༺ 𓆩 Chapter 49 — An Impossible Plan of Assassination 𓆪 ༻
「Translator — Creator」
᠃ ⚘᠂ ⚘ ˚ ⚘ ᠂ ⚘ ᠃
"Were the two of you not acquainted?"
To Mistress Randolph's question, Isaac and Carlson only traded looks. Caught in the awkward moment, it was Carlson who spoke first.
"…The young master is of a southern house. Mm, he has come on his Grand Tour to take in the sights of Winterband. I, mm, have agreed to serve as his escort."
Carlson stitched together a tale, halting and unlike himself.
"Something of that sort. I had heard he was a man of considerable skill."
Isaac wondered what manner of nonsense had just been put forth, but for the moment he played along. Fortunately, it seemed to take.
"Ah, of course. So that is how it is. I had thought so, that a young master of some house had come. With Carlson at your side, you may rest at ease, sir. My husband used to say that one might trust his back to Carlson with no fear at all."
The mistress said it with the bright smile that was her own.
"We shall move to the corner. We must speak of the road ahead."
"Just so. Mistress, if you would, send the ale to our table."
At Isaac's word, Carlson nodded.
To the corner table the mistress brought two cups of ale filled to the brim. Carlson and Isaac exchanged a few words, then fell silent.
"Carlson, will you not eat?"
“Ah, yes... Well, as you can see, I’m looking a bit worse for wear right now. I’ve completely lost my appetite.”
"And the young master from the south? Are you not hungry, sir?"
"I shall do without. I must be back at my lodging soon enough."
"Is that so? Then I shall keep from disturbing you."
When the mistress had stepped away, Isaac lowered his voice.
"And so. The work?"
Isaac had set Carlson to looking into the new ring that had risen in the wastewater quarter of the city. Of all the matters, the most pressing was the strength of arms they held.
"They are a new pack who call themselves Weissmann. Five of their swordsmen are men of name. To speak of Weissmann's swordsmen in the slums is to speak of names every man knows."
"In the span of a few months alone."
Isaac turned the horn cup in his fingers. The foam upon the ale was settling.
“They didn't strike me as a mere street gang. It appeared as though the city guards were looking out for them.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Yesterday, a massive brawl broke out right in the middle of the town square between Weissman and a gang called ‘Red Fang.’”
"Red Fang?"
"One of the four old gangs. It was a one-sided slaughter. Weissmann's swordsmen plainly handle mana. One among them used aura. The city guards did not so much as stir until the Red Fang had been near broken to a man. And when they came, they took only the head of the Red Fang into their custody."
"The head alone? To what end?"
"They set him out in the square. With his own head off. There was not even the form of an execution."
Carlson set forth what he had gathered while staying at the mistress's inn. Every piece of it tallied with what Isaac had read in the records of the forebears.
The Marquis Dietrich was passing his time among the fine inns and the houses of pleasure of the city, and in the midst of that he had met with the mayor of the city. And in every place where the two met, swordsmen of Weissmann lingered.
"And of the swordsmen?"
"There is a fighting pit in the wastewater quarter. Weissmann holds that as well. I played about there for two days, and it seems I drew the eye of one of the swordsmen. He pointed me to a brothel in the slums and bade me come. He spoke of perhaps a sixth swordsman of Weissmann being made."
"That is why the smell that rises from you is the smell of the wastewater quarter."
The clothing Carlson wore was patched with stains in a hundred places.
"And surprising as it may be, I came having washed. No matter how I washed in the river, the smell would not come off altogether."
"It cannot be easy."
"What shall you do, my lord?"
Carlson looked upon Isaac. By his time at Isaac's side, he had come to know him a little. That he was unlike the young masters of other noble houses, of course, and that something of foresight, beyond the reach of an ordinary man, lay within him. That such a one had come in person to find Carlson meant that the time to move had come.
"Take this. See it delivered to the Marquis Dietrich." Isaac held out a folded scrap of vellum.
"May I look?"
"Look as you will."
At Isaac's leave, Carlson opened the scrap of vellum.
[The city of Bern is not your purse, parasite. — Isaac von Goethe]
“...What exactly do you intend to accomplish by sending something like this? Won’t it merely serve to provoke the Marquis?” Carlson asked it, the meaning lost on him.
"Were that note alone to be sent, of course, the marquis would gain another ground upon which to press my father. He could make much of it on the matter of honor, and swell the affair beyond measure."
"Aye, just so."
"But what if you were to take that swordsman to the manse and put him to questioning? And if the mayor were to be, of a sudden, assassinated?"
Isaac's voice grew quieter as he spoke, and by the last word it was scarcely more than a whisper. To Carlson, however, it was that last word that struck the loudest.
"Are you minded to have me killed, my lord? About the mayor there is at all hours a swordsman who handles aura. Beyond that, the bodyguards number ten or more. To slay them is no hard matter, but to assassinate the mayor without being marked is, even for me, beyond reach."
