moldy as he wore them. Chunks of blackened cloth came away with his fingers. He had no doubt that he was well below the river.
The only door to his cell was a solid mass of oak, so old as have become completely petrified. Not that it mattered: everything that he could have conceivably used as an instrument had be taken from him—from shoelaces to belt buckle. A clever man could have done a lot with a good aglet.
The only access through the door was an opening about eight inches square near the floor, normally securely sealed by an iron plug. It was through this that he was passed his water and food (stale bread, from which he usually had to scrape a dank, black mildew; cheese that was either as hard as a brick or soft and furry with mold; and occasionally a chunk of an unspeakable sausage: a tube of undercooked gristle and grease that he had not been able, as yet, to bring himself to eat). He was not allowed any utensils. Through the same opening he had to pass his chamber pot.
He saw nothing of his jailer, other than an occasional glimpse of five hairy, knotted knuckles.
There were, of course, no windows. The only light was that which leaked around the door. Lanterns must have been kept burning in the corridor twenty-four hours a day, and there was consequently no sense of the passage of time.
It had taken the baron no more than half an hour to familiarize himself with and to memorize every detail of his prison—such details as it possessed. He was impressed with its historicity: he discovered, laboriously engraved in the adamantine walls, unfamiliar names accompanying dates from more than two hundred and fifty years earlier. He decided that he would, at the last, eventually add his name to the anonymous roster. It might, perhaps, give some future historian or biographer a thrill. He envisioned a time after Roelt and Company had passed, as he still had no doubt they would, and the secret places of the palace were opened to tourists as a kind of cautionary memorial, and that there would be a plaque commemorating the site of his imprisonment. Ah, they would say to themselves or aloud, pushing their children, if they had any, shouldering others aside if they didn’t, toward the roped-off doorway, look there…that’s where the great, brave, sad hero Baron Milnikov was held prisoner for so long!
“Really, dear Father?” some handsome, intelligent lad might reply. “The very same wonderful Baron who’s in my favorite books?”
“The very same, my son.”
“Golly whiskers!” would be the breathless reply as the good child pressed for a better view.
“The Baron in my books,” continued that precocious and adorable tot, “could have gotten out of this, I bet!”
“Ho! ho!” replied the parent. “Yes, I’m certain that the legendary Baron Milnikov could have, but you do know that there was a real Baron, too, and his story is far more tragic and heroic and brave than the book Baron.”
“Oh, do tell me the story of the real Baron Milnikov, Dear Papa, for he is my greatest Hero!”
And the father and son would go out into the sunlight and the older would relate to the younger the baron’s true story and his greatest adventure, and both would finish with tears in their eyes and the boy’s sworn resolve to grow into just such a great man as Milnikov had been.
I’d rather be out of here, the baron decided at last, and let the effeminate little brat grow up to be the thug he deserves to be.
But even the resourceful baron could not think of any way out of this cell and, so far as he knew, there was no Thud, Gyven or Bronwyn to help him. And if there was anyone to blame for their absence, he brooded ruefully, if unfairly by two-thirds, was himself.
Oddly, the baron did not concern himself overly with the report that his daughter, his real daughter, Tholance was dead, primarily because he did not really believe it. What, he would tell himself, could the villains possibly hope to obtain by her death? It was only by being able to threaten her extinction that they had any hold upon him. Nothing could be gained by actually carrying through with the threat, especially so long as he continued to be cooperative. Although he considered the king, Payne and Praxx to be virtually dysfunctional sociopaths, even they, he was convinced, could see the pointlessness of killing the harmless child.
But why, then, tell him that she was dead? What was the idea behind that? Nothing more than a perverse desire to torture him? How could that possibly encourage him to continue his cooperation? They were mad, of course, and therefore irresponsible and incapable of being understood by a rational human being.
Instead, he set his mind to work on the problem of escape. The fact that it was on the face of it patently impossible only increased his interest in the puzzle. He’d never yet failed to escape from any situation (he had been working on a foolproof scheme to escape Kaposvar when the princess and her fnends had mtervened) and he saw no reason why this should be any dlfferent. It was also possible, perhaps, that he was beginning to believe that he was in fact interchangeable with the baron in the dime novels that bore his licensed name.
