Alexandra von Adler awoke the morning after her meeting with Count Claudius with her arms wrapped around a large warm object. As she forced her eyes open she found herself lying next to her bodyguard, Ekkehardt Lowe.
“You’re awake?” He asked dispassionately. He was lying on his back and wearing nothing, but a cheap-looking brass locket and a pair of pants.
“Yes...” Alexandra replied. Ekkehardt then got out of bed and began to get dressed.
“Alex, we talked about this. You can't just get into my bed like that,” He scolded, still not looking at her.
“I know. I… had that nightmare again, the one with Alexander…” Alex tried to explain.
“No.” Ekkehardt interjected while being careful not to raise his voice, “You have to remember what we’re doing here. If someone was to see you like that, then it wouldn’t just be a problem for us, but also for Alexander. Right now you look just like him. If someone was to see us and get the wrong idea then he might never be able to rule effectively, even if we break the curse.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry,” Alexandra replied as she briefly covered her face in shame. What he was saying was absolutely true. If Alexandra was able to cure her brother then the last thing he would need after he returned to normal would be accusations of homosexuality. It also didn’t help that she did indeed look much like her brother in her current state. Even if she had removed the undertunic she was wearing, the underdeveloped nature of her chest made it so that, to most observers, she appeared to be nothing more than a rather slender male, which the real Alexander happened to be.
“Just please don’t do it again…” Ekkehardt said before getting out of bed.
Alexandra then followed suit and the two of them began to dress themselves. They both wore rather simple male clothing: pants, leather boots, long sleeve shirts, leather belts, and gambesons. As Ekkehardt finished putting on his gambeson he turned to Alexandra.
“How many more vials of Rasmussen’s potion do you have?” He asked. He looked at the princess with equal part’s sternness and discomfort.
“Three,” She answered without turning to face him. For a few moments neither of them said a word.
“I should have enough to get me to the Cursemaker, but beyond that, I…” She said, still looking away from him.
“No,” Ekkehardt interjected, causing Alexandra to turn her head to him.
“What?”
“You were about to say something about how, if it comes to it, you want me to leave you and get the demon blood back to Rasmussen as fast as possible, weren’t you? I’m not going to do that. One way or another, we’re going home together. Got it?” Ekkehardt answered.
“Eike, we’re here to make Alexander normal again. What happens to me isn’t important...” Alexandra began.
“It’s important to me!” Ekkehardt snapped. Alexandra was taken aback by this sudden outburst. A silence hung over the room for a few moments before Ekkehardt spoke.
“I’m sorry… I just don’t want to lose you after everything that happened with Ludwig and Siegfried...” Ekkehardt said.
He then turned around to sling his two-handed sword and the leather scabbard that contained on his back. Alexandra turned away from Ekkehardt once again and attached her own scabbard to her belt. It contained a sword that was not entirely unlike the one her brother Alexander carried three months ago. It was also a one-handed sword and its handguard was formed in the shape of a double-headed eagle, but its hilt was constructed of a cheap black metal and was devoid of any engravings or jewels. Alexandra then grabbed a leather sling that doubled as a headband as she heard a knock on the door. Ekkehardt opened it, careful to keep one hand on the dagger on his belt, only to find Rudolf the scribe waiting for them on the other side.
“Good morning, Sir Lowe. I hope that his highness slept well,” Rudolf said with a warm smile on his face.
“I am happy to say that I did,” Alexandra answered, careful to make her voice sound a little deeper than when she normally spoke.
“Oh… Excellent! I just came to inform you that Sir Ebner would like to meet you in the hall. He wishes to discuss today’s itinerary with you over breakfast,” Rudolf explained.
“I see. Is he there right now?” Alexandra asked. Rudolf shook his head.
“No, he had some business to attend to. He should be there in a little over an hour…” Rudolf answered, only to be cut off by the sound of church bells.
“...sorry, make that one hour exactly,” Rudolf corrected. Alexandra thanked Rudolf and allowed him to leave before asking Ekkehardt to close the door. Alexandra then tied her sling around her head before turning back to Ekkehardt.
“So… I guess I’m not going to be able to talk you out of leaving me behind, should the situation demand it?” She said, Ekkehardt shook his head.
“No. I couldn’t do that. After all, you’re like a sister to me,” Ekkehardt responded. Alexandra smiled, though she couldn’t help, but feel a little dissatisfied with Ekkehardt’s use of the word ‘sister’. She didn’t understand why it bothered her, only something about that word didn’t feel right to her.
