Treason and murder ever kept together,
As two yoke-devils sworn to either's purpose.
Shakespeare
Bjorn Thorstad was ecstatic with satisfaction at the success of his party. It was unfortunate that the Princess wasn't there to mingle with the Marquis d'La Montagne, but he was sure that they would have many more opportunities at the events that were sure to be held in imitation of this one. The Marquis was the son of an old friend of Pierre's, of the right family background to be a suitable consort for the Princess, once she was … available. No one in Arendelle needed to know that he had been disinherited, and was thus grateful to Pierre and Thorstad for introducing him to a woman of such beauty and means as a Crown Princess. He would do nicely.
One of Thorstad's servants came up to him with a troubled look on his face. "Your Grace, please, we have a … problem that I think you need to see."
Thorstad followed the man to the pantry that led down to the wine cellars. "What is it, man? I have guests to entertain."
"Your Grace, I was going to bring another cask of brandy to serve, and I grabbed the first one here in the pantry, and when I tapped it ... I found ... this." The servant held out the cask for the Baron's inspection. "I don't know what this is, Your Grace, but it certainly isn't brandy."
Thorstad looked at the small hole in the cask where the man had tapped out the bung. It seemed to show the cask was full of a fine black … powder. Thorstad reeled. "Let me see that cask!" he said, and took it from the servant.
Staring at the inscription "Brandy – Special Edition", Thorstad almost dropped the cask. He realized just in time what a disaster could result and steadied himself. What in the name of all that was holy was a cask of gunpowder doing in his pantry? Pierre, he needed to find Pierre.
"Your Grace? What's wrong?" the servant's question brought Thorstad out of his panic.
"Uh, nothing, nothing. This cask is just full of the … charcoal that we use for aging the brandy. The distillery must have gotten them mixed up and marked this one with the wrong designation. Just take one of the cases of wine, instead." Thorstad very carefully placed the cask on the shelf and feigned calm as the servant did as he was told.
When he was sure that the man was gone, Thorstad ran down the stairs to the wine cellar. Yanking open the door, he was dismayed to see that it was completely dark. He reached for the box of matches sitting next to the door ready to light a candle when he realized what a stupid idea that might be. He froze, uncertain of what to do next.
"Here, mon ami, let me help you," Pierre's voice came from behind him. He whirled to see his 'friend' standing there with a gun in his hand.
"Pierre, what are you doing? Why do you have the gunpow..." Thorstad stuttered to a halt when Pierre raised the gun to point directly between his eyes.
"How unfortunate that you should discover my clever ploy, mon ami. It would have been so much more fitting if you had been blown to hell while still as oblivious as you have been up to now," Pierre sneered.
"Wha..what do you mean?" Thorstad was confused.
"The Queen will die tonight, not two months from now. She will die along with all the filthy nobility of this miserable kingdom. As will you, mon ami, all of you will be blown to kingdom come when the powder in your wine cellar is set off precisely at 10 o'clock. Unfortunately, you will already be dead. Au revoir, monarchist pig! Vive la révolution!" Thorstad was horrified to see Pierre's finger begin to tighten on the trigger.
A voice came down from the pantry, "Your Grace, the Queen is looking for you to say she's leaving."
Startled by the interruption, Pierre whipped his head around to see who was there and Thorstad took the opportunity to shove him to the ground and run up the stairs. Heart pounding, he slammed the door of the pantry, astonishing the servant who had come looking for him. "Where's the Queen? We need her guards. Run and get one of the guards, man! Get all of them!"
Thorstad cursed as he realized that this pantry door had no lock. He could hear Pierre scrambling to his feet and running up the stairs. All the frightened Baron could do was lean against the door, holding it closed against the thump of Pierre's body trying to force it open. He could hear the man screaming obscenities in French, pounding on the door, and trying again to push it open against Thorstad's resistance.
Two of Elsa's guards and the Captain came running into the room, trailed by the servant Thorstad had dispatched to find them. "Assassin! A bomb! You must get everyone out!" Thorstad managed to gasp out, still holding the door shut against Pierre's efforts.
A shot rang out; Pierre had decided to force the door open with his pistol. Thorstad screamed shrilly and clutched himself; the bullet had blown through the door and hit him in the back. Writhing in pain and bleeding profusely he fell heavily to the floor, and Pierre burst through the door waving the pistol and looking wild-eyed at the guardsmen. He took two more shots; neither of them hit anyone but it caused the guardsmen to drop to the floor quickly while drawing their own pistols. Before they could do anything to take down Pierre, the man ran out of the room toward the room where the party was still going on.
Scrambling to his feet, the Captain ordered the one of the guardsmen to stay with Thorstad and the servant, who was trying to stanch the bloody wound in Thorstad's back. He ordered the second guard to get a horse from the stable and ride back to the castle for reinforcements. Then the Captain ran to protect his Queen.
