Prisoner of the Flames (Leisure Historical Romance) (26 page)

But Robert scarcely heard this. The admiral nodded to the driver and slapped the rump of the mule harnessed to the cart. It was a rickety conveyance, padded with moldy alfalfa, and between the nauseating, sickeningly sweet smell and the sudden jolt of motion, he spiraled into unconsciousness.

The nightmares were the worst of it—dark, lurking visions of buttresses and passageways—all dead ends. Of seeking, and not finding, but not finding
what?
There were creatures—dragons, no,
gargoyles
, hideous creatures staring down from great spired heights—mocking him. Then there was the pain in his shoulder. One had healed, but the other now burned as though someone had set it afire. How would he wield his sword? But he had no sword. It lay somewhere in the muddy silt at the bottom of the Seine. It was all trickling back. Someone groaned. It was several minutes before he realized the sound had come from his own parched throat. He gave a lurch, but a strong hand prevented him from rising.

“So! You have come ‘round,” the gruff voice behind it said. “Good! We shall have our talk, then, Robert of Paxton.”

Slowly, the Scot’s bleary eyes came open to the massive figure of Gaspard de Coligny, standing arms akimbo now above the pallet where he lay half naked, shed of his robe, shirt, and doublet; only his breeches remained. The arrow had been removed from his shoulder, and clean linen bandages swathed it. From the stench of burnt flesh flaring his nostrils, he knew the wound had been cauterized.

He was in a small cubicle, sparsely furnished and steeped in shadow. An oaken table, a Glastonbury chair, and a large coffer were the only pieces. Two armed sentries occupied the coffer and sat looking on while the admiral took his seat in the X-shaped Glastonbury chair facing the pallet for the interrogation.

“We have met before I think,” the admiral mused, “when you were staging the dashing rescue of your papist uncle from the Bastille. I must commend you. Well done!”

“I did not set out to kill the jailer,” Robert defended. “He recognized me. I had no choice.”

The admiral smiled his cold smile. “That is no concern of mine,” he said. “Garboneaux was an odious toad, who mistreated my imprisoned brethren in that pest hole—gave them not the sort of treatment he gave the Catholics entombed there. That was the reason for my little inspection. I’d hoped to persuade the king to rectify the situation.”

“Well, if he has treated your brethren worse than he did me—a Catholic—during my incarceration in that place, he has received his just deserts,” Robert gritted through a humorless chuckle.

“Ummmm,” the admiral hummed, drumming his fingers on his knee. “Do you know where you are, my lord?” he queried.

“No,” Robert murmured, shaking his head as best he could. There was no bolster or pillow beneath it, and the
movement shot him through with needles of punishing pain.

“You are at the village you helped ravage,” said the admiral, drawing his fingers into white-knuckled fists. “But I am a fair man. I would hear your account of that unfortunate foray.”

Robert sighed. Something in the inscrutable eyes holding him relentlessly made him doubt the wisdom of telling the truth. He hardly believed it himself any longer.

“I came to Paris on a peaceful mission,” he began, against his better judgment.

“In search of Doctor Nostradamus, yes, yes, I’ve heard the tale. And, looking at you now, I see the folly of it. What I wish to know is how you came to be among the raiding party with Louis de Brach, and the cardinal’s men?”

A peasant woman entered bearing a water crock, her eyes seeking the admiral’s permission to offer it. Through the open doorway, Robert saw that it was daylight. Coligny nodded, and the laird gulped the crock dry. Afterward, the woman bowed and left them.

“My uncle…the monk I liberated, served the Church in France…under the Cardinal of Lorraine…when all this madness started,” Robert began again, out of breath for having raised himself on his elbow to drink.

“What has that got to do—”

“Please,” Robert interrupted. “If I am to tell it, you must hear it all. I know some of your background, my Lord Admiral, and it is most impressive, but I also know that you have only these three years past publicly confessed your conversion to Protestantism. I appeal to the Catholic soul you once possessed to listen with an open mind.”

“Very well, then, tell it,” the admiral begrudged.

