by S. C. Green
“You can’t go back there!” someone yelled behind him.
His heart pounding, Nicholas ducked behind the barrels, racing for the second door. Footsteps followed him, and he heard the proprietor yell for some help. He must think I stole something, he realised, grabbing the bolt on the door. It was stuck. Panic rose in his belly. He jiggled the bolt, but it wouldn’t budge.
“I said, get out of here!” He heard more men shouting behind him. In a moment they’d be on him.
The bolt slid through Nicholas’ fingers, and he pushed open the door and slipped out into the alley. He bolted around the corner and down the alley just as he heard the proprietor and his men crash through the door and race after him.
Nicholas ducked around another corner, stumbling into the street and narrowly avoiding being churned under the wheels of a wagon. Heavy footfalls thundered toward him. He dodged through the pedestrians and tore into another alley. He was about to cut through a courtyard when a hand clamped down on his shoulder.
“Oh no you don’t, Stoker,” said Jacob, stepping out of the shadows. “You’re coming with us.”
“What’s the punishment for desertion, Jacob?” Harold, who held his shoulders in a vice-like grip, asked.
“Why, that would be seventy lashes,” said Jacob, a cruel smile plastered across his face. “Followed by death.”
“The Captain will hang you right on the dock,” Harold cried. “I cannot wait to wield the cat on your treacherous back myself.”
“I’m not deserting, you idiots.” Nicholas snapped, fumbling for the sword at his belt. Jacob loomed over him, his face twisted into a sadistic smile. Jacob pulled back his fist and punched Nicholas in the jaw, followed by another hit in the temple. The pain blinded him, and he stumbled back across the courtyard, his boots slipping on the cobbles. Rough hands grabbed him, pinning his arms at his side, squeezing the wound in Nicholas’ shoulder ’till he let go of his sword. He could smell Harold’s rotting breath on his neck. This is bad. Very, very bad.
Through his swimming vision, he could just make out the figure of Jacob, his body blocking the entrance to the courtyard and the alley beyond. Nicholas knew he was trapped. I am going to die right here in an alley, like a criminal. I’ll never see London again.
Desperate, Nicholas did the only thing he could think of — he slammed his elbow back, knocking the wind from Harold and loosening his grip. With a swift kick to the shin, Harold crumpled to the ground and Nicholas dislodged himself. He swung his body around and grabbed his sword from the ground. He whirled around to face the two men.
“I don’t want any trouble. Let me go and I won’t report this. “Nicholas’ voice came out calmer than he felt. Blood ran down his face, obscuring his view. If they rushed him together, he would be done for.
“You struck a superior officer,” Harold wheezed. “We don’t have to kill you here, you know. When we deliver you to headquarters, they’ll hang you on the spot.”
Smiling, Jacob drew his own sabre, and took a step forward. Nicholas had seen him duelling on deck and knew he was a skilled swordsman. He regretted his boldness.
Harold was picking himself up, and Nicholas needed to move quickly before the pair overwhelmed him. Jacob advanced a step, and Nicholas backed up, trying to buy himself time to think. He tried to wipe the blood from his eye, but it kept flowing down his face.
Jacob let out a chuckle. He stepped forward again, his blade glinting in the moonlight. Nicholas braced himself for a painful death—
Isambard, I’m sorry. I miss you.
A man barrelled down the alley and, in his haste to enter the courtyard, he slammed into Jacob’s shoulder, spinning him off-balance. Yelling something in French, the black-clad man shifted a small package from arm to arm and tore off across the courtyard.
At that exact moment, a soldier passed by on the street. He shouted at the men to lower their swords and rushed toward the confrontation, but not before another man pushed past Harold, knocking him aside.
Seeing his chance, Nicholas leapt forward, easily parrying Jacob’s off-balance cut and ducking behind him, sweeping his foot out as he did so and sending Jacob sprawling across the cobbles. Nicholas didn’t think twice; he rushed forward and drove the point of his sword into Jacob’s belly.
