Timeline

29:10:00

Kate fell in slow motion as the ceiling stones gave way. As she descended, her fingers closed on the ragged mortared edge, and with the practice of many years, she gripped it, and it held. She hung by one hand, looking down as the falling stones tumbled in a cloud of dust onto the floor of the chapel. She didn't see what had happened to the soldiers.

She raised her other hand, grabbing the stone edge. The other stones would break away any minute, she knew. The whole ceiling was crumbling. Structurally, the greatest strength was near the reinforced line of the groin, where the arches met. There, or at the side wall of the chapel, which was vertical stone.

She decided to try and get to the side wall.

The stone broke away; she dangled from her left hand. She crossed one hand over the other, reaching as far as she could manage, trying again to spread the weight of her body.

The stone in her left hand broke loose, falling to the floor. Again she swung in the air, and found another handhold. She was now only three feet from the side wall, and the stone was noticeably thicker as it swelled to meet the wall. The edge she was holding felt more stable.

She heard soldiers below, shouting and running into the chapel. It would not be long before they were shooting arrows at her.

She tried to swing her left leg up. The more she could distribute her weight, the better off she would be. She got the leg up; the ceiling held. Twisting her torso, she pulled her body up onto the shelf, then brought her second leg up. The first of the arrows whistled past her; others thunked against the stone, raising little white puffs. She was lying flat on top of the roof.

But she could not stay here. She rolled away from the edge, toward the groin line. As she did, more stones broke away and fell.

The soldiers stopped shouting. Maybe the falling stones had hit one of them, she thought. But no: she heard them running hastily out of the church. She heard men outside, shouting, and horses whinnying.

What was going on?

Inside the tower room, Chris heard the scrape of the key in the lock. Then the soldiers outside paused and shouted through the door - calling to the guard inside the room.

Meanwhile, Marek was searching like a madman. He was on his knees, looking under the bed. "Got it!" he cried. He scrambled to his feet, holding a broadsword and a long dagger. He tossed the dagger to Chris.

Outside, the soldiers were again shouting to the guard inside. Marek moved toward the door and gestured for Chris to step to the other side.

Chris pressed back flat against the wall by the door. He heard the voices of the men outside - many voices. His heart began to pound. He had been shocked by the way Marek killed the guard.

They're coming to kill you.

He heard the words repeated over and over in his head, with a sense of unreality. It didn't seem possible that armed men were coming to kill him.

In the comfort of the library, he had read accounts of past violent acts, murder and slaughter. He had read descriptions of streets slippery with blood, soldiers soaked in red from head to foot, women and children eviscerated despite their piteous pleas. But somehow, Chris had always assumed these stories were exaggerated, overstated. Within the university, it was the fashion to interpret documents ironically, to talk about the naïveté of narrative, the context of text, the privileging of power.

… Such theoretical posturing turned history into a clever intellectual game. Chris was good at the game, but playing it, he had somehow lost track of a more straightforward reality - that the old texts recounted horrific stories and violent episodes that were all too often true. He had lost track of the fact that he was reading history.

Until now, when it was forcibly brought to his attention.

The key turned in the lock.

On the other side of the door, Marek's face was fixed in a snarl, his lips drawn back, showing teeth clenched. He was like an animal, Chris thought. Marek's body was taut as he gripped his sword, ready to swing. Ready to kill.

The door pushed open, momentarily blocking Chris's view. But he saw Marek swing high, and he heard a scream, and a huge gush of blood splashed onto the floor, and a body fell soon after.

The door banged against his body, stopping its full swing and pinning Chris behind it. On the other side a man slammed against it, then gasped as a sword splintered wood. Chris tried to get out from behind the door but another body fell, blocking his way.

He stepped over the body, and the door thunked flat against the wall as Marek swung at another attacker, and a third soldier staggered away with the impact and fell to the floor at Chris's feet. The soldier's torso was drenched in blood; blood gurgled out of his chest like a flowing spring. Chris bent down to take the sword still in the man's hand. As he pulled at the sword, the man gripped it tightly, grimacing at Chris. Abruptly, the soldier weakened and released the sword, so that Chris staggered back against the wall.

The man continued to stare at him from the floor.

His face contorted in a grimace of fury - and then it froze.

Jesus, he thought, he's dead.

Suddenly, to his right, another soldier stepped into the room, his back to Chris as he fought Marek. Their swords clanged; they fought fiercely; but the man had not noticed Chris, and Chris raised his sword, which felt very heavy and unwieldy. He wondered if he could swing it, if he could actually kill the man whose back was turned to him. He lifted the sword, cocked his arm as if he were batting - batting! - and prepared to swing, when Marek cut the man's arm off at the shoulder.

The dismembered arm shot across the floor and thumped to rest against the wall, beneath the window. The man looked astonished for the instant before Marek cut his head off in a single swing, and the head tumbled through the air, banged against the door next to Chris, and fell onto his toes, face downward.

Hastily, he jerked his feet away. The head rolled, so the face was turned upward, and Chris saw the eyes blink and the mouth move, as if forming words. He backed away.

Chris looked away to the torso on the floor, still pumping blood from the stump of the neck. The blood flowed freely over the stone floor - gallons of blood, it seemed like. He looked at Marek, now sitting on the bed, gasping for breath, his face and doublet splattered with blood.

Marek looked up at him. "You all right?" he said.

Chris couldn't answer.

He couldn't say anything at all.

And then the bell in the village church began to ring.

Through the window, Chris saw flames licking up from two farmhouses at the far edge of the town, near the circling town wall. Men were running in the streets toward it.

"There's a fire," Chris said.

"I doubt it," Marek said, still sitting by the bed.

"No, there is," Chris said. "Look."

In the town, horsemen were galloping through the streets; they were dressed as merchants or traders, but they rode like fighters.

"This is a typical diversion," Marek said, "to start an attack."

"An attack?"

"The Archpriest is attacking Castelgard."

"So soon?"

"This is just an advance party, perhaps a hundred soldiers or so. They'll try to create confusion, disruption. The main body is probably still on the other side of the river. But the attack has begun."

Apparently others thought so, too. In the courtyard below, courtiers were streaming out of the great hall and hurrying toward the drawbridge, leaving the castle, the party abruptly ended. A company of armored knights galloped out, scattering the courtiers, thundered across the drawbridge, and raced down through the streets of the town.

Kate stuck her head in the door, panting. "Guys? Let's go. We have to find the Professor before it's too late."