Ladyhawke (19 page)

“A . . . most pious daughter of the Church,” Imperius said hastily. “Poor thing’s deaf and dumb. Excuse her nervousness. It’s her first time in Aquila.”

The guard’s malicious grin widened. “Deaf and dumb, eh? That’s how I like them too, Father . . .” He reached up. touching her cheek with a filthy hand. She flinched away in disgust.

The wolf lunged against the cage bars with a furious snarl. Its paw shot out; claws raked the guard’s exposed arm.

The guard leaped back, his face filling with fury. He drew his sword, his mouth pressed tight. “I’ve never had the pleasure of killing a wolf before,” he muttered.

Isabeau gasped. Imperius caught her arm in painful warning as she would have thrown herself off the cart at the guard. “Odd,” he said loudly, “that’s precisely what
His Grace
said.”

The guard froze and looked back at the monk with an uncertain frown.

“When he heard about the gift,” Imperius bent his head at the cage. “ ‘I’ve never had the pleasure.’ ” He shrugged. “But I’m sure he’ll understand you had your reasons. He’s a notoriously forgiving man.”

The guard hesitated, looking back at the wolf. He lowered his sword truculently, his frown deepening. “Pass on through, Father.”

Imperius clucked to the stallion and started on. “May God grant you your just reward, my son.”

Watching from the shadows below the bridge, Phillipe sighed as he saw the cart pass safely through the gates at last. “We’ve come full circle, Lord,” he murmured. “I’d like to think there’s some higher meaning to all this.” He looked up at the sky. “It certainly would reflect well on you.” He removed the coil of rope from beneath his tunic, checked it carefully before he slung it over his head and shoulder. Then, taking a deep breath, he slipped into the chill black waters of the moat.

He swam toward the grating he had escaped through only days ago . . . days that seemed somehow to have become a lifetime. Fighting the current of the outflow, he caught hold of the grating. He took a deep breath, and then another, with a fervent prayer that this was not about to become a lifetime literally—a painfully short one. Holding his third breath, he ducked under the surface.

He pulled himself downward along the grate, battered by the cold, surging water. His hands felt their way to the gap between the bars at the bottom of the grating, and he dragged himself under it. The current pried at his fingers, nearly sweeping him loose and carrying him away over and over again, as he squirmed like an eel past the clog of debris trapped behind the grate.

He shot to the surface again, gasping for air in the reeking darkness. He was inside the walls. He climbed up the slippery grating, more grateful than he had ever expected to be that he had already done this once the hard way. Flopping onto the ancient access ledge carved into the tunnel wall, he huddled there, feeling for the flask of wine that Imperius had given him to warm his shivering, aching body. He would have to wait for dawn, for enough light to filter down into the caverns to let him find his way back to the cathedral. He took a long swig of wine and sighed, promising himself that at least the hard part was over . . .

Imperius and Isabeau exchanged smiles of heartfelt relief as they drove through the dark, deserted back streets of Aquila, searching for the unobtrusive alleyway Imperius had chosen as their hiding place while they waited for the new day. At last they reached the quiet cul-de-sac, surrounded by windowless walls and piles of hay from a nearby stable. Imperius halted Goliath with a nod of satisfaction. He looked up at the narrow slice of sky between the buildings, where, in the morning, they would see . . .

His smile faded. Overhead the stars were disappearing one by one behind a spreading edge of clouds.

C H A P T E R
Eighteen

T
he new morning brightened over Aquila, revealing a sky entirely gray. The cathedral bells began to toll, rousing believers and nonbelievers alike, reminding them that this was the day of atonement. Marquet paced the broad, curving ramp that led to the cathedral entrance, staring out across the deserted square as if by sheer will he could make Navarre appear. He was ready; he had been ready for far too long, by now. He ached for this. They had found no trace of Navarre last night; nothing even remotely suspicious had been reported. And yet Marquet was certain that Navarre was here . . . just as certain as he was that he would be the man to kill him.

