Dana Marton - Saved by the Monarch

He stepped to the side and put his back against the wall, ready for anything. But when the lights flickered on for one second, he found the corridor empty in front of him.

And yet his senses told him something was off. He slipped his gun from its leather holster and hadn’t taken two steps forward when the lights went out again.

He could be walking into a trap—side tunnels frequently interrupted the corridor he traveled. He moved forward one slow meter at a time, preparing for whatever was to come next, cautioning himself to restraint. A prince beating up a lost tourist would make for terrible publicity, so he bade himself not to jump to conclusions and rash actions when he caught up with whoever was down here. But he kept his gun out, although he didn’t take the safety off, not yet.

He followed the sound, turned when he had to, going by feel through twisting corridors in the darkness, enveloped by damp air and musty smells. Then the footsteps suddenly died.

He strained to listen, but couldn’t hear anything. He braced his left hand against the wall to orient himself—the stone in the various passages was cut with different techniques, as the catacombs had been added to over the centuries—touched something wet, pulled his hand back.

In some places the walls were moist. There was even a small underground stream, but that was at least a mile from where he was standing.

Could be a water pipe was leaking somewhere beneath the palace. He would have to have that investigated.

He moved ahead, but could no longer pick out any sound beyond the muffled ones he made. The lights flickered back on again. He immediately knew where he was and turned the corner toward the palace entry he’d been headed for. He turned another corner, strode down another long walkway, then another. And spotted a guard, at last, by the steel security door.

“Your Highness.” The man snapped his heels together and pulled his spine ramrod straight, staring ahead.

“Has anyone come up this way?” he asked.

“None, Your Highness.”

“You’re the first guard I’ve seen since coming in through the stables.” He’d entered the catacombs through the secret door at the royal stables at the foot of Palace Hill.

“I’ll alert the captain immediately.”

“See that you do. Are the lights working properly?”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“They keep going off and on down there.”

“It’ll be seen to. Is there anything else, Your Highness?” The man’s face was set in stone, but his voice betrayed his nerves. His unit had been caught derelict in their duties by none other than a member of the royal family.

And Miklos didn’t feel like going easy on him. He was a military man through and through who considered his duty sacred. “Tell the captain I want a full sweep. There might be unauthorized personnel down there.”

If the man was surprised, he didn’t show it. A complete sweep of the catacombs was rarely conducted. The last time they’d done a full survey was over a decade ago, for architectural reasons. They were testing the rock bed for stability before beginning renovations on the East Wing of the palace. Before his father’s death.

He left the guard behind and walked up the stairs, was greeted by another guard as he entered the palace proper. He checked his cell phone when he passed the man. Three unanswered calls from the chief of security. Cell phones didn’t work down in the catacombs.

He checked the times for the calls. All in the last ten minutes. Since he was already late for a meeting, he didn’t immediately return them. He crossed a receiving area and came out by the library, walked straight through and into the business offices, into the private meeting room where Chancellor Hansen was waiting for him.

“Your Highness.”

“Chancellor.” He nodded, hating that he was two minutes late. “Go ahead.”

“Are you hurt, Your Highness?” The man was staring at his left hand.

And when Miklos brought it up, he realized why. His palm and fingers were stained with blood. He hadn’t felt just groundwater seeping through the stone down in the catacombs when he’d leaned against the wall.

The full sweep would tell him what was going on. Miklos would make sure to check in later with the captain. He turned into the small bathroom off the office, left the door open as he pumped soap and thoroughly washed. “I’m fine. I would hear your report.”

The chancellor knew better than to push with questions, and gave his usual twenty-minute update instead, leaving ten minutes at the end of their weekly appointment for questions and answers as he always had. But when that was over, uncharacteristically, he didn’t immediately take his leave. He was fidgeting, shuffling papers in his appointment book.

He decidedly lingered, although he was the type to plow through his report with the force of a steam engine then be gone, rushing to the next item on his endless to-do list. He had a propensity for believing that he single-handedly kept the kingdom running.

He probably wasn’t too far off the mark.

“Is there anything else?” Miklos asked.

The chancellor closed his leather-bound folder softly and looked up with trepidation on his lined face. “The queen is…” He drew a quick breath. “The queen is…” Moisture gathered in his eyes under lids that drooped with age.

“The queen is dying.” Miklos said what for most of the country was still unthinkable. He, himself, hadn’t said it out loud until now, although he and his brothers had been aware of it for some time, communicating with half sentences and long looks of regret. “My mother is dying,” he said it now, again.

The chancellor hung his head.

“Dr. Arynak is requesting audience?”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

But the good doctor had asked the chancellor to break the news first. At another time, in a different situation, Miklos would have smiled at that.

Dr. Arynak never delivered bad news to any of the members of the royal family. He had an aversion, more of a phobia, perhaps going back to his predecessors, some of whom had been beheaded for being the harbinger of bad news during the less enlightened centuries.

His evasive techniques, which he took to the extreme at times, could be annoying. He was an excellent physician, however.

“I’m so sorry, Your Highness.”

Miklos’s heart darkened. The weight that had been straddling his shoulders for the last couple of months now slid to settle firmly in his chest. How long? He wanted to ask, but for that he had to wait for the doctor’s audience.

“I’ll see him as soon as we get back from the airport.”

“Yes, Your Highness.” But the chancellor didn’t look relieved for being done with delivering the doctor’s message.

“What else?”

“Have you talked to the chief of security?”

“Not yet.” Miklos’s voice picked up some impatience, which he regretted. But what could be worse than the queen’s impending death? And the country in the worst turmoil already. He was tired of the political fires they were fighting at every level of government.

And still the chancellor wouldn’t talk.

“We must leave momentarily,” Miklos reminded him.

“There seems to be a plot to assassinate the crown prince.” The words came in a rush, with a pained expression on the old man’s face. And anger over the audacity that anyone would want to harm the royal family. And unease because he was treading on the security chief’s territory by reporting that information first.

Information that made Miklos’s head reel. “Arpad?”

The man in the catacombs…It had been a man; the footsteps gave that much away. Probably young. He’d been fast, and there hadn’t been any shuffling. Miklos looked at his left hand. No trace of the blood remained. His body went still for a moment when he thought…Alarm and urgency filled him as he asked, “Where is my brother now?”