Chapter 6
In which the papal representatives gather to gloat at the success of their plan. Elsewhere, Beowulf and Roscow are cornered and another plan for the increasingly complicated French Succession is revealed!
Louis, the rightful King of France (depending on whether or not you accept the British claim) was, in his own, unimaginative way, not happy at all. He was in a dark dungeon, in a small cell with no windows. The cell was furnished with a hard wooden pallet on which he could either sleep or sit, and there was a bucket. Mostly there was a glimmer of light from beyond the hard, iron bound door, but not always; sometimes it was just dark. This was not much entertainment for the King of France. He was relieved that, at least, the iron mask that he had been made to wear while transported to the dungeon had been removed. There was no point in it being worn, as no one visited, no one came in and no one went out. He was unsure how long he had been held captive, but in all that time nothing had happened. He was miserable, angry and bored in equal measure.
He supposed that he could perhaps have felt grateful. At least he was still alive. At least there was some food pushed under the door each day. At least someone did take away the bucket, if he placed it through a partition in the cell door. As the Marshall, who had raised him used to say, ‘Where there’s life there’s hope!’, but there was precious little life and Louis suspected there was precious little hope. He estimated there were several long hours ahead before the next plate of food. He would have liked to spend those hours reflecting on his options; however, there seemed to be no options open to him apart from sitting and waiting. He resigned himself to doing just that.
At that moment, he was startled to hear sounds in the distance. He had become quite attuned to the sounds of the dungeon and he realised that this was not one of the regular sounds. There were more people than normal and they were not the regular guards; he knew the sound of their boots. He was caught between hope and fear. It could be rescue, but it could also mean death. The Marshall had raised his Louis as a stoic and the Marshall would have been proud of the stoicism with which King Louis sat to meet his fate.
As it was, it turned out to be neither. He knew that men were outside and talking about him, but he could not hear what they said. He knew that they could see into the cell through a grille, whereas he could not see out; so he did not know who they were, or what they were doing. If he had been more curious it might have driven him mad, fortunately, he was not.
The men outside the cell were, in a rough order of importance; Cardinal Bull, special representative of his Holiness the Pope, the sort-of-Sun King, Louis the magnificent, King of France (although he was, of course, an imposter; nevertheless he was next in line to the throne, in the event of the death of Louis, and so he was, at the very least, a prince), His Most Exalted Eminence, Cardinal Mascarpone, Heinrich, a Captain in the Papal Guard and Commander of the Guards at Monte San Carlos, Erich the Chief Gaoler and Norbert, who was merely there because Cardinal Mascarpone had failed to remember to tell him not to come. The men stood, conspiratorially, in the passage outside the cell and regarded the rightful King of France.
‘It would be kinder to kill him,’ said his twin kindly. Both Cardinals glared at him.
‘I know, I know. “The Church does not commit regicide.” I can’t see why not. With him gone I am the rightful King of France and nothing can go wrong. This is all a bit risky.’
‘The risk is minimised,’ said Heinrich, ‘the location, although obvious; is secret. The guards do not know who they guard, and they are plentiful. The Monastery is secure. There will be no rescue.’
‘I ‘eard that Beowulf is coming,’ said Erich, unhelpfully, while scratching himself, unhygienically, ‘ee might be a bit risky.’
Heinrich glared malevolently at his underling.
‘If a rescue is attempted, it will be neutralised. I have no fear of Beowulf.’
‘Besides, if Beowulf were to come, which I hope he does, he would be putting himself into a trap. Louis is secure and we may yet use him to ensnare our enemy.’ said Bull, with an air of smugness.
‘So why are we here, in this dismal dungeon?’ asked Mascarpone, who would really have liked not to come; he was sure that there was still a nice bottle of something, left in the wreckage of his room.
‘Because we must be sure what we are about,’ said Bull, ‘Let me be clear; we have all conspired to kidnap an anointed King. If anything goes wrong, we will all be to blame.’
Bull leered at his companions.
‘Take a good look at the Royal Accommodation. If any of you fail in this conspiracy, you will be lucky to be as sumptuously housed as our Royal friend within. His Holiness will not accept failure in this matter. The Holy revenues must continue to accrue in a righteous manner. Louis must stay a prisoner and our Louis must do his duty and rule France. Does everyone understand?’
Their silence said they did.
Norbert was troubled; he had lived in the Monastery at Monte San Carlos for many years. Despite his (sensible) fear of Bull; he gave voice to his doubt,
‘Isn’t it very easy to get down here if you go through the Monastery kitchen?’
