“Hush, hush,” Noel said in an effort to soothe her. “It’s all over now. You’re safe. It can’t hurt you now.”
“Papa,” she said frantically. “I want Papa.”
She reached up to him, dashing away her tears, and froze, staring into his face as though she finally saw him for the first time. Fear widened her eyes, and her face turned as white as her gown. “No,” she whispered.
“Easy,” Noel said in alarm. He held up his hands. “I’m not the one who hurt you. I’m not—”
“Devil!” she screamed, flinging herself back. “Get away from me! Get away from me!”
Her screams brought the others pouring in. They surrounded Noel and dragged him back from her. Over the shouts and babble, Francesca’s screams grew louder and more hysterical.
“Get him away!” she cried. “Keep him away!”
She fought off every attempt to hold her, to soothe her. She slapped at herself, shuddering and screaming. When she began to scratch her face and pull her hair, Noel was dragged from the room. The heavy door shut off her screams, and he found himself breathless and sorry, thinking it might have been better to have left her unconscious.
Vicente came out, his handsome face grim and set.
“She’s still in shock,” Noel said. “She’ll need time to recover. She has to—”
Vicente struck him hard across the mouth, sending him reeling back into the arms of those who surrounded him. Stunned, Noel shifted his aching jaw from side to side. It was numb but not broken.
“Look, I did what you asked,” he said. “It will be a while before she’s able to—”
Vicente struck him again. This time the world tilted crazily and bells rang in Noel’s ears. By the time his head cleared, he was being picked up and pummeled.
“Lock him away,” Vicente said.
“Wait!” Noel cried. “We had a deal. I did my part. You can’t—”
Vicente shot him a murderous look and a ferret-faced man in the blue and red robe of the secret police drew a knife with a glass blade. He held it up and light shone through the thin blade. Noel froze, recognizing one of the most insidious weapons of assassination ever devised. If plunged hilt deep into a victim, the blade could then be snapped off inside the man’s vitals, and the wound would appear to be no more than a graze. Noel’s mouth went dry, and he swallowed hard.
Vicente snapped his fingers and the guards dragged Noel from the room. Glancing back over his shoulder, Noel saw Vicente seize his cap and fling it to the floor. Gripping his head, the nobleman hunched over and uttered a low howl of grief.
Then the doors were shut, cutting him off from the sight.
Two of the palace guards took charge of Noel. His wrists were bound, then he was shoved forward. They walked in cadence along floors of polished marble, floors of terrazzo, floors of plain stone. The passageways grew by degrees less ornate, then strictly utilitarian, then grim, ugly, and fetid. Here and there on the walls Noel could see deep gouges made by weapons in long-ago battles. Those scars had been blackened by countless smoking torches and splashed by the blood of other unfortunates escorted to their doom.
Of course, one dungeon system was pretty much like any other. Noel had seen plenty of them in his travels. They were always dark. They were always ugly. They always stank. But this one was also damp, with the cloying stench of mold, mildew, and bilge curling up over filth. Noel thought of the sea flowing along the foundations of the buildings. He had never much liked water, never enjoyed swimming although he was competent at it, never wanted to be submerged in it for any prolonged amount of time.
As they continued to walk, with no windows to break the endless expanse of corridor, just other passages branching off, Noel knew a growing feeling of disorientation. The floor seemed level, but it might be sloping downward. He did not want a jail cell lower than the water. The idea left something sour clawing at the back of his throat. He knew it wasn’t rational. The Venetians built well; they were masters at holding out the sea. But no matter how much he tried to reassure himself, the hair went on prickling up the back of his neck and he grew more tense with every step.
At last they came to a landing. A single torch in a wall sconce burned at this spot. It cast a flickering, uncertain light against a black well of shadow. A flight of worn stone steps led upward. Another flight led downward. Here they paused, while a turnkey in a dirty mustard-gold robe emerged from a cubbyhole and contemplated where Noel should be situated.
“I’d like a private room and bath, preferably with a window that has a view. Something overlooking the Campanile would be nice,” Noel said flippantly.
