The sun reflected brightly off the surface of the water into the faces of Arnaut’s men. He saw them squinting, and turning their backs to the river. The glare was probably why they hadn’t seen him, Chris realized.
Without splashing or raising his arms, he made his way to the north bank of the Dordogne and slipped among overhanging rushes at the water’s edge. Here no one would see him. He could catch his breath for a moment. And he had to be on this side of the river—the French side—if he hoped to rejoin André and Kate.
That is, assuming they made it out of the mill alive. Chris didn’t know what the chances of that were. The mill was crawling with soldiers.
And then he remembered that Marek still had the ceramic. If Marek died, or disappeared, they’d never get back home. But they’d probably never get back anyway, he thought.
Something thumped the back of his head. He turned to see a dead rat, bloated with gas, floating in the water. The moment of revulsion spurred him to get out of the river. There were no soldiers right where he was now; they were standing in the shade of an oak grove, a dozen yards downstream. He climbed out of the water and sank down in the undergrowth. He felt the sun on his body, warming him. He heard the soldiers laughing and joking. He knew he should move to a more secluded place. Where he was now, lying among low bushes on the shore, anyone walking along the riverside trail would easily see him. But as he felt warmer, he also felt overcome with exhaustion. His eyes were heavy, his limbs weary, and despite his sense of danger, he told himself, he would close his eyes just for a few moments.
Just for a few moments.
:
Inside the mill, the noise was deafening. Kate winced as she stepped onto the second-floor landing and looked down on the room below. Running the length of the building, twin rows of trip-hammers clanged down on blacksmith’s anvils, making a continuous banging that reverberated off the stone walls.
Beside each anvil was a tub of water and a brazier with glowing coals. This was clearly a forge, where steel was annealed by alternately heating, pounding and cooling in water; the wheels provided the pounding force.
But now, the trip-hammers were banging down unattended as seven or eight uniformed soldiers in maroon and gray methodically searched every corner of the room, looking beneath the rotating cylinders and under the banging hammers, feeling the walls for secret compartments in the stone, and rummaging through the chests of tools.
She had no doubt what they were looking for: Brother Marcel’s key.
Marek turned to her and signaled that they should go down the stairs and toward a side door, now standing ajar. This was the only door in the side wall; it had no lock, and it was almost certainly Marcel’s room.
And clearly, it had already been searched.
For some reason, this didn’t bother Marek, who went down intently. At the foot of the stairs, they made their way past the banging trip-hammers and slipped inside Marcel’s room.
Marek shook his head.
This was indeed a monk’s cell, very small, and strikingly bare: just a narrow cot, a basin of water and a chamber pot. By the bed stood a tiny table with a candle. That was all. Two of Marcel’s white robes hung on a peg inside the door.
Nothing else.
It was clear from a glance that there were no keys in this room. And even if there had been, the soldiers would already have found them.
Nevertheless, to Kate’s surprise, Marek got down on his hands and knees and began to search methodically under the bed.
:
Marek was remembering what the Abbot had said just before he was killed.
The Abbot didn’t know the location of the passage, and he desperately wanted to find out, so he could provide it to Arnaut. The Abbot had encouraged the Professor to search through old documents—which made sense, if Marcel was so demented that he could no longer tell anybody what he had done.
The Professor had found a document that mentioned a key, and he seemed to think this was a discovery of importance. But the Abbot had been impatient: “Of course there is a key. Marcel has many keys. . ..”
So the Abbot already knew about the existence of a key. He knew where the key was. But he still couldn’t use it.
Why not?
Kate tapped Marek on the shoulder. He looked over, to see she had pushed aside the white robes. On the back of the door he saw three carved designs, in some Roman pattern. The designs had a formal, even decorative quality that seemed distinctly unmedieval.
And then he realized that these weren’t designs at all. They were explanatory diagrams. They were keys.
:
The diagram that held his attention was the third one, on the far right side. It looked like this:
The diagram had been carved in the wood of the door many years before. Undoubtedly, the soldiers had already seen it. But if they were still searching, then they hadn’t understood what it meant.
But Marek understood.
Kate was staring at him, and she mouthed, Staircase?
Marek pointed to the image. He mouthed, Map.
Because now at last it was all clear to him.
VIVIX wasn’t found in the dictionary, because it wasn’t a word. It was a series of numerals: V, IV and IX. And these numerals had specific directions attached to them, as indicated by the text in the parchment: DESIDE. Which was also not a word, but rather stood for DExtra, SInistra, DExtra. Or in Latin: “right, left, right.”
Therefore, the key was this: once inside the green chapel, you walked five paces to the right, four paces to the left and nine paces to the right.
And that would bring you to the secret passage.
He grinned at Kate.
What everybody was looking for, they had at last found. They had found the key to La Roque.
09:10:23
Now all they had to do was get out of the mill alive, Kate thought. Marek went to the door, peered cautiously out at the soldiers in the main room. She came up alongside him.
She counted nine soldiers. Plus de Kere. That made ten altogether.
Ten against two.
The soldiers seemed less preoccupied with their search than before. Many of them were looking at one another over the pounding trip-hammers, and shrugging, as if to say, Aren’t we finished? What’s the point?
