unhappy – for I would die myself if I could not release my passions. Let us repeal it: my conscience cannot bear taxing the only pleasure in this life.”
“My lord, it has other benefits, which you have supported so strongly in the past.”
“Have I? If so, it was not named the love making fine. What are these benefits, though I cannot see how they are worth their price in happiness.”
“My lord, would there be so much dessert for you and the court if the tailors went untaxed in these matters?”
“No, the wells would soon run dry. But still, I must not be selfish. What is this fine called, that I can repeal it.”
“It is not so much the love making fine as it is the love making tax, for that is the effect of our taxes: on imports, on linens, and on grain.”
“Now I understand,” and the king paused, still staring out the window. “I have reached a decision, Vahan.”
“I am ready, your majesty. Will we repeal the love making tax?”
“What? I have decided on my desserts, I meant – for I will have both blond and brunette, to celebrate our coming victory. As for the tax, my health is not what it once was.”
There was a knock at the door, hurried and important.
“Enter,” Vahan said, and he did not wait for the king’s approval.
The door swung open and a soldier replaced it in the doorway. He was fully armed and armored, bearing a sealed letter in his hand. Vahan evidently knew him, for he beckoned him to come over, while the king continued looking after the passing women.
“A message?” Vahan asked the soldier.
“Yes, sir: from Captain De Seinaly. I have not stopped since I was given it yesterday evening.”
“Well done, Horace, though I did not expect less. Your service will be remembered when the time is right. But for now, let me read the letter,” and Vahan took his penknife from the table and carefully opened the seal. It was written in a hasty, untidy script, with the ending words omitted, and the sentences incomplete. After he had read it to himself, Vahan read it aloud, “Your Majesty, the fleet sails from the Three Kingdoms. We send word immediately. There is nothing to spare. They sail at ten knots.”
The king sighed deeply, “Then I will have no dessert.”
The soldier was surprised, “My lord, why should you have less than the soldiers? For we bring our dessert with us when we sail.”
“Genius!” cried the king, “I had not thought of it, but it will do nicely!”
“If we have time,” and Vahan sighed, though in a different manner than the king. “We are needed at the fortress at once.” The fortress was a military compound two miles beyond the city walls, along an inlet.
“Yes, you are right,” the king moaned. “And we had best leave now, as there is much to be done if we are to reach Atilta in time. But wait – we cannot have more than two days, and that beginning yesterday,” and the king hung his head.
The three men – Vahanlee, the king, and Horace – took the hall to the king’s coach, and set off at a quick trot through the streets toward the city’s end. On the way, the carriage passed through the crowded, narrow streets of Bordeaux, jostling those inside. Horace sat on the left and Vahan Lee on the right, both of the rear seat, and the king occupied the front seat by himself, making a positive or negative sigh in relation to each of the ladies they passed. Several minutes were spent gaining the highway, which ran straight through the city and was kept well- tended by the merchants’ guilds. No one walked along the highway, and the king, thus deprived of his attentions, turned to Vahan and began to speak.
“How much of the army is ready to depart?” he asked.
“Fifteen thousand,” was the answer.
“And they are aboard?”
“On two hundred ships.”
“The whole fleet,” and the king paused. “But let us hope it is enough against our combined enemies. You say de Casanova attacked you?”
“There was an ambush and a melee, but I cannot say who planned it. Patrick McConnell was taken by de Casanova, and de Casanova by us.”
“The King of Atilta will be returning to Bordeaux soon, I should think, if they went to the Cervennes Mountains.”
“They should, or else they will miss the final fight. But they are beyond my gaze.”
“About that we will see, anyway. Captain Khalid took a battalion after Nicholas Montague. They cannot be far, either.”
“I hope to hear word any hour.”
“So I thought, for there is the equipage of the battalion, lined between the fortress and their ship. The crowd overflows the courtyard, in excitement,” and the king pointed to the fortress before them.
“So they are!” cried Vahan. “And what could it be, than that they have Montague and execute him without a trial, as I ordered. For I know the guiles of Montague.”
“Wisely done,” the king said, and he poked his head out the window, calling to the driver, “You there, hurry!” Their speed increased to a gallop.
The fortress was circular, ten thousand feet in diameter, and formed into ten buildings – each of which was entirely self-contained. A courtyard filled much of the center. The only entrances to the individual buildings were stationed behind a moat that circled the interior. Only a narrow, underground passage led to the courtyard, with a dozen gates along its length and murder holes throughout. The buildings themselves had hundred foot walls on the outside, wherein no way was made to enter. And below the whole of the fortress was the King’s Keep, buried deep beneath the ground in a system of caves.At this time, the baggage of a full battalion was spread between the port and the fortress and was slowly being brought through the entrance tunnel. A large crowd of soldiers was standing around, hanging out of the courtyard with an air of the unusual.
The carriage approached the tunnel gates and began to slow. But Vahan, struck by some strange feeling of urgency, stuck his out the window and demanded the guards clear the path for the king. They recognized the powerful minister of state and the tunnel was cleared at once. On the smooth stone, the horses could only stop from falling by pushing forward at full speed and the tunnel passed like a dreamless night. The soldiers in the courtyard were strewn aside from its path. The carriage only came to a stop at the very foot of the gallows, on which stood seven persons on the very verge of being hung. When Vahan saw who they were, he leapt through the window – shattering the glass – and tumbled onto the stairs that led to the raised platform. As he hit the ground, the hangmen opened the trap doors the seven stood upon.
“Stop!” Vahan cried in desperation, “Stop: that is not Nicholas Montague!”
Chapter 77
“We part in friendship and brotherhood,” Zeus told Willard at the edge of the cavern. “But I warn you never to return! It is nothing personal, of course, but we must spend our days in peaceful isolation, lest the gods revoke our pardon. So here we part, for all and ever.” The old king-over-the-mountain bowed low before Willard, then turned and disappeared into the darkness.
Willard and his companions stood silent for a moment, unable to break themselves from the spell of the mountain. Then – with a single, united action – they returned to the world in which strife reigned, and their impatience to return was reborn.
“We must hurry,” Patrick said, “Come, Lydia, it will pass soon enough.”
“Will it?” she asked sweetly.
“Yes, but if it does not, we must drink it. It is our cup to bear.”
“We will be thirsty, indeed, if we do not bind speed to our feet,” de Garcia said. “So let us run, if we can. Our wagon has been taken, no doubt, but we can take another in its stead.”
“The peasants can suffer the loss of a wagon,” Leggitt agreed, “Against the loss of a people.”
“Yet we will only arrive when God desires,” said Ivona, “And we need not sin to change his timing.”
“Nonsense,” de Garcia said, “For I trust only my sword,” and he drew it from its scabbard, flashing the sun with its steel to show his fluency. “As for God, he can help us if he so desires.”
“No, Ivona is right, de Garcia,” Willard said, and his regal voice put an end to contrary thoughts. “She is right,
