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The Wisdom of Dead Men
The Wildenstern Saga, Book Two
By Oisín McGann OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA
Copyright © 2009 Oisín McGann
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4976-6581-1
CHAPTER 1
A COUSIN'S GRIEVANCE
ROBERTO WILDENSTERN WAS THE PATRIARCH, the eldest living son of the late Edgar Wildenstern, Duke of Leinster and ruler of the family's vast business empire. As the richest man in Ireland — indeed, one of the richest and most powerful men in the British Empire and, therefore, in the entire world — he had extraordinary resources at his disposal. As Chairman of the North America Trading Company he controlled the fates of many thousands of people, and influenced the lives of millions more in dozens of countries across the globe. The Wildenstern business interests stretched east through Europe, south to Asia and Africa, west across the Atlantic to North and South America, and on across the Pacific. The Wildensterns had huge merchant fleets, as well as special charters empowering the Company to commandeer ships of the Royal Navy and draft armies in Ireland. There were few countries in the world that could match the Company's might, and even fewer business empires that could. Roberto Wildenstern controlled it all.
And he was thoroughly sick of it.
"If I have to endure one more of these bloody meetings, I'm going to have a seizure," he moaned as he waited for another gaggle of visiting envoys. "I've seen furniture with more life in it than some of these yaw-yaws. Couldn't they just put it all in a letter?"
"We've been over this a hundred times, Berto," his wife replied. "It's not just the negotiations with these people that are important; they need to see you in control. Your father ran this business with an iron fist for decades and everyone has to understand that you're in charge now.
"You want to force this family to mend their ways; you've said it enough times. So you have to stamp your authority on everything your father left behind — especially the business — or we're going to have the whole family fighting over whatever piece of the pie they can snatch out of your hands."
"Good luck to 'em," Berto muttered, running his fingers through his carefully styled, dark-blond hair. "They can have it ... and the bloody great headache that goes with it."
"Don't start that again. I thought you were beginning to enjoy doing some good."
"Hmph!" He began sticking the point of his dip pen into the back of his hand, leaving black-stained dots along it.
They were sitting in his study. Berto was behind his desk, a warm mahogany slab that did, he was forced to admit, make him feel very business-like. It also hid the fact that he was in a wheelchair, a state he had hoped would be temporary. These hopes were fading. From time to time, he would adjust the thin gold discs on the belt that pressed against his bare back. The Wildensterns had long ago found that applying gold to an injury helped speed up their unique healing powers. Every day he grew less confident that it was doing any good.
The heavy blue velvet drapes had been pulled back from the tall windows to let in the late-afternoon light. This corner room, high up in the towering house, looked out on the Wicklow Mountains to the south, with the coast visible to the east and, if one stuck one's head far enough out of the window, the near edge of Dublin, blanketed in smog, to the north. The study was sumptuously decorated, with dark green ivy-printed wallpaper, mahogany furnishings, two large bookcases and an impressive collection of Japanese prints.
Berto's wife, Melancholy — or Daisy, as she preferred to be known — was sitting in an upright, but comfortable, chair with a notebook on her lap and a pen in her hand. Daisy had decided as a child that one's name could affect one's fate, and she would not spend her life as Melancholy, despite her mother's love for tragic romance novels. And what Daisy decided in her family home more often than not became policy. Now, she managed her husband's affairs with equal deliberation. Her dark hair was pinned up, her blue crinoline dress and matching shoes were as comfortable as fashion would allow. She kept the minutes of the Company meetings and, discreetly, acted as Berto's adviser. Many of the men who came to meet the Patriarch were amused by her interest in her husband's business affairs and tolerated her womanly whims with a patronizing civility. They would have been appalled to know just how much power Daisy was capable of wielding — and not just by nagging her husband until she got her way. Berto relied heavily on his wife's analytical skills, but he was slowly getting to grips with the massive responsibilities heaped upon him.
"I'm just bored," he sighed, adjusting his tie and patting down his waistcoat. "They're all such dry sorts — and you've never met such a bunch of asses and toad-eaters in all your life. I haven't had a good laugh in ages." Waving to Winters, his manservant, he sighed again and added, "All right, then, show the next lot in. I know how to take punishment — I went to public school, you know."
"Begging your pardon, Your Grace," Winters spoke up. "Master Simon would like a word. If I might be so bold as to say, he seems a bit ... restless, sir."
Berto let out a breath and nodded. Simon —'Simple Simon,' as he was known to crueler members of the family — was a somewhat distant cousin who, at the age of seventeen, had the mind of an eight- or nine-year-old. Berto, a sensitive individual at heart, patiently put up with Simon's constant need for attention. It wasn't the boy's fault he was dull-witted, after all, and he had a lightness of heart that was sorely lacking in most of the rest of the family.