Clearly, it would be impossible for Kate and Marek to leave without detection.
Marek pointed at the stairs to the upper ramp. “You go straight to the stairs and out of here,” he said. “I’ll cover you. Later, we’ll regroup downstream on the north bank. Okay?”
Kate looked at the soldiers. “It’s ten against one. I’ll stay,” she said.
“No. One of us has to make it out of here. I can handle this. You go.” He reached in his pocket. “And take this with you.” He held out the ceramic to her.
She felt a chill. “Why, André?”
” Take it.”
And they moved out into the room. Kate headed toward the stairs, returning as she had come. Marek moved across the room, toward the far windows, overlooking the river.
Kate was halfway up the stairs when she heard a shout. All around the room, soldiers were running toward Marek, who had thrown back his monk’s cowl and was already battling one.
Kate didn’t hesitate. Taking her quiver from beneath her robes, she notched the first arrow, and drew her bow. She remembered Marek’s words: If you want to kill a man . . . She had thought it was laughable at the time.
A soldier was shouting, pointing at her. She shot him; the arrow struck his neck at the shoulder. The man staggered back into a brazier, screaming as he fell into glowing coals. A second soldier near him was backing away, looking for cover, when Kate shot him full in the chest. He sagged to the ground, dead.
Eight left.
Marek was battling three at one time, including de Kere. Swords clanged as the men dodged among the pounding triphammers and leapt over spinning cams. Marek had already killed one soldier, who lay behind him.
Seven left.
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But then she saw the soldier get to his feet; his death had been a pretense, and now he moved forward cautiously, intending to attack Marek from behind. Kate notched another arrow, shot him. The man tumbled down, clutching his thigh; he was only wounded; Kate shot him in the head as he lay on the wood.
She was reaching for another arrow when she saw that de Kere had broken away from the fight with Marek and was now running up the stairs toward her with surprising speed.
Kate fumbled for another arrow, notched it, and shot at de Kere. But she was hasty and missed. Now de Kere was coming fast.
Kate dropped her bow and arrow and ran outside.
:
She ran along the ramp to the mill, looking down at the water. Everywhere, she could see river stones beneath the hissing white water: it was too shallow for her to jump. She’d have to go back down the way she had come up. Behind her, de Kere was shouting something. On the guard tower ahead, a group of archers drew their bows.
By the time the first arrows were flying, she had reached the door to the flour mill. De Kere was by then running backward, screaming at the archers, shaking his fist in the air. Arrows thunked down all around him.
In the upper mill room, troops were crashing against the door, which was blocked by the ladder. She knew the ladder wouldn’t hold for long. She went to the hole in the floor and swung down into the room beneath. With all the commotion, the drunken soldiers were waking up, staggering bleary-eyed to their feet. But with so much yellow dust in the air, it was hard to see them very well.
That was what gave her the idea: all the dust in the air.
She reached into her pouch and brought out one of the red cubes. It said “60” on it. She pulled the tab, and tossed it in a corner of the room.
She started counting silently backward in her mind.
Fifty-nine. Fifty-eight.
De Kere was now on the floor directly above her, but he hesitated to come down, unsure if she was armed. She heard many voices and footsteps up above; the soldiers from the guardhouse had broken through. There must be a dozen men up there. Maybe more.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw one of the drunken soldiers by the sacks lunge forward and grab at her. She kicked hard between his legs and he fell whimpering, curling on the ground.
Fifty-two. Fifty-one.
She crouched down, and moved into the small side room where she first arrived. The water wheel was creaking, spraying water. She shut the low door, but it had no latch or lock. Anyone could come in.
Fifty. Forty-nine.
She looked down. The opening in the floor, where the wheel continued its rotation downward, was wide enough to allow her to pass through. Now all she had to do was grab one of the passing paddles and ride the wheel down until she was low enough to drop safely into the shallow water.
But as she faced the water wheel, trying to time her move, she realized it was easier said than done. The wheel seemed to be turning very fast, the paddles blurring past her. She felt the water spatter her face, blurring her vision. How much time was left? Thirty seconds? Twenty? Staring at the wheel, she’d lost track. But she knew she couldn’t wait. If Chris was right, the entire mill would explode any second now. Kate reached forward, grabbed a passing paddle—started to fall with it—chickened out—released it—reached again—chickened out—and then pulled back, took a breath, steadied herself, got ready again.
She heard the thump of men jumping down from the upper floor, one after another, into the adjacent room. She had no time left.
She had to go.
She took a deep breath, grabbed the next paddle with both hands, pressing her body against the wheel. She slipped through the opening—and emerged into sunlight—she had made it!—until suddenly she was yanked away from the wheel, and found herself hanging in midair.
She looked up.
Robert de Kere held her arm in a steel grip. Reaching down through the opening, he had caught her at the last moment as she descended. And now he was holding her, dangling her in the air. Inches away, the wheel continued to turn. She tried to twist free of de Kere’s grip. His face was grim, determined as he watched her.
She struggled.
He held tight.
