The room seemed filled with a silvery light. A cold wind blew through the open shutters. Henry’s blood roared in his ears; his mouth was dry. “I…swear it.”
Then go to sleep. We leave tomorrow. And everything was quiet again.
Despite his vow to obey, Henry didn’t think he’d get much sleep at all.
The next day, Valdemar drove the wagon to the rendezvous, while Henry examined the barrel in which he would be hiding…the one that was currently half-filled with salt cod.
“You couldn’t find clean ones?”
Alfie shrugged. “What do they keep in barrels? Wine and fish. You can drown in the wine, if you want. Or hide in a sack of grain and wait for some guard to stick a pitchfork in you. Your choice.”
The sun was just clearing the horizon, and the line of wagons waiting to leave by the West Gate already snaked around the corner of the cathedral of St. André, out of sight of the guards. They joined the end of the line, and Henry dumped the rest of the fish. He was counting on the market-day crowds (and now, the smell of the fish) to keep Geoffrey’s new guards from spending too much time with the wagon.
“Well, maybe it doesn’t matter. How can they really recognize me anyway?”
“Look at the gate, laddie.”
Henry squinted around the corner. There was a squad of Geoffrey’s men at the gate. Even in the dawn light, Henry could pick out the features of Brissac’s Paris buddy…the one who’d noticed the crest on the fake Charlemagne sword. “Jesu. How did Geoffrey know to bring him here? I’ve been in town less than a week!”
“Easy enough to guess the ports you’d reach from Southampton. Geoffrey’s probably got the other knights in La Rochelle, Brest, and Calais. Maybe some of Brissac’s men in the Cinque Ports too, just in case.”
“Clever.” Henry rubbed his face. “I hate clever.”
Fear not, whispered Excalibur in his head. I shall not compel you to confront them. I shall allow you to sneak past, undetected. This time.
“Oh. Well, that makes things easier.”
Yes. I pushed you too quickly before. Baby steps. Don’t worry, we’ll have you defying an army in no time.
“Great.” Henry tried to put the prediction out of his mind. He poked dubiously at the barrels, and then heard a clamor by the gate. Looking up, he saw the knight running toward them, trailed by a dozen soldiers. “Valdemar! Get us out of here!”
“HEE-YAH!” Valdemar snapped the reins and the wagon lurched into motion, rattling down the cobblestones.
They turned a corner, and another, a third, then the wagon jolted to a halt. “Dead end.”
Henry leaped off the cart. Valdemar had taken a bad turn. They were stuck in a dead end formed by the rear of the church and an old fortification that towered black above them. There was no room to turn the cart around, and the guards were streaming in—
“Come with me if you want to live!”
A door opened in the wall. Brother Wiglaf beckoned to them. Henry looked at Valdemar and then at Alfie, who shrugged and shinnied off the cart faster than a rat down a drainpipe. “Any port, laddie.”
They followed Alfie through the tiny door. Wiglaf bolted it shut, then lit a lamp and led them down a winding staircase. Behind and above them, Henry heard shouting, curses, and then the THUD, THUD, THUD of a battering ram.
“Where are we going?” Henry had to yell above the sound of the ram. Dust trickled out from between the building stones with each blow.
“Down,” yelled Wiglaf. “Down and out!”
The stairs wound deeper and deeper, four turns, six. At seven, the building blocks disappeared, replaced by solid rock. At nine, the stone was crusted with nitre and salt; at ten, water shimmered on the steps, and everyone pressed hard against the walls to keep from slipping.
Stone and water. Just like home.
“Don’t get too comfortable. I’d like to see daylight again, if you don’t mind.”
All Nature is drawn to its proper elements. What are yours? Lead and fool’s gold?
“Hah-hah.”
The staircase ended in an arch. In the flickering lamplight, Henry could just make out the words Voyez le Royaume des Morts scratched into the stone. He turned on Wiglaf.
“‘Behold the Kingdom of the Dead’?”
“Are you going to pay attention to every carving you see? This goes from here to St. Émilion, and it will take you under the city walls. Trust me.”