The hall of Brandt castle was, like the rest of the castle, modest. The rectangular room was constructed out of stone and dominated by three wooden tables, two that ran down the length of the room and one shorter table that ran down the width of the room while standing on a slightly elevated portion of the floor. There were a few long narrow windows that allowed some natural light into the room, but the walls were otherwise bare, save for a pair of old blue banners that bore the coat of arms of the von Brandt family and a painting. As Alexandra and Ekkehardt entered the room, they noticed that there were three other people already there: two children and a young woman. The two children, a boy and a girl sat across from each other in a distant corner of the room while playing chess and the woman was standing in front of the painting, inspecting it closely.
Alexandra and Ekkehardt took a seat near the painting. There were twelve guards following them. The twelve of them took up positions in the hall, careful to not be too close or two far away from the travelers they were tasked with guarding. One of the guards summoned a servant, who promptly left the room and returned with some food for Alexandra and Ekkehardt.
The food was lackluster in terms of both quality and quantity to the standards of someone who had spent their entire life as royalty, but it was nevertheless still palatable. The meal that was presented to Alexandra and Ekkehardt consisted of a piece of toast topped with a thin layer of apple butter and served alongside a small piece of salted ham and a cup of kvass. Alexandra and Ekkehardt began eating with little hesitation.
“This is pretty good,” Ekkehardt said without much passion in his voice.
“Yeah,” Alexandra responded in a similar tone while looking down at her food, “Better than what we had the last time we were in a castle…”
Three months prior
Alexandra heard the metal tray slide across the cold stone floor as she rested in a fetal position in a corner of her cell. Her back was still bleeding from the injury she had sustained during the fight with Alexander and the dress she wore was now torn and stained with both dirt and blood. The cell was a simple cube with three stone walls and one wall made out of metal bars that faced towards the hall. This wall also had a door that led to the hall.
“Food’s here, your highness,” A guard announced as he slid a metal plate through a small opening near the floor. Alexandra did not react to this. The metal plate contained a single piece of white hardtack.
“Eat up. You’re going to need it,” The guard said. He then began to walk away.
“Hey!” Ekkehardt shouted, “You can’t just give her hardtack? How is she supposed to eat it?” The guard simply walked away.
“Goddamnit!” Ekkehardt muttered. The two of them were silent for a while. Suddenly Alexandra spoke up.
“You can have it if you want,” She said, without expressing any emotion or even looking at Ekkehardt.
“I’m fine,” He responded. Alexandra sat in her cell for a while before slowly reaching for the hardtack. She attempted to bite off a piece of it, but her endeavor was futile. She sighed and moved the hardtack away from her mouth. As she did this, she noticed a bunch of black marks on the underside of the hardtack. Assuming they were bugs, she immediately flinched and dropped the hardtack. Once it landed bottom-side up on the floor, she saw that they were actually something else. Perplexed, Alexandra picked the hardtack back up to examine the underside more closely. It was at that moment that Ekkehardt saw something inside of the princess reanimate as she examined the hardtack with more vigor than before.
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“What’s going on?” Ekkehardt asked.
“Eike, someone burned a series of numbers onto the hardtack.” She explained. Ekkehardt didn’t know what to make of it.
“Numbers?” He asked.
“Yes.” Alexandra replied before reading off the numbers, which were arraigned in the following order: 13153131 251554 243343241415 3542154343 14114225 22421154 1242241325 1215313452 442415141532113333.
“Is that supposed to mean something?” Ekkehardt asked. Alexandra nodded.
“I think so. There’s just no reason for someone to burn a serial number into hardtack. And even if they did there is no way for the numbers to be meaningful. Even if they were to accommodate a date, production number, and bakery they would still have too many numbers left over. On top of that the spacing is too deliberate to be anything other than a message.” Alexandra explained.
“Well, come to think of it, I’ve never seen a hardtack with serial numbers burned on to it, only the baker’s emblem or initials.” Ekkehardt remarked.
“You mean two things that happen to be absent here?” Alexandra asked.
“Good point, but what does it all mean?”
“I think it’s an old cypher, one from the Hellastani1 golden age.”
“Can you tell me what it says?”
“I’m going to need some time. It would be easier with my cryptography book or at least a quill and some parchment, but that’s not an option here.” Alexandra answered. She then set the hardtack down and began to draw a five by five table in the dirt on the floor and began to fill out each cell with a character from the Alemanian alphabet; first left to right and then top to bottom. The alphabet the Alemanian language used wasn’t perfectly geared towards that particular cypher, as the grid only had enough cells to accommodate twenty-five characters and the Alemanian language used twenty-six letters. Alexandra’s heart skipped a beat as she realized this after filling all the cells only to discover that she still had one letter left. She then remembered that modern cryptographers solved this problem by having the ninth and tenth letters of the Alemanian alphabet share a cell. She quickly rubbed everything out and redid it correctly. Once that was done all she had to do was match each pair of numbers to a coordinate on the grid and she would have a message. After a few minutes of work, she had eight words written out in the dirt in front of her: key inside press dark gray brick below tiedemann.
