Siege Perilous

by Nigel Bennett

  "You will behave yourself, Ambert. God's house is no place for drunken riot and disruption."

  "Or what, you'll damn me to Hell? I can find a dozen other priests to pray me out again."

  Edward stood. "Yes, as a priest I can damn you to Hell, but as your brother I can send you there myself. Don't forget what I used to be before I took orders. It was a rare day when I couldn't best you when I chose, remember?"

  Ambert rumbled under his breath, apparently remembering his broken ribs. "You'd fight me in the church?"

  "And win. I'd do penance, but it'd be worth it for the story to follow. Lord Ambert d'Orleans, beaten to a pulp before the whole congregation by a lowly monk. Think of the bread your enemies will make of that grain. Before the story gets too far they'll have you being worsted by one of the younger castrati. I think you'd rather not have that put abroad."

  Red faced, Ambert lashed out with the riding whip, cutting right at Edward's eyes with the handle, but his brother's arm came up fast, blocking the blow. He got a grip and pulled, twisting, yanking the whip clear. In a second Ambert was on him, and it was pummeling fists and roars as they thrashed about the chamber. Richard watched unmoved and unalarmed from his bed, thinking that it was just as it was when they were growing boys.

  With a difference, now.

  Edward was not as tall as Ambert, but more robust. The monastic life toughened a man. Ambert's nightly devotions took him to the wine cask, not an altar, and it was clear which was better for the health of one's mortal body. He was soon stretched on his back, puffing greedily for air, while Edward stood over him, rubbing his barked knuckles, looking satisfied.

  "I always enjoy your visits, Ambert. You've a way of making the dullest day interesting, but we mustn't overexcite Richard. You should be off now." He hauled Ambert from the floor, and shoved him staggering away. "See you at mass, my son." He slammed the door shut, and put his back against it to prevent a return attack. One of the seams in the front of his robe had parted wide in the set-to, and he noticed. "Dear me. Have to sew that up, won't I?"

  Oh, God, it hurt to laugh, yet Richard couldn't help himself. He held his sore shoulder, trying to keep from pulling the stitches. "You are a wicked, wicked man, Brother Bishop."

  Edward had better success reining in his humor, dusting his robes and straightening them out. He sighed, wearing a face of dignified long-suffering. "Yes, after each visit home I spend more and more time in the confessional reciting my most recent sins. Ambert makes it too easy for me to wander astray."

  "You're not angry, though. You used to get so incensed with him all the time."

  "And one time too many." He sighed as he always did for that grim memory, then glanced wryly at Richard. "See, I have grown like a tree, with a much thicker skin than a few years ago. Once one of his axe-blows would have cut me down. Now I feel I could dull the edge, if not shatter it."

  "This is what doing God's work has done for you?" Richard felt a small pang of envy for his brother's self-control, his apparent immunity to Ambert.

  "In part, along with travel and learning to see the truth about people." He came and sat next to the bed again. "It will do you well to come along with me the next time I make a long journey. You've not seen much of the world yet. There are places behind the horizon you can't begin to imagine."

  "When I'm better." Richard wanted to do that. "Just send word. Father will give me leave to go if you ask it."

  Edward snorted. "Make that 'request and require as my office demands.' He still has some respect for the Church. It is my title, not me, he listens to for such matters."

  "But he does listen."

  "There's more to it. My life is no longer hostage to him. I have no more need of his good will for my meat, drink, and bed. Once I took orders his hold over me ceased. He'd never admit it, but he understands that if he is less than civil I will leave him entirely, never to return. His pride won't stand for that. Ours is an ugly give-and-take dance at times, but he does know when to back down, and I know how far not to push him. That's how we're able to get along. You need to do the same for yourself."

  "Take orders?"

  "If you're called, but in the meantime work to get yourself free of him. Build up your tourney winnings, breed horses and sell them, see to it he never knows what's in your purse. Make yourself independent."

  It sounded wonderful, but Richard knew that could never be, and said as much. "I've already sworn fealty. He'll never release me from that. Even if you speak to him, he won't."

  "He could change. I did. He might. Ambert, too. Any man can change if—"

  "Edward, there are too few good hearts like you and too many of them."

  "All right, then here's something more reasonable to think on. Father won't live forever. When he dies, what will happen to you, the Champion d'Orleans, with Ambert as the duke? Life is uncertain, Father could pass ten years from now or in the next hour."

  "I've not thought of that."

  "You haven't wanted to."

  "No, but I expect I can find a place in one of the other households. Far from here, so Ambert can't order them to turn me away. And if worse came to worst . . ." He trailed off, and felt some nonfeverish heat in his face for what he almost said.

  Edward grinned and finished for him. "You'd take orders. You in a monastery. There's a laugh. It sits well with me, but you, Dickon?" He shook his head and chuckled.

  "I'll find something. I will. It's just hard to work anything out. Ambert's got a sharp eye for what he calls mischief, and that's whatever I do that benefits me. Whenever I get any gold to call my own he sees to it I turn it over to Father. For 'safekeeping' he calls it. I never see any afterward, though."

