by Robert Adams
The accused murderess was overjoyed when Millicent expressed a desire to drive her out to the midnight meeting scheduled by the Ademians' attorney near the Duck Lake in Byrd Park. This involvement of the girl in extortion would be another unexpected club to hold over her head when the time came for threats.
Millicent's Ford Victoria had been parked in the agreed-upon spot for barely five minutes, lights out but engine purring softly, when another vehicle pulled in behind and cut its own lights. Evelyn's hand was already on the door handle when a second vehicle came up from behind and pulled in to park in front of the Ford.
"Sumpthin's fishy 'about thishere!" she snapped. "Git us out'n here, Milly!"
It looked to Evelyn as if Millicent tried, but ineptly. She first ground the gears, then let up on the clutch at an inopportune moment and the engine stalled. When she tried to restart it, she flooded it. Seeing men emerging from the two cars, knowing that she lacked the wind to outrun them, Evelyn used her right elbow to depress the door lock. Then she began searching through her commodious handbag for the big switchblade and her brass knuckles, the blackjack, too, though she wasn't sure she'd remembered to bring it along on this occasion.
But before she could lay hands to any of her arsenal, there was a clicking and a big, burly man had opened the locked door with a key, grasped her upper arm in a bone-crushing grip, and jerked her out of the car as if her big body had been that of a rag doll. In the dim glow of the Ford's courtesy lights, Evelyn could see the squat, powerful man's face and she felt real fear. She could sense without conscious thought that this man despised her and that, furthermore, he was every bit as calculatedly cruel as was she herself.
"Give me some trouble," he softly rumbled from his barrel chest. "Please, give me some trouble. They done told me I can't hurt you none, 'less you give me some trouble."
Evelyn found herself unable to take her gaze off his face—a face scarred by the effects of knuckles and sharp knives—his thin lips that barely moved as he spoke, his black eyes that were as flat and expressionless as those of some deadly serpent. She only half felt her bladder empty, soaking the crotch of her slacks and then beginning to spread the hot moisture down her thighs. From close behind, she heard a voice that sounded a lot like Millie's, but harder, far more mature.
"Better get that bag away from her, one of you. I took the knucks and a six-inch switchblade out of it before we left, but could be she has other little playthings hidden in it that I didn't find. She's as bad as they come, worse than most I've ever seen. Don't trust her an inch, I'm warning you."
Evelyn could see lights moving along the drive far, far over on the other side of the lake. Opening her mouth, she screeched, "Help! Help! Poleece! Helaarrgghh! Stop It! Aarrgghh, you killin' me!"
But the pain not only continued, it intensified, and at some point in her unbearable agony, consciousness left her and she slid gratefully into the painless nothingness of darkness.
CHAPTER THE ELEVENTH
Thanks principally to Baròn Melchoro, bales of documents and correspondence had been captured at the palace of the grand duke, along with selected works of art and a goodly quantity of gold. All of the voyage back to England, the baròn, Don Diego, and Sir Ali had spent the best part of their time in sorting the paperwork, reading and rendering or at least dictating renderings of translations or synopses.
Information gleaned from this work was most significant, of as much value as the minted gold, or more. They learned for one thing that London had now been as good as written off by the Holy See. For another, they learned that High King Brian VIII's archenemy, King Tamhas of Munster, had been or soon would be reinforced by Rome to the tune of a company or two of mercenaries and a famous mercenary captain, one Timoteo, the Duke of Bolgia, secured by the Holy See to endeavor to hammer the Munster troops into a true army along modern lines.
Upon hearing this last, Sir Calum and Sir Liam had both snorted derisively. "The only certain sure outcome of that," declared Sir Calum, "is that the whole host of career galloglaiches and bonaghts are going to be a-march to north and east and west out of the Kingdom of Munster and straight into the employ of King Brian or any other who conducts war and leads armies in the old style of Ireland rather than in the new and alien manner of an Italian captain. Mark my words, Tamhas na Muma will soon have no retainers save those bound to him by blood, by honor, or by Papal gold."