But Simon's usual gormless smile was missing as he stumbled into the room. His suit was as rumpled as always, despite the fact that he was provided with a freshly pressed one at the beginning of every day. His wild tufts of brown hair stood out from his head in every direction. He stood by the door looking furtively to right and left as if reluctant to come any further inside.
"What's on your mind, Simon?" Berto asked.
"Need to talk," Simon muttered. "Just with you, Berto ... if I may."
It was unusual for the boy to speak in anything other than a breathless gabble and Berto looked at him with concern. He glanced at Daisy, who nodded slightly and stood up, straightened her bulky skirts and walked towards the door. Simon turned towards Winters as if afraid the footman might jump on him. Tall and thin and immaculately groomed, Berto's manservant had been trained from childhood not only for domestic service, but also as a bodyguard.
Berto lifted his chin to the servant and Winters nodded, following Daisy out the door and closing it softly behind him.
"What's on your mind, old chap?" Berto asked again.
Simon wouldn't meet his gaze, fixing his eyes firmly on the floor. He kept plucking at the collar of his suit jacket.
"You sent my mother away," he said in a near-whisper.
"What's that?"
"You sent my mother away!" Simon growled, tears welling in his eyes. For a moment, he glared at his older cousin.
Berto saw the expression on the boy's face, but could not believe what it was telling him. So he was slow to react. The knife was already drawn from inside Simon's jacket — what the boy lacked in wit, he made up for in speed. With a flick of his wrist, he hurled the blade at Berto's heart.
Berto was already pushing his wheelchair back from the desk, turning his body to bring it side on to the path of the knife, which cut across his chest, but missed its target. It thudded into the wall behind him.
"What the bloody hell — !" he shouted, before Simon leaped onto the desk, another knife in his hand.
The door was thrown open. Voices cried out. Simon raised the knife, but Berto was by no means defenseless. Grabbing the sawn-off shotgun clipped under his desk, Berto wrenched it free and swung it in one smooth move, sweeping Simon's legs out from under him. The boy fell hard on his back onto the desk, but was up again with the slickness of an eel. Berto could not bring himself to shoot the youngster. He fired both barrels into the ceiling over Simon's head, the blast and then the burst of exploding plaster above making the boy flinch away. But the shot was rushed, the recoil of the gun tipped Berto backwards and he tumbled out of his chair.
Before Simon could follow through on his attack, four strong hands seized him from behind and threw him to the floor. A foot kicked the knife out of his hand. He was rolled onto his front and gripped roughly in a ground hold that pinned both his arms behind him and pressed his head and chest to the floor. Berto's younger brother, Nathaniel, continued to hold the boy while Winters snapped a pair of handcuffs onto Simon's wrists.
"You sent my mother away! You sent my mother away!" Simon yelled over and over again, tears streaming down his face.
Nathaniel and Winters pulled him to his feet and the servant dragged him away. Berto was sitting up, trying to set his chair back on its wheels. He wrenched at it, swearing at his limp and useless legs, his movements jerky with confused anger and embarrassment. Nathaniel righted the wheelchair and helped his brother into it as Daisy hurried into the room.
"Oh my God!" she gasped. "Berto, darling, are you hurt?"
"What the hell was that about?" Nate asked, as he picked up the smoking shotgun.
Berto ignored both questions until he had settled his nerves, straightened out his clothes and hair, and taken a few deep breaths.
"No, I'm fine ... and I have no idea what that was about," he said in a shaky voice. "But I mean to find out. You should have seen the hatred in the boy's face. I never knew he had that kind of venom in him. What do you think he meant about his mother?"
"Don't know," Nate replied, breaking open the shotgun and letting the spent shells fall out onto the desk. "I'll have a word with him when he's calmed down a bit."
"Don't be unkind to him," Daisy cautioned her brother-in-law. "This didn't come out of nowhere. It's clear that someone put him up to it. We must discover who has been pulling his strings."
"Obviously. Are there any other aspects of my job on which you'd like to offer instruction?"
"You seem to have it well in hand," she replied brightly. "Except, of course, for the simpleton who managed to slip two throwing knives past your security."
Nate's face went red, but he did not reply. He took a couple of shells from a drawer in Berto's desk, reloaded the weapon and swung it closed.
"All right, so we've a snake in the house," he grunted as he clipped the shotgun back into position under the desk and assessed the damage to the ceiling. "Some treacherous cur with murder on his mind."
"So it seems," Berto said sourly. "The family's all home at the moment. Do you think we should mention it at dinner?"
