“Perhaps we will not have to tell them the truth,” said Finn. “Or we can tell them the truth and bend it slightly.”
“What do you mean?” said Fritz.
“Well, there is a prisoner in Zenda Castle,” Finn said. “Do we have to tell them it’s the king?”
“Go on,” said Sapt, intrigued.
“Suppose we had a potential international incident upon our hands,” said Finn. “Suppose some very influential foreign gentleman, a friend of the king’s, had run afoul of Michael somehow-we needn’t say how-and Michael had imprisoned him in Zenda Castle in order to teach him a lesson? He is, after all, the Duke of Strelsau and holder of the estates and lands of Zenda. He could easily charge someone with a crime and execute the punishment.”
“True,” said Sapt. “He has that authority.”
“Well then, let us assume that the king has been made aware of this, say that the ambassador of the nation that this imaginary gentleman is from has secretly approached the king and asked him to intervene on this gentleman’s behalf. All very behind the scenes, to avoid an unpleasant incident involving governments, and so forth. Our imaginary gentleman is a very important man. The king, also secretly, remonstrates with Michael to release the man in order to avoid political repercussions. Michael is intransigent. You can see how this would pose a serious problem. Moving against Michael openly as his first official act would be a bad decision for the king. It would reopen wounds that are still all too fresh in Ruritania. Michael, of course, would realize this. That would be his advantage in the situation. So, in order to avoid political unpleasantness, the king intends to continue bargaining with Michael. However, should all his appeals fall upon deaf ears, he is prepared to move, in secret, against Zenda Castle in order to rescue this imprisoned gentleman. Afterwards, of course, he can claim total ignorance of the affair and insist that it all must have been done by foreign nationals, lodge a strenuous protest with the ambassador concerned, which imaginary ambassador will of course take it no further and the entire affair will be brought to a close. That is how you will present it to your men, Sapt. They are to stand by, prepared to move at a moment’s notice in this most secret mission, to rescue this imaginary gentleman from Zenda Castle in case all negotiations fail.”
“By God, Rassendyll,” said Sapt, “you astonish me! The plan is positively brilliant! Still, it has serious flaws. I cannot muster enough men to take the castle. And even if they could, how would we protect the king?”
“That is where I come in,” said Finn. “I will have to swim the moat and find a way to get inside by stealth. I will have to find out where the king is being held, then lower the drawbridge for you so that your attack can be made by surprise. If you can gain access to the castle, you will not need a lot of men. You will storm through the chateau on horseback and in the ensuing confusion, I will make my way next to the king and guard him with my life.”
“But how can you hope to accomplish that alone?” said Fritz.
“One man, alone, might penetrate the castle and escape detection,” Finn said. “If we attack at night, we may have a chance. But you will need to move with all possible speed once the drawbridge has been lowered. Our only advantage is in surprise.”
“It just might work,” said Fritz, “though the plan is insanity itself. You would be taking a tremendous risk. The odds are almost certain that you would be killed.”
“The odds are certain that I will be killed if we do not make the attempt,” said Finn. “In fact, if we do not, we are all dead men. You cannot watch over me indefinitely. If a man is a target for assassins, then he will surely die eventually. Sooner or later, Michael’s mercenaries will have me and once I am out of the way, Michael can contrive to stage Rudolf’s death in some manner that would not implicate him and that would serve him at the same time, just as you told me earlier, Sapt. With Michael in power, you can be sure that your lives would not mean a thing. In the event that I should disappear before the king is freed, my friends, I can only urge you to do likewise. Michael would waste no time in having you two murdered once I was disposed of.”
“In the event that Michael has you killed,” Sapt said grimly, “then he signs his own death warrant, come what may. Rest assured that you shall be avenged. On that, you have my word of honor and I care not what the cost.”
Finn felt a strange tightness in his chest. He and Sapt had known each other for scarcely three days, yet he knew-as did Sapt-that there had formed a strong bond between them. Physically, Sapt was older by a good many years, having never had the benefit of antiaging drugs that could extend his lifespan. Biologically, Finn had lived longer than Sapt had. The worlds that each existed in were separated by over seven hundred years. Yet, they were the same. Both cut from the same cloth. Both subscribers to a code of ethics that neither of them could have stated, yet each understood on some subliminal level that came not from the intellect, but from somewhere in the gut. Buddhists believed that that was the center of one’s being and perhaps, Finn thought, they knew something that no else did. Or, that all men knew, but few remembered.
“There is one thing more,” said Fritz, oblivious of the electric interplay that had just taken place in some fraction of a second between the two other men, a spark that had made them lock gazes quickly and then, just as quickly, look away, like guilty lovers. “The marriage between the king and Princess Flavia was to have taken place after the coronation. Each day it is postponed brings more disfavor on the king. It will be interpreted as an insult to the princess that the king would make her wait upon his bidding until such time as he is pleased to wed her. There, Michael has us. That we have dared allow an imposter to be crowned is bad enough. For that, Lord help us, our souls will have to answer on the Day of Judgement. But to allow the princess to enter into holy wedlock with that same imposter would be unthinkable. Whatever it is we are to do, we must do it soon, else all is lost.”
“All the more reason for me to court ‘my’ future wife,” said Finn. “It will buy us time. I would imagine that the court at Strelsau is not all that much different from the English court in one respect at least. Both surely have their gossip-mongers. With a word in the right ear or two, it can quickly go about that the king, having experienced some profound awakening-perhaps in the midst of all the holy solemnity of the coronation ceremony-has also realized or, let’s say, has had forcibly driven home to him the sudden knowledge that he is about to wed a woman whom he has never taken the trouble to know. At least, on the level of a husband-to-be. If he postpones the marriage in order that he might romance the princess, court her favor rather than simply take her as his due, wouldn’t that be regarded as romantic gallantry or some such thing? Would it not make Rudolf seem-well-somehow more human?”
Sapt smiled and shook his head. “You English!” he said. “You and your romantic poets and drawingroom novelists! Flavia has known Rudolf all her life and he has never regarded her as anything more than part of the palace furniture. Why should she believe in such a sudden change in him?”
Finn raised his eyebrows. “Why? Well, perhaps she won’t. But I’ll tell you a secret about women, Sapt. It has to do with what women know about men, but what men themselves do not know about each other. Women know that men are creatures of emotion. Whereas we ascribe that attribute to them, the fact is that a woman understands her emotions far better than a man does. We men are the ones who are entirely creatures of the heart. We accuse women of it like guilty little boys pointing fingers at their playmates in order to spare themselves responsibility. The truth is that women understand us better than we understand ourselves. If we are foolish or inconsistent, they are not surprised. They expect it of us.”