by DAVID B. COE
“Courage, Draper,” Godfrey said. “Remember that you are a Templar, by the grace of God.”
“By the grace of God,” Draper repeated.
They led the Turcopole down the corridor. Landry watched until the knight and the pirates escorting him melted into the shadows and he could see them no more. He pressed his brow to the bars on the door, then looked toward Godfrey’s door. The commander was there, already watching him.
“Tancrede is alive,” Godfrey said. “Draper will return to us as well.”
“Alive, yes. Thank God for that. And please the Lord you’ll be right about Draper. But is that enough? Are we to accept this fate so long as none of us dies?”
“Of course not. That’s not what I meant.” He paused. “Forgive me for what I said before. I was… I might have been too hard on you.”
“I prayed, Godfrey. I swear I did. Hearing his screams, though—”
“It’s not enough to pray. You must believe, as well. And more than that, you must trust. If it is His will that all of us should die here, you must have faith that there is a reason. Believing in God’s purpose when we are victorious – that’s easy. Any man can do that. A Templar trusts in the Lord when all other hope has forsaken him. That is the true test.”
Landry knew this, of course. For most of his life, he had lived as squire to a Templar and then as a Templar himself. He had never been tested like this, though. Before their capture by the pirates, he had thought the loss of Acre the darkest moment of his life. Yet even at its worst, the battle for Acre had not brought him so low, or shaken his faith so completely.
Still standing at the door, he crossed himself and began yet again to pray.
“God, by your grace, grant us the strength to endure.
“God, by your grace, grant us the will to resist.
“God, by your grace, grant us the courage to keep faith.”
He repeated the phrases one after the other, yet another litany that carried him through the dark of that night. Several times, he nearly broke the cadence. Once, when a wail from Draper spiraled into the night, like the howl of some wild jungle beast, he stumbled, fell silent.
“God, by your grace,” Godfrey intoned, taking up the chant, “grant us the strength to endure.”
On the second invocation, another voice twined with the commander’s. “God… by your grace… grant us the… the will to resist.” Tancrede. A miracle. His words were as thin as parchment, as weak as starlight in this rank dungeon.
Still, they were enough.
With the third line, Landry found his own voice again and spoke the litany with them. He did more than speak it. He felt it. He believed it. If Tancrede could cling to his faith after what had been done to him, how could Landry do any less?
Gawain, Brice, and Nathaniel joined them as well. Again and again, the six knights repeated their prayer, their words blending into a single supplication. The prison resounded with it. Landry wanted to believe that Draper might hear them and draw strength from the sound.
More important, though, in those moments stretching to an hour or more, Landry knew beyond any doubt that God heard them. How could He not? And knowing this, he knew as well that they would find a way out of this hell on God’s earth. How many of them might make it, he dared not predict. But they would not be broken by this place. He would not allow it. Neither, he knew, would Godfrey or Tancrede or any of the others. Sensing the strength of his brothers, drawing upon it, he felt his own strength return, and with it his hope, his faith, his trust in the Lord.
Landry and the others only broke off their litany when the two hulking pirates appeared with Draper held between them. The third pirate, the keyholder, walked behind.
Like Tancrede and Godfrey before him, Draper was insensate, feet dragging on the stone floor, head hanging, his face a mask of blood, his neck and torso darkened as well. His long hair was matted with it. Both of his eyes were swollen shut and his lips were split.
The first pirate opened the door to Landry’s cell, pulled out his sword, and forced Landry to back away from the opening. The other two dropped Draper in the middle of the enclosure, turned as one, and without so much as a backward glance stalked out into the round chamber.
Landry was certain they would take him then and subject him to the same sort of beating they had given his friends. They didn’t. They locked his door and started up the stairs.
“He needs water!” Landry rushed to the door, bracing his hands against the cold iron. “You brought some for Tancrede. He needs it as well.”
