Nenetl and I both reacted instantly, but our heavy coats hampered our movements and our defence. Two of the thugs descended on me with cudgels, one striking me on the right shoulder as I shrugged to protect my head and the other slammed his into my left side.
Here my heavy coat helped me, absorbing some of the force of the blows, but I was still staggered by the hits. I tried to get to my pistol beneath my coat but could not get it out before a third savage blow numbed my right arm.
Nenetl, meanwhile had spun at the attackers with a cry like a wounded cat and took one of them to the ground with a leap that must have tested her recently healed leg. Their impact on the ground threw up a cloud of snow in a mini-squall as they rolled around, locked in mortal combat.
The remaining two assailants fell on the jaguar and I heard the sickening ‘thud’ of a club on her skull that silenced her furious growls.
“No!” I yelled and charged the men who had attacked her, but one of my attackers dove for my legs and brought me down face first into the deep snow. Before I could even roll over I felt a weight on my back, smothering me into the powder and then a blinding pain to the back of my head and all went dark.
***
I awoke with a sudden, violent chill and a pain in my head that matched any weeklong drunk I had ever had. I was nauseous and when I tried to move felt my hands restrained behind me. I opened my eyes to confirm I was no longer in the snow.
In fact, I was no longer outside, but rather in a dark, stone walled space. I was tied to a chair.
And I was naked.
“Are you awake, baronet?” Nenetl said from behind me. I could hear strain in her voice and thought I detected her teeth chattering.
“Yes, Nenetl,” I said. “Are you, uh-“
“Yes, I have no clothing as well,” she said. “And am tied most very securely.”
My own teeth started to chatter and my whole body shivered as I tested my bonds that were very secure at ankle and wrist. “Same here,” I said. “Like a prize hog to slaughter, as Mini would say.”
I craned my head around to see the Aztec warrior and saw she was testing her bonds, the same as I. She was in an exact mirror of my position with the wooden chair she was attached to snug against the back of mine.
If they planned to make me embarrassed by my nudity, they were sorely mistaken, as my Aunt Minerva had raised me with an American’s frontier attitude toward my body that it was merely the vessel that carried my spirit. It had been a shock to many an English relative when they found me swimming nude in decretive fountains as a boy.
As for Nenetl, the Jaguars were raised with only two shames, that of failure at their appointed task or cowardice. And it was not shame, however, I saw in her dark eyes when she looked back at me.
“Why are we still alive?” She asked me with no fear in her voice but a deep rage at herself for getting caught so easily. It was an annoyance I shared as well.
“The bigger questions are why were we attacked?” I asked. “And were we are we being held and why?”
I looked around now to try to ascertain at least the where.
The walls of the space were stone and from the look of it old stone set in mortar with some moss on them. There was a pile of debris in one corner of the space to my left, apparently a trash pile of some size that led me to reflect on our own state and made me feel discarded. In the pile was a dirty comforter with goose feathers escaping from tears, a broken chair, ruined dresser, some bric and brac, and a wide assortment of other trash. To my right I saw a heavy wooden door with old, iron fittings that looked very solid.
The rest of the room I could see was bare with a dirt floor with an unlit stone hearth off to our right.
“Any clew as to were we might be?” I asked.
“It is below ground of a certainty,” she said, “I can see a small, barred window across from me and can see ground. We are in a cellar of some sort.”
“But why are we here?” I said again, “That is the paramount question.”
“If they wished us dead, baronet, we were ready for the slaughter, so there must want something from us.”
“Not money or ransom,” I conjectured, “My inheritance is minor and no one but auntie is all that attached to me.”
“My clan will pay no blood money for me,” she said. “And my parents are poor farmers.”
“ I hate to say it,” I said, “but this must have something to do with our connection to Lord Chichua.”
Before we could discuss it further the sound of a bolt being thrown and the door across from me opened inward and the room was flooded with light from a hurricane lamp.
“You see, Monsieur Sundiata,” a burly silhouetted shape behind the lamp said in deep voiced French. It was a local accent, harsher than the French I was used to in Paris. “The merchandise are both in good shape, no sign of damage at all.”
A dark figure stepped through the doorway into the room. He wore a bright blue shirt and a orange cap without a brim. His skin was so dark it shone purple. He had a large gold ring in his right ear.
“They only need to be alive, it will not matter what condition, really,” the dark man said in French that was not local, but was not from the continent, either. “After all I will want them ‘freshly dead’ when we crash the airship, I imagine no one will care as long as there is enough left to identify them.”
Chapter Seventeen
Wheels Within Wheels
The dark-skinned man stepped back through the door and began to pull it closed behind him.
“So we are to be used to cover up some crime?” I said. It was a guess, but it stopped the dark-skinned fellow, who turned back to look into the room.
“You are not dumb, Englishman,” he said. “Though you should have picked your companions more carefully.”
“So it is about the ambassador,” I said.
“The treaty can not be allowed,” the man called Sundiata said. “My Emperor Nare Fa likes having rich Aztec ships for the Mali navy to pick from. We can not allow Albion’s naval power brought into this.”
