Out of desperation, three of Juan’s men tried pulling back hoods and knocking off hats to inspect the faces of those walking past. The nobles and their men met their actions with the drawing of blades.
“What’s the meaning of this? I could have your head mounted on the bridge for this,” one of the nobles shouted.
“Oh piss off,” one of Juan’s men called back as he dislodged another floppy hat to have a good look at the owner’s face.
Hastelloy took care to remain in the middle of the crowd, but eventually the ruckus drew too close for comfort. The moment Hastelloy saw an arm swing for his hat, he ducked under the blow and lodged a dagger into the man’s stomach. For good measure, he jammed the hilt with the palm of his hand to provoke a barbaric scream from his victim.
In unison, everyone took two steps back from the screaming man. The instant both sides realized blood was now drawn, the minor scuffle devolved into a full-blown riot. Hastelloy used the chaos to duck in between two buildings, where there was just enough room for him to suck in his gut and shimmy his way sideways until emerging into a street running parallel to the conflict.
Hastelloy breathed a sigh of relief that step one of his escape plan, leave the palace undetected, was behind him. Now he needed to get out of the city, a task made considerably more difficult with London surrounded on all sides by walls or water. This left three gatehouses to the east, west, and north, as well as the London Bridge offering an exit to the south. All four served as natural choke points for Juan and his men to fall back to and monitor.
A cursory stroll past the nearby east gate revealed three suspicious characters, plus two city guards standing near the exit point. Hastelloy moved on to the north gate of the city and found the exit to be under similar surveillance. Either Juan’s circle of friends was growing, or his well-funded purse was growing much lighter while buying his newfound popularity.
Hastelloy gave the north gate a wide berth as he continued on his way toward the western gate. It was most certainly under Juan’s lockdown as well, but it was still worth checking. He did not want to employ his alternative exit strategy unless there was no other option.
He had gotten into the habit of walking with his head tilted down to avoid eye contact and potential recognition. This served him well, but not without some risk. Hastelloy glanced left and right before starting across the main road leading to the north gate. His limited peripheral vision failed to see the man racing toward him on horseback.
The thunderclap of approaching hoof beats made him jump back just in time to avoid getting trampled. Hastelloy fought the instinct to look up and face the rider who almost killed him. Instead, he followed the rider with his eyes while keeping his head facing straight ahead. It was a good thing, too, because Hastelloy saw Juan’s face looking back at the near miss while his steed continued carrying him to the north gate.
To avoid suspicion, Hastelloy continued across the street as if nothing happened. He made it a few more streets over before chancing a glance back toward the gate. There he saw Juan talking with his hired men and handing each of them a small bag of coin for their services.
Considering himself lucky for avoiding the chance encounter, Hastelloy circled around the perimeter of the wall until the western gate came into view two hundred feet away. It, too, was under lockdown, and Juan was already there on his horse to make payroll and get an update. This left Hastelloy with one other option, and he was loath to use it.
Before turning to make his way to the London Bridge, Hastelloy saw Juan look up to survey the crowd of peasants milling about nearby. It occurred to Hastelloy in that moment that his clothing might stand out to the boy given their close encounter earlier. Seeing the same set of clothes at different gates would start to look suspicious. He turned his head slowly, to avoid undue notice, and joined a cluster of men and women walking away from the west gate.
The London Bridge was a half mile away, and Hastelloy found himself relegated to using London’s seedy side streets to zigzag his way there for fear of running into Juan on horseback again. The back alleyways were narrow, at best six feet wide with multistoried buildings closing them in from both sides. Unless the sun was directly overhead, shadows shrouded every nook and cranny. Those dark spaces were occupied with drunks, brigands, and homeless street orphans hustling every passerby for coin while trying to steal what was not given to them. If that was not enough motivation to remain on the main thoroughfares, the alleyways were littered with sewage and home to rats as big as a cat.
Flanking the bridge on either end were defensive gatehouses. Running between them was a quarter-mile roadway twelve feet wide with a seemingly endless line of shops hemming it in from both sides. The street was divided into two lanes heading in opposite directions, leaving carts, wagons, coaches, and pedestrians to share a passageway six feet wide to a side. Crossing the bridge sometimes took hours as people stood shoulder to shoulder, carts rubbed wheels, and horses stood nose to ass.
The congestion, however, served Hastelloy’s purpose as a place to blend into the crowd. At the same time, it also left him vulnerable to ambush since his adversary shared the same advantage. This was by no means a sure thing, but it was the only option left for him to escape the city.
Hastelloy waded out from his dark alley to join the throngs of humanity pressing toward the gatehouse. He took heart from the fact that none of Juan’s men were standing watch on this side of the bridge, but the likelihood that some were waiting at the southern gatehouse could not be ignored.
Long past the point of no return, Hastelloy spotted Juan riding up on his horse with four of his hired blades in tow. He watched out of the corner of his eye as the boy surveyed the crowd from his elevated seat. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end as he felt Juan’s line of vision lock onto the back of his head.
“There!” Juan shouted to his men, “that one in the middle wearing the black hood, brown coat, with white sleeves. I’ve seen him at three gates now. It’s him.”
