Down: Trilogy Box Set (89 page)

“I never pictured Hell would have nice men like you,” she said.

He beamed. “You think I’m nice?”

“Yes. Yes I do.”

“And I don’t smell too bad. I’m told our lot has a peculiar odor. I did scrub myself the best I could before coming out to sit beside you and rubbed some wildflowers from the meadow over my person.”

She smiled back. “You know, I hardly notice it.”

Garibaldi limped out of the tent and found John and Emily sitting on a log by the fire.

“Your physician tells me my situation is not grave. He intends to brew me some medicinal tea. Thank you for making him available.”

“I’m glad it’s not serious,” John said. “Have a seat.”

Garibaldi lowered himself to the log.

John got his pack and told him they had something to give him.

“Do you?” the old man asked, intrigued.

“We figured out a way to bring you some useful items from the Earth.”

“You're going to like them,” Emily said.

“I can scarcely contain myself,” Garibaldi said.

John pulled them all out and said, “Books, Giuseppe. We brought you books.”

Garibaldi gasped and eagerly held out his arms to take the heavy stack to his chest where he held them like a baby.

“I have a very small library in Rome,” he said. “Each book is a treasure, written by hand from someone’s imperfect memory of a work known to them during life. I can scarcely believe I am about to see real books. Which ones did you choose, I wonder?”

“Have a look,” John said.

He carefully put the six books down on the dry ground and began examining them one by one.

He began with
Steam Boilers, Engines and Turbines,
moved to
Blast Furnace Construction in America, Bessemer Steel, Ores and Methods
then the one book which King Henry had not received,
The Chemistry of Powder and Explosives
by Tenney L. Davis
.

Garibaldi looked up and said, “Do you have any idea how these books, when placed into the right hands, can change the face of our world? Change it for good. Or evil?”

“I think we do,” John said. “I need to tell you that we had to use five of them to get King Henry to free us and to give us a ship to get here.”

“Which one did he not receive?”

“The book on explosives.”

“Ah, good,” the old man said. “This one can do immediate harm in the wrong hands.”

Emily interjected, “But we gave the second copy to our friends to use for barter in Spain.”

“That is worrisome,” Garibaldi said. “Let us hope for the best. Let me look at the rest.”

He looked up from the copy of the Bible and gave them a wink. “You know, I was not a religious man but most men here are, or at least were so. It will have an intoxicating effect that I will be pleased to exploit to our greater purpose. And last?”

“The best for last,” John said.

Garibaldi’s eyes moistened when he saw
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
in his hands. “Now you have truly made an old man happy. Come here, both of you, so that I may plant a kiss on your cheeks. I will retire to my tent but I will not sleep. I will be spending the night caressing this blessed book with my eyes.”

On the outskirts of Bilbao Prince Diego de Anera pointed out Queen Mécia’s palace in the center of the city, a yellow stone fortress with impressive fortifications. The queen, he explained, would be interested in their book and would pay handsomely to have an advantage over her husband, King Pedro.

“They are not with war but they are not with peace,” the prince said.

“Will she help us get to Burgos?” Trevor asked.

“I think yes,” the prince replied.

The prince’s own house, located about a mile away, was far more modest, a squat brick structure with a protective outer wall, though it was huge by the standards of virtually every other building in the city. But no sooner had they arrived inside the courtyard than the prince showed his true colors by ordering them seized and placed into heavy wrist irons.

“What about our deal?” Trevor yelled.

The prince merely shrugged and disappeared through a doorway carrying their book.

They were led by their manacled hands to a side entrance where, with quick words, they were passed to another set of guards who sniffed at them like hungry dogs and took them down a set of steps into a cool, dark cellar. The five guards jabbered in Spanish as they marched Brian and Trevor to a rank cell block, filled with moaning and clamoring prisoners.

As one of the men was unlocking the cell door Trevor said to Brian, “If this door closes on us, we’re fucked.”

“Couldn’t agree more.”

“How are you in hand-to-hand fighting?” Trevor asked.

