14. Melting Point (22)
14. Melting Point (22)
As transportation networks developed and freedom of movement expanded, innovation swept through countless fields. That didn't always mean the change was for the better.
Freedom of movement also meant freedom from control. An army stationed hundreds of kilometers away could appear at the border overnight. Criminals could slip across national lines before a warrant was even issued. Dissident elements scattered throughout society could converge on a single point the moment an opportunity presented itself.
When it came to protecting VIPs, airtight security had therefore become more critical than physical fortification. Conceal the principal's travel routes. Make it impossible to pin down where they were staying. Prevent even trivial scraps of information from circulating.
Ferenc was compelled to admit that unlike himself, the Crown Prince's security chief was not a man left behind by the times. Over the past two weeks, he had simulated several assassinations of the target, and not once had he managed to produce a plan worth the name.
The target traveled by circus train, the most conspicuous means imaginable, surrounded by a gaggle of frivolous young nobles whose sole contributions to the enterprise consisted of banquets, parties, and sightseeing.
Considering Ferenc had even planted an informant inside, he should have acquired at least basic intelligence long ago—never mind travel routes or lodgings, he should have learned something about the target's habits. How many times a day he visited the lavatory. Which guests he contacted most frequently. What snacks he favored.
Yet the informant had unearthed nothing. The Crown Prince appeared to mingle freely while systematically concealing every trace of himself.
Prey that left no trail. The hunter in Ferenc felt a chill—and an itch in his fingers. Crown Prince Nikolai. The rumors, it seemed, were well-earned.
The Tylops Hunting Society, to which Ferenc belonged, traced its lineage to a tradition in which hunters representing the tribes of the Tylops region gathered to hunt bears. In ages past, those tribal champions had formed their society's warrior class, and over time they had risen to become the region's indigenous nobility.
That the hunting-culture rituals survived into the industrial age could not be explained by local attachment to folklore alone. In the present day, large-scale hunts served as a pretext for the regional magnates to maintain regular contact and conduct military training.
Those quick enough to ride the wave of transformation had successfully converted their ancestral holdings into industrial capital. Those more conservative by nature had been gradually winnowed out, their influence fading with each generation.
So it had gone for the warriors of Tylops. They were superb hunters, but the forests that were their arena had been seized by timber development companies, and their standing in the region had steadily eroded.
The lords who had colluded with capitalists—or become capitalists themselves—permitted the continued existence of the Tylops Hunting Society precisely to gather these disaffected warriors into a single, manageable bloc. They were invited to ceremonial occasions that bolstered their prestige, granted token privileges to soothe their grievances, and pacified with generous bounties whenever they brought down a demon beast or a dangerous predator.
In exchange, whenever conflict flared with the indigenous population, the lords deployed them as peacemakers and a show of force—or, when disputes arose with the central government, as convenient scapegoats onto whom responsibility could be shifted.
Within the Society, some men contented themselves with the scraps thrown their way. Others nursed their grievances and sharpened their blades. Ferenc belonged to the latter camp, and he led its most radical wing.
The lord governing his tribe's province was a fervent supporter of the Crown Prince's faction. The client—who never, under any circumstances, revealed their name—had promised that eliminating the Crown Prince would see that lord deposed and Ferenc elevated in his place. So long as he was not caught in the act, the client had assured him, he would also be shielded from the consequences of the assassination.
Ferenc had little difficulty deducing the client's identity. The Third Consort, who had recently given birth to a son, was the likeliest candidate. The intermediary sent to deliver the commission never once uttered the name aloud, but he provided more than enough clues for Ferenc to piece it together.
Political chaos was a proving ground for warriors. Ferenc intended to seize the opportunity before him. The intermediary had hinted that if he handled the job cleanly, the reward could far exceed a mere lordship. And so Ferenc had gathered his band and gone hunting.
The assassination target, the Crown Prince, was designated by the code name Iyomante.
It was borrowed from a rite of passage observed by bear hunters in their youth. To those hunters, the bear was both a ferocious predator and a spirit of the forest—an adversary to be overcome, and a sacred being never to be slaughtered recklessly.
The Iyomante ritual proceeded as follows. A newborn bear cub was brought into the village, nursed on human milk, and raised alongside the next generation of hunters. When both the bear and the children reached the age of fifteen, the villagers would bind the bear in the center of the settlement and command the youths who had grown up beside it to hunt their "friend."
It was a day of tears and blood none of them would ever forget. By carving the death of a friend into their hearts, the young hunters overcame fear and hesitation alike and were reborn as warriors in full.
The resonances embedded in the word Iyomante—"fifteen years old," "bear," "lord of the forest," "quarry"—evoked the assassination target with uncanny precision while simultaneously steeling the morale of the Tylops-born fighters involved in the operation.
But no matter how tightly internal discipline was maintained, continued failure inevitably bred restlessness. Once uncertainty began to spread, deserters were sure to follow. Ferenc assessed the limit at the end of this week. One misstep, and he risked being denounced as a traitor and arrested before the assassination attempt could even begin.
The heavens, it seemed, had not entirely abandoned him. Today brought two pieces of good news.
The first was that intelligence on the Crown Prince's movements had finally come into his hands. The agent who had proven useless until now had at last delivered a report. The Crown Prince, while feigning to remain at the Imperial Retreat, had ventured into the city with a party of roughly ten idle young nobles and a minimal escort, intent on pleasure.
