The Burning Road

by Ann Benson

  Everyone arrived at once—Michael, Tom, and the police cruisers. The presence of officials and friends did little to eliminate the horrible, nauseating sense of violation that overtook her as she slowly realized what had happened. She sat on a chair in her living room, the towel still wrapped around her shoulders, and rocked back and forth with the journal clutched to her heart, while Tom kept one warm hand on her shoulder.

  Within the hour it was determined that whoever had done the deed was familiar enough with investigative technique to leave virtually no workable evidence. “I wish I could say we’ll get this bastard, but I doubt very much that we will,” Michael said. “Bloke must’ve been wearing a wet suit. There’s no hair, no dander, no footprints, nothing. A total bust on usable clues. Only thing might help us catch him is the loot. Do you have any idea of what’s missing?”

  “Just the computer,” Janie said. “As far as I can tell.” She looked up and saw Michael’s worried look. “He didn’t even bother to go into the bedroom. Thank God, because I don’t know what I would have done. I keep my jewelry there, not that it’s exactly the crown jewels.”

  “But you’d think a thief would at least look there, anyway,” Tom said.

  “He didn’t take my silverware, either. It was my grandmother’s, and it’s in a silver chest right on my sideboard. It’s probably worth a fortune.”

  Michael sighed and sat down on the couch. “Then all they wanted was the computer.”

  “And to scare me,” Janie said. “Bad.”

  The police investigators milled around for a bit longer, but there was little more to be gained, and as the first little light of dawn crept through the treetops Janie watched their van pull out of her driveway.

  “Caroline says you’re to come home with me straightaway,” Michael said firmly. “So perhaps you’ll want to gather a few things.…”

  “No, I’ll be okay,” Janie said. She nodded toward the window. “It’s stark-raving morning already. I’m going to go into my office at the foundation in a little while, after I get myself cleaned up. I don’t think I could sleep right now, anyway. I’m way too wired.”

  “I’ll make you some breakfast, if you want,” Tom said, “and I can drop you off at the foundation when I go in.”

  She gave him a grateful smile. “You might be my hero right now. I can’t tell you how I appreciate this.” She turned to Michael. “But tell Caroline I love her more than ever for the invitation. And tell her I’ll be okay.”

  Tom made himself very much at home in her big kitchen, and while Janie was vainly trying to shower off the slimy sense of having been invaded he put together a fabulous Mexican omelet, with toast and fruit salad. And by the time she’d finished eating it she was feeling half-normal.

  But she was not feeling safe, not by a long shot. While Tom was straightening up the kitchen, she went to the living room and got the journal down from the shelf where she’d replaced it earlier. Then she went to the hallway closet and took the data disk out of her purse. She tucked the disk inside the back cover of the journal and stuffed it all into a large manila envelope.

  “Can you put this in your office safe for me?”

  “Sure. What—”

  “Items of supreme personal importance. Just until I can get a safe of my own.”

  “Scared you, didn’t he?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  They rode in silence to the downtown area, Tom driving, Janie in the passenger seat. After promising to check in on her later, he gave her a quick peck on the cheek and an encouraging smile, and as she walked up the steps into the foundation’s main entry, Janie could almost feel him still watching her. She wanted to turn and wave, but fought the surprisingly strong urge; she didn’t turn around until she’d heard the whine of his engine pulling away from the curb. She knew his eyes would no longer be on her, but rather on the road ahead, and that it was safe for her to put her eyes on him. She did, with a growing sense of wonder and curiosity.

  Why had she called him last night, when Michael was a more than adequate champion and far more official?

  It seemed like the natural thing to do, she told herself. Besides, he was her lawyer.

  The elevator doors opened in front of her, and she stepped inside, surrounded once again by gleaming polished brass. When she got to her office, it seemed safe enough, at a time when safety was the overriding need, so Janie sat down at the computer and started dully going through a series of day-starting tasks. She checked everything she needed to check, and found to her great relief that she had no appointments. And there were only interoffice missives to be read.

  But there was always e-mail. The little mailman was wonderfully familiar, a welcome sight on the computer screen, waving another handful of letters. The first was from Caroline: Call me if you need anything—there’s a sale on notebooks at Computer Heaven if you want to replace yours. I can pick you up later if you want to go. Michael got me plenty of gas.

  One from her auto mechanic: Time for an oil change.

  One from Bruce: Love you, miss you, talk to you later, bye. He didn’t know about her rough night. She didn’t look forward to telling him: he would go through a predictable round of self-deprecation for not being there when she needed him.

  And one more. Do not be afraid, it said. It was signed Wargirl.

  9

  All through the morning Charles of Navarre watched from a high tower in the Château de Coucy as a steady stream of nobles were admitted through the stout gate into the courtyard. They had all come to see him in the hopes of forming an alliance, for the chaos throughout France had reached disastrous proportions and required containment. And though the nobles now seeking his leadership had managed rather soundly to subdue the peasants who rose against them at Meaux, the king of Navarre knew that the favorable outcome of that contest had not been assured before it began. Had the insurrectionists solidified their numbers under able leadership, they might have won. The rebellious Jacquerie had come too close to victory for any French noble to breathe easily, and all of those who had escaped with their holdings intact now agreed that the final blow must be delivered quickly and decisively if they were to retain their right to rule and tax.