"Yes, no doubt of it."
Isaac nodded readily at Carlson's word.
"Should I assassinate the mayor and be taken or hunted, is there a means to take me out of it?"
What Carlson was after was vengeance. He gave help only insofar as he judged Isaac would be of use to that vengeance. The trust Carlson held in Isaac was nearer the credit of merchants than the loyalty of knights. He would not take losses, nor undertake unneeded risks. Isaac knew this also.
"It would be hard, true enough. You would have to leave the lands of Goethe. Else my father would set every means he could lay hand to upon you. Even to the ends of the realm, perhaps. The order of Goethe must stand."
"I should sooner stand alone against ten and more Hellwolves. This, I cannot do."
A frown drew upon Carlson's face. He, who had ever held to his calm, could not hold to it where vengeance was at stake.
"Who said you should?"
"Pardon?"
"The assassination, I shall do. Before the setting of the sun tomorrow."
"What…"
"The city, in the wake of it, shall be turned on its head, no doubt. Without my telling you, you shall know. At that time, you are to deliver that note to the marquis, and to take the swordsman to the manse. There is information to be drawn out."
"This cannot be in earnest, my lord."
"Why not?"
"Are you in your right mind? To send a note plain with your name upon it would, of course, set their suspicion upon you at once."
"They shall not be able to suspect. A marquis with a head upon his shoulders would, on the contrary, suspect a third party at work."
"My lord?"
"You know my standing. Once the mayor has been assassinated as well, the marquis's suspicion will harden into certainty, and until he confirms what manner of third hand has appeared, he shall not move readily. We buy time. Within that time, we shall set ourselves to Weissmann, by threat or by suit, to draw out the marquis's weak place…"
"One moment, my lord. How far do you mean to go?"
Carlson held up his palms, wearing a look of utter bewilderment. He was scowling, though for a very different reason than before.
“Are you drunk and acting out of sheer bravado? I’ll grant you the idea of leveraging your reputation to sow confusion via written notes—let’s just accept that for the sake of argument. But the very premise of this plan is practically impossible! How could you pull off an assassination—something even I couldn’t manage? Or are you simply banking on your noble status, assuming it won’t matter if you get caught?”
It was not that Isaac had never moved recklessly before. Yet those had been times when, rather than choosing recklessness, he had had no other choice. What stood before Carlson now was reckless without measure. So reckless it had the look of a walk into the place of the dead.
Carlson remained by his side because of trust.
He trusted Isaac’s foresight - the fact that, despite his youth, he was a man who kept his promises and would undoubtedly prove instrumental in achieving their vengeance.
But this?
One slip-up, and it wasn’t just Isaac who would be six feet under; Carlson would be dragged down right along with him.
"Carlson. My head is, just now, more clear than it has ever been."
Isaac met Carlson's eye and held it. The eyes were unmoved by the smallest tremor. They were the eyes of the Isaac that Carlson knew.
“That’s exactly why I told you: wait until after I’ve succeeded before you make your move. If I get arrested, or if I’m exposed and rumors start flying that I’m an assassin, then you are under no obligation to carry out my orders. At that point, just consider it a stroke of bad luck and go your own way.”
“...Are you serious?”
To Carlson's question, Isaac drained what was left in his cup of ale.
"I have, not once, ever spoken otherwise. With this, take what food and ale you will."
Isaac set a piece of silver upon the table, rose, and walked from the inn.
***⚜***
In chess, they say, strategy is but one part in a hundred. The other ninety-nine are tactics. I had not known it. I had been drunk only upon the ideal of strategy.
The words Jonas had spoken in the past life had carried within them, in their own way, a hard-won pith. Goethe, having declared itself a city-state, had won many victories, but had taken no fewer defeats. Those words of Jonas had come of the defeats. The dearth of experience in war had shown plainly as a dearth in tactics. They had laid grand-seeming plans toward an ideal victory, but the world held more variables than any chessboard. What gave shape to strategy was tactics. The step-by-step actions taken to reach the aim. Such actions could, at times, look far from the ideal, and could look too cold, or too cruel besides.
So it was with the assassination of Baris, the mayor of Bern.
The three pillars of Bern's coming ruin. The Marquis Dietrich, the royal inspector. The mayor of the city. And Weissmann. Of these three, the marquis and Weissmann could, by use, be turned to Goethe's account. Set against them, Baris was a parasite of the city. Should it prove possible to remove him without trouble, not only would their plans be undone, but much of the blood that would have been shed could be spared as well.
An inn that could not be set beside Mistress Randolph's, so shabby was it. Late in the night, Bill and Isaac sat at table, hooded.
"Aha, an assassination. Poison would be the simplest. But Baris keeps a personal cook. To use him would be hard. Aye. The surest way is to draw a blade across his throat. Ah, but there are fine swordsmen by him. To approach is impossible. Use a crossbow, then. Hm? Crossbow is not your trade, you say? Nor have you a marksman to be trusted? Ah, what a pity."