  "Then I think you would be well advised to become more pious than you've been. This wounding of yours can account for the change of manner. Donate your winnings to the Church before Father gets them."

  "But I—oh. You'd look after them for me?"

  "Of course. Your coinage will be safer in the monastery than your room in the castle with Ambert roaming about. If you've any from this last contest, I can carry it along when I return."

  Richard had trouble taking it in. Not so many years ago, he'd have never trusted Edward with any small possession he might have hoarded for his own. Now he was turning his future over to him. And it was all right. He knew in his heart his brother would truly watch out for him. "Thank you."

  "Bless you, my son." Edward raised his right hand, making their pact a sacred responsibility, but given and accepted with a fond smile.

  Richard laughed, but kept it subdued to spare his shoulder.

  Then Edward went serious. "Mark this, Richard: you and Ambert are each dangerous, and in some ways you're both fools, but his words and acts are inspired by fear, yours inspired by honor. That's why you will always be the stronger, and well does he know it. For all that, beware of him."

  "I always am."

  "I mean especially now, while you are in a weak position." He bent and picked up the fallen whip, giving it to Richard.

  He took it with his working hand. The thing was uncommonly heavy, the bulb-shaped end weighted. Pushing aside the leather braiding revealed the dull gray of poured lead. It made a fearsome weapon without looking like one. "You think he—"

  "I think nothing. But we both know him well. He may not have come here with the intent to use that on you, but with his temper and you all but helpless . . ."

  "One thing leads to another."

  "He's a bully, and they ever single out the weak, and this is as weak as I've seen you since before the day you beat him into the mud."

  "Even he can't still remember that or hold it against me. Too much wine."

  "Can't he? When was the last time he ever forgot an insult, real or fancied? Beware of him, always."

  Richard nodded, solemn.

  "I'll stay until you're on your feet, that should be enough, though I'm thinking you have a far stronger protection over you than I can provide."

  "The Lady
?" The thought of her warmed him inside.

  "Whether she was real or a dream, she would seem to be looking out for you."

  "Were that so, then she might have turned aside the other man's blade and spared me a bleeding in the first place."

  "I was told what happened by the squires who saw. It was an evil thing he did. Sometimes good is unable to see what evil is up to, and despite our best efforts terrible things come to pass. She did mend you afterwards, though."

  "Saved my life, you mean."

  "Indeed. No doubt for some good purpose, so don't waste it. Hm?"

  * * *

  Toronto, the Present

  Richard's cell phone trilled, jerking him abruptly from what had been a deep, satisfying sleep. Where the hell was he? Bourland's TV room, the hockey game replaced by a tennis match, the sound low and droning, with Michael on the other couch, twisted around like a pretzel and thoroughly unconscious. Only children ever seemed able to reach that depth of sodden slumber. Memory reasserted itself as Richard noted the late hour on the clock above the television. He hurriedly checked his cell's caller ID. Not Bourland's number, so no problem at the hospital. An unknown in fact. Who'd be phoning him this late?

  One way to find out. "Hallo?"

  "Mr. Dun?" The voice seemed distant, but was recognizable: the lovely lady who had interviewed him so much earlier that evening.

  "Yes?"

  "I'm sorry to wake you. The time zones are the same, but it's still late."

  "Not at all. How's Cancún?"

  "Not a clue. We've been on the run since landing. We only just got back from the ruins. We're staying in Merida."

  The name meant nothing to him; he assumed it was close to their investigation area. "Have you news of Sharon Geary?"

  "Sort of. It's not much, but I thought you'd want a report."

  Well, he'd primed her for exactly this. "What's going on?"

  "Nothing at the moment, we didn't expect to start until tomorrow, but were told there was some ceremony on tonight, so we got fast transportation out to Chichén Itzá to catch it."

  "Ceremony?"

  "It was a kind of summoning to bring back the spirit of their old god. According to one of the elders here, the god was stolen from them, and their holy man murdered by the thief. That's as much as we could get being outsiders. They wouldn't let us talk to the shaman—I mean—ahkin. He was busy and still new at the job. His old teacher died early this morning. At the airport."

  "Died? How?"

  "The authorities aren't sure yet. There's some to-do about the body. His people—the ones claiming he was murdered—want him back, but the doctors want to perform an autopsy. What with the world situation they're very hyper about biological weapons, and an old peasant man who's never been more than a mile from his forest village suddenly dying at the airport is suspicious. So far as I can see from a report made at the scene by the ambulance people there was no sign of obvious foul play. The man just collapsed, with bleeding from his nose, eyes, and ears. There are some perfectly normal disorders to account for those symptoms, but combined with other things like your vision, it works out to be odd."

  "Why was he at the airport?"

  "According to the elder, he was chasing down the thief. He fought with him and lost. But airport security maintains all was quiet, business as usual when it happened. In fact, the only disturbance was him dropping dead."

  "Could his people describe this thief?"

  "Not in concrete terms. Emotional, yes, but nothing the police could track. If I had to make a guess—and this goes against the scientist in me—I might think he was the one you saw in the vision. Others here—the locals—claimed to have had a similar dream last night."

