A Company of Heroes Book One: The Stonecutter by Ron Miller

Author:Ron Miller [Miller, Ron]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Baen Books
Published: 2014-11-26T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER VI

DISCUSSIONS

When Payne Roelt finally arrived in Blavek and made his way to the palace, he found waiting there a situation far worse than that for which even his outstandingly unpleasant imagination has been able to prepare him. Even the news that the Princess Bronwyn is probably dead does not bring the roses back to his pale cheeks. He had never liked the word “probably”. As long as the princess remains unaccounted for, she poses a threat. And that is all there is to it.

It is just two weeks until the ceremony of Ferenc’s coronation and a great deal of damage can be done in two weeks, as he knew very well. He meant to eliminate all possibilities of interference, however remote. It would mean considerable and numerous difficulties, but the magnitude of the reward warranted the effort. What angers him is that these efforts needed to be made at all. Had the prince been less of an idiot, Payne’s schemes would never have been put into jeopardy. ‘Had the prince been less of an idiot, there might not be any basis for Payne’s schemes in the first place, but it would require a good deal more fairness than Payne possesses for him to admit that.) All that he had asked is that the princess’ powerlessness be maintained for only a few more weeks, and she would afterwards be forever harmless. And has the prince been able to accomplish even this simple task? A task that had already been set into motion, and that he needed only oversee? No, the simple-minded peacock hasn’t.

Payne has admitted himself unannounced into Ferenc’s apartment, and when the prince sees the slight figure suddenly appear before him, as though it had coagulated from the cigarette smoke that fogs the air, he suffers an almost religious ecstasy. He had been certain there would be some warning of Payne’s arrival, that he would be able to steel himself before the inevitable confrontation. He had spent that entire morning smoking cigarette after cigarette, pacing his rooms, rehearsing the excuses he hoped would placate the chamberlain, laying the blame on other shoulders, any other shoulders. But when he turns and sees that very figure he wants to see less than any other on the planet ‘with the possible exception of his sister), all the glib speeches slip away from him like the cigarette that falls from his slack lips.

Payne’s arrival has been so silent that all that remains of Ferenc’s resolve is a kind of supernatural awe. The two men stare at one another for several speechless minutes: the tall one open-mouthed, bug-eyed, bloodless, perspiring; the small one cool and dark and motionless within the blue smoke. For one brief moment the hope begins to flicker within the prince’s mind that the apparition is only a figment of his overwrought imagination, that he has had Payne on his mind so much that he is finally beginning to hallucinate. But this wan hope is snuffed out at its first flicker when the apparition speaks.

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