Interregnum Read online

  He stepped forward smiling and held out his hand. “Y’may be clever, but a job like this’n needs brute force.”

  The commander frowned for a moment and then returned the branch to Brendan. The mercenary dropped the point of the branch to the floor and spat in his palms, rubbing his hands together. Picking up the club once more, he pulled it back and swung it with all his might.

  The arch stones gave way instantly under the severe blow and the outer few yards of the entrance corridor collapsed in a crash and a cloud of dust. Brendan leapt back out of the tunnel as stones bounced among the falling masonry, almost bowling over the commander in his haste to get away. The three stood in silence for several minutes watching as the cloud of dust slowly dissipated, leaving a scene of absolute chaos. The only sign of the captain was an arm projecting out from beneath the rubble.

  Brendan grinned at Sabian. “See. Brute force an’ ignorance!”

  The commander nodded with a gentle sigh. “Let’s move fast. There’ll be people here soon to investigate the noise.”

  The three of them walked quickly away from the bath house toward the grassy slope away to the west between the walls and the sea. Here the trees and scrub were more tightly packed and a few trails created by the islanders in hunting for game or searching for plants were the only means of access. Sarios led them along one such track which ended abruptly at a cliff, the palace wall rising some thirty feet behind them and a drop of forty more to the sea in front. Brendan grinned and located a mound of turf to sit on. He watched Sabian and Sarios find seats of their own and then stretched his legs with a satisfied groan.

  “Think you’ve just dropped yerself in the shit, Commander” he noted.

  Sabian frowned. Sometimes the mercenary’s colloquial accent made him a trifle hard to follow, but this time his meaning was clear enough. “I rather think that was you,” the commander replied, “but I’ll sort it out. None of these men support me anyway and the loss of captain Flautus doesn’t wound me too closely. I just wish you’d waited until I wasn’t here.” He folded his arms and regarded the shaven-headed mercenary. “Thank you anyway though. I suppose we’re better off than if he’d gone screaming back with what he’d heard. Did you hear any of our conversation?”

  “Nah” Brendan replied taking off a boot and shaking gravel and muck from it. “I’s far too far away fer that. Still I’d like t’know why yer bothering so much about these people an’ why y’didn’t just drop me in it t’get out of this?”

  Sabian nodded. “You think me imprudent for allowing your presence to go undetected. You think perhaps I should report it to my Lord in return for wealth and privilege?”

  Brendan shrugged and leaned back smiling. “Why not?”

  Sabian stared at the mercenary. Why did he, a senior officer in the most powerful army of the modern world and an upholder of the law, feel the need to justify his actions to an outlaw mercenary?

  Across the island, Darius found Kiva sitting at the desk. Were it not for the bandages it would be hard to tell that that the general was wounded at all. Certainly his demeanour was all business.

  “What is it?”

  Darius strode over to the desk, his sheathed sword swinging at his side.

  “I’ve been listening closely to one of the new sergeants” he said, beginning to unbuckle his sword belt. “They’re not a friendly lot. They’re going to settle in tonight and sort their barracks out, but tomorrow everything’s going to change.”

  “In what way” the general enquired, placing his stylus back on the desk and looking up at the tall youth.

  Darius placed his sword and belt on the desk and stepped back. “They want to do a complete contraband check on the whole island. Anything they think prisoners shouldn’t have they’re going to confiscate.”

  “So you’ll need to hide a lot of stuff” the general nodded to himself.

  Darius leaned over the desk, his face close to Kiva’s. “I think you missed the point. A complete check of the whole island will turn up more than they bargained for” he said pointedly, gesturing at the general.

  “Hmmm.” Kiva tapped his lip for a moment. “We’re going to have to do something soon then. They won’t start anything until Sabian and his other men are already on their way back to the city. I think we need to move before they do and as soon as Sabian’s left, whatever the commander’s timings are.”

  Darius nodded. “Shall I ask everyone to come here for a meeting?”

  Kiva shook his head. “Too dangerous. Get everyone down to the orchard near the graveyard as soon as it gets dark. That’s a long way away from the guard quarters in the Peacock Palace. Tell everyone to wear robes and move as unobtrusively as possible. Get all the off-landers and Sarios. Sabian too if you can get to him.”

  The young man nodded again.

  “We’re leaving tomorrow aren’t we?”

  Kiva tested his weight on his stick. “There’s no other choice.”

  Chapter XXII.

  Darius’ heart sat heavy in his chest as he watched the boat bucking in the foam, moving slowly away from the dock and back toward Velutio. Sabian stood at the stern rail in his full regalia, impressive and powerful, with the men of his veteran units standing behind him in formation on the deck. Sergeant Cialo stood to one side, a hand on the rail and close to his commander; his face was bleak and unhappy. He’d become quite close to a number of the folk on the island and had as good as made a home there in the short time of his assignment. He was not happy to be leaving, and had confided as much to Darius during their last conversation not long after dawn this morning. He didn’t trust Velutio’s guard and, although he’d been informed of the plans for the island, was still sceptical about the decisions his commander had made.

