The Husband Poisoning Society, Chapter Thirty-Eight: Sanctuary

Dust from the rafters rained down upon us with each impact of the battering ram outside the front door. The whole structure shook as the battering ram hammered into the door. I could see the doors flexing as the ram slammed into them. The doors weren’t going to hold. 

The sound of the hammering blows echoed in the church. The sound echoed, bouncing off walls and splitting my eardrums. I looked down at my hands. They wore blood spatters from the assassin, and they shook. I clenched my hands into fists and felt my nails digging into my palms, focusing my attention. 

In another few moments, the doors would break under the stress of the battering ram’s strikes. And then well over a hundred soldiers would pour into the building. And that would be it. We would be out of options. We would have nowhere to run. We would have no moves left to play. I licked my lips and tasted pennies. Blood. I had bit my lip in the fight with the immortal. I could feel the split along the right side of my mouth. My head hurt. My ears rang. And I was running on fumes, I realized. We weren’t just trapped, we’d been run down and broken. 

I shook my head. I wasn’t going to give up. Leon was not going to die while I still had breath in my lungs. Fiona was not dying while I could still crawl. Vincent was not dying while my heart still beat. And it wasn’t just their deaths. We would be executed too. And then they would use the whole thing as an excuse to declare war. And Ys couldn’t win a war with Hyperborea. Without the opposition of the other nations of the Boro Sea, Ys would fall. We'd be crushed by the weight of the Hyperborean Navy. Too much was at stake. I couldn’t imagine letting it end like this.

But what could we do? They were willing to violate the laws of sanctuary in their own church to get to us. And they were right outside in greater numbers than we could stop. And then the door shattered inward. Wood chips flew, pine shrapnel flew through the air. I shielded my face with my hands. And as my hands obscured my view, soldiers began to pour in.

The Bishop stepped forward.

“What affront is this? You dishonor the gods! I will excommunicate the lot of you!”

“Shut up!” Sven strode through the mass of soldiers and belted the bishop with a wooden shield. 

The bishop fell to the ground, bleeding from his mouth. I stared at the bishop’s fallen form. I had been an atheist back on Earth. Not a particularly loud atheist, I hadn’t seen any reason to believe. But here in Ossedei I had seen strange things. Religious rituals made me feel things, things I couldn’t explain. I didn’t know that I believed in the Twice Dead Gods, but I didn’t plan to disrespect them. Sven had disrespected them in the most shocking way that I could imagine. If he was willing to do that to a bishop of the Twice Dead Gods, I could imagine what he would be willing to do to me. 

And then I saw Monique. Some thug of a soldier had her clutched by the wrists, her arms behind her back. I didn’t see Quincy. Monique struggled against the soldier, but I noticed her hands had been bound. 

“Now you will listen to me.” Sven bellowed. 

“Will we now?” I asked, hands on my hips. 

“Unless you want your friend to get hurt you will.” Sven answered.

“So let me see if I understand.” I said. “You’ve violated a church’s holy sanctuary. You’ve assaulted your own bishop. You’ve kidnapped a duchess. And now you’re threatening violence on church ground. And you think that you’re the good guy?”

“I think that I’m winning.” Sven answered. 

“Do you have official sanction from his majesty for these crimes then?” I asked.

The soldiers looked around at this, glancing at each other.

Sven crossed his arms. “His majesty is unbothered by my actions.”

“That sounds like a no.” I said. “Which means that when this all blows up in your face, his  majesty will use you as a scapegoat. You’ll be fed to the wolves to allow the king to save face. You’re a pawn who has mistaken himself for a king.”

Sven backhanded me, knocking me to the ground. “I am in control. That is what I am.”

I spat blood on the ground and pulled myself to my knees. I made a show of dusting myself off, and then pushed myself back to my feet with my cane. “Yes, you look in control.”

Sven glared at me. “We have your accomplices. We have your duke. You have nothing.”

I shook my head. “That’s not true. What I have is knowledge. I know what you did. I know you poisoned a foreign duke. Imagine Hy-Brasil knew that. Imagine Cockayne or Reynes knew that. Imagine they suspected that King Hardrada had approved that. They would look very differently at Hyperborea and her designs on Ys.”

Sven didn’t say anything.

“And,” I continued, “I know that despite the assassin, you want at least some of us alive for the trial. And that means, we will be able to speak in our own defense. And that means that Hy-Brasil’s representatives will hear what we have to say.”

Sven shook, his knuckles white on the sword he was holding. Then he shook his head.

“You overestimate your persuasive ability. They will not believe you.”

“You underestimate how beloved Duke Leon Delmar is in the Boro Sea. He hunts slave ships, remember? Whose slave ships? Yours. And who are they taking as slaves? Why mystics from Hy-Brasil and Tech-Duinn. And you poisoned him.”

“They will not believe you.” Sven repeated. “And it will not matter if they do. They will not risk our wrath.”

“You overestimate your ability to intimidate the other nations. Individually, yes, your neighbors fear you. But you poisoned the King’s brother.” 

Sven jolted at that. I smiled.

“Oh, did you not know that? Yes. King Godwin has a younger brother. A brother who is popular, not only in Ys, but all across the Boro Sea. And you thought poisoning him was a good idea.”

“You still need to prove that it was us and not you who poisoned him.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Is that going to be your play? I’m his grace’s agent and close friend. Nobody is going to believe I poisoned him. My cousin is his fiancée.”

Sven flinched at that as well.

“Oh, you didn’t know that either? It seems that the people pulling your strings haven’t let you in on a lot. Maybe they plan to cut you loose, win or lose.” 

Sven shook his head. “Enough. I am not listening to the She-Wolf of Ys. You have nothing but lies.” 

I laughed. “I’m sure that’s a comforting lie.”

He hit me again. This time, I managed to remain standing.

I shook my head. Sven was talking. He ranted about Hyperborea and purity and bloodlines and destiny. I didn’t listen. Instead I considered our options. I didn’t see many. We were out gunned here. We have no escape route. And they were willing to violate the most sacred rules to stop us. I took a cigarette from my chatelaine bag and lit it. I didn’t bother with my cigarette holder, instead taking a drag from the cigarette. I waited as the alchemical agents in the cigarette helped with my pain. Still, I had no idea what we were going to do. We had the cure for Leon. And maybe, if they took us prisoner, we could use it to heal him. But then what? We would go to trial and we would all die. And then they would declare war. And Ys would fall. I had said that Hyperborea couldn’t beat the whole of the Boro Sea, and that was true. But that would require the whole of the Boro Sea to stand with Ys. And would they? I had said they would, but was that true? Could I convince them on the strength of what I knew? Would they believe me? 

I didn’t know. Then I noticed that Sven seemed to be wrapping up his speech.

“What you say doesn’t matter,” Sven declared. “We have your friend. You will surrender or I will slit her throat and let her bleed out at your feet.”

I raised my hands. “We surrender. We can’t fight this many soldiers. We won’t fight on holy ground. And we’ve no way to flee. So yes, we surrender. You’ve captured us, and all it cost you was all the moral high ground.”