The Grand Duke Gave the Hostage Prince the Only Key novel · Chapter 17 of 24
Chapter 17: The Abbey Crypt
The fire was in the roof of the strongroom wing, and forty monks in brown robes were passing buckets up a ladder from the well.
Elior threw himself off his horse in the courtyard.
Teodric was already at the foot of the ladder, with his coat in the snow.
He took the bucket from the first monk, and the second, and then he went up the ladder himself.
He tore burning rafters from the roof with his bare hands, and flung them down into the yard to be stamped out.
Elior stood in the line with the monks and passed water until his shoulders burned.
The sixty riders came down the pass behind them and joined it, one man after another, in silence.
By noon the roof had fallen in on a stone room that held nothing but ash.
A thin old monk with a bandaged hand came across the yard, and bowed to Elior.
"I am the prior, Majesty.
"The abbot died ten days ago, and I have the keys now."
"The fire," said Elior.
"The Treasurer's men came three days ago.
"Twenty soldiers in blue.
"They asked for the priest who left in the night, and for the abbot's strongroom, and the true ring.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–12 of The Grand Duke Gave the Hostage Prince the Only Key are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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