The turnkey, a craggy-faced individual so gnarled by rheumatism he was bent nearly double, scowled at Noel before returning his gaze to the guards. “Been to the Council yet?”
“No. This is Lord Contarini’s personal business.”
The turnkey pulled at his lower lip and nodded. “Marked for torture. Lower level then.”
“This is all a mistake,” Noel said. “Once it’s straightened out, naturally there will be less retribution to those individuals who have shown me kindness and consideration. I doubt torture is going to come into this.”
“Rack and screw,” said the turnkey, unheeding, making a notation on a wax tablet. “Maybe hot pincers?”
The guards shrugged. “He’s a sorcerer. Put a spell on the Lady Francesca and took her wits away.”
The turnkey dropped his tablet, and it broke in half. One section went spinning across the floor. “Dio,” he said in awe, and crossed himself quickly. “It’s the box for him. Quickly! Before he turns another spell on us.”
“You first,” said one of the guards grimly.
Muttering to himself—prayers or curses, Noel couldn’t tell—the turnkey seized a huge ring of iron keys from a peg and stumped off ahead of them. Taking the torch from the sconce, he started down the steps.
Noel felt his feet root. He didn’t want to go down.
One of the guards shoved him so hard he nearly fell. “Get on. Get on!”
“Not down there,” Noel whispered.
“Ho, Gino! He wants to be up high under the roof. Well, and if it were summer we’d put you there, just to hear you scream for mercy. Think about all that summer heat and a warm lead roof. You’d be cooked like a plump little squab baked in the oven. But not now. Now the air is cool and soft. Too pleasant for you. You deserve something more suitable.”
“The box!” said the other guard.
“That’s right. The box. Go!”
But Noel had a bad feeling about the so-called box. He tried to twist free, but they were expecting that. One hooked his bound wrists and slung him into the wall. While he was wheezing and gasping, they gripped his arms and turned him around.
The turnkey was already at the bottom of the flight by the time the guards manhandled Noel down the steps. A thick door fashioned of crude, warped planks blocked the landing. Its surface was green and furry with mold. The turnkey opened the door with a shrill grating of the rusted hinges. Out rolled a thick prison stink overlaid with the sickly odor of rotting flesh.
The torchlight did not seem to penetrate the blackness yawning ahead. A queer goose-bumpy feeling swept through Noel. He suspected that once he descended these steps he might not ever see the light of day again. He was condemned already, with torture laid out as a mere preliminary before Vicente came along to cut out his gizzard or whatever. He’d been promised a slow death, a painful one. All thanks to Leon, who was up to God knew what. Probably it had been only an impulse that made Leon attack the girl.
Noel was no coward. He’d managed to break out of dungeons before. He’d even escaped burning at the stake. But he’d always had his LOC’s help. Now…
“Move!” roared the guard and shoved him forward.
He stumbled down narrow, precipitous steps that were black with filth. The air itself grew cold and dank. He knew they were below the sea. His lungs began to draw shallow, rapid breaths. Noel tried to calm d
own. He hadn’t had an attack of claustrophobia in years. But during his childhood his parents had a swimming pool in the basement. The water was always dark and mysterious-looking. He used to fantasize that monsters lived in the depths of it. At night when everyone was asleep, the monsters slithered out and came crawling up the stairs, one at a time, their scaly hides streaming water, their eyes glowing yellow. He always slept with his door shut, arms and legs never dangling over the sides of his bed. His mother, naturally failing to understand, would wait until he was asleep, then open his door. Noel would wake up in the night, listening to a strange sound of the darkness with his heart thumping fast, and he would see his door standing ajar. Then through the long night hours he would wonder if one of the creatures had managed to get in his room. He dared not leave his bed to shut the door in case one was waiting beneath his bed. Yet he worried about his door being open. Nights were tense and long, full of fitful dreams and too much imagination.
At dawn his father would pinch his toe to wake him up and insist they swim laps before breakfast. It was hard to concentrate on his father’s lessons when he was practicing his stroke, aware constantly of his stomach exposed to whatever lurked at the bottom, aware of his legs dangling like bait. Eventually he’d learned to swim well enough to please his father, but now and then the old nightmares took hold. Like now, in this dim, damp, murky place. He told himself these walls had stood for hundreds of years, but he could not help but glance nervously at the stones, certain that at any moment he would see water leaking in through cracks in the mortar joints.