For several weeks his only contact with the outside world had been a bnef glimpse of a hairy forearm twice a day as his keeper passed food to him and collected his chamber pot. After a dozen attempts to cajole and trick whoever was at the other end of the gnarly limb into saying a word or two, he gave up. Eventually it occurred to him that if it was impossible for him to even see his jailer, let alone communicate with him, it was equally impossible for the other to see or communicate with the baron. The person on the far side of the door only knew of the baron’s presence because the food disappeared and the chamber pot was regularly filled. What if his captor were to be denied even these rudimentary reassurances of his existence? How much would it take to inspire curiosity? Was there actually an intelligence at the opposite end of that unprepossessing appendage?
Although the baron’s scheme did not require much intelligence on the part of his keeper, it would be costly: it required a fast that would last for days, nor was he able to do more than wet his lips with the water he was given, for fear that even the slightest drop in level might be detected. Eventually he even abandoned that and resorted to licking the drooling walls or soaking a piece of cloth torn from his shirt and wringing the green liquid into his mouth. At first lt was no sacrifice to ignore the loathsome food he was given, but after the second day it became a torture to allow even that miserable allotment to lay for hours no further into his cell than the hairy-knuckled hand had pushed it. The same hand would reappear half a day later and pull the untouched food out. Had the change in routine been too subtle for his jailer to have noticed? Had there been any comment when his chamber pot was no longer passed through? It was as though there was only a mindless machine on the other side of the door. What if, believing him to be dead, the supply of food was stopped altogether? The baron resolved to give the guard’s curiosity another forty-eight hours, which was as much as he thought he could bear.
In the meantime, Milnikov listened carefully, his ear pressed against the cold, wet iron. He never heard any voices, or at least any sounds that he could be certain were voices, but he did become conscious of something that mystified him: rumblings like heavy trucks with iron wheels rolling across cobbled floors. The sounds carne and went constantly. It was as though he were in the depths of a mine. What could it mean?
Four more times the hairy hand pushed a bowl of food and a cup of water through the opening and four more times the untouched food was fetched back through it. The baron had never dreamed that the miserable crusts and soft grey sausage could ever possibly look appealing. They still did not, but the possibility was becoming ever more tenable. What was hardest to bear was the ever-increasing stench. The cell was absolutely unventilated and the baron began to actually fear for his life in reality. What a dreadful and ignominious way to go, asphyxiated by my own excretions.
The meal delivery after the fourth one was late. The baron began to worry that perhaps his plan had been oversuccessful. What if the mere assumption that he were dead was sufficient for his enemies? What if they did not even care enough to look inside the cell to see for certain? The last food delivery may very well have been the last one forever.
The water had made him ill. He suffered from severe abdominal cramps, fever and, horror of horrors, diarrhea. He became dehydrated, but there was no longer even the stale water that had been provided, and the thought of consuming more of the greenish tricklings from the cell’s stone walls literally nauseated him. The pangs of hunger had long since passed; in any case they would have been indistinguishable from the cramps from which he was now suffering.
Another day or two went by, at least so far as the baron could tell. What a stupid way to commit suicide.
The rattling of keys was scarcely sufficient to rouse him from his stupor. Something of his poor brain remained sentient enough to ask the question: Wouldn’t it be a waste to have gone through all this for nothing? The remaining part of his brain replied, So what? Let’s eat! But that part was not as influential as it was merely argumentative and the baron found himself rising to his knees and dragging himself alongside the door. Just in time, too, for at that moment the massive slab swung open like a vault.
“Musrum’s holy boogers!” came a high-pitched voice, such as a man assumes when he thinks he is imitating a woman. “Ah, gee! He must’ve been dead for days! Ahhh, man, they oughta just wall this cell off! Phoowee!”
There was not another sound for a minute or two, obviously to allow time for a little oxygen to penetrate the chamber
“You gonna leave it open like that? asked a second, barely audible voice. “You wanna stink up the whole palace?”
“I’m not goin’ in there ‘til some of th’ stink is gone. He’s sure not goin’ anywhere.”
“I guess not. Least not in one piece, anyway.”
“Yeah! Snk! Snk! Snk!” the first replied with what must have been a laugh.
“You’re gonna need a coupla buckets, man!”
“I ain’t in no hurry to mess ‘round with a stiff that smells like that either. Why don’t you go an’ get me some sacks?”
“Where do I get sacks?”
“How’m I s’posed to know? Use your ‘magination.”
“What’s that?”
