"Take the weapon," the Queen said quietly. "And kill them all."
Chapter 48
"Bloody crows, Frederic," Ehren complained, as they moved into the hall. "You don't have to carry me. I can walk."
The hulking young Knight Terra grunted as the little Cursor elbowed him and stepped a bit away. "I'm sorry," he said, "It's just that Harger said - "
Frederic was interrupted as Count Calderon rounded the corner at a brisk walk and slammed into the young man. Frederic let out a grunt at the impact and fell backward.
Count Calderon scowled ferociously. "Frederic! What the crows are you doing in the citadel?" He looked at Ehren. "And you. You're..." His eyebrows went up. "I thought you were dead."
Ehren leaned on his cane and tried not to let too much wince leak into his smile. "Yes, Your Excellency. And so did Lord Aquitaine. Which was the point."
Bernard drew in a slow breath. "Get up."
The young Knight Terra hurried to obey.
"Frederic?" Bernard said.
"Yes, sir?"
"You're not hearing any of this."
"No, sir."
Bernard nodded and turned to Ehren. "Amara said that he suspected you had manipulated him into that stunt at Riva."
Ehren nodded. "I didn't want to be within reach when he figured it out. And the best way to do that was to be tucked safely into a grave." He shifted his weight and winced at his injuries. "Granted, I hadn't intended my exit to be quite that... authentic. The original plan was for Frederic to find me at the end of the battle."
"Wait," Frederic blurted, his eyes almost comically wide. "Wait. Count, sir, you didn't know about this?"
Count Calderon narrowed his eyes and eyed Ehren.
Ehren smiled thinly. "Sir Frederic, Tribune Harger, and Lord Gram may have been operating under the impression that they were acting under your direct and confidential orders, sir."
"And what would have given them that impression?" Calderon asked.
"Signed orders!" Frederic said. "In your own hand, sir! I saw them!"
Calderon made a rumbling sound in his chest. "Sir Ehren?"
"When I was learning forgery, I used to use your letters to Tavi for practice, Your Excellency."
"He gave you those letters?" Calderon asked.
"I burgled them, sir." Ehren coughed. "For another course."
Calderon made a disgusted sound.
"I - I don't understand," the young Knight said.
"Keep it that way, Frederic," Calderon said.
"Yessir."
"Leave."
"Yessir." The brawny young Knight saluted and hurried away.
Calderon stepped closer to Ehren. Then he said, very quietly, his voice hard, "You're telling me, to my face, that you conspired to murder a Princeps of the Realm?"
"No," Ehren said, just as quietly, and with just as much stone in his voice, "I'm telling you that I made sure a man who absolutely would have killed your nephew could never hurt him." He didn't let his gaze waver. "You can have me arrested, Your Excellency. Or you could kill me, I suppose. But I think the Realm would be better served if we sorted it out later."
Count Calderon's expression didn't waver. "What," he said finally, "gave you the right to deal with Aquitaine that way? What makes you think one of us wouldn't have handled it?"
"He was ready for any of you," Ehren said simply. "He barely looked twice at me until it was too late." He shrugged. "And I was acting under orders."
"Whose orders?" Bernard demanded.
"Gaius Sextus's orders, sir. His final letter to Aquitaine contained a hidden cipher for me, sir."
Calderon took a deep breath, eyeing Ehren. "What you've done," he said quietly, "orders from Sextus or not, could be considered an act of treason against the Realm."
Ehren arched an eyebrow. He looked down at the stone floor of the fortress beneath him and tapped it experimentally with his cane. Then he looked up at Calderon again. "Did you have orders from Gaius Sextus, sir?"
Bernard grunted. "Point." He exhaled. "You're Tavi's friend."
"Yes, I am, sir," Ehren said. "If it makes it easier for you, I could just vanish. You wouldn't have to make the call."
"No, Cursor," Bernard said, heavily. "I've reached the limits of my tolerance for intrigue. What you did was wrong."
"Yes, sir," Ehren said.
"And smooth," Bernard said. "Very smooth. There's nothing to link his death to you but a dying man's babbling suspicions. And only Amara and I know about that."
Ehren waited, saying nothing.
"Sir Ehren," Bernard said, slowly. He took a deep breath, as if readying himself to plunge into cold water. "What a relief that your injuries were less serious than we believed. I will, of course, expect you to resume your duties at once. Right beside me." He growled, beneath his breath, "Where I can keep an eye on you."
Ehren almost sagged with relief. The only thing that prevented it was that it would have hurt a very great deal. The injuries to his body had been closed and stabilized, but it would be weeks before he could move normally again. "Yes, sir," he said. He found his eyes clouding up, and he blinked them several times until they were clear again. "Thank you, sir."
Bernard put an arm on his shoulder, and said, "Easy, there, young man. Come on. Let's get to work."
The view of the battle from the little citadel's tower was spectacular, even at night. Large furylamps, on the walls and towers of both the defensive ramparts and the citadel, illuminated the Calderon Valley for half a mile. Originally, the Valley's trees and brush had grown up to within a bowshot of the old fortress at Garrison, but they had long since been cleared, for the expanding little city, then cleared back more, to the edge of the range of the mules. It left the ground utterly devoid of features an attacking force could use for cover.
The vord covered that ground like a turbulent black sea. Despite the efforts of the firecrafters and the crews of the mules, which had been spread out on rooftops behind the first wall, the vord had finally covered the ground and were fighting their way up the walls, hacking out climbing holds and coming up in lots of a dozen creatures at a time, until the Legion engineers could earthcraft the holds out of the wall's surface, returning it to unbroken smoothness. Men fought and bled atop the wall, but nowhere near so ruinously as they had only a day or two before. The frontage of the entire fortification was less than three-quarters of a mile, and the sides of the Valley were no wider, there. The vord had to pack themselves in to reach the walls, to the point where their advantage of numbers did them the least amount of good.