Chapter Eleven

Strategy For a Revolution

As it turned out, it wasn't just Nicolo who was unhappy with the direction of things in the Great Castle.

The guards with whom he'd come to raid the revolutionary hideout had regrouped at a pre-arranged rallying point—they'd had to wait a very long time, but all were far too frightened of the Master to just give up and go home. By the same logic, Nicolo wasn't afraid of telling them he was joining the revolution and they should feel free to pass that information on to their king, or not as they saw fit.

"It might be useful to have me on the inside," he'd suggested earlier, when we were getting dressed.

"Would you be comfortable with that?" I asked.

"No," Nicolo admitted. "I prefer to face an enemy head on. But I'd do it, if you wanted me to."

"I wouldn't ask you to do something that would make you uncomfortable," I responded. "Wylder might. But there's also the question of whether that bond with Balduin might return if you were to be back in close contact with him again."

"I'm never leaving you for him," Nicolo shook his head. "I won't go back to the way I was… ever."

"Good to know," I smiled.

"But you'd still rather play it safe?"

"You came very close to killing me and I'd rather not go through that again."

When he told the soldiers of his change of heart, I wondered what they might do, but suspected they'd probably plead ignorance when Master Nicolo didn't return. King Balduin had a habit of killing the messenger in his anger, and indeed anyone else in the room at the time he received the message. Or when he was thinking about it later.

It was, however, a surprise when several of the soldiers asked if they could join our side.

"I can't show up at the revolutionary meeting point with a bunch of royal guards who are probably on our side, but I can't guarantee it," I hissed to Nicolo in a suppressed whisper. "It's bad enough that I'm showing up with the revolution's arch-nemesis, after having spent the afternoon in bed with him."

"You're going to tell them that bit?" Nicolo asked with a lopsided grin.

"I'm going to tell everyone," I answered with my own. "I'm very proud of it."

We settled on sending the guards to one of the lesser used revolutionary bases with instructions for the commander there to keep an eye on them.

Nicolo, however, came back with me, which raised as many eyebrows as you would imagine, along with a row of arrow heads.

"Keep the bastard covered," said Wylder.

"He's on our side," I said with as much authority as I could muster.

"Excellent, because what we really need is a turncoat who flips sides when the going gets tough."

"It's not like that, Wylder, and you know it," I snarled. "I explained this to you earlier."

"Maybe I'm struggling to remember because that was just before we were attacked by… Oh, who was it again? My memory is terrible—must be my age. Oh wait, I recall now… it was the same man you spent the afternoon with creating a Charlotte-shaped imprint in the mattress."

I frowned at him. "Can I have a word with you?"

Wylder nodded curtly, before turning to his soldiers. "Keep him covered. If he so much as picks his nose, shoot him."

Once we were alone, I launched into the lengthy speech I'd been planning throughout my way here, but Wylder silenced me before I got to the end of it.

"Do you trust him, Charlotte?"

"With my life," I answered instantly.

Wylder blew a raspberry. "That's the easy answer. Trusting someone with your life is no big deal when you're an assassin with more killing skills than a king cobra. It's everyone else's lives you're trusting to him, Charlotte. Remember that. That's the only question that matters. Do you trust him with my life? With Gerda's? With Kerys and Bates's? With the lives of my wife and kids? Would you trust every life in the revolutionary army to that man out there? Yes, and more besides because if the revolution is gone, then it's Balduin all the way, the Gath is stuck with that bastard until he dies. That's what I'm asking, Charlotte, do you trust the lives of everyone to Nicolo? Because, make no mistake, he has the power to kill us all if he wants to. And it will not be a swift death for many of us." He paused. "So, I ask you again: do you trust him?"

"Yes," I answered firmly.

"Okay," shrugged Wylder, with a casual smile. "Thought you probably did. Just checking."

"That's it?"

Wylder shrugged again. "I trust you with all those lives, Charlotte, so if you trust him then I suppose that's good enough for me."

***

"Nicolo, this is Arthur. Arthur, Nicolo."

Though he'd warmed up to me a great deal, Arthur was still silent and reserved towards most others. His relocation back to his own people on Mathis Street, where he'd be safe and cared for, had been put on hold, owing to the attack. We needed to be sure we weren't being watched and, while getting Nicolo over to our side was a victory for the revolution, it would also anger the king and there were sure to be more Purgers on the warpath. I couldn't say I was totally sorry to have Arthur here for a few extra days, as I'd grown fond of his quiet, thoughtful company, and it also gave me a chance to introduce him to Nicolo.

Arthur stared up at the older man now, his face as thoughtful as ever. "Are you from Fenland?"

Nicolo shook his head. "No. But I believe my father must have been."

Arthur nodded, slowly. "You're not from Mathis?"

"No, not there either. I was born in the countryside, not far from here, and I grew up in the Great Castle."

"Why?" Though he shared young Peri's gift for the question, Arthur asked in quite a different way. Peri drummed his questions in; repeated ‘whys' as a matter of rote, Arthur only asked a question when he really wanted to know the answer, and he digested the answers he received.

"That's a long story," replied Nicolo.

