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 s
ight behind the wagon.
The guardsman rode down the alley and into the cul-de-sac, unexpectedly finding it occupied by an old man in a cowled robe.
“Oh, thank goodness!” the old monk said, smiling at him in apparent relief. “Which way is it to the cathedral, my son?”
The guard’s suspicious glance took in the monk standing with a hunting bird perched incongruously on his arm, the saddled, riderless war horse . . . the cart draped with a blanket. He rode directly to the cart, ignoring the monk, and jerked the blanket aside.
Navarre lay waiting for him with a loaded crossbow. The guard reached for his sword, and Navarre fired. The guardsman toppled from his horse with the arrow through his heart.
Navarre leaped down from the cart, went to the body to pick up the guard’s fallen sword. He hefted it, testing its balance; felt its edge with his thumb and swung it again experimentally. Imperius was wrong—just as he had known all along that the old man had to be. He had waited long enough; there was no use in denying fate any longer. He turned back, crossing to the stallion again with the sword in his hand.
Imperius blocked his path suddenly. “Navarre, don’t be a fool! This chance will never come again!”
Navarre looked at him bleakly. “You’re right, old man. The Mass will be over soon. If Phillipe has done his job, I can kill the Bishop now—or never.” He raised his arm, and the hawk flew from Imperius’s wrist to his own. He pushed past the monk to the stallion’s side. Reaching into a saddlebag, he took out a small leather hood and jesses. He fitted the hood over the bird’s head. The hawk cried out, suddenly blind, and dug her talons more deeply into his gauntlet for support.
Navarre turned back to the monk. “If the Mass ends peacefully and the cathedral bells begin to toll again—you will know I have failed.”
“And . . . if I hear the warning bells?” Imperius asked.
“Either way—I’m a dead man.”
“And . . . what then?” Imperius said carefully.
Navarre walked back to him, carrying the hawk; he handed him the jesses and Isabeau’s dagger. “Take her life,” he said. “Make it quick and painless.”
Imperius drew back, appalled. “I can’t do that,” he whispered.
“Don’t, then!” Navarre said furiously. “Let her live without me, and damn her to a half-life of eternal pain and misery!”
Imperius stared at him, stunned by the realization that the end had finally come, in spite of all his prayers, in spite of everything he had tried to do to stop it.
Navarre looked up at the clouds, and back at him again. “Have you ever considered, old man, that this was what God intended all along?” He handed the hawk to Imperius and turned away abruptly. Crossing to the stallion, he reached into a saddlebag again and pulled out his captain’s helmet. He touched the golden wings briefly with his fingertips before he settled the helmet onto his head. Then he drew out Isabeau’s blue silk dress, which he had carried with him for so long, a futile promise. Within its folds he found the lock of her hair that he had kept as well. He tore a strip of fragile cloth from the dress’s hem; he tied the ribbon of cloth gently about the ringlet of her hair. And then he bound it to his left arm, next to his heart. He swung up into the saddle. Turning Goliath, he rode out of the alley without looking back.
Behind him, the hawk gave an anguished shriek as she sensed his departure. Navarre winced, feeling as if his heart were being torn out of him. He reached the alley end and turned into the street, heading for the cathedral.
Standing alone in the alley, Imperius bowed his head as Navarre disappeared. Remembering that this was the holy day of confession and repentance, he crossed himself and murmured, “Oh, Holy Father, deliver me from my sins, and these good people from the curse which afflicts them. You have seen fit to bring us all this far, and we humbly place our lives in the infinite mercy of Your everlasting grace.”
C H A P T E R
Nineteen
The congregation of clergy stood in place at last in the great cathedral hall. A thousand small rustlings and shiftings filled the expectant silence as two acolytes slowly pushed the great doors shut. The Bishop’s bodyguard fitted a heavy key into the gold-plated lock.
The recitation of the Mass began. As Phillipe heard the cathedral’s hall fill with chanting voices, he pushed upward on the grating again. This time it did not budge. Startled, he sank back, peering up through the opening. A pair of knobby legs clad in bright red stockings, a cassock, and a walking stick were all that he could see. The Bishop’s secretary was standing on top of the grate.
Phillipe pressed back against the sloping wall, his fist tapping nervously on his drawn-up knees. How long had it been? How long could he stand to hang on here, waiting for this oaf to grow restless and move? He wiped his face with a grimy hand. What if Navarre was already on his way?