When the panicked servant had run into the main room calling for Elsa's guards, the ones who remained behind had immediately moved to put themselves between her and the doorway through which he had come. They didn't know exactly what was wrong, but they weren't going to risk leaving her unprotected. "Your Majesty, you need to leave. Now. Please go, we'll handle whatever this is," one of the guards told her, watching the doorway with his drawn pistol at the ready. Elsa wasn't going to argue, not when the entire room heard a shot ring out from somewhere, shortly followed by two more.
There were gasps and a women screamed. The guests were milling nervously; their fear was clear from they way they looked at each other and started edging toward the door. It would only take one panicked person to set them off in a stampede. Elsa had to stop that from happening. She spoke up to the room at large, her voice of command cutting through the clamor, "Ladies and Gentlemen, let us all leave in an orderly manner. A panic will not serve us. If you would please move to the front door and exit the manor while my guards sort this out, I'm sure we can avoid any injury." She nodded at her guard and began to move toward the door at a measured pace. Her serene demeanor managed to tamp down any incipient panic in the crowd, and they gathered themselves and tensely began to exit. None of them were willing to show fear in the face of their Queen's example.
Pierre had changed his mind about his destination as he ran from the Captain. He knew the manor layout and ducked into a side corridor and held perfectly still, flattened against the wall next to the door he had come through; making no sound he let the Captain run past him. Then he raced down the hall and out a side door. He could be at his warehouse and make an escape before they figured out where he had gone. In less than ten minutes the bomb would destroy the manor, and he was sure Thorstad was dead and would be unable to alert anyone to the exact nature of the danger.
The Captain ran back into the room where the party had come to a disastrous halt. He was lucky that his men were so well-trained, or he might have found himself dead at their hands. A quick glance told him that the guests were flowing toward the front door of the manor to exit, and that Elsa was surrounded by his men as they moved in that direction also. He saw no sign of Pierre. How had the man eluded him?
Elsa stopped walking toward the door and called out to him, "Captain, what is going on? Are we in danger?" She knew that her magic could make a difference if something threatening was going on and was ready to intervene if she needed to.
The Captain was torn. He wanted her out of here as quickly as possible, but he knew he would stampede the crowd into panicked flight if he wasn't careful. He came up to Elsa and spoke in a low tone that wouldn't be heard by anyone else. "Your Majesty, Baron Thorstad has been shot by Pierre. He was yelling something about assassins and a bomb. We need to get you out of here, now."
Startled, Elsa said, "Take me to the Baron, at once! Get the rest of these people out of here." She began moving toward the doorway to the kitchen before the Captain could do anything to stop her. Cursing her damned reckless courage, he waved two men to lead while he covered her back. He had no idea where Pierre had gone, and the man could be lurking anywhere waiting to kill the Queen.
When they got to the pantry, Thorstad was lying in a pool of blood; the steward was still futilely trying to stanch the flow with some white towels. One look told Elsa the Baron had no more than minutes to live. Struggling for breath, he looked up at her and managed to stammer, "B..bomb. Wine Cellar. Go off at ten o'clock...Pierre set it up." and then he went limp.
The guard Captain pulled a watch out of his pocket and was horrified to see they had less than 2 minutes before the bomb went off.
"Your Majesty, you must leave NOW!" He was thinking that if he knocked her out, they could carry her out before the place went up in flames and destruction. He made a move to do so, but she had already run down the stairs into the wine cellar. Swearing mighty oaths, he followed her in a futile attempt to stop her and get her to safety.
Elsa conjured an icy glow in her right hand and used it to take one look at the clockwork mechanism sitting on top of a neat stack of casks marked "Brandy – Special Edition" before freezing the entire room and everything in it into a solid block of ice. She doubted any mechanism would be able to set off the bomb now.
She turned to go back up the stairs and almost knocked her guard Captain over. "Oh, I'm sorry, Captain."
The veins stood out in his neck and his face was red as the Captain tried desperately to control himself. Words failed him. He didn't know whether to scream or weep with frustration. How was he supposed to protect a woman who kept running TOWARD danger?! He simply nodded at her while grinding his teeth, and moved aside to let her go up the steps to the main level of the house.
"Your Majesty, even though you have apparently disarmed one bomb, there may be others. Please let us get you away from this place!" He pleaded with her as they reached the kitchen.
"I agree, Captain, let us ..." she was interrupted by a loud thumping from another pantry door.
The Captain moved to place himself between her and the noise, then nodded at his men to investigate. While one of them stood ready to shoot, the other unlocked and opened the door. They were astonished to see a finely-dressed man bound and gagged, apparently thumping his feet against the door. The guard bent over the man, pulling off the gag.
"Where's Anna?" Kristoff bellowed.
"Kristoff?!" Elsa gasped.
The guards hurriedly cut his bonds and helped him to his feet.
