1632

be here soon.

Quickly, almost violently, she seized the lid and wrestled it back over the latrine. The only opening in the wooden cover was a squat-hole, too small to allow any light to enter the cavity below. The four girls and the baby hidden within were quite invisible.

Satisfied that she had done what she could for them, Gretchen left the outhouse and wrestled the door back into place. Then she gave the rest of the area a quick scrutiny. The entire camp, by now, was in an uproar. Hundreds of people were shouting and screaming. Many of them were starting to flee to the north.

For a moment, Gretchen was tempted to follow them. She was young enough and in good enough health that she could reach the cover of the distant woods before the enemy soldiers arrived. But she would have to abandon her grandmother, and the others.

No.

What else?

It didn't take her more than five seconds to come up with the answer. Nothing. Survive, that's all.

The small crowd was still clustered around her. Gretchen walked off a considerable distance from the outhouse. Then she ordered the older women to take the children and gather in a circle away from the camp's tents and possessions. There, they might be relatively safe. They would be of no personal use to the soldiers, and they obviously possessed nothing beyond the rags they were wearing.

For the rest One of the three younger women fell to her knees and began praying. Within seconds, the others had all joined her.

Gretchen remained standing. What was the point of prayer? She did not fear for her soul. The abuse of her body would end, eventually. She needed only to shield her mind. Prayer provided no help for that purpose.

Blank, blank. She began emptying herself of all thoughts. Nothing. A last glimpse of Hans, marching fearfully into battle, a last flash of grief. Empty.

All that remained was sensation. Eyes open, staring at the small figures of men charging forward from the distance. Her ears heard their whooping and hollering, but her brain made nothing of the words.

Mostly, she focused on the tactile sense. Feeling with her fingers the small knife which Hans had stolen for her many months ago. The knife was hidden away in her bodice, in a sheath under her armpit which she had sewn herself. The soldiers would not look there. They would not even bother to remove the dress.

The feel of the knife brought final emptiness. As she waited, Gretchen never thought once of suicide. She would survive, if at all possible. But the knife was there, should it be needed. If the soldiers-they were nearer now, much nearer-threatened her very life. Gretchen had long ago decided she would not leave this earth without taking a devil with her into the afterlife.

***

It was the comfort of that knife, perhaps, which kept her mind blank for so many seconds after wonder appeared. Or, perhaps, it was simply the peculiarity of the wonder itself.

Gretchen had heard, once, a tale of knights in shining armor. Her grandfather had read her a story from a borrowed book. She had been ten years old. The war had just begun, and was only a rumor out of mad Bohemia. Yet even at that age, Gretchen had thought the tale was ludicrous.

She did not believe in knights. Armed and armored beasts, yes. Knights, no.

So it was hardly surprising that she found nothing strange in the four bizarrely costumed boys who raced toward her on the most bizarre-and noisy- contraptions she had ever seen. Nothing.

Devils, perhaps. She was not afraid of devils.

She fingered the knife.

Chapter 18

The first thing Jeff Higgins saw clearly, in the chaos of the camp ahead of him, was the figure of a woman. Alone, among the hundreds of people shouting and scurrying about, she was standing still. Still, silent, and very straight. Her hands were tucked under her armpits, and she was staring at him.

Jeff's motorcycle hit an unseen obstacle in the field, and he almost lost control of the bike. For a few frantic moments, he could concentrate on nothing else. Fortunately, his skill with a dirt bike was not much less than his boasts, and he kept himself from a very nasty spill.

When his eyes came up, he immediately looked for the woman.

She was still there. Still standing, still silent, and still staring at him.

There seemed to be no expression at all on her face, from what Jeff could tell at a distance. But something about her drew him like a magnet, and he steered his motorcycle toward her. Behind, his three friends followed faithfully.

Afterward, his friends would tease him about that instant reaction. But their jests were quite unfair. What drew Jeff toward her was simply that she seemed to be the one island of sanity in a world gone mad. A serene statue, towering over a horde of squealing people, scuttling through a rabbits' warren of makeshift tents and shelters.

It wasn't until he actually brought the bike to a skidding halt, not more than fifteen feet away, that he finally got a good look at the woman herself.

Goddam. She's- Goddam.