Instead what he saw were instruments of torture: the boot, the iron maiden, the rack, and the wheel of pain. A poor devil was stretched across the latter device. Clad in torn and ragged clothing, he was bloody in the face from biting his own lips. His arms and legs were swollen over the lacings that bound him in place. His eyes were mad with suffering.
An iron cage hanging suspended from the ceiling held the body of a naked woman. She looked dead, but Noel couldn’t be sure.
A burly man with his sleeves rolled up and a leather apron protecting his clothing bustled about, building a fire in a broad stone pit.
The turnkey greeted him. “Up early today, eh, Georgio?”
“The Council has been busy. With Carnival ending this week, there’s much to do for the Inquisitors.”
“Gino and Mario have brought this one for the box.”
The torturer looked only mildly interested. He arranged a series of instruments along the edge of the fire pit and breathed on the coals to bring them to glowing life. “Take out the heretic then. I put him in so I wouldn’t have to listen to his blasphemies. I wish the Council would rule on him so we could at least cut out his heathenish tongue. Here.”
Laying aside his bellows, he strode ahead, calling for his sleepy assistant, and pointed out the box as though the turnkey might not recognize or even find it by himself.
The box was a narrow, oblong object fashioned of what looked like lead. One end was fitted with a few, surely inadequate, breathing holes. To Noel, watching with growing apprehension, it looked exactly like a coffin.
The scene seemed to freeze about him: the low, arched ceiling of stone, the men’s faces mutated to surreal slashes of eyebrow and mouth in the dim, ruddy firelight, shadows of the rack and screw silhouetted on the wall. And now this coffin that was being opened by two stalwart men, sweating and grunting as they lifted the lid on screeching hinges.
Noel held his breath involuntarily. He was frozen in place, yet his guards pressed so close against him he could feel the weight of their bodies, trapping him where he stood. One’s hand closed tightly around his arm.
“You!” called the torturer, bending to peer into the box’s black interior. “Got the cramps, eh? Come out and stretch your poor pagan legs.”
No sound issued from inside the box.
The torturer scowled and exchanged a weary look with the turnkey. “Hand a torch over here.”
A brand was brought to him. The torturer held it up, casting light over the interior. Noel could see a tangled mat of hair and a still figure.
“Sleeps sound,” muttered one of Noel’s guards.
Noel jerked involuntarily with anger. “He’s dead,” he said sharply. “Anyone can tell that.”
They all stared at him in consternation. Even the torturer straightened and looked around. He crossed himself, and the assistant’s eyes widened in fear.
“Holy Mary, what kind of sight has he?”
“Oh, please,” said Noel with blatant sarcasm. “I’m no prophet. And none of you are surely such superstitious idiots to think that I am. You deal with dying people every day. How long has the man been in that box? When was he last given food or water? What kind of injuries did he have already when he was put in there? He’s not moving. It stands to reason he’s either dead or unconscious.”
“Get him out,” said the turnkey thickly. Hunched over like a gnome, he rolled a wary glance at Noel, then held the torch while the torturer dragged out the occupant.
The man was quite young, very slim, and almost effeminate in feature. He wore a monkish robe of coarse cloth. His hands were bloody from trying to claw his way out. His features were swollen and frozen in a rictus that made Noel turn his gaze away.
“Swallowed his tongue,” pronounced the torturer. His tone seemed almost regretful.
There was a moment of silence, then the turnkey chuckled. “Well, then, for a blasphemer, it’s a fitting enough end.”
Slapping his thigh, he laughed again. His mirth was shocking in this chamber of horrors, yet Noel was well aware of how individuals who worked constantly with the dead acquired a macabre sense of humor as a sort of protection. Medical student humor, gallows humor, mortician humor, all were notorious examples of this kind of seeming callousness that was really only a means of preserving sanity. But some men took it too far. They lost respect for the dead. After that, they saw no reason to have respect for the living either.
