James Patterson - The Jester

The halls were dark and drafty; shadows danced on the walls from waning candle flames. I hurried past the huge doors of the great hall. A few knights still lounged at tables there, drinking, conversing, while others, too far gone, snored curled up on their cloaks. Occasionally there was a guard. But no one stopped me. I was their lady’s fool.

The castle was a squared-off Ushape, with a loggia of stone arches around the courtyard. Across from it were the duke’s garrison, the officers’ quarters, the barracks, and the keep. I successfully wound my way around the entire main floor. As I passed outside, I saw the tower above me where the mysterious knights had dragged their prisoner, lit up by the moon. I hurried that way, then slipped inside.

I was in the tower, all right, but I didn’t know where to go or [213] who might try to stop me. My stomach churned; the breath clung tight in my chest.

A draft followed me up the stairs. At each floor, the odor grew more foul. The smell of death I knew all too well.

On the third landing, two guards slouched around an open archway. One was tall and lazy looking, the other short and squat with mean eyes. Not exactly the duke’s crack troops, I thought, just keeping an eye on a few cursed souls in the middle of the night.

“Are you lost, strawberry?” the mean-looking one growled at me.

“Never been up here before,” I said. “Mind if I take a quick peek?”

“Tour’s over.” He stood up. “Go back the way you came.”

I went up to him, my eyes wide. As if yanking something out of his ear, from my closed fist I produced a long silk scarf. “Come on… even a damned soul could use a last laugh.”

To my delight, the oaf reached out and felt the scarf. Then he took it, my bribe for him. He looked down the hall and, finding the coast clear, stuffed it into his uniform. “One look,” he said. “There’s nothin’ in there anyway but the pox. Then juggle your ass back where you belong.”

“Thank you, sire,” I clucked. “A lifetime of stiff manhood to you.”

I darted through the archway behind him and up the stairs. A row of narrow stone cells stretched out before me. The putrid stench made me hold my breath. I hoped the man I was seeking was in here.

I hoped the mayor of St. Cécile was still alive.

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-skinned man-swarthy as a Turk-curled under a tattered white robe. Neither raised an eye. The cells reeked. A rat licked the inside of a bowl right in front of me.

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 .”

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 runny with yellow pus. Yet the nose… the soft line of her chin as it met her delicate neck… they were the same, unmistakably, though she cowered before me as a fevered wretch, pocked with sores.

[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 inn,” she continued to mutter. “But he’ll forgive me; you’ll see. You’ll see.”

“I’m going to get you out of here. I know about Phillipe, about the inn.” I was bursting with heartache. “Please, come here. Let me hold you.”

[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.