* * *
Shortly, Baldaccio—who had largely ignored him since their conversation—presented himself at de la Mothe’s rooms. He was furious: not at de la Mothe, apparently, but at LeBarre. He came into the sitting room and reclined against the couch without so much as a courtesy.
“What’s wrong, Dottore?”
“What’s wrong? What’s wrong? This,” he said, reaching inside his doublet and drawing out a key at the end of a fine silver chain. “I was given this by my patron to pass on to the warden for his keeping.”
“A key.”
“A very special key,” Baldaccio said importantly. “It has to do with the prisoner. I offered it to the warden and he laughed at me. Directly in my face, if you can imagine it! ‘No,’ LeBarre said to me. ‘You keep it, you’ll have more need of it than shall I.’”
“And?”
“And then, when I informed him that I had no use of it at all because I planned to take my leave and return to my laboratory in Turin, he laughed again. ‘No, no,’ he said: ‘you won’t be going anywhere. Your place is here, and here you will stay.’”
De la Mothe smiled, and considered the possibility of laughing in Baldaccio’s face. “So you have somehow become a prisoner here as well? Why?”
“To attend to whatever medical needs that the prisoner might require. You shall be his cupbearer, and I his leech, I suppose. We will become fast friends.”
I doubt it, de la Mothe thought to himself, but he said, “Do you think it is time that we meet this prisoner?”
“I am not to be permitted,” Baldaccio answered. “But you should go. Yes, indeed, monsieur: I think it is time that you learn just why it is you—both of us—are to be confined here.”
“Where is he?”
“In the Sighing Tower. He has been given a very nice accommodation.” Baldaccio looked around de la Mothe’s rooms. “Nicer than this, in any case.”
* * *
After shooing the Dottore out of his rooms and locking the door, de la Mothe made his way down to the courtyard and across to the tower in question. It was an older part of Miolans; two of the escorts he had seen earlier were guarding the entrance, but on his approach they stood aside, allowing him to pass through the arch and onto a circular stairway.
He was a dozen steps up when he first heard the noises: the mountain breeze passed through slits in the walls, making a sound that was soft at first, but grew louder as he ascended—and, indeed, it sounded very much like the discontented sighing of some unquiet soul. It was eerie, but he supposed that he might become used to it after a while.
At last he reached the uppermost floor of the Sighing Tower, and there he found a barred door. He opened it and found himself in what was, indeed, a comfortable room: there were plain, but well-made tapestries hung on the walls, a thick carpet on the floor, a table with two chairs, and an ornately-carved prie-dieu in the corner. The robed figure he had seen in the courtyard stood near a small, high window, facing away from him, the hood of the robe pulled over his head.
“Monsieur?” he said. “Allow me to present myself—I am—”
“I know who you are, Monsieur de la Mothe,” the man said. The voice sounded vaguely familiar, but it echoed strangely.
“But I do not know who you are.”
“Nor, I expect, is this intended.” The man turned to face him, and slowly lowered the hood of his robe.
For a moment de la Mothe was struck dumb, unable to find words—an inexcusable situation for a proper courtier. Before him stood a man in what might be the garb of a monk, unremarkable except that from the neck up his face was invisible: upon his head was a metal shell, like a helmet with a full face mask, secured just below the chin by a heavy lock. Only his eyes, and the smallest part of his mouth, were visible.
Suddenly he knew what the key was for.
“Your patron, Monsieur de la Mothe, and my captor, has no intention of having you or anyone else know who I am. I expect that we are being spied upon at this very moment.” The masked man laughed for a moment and looked away, then focused again on him. “I have been instructed that upon my life I am not to reveal my identity to you or to any other person, and that you are to be the only person I shall see or communicate with. We will become well acquainted with each other, monsieur, though we shall only talk of trivialities.”
