I started to comment doubtfully but we were interrupted by Sister Magdalene herself. “Quick!” she snapped at me as she slipped in beside us. “Back to the rampart!”
I rushed out and was barely in time to avoid being caught by the warden, making his rounds. He exchanged challenges with Zeb and myself—and then the old fool wanted to chat. He settled himself down on the steps of the portal and started recalling boastfully a picayune fencing victory of the week before. I tried dismally to help Zeb with chit-chat in a fashion normal for a man bored by a night watch.
At last he got to his feet. “I’m past forty and getting a little heavier, maybe. I’ll admit frankly it warms me to know that I still have a wrist and eye as fast as you young blades.” He straightened his scabbard and added, “I suppose I had better take a turn through the Palace. Can’t take too many precautions these days. They do say the Cabal has been active again.” He took out his torch light and flashed it down the corridor.
I froze solid. If he inspected that corridor, it was beyond hope that he would miss two women crouching in an alcove.
But Zebadiah spoke up calmly, casually. “Just a moment, Elder Brother. Would you show me that time riposte you used to win that last match? It was too fast for me to follow it.”
He took the bait. “Why, glad to, son!” He moved off the steps, came out to where there was room. “draw your sword. En garde! Cross blades in line of sixte. Disengage and attack me. There! Hold the lunge and I’ll demonstrate it slowly. As your point approaches my chest— (Chest indeed! Captain van Eyck was as pot-bellied as a kangaroo!) “—I catch it with the forte of my blade and force it over yours in riposte seconde. Just like the book, so far. But I do not complete the riposte. Strong as it is, you might parry or counter. Instead, as my point comes down, I beat your blade out of line—” He illustrated and the steel sang. “—and attack you anywhere, from chin to ankle. Come now, try it on me.”
Zeb did so and they ran through the phrase; the warden retreated a step. Zeb asked to do it again to get it down pat. They ran through it repeatedly, faster each time, with the warden retreating each time to avoid by a hair Zeb’s unbated point. It was strictly against regulations to fence with real swords and without mask and plastron, but the warden really was good . . . a swordsman so precise that he was confident of his own skill not to blind one of Zeb’s eyes, not to let Zeb hurt him. In spite of my own galloping jitters I watched it closely; it was a beautiful demonstration of a once-useful military art. Zeb pressed him hard.
They finished up fifty yards away from the portal and that much closer to the guardroom. I could hear the warden puffing from the exercise. “That was fine, Jones,” he gasped. “You caught on handsomely.” He puffed again and added, “Lucky for me a real bout does not go on as long. I think I’ll let you inspect the corridor.” He turned away toward the guardroom, adding cheerfully, “God keep you.”
“God go with you, sir,” Zeb responded properly and brought his hilt to his chin in salute.
As soon as the warden turned the corner Zeb stood by again and I hurried back to the alcove. The women were still there, making themselves small against the back wall. “He’s gone,” I reassured them. “Nothing to fear for a while.”
Judith had told Sister Magdalene of our dilemma and we discussed it in whispers. She advised us strongly not to try to reach any decisions just then. “I’m in charge of Judith’s purification; I can stretch it out for another week, perhaps, before she has to draw lots again.”
I said, “We’ve got to act before then!”
Judith seemed over her fears, now that she had laid her troubles in Sister Magdalene’s lap. “don’t worry, John,” she said softly, “the chances are my lot won’t be drawn soon again in any case. We must do what she advises.”
Sister Magdalene sniffed contemptuously. “You’re wrong about that, Judy, when you are returned to duty, your lot will be drawn, you can be sure ahead of time. Not,” she added, “but what you could live through it—the rest of us have. If it seems safer to—” She stopped suddenly and listened. “sssh! Quiet as death.” She slipped silently out of our circle.
A thin pencil of light flashed out and splashed on a figure crouching outside the alcove. I dived and was on him before he could get to his feet. Fast as I had been, Sister Magdalene was just as fast; she landed on his shoulders as he went down. He jerked and was still.
Zebadiah came running in, checked himself at our sides. “John! Maggie!” came his tense whisper. “What is it?”
“We’ve caught a spy, Zeb,” I answered hurriedly. “What’ll we do with him?”
Zeb flashed his light. “You’ve knocked him out?”
“He won’t come to,” answered Magdalene’s calm voice out of the darkness. “I slipped a vibroblade in his ribs.”
“Sheol!”
“Zeb, I had to do it. Be glad I didn’t use steel and mess up the floor with blood. But what do we do now?”
Zeb cursed her softly, she took it. “Turn him over, John. Let’s take a look.” I did so and his light flashed again. “Hey, Johnnie-it’s Snotty Fassett.” He paused and I could almost hear him think. “Well, we’ll waste no tears on him. John!”
“Yeah, Zeb?”
“Keep the watch outside. If anyone comes, I am inspecting the corridor. I’ve got to dump this carcass somewhere.”
Judith broke the silence. “There’s an incinerator chute on the floor above. I’ll help you.”
“Stout girl. Get going, John.”
I wanted to object that it was no work for a woman, but I shut up and turned away. Zeb took his shoulders, the women a leg apiece and managed well enough. They were back in minutes, though it seemed endless to me. No doubt Snotty’s body was reduced to atoms before they were back-we might get away with it. It did not seem like murder to me then, and still does not; we did what we had to do, rushed along by events.
Zeb was curt. “This tears it. Our reliefs will be along in ten minutes; we’ve got to figure this out in less time than that. Well?”
Our suggestions were all impractical to the point of being ridiculous, but Zeb let us make them-then spoke straight to the point. “Listen to me, it’s no longer just a case of trying to help Judith and you out of your predicament. As soon as Snotty is missed, we-all four of us-are in mortal danger of the Question. Right?”
“Right,” I agreed unwillingly.
“But nobody has a plan?”
None of us answered. Zeb went on, “Then we’ve got to have help . . . and there is only one place we can get it. The Cabal.”
CHAPTER 3
“The Cabal?” I repeated stupidly. Judith gave a horrified gasp. “Why . . . why, that would mean our immortal souls! They worship Satan!”
Zeb turned to her. “I don’t believe so.” She stared at him. “Are you a Cabalist?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know?”
“And how,” I insisted, “can you ask them for help?”
Magdalene answered. “I am a member-as Zebadiah knows.” Judith shrank away from her, but Magdalene pressed her with words. “Listen to me, Judith. I know how you feel—and once I was as horrified as you are at the idea of anyone opposing the Church. Then I learned-as you are learning-what really lies behind this sham we were brought up to believe in.” She put an arm around the younger girl. “We aren’t devil worshipers, dear, nor do we fight against God. We fight only against this self-styled Prophet who pretends to be the voice of God. Come with us, help us fight him—and we will help you. Otherwise we can’t risk it.”
Judith searched her face by the faint light from the portal. “You swear that this is true? The Cabal fights only against the Prophet and not against the Lord Himself?”
“I swear, Judith.”
Judith took a deep shuddering breath. “God guide me,” she whispered. “I go with the Cabal.”
Magdalene kissed her quickly, then faced us men. “Well?”
I answered at once, “I’m in it if Judith is,” then whispered to myself, “dear Lord, forgive me my oath—I must!”