“Trust you!? Wh—”
Alfie nudged him. “That door won’t hold forever.”
Henry shrugged him off. “What’s the toll for this wonderful favor you’re doing?”
Wiglaf looked around, panicky, then looked Henry straight in the eye. “Let me go with you.”
I don’t trust him.
“Really? Why ever not?” Henry gritted his teeth. It was a terrible thing to be trapped underground, relying on someone who was as convincing as a brass écu.
And then, faint, but growing louder, Henry could hear a clatter above them.
“Laddie—”
“Shorty—”
Henry—
Oh well, if something went wrong, Valdemar could always rip Wiglaf’s arm off. Henry turned to the monk. “Let’s go.”
Wiglaf held the lamp high. “This way.” They followed him into the Kingdom of the Dead.
After a hundred paces or so, Alfie broke the silence with a cough. “Not that bad, really. Reminds me of Basingstoke.”
It was a town, deep underground. The low stone ceiling hung over a road, with the granite fronts of buildings poking out of the earth on the left and right. At the far edge of the lamp’s light, the passage curved away to the left.
Wiglaf nodded. “This is the old settlement, called by the Romans Burdigala.”
A few hundred paces later, the passage widened out, and the ceiling rose higher. SPQR, the motto of the Empire, was carved onto some of the larger buildings. After passing three or four of them, Henry felt sure the insignias had been chiseled over something else. At the fifth one, he stopped for a moment. The remnant of a pattern—lines and curves, moving in parallel—peeked out from underneath the letters. A labyrinth?
“What did they call it before the Romans?”
Wiglaf looked puzzled. “Before?”
“Never mind.” He looked at the buildings, so square, so straight, so unlike anything he had seen masons build himself, and sighed.
What ails you now?
“Mysteries I don’t have time to solve. Thanks to you.”
Were it not for me, you would never even have known of this place.
“Fine, fine.”
When we are done, you can return to this muck and root through it to your heart’s content.
Before Henry could reply, there was a grunt of fear from behind. He spun around to see Valdemar staring into one of the buildings, his face slack with horror.
Henry looked inside. Dozens of skulls stared back at him in silence, perched on mountains of bones.
Alfie nudged him. “They’re all like that. I checked.”
“It’s just storage, Vee.” Henry patted Valdemar on the back. “Think of them as relics.”
“I don’t want to think of them at all,” said Valdemar.
“That’s fine, too. Come on.”
You are calmer than I expected.
“I had to go through this once to get you, didn’t I? And I was alone then.”
Indeed.
They walked on for an hour or more. The sound of pursuit behind them got quieter, then louder again. The road was a single course that twisted and doubled back on itself like a labyrinth.
Until it split into three.
“Okay. Wait…” Wiglaf raised his hand, and they stopped. Three alleys faced them, three paths with nothing to distinguish one from another.
“Which way do we go?” asked Henry.
“Well. Uh.”
“You know the right way, don’t you?”
“Absolutely. It’s just that…uh…according t
o my research, the passage shouldn’t split here.”
“According to your research?” Henry’s mouth went dry. “You’ve never been down here before?”
“A true scholar can extrapolate the entire universe from Aristotle.” Wiglaf coughed. “In theory.”
Alfie tugged at Henry’s tunic. “I can hear them coming, laddie.”
“In theory.” Henry grabbed Wiglaf by the robe. “IN THEORY!?” Behind and above them, the sound of footsteps was getting louder and nearer.
Be calm. A true warrior saves his rage for the battle.
“Don’t worry, don’t worry, I have a map!” Wiglaf dug in his robe and unrolled a parchment scroll with a flourish.
They gathered around. Henry studied the map, closed his eyes, opened them again. The map stayed the same—nothing more than a big circle divided into three parts labeled Asia, Africa, and Europa.
I’ve changed my mind, said Excalibur. If we kill him now, we can save future travelers from being led astray in the Underworld.
“So…Where are we? Under the big letter E?”
