"It already hurts, just get on with it," I replied through gritted teeth. He opened a bottle and handed it to me. "Here, drink first."
I took a swig and tasted fine scotch. "You're using that to clean wounds?" I asked, nearly shocked.
"No, that's for going inside you, this is for the cleaning." He held up another bottle and doused the hole in my side with it. I screamed in pain and fought the darkness around the edges of my vision. When I came to, he was sprinkling more of the sulfa powder on the wound in my side. "Sorry. There's really no way to prepare someone for that."
He handed me the scotch and I took another long pull from the bottle as he finished dressing the wound. "We found The Inara upside-down in a tree. What happened?”
I started to recount the story and Henri raised his finger to silence me, listening. "I hear voices outside."
Henri looked out the window and paused. “It looks like a priest talking to Donna Maria. Maybe she wasn’t sure of your recovery and asked the local parish priest to give you a blessing?”
“Given what I’ve experienced of her temperament, that seems unlikely. Let me have a look.” I stood shakily and leaned against the window frame to look out. Peering at the priest he seemed somehow familiar.
A flash of memory. The Vatican, a priest mouthing the word run. I swore softly. “Henri, you need to hide. Or leave. I’ve met this priest before. This is the man who helped me escape the Vatican.”
“If he helped you before, perhaps we can trust him?” Henri twitched the curtain aside slightly to examine the man.
I was sweating with the effort of standing, and tendrils of fear and hope both coiled in my belly. “I cannot fathom why he would be here in the middle of nowhere, and I do not trust that it is mere happenstance. He may be trustworthy; he may be working towards his own ends. Either way I do not want him to know more of the crew.”
Henri nodded and asked, “Is there a backdoor to this place? Better if we both go."
"I haven't had a chance to look." I replied, hands beginning to shake. “But the floorboards are loose, and there’s a crawl space.”
Henri ran to the other door and opened it, gesturing me to follow. He grabbed his medical bag and put his arm under my good shoulder, helping me stay upright.
“Henri,” I heard myself saying, “I’m never going to make it on a run. You must reach David and warn the crew. Quick, you must go out under the floorboards.”
“Captain. I can’t leave you here. David would kill me. Not to mention the rest of the crew.”
“You must. I hear them coming. If he’s here to help, then no harm done. If he’s not, better you warn the crew.” I was trying to pry one of the floorboards up with my good arm.
“It’s only a priest and Donna Maria. I can overpower them, and we can both escape.” Henri said, in an unusual show of bravado and determination.
Pausing and gasping for breath, holding the wound in my side I looked up at him, raising an eyebrow. “Henri, I am ordering you to leave. The priest must not see you here.”
Cursing, Henri pried the floorboard up and slipped through the opening. “Damn you for always being right Captain,” he said as I let the board drop back into place. I felt a pang of regret as the floorboard fell into place. I was alone again.
The door to the cottage opened quietly, and Father Michael entered. I was instantly wary, though he appeared unarmed and his mild demeanor gave no cause for alarm.
“My child, I am so glad I found you before the guard did. You are grievously wounded from what Donna Maria tells me. You must come with me quickly before they arrive.”
I looked at him suspiciously. “Why are you helping me? Why did you help me before?”
Father Michael twitched the curtain aside looking back across the yard. “I cannot tell you that yet. Not here. You must come away quickly. They aren’t far behind me. Trust no-one from the Vatican.”
“How did you come to be here?” I was sweating profusely, and the pain from the wound in my side was making me nauseous.
He looked at me, lines of worry creasing his face. “Jacqueline, you must come away now.”
I was torn, trusting him against my better judgement, sick and dizzy with pain. I had to leave one way or another. “I. Very well.”
He nodded. “Come. Out the back. I do not want Donna Maria to see us go. She is an evil woman from what I can see.” He gave me a shoulder to lean on and helped me hobble out the back. Once outside he peered around the corner of the house, checking to see that the way was clear. I held my good hand to my side, gasping. “How far to your transportation, Father?” I asked quietly, trying to save my strength.