Nicholas yanked his blade free. Jacob made a strangled sound as his blood bubbled from the wound. He stared at the blood on his hands, his face dark with pain and surprise. Then his head flopped back, and he didn’t move. Four more officers and a fearsome man wearing the garb of a strange priesthood rushed around the corner and stampeded down the alley toward them. Nicholas tore across the courtyard and dived into the alley, which split off into three directions. He took the left and started running.
He had killed a superior officer. If they caught him, he would be hanged.
“De cette façon!” a voice cried in French. He looked down, and there was the man in the black cloak, only his head visible from the black hole of a sewer. “Ici-bas!” Down here!
Nicholas swung himself inside and scrambled down the ladder as the black-robed man pulled the cover closed, plunging them into utter darkness. He heard a match striking, and within seconds the man had lit a candle. “De cette façon, s’il vous plaît!” he said, grabbing Nicholas’ hand.
The stench rolled over Nicholas, and he gagged. The black-robed man held a putrid hand up to his mouth, ordering him to be silent. Gulping, Nicholas managed to get hold of himself, and he followed the man along the slippery ledge that ran alongside the brown, soupy river. Chittering insects crawled through the slime that coated the walls and crunched under his feet. He tried not to look at the water.
The only sounds were their feet slapping on the wet brick, the drone of the insects, and the splash of discharge as it joined the main flow. His eyes watered, and bile rose in his throat; he swallowed, forcing himself to be silent. After what seemed like an eternity, the man led him off into a smaller tunnel. The river didn’t run here, and after a short uphill climb they came to a trapdoor. The man pushed it aside and dragged Nicholas into a small room, stacked high with sacks and barrels – a storeroom of some kind, similar to the one in the bar through which he’d escaped.
Nicholas rolled on the bare floor, couching and retching, his lungs gasping at the fresh air. After a time, he wiped his sweaty face and looked up at his rescuer.
The man was older than Nicholas, perhaps in his late thirties. His face was crisscrossed with fine lines and fading scars, and his eyes blazed with fiery intensity. His black robes were edged with a gold design; Nicholas gasped as he recognised symbols from the Morpheus Church. What is a French Morpheus priest doing in Gibraltar?
The man pulled a package from beneath his robes — a parcel of brown paper, about the size of a book, tied up with string — and inspected it. Satisfied it was still in one piece, he replaced the package in the folds of his robe, and turned to Nicholas.
“Qui êtes-vous cachez?” said the stranger. Who are you hiding from?
“D’après les soldats. De l’anglais,” replied Nicholas. From the soldiers. From the English.
The stranger was taken aback. For the first time he seemed to notice Nicholas’ uniform. “Anglais?” he murmured, staring at Nicholas’ feet. Suddenly, he snapped his fingers and grabbed Nicholas’ wrist, dragging him toward the door of the storeroom.
“Où m’emmenez-vous?” Where are you taking me?
“You won’t last two minutes in this town with those clothes,” said the stranger, in English. “You killed an officer. They will have the whole garrison looking for you. I will find you some proper attire.”
“You mean like yours? No wonder they were chasing us, you dressing as a Catholic in an English port—”
“This is a disguise. I had an errand to run at the local church, when an old priest cruelly interrupted me. You are lucky you found me,” he said. “I am Jacques du Blanc. What God do you serve?”
“Great Conductor, but—”
“Then
you will come with me. I will get you out of the city; take you to a safe place.”
“Thank y—”
Jacques was no longer listening. He rapped three times on the door of the storeroom, and pressed his ear against the wood to listen. Nicholas heard the sound of a bolt being drawn, and a woman’s face appeared. Jacques spoke to her in low tones and she left, reappearing a few minutes later with a bowl of brackish water and two bundles of clothes. Jacques handed one to Nicholas. “Put this on.”
They were peasant’s clothes — breeches and a tunic, and a cloak made of coarse wool. He pulled them on, bundling his uniform under his arm. She stared at him, her pretty brown eyes lingering as she swept her knotted black hair from her cheek. Jacques shooed her away into the room, slamming the door shut behind her. He hid away his robes and dressed himself, too, washing his face in the water and bundling Nicholas’ clothes and his parcel into a hollowed-out bale of hay. He opened the door again and led Nicholas through the building — it was a large, derelict warehouse, reeking of old fish and stacked with supplies. The warehouse seemed to be home to several people who crouched in the shadows and hid their faces as they passed. Where am I?