“Let me think.” Wiglaf began to mutter to himself. “They know about these caves in St. Émilion, they use them for their wineries, but I discovered that they reached all the way here, to Bordeaux. There are entrances at the Tutelles, and under the cathedral, smugglers must use it, and the Romans used it for their legionaries—”
“So?”
“I don’t know. I’m just thinking!”
“If we get lost down here, we’ll eat you first. You know that, right?”
“I can’t concentrate while you’re making threats!”
Henry could hear dozens of footsteps now; Geoffrey had to be close.
Henry squinted in the lamp light. The dirt in the right and middle passages was flat, but the dust on the left-hand side looked as though it had been disturbed recently.
“All right, a dozen footprints can’t be wrong.” He turned to Wiglaf. “You want to come with us? Brush the dust and tracks away from the other entrances, and then you can follow.” They left Wiglaf and entered the third tunnel.
Darkness all around. The only way to measure time or distance was by footfall—Henry counted a hundred steps, then five hundred, and kept going. The farther they went, the more nerve-wracking it became. Were they on the right track? Had Wiglaf betrayed them? Where was that tonsured weasel, anyway? Were the walls getting more narrow? The darkness was like dust, getting in his eyes and nose—
“STOP!”
They stopped. Henry ran his hand farther along the wall. Yeah. It was a break.
“What is it, Henry?”
“It’s another passage.” Henry sighed. “Alfie, make us a light.”
Alfie struck a spark with his flint and raised a sliver of tinder. Henry studied the two tunnels, but this time, there wasn’t enough dirt to hold footprints.
“Damn it, damn, damn—”
“Henry—”
“Wait!” Just before the tunnel wall had ended, he’d felt something different. Something carved.
Henry grabbed Alfie’s arm and raised it high. In the flickering light, he saw the labyrinth carved on the wall, and a line in the archaic Latin he’d seen everywhere in the Chapel Perilous: For strangers from the West. Below it were columns of text, each with a different heading: Ut Urbis Burdigala. Ut Vinea Ausoniensis. Ut flumen Garumna. Below each heading were more words.
“‘Three empty doors, then at the cross, turn left—’” Alfie laughed. “It’s a periplos, laddie.”
“What?”
“Directions! Where are we going?”
“‘Vinea’ is vineyards. That sounds like St. Émilion to me.”
“Let’s go.”
“Wait a moment.” Henry scrambled in his pouch and pulled out his writing tablet and stylus. Scraping the stylus over the tablet, he covered the wooden rod with wax and held it over Alfie’s tiny flame. Once it caught fire, Henry held his improvised candle overhead and they jogged forward.
Henry’s stylus was sputtering down to its last inch when they made their way out of Very Downtown Bordeaux. Ahead of them, the cavern ceiling rose thirty feet to a hole that allowed in a beam of sunlight, and the dry stone floor ended in the rush of an underground river: wide, black, and very, very cold.
Beware. It was in just such a flood that Sir Bragomant lost the sword of his fathers.
“Don’t give me any ideas.”
Alfie pointed upstream. “See it, laddie? We’ve got a bridge.”
The bridge sent a shiver of recognition down Henry’s spine. It was a narrow stone span without seams or joints, so long it seemed impossible that it could stand without supports, and so smooth that it looked like it had just grown over the river. Like the branch of a tree. Like the bridge of the Chapel Perilous.
Valdemar went first. Then Alfie. On the other side, Alfie walked into the sunbeam and stared up. “It’s the way out, laddie!” he shouted. “There’s stairs.”
“What are you waiting for?” Henry shouted back. Alfie and Valdemar scrambled up the stairs and out of sight. Then Henry stepped onto the bridge himself.
He looked down for an instant. It was a mistake. What he had assumed was a wide river was a whirlpool, a giant pit sucking in water from all sides and leading down into darkness. A thin beam of sunlight struck the water as it fell, and fell, and fell—
A crossbow bolt flew out of the darkness, nicking him on the ear. More bolts followed, clicking on the stone around him.
“Don’t move, Henry.”
Geoffrey stepped out of the darkness, followed by Hauptmann, Brissac…and Wiglaf. Henry cursed.
