Isabella's Heiress

by N. P. Griffiths

  “I cannot say whether the omens refer to her directly. That is for others far more learned than I. From my observations, I can tell you that she has in her, immense reserves of strength and courage of which she is unaware. If you’re asking me to give you a definitive answer as to whether she is the one, I cannot give you that answer but I will say this.” Father Eamon paused for a second as he thought about how he was going to finish his answer, “She is easily the strongest initiate that I have guided and by quite some way. Her will is immense and her tenacity in the face of everything that she has faced is unbowed.

  “If I were a believer in the prophesy, then I would have to say that she is the closest we have ever come to an initiate fulfilling it but I would urge caution. I am not saying anything other than this is an exceptionally strong and able woman and I would ask that the council not make any judgements on my limited observations.”

  Once again the woman’s voice responded.

  “How would you wish to proceed?”

  “She now has her test. She has been set a difficult task in such a limited time but if she can pass then maybe we will be somewhere closer to answering the councils questions.”

  “Then it is agreed. You will observe whilst this girl attempts the task. Father Eamon, I must advise you not to let your heart rule your head. Paris was unfortunate but necessary; this girl must have no help from yourself beyond what you are called to do.”

  “I understand. Although I would ask the Council’s indulgence with regards to some of the inhabitants of the Twilight Plane. The Cado Angelus has already made one move on Emma and I am sure there will be other attempts. I must be allowed to deal with these as and when they arise.”

  “Of course. We also have heard rumblings about their intentions. You are our eyes and ears whilst there and we are under no illusions as to what lengths they will go to, to take her for themselves. Do what you have to do in this matter.”

  Father Eamon turned and headed towards the chamber doors, which opened as he approached. He would have to speed up Emma’s training; this was not an ideal state of affairs. Emma was spending a fraction of the time in the twilight plane that others in her position did and her task was not going to be easy. A light wind picked up around him and he continued down. He would have to speak to Brother Ugo again about other matters but that would have to wait for later. Now it was time to get back to Emma.

  This was going to be harder than he had thought.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Meeting Rodolfo

  Emma sat quietly on a wall just across from the sanctuary entrance. It was busy in the main hall and she wanted to get some time to herself. She wanted to speak to Father Eamon about this woman people kept mistaking her for but she didn’t know how to bring it up.

  It had been a week now since she had blown out the lights in Bishopsgate and, whilst she couldn’t be sure, it felt like Father Eamon was viewing her differently. It wasn’t anything she could put her finger on but very occasionally she would catch a sidelong glance or see him go off for a meeting with priests who would suddenly turn up out of nowhere. It worried her but what worried her almost as much was that it could all be in her mind. Emma did not want to make a fool of herself asking if all the recent activity was about her only to find it was nothing of the sort.

  She wanted to confide in Taryn but with the exception of a few occasions where they bumped into each other at London Bridge, they had become more and more distant since the incident at the London Stone. Emma had tried to speak to Taryn since then but would find she had left the sanctuary early, supposedly to work on her own task. When she did manage to speak to her, Taryn would make an excuse to cut off the conversation before it had gone very far.

  Emma was frustrated and hurt at the sudden change in attitude by Taryn but she felt resentment as well. She was damned if she was going to keep trying to make the peace if all she was going to get for her troubles was a stony response.

  Emma looked down Seething Lane to see the searchlights sweeping the sky, in a vain search for the owners of the droning throb that came from above.

  This realm was different from the others. Even though London was fractured and broken, there were no people in this realm apart from the occasional initiate and their guide. Emma felt a comfortable solitude here, away from the prying eyes of the other realms inhabitants. She had learnt that even with the flames and explosions she couldn’t be hurt, at least not seriously. She still had to be careful but from what she had seen happen to other people, the worse that could happen to you here was a bad concussion, should you get hit by falling masonry.

  Emma got off the wall and headed towards the Thames, looking around her at all the devastation. She headed towards the glow that lit up the East End. A wave of heat hit her face and her cheeks started to tingle as sweat ran from her brow. Over the rooftops in front of her, Emma could see the tips of orange and yellow flames reaching up to touch the sky. The smell of burning tar, pitch, wood and hemp flooded her senses and for a second Emma thought she would be overwhelmed.

  Emma headed east along Tower Hill, trying to forget the fact that this was where it had all started, when she felt a jarring pain and dropped to one knee. Her eyes were watering and blood flowed freely from her nose. For a second she just stayed there, stunned by what had just happened. Then slowly she got back up, rubbing away the tears from her eyes. She took a few tentative steps forward before her toes came up against something sharp but invisible to the eye. The tips of her extended fingers grazed against something solid. Emma flattened her palms against it and gently ran her hands up and down, trying to work out what it was. Her hands ran over lumps of roughly hewn stone, packed tightly together in an uneven patchwork. Emma groaned, she had come up against the wall that Father Eamon had shown her on their first day out together. She hadn’t realised that when he said it represented the border of her world he meant in other realms as well.

  Frustrated she turned back and headed towards Great Tower Street. Around her there seemed an unnatural silence. It reminded her of the moments immediately after a severe storm when everybody was still inside and the world seemed to be empty of everything except the occasional bird cry or the distant sound of a passing car, only here the car was replaced by the crackle and spit of a fire off in a side street.

