Suicide Kings (33 page)

“Are you willing to take a pistol?” Siobhan asked.

Francesca recoiled. “I’ll have no part in killing. I understand you must do what you must do, but I can’t take another life, no matter what the value of that life.”

“So what are you going to do?” Siobhan asked. “Pray over them? Or perhaps you can knock them out by telling them their fortune.”

“Siobhan!” Diana snapped and the Irish girl went silent with a sullen frown.

“I can’t take the life of another, but I can help you two keep yours. I can keep watch for guards while you two do whatever it is you plan to do.”

“Fair enough. I just wish I knew what it is we two plan to do. Perhaps we’ll know more once we get inside. I suppose we should get moving unless either of you have any last insights?”

Only silence from the other two.

“Very well then. Let’s go.” Diana threw open the carriage door before she lost her courage. The cold hit her like a hammer, but she pulled her coat closer and did her best to endure it. The ground crunched beneath her feet. Behind her the others followed.

Hunched down, she approached the forgotten home. From what she could see, no guards were evident. Always possible someone watched from the dark, from behind an upper window perhaps. She’d just have to take her chances.

The long run across the grounds to the side of the house seemed to go on for half an hour. Only minimal cover presented itself, and Diana had to hope the darkness would be enough. She took a circuitous route to avoid passing in front of the home, where guards were most likely to be posted. At any moment she expected to hear someone shout, her approach discovered. Yet, she made it to a side wall of the home without incident, Siobhan and Francesca joining her immediately. Didn’t mean they hadn’t been seen, of course. Perhaps the Council preferred to surround them quietly before striking. They’d have to press on and hope that wasn’t the case.

Diana kept her body pressed against the wall. The shadows here were thick, sheltering them from the ambient light of the moon and city. The face of the wall was irregular in nature, jutting in and out as rooms came and went, probably added on from the original structure when this area thrived. Fortunately, this meant it would be possible to climb up onto one of these extensions and get into a two-story window.

Siobhan seemed to have much the same idea. She looked to the roof of one of the extensions. “I can hoist myself atop this; lend you two a hand up.”

Diana nodded. “Up you go then.” She watched as Siobhan scrambled up the surface of the wall, fingers finding holds in the cracks of the surface. A moment later she peered down from the roof, extending a hand. “All right, who’s next?”

Francesca motioned toward her. “You go next. You can step in my hands.”

“Thank you.” She thought to protest and suggest Francesca go next instead, but the woman was right. With her hand, Diana would have the harder time climbing. Francesca might not be as strong as Siobhan, but she had at least recovered from her poisoning and had proper use of both her hands.

Francesca hunched down and made a step out of her crisscrossed fingers. “I’ve seen men do this. I hope I don’t drop you.”

Diana stepped onto Francesca’s hand and with the other woman’s help, tried to propel herself up to where Siobhan could reach her and pull her up the rest of the way. She didn’t quite make it, scrambling to keep hold. Her injured finger slammed against the wood and she bit her lip to keep from screaming. Her good fingers found niches in the stone wall, though to her they seemed barely enough to hold on, let alone climb with. She couldn’t see how Siobhan had made it look so easy.

“What’s taking so long?” Siobhan demanded, her head a silhouette in the dark blue sky.

“I only have nine fingers!” Diana hissed back. A moment later though, she managed to pull herself high enough that Siobhan got her under the arms and pulled her the rest of the way. Thereafter, Francesca made a leap upward and Diana and Siobhan caught her and pulled her up as well.

Now ten feet off the ground, Diana felt horribly exposed. From within the house she could now hear talking, singing, chanting; she couldn’t be sure and without certainty, her imagination began to run away from her. They needed to get inside. Up here, they faced two second-story windows, both broken and easy points of entry. They led into the same darkened and empty room.

“If the Council are at all clever, they’ll have a couple gentlemen patrolling the house for uninvited guests such as ourselves,” Siobhan observed.

Diana nodded. “It’s a big house. They can’t all be patrolling, or it wouldn’t be much of a meeting.”

“I’ll be responsible for watching for guards,” Francesca offered. “You two do what you must.”

