Time Trap

by Deborah Chester

  Her eyes lifted slowly to his. She nodded. “It is Sir Magnin’s pleasure to treat noble prisoners well.”

  “I thought,” said Noel grimly, standing up to pace about the small chamber, “that I was to be ransomed, not executed. Is there a way out of this place?”

  “Oh, no. There is only this door, and a guard stands without.” She came to him and placed her hand upon his chest. “There is not much time left before you go before Sir Magnin. All in this room is here for your enjoyment. Even I.”

  She stepped back from him, her face aflame, and her slender fingers fumbled determinedly with her headdress, until it came off and her brown hair spilled upon her shoulders.

  Without the headdress she looked even younger—hardly more than a child—and deliciously tender, gentle, and appealing. But there was knowledge in her eyes that made them old, and with it lay fear.

  Noel frowned at her a long moment, then put his hand upon her cheek. She closed her eyes and nuzzled his palm. For a moment he was tempted, then he jerked back forcefully enough to make her eyes fly open.

  “I displease you?”

  “No!” he said too vehemently. Anger pushed through him, and he paced about the room, raking his fingers through his hair and making certain he avoided looking directly at her.

  “Another can come if you—”

  He whirled to face her. “No! What is your name?”

  She looked frightened. “I am not permitted to say it.”

  “Why not?”

  “I do not know why. The seneschal gave strict orders. They will cut out my tongue if I say anything I am not permitted to.”

  “That’s barbaric. They wouldn’t—” He broke off, his eyes narrowing as he studied her. She was evading his gaze. She fidgeted nervously with the headdress in her hands.

  In two steps he reached her and gripped her by the arm. She gave a frightened little cry.

  “You’re lying,” he said. “No one has threatened to cut out your tongue. I’m not even certain you were sent here to—”

  She fell at his feet and gripped the hem of his tunic. “Oh, please, my lord! Please do not betray me. The guard thinks I was sent in Katrina’s place by the seneschal. Please, my lord, have pity on me.”

  Completely bewildered, Noel felt his anger fade. He placed his hand upon her bowed head and realized she was trembling. “Stand up,” he said softly. “Face me, and tell me the truth.”

  She rose to her feet, keeping her head down. He slipped his knuckle beneath her chin and forced her to look at him. “What the devil are you up to?” he asked.

  She glanced at the door as though she expected the guard to burst in at any moment. Then she drew a tiny, much-folded slip of paper from an inside fold of her headdress and pressed it into his hand.

  “My name is Cleope, and I serve the Lady Sophia,” she whispered. “She sent me here tonight in Katrina’s place. Now all our lives are in your hands.”

  Noel unfolded the scrap of parchment that crackled stiffly against his fingers. A single line of laboriously printed Latin was all it contained. He frowned, struggling to decipher the message. His universal translator worked on audio mode, not visual.

  …help you in any way I can…

  At least he thought that was pretty much the gist of it. It was signed with the flourishing initial S.

  “I guess she couldn’t give me a signal when we met in town tonight.”

  “Met you?” said Cleope in bewilderment. “When, pray?”

  Noel explained that he had watched her retinue pass by. Cleope shook her head. “My lady mentioned it not. Word was just brought to her that a man impersonating Lord Theodore had been brought to the palace. Then she sent me here to you.”

  He frowned.

  “I am to ask you what has become of Lord Theodore. Does he live? Is he well? If he has been injured my lady will die of grief.”

  “He’s fine,” said Noel shortly. “It was his idea for me to take his place and distract Sir Magnin while a way is found to rescue Lady Sophia. But I’ve been caught by Sir Magnin already.”

  “It is not a wonder,” said the girl, “since you are the very image of—”

  A pounding on the door startled both of them. She clung to him, her face as white as linen. Noel’s own courage sank. Options were running out.

  “Time!” said the guard loudly through the door.

  The girl snatched the piece of paper from Noel’s hand and threw it on the fire, where it charred and disintegrated at once in a shower of sparks. She had time only to dash back to Noel’s side and give him one last beseeching look before the door crashed open and a pair of burly guards peered inside.