“Uncle Aengus opposed the cardinal’s methods of dealing with the Huguenots—the very methods you abhor. For his pains, Charles de Guise had him banished to the abbey
on St. Michael’s Mount. My uncle is a humble monk, who spends his life in prayer, and means ill to no one. When I approached him seeking a sponsor for my journey here, instead of Cardinal de Guise, he referred me to seigneur de Montaigne. The cardinal was slighted, and as appeasement for the insult, I was forced to attend the raid on this village. I did so against my will and under protest. I had then, and have now, no designs upon involving myself in
any
insurrection—religious, political, or otherwise. I did so to spare my uncle and Montaigne a chastisement, and Uncle Aengus was punished anyway.”

“Ummm,” the admiral growled. “You were conscripted?”

“I was
taken hostage!”
Robert bellowed. “That is what it amounted to. The cardinal’s armed men came for me. I had no choice. I feared for my uncle, and my friend. Surely you are no stranger to the ruthless brutality of the cardinal’s chastisements?”

The admiral ground out a guttural chuckle. There was no humor in it. “The ‘Cardinal,’ Charles de Guise, ordered all Huguenots to leave Paris or be burned at the stake; many were,” he said. “He ordered all those who lived in his own town, where he is archbishop, mind, to be killed, and their pitiful bodies floated down the river as a lesson to any who would defy him. On the first of March, in this year of Our Lord, fifteen sixty-two, the cardinal’s brother Francis, le Duc de Guise, set fire to an obscure tavern on the outskirts of Vassy, where a harmless Huguenot prayer meeting was taking place, and ordered his troops to attack. Twenty-three unsuspecting Huguenots were put to the sword, and one hundred and thirty more were wounded. Yes, my lord, I know well the ruthless capabilities of the cardinal’s chastisements.”

“Well then, you know I speak the truth of him,” Robert said. “Who is the leader of your movement here now? Perhaps if I could speak with him…I might be able to persuade him of my unfortunate situation. I like it not!”

“Le Duc de Condé leads us now that the conflict has become a full-blown war, but I am in command here while he is traveling south to counsel at the border with our ally, Henry of Navarre, and you are indeed fortunate that you must answer to me. Le Duc de Condé is far less…understanding.”

“I was present at the raid, yes, I cannot deny it,” Robert admitted, “but I did precious little to harm your people; I was too busy trying to thwart assassination. Neither the cardinal, nor his general expected me to leave the field alive.”

“Who killed Louis de Brach?” the admiral demanded.

“I did,” Robert responded without hesitation. There was no reason to lie.

“Explain.”

“The young blind girl that you have taken sought refuge here amongst your people after she defended me, and openly accused the gendarmes who arrested me for naught. It was no longer safe for her to sell her flowers in the city, and these people here gave her shelter in exchange for chores. At the height of the battle, Louis de Brach had taken her down to rape her. I intervened, we fought, and I planted my
sgian dubh
—my Scottish dagger—in his belly. I then left the fray and went in search of Violette. She had wandered off in her fright, and blundered headlong into the burning forest.”

“Ummmm,” the admiral grunted, considering it. “It is the tale I have been told. I needed to have it from you. Where stand you now? With which side are you aligned?”

“I have no alignment, my Lord Admiral. I never have had. Why is that so difficult to make any of you see? I came on a fool’s errand—a vain quest to try and make myself presentable enough to find a wife and get heirs upon her. I have no siblings. An heir is necessary, lest the noble Mack line die out with me, and none but whores will come near enough to my face to let my cock prove me.”

“And the girl? Where does she stand in this?”

Robert breathed a nasal sigh. “I love her,” he replied. “She is the only thing that I have gained from this mad quest, and I will not leave France without her. She is safe in this country no longer, because of me. She was taken from our hiding place while I was freeing Uncle Aengus, and held against her will at Notre Dame by the cardinal in order to bring me. I killed his general. He means to see I pay for that. Well and good, I will allow, but he may not harm Violette. I got her out, and meant to join her and leave France, and then you…prevented me.”

“Where is your uncle now?” the admiral interrupted.

How much should he tell this man? How much should he confide? He had been truthful thus far, but those unreadable eyes dilated in the dying candlelight in that dark, window-less room, and were not trustworthy.

“Gone back to Scotland,” Robert replied, praying it was the truth. He would not involve Nostradamus—never that. After all the wise, old healer had done for his foolish cause he would not leave him at the mercy of any of them. “Violette?” he pleaded. “What have you done with Violette?”