“So?” I said. Nare Fa was emperor of the Mali Empire. There was no reason for him to tell me that except that this African seemed to need to boast, or at least to lord over his helpless captives. That sort of need in an enemy should be encouraged to prod information out of him. “How will our being in your custody and dying serve your purpose?”
He took my bait.
“The ambassador will be killed by you-- or at least two wearing your clothing and who appear to be you,” the African said, “- at the dinner this evening to celebrate the visit to this cold city, with all local dignitaries and your Prince Edward. This will be before any chance for any accord’s signing—which will certainly negate any chance of it being signed.” Sundiata said with smile. “Your doubles will escape by airship—and, when it crashes it will be your corpses that will be found in the wreckage.”
“No one will believe that,” I said but I knew that was not true. In fact, knowing that one of the Aztec nobleman’s own jaguar guards, Eztl had, in fact, tried to kill him on the journey north it was a very believable ploy. There were many factions in Chichua’s own country that did not want an alliance with Albion and any good intelligence service would be able to spread that ‘truth’.
“Oh, they will, Baronet Grey believe me,” the African said. “It is common knowledge that the attack on the airship was an attempt to kill the ambassador and I happen to know that the other jaguar was part of the plot--”
“How could-” I began but then I realized he could only know about Eztl’s treachery was that he was in on it.
“So betrayal makes strange bedfellows,” I said. “You provided the pirates to Eztl.”
The African laughed. “Of course he did not know it-- he was such an excitable type, it was easy to manipulate warrior types, they are so easy to play on their emotions. So you see, knowing what happened on the trip it will be easy to spread the word that your companion is in league with the oth
er bodyguard and suborned you to help her.”
“I will send you to the underworld for Mictlantecuhtli to feast on your soul,” Nenetl snarled from behind me. She had remained quiet, I am sure sensing, as I had that I was baiting the African would get us the information we needed, but he had struck too close to home. I could feel her straining against the ropes that held her and rocking our chairs in the process.
Sundiata gave a wide smile. “Enjoy your childish illusions girl, these are your last hours, we shall be upstairs awaiting the word that the deed is done.” Then he pulled the door closed and I heard the bolt shoot home.
“We must save Lord Chichua,” the jaguar said from behind me, her voice full of agonized frustration. I could feel her pulling at the ropes but it they were tied tight and it was having little effect.
“Easy, Nenetl,” I said. “Save your strength, we will escape, but we have to reason this out.”
“I have to warn Lord Chichua,” She insisted and continued to struggle till she was out of breath and exhausted. Her effort against the ropes was useless. After several more admonitions I got her to calm herself enough to listen to me.
“These two chairs are tied together,” I said, “I think we can move them together if we time it correctly.”
“But to where?” She asked.
“To that pile of debris over there to start with,” I said. “I have an idea.”
My legs were tied to the chair legs but I could press my feet down on the cold floor, as could Nenetl. By concerted, and exhausting effort-- which helped us fight the bone chilling cold-- we ‘hopped’ the two chairs across the floor until we were next to the pile of debris. We were both out of breath and rested there for a time till our teeth started to chatter again. My leg was sore, I could not begin to imagine what her recently healed wound felt like to her.
“What do we do now, Baronet?
“On the count of three we rock sideways, until we tip the chairs over on their sides. There are broken pottery pieces in that mess that we may be able to use to cut our ropes.”
“Yes,” she said, “I see them, it is a good idea.”
“It might be, Nenetl, but it will hurt.”
“I am jaguar!”
“Well then, old luv, to your left first on my count; One, two, three!”
We rocked the chair and on three we tipped over to my left, slamming into the floor with enough force to all but dislocate both of our shoulders.
I cried out in pain. Nenetl made no noise at all.
“Are you okay, Nenetl?” I asked after I caught my breath.
There was a moment before she answered, and when she did there was pain in her voice but she was clearly fighting it. “Yes. Let us get loose.”
We had fallen over about two feet from the actual pile. Being on our sides- my left, her right-- it was harder to move now, which we could only do by wiggling our upper bodies and squirming along the dirt floor. This action ground the cold earth painfully into our sides but I never once heard a complaint from the jaguar; I suspect I cursed several times. Thus it took considerable time to reach the shards of pottery.
The next problem was that our fingers were already numb and we had considerable difficulty in gripping the shards to use as cutting tools on the ropes. Her hand was better placed so she was able to work a rough edge of a fragment against the rope holding my forearm to the chair.
It was slow, tedious and discomfortable in the extreme, but I gritted my teeth and endured. With each breath the cold seemed to seep into my flesh and deeper, into my bones. Soon I was aware of a strange sound that I realized was my own teeth chattering uncontrollably.
After what seemed a long time I felt the strands begin to give way and was able to work my hand loose.
“Good show!” I exclaimed. “Got it!” I took hold of another, larger shard and worked on my other arm. It was quick work then to release my legs and then rolled from the chair to reach over to release my companion.
