TW04 The Zenda Vendetta NEW by Simon Hawke

you say. Detchard would have been with the guard, of course. Michael’s given the blackguard a commission. Possibly Bersonin, as well, maybe one or two of the others. The Six, that’s how they’re known. Black Michael’s private squad of bodyguards. A killer, each and every one of them. I see what must have happened now. The old woman somehow managed to alert them and Detchard and several of the others stayed behind while they sent the guard on ahead. They found the king, much as they expected to, killed poor Josef, and sent word on ahead to Michael that all was well.
    Only, having seen you, Michael knew that all was far from well. The moment he sees the real king, he’ll realize what we have done. And the old woman, of course, can tell him who you are. We are undone.
    We are completely undone. All is lost.”
    “Where will they have taken the king?” said Finn.
    “To Zenda Castle, undoubtedly,” said Sapt. “No hope of freeing him from there. The place is a fortress.”
    “We must do something, Sapt,” Finn said. “We must get back and rouse every soldier in Strelsau.”
    “And tell them what?” said Sapt. “That we had arranged for an imposter to be crowned while the real king lay drunk in Zenda? You forget, Rassendyll, that much of the army sides with Michael. How can we tell them what Michael has done without revealing our deception?”
    “But the king may be murdered even as we sit here!” Finn said, trusting to the old soldier’s quick thinking to leap to the logical conclusion. Sapt did not disappoint him.
    “No, by God!” he said, rising to his feet with a wild gleam in his eyes. “No, they can’t. They will not dare!”
    Finn looked at him with feigned uncomprehension.
    “We’ve shaken up Black Michael, by the Saints,” he said, “and we’ll shake him some more! Aye, we’ll go back to Strelsau, lad. The king shall be in his capitol again tomorrow!”
    “The king?” said Finn, still playing dumb.
    “The crowned king!” Sapt said.
    “You’re mad!” said Finn. “We’d never get away with it.”
    “If we go back now and tell them what we’ve done,” said Sapt, “what would you give for our lives?”
    “Just what they’re worth,” said Finn.
    “And for the king’s throne? Do you think for one moment that the nobles and the army and the people will sit still for being fooled the way we’ve fooled them? Will they love a king who was too drunk to be crowned and sent a servant to impersonate him?”
    “He was drugged,” said Finn, “and I’m not his servant.”
    “Mine will be Black Michael’s version,” Sapt said. “Can you disprove it?” Finn chewed on his lower lip. “No,” he said. “You’re right, Sapt, that would be playing right into Michael’s hands.”
    “So we do the one thing left for us to do! You must return with me and continue playing the king.
    Michael will know the truth, as will those who are in on his plot with him, but don’t you see, Rassendyll?
    They cannot speak! Just as we cannot speak for fear of revealing what we have done, so they are in the same predicament! Do they denounce you as a fraud, thereby revealing that they have kidnapped the king and killed his servant? No, they cannot. Michael has the king in his power now, true, and in that his plot has succeeded better than he had hoped. Your playing Rudolf enables him to keep the king a prisoner, but he cannot murder him, for that could make your impersonation a lifelong one. Nor can he produce the king to unmask you without unmasking himself, as well. It is a stalemate. A stalemate works in our favor. We need time to plan and you can buy us that time!”
    “But suppose you’re wrong, Sapt,” Finn said. “Suppose they kill the king?”
    “If you do not carry on with the charade, my friend, I can assure you that the king is as good as dead. We have slipped away from the palace like thieves in the night, leaving poor Fritz to guard the royal bedchamber with orders to admit no one.