by Robin Hardy
Graydon inhaled. “Before Tremelaine can march out of Corona, he must remove all resistance to his power here. Thus he marks and divides the people into those who are with him and those who are not. The red circles are the conformers; the black crosses are those who refuse to kiss the beast. They are executed along the thoroughfare according to a very neat schedule.”
“‘Kiss the beast’?” wondered Deirdre.
“To be accepted by Tremelaine, they must give allegiance to the powers as he directs,” said Graydon. “It involves much bloodletting and certain incantations. Most who refuse out of fear, he simply executes. But those who refuse on principle he destroys by a special show of power. I hear it is quite spectacular.”
Deirdre shuddered, not doubting that Roman would be one saved for the spectacle. She asked Orvis, “Are you a black cross, then?”
“We are scheduled to be executed in three days,” Vida said calmly, even proudly.
“Crucified,” Orvis added in dread.
“We had no choice,” said Vida. “We were friends of Galen and Graydon before all this happened. We saw what that power does, so we agreed to die rather than give in to it.”
“You will not die,” Deirdre said suddenly. “We’re going to get you out of this and when we do, you’ll see that the power of the Lord is greater than this—this dark power. First, though, we must gather everyone in the city who has been tagged with a black cross.”
“We’ll send messages,” agreed Orvis. “But you’ll find it’s only a handful left.”
“So be it,” she said. They stopped talking to eat a moment. Some inconsistency nagged at Deirdre, though. Finally, remembering the throne and the robe, she pinpointed it. “Graydon, if these dark powers are as mighty as you say, then why hasn’t Tremelaine accumulated even a portion of Tremaine’s wealth? The robe he wore was not pure gold. The throne was not jeweled. And he doesn’t even control Corona yet. What is his lack?”
Graydon shrugged, “That is part of the process, as he calls it. You must know that it took Tremaine years to amass his power. Tremelaine has been on the throne only six months. He has been promised all of Tremaine’s might and possessions and more, once he breaks the Surchatain of Lystra.”
“Promised? By whom?” Deirdre asked.
“The dark powers.”
“Is he commanding them? Or are they commanding him?” she demanded.
Graydon’s face twitched slightly. “He thinks he is in control, but he is not.”
Staring into Graydon’s eyes, Deirdre saw his soul imprisoned still. She leaned back weakly, closing her eyes. Lord Jesus, help us!
Roman jerked his head up as he roused from tormented sleep. One foot had slipped down into the muddy bottom. He pulled it up stiffly, feeling a sharp sting. Reaching a hand to his calf, he found a leech up his breeches leg. Gingerly, he detached it and squashed it between his fingers.
He moved his head around on his stiff, aching neck. He summoned moisture to his dry tongue, then braced his arms against the wall of the hole to try once again to climb out.
Pushing up with his manacled hands and feet, and scooting along his back, he made it several feet before sliding back down to the bottom. Evidently, it would be necessary to scrape the slippery moss off the wall before he could gain enough traction to hold his body weight. Determinedly, he set himself to try again.
Then a thought covered his mind like a net. What if he did climb out? What then? How would he be better prepared to confront Tremelaine? Wasn’t he concentrating on the wrong thing here? Now, he had opportunity, and privacy, to use the time preparing most formidably for this challenge. . . .
He relaxed his limbs to rest them and gave himself fully to intense prayer.
At the same moment, Deirdre woke from a half-sleep. Although it was not yet dawn, there were footsteps passing through the parlor where the Lystrans lay stretched out on the floor. By the light of the low-burning fire on the parlor hearth, she saw Kam snoring gently. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Nihl’s eyes watch the owner of the feet leave the parlor, then close for more sleep.
Deirdre rolled onto her back, tired but unable to sleep any longer. Quiet voices from another room drifted into the parlor. She sat up, and Nihl raised himself on his elbow. “I believe the other black crosses have come,” he whispered.
“Let’s allow Kam and Colin to sleep,” she returned as she got to her feet.
