follow?”
Next was de Garcia. His hair was long and unruly, his face unshaven. On the outside his thoughts could not be pierced, for his face was immutable, fearless. He wondered, at that last moment, where a different path would have led. “If I had not betrayed Alfonzo,” he thought, “I would have been able to stop Montague long before he could lead us to France. But look, what have I become? Before, I was a zealous man – an honorable man – because of my fighting glory. Yet now those same talents have brought me to ruin. And what will my brother, de Garmia, think when we are never reunited? On his deathbed, what will he tell his children of me, that I was a traitor to my cause, a coward? Oh, but that I had not listened to de Casanova and his foul-mouthed advice! Oh, but that I had slain him when I had him, all those years ago!”
Leggitt stood beside de Garcia. He was as trim as ever, as perfectly manicured, in spite of the recent troubles. His hair was haggard though – aging and worn like so much mown grass – for he was no longer fueled by the passions of youth. His mouth was small and terse, as one of silence, and that is what he had become. In his youth: a rebel spy; in his age: a mere prison master and captain of the guards. Such years of service and so easily discarded – even if the whole of it had been in treachery. “Or was it?” he thought to himself, “If I was truly a spy, why did I not take the numerous chances to assassinate Gylain? I told myself I would have patience for something greater, yet what is above that? Montague might have replaced him, but not with the same restraint or foresight, the same passionless vigor that reigns over Gylain. Here I die, an outlaw in France in the service of Atiltian rebels, while at heart I cannot know which side I am truly on. But so should it be: I deserve death.”
Ivona stood beside Leggitt, pale and composed. Her face was dirty from the trek through the forest, her white cheeks bloodied. Still, she was beautiful; for she was a woman whose beauty was but a reflection of her mind and whose enchantments could not be lost. Her hair fell loose like little streams of night and her lips, like rainbows, were not raining. “My God, my God,” she thought, “Why have I forsaken you?” A solitary tear escaped her eyes. Khalid turned away when he saw it, knowing the innocence he snuffed out of a guilty world. Yet it was not death that made her cry. She was no longer innocent, she thought, and though a righteous man do good all his life, if he turns wicked in the end he is considered wicked. She had fallen into love as into sin. It was her damnation. She feared she had given love where it should not have been and made love where it was not already found. But such is the way of the world: to the pure, a guilty conscience; to the wicked, a hardened heart.
Next was Lydia. Her red hair grew richer by contrast to the twilight and her eyes by contrast to themselves. Her face was as divided as her heart. Even in her final thoughts the mental melee ravaged on. “My father will be displeased with France and join Gylain without doubt for my sake. But what of my father? He is with Gylain already. He already pushes de Casanova like a stone around my neck. If Patrick is a rebel, at least he has passion for me, and even a farm boy can plow a heart as much as a field.” She looked to Patrick, beside her. “I will be his. My father can keep his crown.”
Patrick McConnell was last. His thin lips were pressed together, his wiry frame extended between the noose and the block. His hair was light and as fiery as his eyes. His only emotion was passion, his only character zeal. “We cannot be thus delayed,” he muttered aloud, but what he thought was, “I will lose her, and with her my own life. To the devil if I survive or am hung, if she is not beside me. Am I the people, that I care for freedom? Fool that I am, I love her. I do not know how or why, but that I do. If I tell her, she will scoff; and if I show her, she will laugh. Yet how can I forget? For she is my life.”
Khalid stood before them, pacing and preoccupied, so he did not notice the carriage that sped through the tunnel and into the courtyard. He looked Willard over one last time, gave him a dutiful wink, and said, “The end, Montague.” Then he turned to the executioner who held the latches for the trap doors, and cried out in an echoing voice, “Release the doors!”
But another voice came the second his had gone, and it was even greater, even louder.
“Stop, do not hang them! That is not Montague, but the King of Atilta!”
