Deadly Peril (2 page)
“Leave him, Herr Baron. He’s not in his right mind.”
The chamberlain ignored him. He went to the end of the bed, the Captain on his heels. The Margrave struggled to lift his head off the pillows, stare fixed, as if willing his faithful servant to read his thoughts. The chamberlain moved up the bed, even closer.
“I beg you…” the Margrave whimpered, looking past his son who had taken hold of his hand, to the chamberlain. “Don’t—leave—me… Not—
with her
.”
“Your Highness, of course I will stay if that is your wish.”
“He’s delirious, Haderslev. He doesn’t know what he’s saying,” Prince Ernst said wearily, then addressed the captain of the guard. “Westover! Get him out of here. He’s only upsetting him.”
“Of course, Highness,” Captain Westover replied and clapped a hand to Baron Haderslev’s shoulder. “Herr Baron, it is time to leave.”
“His Highness wants me to stay,” the chamberlain complained, and shrugged the Captain off to step closer. “So I will stay!”
“Do not worry, Papa. She’s not here,” was Prince Ernst’s whispered reassurance to his father.
“I don’t—” the Margrave muttered, agitated, and fell back amongst his pillows. “Ernst. Don’t—let her…”
“I made you a promise.”
The Margrave closed his eyes, but he was no less agitated. “That—won’t stop—
her
… She—she
hates
—me. Hates Viktor—
all of us
.”
Prince Ernst sensed the chamberlain and the Captain hovered at his back and he swiftly glanced around. “My stepmother,” he stated, as if they had asked the question. He looked at Captain Westover. “Countess Rosine is under house arrest, yes?”
“As you ordered, Highness,” the Captain assured him. “She is not to have visitors, and no one gets in or out without your permission.”
Prince Ernst nodded. “And my brother?”
Before the Captain could answer, the Margrave opened his eyes and turned his head on the pillow to stare wide-eyed at his son, and burst out,
“Control her, Ernst. Do not allow
her
to—to—rule
you
.” He let out a frustrated groan of pain and shut tight his eyes again. “Oh God, let this torment end!”
“Be still, Papa,” the Prince replied, giving his father’s hand a squeeze. He again looked to the Captain and the chamberlain. There were tears in his eyes. “For pity’s sake. Allow us these last few moments alone!”
Both men blanched white and bowed low. With a nod they backed away into the shadows to the double doors. The room was so dark it was only with the click of the latch that Prince Ernst knew both courtiers were gone. He also knew his twin sister was there, lurking in the blackness, biding her time, waiting for the others to leave before showing herself, showing who was the stronger of the two. Prince Ernst, the great military leader, fearless in combat, victorious in battle, was weak against the wiles of Joanna.
Princess Joanna appeared out of the blackness to peer down at the father who had banished her from court, banished her from society, and had kept her a virtual prisoner in this fortress for over a decade. She watched him tossing and turning in the big bed under the haze of yellowed candlelight and gently patted his thin hand.
“Papa, I’m here,” she whispered, kissing his brow then running a cool hand across his damp hot forehead. “It’s Joanna, Papa. Your darling little bird has flown her cage to save you. Papa…?”
The Margrave’s eyes blinked wide and he looked for his son. But it was Joanna who stared down at him with a loving smile. He was so overcome he began to cry. And when Joanna kissed his forehead again, murmuring soothing sounds, his thin frail body shook all over with great aching sobs that omitted no sound. She went about tucking his arms back beneath the covers, and then gently removed one of the pillows out from under his head, making sure not to disturb the elaborate full-bottomed wig, and so his head lay flat in the bed.
“It’s time, Papa,” she said.
The Margrave shook his head back and forth, but he was so weak and with his body now constrained under the bedclothes, he was powerless. What fight for life he had managed to muster in his plea to the chamberlain had vanished. Yet, he still had his voice, thin as it was.
“Ernst!” he pleaded, looking for his son in the shadows. “Are you there?” But when his son did not respond he appealed to his daughter, though he knew this to be futile. But he had to try to reach into her mind—to what was left of it. “Joanna. Listen to Pa—”
“I don’t do this for myself, but for Ernst, dearest Papa,” Princess Joanna said calmly, covering the Margrave’s face with the pillow and holding it firmly in place until her father was utterly still. “You understand that, don’t you, Papa? For Ernst.”