“He’ll have none,” said one of the bald men. “Giving it to the other was a mistake. Not one we’re likely to repeat.”
They continued up the stairs and left the building.
Landry scrabbled to his friend’s side, rolled him onto his back.
“Is he alive?” Gawain called to him.
Landry lowered his head to Draper’s chest. The knight’s heart beat an inconstant rhythm.
“Only just.”
He scanned the man’s body, squinting in the gloom. Draper had been beaten almost beyond recognition. One hand – his sword hand, of course – was mangled, swollen, misshapen. No doubt the pirates had broken the bones. Two of the fingernails on his other hand had been ripped out. Burns and cuts formed a grisly lattice across his chest and sides and back. Redman had been thorough beyond imagining. Only a monster, a devil who enjoyed inflicting severe damage on the human form, could have done all of this.
Landry’s stomach gave an uneasy lurch.
When the pirates brought back Godfrey, Landry had been sure Redman had done his worst with the commander. Seeing Tancrede, he’d known he was wrong. What they’d done to Draper was worse even than what Tancrede had endured. He gave his friend the tiny bit of water that remained in their bowl. He wasn’t certain that Draper swallowed any of it.
“They’ll kill one of us before long,” Gawain said from his cell, giving voice to Landry’s own thought. “For all we know, they intend to kill all of us.”
“Faith, brother,” Godfrey said.
“Faith?” Gawain repeated. “After what they’ve done to Tancrede? To you? To Draper?”
“Yes, even so. Landry and I—”
“I heard what you said to him. I understand faith, Godfrey. All of us do. But we need more than prayers and faith and hope. We need a plan. We need a way out of here. Because we can trust in the Lord all we like, but the fact is, I don’t want to die here.”
“You believe I do?” Godfrey asked.
“No. But I believe you’re… more at peace with your own mortality than the rest of us. That’s admirable, a fine quality in a warrior. But I don’t want to be at peace. I want to escape. And if I can kill a few of these cutthroats on the way out, so be it.”
Landry couldn’t help but smile in the darkness. He placed his own blanket beneath Draper’s head, and covered Draper with the one from the Turcopole’s pallet. Satisfied that he had done what little he could for the man, he stepped to his door.
Gawain and Godfrey stood at the gaps in their doorways.
“You’re both right,” Landry said, drawing their gazes. “We can maintain our faith without surrendering to this fate. That’s what I intend to do.” To Gawain, he said, “I expect one of us will be next.”
The knight nodded, tight-lipped. “Probably.”
“We need to do more than survive.” He glanced toward the stairway to make certain Redman wasn’t watching them. Lowering his voice, he went on. “We have to take the opportunity while we’re out of these cells to learn what we can of this place. And if possible, we need to start plotting our escape.”
“How?”
“I have no idea.”
A smile touched Gawain’s lips. “That’s quite a plan you’ve developed.”
“I’m still working on it.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Godfrey said. “If that was it, complete, I’d be alarmed.”
They all sobered.
“We cannot af
ford to be patient,” Gawain said, looking first at Godfrey and then at Landry. “I meant what I said before. It’s merely a matter of time before one of us dies at their hands. If all of us are too hurt to fight or even walk, we’ll never get away. So, this plan of yours needs to take shape now. And yes, if they take me first, I’ll look for a way out.”
He pulled away from his door. Godfrey and Landry remained at theirs.
“Something changed for you.”
Landry nodded. “I don’t know what. Perhaps your words from before, or Tancrede praying with us despite his wounds. Whatever it was, I feel… clearer. I’m sorry I lost faith.”
“You needn’t apologize to me.”
“I disagree. Master.”
Godfrey smiled. “It’s ‘brother’ now, as you well know. But thank you.”
* * *
The pirates came for him as the first silver glow of dawn touched the barred window high overhead.
Landry had prayed through the night, forgoing sleep, preferring not to be roused from a dream to the nightmare of torture. He should have been tired, but the strength he had rediscovered while reciting the prayers with his fellow Templars sustained him.