The Bishop moved restlessly about his bedchamber, twisting the emerald ring on his thumb. Navarre was trying to come for him, mad with revenge; he was certain of it. Everything and everyone he had sent against Navarre had failed. It was almost as if Navarre were under some sort of divine protection . . . And yet, what did he have to fear? There was no way his former captain could possibly get past the ring of guards with which he had surrounded his city and himself. And there was no way that Navarre could break the curse. His own soul was safe from hell, as long as Navarre was damned . . . Navarre, and Isabeau . . .

The Bishop reached out, distractedly picking a sweetmeat from the silver platter on the filigreed table below the window. He looked out at the sky, gray again with clouds. It had rained almost every day in the past two weeks . . . ever since that wretched thief had escaped from the dungeons. Perhaps the drought had ended at last. Crops would be good in the coming year. Surely it was a sign that he had nothing to fear. This time, when he raised the taxes, the people would pay . . . He licked his lips.

A knock sounded at the door. He turned back from the window, glancing toward his bed. His mistress sat up among the silks and furs; she rose from the bed like a sleek cat at his gesture. Slipping into a robe, she disappeared through a doorway into another of his private chambers.

“Enter,” the Bishop said. Two acolytes entered the room reverently, carrying the heavy, lace-trimmed brocades and satins of his robes for the Mass.

The cathedral bells continued to ring out across the city as the morning brightened. Imperius stood beside his cart, looking up. “Perhaps one hour, more or less,” he muttered, speaking to the air and hoping for an answer. “Who can tell, with this sky?” He pulled his cowl up under his chin, shivering with the chill as he gazed nervously at the clouds. From his observations through endless nights and seasons, he was sure that what he believed would happen could only happen today. But if they could not see the sun, how would they be able to tell when it was beginning?

P’dee
— The hawk’s cry reached him from far overhead, and he glanced up again.

Navarre moved out from behind the cart, looking up with a frown as he pulled on his gauntlets. “Hoy!” Navarre shouted. He watched the hawk wheeling in the cloud-filled sky high above. She soared away over the thatched rooftops of the town. He looked back at Imperius, his frown filling with concern.

“She’ll be back,” Imperius said, never doubting that the bond between them would hold. “Gaston’s the one I’m worried about.”

“I trust him.” Navarre shook his head, unconcerned.

Imperius hunched his shoulders skeptically. The boy was like quicksilver. When it came to actually risking his life, how sure could they be of his loyalty? “If he made a run for it last night when he had the chance, you’re a dead man,” he muttered.

Phillipe stirred on the ledge as he realized that he could actually see his hands in front of his face. He drank the last swallow of wine and climbed to his feet. Daylight seeped through the clogged grating; more light shafted down into the underground deeper in the sewers. He stretched his aching, reeking body cautiously and began to feel his way along the ledge, back into the caverns. It occurred to him that he had been born in a prison, and now he was likely to die in a sewer. He grimaced, muttering, “I should have made a run for it when I had the chance . . .”

Marquet left the cathedral steps and crossed the square. A mounted troop waited for him—the best of his men, the honor guard that would escort the Bishop and the clergy to services. Grimly he mounted his gray stallion and led the troop away toward Aquila Castle.

The castle’s gardens were already filled with the elite of the gathered clergy. Priests and friars, monks and monsignors clustered together in groups like exotic birds, clad in their finest robes. Some stood with heads bowed, murmuring prayers, while others idled over bowls of fruit and trays of delicacies, tittering at the latest gossip.

A sudden silence fell over the courtyard as the Bishop stepped out of the atrium, a dazzling figure in white and gold. The gathered clerics turned as one to acknowledge the arrival of their spiritual leader. He paused a moment, studying their attentive, nervous faces, before he lifted his hand, in a benediction that had more the feeling of a threat. The watching clergy genuflected hurriedly, already counting their sins.