Chapter 79
At the same instant, however, the executioner pulled the lever that dropped the trap doors, hanging the seven freedom fighters. For an instant, they remained in stasis above the gap, then began to descend. The ropes had several feet of slack. With every passing second the slack grew less and the danger more. Willard was placid, his eyes closed with his mouth. Patrick, however, writhed in impatience; and as he saw Vahan emerge from the carriage he turned his head and looked about him with vulture eyes.The executioner was unable to react, but stopped in confusion. Only Khalid could move. He set himself in motion before Vahan had even cried, just at the instant he gave the order. He leapt off the platform – in his heavy armor – and rolled twice on the ground before regaining his feet directly in front of the lever. This he grasped with his giant hands and forced upward, closing the trap doors with a resounding snap. The seven were caught up in their downward motion. Just as the ropes grew taunt to kill them they came to a stop. The soldiers rushed to unbind them. They were saved.
Captain Khalid fell to the ground in exhaustion after his inhuman exertion. Yet it was for only an instant. Then he retook his feet and his strength, hurrying up the stairway to the platform and kneeling before Willard.
“By the duty of a soldier! I knew you could not have been Montague!” He exhaled with an air of fealty. “You must excuse the duties of a soldier,” he continued, “I had not the power to do other than I did. Yet I felt – even as I did otherwise – that if you were indeed a king, I would zealously serve you.”
“Arise,” Willard said, “Did I not respect you, even as you treated me so? You are a man of nature, of the forest. This is what a man should be.” He reached down and grasped Khalid’s hand, pulling him up.
“My dear Vahan!” the King of France said, sticking his head through the shattered window pane, “My dear Vahan, are you well? In your zeal you forgot that a door is freely opened.” The king unlatched the door and stepped out, kneeling over his powerful adviser.
“What orders have I given,” Vahan moaned, his face buried in his hands like an ancient sculpture in the desert. “May my quills ever run dry, and my glasses fall as I read!” Vahan rolled over, assisted by his sovereign, and spied Willard standing freely on the platform. “He lives! I did not think it possible.”
Willard answered: “I do, and without your faulty orders and their strict obedience we might not have. For we journeyed three days to the mountain and were a day within. Had not your soldiers abducted us and taken us here without delay, we would still be two days from the coast. As it is, we have arrived in time to reach Atilta ere the end is decided.”
“Then my grief is assuaged; but I am not pleased with you in this, Captain Khalid.”
“My duty, sir.”
“Indeed, Vahan, he is a model soldier,” and Willard walked down the stairway. “I am well pleased with men of this type.” The King of Atilta approached the King of France, the latter preoccupied until this time with returning Vahan to his feet. The bureaucrat’s face was cut and his arms bleeding, but he was well.
“Uncle, I am pleased you have come,” Willard said.
“A few miles is not a great distance, for the sake of my brother’s son.”
“We will make servants of many more miles ere our presence is divided, so devotions can still be proved.” He paused. “I come to you as your nephew and as the King of Atilta; it is to you how I am received.”
“As both, and as a great warrior. Vahan has told me of your exploits and your exile. My brother would be proud if he lived, but as he died he will be revenged.”
“Your majesty,” Vahan turned to his king, “And, your majesty,” he turned to Willard, “We would be better served to finish this aboard
“Then we had best be aboard.”
“Without delay!” came from Patrick McConnell, who stood behind Willard.
“So this is the English rebel?” the French King gave Patrick a close look. “We will see more of you, later.” He turned to his nephew’s other comrades and his eyes could not pass Ivona. “There will be dessert this evening, after all,” he winked at Vahan. Yet Ivona’s eyes sent him backwards, for he was not used to being rebuffed by his feminine pursuits.
“Tonight our only feast is the blood of battle,” she said in a cold, prophetic tone, “And our dessert but death or victory.”
Willard met her with his eyes. “So it will be; let us go.”
Khalid’s battalion was the last of the garrison to be loaded. Everything was prepared for their boarding. A majestic vessel,