“Try the kitchen, stupid, they’re always gettin’ sacks o’ potatoes an’ things.”
“All right. And I’ll ask if they got any magnation while I’m there. Is it any good? Sounds foreign and I’m not too partial to foreign food.”
The baron heard shuffling and scraping footsteps begin to move off.
“Better bring a more’n a couple,” called out the first voice, still near the door.
For several minutes there were only faint, indecipherable sounds of movement. Would he not come into the cell until the other returned? The baron began to forget his physical agony in his anxiety. He wanted to make some sound to attract the warder and had to force himself to remain silent and motionless. Gradually the shuffling sounds grew closer and the baron held his breath (for which he hardly needed any inducement). A shadow appeared, lapping over the threshold. There were muffled sounds of disgust but the shadow did not recede. Instead it lengthened, an odd misshapen thing.
At last its creator appeared framed in the doorway. The baron silently flattened himself against the wall. The warder, he saw, was a dwarfish, lumpy individual, whose face was not much further above the floor than the second button up from the baron’s belt buckle (when he still had one). The arms were disproportionately long, however; had they not been grasping the handle of a broom, the familiar hairy knuckles would have rested on the floor. The arms were massive and, in themselves, well developed…just misplaced, as though they had been transplanted from a wrestler or prizefighter. The remainder of the warder was disappointing: a shapelessly miscreated creature, just shy of being a full-fledged hunchback, but then again just shy of being fully human as well. Its mismatched eyes had just begun to turn in the baron’s direction, one slightly ahead of the other, when the latter reached out and snatched the broom from the startled fingers. The warder’s slow brain had not begun to react even by the time the baron had stepped behind him and placed the broom handle across his knobby throat. Only then, when the pressure began, did the massive arms begin to flail at the constricting rod. The baron kept his face well back from powerful-looking fingers that snapped at his nose and eyes like angry crustaceans, at the same time pressing a knee into the small of the dwarf’s undulating spine. After a very short span of time, and without a sound, the dwarf collapsed to the flagstones, though slumped might be perhaps a more accurate word; he was so short there was little significant difference between erect and prone.
The baron had just stepped out fully into the corridor, which he only had a moment to perceive was just fifteen feet or so in length, with only his own door breaking the irregular stone walls, and heavy doors blocking either end, when the warder’s companion reentered through one of them. He was no more attractive than the other, although considerably skinnier, and had only time to utter a startled Uh? before his mouth was filled with bits of teeth and tongue pulverized by the force of the broom handle which had been swung into his face like a baseball bat. The baron had a brief second to notice that the creature actually looked a little improved with the club imbedded in its face. The skinny assistant dropped as though his bones had suddenly evaporated. Taking no chances, the baron grasped the head by its large, waxy ears and bounced it once or twice against the stones until the tongue stuck out and stayed that way.
The baron now took the time to make a thorough search of the two bodies—something that offended his fastidiousness almost as much as his cell had lately done. Other than amazement at the sheer number and variety of vermin (including but certainly not limited to lice, weevils, crabs, roaches, leeches, flies, fleas, ticks, mites, mice, roundworms, flatworms, heartworms, tapeworms, flukes, and various molds and fungi), the only worthwhile discovery was a ring of perhaps a dozen heavy keys. He was disappointed to find no weapon. Taking the keys, he cautiously stepped through the door that the assistant warder had left open. This gave onto a cross corridor that curved off to the left and right.
He chose the latter direction at hazard. A dozen feet along he discovered a massive oak double door. It was barred with half-inch iron staples bearing locks as large as both of his fists together. There were a pair of small windows and he peered through their heavy iron mesh. Holy Musrum’s pendulous testicles! he whispered reverently. Beyond was a vast, high-ceilinged room that had been transformed from whatever its former purpose had been into a treasure warehouse. It was filled, with a studied and organized compactness, with more wealth than even the highly imaginative baron had dreamed existed: endless, pyramidal mounds of canvas bags, each neatly stenciled with some fabulous amount, scores of enormous wooden chests (one was open and its jewelled contents allowed him to dizzily extrapolate the contents of the others), famous paintings stacked ten deep, rolls of tapestries, mountains of objects too large to fit into the chests: chandeliers, lamps, urns tea sets, samovars, sculptures—all, he had no doubt, as solidly silver and gold as they looked.
Damn his withered little soul! he growled to himself, recognizing a boxed set of matched brushes. Those are mine!
