Chapter 4
R
oman left her cell soon after, promising Isra that he would return after the brethren of Melk had broken the fast together the next morn, and he was true to his word. The screeching of the wooden door across the stony floor startled her from her pacing, and she held her breath as she turned to see who had entered.
The blond man had changed into a cowled robe, and his hair was dark gold, the damp ends curling around his temple and square jaw. His right sleeve hung limp, the obvious misshapenness across Roman's midsection indicating that he was wearing his arm in a sling close to his body. Isra's stomach clenched as it flashed through her mind that his injuries were entirely her fault. He could have been killed.
Lou perched on Roman's shoulder, but Isra could not see the falcon's sharp black eyes for the hood that it wore. Roman turned and pushed the door of Isra's cell closed before reaching up and removing Lou's hood.
“It's best to keep him blind down here. No telling what he might get after otherwise. But I thought you'd like to say hello.”
“Good morn, my lord.” She approached both man and bird and reached up a crooked finger to stroke the falcon's wing. “Good morn, Lou.” The bird swiveled its head to investigate who was touching him. “I am happy to see you again.”
Lou considered her, and Isra smiled at the majestic-looking creature while addressing his owner. “This is a strange place for a religious house.”
“Wynn is a strange man,” Roman hedged.
“He is a wise man,” Isra argued, reaching up once more to stroke the bird. She hesitated when he shied away, but then turned his head as if granting her permission. “His knowledge of healing is great. Why would such a man be kept hidden away in the bowels of the abbey?”
“Oh, he isn't kept hidden away,” Roman said, and then cooed and clucked to Lou as he replaced the small leather hood. Isra was disappointed; she loved to look at the bird. “This catacomb is paradise for our pale brother. Would you like to see? I have been caged long enough. Perhaps you feel the same.”
Isra thought Roman would be shocked at how close his words were to the truth for her. But she felt she must ask, if only for the safety of him and his friends at Melk. “Is it not dangerous to risk me being seen?”
His grin was boyish. “I assure you, no one comes down here of their own accord unless they must, and Wynn is already very aware of your presence. Ready?”
Isra nodded, wondering what horrific things she would see. The sounds in the night were unnerving enough. But she followed Roman from the cell, trusting he would not lead her into danger.
The gallery beyond was as empty as it had been the handful of times she'd spied it through the doorway of the little barred window. Because of its location beneath the massive abbey, there were no windows, making it nearly impossible to determine whether it was day or night save for the meager light that filtered down the wide stairs from above. But all the torches between the doors were lit and cast a soothing glow over the smooth stone floor and bubbling cistern.
Isra followed Roman to the edge of the fountain.
“Can you guess what is here?” he asked, looking down at her from his considerable height. He seemed a mountain inside this stone cavern, and yet Isra was comforted by his presence, rather than intimidated. “Surely the sounds have given you clues.”
She looked around at the nearly identical doors. “A prison of some sort, I can only assume.” Her eyes found his again. “Or a hospital? A place to care for those who have gone insane? Brother Wynn would be a capable caretaker.”
“Close,” Roman said. “But it's not ill monks Wynn cares for. He fashions himself a modern Noah, Melk his own personal ark.”
Isra's eyebrows rose. “The prophet?”
“Yes. Wynn has made it his holy mission on earth toâ” His explanation was interrupted by a door banging against the stones, and the sound of the albino monk shouting as he backed through the farthest doorway to the left of the steps, a long staff in one hand and a short whip in the other.
Isra only now noticed that a pair of wrought-iron gates had been swung shut at the bottom of the stairs, sealing off the only exit from the dungeon.
“Well,” Roman said, “I'll let you see for yourself.”
Isra turned her head to watch the monk back from the cell and into the empty floor of the far gallery. He held the staff and whip away from his body, moving them up and down.
“Hie! Come now. Come now,” Wynn called in a steady voice. “Hie!”
Her eyes widened as half of the wide head appeared in the doorway, the orange and black and white stripes recognizable. She gasped as the tiger took two slow steps into the gallery and then yawned, the torchlight causing its long, pearly fangs to glow.
“Hie, now!” Wynn commanded, cracking the whip and causing the tiger to advance in the direction away from the weapon. It began padding toward the fountain, its shoulders rolling. It stopped as its glowing eyes caught sight of the people standing on the opposite side of the pool, but began walking forward almost at once, an air of curiosity quickening its lazy strides.
“Roman?” Isra asked, unable to keep her hand from inching up to pinch a fold of his robes at his left elbow.
Lou squawked.
“Perhaps I could have chosen a better time,” Roman allowed. “I thought that was the striped horses' cell.”
“Stay where you are,” Wynn called out, striding behind the tiger and heading around the fountain toward them. “Don't think to run. Brother Roman, you will wish to remove Lou's hood.”
Isra began to tremble as Roman did as he was bade without comment, and she couldn't help her start as the tiger reached the far edge of the pool and stepped up on the smooth stone edge. It crouched there and drank, its wide, flat tongue scooping up the water, but its eyes stayed locked on the people across from it.
Isra felt they were locked on
her
. Her fingers took more of Roman's habit into her fist, until she could feel the warmth of his arm beneath the cloth on her skin.
