The Dark Lord's Handbook Page 20

  Hooded and moving from shadow to shadow so as to avoid the bright beams of moonlight that pierced the alleyways, Penbury was beginning to think that insisting he go alone to meet Snort and Snort was a mistake. His heart was beating far too fast a rhythm and he was sure he had picked up a tail. It wasn’t far now though, so perhaps he had nothing to worry about. Maybe it was Chidwick ignoring his orders.

  He ducked into a doorway and stood still, looking back the way he had come. The contrast of dark and light that the full moon created made it hard to see much. Instead he looked for movement. If he spotted something it was unlikely to be anything but trouble; Al-Frahzi was not known for stray cats since the Great Famine a century past when a taste for a wide range of foods had been developed, and in fact was one of the reasons Penbury came to the city in pursuit of his gastronomic interests.

  Relieved that he saw nothing, he carried his bulk as lightly as he could further down the alley. He had memorised the route in his mind and it was down to the end, a left, then first right, second door on the right.

  Perhaps it was because he was going over the knocking sequence that he would have to perform on the door once he reached it that he let slip an old saying in Al-Frahzi:

  ‘One never knows what is around the next corner, but one should make sure it is not a kari-kari.’

  (Some even went as far as to suggest the shape of the blade had been developed to make stabbing round corners easier.)

  Moonlight glinting on metal saved Penbury as at the very last moment he skipped backwards away from the lunging blade. He may well have been carrying a few (well a lot) of extra pounds these days but he could still move when he needed to, and though his body may not have been quite what it was, his mind was still sharp. He sidestepped to avoid the kari-kari that was thrust at his back. He had been right about the tail, just not good enough to spot the street-trained thief. Penbury put his back to the wall to avoid any other stabbings from the rear. His two attackers didn’t seem in too much of a hurry though. The first assailant slid around the corner as smoothly as an Al-Frahzi belly dancer across a dance floor.

  “You missed,” said the first. He had assumed a half-crouched position and was flicking his wicked kari-kari between his hands. He spoke a street dialect that Penbury barely understood.

  The second looked over to his partner. “So did you, goat fucker,” he retorted.

  “You are getting complacent when you miss a whale like this,” continued the first. “My niece could have put her kari-kari in this one’s back.”

  The second stood from his cat like stance while his partner made playful lunges at Penbury. “Listen to who speaks. Like you could do a simple thing like stab him in the chest. My blind grandmother could have removed his heart with her knitting needles. You smoke too much weed, my friend.”

  Penbury hadn’t come out unarmed and he surreptitiously slid a hand under his robe for the dirk he had there.

  “Nuh-uh,” said the first, flicking his kari-kari at Penbury.

  Penbury withdrew his hand and showed a bare palm.

  “I was just going to give you gentlemen my…” Penbury scrabbled madly for the word, “small sack that holds round things?”

  The footpads’ laughs sounded like they had both been smoking too much weed.

  Penbury took advantage of their situation to release his purse and dangle it in front of him. “Here, take my…purse. Yes, purse.”

  The second had his hands on his knees and was dragging in lungs full of breath. “I am getting too old for this shit,” he said, wheezing. “Kill him and let’s go home.”

  The first became suddenly serious. The grip on his kari-kari changed. “I am sorry,” he shrugged. “It’s just business, you know.”

  If it hadn’t been the dead of night in a city that boasted no free running animals of any kind the footpads may have missed the two soft thumps from behind them. But they did hear, and they also saw Penbury’s eyes move to look at something behind them. It could have been the oldest scam in the book but the look they gave each other was more one of ‘oh shit’ rather than ‘oh really?’.

  Their eyes widened a notch when a Nichi-on blade appeared in their chests. They couldn’t scream because they were already dead. The blades slid out easily as the corpses toppled forward.

  “Ah, gentlemen,” said Penbury, straightening.