  With a quick glance over his shoulder, Darius could see Velutio’s guard lined up in their ranks of black and white, with a frowning sergeant standing to one side. He knew what was coming. The sergeant was only waiting for Sabian to be out of earshot before he launched into everyone. The lad turned again to face the departing boat. If Sabian was taking the army out on campaign for months and everything was about to come to a head here on the island, it was very possibly the last time Darius would ever see either him or the grizzled Cialo and the degree to which that made him unhappy was a touch disturbing. He’d never really had family, at least for his thinking life, but the commander, the sergeant and their men had become as close to him in the last few weeks as anyone on the island had ever been. He sighed as the boat gradually moved further away until the commander was a red smudge in the general brown and grey of the boat. Only a moment later, a voice behind them all called out in a rasping, deep tone.

  “I am Sergeant Caris of the army of Velutio and from this moment on I am taking command of the island of Isera. I intend to enforce the standard rules of prison control, along with a number of other strictures that will apply due to the nature of the prison and its occupants. There will be no more of this open control and free access that was permitted under ‘sergeant’ Cialo.”

  With a crack, the sergeant brought down the cane he was holding against the metal greave on his leg, then lifted it and pointed at the group near the dock.

  “There will be a complete search of the island as soon as my men have organised the watches and duties. Any contraband or illegal objects found will be confiscated and locked away until the next boat from the city, when they will be taken from the island. After that there will be random searches carried out on a daily basis by different patrols each day. Anyone found with contraband today with be given a number of lashes proportionate to the offence. As of tomorrow, if any search turns up any contraband at all, I will consider the severing of a hand in the Pelasian style. The same sentence will apply for theft or malicious damage.”

  The man stopped for a moment and cleared his gravelly throat. Darius couldn’t help noting the nasty glint in the man’s eye and the smug but hungry faces of the guardsmen behind him.

  “Furthermore, there will
be a roll call every morning, with today’s at lunchtime due to the lateness of the hour now. Anyone missing from the call will be punished. At the first such meeting, each prisoner will detail his duties to be noted down. Once these are dealt with, all prisoners will be confined to the places where they eat, sleep and work. Anyone found where they are not supposed to be will be punished. The walls of the palace are your absolute boundary. Anyone found outside them will be…?”

  “Punished!” chorused the guards behind him. A vicious grin had now split the sergeant’s face.

  “The guard will be you wardens and your superiors and will not be working to the benefit of the prisoners. As such you will put aside a proportion of all food and drink that is grown or created on the island for your wardens. Other rules will be applied as they become necessary, but for now you need to relay all of this to any other prisoners who are not here and prepare for the first complete search and roll call.”

  A low growl issued from the sergeant’s throat as he straightened again. “One last thing: I am unconvinced as yet that my captain’s unfortunate demise was an accident. I understand that the bath house has been in a bad way for some time and that work had been done on it recently, but my suspicions are still there. I will be having my engineers investigate the building and my medic examine the body. After that we will be interviewing a number of you about the circumstances surrounding the ‘accident’. If there is anything to find out, be sure that I will find it out.”

  “That’s it” he said, folding the can beneath his armpit, “go about your business.”

  The islanders looked at each other, sharing a great deal of unhappiness and ill-feeling until Minister Sarios cleared his throat. “Very well… back to the palace everyone.”

  The group shuffled off dejectedly toward the Gorgon Gate, with Darius and the minister at the rear. The young man looked across at the elder and sighed heavily.

  “What are we going to do now?”

  The minister raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

  With a quick glance over his shoulder to check the guard were distant, the lad spoke in a low voice. “There must be almost twenty people missing by now. What’s going to happen when they do the lunchtime roll call? How are we going to move anyone to the departure point when we’re restricted to certain places? And what if they search too early and catch everything and everyone out?”

  Sarios smiled knowingly.

  “You must have faith, Darius. How well do you know me? Or Caerdin? Or Sabian?”

  The lad shrugged, his face blank. “Fairly well I’d say.”

  “Then you know that all three of us are the sort of men who plan things in advance. Don’t worry. Sabian gave the sergeant the list of prisoners. There may be one or two unaccounted for, but between us we cut the missing people from the list last night. We left a couple because it would look suspicious if everyone turned up the first time. As for a search turning up anything, it won’t produce any people unexpected. The Wolves and their allies are already in a hidden place and as soon as the guard leave us alone to set up their watch system and guard posts, we’ll take advantage of their busyness to move them the rest of the way to the north shore. Then if they do search the island after that, they’ll find nothing.”

  Darius grinned and the minister drew breath to continue.

  “Also, as for the finding of contraband, almost everything we want to save was shipped out of the buildings during the night to the olive-grower’s shed by the north shore. We’ve had to leave the occasional suspicious item, of course, or again it would look too suspicious. We need to give them something to pull us up on; to give them something to do. Don’t worry. Everything will go according to plan. We’re very thorough men you know?”