He pointed to the north. “Not far. Just over the top of the hill there. Let us go while Donna Maria is distracted.”
Judging the distance, I nodded. I think I can make it that far.
“Come. Lean on me, I will support you.” With his shoulder under my good arm we started up the hill. As we struggled up the crest of the hill he asked, “Do you still have the item you took, that day at the Vatican?”
A cold chill washed over me. “No Father, I do not.”
“Good. Better that it not be returned to the Vatican,” he replied.
At that moment we crested the hill, and I saw a squadron of blue and gold. Shock washed over me. “You! Why?” I tried to wrap my good arm around Father Michael’s throat, to take him hostage, but I was too weak. Stumbling, he shook me off and I collapsed to my knees. “Guards, take her,” I heard him say. Anger and confusion warred within me as my head swam with pain.
Turning to me he frowned. “I told you not to trust anyone from the Vatican, my child.”
I felt sick, and my head swam. One of the guards picked me up and carried me to one of several airhoppers that had set down in the field. Forcing me on board the other guards rode two to a machine. Father Michael, looking grim, had his own hopper. At the edge of the forest saw Henri's stricken face, staring angrily up as they took off.
Jacqueline
"Jacqueline, I'm disappointed in you. You should not have tried to escape. Now I must treat you as any other prisoner." Charles stood in the shadows behind a lit lantern watching me. I sat, looking at him through the bars.
"Charles. Unless you have something relevant to say, leave. Your men kidnapped me out of a marketplace. Did you really think I wouldn't try to escape? I even told you I would." I leaned back against the bars, closing my eyes.
"I treated you leniently before.” His previously warm gaze had turned cold and foreboding. “Do not anger me again Jacqueline."
"What? You will beat an unarmed, injured woman trapped in a cell? You will put me to the question? Will that prove you are a man?" I threw back at him. “You will call your dog, Father Michael on me?”
"How dare you drug me, after the decent treatment and liberties you were allowed," he growled.
"Ah yes, decent treatment from the man who kidnaps me. Forgive me for being ungrateful and plotting my escape.” My head was pounding, and nausea threatened to overwhelm me.
"And I hope you enjoy your time down here in the cell. We will reach Rome tomorrow, and you will no longer be my problem."
"I suppose water and a blanket are too much for you to provide prisoners." I coughed wetly, shuddering at the sound.
Charles turned on his heel and left, taking the light with him, but a blanket arrived with the evening meal.
Even with the blanket it was a cold night, and I felt my fever returning. I alternately burned and shivered, regretting some of my hasty words to Charles. By morning I was fading in and out of consciousness, the shadows on the walls becoming the monsters in my nightmares. I lost track of time. At some point Charles's guards came and retrieved me and I remember stumbling first in darkness, then light then darkness again. The scenery changed around me, and I was no longer on the airship, but I had no notion of where I was. At one point I thought the earth was shaking, and I could barely keep my footing.
When I next knew myself, I was
in a stone cell. This one had a blanket and a bucket of clean water, as well as a bucket that, from the smell, was intended for me to relieve myself in. There was a tiny window, well out of reach, that let in a modicum of light and air.
Parched from fever I gulped down the water. Twenty minutes later, I threw it up again, further soiling my shirt and the cell floor. I hurt all over. Groaning I curled up in a ball trying to stop the shivering chills wracking my body.
I lost track of time again. A guard showed up with a thin gruel and a heel of hard bread. I thought maybe I had seen him before, but I couldn’t be sure. He set it down and wrapped the fingers of my uninjured hand around the hunk of bread. "You have to eat. You won't get better without food."
