by Gordon Ryan
“Pitch first,” Tess said. “Pitch on the shed, then fire. Quick, now.”
She turned her attention to the winch they’d set up yesterday. Tess had a stack of five hay-stuffed pillows and she hooked one of these onto a chain attached to the winch. She ordered out the man still dropping stones, then propped open the trap door and fed the pillow and the chain down the hole. It dangled just above the edge of the turtle.
The ram head thrust forward from the shed. She lowered the pillow the last couple of feet. The ram caught it and drove it against the portcullis. She could barely feel the resulting blow through the stone. She pulled the chain to get the pillow out of the way.
The men below seemed not realize what she’d done. The ram thrust forward again from its protective shell and again she lowered the pillow. It absorbed another blow.
But this time hands reached out of the turtle and grabbed the chain. They fumbled to unhook the hay pillow.
“Winch up!” she cried. She pulled at the chain. The man below was stronger.
But her own man put his muscles into the crank and dragged the enemy below half off his feet before he let go.
“Winch down.”
She dangled the pillow just above the turtle, ready for another go. More hands grabbed for the pillow, but she danced the pillow just out of reach. Her arms and shoulders already ached from pulling on the chain.
The shed inched forward. It couldn’t quite abut the portcullis, but it got close enough that her pillow caught between the roof of the shed and the wall. The ram thrust forward. A crunch and shudder.
What if she had a hook on the end of the chain? Maybe she could snag the roof of the turtle and they could crank the winch and upend the shed. The men below would be forced to retreat.
“Winch up. All the way.”
But that would prove unnecessary. Henri had dumped several ladles of pitch onto the shed and now one of the burning rag balls hit the roof at the perfect angle. It rolled, then stuck to the roof. The pitch caught fire. Smoke curled into the sky.
The men below pulled back the shed. They shook and rocked the turtle. At last the rag ball rolled to the ground. But the roof was good and burning now. Henri and now Tess took ladles of pitch and poured it over the roof before the turtle lurched out of range.
Niels met them halfway across the open field. His men threw buckets of water onto the roof, while the men on the castle walls lashed at the exposed men with waves of crossbow bolts. Two went down with blooms of red paint.
Tess ran through the gatehouse and down the stairs to the bailey. She pushed through the knot of armored and armed men and ordered the gates open. Peter and Lars were there and she grabbed them. The three of them hurried underneath the gatehouse and up to the portcullis.
The center bowed inward. One crosshatch had burst open. Two of the reinforced hinges doubled over and might have popped their bolts on the very next blow. At most, it would have survived three more good hits.
“Peter, I need some heavy beams. Anything you can find to brace this door.” He hurried off. She turned to Lars. “I need men with lances. We’ll thrust through these crosshatches and see if we can burst a few paint packs. They exhausted their strongest men first time. When they come back, it will be their B team. We take out a couple of men and they won’t have enough strength to swing that ram.”
“That won’t be necessary.” It was Peter. Behind him, two men carried a wooden beam, maybe six by six and ten feet long.
Tess followed his gaze to the meadow beyond the castle walls. The shed still burned and Grunberg had ordered his men back and out of range of the crossbows on the castle walls. They carried the ram with them. They abandoned the shed to burn to ash.
A cheer sounded from the castle walls and the bailey behind her. She felt no such satisfaction. Niels had sent a probing blow, only. And it had nearly wrecked her.
“Get the blacksmith,” she said over her shoulder. “I want that portcullis fixed by this afternoon. And I’ll need at least six more beams that size.” Her gaze drifted overhead to the still-blocked murder holes. “And about the gatehouse…”
She turned. Peter and three men stood a few feet away with swords drawn. “I thought I could trust you,” he said.
“What the hell are you doing?” Tess asked.
“Taking you prisoner. Thought it was obvious.”
Lars drew his sword behind her shoulder. She’d never taken the sword from the dead man on the castle walls, just his armor and a crossbow, which she’d tossed to the side in the gate tower.
She held out her hand to Lars. “Give me the sword.” He handed it over.
“Don’t be a fool,” Peter said. “What, are you going to fight your way out? Hold a blunt sword to someone’s throat until he opens the portcullis for you? And then what, go join Niels Grunberg’s army?”
“And what are you going to do, spank me with the flat of your sword and tell me I was a naughty girl?”
He sighed. “You’re right. So what are we going to do, stand here trading insults? The sooner you put that down and we can talk somewhere private, the better.”
“Fine, whatever.” Tess handed over Lars’s sword. She made no attempt to keep the sarcasm from her voice. “Then I surrender, your majesty.”
Chapter Twenty-one:
Jim Grossman stepped onto his sailboat at dusk on the evening of November 26th, to discover four men waiting for him. The flashlight beam caught their faces and he drew back, startled. “Who is it?”
He wouldn’t have thought them anything more than guys screwing around at the docks if not for the way Black Horse and his friend had surprised him in his cabin a few weeks earlier when they’d talked about delivering the crates to King’s Island.
Every day since then he’d driven his son to school, he’d called his daughter at college so many times that she was starting to get irritated. His wife kept asking what was wrong. The sooner he got rid of these boxes, the better.