The others joined in the laughter, except for the torturer who kept shaking his head. “I didn’t get his confession. The Inquisitors wanted his confession. He’s of a good family. It was important to get his confession.”
“Ah, well, we all have our failures from time to time,” said the turnkey philosophically. He wiped his eyes and grinned.
“You don’t have to answer to Lord—” The torturer broke off and scowled at his assistant. “Don’t stand there gaping. Take the corpse away and stack it with the others.”
“No rites? No—”
“For a heretic?” said the torturer in outrage.
“For a heretic who committed suicide?” the turnkey added. “This is surely a soul already in hell.”
The torturer cuffed his assistant on the ear. “Fool! The death barge’ll be coming on the morrow. You hang a flag outside on the landing so it’ll stop.” He beckoned to the guards. “Gino, Mario, bring him.”
Noel’s guards pushed him forward. “In with you—”
“No!” cried Noel, digging in his heels. As he leaned back, his shoulder thudded against an armor-clad chest. Noel said, “At least clean it first.”
They laughed at this. “A dainty sorcerer, have we? Wants the box washed and tidy? If you were so nice with your habits, you shouldn’t have attacked the Doge’s daughter.”
The burly one named Gino kicked Noel’s feet out from under him, and Mario hoisted him up. The thought of being incarcerated in that tiny space, fouled by countless other helpless occupants and now awash with the recent fluids of death, made Noel gag.
He kicked free and twisted like a wildcat in Gino’s grasp. His bound wrists hampered him, but still he squirmed and fought like a maniac. Gino’s dagger hung at his belt, and Noel lunged for it. Shouting in alarm, Gino slapped him away before he could grab the hilt.
Although he missed the weapon, Noel was also free of his guards.
He had only a split second. Already they were reaching for him.
Elbowing himsel
f across the dirty floor, Noel scooted beneath a table, then bolted out from under it with an impetus that turned it over. Pincers, thumb screws, iron brands, knives, and countless other pieces of equipment went sprawling in all directions, chiefly under the feet of his pursuers. Swearing, they slipped and dodged, shoving the table aside.
The commotion aroused the other prisoners. From every corner of the dungeon, they started to yell and pound on their cell doors in a clamor universal to prisons in any time. “Corri, run!” they shouted. “Ecco, ecco, ecco!”
The noise level rose dramatically, echoing back and forth through the passageways as others heard the commotion and joined in. Even the wretch on the wheel managed to lift his head and scream something indistinguishable.
Meanwhile, Noel was running and dodging like a rat, cornered again and again, only to elude his captors. Swearing, Gino hurled a dagger at Noel, who ducked in time. The blade thudded solidly into a beam of wood and quivered there. He lunged for it, hampered by his bound wrists, and managed to get it.
But even as his fingers closed around the hilt, Mario tackled him from behind and brought him down.
The impact hurt. Squashed beneath the guard, Noel managed to hang onto the dagger. He pointed it at himself and sawed clumsily at his bonds. Before he succeeded in slicing all the way through the ropes, however, they yanked him up and batted the dagger away.
Gino shook him the way a terrier shakes a rat. Noel kicked him in the codpiece and twisted free a second time. Gino went down, howling curses, but Mario came at Noel in a fury. Breathless, sweat dripping into his eyes, Noel faced him on his toes, bouncing a little as he gauged distance, speed, and target.
Although his primary role as a historian was simply to blend into his surroundings and observe, Noel had also been trained to handle himself in any crisis. He knew countless methods of fighting, both ancient and modern. With his hands bound, kick boxing was one of the few options left to him. The training manual specifically stated that in times when self-defense was necessary, the traveler was supposed to adhere strictly to the methods of the place and century he was visiting. Noel had never been one to stick to the rules, and he didn’t now. What mattered was survival, and he didn’t care two flips for the Queensberry Rules or The Guidelines for Defense as issued by the Time Institute. Besides, these guys from the Renaissance were supposed to have contact with the Orient, and if they hadn’t learned kick boxing by now or any of the other Asian methods of fighting, too bad. He figured his chief advantages lay in speed and the fact that these men were unlikely to have ever seen it before, much less have a ready line of defense.
Termination Page 4