The papers in another batch made it abundantly clear that there would be, could be no Crusader activity expected from Spain in the foreseeable future. The holy Christian Caliph of Granada was already at war with his most Catholic majesty of Spain in all save name. And in the New World, on the northern continent of that world, Spanish forces and a coalition of indios were making war against the French and another coalition of indios.
The Kingdom of Hungary seemed to be about to plunge into a civil war again, with various of its neighbors waiting hungrily along its borders like jackals, hoping to snatch bits and pieces of territory when the time seemed ripe.
The French and the Burgunds were snarling a little more loudly and viciously than normal and had even engaged in several skirmishes at odd points along their borders. The French were also picking at the borders of Savoy, and the Holy Roman Emperor, Savoy's ally and patron, was known to have issued to the King of France the same threat he had issued to the Holy See last year.
The King of Naples was consolidating his hold on Sicily in the face of a sometimes stiff resistance, and he seemed to have as his next objective the Grand Duchy of Sardinia, which would surely plunge him into a war with Genoa. Since both Naples and Genoa enjoyed special relationships of alliance with Rome, which might be expected to attempt to mediate a row between two of the Roman allies, the letter noted that that particular time might be an ideal one for Catalonia to pick for the seizing of Sardinia and Sicily for her own, as had been long planned.
Another letter discussed the feasibility of having the Duke of Valencia assassinated, then speedily marching in sufficient force to seize the duchy and city for the Catalan Crown, while a fleet set sail from Barcelona to occupy the Valencia-owned Balearic Islands, as well.
Bass shook his head. "This King Jose of Catalonia is a damned acquisitive bastard, isn't he?"
Melchoro nodded grimly. "There were but a bare handful of Catalan knights on the Crusade last year and the year before. Now one knows why, eh? And this Duque de Valencia, gentlemen, is King Jose's own half-brother."
A letter from yet another batch urged strong and concerted action against Malta. It seemed that the Maltese, taking advantage of the unsettled conditions, had commenced raiding the southern and the western coasts of Sicily and were offering slaves captured in those areas at far below the prices agreed upon by the slave traders' guilds. Bass silently wondered how and why such a missive had been where it had been found—in a small port on the Bay of Biscay.
The voyage back to England was quick, quiet, and uneventful. The few sails that hove into view on the distant horizon made haste to disappear from the view of so many warships as speedily as they could.
On arrival at Thames-mouth, Bass had the sealed casks containing the reams of documents and letters and the king's share of the loot of Gijon-port rowed over to Sir Paul Bigod's flagship and keeping, then set sail for his own port with his personal fleet, now grown to seven ships. The first phase of his commission was now completed. Next would be the Irish expedition.
But arrived at Norwich, he found another messenger awaiting him.
The two men met in the dead of night in a place that few if any of the superstition-ridden folk of this world and time would have willingly frequented at such an hour. Their two horses placidly munched at the grasses growing around the canted or tumbled ancient gravestones while the riders squatted on their heels and conversed in a language that no other man or woman within two thousand miles could have comprehended.
The two men were much alike; not only did they wear similar styles of clothing and weapons, but their almos
t identical physiologies and physiognomies indicated an affinity at least of race if not of family. Indeed, the only obvious difference was that one seemed somewhat older than the other.
"It is something that might well go into records and be noted by those who would use that information ill. Far too many persons witnessed that particular projection. Many are persons of note in their world and time, and their elimination would cause even further disruption, cause more records to be put down, and some future examiner might correlate the oddities, to our detriment. This is why I arranged for Foster Bass to be summoned here once more so soon. I knew that you surely would accompany him, and I need your help in setting this matter aright."
The elder squatted in silence for a moment, then said, "Yes, I agree, younger one. They must be returned to the exact place and time of projection. Do we use our projector or that one brought down here from Whyffler Hall?"
The younger shook his head. "Most of that more primitive device has been disassembled and bits of it scattered from the archepiscopal palace to the Royal Manufactory of Arms and Gunpowder. No, we must use our own."
