Honored (Book 2 of the In Search of Honor series)

It wasn’t long before the door to the cell opened and the red haired woman stuck her face through the opening. Her eyebrows were drawn together and her teeth barred in a snarl, “He said you might be useful.” She threw a white stick at me. “Chalk. For your plans. We don’t have a ton of supplies for you to draw your mad ramblings on so draw on the floor and use it sparingly,” she spat and slammed the door behind her.

I grabbed the white stick of chalk and could feel it rubbing on my fingers. One stick of chalk and a smooth gray floor. Would anyone other than me even be able to read it? And where had they gotten chalk from anyway?

I couldn’t really complain though. I was just around to draw out my mad rambling plans. I let my mind sink into the days spent looking at blueprints that Kevin had found. Hopefully he was still happy living in the village with Sandy. I had ruined so many lives, but at least I had managed to save his life and to give him a chance at a new life. One life out of so many I was responsible for.

Slowly I drew out the basement, trying to put every wall exactly right. Some I was certain I was messing up. There was no way the walls had gaps the way I thought they might, but my overall outline seemed mostly right. As long as it was as close as I could get that was all I could ask for.

I marked the places Kevin had recommended explosives with Xs. I looked over my design. The few spots I could remember Kevin marking didn’t seem like enough. I circled every spot that looked like a support column. I added circles near walls that looked like they weren’t close enough to another explosive. Ten Xs and thirty-six circles. A total of forty-six explosives needed to be set up then. Multiplied by three would be 138. That seemed to be a number the wall would believe. Ninety-two explosives should be enough for Daniel to blow up whatever it was that he wanted to after I was gone and 138 seemed like a number small enough that the wall wouldn’t question it too much and would give us the materials we needed.

I also needed personnel. Probably only five explosives to a person so that each person had enough time to set it up and also few enough explosives that each person wouldn’t be spotted. That was about nine people who worked in the castle basement with one of those nine in charge of six. Eight was the absolute minimum with six of those people in charge of six. If we could get more people it would mean everything would go faster. The faster everyone moved the higher our chances of success were.

And then there was my squad. How many more people’s lives was I going to be responsible for? How many people could I ask to walk to their deaths with me?

I should go alone. If I went alone no one else would die. There would be no more wives mourning their dead husbands who never came home if I went alone, but would they believe me if I went alone? Would they take me to the castle or would they just snatch me up and bring me back to prison? I had to have a number large enough that I had witnesses and that my negotiations seemed legit and less like an assassination attempt.

I couldn’t pick that number. If I left it up to the men, and accepted however many volunteers there were with the volunteers knowing we were walking to our dooms then that would be the number going with me. Hopefully no one would volunteer. If none volunteered I would walk alone and accept that my plan might not go off perfectly. At least if I showed up I would still act as a distraction and bring the guards’ focus away from the castle staff.

I heard the door creak and I looked up to see the kind old lady was back with another bowl of bitter broth.

“You didn’t eat your last bowl.” She stated, looking at a bowl near the door.

“Did you bring that earlier?” I asked, wondering when she had been here.

“Yes,” She responded while staring at the uneaten bowl of food.

Why was this bowl of food so important to her? I had three meals to finish this plan, and her being here with a second bowl of food meant that now I only had until the last meal came. “You can take that bowl back with you. I’ll just eat this one and keep working.”

She looked toward me with wide eyes and shook her head vehemently, “No! You need to eat. This broth isn’t enough nutrition to sustain anyone, and yet you are planning on skipping eating some? You have to eat! I’ll get it warmed up for you and brought back.”

I sighed, and opened my mouth to acquiesce, but she was already putting the bowl she was carrying down near the door, away from my drawing.

“Thanks,” I mumbled, unsure of what else to say as she picked up the other bowl of uneaten water soup.

She smiled back at me, the wrinkles in her face aligning like a sunset on the horizon, “You’re welcome dearie.” She shuffled back out through the door, leaving me to eat the broth she brought.

I wasn’t particularly looking forward to the watery fare, but I didn’t really have another option. I pushed myself into standing, my asleep limbs tingling with sharp pricks like pine needles poking me all over my body.

I looked down, and I could see the lines of the palace walls all around me. I could see the explosives marked out, but they looked so spread out from this height. Would it be enough?

It had to be. Kevin had planned for this with much less explosives, and with explosives made from materials a city dweller could get. The people of the Wall probably had much larger explosives than what Kevin could have made.

When my legs felt steady enough to move, I carefully stepped over my delicate chalk work to reach the food bowl which was only lukewarm on the outside.

A careful test showed the liquid inside was also only lukewarm, so I gulped the liquid down as fast as I could to avoid tasting it.

Looking back toward my plans, they were mostly complete. The number of people needed, the layout of the basement area of the castle drawn, the explosive numbers written up. What else was there? Oh, where I would show up with my force. I still needed that detail. If I showed up in an invisible place, then they would just quietly recapture and imprison me. I needed a place with plenty of fanfare and noise. A place where I could loudly proclaim to be seeking a peace treaty.

The door opened, and the old woman walked back carrying a bowl wrapped in cloth. “I got you a fresh hot bowl. You might have to wait for this to cool down some.”

“Thanks,” I mumbled, not really looking forward to more of that bitter nasty water soup.

She held it out as if to hand it to me, and then stopped as she looked at the empty bowl in my hands. “I’ll take that bowl from you right after I set this down. I recommend waiting a minute before you eat it, but don’t wait too long or it will go cold again.”

True to her word she set the bowl on the ground near the door leaving it wrapped in the cloth layer. She stretched as she stood back up, and smiled at me, “This old body of mine gets so stiff just existing.”

I nodded in understanding, every year my own body seemed to be getting stiffer and more sore from seemingly simple tasks, like drawing out this map.

She reached out, and took the bowl from me, and with a smile and a friendly wave she left the room.

I had that one last detail to finish. I would figure that out, and then I would drink down the soup and be ready to report to Dan.

I needed a place that echoed and would throw my voice to the city. I needed a place close to the castle but very visible.

If only I had a map of the city, but I did have chalk. I could draw the city from my memory. It wouldn’t be perfect, but it would help. Slowly I drew out the rings of the city and filled them in.

There. The stacks. If I could get to the top of a stack with a big white flag and some sort of voice amplifier, then the whole city could hear and see me. They would know that I was trying to bring peace back, and any attempt to straight up execute me would only rile people up.