  “Out,” said one to the girl. “Get yourself presentable and help with the serving belowstairs.” He pointed at Noel. “You, come forth.”

  Noel’s heart was thudding. There had to be a way out, had to be a way to escape. Sophia would help him, but he didn’t know how he could reach her. The palace complex was an unfamiliar maze. He could remember the way he’d come in, but that was all. There were too many people, too many knights, servants, pages, squires, and God knew what else hanging around. He’d already tried one desperate getaway today and it failed spectacularly. He thought he needed a better plan in mind before he made another attempt.

  The stairs themselves were narrow, winding, treacherous things, offering no chance for him to dodge free of his guards and run for it. He had a guard ahead of him and a guard in back. They were armed to the teeth and dressed in a formidable combination of mail and plate armor that protected vulnerable places like throats and kidneys. Even if he managed to take out the man ahead of him, the one behind him remained.

  He sighed, his gaze darting everywhere in search of inspiration or a chance, however slim. There wasn’t even a pike hanging on the wall. All the windows in the stairwell were little more than arrow slits, far too narrow to squeeze through. He had no options.

  The sound of talk and laughter and a hideous kind of twanging music rose up the stairwell as he neared the bottom. He emerged into a dim, shadow-filled colonnade bordering the long, high-vaulted hall. Bright light and a scene of merriment filled the hall itself. Long trestle tables had been set up for all the knights to dine. Merchants, an abbot in travel clothes and his retinue, and others of unidentifiable trade or occupation sat at the foot of the tables, with the boisterous knights filling the center. They were laughing and jesting, hacking at platters of meat with their daggers, eating with their fingers, hurling morsels at dogs roaming behind the benches, slopping wine from their cups, belching, and in general ignoring the group of three acrobats in motley performing a series of tumbles and cartwheels for the evening’s entertainment.

  At the head table, facing the rest of the room, Sir Magnin sat with his own retinue of advisers and favorites. He was too far away for Noel to see him clearly. Just a glimpse of the huge, broad-shouldered man with the long black hair and cruel face was enough to send a shiver through him.

  He noticed that Lady Sophia had not joined the company. Before he could decide whether that was a blessing or a hindrance, the guards shoved him on.

  “Move! Don’t gander all day.”

  They walked behind the columns supporting the vaulted ceiling high above. The torchlight flared bright in the hall but did not quite reach them along this colonnade. Noel was glad of the shadows, glad those eating took little notice of his passing behind them. A gaunt dog blocked his path, snarling and growling, but one of the guards swore at it and kicked it in the ribs.

  Yelping, it slunk off with its tail between its legs. Sir Magnin noticed. He turned his head, and for a moment he and Noel stared at each other. The hairs on the back of Noel’s neck stood up. Sir Magnin merely smiled and swung his attention back to Sir Geoffrey, who was speaking to him with many earnest gestures. Sir Magnin yawned widely, making no effort to mask his boredom.

  On his other side, however, Lord Harlan lifted his head slightly from between his hunched shoulders and followed Noel with his
gaze. He looked like a scrawny vulture, his white skeletal fingers tearing a joint of chicken apart, his cap clamped tightly to his narrow skull. For a moment he smiled at Noel, half toothless and malevolent, then dispatched a page boy on an errand.

  Past the colonnade stood a door flanked by guards in livery. They let Noel and his escort pass through into what proved to be a narrow corridor. It ended at another guarded door, beyond which stood a short flight of about four steps leading through an open archway into a sizable chamber furnished with benches and massive chairs covered with carving. Byzantine frescoes and French tapestries decorated the walls. Tall, arched windows lined one side of the chamber. Noel stared at them, wondering what they overlooked, wondering how high off the ground this room was.

  Queer, heavily swirled glass in tiny panes mirrored the chamber back at him. He could not see through them into the night. The guards released him and left him alone there. As soon as the door closed and was bolted, Noel hurried about the chamber in a quick circumference, peeking behind the tapestries for a hidden door.