“Why…this is heinous, monsieur! This punishment is cruel and—”
“By comparison to those things that happen some levels below us, monsieur, I expect that this is scarcely a jest.” He reached his hands—old and weathered, but hands clearly not accustomed to labor—from the sleeves of his robe, and placed them on the iron that encircled his head. “My captor—of whom I am also enjoined not to speak—caused this to be locked upon my head based on an inspiration from some up-timer book. It was decided that merely killing me was sinful, but keeping me prisoner where no one could look upon my face was more humane. Up-timers,” he added, snorting, and lowering his hands to his sides. “I commend them for their civilized ways.”
“I find this a terrible punishment,” de la Mothe said. “No man should suffer such a fate. I shall complain to the warden.”
“He has no control over this, Monsieur de la Mothe. Nor do I. Nor, I fear, do you. We are all prisoners here…for better or worse.” He folded his hands in front of him. “I think we should all become accustomed to it.”
2
Le Massif Central
Southeastern France
There were times that Terrye Jo Tillman felt pangs of regret over the change in her fortunes. A few months ago she had been settled as the head telegrapher for the king of France—well, the man who claimed to be, and had been crowned king of France, Gaston d’Orleans; she had been well-fed, well-clothed and had a nice apartment and workspace on the Rue San Antoine in Paris, good contacts and good prospects.
Now she was sleeping rough, eating in an army mess—a well-equipped one, she had to admit, but still—and working with inferior equipment.
And, to be perfectly frank, on the run from that crowned king. And under the command of a woman who had once been her nemesis: Sherrilyn Maddox, former P.E. instructor at Grantville High. But that, she thought to herself, was a few hundred years in the future—one that never would come to pass in this timeline.
Terrye Jo had seen what dwelling on the past, and becoming swamped with regret over what might have been, could do; it still hung over her dad—though at least they were talking, since the not-so-chance meeting in Reims during the coronation. She wasn’t going to let that happen to her: being out with Maddox’s Rangers beat spending any time in His Majesty’s prisons in Paris—which would have happened, but for Colonel Erik Haakonsen Hand. The future was whatever came, and whatever she made of it. Whatever had happened was in the past and there was nothing she could do to change it. Maddox’s Rangers had escorted the up-timers employed by the USE embassy to the French border, in accordance with the royal decree banishing all up-timers from the kingdom; then they’d found their way back, equipped with a small portable radio set. At night she set it up and listened, hoping to hear Georges—GJBF—but she never picked up his “fist” or heard his call sign; she wondered if he was in some prison, or worse, for associating with up-timers…or if he had his old job back, and good riddance to the up-timer.
They’d been making good time through fairly wild country, stopping at night after long days’ rides. After eating, most of the troop settled down to sleep, but she’d usually set up the radio and listen to what she could find.
It was on the fourth night that she heard a familiar “fist”—someone she knew: Henri Durant, one of her protégés from the Castello del Valentino. There wasn’t much to it: a brief chat with Sylvie, his sister, who—she gathered from the conversation—was still in Turin, while he was elsewhere. It took her a few nights more to find out where, and when she did, it was troubling.
Henri was at Miolans, the prison in the mountains between Turin and Lyon—the place with dungeo
ns named Hell and Purgatory and some other things. He wasn’t a prisoner, as far as she could tell—but he complained about some important figure who was. There was no name for this big shot, but there was another name that she heard that finally made her mention it the following morning to Sherrilyn.
It was already chilly even in late August, and she could see her breath as she sat on a fallen log and pulled on her boots. They didn’t look as handsome as when she’d had them made in Paris, but at least the cordonnier had made them well.
“Daydreaming again?”
She looked up and saw Sherrilyn Maddox standing in front of her, arms crossed, a faint smile on her face. At Grantville High, that would usually mean laps on the track. But there was no track here in the mountains, and she was skilled help—and a fellow up-timer.
She didn’t answer, but finished pulling on her boot and adjusting the fit. She stood up, picking up her hat and putting it on; the jaunty feather had been lost somewhere.