I put the bread up to my mouth and sucked on one corner until it was soft enough to break a chunk off. Chewing more slowly I ate a few bites and tentatively washed it down with a sip of water from the bucket. I managed to keep the first few bites down, so ate a few more, continuing slowly until the bread was gone. I couldn't face the thought of the cold, gelatinous gruel and left the plate untouched. The fever came and went. A physician visited me and told the guard I would either live or die, he wasn't sure which, but that they would know in a matter of days. Slowly the fever abated and the wound in my side started to heal.
I was very weak, and I took to watching the small patch of light travel across the cell walls and then disappear. I let my mind wander back to The Indiana, wondering how the crew was doing. What the crew was doing. Did they think me dead? Had they been hunted down because of my folly? Had Henri reached David in time? As best I could tell from the small window in my cell, the season was beginning to wane. The days were getting shorter.
After an infinite number of days, or so it seemed, there was a change in the routine. The guard came in, followed by a servant carrying pails of water, and another carrying a half barrel. Two more followed with more pails of water. The servant pulled out a cake of soap from a pocket and set it on the ground. She emptied the water into the barrel, followed by the others. The guard looked at me. "You have an audience with His Holiness this evening, and you will not appear before him filthy. Bathe. Clothing will be provided for you, as is appropriate for your station."
"And if I will not?" My voice was rusty with long disuse.
He frowned. "Then you will be bathed by the guards, and they will not be gentle. And the water will be cold."
This guard, though he hadn't spoken to me much, had never mistreated me, and had never shown me aught but courtesy in this dreary place. I nodded, blushing at the petulance in my question. "Thank you for the water and the soap."
"It is standard for those in your position. I will return in half an hour. Be done by then."
I nodded again, suddenly feeling the accumulation of weeks of dirt in the areas I hadn't been able to wash. My hair felt filthy, and my scalp crawled. When he shut the door I struggled out of my clothing and stepped into the half barrel. The water was lukewarm. The tub wasn't large enough to submerge myself, but I could kneel and wash adequately.
The soap was a harsh lye, but I used it anyway, scrubbing as best as I was able. My broken arm still throbbed, and I had no way of knowing if it had healed cleanly, or at all, or even how long such a thing would take, beyond Henri's offhand comment. I did my best to leave the splint on and undisturbed. When I had scrubbed as much of me as I could, I stepped out of the barrel and dunked my head, trying to wash my hair awkwardly, one handed. By the time I was done, the water in the barrel was a filthy color, but my hair and body were considerably cleaner. My shirt and pants were filthy as well, and I hated to put them back on. The guard had provided a light blanket and I wrapped it around myself.
He returned bearing a plain but serviceable dress, followed by one of the female servants. Ignoring my unusual attire, he handed it to me and said, "I will come to fetch you in an hour and take you to His Holiness. Mary will stay and help you with the lacing." With that he turned and left.
Mary proved to be competent and helped me into the dress, lacing it tight enough to appear modest without pressing too much on the still healing wound. She tsked at the filthy bandages holding the splint on my arm. "That must come off. It smells something terrible and it's filthy. "
She left and returned shortly with a pair of scissors. Before I could say anything she had cut the bandages and let the splints fall to the floor. My arm was discolored and sore and looked skinny and wasted compared to the other one.
Mary noted my horrified stare. "Oh aye, that's how my cousin's arm looked too when it came out of the cast. It'll be fine." She took a cleanish looking rag out of her pocket, dipped it in the remaining bathwater and bathed the arm carefully, so as to not get water on the dress. "Now, Carlin is making his report to Charles. He'll be back shortly. You keep your chin up."
I was touched by her attempt to reassure me but was also certain she had no idea what I had been accused of. "Thank you for your help Mary." My voice was rusty and weak with disuse. "One last thing. Can you help me do something with my hair?"
She smiled. "Yes of course. There isn't much time, but I can put it in a neat braid down your back if that suits."
"Thank you." I had no idea what I would be facing with the Holy Father and feeling like a bag of rags wasn't going to help matters.
Mary had my hair braided and secured within a few minutes, tucking in strands that kept trying to escape. "There. All set."
