left without light. Alfonzo had grown steadily better after the care of the doctor and even with the horrid treatment was nearly healed.
“There never has been a more loyal inhabitant of this island,” groaned Vahan. “My whole desire is for its prosperity, but this is how I am treated: like a savage, a heathen, and a poor man. And I am none of the three!”
“It is easier for a horse to pass through a keyhole, than for a rich man to go to heaven,” Lorenzo said. “Perhaps Gylain does your soul a great favor, in treating you this way.”
“Solomon was rich enough, and I will follow his path, over Paul’s.”
“Help is coming,” Alfonzo reassured them, “For the the rescue is nearing.”
“Those nasty Montague brothers will return and spoil our getaway,” Vahan moaned. “I can feel it in my bones.”
“A Frencher’s bones?” Lorenzo cried. “You yourself have not been touched: think of Alfonzo’s pain.”
“I have no pain, no hatred – what good can they bring?”
“The words of a good Christian, Alfonzo,” answered Lorenzo. “Yet they are contrary to the doctrines of the church: revenge and retaliation.”
As he said this, the sound of footsteps came from the stairs. The door clanged open and the bright light of a lantern streamed into the cell, blinding their eyes. They could see nothing, but what they heard could not be mistaken.
“Let them rescue four dead bodies!” Nicholas Montague said to himself, but loud enough for the prisoners to hear.
“By the belt that binds me!” cried Lorenzo. “We are doomed.”
“Are you? Only by the plans of your companions,” Nicholas said.
“Be silent and do the foul deeds you have come to commit,” answered Lorenzo.
“Watch yourself,” Alfonzo interjected, “Lest you bring on tomorrow’s evils. Have you not heard that patience killed the porcupine?”
Nicholas Montague coiled his features and said with a scornful laugh, “Perhaps, yet I have killed patience, so I rule over them both.”
“Haste does not kill patience, but merely covers it up. Patience endures all things.”
“Perhaps, but I did not come to philosophize. Rather, I came to execute. We are not fools, and your friends’ rescue leaves you in a worse condition.”
At these tidings, the prisoners were visibly disheartened. Except Alfonzo, for to him it was nothing.
“Would you execute a loyal Atiltian such as myself?” the flushed Vahan cried in his thick French accent. “What crime is loyalty, that it is punished by death?”
“Perhaps you hope to spare yourself with these statements, fool? Do you not know that your crime is indeed loyalty – to one who has no power over you?”
“Loyalty is confused by some with slavery,” said Alfonzo, looking at Montague from his bed on the damp stone floor.
“And eloquence with truth, by others,” was the answer. “You must know that power is the only truth upon this earth. I have the power; therefore, I have the right. And I fully mean to use it.”
He beckoned the men who followed him to bind the prisoners. They grabbed the four roughly, forcing them against the wall. Their hands were chained to iron shackles that were embedded into the stone. Celestine was not spared the harsh treatment. Indeed, it seemed Montague treated her with extra scorn, as if to show that the weakness Gylain had for her was nothing to him.
“Will we take you first, Alfonzo?” he asked, not stopping to patronize or torment him.
“It would be best. For if I live to see Celestine die, I might be led to hate and bitterness and therefore be turned away from heaven’s gates as the merciless debtor.”
Montague looked at him, and though he was not moved to mercy – he seemed to be beyond that – he did not make him regret his speech. He merely muttered, “Very well,” and stood beside him against the wall. Alfonzo’s hands were chained to the wall above him and his neck stretched to allow an easy end. He did not resist, nor did Celestine.
Indeed, she was silent: not from grief, but from hope. And her hope was not of rescue or reprieve, but of the end. Her love was more than death could destroy, for Alfonzo, and for God, and therefore for all mankind. And this was the irony: Gylain was cruel to them because he thought God to be cruel and hateful. At the same time, they forgave their tormentor, because they thought God to be loving and forgiving. But this is the paradox of sin: those who hate God for his supposed injustices carry out those injustices themselves.
Alfonzo’s head was leaned back and his neck exposed. Nicholas raised a knife to cut his throat, a peaceful death compared to his preferred method. But Montague was no fool, and he would rather exercise his hate in haste, than let it slip away. He brought the knife to Alfonzo’s throat, and began the motion of cutting.
“Wait!” a voice rang down from the stairway above.
Montague stopped.
“For what reason?” he asked.
“Gylain bids it,” the newcomer, a young page said. “The Queen of Saxony has arrived, and you are needed. I hope you are not yet bloody?”
“Not yet,” Montague answered, obedient to his master’s command. “I am coming,” and he turned to Alfonzo. “Fate is with you, yet she is an unfaithful mistress.”
As he spoke his voice faded with his footsteps. The prisoners were left chained and in the darkness. The other guards had also gone.
“We are saved,” Alfonzo said, giving Celestine beside him a kiss.
“Yes – saved by Cybele, the Queen of Saxony,” and she hung her head as if in pain.
“We may be saved at the present,” began Lorenzo. “But evil company breeds evil actions, and there are none more evil than Gylain and the Queen of Saxony.”
“Do not speak of the queen in the current company,” Alfonzo scolded him. He continued softly, with a gentle glance at his wife, “Perhaps the queen is the bearer of good tidings for us.”
“How so?”
“We will see, and I will say no more.”
Silence came over them and stood there for some time. Their hearts still raced at their narrow escape. At length the silence was broken, but not by any of them. A muffled scratching noise came from the wall, from the statue of the king.
“The devil is upon us,” Lorenzo said, “He saved me once, but I do not herald his return.”
Lorenzo opened his mouth as if to continue, but before he could, a louder noise came from the statue. They turned to the stone king, waiting for something to happen. Suddenly, it swung open to the right, revealing the secret passage. A head was pushed through into the prison cell. It was a blond head, with thin lips and noble eyes. The newcomer carried a lantern, and in a second was in the cell with them. Several more men remained in the tunnel behind him.
The prisoners stood chained against the wall but Lorenzo still found a way to dance about in joy. Celestine stood with a calm, expecting smile upon her face. Vahan’s features were blank, for he had no emotions in his surprise. Alfonzo stood still, his countenance immovable. It was as if he had been expecting the man to appear.
“A well-executed plan, Blaine,” Alfonzo said. “The guards have just left us.”
“That’s right, sir, the diversion is taking place,” he answered. “Your face is pale.”
“He was badly tortured, Blaine,” Celestine whispered.
Blaine’s face was filled with a righteous wrath; it gave him a noble air.
“We must hurry, sir,” he said, “We have to gain the inner courtyard: our decoy may need rescued.”
“Of course,” Alfonzo said, as he was unchained. “Let us finish what we have begun. Have you brought swords? We will need them above.”
Chapter 36
The night was clear and the air sharp with cold. Far above, the moon gave a silvery tint to everything it touched, even the shadows that covered the forest road. All was silent in the forest, but from the road came the sound of a troop of galloping horses. The dust was thrown into the air as they went, catching the light of the moon