Two friends had helped him load the first crate onto the boat earlier that day. He’d tied it to the deck and covered it with tarps.
“Put the light down, Mr. Grossman.” An accented voice.
“I didn’t open the crates,” he said. “I swear, I haven’t done anything. You said men would be meet me on the island, that’s all.” His heart was pounding.
“So what?” Black Horse asked. “You didn’t need to know, so I didn’t tell you. But here, this should make you a little more flexible.”
He reached forward with an envelope of cash. The man wore a cloak, Jim noted, not a coat. And there was something odd about the way he stood. It was like he was carrying something bulky under the cloak, almost like a bulletproof vest.
Jim took the envelope and opened it enough to see it was stuffed with hundreds. He slipped it into the inner pocket of his coat. “What’s your new plan?”
“Same plan, but with four extra passengers. Take us to the island.”
“Okay. But no more surprises. Next delivery, you’ve got something to add, you call, you do not jump out of the shadows like that.”
“I’ll do what I like, is that understood? What are you waiting for, let’s go.”
It was cold on the lake, and windy. Jim caught the wind and used it to push the ship north, then west. The lights of Burlington glittered at his back. He cut the lights once they were out of sight of land and sailed by radar.
The four men spoke together in French. Jim spoke none of it. But he picked out enough to figure that Black Horse was a man called Kirkov. He had his friend Sergei there, and two others. Four men, at least two of them Russian, sailing across a lake at night, with a storm coming, and speaking in French. What the hell was going on?
The island loomed large in his display and Jim turned on the lights. King’s Island stretched darkly off port. He turned his lights against the south side, looking for the docks.
“Why don’t you just turn on the motor, while you’re at it,” Kirkov said.
“Can I?”
“I’ll sail, but I’m sure as hell not going in without lights.” He put a hard edge to his voice. “There’s a ledge off this side of island. I’m sure of it.”
The Russian looked like he was going to argue, but finally shut his mouth and looked toward the island, now looming. Jim spotted the docks. Once he was sure, he turned off the larger of the two floodlights.
Jim brought his sailboat in fast. It glided silently through the water and slid alongside the docks. The four men swept back their cloaks. Jim did a double take. They were wearing breast plates. Kirkov’s was painted with a black horse. All carried swords.
Two figures stood on the shore, so still that Jim thought they were trees at first. Kirkov and his companions drew swords. The blades glittered in the light. Bright and sharp and lethal looking.
“Jesus. What is going on here?”
“Shut up and do as you’re told.”
The men swung over the edge and onto the dock before the boat came to a complete stop. They strode toward the two men on the shore and Jim thought there would be a fight. But after a few tense words, Kirkov and his men sheathed their swords. They returned for the crate. Within moments, the six disappeared into the darkness, carrying the crate.
Jim could not get away fast enough. He pulled back from the docks by sail, then turned on his motor once he was out of earshot of the crazies he’d dropped on King’s Island. He returned to Burlington, grabbed a crowbar from his toolbox on the boat, then made straight for his storage shed.
He flipped on the light and went to the corner. He threw off the empty buckets, rags, and rusted tools that he’d strewn about the other crates.
It was stupid to open the rest of the crates. He’d taken ten thousand dollars, plus whatever was in the bulging envelope, plus another ten thousand promised when he made the second delivery. And there was the threat to his family.
But he’d started to think that first glimpse had been a trick. Kirkov had broken into his shed, swapped the boxes for something else once they were sure he wouldn’t look again. So what was it, drugs? Stolen goods?
Jim opened the first crate and blinked, more confused than ever. No, just electric cement drills and batteries. He opened the next box, the one with the smoke bombs and took a closer look. They were a bit like grenades, but perforated with holes, rather than the familiar pineapple shape that you saw on television.
But now he was nervous, and hurriedly shut the boxes without looking at the rest. He had no idea what was going on, but he’d begun to wish the boxes were filled with something simple, like pot or heroin. He could call the police and make a deal.
Instead, he didn’t think he had any choice but to come back in four nights and deliver the rest of the boxes to the island. Collect his money, hope they left him alone. But then, he swore, he would never do anything like this again.
Chapter Twenty-two:
Peter led Tess and Lars into the great hall in the manor house. A banquet table dominated the center of the room, tapestries of hunting scenes lined the walls. The larger of the fireplaces sat on the far side. Logs the size of small trees burned and gave off a wave of heat.
Nick sat on a rug in front of the fireplace. He played with a set of wooden horses, but jumped to his feet when they entered and ran to Tess.
“Did you win?” Just a couple of days in the States and he’d already switched back to English. “Papá said you were fighting Germans and Russians. Did they break down the gates? Was anyone killed?”
“Nobody was killed, not for real. It’s just a play war. But yes, we won, and the gates held.”
“What are you doing, Papá? Are you angry?”
“We’re just having a talk,” Tess said. “Right, Peter?”
Peter spoke to the boy in French. “Nick, do you want to see the blacksmith working? The fire gets so hot the metal turns red, and then he can hammer it into whatever shape he wants.”
“Yeah, let’s go. Come on, Tess, you come, too.” He grabbed her hand.
