Martyr's Fire

by Sigmund Brouwer

  He kicked Thomas. “Be sure we don’t see your face again.”

  Thomas pushed himself to his feet. His back felt like a board from leaning against the cold stone, his legs ached from shivering, and his head still throbbed. Now he was to be treated as her servant?

  Yet what were his alternatives? He shuffled forward meekly. Wait, he promised himself, until she and I are away from listening ears.

  Not until the jailer retrieved Thomas’s outer garments did he realize how immodest it was to be standing there in his undergarments. He seethed with frustration as he dressed, stumbling awkwardly as he balanced from one leg to the next under her gaze.

  Then Thomas followed her through the narrow corridor, not daring to wonder what poor souls wasted away behind the other silent wooden prison doors, into the bright sunlight outside.

  They stood at the north end of the harbor, and the noise and the confusion of the chaos of men busy among ships reached them clearly.

  “Where is Beast?” Thomas asked.

  “Beast?”

  “The puppy.”

  “Your first question is about a dog?”

  “Answer it.” Thomas didn’t care how surly he appeared.

  “Fear not,” Katherine said sweetly. “As the cook’s assistant, I spirited away your puppy. It remains safely waiting for you at the inn.”

  “Take me there, then, and after, I shall be on my way.”

  “And where is that?” she asked with a smile.

  Thomas groaned at his headache. “Away from you.”

  “I think not. You were arrested yesterday,” Katherine reminded him, “as you lay there gasping like a stunned fish.”

  Thomas rubbed the back of his head. “What foul luck. Certainly a harbor such as this has only a handful of men who guard and patrol for the townspeople.”

  “He was pleased to be such a hero,” Katherine said. “Rarely do such bold crimes occur in broad daylight. He also seemed pleased at the accuracy of his blow.”

  She paused. “It cost fully a quarter of your gold to pay your ransom.”

  “My gold?” Thomas sputtered.

  “Of course,” Katherine said calmly. “I lifted your pouch as I helped them drag you away.”

  “You used my gold?”

  “Had I not, the jailer certainly would have. After all, did he not keep your sword and sheath?”

  Thomas ground his teeth in anger.

  “And my remaining gold?” Thomas spat each word.

  Her voice remained sweet. “Much of it purchased this fine clothing. I needed to pose as a noblewoman retrieving an errant servant. Besides, it would serve neither of us for me to remain as a mere deck hand on our next voyage.”

  “Much of it? Next voyage?” He caught the implications. “Our next voyage?”

  “I hardly think this was your final destination.”

  “I travel alone,” Thomas declared.

  “Not unless you jump ship,” Katherine said smugly. “I need only say the word and you will be thrown in jail again. Until we leave Lisbon, you are mine, and under my orders you will board the ship of my choice.”

  “You have much to explain.” Thomas dared not trust himself to say more. His fists were clenched in fury.

  “Perhaps. But as my penniless servant, you are in no position to dictate any terms.”

  She favored him with another radiant smile.

  “And my first command is that you bathe. You smell wretched.”

  “You should find the servants’ quarters somewhere below,” Katherine said as they stepped onto the gangway.

  Thomas gritted his teeth. Katherine had been shrewd enough to dispense an amount of gold that would guarantee eternal loyalty from the port authorities.

  Twice, in fact, he had rebelled during this long day since his release from prison. Was it not bad enough she had refused to return to him his remaining gold? Was it not bad enough she had taken such enjoyment at his discomfort—before and after his time in the public bath? Twice he had stormed from her, uncaring that he was penniless in a strange town. And twice he had been overtaken by a pair of guards who offered him the alternative of jail or a return to his master, that wonderful noblewoman.

  So now he stood on the gangway that led to the galley Santa Magdellen, an Italian merchant galley. This ship, unlike the Dragon’s Eye’s single mast with square sail, had two masts with lateens—triangular sails—which, in the calmer seas of the Atlantic and Mediterranean, enabled the ship to sail into winds with a minimum of tacking back and forth.