Deirdre and Nihl opened the parlor door. In the eating room, twelve Selecans looked up in suspicion and fear. Orvis rose, telling Deirdre, “These are all that remain.” To the townspeople, he explained, “These are two of the Lystrans who have come to rescue us. This is the Surchataine Deirdre and the Commander Nihl. They say they are going to get us out of Corona.”
In one motion all heads turned toward Deirdre and Nihl. One man said, “How are you going to do that? Do you know how tightly the city is guarded?”
Another man, very pale, said, “I am due to be executed this morning. When they don’t find me at my house, they will come to every black cross until they find us all here. There is no way out.”
Deirdre inhaled deeply, taking in those frightened faces, groping for an answer. Nihl was silent. In desperation she cast up a feeble plea: Lord, what now?
Then she straightened and said, “You will not die. The Lord will deliver you. But I never said we would get you out of Corona. First, we’re going to take you to a safe hiding place.”
“Where?” demanded the first man. “There’s no place the Bloodclad won’t find us!”
“Yes, there is,” she smiled. “The palace.”
There was a stricken silence, then the first man exploded, “Witch! You’re mad! You—”
Nihl could not endure that. He crossed the room in two strides and yanked the man up by his collar. “You will show respect to the Surchataine,” he breathed in his face. The fellow shrank back into his chair.
“Take your choice,” Deirdre said calmly. “You can come with us or stay here. But we know of a secret entrance to the palace. We can hide you in the dungeon until we can infiltrate you into the Bloodclad. You will have a chance to fight Tremelaine yourselves and be a part of his overthrow. Even if you were to die, wouldn’t it be better to die holding a sword rather than hanging on a cross?”
Nihl stood back and smiled. The townspeople looked at each other dubiously. Graydon stood, saying, “Though it means returning to that pit of hell, I will go with you—I and my family. I will fight what Galen has become however I can.”
Orvis said, “Vida and I will go.” She nodded vigorously. One by one, the people expressed their consent, even the first man.
Deirdre said, “Quickly, then, gather all the food and water bags you can carry. We must be out of this house by dawn.”
Deirdre helped them pack provisions from Orvis’ cellar while Nihl awakened his subordinates. In minutes, the townspeople were lined up at the door, ready to leave. Kam and Colin pushed their way up to Deirdre. “Back to the dungeon?” Colin asked bleakly.
“Roman should’ve known we wouldn’t leave him,” Kam said, satisfied.
“Ready now?” she inquired, scanning the group. “Do you have the rope?” she asked Nihl.
“Yes,” he said, smiling tightly.
She nodded, almost lighthearted. “Graydon, if you will, take us back the way we came.”
He stepped up, hoisting his pack, and they opened the door into a night that was rapidly fading to grey.
They threaded through the streets as one or two shop windows lit up with candles; then hurried out of the city toward the cover of the hunting woods. They ran through the forest, for dawn was imminent.
At the edge of the trees, they stopped in view of the dry stream bed. “There is no better time,” murmured Deirdre, tensing her shaky legs.
“I will lead as before, the Surchataine behind me,” Nihl said, adjusting his pack. “The rest of you cross over one at a time. Kam, you come last.” Then the Commander leapt like a roe the few feet t
o the stream bed.
At that instant the Bloods had discovered that the dungeon cells were vacant but for one weak and injured guard.
Roman startled awake as the trap door crashed open and torchlight cascaded down upon him. He covered his eyes and tried to look up at the same time. “He is still here!” shouted one voice. Another farther away answered it.
Then a rope was tossed down, slapping Roman in the face. He grasped it to walk up the side of the pit, slipping mostly, while they pulled him. Gaining the top he fell, unable to stand, so they jerked him to his feet. The light from their torches was unbearable. Blind and chained, he stumbled between them up the passage to the steps.
Here, he almost had to go on all fours, still unable to straighten. He hardly noticed the nagging of his hunger and thirst for the screams of protest from his back and legs.
They arrived at the dungeon door and the opening of it was like entering heaven. The light of morning blinded him all over again, but now he could walk, somewhat.
