“Why did you have your gown off?” Mirra found the courage to ask.
“It’s no concern of yours, girl,” the priestess answered. “Now go off and visit with your officer friend, and leave the care of this boy to those who know what to do for him.”
Dismissed, Mirra looked at Marco helplessly, as he lay languidly on his bed, unable to respond or send any signal to his friend. Mirra pursed her lips, then left the room.
“She’s a nice girl,” Folence commented in an offhanded manner. “You’ve done something to her, I can tell, though I’m not sure what it is.”
“Now, you rest while I take care of your future. Go to sleep, my marked man,” Folence said as she began to rewrap the scarf and its hidden weapon upon her head with one hand, while her other hand reached down and closed Marco’s eyelids, causing him to fall asleep.
When Marco awoke next, the room was dark. He found that he could turn his head, and he looked to either side of him. There was an empty chair on his right, where Mirra had sat during the day, and no sign of anyone else in the room. A darkened window was in one wall to his right as well, a sign that it was night time outside.
He felt more energetic than he had when he had awoken the first time in the Duke’s palace. His shoulder still throbbed relentlessly, and there was still the inexplicable murmuring sound that bothered him. He took a deep breath to prepare himself, then sat up. As he did, he gasped at the increase in pain in his shoulder, which felt like a knife stabbing deeply into the joint. He waited a moment for the pain to subside, then swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up.
Marco looked out the window, and saw a courtyard below, enclosed on one side by a guarded gate, beyond which he saw the buildings of the city.
He had to escape from the palace, he knew. Folence was planning to take him into captivity in her Barcelon temple, and then to deliver him back to Lady Iasco on the Isle. He had no wish to go there. With a flash of insight, he realized that he could no longer stay in Barcelon. Folence knew he was there, knew he was wanted by the leader of her order, and knew to find him either at the palace, or at Gabrielle’s shop.
With slow and painful motion, he stood and stared vacantly out the window, shocked by the implications of what he now knew. He needed for the shoulder to heal, and Folence could help with that he was sure, but he needed to escape her grasp before she took him into custody. He looked around the room and saw no clothes, though his sword was propped against a wall; there were only the sheets on the bed, so he wrapped one around himself – making sure that it draped over the horrific appearance of his wounded shoulder – and cautiously opened the door to peer out into the hall.
There was no one in sight, so he slipped out into the hall, and pulled the door shut behind him quietly, then padded silently to the staircase at one end of the hall. It was a plain, narrow passage, one meant to be used by servants he suspected, so he crept down two flights of stairs and stopped at a doorway that closed the steps off from the rest of the palace.
He heard voices beyond the doorway, boisterous voices, and he didn’t choose to risk stepping in among them. There was a turn and then a continuation of the staircase, one that presumably led down to the basement, so Marco continued to descend.
There were fewer voices on the other side of the final door he came to, the one he guessed was in the basement. He put his hand on the knob and pressed the door open, then stopped in surprise for a moment as a wave of humid air enveloped him. He had found the perfect place – the palace laundry! He stepped inside, and saw a pair of workers standing with their backs to him, talking and folding clothing.
He stooped and walked between the stacked baskets of clothing, then stopped and pulled out an item. It was a skirt, and he cast it aside, then pulled out a pair of pants. He hurriedly pulled them on. He searched through the next basket, and found a shirt that was made from heavy, dark material. He pulled his sheet off and dropped it on the floor, then pulled the shirt over his head. Minutes later he was dressed, out the door and back up the stairs, where he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, said a quick prayer, and finally opened the door to the noisy room he had avoided before.
The room grew silent, and he found that he had walked into a servants’ work room. Men and women of the palace staff all looked at him in surprise.
“Who in blazes are you?” one of the men asked.
“I’m lost. I just can’t find my way out of the palace,” Marco said.
“We’ll show you out! Browne, Jax, take this common fellow to the gate and send him on his way. Make sure he doesn’t have anything that doesn’t belong to him,” the speaker directed, sending two men in Marco’s direction.
The men patted his pockets, looked suspiciously at his sword without saying anything, then grabbed his arms, and Marco shouted in pain as his injured shoulder was wrenched.
“I didn’t grab him that hard!” one of his escorts protested, and the two men firmly walked Marco out to the gate, and instructed the guards to keep him out.
For a second, Marco stood in the gateway, looking back at the darkened palace exterior. He wondered in Mirra was in there; he would possibly find out soon, if he could carry out the plan he had halfway developed. He didn’t want to separate himself from the beautiful girl, a person who had been such a close and reliable friend and companion. There was a tangible spark of compatibility between them, and it was unbearably painful to think that he was possibly – probably – going to lose the connection to her when he fled from the city.
He wanted to take her with him, and if he could safely find her, he would ask her to go with him.
There was a sudden light in a window up in one of the upper floor rooms, and a second later he saw the outline of a woman’s body looking out through the glazed panes. It was Folence! She was in his room, he was sure, and now she already knew he was gone!
Marco hurriedly turned away from the gate. He disappeared into the darkened streets as quickly as he could manage to flee without making the pain in his shoulder grow unbearable from the jostling movement. The shoulder still throbbed, and the murmuring sound followed him around as he meandered through the dark city streets.