“What does it say?” Ekkehardt asked. Alexandra read the words back to him with a great deal of enthusiasm.
“I think they’re trying to tell me they put a key inside this hardtack.” Alexandra explained.
“Only one way to be sure. Break it open,” Ekkehardt ordered as he pointed to the hardtack. Alexandra grabbed the biscuit with both of her hands and summoned all of her strength. She gritted her teeth and contorted her face as she struggled to break the piece of hardtack in half. This went on for several minutes.
“Alex, would you like to hand that over to me?” Ekkehardt asked. Alexandra relented and tossed the hardtack into Ekkehardt’s cell. Ekkehardt broke the biscuit open after a few seconds of effort, revealing a brass key baked into the hardtack. Once he was sure that there were no guards in the vicinity, Ekkehardt reached through the bars of his cell and used the key to unlock its door. The door swung open with no further resistance. He immediately stepped outside and opened Alexandra’s cell door. Alexandra exited her cell as quickly as possible before grabbing Ekkehardt’s hand and leading him down the hall.
“Hey, what are you doing?” Ekkehardt demanded.
“Just trust me!” Alexandra responded, not even looking back at Ekkehardt as she led him through a series of hallways, eventually ending up in a long hallway lined with busts of every head of the house of von Adler. Without much effort, Alexandra identified her great-grandfather, Emperor Tiedemann von Adler. She quickly identified a lone gray brick and asked Ekkehardt to press on it.With a little bit of effort, it began to depress into the wall. Suddenly, a square-shaped hole, roughly one imperial pace by one imperial pace in area, opened up to the left of the gray brick; right in between the bust of Emperor Tiedemann and Alexandra’s grandfather, Emperor Arnold von Adler. It was big for the two of them to crawl through, though they would have to do so in tandem if they didn’t want to spend the whole time scrapping up against the walls.
“Did you know about this passageway?” Ekkehardt asked.
“No, I just remembered seeing a line of busts in this hallway when we were being led down here. I recognized some of them as members of my dynasty. I thought that if the hardtack was right about having a key inside of it, then maybe it would be a good idea to keep following its instructions. I know this could be a trap, but I can’t think of anything else. We’d be bound to run into a guard eventually if we tried anything else.” Alexandra said.
“Well, my plan involved escaping into one of the cesspits via a lavatory, so I guess this is the best choice we got.” Ekkehardt responded. It was at that point when the two of them heard something from around a nearby corner.
“Annnd then she said ‘well, I can put a WHOLE apple in my mouth…” a drunken voice slurred out as a small group of male voices broke out in laughter. Without thinking, Ekkehardt grabbed Alexandra and threw the both of them into the passageway that had opened up in the wall. Just as the men rounded the corner the entrance to the passageway closed. The heavy stone dropped a mere fingernail’s length away from the soles of Ekkehardt’s feet. With the entrance closed Ekkehardt and Alexandra were trapped in complete darkness.
“Did you hear sumthin’?” a voice leaked through the stone wall that separated the passageway from the hall.
“Probably nothin’,” another inebriated voice responded. A few moments later Alexandra heard their footsteps slowly fade away.
“Eike…” Alexandra whispered.
“I’m right here, Alex. Are you hurt?” Ekkehardt whispered back as he held on to some part of Alexandra’s body; the darkness and awkward position they were in made it hard to determine where exactly they were.
“No,” Alexandra replied, still whispering. For a moment there was silence.
“Eike…” Alexandra whispered again.
“Yeah?” Ekkehardt responded.
“My right foot is touching something. I think it’s… fleshy…” Alexandra stated as her breathing began to become more rapid.
“Is it alive?” Ekkehardt asked, trying to stay as calm as possible. There was another moment of tense silence.
“I don’t think so. It’s not moving and it’s not warm either,” Alexandra responded.
“Can you move it? Move it to where I can touch it with my hands,” Ekkehardt ordered. Alexandra nodded her head before she remembered that there was no way for Ekkehardt to see that. She then verbally acknowledged the order and began an awkward struggle with the object, the walls of the passageway, Ekkehardt, and her own body. After a few minutes of blindly stumbling through that dark and confined quagmire, Alexandra was able to get the object to where Ekkehardt could examine it with his hands.
