Victor began to recite the prayers, and Roman listened carefully to the Latin, his eyes slowly going wide.
“Are you giving us last rites?” he demanded.
“Shh,” Valentine said. “You do no wish to go to heaven?”
Victor took the censer from Adrian and stepped up to Roman, swinging the receptacle toward him and then walking around Roman in a circle. He then went to Isra, who seemed hesitant to come fully into the group of people gathered in the frigid bailey. The abbot whispered something to the woman, who shook her bowed head. She looked up into Victor’s face and replied in such a low voice that Roman could not hear.
Then she sank to her knees in her macabre costume, and Victor laid a hand on her head while he prayed a prayer Roman was unfamiliar with before clouding her kneeling form in the fragrant incense. He helped her to her feet and led her to the back of the cart while Isra wiped at her eyes with a ragged hem of linen. Victor left the woman there while he handed the censer back to Adrian, and the two of them walked about the cart again.
Val handed the baby to his wife and turned to Roman then, distracting him from the forlorn sight of the woman. “I can no bear to watch you go,” he said candidly, even though the same rakish smile was across his face. “So I will be the first to bid you farewell.” He reached out his right hand and grasped Roman’s, placing his left hand on the top of his shoulder at the crook of his neck and squeezing. “Farewell, my friend.”
Roman felt a catch in his chest. This was happening far more quickly—and with more intensity—than he had imagined. The thought of never seeing Valentine—of never seeing any of his friends again—shook him so suddenly he felt the tremor of it to the soles of his feet.
He pulled Valentine into a gruff embrace. “Thank you.”
Valentine clapped Roman’s back twice and then pulled away. “Remember what I have taught you, Roman Berg. Adios.” Then the Spaniard took Valentina from his wife and strode toward the darkened arch of the abbey. He did not look back.
Lady Mary stepped to him with a sweet smile. “Do you remember what you told Valentine the morning he and I left Melk?”
Roman didn’t trust himself to speak so he just shook his head as Mary took both his hands into hers. It was like holding a kitten’s paws.
“You said, ‘Come back to us, Val.’” Mary’s smile faltered, and so she swallowed and then renewed the attempt. “I know my husband could not bear to speak it aloud for doing so would allude to the idea that anything else was possible. And so I shall say it for him: Come back to us, Roman.”
He nodded. “I will do my best, my lady.”
Mary wrapped her arms around Roman’s middle and spoke into his chest. “I know you will. You always do.”
After a final squeeze, she slid her arms from him and turned to Isra, who dropped her eyes and gave a shallow bow.
“I am in your debt,” Isra said.
But Mary pulled the woman aright and embraced her as well, waiting until Isra had hesitantly laid her hands along her back in return before speaking.
“Have a wonderful adventure, Isra Tak’Ahn. Godspeed. You are in the very best of hands.” She pulled away and looked into the woman’s eyes.
“This I know, my lady,” Isra said solemnly, and then glanced over Mary’s shoulder at Roman.
The look was a bolster to his shaky emotions. He was leaving his friends, leaving the haven he had found at Melk, but it was for a purpose he would not shirk. He was protecting this woman, protecting his friends, Baldwin, all of the brethren still asleep in yonder darkened cells. It was a heavy burden.
But Roman had always been strong.
Then Mary was gone, having disappeared the way her husband had escaped. And before him stood Victor.
“God’s blessing upon you, Roman.” Victor made the sign of the cross before him.
“Thank you, Father,” Roman said. “I—”
“I’ll go open the gates,” Victor interrupted, stepping around Roman and crunching away into the darkness. Roman turned to watch him go.
Constantine’s gruff voice called his attention back to the cart. “Let’s see the cargo settled.”
Maisie helped Isra into the bed of the conveyance while Constantine and Adrian shook out a large canvas and lashed one edge behind the driver’s seat. Isra lay down on her back and Adrian’s wife leaned over the side of the bed and squeezed the vague shape of her arm before withdrawing and turning to Roman. Behind her, Constantine and Adrian drew the canvas over the bed, closing the woman from Damascus in darkness.