He was headed towards Mirra’s apartment. He hoped he might find her there; that would reduce the problems he foresaw on his flight towards freedom. He had left the gate of the palace headed in the wrong direction, and so he had to take an even longer route by circling around the city back towards the neighborhood where Mirra and her brother Glaze lived.
Marco knew that he could not go to Gabrielle’s shop. That was certain to be the first place Folence would go, or send her people, in a search for him. He needed to get some things from the shop, specifically the money that he had saved from the Duke’s gift; he needed those resources to buy passage on a ship leaving Barcelon. He hoped that Mirra or Glaze would pick the money up for him. He hoped one of them would be at the apartment, and he hoped that Folence would not immediately think to send anyone to look for him at Mirra’s apartment.
He was full of hopes, and he was full of doubts. And he was full of pain as well. His shoulder was throbbing with unceasing pain, so much so that at one point he stopped in an alley and leaned against a wall as he bent doubled over and waited for a wave of pain to pass.
Marco reached the doorway to Mirra’s apartment in the early hours of the morning, and climbed the stairs to reach the small chamber that he knew she shared with his baby and her brother. He knocked softly on the door, and waited for an answer, then knocked more loudly. He jiggled the handle to the door, and was surprised to find that the door swung inward, showing him a darkness as deep as that in which he stood in the building hallway.
“Mirra? Glaze?” he softly called, as he stuck his head into the opening. There was no sound of movement. “Mirra? It’s me, Marco,” he said quietly. He stepped into the apartment, and carefully closed the door behind him, then stood in a state of indecision. He didn’t remember the layout of the small apartment well enough to easil
y move about in the dark; he wasn’t worried about awakening anyone by making noise – he assumed the apartment was empty, since Glaze often had to work night jobs to earn money, and Mirra did not respond.
He stumbled his way to Mirra’s side of the apartment, and placed his hands on her bedding. The thin mattress was empty, and held no indication of body warmth, no sign that she had been there recently. He lay down on his back in exhaustion, wondering where she was. Was she at the palace, ironically staying there to be close to him, or was she at Gabrielle’s, or was there some other place she was staying?
Marco thought about Mirra with his last thought of the night, and then fell into an uneasy sleep.
In his sleep he heard a voice calling, and the experience was not a dream, it was a nightmare. He heard the voice of the sorcerer, who magically remained standing as he was dying, pronouncing his curse on Marco – “May my master be always able to find you” – the sorcerer had threatened, just before he had flung the deadly weapon of magical energy at Marco.
And then Marco head another voice, a quieter, but harsher voice, endlessly repeating a phrase. “Here he is master, come and take him. Here he is master, come and take him,” the voice droned on and on in his restless sleep, until he started to roll onto his wounded shoulder, whereupon the pain of his injury awoke him with a start.
Marco shifted his position in Mirra’s bed, and fell asleep again, a sounder sleep that lasted until Glaze came sleepily trudging into the apartment after sunrise, and found the intruder in his sister’s bed.
“It’s me Glaze, Marco!” he said with a start when he woke up and looked up at Glaze’s angry face above him, the man holding a club poised to strike. “I’m Mirra’s friend!”
“What are you doing in her bed? Where is she?” Glaze stood upright, in a less threatening pose, though he still didn’t seem entirely calm.
“I came here to hide,” Marco admitted. “I ran away from the palace; I think Mirra is still there.”
Glaze lowered his club and sat down at the small table. “Why did you run away from the palace?”
Marco propped himself up on his elbow to rise, and noticed that the pain in his shoulder was different – it was still very much present, but it didn’t feel the same.
“There was a woman at the palace who doesn’t like me,” he told Glaze. “I slipped out last night, and spent all night trying to get here. It’s the only safe place I could think of.
“I’m sure Mirra’s okay. I didn’t think they threatened her at all,” he told Mirra’s brother, then suddenly wondered if the girl would be safe once he was gone.
“I haven’t seen her since the day before yesterday, when she and Sybele went with that captain from the palace,” Glaze told Marco.
“I saw her for a few moments yesterday, and she was fine then,” Marco assured the man. “I need for you to do something for me though.”
“Can I get some sleep first?” Glaze asked.
Marco winced, as the pain in his shoulder gave a jolt.
“Are you okay?” Glaze asked.
“It’s the injury I took in the fight,” Marco answered. “I’ll be alright.”
“Go get some sleep, and we’ll talk when we wake up,” Marco told the exhausted brother. Glaze gratefully went to his heap of covers and flopped down to quickly fall asleep, while Marco laid back and drowsed in a half-sleepy state as well. He drifted back and forth between sleep and waking concern; unlikely as it seemed, he was convinced that he had felt the pain in his shoulder move, taking a lurch that had made him wince, and then he remembered the nightmares of the night before, and with a startled new sense of fear that woke him up, he intuitively grasped that the voice he had heard had been the murmuring sound that had been following him and disturbing him. And worse, he feared, it was the lump of evil that had been inserted into his shoulder that was the source of the noise.