  Snort and Snort nodded. “This way,” said one of them. Penbury couldn’t be sure whether it was Franz or Josef.

  The rest of the short trip through the streets passed uneventfully. Even if there had been other thieves around, Penbury was sure that they would have witnessed what had happened and were unlikely to mess with the Snort brothers. Doing over fat tourists was one thing, but assassins were best left alone.

  The Chancellor was glad for the cup of water they provided once they were safe in the meeting house. The combination of fear and heat had made his throat dry. At least the room was cool, if a little basic in its comforts. The decoration consisted of a plain table with benches down either side and a brass oil lamp in the middle, a wall rug depicting a camel, and a parrot in a cage that looked at best asleep and at worst dead.

  “And now to business,” said Penbury, setting the cup aside. “I understand there were difficulties with the original commission?”

  “Yes, Chancellor,” said one of the Snort brothers.

  “I’m sorry, you are?” enquired Penbury. Now that they had taken off their head gear and were sitting next to each other they were no easier to tell apart.

  “Franz.”

  “So both estates remain un-executed?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Franz.

  The Chancellor nodded. He knew this, of course, but it was always best to be completely clear when it came to management.

  “Well, let’s put that behind us.”

  The Snort brothers exchanged a glance.

  “If you’ll permit us to be so bold, we would like another opportunity to carry out the contract,” said Josef.

  “We’ve never failed,” said Franz.

  “Professional pride, if you will,” said Josef.

  “Yes, yes, I understand but things have changed and I will be exploring alternative avenues to settle this matter,” said Penbury. He could see momentary disappointment flicker across the brothers’ faces. “But I attach no blame. You did a fine job.”

  “But we failed,” said Franz with a hint of annoyance.

  “In detail, perhaps,” said Penbury, “but consider this. You are among the best in the world in what you do. Correct?”

  The brothers nodded.

  “And, as you say, you never fail and these were relatively straightforward estates to execute?”

  The brothers exchanged looks again. They were hard to read but Penbury was finally tuning in to their body language, and if he was right they were asking themselves when he was going to get to the point.

  “The point is, gentlemen, that these two men are not fated – and I do hate to use that word – to die at your hands.”

  This time there was open puzzlement.

  “We thought you were a man of reason,” said Franz.

  Penbury nodded vigorously. “Indeed, yes I am. I don’t hold any truck by all that fatalism, or divine intervention or what not. But I also know that there are times when there are forces at work that remain as yet undiscovered that, if known, would completely explain what seems to be the fact that dispensing with Edwin and Morden is, for all intents and purposes, a practical impossibility.”

  Penbury could see that there remained some convincing to be done. “It has nothing to do with your skills. You know that both of these men should be, by any rights, dead and they are not. I myself was taken aback by this, but there is precedent. Gentlemen, I think we are living in interesting times. I suspect that Morden is a Dark Lord rising and that Edwin is the hero to oppose him.”

  The brothers sat, eyes locked on Penbury, inscrutable.

  “That would explain matters,” said Josef at
last.

  “Indeed,” said Penbury. “So like I said, let’s set the past aside and move on to new matters. I have other work for you.”

  “We shall not fail this time,” said Franz. “And we appreciate your consideration of the last task.”

  “Yes, yes,” said Penbury. “Now, given that these two cannot simply be done away with, the next best thing is to find out all we can about both parties and try to negotiate a settlement between the two. Or failing that, ensure that they do away with each other.”

  “And how may we help, Chancellor? Whose estate stands in your way?”

  Penbury shook his head. “You misunderstand. I want you to go one to each camp and gather this information and relay it back to me.”

  “You want us to spy for you?” asked Josef.

  The disdain with which the question was asked had Penbury hurrying for a better tack to take. He had obviously offended their professional standing. “Not so much spy, in a spying sense, but more a due diligence.”

  “So you want us to act in our legal guise?” said Franz.

