Page 45 of Company of Thieves
TEN
“Iwant you to removeto France as soon as you can.”
Alan looked at his father in surprise, wondering what the old fox had in mind. “Why France? You wished for me to move inward to Spain, once we had cleared the British empire and revolutionaries from Tunisia and Algeria. I have only just begun to do so.”
“Our plans have changed,” the imperator said, waving a hand backward, toward where Etienne rode with Soroush, his father’s confidant and vizier. Alan didn’t trust Soroush any more than he did Etienne, well aware that for the last ten years or so, the advice given by the vizier went counter to Alan’s attempts to de-escalate his father’s hostilities and brutality. “You have difficulty embracing our new alliance.”
“Of course I do. It’s a foolish plan. Etienne Briel is the consummate liar. He spills honeyed words in your ear while stabbing you in the back. To believe he will honor any agreement you make with him is to not just make yourself a fool, but to damn our people.”
“I will allow you to speak such hasty, ill-thought words because I know my passion flows through your veins,” his father said, obviously well pleased with himself.
Alan wondered why that was, since he had steadfastly refused the demands that he wed Constanza. He turned to look back at the company that rode with them. Thus far, the hunt had yielded little, only two hartebeests, and one ancient gazelle that had looked like it was about to die even before his father shot it. Etienne was still there, conversing with the vizier.
That didn’t dissipate the uneasy feeling that gripped Alan. Something had made his father happy, and Alan had come to view that emotion with much misgiving. It seldom boded well for him or his plans. “What am I to do in France?” he asked, deciding he needed to know the worst.
“We will stop here for a meal,” his father said, raising a hand. Immediately, the servants leaped off their mounts, placing rugs, pillows, a small table, and a chair for the imperator’s pleasure. Alan dismounted, handing Sampson’s reins to his groom, reluctant for any delay. The longer his father dragged out the hunt, the more time Hallie was out of his protection.
He told himself he was being nervous over nothing, and stood before his father, waiting as patiently as possible for the instructions that were sure to come.
“Sit, my son, sit,” the imperator said, waving him to a cushion. Around them, men and servants bustled, unpacking food and drink, watering the horses, and taking their own meager rations to whatever comfortable rocks or bare patches of earth that could be found. “You wish to know about France, eh? Well, these are my thoughts. I will lay them before you, and you will see just how clever your father has been. Our brother-in-arms Etienne has discovered that William has a plot to lay claim to the Hungarian empire by means of France and Germany. He has convinced the queen of France to give him free passage through her lands, and is stockpiling men and resources in Marseilles. From there, it is evident he will launch attacks east, through Germany to Bohemia, while the fool Iago will bestir himself from Rome and also move to the east, attempting to reclaim Turkey.”
“Then why are you here?” Alan asked, the memories of how many lives were lost retaking Constantinople still all too fresh in his mind. He had fought hard against his father’s plans to take that city, but had been unable to keep the resulting destruction from wiping the city bare. “Why do you not defend your own borders instead of looking to fight for others?”
“Because now we have the Black Hand giving Bohemia to us,” his father said with a satisfied chuckle, peering at a plate of cold roast fowl that was offered. He wrinkled his nose and waved it away, examining instead a bowl of spiced sweetmeats. “And all it cost me was a little time—Etienne was adamant that I should see for myself the potential that North Africa holds for us, but I see little here that is worthy of our concern—and one easily granted boon.”
“What boon is that?” Alan asked, shaking his head at the food offered to him. He damned near itched to get moving, to make sure Hallie was safe, but he knew there was no hurrying his father.
The imperator smiled, and popped a bit of sweetmeat into his mouth, saying around it, “Your woman.”
“What?” He was on his feet before he realized it, a great wave of fury boiling out of him. “What have you done?”
“What needed to be done,” his father snapped, his dark eyes narrowed on Alan. “For too long have I let you run free, furthering my cause as you saw fit, but now is the time when I call you to heel. Etienne demanded your woman as compensation for eliminating William’s forces from the Hungarian empire, at which point it will be mine. She is a spy, my son, working for some rebel group. Etienne said she attempted to strike at him recently, but ran away when his superior strength became apparent. It is a small price to pay—”
Fear, anger, guilt—a horrible mixture of emotions gripped Alan’s gut, but he was moving even before his father had finished speaking, searching through the people who were scattered amongst and around the horses.
Etienne was nowhere to be found.
The vizier sidled up to the imperator, but Alan knew then that he had been played for a fool, and idiot that he was, he’d walked into it blindly. Sick almost to the point of retching at the knowledge he’d failed his dove, he prayed that Hallie’s hiding place wouldn’t be discovered before he returned.
He called for his horse and his men.
“Akbar! You will not defy me in this,” the imperator yelled, getting to his feet with a grunt. “I have labored long to set these plans in motion, and you will fall in line with them.”
“I have done as you’ve commanded all my life,” Alan told his father, striding toward him in a manner that had the vizier, who had been whispering in his father’s ear, backing up until he stumbled over a footstool. He fought against his emotions, his voice harsh with the effort of control. “I have fought for you. I have watched as friends, family, and entire towns were slaughtered on the altar of your greed for power, and not once did you listen to my advice. You were too bound up in visions of your own glory. I have fought my entire life against William’s empire, but you have become a hundred times worse than him. You have become an insatiable monster, willing to sell your very soul in order to conquer what you do not possess. I will not be a party to that. No longer. You have gone too far this time.”
“You dare!” his father roared, his face red with anger. “No son of mine will speak to me so!”
“Then I am no longer your son. Akbar dies here, right now,” he snarled in return, and would have walked away, but at that moment, a black-and-red pain exploded in his head, and he slipped unwillingly into an abyss of misery.
The pain was what pulled him out of the abyss, that and a nagging feeling that he needed to be doing something. He swam in the pain for a bit, trying to get his mind to focus, but thoughts kept dodging him, sliding away just when he thought he had them in his grasp.
And then suddenly, the blackness ebbed, and he was left with pain and the memory of what had troubled him.