Nenetl was a game girl, obviously in pain and shivering violently, so much so I thought she would pull a muscle, but she did not complain, instead I she stood and stretched, testing her limbs. I did the same, finding a creak in my neck that I tried to work out.
“We must find a way out of here to warn Lord Chichua!” Nenetl said through chattering teeth. She took a step and faltered, favouring her leg, leaning against me. I dropped to my knee to look at her thigh.
It was clear that without the healer’s magicks Nenetl’s wound would have been a crippling one, but even with their aid, six months healing had been forced into two weeks. Now the exertion was almost too much. The wound on her leg from the air pirate was an angry, inflamed, red but had not begun to bleed.
“Take it easy, lady warrior,” I said. “The muscles are cold and stiff, walk around a bit to get circulation going.”
Her brown, tattooed body was all muscle and sinew but her lips were turning slightly blue from the cold. I started to rub her arms and legs to get circulation in them but my own fingers were almost useless from the damp chill themselves.
“We will not be alive to be murdered by that African chap if we don’t do something soon. Even the Kush wasn’t this cold.”
I looked around for some solution and my eye went to the debris pile again. That is when I saw a possible solution.
While Nenetl limped backward and forward, flapping her arms to try and get circulation going I pulled the filthy comforter from the pile.
“Come here, Nenetl,” I said. I wrapped it around the two of us to try and stem the numbing cold. Our bodies pressed together like two desperate animals, and I could not help but recall the heat of our passion just that very morning. I wished we could summon some of it right then.
By and by the goose down and our physical proximity had an effect and the cold was held at bay enough for us to think more clearly. And those thoughts turned to how were we going to escape and prevent the assassination of the Mexhican Ambassador.
Chapter Eighteen
Things Below Stairs
“First problem is getting out of this room,” I whispered to my companion, rather obviously. Nenetl managed a slight smile and our eyes met in silent agreement that we would do what must be done.
“You are certainly a master strategist, Baronet Grey,” she said with some humour. “I am sure I would not have thought of that.”
Nenetl had recovered enough to step out from our pleasant, but enforced, embrace and she went to the small window set high on the wall opposite the door. It was clear from it that we were below ground level and there was snow banked against it so that what little light seeped in was tinted blue.
“There is glass,” she called back, “and there are metal bars and mesh on it outside.” She looked back down at me. “I do not see any hope of breaking through.”
“And it will be night soon,” I said. “That means the state dinner where the Crown Prince and the Ambassador will be meeting—and the assassination must be scheduled to take place- is looming close.” I felt time pressing on us like a vice!
“The glass is not so very thick,” Nenetl said, “But the broad bars seem set well in the casement, too close together for me to squirm through.”
I went to the door but was not surprised to see that it was not only solid but thick oak. It had an old lock but that was inconsequential as it had a bolt on the other side.
“Perhaps we can find some way to work on the hinges?” My companion asked.
“No, I am afraid,” I observed. “They are on the outside of this particular portal. No, our path to freedom is some other way.”
We came back together and pulled the comforter about us again to stay warm while we puzzled out a way to escape.
Her breath was warm against my cheek and her body, despite our desperate circumstance, elicited a deeper warmth within me.
She noticed and said, “Really, Baronet! Now?”
“While there is life,” I said with a shrug, “ There is hope; but please feel free to ignore my il
l timed urges.”
“I shall, sir.” Still, she gave a ghost of a grin to me and her eyes sparkled with wit.
“But, to be serious, Nenetl,” I added, “I think we should try to kindle a fire.”
“I hope you mean in the hearth.”
“Of course, dear jaguar, of course.”
That decided we set about gathering kindling, with small sticks and some paper from the debris pile and I smashed one of the chairs against the wall till it splintered enough to be used.
Nenetl tore some strips from the comforter and used some scrap wood to make a fire bow in lieu of having any other way to start a fire. We crouched by the hearth for her to work with the bow and that was when I noticed the voices.
“Listen,” I whispered. We both leaned in to the stone chimney. After a moment we could hear conversations in French above us, though the sounds were not distinct enough to make out many meanings, some words were clear. I recognized, “meeting’, dinner’ and a few other random words. It was clear that either the flue used a common chimney to the rooms above or there was a flaw in the chimney wall that left an opening to the hearth above.
We listened for several for minutes, at least until our teeth started chattering again, but heard nothing more of use.
“This opening gives me a vague idea that might lead to an escape,” I said quietly. She arched an attractive eyebrow to question but I just shook my head.
“I must think on it for a bit, dear lady,” I said. “And it will depend on you getting that fire lit.”
This elicited a smirk from her. “A jaguar can do many things, Baronet Grey.” There was mischief in her eyes when she added, “This is the least.”
“I remember,” I said.
True to her word she soon had a smouldering fire going and carefully fed some larger pieces of wood into it.
Meanwhile I had gone to the window to see if the plan I was hatching was possible and then rummaged once more through the debris pile for items that might help.
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