  Thomas scowled at Katherine. But discreetly. He could see lurking behind her on the dock the two guards and remembered they had not been gentle in the manner in which they had persuaded him both times earlier to return to her instead of jail.

  She smiled back. Sweetly, of course.

  He wanted to stitch her lips together, anything to rid her of that assured smile. He wanted to shake her by the shoulders and loosen the words from her mouth, words to explain how she had followed him and how she had known his destination, to find passage on a galley that sailed to Israel, the Holy Land. And—far worse—he wanted to be able to stare into those taunting blue eyes for every heartbeat for the rest of his life.

  That confusion only served to deepen his foul mood.

  She is one of them, he forced himself to remember each time their eyes met. I should not feel this insane warmth.

  So he growled surly agreement at her directions to the servants’ area and began to march to the cramped and foul area of the ship that would be his home for several weeks.

  “Thomas!” she called before he took three steps.

  He turned around and scowled again.

  She pointed to the expensive leather bags at her feet, which held her considerable array of travel possessions—all purchased with his gold. One of the bags held the smuggled puppy. Neither wanted trouble with this crew.

  “Must you forget the simplest of duties?” Katherine asked. “Surely you don’t expect me to carry these bags to my quarters.”

  It took nearly an hour to leave the harbor. The galley was awkward at slow speeds, and the ship’s captain dared not raise the sails until they reached the open sea.

  The crew used oars instead; Thomas was half-surprised that Katherine had not volunteered his services as an oarsman.

  In the hum of activity of departure, Thomas easily moved unnoticed to the prow of the ship where Katherine stood and enjoyed the breeze above the water.

  Spray cascaded against the wooden bow as the galley rose and fell with the waves. That sound made it easy for him to approach her back without being heard.

  “Have I not been tortured enough?” he asked. He was tall enough that he had to bend to speak the words into her ear.

  She turned and stepped back, not startled—or refusing to show surprise—at his sudden presence. “I’ve hardly begun,” she said. “But this is a long voyage, and I remember well your treatment of me as I hung upside down by a rope.”

  “Do not hold those foolish dreams of revenge,” Thomas said. “We are away from those wretched Lisbon watchdogs. I shall be my own man now.”

  She smiled. “If you glance over your shoulder, you will see unfriendly eyes closely watching your every move.”

  Thomas groaned. “Not so.”

  “Indeed,” Katherine informed him. “Your gold has proven to work wonders with the ship’s captain as well. He has promised to have you whipped, should you exhibit the same behavior that jailed you in Lisbon.”

  “My gold cannot last for eternity,” Thomas protested. “Silks, perfumes, rich food, passage, and now protection! I had planned to live for a year on that gold.”

  “Wool,” Katherine said.

  “Wool?” Thomas stared at her as if she had lost her sanity.

  “Silks, perfumes, rich food, passage, protection. And wool.”

  “Wool?” The despair of comprehension began to fill his voice.

  “Wool,” she repeated patiently. “This merchant ship holds
twenty tons of wool that I purchased with your gold. Even after the price of passage, I should profit handsomely with its sale when we arrive in the Holy Land.”

  “Impossible,” Thomas said through lips thinned with frustration.

  “Oh no,” Katherine assured him. “Wool is much needed in far ports.”

  “I meant impossible that I had enough gold for twenty tons of wool.” Thomas could hardly speak now, so difficult was it to remain in control.

  Katherine dismissed that with a cheerful wave. “Had I neglected to inform you that I borrowed heavily from the supply of gold you have hidden in England?”

  His mouth dropped.

  “Remember?” she prompted. “Near the cave that contains your secret books?”

  A strangled gasp left his throat. Thomas clutched his chest.

  “It was child’s play to follow you to Kingston upon Hull after your contest with the outlaw Robin Hood. All I needed to do was return to that cave and wait for your arrival.”