"If you like. But frankly, I don't think any of them would own up."
"It's probably better not to say anything," Daisy sighed, shaking her head as she wrapped her arms around her husband. "You don't want to go giving the rest of them ideas."
Berto nodded grimly.
"Ah. There's no place like home."
CHAPTER 2
A VISIT FROM THE ROYAL IRISH CONSTABULARY
NATHANIEL WILDENSTERN WAS brooding in the breakfast room late in the morning, when the police inspector came calling. He was alone; the rest of the thirty-odd members of the family resident in Wildenstern Hall had eaten and left. The rich, wake-up scent of eggs, bacon, kippers, tea, coffee and fresh bread hung in the air. The maids had cleared the tables and only his manservant, Clancy, hovered unseen nearby. The large fireplace was filled with a display of flowers during these warm summer days and the paintings on the walls had all been changed to pastoral scenes to suit the season. Not that any of this could improve his mood.
Nate was sitting in the light of the east-facing French windows, indulging his taste for hot buttered toast — cooked on one side only, as all toast should be — berating himself for failing to anticipate Simple Simon's attack.
It was true that the boy was thought so innocent he could not constitute a threat, but even so, Nate should have taken the proper precautions with him, as he did with everyone else.
Berto had become Heir after their older brother, Marcus, had been killed by Edgar, their father, in self-defense ... and had then been elevated to Patriarch when Edgar was murdered by a group of very old, very savage relatives. The upheaval that had resulted in the family had forced Nate to give up his boyhood dreams of wandering the world in search of adventures and instead, to support Roberto in his new role.
Nate had committed himself to the protection of his older brother — a serious undertaking for a nineteen-year-old who had spent most of his life avoiding responsibility. But he was well-trained in armed and unarmed combat, poisons and explosives, and had been given a thorough education in the family's history of plotting and conspiracy. He had an intimate knowledge of the house's defenses — the booby-traps, hidden rooms and passageways, the armories and secret weapons caches. And he could count on the support and expertise of Winters and Clancy, along with a team of loyal and able footmen. He had convinced himself it was enough.
After Edgar's death, there had been a rash of plots to remove Berto, some bordering on the absurd, others planned with chilling precision. Nate had succeeded in foiling all of them before they could get close. As Patriarch, Duke of Leinster and Chairman of the North American Trading Company, Roberto controlled the Wildenstern Empire and its vast resources. There were many among their flock of uncles, aunts and cousins who wanted Berto's power and would stop at nothing to seize it. Roberto was trying to reform the family, but his efforts were simply creating more enemies.
Berto was not perturbed by the family's resistance and was determined to force them to change their ways. And he was certain that they would, eventually. Nathaniel found it difficult, sometimes, to share his brother's optimism.
Not for the first time, Nate cursed the Rules of Ascension and the predatory practices they encouraged. For the Wildensterns were no ordinary family. Ordinary families did not think it acceptable to betray those closest to them in order to get ahead. Ordinary families did not tolerate murder.
It was Nate's job to weed out the conspirators and deal with them. Anyone who defied Berto's will had to be dealt with. Nate had thought himself up to the job, but he was beginning to have his doubts. He had thought that giving up his dream of a life filled with travel and adventure showed that he was maturing. But now he was feeling the pressure, and his initial confidence was giving way. He was desperately afraid of failing and beginning to fear he should have left this task to someone with more experience. But who could they trust?
The Wildensterns were bred to be cunning, deceptive and ruthless. Simple Simon's unpredictable attack was just the latest proof of just how dangerous they could be.
Nate had questioned the boy, but could get no sense out of him. Simon had sat at the table in the small boxroom where he was being held, his face in his arms, moaning incessantly about his mother. As far as anyone seemed to know, Simon's mother had died of tuberculosis when he was three or four. His father had passed away a few years later.
Nate chewed his toast thoughtfully. His tea had already gone cold. He was about to call for more, when his manservant appeared behind him and softly cleared his throat. Clancy was a Limerick man who had been raised to serve the Wildensterns. For many years now, he had been Nate's personal manservant and bodyguard, as well as his tutor in the family's unorthodox survival skills. Dressed in a black suit with tail-coat and buckled shoes, he was a short, solid man with a straight back, square shoulders and graying hair. His inscrutable face was shadowed by bushy eyebrows and looked as though it had been shaped out of wood with a blunt hatchet. Nate had seen Clancy's short-fingered hands sew the finest seams and break bones with equal ease.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Wisdom of Dead Men by Oisín McGann. Copyright © 2009 Oisín McGann. Excerpted by permission of OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA.
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