“Who’s that Violane’s with now?” Duncan asked.
“More of the many homeless filling the streets of Paris, I’m afraid. The child will be all right as soon as he has had some nourishing meals, but the mother has pneumonia. I think we have caught it in time for her to be healed, but she is very sick. I am trying to find homes for them so they do not have to return to the life they have had.”
Duncan smiled. “More of one soul at a time?”
Darius gave his familiar one-shouldered shrug and the small, self-effacing smile Duncan had come to know so well.
“Have you decided what to do about a teacher for Violane?” Duncan asked as the two men slipped quietly away. “She still needs to learn the things you cannot teach her.”
Darius sighed. “I know,” he said, “and yes, I have two or three people in mind. Do not worry yourself, my friend. Just because I live on holy ground and because Violane is happy here now, I do not expect her to always stay—and I have not forgotten the ways of our kind.”
Duncan said nothing more on the subject, but he did wonder how much Darius really knew about the city Paris had become. There was still so much anger, centuries’ worth. It had boiled over, not so very long ago, into a revolution that had quickly degenerated into what was already being called the Reign of Terror, where the guillotine had worked its bloody business night and day under the guise of “justice for the people.” But it was vengeance and greed that had truly fueled the fires. From those ashes Napoleon had risen, promising the people that with their country’s New Order he could, and would, make France the most glorious and powerful country in Europe—in the world.
The people needed a strong leader. As a chieftain’s son, MacLeod understood that—and so had Napoleon. He had given the people something, someone, in whom to believe. As his successes grew, they had even granted him the power and title Emperor, though they had just fought to throw off the shackles of a monarchy.
But now Napoleon was defeated, utterly, and all the dreams he had fed the nation had turned to disillusionment. With the onset of winter, that disillusionment had, for so many, turned to desperation, and those who had placed their hopes for a better life in him suddenly found themselves without bread to feed their children. Theft was common, murder growing more so, and the Paris police turned a blind eye to much of it, knowing there was little they could do among a populace of so many.
Duncan saw this, even if Darius did not, and he knew that it was not a problem to be solved one soul at a time. Or, perhaps, there was no solution; perhaps only time could heal France’s wounds. Duncan was not sure he had the patience to watch the process. He was struggling with a decision he was loath to make, but that he would have to face sooner or later.
He put off the decision through the Christmas season, turning his energies instead to helping Darius keep a kitchen open to feed the poor, and keep his little hospital going. Duncan gave Violane a Christmas present of a shawl that matched her eyes, and he gave Darius a new set of ivory and onyx chessmen. But not even their delight could quell Duncan’s growing restlessness.
It was nearing the end of January. MacLeod came back from an evening playing chess with Darius to find that the little tavern he had come to think of as home had been ransacked. Tables and chairs had been overturned, some of them smashed. Broken glass was everywhere. MacLeod stopped as he entered, shocked by the sight before him.
But there was a worse sight still. Over in the corner, Madame Vernier sat upon the floor, cradling the body of her husband. In a glance, MacLeod saw the deep wound in his chest, the slack muscles of his body and the dull, lifeless eyes.
Pushing tables and chairs out of his way, MacLeod rushed to the old woman’s side. He felt enraged that such a thing should have happened to the harmless, gray-haired couple who had run this inn for over thirty years. They were a kindly pair who often fed the beggars on the street and offered the destitute a place to get warm.
MacLeod knelt at Madame Vernier’s side. She looked up at him and MacLeod saw on her face a grief that went beyond tears. He knew that the wound in her husband’s body went less deep than the hole that his death cut in her soul.
“They killed my Richard,” Madame Vernier said. “He had already given them the money, but they killed him anyway. I do not understand such men, Monsieur MacLeod.”
“Nor do I, Madame,” MacLeod agreed softly. He reached out and very gently closed Monsieur Vernier’s eyes.
“Have you called the police?” he asked.
She gave a weary shrug. “I called, they came,” she said. “They asked if I recognized who did this—as if I can remember the face of everyone who walks through the door.”