Arthur digested. "I would like to hear it. Please. If you have time. Please."

Nicolo smiled a smile that I instantly associated with Simnel. "I have the time. But tell me if I'm boring you."

"Okay," agreed Arthur, and I was sure he meant it.

Call me a cockeyed fantasist or a hopeless romantic, but as I stood in the doorway of the little room that had been assigned to Arthur, watching the boy and the man with the violet eyes seated together, I couldn't stop myself from seeing a heartwarming domestic scene. Father and son seated together, watched over by mother/wife. Maybe I was getting ahead of myself (actually, there was no ‘maybe' about it; I definitely was) but with Nicolo and me back together, on the same side again, and in the quiet lull between attacks, it was easy to get carried away.

I left the two of them to their talk and it was over an hour before Nicolo came out and joined me in the kitchen, where I was helping prepare the evening meal.

"He's a curious child."

"In what sense?"

"In every sense, I suppose. Certainly, he has a million questions. He could put my little brother to shame. But there's something—not odd, I don't want to say that—but… singular about him."

"He's been through a lot," I pointed out.

"Well, exactly," nodded Nicolo. "And yet he carries it all so well. There's no anger—or at least nothing obvious. If I were him, I'd be raging." Nicolo seemed distracted and kicked at the wall.

"What is it?" I asked, recognizing that something wasn't right.

"Did you tell him who I am?"

"I told him you're my friend."

"But no more than that?"

"No."

"I told him," said Nicolo. "I mean… I told him the facts as they relate to me, to my personal history. That was what he wanted to talk about, not about himself or what happened to him. But he's a smart child, and he put the truth together for himself, I'm sure. And yet…" He shook his head. "He didn't react. He didn't scream at me or hit me or anything like that. Just took it all in."

I let him sit a moment before speaking. "Did you perhaps want him to hit you and scream at you?"

"Don't I deserve it?" He sounded weighed down with his own guilt. "I've done some things I can now never take back, but that little boy… Maybe it wasn't me directly who locked him up, but it was because of me. Somewhat. For me, being Balduin's safety net meant an easy life; good food, good wine, and bad women." He gave me a look and I gave it right back to him.

"Fun combination."

"I want to say I didn't enjoy it, that I was just playing along. I want to say that when you opened my eyes to the reality, then the scales fell from my eyes and I looked back on it all with a sense of revulsion. But you know what? None of that would be true. I'm ashamed of the last few weeks but before then; Balduin and I seemed to only care about entertaining ourselves and I loved every second of it."

"I think that's a pretty normal reaction to your every whim being indulged," I suggested on a shrug.

"Yes," Nicolo nodded, running a hand through his dark hair. "But, by rights, Arthur should have had the same thing. Instead, he was mistreated beyond belief."

Again, I let his thoughts settle a moment before speaking. "So, are you angry because of how Arthur was treated or because he doesn't blame you?"

"Shouldn't someone blame me?" His face was anguished. He wanted there to be consequences for the life he'd lived. I didn't think he realized that he was living them, and would probably live them for the rest of his life.

"Sounds like you blame yourself."

"Of course, I do!"

"Do you think you'll ever stop feeling guilty?"

"No."

I shrugged. "Then maybe that's enough. I have a hunch you're going to be the best person you can be for the rest of your life to try and make up for what you've done in your past, even if you weren't yourself when you did them."

Nicolo subsided and forced a smile. "Maybe it was selfish, wanting Arthur to hate me. If he'd screamed at me, then perhaps I would have felt better."

"We all have things we have to learn to live with," I nodded. "The only people without regrets are the people with no empathy. Trust me, I used to be an assassin."

Nicolo laughed. "That is going to take some getting used to."

"I'm glad you and Arthur get along."

"Me too. Maybe we can stay in touch with him after he returns back home."

"I'd like that."

***

"Our numbers are levelling off," announced Wylder to the hastily assembled council of war, held in a cellar between the leaders of the different revolutionary chapters. "The number of new people joining us has dropped to more or less equal the number of those leaving. If we're not getting any bigger, then there is no point in waiting. Candidly, as the bastard king becomes harsher and harsher with his Purgers then people become more and more fearful of even speaking out of line, and so more will leave us. We're never going to get a better moment. The revolution starts here."

"Shouldn't we consolidate our position a bit?" suggested Kaleb, the commander of a westerly chapter.

"Consolidate how?" asked Wylder. "We can make excuses forever, but soon our numbers will start to drop and the moment will have passed."

"I'm just not sure we're ready," said Kaleb, cautiously.

"That's because we're not," smiled Wylder. "And we never will be. They outnumber us, they're better armed and better trained. Up to now, we've had some successes because we're fighting them on our home ground, out in the streets, but now we'll be attacking the castle itself so they'll have that advantage, as well. If it feels as if we're not ready, that's the reason; they hold all the cards. But we have to do something because if we don't, what use are we? Success is unlikely, but if we sit here, waiting for the opportune moment, then failure is guaranteed. And remember, we have one thing on our side they can't hope to have."