When Redman’s men opened the door to his cell, Draper woke. He groaned and tried to sit up, only to gasp when he put weight on his wounded hand. Landry knelt beside him.
“Landry,” he whispered, his lips so swollen the name was almost unrecognizable. “They have come for you now?”
“Yes. I suppose that means you get to eat all of this morning’s breakfast.”
Draper essayed a smile, exposing bloodstained teeth. He clasped Landry’s hand with his good one. “Keep faith, brother. We will be with you.”
Landry laid his other hand over Draper’s. An odd calm had come over him. He dreaded leaving the cell, and knew how he would suffer in the hours to come. But he had purpose now, a determination to defeat these men who meant to torment him. That began now. He would show them no fear.
He extracted his hand from Draper’s grip, straightened and followed the pirates out of the cell. Redman and Gaspar both waited for him there. Gawain and Godfrey watched from their doorways.
“I hope you don’t mind,” Redman said. “Gaspar requested that he be allowed to join us this morning.”
The captain flashed a spiteful smile. “We started a conversation the other day, you and I,” he said. “I have looked forward to continuing it.”
A frisson of apprehension chilled Landry momentarily. He quelled it, and held the man’s gaze.
“Of course you have,” he said. “Just know that in time, I will have my say as well.”
Gaspar glared.
Redman, though, laughed appreciatively. “I admire your courage, Templar,” he said. “Misplaced though it may be. Come along.”
He pivoted and started down the dark corridor. Landry had no choice but to follow.
As he passed Godfrey’s door, the commander spoke his name.
Landry slowed.
“Keep His grace foremost in your mind,” Godfrey said. “And keep a prayer on your lips. You’ll be all right.”
“If only it were so simple,” Gaspar said from behind.
His eyes still locked on Godfrey’s, Landry put a fist to his chest and walked on.
Before he had taken ten steps, he was swallowed by the darkness of the hallway. A sharp point pricked his back between the shoulder blades.
“Just walk, Templar,” Gaspar said. “Any attempt to fight or flee will end with my blade in your heart. Understand?”
On they went, the click of their boots on stone too loud in the closed space. And then, for a second or two, it wasn’t. As the sound changed, so did the flow of air in the passageway. It was subtle, and as quickly as Landry noticed it, it ended. That moment was enough, however. He had no doubt that a second corridor ran off from this one. Of course, he couldn’t know where it led, but this was a start.
A short time later, they came to another round chamber. It was lit by torches mounted in sconces, and unlike the round chamber at the base of the stairway, this one had no openings in its walls and no prisoner cells surrounding it.
Courage had carried Landry this far, but he recoiled at the sight of this place. He tried to mask his reaction, but he couldn’t keep his eyes from roaming the chamber, alighting on one implement of torture after another: a cage edged on the inside with iron spikes; a table of iron and wood with manacles at either end and a daunting array of gears in between; a large hearth glowing with red embers and bristling with brands, pokers, and spikes; and more blades, cudgels, and axes than Landry cared to count.
“Welcome, Templar,” Redman said, all pretense of mirth gone. “You have seen what the objects in this place can do to a man. You can imagine, I’m sure, what we intend to do to you.”
Landry continued to scan the chamber, fear clawing at his heart. He allowed some of that fright to show on his face, hoping it would mask a second truth. Scared as he was, he had not forgotten the purpose he embraced during the night. He couldn’t ignore the cages and tables and weapons, but he searched for tools he might use. After only a few seconds, he thought he spotted one.
“Gaspar here would like nothing more than to put you in that cage.” Redman indicated the spiked enclosure near the hearth. “I believe he pictures himself skewering you with a sword while you bleed from a hundred punctures in your flesh.” He wrinkled his nose. “Not a pretty thought.” A pause, and then, “Despite my friend’s thirst for your blood, I would be willing to spare you.”