Then she saw something change in his eyes—some instant of uncertainty—and the soggy wooden floor began to give way beneath him. Their combined weight was too much for the old wood planking, which for years had been soaked by water from the wheel. The planks now bent slowly downward. One plank broke soundlessly, and de Kere’s knee went through, but still he held her fast.
How much time? she thought. With her free hand, she pounded on de Kere’s wrist, trying to make him release her.
How much time?
De Kere was like a bulldog, hanging on, never letting go. Another plank in the floor broke, and he lurched sideways. If another broke, he would fall through alongside her.
And he didn’t care. He would hang on to the end.
How much time?
With her free hand, she grabbed a passing paddle and used the force of the wheel to drag her body downward against de Kere’s restraining grip. Her arms burned with the tension, but it worked—the boards cracked—de Kere was falling through—he released her—and she fell the final few feet toward boiling white water around the wheel.
And then there was a flash of yellow light, and the wooden building above her vanished in a hot roar. She glimpsed boards flying in all directions, and then she upended and plunged head first into the icy water. She saw stars, briefly, and then she lost consciousness beneath the churning water.
:
Chris was awakened by the shouts of soldiers. He looked up, to see soldiers running across the mill bridge in great confusion. He saw a monk in a white robe climb out a window from the larger building, then he realized it was Marek, hacking at someone inside with his sword. Marek slid down on vines until he was low enough to risk jumping, then dropped into the river. Chris didn’t see Marek come to the surface.
He was still watching when the flour mill exploded in a blast of light and flying timbers. Soldiers, thrown into the air by the force of the explosion, tumbled like dolls from the battlements. As the smoke and dust cleared, he saw that the flour mill was gone—all that remained were a few wooden timbers, now burning. Dead soldiers floated in the river below, which was thick with boards from the shattered mill.
He still didn’t see Marek anywhere, and he didn’t see Kate, either. A white monk’s robe drifted past him, carried by the current, and he had the sudden sick feeling that she was dead.
If so, then he was alone. Risking communication, he tapped his earpiece and said softly, “Kate. André.”
There was no response.
“Kate, are you there? André?”
He heard nothing in his earpiece, not even static.
He saw a man’s body floating face down in the river, and it looked like Marek. Was it? Yes, Chris was sure: dark-haired, big, strong, wearing a linen undershirt. Chris groaned. Soldiers farther up the bank were shouting; he turned to see how close they were. When he looked back at the river again, the body had floated away.
Chris dropped back down behind the bushes and tried to figure out what to do next.
:
Kate broke the surface, lying on her back. She floated helplessly downstream with the current. All around her, beams of jagged wood were smashing down into the water like missiles. The pain in her neck was so severe it made her gasp for breath, and with each breath, electric shocks streaked down her arms and legs. She couldn’t move her body at all, and she thought she was paralyzed, until she slowly realized that she could move the very tips of her fingers, and her toes. The pain began to withdraw, moving up her limbs, localizing now in her neck, where it was very severe. But she could breathe a little better, and she could move all her limbs. She did it again: yes, she could move her limbs.
So she wasn’t paralyzed. Was her neck broken? She tried a small movement, turning ever so slightly to the left, then to
the right. It was painful as hell, but it seemed okay. She drifted. Something thick was dripping into her eye, making it hard to see. She wiped it away, saw blood on her fingertips. It must be coming from somewhere on her head. Her forehead burned. She touched it with the flat of her hand. Her palm was bright red with blood.
She drifted downstream, still on her back. The pain was still so strong, she didn’t feel confident to roll over and swim. For the moment, she drifted. She wondered why the soldiers hadn’t seen her.
Then she heard shouts from the shore, and realized that they had.
:
Chris peered over the bushes just in time to see Kate floating on her back downstream. She was injured; the whole left side of her face was covered in blood, flowing from her scalp. And she wasn’t moving much. She might be paralyzed.
For a moment, their eyes met. She smiled slightly. He knew if he revealed himself now he would be captured, but he didn’t hesitate. Now that Marek was gone, he had nothing to lose; they might as well stay together to the end. He splashed into the water, wading out to her. Only then did he realize his mistake.
He was within bowshot of the archers still on the remaining bridge tower, and they began firing at him, arrows hissing into the water.
Almost immediately, a knight in full armor splashed out on horseback into the river from Arnaut’s side. The knight wore his helmet, and it was impossible to see his face, but he evidently feared nothing, for he placed his body and horse in a position to block the archers. His horse sank deeper as it came forward, and it was eventually swimming, the knight waist-deep in the water when he hauled Kate across his saddle like a wet sack and then grabbed Chris by the arm, saying, “Allons!” as he turned back to shore.
:
Kate slid off the saddle and onto the ground. The knight barked an order, and a man carrying a flag with diagonal red-and-white stripes came running up. He examined Kate’s head injury, cleaned it and stanched the bleeding, then bandaged it with linen.
Meanwhile, the knight dismounted, unlaced his helm, and removed it. He was a tall and powerful man, extraordinarily handsome and dashing, with dark wavy hair, dark eyes, a full, sensuous mouth, and a twinkle in his eyes that suggested amusement at the foolish ways of the world. His complexion was dark, and he looked Spanish.
Timeline Page 36
