Roman

by Heather Grothaus

  Roman kept rolling the map.

  “Hamid and some of his men killed her. They . . . they raped her.” Her voice grew hoarse.

  Roman walked to the door, prepared to take his chances with the tiger outside the cell. Surely the animal could not be more bloodthirsty than this woman.

  “Wait!” she cried, and although Roman did stop, he didn’t turn. He could hear her scramble from the pallet and stumble across the floor toward him.

  “Please,” she said, and he felt a tugging on the back of his robe. “My lord, I beg you: Look at me.”

  He dared a glance over his shoulder and was startled to see that Isra was on her knees behind him, a fold of his habit clenched in both her fists. She stared up at him with wide, pleading eyes, the wet tracks on her cheeks glistening over the indigo and green bruises.

  “Hamid will kill your comrade, Baldwin,” she said in a whispered rush. “If he succeeds, you and your friends will never be free. There is no one else to stop him—Saladin is in Egypt.” She paused, swallowed, inched closer to him on her knees. “I must see that Hamid fails. For Huda. For my mother. I do not believe you are so coldhearted that you could not care.”

  “You don’t know anything about me,” Roman said.

  “I know that you are loyal, and brave. Kind.” Her voice broke on the word, and despite himself, Roman felt a crack appear in his resolve. “I knew it the moment I saw you that night in Damascus, when you came to free your friends. That is why I have come to you. Why I have come all this long way to find you.”

  “Although I am not of any noble class, I find it difficult to accept that your family, your village, would not rise up against such atrocities as a woman and her young daughter so brutally killed.”

  Her mouth turned down even farther and she looked sad enough to dissolve away into the stones. “We had no family. No one in the city would ever come to our aid.”

  “Impossible,” Roman said. “That night in Damascus, you were dressed in the clothes of a wealthy woman, with jewelry on your arms, silk about your head.” He dropped the rolled parchment in his hand before reaching down to jerk his robe from her grasp. “Someone would have helped you.”

  Her support gone, she fell to her palms on the stones and let her head hang there while it seemed a sob tried to fight its way from her throat. She gave a long sniff.

  “No one,” she wept. “There was no one I could turn to save you. You must believe me.”

  Without knowing exactly what he was doing, Roman dropped to one knee before Isra, seizing her arm with his left hand and yanking her upright to her knees.

  “Why?” he gritted between his teeth. “Tell me the truth!”

  Her mouth was pulled wide in either fear or agony—Roman could not tell which—and he wondered if she thought he was going to strike her. The idea of it had never entered his mind, and even he found himself quite shocked at this action of taking physical hold of her.

  “Because I am unclean!” she wailed and then covered her face with both hands as she sobbed.

  Besides Isra’s jagged weeping, it was very quiet in the cell while the meaning of what she’d said sank in on Roman. Stan had been right after all, at least about one thing. Hadn’t Roman himself guessed as much when first she had come upon him in the Damascene alley?

  “Your profession . . .” he began and then stopped. He couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud. “Your mother, as well?”

  Isra nodded into her hands.

  “But the sister you spoke of—surely not she?”

  “No,” she sniffed. She turned on one knee and faced away from him as she gained her feet, pulling out of his now weak hold. She walked to the pallet and withdrew what appeared to be a wadded kerchief from beneath the edge of the thin ticking. After blowing her nose and wiping her face, she took a deep breath. But when she spoke again, she did not face him, instead seeming to prefer to address the blank wall before her.

  “So now you understand why no one cared to help us.”

  It did explain many things to Roman: the abuse of her person he’d witnessed that night in Damascus, how she was able to receive such sensitive information from one of Saladin’s generals, her manner of dress and freedom in the city at night, why no one would raise objections to the murder of her mother or the young girl who was her sister.

  Roman didn’t know what to say to her, didn’t know what to feel as he stood and watched her thin back, the sharpness of her shoulder blades tenting the thin material of the borrowed gown she wore. The roll of her black hair was just visible beneath the hem of white linen over her head.