It was Prince Ernst who gingerly removed the pillow, to the sight of his father, small and frail in the big bed, mouth open, and the magnificent powdered wig askew and covering one eye. He gasped in shock, disbelieving his father was no longer breathing. He put his ear to his mouth, touched his cheek and then his forehead. But he knew, he knew as soon as he had looked at him that he was dead.
The Margrave Leopold Maxim Herzfeld, who had ruled the small principality of Midanich for thirty-five years, was dead. Murdered in his final hour. Prince Ernst, the decorated military hero of the last war, governor of Herzfeld Castle, and Leopold Maxim’s eldest son, would now succeed as Margrave and rule Midanich.
And his sister, the Princess Joanna, would rule him.
He burst into tears.
T
HE
CAPTAIN
of the household guard and the court chamberlain had followed the physicians from the dark bedchamber, to allow their ruler some privacy with his family, and stepped out into the light and claustrophobic atmosphere of the crowded ante-room. A cluster of nobles surged forward in hushed expectation of an announcement. But the wave subsided when, at a nod from their captain, the household guards positioned along the walls took a step forward, gloved hands to bayonets. The courtiers retreated to huddle in the middle of the room, now surrounded by their Margrave’s personal bodyguard, and wondered with rising panic if they were to be massacred there and then.
Out from this huddle stepped the British consul, who confidently walked up to the court chamberlain, who had turned to speak to the three physicians hovering by the closed double doors, bowed and said in French, “Excuse me, M’sieur l’Baron, but I have something that will interest you.”
“Not now, M’sieur Luytens,” Captain Westover ordered. “All official appointments are suspended. Baron Haderslev has more important matters to deal with. Step away and go about your business!”
“Business?” The word hit a raw nerve with the British consul. “All that I had was taken from me when peace was declared. I have no
business
.”
“Then you would do well to return to Emden to resurrect what you can, and get your house in order. Perhaps you need a change of scenery—England…?”
“Resurrect it with
what
?” Luytens huffed. “And I’m not an Englishman!” He threw up a hand in hopelessness.
The action caused several of the household guard take another step forward. Captain Westover gestured for his men to stand down. His gaze swept the room and locked for a moment on several prominent nobles who had been pointed out to him as supporters of Prince Viktor—they would be made to disappear once it was announced the Margrave was dead. A small detachment of his men awaited them in the passageway. But then, no one was leaving the fortress—well, not alive—without his say-so.
“His Highness promised restitution and I want—”
“Fool! Look around you,” the Captain hissed. “Do you see normality? Be warned. You do not have diplomatic immunity or protection of any sort, so you will be fortunate indeed if you make it back to Emden at all.”
“Look here, Luytens. This can wait,” a male voice said mildly, and in English.
Captain Westover did not understand English, but he recognized at once the tone of easy command and the look of a foreigner, one who understood French and no doubt spoke it, too. The gentleman who pushed past one of his soldiers and walked up to join them did so with a nonchalant confidence only the wealthy and titled exhibited, and none was better at it than the English noble tourist. Under his fine woolen greatcoat, the foreigner was dressed in brocaded silks, his wig was freshly powdered, and Westover was certain the buckles in the tongues of the Englishman’s black leather shoes were set with genuine diamonds. All in all there was a freshness about his handsome person that suggested he was not only traveling with his valet, but an entire retinue of servants. Westover wondered on what charge he could detain him and ransack his belongings. Civil war could not come soon enough.
“You were foolish to bring your English friend here, Herr Luytens,” Westover continued in German, confident the English tourist would be ignorant of that language at least. “You have put him in grave danger.”
“Sir Cosmo, this is Captain Westover, head of the household guard,” Jacob Luytens said in French, ignoring the Captain’s warning. “The gentleman you wish to speak with is standing off to our right. The short man with the gold brocade vestment over his frock coat. That is Baron Haderslev. He is the Margrave’s chamberlain.”
“Not the best timing to deliver a letter, is it?” Sir Cosmo Mahon replied, chin in his linen stock, a nod to the Captain. “Perhaps the good captain here will pass it on, and we can be on our way.”