  Keeping to the centre of the road made it easier for Emma to negotiate the rubble and avoid the worst of the heat. She kept moving without having any idea where she wanted to go. Great Tower Street turned into Eastcheap, which passed by the monument to the Great Fire. Before Emma knew it, she was in Cannon Street and was looking at the dome of St Pauls. Emma knew from her history lessons how close London had come to losing it during the blitz.

  Emma rushed forward until she was close to the east side of the cathedral. A battered sign warned of an unexploded bomb in Bread Street. A rope thrown across the road had two flashing red lights swaying gently on it to reinforce the warning.

  Details on the cathedral walls were thrown in to sharp relief. The stained glass windows were cracking in the heat, their broken frames acting as conduits for the slender rivers of molten lead running down the side of the building. The flames crept up the wall of the Jesus Chapel, on the east side of the Cathedral, and worked their way around the outer columns like angry red serpents until they were at the feet of the saints, looking down from their precarious perches. One by one, they succumbed to the fire until all Emma could see was the dome sitting defiantly on top. For a second it looked like it might survive but a loud crack was followed by a low rumble as the great dome collapsed in on itself in a frenzy of dust and flame.

  Emma looked on in shock as the flames consumed everything they touched. She was oblivious to the heat, blinking out the sweat, which stung her eyes. Eventually she couldn’t watch any more and turned back the way she came. For a second, she saw the figure of a man as he turned into a side street. It was only the most fleeting of glimpses, but she suddenly felt very vulnerable.

  Emma
started to make her way back to the sanctuary but stopped to look into the street where the figure had been. It turned out to be a courtyard, which looked to have escaped the bombs. Emma stood there wondering for a second whether she should risk going in. In the end it wasn’t a difficult decision and she headed back to Seething Lane. Behind her the bells of St Pauls, high up in the rafters, came crashing down, their fall accompanied by a deep mournful toll.

  Every now and again the man would reappear only to vanish back in to the rubble. Sometimes he was in a doorway, other times looking around the side of a fractured window frame but all the time he was watching her.

  She sped up, tripping on rubble and wood as she went. At Cannon Street, a low rumbling in front of her became a roar as the flames lay claim to another building. Emma’s mouth and nose became clogged with brick dust and her eyes stung from the superheated air as the first remnants of the building hit the ground. Hot air seared her lungs, causing her to drop to one knee. She caught a glimpse of the man again, this time looking out of a shattered shop front. Through bleary eyes, she could make him out, crouched down like her, peering out from behind a shop dummy but as soon as she saw him, he disappeared. Emma thought about going after him but there was too much rubble between her and the window and all she wanted to do was get back.

  Emma ran into a street on her left and and breathed a silent prayer of thanks at having escaped the heat of Cannon Street. She found herself at a large junction being fed by six roads. In one corner stood the Royal Exchange, a large smoke-blackened building, its colonnaded frontage looking out onto a piazza that stretched out into the junction.

  The fire was behind Emma now and cooler air allowed her to breath more easily. Emma walked towards Fen-church Street, careful all the time to avoid falling debris. Alone with just her thoughts, her mind kept coming back to the task she had been set and the news that her father was dying. The tears that had earlier been from the heat were now flowing through the pain and regret that were surging through her. Buildings and street lamps disappeared behinds curtains of hot, stinging tears and Emma had to blink them away to avoid tripping over the rubble or falling into a bomb crater.

  Slowly, Emma became aware of the air starting to crackle but this time the flames were to the west, between her and the sanctuary.

  “Child, quickly, before they find you!”

  Emma whirled around to see the man from earlier. He beckoned her, his arm outstretched in the smoky air. He stepped out from the shadow of the doorway and she recognised the old man that had accosted her when she had been out with Taryn and Sister Ignacia, only now his eyes were alert and he stood tall and fit.

  His gaze moved from Emma to the junction she had just crossed. A mist was starting to form and a dark chill settled in to the pit of Emma’s stomach.

  “Come, child, we have not a moment to waste; they will be upon us before long.”

  Emma weighed up her options, go with this stranger or take her chances with the oncoming Gentle Men. The old man ran forward and grabbed her wrists, pulling her towards the doorway before she had a chance to protest. Emma tried to resist but was surprised by his strength and found herself being dragged into a ruined clothes shop, its floor covered in dust, rubble and torn floral patterned dresses.

  Behind her the mist was starting to fill the street as the temperature rocketed. The man pushed her in to a corner and motioned for her to keep quiet.

  A long grey arm emerged from the rolling fog. It was followed by the rest of the Gentle Man, its stooped frame slowly turning left and right. It paused and turned towards where the man was standing. Emma held her breath; sure that it must see them but by now the man had hidden himself behind a pillar that was holding up what was left of the ceiling.

  The Gentle Man carried on up the street, its arms spread open in a mock welcoming gesture. “Ehmma, Ehmma. Whherre are yhou? Wee know you are hhere.”

  The man looked at Emma and put a single finger to his lips. Slowly he moved back to where she was crouched in a corner, between a fallen roof beam and a pile of rubble, careful not to dislodge anything as he went.

