Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

curiosity, if not doubt. Svenson watched as they manhandled the coffin onto the barge. When they were at the exact moment of balance—two of them knee-deep in water on the sides, one in the barge, one shoving from the rear—he called up to Major Blach.

“Tell me, Major, is Herr Flauss a traitor like you, or merely incompetent?”

Blach cocked his pistol. Xonck sighed audibly and placed his hand on the Major’s arm.

“Really, Doctor, you must desist.”

“If I’m going to be murdered, I am at least curious whether I leave my Prince in the hands of two traitors or one.”

“But presently he is in no one’s hands.”

“None of their hands.”

“Yes yes,” snapped Xonck. “As you have already told me. Careful there!”

The men had shoved the coffin too far, to the side of the barge, and the entire craft tilted perilously. One man flung himself onto the barge to balance the weight while the other three dragged the coffin back into position. The Comte’s two men carefully took up their places on the barge—one at the rear oar, the other readying shorter paddling oars for each side.

“Why go to the bother of transporting the Colonel here?” asked Svenson. “Why not just sink him in a canal near Harschmort?”

Xonck cast a side glance at the Major. “Call it Germanic thoroughness,” he said.

“The Comte examined his body,” replied Svenson, suddenly knowing it was true. “In his greenhouse.” They didn’t know something…or had something to hide—but hidden from someone at Harschmort? Hidden from Vandaariff? Were they not all allies?

“We need to kill him,” snarled Blach.

“Not with that,” answered Xonck, nodding at Blach’s pistol.

Svenson knew he should act before the others came back with the wheelbarrow, when there were that many fewer of them. He pointed to his medical kit.

“Mr. Xonck, I see there my own medical kit. I know I am to die, and I know that you may not shoot me for making too loud a noise. This leaves any number of more hideous options—strangling, stabbing, drowning, all of them slow and painful. If you will allow, I can quite easily prepare an injection for myself that will be swift, silent, and painless—it will perform a service to us all.”

“Afraid, are you?” taunted Major Blach.

“Indeed, I admit it freely,” answered Svenson, “I am a coward. If I must die—as it seems I must, for the credulous Prince you have abused and kidnapped—then I would prefer oblivion to agony.”

Xonck studied him and called to one of the troopers. “Hand me the bag.”

The nearest trooper did so. Xonck snapped it open, rummaged inside, and fixed Svenson with a searching, skeptical eye. He snapped the bag shut and threw it back to the trooper. “No needles,” he said to Svenson, “and no attempt to throw acid or anything else you may have on hand. You will drink your medicine, and do it quietly. If there is the slightest trouble, I will merely gag you and let the Major do his worst—I assure you no one will hear the difference.” He nodded to the trooper. The trooper clicked his heels by instinct and brought the medical kit to Svenson.

“I am grateful to you, I’m sure,” he said, snapping the kit open.

“Hurry up,” answered Xonck.

Svenson’s mind was racing. He had said anything he could think of to try and muddle the loyalty of the two troopers, to cast Blach as a traitor—it hadn’t worked. For a moment he wondered at his own loyalty—how far he had come, what desperate straits he had braved—all so beyond his normal character, and for what? He knew then it was not the Prince—a source of constant frustration and disappointment—nor his father, unthinking and proud. Was it for von Hoern? Was it for Corinna? Was it because he must dedicate his life to something, to stay true, no matter what that was, in the face of her loss? Svenson stared into his medical kit, not needing to counterfeit his shaking hands. The fact was, the oblivion of poison was a damned sight better than trying some foolhardy escape and failing—as he was bound to do. He had no illusions of the brutal lengths to which Blach would go—especially to quell any doubts in the minds of his men—to render Svenson a gibbering, pleading mess. Such an exit was tempting, and for a brief moment his searching logic was overtaken by an impulsive reverie of his lost past—the high meadows in flower, coffee in an autumn cafe, the opera box in Paris, Corinna as a girl, her uncle’s farm. It was impossible, overwhelming—he could not surrender in such a rush. He plunged his hand into the case, brought out a flask, then deliberately bobbled it out of his grasp so it shattered on the pier. He looked up at Xonck pleadingly.