Madame Vernier began to tremble. The shock is wearing off, MacLeod thought. He stood and quickly set one of the tables and a chair to rights. Then he went behind the bar and searched for an unbroken bottle of brandy and a glass. He brought these back to the table.
MacLeod knelt again by Madame Vernier. Gently, he reached to take her husband’s body from her arms. She held on to it a moment longer, as if not quite willing to allow the final act of parting. Then, with a sigh that came from deep within her soul and held within it a future of age and loneliness, she released her burden into Duncan’s care.
With a sad tenderness, he laid Monsieur Vernier’s body on the floor and arranged his limbs into a pose of comfortable rest, respecting the life, the spirit, this body had once housed. Then he stood and drew Madame Vernier to her feet. She seemed to have shrunk beneath this new weight of grief, changed in a few hours from a woman in whom the years had dulled neither vitality nor humor into someone both weary and sad.
MacLeod led her to the table and had her sit, then poured a generous dose of the brandy and put the glass in her hands. She stared at it uncomprehendingly for a moment. Finally, she raised it to her lips and drank.
Duncan waited until he saw the trembling stop and a bit of color returning to her cheeks. “Madame,” he said softly, “have you any family nearby? Is there someone you can go to or anyone who can be sent for?”
Slowly, Madame Vernier nodded. “My youngest son, Phillipe,” she said. “He lives with his brother outside St. Denis. He will come and take his father’s place here.”
“Are you sure you do not want to close this place? Sell it and go live with your sons? It would be an easier life for you.”
Madame Vernier reached over and took MacLeod’s hand. “You are a kind man. Monsieur, to be so concerned about an old woman,” she said. “But this place was my Richard’s life. He loved it, and I will not sell it now that he is gone. I will stay here—and my Phillipe will come. He is much like his father. It will be a good life for him, as it was for us.”
As she spoke, soft tears began to flow. MacLeod knew from experience that such tears were the first step in the grief that would, eventually, bring healing.
MacLeod stayed at the inn for a few more days, until Madame Vernier’s son arrived. During that time, the decision he had been putting off washed over him with undeniable clarity. He knew he could no longer stay in Paris. He was of no help here—he felt useless, and it was not a feeling he enjoyed. It was time to move on.
But where? he wondered. Home to Scotland? No, the wounds of that country, the memories of Bonnie Prince Charlie’s defeat at Culloden seventy years ago, ran too deep. Nor did he wish to return to the East. The memories there were even more painful and more recent.
He would go to the New World, to America. It was a land of new hopes and new beginnings. Perhaps there he would find a place for Duncan MacLeod.
It took only a day to find a ship and book his passage. He said a fond farewell to Madame Vernier and her son, not telling them of the extra money he had left in his room but knowing they would find it. Then lie set off for the most difficult task of all—saying good-bye to Darius.
The wind was bitter and MacLeod pulled the hood of his thick cloak over his head as he walked slowly toward the church, thinking of all the things he might say. Bu
t he knew that, in the end, none of them really mattered; Darius would understand the unspoken. He always did.
When he reached the little church of St. Julien le Pauvre, the narthex doors stood open—an unusual sight for this time of year. So many years a warrior, MacLeod stopped, his eyes and ears straining, his muscles on the alert.
From inside the church he heard angry words. “Take what is here and leave.”
It was Darius’s voice, but it was angry in a way MacLeod had never expected to hear from this gentle priest. He started to take a step forward, but he stopped himself. If he was on holy ground, he could do nothing to help his friend.
MacLeod hoped he was making the right decision.
“These are worthless pewter,” came another voice, hard and strident. “Where is your gold?”
“Gold?” Darius answered. “I have none. Anyone in the quarter would have told you that.”
For a few seconds there was silence. MacLeod’s stomach tightened and he strained his ears even further, trying to catch any sounds from inside.