"Elsa? Where's Anna?" He was wild-eyed and trembling.
"Your Majesty, we can continue this conversation outside. You are leaving this manor NOW; either walking or being carried!" The Guard Captain had finally reached his limits. He gestured at his men and they (politely) started pushing Kristoff and Elsa out the back door and hustled them around to the front of the manor where they could commandeer a carriage to get her back to the castle.
Elsa tried to get Kristoff to explain himself while they were being 'helped' to get away from any potential threats that may remain in the house.
"What do you mean, 'where's Anna'? She's supposed to be back at the castle, not here. I had told her not to come tonight, for security reasons." Elsa managed to exclaim. If Kristoff was here, dressed like that, it could only mean that Anna … oh, no! Elsa's gut clenched in sudden dismay as a suspicion grew in her mind. Anna had ignored her and come to the party anyway.
"What happened? How did you get like that?" Elsa demanded.
Kristoff staggered a little while rubbing the lump on the back of his head. "We were met by that Pierre guy. He said he wanted her to come to a special tasting. We walked into a room and two goons grabbed Anna, but before I could do anything, I got clubbed. I just woke up a couple of minutes ago and started kicking the door to attract some attention." He looked miserable.
"Kristoff, I'm guessing Anna didn't tell you about my forbidding her to come tonight?" Elsa asked.
He just shook his head forlornly. He hadn't known, and now Anna was in danger. "Elsa, you know I would never go along with something like that..."
"So where is she?" the Captain interrupted. "Your Majesty, we need to get you back to the castle and start searching the town immediately."
Elsa had to agree, however little she wanted to go back to the castle instead of joining the search for Anna. "Very well, Captain. Kristoff, we'll find Anna if it takes the entire corps of Royal Marines to do it."
Before the Captain had pushed her out the door of the kitchen, she had looked down at the Baron's still body, lying in a pool of blood. She wondered if he was guilty of treason, or was just a dupe for Pierre. If they didn't catch up with Pierre, she might never know. If they didn't catch up with Pierre, she might never see Anna again. Her heart sank at the thought.
"Captain, get that search underway, now. Start with the docks and warehouse district. Seal the roads and the port. No one enters or leaves this kingdom until we find Anna and Pierre." Elsa ordered.
When Elsa, Kristoff and her party of guards came to the drive at the front of the manor, they found a milling crowd of party guests being shooed by more Queen's Own into leaving on foot or in their carriages. The servants were being herded together and pushed into a group as far from the manor as possible. They would be guarded until they could be questioned to see if any of them were part of the plot.
The reinforcements had apparently arrived. A troop of Royal Marines rode up, and the major who was in command of the fifty men dismounted and saluted Elsa.
"Your orders, Your Majesty? We have a report of an attempted assassination and a bomb threat." He nodded at her Guard Captain as well.
The Captain ordered him, "Major, I'm leaving you in overall command here while I take Her Majesty back to the castle and safety. I want your men and the Queen's Own I leave behind to search every room and outbuilding of this manor thoroughly. You are looking for anything suspicious, but in particular casks marked "Brandy – Special Edition". Those contain gunpowder, so extreme caution is necessary. I'm taking two men with us, the rest are under your command until this situation is … resolved."
The Guard Captain continued, "Also, I need half of your troop to immediately go down to the warehouse district and search the warehouses of Rob Pierre's trading house. Tell them to be careful...we suspect that he is holding the Princess Anna hostage. Send one of your men to the barracks and order them to turn out the full regiment to seal this kingdom; no one is to leave or enter until further notice."
Elsa maintained a stoic expression while the Captain gave his orders, but her inner turmoil was threatening to overwhelm her. Her mouth was dry, she tried to swallow and couldn't. She wrapped her arms around herself; her stomach was churning and she blamed herself for not doing a better job explaining why Anna shouldn't come to the party. "This is my fault; I should have explained this to her more clearly."
Next to her, Kristoff was breathing heavily, clenching and unclenching his fists. He ran a jerky hand through his hair, then rubbed his face. She put a hand on his arm in an attempt to comfort him. Her touch startled him and he looked at her with feverish, over-bright eyes.
"Elsa, what if ...?" he couldn't finish the sentence and bit his lip so hard she could see a trickle of blood. She reached up and wiped it away with her thumb.
"We'll find her, Kristoff; we'll find her before anything happens to her … " she wished she believed what she was saying to him.
A guardsman waved a carriage over and they got Elsa and Kristoff into it. The Captain and two guards got in as well, and the Captain ordered the driver, "The castle, as quickly as you can get through this throng." A nod and the driver flicked his reins to get the two-horse team moving out of the courtyard.
They hadn't gone more than a few hundred feet when there was a distant explosion from the docks. Looking toward the sound, they could see flames began to lick toward the sky.
Elsa realized she knew where Pierre had run off to. "ANNA!" she screamed.