Using her elbow and feet Siobhan kicked out some of the remaining glass, allowing enough room for them to crawl through safely inside. The room within felt no warmer than the outside despite at least offering shelter from the breeze. Only limited light presented itself here, and details were difficult to make out, but the room appeared to be rather large, a bedroom perhaps. A large stone fireplace sat cold and empty in one corner. Most of the furniture had been taken away long ago, and what pieces remained were broken apart. The floor crunched with shards of mirror and flecks of wood. Even after French troops left behind a damaged shell, wave after wave of vandals and vagabonds further reduced this mansion to a hellish crust. Their marks showed their passage through here, whether crude graffiti upon the walls, or the dried stains of human excrement in the corners. The memories of the people who had owned this luxurious home by contrast, were no more than ghosts; faint outlines where once a picture or mirror had hung on the wall, grooves in the floorboards where once had stood a bed. Holes had been knocked in many of the walls, and the rotting influence of nature had worked on these further, giving the walls an ulcerated look. Diana felt sad and an odd sense of adventure at the same time. Under different circumstances, exploring these old husks might have been a great adventure. For tonight, they had more to fear than vandals and vagabonds.

“The darkness will get worse further in,” Diana realized. “We should have brought a lantern.”

“Too dangerous. We’d be spotted. Besides, look under the door.” Siobhan pointed to the closed door, which presumably led outward into the hall. Underneath, a faint flickering glow could be seen. Someone had thoughtfully left the corridors of this place illuminated. Siobhan drew both her pistol and rapier, and Diana did the same with her own pistol.

“Francesca, stay behind us, and run for it if there is any trouble,” Diana said.

“You’ll get no argument from me on that,” Francesca nodded.

Diana went to the door and worked the latch. It moved easily under her touch, feeling loose if anything. Carefully, she eased the door open, dreading a telltale squeak or groan that would reveal their whereabouts. As she opened the door, Siobhan carefully poked her head out and looked both ways.

“Candle in a wall sconce,” Siobhan told the others. “Must be for the guards. No one is here at the moment though. It’s safe.”

With the door open they could hear sounds from within the house much better now. A myriad of voices at times, both male and female, at others a single male voice intoning. Sometimes they sang, sometimes they chanted, sometimes they merely spoke. To Diana it sounded like nothing so much as a Catholic mass. She stepped out into the hall, keeping as quiet as she could. Inside her chest, her heart intoned its own crazy beat. This seemed crazy. No warrant from Savonarola would help her here. “Sounds like the meeting is coming from downstairs. Probably in the main reception hall. I’d like to get a look at it from above if we could.”

“If there is a central reception hall like you say,” said Siobhan, “it could have an open area above it, which would explain the excellent acoustics of their little meeting. Perhaps the rooms adjacent will have holes knocked in the walls like the first. We could observe reasonably safely through there.”

Diana nodded and motioned for Siobhan to lead the way. The Irish girl did as instructed, pistol held out before her, rapier at her side. Diana looked back to give Francesca an encouraging smile, and felt gladdened to see the third member of their trio appeared resolute.

Silently they crept down the first hall, then turned to the left, moving into the center of the building. Each time one of their feet crunched on a piece of glass or creaked on an old floorboard a wave of terror swept over Diana. Nothing leapt out at them however, and their progress went on uninterrupted.

Each of the hallways glimmered with light from one or two candles held in wall sconces. These made the going much easier, but reminded them that patrols could be expected. Doorways lined the halls, and Diana wondered what might lie behind each, what the rooms might reveal of their former occupants. Probably, like the first, they would be found too heavily damaged to reveal much at all. The wood demonstrated streaks and lines of damage from unintended exposure to the elements.

The second hallway led to a third, wider, with the remains of carpeting. This led out onto a grand open area. A domed ceiling held the wire relics of what once must have been a grand chandelier. This spidery skeleton hovered over a wide curved staircase covered with thick stained carpet. From a central landing, two other hallways radiated off into the darkness. They were at the heart of the house. More light radiated from this area and the voices from below were much louder now. They must be just above the main reception hall in which the Council service was being held.

Siobhan held up her pistol for them to stop. She looked back. “Guard,” she mouthed silently.