“I shallna embrace you,” Maisie said with a lift of her chin. She met his eyes, and Roman understood.
Maighread Lindsey had a strange and special gift, and it was clear she had no desire to risk catching a glimpse of whether or not he would return. He was glad she did not.
Roman gave the woman who was once a queen a short bow. “Until we meet again, then.”
A ghost of a smile played across Maisie’s face. “Until we meet again.”
The clang and scrape of the gate echoed in the bailey when Adrian finished the knot at his corner of the canvas and, brushing his hands together so that the sleeves of his robe rose and displayed the fantastic black markings on his forearms, he strode to Roman.
“The weather will be more fair once you have reached Venice,” he said. “Be sure to hang the sick flags and build a sizable fire at night.” Adrian met Roman’s eyes. “Take care, my friend.”
The two men embraced and then Adrian took Maisie’s hand and was gone, leaving only Roman and Constantine in the bailey, along with the silent woman hidden away in the cart.
Stan was walking about the cart a final time, making a show of checking the canvas lashings. Roman waited until he had played out the act to his satisfaction. At last, the general turned to him.
He withdrew a sealed square of parchment similar to the one Victor had given him and hesitated for only a heartbeat before handing it to Roman.
“Not that I am certain you will have chance to deliver this,” he said with a cynical lift of his eyebrow.
Roman took the message. “Who is it for?”
“Baldwin. No one’s eyes save his. If you cannot place it in his hands, burn it.” Stan looked up. “God be with you, brother.”
Roman’s composure suffered a blow at hearing the same words from Constantine’s mouth that he had spoken on the day of the fall at Jacob’s Ford.
Roman held out his hand. “For Chastellet,” he said, calling down with all his might the power of the phrase with which he had answered Constantine before he had plunged into battle, helmless, hopelessly outnumbered, gravely betrayed. They had lived that day.
But Constantine shook his head as he looked at Roman’s outstretched hand. “No. We can no longer save Chastellet.” He looked up. “All we have is one another.” And then he grasped Roman’s hand.
“For one another, then,” Roman echoed and took Constantine’s forearm with his other hand, gritting his teeth at the sight of the once formidable general’s bloodshot and glistening eyes.
They broke apart and turned away from each other, Roman striding toward the front of the cart and Constantine dissolving into the fortress that was Melk. Roman climbed up on the seat and picked up the reins, adjusting his position and flicking the donkey awake.
“Ha!” he called, and the cart lurched forward.
Roman couldn’t see Victor in the darkness as he rolled through the gates and past the enormous winged statuary to either side of the path, but he could hear the abbot’s quiet Latin. The smell of the incense smoldering at his side stung his nose and made his eyes water, his throat itch. Roman swallowed hard and set his jaw.
It was time to return to Damascus, to once more save his friends.
Chapter 6
Isra fell asleep not long after the cart began moving. She had not rested well in her subterranean cell, but now that she was swaddled and hidden away in the back of a rough cart driven by Roman Berg, she felt as if nothing could harm he
r. There were no strangers, no soldiers, no walking through the night in a land populated by people who stared and frowned suspiciously at her shadowed self. She was alone with him now and he had a plan. The relief of it caused her to drop into a defensive slumber almost instantly.
She had no idea how far or for how long they had traveled when she woke, only that the sun outside made bright lines above her head where the canvas met the seat and over her feet at the rear of the cart. Her throat was dry and a bit sore and the bones in her spine felt bruised now where they pressed into the hard bed through the gauzy linen.
She waited what seemed like an hour to see if Roman Berg would make any attempt at conversation. He did not. Perhaps he had guessed that she’d fallen asleep. Should she call out to him? What was the risk of her speaking if they were traveling through a village or passing other pilgrims on the road? Would they hear her and grow suspicious? Was she expected to remain still and silent the entire day, only to emerge at night?