  "Really?" All those other lights. People standing there . . .

  "They said they saw a spirit of darkness fighting a spirit of light on top of the god's temple. The darkness threw down the light, but their god rushed in to catch it. That's when he disappeared into a larger darkness, taking the light with him."

  "That sounds familiar." The sparse information was full of meaning for him.

  "Your story, but in more symbolic terms."

  "About the light—if that was Sharon Geary—have they any idea where she is?"

  "It's a fuzzy area. We're having translation problems but should have them sorted by tomorrow. We've got a meeting set up with the ahkin if he's rested enough to talk. The ceremony took a lot out of him, though all I saw was him sitting there in front of the Temple of Kukulcan. He might have been doing his version of a spirit walk, and I've heard those can be very exhausting."

  "Did it work? The ceremony."

  "From everyone's reaction, I don't think so. They all looked disappointed.

  "And no word of where Sharon might be?"

  "We've started an ordinary inquiry with the police. She took a hotel room, but hasn't been seen since she checked in. They're supposed to go through her things, see if there's any clue of her whereabouts or where she's been. If we're lucky they might let us have a turn in the morning. I'm sorry there's not more."

  "I'm sure you're doing your best. You sound all in, though."

  "Still in my city clothes and asleep on my feet," she confessed.

  "Then get to bed. Thank you for calling."

  "My pleasure, Mr. Dun," she warmly assured him, and she sounded wholly sincere.

  They rang off. He reflected there was a peril to hypnotizing women, even briefly, even for a purpose other than acquiring nourishment. It made for a hell of a strong connection to him. Fortunately the effect faded with time, but in the interim . . . well . . . there it was, a one-to-one fan club between them.

  Sharon. His mind snapped back to the larger peril for her. The police there had not, apparently, found a body, but then they wouldn't be able to if she'd been pulled into the same place with the great snake god.

  Which was where? Richard couldn't begin to speculate, for then he ran though the same futile thoughts and worries and resentments that had tumbled through his mind since the accident. This was when Sabra was needed the most and her Goddess had let that happen? Why? Why her?

  Despair flooded him for a moment. He bowed his head, fighting it.

  The Grail, you fool.

  He came up, fully alert, his heart pounding with excitement and hope. Dear God, but he should have thought of it before, first thing in fact, even before exchanging blood. Why had he not? No matter. It had healed her before, it would again. He'd run up to her house, grab it—

  The tennis game on the television screen seemed to ripple. It did not look like a normal kind of service disruption, not with those colors. The image twisted and danced, ceasing to be players on a clay court and becoming something . . . else.

  He caught his breath and glanced at Michael. There was no outward sign from him of anything being amiss except for the quick darting movements of his eyes beneath their lids. He was dreaming again.

  Forms flowed over the screen like fish shadows in a fast-running stream. Bits began to coalesce, hold in place, making blurred letters.

  They eventually spelled out "protect."

  A frisson of chill went through him. He frowned. What the hell did that mean? "Protect from what? Protect who?" Was this a warning or an instruction?

  Eventually: "S 2 prtct her."

  Then the screen popped back to normal again, players lobbing a ball over a net and back again. Michael had not stirred, was even snoring softly.

  But he was smiling.

  It was such a sweet, ingenuous expression, and so unexpected that Richard felt a strange lifting in his heart.

  His cell phone trilled.

  "Get down here," said Bourland, and his voice was dreadful.

  Chapter Eight

  The room heat on high, Charon was thoroughly kicked back in one of the penthouse suites at the Cambridge Hotel. Unable to sleep for the pain, he'd ordered some good booze from room service, lined up his pill collection, and popped the ones that might help him get through the
next few hours until he came up with Plan B. It didn't used to be like that for him. He always had a Plan B, with C, D, E, and F if needed, but these days it was harder and harder to focus on more than one thing at a time. Like the rush he'd gotten on the pyramid. No distractions from that gleeful joy. The downside being no way around the misery he was going through now. His body was giving him royal rotten hell as the disease worked to reassert itself for the setback he'd handed it.

  Waiting for the meds to kick in, he distracted himself from the stubborn pain and the frustration of his failed hit on Dun by flipping through his complimentary copy of the Toronto Times.

  It had all the usual Strum und Drang side by side with the repetitive daily-living crap. That was the way of things: total disasters are fine so long as they don't happen to you, isn't it a pity, but all's well here. You'd think seeing the global body count piling up and having each catastrophe presented in graphic detail over their dinner, not to mention forty-eight times a day on the boob tube, would wise people up about the world being a Nasty Place to Live. Yet—and this was the knee-cracking kicker—there was always an undercurrent of shocked surprise in the reporting. Was it an act put on for the masses, or what? He was still trying to figure that one.

  Huh. They should live a stretch of his life, see the things he'd seen—and done. That'd turn them inside out. Literally.

  "And, man-oh-man, you ain't seen nothing, yet," he chuckled, then paused and winced, his breath short again. Things were getting worse, more painful than before. He took a different pill, chugging it down with the whiskey. You weren't supposed to do that, but Jesus palomino, he was dying, what's the worst that could happen now?