This was unquestionably Payne Roelt’s treasury, the accumulated loot of two years’ intense and single-minded labor. Here were the liquid assets of an entire nation. The baron suspected, and rightly, that this was merely one of many such vaults.
The right-hand passage ended in steps that were evidently at the bottom of a spiral stairway. Assuming that up was the most desirable direction, the baron took the first of the narrow steps.
The climb seemed interminable, though the baron had probably ascended no more than fifty feet. He at last, however, came to a slot in the outside wall, through which a cool current of air was leaking. Although heavily burdened with the oily, fishy odor of the Slideen River, it smelled like the freshest country breeze to Milnikov. In spite of his anxiousness to escape the dungeons he took a few moments to flush his lungs of the poisons they had accumulated, and to reaccustom his nose to the sensation of genuine air.
The slit faced upstream so all he could see of the river was a dark grey surface reflecting a sky just beginning to silver with dawn. On the distant bank was the egress of the Muchka River, a small tributary at the mouth of which he could see the lights of some building or another. Dawn was good, he tbought; there would be far fewer people afoot than he might encounter later in the day.
The top of the staircase was blocked by another heavy door. It had a small window protected by a lattice of iron straps. Peering through this the baron saw a small section of a broad corridor. For the first time since escaping from his cell he heard sounds produced by other human beings: no doubt servants prepanng for breakfast and whatever other absolutely necessary things servants and household staff did at dawn. He could only speculate what one of them would do if he were seen. Did he look disreputable enough to raise an alarm? Probably. Undoubtedly. He had only the pair of trousers and sleeveless undervest he had been left with and which he had been wearing for weeks. Both were unspeakably filthy. He had lost a dozen pounds or more and had to clutch the waist of his beltless trousers with one hand to keep them aloft. He was barefoot and his once tidy moustache and imperial were now as lost as unkempt weeds among the thicket of weeks-old greyish beard.
He took the ring of keys, carefully, to keep them from jangling, and cautiously tried them one at a time in the lock. The eighth key fit. With a rusty screech that literally raised the baron’s hair, the key turned. He felt the bolt slip from its moorings and the door was now free to be opened. Giving one final search of as much of the outside corridor as he could see through the grating, the baron opened the heavy door a fraction of an inch. Peering out, he could see nothing in either direction The hall was well lit, however, and appeared to be some functioning part of the underpalace. The same vaguely busy sounds still came from one direction or the other.
He hastily withdrew his head as a figure appeared. He watched cautiously as it went by. It was only a portly maid carrying an enormous wicker basket of what appeared to be laundry. For no particular reason he decided to follow her and, as soon as she disappeared around a corner at the other end of the passage, he slipped from his hiding place in pursuit. He arrived at the intersection just in time to see her entering a room through a pair of oversize swinging doors. As she barged through, hissing sounds and a whiff of steam escaped around the bulging figure. The baron hurried to the doors, arriving while they were still listlessly swinging, and held one ajar so that he could see into the room beyond. It was evidently the palace laundry; large vats or cauldrons were set half-sunk into the wet, tiled floor. Two or three boiled-looking women with papier-mâché faces were stirring the contents of the vats with what looked like canoe paddles. The air smelled incredibly fresh and clean, so much so that he had to hang onto the door frame weakly, to keep from falling.
“Who are you?” asked a voice, not in challenge but with simple curiousity, from the vicinity of his elbow. He looked down to see that he had not noticed the arrival of another maid. Like the first, she was burdened by a vast basket of dirty laundry. Did the palace hire nothing but midgets? Apparently unperturbed by his presence or appearance, and ignoring the fact that he had not answered her, the newly arrived woman sidled past him, intent upon her business.
“Who’s that?” asked one of the others, brushing aside a damp lock of hair in an ineffectual attempt to see better.
“I dunno.”
“Looks like summon who’s fallen in th’ river!” replied a third, who was a little closer and could see better, cackling at what apparently was to her an enormous joke.
“Fallen in th’ river?” asked one of the others, in some confusion, not until now having heard anything over the hissing kettles. “Who’s fallen in th’ river?”
The baron, neither so starved nor tired to have completely lost his wits, replied, “I have! I mean, I did!”
“Who’s that?”
“Who did what?”
“It’s I, the baron,” he answered, which vagueness seemed sufficient for the women. He had a title and that was that.