The wise men of state and clergy groaned at the ignorance of foolish servants and Mascarpone gave him a half hearted cuff, ‘for being a nuisance.’ They then departed. Norbert waited until they were gone and then walked on to the kitchen to check. As he had suspected, he was right, but no one had seemed to be interested, so it couldn’t be all that important.
In his cell, King Louis wondered what the commotion had been about.
On the road to Monte San Carlos, Naiman was waiting. He was confident of his plan and sure of his ability. It was late evening and he was concealed in a clump of trees, near to an abandoned barn that he had found while scouting the road the day before. As soon as he had seen it, he had been in no doubt that it would do very well for his purpose. Mentally, he went through his plan, just one more time. He smiled with a mixture of satisfaction and anticipation.
Roscow was unusually happy with the way things were going. They may be off on a doomed mission, where he and Beowulf would be horribly outnumbered and there might be little prospect of surviving this venture; but, at the very least, they were definitely out of the mountains. Roscow had promoted mountain climbing on his list of least favourite activities; it had topped previous leaders, such as fighting wolves, wading through swamps and staying in flea infested inns. He was positively joyful that, almost every day now, was spent walking down hill. They were nearly at the coast. He loved the coast; there were no mountains on the coast, no snow, no climbing, and no altitude sickness! To make things better, they had not been attacked for a number of days; and is seemed as if they had finally shaken off the old Troll who was stalking them. They had made good progress all day, and, just to round things off, there appeared to be a barn in which they could spend the night. Roscow offered a guilty little prayer of thanks. The prayer was guilty, as he knew Beowulf was an atheist and took a very dim view of, what he called, ‘primitive superstition.’ Roscow smiled a guilty smile and trudged onwards.
Beowulf eyed the barn suspiciously.
‘It looks too good to be true,’ he mused, ‘It is exactly the sort of place I would have selected for an ambush, had I been seeking to stop us from getting to Monte San Carlos. The past days on the road have been quiet, which I assume is a ruse to put us off our guard. We must be careful.’
Roscow groaned in disappointment, but did not argue; Beowulf was too often right to be ignored. They prepared to skirt the area, going to the other side of the road. In his hiding place, Naiman smiled; all was going too plan.
Opposite the barn was a thicket, and it was into this that Roscow and Beowulf disappeared, in order to pass the barn unobtrusively. Gavin who was hard on their heels caught an interesting, unfamiliar scent. He stopped. With a particularly happy bark he ran off too the barn, into which he swiftly disappeared. Beowulf and Roscow stopped too watch. Nothing happened.
Gareth ran happ
ily into the barn, enchanted by the smell of some kind of rotting meat. He had a vague recollection that he was supposed to be following the tall human, but that quickly disappeared when he found out what was in the barn. Had Gareth been able to describe what he found and been given to the use of metaphor he would have said that it was ‘a library of smells’. (Obviously he would have had some difficulty coming up with the concept of library; he was not much of a returner of ‘borrowed items’)
The rotting meat was just by the door, but further inside there were greater delights! He was sure there was a whiff of dead bird and possibly some kind of liquid manure? As the voracious connoisseur of stink, that he was born to be, there was no choice but to get in there and root around. As he charged, happily, madly, joyfully across the floor he had a sudden impression that things were not quite right; but by the time that thought had registered, it was too late; he had fallen in the pit.
Outside Roscow and Beowulf were focussed on the barn.
‘It’s a trick,’ said Beowulf suddenly, ‘we are meant to look. Move!’
His urgent command came too late for Roscow, as Naiman leapt from the tree behind them and knocked the big man unconscious with a single blow.
‘Now,’ he observed, ‘it’s just you and me.’
Beowulf drew his short sword, shrugged off the cliché and dropped into a fighting stance.
Gretza the Angel, who had followed Beowulf and Roscow since she had freed them from the avalanche (‘like a guardian angel’ she thought, ironically), was fleetingly panicked; she was not supposed to let Beowulf die, but then again she was not intended to reveal herself either. She decided to trust the small mans fighting abilities and only intervene if all were lost.
‘There is no need to fight,’ said Naiman, who certainly looked inclined to fight; he was holding a dagger in each hand. Beowulf eyed his lithe, muscular physique and concluded that the combat would be ‘testing.’
‘Perhaps I want too,’ he ventured, ‘I dislike “professional” assassins.’