“You’ve taken what doesn’t belong to you, Henry. I’ll have it back now.”
He could double for Mordred, this one. A thousand years have I spent in the earth, and the fashion in villainy has changed not at all.
It was the damned crossbows that gave Geoffrey the edge. Even Hauptmann could hit a penny on a moonlit night, and someone like Haer (there he was, on the left flank, crossbow cocked) could take him down with a single bolt. Henry choked back a whimper.
Take the offensive, Henry!
“What?”
Don’t argue! Take the offensive!
“How?”
“My spies have told me of your charade, Henry. Playing at madness won’t help you.”
Take the offensive. Slowly, Henry drew Excalibur, holding it up in the air. Geoffrey gasped as he saw the sword for the first time, then recovered.
“Are you going to fight me, boy?” Geoffrey smiled gently. “That would be a change for you, wouldn’t it?” The prince drew his own sword and stepped forward.
“You take hostages, Geoff. I remember that.” Despite his best effort, Henry’s voice shook a little. But maybe that was okay. Sometimes it let people know you were serious.
Slowly, Henry extended his hand and held Excalibur out over the black, quick-flowing water. Over the pit.
Henry, what are you doing?
“Don’t joggle my arm,” Henry muttered. “We don’t want any accidents.”
You promised! You SWORE!
“I’m taking the offensive.” Henry turned to Wiglaf. “How deep is the water, pig?”
“I…I don’t know. Vitruvius tells us underground rivers may be both deep and swift, and lead to caverns that are infinite in depth.”
Henry turned to Geoffrey. “Drop your crossbows and swords. Let me leave, or Excalibur takes a permanent swim.”
Geoffrey smiled, and stayed put.
“I’ll do it!”
The prince shook his head, still smiling. “No, I don’t think so.” He leaned on his bastard sword and spoke to Henry as easily as to an old friend. “You see, boy, Excalibur is Power. And no man surrenders Power freely.”
Do not release me, Henry.
Henry licked his lips. If he dropped Excalibur…The burden would be gone, off his shoulders once and for all. No more voices in his head. No more constant nagging. No more freezing or starving on the road. No
more ghosts.
What about Mattie? No. Not a problem. He’d find some way to free her without Excalibur. In fact, it would probably be easier without a hunk of ill-tempered steel looking over his shoulder. He’d gotten this far on his wits. He didn’t need a magic sword.
But if he was going to do it, he had to do it now, before Excalibur zapped him, or took him over, or tried some other devilish trick. He loosened his grip—
Henry, don’t be foolish. You need me for this quest. Henry—
The sword’s voice was growing desperate. How long would it last, anyway? At the bottom of a chasm, forgotten in the darkness? Year after year, century after century, with no light, no sky, no friendly voices, nothing but the taste of cave water, and the feel of cavern mud as it silted up over you, burying you forever…Would he hear Excalibur’s voice behind him as he left?
Henry sighed. Geoffrey’s smile became a grin. Henry let his arm drop to his side, still gripping Excalibur.
“Okay, so how do I escape, steely-pants?”
Kneel down next to the water.
Geoffrey’s smile faded as Henry followed the sword’s directions. “What are you doing, Henry?”
Dip me in the water, and don’t let go.
Henry touched Excalibur’s point to the water.
Geoffrey snapped. “I’ve called your bluff, boy. Don’t play with me.”
DON’T LET GO.
The power rose from the earth, into the sword, and then out into the water. He felt a surge of force that almost twisted him off his feet—but it was nothing compared to the wall of actual water that rose out of the river and slammed into Geoffrey’s party. In an instant, they were on their backs, washed right and left across the stone shelf, blades ungripped and crossbows flying.
Henry hot-footed it across the bridge, up the stairs, and into the sunlight.
19. On the Road
“Don’t focus on the armor; focus on the ensemble as a whole.”
Alfie and Valdemar posed in front of Henry, decked out in their finest princess-rescuing gear. They were hidden in a vineyard that was already green with new leaves, rummaging through the supplies they’d been able to buy (mostly) in St. Émilion.
The Wrong Sword Page 12