The elder shrugged. "Probably better that we use a sophisticated instrument anyway. But we must use exceeding care in making the adjustments and reckoning the settings, for we'd but exacerbate matters were we to put them down say two hours early and ten yards out in the river. And we must make certain that they all are in one place, one small spot, with their instruments, when we activate our projector."
"They are all together in one suite of rooms on the archepiscopal estate now being used by Webster Buddy. I have carefully plotted the coordinates of the building, the rooms, and the elevation, elder one. When shall we do it?"
The elder shrugged again. "Why not now? I assume you brought the projector with you, as usual?"
Evelyn Mangold awakened to complete darkness and the familiar sensation of being in a moving vehicle. Her wrists were handcuffed and her ankles were tied. Her mouth was filled with some kind of cloth, and she could feel tape pulling painfully at her lips, chin, and cheeks. Movement of her eyebrows made it clear that more tape had been used to secure pads over her eyes. She decided after a while that she was lying on the floor of a truck or a station wagon, traveling at speed over a smooth, paved road, and she felt as if she were wrapped in canvas or something like it.
From somewhere up ahead she could hear a soft rumble of men's voices, but they were not speaking English and she could understand not a single word of the three-way conversation. A woman's voice once said a few words in the same strange tongue, but it was not Millicent's or any other she could recall having heard.
Abruptly, she felt the vehicle slow, then make a turn that sent her body sliding over to her right to slam against the side of the compartment in which she lay. This new road was not at all smooth, and her flesh and bone recorded each bump and rut and wrinkle and pothole of the ill-kept surface. Another turn propelled her over to the opposite side, and the following stretch of road seemed to be no better than the preceding one.
"Christ Almighty, Kogh," said Mariya, in Armenian, "why don't you or Papa hire a scraper to make these roads at least passable for something more modern than a Model T or a jeep?"
"What for, big sister? We only come out here to visit the graves, anymore, and then we come by chopper," replied Kogh Ademian. "Besides, we'd have to buy a damned scraper, bad as this drainage has gotten out here, and keep a permanent operator for it. You recall how smooth these roads were when we buried Marge?"
"Have you decided where best to keep her?" asked Boghos.
"Yeah, we got a place all ready for her nibs," affirmed Bagrat Ademian. "The old smokehouse is as solid as it was the day that whoever built it built it, and it must be a hundred years old if it's a day. Me and Kogh, we put a chemical toilet in there last weekend and a steel army cot, chained to a staple in the wall, too. We can put a bucket of water in there with her. There's no lights, of course, it don't smell too good, and there may be a few rats living under the floor, too. But she'll never get out of there, and nobody that did get clear back in here would hear her with the door shut. And if she should happen to croak on us . . . well, the river's not far away down the back road."
"Don't even joke about such a thing, Bagrat," snapped Boghos. "She looks to be a tough, resilient woman, and she's survived at least one total drug withdrawal recently, while she was serving her jail time; there's no reason why she shouldn't survive another under my supervision. The only thing that might kill her is plain, outright abuse. And that will not happen, you hear me? I'll not condone torture of any sort. Besides, it would not achieve our purposes, as it might well leave traceable scars."
At long last, the bumping ceased as the vehicle came to a halt. Doors opened and then slammed, feet crunched gravel, a lock clicked, and a tailgate came down with a shrill squeal of metal on metal. Hands grasped the sack and dragged it and its living contents out to thump upon the ground, bringing a moan from within the sack.
Evelyn Mangold felt herself pulled onto her numb, bound feet, felt the top of the canvas sack loosened, gaped wide, then pulled down the length of her. Still bound and manacled as she was, she was afraid to try to move lest she fall again to the hard, stony ground. She heard another car drive up and come to a stop nearby, the subsequent opening and closing of doors, muted conversations. Her captors seemed to number five, six, maybe seven, at least one of them a woman, all of them probably foreigners, since she had heard not a single word of English since she had regained consciousness. She felt herself trembling all over, inside and out, she knew that she needed a fix . . . bad.