"What?" asked Kaleb, no doubt secretly hoping it was a gigantic, castle-smashing siege weapon.

"We care ," said Wylder, disappointing Kaleb. "We are fighting for something. We are fighting for life and freedom, and that gives us a tremendous advantage."

"Does it?" Kaleb obviously wasn't convinced.

"Oh, yes," Wylder nodded. "The soldiers we will face are being asked to give up their lives for… what? The king? When was the last time he did anything for them except pay their salaries? I doubt there's a soldier in that castle who doesn't know someone the king has punished or killed. The breadth of Balduin's cruelty will be our salvation because he has encouraged disloyalty in his guards. On our side, meanwhile, we fight for our friends, for our families, for our homes, and our freedom—all things for which a man will willingly lay down his life."

"That is something." There was a new hope in Kaleb's eyes. Wylder was not any great orator, but he'd been through this before and spoke with the experience of an old soldier.

"In the end, the only people we will have to really face ," Wylder went on, "will be the king's personal guard. They are all men handpicked by Balduin, men who have benefitted greatly from his patronage and, most importantly, men who have done terrible things themselves for which they do not wish to pay. They all know that at the end of the revolution, they will be the first to march up the scaffold, so they'll fight because they have something important to lose. But them we do outnumber. The hard bit will be getting that far into the castle still outnumbering them, we will already have fought through the outer defenses."

"You need to get past the walls, the gates, and the outer defenses without fighting." It was Nicolo who now spoke up.

The room looked back at him with considerable distrust, and I could hardly blame them. But perhaps there was a bit of hope too; he had the insider's view.

"You know a way, Master Nicolo?" asked Wylder.

"Just Nicolo, please," Nicolo said, turning to face everyone in the room. "From this moment forward, I am just Nicolo—the same as any and all of you." Then he nodded to Wylder. "And… maybe."

"I have heard that the royal family has many secret ways in and out of the castle's heart. Right to the King's Tower."

Nicolo nodded, but dismissively. "Yes. Obviously. And I certainly know of them, but Balduin knows I know about them. As soon as he learns I've joined you, he will have fortified those secret passages with traps. Going in that way would thus equate to suicide. Although," he added, "I think it would be prudent to have those exits watched. If Balduin sees us getting close to King's Tower then he will certainly try to flee."

"I'd wondered about that," said Wylder. "It's not the soldiers I want to kill. It's him. If he escapes, then it's all for nothing. Bastard though he is, he represents the royal family and frightened nobles will rally around the certainty of the crown. We need to hit him by surprise, to be on him before he even realizes we're in the building. But I don't know how to do that."

"I might," said Nicolo.

Wylder smiled. "I was rather hoping that might be the case, Master Nicolo."

"Just Nicolo, please."

"No." Wylder shook his head. "I prefer to call you by your old title until I am as sure of you as Charlotte is. I don't want you to forget what you were—what you still are to many of us here. Master Nicolo is the man you will continue to be until this is all over and the dust has settled. Then and only then will you have earned the right to forget that title and be called only by your name."

I'd expected Nicolo to argue, but instead he simply inclined his head. "That's fair."

That guilt of which we'd spoken earlier was at work again, and perhaps he appreciated Wylder and the others not letting him off the hook.

"The escape tunnels out of King's Tower are well known, but there is another, older tunnel, undermining the castle, one which Balduin might have forgotten, if he ever knew about it in the first place," Nicolo continued.

"How would you know about such a thing if the king does not?" asked Kaleb, sharply.

"Because I sat next to him during his classes when we were children," replied Nicolo, with a little smile. "And because I paid attention in those lessons while he did not."

"What is this tunnel?" asked Wylder. "How is not better known?"

"Mainly because it is old," answered Nicolo. "Also, because it marks a defeat. Owain of Easterly was imprisoned in the old dungeons beneath the King's Tower by Oskar the Bloody prior to being torn apart by wild horses."

"What a bunch of kings we have had," muttered Wylder, shaking his head.

"Back in those days," Nicolo continued, "the Great Castle was little more than King's Tower, the keep, the stables, and a wall. And surrounding it was countryside for miles around. The legend goes that in one night, Owain's men tunneled under the wall and into that dungeon to reach him and get him out. They sealed up the hole afterwards and Owain of Easterly became Owain the Spirit, as people said he could walk through walls."

"In one night?" That sounded a little far-fetched to me.

"Most modern historians believe that part of the legend to be an exaggeration," nodded Nicolo. "More likely Owain was down there a while being questioned. Though they still dug it in impressive time."

"But surely that's just a legend?" asked Kaleb.

Nicolo shook his head. "Again, some thought so. But the tunnel was rediscovered by King Seti II, who was a descendant of Owain (or at least a distant relative), and he decided to preserve it. But that was centuries ago. The tunnel remains, but it's not used because the dungeons are not a convenient starting point for the king's escape route."

"They are, however, an ideal starting point for a revolution," Wylder grinned. "We shall rise from beneath them, and they will never see us coming."

"Provided they don't know about it," Kaleb injected a note of caution. "But what if they do ?"

"Then we die," said Wylder simply.