Ladyhawke Read online

  He shook his head, shaking droplets of water and slime from his sodden hair. No . . . he was too miserable to be dead. He was still alive—but he wondered suddenly how long he would have to go on like this. Panic squeezed his chest as it occurred to him that he might never find his way out of this underground tomb; that he might wander here, alone and lost, until he died.

  He sat down in the mud, wracked with sudden shivers. “Easy does it, Mouse,” he murmured softly, clenching his fists. He forced himself to take a deep breath, and another. “Steady progress . . . a peaceful Sunday walk through the gardens . . .” He pushed his mind into the hidden world of his daydreams, blocking out the endless maze of caverns, the terror of being lost in their darkness. He had always been too small, too weak, or too poor; his imagination was the one thing he counted on for survival, and the only refuge he had from reality. At last, almost calm again, he got to his feet and waded back into the oily, knee-deep water, letting his mind lead him on through his Sunday stroll.

  Hours passed, as Phillipe wandered through the underworld; his fear settled slowly into weary resignation. He picked his way precariously along a ledge high on a cavern wall, edging around another outcrop of stone—and found himself eye to eye with a screeching demon. He shouted and flung himself backward, recognizing it, too late, as the face of a yowling cat. The cat hissed and bounded off into the darkness. His own feet turned him around and sent him stumbling away in the other direction. Looking back as he ran, he felt the ledge drop out from under him with a sudden, sickening rush. The mud-caked edge of the shelf had broken away beneath his feet.

  He plunged his fingers into the slimy earth of the wall as he fell, and dug in desperately. After a moment of blinding panic his eyes began to focus again, as he realized he was not still falling. For the first time he really became aware of the rushing noise that filled the vast tunnel, the sound of a great river flowing past somewhere in the darkness. Barely daring to breathe, he looked down past his dangling feet. And down and down.

  Below him he watched the black waters of the subterranean river roar by. Dim light falling from somewhere above showed him the enormous bleached skull of a cow, caught in the sludge on its shore. Long, slimy eels darted in and out of the skull’s empty eyesockets.

  Phillipe shut his own eyes with a small moan. “Lord,” he whispered, “I will never pick another pocket again as long as I live, I swear.” His voice trembled slightly. “But . . . here’s the problem: If You don’t let me live, how can I prove my good faith to You?” There was no answer. Phillipe looked up; water dripped into his eye. “I’m going to pull myself up now, Lord,” he said, more firmly. His fingers were beginning to cramp. Still no answer. “If You’ve heard me this shelf will remain steady as a rock. If not, then no hard feelings, of course. But I will be very disappointed.”

  Gritting his teeth, he kicked a foothold in the wall, and then another. He pulled one hand free of the muck, dug it in again, nearer to the broken ledge. The earth held. Inch by miraculous inch, he clawed his way back to the shelf, and dragged himself painfully up onto it. He flopped down on its solid surface and shook out his arms and legs, amazed to find his body still in one piece. “I don’t believe it.” He shook his head, getting cautiously to his feet.

  Suddenly organ music filled the air around him. Phillipe looked up, awestruck. Above him a long shaft opened, snaking its way upward toward a glowing light. Phillipe sank to his knees, transfixed, as the music and light enfolded him. “I believe it,” he whispered hoarsely. Not wanting to keep the Lord waiting, he got to his feet again and scrambled up into the shaft.

  The way to heaven was not an easy one. It was crooked and steep and slippery. Filthy water dripped into his eyes from cracks in the rockface. The corroded iron rungs that gave him hand- and footholds seemed to have been there for as long as the stone. Halfway to the top, one gave way suddenly under his weight, and sent him sliding back down toward the darkness. He jammed his foot frantically into another rung. It groaned in protest, but it held.

  Phillipe looked up again, breathing hard. The light was stronger now above him, and the organ music was deafening. A choir began to sing. He began to climb again, filled with fresh inspiration. He reached the top of the shaft at last and lifted his head eagerly. His eyes widened.

