James Patterson - The Jester

She blinked like a frightened doe, hugging the wall. “Hugh…?” she whispered.

“Sophie, it’s me… It’s me, darling.” I whispered the words to our song: “ A maiden once met a traveling man …”

“You must give it back now,” she muttered again. “They say it is theirs. I tried to tell them, Hugh will return. He’ll find me. They said they’ll give Phillipe back to us, our little son. All we have to do is give them what is theirs.”

I finally knelt and wrapped my hands around her, my dear wife. I touched her face, brushed the sweat off her hollow cheeks. She was so precious to me, even more so in this misery.

“They want what belongs to God,” she said, and her body rattled with a cough. “Please. Give it to them.”

“Give them what ?” I cried. What did she think I had? I did not know if it was the fever or a deeper madness talking. Or even if Sophie still recognized she was talking to me.

Suddenly she jerked out of my grasp and scampered back into shadow. It broke my heart. Her eyes bolted past me, wide with fear.

I felt as if everything I loved had slipped through my fingers one last time.

Then I saw what had driven her away. My heart nearly came to a stop.

One of the duke’s rogue knights was standing over me.

I RECOGNIZED HIM as one of the thugs who had dragged the mayor into the keep the previous night.

His head was covered by a dark hood, and the eyes peering out were as dark as sunken caves. He wore his sword belted over a threadbare robe and stood, hands on hips, grinning down on the two of us.

“Go ahead, have a poke.” He shrugged. “The whore won’t mind, fool. Anyway, she’ll be dead in a week. Just be careful you don’t get the pox all over your dick.”

I stared at his mocking face, and the greatest rage I had ever known tightened inside me, a boiling, uncontrollable force.

I reached for an iron poker lying next to me on the floor. In my mind, this grinning lizard represented every cruelty that had been heaped on my wife and child, all the suffering and loss I had witnessed since I first went away. My world had been hurled upside down.

With a cry, I rushed at him, a wild exhalation escaping from my lungs. I swung the poker at his head before he could draw his sword. The startled knight threw up an arm to defend himself, and the rod smacked against it with a sickening crack.

He yelped and staggered back in pain, one arm hanging at his side. I did not stop. I battered him again and again, like [220] some mad beast, every sinew of my body concentrated on driving this piece of metal into his skull.

I shoved him against the bars of the cell. I drove my knee into his groin and felt him groan and buckle. I jammed the poker into his neck.

“ Why ?” I barked into his face. The soldier gagged, his eyes bulging, darting around. “ Why is she here ?”

A garbled cry emerged from his throat, but in my rage I was not waiting for his answer. I pushed the rod deeper into his neck. A force rose inside me that I could not stop. I wanted to kill this man.

“Who are you?” I screamed in his face. “Where have you come from? Why did you bring her here? Why did you kill my son?”

My thumbs pressed under his hood as I dug the poker into his throat, squeezing the breath out of him. Bit by bit, the hood fell away from his neck.

My eyes were pinned to the frightful mark I saw there.

The black Byzantine cross.

It shot me back a thousand miles. Suddenly I was in the Holy Land, revisiting the horrors I had seen there.

These bastards were Tafurs .

I STAGGERED BACK in shock. Our eyes met, and it was as if some terrible knowledge had been passed between us.

The Tafur took my surprise as an opening and dug his hands into my face. I pressed the poker into his neck even harder. Then I heard bone crack in his neck. His eyes bulged, a final, desperate resistance. A trickle of blood seeped from his mouth. A moment later, his legs began to give way. When at last I let go, the Tafur crumpled to the filthy prison floor.

I stood over him, breathing furiously. My mind hurtled back again. Tafurs … I saw them ravaging their captives in their filthy tents. I saw them butchering the Turk who had spared me, then darting like beetles to the crypt, scavenging for spoils. What were they doing here in Borée? What did they want with me? With Sophie?

Suddenly I heard shouts and commotion. The prisoners were clanging the bars in their cells.

Now, with what little time we had left, I had to get Sophie out of here. I rummaged over the Tafur’s body, frantically searching for a key.

I ran my eyes about the keep. Keys must be here somewhere.

I turned toward Sophie, eager to let her know that I would help her escape.

[222] But the sight of her left me rigid as stone.

She was slumped against the bars, her face icy white. Her eyes, a moment ago mad with terror, seemed calm and far-off. I did not see her breathe.

Oh , God , no … !

I crawled to her, cupped her face in my hands. “Sophie, stay with me. You can’t die. Not now.”

She blinked, barely more than a tremor. A glimmer of life appeared in her eyes.

“Hugh…?” she whispered.

“Yes, Sophie… It’s me.” I brushed the sweat off her face. Her skin was cold.

“I knew you would come back,” she said, finally seeming to know who I was.

“I’m so sorry, Sophie. I’m going to get you out of here. I promise.”

“We had a son,” she said, and started to cry.

“I know. I know it all.” I wiped her cheek. “He was a beautiful boy. Phillipe.”

I looked around, desperately searching for something to help her. “The guards will be here,” I said. “I’m going to find a way out. Hold on. Please, Sophie.”

Please!

I held her hands in mine through the bars. I whispered, “I’ll take you home. I’ll pick sunflowers for you. I’ll sing you a song.”

Her mouth twitched, and she took a long time to breathe again. But when she did, I also saw her smile-a faint one, unafraid. “I’ve never forgotten, Hugh.” The words fell off her lips one at a time, so softly I could almost kiss them there: “A maiden met a wandering man…”

“Yes,” I said. “And I’ve been true to you ever since we were children.”

“I love you, Hugh,” Sophie whispered.

Suddenly she lurched in my arms. I felt her heart starting to beat out of control. Her eyes bolted wide.

[223] I didn’t know what to do to help her. She shook terribly up and down. All I could do was hold her tight. “I love you, Sophie. I’ve never loved anyone else. I knew I would find you again. I’m so sorry I left you alone.”

Her hand gripped me by the tunic. “Hugh… then don’t…”

“Don’t what, Sophie?”

A final sigh escaped her lips. “ Don’t give them what they want .”

AND THEN MY SWEET SOPHIE DIED in the prison cell.

She passed with a calm, far-off quiet in her eyes. Her mouth hung in the slightest smile, perhaps because I had finally come back, as I had promised.

Tears ran down my cheeks. I wanted to scream, Why did Sophie have to die? Why her?

I grabbed the Tafur by the collar of his robe and hurled his dead body against the bars. “Why, you bastard? Tell me, what did she mean? Why did you kill my son? Why are innocent people dying?”

Then I sank down with my head in my hands.

I wanted to take Sophie home. That’s all I could think of, to bury her with her son. I owed her that. But how? The dead Tafur was slumped before me. Any moment, the guards would come. I couldn’t even open her cell.