I’m trapped, hammered in Denison. Worse than I was in Persia. That was at least rightful history. This—
Surprisingly fast, the near panic died down. People stood where they were and stared. They crossed themselves repeatedly and muttered prayers. The man whom Denison had hit groaned back into consciousness. More mounties showed up. Two bore some kind of carbines, though no firearm was familiar to the prisoner. They surrounded him. “Declarezz vos nomm,” barked one with a silver eagle on his breast. “Quhat e vo? Faite quick!”
Sickness closed Denison’s gullet. I am lost, Cynthia is, the world is. He could only mumble. A trooper unhooked a billy from his belt and stuck him with cruel precision across the spine. He reeled. The officer reached a decision and barked an order.
Turned stiffly silent, they marched him off. It was a walk of about a mile. Shambling at first, he regained a blurred alertness on the way and began to look around him. Hemmed in by the riders, he couldn’t get more than glimpses, but they told him something. The streets he went on were constricted and twisting, though smoothly enough paved. No buildings stood higher than six or seven stories and most seemed centuries old, many of them half-timbered and with leaded windowpanes. Pedestrians were numerous, brisk, men often animated as he remembered from his France but women subdued, decorous. Children were few; were they generally in school? Once away from the scene of action, the party drew little more than glances, now and then a sign of the cross; were captives an everyday sight? Horses pulled wagons and an occasional ornate carriage, leaving their droppings behind them. When he reached the bank of the Seine, he saw barges tugged by twenty-oared rowboats.
From there, too, he spied Notre Dame. But it wasn’t the cathedral he remembered. It seemed to cover nearly half the island, a mountain of soot-gray stone soaring up and up and up, tier upon tier, tower above tower, like a Christian ziggurat, till the topmost spires raked heaven a thousand feet aloft. What ambition had replaced the lovely Gothic with this?
He forgot it when the squad brought him to another building, massive and fortress-like above the river. A life-size crucifix was carved over the main door. Within were gloom, chill, more guards, and men in hooded black robes, bearing rosaries and pectoral crosses, whom he took for monks or lay clergy of some kind. His awareness continued vague, as stunned and heartsick as he felt. Not until he was alone in a cell did he come fully conscious.
The room was tiny, dark, its concrete walls bedewed. Light straggled in from the corridor, through the locked and iron-barred door. The furniture was a pallet, with a thin blanket, on the floor, and a chamber pot that he found, dimly surprised, was rubber. Well, he could have used a hard one for a weapon. A cross was chiseled into the ceiling.
Christ, I’m thirsty. Can’t I even have a cup of water? He clutched the bars, strained against them, called his hoarse appeal. For answer, somebody gibed from another cell somewhere down the passage. “Stop hoping, will ye? Leave me be!” English, by God, though strangely accented. When Denison replied in that language, he got an inarticulate snarl.
He slumped down on the mattress. What he’d just heard boded ill. Well, he did have time to think, try to prepare himself for interrogation. He’d better start. The decision strengthened him. Presently he was upright again, pacing.
Perhaps two hours had passed when a turnkey opened the door to admit a pair of guards, hands on pistol butts, and a cleric. The blackrobe was an old man, wrinkled, blinking, but sharp. “Loquerisne latine?” he demanded.
Do I speak Latin? Denison realized. Sure, that’d still be a universal second language in this world. How I wish I did. Never thought I’d need it, in my line of work, and nothing is left from high school but “amo, amas, amat.” The image of little old Miss Walsh rose before him. “I told you so,” she said. He choked back a hysterical laugh and shook his head. “Non, monsieur, je le regrette,” he attempted in French.
“Ah, vo parlezz alorss fransay?”
Denison formed his words slowly, with care: “I seem to speak another French than yours, reverend father. I come from far away.” He must repeat himself twice, trying what synonyms occurred to him, before he got his meaning across.
Withered lips quirked humorlessly. “That is clear, if you do not so much as recognize a friar. Know, I am Brother Matiou of the Dominican order and the Holy Inquisition.”
When Denison had understood, fear grabbed his guts. He kept it leashed and slogged ahead. “There has been an unfortunate accident. I assure you, I am on a mission peaceful although of the utmost importance. I arrived untimely and in the wrong place. It is understandable if this aroused fears and caused precautions to be taken. But if you will bring me to your highest authority”—king, Pope, what the hell?—“I will explain the situation to him.”
Again unraveling was necessary before Matiou snapped, “You will explain here and now. Think not that demonic art can avail you in Christ’s own stronghold. Declare your name!”
The Patrolman got the drift. “Keith Denison, your Rev—uh, Brother.” Why not? What did it matter? What did anything matter anymore?
Matiou was also catching on, quickly interpreting otherwise unintelligible bits from context. “Ah, of England?” He used that word, not “Angleterre,” and went on: “We can fetch one who speaks the patois, if that will make you answer more readily.”
“No, my home is—Brother, I cannot give the secrets I bear to anyone less than the supremacy.”
Matiou glared. “You will speak to me, and speak truth. Must we put you to the full question? Then, believe me, when you go to the stake you will bless him who lights the fire.”
He needed three attempts before he conveyed his threat. The full question? I suppose less extreme torture is routine. This is only a preliminary quiz. Fear keened in Denison’s brain. He was faintly astonished at his firmness: “With respect, Brother, my duty, sworn before God, forbids me to reveal certain things to anyone but the sovereign. It would be catastrophic, did the knowledge become public. Think of small children given fire to play with.” He cast a significant look at the guards. The effect was spoiled by the need to repeat.
Response was clear: “The Inquisition knows well how to keep silent.”
“I do not doubt that. But neither do I doubt that the master will be most displeased should word intended for him alone be uttered elsewhere.”
Matiou scowled. Denison saw hesitation underneath and pressed his advantage. They were catching on to each other’s French rather fast. Part of the trick was to talk somewhat like an American who had read but never heard the language.
Confronted with something unprecedented like this, the monk wouldn’t be human if he didn’t welcome an excuse to pass the buck. After all, Denison argued, the sovereign could always remand him for interrogation.
“What do you mean by the sovereign?” Matiou asked. “The Holy Father? Then why did you not come to Rome?”
“Well, the king—”
“The king?”
Denison realized he’d made a mistake. Apparently the monarch, if they had one, was not on top. He hastened on: “The king, I was about to say, would be the natural person to see in certain countries.”
“Yes, among the Russian barbarians. Or in those lands of black Mahound where they acknowledge no caliph.” Matiou’s gnarled forefingers stabbed. “Where were you truly bound, Keith Denison?”