  Above him, a heavy iron grating blocked the entrance of the shaft. And through it, high above, he saw a radiant vision of night-black and blinding brightness. He shut his eyes, opened them again. The vision of night and day resolved itself into the luminous colors and intricate patterns of a circular stained-glass window. Phillipe hung onto the grating and stared. He knew that window . . . it was the rose window above the entrance of the Aquila Cathedral. The window was all he could see, but now he knew that Sunday Mass was what he had heard . . . and Mass would make the perfect cover for his escape. The Lord had been listening to him after all. He wedged himself against the shaft walls and began to push upward on the grating.

  Two paces in front of him, hidden from his sight by the angle of the drain, stood the heavy boots and thick uniformed back of the Captain of the Guard. Marquet frowned, waiting impatiently in the vestry for Mass to end.

  A raggedly dressed family stood near him, singing along with the choir and stealing occasional uneasy glances in his direction. Their little girl, bored and restless from standing for hours at the edge of the crowd, stared at him openly. Her wandering eyes found the grate in the floor behind him next; she watched in amazement as fingers emerged through its cracks and danced in the air. The grate began to twitch and jump. The little girl grinned and giggled. Her father hushed her. “Papa—!” She pointed, tugging at his hand.

  Marquet looked idly at her, glanced back over his shoulder. Her father jerked her around again to face the altar. Marquet turned and looked into the chapel, his curiosity mingling with suspicion. He took a step into the room, and then another.

  The choir burst into an ecstatic salvo as his heavy military boot came down on the grate, crushing Phillipe’s exposed fingers. Phillipe’s scream of pain was drowned in music as he fell back down the shaft.

  He slid and bounced dizzily downward, his flailing arms reaching wildly for any handhold. Suddenly his fingers closed over more fingers—another human hand. He clung to it, pulling hard. It snapped from the rotting arm of a buried corpse, and he screamed again as he fell on down the shaft.

  He crashed down onto the slick, muddy sewer shelf. Before he could stop himself, his momentum had carried him on over the edge. He plummeted sickeningly through the air, and the raging black waters of the river rose up to meet him.

  He plunged into the river, sinking deep, choking on the foul water. He fought his way back to the surface, spitting and gagging. The current swept him along as he floundered helplessly in a sea of loathsome debris. A dead rat draped itself around his throat, a horse’s head banged against his own, a dozen more unrecognizable horrors swirled past him. Dazed and battered, half drowned, he struggled to stay afloat.

  Abruptly his body smashed into something hard and unyielding that stopped his motion downstream. Blinking the water out of his eyes, he found himself up against an iron grille clogged with centuries of sodden refuse. He hung on to the bars, coughing and wheezing, until a sudden rush of comprehension cleared his head. There could be only one reason why a grille would be barring his way . . . he had reached the city walls. He looked up, saw faint rays of daylight seeping through the refuse-clogged iron bars that were the last obstacle separating him from freedom. High above him, the grille was lodged solidly in the stone roof of the outlet. The only way past it was down . . . if there was a way past it.

  He clung to the bars a moment longer, gathering his courage. Then, taking as deep a breath as his waterlogged lungs would hold, he dove under the surface. The surging current caught him in its wild grip, sweeping him down beneath a dam of submerged debris. The rushing water pinned him there, trapped against the bottom of the grill, in spite of his panic-stricken struggles. He groped franti
cally through the darkness along the spikes at the bottom of the bars, his lungs aching, his mind beginning to grow dim and fuzzy. Suddenly he felt empty space—an opening, not wide enough for a normal man, but more than large enough for Phillipe the Mouse. He dragged himself under the grille and shot upward through the brightening water.

  His head broke the water’s surface in the light of day. He sucked in a huge, ragged gasp of fresh air, another and another, as he stared up at the high, forbidding walls of Aquila from the outside. He was in the moat. He was free at last.

  He heard the warning bells still pealing through the town, the sounds of shouting guardsmen and horses galloping past the city gate. He was free . . . but he wasn’t safe. Squinting in the sunlight, he looked across the moat and the flat, open fields beyond, toward the sanctuary of the distant hills. He sighed in resignation and began to drift silently out into the moat.

  Far up in the hills, too far away to make out any clear detail of the city, the rider in black sat listening to the unexpected sound of the alarm bells. He gazed down at the city for a long while; and then, as if he had reached some decision, he reined his black stallion around and started down the hillside toward Aquila. In another moment he was lost from sight among the reds and golds of the autumn trees.

