“Dies slow,” the Cajun added grimly.
“Sounds good to me,” Clem agreed amiably.
“How can we do that?” Mildred asked pointedly. “You saw Overton at dinner. He went to the damn lav with bodyguards trailing along. They probably wipe his butt. The man’s always surrounded.”
“Exactly like Caligula and the praetorian guards of yore,” Doc rumbled, working his swordstick. “As I recall, after numerous failed attempts, the mad emperor was finally murdered, but the assassins were killed within moments by his bodyguards. Rome was set free, but at a terrible price.”
“Only terrible for some,” J.B. amended, fanning himself with his hat.
“Get me close.” Jak flipped a knife into the air and expertly caught it by the blade between thumb and forefinger. With a twist, he tucked the knife away into his clothes. “That’s all need.”
The conversation stopped as bootsteps went by the door, then faded into the distance.
“How do you know this?” Krysty asked, her hair waving gently about her shoulders. She still felt a bit weak from the flu, but it was nothing she couldn’t handle. Ryan jerked his head toward the parapets. “When I was talking with Nathan, he mentioned a man, Red Roger. The same thing happened to him. A prisoner escaped from the gallows and hid in his house, holding the farmer’s pregnant wife hostage so Roger would swear the man wasn’t there to the baron.
“It worked,” he continued without emotion. “And when the sec men went away, the prisoner chilled them both. Nathan knows what will happen the minute Overton seizes control. He took a big chance telling me this.”
“That’s what Overton has to control Nathan,” J.B. said, resting his backside on a corner of the desk, one boot dangling freely. “What does the baron have to hold back Overton?”
“His troops control the hunting dogs, plus the armory.”
Dean whistled and J.B. cursed.
“Indeed,” Doc said, playing nervously with his swordstick. “So if Overton pushes too hard, or terminates Tabitha”
“Front Royal gets loudly removed from the landscape,” Krysty finished. A bout of coughing made her stop talking for a minute. Ryan looked at Mildred in concern, but the physician waved the incident aside.
“Just phlegm,” the doctor explained. “Perfectly normal.”
“Are there enough explosives in the armory to really destroy the whole fortress?” Dean asked, sitting cross-legged on the bedspread. “It’s an awful big place.”
“More than enough,” his father stated. “We know how to make black powder here, and the ville gunsmith stores the excess in barrels for selling to other barons. He’s a drunk, but a friend. We can count on help from him and his staff.”
Sadly, Mildred and Clem informed Ryan of the earlier execution. The man’s expression didn’t change, but they knew his confidence in the plan was reduced.
“A blasterfight in a powder mill,” J.B. said, removing his hat completely and rubbing his hair. “Dark night, what a shit-hole we’ve walked into.”
“Kin helps kin,” Mildred stated. “Nathan would do the same.”
“Yeah, he would, I suppose,” the Armorer relented.
“We need to stage a diversion,” Krysty said. “Get the sec men busy doing something else, then we can chill Overton.”
“Have to be big,” Mildred said.
“Really big,” Ryan agreed. “Any ideas?”
Withdrawing his knife, Clem started dry shaving his neck to the sound of sandpaper on stone. “Sure, we rescue the wife,” he said. “Fortress ain’t that large. How tough can it be?”
“Nathan must have already searched everywhere for her,” Mildred chided.
“We look someplace he ain’t yet.”
“Which is where?”
“The barracks,” Ryan said, sitting upright. “Fireblast, Overton’s troops have taken over the old barracks! That would be the only place Nathan couldn’t search. Hell, there’s even a punishment room in the basement. My father used it when a sec man needed discipline but he didn’t want to whip the man in front of the people.”
Slowly, J.B. nodded. “Sounds good to me.”
“I’m for it,” Dean said.
“No,” Krysty stated forcibly. “We don’t free Tabitha.”
The companions stared at the woman, then began to smile among themselves.
“She’s right.” J.B. grinned. “We don’t free Tabitha. We free everybody in the barracks. Gotta be more than just her in there. Man has got a lot of enemies.”