Silently he drew his dagger and pushed the blade up through the grate. Twisting it, he pricked the Bishop’s secretary on the foot. One red-stockinged leg rose out of sight as the secretary scratched his ankle. The foot settled back onto the grating. Phillipe jabbed again, harder.
The secretary hopped aside with a yelp of pain and horror. Another pair of feet, sandals and a friar’s white robe, rushed to his aid. “Sir! What is it?” the friar gasped.
“Rats!” the secretary said shrilly. He drove his walking stick down through the grate. Phillipe jerked back as it missed his face by a fraction of an inch.
“A scandal,” the friar murmured. Phillipe listened to the sound of retreating footsteps with a sigh of profound relief. He looked up once more; his view of the rose window was completely clear. He pushed the grating aside and wriggled through into the unoccupied side chapel.
Crouching down, he looked toward the great doors at the rear of the cathedral, and frowned. It was too far away—he would never get that far unnoticed, looking and smelling the way he did. He glanced around the chapel nervously; his eyes fell on a coarse white robe and a pile of baskets left in a corner by some hurried acolyte. He slipped quietly across the room and pulled the robe on over his muddy rags.
Picking up a basket, he drifted out into the gathering of clergy who stood patiently in the back of the crowded hall. Keeping his head bowed and holding the basket before him, he murmured softly, “Alms for the poor . . . God is watching . . . alms for the poor . . .” Most of the clerics recoiled from him in mild disgust, but one priest flipped a coin into his empty basket.
Phillipe started in pleasant surprise. “Thank you, Father,” he muttered. “Make a note of him, Lord . . . Alms for the poor . . .” He moved on toward the door, biting the coin speculatively.
Outside in the square, Marquet looked up at the cloud-filled sky, trying without success to guess the hour, and whether it would rain. He sat with his troop before the cathedral, waiting. Navarre still had not come; and yet he was certain that his enemy was in the city. He felt it in his bones.
He glanced down as another of his guardsmen rode into the square to report on their search of the city. He returned the guard’s salute impatiently.
“All the men have reported in, sir. Except Jouvet.” The guard looked away uneasily. “We . . . can’t find him.”
Marquet frowned as his own unease increased tenfold. He turned to his lieutenant, a youth he had promoted into Jehan’s position because he knew how to obey orders—and because he had never served under Navarre. “No one enters or leaves this cathedral until the Mass is ended, Lieutenant,” he ordered. “You’re in command now.” The lieutenant saluted eagerly. Marquet turned his back on the young officer’s enthusiasm and rode out of the square at a gallop.
Marquet cantered his stallion through the streets, searching rooftops and doorways and alleys as he rode toward the place where Jouvet had last been seen.
And as Marquet rode away from the cathedral square, Navarre turned another corner; that much closer to his meeting with destiny.
Inside the cathedral, Phillipe wove his way through the last of the clergy at the bac
k of the hall. He slipped quietly behind a pillar, looking toward the heavy doors. Beside his knee on the pillar’s base a stone wolf stood on its hind legs, peering eternally at something above his head. Phillipe looked up curiously, and saw the hawk carved on the pillar’s capital, its wings spread for flight, frozen in stone. Glancing away down the hall, he realized that all the columns in the vast cathedral were ringed with wolves gazing up in eternal longing at flightless hawks. Holy-day pennants of black-and-white silk splashed with crimson hung suspended before the pillars—the colors of the Church, the colors of life and death.
He shuddered, and looked back again at the heavy cathedral doors, his face set with determination. The carven faces of nameless saints watched him silently from niches along the walls. For the first time he actually saw the lock that he was here to open—gleaming gold, as massive and as solid-looking as the doors themselves. And just as exposed. He let his head fall back against the pillar, shutting his eyes for a long moment. Then, bending down, he pulled his dagger from his boot again with a sigh of resignation. Behind him, the entire congregation knelt down in a responsive prayer. Crouched low, he darted across the open space to the door. He stuck the dagger’s tip into the keyhole and began to feel for the mechanism inside.
Meanwhile, Marquet rode slowly down another city street, nearing the place where Jouvet had last been seen. He glanced into one more of the endless alleyways as he passed; suddenly pulled his horse up short, frowning, and turned in. At its end he found the abandoned cart that had caught his eye, and the dead body of Jouvet. He dismounted and yanked the arrow from the dead man’s chest. He studied the fletching and the bloody tip. Then he vaulted back into his saddle and galloped out of the alleyway, heading toward the cathedral, his gut feeling now a deadly certainty.