Two men scurried out, slightly bewildered looks on their faces. They wore filthy and torn uniforms of the French army. One carried a musket and the other a pike, both of military issue. It was obvious to MacLeod these men had been deserters. What was more, the wound that had killed Monsieur Vernier had been of the kind made by a pike thrust. MacLeod felt the rage he had known over the incident returning.
They stopped as soon as they spotted him. From inside the church came a small sound—Oh, God, MacLeod thought, was that a body falling? Darius?—and another man hurried out into the day. He wore civilian clothes that had once been fine, but now were so dirty and tattered MacLeod could only wonder from whom they had been stolen. In his hand was his still drawn saber. MacLeod saw the blood on its tip and was suddenly filled with a cold fury.
The leader, too, stopped and stared at MacLeod, but his confusion lasted only a moment. Then he laughed. He started to advance, slowly, swaggering.
“Another priest,” he said. “We are blessed.”
Duncan did not move. “Where is Darius?” he asked. His voice was low. It sounded calm, even to his own ears, but in truth it seethed with anger. Had these been the men who had robbed the inn, who had killed Richard Vernier and left his wife poor and grieving? How many other people had been their prey in the last months?
The brigand did not take his eyes off MacLeod, though he aimed his words at his cohorts. “The priests in this quarter are a surly lot, aren’t they, boys?”
Bolstered by their leader’s bravado, the two men in the torn uniforms raised their weapons and advanced a step. MacLeod gave a small snarl over gritted teeth.
“You’ve made a mistake,” he said, quickly whipping off his cloak as he brought his sword, his beloved katana, to ready. “I’m no priest.”
The chief brigand’s eyes grew wide. He hesitated just a fraction of a second before giving his order.
“Attack,” he cried.
But that brief second was enough for MacLeod. He sidestepped quickly, bringing his sword up in a parry that knocked off the musket’s aim. The weapon discharged harmlessly. The man brought the handle around in a desperate swipe at MacLeod’s head. MacLeod ducked easily underneath. One quick thrust of the katana into the man’s side, and he fell away.
The second man had seemed frozen in place, shocked by the swiftness of the exchange. Now, as his companion crumpled, he stepped in, trying to spear MacLeod with his pike.
The man’s movements were clumsy, his thrust too far forward. Once more, Duncan sidestepped, parried, and sliced. His controlled motion sent his opponent into a spin. MacLeod grabbed his head and slammed it into the wrought-iron rails of the fence. This man, too, crumpled to the ground.
Now MacLeod turned to face the leader. There was the smallest flicker of fear in the man’s eyes, quickly masked. With a snarl, he charged.
MacLeod’s smile was cold and deadly as he countered the man’s swordplay. The brigand was not completely without skill, but his sword was no match for the hardened steel of MacLeod’s katana, nor could his movements equal those of the masters with whom MacLeod had studied.
MacLeod let his smile broaden just a little as he ducked beneath a wide swipe. It was so easy to step inside and thrust. His katana connected with flesh: it pierced, and the man fell—back inside the gate, back to holy ground. The rage inside MacLeod was not abated, but he could not follow. On holy ground, the brigand was safe.
Darius came out of the church. He staggered weakly forward, holding his side. Beneath his fingers, Duncan knew a wound was already healing.
In the same instant, the other two thieves began to stir. Duncan turned quickly, his muscles still ready to fight. He reached toward the nearest man.
“No,” Darius called. “Don’t kill him. Let them go.”
One of the men started toward their fallen leader. “Leave him,” Darius ordered, turning his head slightly but never taking his eyes from MacLeod’s face and the rage he saw there.
The man looked up at the priest, then over at Duncan. He, too, saw MacLeod’s expression and he scurried away, stopping only briefly to help his companion to his feet.
Duncan struggled to keep his muscles in check when his every instinct was to go after the men and stop them. It was only Darius’s presence that saved them; the look on the priest’s face kept Duncan where he was.
“He’ll only kill innocent people,” MacLeod said, glancing toward the man in the churchyard. “People who can’t rise from the dead.”