  He found it, but it was locked.

  “Damn!” he said aloud.

  A fire crackled upon the stone hearth, fragrant with burning apple wood and cedar. The benches lining the walls and the very sparseness of the other furnishings told Noel that this must be an antechamber, where suppliants waited for an audience with the governor.

  The eyes in the faces of the frescoes seemed to watch him. He warmed his hands at the fire, then told himself to get on with it. Striding across the room, he picked up one of the two chairs, finding it heavy enough to wrench his side. He lifted it high with a grunt and swung it against the center window.

  Glass shattered into a thousand shards, the brittle noise of its breakage crashing over him. Cold air rushed in, and the fire blazed up the chimney with a roar.

  Shouts from without the door warned Noel he had only seconds. He bashed at the ragged edges of glass still jutting up from the sill and flung a leg over.

  He was one story up, above what looked like a tiny, walled garden. A tree spread its branches close by, but it was too small to support his weight.

  The door to the chamber burst open, and the guards ran inside with shouts. Noel swung the rest of himself out and dangled a moment by his hands in hopes of finding a ledge, however narrow, beneath him. His groping toes found nothing but the straight stone wall.

  A hand seized his wrist. Fear and reflex enabled Noel to jerk free of those clutching fingers, but he lost his hold altogether and plunged straight down. He closed his eyes, certain that when he hit the ground he would shatter both legs.

  Instead he crashed into a taut awning that sagged, groaning beneath him, then recoiled like a trampoline, hurling him sideways into a massive bush. Birds burst from their nests, chirping and fluttering in panic. Noel flung out his arms, seeking to grab anything that would stop his impetus. But the bush could not support his weight. He went crashing down through the center of it, limbs snapping beneath him like pistol shots, and landed on a hillock of pungent compost, straw, and crushed flowers that gave off a heavy fragrance. The jolt of hitting immovable ground knocked out the last bits of breath left in him.

  He lay there, stunned and weary, his ribs protesting with every breath he attempted to draw. His head had had enough.

  From above him, voices cursed and shouted, raising the alarm. Groaning, Noel forced himself to his hands and knees, then to his feet.

  Stumbling over plants, flagstones, and something about the general size and shape of a sundial in the darkness, Noel searched for a gate in the garden wall and found none. A guard was climbing out the window. Noel’s heart pounded harder.

  There had to be a way out. He just had to find it.

  The only door he discovered, however, was a narrow one that led back into the palace. It came open at his touch.

  Reluctant, every instinct screaming at him that he was going the wrong way, Noel entered. He found himself struck in the face by a musty, ecclesiastical scent of beeswax, leather, damp wool vestments, and incense. A lone candle burned upon the small altar, casting a feeble nimbus of light at the feet of the Madonna statue.

  It was a tiny chapel, cramped and dark with wood and stone. A tarnished chalice and plate rested upon the altar cloth; cobwebs hung in the corners like veils. Noel crept between the pews and nearly stumbled at the sight of a boy stretched prostrate on the floor before the altar. He was dressed in a mail shirt, leggings, and coif, but he wore no surcoat, spurs, or weapons. A sword lay upon the floor inches from his head. He was muttering prayers to himself in a hoarse chant that sounded worn with fatigue.

  Noel’s heart seemed to stop; it was a hell of a time for someone to be having an all-night vigil.

  The boy’s eyes jerked open and stared up at Noel. He blinked and lifted his head, his eyes widening in obvious surprise. For a moment Noel thought he would speak. Noel opened his own mouth, but he’d lost his breath and his tongue felt stuck to the roof of his mouth. They looked at each other for what seemed an eternity, then the boy frowned and clenched his eyes tightly shut.

  Pressing his face to the floor, he began a new prayer. Apparently no distractions of any kind were permitted to interrupt a vigil. Noel dragged in a breath, giving thanks to tradition, and hurried to the rear of the chapel.

  He eased his way out, leaping into an alcove dark with shadow as guards came trotting past. One of them entered the chapel with a bang of the door, only to emerge almost at once, shaking his head.