Unseeing, he counted the number of steps and turns and stairs to form a mental map of where they were going. By the time they arrived at the Surchatain’s suite, his vision had returned.
The Bloods knocked. Tremelaine’s unmistakable voice cried, “Enter!” The Bloods brought in their prisoner to stand before the Surchatain.
Tremelaine turned in a swirl of his robe, eating from a tray of breakfast delicacies before him. Roman’s stomach wrenched with need. “So you alone remain!” Tremelaine declared in a tone of exasperation and satisfaction. “Did you know your companions escaped and left you behind, Homan?”
Not answering, Roman steadfastly kept his eyes off the tray. “Are you hungry?” Tremelaine asked with a sneer. He picked up a pastry and walked over to hold it under Roman’s nose. “Would you like this?” He held it there a moment, and Roman’s eyes began to water at the aroma.
Tremelaine dropped the pastry to the floor and ground it under his heel. “You may have it now.”
Roman’s eyes cleared immediately at this challenge. Without so much as a glance downward, he kept his gaze on Tremelaine.
“Eat, dog,” snarled the little man, “or I will not give you another crumb or drop while you are in my prison.”
You will have to starve me before I allow you to take my dignity with such ease, Roman answered in thought.
“Such pride!” sneered Tremelaine, as though hearing every word. “Shall we let that go unpunished? We shall not! So what shall we do with you? I suppose it doesn’t matter,” he added, his thoughts taking a turn. “When your companions return to your Surchatain and tell him my response, he will attack us anyway. But do you know what?”
Tremelaine stepped toward him, eyes gleaming with an exciting secret. “I want him to! I’ve been given the power I lacked, and I’m ready now! If your friends can escape the city alive to make a report, then when the Surchatain comes with his army—oh, will he be surprised!” Tremelaine cackled with nasal laughter.
Perspiration appeared on Roman’s scarred brow. Tremelaine quieted abruptly and studied him. “That still does not answer the question of what to do with you. You are proud and dangerous and you must be punished. Men like you must not be allowed to go freely about the streets. Others should be warned—” he paused in sudden inspiration. “Oh yes! You’ll carry a warning!”
He gestured to the guards, “Bring him to the Teaching Room!” Then he practically skipped into an adjoining room. The two smiling Bloods shoved Roman after him.
The door to the next room was standing ajar. Roman halted at the threshold while dread welled up from his feet to his throat. Within the room was a remarkable assortment of torture devices, each one gleaming and primed for use.
Roman lowered his eyes, feeling himself slipping away under extreme stress. But in his mind there came the picture of a man in agony on a cross and these words: Because I live, you will live also.
He raised his watering eyes to see Tremelaine busily stoking a fire in a furnace. Humming, he rummaged through a selection of brands before choosing one and placing it in the fire. He ordered the guards, “Take off his shirt and coat.”
They removed his manacles to yank the clothes from his upper body, then replaced the chains. While Tremelaine waited for the iron to heat, he scolded Roman, “You must be marked, so all will know how arrogant you are. Now let me see. . . .” He scrutinized the body before him for the best branding spot.
With the scars on Roman’s forehead, shoulder, and back, Tremelaine was hard pressed to find a satisfactory place. Then he leveled his eyes at Roman’s chest and decided, “Here—dead center. Over the heart.”
Grinning, he returned to the furnace and drew out a glowing red cross, shaped like the ones on the shopfronts. He bore it toward Roman, ordering, “Hold him steady.”
The guards gripped his tense arms and Roman closed his eyes. He felt the heat first, then the most searing, maddening pain he had ever experienced. He wrenched, choking back a scream, biting his mouth till the blood came and the iron was taken away.
Roman was on his knees, half-conscious, with the smell of his own burning flesh in his nostrils. But he faintly heard Tremelaine say, “Take him back to the pit until I want him again.”
They yanked him up and dragged him out. All the way down, he was aware of nothing but his own heart throbbing pain, pain, pain. The darkness closed over him again as they entered the dungeon.