To Isaac's plan of assassination, Bill laid out his thoughts upon every angle.
‘The ale here is bad indeed.’
So Isaac thought. The ale that had gone down so well at Mistress Randolph's was, here, a thing to be choked down a sip at a time. There was no foam to be seen on the wooden cup. In place of the smell of fruit or of malt, it had only a smell of stale piss.
This inn at Bern's edge stood not far from the building of the city council, nor from the manor of Baris. The greatest virtue of the place was that it had been a hideout of the Nias ring, easy ground from which to act. Bill was fulfilling his charge from this place, watching and feeding himself here. Day and night, with no rest, he had spied out every motion. What the mayor's days were like, when his guard was thinnest.
By Weissmann's hand the Nias ring had been broken, and Bill too had a heap of grievances against them. Though the seat of the head had not been one he had wished for, no man cares for the taking of what is his. By that, Bill had spent the past three days in close study of Baris.
The conclusion he had come to was a single one. Fat Baris, swollen with his living, did not for a single hour put the bodyguards from him. Even when he lay with his wife, or when he called for a whore, he had bodyguards set about the place. The council chamber, the manor, the fine inn at which he ate, the brothels he visited; in every place there were ten and more bodyguards with him at all times.
Whether by caution, or by love of the show of it, or by the weight of all that he had given men cause to hate him for, in every event the approach was a hard one.
"Then how about this, my lord? We set fire to the building he is in. As he runs out, we cut him down. Ah, would the swordsmen sit by? Aye, they would not. But, my lord. May I ask one thing?"
"What. Ask."
Isaac had not put his lips to the beer. He turned the wooden cup in slow circles.
"Have you lost your wits, my lord?"
"That I am hearing today, often enough."
Isaac, who had had it from Carlson too, gave a small chuckle.
"Set Weissmann to rights first, my lord. Then would the assassination not become a smoother matter? They are but a gang, the rest."
"Five swordsmen wielding mana, you said. Until I have the whole of their strength laid out, I cannot move against them rashly."
"Then what shall you do, my lord?"
"There is nothing to be changed. We deal with Baris."
"Ha."
Bill let out a sigh.
"You take issue?"
"Issue, my lord? There could be no such thing."
When Isaac fixed his gaze upon him, Bill, without thought, shook his head. To his mind rose the magical contract he had once written within the cell at Nias. From that hour on, his life had been a thread in Isaac's hand.
"I only meant to say, my lord, that since the bodyguards stand thick as they do, to draw a blade across that pig's throat without one of them so much as hearing your breath is a thing impossible."
"Even an impossible thing must be made possible."
Isaac rose, set a few coppers before the keeper of the inn, and tossed a word with them.
“Your ale tastes like swill.”
“Then get lost and don’t ever come back.”
“That’s exactly what I intend to do.”
When Isaac stepped out, Bill at once seized the keeper by the collar.
"Set the ale right. Improve it."
"Wh, what?"
The keeper put on a baffled face. He was one of those who had survived the breaking of the Nias ring.
“W-what’s the big deal, Boss? It’s not like anyone comes here except for a bunch of bastards who barely scraped through with their lives.”
“...I suppose you’re right.”
Convinced, Bill let go of the innkeeper’s collar.
But then, as if something had just occurred to him, he grabbed the innkeeper by the collar once again and yanked him close. “So? You got a problem with that?”
“No, it’s not that I have a problem, it’s just…”
“Then do as you’re told. Unless you want to end up dead.”
Bill shoved the keeper back roughly. His act was nearer instinct. From the moment his life had passed into Isaac's hand, he had grown sharp toward whatever might displease Isaac.
“Are you coming or not?”
“I’m coming, m’lord!”
At Isaac's voice from outside, Bill answered at once and ran out.
“Ugh, damn it. What’s his problem? Why’s he acting like that all of a sudden?”
The keeper smoothed the rumpled collar of his shirt and grumbled.
"You have a means, my lord?"
Bill asked, falling in behind Isaac.
"I am thinking on it."
"What is to be done at this hour? If the night-watch should mark us, it shall become a vexation."
"Hm. This way, perhaps."
Isaac would not so much as bend an ear to Bill's words. He kept lifting his eyes to the empty air and looking about.
"Baris is at his manor, my lord. We are on the other side of the city from there. My lord, my lord. Where do you mean to go?"
In the midst of Bill's vexed asking, Isaac stopped where he stood. They were before the largest church of the city.
"This shall do."
"Will the offering of a prayer, my lord, see Baris struck dead by some heaven-sent rod?"
Bill was at his wit's end.
"It would depend upon the manner of the offering."
Isaac knocked upon the firmly closed great door of the church, which rose in the form of an arch.
END σϝ CHAPTER