  She had sold her body to any man who could pay for it. How could he trust that she would not sell him at her first opportunity?

  “If you still cannot believe me,” she began in a husky voice, “tell me now, before you leave me. I will be no further trouble to you or your friends. You shall have no worries that I might lead your enemies to you.”

  “Constantine will never let you leave here alone,” Roman said.

  Isra nodded, and her eyes still seemed to be trained on the kerchief wadded in her hands. “He will have no fear of me after tonight.” She looked over her shoulder at him, and Roman realized that each time he had seen Isra Tak’Ahn, her face had borne the evidence of abuse. Although he knew her bruises would fade, the damage in her eyes was so deep that Roman wondered if anything could heal her.

  Roman frowned and walked across the cell floor toward Isra. When he was two paces from her side, he held out his left hand, palm up.

  “Let me have it.”

  “No,” she whispered. Then she raised her head and looked into Roman’s eyes. “It is the only guarantee of freedom I have. I have no family. No friends. I will not be forced into bondage ever again.”

  “Isra,” he said, “let me have it.”

  She shook her head.

  “You said only moments ago that I was the only person you could turn to; the only person you could trust. Is that true?”

  She nodded only slightly.

  “Show me how much you trust me,” he said and lifted his palm toward her.

  A gold-handled dagger crawled from the wadded folds of the kerchief like a gilded caterpillar from its cocoon, a smooth, polished ruby for an eye. Isra placed the weapon in his palm, the blade pointing back at her, and her fingertips trailed down the beveled metal edge, as if at any moment she would seize the dagger back again.

  Roman closed his hand over the gold hilt and drew it behind his back, out of her sight. He turned and walked back to the cell door, stopping to pick up the discarded map with the same hand that held Isra’s confiscated weapon.

  “Wynn!” he called through the small barred portal. Then he looked back at Isra, who stood just as he had left her: her hands hanging limp at her sides, her shoulders sloped, the corners of her mouth drooping. “A few days,” he said to her. “I’ll send someone to prepare you.”

  The door pushed open and Brother Wynn poked his head through the space, an odiferous cloud preceding his white hair. “Ready, then?”

  “Prepare me for what, my lord?” she asked, and the anxiety in her voice was so heavy that Roman felt a pinch of guilt for leaving her this way. “Will you come again?”

  But he didn’t trust himself to speak and so he only nodded to Wynn and then followed the albino as he backed from the doorway. Roman didn’t look back into the cell as Brother Wynn pulled the door closed.

  “Lock it, if you would,” Roman said. “And keep watch over her if you can. She is . . . distraught.”

  The albino’s eyes met Roman’s, and for the first time, Roman recognized the shrewdness, the deep compassion in Brother Wynn’s oddly colored gaze. “As anyone would be, I’d wager. She’s an exquisite specimen. Holding up remarkably well in spite of her mistreatment.”

  “That she is,” Roman muttered and then headed toward the wide steps that led to the abbey above. To a world of quiet orderliness; of prayerful meditation and clear answers to questions of right and wro
ng; of confession and penance and redemption. None of which would help him or Isra Tak’Ahn now.

  What Roman needed were lessons on deception. Tutorials on disguise and perhaps thievery. Insight into dealing with a fragile woman of questionable background.

  Fortunately for Roman, Fallen Angels Abbey was home to the one man in all the world who could educate him thusly.

  Chapter 5

  At least one week passed. Isra was not quite certain the exact length of time; days and nights seemed to melt together in the dismal dungeon of the abbey, and she herself felt much like one of the albino’s charges while her body continued to heal but her mind grew more frenzied.

  In those long, lonely hours, broken only by her forays into the gallery chaperoned by Brother Wynn and the visits by the brusque, red-haired Maisie Lindsey, Isra wondered whether she would ever see Roman Berg again. He might believe her, but she doubted he trusted her. Perhaps one of the other three men would put an end to her. Or the redhead would slip a poison into the rich red wine she brought every night that seemed to make it easier for Isra to sleep. Maybe it was already poisoned, and one day she would simply not wake up.

