The Burning Road

by Ann Benson

  Alejandro looked quickly at de Chauliac, who seemed to be enjoying his discomfort greatly. But the Frenchman made no attempt to change the subject, so Alejandro answered, “A bit.”

  “Then I am doubly glad to make your acquaintance,” Chaucer said, pumping Alejandro’s hand. He slipped into English. “I have had no one to talk to.”

  He struggled, but the words came back to him, harsh and guttural. “An affliction I understand only too well myself.”

  “How did you acquire it?”

  And though the Jew was liking the young man more and more with each passing moment, he hesitated to answer. “In my travels I have run across an Englishman or two,” he finally said. “It has been forced upon my ears, and I have taken it up, albeit against my own choosing. It is a talent of mine, somewhat unwanted.”

  “Everyone seems to have an opinion of our language. Tell me,” he said, “what is yours?”

  It was a dangerous subject, but would this curious fellow Chaucer make more of Alejandro’s refusal to answer than his unlikely knowledge of English? There was a risk that he would. “I find it difficult,” Alejandro reluctantly said. “And confusing. It is unlike any other language I have learned. I often find it lacking in words for proper expression.”

  “In time it shall be more worthy,” Chaucer said.

  Alejandro could not help but smile. Too bad he is not a Jew, he thought cynically. One hopes the English royals will learn to appreciate him. “Do you mean, my young friend, to improve it all by yourself?”

  “If need be,” young Chaucer said with a grin.

  There were still two seats empty at the huge oak table when all present were seated; de Chauliac ignored them pointedly and went about the business of seeing to the comfort of his prompt guests. Alejandro was pleased to find himself seated next to the friendly young page, but a bit unhappy to discover the overly inquisitive Nicholas Flamel on his other side.

  But soon they were far too distracted for him to notice his tablemates, for the dark young woman entered the dining hall, followed closely by the musicians, who accompanied her sensuous glide toward the table with a reedy, almost oriental air. She swayed in time to the dark thrumming of the drums; with each step forward, one hip was thrust out invitingly, the other angled back, a teasing position meant to tantalize de Chauliac’s guests, an intent the dark woman accomplished with great facility.

  And then to Alejandro’s surprise, she placed a bare foot up on one of the empty wooden chairs and nimbly hoisted herself to the tabletop. Her toes were encircled with rings of gold and silver, and she wore voluminous pantaloons of the filmiest, most transparent fabric Alejandro had ever seen. Like a virgin’s veil, he thought, an incongruous comparison.

  “Once I saw a woman of Romanie dance for King Edward,” Adele had told him. “She was dripping with ornaments of silver and gold, chains and charms that jingled as she moved, and her plump breasts were contained only in circles of cloth of gold, held together by the thinnest of strings tied at her back.” Adele had drawn rounded shapes in the air with her hands as she described it, and he had felt his heart speed up. “And yet,” Adele had said with girlish giggles, “this dancer covered her face like a shy maiden! One could almost see the king’s manhood rise beneath his tunic.”

  “And the queen did not object?” he had asked.

  “The queen arranged it,” his lover had replied with a blush. “It was a gift, for the anniversary of her husband’s birth. Royal ladies are accustomed to such exotic displays. And everyone wishes to be the first to show them some new and exciting thing, so they see these things often!”

  Far more often than the Jews of Aragon, he had thought at the time.

  Chaucer tapped his arm lightly and said, “In court I saw such a woman dance, from Romanie, I think.” Alejandro wondered if the youth had been reading his thoughts.

  And as if summoned, the dancer was suddenly before them, her knees slightly bent, her thinly covered womanly parts less than an arm’s length in front of their faces. She raised one foot, balancing easily on the other, and touched one toe to the tip of Alejandro’s nose, even as her hips still worked their rhythmic magic. He blushed full crimson before her foot met the tabletop again. The room came alive with cheering and applause, and out of the corner of his eye he could see de Chauliac’s wicked grin of satisfaction. Had this sultry demoiselle been instructed to entice him specifically? He thought it likely that she had. She smiled seductively and parted her lips, and showed her pink tongue, to the great appreciation of the gathered men, who whistled and pounded on the table and called for him to meet her challenge. And then she lowered herself and leaned forward, her breasts fairly bobbing in front of his face.

  In an act of self-defense, he grabbed the page at his side and thrust the youth upward until his face was buried in the woman’s cleavage. Shouts of encouragement and lewd suggestions rose up, and wild laughter. The music swirled, the air grew hotter, the din of voices nearly unbearable, and Chaucer had one knee on the table, ready to hoist himself up to join his would-be paramour. And then it all came to a sudden stop as de Chauliac stood, his eyes fixed toward the door to the dining hall. Everyone else’s eyes followed.

  The last of his guests had finally arrived. There in the door, somewhat breathless from their hurried pace, stood Etienne Marcel and Guillaume Karle.

  16

  Janie was operating in mental overdrive by the time Kristina left her alone with Virtual Memorial. It felt almost like having a new pet. There were things to learn, personality traits to be uncovered, and she found herself feeling wide awake and alive, though by this time of night, she generally started to tire. A glance at the clock told her that it was the middle of the night in London, too late to call Bruce. And she couldn’t be sure if the edge of difficulty in their last call had worn off yet. Despite her affection for him, she knew only too well that Bruce could be preachy, and the last thing she wanted in a moment when she was so engaged in something new was to be lectured about it.

