Double Cross

by Stuart Gibbs

  Greg nodded gravely, but then his thoughts returned to the massive chandelier in the banquet hall, and he realized what had intrigued him about it. A smile quickly spread across his face. “I think we can surprise them all,” he said. “I know how to get out of Les Baux.”

  THREE

  THE HOURS DRAGGED UNTIL MORNING. AFTER GREG HAD shared his plan with Aramis, there was nothing they could do but wait. He tried to sleep, but the stony floor was too cold and uncomfortable, and besides, his mind was racing. Even with a good plan, escape would be difficult; there were a thousand things that could go wrong. To make things worse, there was no way to discuss it with the others. Greg could only hope that once he and Aramis put things in motion, the others would be quick to respond.

  As he lay there, he found himself thinking about his parents. It had been weeks since he’d seen them. Now, if Greg ended up dead in Les Baux, his parents would never know what had happened to him; he’d simply vanish without a trace. Similarly, he had no idea what was happening with his parents. Were they all right in Paris? Had Greg’s father found any clues to the location of the Devil’s Stone? If Greg didn’t survive, did they have any hope of making it home without him?

  After several hours, thinking of every eventuality in his escape plan—every possible thing that could go wrong—and how to deal with it, he finally gave in to exhaustion and fell asleep.

  It seemed like only a minute later when he heard the rattle of keys in his cell door.

  His eyes snapped open. Through the tiny slit of a window, he could see the faintest trace of light in the eastern sky.

  “Aramis!” he whispered in the dark. “Are you ready?”

  “Yes,” came the reply. “God be with us.”

  The door swung open and torchlight spilled into the room. Greg held perfectly still, keeping his eyes open with the empty stare of a dead man. On the floor close by, Aramis did the same.

  In the hall outside, he could hear the other cell doors opening, the rattle of chains, the distant voices of his friends.

  “Get up, you two,” a guard snarled. He was a huge, cruel man named Jean who had never hesitated to treat the boys roughly.

  Greg and Aramis didn’t move.

  “Did you hear me?” Jean roared. “I said get up!” The guard had to practically double himself over to get into the cell. He smacked Greg’s leg with a thick hand.

  Greg felt the pain, but didn’t so much as flinch.

  “What the . . . ?” Jean now sounded confused. He waved his torch in front of the boys and stared at their glassy eyes.

  Greg could feel Jean’s horrid breath on his face, but still he didn’t move.

  “What’s going on in there?” another guard shouted from the hall.

  “I think they’re dead,” Jean replied.

  “What?” the other guard asked, and Greg thought he could hear Athos, Porthos, and Catherine cry out in alarm as well. “How can that be?”

  “I don’t know. They’re just dead,” Jean replied.

  “Well, get them out of there,” the second guard said. “We can still put their heads on pikes.”

  Jean backed out of the cell, grabbed Greg’s ankles with one meaty hand, and dragged him out the door. Greg’s head bounced along the rough stone floor, but he kept himself rigid. He gazed blankly upward as Jean and the second guard—Simon—loomed over him, waving a torch in his face.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Greg could see more guards roughly handling his friends, who were looking toward him with horror. Catherine was wailing. A guard forced her up against the wall to clap her chains on.

  Greg felt horrible for what he was doing to her—and to the others. He wanted to signal them that he was fine, that everything would be all right. But he couldn’t. The time wasn’t right yet.

  “Get the other one,” Simon told Jean. Jean stepped over Greg to enter the cell again.

  Jean slid Aramis out of the cell and tumbled him into Greg’s side.

  Down the hall, the guards had put the chains on Athos, too, but Porthos hadn’t been shackled yet. The guards were too distracted, looking at Greg and Aramis with morbid fascination.

  Simon and Jean bent over Aramis to examine him for signs of life. Jean waved the torch in Aramis’s face. Greg noticed Simon’s sword and keys dangling from his belt.

  Now or never, Greg thought.

  In a flash, he was on his feet. He wrenched Simon’s sword from its hilt, slashing through the brute’s belt at the same time. The guard’s pants dropped to his ankles, and his keys clattered to the floor.