  But then why let her linger?

  On what she thought might be the seventh morning since Roman last left her, it was not Maisie Lindsey who came through Isra’s cell door bearing the morning tray but a chestnut-haired woman with a delicate brow and a kind face.

  “Good day,” the woman said with an inquiring smile as she balanced the tray on her shoulder with one hand and pushed the door closed with the other. A well-worn satchel, round with its hidden contents, hung from her crooked elbow. “I do apologize for not calling on you sooner. It was not my wish to delay our acquaintance.”

  Isra backed into the darkest corner of the cell as the woman slid the tray onto the small table and then swung the satchel onto the rumpled pallet. Despite telling herself that she had accepted whatever fate was hers, Isra suddenly had more than a little fear at what the next hour held for her.

  “Hello?” the woman called, cocking her head and leaning to the side, as if she was attempting to peek behind the shadow that hid Isra like a curtain. “I’m Lady Mary Beckham. I’ve brought you something to eat, if you’d care to . . .” She gestured to the table and then stepped back, folding her hands before her waist and waiting.

  “Why have you come instead of the other woman?”

  Mary’s eyebrows rose. “Oh, I—” She held out her open palms. “Didn’t Roman tell you that he would send someone to help prepare you? Maisie is quite the wonderful guardian, but I have a bit more”—she wobbled her hands up and down, as if they were scales, gave a shrug of her shoulder—“understanding of what you will soon be enduring. Roman and my husband thought it would be best if I readied you. I’ve brought some suitable clothes and—”

  “Readied me for what?” Isra interrupted, her heart pounding. The woman seemed very sure of herself. As if there were nothing at all wrong with the situation in which she now found herself. But then again, she was an actual English lady. Isra had never seen a female member of the English nobility before, let alone been locked in a chamber with one.

  Especially one who might be preparing her for execution. Isra had heard that titled people enjoyed very strange diversions.

  Mary Beckham dropped her hands to her sides and looked nonplussed for a moment. “And I thought no one told me anything. Your journey. You and Roman are leaving the abbey today. I thought he inform—”

  But Isra didn’t give the woman time to finish her sentence as she came from the corner and threw her arms around Mary Beckham’s slight shoulders. She quickly remembered herself, though, and drew away, her hands clenched before her chest, her eyes on the floor, but she couldn’t suppress the smile on her lips.

  “Forgive me, my lady,” Isra said, bowing. “I should not have touched you so. My joy has made me reckless.”

  To Isra’s surprise, Mary Beckham laughed and then reached out to take Isra’s hands in her own. “Good heavens, dear; there is naught to forgive. I would be overjoyed myself were I about to depart this smelly prison. And I have been reckless myself a time or two.”

  She led Isra to the pallet and guided her to a seat. “In fact, I must admit that I am rather envious of you.”

  Isra took the cup Mary Beckham pressed into her hands while her eyes were trained on the woman’s pale, serene face. “Envious of me?”

  Mary sighed and seemed to stare into nothingness, a slight smile curving her lips. “What grand adventure must await you!” She came back to the present with another longing sigh and bent to the tray, stuffing a knife’s blade of fig paste into a hunk of bread. “Completely dangerous of course. It shall be a miracle if neither of you are killed. Arrested, at the very least.” The woman turned and pressed the sweetbread into Isra’s other hand and then straightened, her hands on her hips. “Do you suffer seasickness, by chance?”

  This Englishwoman was clearly of the eccentric sort.

  Isra shook her head.

  “Very good.” Mary sat down on the edge of the pallet next to Isra and dragged the satchel onto her lap. “They’ve not given us much time, so while you break your fast, I will ready your costume.”

  “Costume?”

  Mary paused and looked to Isra, her mouth open as if about to say something. But then she closed her mouth and smiled while she reached out and patted Isra’s knee.

  “Welcome to Fallen Angels Abbey, Isra Tak’Ahn,” she said, her brown eyes dancing, “where your old life disappears and you can become whoever you wish.” Mary squinted sideways before looking at her again. “Eventually. But first . . .”