“Only man I ever punched for real was my second wife’s divorce lawyer. Hurt my hand. I’d prefer a weapon.”

“Then let’s get you one.”

“Right, follow my lead,” Brian said.

They were pushed inside against one of the stones. The empty cell was putrid with an overflowing bucket of slop and filthy piles of hay. The guards laughed and began to leave but Brian did something extraordinary to make them turn and stare.

He began singing a Victorian music hall song and doing a soft-shoe dance.

I'm a flirt as you'll discover,

All my sweethearts I can tease,

When I stroll out with my lover,

Don't I like a gentle squeeze.

When an arm around your waist is stealing,

Oh, it thrills you through and through,

Who can describe the scrumptious feeling,

This is what you'd better say and do,

Get away, Johnnie, I'm sure there's someone by,

Get away, Johnnie, to kiss me don't you try.

Get away you naughty man, or I shall kick and strike,

Well get away a little closer if you like.

It wasn’t only the guards who watched in amazement. Trevor was reasonably gobsmacked too and it was only at the end of the routine that he understood what Brian was up to.

Brian held out his manacled hands and said, “Por favor, señores, por favor.”

The guards laughed and nodded and two men began to fiddle with the keyholes of both prisoners’ handcuffs.

The second that one of Trevor’s manacles fell free he swung it, still attached to his other wrist and crashed the heavy iron piece into his guard’s temple, sending him reeling backwards onto the ground. Brian’s guard dropped his keys before finishing the job and began to pull his sword but Trevor was on him, delivering a punch to his face that collapsed his cheekbone, incapacitating him with pain and setting him stumbling out of the cell into the corridor. The three other guards charged and Trevor engaged them with fists, elbows, and head-butts before they could get their swords out.

Brian dropped to his knees to retrieve the set of keys and fumbled for the right one while Trevor fought on. The moment he succeeded in unlocking his left wrist, he received a kick to the chin from one of the soldiers and when the stars cleared he heard Trevor say, “Take this and get the man outside the cell.”

Brian nodded and took the sword, scrambling out in time to see a guard weaving around the corner.

Trevor fought on against the three guards, taking blows but relentlessly giving them back, tying up their arms so that no more swords could be drawn. Finally one of the soldiers was able to step back and unsheathe his weapon. He raised it high and swung it toward Trevor’s neck.

All Trevor saw was the sword and an attached arm fall onto the floor. Brian was behind the man, his own sword bloody.

“Take a rest, mate,” Brian said, laying into the two intact men and within seconds, all of the guards were in a spreading pool of their own blood.

“All right?” Brian said.

Trevor’s lip was split and his cheek was swollen. “I’ll live. Did you get the other one?”

“Yeah. He’s finished. Let’s get out of this shithole.”

In the corridor, the other prisoners had heard the commotion and from their cells they were shouting up a storm.

Trevor retrieved a ring of keys from one of the fallen guards. “What do you say we keep the prince busy?”

Soon the cell doors were opening and skeletal men began to stream out into the corridor, some so hungry they fell upon the fallen guards ripping their flesh with their teeth, others making a move toward freedom.

Brian and Trevor were well ahead of them, running up the stairs and into the first floor of the fine house.

“This way,” Brian said, pointing toward a way out.

“We’ve got to get the book back,” Trevor said.

Brian sighed but didn’t argue. They began sneaking down a hall.

“What was that back there?” Trevor whispered.

“You mean the song and dance?”

“Is that what it was?”

“Bit of old-timey nonsense. It’s called
Get Away, Johnnie
. Impressed?”

“Not really.”

They smelled food cooking. The kitchen was to their left so they took a turn to the right. They crept toward an open door and peeked into an ornate room where the prince was seated by his hearth, his feet on an ottoman. The book was on a nearby table next to the backpack.

Servants ran in from another entrance and in a panic, informed the prince that there had been a prisoner escape. The prince sprang up, grabbed his sword and ran out.

Trevor slipped in and took the book and soon they were in an alleyway behind the house, the ramparts of the queen’s palace just visible over the walls.