  “In a manner of speaking, but should you need to employ other skills to help you in the delivery of this work then that would be acceptable,” said Penbury. When it came to matters of pride it was his experience that it was normally sufficient to give a face saving way out to resolve such issues.

  “Very well,” said Josef. “What is it you wish to know?”

  The Chancellor was inwardly relieved. “Excellent. Right. What I need to know is everything. I need to know their habits. Who do they trust? What do they want and what do they like? Do they sleep alone or in company, and if the latter what company is it? Who, how many, what species, and so on.”

  “Shouldn’t be a problem,” said Franz. “It’s often what we do before executing the harder to get to estates.”

  “Good, good,” said Penbury. “Then I also need to know about everyone around them. Same as before. Also, the particulars of their armies, their dispositions and arrangements, and so forth.” He was a firm believer that although a little knowledge could go a long way, a lot of knowledge tended to go a lot further. “And I’m going to give you access to my personal service to relay all this information. You will be able to reach me by pigeon from anywhere in the world – from any major city – in a matter of days.”

  While some raced homing pigeons, he had immediately seen the potential for long distance communications. It was one of the little known ways that he kept tabs on what was going on all over the known world. He had contacts in every city with pigeons that could be used to send him information that he needed to act on quickly, whether it be business or politics. The pamphlets were acceptable enough for general information but they were too slow if he had to quickly corner a market, or arrange a political succession at short notice when some Prince had gone over a cliff on a skiing holiday.

  His enthusiasm for the service did not seem to be matched by the Snort brothers.

  “If you don’t mind,” said Franz.

  “We’d like to instead offer our own system,” said Josef.

  “We reserve this for our most important clients,” said Franz, producing a scroll case and a needle. From the case he produced a rolled sheaf of papers. “If we ever have need for urgent communication we can manage it instantaneously over any distance.”

  Franz flattened out the papers on the table so they formed a pad.

  Penbury thought he must have misheard. Had he just said instantaneous from anywhere in the world?

  “We like to call it trans visio,” said Josef.

  “From anywhere? Instantly?” asked Penbury. “How?”

  The brothers exchanged glances. “This is possibly the most valuable thing we possess and it is extraordinarily hard to make, but perhaps a demonstration is in order,” said Josef.

  The brother took two pieces of paper from the pad and gave one to his sibling. “This is a one time pad,” said Josef. “That is to say, each pair of pages is linked and can only be used once. We therefore write with a needle so that we can get the greatest amount of information we can on a single piece.”

  Franz came around the side of the table and sat next to Penbury. He flattened the paper out flat in front of the Chancellor. “Observe,” he said.

  Josef bent over his sheet and started to scratch with the needle.

  “Look carefully,” said Franz, pointing at the top left of the paper in front of Penbury.

  Sure enough, as he could hear the scratching of the needle from Josef, tiny spidery writing appeared on his sheet of paper.

  “Please read,” said Franz, producing a magnifying glass and holding it over the text.

  “Greetings to all and sundry,” read Penbury.

  “I’ll hold this here if you’d like to take this and go round and read what my brother has written,” said Franz, giving the lens to Penbury.

  Penbury took the glass and went round to read what Josef had written but only to buy himself seconds to get over the astonishment of what he was seeing. Sure enough, the text on Josef’s paper was exactly as he had read on the paper still held by Franz.

  Penbury sat back down and took a moment. The brothers sat patiently, their inscrutable expressions back in place. Though very similar in appearance, Penbury was finding it a lot easier to tell the two apart. Franz’s hair had a tighter curl and Josef had narrower eyebrows.

  “I don’t suppose this is any kind of sleight of hand trick, is it?” said Penbury, as much to himself as to the two Snorts. “Incredible. Might I ask where you get this?”

  “You might, and we might even tell you,” said Franz.

  “But then we’d have to execute your estate,” said Josef.

  Neither brother smiled. Penbury decided he was perhaps better off not knowing.

  “Some lawyer humour,” said Franz.