“Sorry sir, y’r lordship, I dint reckernize you in all o’ this steam. What can we do for y’r worship?”
“Can I get some clean clothes? Can’t run around the palace like this, can I?”
“No, sir! Y’r worship, sir. That is, I mean, I certainly wouldn’t think that you’d care to!”
“Begging y’r pardon, y’r lordship,” put in a thin voice from one foggy corner, “but hasn’t you clean clothes in y’r chambers?”
“Ah, yes…indeed I do, or would have, that is. You see, I was planmng to leave today and I had all of my things sent down to the docks, to meet my ship. In my trunks. All packed. I was only taking a last-minute stroll around the lovely grounds of your charming palace when, well, accidents will happen, you know,” he finished disingenuously.
“How did y’r worship find himself here, of all places?”
“Hazel!” chided one of her companions in labor. “You mustn’t be askin’ his worship all o’ these questions! It’s terrible rude!”
“I was lost,” he answered, blessing the speaker and hoping that the unseen one would heed the advice.
“Begging y’r worship’s pardon, I’m sure.”
“Anything will do,” said the baron, bringing the conversation back to its original course. “How about these things?” He picked a bundle fiom a nearby table. “These should do just fine.”
“Them’s the chamberlain’s things. I don’t know if I oughtta ‘low anyone to take those.”
“Nonsense! Lord Roelt and I are like brothers. His gratitude will probably know no bounds when he learns how you helped me. As I shall be sure to let him know.”
“Really, y’r worship?” simpered the maid. “You won’t get me in no trouble, would you?”
“Of course not! Why, you will have done me an excellent favor, and I am certain that Lord Roelt will consider that any favor done for as good a friend as I will be as good as placing an obligation upon himself.”
“Oh, my,” said the maid, while trying to work out the sense of that.
“In simpler terms, Lord Roelt will owe you a favor in return!”
“Oh, my!” she cried, considerably flustered, while her companions cooed in astonishment and envy.
Taking advantage, the baron asked quietly, “Is there someplace where I can change?”
He was directed to an adjoining janitor’s closet where he quickly peeled off his prison garments and stuffed them into a galvanized waste can. There was a sink in the closet, and a slab of coarse soap, and he took the opportunity to clean himself. There was no towel, so he gladly used one of Payne’s dress shirts. Among the clothes he had taken were evidently Ferenc’s tennis costumes, though the baron could scarcely imagine the king being so physically active. No doubt the clothes were simply worn to garden parties and the like. In any case, they consisted of a pair of white duck trousers, white shirt and some underthings. There were, naturally, neither socks nor shoes, but what the hell.
The baron exited the closet and quickly crossed the steamy, vague room—the laundresses stared curiously, like goggle-eyed fish warily regarding a cruising, hopefully indifferent, barracuda.
Reentering the outside corridor, the baron looked for the most direct way into the upper reaches of the palace. He knew that the building, or agglomeration of structures, was labyrinthine and he was probably as familiar with its organization—such as it was—as anyone else; probably far more so than his immediate enemies, he was moderately certain. However, accustomed as he may be to the ins and outs of the wandering, haphazard maze of corridors and interconnecting rooms, to him, like everyone else of his particular class, the existence of the world downstairs was something seldom acknowledged, if ever considered at all. He could only assume that any passage or stairway that took him up was desirable, and would have to trust that he would be eventually deposited into familiar territory. As he meandered with increasing impatience and frustration, more and more often passing servants who surreptitiously and silently gazed with mingled curiosity and fear, he felt like some forgotten little constipated nodule passing through the endlessly coiled gut of a vast and somnolent creature for whom he was not even yet an uncomfortable bloated feeling.
He would have given a lot to have stumbled across a kitchen, or even a servant with some food whom he could talk out of, but there was nothing. The weakness he felt was becoming burdensome—he had to stop at the head of every staircase, winded, and his poor legs seemed to be made of rubber.