His words did not change the priest’s expression. Darius came closer, growing visibly stronger with each step.
“Why have you done this?” he demanded. His eyes were filled with a pain that had nothing to do with the wound in his side.
Anger and frustration overwhelmed Duncan. How could he make Darius understand what he refused to see?
“What else was I supposed to do, Darius?” he asked. “Tell me that.”
The words came out more sharply than he meant. Duncan looked away briefly and sighed, then he turned back to face his friend, this holy man.
“I can’t be like you,” Duncan said more quietly. “Maybe I’m not old enough or wise enough. I can’t just stand by and let…”
Duncan’s words faltered—but Darius understood. “You’re leaving me,” he said softly, sadly.
Duncan’s eyes searched Darius’s face. He saw the compassion there, and the forgiveness. The next words were even more difficult to say than he had imagined.
“Yes,” he replied. “I’m going to America. The hatred’s just run too deep here. Maybe in the New World it will be different.”
Darius was silent for a moment. It was a silence full of things he would not say.
“I will not rob you of that hope,” he answered at last.
Duncan reached out for the priest’s hand. It was a grasp of friendship and a pledge for the years to come.
“Good-bye, Darius,” he said simply.
“Good-bye, Duncan MacLeod.”
The two men turned from each other—Darius to his church and Duncan to his future. MacLeod had gone only a few steps when Darius turned back around.
“Peace be with you,” he called a final blessing.
Duncan looked over his shoulder and gave the Immortal priest a wan smile. He understood the gentle message within the words.
Chapter Eleven
Seacouver, present day
The plane carrying Victor Paulus and Cynthia VanDervane landed at Seacouver International Airport in the crisp light of early morning. Victor had hoped to have a couple of quiet days to reacclimate before picking up his work on this side of the world. But when he walked up the boarding ramp and stepped into the airport itself, he was greeted by the flash of bulbs and a cluster of microphones thrust in his direction. He felt Cynthia step close, and he put a protective arm around her as the clamor of questions began.
Victor had grown used to such receptions over the last few years and he
recognized several of the newspeople. Some were from local television stations, others from newspapers, and he greeted them all with his friendly smile.
“Please,” he said, holding up a hand to ward off the verbal barrage. “One at a time—and let’s move out of the way here. There are other people anxious to get off the plane and go home.”
A couple of the newspeople chuckled and they all willingly followed Paulus over to the waiting area. They knew he would give them a good interview.
“Now, one at a time,” Victor said again.
“Mr. Paulus,” came a voice from the back, “we heard that after your trip to Eastern Europe, you traveled to Sudan. Are you back now because your work there was successful?”
Victor shook his head sadly. “Until the last shot has been fired, until the last death has occurred, until the last woman has been raped, or has seen the loss of a son, a father, a brother, a husband, until the last child has grown up in poverty and starvation, fear and oppression, there is still work to do. While these things go on, my work will never be successful. Let us pray that someday it will be—someday we shall truly have world peace. And it is not just my work—it is the work of every decent person everywhere.”
“What conditions did you find in Sudan?” came another question.
Again, a look of deep sadness flooded Victor’s face. “Conditions I truly hope you never see,” he said, “but of which the world must be made aware. Our foundation will be sending out full reports, complete with film footage and verifiable facts, to each of you. Those will tell you, in better words than I can give you now, all you need to know.”
“You don’t come to Seacouver that often, Mr. Paulus. We’ve heard rumors of a series of rallies and a speaking tour.”
“That’s right,” Victor said, nodding. “I haven’t been informed yet of the exact times and dates, but those will be included in the information that is sent to you.”
“What are your plans in the meantime, Mr. Paulus?”
Victor gave a little laugh. “Well, first I plan to get some sleep,” he said. “Then, soon, I’ll be getting married.” His arm tightened slightly around Cynthia’s shoulders, and he smiled at her tenderly as lights once again flashed.
Highlander: Shadow of Obsession Page 7