Perhaps she should have been more inquisitive with the English lady. Isra could withstand whatever hardships this part of the journey necessitated; Mary had said they should be in Venice within a week, depending on the rains, and then the cart would be sold for passage on one of the trading ships bound for Alexandria. It was only so close to Melk they must be cautious, and Isra had faced much worse conditions than being borne along a road in a cart, after all, especially since the redheaded Maisie Lindsey had slipped a blade under Isra’s hip as she’d made a show of squeezing her wrist. Roman had yet to return her mother’s dagger, but thanks to Maisie Lindsey, she was once again armed, and with no mere eating utensil.
She felt the cart begin to slow then, the bumps and ruts raising the bed in a slow, exaggerated fashion as it rolled to a halt. Isra closed her eyes and blew a long breath between her lips. She raised up on her elbows and turned her face toward the bright line of sunlight above. She drew in a breath and opened her mouth, readying to call out to Roman.
“Ha—”
Her words were cut off as Roman Berg’s voice sounded over them in the same instant she had started to speak.
“Good day, gentlemen,” he said. He hadn’t stopped for a rest; he was being stopped. “God’s blessing upon the three of you.”
By three men.
Isra lay back down as slowly and quietly as she could, her breath frozen in her chest, as if the strangers beyond the canvas could detect the slightest motion of her inhalations. She raised her hand to pull up over her face the linen cowled around her neck and then lifted her right hip to slide the dagger from its sheath. She pushed the case farther beneath her buttocks and lowered her hip over the blade, her fingers gripping the handle beneath the long, draping sleeve of gauze covering her hand. In no more time than it took her to blink, she was still again, her body rigid as she concentrated on the voices beyond the canvas.
“Good day, friar,” a man said. “What brings you to our humble burg?”
“Only passing through,” Roman replied.
“Passing through to where?” another voice demanded, and Isra could hear the clop of a horse’s hooves growing louder, as if whomever spoke was drawing their mount nearer the cart bed.
“Rome.” Isra noted that Roman volunteered no information.
“Taking the church’s spoils to your leader, eh?”
A third man’s voice joined the conversation, meeker, younger than the other two. “I don’t think that’s what he carries.”
“Did you not hear the bell?” Roman asked, and then Isra nearly jumped out of her skin as the thing clanged.
“Aye, we heard it,” the first man said. “But you don’t look like any priest I’ve ever seen.”
“I’m not a priest,” Roman said. “I am in penance for the crimes of my previous life. It is why my superior thought me the best to transport our ill brother to his eternal rest in our holy city.”
“Ill brother, eh?” the snide man commented, and the sound of his horse drew even nearer. “What’s in the sack?”
“Resin,” Roman said. “For the censer.”
“What’s he ill of?” the young man asked.
“He’s a leper,” Roman said. “At least he was this morn. He could be dead by now. I was hoping to draw nearer the city before that happened. Bodies tend to stink even in this cool weather.” Isra heard a rustling. “Here is a letter from my abbot, giving me permission to be away from the abbey.”
“Melk, eh?” the first man mused after a moment. Isra heard more rustling and the cart rocked. “What are you doing?”
When Roman answered, he was alongside the cart, even with Isra’s head. “I’m taking up the canvas so you can see the grisly mess yourselves. You won’t be swayed by my word or the vow of my abbot, so . . .” He broke off, and Isra heard the dusty scrape of sandals on the road.
“Yes, open it up,” the snide man encouraged. “I’ll be pleased to cleave your skull when I see with my own eyes a cart full of golden chalices and silken robes.”
“You’d better put down that ax before you hurt yourself,” Roman said good-naturedly.
Isra began to panic. They were going to remove the canvas. Her face and body were covered, true, but did her wrapped figure closely enough resemble the corpse of a monk? What would happen if they suspected her? What if the man chose to test her by striking her with the ax? Or striking Roman?