I nodded my thanks as Carlin, the guard, came in to fetch me. "It is time. Will you come easily?”
“I will come quietly,” I replied.
He nodded, “Good. This way please," was all he said, gesturing for me to precede him out the door.
Jacqueline
By the time we reached the second flight of stairs I was winded and desperate to rest. The long confinement had left me weak, and I tired easily. Carlin merely looked at me, pausing for a moment to let me catch my breath. The walk left me time to ponder my potential fates. Hanged? Burned? Branded? Or merely imprisoned for the rest of my life? All of them filled me with dread. I wondered if they had any proof, but as part of the nobility I knew that proof was immaterial when accused by a ruler. I was, despite the abjuration of my familial duties, still the Contessa de Valois and niece to the king of France. Beheading then. I shuddered at the thought and rubbed my neck.
In the upper hallways sunlight flooded through stained-glass windows, causing rainbows of color to dance across the tile floors. It was a busy hallway, and I found that we received many strange looks from the Cardinals and the Monsignors who were hurrying about their business. Carlin stopped in front of a large set of ornate double doors guarded by Swiss Guardsmen. They looked at him, they looked at me, and pushed open one of the doors.
The antechamber held a few seats against the walls, and a small table for flowers but nothing else. Carlin strode across the room with not so much as a glance, heading for a smaller door on the far wall. He knocked briefly and a man in cardinal's robes opened it.
"Ah yes, please come in." My mind registered surprise, shock, and anger as I came face to face with Father Michael, the man who had helped me escape with the Miter, and then subsequently handed me over to the Swiss Guard. He opened the door further and gestured me through, his eyes warning me to silence. "Carlin, thank you for your service. I will take her from here." Carlin gave a short bow and strode off without a backwards glance. I wanted to spit in his face. Taking a deep breath, I stilled my hands and stiffened my spine. Whispering I said, “Why? Why help me once and then betray me later? What game are you playing Father?”
Father Michael did not reply, merely gesturing that I follow him through two thick double doors.
An older man in snowy white robes sat in a high-backed chair on a small dais in the middle of the room. Wigs styled in the courtly fashion were on display against one wall as if they were items of great value. Other walls held paintings of scenes from the bible. ‘Judgement Day’, ‘The Rapture’ and others. Charles stood at
Clément’s right hand looking splendid in his pressed uniform. Father Michael walked up to within comfortable speaking distance and said quietly, "The Contessa is here to make her confession."
"Very well. Thank you, Michael. You may leave us." The Holy Father gestured with one hand dismissing him. The click of the door latch was loud in the silence, but we all held our poses until we heard it.
Turning to Charles he said, "Captain Durstain, is this the woman you brought in under arrest for the theft of Vatican relics?"
Charles glanced at me briefly. "Yes, your grace."
"And was she in possession of the Miter when you apprehended her?" The Holy Father asked formally.
Charles paused. "No, your grace, she was not." He stared straight ahead at the back wall.
"And did she confess her crime to you before she was apprehended or while she was in your custody?"
"No, your grace, she did not."
I wondered what the point of this was, but stood patiently, listening.
"Did you wonder if you were doing the right thing, arresting her without the proof of your own eyes? Going merely on faith that the information I gave you was correct?"
I did not know Clément, but he was up to something. I wasn't sure if this display was for me, or for Charles.
"Yes, your grace. I found my faith sorely tested in this regard but overcame my doubts to bring her to you. Father Michael, as you know, assisted me to accomplish this." His eyes flickered to the doorway in an unreadable expression. He didn't seem to know where this was going either.
"Thank you, Captain, for fulfilling your duties so admirably." He rang a small bell sitting on the arm of his throne. A side door opened and Franco the double-crossing bastard who had begun my journey into this hell, stepped through. I clenched my hands at my sides, as fury seethed through me.
"Jac, so nice to see you again. I hope you're having a pleasant stay." Franco oozed with false sincerity.
The First Sin Page 23