Finally, after what seemed like hours of wandering—and was, in fact—the baron entered a passage that was vaguely familiar: a long, broad, vaulted corridor lined with oleaginous portraits of members of the Tedeschiiy family and its various and varied offspring and branches. More to the baron’s pleasure than an appreciation of Princess Bronwyn’s unbelievably good fortune in apparently not having inherited a single physical characteristic from her forebears (which was not altogether true; every one of her not remotely unpleasant features could be found somewhere, in some degree, among the grim and dour portraits, a nose here, an eyebrow there; Bronwyn’s good luck came in that eventually, by sheer force of probability, someone was bound to eventually inherit more of the outstanding physical attributes and fewer of the less appealing ones; it was as though Musrum in creating the princess, had taken a handful of genes, tossed them into the air and watched them all come up heads) was the display of arms that were artfully arranged around the portraits of the more militarily-inclined ancestors. Browsing hastily but thoughtfully, he selected a fine-looking epeé that still bore a glinting razor’s edge.
At the far end of the passage, the baron knew, lay the apartments of the king.
Just imagine the surprise on the faces of the king, Payne Roelt and General Praxx when the big double doors burst open, revealing the spectral figure of Baron Milnikov upon the threshold. Ferenc leaped convulsively, like a frog in a voltaic demonstration, while Payne managed, after only the briefest lapse, to maintain his habitual sneer, though this was not only belied by a face that was suddenly bleached to an unpleasantly corpselike blue-white, but in combination made the expression appear more seasick than supercilious. The general’s jaw dropped with an audibly metallic click.
The baron realized that he didn’t know what to say. Having had even less time to anticipate this meeting, the trio of villains were equally speechless. For quite a long moment all four men just stared at one another.
Payne was the first to regain his composure, or at least he made a plausible show of doing so. “Well, well, the good baron of all people. What in the world are you doing here?”
“Nothing that you’ll enjoy hearing about.”
“You sound more than a little put out, my dear baron.”
“Payne!” squeaked the king, from behind the chair where he had taken refuge. “Payne! What does he want? What does this mean? Get him out of here!”
“Where’s my daughter, you illegitimate son of a streetwalker?” replied the baron, ignoring the king as everyone else did.
“Your daughter?” Payne’s eyebrows raised in mock surprise. “Why, I’ve already told you: she’s dead.”
“I don’t believe you!”
“Whyever not?”
“What would be the point in killing her? What could you hope to gain?”
“Gain? Nothing at all.”
“My daughter’s continued safety is your only hold on me. Kill her and there’s nothing you can threaten me with. Do you think that I would’ve betrayed my princess for any other reason?”
“Why, I have no idea. Would you have? To be honest, the thought that you might’ve been purchased more cheaply never crossed my mind. Perhaps I might’ve saved myself a great deal of trouble. However, I see what the source of your confusion is. You’ll probably laugh when I tell you. You’re assuming that you have some continued value to me, but really you haven’t. All I wanted was for you to abandon the princess to me. You did. And that was all.”
The baron was growing very pale at Payne’s coolly self-confident recital. “Then if you’re finished with me, why not let me take my daughter and leave?”
“For at least two good reasons, Baron. The first, of course, is that I couldn’t let you loose to warn the princess or otherwise interfere, which I’m sure you would, although I have every good reason to believe that any threat from her is by now a very moot point. The second, and no less compelling reason, is that your daughter is, in fact, no longer of this world.”
“But why?”
“Because she is deceased, of course.”
“No, no! I mean, why did you have to do that? What harm had she done to you?”
“Harm? None at all.”
“Then why did you…do it?” The baron’s voice had sunk to a hoarse, and suddenly very elderly, whisper. He had finally come to the realization that he believed, at last, really believed everything the villains were telling him.
Payne looked genuinely surprised, as though he had never before considered the question. He shrugged his shoulders. “To tell you the truth, it just seemed to be the thing to do.”
With an almost inarticulate cry (a strangled attempt at Bastard!) the baron threw himself at the smaller man. Taken almost completely by surprise, Payne was only just able to avoid the slashing point of the baron’s sword. He fell backwards against the chair upon which he had been negligently leaning, its horsehair stuffing spraying from the three-foot slash in its fine leather, knocking it over with a crash as the enraged baron pressed his attack. Fortunately for the next few moments of the chamberlain’s life, the baron had gone too mad to ply his weapon scientifically or artfully, and the opening portion of the battle consisted only of a furious hunt-and-chase amongst the king’s furniture. The king himself had taken refuge in a corner, where he huddled, holding a silver serving platter as a shield. He peeked around it with eyes as bulging and glossy as hard-boiled eggs as he watched his furnishings being reduced to splinters with a kind of morbid fascination.