  “Hilarious,” said Penbury.

  “We will give you two pieces of paper for each of us,” said Franz. “I shall write my name on the top left of these two, and my brother’s on these two, then you can tell who is reporting. We also have this.” Franz produced a small notebook. “It is a list of common abbreviations we use to save space. I will make a copy and have it sent to you in the next week.”

  Penbury nodded. “I must say, gentlemen, you have exceeded yourselves. All that remains is to discuss your payment.”

  Again, the two brothers looked at each other. Penbury could read nothing in their blank expressions; the two seemed to share sibling telepathy.

  “We would like to retire,” said Josef.

  “Comfortably,” said Franz.

  “Agreed,” said Penbury. Given the enormity of the events that were unfolding, it was a small price, especially for a man of his means. “I think we are concluded for this evening. Thank you, gentlemen. It’s been most illuminating.”

  The two brothers gave curt nods in unison. “We shall ensure your safe return,” said Josef.

  “That would be generous,” said Penbury. The next time Chidwick tried to insist on an escort he would listen to his secretary.

  Penbury enjoyed his stroll back through the moonlit alleyways of Al-Frahzi with nothing but the odd strangled scream of a thief being dealt with to break his thoughts. At the forefront of these was what he should do next. Now that his intelligence was sorted out he needed to make plans for all eventualities. He would try to ensure that there was no war. It would be such an inconvenience if there was, but if it couldn’t be avoided then he needed to be sure that whoever won would quickly come under his control; and this was where the Snort brothers’ intelligence would come in doubly handy. If he could establish their dependency on him, then they were his to command.

  Chapter 32 A Hero’s Treachery

  If your opponent has a cause to die for, this is a good thing.

  The Dark Lord’s Handbook

  When word arrived of the burning of Bostokov, it caused a degree of consternation in the kingdoms of the Western Reaches, and so after two months of recruiting, training
and fine eating, it was time for the army to move.

  Count Vladovitch was pleased because Sir Edwin – the Count had been forced to knight the blacksmith’s son to give him a rank – had been driving him crazy with his constant diatribes against the Evil that was abroad with the woman he loved.

  Also, he needed the exercise a field campaign would afford. His waistline had grown uncomfortably large thanks to Baron Fanfaron’s chefs. The Count’s initial scepticism about the Baron had long been dispelled and the two had become good friends. As his letter of introduction had said, the Baron was an excellent raconteur and the Count enjoyed the Baron’s stories enormously, not only because they were genuinely interesting and funny, but because they also kept his wife silent as she listened.

  It had been ten years, possibly more, since he had been on campaign. Below on the parade grounds the army was standing arrayed in its splendour – rank upon rank of stout pikeman, keen eyed archer and blood crazed knight. The Count enjoyed such moments. After all, it was downhill from here as far as looks went. The practicalities of being in the field would muddy those jerkins soon enough and take the shine off that plate.

  Except the plate on Sir Edwin’s back, who maintained a zealous attention to his own armour. Even now, the Count could see him on the field, riding up and down the line of mounted knights that would be the Count’s hammer in battles to come. If there was one element of his army that the Count had no reservations about it was Edwin’s men. In a few short months, he had formed them into the most formidable, and frankly terrifying, group of blood crazed killers the Count had seen under a banner. Though there was much talk of might and right, pride and the rescuing of flowered maidens (and the Count suspected de-flowering shortly after), underneath the shine and the glamour there was a ruthless efficiency. He was glad he would not have to face them.

  “Have you got a clean handkerchief, dear?”

  If there was one thing that he missed when he was away, it was his wife. He couldn’t abide her fussing and her tears, but he knew it was because she still loved him. He was a lucky man. Many a noblemen had ridden off to campaign and glory leaving behind a beautiful young wife only to return to find her with child and the summing of the months not right. More than a few of his friends had sons who looked more like the gardener than the man of the castle.