  The day was clear and blue with a fine soft breeze, and the sun was so bright that Charles needed to shade his eyes against it. As he looked out over the impressive and favorably placed holdings of his host, Charles was envious, for when looking at the lush countryside no one need wonder how the brave and damnably handsome Baron de Coucy had inherited such wealth. But how, in the midst of indescribable deprivation and poverty, could les pauvres misérables who worked Coucy’s estate be further taxed? Even Charles the Bad, the most despised despot in all of France, understood that blood could not be gotten from a stone.

  Still, he and the rest of his kind had tried to squeeze it out of them. He could not really fault the unprivileged for rising up, nor the bourgeoisie for supporting them, nor some members of his own class for their apparent unwillingness to stomp them down. Rebellion could easily be justified in such distressing times.

  Nevertheless, it is not to be tolerated, not now, not ever. It was his sacred duty, Charles believed, to seize power and suppress the uprising, to unite those French nobles who had survived the mayhem under his own strong rule. It was a right, perhaps even an obligation, passed directly from God through his grandfather, the great Louis himself. He welcomed the challenge, for the small kingdom of Navarre was not realm enough to contain his ambitions, and tucked into the foothills of the Pyrenees it was too far from the centers of power and wealth to suit him.

  The Dauphin be damned, he thought as the parade of nobles continued, and may his pitiful Valois father grow fat and stupid as a captive in the Court of the idiot Edward. May Jean de Valois never leave that damp and miserable island.

  Guillaume Karle stared at the sight before him. “No!” he cried as he jumped down from his horse. “Not again!”

  Kate remained astride her mount, gripping the reins with
white knuckles. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut and began a desperate prayer. “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee …”

  Karle raised an angry voice over her soft murmurings. “The vicious bastard!” he shouted. “He means to slaughter every one of us!” He clenched his fist and shook it in the air. “Satan himself could not have imparted a crueler torture!”

  “… now and at the hour of our death,” Kate concluded. She crossed herself with one shaking hand and wiped a tear from her cheek. Then she whispered, “Amen.”

  Before them was the body of a scrawny peasant man, tied upright to a tree, with the hands bound behind and ankles lashed to its base. The head, through some miracle still attached, drooped forward on the chest, and the wide-open, unseeing eyes stared vacantly down at the victim’s own entrails, which had been pulled out to a distance of at least three paces from the rest of him. The exposed guts lay on the ground, a pool of blood at the end of their length where they had been gnawed by some hungry animal.

  “A wolf has already been here,” Karle said stiffly as he came closer to the grisly find. “They are growing bolder every day because the people weaken from hunger. They are cunning enough to smell it in us.”

  Or had a weasel or a fox come in the night to dine on this poor fellow? Kate could not help but wonder how long before losing consciousness this man had watched as animals of the forest growled at each other over the prize of his glistening guts, their eyes glowing like coals in the dark.

  She finally found the courage to dismount just as Guillaume Karle turned away from the pitiful sight and retched.

  “This is the handiwork of Navarre,” he said bitterly as he wiped his mouth. He spat into the dirt. “But how can he have been in all these places?”

  “This may have been done by one of his supporters.”

  “Then he is passing on his cruelest tricks to them!”

  They had seen another gruesome casualty of Navarre’s campaign of reprisal barely an hour before, propped up against a rotting rain barrel, his severed head placed neatly in his lap. The day before they had buried three others, one crucified, one roasted, another with his eyes gouged and tongue cut out. Each new grave they dug with their pitiful sticks and rocks was more shallow than the one before it, and it was becoming quite plain to them that their continued journey might consist of nothing but laborious burials. Together they removed the man from the tree trunk and laid him gently down on the ground. With the tip of one boot, Karle guided the man’s innards along until they rested on his belly. He did not attempt to shove them back inside.

  “Why in God’s name must they mutilate these poor folk so?” Kate wondered aloud. “Why not just kill them, and be done with it?”

  “That is a question that even God may not answer,” Karle said. “Navarre has turned his knights into a company of slaughterers.” He gave her a forlorn and weary look. “Shall we bury this one, as well?”

  “Have you the strength? I do not, of that I am certain.”

  “But we cannot simply leave him here,” Karle said.

  “If we bury every mutilated body we come across, we shall never reach Paris!”

  He knew she was right. He sat down wearily on a fallen log. “How are we to resist this? It seems so hopeless.”

  She was quiet for a moment, then sat down beside him. “You must fight this fire with a fire of your own,” she said.

  Karle gave her a tired look. “I do not understand. We are little candles, blown out with one small puff. Navarre is a blazing torch, and difficult to extinguish.”

  She reached out tentatively and rested her hand on his shoulder, hoping it would comfort him. “I understand that. But it is only logical to fight him as he has fought you. The best way to answer one attack is with another of a similar nature.” She thought for a moment, then said, “I will tell you something Père told me.”

  Karle groaned. “Now is hardly the time for another of your ‘Père’ tales,” he said wearily.