Jacques threw open the door and Nicholas followed him into the narrow street. He could see the rear of the port, surrounded by shops and warehouses. Several carriages and wagons loaded with goods rolled past, heading toward the port. One broke away from the line and came to a stop beside them.
“Our ride,” said Jacques.
As he settled himself into the carriage, the black-haired girl slipped up behind him and settled herself among the hay bales. She slipped him an apple from inside her dress. He took it gratefully, smiling at her, and she dared a modest smile back.
Jacques took the reins from the driver, who jumped off and slipped away into the crowd. Jacques coaxed the horses into the crowded street, and they were off. Nicholas glanced about nervously, wary of the soldiers posted on every corner. He hid his face in his cloak, but Jacques slapped his arm away.
“You will call attention to us, Monsieur. You must be bold. This is how I elude them every time.” He winked.
And so, with heart in his chest, Nicholas rode with the strange man with the wild eyes and the silent, black-haired girl out of the town, and across the craggy landscape of Spain, toward the looming shadow of the Pyrenean mountains.
***
They passed into increasingly barren countryside, the towns becoming poorer, and the faces they passed on the roadside more hardened and rueful. Several times Nicholas asked where they were heading, but Jacques did not answer. Nicholas did not fear the man who had saved him, but kept his scabbard beneath the bench seat, pressed firmly against the heel of his boots, for reassurance.
They stopped often, and each time Jacques ordered Nicholas and the girl — whose name he learned from Jacques was Julianne — to remain in the wagon while he held council with various informants. Nicholas was beginning to understand that he had fallen in with a unique individual. He asked Julianne in his best French where they were going, but she only shook her head.
Once, while Jacques was occupied with his informers, Nicholas opened the corner of the parcel Jacques had taken from the Morpheus church. It contained six thick books on various subjects; chemistry, machinery, medicine, architecture. Curious.
On the fifth day of their journey they ascended into the mountains along a crumbling, deserted pass, and camped that night in a cold wood, devoid of warmth, for Jacques would allow no fire. For two days Jacques drove the horses at full speed, ’till at last he stopped on the edge of a ridge and pointed to the other side.
“Bienvenue!” he said. “This will be your home.”
Nicholas sucked in his breath, taking in the high walls banked with thick buttresses that seem hewn of the rock itself, the crumbling internal structures, and the precarious stone bridge that marked their path. “What is this place?”
“It was a monastery — a place of learning and worship many hundreds of years ago. But it has been forgotten, except by us.” Jacques urged the horses forward, and Nicholas shut his eyes as they bumped over the high stone bridge, barely wider than the wagon.
“You may open your eyes now, Monsieur Thorne.”
They had parked the wagon in a small, derelict courtyard. The crumbling walls offered some shelter from the biting wind, but most of the verandah roofs and lintels had fallen, strewn in weed-matted lumps across the open space. Doorways lined the crumbling walls, leading into dark spaces beyond. Not a soul stirred. Nervous, Nicholas jumped down from the carriage, his senses on high alert.
A man — dressed in faded black robes bearing the embroidered sigils of the Morphean sect — dashed from a nearby colonnade and began unhitching the horses. He spoke harshly to Jacques in a dialect Nicholas didn’t understand, shooting furious glances at Nicholas. Finally, he and Jacques seemed to reach an agreement, and he grabbed the reins and dragged the horses away across the courtyard.
“Auguste keeps the animals in good health. It’s hard on them, up here in the mountains. We lose many, but Auguste looks after them. Auguste, this is Nicholas Thorne,” announced Jacques.
The man glared at Nicholas, and he saw only hatred in those eyes. His gaze never leaving Nicholas’ face, Auguste snarled at Jacques. This time he used English.
“You said there would be no more men. We can barely feed those who we have. And he is an Anglaise — how do we know he won’t betray us?”