  Simon and Jean swung toward Greg, and he saw actual terror in their eyes. Their first reaction hadn’t been that he’d been faking his death, but that he’d actually been dead and had somehow come back to life. Greg threw himself at Simon, driving the guard into Jean. He’d hoped to knock both of them off their feet, but since each was enormous, he merely set them off balance.

  But in that moment, Aramis sprang to life. While Jean was distracted by Greg, Aramis grabbed the torch from him and turned the flame on both guards. Their shirts quickly caught fire.

  The guards screamed in pain, scrambling to get their clothes off. Aramis skirted past them while Greg snatched the keys off the floor.

  The other guards in the hall had now realized what was going on and moved to block Greg and Aramis’s escape. But in doing so, they turned their backs on Porthos and Athos, who immediately leaped into action, taking their guards by surprise. Porthos snatched the sword from one’s belt while Athos wrapped his chained wrists around the neck of the other.

  That left only Catherine’s guard, who charged at Greg with his sword raised. Greg parried the attack with Simon’s sword while tossing the keys to Aramis, who raced to Catherine’s side to unlock her chains.

  For a few seconds, the narrow dungeon hall was complete chaos, with Greg, Athos, and Porthos battling the guards while Jean and Simon howled in pain and flailed about. The guards were all mere thugs, nowhere near as adept with a sword as any of the Musketeers. Greg easily disarmed his opponent and held him at sword point. Porthos did the same, while Athos knocked his opponent unconscious. Aramis unlocked Catherine’s chains and then did the same for Athos.

  “There,” Aramis said. “You’re free.”

  “I’m unchained,” Athos corrected. “We’re not free by a long shot.” He turned and raced into the maze of storerooms, and the others quickly followed.

  The howls of the guards they’d left in the dungeon quickly faded as the Musketeers hurried through the castle. The thick stone walls swallowed the noise. However, there were many people—cooks, maids, and other servants who’d risen early to prepare for the busy day. As the boys and Catherine ran past, they cried out with alarm.

  By the time the Musketeers reached the grand banquet hall, they could hear word of their escape echoing throughout the castle.

  Athos headed for the massive front doors. “Quickly!” he cried. “Maybe we can make it to the city gate before too many soldiers gather.”

  “No,” Greg told him. “The gate’s too dangerous. We’re going down the cliff.”

  Athos spun toward him, stunned. “Down the cliff? But that’s insanity.”

  “Which is exactly why no one will expect us to try it.” Greg raced to the winch, where the sturdy rope that held up the massive chandelier was anchored.

  “How on earth are we supposed to get down the wall?” Porthos asked.

  “With this!” Greg hacked at the rope with his sword. It was as thick as his wrist, however, and only a few strands of it frayed.

  Four guards raced into the room. Porthos fended off the first with his stolen sword, but the other Musketeers were unarmed. Athos snatched a silver candelabra off the dining table and used it to defend himself. Aramis and Catherine had no choice but to run from the third, while the fourth charged Greg. This guard was huge and armed with a spiked mace that he swung menacingly. Greg knew his sword wouldn’t stand a chance against it.

  He was backed up agai
nst the wall. There was nowhere to go . . . on the ground, at least. An idea of how to escape suddenly came to Greg. It was another cliché, of sorts—perhaps he’d seen way too many swashbuckling movies. But if playing dead had worked, maybe this would, too.

  So he wrapped his arm around the chandelier rope and kicked out the pin that locked the winch.

  The winch spun, loosening the rope, and the chandelier plummeted. The rope raced after it, spinning over the support ring in the ceiling and lifting Greg off the floor out of the path of the mace-wielding guard, who ran beneath his rising feet and crashed into the wall.

  The Musketeers scrambled out of the way as the chandelier crashed onto the banquet table. The guard pursuing Aramis wasn’t quite so quick and was clobbered by the massive light fixture. Aramis grabbed the man’s sword and hacked at the rope where it connected to the chandelier.