He felt a cold sweat break out on his forehead as he considered the incredible notion. The terrific pain he felt in his shoulder suddenly became the secondary concern he had, as he imagined that there was evil magic inside his body, calling out to the master of the sorcerer, whatever diabolical being that was, revealing Marco’s location to him. The sorcerer had put a curse on Marco, that he always be chased by the horrible master, and now Marco was truly marked and doomed to being followed and caught. The curse was tangible and real.
He sat up with a sob, and covered his eyes with his left hand, while he tried to imagine what to do. Suddenly, running away from Folence and the women of the isle was not his biggest fear – running away from the sorcerer’s master, or ridding himself of the tracking energy was more urgent.
He moved his left hand from his face to his shoulder, looking down at the open wound as he did. Probing with his fingers caused considerable new pain, but he forced himself to explore the source of the pain, and he felt deeply troubled as he did. He was certain that the lump of evil within his flesh had changed location – it was no longer buried within the heart of his joint, but now was at least a couple of inches closer to his chest, out on the end of the collar bone.
He ceased his probing and lay back down, frozen in fear. The sorcerer’s curse was alive within his own body, and it was sending out the message to someone, telling where he was, acting as a marker so that the sorcerer’s master could come and find him while it took inexplicable steps within his body. He wondered if he could cut the evil out, if he could take a knife to his own flesh and perform crude surgery to exorcise the sorcerer’s curse from his own flesh. It seemed impossible to imagine taking such a step.
“Marco?” he heard his name, then realized that the door had opened. He found that Mirra was in the small room, holding Sybele in her arms; she was instantly next to him, placing the infant in her basket, then bending over him, grasping him in a hug that was both wonderful, and painful as she pressed against his shoulder.
He moaned in pain, and she hastily backed away from him.
“I’m sorry! So sorry!” she told him as she hovered above him. He reached out with his left hand and gently rested his fingers on the back of her neck, then carefully pulled her face down to his, and kissed her.
“Oh Marco,” she murmured against his lips after several seconds, as he released his grasp, and she raised her head slightly.
She looked over to where Glaze remained asleep, then looked at Marco again. “I was so worried about you! The Duke and the priestess are ready to tear the city apart to find you. Captain Kilson is waiting downstairs for me; he thinks I just came here to pick up something, but I came here because I thought this is where you might come to hide.
“Why are you here? Why did you run away from the palace? Lady Folence is furious, and I think she is genuinely worried as well. What are you doing?” she whispered the questions.
Marco looked at her intently. “It’s a long, long story,” he said. “Do you really want to know it all?”
“Kilson is waiting; he’ll come up soon if I don’t go back down. Will you stay here? Can I come see you tonight?” she asked.
“I don’t think I can go very far,” he told her. “I’ll be here.”
I’ll be back Marco,” she said. “Stay safe. “I love you too, Marco, I want you to know! When you said in the palace that you loved me, that was the most wonderful thing anyone ever said to me,” she told him as she picked up Sybele. The infant began to whimper, and Mirra hastily stood. “I’ll be back tonight, I promise,” she told him, and then she was gone.
Marco smiled, as he momentarily forgot all about his pain and the evil that was within him. He lay back and closed his eyes, and fell asleep.
Chapter 19 – Alchemy Gone Astray
Marco awoke when Glaze stirred him.
“Marco, what do you need for me to do?” Mirra’s brother asked him.
“I need for you to go to Gabrielle’s shop, and tell her you are there as a secret favor to me. Tell her to tell no one. Then ask her if you can go up to my room in the garret and get some of the gold coi
ns up there. Tell her I need the money to go on a trip, but she has to keep it a secret,” Marco instructed. He wasn’t sure any longer that he could go on a trip, as badly as he hurt, but he had to hope that the pain would subside, and he would be able to manage to take passage aboard a ship that would sail him out of the harbor, away from the city where Folence was searching for him.
Glaze immediately left the apartment, and Marco sat alone, listening to the sound of the beacon within his body, as well as listening to the noises of the lives of the neighbors who lived in the crowded tenement building as well.
An hour later Glaze returned, empty-handed. “She couldn’t give it to me. She told me there were people there hiding, waiting for you to show up,” the young man reported to Marco. “She said to send Mirra and she can arrange to be alone with her long enough to give you money,” Glaze reported.
“Thank you, Glaze,” Marco said, disappointed, but glad that nothing worse had happened. “You weren’t followed back here, were you?”
Mirra’s brother assured Marco that he wasn’t.
“Did you know Mirra was here while you were asleep?” Marco asked.
“You’re kidding me!” Glaze replied in astonishment.
“She brought Sybele. They both looked fine. She said she’ll try to come back tonight,” Marco assured her brother. He looked pleased at the news, then bid goodbye as he left to go to his job working in a slaughterhouse.
It was late afternoon, and Marco was alone in the small apartment. He smiled as he thought of Mirra’s visit, especially her declaration at the end, that she loved him. It made him happy, better able to withstand the pain in his shoulder, and he paid no attention to anything else around him, consumed by his own daydreams, until there was a momentary spike in the murmur and then a sudden loud banging noise at the room’s window that made him jump.
The Gorgon's Blood Solution Page 24