“That’s where we’re going,” Trevor said.

“It’s a shame not to give Prince Arsewipe what he deserves,” Brian groused.

“Back at the village you said it best,” Trevor said. “We can’t save all the innocents. We also can’t crush all the bastards.”

Hunger made them pull off the motorway and stop at a small village shop.

Christine spritzed herself with cologne before going inside where she filled a basket with snack food. She hastily paid the bored teenage countergirl and sat in the car with Molly at the side of the road, stuffing themselves with gooey treats.

They drove off through the quiet village. It was late afternoon and passing a village primary school Molly slowed down and pointed at a small boy sitting alone on a bench by the gate.

“Is he crying?” she asked.

“I think he is,” Christine said. “Pull over.”

“What?”

“Pull over. I’ll just nip out and see if he’s all right.”

“We shouldn’t.”

But Christine insisted and out she went. As she knelt beside him a police car pulled up a few car lengths behind their Mini and the lone officer began typing into his dashboard computer.

Molly spotted him in the rearview mirror and frantically tried to decide what to do. But before she could signal Christine the young officer got out of his vehicle, sauntered over and tapped on her window.

“Could you roll down your window, please?” he said.

She complied and asked as calmly as she could, “What’s the trouble, officer?”

“Is this your car, madam?”

“It’s my friend’s. She lent it to me.”

“I’m afraid it’s showing as reported stolen. Would you mind getting out so we can sort this out?”

She closed her eyes in despair and when she opened them the policeman was no longer at her window.

Christine was.

Molly tried to open her door but the policeman’s body was blocking it. She slid over to the passenger side and went around to see Christine holding a stray flint nodule in her hand.

“Did you kill him?” Molly asked.

“No! I didn’t hit him nearly that hard. Come on, help me get him into his car.”

Molly looked around. The only one who’d witnessed the attack was the small boy who had stopped crying. He watched in fascination as the two women dragged the officer and stuffed him into his driver’s seat.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, let’s get away from here,” Molly said, just as another car lurched to the curb, braking too hard.

A young blonde got out and began weaving toward the boy.

“Where the fuck have you been?” she shouted at him.

“I’ve been here, mummy, waiting for you,” he said in a plaintive voice.

“Get in the bloody car.”

Christine’s face contorted into a rage.

“Don’t,” Molly said, but it was too late.

Christine approached the woman. She had her son’s arm in a rough grasp, the first throes of giving him a shake.

“Take your hand off of him,” Christine demanded.

The blonde turned and said, “Who the hell are you to tell me what to do with my son?”

“I’m the one who’s going to thrash you, you drunken cow.”

“You and what army?” She yanked the boy’s arm and made him yelp.

Christine gave the woman a sharp shove, sending her to the ground rump first.

“Know what?” the woman said. “I’m going to speak to that copper. I’ll have you nicked.”

She managed to get onto her wobbly legs whereupon Christine landed a fist to her jaw putting her down and out.

“Is mummy all right?” the boy asked.

“She’s just having a kip,” Christine said. “Come on, Molly, help me drag another one.”

They laid the blonde out on the back seat of her car. The boy answered Christine’s question: no one else lived at their house. Christine drove the woman’s car and Molly followed in the Mini. The boy, seven-year-old Roger, was able to give turn-by-turn directions to a detached cottage with an overgrown garden at the edge of the village. Molly pulled into the drive and tucked the Mini behind a hedge, well hidden from the road, and helped drag the woman inside.

“She’s more drunk than punched-out,” Christine said.

The boy was already watching the tele when they finished tieing her with lamp cord onto a love seat in the small conservatory overlooking the back garden.

Roger looked up and said, “Can I have some tea?”

“’Course you can,” Christine said. “What do you usually have?”

“Cereal,” he replied.

“What? For your tea? Auntie Christine can do better than that.”

She spent the next half hour re-learning how to make tea while Molly sat with Roger, both of them happily watching cartoons. The tray Christine eventually produced had several rounds of a serviceable Welsh rarebit and a glass of chocolate milk.