  “Wait!” Greg yelled to him. His escape hadn’t worked exactly as he’d hoped. In the movies, the good guy would have ridden the other end of the rope to safety. But Greg now found himself dangling high above the floor, clinging to the rope for dear life as it swung wildly about the room. If Aramis slashed the other end, he’d come crashing back down to earth.

  Lord Contingnac emerged onto the mezzanine at the top of the grand staircase, roused by the commotion. “My prisoners!” he gasped, and began to race from the room, calling for more guards.

  But as he did, the dangling rope whipped Greg toward him. I can’t believe I’m doing this, Greg thought, and then let go of the rope. He sailed onto the mezzanine, slammed into Contingnac, and sent the lord flying. The rotund man crashed into a wall and tumbled to the floor. When he rolled over, Greg was looming over him, pointing the tip of his sword at Contingnac’s nose.

  “Call off your guards,” Greg ordered. “Tell them to drop their weapons or you die.”

  All the lord’s bravado drained from him at once. Without hesitation, he ordered, “Guards! Stand down! Drop your swords!”

  In the banquet hall below, the guards obeyed. Their weapons clattered to the floor.

  Athos and Porthos knocked both men unconscious.

  Athos grabbed one sword, then tossed the other to Catherine.

  Now that Greg was safe, Aramis slashed the rope free from the chandelier. “Help me!” he yelled.

  The others rushed to his aid. The rope was so long, they each had to coil a few lengths over their shoulders to carry it all, but thankfully, it wasn’t terribly heavy and they hurried up the stairs with it. On the mezzanine, Athos paused by Greg’s side to confront Contingnac, who was now sniveling with fear. “I see you’re not so tough when your neck is on the line,” Athos said.

  “Please don’t kill me,” Contingnac whimpered. “I’ll do anything you want.”

  “Good. We could use a hostage.” Athos grabbed the lord by the hair, pulled him to his feet, and placed his blade to the man’s throat. “How do we get to the top of the south wall?”

  Contingnac led the way, Athos keeping the blade on him. The others followed with the rope. They quickly made their way through the castle and up a series of staircases until they reached the roof. A parapet ran around the entire circumference, marked every few feet by merlons, which were raised portions of the wall that soldiers could take cover behind when firing on the enemy. The staircase emerged on the northern wall of the castle, which looked down onto the town. Below them, the Musketeers could see Contingnac’s army amassing, alerted by the calls that the prisoners had escaped. However, just as Greg had figured, the soldiers assumed the prisoners would go toward the city gate, so they had headed there as well, forming a daunting barricade that the Musketeers would never have breached.

  The soldiers at the gate kept their eyes riveted to the doors of the castle. No one even thought to look up toward the roof. After all, going there would be heading into a dead end. Thus, in the murky light of dawn, the boys’ presence atop the castle went unnoticed by anyone below.

  There were three guards stationed on the parapet—but the moment they saw Contingnac held prisoner, they dropped their weapons. The Musketeers bound and gagged each quickly with strips of cloth torn from the soldiers’ own uniforms.

  They finally reached the southern side of the castle. Greg peered over the edge. There was nothing but a sheer drop below: four stories of castle, followed by a great deal of cliff. Greg couldn’t be sure exactly how high it was, as the base of the cliff was obscured by morning mist that hovered over the swamp below.

  “You want us to climb down that?” Porthos asked worriedly.

  “It’s either climb down this rope now or hang from one later,” Greg replied.

  “Good point,” Porthos said. “Let’s get going.”

  The Musketeers quickly unwound the coiled rope from their bodies, piling it onto the walkway. Greg looped one end around a merlon and began tying knots in it. He remembered how to tie a decent bowline from the Boy Scouts and knew that in theory, only one should have been sufficient, but seeing as his life was soon going to depend on that rope, he decided to tie a few more, just to be safe.

  Then Contingnac struck. Athos’s infected leg had gotten even worse during the night, and the morning’s exertion had taken its toll on the swordsman. Overwhelmed by the pain, he’d dropped his guard for a second while uncoiling the rope—and that was all the time Contingnac needed. The lord drove a knee into Athos’s wound, and when the Musketeer cried out in pain, Contingnac snatched the sword from his grip and turned it on Catherine.