What if they were caught and traced back to Melk?
What would happen to Roman’s friends?
What would they do to Isra, if they didn’t kill her?
What if they decided to keep her?
She gripped the handle of the dagger and shimmied it higher on her palm in the instant before a corner of the canvas above her feet flapped and then was thrown back in a bright triangle.
“Only a moment while I get the other side,” Roman said amicably.
Isra saw a shadow flit across the open section of the bed. “Ezzer, I think he speaks true. Look.”
More footsteps drew near as it seemed Roman was taking his time with the other corner of the canvas.
“Oh, hell—look at that!” a man cried out in disgust. “Cover it back up, man! Cover it up! Is it your wish to taint the entire village?”
“Not at all, brother,” Roman replied and—in a much quicker fashion than that in which he’d undone it—the corner of the canvas was once more secure. “I could use a bite, though. Perhaps I might take my rest at yonder tavern and inquire as to whether they have a room to let.”
“The bloody hell you will,” the snide man said. “You’ll get your great arse back in your cart and take your damned rot with you and not come back.”
“You’ll show no charity to a brother of God on a mission of mercy?” Roman needled.
“Here,” the younger voice called out, and Isra heard a slight clink. “For your trouble, friar. Godspeed to you.”
“The Lord’s blessing upon your merciful heart, lad,” Roman said, and Isra could hear the sincerity in his voice.
“Go on, then!” the first man demanded. “Go! Be swift! Go!”
The cart rocked and then lurched forward with a skull-jarring jerk, and the road passed beneath her with a fury that brought only peace.
Isra released the handle of the blade and brought her hands up to cover her face, her heart racing and her breath heaving in and out of her at last. They had almost been caught already, only hours after leaving.
“Isra?” she heard Roman call from beyond the canvas.
She swallowed. “Yes?”
“Are you all right?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“I’m not your lord.”
“I am very well.”
“I’ll stop the cart when we are in the wood once more. It shan’t be long.”
Would they ever be far enough away to be safe?
“No, do not stop,” she said. “Do not stop until dark.”
* * *
Roman drove the cart and the donkey until he could no longer reliably make out the road
before them. At a wide bend where the tall grasses spread into spent fields to either side, he eased the cart off the road and toward a lone tree, its long, low branches spread like gaunt arms.
The donkey was tired, he was tired, his backside was numb; he could only imagine the state Isra Tak’Ahn was in, having been trapped in the blackness of the cart bed since before dawn. He’d stopped twice after their close call in the village to relieve himself and allow the animal a rest while he rationed the foodstuffs in the sack behind his seat. Isra had at first refused to emerge from the cart. Indeed, she had declined the carafe of wine and only partaken of a handful of leathery apple sections.
He circled the cart around the tree so that it was once more facing the road before climbing down from the seat with a groan. He looked around at the darkness and saw no village, no cottage, not even a humble hay shed.
They were alone. Probably.
“Are you awake?” he called.
“Yes, my lord.”
“We’ve stopped for the night. I’m going to set up the flags and tether the donkey. Can you persevere a few more moments?”
“Yes, my lord.”
Roman stood there looking at the blackness of the canvas. He didn’t know of another woman—not the patient Mary Beckham and certainly not Maisie Lindsey—who could withstand being in that cart bed for another instant without raising issue.
“You’re certain?”
She hesitated, and Roman thought her next words would be a plea for freedom.
“You think perhaps I should not come out at all?”
He frowned. “No, that’s not what I mean. I just need to—” He broke off. “I’ll return in a moment, all right?”
“As you wish.”
He opened his mouth, then closed it and went to retrieve the block from under his seat to prop up the cart tongue before freeing the little gray donkey. Very shortly thereafter, the cart and animal were encircled by a long strand of pennants held aloft by short stakes. Roman stepped over the low boundary and walked ten paces before planting a single flag. Ten more paces toward the road he sank another deep into the soft ground. Then he turned and headed back toward the cart.
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