Then they were standing over that horrible pit, and someone shoved a rope in his hands. “No,” he murmured involuntarily. When they pushed him this time, he could not keep his hold on the rope and fell the last ten feet to the mud bottom. He landed with a thick thud and sank up to his knees. The door was slammed down and he was alone, again. The sides of the hole seemed to press in, crushing him, and for a time—minutes? hours?—all was black.
The darkness, the mud, the pain, the hunger and thirst—his chest began heaving. “I can’t—endure this! Lord God! I can’t—”
Then he stilled, hearing something above. He pressed his face to the slimy wall, wondering how he could maneuver Tremelaine into giving him a quick death. The door above slowly opened and torchlight poured down. He did not look up.
“Roman?” a sweet, familiar voice whispered. “Roman, are you all right?”
He raised his face apprehensively, fearing himself caught in a delusion of madness. “Deirdre . . . ?”
“Oh, Roman!” Seeing him shirtless, she urgently leaned over the hole. “Have you been hurt?”
He laughed quietly, shaking tears from his face. “Not badly, my love. But what are you doing here?”
“We did get out, Roman; Nihl obeyed your command. But we came back here to hide—I don’t have time to explain it now—”
Roman interrupted, “Deirdre, you must not leave to bring an army yet!”
“We won’t, Roman. And we’re going to get you out. We have a plan: Nihl is going to get a Blood’s uniform for you first—” She was doing something as she talked which caused her to lean away from the hole momentarily. “Until he comes,” she now began lowering something on a rope, “we thought you might need some nourishment.” He caught a basket which held bread, dried beef, and a bottle of sweet wine.
Trembling, he loosed the rope from the basket so she could draw it out, then he leaned back to look up at her. He could see nothing but her head haloed by torchlight and a golden braid of hair hanging down. “I love you, Deirdre,” was all he could utter.
“I love you, Roman.” The echoes of it somehow eased the throbbing pain. “We’ll return directly with a uniform,” she said, lowering the door gently.
Roman consumed everything in the basket, then dropped it in the mud beside him. He tore his feet from the sucking bottom, propping them up on the wall to wait.
In scant minutes the door opened again and a rope was thrown down to him. But when he came over the top of the hole, he found himself in the company of six Bloods. They escorted him without a word out of the dungeon and back up to
Tremelaine’s quarters. There was something slightly different in their manner toward him—a new fear or uncertainty.
They brought him directly into the Surchatain’s suite without knocking. As they entered, Tremelaine whirled and screamed, “I know who you are! You are the Surchatain of Lystra!”
Chapter 7
Why have you come here? What do you want with me?” Tremelaine screamed at Roman.
“I would ask the Lord to wipe you off the face of the earth, but He has His own plans for you,” Roman replied.
Tremelaine began to tremble violently. “Bring him!” he shrilly ordered the guards as he flew out before them. They shoved Roman to follow him back down the stairs to a pair of doors off the audience hall. The Bloods pushed Roman through the doors behind Tremelaine before entering and shutting themselves in.
It was a small, dark hall comparable to the chapel at Westford. Incense hung in the room like a heavy veil. Roman peered through the smoke in disbelief, his heart drumming, for at the front of the hall stood an eight-foot, gold statue of a beast with the head and wings of a hawk and the body of a man. The image of the ultimate predator, its clawed hands were outstretched in a posture of demand. On either side of it burned two large censers.
Tremelaine stood before the statue, throwing handfuls of powder on the censers. The flames burst up momentarily. He turned back around, feeling his power, and gestured.
The guards pushed Roman forward amid the overpowering smell of blood and incense. Standing beside Tremelaine, Roman looked up at the monstrosity and thought, So this is where all the gold is. Somehow, Tremelaine had dredged up from the sewers of history the religious rites of some long-forgotten empire that had collapsed under the weight of its own depravity.
“You think you’re some mighty man to come here alone and try to usurp me,” Tremelaine sneered. “But now you will see what Power you are up against. Watch before you die!” He whirled to the statue and prostrated himself before it. Roman felt an upheaval of disgust.