The Jester

Chapter 70

I CREPT INSIDE the hellhole. The prison was dank and humid. A flickering torch spat its dim light on a row of narrow cells. They were barely four feet high, enclosed by rusted iron bars, tight as coffins. Prisoners curled on the floor like dogs.

Driven by the awful smell and my worry that the guards would come, I hurried down the row of cells, searching for the man I had seen dragged in the night before. I prayed he was still here.

In the first cell, a man with a long dark beard, naked, barely more than a skeleton, lay on his back amid his own waste. In the next, a large dark-ski

The third cell contained the person I was seeking: the mayor of St. Cécile. The poor man lay crumpled in a ball, with blotches of blood and bruises on his face and arms. To my alarm, I could not tell if he was alive or dead.

“Sir…” I crept close. I had to know. What did these dark knights want? What had they razed his entire village to find? What treasure was worth so many lives?

I crept up close to his cell. “Please…” I whispered again, almost begging. Would he recognize me? Would he speak or call out?

[215] Suddenly a whimpering moan from the next cell caught my attention. I stepped over and saw a pathetic creature-a woman, her skin as white as a ghost, her hair dry as rotted hemp, muttering under her breath like a deranged witch. Her skin was spotted with oozing sores.

I cringed. What a sight! What heresy had she done to be left to rot away like this?

I turned back to the mayor. Time was short. “Do you remember me, sir? I saw you in St. Cécile,” I whispered.

But the witch’s muttering grew louder. I shushed her to stop. Then a jolt froze my body.

The words she moaned-at first softly, almost inaudibly into her bony hands. Then louder. My God! I could not believe what I was hearing:

“A maiden met a wandering man in the light of the moon’s pure cheer.”

Chapter 71

MY HEART SLAMMED against my ribs. This could not be! Could not, could not.

I ran to her cell and pressed against the bars, straining to distinguish her features amid the shadows.

Nothing could ever have prepared me for what I saw… Not the sight of Nico plunging from my grasp. Or poor Robert gazing at his own body as it was hacked in two. Not even the Turk looming over me, his blade raised in the air.

I was staring at my wife.

“Sophie…?” I whispered, the word catching in my throat.

She did not move or speak.

“Sophie!” I called, feeling my heart start to crumble. Part of me prayed she would not turn.

Then she tilted her face toward me.

“Sophie, is that you?”

She lay huddled in shadow and I still could not tell for certain if it was her. The scant light from a nearby torch traced her bony face. Her hair, which once had smelled like honey, hung wildly from her head, pulled out in spots, and white. Her sunken eyes, glazed and distant, were ru

[217] It was her! I was sure of it.

“Sophie?” I cried, my hands reaching desperately through the bars.

She finally turned toward the sound, sallow light spreading across her face. I simply could not believe what I was seeing! How could she be here? How could she be alive after all this time?

Grateful tears welled in my eyes. I reached for her, her emaciated bones covered with a filthy rag. I tried to speak, but I was too overcome. It was Sophie. She was not dead. At last I knew that much for sure.

“Sophie… look … It’s me, Hugh.”

Slowly she lifted her face fully into the light. She was like an artist’s disfigured re-creation of the beautiful image I held in my mind: gaunt, ghostly, covered in sores. Her eyes flickered at the sound of my voice. I could see that she was sick, that she barely clung to this rotting existence. I wasn’t sure she knew who I was.

“We have to give it back to them,” she finally said. “Please, I beg you. Give them back what’s theirs.”

“Sophie,” I was shouting now, “look. I am here… Hugh!” What had they done to her? Anger surged through me. I could see her suffering and I felt it too. “You are alive. Sweet God, you’re alive. …” Tears streamed down my face.

“Hugh…?” She blinked. Then she almost seemed to smile. “Hugh’ll be back. He’s in the East, fighting… But I’ll see him again, my baby. He promised.”

“No, I am here, Sophie.” My fingers grasped at air, trying to reach her face. “Please. Come close. Let me hold you.” Oh God, let me hold you, Sophie.

“He’ll be sad about the i

“I’m going to get you out of here. I know about Phillipe, about the i

[218] Sophie pulled herself toward the sound of my voice. Her cheeks were slick with fever, her eyes glassy. I could see she was terribly sick. I just wanted to hold her. God, I wanted to hold her.

She blinked like a frightened doe, hugging the wall. “Hugh…?” she whispered.

“Sophie, it’s me… It’s me, darling.” I whispered the words to our song: “A maiden once met a traveling man …”

“You must give it back now,” she muttered again. “They say it is theirs. I tried to tell them, Hugh will return. He’ll find me. They said they’ll give Phillipe back to us, our little son. All we have to do is give them what is theirs.”

I finally knelt and wrapped my hands around her, my dear wife. I touched her face, brushed the sweat off her hollow cheeks. She was so precious to me, even more so in this misery.

“They want what belongs to God,” she said, and her body rattled with a cough. “Please. Give it to them.”

“Give them what?” I cried. What did she think I had? I did not know if it was the fever or a deeper madness talking. Or even if Sophie still recognized she was talking to me.

Suddenly she jerked out of my grasp and scampered back into shadow. It broke my heart. Her eyes bolted past me, wide with fear.

I felt as if everything I loved had slipped through my fingers one last time.

Then I saw what had driven her away. My heart nearly came to a stop.

One of the duke’s rogue knights was standing over me.

Chapter 72

I RECOGNIZED HIM as one of the thugs who had dragged the mayor into the keep the previous night.

His head was covered by a dark hood, and the eyes peering out were as dark as sunken caves. He wore his sword belted over a threadbare robe and stood, hands on hips, gri

“Go ahead, have a poke.” He shrugged. “The whore won’t mind, fool. Anyway, she’ll be dead in a week. Just be careful you don’t get the pox all over your dick.”

I stared at his mocking face, and the greatest rage I had ever known tightened inside me, a boiling, uncontrollable force.

I reached for an iron poker lying next to me on the floor. In my mind, this gri

With a cry, I rushed at him, a wild exhalation escaping from my lungs. I swung the poker at his head before he could draw his sword. The startled knight threw up an arm to defend himself, and the rod smacked against it with a sickening crack.