‘You think it should be the preserve of the gentleman amateur?’ replied Naiman, ‘that is a noble sentiment.’
‘You are surely not going to regale me with a story of “working class boy made good” are you? I doubt you’ve ever worked and I’m not at all convinced of your “goodness.” I am sure that you are in the service of at least one of the supposed elite. Which one I wonder?’
Beowulf anticipated that, if he pretended to think and fractionally lowered his guard, then Naiman would strike, giving him a good base to counter from. In the first instance he was correct; Naiman came at him in a flash of swirling knives, but the assassin was so fast and powerful that it was all Beowulf could do to block his thrusts and give ground. By the time he was ready to counter Naiman was back beyond his range.
‘Not the Pope,’ decided Beowulf, ‘he would never hire someone who tried to portray himself as an infidel; but you are not from the East. You are not from the cult of the assassins.’
‘You are sure?’ asked Naiman briefly, he had recognised that Beowulf was trying to use the conversation to try to put him off guard.
‘Sure,’ confirmed Beowulf, ‘you have the faintest accent of southern Spain. You are good, though. I hope you are being well paid for the danger.’
Naiman laughed,
‘What danger? I am a master of combat. I am younger, stronger and better-‘
At that moment Beowulf lunged and sent a flurry of blows at Naiman’s legs and arms. Again Naiman was too quick, he slipped a few feet away towards a clearing in the forest. Beowulf immediately assumed that this was a trap and stopped following.
‘A wise man told me that a master does not need to boast,’ he said, waiting.
‘Surely a master can speak the truth?’ retorted Naiman, ‘I do anticipate that I will best you, however it is not my mission to kill you; otherwise you would be dead.’
Beowulf considered this, but still did not step forward.
‘Then your mission is?’ he asked, keeping his eyes on the assassin. Beowulf assessed that, had Naiman been seeking to kill him, then he would not have created the single combat scenario, he would have tried to kill from a distance with some kind of missile weapon or a trap; however, Beowulf was never prepared to dismiss any possibility, particularly if it could end with his immediate death
‘I am to make an offer, of a job; from your Father.’
This did surprise Beowulf and on the word ‘Father’ Naiman launched another hugely powerful attack. This time he charged and twisted inside the reach of Beowulf’s sword. Beowulf had to drop the sword to grab Naiman’s wrists. They were now locked chest to chest and Naiman used his superior weight to drive Beowulf backwards through the wood.
Naiman had prepared a trap, but it was not in the clearing, where he had led Beowulf, it was in the opposite direction. Naiman pushed and strained and both men fell into the covered pit he had prepared. Naiman landed on Beowulf and although he was winded, he was faster than Beowulf and he put his dagger to the smaller mans throat.
‘You see that I could take your life if I wanted,’ breathed Naiman, scraping the dagger against Beowulf’s throat.
‘But not without losing your own,’ gasped Beowulf.
Naiman was aware of a blade being held just below his ribs.
‘I don’t think you want to die just to please the Duke of Jutland,’ said Beowulf, ‘whereas I am quite happy to end my own futile existence by finishing yours.’
He lay back and smiled. Naiman was unnerved, but did his best to conceal this.
‘It is fortunate then, that my mission, is not to kill you,’ he said slowly, ‘shall we get up?’
Beowulf nodded. Naiman quickly sprang to his feet and vaulted out of the pit. Beowulf sat up.
‘Aren’t you going to give me a hand?’ asked Beowulf.
‘I don’t think so,’ said Naiman. They both smiled at this.
‘The Duke of Jutland wants the Pope’s plot to fail, but he does not want to be responsible for the failure. He wants you to ruin the plan. Louie-Louie must be deposed and Louis must replace him. That’s what he wants.’
‘What do I get for that?’ asked Beowulf.
‘Forgiveness,’ said the assassin, drily.
Beowulf laughed, but it was not a mirthful sound.
‘And do I need or want that?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Naiman, ‘but that’s the offer.’ He turned as if to go and then was struck by an afterthought,
‘And if you don’t take it; then I am supposed to kill you.’
Then he was gone.
After Beowulf had climbed out of the pit, he went and rescued Gareth from the barn.
‘Stupid animal,’ he observed kindly. They went in search of Roscow, who was already sitting up and rubbing his head.
‘What happened?’ he asked.
‘You aren’t going to believe it, when I tell you,’ said Beowulf, ‘let’s go and eat in the barn, I’m sure it can’t be a trap twice.’