Diana peered around Siobhan’s shoulder. Indeed, a corpulent balding man sat on a stool just above the winding staircase on the landing. Across his lap a matchlock harquebus lay, although Diana noted he had not lit the wick. At the moment he stared lazily down the stairs, not overly attentive, nor concerned with the activities below. Probably a hired thug, Diana reasoned, and bored from too many hours sitting in the dark.

Circumstances were less than ideal. Diana reasoned the best rooms for viewing the reception area—assuming there were holes in the walls as in the first room—would be just across the landing in the next hallway. As languid as this gentleman seemed to be, it would be quite impossible for him to miss them slipping across the landing to the next hall. Siobhan might rush him with the rapier. He’d never get the match on his gun lit and fired before she’d cut him down, but he might manage a shout to the throng below. They could wait for him to patrol the corridors, if he ever bothered, and for the moment he seemed quite content with his thoughts.

Siobhan looked back and shrugged, apparently going through about the same calculus.

Diana chewed on her bottom lip, dismayed no good ideas came readily to her. As she watched, the man stood and stretched. He scratched his scalp through what remained of his hair. Of course the bastard was bored. He’d look for anything to attract his attention, get up, walk around—if they could just time their own movements with his distraction, they could potentially get across the landing and into the next hall. Whispering, Diana conveyed this to Siobhan and Francesca.

A minute passed and the man slung the harquebus over one shoulder and stared up at a spot on the wall where once a painting had hung. He seemed to try to discern its image from the lightened rectangle it had left behind. This would be as good a moment as they could expect, his back partially turned in their direction.

Diana motioned to Siobhan and quietly, almost tiptoeing, the Irish girl slunk across the landing, in full view had the man been watching. Her blade glinted in the lantern light, a dead giveaway. Diana thought she might faint, and she could feel Francesca’s hand on her own, gripping her painfully.

After what seemed an eternity, Siobhan slipped past the landing and into the secure darkness of the hall.

“Go ahead,” Diana whispered to Francesca. “I won’t let him hurt you.” She steadied her pistol across her forearm, keeping it trained on the guard.

Francesca nodded grimly and like Siobhan, stepped out into the landing. Her movements were slower, less graceful than the Irishwoman’s and for a moment Diana feared she would make some noise to alert the guard. At last though, she too slipped into the darkened hall across the landing.

Now however, the guard apparently decided his efforts to discern the long-lost painting were futile. He turned back with a grunt, sitting down once more with the harquebus across his lap, now more intent to investigate the contents of his nostrils than anything else. Just perfect. Now they were divided.

Minutes passed, which Diana spent biting her lower lip. If another guard patrolled these halls, eventually he’d come upon either her or Siobhan and Francesca. She could only hope that boredom would overcome the guard once again and he’d allow his surveillance to lapse. Finally after an eternity he stood once more, harquebus over his shoulder, and descended the stairs leaving the lantern behind. He disappeared from view.

Diana shook her head; if only they had waited they could all have crossed the landing easily with no risk. Diana hurried across now and found her comrades waiting. They led her down a short corridor and took a turn to the left, where a door stood open.

“While we waited for you, we found a room which suits our needs.” Francesca led Diana in through the open door, and closed it behind them.

This space was a bit smaller than the first room, but just as devoid of life. One moldering, but mostly intact chair sat to one side of the room. Otherwise little more than debris and rubble remained. A good size hole in one wall, perhaps two feet in diameter, glowed fiercely with light from below, and voices rose together as a chorus through that opening. Diana went to the opening and peered down below.

The congregation of heretics milled in a rough circle in the hollowed out remains of the main reception area. Lanterns and torches provided good illumination for the three dozen or so men and women dressed in long hooded robes, with Venetian masks to cover their faces. Most of the robes were brown or gray, although toward the front of the cluster, a half dozen or so individuals, all men by Diana’s guess, wore robes of pure white. Two of these men sat just to the side of a makeshift altar, while a third man in white appeared to lead the ceremony. At the moment he held aloft some dusty tome and proclaimed something loudly in Latin. Diana struggled to translate in her head.