“No, Nick,” Peter said. “Henri is going to take you. Tess and I have to talk.”
Nick pouted and Henri looked none too happy to be sent away with a child. Moments after they left, two men brought Dmitri. Peter told them all to sit at the banquet table, then sent off his men. Only Tess, Dmitri, Lars, and Peter remained.
“Isn’t this the point where we rush you, overpower you and take your sword, then hold you hostage until they let us out of the castle?” Tess asked.
“Knock it off, Tess, this isn’t a joke.”
“I know it’s not, I saw what’s in your basement.”
“What exactly did you see?” Lars asked. “I caught one hell of glimpse, but that was all.”
Tess told him. His eyes widened. Peter stood and walked to the fireplace, whewre he stood with his back facing them. Firelight reflected off his face and body.
“You’re no better than Borisenko,” she said. “A goddamn looter.”
“Right, sure.” Peter turned. “The world’s most clever thief. Did you see all the Rembrandts in the crates? How about the Venus de Milo? The Mona Lisa? Girl with a Pearl Earring. Oh, and about twenty versions of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers.”
He shook his head. “Get real, Tess. Whatever you think you know, you don’t.”
“Well, we’re waiting.”
“Tess, think about the Baghdad Museum after the fall of Iraq.”
“First the Baghdad Museum,” Tess said, “next the Louvre? Is that your point? Hadn’t heard that the Germans were massing troops at the border.”
Peter didn’t crack a smile. “Tess, you look at the world and you see stability. It’s been peaceful for sixty years—more or less—and you assume the world will stay that way.”
“No, I don’t. I think it’s getting better. You look at anything: health, technology, poverty reduction—”
“Global warming,” Lars interrupted. “Overpopulation. Shrinking ecosystems.”
“Vaccinations,” Tess countered. “Penicillin. Universal literacy. End of slavery and the spread of human rights and democracy.” She lifted a hand. “Of course you can point out exceptions. But the world is in good shape and getting better all the time. Those big problems, I have no doubt we’ll solve them.”
“All you’re talking about is change,” Peter said. “We both agree that the world is changing—it always does—but surely you don’t think the world will always change for the better? You’re a historian, Tess, you know better than that.”
“The world is different now.”
“That’s what they always say, it’s different now. Nothing lasts forever. I look at human civilization and I see this massive, speculative bubble. We’re expanding exponentially in every direction, and sooner or later that bubble is going to pop.”
“We survived the oil shocks,” Tess said. “The so-called Y2K bug. Even 9/11.”
“And we were lucky. What if a terrorist smuggles a nuke into Manhattan or London?”
“Is that what your stash is about?” Dmitri asked. His voice was calm, his gaze distant. “Preserving culture through some future Dark Ages?”
Peter nodded. “Yes, exactly. You know what that vault was built for? Not sports cars, that came later. It’s a bomb shelter. Some guy in the 50s convinced himself the Soviets were about to nuke the U.S.”
“And it never happened,” Tess said.
“Point is,” Peter said, “that vault could survive an ice age. Ten thousand years from now someone could come down and read my books, and find our artifacts and reconstruct much of human history and civilization.”
“But in the meanwhile, you’re stealing stuff from museums?”
Peter blinked. “No, of course not. I haven’t stolen anything.”
“So they’re fakes,” she said. “Very elaborate, very expensive, and very expert reproductions.”
“That’s one way to look at it.”
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br /> “One way? I don’t understand, Peter, either they’re fakes or they’re the real things.”
“That’s too simplistic.”
He unclasped his cloak and the others followed his lead. There was a draft in the great hall, but it was overly warm by the fireplace.
“Suppose for a moment that civilization collapsed,” Peter said. “And Paris were sacked. Mobs break into the Louvre and destroy its treasures, or best, smuggle them out to sell. What would happen in two hundred years, generations after the collapse, when someone found my vault? Wouldn’t they know what they’d found, based on old books, if nothing else?”
“So they’re potential replacements,” Tess said.
“Again, that’s the wrong word, but you’re getting closer. Look, I saw that you’d opened the box holding Winged Victory. Why is that one of the most famous statues in the world?”
“What kind of question is that? Art History 101?” she asked. “Look at it. The wings outstretched and intricately detailed, the robes look as if they’re blown by a sea breeze. It’s a perfect sculpture.”
“Oh, it’s brilliant,” Peter said. “But it’s not perfect. Modern sculptors have better technique and tools. And Winged Victory is corroded by time. It’s missing its arms and head, for god’s sake. How is that perfect?”
“You’re twisting the meaning of the word perfect,” Lars said. He stood to one side, wearing a puzzled expression that Tess hadn’t seen before. “Winged Victory is perfect because…well, because it is.”
“It’s perfect, Lars, because of its context,” Peter said. “Its origin is a mystery, but not so much that we can’t make good guesses. And we know how it was found and its history since then. The missing head only adds to its value. There are lots of beautiful, valuable things in this world, but very few like Winged Victory, which are priceless.”
“So what you’re saying is that after a collapse,” Tess began tentatively, “your replicas will have the same context? They’ll take the place of the destroyed objects?”