The Bishop passed among them, nodding right and left as he gestured the crowd together for the procession. Several friars gathered about him, raising a crimson canopy over his head. He led the train of his followers to the garden gates, where Marquet waited with the honor guard—still captain, but only by the grace of God. The Bishop acknowledged him coolly.

The clergy assembled behind the Bishop, gathering in order of rank from richly clad monsignors to humble nuns and friars. The massive gates of Aquila Castle swung open, and the procession moved out into the streets, flowing through the city in a splendid display before it turned back toward the cathedral. The citizens of Aquila lined the way or hung out of windows to watch the procession pass. The richness of the robes, the bright banners and gilded crosses, the censers filling the air with perfumed smoke, were far more beauty and pageantry than most of the watchers had seen in a year. The chanting of the clergy and the ringing of the cathedral bells filled the air with unaccustomed music.

To Phillipe, the sound of bells and the pageantry in the city streets up above him seemed considerably farther away than the gates of paradise. He dragged himself inch by treacherous inch up the shaft that opened into the cathedral, threading the rope he had tied around his waist through the rusted iron rings as a safety line while he climbed.

He stopped halfway up the shaft, breathing hard, clinging to the rope as he dared to look up again. He saw the rose window high above him like a vision, a sudden blinding flash of brilliance and darkness that assaulted his eyes, just as he had seen it once before. He blinked his eyes, and its colors came into focus. But as he remembered what had brought him back to this place, the glowing illusion of black and white seemed to symbolize a promise.
A day without night, a night without day.

He pulled himself painfully up the last few feet and tied off the rope at the highest ring, freeing his hands for work. He pulled his dagger from his boot and began to pry at the eroded metal bolts that held the grating in place.

Navarre and Imperius listened as the sounds of the procession grew louder and then gradually faded away, heading toward the cathedral. Navarre stared at the sky, where a perfectly normal day was proceeding behind a perfectly impenetrable blanket of clouds. He looked down again, his jaw set, and moved restlessly to the stallion’s side. He began to unfasten the traces that held the horse to the cart.

Imperius glanced up at the clouds nervously, seeing Navarre’s agitation. “It should be soon now. Once these clouds break . . .”

Navarre pulled his saddle from the cart and turned to face the monk. “It’s
day,
old man.
All
day. As it was yesterday, and as it will be tomorrow, if God grants me the life to see it.” He settled the saddle on Goliath’s back. Imperius looked down at the ground wordlessly.

Beyond the warren of buildings that separated them from the cathedral, the procession of penitent clergy wound slowly into the open square. The mounted guard troop fanned out before the cathedral entrance, sitting at attention as the clerics passed between them and up the broad ramp. The Bishop glanced at Marquet as he passed, and the look in his eyes was far from a blessing. Marquet nodded imperceptibly.

Just within the cathedral, Phillipe worked the last bolt of the grating loose. It fell through the grate, tumbling past him down the shaft into the darkness. Elated, he pushed upward on the grate, felt it begin to rise.

A cavernous
thud
echoed through the cathedral, as the massive, carven doors swung open. The sound of chanting filled the vast hall, and the procession of clergy began to enter.

Phillipe saw the Bishop silhouetted in the sudden light of day, his figure dwarfed by the immensity of the cathedral’s arching entrance and the vast wooden doors. Phillipe ducked back into the shaft, letting the grate down over his head with a silent curse of frustration.

In the hidden alleyway, Navarre slipped the bit into the stallion’s mouth, pulled the bridle into place with fatalistic calm. The hawk perched on his saddlebow, watching his preparations. Navarre looked up suddenly, hearing the clatter of hooves on cobblestones as someone rode toward them down the alley. He glanced at Imperius; he held his wrist up, signaling the hawk onto it. Imperius nodded, his face furrowing with worry, as Navarre handed the hawk carefully onto his own wrist. Navarre slipped out of sight behind the wagon.