“Do something!” shrieked Payne, as he scrambled around the chamber, barely maintaining a hair’s-breadth lead. The general had been, so far, for whatever reasons he saw fit, content merely to watch. He was in fact wondering how close he would be able to call this.
“You murderer!” cried the baron. “You destroyed my daughter and my honor! I’ll dice you, I’ll mince you, I’ll flay you alive, I’ll peel your skin from you like an apple and roll you in salt. I’ll cut your fingers off and make you eat them. I’ll break every bone in your body and tie you into knots . . .” There was a great deal more in the same vein and Payne had no reason to doubt the sincerity of even a single word of it.
“Praxx!” he squealed once again. “Do something, damn you!”
Praxx, without any particular sense of urgency, other than what was required to avoid the general meleé, went to the mantle and pulled down a sword from a pair that were crossed above the stone shelf. He waited until the chamberlain in his rounds of the room passed by him, and handed the weapon to the nearly exhausted man. This was less than he had hoped for, but Payne turned to face the baron, only just in time to parry a thrust intended for the back of his head.
“How long do you think you can keep this up?” he asked the older man.
“Until you’re cat food, germ!”
“I think not! You’re old and tired and starved. And there’ll be help here any moment.”
Attracted by the noise, perhaps, thought the baron, but he was certain that he had noticed no one approaching the bellropes. And why was Praxx staying out of things as he was? What was his game? The small, dark man was now fighting back, and with surprising, if purely academic, skill.
“A moment’s all I need, parasite, weasel, tick, as far as you’re concerned, tapeworm.”
“Your precious princess is dead, too, you know!”
“I very much doubt that,” he replied uncertainly.
“Why? You didn’t doubt me when I told you that your daughter was dead—why do you doubt me now?”
“My daughter was a helpless little girl. The princess isn’t. I don’t think you could kill her.”
“I didn’t have to; she was drowned at sea!”
“Don’t make me laugh! That’s the best you can do? You’ve thought she was dead half a dozen times before and you were mistaken. What a joke you are, Roelt! What a pitiful jest!”
“I’ll show you who’s a joke, baron!” the chamberlain hissed as he pressed his defense. The tiring baron felt his advantage weakening. He was exhausted, and starved, and what Payne Roelt had told him about his daughter had deflated too much of his resolve. There was no glorious rescue to anticipate now, no joyful reunion; only whatever revenge he might be able to enact.
“Your precious, precious princess!” taunted Roelt. “I know all about that, all about your terribly ‘noble’ interest in her.” He laughed sneeringly. “‘Noble!’ You’re only a disgusting old man, a leering pedophile old enough to be her father. What did you do all of those nights the two of you spent together, eh? I know how you feel about her—it’s no secret, not from me, nothing is. How is she, Baron? Did you make her squeal?”
“Damn you!” cried the baron, inarticulately, his weakening offense now only managing to hold its own against the other’s defense.
“Or did you just worship her from afar? Spend long nights looking at that slender young body? She’s casual in front of her underlings, I know; how often did she flaunt herself around you? Do you think she knew what she was doing? Do you think maybe she enjoyed watching the old man sweat and fidget?”
“Damn you!” the baron spluttered in his rage and humilation. “You dare talk about her that way! I’ll cut your filthy tongue out! I’ll make a paté out of it!”
“A little close to the truth, eh, Baron? How, ah, ironic, how sadly romantic that she’ll never know how much you loved her, isn’t it, Baron?”
“She knows I loved her!”
“I’m sure she did, but not how you loved her. What would she think if she were to know that all you really wanted to do was spread . . .”
With an animal-like scream the baron attacked his enemy, surprising both himself and Roelt with the energy and ferocity of his assault. This is it, he thought, as his disembodied viewpoint drifted toward one corner of the room and he was able to look down upon the scene below. I let him get to me, like the rankest amateur. I’m too old and too tired; too hungry, also. Now look at what I’m doing: red-faced, wild-haired, slashing at that little monster as though he were a fly. He sighed as best as a disembodied viewpoint could. It’s all come to this, then. I’ve betrayed everything that I ‘ve ever cared for, and to what purpose? I’m really not certain. I’m sorry, Tholance, I’m sorry, Tamlaght, and I’m sorry, Bronwyn, for this miserable creature knowing so much of the truth. The chamberlain felt his ground giving rapidly away, nearly as quickly as his confidence.
“Praxx, damn you! Do something!”
So Praxx raised his pistol and shot the baron.