Jacques didn’t reply; instead, he stared down at the man and smiled. That smile carried something — Nicholas wasn’t sure what — but it made Auguste look away, his face flushed. He hurried the horses away. “Do not mind him,” said Jacques, placing a hand on Nicholas’ shoulder. “He will come around to you. Come. You meet the others.”
He followed Jacques and Julianne through one of the monastery doors, pushing aside a tangle of weeds to stoop through the low door. The monastery continued into the bare stone of the mountain, a series of low tunnels leading down into the darkness. Jacques carried no light, but Nicholas saw flickers at the end of the passage. Voices wafted up to greet them. There are people down here?
They emerged into a bright, cavernous room, lit by a faded light from two ventilation shafts carved into the vaulted ceiling. But most astonishing of all were the thirty people gathered in this old chapel, divided into groups of threes and fours, each group occupied with a different intellectual pursuit. One man instructed his pairs on the construction of a model bridge, another poured chemicals between glass vials while two men wrote down the results, while many others copied passages from thick, leather-bound books. Dominating the room was a wide stone altar, covered in a stained white cloth and dotted with burning candles, providing the flickering light Nicholas had spied earlier. Where once a Christian crucifix would have stood, there was a golden statue of the God Morpheus.
“This is our sanctuary,” said Jacques. “Here we may worship and learn in peace. We have food and shelter, and fresh water from a mountain spring. And we are safe here from discovery and persecution. We are fifty-eight men, and three women — Julianne here, and you will meet Danielle and Marie later. You may stay with us for as long as you wish.”
“This is — I don’t understand — why have you brought me here?”
“You are a student of Great Conductor, yes? You will find many of your Industrian peers here. We worship together, for we have no other place to go.”
“Thank you for your kindness, Jacques, but I cannot remain here. I must return to England as soon as I can buy passage on a ship—”
Jacques laughed. “You will find no such ship leaving from French ports.”
“Pardon?”
The Frenchman laughed harder, slapping his hand against his thigh. “You fool! You silly English fool! You picked the worst time to run away. The Emperor Napoleon has blockaded England. He aims to stamp out Industrian influence in Europe completely. His constables travel the countryside, drawing out and destroying the remaining I
ndustrian churches. They hanged two Morpheans in the market square at Marseilles just last week. That is why we live and study here in secret. And now you live here as well.” He laughed again. “Even if a ship could get through the blockade, no one would dare take an Industrian on board. No, Mr Thorne, you’re a Frenchman now.”
The news turned Nicholas cold. He slumped to the floor, his face in his hands. He was a fugitive with no way home. His chances of seeing London and Isambard again shrank to a tiny fleck.
***
Life in the monastery was modest and quiet, but not without its dangers. French troops patrolled the roads leading to the mountain pass, and Jacques said they would sometimes ride up to the ruins to check for refugees. When that happened, the Morpheans would retreat into the lower tunnels, and they had not yet been discovered. They could not have fires at night, nor could they take prolonged exercise on the slopes.
But as days turned into weeks, Nicholas found himself settling into the place. The men — no doubt at Jacques’ insistence — accepted him well enough, though they would not resort to speaking English in his presence. His French had much improved, and he was beginning to understand the idioms of the local dialect. It didn’t hurt that around every corner he saw Julianne staring back at him through a curtain of tangled black hair. She still did not speak, but for a girl of only nineteen or so her grim expression betrayed her hardship.
His days faded into one another. In the early morning, just as the sunlight appeared between the mountain peaks, Jacques called everyone to the chapel and conducted a church service — daily prayers intoned in his clear, rumbling voice, his conviction apparent as he lovingly removed the statues from their niches and bathed them. The men came from a variety of Industrian religions, and all risked persecution by hiding in the mountains with Jacques.
After church, Julianne and the other women handed around breakfast — a sparse meal of barley gruel seasoned with wild berries that grew in clusters on the slopes of the mountain. Nicholas ate it hungrily, for it might be the only meal he got that day. After breakfast they performed chores — sweeping, cleaning, gathering food and wood for the fires — and finally Jacques called them back into the tunnels to continue their studies.