  She lifted an eyebrow and pretended surprise. “You expected that I would remain with the outlaws to share the ransom collected for Isabelle?”

  Thomas closed his eyes briefly, as if fighting a spasm of pain.

  “Thomas, Thomas,” she chided. “Surely you don’t believe it was your doing to win the contest with the outlaw?”

  His eyes now widened.

  “Robin Hood had been instructed to lose. I wanted you set free.”

  She moved closer to him and mockingly placed a consoling hand on his arm. “Take comfort, however. He admitted later the outcome was not certain, even had he wanted to defeat you.”

  Thomas slapped her hand away.

  “Woman,” he said fiercely, “you have pushed me too far.”

  He grew cold with rage as he continued. “My fight for Magnus was a deathbed promise to my mother. Every pain suffered to fulfill that pledge is a pain I would gladly have suffered ten times over.”

  He stepped closer—now controlled in anger—but did not raise his voice.

  “Yet even after victory, the strange secrets behind Magnus haunted me. And each new secret glimpsed has had your face. I fight enemies I cannot see, and I fight enemies I wish I could not see. Too many good men have sacrificed themselves for this fight.”

  He advanced while she backed to the railing.

  “Yet the reason for this fight—a reason I am certain you know—has been kept from me. And even the reason it has been kept from me has been kept from me.”

  He paused for breath. “Your face and those secrets follow me here to the ends of the earth. And now I am your prisoner on a tiny ship in vast waters. You have stolen my gold. You have humiliated me.”

  He raised his forefinger and held it beneath her chin. “And now you mock me in tone and words. I will take no more.”

  Thomas stepped back and said in a whisper, “From this moment on, wherever you stand on this boat, I will choose the point farthest away from you. Threaten me, punish me, have me thrown overboard. I do not care. For I wash my hands of you.”

  He stared at her for a long moment, then let scorn fill his face before turning away.

  She called to his back immediately.

  “Forgive me,” Katherine said. The mocking banter in her voice had disappeared. “Love leads one to do strange things.”

  He turned.

  “Que je ne peux pas vous aimer,” Katherine said.

  Thomas was still stunned by her first words. So it took his befuddled brain a moment to translate. “Would that I could not love you,” she had just said. Why French?

  “And I have loved you fiercely since I was a child,” she was now saying. Although he understood those words clearly, it took Thomas another moment to realize her last sentence had been spoken in faultless German.

  Loved him since she was a child?

  “I see by the light in your eyes,” Katherine said, now in English, “that you understand well my words. And that is part of why I cannot not love you.”

  “Truth and answers,” Thomas replied, using Latin. “Only a fool would throw away love offered by you, but first I need truth and answers.”

  She smiled at his switch in language and answered him in Latin.

  “Can you not now see we have received the same education? Have we not been driven mercilessly by our teachers to be literate and fluent in all the civilized languages when few in this world can even read in their own tongue?”

  She moved to Thomas again and placed her hand on his forearm. This touch, however, was tender, not mocking. “And have we not been trained to fight the same fight against the same enemies?”

  She looked beyond Thomas and discreetly removed her hand from his arm. Hawkwood had given her permission to extend some trust. “The ship’s captain approaches. Tonight, let us talk.”

  The five hours until moonlight seemed to take as long as the entire voyage from England to Lisbon.

  Thomas had stood on the stern platform, staring at the coastline directly eastward that became little more than a faint haze with distance. Beast pressed against his leg, content to have his company.

  I dare not trust her, he had told himself again and again. Her vow of love is merely a trick. For if she were not one of them, how else could I have been captured in my camp the morning after her arrival with the old man?

  Yet the old man had spoken of the Immortals, raised from birth to fight the evil spawned by generations of a secret society of Druids. I had almost believed him—until my capture through their betrayal proved they were Druids posing as Immortals.

  And yet, too, I must consider the alternative. If Katherine is an Immortal and can truly explain the apparent betrayal, she is my only hope to recapture Magnus, my only source to the secrets that have plagued me. If she is Druid, I will play the game to find what she really wants. So I must pretend to believe her. And refuse to let my heart be fooled as it so desperately wants.

