The Escape

  The Baron eased the cart through the alley beside the bakery that he had found with Rudola the day before. It was darker now, the last traces of light leaving the sky, and they all but vanished into the shadow. In truth, the Baron didn’t think it would make much of a difference. They would have to pass through the gate still, but less time out in the open was less time out in the open. The Baron would take it.

  He tried not to think about Rudola, about the nun. It was an uncertain thing, ranging from a possibility of benign inconvenience to a desperate rescue. But he’d have to whisper a prayer to the Saints, to trust Rudola. The Marshal was a capable man. He had the scars to prove it.

  Matheller eased out of the alley onto Durn’s main street. The horse abruptly stopped, snorting at the noise and activity beyond it. As newcomers, and fairly isolated newcomers at that, they hadn’t had a good idea of how the festivities would go. Unlike the gracious dawn parades on the streets of Bris, these rascals were still out in full force, celebrating after sundown. Matheller cursed to himself. The street was packed. There were several bonfires that dotted the road, and folk danced around maypoles adorned with white yarrow wreaths, casting long shadows against the buildings. Amongst them, easily spotted, were packs of Becker’s leering soldiers.

  Baron Matheller bristled. Then he sat high, tried to look like he had nothing to hide, and hoped coming out near the bakery would lend him some air of legitimacy. In front of him, Louis looked back at the Baron. The groom’s face was pale and nervous. He suddenly looked small in the Baron’s red cloak, like a child pretending. It reminded him of young Deter playing with his wife Herta years ago. The boy was with the Saints now. Saints protect them as well.

  The Baron waved Louis onwards, and they made slow progress through the crowd. Horace came forward with his horse, began helping the timid Lord Louis usher folk out of the way of the cart. It was slow going, but with Gast in the front, the revellers moved.

  “Ho there!” The cry came from the crowd.

  There was a group of officers to the Baron’s right. The man at the front was waving to them. He had red cheeks and a giddy smile from too much drink.

  “Don’t I know you?” Red-cheeks said.

  The Baron froze. His mouth suddenly became dry. He was about to put some words together when he saw that the man was looking at Horace.

  “A tournament years ago. Jousting or some other such malarky in Lynetor,” red-cheeks continued. “Shouldn’t be saying too much about Lynetor, though.” The men around him chuckled.

  Horace was stony-faced, staring down at the man for a few thudding heartbeats. He was perhaps the least talkative of the lot of them. Louis was frozen, too. Had Matheller been the damn leader, he could have brushed the man off, but he was the cart driver now. He’d hold his tongue as long as he could.

  “We’re not from around here,” Louis stammered.

  Matheller winced at the man’s feeble attempt. He started to worry that the groom might just give himself away .

  “Neither are we but, I know him, do I not?” Red-cheeks said.

  The ice of Horace’s stare broke, and he grinned a wide smile. “Saints man, a jousting tournament? I can barely keep my arse on the horse. If you’ve seen me anywhere, it had more likely been in the alehouse! And I don’t remember much after the night’s through.”

  Red-cheeks laughed, and the rest of the men followed suit. Someone passed Horace up a mug of wine, and he gulped it down without taking a breath. The officers cheered, and whatever other questions the men had for them got lost in the merriment.

  “Onwards now. We’re late enough as it is,” Louis meekly commanded. “A holy night to you, good sirs.”

  They made for the gate. The Baron’s worry about the threshold eased when he saw the state of the guards. Both the men of Drun and the soldiers of Lord Becker were languidly positioned around the opening and didn’t raise a hand to stop the cart.

  They passed out of the gates, onto the dark northern road towards the Kings Pass. To their right, peaking out from the eastern edge of Durn’s walls, Matheller caught sight of Becker’s army from its glowing campfires. He regretted not seeing the thing in the daylight, not getting a rough count on the size of the lord’s army. If not for Lord Herik, then it would have been Lord Jung or Becker vying to be king against Philippe. He was one of the richest northern Lords, and would no doubt be bringing a sizable army to bear.

  They continued down the road in silence for the next few minutes, trotting step by step through the night. The Baron was about to call for them to find a spot to turn off and wait for Rudola when another voice called the halt instead. A single torch flickered as its bearer stepped out from beside the road. Then there was a man standing by the Baron’s cart. Another approached Horace and Louis, and another two men stepped onto the road at their rear by Grune. There were five in total, and they had the party surrounded.

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  “Evening, my Lords.” The torchbearer grinned at them. He had a shirt of mail on, and his other hand rested suggestively on the head of an axe. “What brings you out here? Are the beds at Drun not fluffy enough for you?”

  The other men had weapons too. There were several spears and axes. One man had what looked like a scythe, fitted by a blacksmith on the end of a birch pole. The cruel blades all glinted in the man’s light.

  “We are late,” Louis said. “We need to be, uh, travelling through the Kings Pass. We’ve already passed through the gates of Drun with no issue…”

  “That so?” The torchbearer said. “It’s a pretty late hour for that.”

  “Indeed, what are you doing out at such a late hour?” Baron Matheller’s voice cut through the air, almost made the torchbearer jump.

  The man frowned, turned his attention to the Baron, who held his gaze with an unwithering stare.

  “We’re under orders,” the torchbearer said. “We were heading back to camp, as men from the army of Lord Becker commanded to watch the road at the army’s rear to prevent any mischief. And, of course, collect the toll for the road.”

  Horace frowned. “Toll my arse….”