  When they were gone, Noel touched his bracelet. “LOC,” he said in a fierce whisper. “Activate. Show me the way out.”

  The LOC made no response.

  “LOC!” he said with urgency. “Activate now.”

  It didn’t. He could have wept with frustration. But more men were coming. Some of them had pikes and they were probing the alcoves along this passage with a savage clanging of steel upon stone.

  Noel whipped from hiding and ran for it, hoping he could make the stairs ahead without being seen.

  “Look yon! There he is!”

  The shout brought a fresh rush of adrenaline through him. Noel picked up speed and drew ahead of them, for they were lumbering a bit in the weight of their armor. His only encumbrance was his exhaustion, but for the moment he forgot that and ran like the wind.

  He started up the steps, then changed his mind and went down, plucking a torch from its wall sconce as he did so.

  The narrow steps spiraled tightly. He prayed he would not slip and tried to hold the torch at an angle to keep the breeze from extinguishing it.

  Going down didn’t look like such a good idea. Wiping sweat from his eyes, he thought about cellars and dungeons. He thought about being trapped like a rat down a hole. He thought about never seeing daylight again.

  But going up into the main part of the palace offered no better advantage. He figured he had a ninety-five percent chance of being caught, no matter which way he went.

  Voices came from behind him, drawing closer. They must have split up, taking both directions on the stairs just in case. Noel reached the bottom, finding himself in a low-ceilinged area supported by posts of rough-hewn wood. He started toward the open passageway at the far end, then caught himself with one hand on a post and swung himself around in a slingshot effect toward a row of huge fermenting vats along the wall.

  Fashioned of aged oak staves bound with iron rings, the casks stood upright on end. Each was taller than Noel and large enough to hold half a dozen men at once. Noel ran from one to another, searching for enough clearance to wedge himself between them and the wall. He even tapped their sides, seeking a hollow thud that would tell him the cask was empty, in hopes of being able to hide inside.

  The smell of wine emanating from them was almost strong enough to overwhelm his senses. Slinging perspiration from his eyes, he stumbled into a stack of mead barrels, nearly knocking them over, and found himself at a dead-end corner.

  All hope in him sank. He heard his pursuers comin
g down the stairs, and at once he threw his torch upon the ground and stamped it out. The darkness blinded him, then he saw the glow thrown forward by his pursuers’ torches and the long shadows cast upon the floor.

  “He must be down here,” said one.

  “Aye, he’s here right enough. Search it well. Sir Magnin won’t take kindly to this goin’ on all night.”

  Noel squeezed himself into the corner and tried his best to shift the huge cask so he could hide behind it. Of course it would not budge. He crouched down in despair, breathing hard, his heart hammering wild, and tried to think.

  Only then did he notice that this cask was set up on support pillars above a stone-lined pit cut into the floor. He ran his arm under it and felt about. There was about three feet of clearance beneath the cask. Without hesitation, he thrust his head and shoulders between the bottom of the cask and the edge of the pit. He scraped his cheek and felt it sting, but he didn’t care. There was just enough room for him to slither in.

  It was awkward, going in and down head first. He had to twist himself in order to bring his knees around in the right direction. That made his ribs catch on him, and he nearly gasped aloud.

  At the last instant, he held back the sound and bit down hard on his lip. Safely down in the shallow pit, he breathed hard through his mouth, and sweat bathed him in a river. He coiled himself against the wall, keeping his head low, and watched the swing of light and shadow as they walked closer.

  They did not find him. They searched every nook and cranny. They went through the dungeons or whatever lay beyond the passageway he had first started down. They stuck their torches behind the casks. They even found a hiding spot up in a niche behind the stairs and spooked a family of rats that chittered and hissed furiously at the disturbance. His concealment was perfect, and as they finally started up the stairs to leave, he felt his thudding heart slow down. His breathing grew calmer. His tense muscles slackened.

  He rolled onto his back and lay inert for several minutes, basking in the sheer relief of it.