Free TW04 The Zenda Vendetta NEW by Simon Hawke

to Zenda and return with the guard of honor to fetch the king at eight, and then we all ride together to the station, where we take the train to Strelsau.”
    “Hang that guard,” said Sapt, sourly.
    “Now, now, it’s very civil of my brother to ask the honor for his regiment, wherever their sympathies may lie. I’ll not discuss politics tonight, Sapt. At any rate, Cousin Rudolf, you have no need of starting early, so you can join me while these two temperate chaps abstain. What, only two bottles, Josef? Out with you, fetch us two bottles more. Michael can’t drink all of it, you know.” It was late when the king pushed back from the table with a belch to announce that he had drunk enough. The wine had been excellent, indeed, a welcome change from the poor claret at the inn. Finn had matched Rudolf glass for glass, so that he now felt relaxed, full, and pleasantly diverted. While the old woman, whose name Finn never learned, cleared away the table, Josef brought in a wicker-covered bottle that looked as though it had been aging in Michael’s cellar for quite some time.
    “His Highness, the Duke of Strelsau, bade me to set this wine before the king when the king was weary of all other wines,” he said, as though he had rehearsed the speech, which undoubtedly he had.
    “He asked that you drink for the love that he bears his brother.”
    “Well done, Black Michael!” said the king. “Hang him, he thinks to save the best for last, when my thirst has been abated. Well, out with the cork, Josef, my man.” As Finn watched with disbelief, the king took the bottle, put it to his mouth and drained it without pausing for breath. Then he flung it into a corner of the room, winked at them, put his head down on the table and was snoring within seconds.
    As easy as that, thought Finn. All through the meal and well into the night, he had wondered nervously which bottle or which dish had contained the drug that Michael was supposed to dope his brother with, never dreaming that it would be done in so obvious a manner. Obvious to someone who expected it, at any rate. He sighed with relief, grateful for the fact that now he would not have to inject himself with the adrenergen that would have kept him up all night, clawing at the ceiling, regardless of which drug Michael had used or how potent a dose he had selected. He could now enjoy his buzz and get a good night’s sleep without having to worry about that frightful nitro hammering through his brain or terrorists sneaking up on him in the middle of the night. The others were keeping watch outside with night scopes. It really wasn’t fair. He’d had a great meal and fine wine to drink and he’d be sleeping soundly in a warm bed while they shivered in the cold night air outside, staying awake to protect him.
    Ah, well, life’s a bitch, he thought. He sincerely hoped it wouldn’t rain.
    So much time spent in the bowels of Zenda Castle had made Drakov accustomed to darkness, so he was easily able to make out the shape of the Observer. He was so intent upon watching the hunting lodge that he was completely ignorant of Drakov’s presence a mere several yards away. Death stood right behind him, Drakov thought, almost within reach, and he didn’t even know it. He didn’t sense a thing. No subconscious realization made the hairs prickle on the back of his neck, no sensation as though someone had walked across his grave made him apprehensive, no sudden intuition made him spin around to face the danger.
    They were all wrong, thought Drakov, all the poets and the storytellers who ever dwelt upon the darker side of human nature in their art. Death is not a melodrama. If anything, it is a pathetic one-act comedy that had been poorly written. The audience never laughs and by the time they realize that the play simply isn’t funny, it is already over.
    Drakov felt a touch of sadness as he saw that the Observer was little more than a boy. The miracle drug treatments of Falcon’s time