Landry looked his way, knowing the Monk would expect as much. He knew the precise position of the object he had spotted, and exactly where he would have to step if he was to have any chance of securing it.
“All you need to do is tell me how we might gain access to the gold held in your Temple. It really is as simple as that. Tell me that and you can return to your cell, whole, unbloodied.”
“And if I don’t tell you? If I don’t know?”
“If you don’t tell me…” He waved an open hand at the contents of the chamber. “And if you claim you don’t know, I won’t believe you and I’ll be very unhappy. Both of us will be.”
This might have been a path to freedom, a way to end the beatings and contrive an escape. He could reveal what he did know about the riches in the Paris Temple, claim that he was willing to lead them there and hand over the Templars’ gold, provided Redman ended the torture and freed all of them.
He didn’t believe, though, that Redman would ever let them walk out of this place. The pirate would gladly lie about his intentions to gain whatever knowledge he thought Landry possessed, but he would kill them in the end, or at the very least keep them here. He wouldn’t be so easily gulled.
More than that, telling the pirate anything about the Temple would have been a violation of the oaths Landry took upon becoming a Templar. It would have been a betrayal of his brothers – not just those in the cells here, but all of them, every man who had ever donned the tabard of the red cross. He would sooner take his own life than turn his back on the Order. Clearly, given the beatings they had endured, Tancrede, Draper, and Godfrey had made the same choice. He would do no less.
But he would also do his best to take advantage of the situation in which he found himself. His gaze flicked downward again, to the item he had spotted on the dungeon floor. He tried to make it seem that he was avoiding Redman’s gaze.
“Last chance, Templar,” the Monk said. “You can save yourself, or you can suffer as your friends have. Those are the only choices before you.”
“I—I cannot help you. I know nothing.”
Redman’s lip curled into a sneer. “Fool. Put him on the table.”
He sensed movement from the men behind him, knew this would be his sole opportunity before the torture began. One man grabbed his arm. Landry twisted out of his grasp. The other man reached for him as well. Landry hammered an elbow into his gut. As the first man took hold of him again, he fought, allowed himself t
o fall to the floor. He smacked his head on the stone, and his breath left him in a rush. But he fell on top of the object he had seen.
The pirates grappled for him. Landry fought like a man possessed, lashing out with feet and fists. Or rather, one fist. In the midst of his frenzy, he snaked one hand beneath him. For one panicked moment, he could not locate the object. One of the pirates kicked him in the side. He retched. Another pounded a fist into his cheek, leaving him addled.
He worked his other hand down a few more inches. Just as they lifted him off the floor, he felt it. Iron. As long as his little finger, tapered to a point, squared edges. As the pirates carried him to the table, he slipped it into the waist cinch of his breeches, beneath his hauberk. It took him no more than a second or two, and then he was flailing again. The pirates fighting him didn’t appear to notice. Surrounded as he was, and in the throes of his struggle, Redman and Gaspar could not see.
The men slammed him onto the table, stealing his breath again. Before he could fight himself free, they locked manacles around his wrists, and then his ankles.
Helpless now, he sagged back against the wood and iron. The worst was about to begin. But he had the object he sought. Time would tell if it was enough.
Chapter 14
They started by beating him.
Once he was secured to the table, they used some means he could not see to tilt the table up. Redman deferred to Gaspar, who seemed to relish the chance to deliver those first blows.
He hammered his fists into Landry’s jaw, his cheek, his temple, his nose, his mouth, his eyes. Within moments, Landry was bleeding so profusely he could barely draw breath. His vision swam. With each blow, he saw white lights popping before him. Consciousness began to slip away.
“Enough,” Redman said. “We don’t want him passing out too soon.”
Landry forced his eyes open. The pirate stood directly before him.
“I don’t suppose you would care to end this now? We needn’t go on. Just tell me: where in the Paris Temple will we find your gold?”
Landry turned his head to the side and spat a gob of blood. “I don’t know.”