“No matter—no matter—there are other things to use—let me just find it—a moment, I beg you…” He set the kit on the pier and knelt over it, rummaging. He glanced quickly at the trooper to his right. The man carried a saber in a scabbard but no other weapon. Svenson was sane enough to realize that he could not hope to seize the hilt by surprise and draw it cleanly—the angle was all wrong. He was at best likely to have it half-out and be grappling with the trooper when Major Blach shot him cleanly in the back. Xonck was watching him. He selected a flask, looked at it in the light, shook his head, and replaced it, digging for another.

“What was wrong with that one?” called Blach impatiently.

“It was not quick enough,” answered Svenson. “Here—this one will do.”

He stood, a second glass flask in his hand. The troopers were on either side of him, and together they stood at the corner of one of the piers and the portage. Across from them on the other pier, some five yards away, were Xonck and Blach. Between them was the portage itself and the barge with the two coffins and the Comte’s two men.

“What did you select?” called Xonck.

“Arsenic,” answered Svenson. “Useful in small doses for psoriasis, tuberculosis, and—most pertinently for princes—syphilis. In larger doses, immediately fatal.” He removed the stopper and looked around him, gauging the distances as closely as possible. The men were not yet back from the forge. The men on the barge were watching him with undisguised curiosity. He knew he had no choice. He nodded to Xonck. “I thank you for the courtesy.” He turned to Major Blach, and smiled.

“Burn in hell.”

Doctor Svenson tossed back the contents of the flask in a gulp. He swallowed, choked hideously, his throat constricting, his face turning crimson. He dropped the flask, clutching at his throat, and staggered back into the trooper to his right, pawing for balance. An unearthly rattle rose out of his chest, his mouth worked, his tongue protruded horribly over his lips, his eyes rolled, his knees wobbled—all eyes were upon him. His entire body tensed, as if suspended over a precipice, poised at the very passage into death. In that moment, Svenson became strangely aware of the quiet of the city, that so many people could be so near to them and the only sound the dull lap of the river against the barge and somewhere far away the cry of gulls.

Svenson heaved his weight into the trooper. With a sudden pivot he took hold of the soldier’s jacket with both hands and hurled him off the pier toward the barge. The momentum carried the trooper over the gap so he landed with a crash exactly on the side of the barge, causing it to lurch horribly. A sickening moment later, his arms flailing above, his legs thrashing in the water, the coffins slid toward the helpless man. He raised his arms as the first crashed into him, sweeping him viciously from the barge and into the water. Then the second coffin crashed into the first, tipping the entire barge at such a sudden angle that both of the Comte’s men were thrown off their feet and into the coffins. Their extra weight tipped the angle even farther, and the shallow barge rolled up and then fully over, all three men and the coffins disappearing below the upended craft.

Svenson ran for the path. The remaining trooper took hold of Svenson’s coat with both hands as he went past. Svenson turned, grappling with the trooper, furiously trying to wrench himself free. He could hear the splashes from the water, cries from Blach. The soldier was younger, stronger—they struggled, twisting each other in a circle. For a moment the soldier held Svenson in place and took hold of his throat. In the corner of his eye Svenson saw Blach raise the pistol. Svenson lurched desperately away, pulling the trooper into Blach’s line of sight. A loud flat crack erupted into his ear and his face was wet, warm. The trooper fell at his feet—the side of his head a seething mess. Svenson swept the blood from his eyes to see Francis Xonck slap Major Blach savagely across the face. Blach’s pistol was smoking.

“You idiot! The noise! You infernal fool!”

Svenson looked down—his feet tangled in the trooper’s legs. He seized the fallen man’s saber and swept it