“I think it’s a leather bag,” Alexandra said as she attempted to hand the object to Ekkehardt, pressing it into his neck instead of his hands. Once Ekkehardt got a hold of it he began to run his hands all over it, eventually finding a stiffer section that was connected to some sort of string or rope. He pulled on that part of the object and it began to open as the string shrank.
“I think it’s a drawstring bag,” Ekkehardt thought aloud as he put his hand into it. Inside he felt a small metal object, four waxy cylinders, a piece of parchment, some twigs, and a rock. The metal object was shaped somewhat like a horseshoe, but it was not nearly as big.
“It appears to be three candles and all of the tools needed to get a fire started. I think this was from our friend, the one who sent you the hardtack. He also left us a piece of parchment, but I’m going to need to get some light before I’ll have any hope of seeing what’s on it,” Ekkehardt explained.
“Do you think you will be able to get a fire started with those tools?”
“No problem, my father did literally teach Siegfried and I how to start a fire with our eyes closed…” Ekkehardt said, his tone became noticeably less energetic as he remembered the state that Siegfried was in when he last saw him: two blades lodged in his head, being dragged away from prince Alexander’s unconscious body by six other men while kicking and screaming. Alexandra wanted to say something, but couldn’t make any words leave her mouth.
“You should move away from me while I start this fire. I don’t want to accidentally light up your dress,” Ekkehardt warned. His voice lacked any emotion.
“Okay.” Alexandra responded. After a few moments, Ekkehardt was able to use the rock (which was flint) and the metal object (which was a fire starter) to light the small bundle of twigs on fire. He then lit a candle and put out the fire with the leather bag to prevent the smoke from either suffocating them or giving away their position. Alexandra sighed in relief as the candle illuminated Ekkehardt’s face with its weak reddish light. With the candle lit, Alexandra unfolded the parchment and took a look at the message inside. It read as follows:
To the resident of Anshelm’s tower,
Hello. If you are reading this then that means you have solved the cypher I burned into that hardtack and made it to relative safety. I do hope you brought your servant with you, he seems rather competent. The tunnel you are in leads to an old Reman sewer system. Once you get there you need to follow the red arrows on the walls. That will lead you to a hidden entrance near Arnold’s Square. From that point you will just need to proceed to your doctor’s house. A small group of men who are loyal to the emperor’s true successor will be waiting for you.
Sincerely,
A friend
“You trust him?” Ekkehardt asked Alexandra as he finished reading the message. Alexandra sighed.
“No, but we don’t really have much of a choice do we?” Alexandra responded.
“We could try to make a run for it once we exit the sewer.”
“But how would we make it out of the city?” Alexandra asked. Ekkehardt scratched his chin as he thought about the question for a moment.
“You’re even if we don’t get spotted by guards we would still have to go through at least one chokepoint at the city walls. Two actually, since Arnold’s Square is in the citadel2 district.” Ekkehardt said. With no other options the two of them proceeded down the passageway.
“I’ll go first,” Alexandra declared as she carefully moved between Ekkehardt and the wall in order to get ahead.
“Wait,” Ekkehardt protested.
“Huh? What is it?”
“Don’t you think I should go first?” Ekkehardt asked.
“No. If I’m behind you and something happens to me, like if I get too tired to move on, then I wouldn’t want to slow down and accidentally be left behind,” Alexandra explained.
“I wouldn’t leave you behind,” Ekkehardt reassured her.
“I don’t want to put you in a situation where you have to actively make sure I’m not lagging behind,” Alexandra argued.
“I don’t think I can agree to this.”
“Why?” Alexandra asked. Ekkehardt nervously gritted his teeth.
“Well, it’s completely inappropriate,” Ekkehardt shot back as his face began to redden.
“What do you mean by that? There isn’t enough space for us to move side-by-side. We can only progress by going in tandem.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“Well Eike, if that is the case, then you should probably explain, because these candles won’t last forever,” Alexandra responded. Ekkehardt sighed and the two proceeded down the passageway.
The two of them crawled through the dark and dusty passageway. Ekkehardt and Alexandra both had a very good mental map of the palace, but the sheer number of turns and slopes, combined with the fact that they were traveling without any landmarks to guide them made it impossible to tell where they were going. As they continued to crawl through the passageway, they began to realize that the path they were on might be taking them to Arnold’s Square, but there was no way that it was taking them via the most direct route.
As Alexandra rounded a corner, she saw something she didn’t expect: a ray of light coming out of a small hole in the floor, one just big enough for her to look through. As she got to the hole in the floor, she stopped and moved to the side so that Ekkehardt could also get a look at it. Once Ekkehardt had been made aware of the situation, she pressed her face against the floor to get a look at what was beyond the hole. It was exactly the last thing Alexandra wanted to see: Agrippina.