  The minister chuckled and Darius continued to smile as they passed beneath the Gorgon Gate and into the Ibis Courtyard. Again, Darius was struck by the strangeness of it all. He’d spent his entire life on this one small island and, if the minister was right and today went as planned, this would be the last time he would ever walk through the gate. Odd after all this time.

  Everything was changing around him, but he had a great deal of confidence in the people who planned all this and though the outside world was an unknown quantity for him, still he was confident that with the minister, Caerdin and the others everything would be for the best. Casting his mind back over the meeting last night, he was still astounded at the way these people thought. Darius had always known he was a fast thinker and had always considered himself the only person on the island who could keep up with the way the minister’s mind worked. And yet last night there had been a crowd of people with that kind of complex, insightful mind. He’d always assumed that the minister was in a class of his own, but Caerdin, the Pelasian Prince, the grumbling medic from the Wolves and others had all talked each other in circles to the point where Darius had given up trying to put his ideas across and just sat back and watched the whirl and spiral of conversation and planning.

  The only drawback of the whole meeting had been the mutual presence of Sabian and Caerdin. Though the two spoke of each other in nothing but respectful tones it was quite clear at the meeting that neither felt comfortable in the presence of the other and the reasons were obvious. They tried to avoid eye contact and rarely spoke to each other except when there was no choice, and yet both came up with ideas that were bandied around among the group and agreed to all the plans in the end. When the conspirators had all split up and headed back to their various places, it was equally interesting to note the parting glance the two officers shared; a look that combined respect and intrigue with discomfort and uncertainty.

  Darius was brought rudely back to the present as the minister’s restraining hand arrested his movement. Looking up, he realised that they had already passed into the Great Courtyard and most of the group had disappeared by now. Scanning quickly around to identify the reason for Sarios’ grip of restraint, he noticed two guardsmen marching purposefully across the courtyard toward a young girl. He recognised the girl of course, the daughter of one of the drama tutors, perhaps six years old and innocent as they come. She was holding a small wooden toy that had been crudely carved by one of the island’s artisans and smiling broadly at the two men bearing down on her. Darius had a dreadful feeling of foreboding and made to step forward, though the minister’s grip on his shoulder tightened in an instant, holding him in place. Sarios shook his head barely perceptibly.

  As Darius watched in anger, the men reached the girl and the shorter of the two reached down and wrenched the toy from her hand. The lad’s blood boiled as he watched the man snap the toy into two broken shards and drop it to the floor.

  “What are you doing out here, girl?” demanded the other guard, brusquely.

  The girl stared at him, her eyes brimming, but her jaw clamped firmly shut.

  “You should be with your parents wherever they are. If we catch you out here again, you’ll get a beating. You hear me?”

  The girl’s mouth stayed shut as she looked up at the other man, down at her broken toy, and then stamped as hard as she could on the guard’s foot. Rather than the heavy marching boots, the man was wearing dress shoes of soft leather and he let out a grunt of pain as the small boot crunched down on his toes. The guard reached down and grasped her wrist, hauling her up into the air by it with the audible click of a dislocating shoulder and slung her like a rag doll over his back.

  Again Darius started forward and again the minister’s grip tightened. He glanced up at the old man, but as he did so the grip was released and Sarios strode out across the courtyard.

  “Put my granddaughter down you evil brute!” he barked. Darius was surprised at the vicious quality of his voice and the power which such an old and frail man mustered as he marched forward. The guards both turned in surprise and one said something to the other that went unheard due to the screaming and wailing emanating from the young girl. The other lowered the girl to the floor again and turned to face the approaching
minister.

  “This is yours?” he asked, his jaw set and teeth gritted. As the minister drew up to his full height in front of the guard he nodded. The man growled. “Then you’d do well to keep her where she belongs. We’re not going to stand for that kind of thing. Give her a good beating and be grateful we’re not doing the same for you.”

  As Sarios glowered at them and reached out to take the distraught girl’s elbow, the two guards marched off toward the Ibis Courtyard, muttering to each other.

  Darius wandered over to where the minister was crouched with the girl and talking to her. “That was very brave of you, but don’t do it again. Now run along and find doctor Favio. Your shoulder will need dealing with.”

  The girl sniffed and smiled weakly at the island’s leader before nodding and tottering off toward the nearest door, holding her arm. Darius sighed.

  “Today is not going to be an easy day, minister.”

  The old man nodded sadly and led them across the Great Courtyard and through a side door into the Peacock Palace. The place was generally considered off-limits now to the islanders, being the place the guard had chosen for their quarters. Following on the heels of the departing veterans, they had selected rooms solely on the top two floors. Down in the servants’ level things remained untouched and would do until the full search was made. Moreover, Darius thought, as they turned a corner and unlocked a door, it was the perfect place at the moment to hide anything, where the guards lived and the islanders were not allowed.