  Thomas remained on the stern platform all those hours until she appeared.

  Her hair was now silver in the moonlight, her face a haunting mixture of shadows.

  I cannot read her eyes. How do I dare trust her words?

  “You know by now that a secret war rages,” she began without a greeting. “Druids, who have chosen darkness and secrecy as the way to power, contend with the Immortals, who battle back in equal secrecy.” Thomas nodded.

  “You and I were born to Immortal parents,” Katherine said. “But not even birth destines a child to be an Immortal. Some, in fact, live and grow old unaware of their parents’ mission.”

  Thomas held up a hand to interrupt.

  “Certainly I know of the Druids,” he said. “Their circle of evil is ancient. The Roman emperor Julius Caesar observed them more than twelve hundred years ago, when they still reigned openly in Britain.”

  Katherine nodded. “Of course. You know that from your books in the cave. But of Immortals—”

  “Of Immortals, I know nothing more than their name, as mentioned by my nurse, by Hawkwood, and by another I knew in Magnus. It is more than passing strange that once I heard the Immortals referenced to Merlin—the same name of King Arthur’s wise man and trusted counselor.”

  “More than passing strange,” Katherine agreed. “King Arthur and his knights ruled some hundreds of years after the Roman conquerors had taken Britain and forced the Druids into hiding openly.”

  “Hiding openly?”

  “Openly. The safest way to hide. Blacksmiths, tanners, farmers, noblemen, knights, priests during the day. But at night …” Katherine’s voice trailed. “At night they would meet to continue their quest for power.”

  She shivered although the night air was warm. “Frightening, is it not? Any man or woman you might meet in England—a dark sorcerer at night. And many strove for positions of power in open society, the better to influence the direction of their secret plans.”

  Thomas spat disgust, but said nothing. He knew too well the treachery of Druids.

  “Merlin?” he pr
ompted her.

  “Yes. Merlin. Eight hundred years ago. The brightest and best of the Druids.”

  Thomas stood transfixed. The creaking of the ship, the passing of water, the clouds slipping past the moon—he was aware of none of it.

  “Merlin was a Druid?” he asked.

  “It explains much, does it not? His powers have become legendary. Some call him an enchanter. Equipped with the knowledge of a Druid—knowledge that is considerable and often seems magic to poor, ignorant peasants—he accomplished much through deception. And what better place for a Druid than at the right hand of Britain’s finest king?”

  Thomas shook his head, trying to understand. “Yet he battled …”

  “Yet Merlin battled the same Druids who raised him to such power. Merlin founded generations of the Druids’ greatest enemies, each person equipped with the knowledge of a Druid. In short, he turned their own powerful sword upon themselves.”

  “Why?” Thomas asked softly. He let his mind drift back those eight hundred years to the court of King Arthur. Sir Galahad, Sir Lancelot, and the other Knights of the Round Table. And Merlin, the man who established that Round Table, at the right hand of Britain’s most powerful man. “Merlin had everything a man might desire. Why risk losing all by rejecting the same Druids who had given him that power?”

  “It is legend among us,” Katherine said equally softly. “The Druids had waited generations for one of them to have the power in open society that Merlin did. With Merlin, finally, there was one to set into motion the plan that would let them conquer the entire kingdom, a plan so evil that its success would establish the Druids forever. Merlin was the one man able to ensure success. Until he became the one man to stop them. The legend is that a simple priest showed Merlin the power of faith in God by—”

  “A bold plan to establish the Druids?” Thomas interrupted. “It failed with Merlin. Is it the plan they follow now that Magnus has been conquered?”

  “Yes,” Katherine said quietly. “Merlin stopped them once. And established the Immortals. Us. And since then, we have fought them—generation by generation—at every turn. We have held them at bay. Until they finally discovered where we had hidden ourselves.”