“You said Lord Cobham insisted the letter be hand-delivered to the Margrave,” Jacob Luytens argued keeping to the French tongue. “As that is now unlikely, the next best person is the court chamberlain. He will see the letter is received by the Margrave-elect Prince Ernst. You can then write to his lordship with a clear conscience that you did as he requested.”
“It’s probably not that important,” Sir Cosmo said, taking a sweeping look about the cavernous opulent room and the huddle of fleshy-faced gentlemen in sober attire under guard.
The consul said these men were this country’s premier noblemen, but by their black and brown wool worsted coats and unadorned shoes, not to mention their dour expressions, they looked a bunch of shopkeepers at best. And not a very friendly lot of shopkeepers! They made Sir Cosmo feel overdressed, and the guards in their elaborate blue and yellow uniforms and shining brass helmets made him queasy. One wrong move by anyone in this room and he was sure they’d have their swords unsheathed, and bloody carnage would ensue. The sooner he handed over the diplomatic pouch, the sooner he could get back down to the harbor, to the schooner awaiting to take him and Emily to Copenhagen. Emily must be wondering where he was by now.
“Just a long-winded letter about trade terms, is my guess,” he continued. “God knows what sort of trade we do with—”
“Troops.” It was Captain Westover who interrupted.
“Troops? We get troops—
from here
?” It was news to Sir Cosmo. “For what? I mean—Are—are soldiers a-a commodity?”
The Captain thought Sir Cosmo a naïve fool, yet he kept his voice and manner neutral, though he couldn’t stop the sardonic twitch to his mouth.
“England needs soldiers to fight its wars, and to keep our neighbor, your English king’s electorate of Hanover, safe from its foes. That requires a lot of men. Midanich’s army for hire is the best in the world. Margrave Leopold saw to that.”
“Is that so?” Sir Cosmo responded, hoping he sounded suitably interested.
He wasn’t. Not in soldiers, wars, or fighting. Possibly because he had never had to worry about invasion. The last battle on English soil was almost twenty years ago and against a retreating haphazard Jacobite force, if memory from his Eton days served him correctly. So the last place he wanted to be was in close proximity to a pack of well-trained professional foreign soldiers.
The way the Captain was looking at him was unnerving, and it wasn’t only the Captain who was staring. He suddenly realized he had become the most interesting gentleman in the room, no doubt because he had the Captain’s attention and nothing much else was happening to fill the time. He ran the crook of his pinky inside the fold of his stock, prickly heat under his wig to be so scrutinized. He cursed himself for believing Lord Cobham that Midanich was on the way to Denmark, as if it were no more trouble than popping into his local coffee house before going home. When he thought of the sea journey from Emden—the ship following the coast, but careful to avoid the string of islands, the choppy waves of the North Sea, and the continual rolling to and fro, it brought the bile back up into his throat.
“As I said, let’s leave the letter with the good captain,” Sir Cosmo suggested. “He’ll know when it’s best to pass it on to the chamberlain. After all—given the circumstances…”
“An excellent suggestion,” Captain Westover agreed. “Allow me to make one of my own. Leave here as quickly as you are able. I do not mean the castle. The country. Get out before it’s too late. I hope you came by ship.”
Sir Cosmo nodded and swallowed. “Yes. We are on our way to Copenhagen.”
Captain Westover smiled. It was not pleasant. “Then you are almost there.” He stuck out his gloved hand, waiting for Sir Cosmo to give him the diplomatic pouch without further discussion.
Sir Cosmo was eager to do so and rummaged in a deep inner pocket of his greatcoat. But before he could hand over the red leather
portefuille
, Luytens snatched it from him, and with such ferocity Sir Cosmo’s mouth dropped open and he instinctively shied away. The consul then took the Captain by the elbow, a wary eye on his soldiers, and walked with him a little way off so as not to be overheard—not by Sir Cosmo but by the Midanichian nobles, for he spoke in their native German.
“I didn’t bring the Englishman all the way here so he could give your master this,” Luytens confessed, handing him the
portefuille
. “Nothing but dull trade documents; Lord Cobham is an officious bore. This fellow,” he added, a jerk of his head in Sir Cosmo’s direction, “is worth a king’s ransom, to you and to me. We can both profit from this, but he is worth more, much more to your master—”