“She is safe,” the admiral grunted.

“But she must be frightened—terrified beyond reason. I beg you let me see her.”

“Not just yet,” the admiral pronounced. “She will be freed, but you have yet to prove yourself, my lord.”

“You cannot set her free alone here now!” Robert erupted. “The cardinal’s men…they will kill her. She is blind! She has nowhere to go. Let me take her away—home to Scotland.”

“I cannot allow that,” the admiral said. “As I’ve said, and I do not like repeating myself, you must prove yourself.”

“How? I have told you the truth—to the very letter. What more must I do to prove myself?”

“You must do for me what you did for Charles de Guise. You must even the score.”

“But I have evened the score,” Robert protested. “Have I not killed Louis de Brach? Are you no better than the cardinal that you would force me to fight against my will?” It was a rash remark that caused the admiral to stiffen, but the laird was not sorry he’d made it.

“If you will not, your alignment is proven, and you will die, my lord,” Coligny said flatly. “It is that simple.”

Robert stared. How could this be? Was it jealous rivalry, not religious freedom that drove this war? And which side was God on, he wondered? Or had He turned His back upon both factions? That seemed the most logical answer, since neither side had prospered much from what he could see, but then, he was no theologian.

“What would you have me do, exactly?” he queried, knowing full well that the crafty admiral, bested by the cardinal at his hands—albeit unavoidably—expected him to fight.

“That wound will not take long to mend enough for you to travel,” Coligny opined, “—a sennight at the outside, and you should be able to sit a horse. Then you will come with us to Normandy, where we shall do unto the Catholics there as the Guises have done unto us here…and elsewhere. But
we
will be merciful. We will not burn them at the stake, or send their mangled, headless bodies floating downriver. No. And we will not tax you overmuch expecting you to join in the thick of battle risen so soon from your sickbed. We will hang them in the public squares and
you
, our duly appointed hangman, will loop the noose ‘round their worthless necks, my lord; that is what I would have you do.”

“And Violette? What will become of her?”

“I told you. I will set her free.”

“But you cannot, my Lord Admiral! You sign her death warrant. I will do what you ask, but in the end, I must take Violette safely home to Scotland. Either that, or kill me now. You mean to do that anyway, once I slake your jealous passion for vengeance on me. I am no fool.”

“And I am no Charles de Guise!” the admiral shot back. Anger flared his nostrils now. Robert knew he had gone too far. It didn’t matter. He had reached the end of his tether.

Blue eyes jousted with gray, or were they blue as well, or brown? He couldn’t say. They were dilated black and seething with palpable passion. Both were immovable.

“There has to be someone to care for the girl,” the admiral finally growled.

“There was. Seigneur de Montaigne,” Robert replied, “but I am sure you must know that he has left the city, and gone to his home on the coast, where he will harvest his vineyards and winter. He shan’t return to Paris ’til the spring, and there is no one else that will protect her from the cardinal, and the troops of his brother, the duke. She will not see the vendors who have sheltered her subjected to the Guises’s retribution.”

A commotion outside turned the admiral’s head then, and he threw the door open to his sentries, who had laid hold of a robed figure on the threshold.

“Let me in, Coligny,” the man cried, struggling to free himself from the soldiers’ grip. “I know you have him here, and the king knows I have come. Have these gudgeons unhand me—
at once!
”

“Montaigne?”
the admiral erupted, casting a suspicious scowl over his shoulder toward Robert.

The young laird sagged back against the pallet. Had he not just told the admiral that Montaigne had left the city? How much would he believe now, with the man standing—large as life—upon his doorstep?

“Let him go,” the admiral growled, and Montaigne crossed the threshold, strutting like a cock with ruffled feathers, tugging his mantle straight and slapping at the dust on it relentlessly.

“Michel!” Robert cried. “What are you doing here?” Did
it sound as false to Coligny as it did to him? He prayed not, but he feared so.

“Yes, Montaigne,” the admiral parroted, “what are you doing here? Your protégé has just told me a fantasy that you had left the city.”

“As well I did, and was halfway home before my conscience drove me back again to finish my obligation to the laird here. Is this your handiwork, then?” he demanded, wagging a stiff finger toward Robert’s bandaged wound.