The second piece of good news was that he had secured some excellent blades for the job. Risking exposure, he had spent the past two days putting out feelers to the local underworld for hired muscle—and had managed to recruit several powerful Madosa.
Unlike the rest of the city's lowlifes, who were all prostrating themselves flat for the Crown Prince's visit, these Madosa had accepted his commission as though his ultimate objective was no concern of theirs.
Ferenc had the distinct impression they knew exactly what his target was. No, he was certain of it. That men of their caliber happened to be waiting in a provincial backwater at just the right moment—that alone was telling, as was their utter indifference to the presence of the Crown Prince's military forces nearby.
'Foreign intelligence operatives? Or another of the Crown Prince's political enemies? Doesn't matter. What difference does it make?'
Their combined combat strength was formidable enough to rival Ferenc's entire assassination squad. They would be useful. Most crucially, if evidence of powerful black magic surfaced, it would draw the Crown Prince faction's scrutiny away from his own men.
The Madosa, for their part, regarded Ferenc and reached the same conclusion. They had only arrived in this city the day before, intent on abducting Anais.
But when word reached them that Wonderstein was, by chance, also in town, they could not act rashly. No matter how much protection their Vice Cult Leader extended them, being caught directly by a Cult Leader's hand meant certain annihilation.
Then Ferenc's hunting society had approached them. The target was easy enough to infer, and the Madosa had in turn provided him with intelligence that the Crown Prince was scheduled to visit the Golden Palace shortly, accompanied by an entourage of several dozen.
In the chaos surrounding an assassination attempt on the Crown Prince, nobody would notice if a single serving girl vanished. The whole affair would be buried under the weight of the larger crisis. They would evade Wonderstein's suspicion.
Ferenc and the Madosa exchanged a handshake, each wearing an expression that said they had roughly discerned the other's true motives—and would not ask.
***
The reason Nika had initiated independent action here was, as Pelebin had anticipated, a report from the Intelligence Department. Several movements flagged by agents had snagged on the Crown Prince's intuition.
The probabilities, as Nika assessed them: a seventy percent chance that the decoy party led by Koka would be attacked, a twenty percent chance that the attack would come at the Imperial Retreat instead, and a ten percent chance that no attack would occur at all.
Having read the board, Nika had abruptly revised the schedule, breaking away from the main group with only two bodyguards. Not that those calculations were the sole factor. There were a handful of additional considerations. He did not deny, either, that he wanted to enjoy the hot springs in comfort, without the weight of others' eyes on him.
"They say a VIP named Koka has reserved the best spot in the Heavenly Bath. People are whispering to each other, wondering if it's the Crown Prince."
"So the boy's here."
The decoy's itinerary was managed entirely by Pelebin. Nika had not told him he was coming to the Golden Palace. Had Pelebin known, he would have sent the decoy elsewhere.
"Will this be all right? I hear the Crown Prince's party accidentally burned down half a building at their city lodgings last night while holding a campfire in the courtyard."
"Heh. Causing trouble from day one. Don't worry. It's within expectations."
"Is it truly necessary to tarnish Your Highness's dignity in this manner? What if he causes something worse?"
Nika smiled and shook his head.
"I didn't pick him solely because he resembles my public image. I picked him because he's just stupid enough, just loud enough in front of a crowd, and just cowardly enough never to cross a serious line."
He glanced back at Natasha.
"Besides, every guardsman assigned to him is a 'defective product' Sir Dmitri spent months hand-picking. Men with abysmal skills and conduct inside the Imperial Guard, each of them with a toe dipped in some faction opposed to me. Easy enough to demote them later for failing to properly support the Crown Prince, using the messes I've caused as grounds."
Natasha nodded, a satisfied look settling on her face.
"In any case, I'll be stepping out for a while."
"The wager, you mean?"
Nika nodded, the memory of yesterday's staggering defeat rising unbidden. A full day later, the humiliation had not dulled. The price of losing was three consecutive afternoons playing cards with Wonderstein at the Under-Heaven Tavern.
"Will I suffice as your sole escort?"
"It can't be helped. Sir Dmitri has the task I assigned him."
"Understood. Then I shall assist Your Highness with your robe—"
"Don't bother. Surely I can manage a bathrobe on my own."
The Golden Palace was a hot spring hotel, and its guests accordingly wandered about in bathrobes. The local style of the Borjomi region was distinctive: vivid colors and patterns, with an unusually wide sash.
"Follow me at a distance of at least ten meters."
"Understood."
Nika donned the robe and stepped out of his room. The quality and design, as befitted a top-tier hotel, were genuinely satisfying. It was only after he reached the crowded common areas that he realized his mistake.
Men and women wore the robes differently here. Men folded the left panel across the front; women folded the right. Men doubled their sashes over twice; women folded theirs only once, making the women's sashes twice as broad. Worse, women generally tied the knot at the back, while men tied theirs at the front.
Nika glared at Natasha, trailing him far behind. She was watching him with a mischievous smile. She must have known from the moment he'd dressed himself while following her example earlier.
But he couldn't reproach her. He was the one who had insisted he could manage alone.
He was accustomed to being mistaken for a woman during covert excursions. How he wore a robe hardly mattered. But he loathed the thought of appearing before the person he was about to meet dressed like this. He loathed the smug, insufferable look that would spread across that face—the face of a man who would act as though he had expected this all along.
He turned on his heel to return to his room and change.
A voice caught him.
"Master Nika?"
Nika ground his teeth and looked toward the sound of his name. A long-haired blond man in his twenties stood there, beaming at him.