Hastelloy felt all eyes focus on him as he passed beneath the gatehouse. Even if he wanted to try and slip away, the mass of bodies pressing in from all around was almost like a riptide pulling him out onto the bridge. There was no resisting the pull, so he went with the flow.
Juan’s men waded into the sea of humanity without hesitation, but Hastelloy was fifty feet ahead of them with several carts and a hundred people in between. The four men in pursuit attempted to push and shove their way through the crowd faster, but try as they might, it did no good to close the gap. Juan, on the other hand, had far more success.
The boy spurred his horse into the crowd at a controlled, leisurely gait that was still twice the pace of the pedestrians in front of him. He yelled shouts of warning, but did nothing to slow his speed nor alter his direction. Pedestrians had the choice to either get out of his way or wear hoofmarks on their backs; everyone opted to step aside.
Juan’s four companions saw the futility of their individual efforts and fell in line behind their mounted leader as he sliced through the crowd. Hastelloy made good progress himself by ducking and swerving his way through the masses, but his lead was quickly evaporating.
Hastelloy had counted on there being some gaps between the buildings along the side that would allow him to jump over the railing and into the river below. However, he found no railings, only a continuous string of shops and houses with scarcely an inch to spare between them. His search for a water bound escape route became all the more desperate as the southern gatehouse came into view.
The sight of a dozen severed heads impaled on iron spikes attached to the gatehouse was certainly intimidating, but seeing four of Juan’s men in front of the gate armed with crossbows brought Hastelloy a moment of real concern. He was blocked from the front with his pursuers now right on top of him.
A horse-drawn cart was just ahead of Hastelloy when he felt the breath of Juan’s horse on the back of his neck. Out of options, Hastelloy drew his dagger, burst forward alongs
ide the cart, and sliced his blade across the animal’s hind leg. The horse wailed in pain, and reared back onto its hind legs. The cart driver did his best to steady the beast while struggling to keep his balance, but he lost the battle. The cart rolled over on its side, spilling the driver and its contents across the narrow road.
The enraged animal then lurched forward to break free from its reins and headed for the southern gate at a full sprint. Screams and shrieks of terror erupted from the crowd as every man, woman, and child in the animal’s path dashed to the sidewalls for safety.
Hastelloy rushed after the horse to benefit from the temporarily clear road. He glanced back at the overturned cart in time to see Juan’s horse leap over the wreckage to give chase. He was turning his head to look forward again when a sign of hope caught his eye—“Latrine.”
On the right hand side of the bridge, he spotted a public bathroom that most certainly had a way down to the river below. He darted to the side and headed for one of the two entry doors. When he was still twenty feet from the latrine, he heard the thump of a crossbow put to action. The air six inches behind his head whistled as the bolt flew past.
Hastelloy looked toward the gatehouse and found that the runaway horse had cleared a perfect firing lane for Juan’s crossbowmen. A second thump delivered a six-inch bolt into his left leg that glanced off his femur on its way out the other side. His body crumpled to the ground midstride, causing him to land face-first on the cobblestones. With only ten feet to go, Hastelloy got back to his feet and hopped toward the latrine on his right leg.
A third crossbowman let loose his weapon to strike Hastelloy dead center in the stomach. The bolt impacted with enough deadly force to fling his body three feet toward the bathroom door. Hastelloy tucked into a ball midfall and used the momentum to roll his way through the door.
Juan leaped down from his horse, drew his sword, and stepped into the latrine with a confident strut not seen since a Roman gladiator circled his downed opponent in the arena.
Inside, Hastelloy rolled until his body slammed against a wooden bench with ten posterior-size holes spaced evenly across its length. He bashed the three-inch overhang with the palm of his hand twice to dislodge a section of the bench surface. He cried out in agony as he crawled headfirst under the busted seat using his one good leg. He felt the crossbow bolt protruding from his stomach get caught on the lip right when he heard the latrine door crash open behind him. He had no choice.
The bolt bent and carved up his intestines as Hastelloy dove down into the hole beneath the seat. His reward for the agonizing effort was a headfirst exit from the bottom of the latrine, followed by a sixty-foot fall into the River Thames below.
Down below he found the river waters to be so putrid that chemically describing it as H2O no longer applied. The cause was not just the latrine above, but rather the city itself. Every sewer, runoff, and trash bin in this city of over a hundred thousand people emptied into the Thames. To this day, many in the metropolis attributed the outbreak of the plague to the rancid smell emanating from the polluted river. All Hastelloy could think about, as a cluster of fecal matter floated past his face, was the vast amount of contaminants seeping into his open wounds.
He summoned just enough strength to swim over to the nearest archway peering. He crawled up onto the stone ledge and took stock of his condition. He could barely move his left leg, but the real damage was to his midsection. He was bleeding uncontrollably and would probably pass out in the next few minutes unless he did something drastic.
He thought about his options, the technology he carried with him. Was it worth the risk? Even though the archway hid him from view, he was reluctant to use his technology out in the open. The alternative was his death and regeneration back in Egypt through the Nexus device. That would cause Hastelloy to miss the next voyage west. Disease would spread without control and Juan would have at least two or three years to work his agenda in the New World unimpeded. Neither was an acceptable outcome of the current predicament, which made up his mind.