  “You must hear this one before you judge it useless. You recall that he cured me of plague?”

  “Aye. Your plague tale. I am yet deciding if I think it true.”

  Her expression hardened. “You would be wise not to doubt it. And there is a great lesson to be learned, one that might profit you if you are clever enough to comprehend it. You see, he told me that he used the dust of the dead to cure me—the dried and powdered flesh of those who had died before me of the same illness. That was why I took the hand of that child who died of plague, to have the flesh for drying! It was a secret given him by a very accomplished midwife, the same one who delivered my mother of me.”

  He let out a long, frustrated breath and buried his face in his hands. “While I am sure you consider these gems of midwifery germane to my situation, I still do not understand—”

  She cut off his protest. “Think, Karle. Consider the logic of it. What could be more clever than to use plague to battle plague? And so must you plague this Navarre.”

  “Shall we attack him with disease?” he said sarcastically.

  “That is not so stupid a notion as you might think. But that is not what I meant.” Her eyes flashed with undisguised excitement and unmaidenly determination. “You must become to him the same scourge that he is to you. He is organized, he has weapons, and he leads his forces in a military fashion. You must do the same.”

  “We cannot possibly answer him in kind!”

  “But you can answer him in the same nature, to the extent that it is possible, instead of scattering like rats before an army of dogs.”

  He thought about what she was saying for a long, quiet moment. In the stillness they could hear the low buzzing of flies as they swarmed around the peasant’s corpse, lighting now and then to lay their eggs in the wet wound. A nearby crow shrieked out a sharp summons to his distant brethren, an invitation to the waiting feast.

  “Unite your followers,” she urged him. “Have them meet in one place at one time and bid them bring everything that can possibly be called a weapon. Find anything that will serve as a standard, and hold it high in front of their assemblage! Then they will think themselves soldiers. And they will begin to act as if they were!”

  It was something he had not considered. They were Jacques, not soldiers. “These men are simple peasants, and know nothing of these things.”

  “Then teach them!” she added quickly. “Even peasants can learn the ways of soldiering if properly instructed.”

  “But who—how?”

  “Do not underestimate yourself, Karle. Or the men who would follow you. This enemy of yours will not be expecting such an action. It will give you an advantage you have not enjoyed before.”

  Even at Meaux, though their numbers were great they had been undone by their own sloppiness. But they had almost succeeded! Would they have known victory if they had marched as a true army, in lines, with leaders, employing strategies of war?

  Karle surprised himself by thinking, It might have been possible. It was marvelously simple, and all too obvious. Why had he not considered it before? The numbers of dead from that failure … and even more were perishing in the cruel retribution that now followed on its heels. Might they have lived?

  “You are completely right,” he said with quiet excitement. He studied her young face, searching for the source of her surprising breadth of knowledge. “How have you come to understand these warrior notions, still a maid as you are?”

  She took on a look of cynical sadness. “When I was a little girl, the men who frequented our household spoke of little else than warring. They mostly ignored my interruptions, for my questions were bothersome and the things I had to say were of no interest to them. But I seldom had a choice about listening when they spoke. And all they talked of was war, and weapons, and strategy, and soldiering. Perhaps a bit of their wisdom leapt out and settled in me.”

  “It would seem that it did. And through you, perhaps it shall leap to me.” He stood up and brushed his hands together. “And now I wi
ll use my newfound wisdom to say that we should, as you have urged, get to Paris,” he said. “There are men there who will help me formulate such a strategy.”

  Kate made no attempt to hide her glee. “At last!” she cried.

  “It is the only logical thing to do. You have convinced me that there is nothing more I can accomplish by myself. I must seek the aid and counsel of Etienne Marcel.”

  “Who?”

  He stared dumbfounded at her. “Marcel. How can such a brilliante as yourself not know the name of the provost of Paris?”

  She shrugged, looking slightly amused. “Père deplores all politics. He did not speak of such things while he had me locked in the cabinet.”

  “Then I shall speak to you of these affairs as we ride. You must not be ignorant.”

  He cupped his hands together and offered them toward her. She understood and put her foot in his hands, and he boosted her up onto her horse. Then he remounted his own and settled himself onto the animal’s back. “And when we meet your père in Paris, I shall be sure to tell him that you must be allowed to see more of the world.”

  She glanced back once more at the dead peasant. “I think perhaps I have seen more of it than I care to already,” she said as they rode off.

  Alejandro walked west on Rue des Rosiers, heading toward Rue Vieux du Temple. He scanned each doorway as he passed, looking for traces of the welcoming mezuzahs that had once adorned them. All had been removed. He saw only faint outlines of the symbols that had once been there, for the soot had been scrubbed away, or the wood whitewashed if such a luxury could be afforded. He wondered what had gone through the minds of the Jewish housewives of Paris as they labored to remove the marks when their presence had become a condemnation of those who dwelled within. Had they come out onto the street all at once, and bemoaned their fate together? Or had they slunk out one at a time in private grief to do the deed? It didn’t matter, he supposed; the symbols were gone. No Jew in Paris wanted to be known as such, for it could bring only misery.