Then she began to tremble in earnest when a horrifyingly familiar bass rumble of a voice spoke close beside her. "Now we can do this the easy way or the hard way, cooze. I can take off them cuffs and cut your feet loose, then strip you nekkid, then take you into where you gonna stay for a while and take out the gag and uncover your eyes. Do what you told and won't nothing be done to you; you won't be raped or nothing. Ain't any man here is low enough to stick his wang in no ugly slab of meat and bone like you. Or," he continued, now with a note of keen anticipation in his voice, "you can give me some trouble, try to, anyhow. Then I can leave you chained up and tied and I can cut your clothes off before I do anything else . . . 'course, I'll prob'ly take some of your horny hide, too. Then I can do what I done to you back in Richmond, by the Duck Lake. That was fun, for me. How'd you like it?"
Even blinded as she was, Evelyn still could see in her mind's eye those cold, black, reptilian eyes. Tears of terror soaking into the gauze eye patches, she shook her head violently from side to side, her body's crying need for the drugs to which it had become reaccustomed completely forgotten in her frenzy of fear of this terrible man and the agonies his huge hands could so easily inflict on her quivering flesh.
Meekly as any lamb, she allowed herself to be divested of every shred of clothing, not even moving to lay the goose flesh raised on her skin by the chill, night air. Then one of those big hands took her arm and led her barefoot over the coarse gravel, through a swath of cold-leaved, knee-high grass or weeds, up two icy stone or brick or concrete steps, and pushed her through a low doorway into a place with a wooden floor.
After six or seven short steps across the floor, Evelyn was pushed down to sit on what felt like a bunk and admonished not to move. When a cold, metallic something had been fastened around one of her ankles, the gag and the eye patches were removed, and she found herself sitting on a war-surplus steel bunk and bare mattress, with a GI blanket folded at one end.
The walls of the hut or whatever it was were constructed of thick, old-looking logs and, like the broad floorboards underfoot, were greasy to the touch. Into one of the nearby togs, two three-inch steel staples had been hammered. The bunk was chained to one of them. A much longer chain and a flat steel ring secured her right ankle to the other.
Across the width of the long, narrow space was a chemical toilet of sheet metal with a roll of toilet paper sitting atop
its closed lid. Just beyond the foot of the bunk a small galvanized bucket sat on the floor with a chipped enamel dipper submerged in the water that almost filled it to the brim.
Two men, their faces unidentifiable under the nylon stockings they had pulled over their heads, were up in the rafters, just finishing tacking down an electric wire at one end of which was dangling a bare bulb of at least a hundred and fifty watts. The yellow-white glare hurt her eyes after so long in her blindfolded darkness.
Then another man in a stocking mask came in. This one had a stethoscope hanging from his neck and a black physician's bag in one hand. At sight of the bag and the thought of all the blissful pharmaceuticals she could imagine it to contain, her need for drugs briefly overrode her fear of the man who sat beside her and the pain he had proved capable of inflicting on her.
"Doctor?" She spoke fast, frantically. "Doctor, you gotta do suthin' to help me! I got this terrible condition, see, an' I need—I gotta have—suthin' soon. Some Demerol or suthin' like that an'—"
The newcomer just laughed coldly. "We all know precisely what your 'condition' is, you murdering bitch. You're a drug addict. I may eventually give you injections of drugs, but whether or not I do will be entirely dependent on how cooperative you are with us. Right now, I'm here to give you a physical examination; we wouldn't want you to die on us, you know. You three get out of here. I don't conduct physicals in public."
The man beside Evelyn arose, saying, "I sure hopes you gives the doctor some troubles. You're fun to hurt."
Some ten minutes later, Boghos opened the door clumsily. A blood-soaked handkerchief was wrapped around one of his hands. "I suppose we're going to need the gentleman's service again, in here. She snatched the bag, someway. There're no drugs in it, of course, but there are some instruments, one of which she just used on me."