Hastelloy eased the satchel slung across his body over his head and off his shoulder. With one hand holding his intestines in place, he worked the bag open with the other. He rummaged through the small bag until he located the flask filled with Tonwen’s stem cell serum. He took a quick drink to stimulate his immune system into high gear. Next, he dug into his stomach and gently pulled the crossbow bolt out. He then poured the thick liquid into the gaping wound.
Within seconds, the stem cells received their instructions from Hastelloy’s body chemistry and assumed their needed form. Some rushed to the damaged intestines and patched the holes with cells identical to those missing.
His stomach received similar repairs and the final step was fixing the outer skin. Hastelloy watched the stem cells congeal into a white, gelatinous film over his stomach before morphing into a bright pink layer of fresh skin. The new flesh would still puss and ooze for a few days, but in the end, his stomach would be good as new.
He repeated the procedure with his leg. The stem cells repaired the destroyed muscle and ligament tissues. They also dissolved the shattered bone fragments and healed his flesh to leave him with an extremely painful, yet functional limb.
With the blinding pain of his injuries now diminished, Hastelloy leaned his head back against the stone arch, closed his eyes, and breathed a sigh of relief. When he opened his eyes again, he looked straight up to find Juan’s face looking down at him through one of the latrine’s overhanging holes. The boy had seen everything. What suspicions the kid already had about Hastelloy were now confirmed. Juan knew that he was the same man from before, and that Hastelloy had a whimsical ability to heal himself.
The damage was done. The only thing to do now was finish his escape and live to fight Juan another day. To that end, Hastelloy got to his feet. He returned the flask to his satchel and slung the small bag containing his belongings back over his shoulder. He limped over to the eastern side of the bridge footing, gave Juan one more look, then dove into the tainted river water and swam with the current to safety.
**********
Long after his target swam away with the river’s current, Juan found his head still down inside the latrine hole. Much as he wanted to pull it away from that rancid space, he could not do it. What he just witnessed rendered him motionless, speechless.
Eventually, one of his men eased his shoulders up and back. The movement pulled Juan’s head out of the toilet, but sent him rotating back until he slammed into the door and slowly slid to the floor.
“God in heaven, what manner of evil am I facing in this man?” Juan muttered to no one in particular.
Chapter 22: Uninvited Guest
VALNOR MADE HIS way past the cathedral without paying the magnificent structure even a cursory glance. On the one hand, he knew that it took the citizens of Paris nearly two hundred years to complete Notre-Dame de Paris and he should respect their labors. On the other hand, he had lived there for ten years. He had seen it countless times before, and it had been a long day.
He continued walking and took a footbridge to cross the River Seine. When he reached midway across, the cathedral bells behind him struck an angry chord to mark the bottom half of the hour. Valnor got the message. He turned around and gazed at the twin bell towers for a moment before tipping his hat to the grand monument. “I know. That was rude of me.”
With that formality out of the way, Valnor continued walking to the south until he reached his building. He trudged his way up five flights of uneven stairs to find the door to his apartment cracked open ever so slightly. It was possible he had not closed the door properly before heading out in the morning, but there was no sense taking a chance.
He drew a dagger from the left breast pocket inside his overcoat and nudged the door open. Within he found a kettle simmering over a roaring fire in the kitchen. To the right he saw a man seated at the table with his back to the door. There was a bowl of water in front of him, and he appeared to be viewing h
is reflection in it while running a straight edge razor across his face. There was also a pair of scissors lying next to the bowl with several piles of long, brown hair strewn about.
Valnor took two cautious strides into the room before a creek in the floor announced his presence to the intruder. The man paused what he was doing long enough to say, “Ah, Ensign, you’re home.”
**********
Hastelloy made two final passes with the razor before rinsing his blade off in the water and grabbing a towel to dry his face. He then stood up and favored his left leg as he turned around to offer his former pilot a proper greeting, “Valnor, it’s great to see you again young man.”
The irony was that Hastelloy’s body was at least twenty years younger than Valnor’s, yet he was over ten thousand years the ensign’s senior. They both cracked a knowing smile at the joke before sharing a long embrace that had no words yet spoke volumes. It may have been fifty years since they had last seen each other, but compared to the four thousand years they had served together, it was no time at all.
“What’s gone wrong? Why are you here?” Valnor asked.
“Everything,” Hastelloy admitted with a sigh. “But before we get into all that, let’s hear how things are progressing for you. Do you have the French sufficiently preoccupied?”
Valnor looked almost giddy to report, “Oh yes, and then some. King Charles VIII has finally turned old enough to rule without his elder sister acting as regent. He’s eager to show the rest of Europe his magnificence, which has allowed me to direct his attention squarely on pressing his rights of succession to the Neapolitan throne that his father left him.
“Within the year I expect King Charles will raise an army to invade the Italian peninsula and take the Kingdom of Naples by force. Whether he succeeds or not, this conflict should dominate Western European politics for the next century or more,” Valnor concluded.
Origins: Discovery Page 15