  Matheller spoke above the man at arms, gave him a warning glance. “My lord here would be happy for me to pay Lord Becker what he is due.”

  “Good man,” the torchbearer said.

  He approached Matheller and the Baron dropped a handful of silver coins into the man’s hand. The Baron was glad when he saw he’d given the man the right amount, saw the torchbearer’s greedy little eyes on the silver pennies.

  It was an odd thing for Matheller to be doing in his pretended station, but it was an odd thing for these men to be demanding money from travellers at night. Neither mattered much so long as both parties were happy. “Sufficient?”

  The torchbearer nodded, was about to turn away, when the other man, a pigheaded brute, leant over the cart wall.

  “What the hell is all that then?” Pighead pointed at the large burlap sack, the offering for old Eot.

  The Baron’s stomach dropped. “They are just provisions.” He took too long to say it. He’d paused just a fraction too long. He knew, because the torchbearer’s beady eyes narrowed suspiciously as one liar recognised another.

  “Provisions, eh?” the torchbearer said. “Fancy a bite for the road, lads? Go on then, open her up.”

  The offering to old Eot had been painstakingly assembled, measured out, blessed and cross-referenced from Diod’s account of King Atheren. As far as any scholar could tell, it was weight for weight, exactly what had been given to Eot in the days of Atheren, presented in the exact same way. Matheller couldn’t let them open it.

  “No, but perhaps I can…” the Baron started.

  “I said, open it,” the torchbearer commanded.

  Pighead pulled a knife from his belt, hopped up beside Matheller and reached for the sack. Before the Baron consciously thought about doing it, the old lord plunged his dagger into the jowls of Pighead’s neck. His eyes became wide and bulbous as blood spurted from his mouth, spraying across the hessian sack. The man squealed in horror and pain, and then the melee began.

  The torchbearer reached for his axe, began pulling it from his belt loop, when the Baron leapt from the cart and fell on top of him. They hit the ground together, hard, dangerously close to the draft horse’s frantically stamping hooves. The man couldn’t get his axe out, so he shoved his torch at the Baron’s face. Matheller caught it on the side of his head, and his ear stung with pain. He roared, tried to bring his dagger down at the man’s face, but the torchbearer blocked the strike with the shaft of his torch.

  The torchbearer kicked up with a knee and struck the Baron in his belly. Matheller was winded, lost hold of his dagger. Damn thing tumbled away into the dirt. The torchbearer brought his torch back at the Baron’s face, but Matheller used his weight to pin the man’s arm to the ground. There was an awful crunch as the draft horse’s hoof came down and shattered the torchbearer’s hand. He howled.

  Baron Matheller brought hammer fist after hammer fist down on the torchbearer. It was the marching of men, the stamping of hooves, the work of blacksmiths and their anvils. Each strike was as inevitable as the last. It was inevitable as the Blood Red Baron leading his army abroad in campaigns years passed. No quarter. No mercy. Only the fury of the Blood Red Baron. It ragged now as it had when he was young.

  Whatever else was going on around him, Matheller did not know, nor even care. There was only the torchbearer and the Baron’s fists.

  He knelt over the man, strike after strike. It was the kneeling he’d done before chapel altars, praying to the Saints to grant him compassion on the Old Father’s behalf. Strike after strike, the sound of his shovel as he dug a grave for young Deter. The priests had been kind but elusive. Perhaps he would see the lad again. All good men went back to the Old Father. All good men.

  Thud after thud. His hands had pounded at the stones of Deter’s mound. He felt Herta’s arms around him. She was a strong woman, and she’d had to drag him from Deter’s burial mound. He had sworn then, no more. No armies. No wars. No campaigns. He would do whatever it took to raise his boy in the next life. A good man.

  “Sire!” It was Louis. He was pale and terrified in the light of the fallen torch. He held the Baron’s shoulder. “We must go, now.”

  The Baron looked down. The torchbearer was dead. The man's face was a mess of bone and blood. His fists were sore, covered in something dark and thick.

  Behind the groom, a few yards back, Horace limped over to a spot in the dark and plunged his sword down into a shadow, cutting off a low whimpering. “Still alive, Grune?”

  As the groom helped the Baron to his feet, he heard a grunt of affirmation from the other man at arms. They had killed all five of Becker’s soldiers. Judging from the red specks Matheller made out on Gast’s white coat, the horse had killed one of them too.

  They stayed silent when the riders came, hidden amongst the trees in a patch just off the road. The Baron and the men at arms had their swords in hand. Matheller was on Gast as the groom kept the draft horse calm. The animal wasn’t used to this, nor was the groom. It could be Rudola. It could also be Becker’s troops coming after them. Horace whistled birdlike. The riders slowed their mounts, and a whistle was returned. It was not a bird whistle, but the start of a drinking song sung in Bris.

  “That’ll be Danner,” Horace said.

  “Rudola,” the Baron called. “It is us.”

  “Sire,” the Marshal’s voice answered.

  He could barely see the man in the dark, but there were the shapes of three horses and three riders.

  “Do you have Sister Joan?” Matheller asked.

  “I am here, Sire,” the nun said. “I think Lord Becker was becoming suspicious, but I managed to excuse myself and hide away in the cellar until Rudola and his men snuck me out.”

  “What about you, Sire?” Rudola said. “Everyone still alive?”

  “Yes,” Matheller said, but that wasn’t entirely true. There were five dead men a mile back, and a good deal of dry blood on his knuckles.