He was suddenly overwhelmed by shyness, as he always was in the presence of very pretty young women. Especially tall young women with an air of self-confidence and poise. The fact that the woman in question was wearing a dress that was not much more than a collection of sewn-together rags, was barefoot, and had a streak of dirt on her forehead, didn't matter in the least. All that registered on Jeff, and closed his throat, was the face itself. Long, blondish hair; light brown eyes; straight nose; full mouth; strong chin; and Oh God she's so lovely.

Choke.

Larry Wild's voice, coming from behind, didn't help a bit.

'Leave it to Higgins to spot her,' his friend snickered. 'Now watch him blow his opening line.'

'Hey, lady,' whispered Jimmy Anderson, loud enough to be heard in China, 'you wanna see my computer? I got a really great Pentium-'

Jeff flushed. 'Shut up!' he snapped, turning his head. The movement brought his eyes to bear on the Protestant soldiers they had swept past on their way to the camp. The mercenaries were much closer, now. Not more than fifty yards away and charging forward like He didn't want to think about that like. Jeff Higgins, for all his precocity, was still a small-town boy at heart. But he wasn't that innocent.

Neither were any of his friends. All three of them were turned around in their bike saddles, staring at the mercenaries pounding toward them.

'What do we do?' asked Eddie Cantrell.

'Mike said warn 'em off,' muttered Larry. 'But I don't think those guys are gonna listen to any warning.'

Jeff brought his eyes back to the woman. She was still staring at him. Her face was totally expressionless. For all that he could tell, she hadn't moved a muscle since he first spotted her. Her mind seemed to be a complete blank. Was she mentally retarded or something?

Then-finally-Jeff noticed the women kneeling in a circle around her. Young women. All of them were babbling something. Prayers, he thought. And all of them were weeping.

His eyes rose back up and met the gaze of the standing woman. Light brown eyes. Empty eyes. Blank.

Understanding came, and with it a rage he had never felt in his life.

Over my fucking dead body!

Deliberately, slowly, he lowered the bike's kickstand and climbed off. Then he removed the shotgun slung over his shoulder. A twelve-gauge pump-action, it was, loaded with buckshot. It had belonged to his father, just like the 9mm pistol holstered to his waist.

Jeff began stalking toward the oncoming mercenaries. They were thirty yards away. He pumped a round into the chamber.

He heard Jimmy shout something about Mike, but he didn't catch the words. His ears were too full of the sound of his own rushing blood. He did hear Larry's response, and felt a moment's rush of comradeship.

'Mike can kiss my ass! Hold on, Jeff-I'm coming!'

Jeff didn't hold on. He didn't even think. When the first mercenary was fifteen yards away, he brought the shotgun to his shoulder. The mercenary stumbled to a halt. The ten or so men with him did likewise.

Jeff moved the shotgun, waving it slowly back and forth to cover the entire little crowd. Dimly, he sensed a tide of other mercenaries breaking around the knot he had stopped. They were spilling around the edges, moving toward other parts of the camp. But they were slowing, he thought. He caught a glimpse of several of them, off to the side, staring at him. One of them was reloading his arquebus. The other two were fingering their pikes.

The men in front of him were all pikemen, fortunately. They could run him down, but not before he killed several.

Then, Larry was standing at his left, his own shotgun leveled. And then, not a second later, Jimmy and Eddie were bracing him on the right. Both of them had their own shotguns up also.

Jeff heaved a sigh of relief. He had acted without thinking, on impulse. Now that some time had elapsed, he realized how insane his situation was.

Their situation, actually. Even with his three friends-even armed with pump-action shotguns-Jeff could no more have held off that mob of several hundred mercenaries than he could have stopped a stampede.

Yet He raised his head a little, taking his eye off the barrel of the shotgun, and swept his head around.

The mob was stopped.

Well… in a manner of speaking. The Protestant mercenaries had poured around the group which Jeff had halted in its tracks. The four American boys were now, for all practical purposes, surrounded. Dozens of mercenaries in the inner ring were staring at them. Others were pushing forward to look over their shoulders. Jeff had a sense that other mercenaries were starting to tear at the edges of the Catholic camp, but he wasn't certain. Everything was very chaotic.

'So what's the plan, kemo sabe?' hissed Larry.

Jeff hesitated. He had no idea what to do. He was amazed that the mercenaries hadn't already attacked them. He decided that they were simply too confused by the situation to know what to do.

So am I, for that matter.

Then, Jimmy's squeal of glee came. And then, the bellowing hoot of the first truck's air horn. And Jeff Higgins found himself fighting not to tremble.