  The Englishwoman stood and pulled a long length of what appeared to be soiled, yellowing bed linen from the satchel, unfurling it with a sharp snap. It looked to Isra to be a corpse shroud, stained terrible browns and blacks and ochers.

  When Isra looked up at Mary Beckham, the seemingly unflappable Englishwoman’s face was beaming and there was a somewhat devilish sparkle in her eyes.

  “Vamanos, dear.”

  * * *

  Roman walked around the short, two-wheeled cart a final time in the dark bailey, crouching to check the axle, shaking the long poles and harness attached to the sleeping gray donkey. His breath billowed out of him in great clouds of steam as his sandals crunched over the frosted gravel. Out of one of the black archways came Constantine and Valentine, their arms laden with parcels. Adrian and Father Victor came next, followed by Maisie Lindsey, who bounced and shushed a mewling baby Valentina in her arms.

  Stan waited at the rear of the cart while Valentine slid a hidden latch beneath the bed. A moment later, the Spaniard lifted the boards of the platform as one unit and Stan stepped forward, sliding the parcels he carried into their hiding spot. Valentine lowered the cart bed and then tossed a rough sack into a corner near the driver’s seat before turning and taking his infant from Maisie. He turned Valentina face-down and tucked her under his arm with his palm spread beneath her narrow chest like one would carry a piglet, and the child quieted.

  Adrian followed Father Victor to the front of the cart, where the abbot hung a censer to a staff affixed to the driver’s seat. The two men walked around the sleeping donkey and then Victor turned and carefully took a wrapped object from Adrian. The thing was soon hung in a similar fashion as the censer but tethered to the seat by a cord. Victor whisked the covering away and the metal dome glinted in the dim light of the single torch. Adrian returned to the censer while Victor faced Roman.

  “Keep it lashed until you are well south of the village. Let it ring freely after that, even should the sun not yet have risen and the road appear deserted.”

  Valentine came to stand at his side. “Thieves often wait in the wood along the road for a mark to pass before making themselves seen. If they hear the bell well in advance, they will no bother giving chase. And if they do give chase . . .” Valentine reached into his deep cowl and withdrew a long, leather-sheathed dagger, which he handed to R
oman.

  Roman took the blade and reached inside his robe to attach it to the leather belt around the tunic he wore beneath. The smell of incense wafted on the thin, cold air, and Adrian joined the group a moment later, pausing to take Roman’s still weakened right hand in his own and pressing a small but weighty bag into his palm.

  “That should be enough to last you until Venice.”

  Victor came forward again as Adrian stepped away to join his wife. The abbot held forth a sealed document. “In case you have any trouble. A declaration in my own hand, avowing to your permission to transport our afflicted brother to his final rest in the holy city of Rome.”

  “Burn it once you reach Venice,” Constantine said. “And then follow the plan as we have created it. Any problems—”

  “I know,” Roman interjected. He placed the bag of resinous incense on the driver’s seat with a sigh. He sounded curt and sought to soften his tone. “My thanks, Stan.”

  When Roman turned back around, everyone in the group was facing the back of the cart. Mary Beckham approached, leading what appeared to be a phantasm from beyond. The group parted and in a moment, Roman and Isra faced each other.

  “Good morrow,” he said to her. “Are you prepared?”

  “Lady Mary has tutored me well,” Isra said with a slight bow, although her eyes darted to the sides at the people staring at her. “I shall bring no shame upon you. Lou?”

  “It is safer for him here,” Roman said, uncomfortable with the woman’s obeisance, while at the same time reminded of his guilt for leaving the falcon behind.

  He was saved in that moment by Adrian, who nudged Victor with his elbow. “Shall we get on with it?”

  Victor nodded, pulling a small booklet from his robe while Adrian removed the censer from its staff.

  “What are they doing?” Roman asked Valentine quietly, and when the Spaniard just frowned and shook his head, looking straight ahead at the old abbot, Roman asked more loudly, “What are you doing?” His head swiveled as Adrian began to circle the group, sending waves of incense floating through the air.