  C H A P T E R

  Three

  The Bishop moved serenely through the atrium courtyard of Castle Aquila, his exquisite and heavily guarded personal domain. Chrysanthemums and roses still bloomed in the court’s green and sheltered gardens, giving the impression, as he did, that life was perfectly ordered and completely under control. His personal bodyguard and secretary followed him at a discreet distance, as they always did. Outside his private chambers he was constantly on display, and long experience had taught him never to show anything to anyone.

  He glanced up as the sound of booted feet intruded on his not-so-peaceful contemplation. Captain Marquet was hurrying toward him through the gardens. The Bishop’s mouth tightened. He had not forgotten for an instant the sound of alarm bells interrupting the Mass. But he would not let even Marquet sense his concern. The exercise of complete power demanded at least the appearance of complete confidence.

  “Alarming news, Your Grace—” Marquet burst out, halting breathlessly before him.

  The Bishop frowned. “You forget yourself, Marquet.”

  Marquet’s face froze. He dropped to his knees instantly, in reflex, and kissed the emerald ring that the Bishop held out to him. But before he had risen to his feet again, the fatal words slipped out: “One of the prisoners has escaped.”

  The Bishop jerked his hand away, his pale eyes glittering. “No one escapes the dungeons of Aquila,” he said softly. “The people of this city accept that as a matter of historical fact.”

  Marquet swallowed. “The responsibility is mine,” he murmured. Sweat stood out on his brow.

  “Yes.”

  Marquet dared to glance up again. “It would be a miracle if he made it through the sewage system—”

  “I believe in miracles, Marquet,” the Bishop said. “They are an unshakable component of my faith.”

  Marquet looked away nervously. “At any rate . . .” He fumbled for the words that would lift the sword of the Bishop’s displeasure from his neck. “It’s only one insignificant petty thief . . . a nameless piece of human garbage . . .”

  The Bishop stared coldly at him. “Great storms announce themselves with a simple breeze, Captain. And the fires of rebellion can be ignited by a single random spark.” He looked away, his eyes growing distant, as if he possessed some otherworldly knowledge, given to him in a way that no ordinary mortal could comprehend.

  Marquet rose to his feet, his jaw set. “If he’s out there, I’ll find him, Your Grace!”

  The Bishop looked back at his captain, and his eyes narrowed. “Since you have my blessing, I can only envy your inevitable success in the matter.”

  Marquet bobbed his head like a chastened schoolboy, no longer able even to meet the gaze of the blinding figure in white who stood before him. He knew better than most men that the Bishop did not hold his position of power by the simple grace of God . . . He turned on his heel and walked away as quickly as he dared.

  The Bishop watched him go. Only when Marquet was almost out of sight did the Bishop’s eyelids suddenly twitch with unreadable apprehension. He fingered his emerald ring, twisting it on his hand.

  Marquet mounted his horse and rode away from his audience at the castle as if devils were on his tail. His men had searched the city and its sewers, and found nothing. Surely that filthy little maggot Phillipe Gaston must be dead. But just in case he was not, Marquet called his men together to search the surrounding countryside as well.

  At the base of the curving bridge by the city gates, guardsmen gathered on horseback around an oxcart loaded with supplies. Marquet turned impatiently in his saddle as his second-in-command, Jehan, rode up. “Take ten men toward Chenet!” he shouted. “I’ll ride north to Gavroche.” Already the sun was setting; there would be little time left to search before nightfall. More horsemen milled around him as he issued orders. He stood in his stirrups to locate the supply cart, spurred his horse toward it.

  And behind him, a small dripping shadow darted out from beneath the bridge’s arch and scuttled under the legs of the milling horses.

  “You!” Marquet shouted to the two men on the supply cart. “Take the supplies.” The shadow passed under the supply cart as Marquet rode up alongside it, and suddenly disappeared. “We’ll rendezous outside the gates of Gavroche at noon tomorrow.” Marquet looked back at his waiting troops, his eyes hard. “The name of the man who finds Phillipe Gaston will be brought to the personal attention of the Bishop! As will the body—of the man who lets him get away.” He watched as Jehan rode off at a gallop with his troops, stones and sparks flying from beneath their horses’ hooves. Then he jerked his own horse’s head around and led his men away to the north.