  But she did need a good physical laundering, a complete body purge, to get out all the impurities that had settled in from too little sleep, too much stress, too many things to think about. A run or a fast walk would do it.

  I have to talk to Michael and Caroline anyway.

  It was a moonlit night, and most of the route was well illuminated; Janie was halfway down the first block on her way to their house when she realized that Virtual Memorial was still sitting on her kitchen counter.

  I should take it with me.

  But there’s no data on it yet. It’s probably all right to leave it behind.

  The memory of what had happened to her last laptop rose up and snarled in her face. She stopped, turned around, and went back to retrieve it.

  I guess I walk the dog. She put the small unit into a lightweight, padded nylon backpack and set out again.

  Part of her route took her over the bike path where the coach’s accident had occurred. It was a route she traveled regularly, and she thought she knew it well. But when she left the street and entered the wooded cut-through, a sudden cold isolation came over her, not the type of solitude she loved and often even craved, but instead the visceral, compelling kind that urges the body to keep moving at all costs. She did as the adrenaline bid her, taking care not to trip on any of the treacherous obstacles she knew she might encounter, for they were plentiful in a time when one could not dig up a weed without first getting the proper permit. Exposed roots, low branches, creeping vines, they were out there in little armies, ready to reach out and grab her by the ankle. She stepped high and quick.

  She came at last to the bike path itself, and when her feet touched the pavement, Janie silently blessed the unknown government official who’d had the foresight, against what was probably staunch environmental opposition, to stamp APPROVED on the plan for this path. After the dark and grabby woods even the hard pavement seemed friendly, but as she moved into a stretch of the path where the addition of one strategically placed lightbulb
would have been wise, the cold feeling began to return again. One foot steadily in front of the other, she panted her way past the shadowed inlets—they were perfect places to hide, but she’d never noticed them before.

  Had it been dark and shadowy, as it was now, when the young coach tumbled and died? Was his mind on something so absorbing that he didn’t notice a rock or a stick or even a turtle—or perhaps a person?

  Bike and all, someone could dash out of the darkness to trip or push or otherwise overwhelm a rider, then give a quick snap to the neck, arrange the body so it would look like an accident, and … off again. It would take only a few seconds.

  When she arrived at the end of their lot, sweating and shivering at the same time, she saw Michael and Caroline on their porch swing, rocking back and forth in the quiet of the evening. There was a certain ease they had with each other, a comfort Janie could feel even through the darkness. But their enjoyment of each other would be tempered, she knew, as it would on many subsequent evenings, by the question of why Caroline had seen fit to take Michael’s police palmbook, an act that had had terrible ramifications.

  It was loyalty, Michael, Janie wanted to say. She feels loyal to me because I saved her life. But that was an explanation that would be better and more believable coming from Caroline herself. In time, Janie had no doubt that Caroline would get there. In the meantime, they looked as if they were doing all right.

  When these thoughts had completed their circuit through her brain, she left the velvety shadows and stepped out into the light of the streetlamp.

  “Hey,” Caroline said warmly when she saw Janie, “come sit with us.” She patted the seat of the swing.

  As Janie sat down, she said, “Thanks.” She nodded a greeting at Michael. “I was wondering … I wanted to, uh, ask …” She stopped for a moment and fixed her gaze downward. After a few seconds of internal penance, she looked up again. “Sorry,” she said. “I should’ve called. But I’m not liking telephones much lately,” Janie said. “Especially when there are things to talk about that I don’t want other people to overhear.”

  Michael knew what Janie wanted without having to hear it. The coach’s death would be the subject of their conversations until they worked it into the lore of their relationship, until it became an implied undercurrent and open discussion was no longer necessary. He allowed her a few moments to get settled, then elaborated on the small bits of information he’d given her earlier.

  “They haven’t officially listed it as a suspicious death. They probably won’t because there isn’t any evidence to lead them to a suspect or a conviction. But that in and of itself makes the death suspicious. There should at least be something there to look at.”

  Janie wondered in that moment if she ought to be telling Kristina about the coach’s death. She probably already knows, she thought. But what if she didn’t? Was it important for her—for them—to know? But if she did tell Kristina, Caroline, perhaps even Michael, might be implicated. It was one thing for her to put herself in the middle of a tornado, but quite another for her friends to be similarly exposed.

  “It’s so odd that there were no traces,” Janie said. “Are they sure? There wasn’t the littlest bit of evidence?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Well, it means they won’t come looking for Caroline, or you, or me, but it also means they probably won’t figure out who did it to him, if someone did.”

  “Maybe it was really just an accident.”

  He gave her a surprised stare. “There’s a change of tune. You were convinced this was foul play a couple of days ago.”

  “I don’t know what I think now,” she said after a moment.

  Michael and Caroline didn’t know about Kristina and the work Janie had taken on with her. Kristina didn’t know about Janie’s little fishing trip for boy data with Caroline; she’d tracked Janie down through her inquiry into the camp. Or so she’d said. For some reason she couldn’t define, Janie believed her.