“You’re up early,” Sherrilyn said. “I usually have to kick you out of your bedroll.”
“I wanted to tell you about something I heard last night late.” Terrye Jo smiled. “Didn’t want to mess up your beauty sleep, and I know you’re up early.”
“Something you heard?”
“A name.”
“Huh. Well, breakfast is cooking, but let’s take a little walk.”
“Sure.”
They followed a path that led toward a clearing in the trees, a small promontory that overlooked a beautiful valley, where the first leaves were just beginning to change.
There were some flat rocks; Sherrilyn dropped onto one and Terrye Jo sat on the other. “All right, what did you hear?”
“I told you that my old friend Henri Durant was at Miolans. He was on the air last night and he mentioned that there was an important prisoner there, and there was also another VIP; last night he used a name.”
“Someone important?”
“Someone named de la Mothe.”
“Phillippe? Phillippe de la Mothe-Haudencourt? Skinny guy, big nose?”
“There wasn’t a description, or a first name, but Henri seemed to think he was someone important.”
“He is. The marshal had to leave him behind at Lyon and has regretted it ever since. A very sentimental man, our Marshal Turenne.” Sherrilyn stood up and walked around, stamping the cold ground. “I thought I might run into him while we were in Paris, but it’s a big city. And now he’s in prison…”
“Miolans isn’t just a prison, Sherrilyn. It’s…”
She had been with Gaston when she last saw Miolans. She remembered it clearly, especially the sounds from below when the door was unlocked. The sections had names like “Hell” and “Purgatory”…When the warden had been hesitant to permit her to tour, Gaston assured him that up-time had things far worse—and at that, the French king-designate, as he then was, was probably right. De la Mothe had been waiting at Lyon when the royal party reached it; Terrye Jo hadn’t seen him, but word had come how angry Gaston had been that only de la Mothe, and not Turenne’s army, had been there to receive him.
Sherrilyn was waiting for her to finish the sentence, but it must have been clear from Terrye Jo’s expression that she’d already said plenty.
“We have to do something,” Sherrilyn said. Her face was set in a grim expression. “We need to get him out of there.”
“That’s not what our orders are,” Terrye Jo answered. “The marshal is expecting us to be in Marseilles in a few weeks.”
“This is a side trip. All we have to do is ride up there, grab him, and boogie. We should be able to manage it, right? This prison is in the middle of nowhere.”
“It’s a fortress. It’s not very heavily guarded, if I remember, but it’s still got defenses—”
“And we’re as well armed and as well trained as anyone in Europe. All we need is a plan, and I’m reasonably sure we can come up with one.”
“I thought we didn’t go cowboy anymore.”
“Funny, you know, that’s a word in French now? When someone goes off on their own they call it le cowboi. I love how we’re messing with down-time languages. We don’t exactly go cowboy anymore, but this is a special circumstance.”
“Sherrilyn, in the space of a few months I’ve come to really respect you. The PE teacher thing—that’s pretty far away now, and I’m glad to have a chance to do something rather than get sent home. But Miolans isn’t in France, it’s in another country—it’s in Savoy. Don’t you think this might cause, I don’t know, an international incident?”
“Isn’t the duchess of Savoy Gaston’s sister? It’s all in the family, isn’t it?”
“Another. Country.”
“You worry too much, Terrye Jo.”
“Are you planning to let the marshal know about this little side trip? Or doesn’t he worry about this either?”
“Not exactly. But if we do this right, we get in, grab Philippe—”
“Philippe?”
“The Sieur de la Mothe. Phillippe blah blah Haudonsomething de la Mothe.”
“I didn’t know you were on a first name basis.”
For a moment, the PE teacher scowl flashed across Sherrilyn’s face, then she smiled. “Okay. He’s a good guy, Terrye Jo. I don’t want to see him in this prison, and if we do this right, all we have to do is get in, grab him, and get out before it becomes an international incident.”
“What about Marshal Turenne?”