  The two guards left behind with the supply cart looked at each other in the empty silence that followed, and shrugged. The driver cracked his whip. The oxen lumbered forward, pulling the creaky wooden cart away down the rutted road.

  Wedged between the oxcart’s wheels, Phillipe clung to its mud-spattered underside like a burr, with his feet jammed into the rear corner joints. He smiled, and winced, as the cart began to move at last; he groped with his abused fingers for a better handhold. A loose board in the bottom of the cart gave unexpectedly as he pushed against it. He grinned and slid the board aside, never one to ignore the potential of a situation. Pushing his arm up through the opening, he let his hand roam by feel among the supplies.

  His heart leaped as his fingers closed over something he recognized instantly and unmistakably: the pouch full of coins hanging from the driver’s belt. Ever so gently, he tugged on the strings.

  “We’re looking for a ghost, if you ask me,” the voice of the second guard said sullenly.

  Phillipe hesitated, then tugged again on the purse. Its strings were knotted too firmly. His hand made a fist in frustration, began to grope farther along the belt.

  “Careful—” the driver said; Phillipe’s hand froze. “They say the Bishop leaves his window open at night, and the voices of discontent are brought to him on a black cloud.”

  Phillipe’s fingers brushed the driver’s dagger, hanging next to the money pouch. He slid it from its sheath with a skill born of long practice, and slit the purse strings deftly. The money purse and the dagger disappeared through the floorboards without a sound.

  “In that case,” the second guard said, “I have a message for the Bishop.” He farted loudly. “Close your window!” The two men guffawed with laughter.

  Beneath the cart, Phillipe pulled open the pouch and examined its contents with a shrewd eye. He smiled; glanced up with sudden guilt at the sliver of sky shining down through the boards. “I know I promised, Lord,” he whispered. “Never again. But I also know You realize what a weak-willed person I am. This i
s Your way of pointing that out to me, and I humbly accept my punishment in Your name.” Pulling his feet from the corners of the wagon and letting go with his hands, he dropped silently out from under the wheels into the dusty road. The cart and its occupants rumbled on, oblivious, into the twilight.

  Phillipe got to his knees in time to see the last rays of the setting sun disappear behind the distant hills. Somewhere close by, a wolf howled. The desolate, haunted sound echoed across the empty land. Phillipe looked up with a shudder, and crept away into the bushes at the side of the road.

  For the next two days Phillipe lived the life of a hunted animal. The guardsmen of Aquila swarmed everywhere, covering the countryside like a plague of vermin, promising rich rewards for his capture and ruthless punishment for anyone who gave him aid. The fury and the thoroughness of their search astonished and dismayed him. The idea that they would go to so much trouble to catch one insignificant pickpocket was more than he could comprehend. But he did not dare to show his face at so much as a peasant’s hovel while they were still searching, and so he survived on roots and berries and half-rotten leavings from the fields. He had a pouch full of coins hidden under his rags, but he had not been able to get close enough to a house even to steal food or clothing. By day he hid in the forest; at night he slept in trees to avoid the equally pitiless hunters of the dark.

  Even the weather seemed to turn against him. The sky that had remained nearly cloudless for two years, in spite of the farmers’ endless prayers, suddenly filled with storm clouds, sending down torrents of rain driven by the cold autumn wind. Phillipe spent his second hungry, freezing night in the woods huddled in the crook of an ancient tree, beneath a hopelessly inadequate shelter woven of branches. Clinging to the trunk with numb hands while the relentless rain poured down his face, he gnawed on a shriveled turnip until his stomach knotted and rebelled. He threw the half-eaten remains down out of the tree in disgust. Resting his head against the rough bark of the trunk, he closed his eyes, his misery complete. Somewhere there must be a better world than this one . . . and if he only believed in it enough, he could be there . . . He set his mind free into the uncharted lands of his imagination. His eyes squeezed shut, water dripping from his lashes and his nose, and he slowly began to smile.