  “Whatever happens next, do not make a sound.” He turned back to the door, careful to retrace his steps. The Gentle Man was returning from the end of the street and was paying more attention to the ruined and damaged buildings on either side. It stopped at each one, leaning in to windows and doorways and waited for what seemed like an age before moving on. It arrived at the shop where Emma was hiding and sniffed the air before moving forwards slightly. It seemed to pick up on something. For a second its movements quickened and it became agitated but then it stepped backwards and headed towards the mist.

  The man followed its path for a while until he was sure it wasn’t coming back. When he turned back towards Emma, the tension in his face had partially disappeared.

  “So you are Emma Elliott.”

  It was more a statement than a question and Emma didn’t know what to say in response.

  “Well do not worry, Emma. They won’t be coming back, although I am surprised that you were let out without an escort.”

  He walked over to Emma’s rubble-strewn corner and squatted down on his knees, allowing Emma to get a good look at him for the first time. He was tall with pale skin and his short grey hair was flecked with white. His clothes were those of a working man, big shoes, heavy duty trousers and a shirt with its sleeves rolled up to the elbows exposing slender forearms, one of which was extended towards her. “Who are you? And why did you help me?”

  “I am Rodolfo. The second question, alas, is an altogether more complex affair.” The man had a southern European accent that seemed to Emma to be at odds with his appearance.

  He was transformed from the stooped and emaciated beggar that had stopped her in the street. In front of her now stood a man whose wiry frame was perfectly suited to trudging over the rubble and bomb damage.

  “I look different, no? I’ve had to make a number of sacrifices in order to keep my identity secret.” Rodolfo grimaced, “None of them particularly pleasant.”

  “Why?”

  “Let us just say that there are people who would be very interested to know that I reside in this plane.”

  Rodolfo’s voice lowered and he became distracted. He looked around him and seemed to be talking to himself. He walked over to each corner of the room and ran his hands up and down the walls. When he had done this at the final corner, he walked back to Emma and motioned for her to sit down. Emma looked around and picked a spot which looked least likely to cause her an injury when she rested her weight on it.

  Rodolfo sat next to her and waited for the gentle trickles of rubble to stop.

  “Good, we are safe now. No one can see us from outside. You are a most sought after woman, Miss Elliott, are you not? Do you know why?”

  Emma looked at this man and thought about what to say next. She had not met him before but he had saved her from the Gentle Man so she decided to give him some leeway.

  “No, but everybody keeps saying I’m some woman called Isabella.”

  Rodolfo smiled as she said this. “Do you know who Isabella is?”

  Emma sighed “No. I’ve got no idea but if we ever meet, I may have a few words with her.”

  This comment was met with a quiet chuckle. “Well you’ll be sad to know that it’s unlikely to ever happen. Isabella disappeared nearly four hundred years ago.”

  “How? Who was she?”

  Rodolfo’s eyes took on a distant look. “Isabella was a woman not unlike yourself, beautiful and alive with spirit.”

  “Yeah,” Said Emma, “So I’ve heard.”

  “Yes, but unlike you, Isabella was born into a time of great uncertainty.”

  Emma opened her mouth to respond but though better of it.

  Rodolfo continued. “Isabella was the eldest daughter of a great merchant called Guglielmo Calabria who lived in Siena. As I said, she was beautiful and alive with spirit. The family to which she belonged was the most powerful in
all of southern Europe. They built their power through commerce and finance and used it to wield influence in the highest courts in Europe. At a click of their fingers they could topple kings and popes such was their influence.

  “As the years passed, another family called the Robillard’s came to power in Paris. After a while their wealth and control came to threaten the dominance of the Calabria’s. They made their money the same way as the Calabria’s did but there were always rumours swirling around them about secret deals to further their cause, not that anybody knew what their cause was. Everything was peaceful for years until one day their emissaries met each other. It was innocuous enough; both families had outgrown the confines of Europe and were looking for markets further afield. As time went by they both arrived at Istanbul and argued their cases for trading rights.

  “At some point during this, the representative of Guglielmo Calabria was poisoned. It was not a good death. When news of this seeped back to Siena it was as if a thundercloud had finally broken. Both families raised armies and skirmishes broke out all over Europe. Barons and lords were forced to take sides for fear of losing their lands and as people took up arms, so the likelihood of peace seemed to disappear further over the horizon. One final effort to broker the peace was made by the church but to no avail. Lands were taken; first by one side then the other and unspeakable acts were perpetrated against the innocent by both forces until finally the two great armies arrived on the plains outside of Dresden. There a battle took place that drenched the fields in blood until, as the sun set, Isabella disappeared.”

  “I don’t understand, what this has to do with me.”

  “I will come to that later, for now I would beg your indulgence.

  “Whilst the war between the two families was serious, it was set against a far bigger conflict. You have heard of the thirty Years war, no?”

  Emma, taken aback by the question, thought back to the history lessons she had endured whilst at school. Plenty of Henry’s, Charles’ and Tudors came to mind but no Thirty Year War. She looked at Rodolfo unsure how to answer. “Erm, no.”