“It’s easier to get forgiveness than permission. Philippe’s a valuable guy, and is in tight with the authorities in Marseilles. The marshal is going to need help from the locals, especially if the Spanish actually are thinking about invading from there. I don’t think he’s going to turn him away, or tell me I shouldn’t have done it.”
“I still think it’s a bad idea. This sounds a lot like a Wrecking Crew operation.”
“I guess it does…look, sometimes it’s necessary to draw outside the lines a little bit. Turenne can’t order me to do this for the exact reason that it could be an international incident.” She took off her hat and ran a hand through her hair. “You’re right, I’m not completely sure about it, but I’m mostly sure.
“Did I ever tell you that I almost had to do a little le cowboi in Paris? I heard that you might have been arrested, and I was ready to go bust you out of prison. They talked me out of it.”
“No,” Terrye Jo said. “You never told me that.”
“Well, it’s true. An up-timer held against her will—in a down-timer prison—is never good. In a country where up-timers are marked as the enemy it would be even worse. Especially for a woman. But it’s the same with Philippe de la Mothe. He’s friends with folks that are opposed to King Gaston, so he’s probably being treated like crap.
“That’s getting me worked up.”
“Copy that,” Terrye Jo said. “And I’ll go along with whatever you decide—I’m guessing that the Rangers will go wherever you lead. I just…have my reservations, that’s all.”
“Until our dustup in Rome last year, I’d say, ‘what could possibly go wrong?’ But I know that a lot of things could go wrong. If we’re going to accomplish this, I’m going to need to know everything you remember about Miolans….”
3
Miolans, Savoy
Henri Durant pulled off the headphones and carefully set them on the worktable beside the radio apparatus. He tried to rub the sleep from his eyes; the pendulum clock on the shelf above, kept carefully wound, showed 5:25—he would be on duty for nearly a half hour more, until his replacement, a young Savoyard mechanic named Gilles, arrived for duty.
Having a novice in the radio tower during the early part of the day was for the best. The most clear reception was at night; it was when the radio waves were full of telegraphers and the occasional voice, heard crackling and far away, speaking Italian or French or English or Amideutsch, talking about the most interesting things or, more often, nothing at all. The world of the airwaves had beco
me like a vast town square, squawking and complaining and shouting…and listening.
It seemed like a hundred years ago that Mademoiselle Tillman had come to Turin with the other up-timers, to set up and operate Duke Victor’s fine new radio. He and his sister Sylvie had been just servants then, working in Castel Valentino’s spacious stables…a worthy employment, but no more than that. She had taken them both on as apprentices, first to work when their usual day’s work was done, and then as part of her permanent staff on the condition that they learn the arts and skills of the mysterious, magical device that talked and listened to the world. Then the prince, Monsieur, had come and taken Mademoiselle Tillman away, to be on his royal staff in Paris—but instead of simply returning to the stables, Sylvie had been promoted to the head position, and Henri had been sent to Miolans, where His Grace had ordered a new radio to be built.
Henri talked to Sylvie every night: a few minutes of talk about the most interesting things…or, more often, nothing at all.
Sighing, he donned the earphones once again and settled himself in his chair. He turned the great circular disk to its lowest position, and began to slowly move it up through its range, pausing at carefully marked frequencies with known broadcasters.
There was quite a bit of regular traffic even this close to the end of the night, though many had signed off. They were mostly French and Amideutsch speakers, though he did listen in on an interesting exchange between two Spanish telegraphers—he could follow it mostly because they were halting and inaccurate with a lot of QSMs—unusual, since Spain was well-known for its aversion to up-time technology. It was something to do with what was going on in Rome.
It was engrossing enough that he did not hear footsteps behind him and jumped when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He practically tore the headphones from his head and whirled around, only to see Gilles—the lumbering, unsubtle man in the flesh—start back.
“I didn’t mean to startle you,” Gilles said. He gestured toward the high window, where early morning light was already filtering in. “The lauds bell has rung.”