  Which could only mean that some other person, or entity, or “agency,” even, was keeping an eye on the Camp Meir boys. Not necessarily on the camp itself—although that remained to be seen. The dead man had to have been a message—and Janie had no reason to think it was being directed at Michael or Caroline. But if Kristina and her “agency” had found her through the camp, wouldn’t the others, who were rapidly taking on the persona of the “bad guys” in her mind, also find her that way?

  If they hadn’t already, perhaps they wouldn’t. Maybe Camp Meir’s Web site was too close a link for anyone to risk exposing himself with an electronic monitoring of it.

  None of these thoughts could be voiced aloud, or written down. I’m the only one who knows everything, Janie suddenly realized. I’d better take good care of myself.

  She turned to Michael. “Do you think you could give me a ride home?”

  The meeting between Kristina and the man who oversaw what she did was almost like a debriefing.

  “I’m beginning to feel like some sort of secret government operative,” she said to him.

  “Which you would know about, of course,” he said with a laugh.

  “Well, I’ve read a lot.”

  “I know. I’m just teasing you—trying to keep things light. But it does seem like this whole project has become very clandestine all of a sudden.”

  “Well, it is, don’t you think?”

  “I suppose so. And the sooner the whole deal is out in the open, the better I’ll feel. You know, your work has been really exceptional, Kristina. You did an excellent job tonight. You were clear and concise in your explanations, and very firm with our new ‘leader’ about what her obligations will be.”

  “Well, you know, I’ve had plenty of time to prepare.”

  “Time obviously well spent. It’s funny, though. I thought she might react with a little more … hesitation. I think I was expecting her to shrink up a little more. Back away, maybe.”

  “I think she might actually feel challenged.”

  “I wonder. It would be nice to know what she’s really thinking about all this.”

  “I’m happy to tell you, that’s about the only thing we don’t know. The machine is working really beautifully. The transmissions are coming through crystal-clear. She took it with her when she went to visit her friends and we picked up everything. It was brilliant of you to suggest adding the transmitter.”

  “You know what, it seemed ridiculous not to. Funny, though, to use a transmitter of that sort nowadays. It’s an old-fashioned thing, really. But it works.”

  Janie rose early enough to beat the birds the next morning, and though she knew he wouldn’t be home, she called Bruce. She didn’t really want to speak with him, but only to check in, touch base, do whatever it was she needed to do to keep the relationship rolling while she so rudely ignored his advice to bolt out of her increasingly complicated life, for at least a while. The message she left was brief, but she hoped her affection for him would come through and he would understand that she loved him, her recent rogue behavior notwithstanding.

  And promptly thereafter, with a cup of fully leaded coffee in her hand, she launched into rogue mode with a vengeance.

  She activated Virtual Memorial and put it in host status, then invited whatever guest files might be roosting on the satellite to come on down. Forty-three of them did, and posted themselves with all their information in the data collection program. V.M. then spent the next few minutes comparing the names and IDs to the list she’d obtained from Big Dattie and reviewing each submission for completeness.

  The operatives—Janie didn’t quite know what else to call them—had done a remarkably good job of getting information. Sadly, almost all of the boys whose data had been submitted were hospitalized, hence the ease of obtaining the data. In her mind’s eye Janie envisioned an innocent-looking lab technician or social worker or administrative assistant coming to the bedside of a young boy, who would be lying flat on his back, secured in air casts just as Abraham Prives was.
A mother or father, or perhaps if the child was fortunate, both, would be sitting at the bedside, face drawn and pale, hands wringing desperately. The operative would whisper a few apologies for the interruption, which the distraught parent or parents would forgive, for after all, wasn’t all this witch-doctoring for the good of the child? And with the loved ones looking on, oblivious, the operative would quietly run a cell collection swab down the child’s arm and discreetly tuck it into a plastic bag; next stop, the DNA evaluation lab if the facility had one.

  It was easy for her to pick out the files that had been sent by operatives who in their routine lives were administrators, for those files contained the complete bodyprints of the patients. Techs wouldn’t have access to that level of information, unless, of course, they were bodyprinting techs. There seemed to be one operative in Manhattan—they were all anonymous to her—who had access to lots of information. The files that came from there were almost perfectly complete.

  For each file with incomplete data, she relayed a note to the sender that more was required, listed precisely what blanks needed still to be filled, and requested notification if such information could not be obtained for some reason. Janie knew that for some of these boys, they would simply not be able to get bodyprints.

  But we can do what we need to do without them, maybe …

  She smiled to herself as she shut down V.M. She’d thought we.

  The tone of voice in Myra Ross’s message was nearly frantic.

  Dear God, she thought as she played it back again, please don’t let anything have happened to that journal.

  But despite her pleading, Myra refused to tell her anything over the phone when Janie returned the call. “You simply have to come here,” she insisted. “There’s something I have to show you.”

  And Janie couldn’t budge her. “You have to come.”

  “But I can’t get away right now, I’m in the middle of something.”

  “Come as soon as you can, then.”