  “Stand down!” he warned the Musketeers as they reached for their weapons. “One move from you and I slit her throat!”

  The Musketeers had no choice but to raise their arms in surrender.

  “They’re up here!” Contingnac bellowed to his soldiers. “On the southern wall!”

  By now, most of the soldiers had amassed at the city gate on the far side of town, but Les Baux was only a few blocks across, and Contingnac’s voice carried well through the still morning air, echoing off the surrounding hills with such volume that he might as well have fired a cannon.

  Greg watched the army react. It took a few moments for the soldiers to leap into action, swarming toward the castle like ants. Greg knew it wouldn’t take more than a few minutes for them to cross the town and scale the castle, and once they did, the Musketeers would be trapped.

  “Hurry!” Contingnac roared to his men. “They’re going to—”

  Before he could finish, Catherine drove an elbow into his kidney, catching him by surprise. As Contingnac groaned in pain, she slipped free from his grasp. Enraged, Contingnac lunged at her with his sword, but Catherine sidestepped the attack, and the lord’s momentum carried him into the low railing along the walkway. All it took was a nudge from Athos, and Contingnac toppled over the edge. He screamed in horror as he tumbled all the way down, bouncing off the limestone wall a few times before disappearing into the mist.

  “Nicely done,” Porthos told Catherine.

  Catherine herself was stunned by what had happened. “I was just trying to escape,” she said. “I didn’t mean for him to . . .”

  “Better him than us,” Athos said. “Come on. We have work to do!”

  “Drop the rope!” Greg said, finishing his fourth knot.

  “Are you sure that will hold us?” Aramis asked warily.

  “I am,” Greg said, though deep down, he was worried himself.

  The Musketeers pitched the rope over the edge of the parapet. Greg watched it uncoil as it tumbled through the air and then slap into the cliff face with a loud crack. The far end disappeared into the swamp mist.

  “Think it reaches all the way to the ground?” Athos asked.

  “We’re about to find out,” Porthos replied.

  An arrow suddenly bounced off the rampart beside him. A team of soldiers had found a point on the mesa that afforded them a direct line at the Musketeers. They were quite far away and arrows weren’t tremendously accurate, but Greg still felt panic begin to creep in. There was no time to u
nknot the rope and move it to a safer position. They would just have to hope for the best.

  “Let’s go!” Greg cried, then looked at Catherine. “Ladies first.”

  Catherine turned to him, worry in her eyes. “I’m not sure I can. . . .”

  “Right now, it’s safer on that rope than it is up here,” Greg told her. As he spoke, another arrow whistled past, as if to prove his point. “You’ll be okay. I promise.”

  He took Catherine’s hand and gave it what he hoped was a reassuring squeeze.

  Catherine nodded, scrambled over the parapet, and began climbing down. Aramis went next, and then Porthos and Athos insisted Greg go. There was no time to argue. As more arrows sailed through the air, Greg grabbed the rope and lowered himself over the wall.

  The moment he was on the other side, his plan began to seem like the worst idea he’d ever had. He’d done some rock climbing back in modern times, but he’d never been this high up and not without any sort of safety gear. The ground somehow looked even farther away than it had before, a terrifying distance below. The rope seemed too thin to hold him, let alone five people, and a harsh, cold wind slammed into him and numbed his fingers, making holding on almost impossible. But there was no turning back. Contingnac’s men were on their way—and once they arrived on the parapet, anyone still dangling from the rope would be a sitting duck. The faster you get down, Greg told himself, the faster this nightmare will be over.

  He cinched his legs around the rope and lowered himself as quickly as possible, trying not to look down. The wind twirled him and slammed him into the rock face over and over, but he sucked up the pain and pressed on. As difficult as the descent was for him, he knew it was even harder for Athos, who was now on the rope above him; who could barely use his wounded leg and thus had to bear most of his weight with his arms.

  The rope jounced as Porthos clambered onto it. With the added weight of the portly Musketeer, Greg thought he could feel the whole thing starting to tear apart, but perhaps that was only his imagination.