“She's had her fill,” Wynn explained, “so she'll likely have little interest in eating you. But she will be curious. Only be still, and do not turn your backs to her.”
To Isra's dread and fascination, the tiger raised its head and began walking in its rolling gait atop the pool's edge toward her.
“Have no fear,” Wynn insisted, although Lou did disembark from Roman's shoulder just then with a warning cry, and the albino monk shoved his way between Isra and Roman, breaking her link with him and holding out his staff across Isra's chest. “She's only curious.”
The tiger slunk around the perimeter of the pool closer to Isra, and the water splashing from the fountain seemed to grow as loud as the roar of a waterfall. On such an elevated walk, the animal was as tall as Isra, and its head appeared so wide that she could not have encircled it with both arms. It snuffed and blew, lowering its still dripping muzzle as it slowed to a stop before her, taking up her scent. Isra, too, could smell the tiger's unique odor, warm and musky, deep like amber inside her head. She forced herself to swallow.
“Easy, easy,” Wynn said in a low voice, and Isra could not be certain whether the monk was speaking to her or to the creature.
The tiger pushed its head forward beneath Wynn's staff, snorting at Isra's borrowed gown and then swinging up to brush its nose against her shoulder. Isra felt the damp imprint left by that firm bump and then squeezed her eyes shut as the wide head was suddenly before her face, misting her skin with its humid breath, its whiskers stiff as they dragged across her skin. She gasped through her nose as the tiger pushed its face into hers and then rubbed, running its wide head down the side of Isra's cheek and then onto her chest.
She dared open her eyes and her hands wanted to lift, to instinctively bury her fingers into the deep fur around the tiger's face in much the same manner in which she had been unable to resist touching Roman's falcon, but Wynn's solid staff cracked down on her wrists.
“No, lady,” Wynn said in a low voice, and Isra understood that the staff had not been for her protection from the tiger.
Then the tiger moved on, stopping before Roman to sniff at the lumpiness of his robe and then finishing the circuit of the pool's ledge to take up a spot on the far side. The tiger lay down, one paw hanging over the stone edge to dangle in the water, the tip of its tail swishing.
Isra blew out her breath at last, realizing she had been holding it for most of the encounter.
“My apologies, Wynn,” Roman said from the other side of the albino. “I wasn't aware you would be exercising her this morning.”
“Think nothing of it, my brother,” the monk replied, tucking the handle of the whip beneath his rough cincture. “Indeed, this is not our routine, but she has only just finished the last ofâ” The albino glanced at Isra so quickly that she could almost convince herself that she had imagined it. “Her meal. She's not been about for several days.”
Terrible screeching and banging noises erupted behind the trio, causing all three heads to swivel toward the opposite end of the gallery. Isra saw little brown hands reaching through the barred window of one of the doors, a dreadful cacophony behind it.
“Well, blast,” Wynn said. “Better release them before they render us all deaf. They'll have nothing else but to be let out if Princess is about. Do you stay or go?” Wynn demanded.
Roman looked at Isra and raised his eyebrows.
“As you wish,” Isra said, lowering her eyes, but inside she trembled with anticipation.
“We'll stay, if we won't be a hindrance,” Roman told the pale monk. Wynn moved away and she dared a look at Roman. He was watching her. “Are you not frightened of what wild beasts Wynn might next introduce?”
She shook her head. “There are worse things to be frightened of than animals.”
Her answer seemed to be punctuated an instant later by the skittering, dashing, screeching brown balls that flew across the stones around their feet, causing Isra's skirts to sway. The creatures swarmed over the ledge of the fountain, their long tails held erect behind them, and overtook the tiger so suddenly that Princess squealed and went over the side of the fountain into the pool, her big paws swiping in the air, slinging up wide arcs of water.
The monkeys dashed away, chittering and screaming in what sounded like delight.
“They torment her so when they know she is too fat to be nimble,” Wynn chortled as he came once more to stand between Isra and Roman. “She behaves as though she would kill each one of them and eat them as raisins, but I can't help but think she has grown attached to them. They are the only creatures who will come near her. She is getting old. She needs a mate.” His face turned toward Isra. “I don't suppose you know of anyone with a male tiger, do you?”
Isra pressed her mouth together into a grim line. “I am sorry. No.”
The monk turned back to watch the monkeys frolicking in the water. “Ah, well. God's will be done.”
“Is she tame, then?” Isra asked, finding herself unable to keep from asking after the majestic tiger who had pulled herself out of the pool, shook, and was lying along the stone edge once more, licking one massive paw. “Princess.”
The albino looked at Isra as if she'd just turned into a monkey herself. “
Tame
? Lady, this is no domestic creature who lurks inside a gentle stable seeking rodents. She is
tigris
. More specifically, she is a man-eater.”
Isra's eyes went over the monk's head to Roman's face, as if he would give her some reassurance. But he seemed as enthralled by the albino's speech as Isra.
“Oh, yes,” Wynn continued, looking across the pool at the stunning animal who had turned her attention to grooming her chest. “Tigers can come to have a taste for human flesh. Princess killed and consumed more than a score in her village before she was captured. Why do you think they brought theâ”
“Wynn,” Roman warned in a low voice.
The monk quirked his mouth and then continued, hardly skipping a beat in his story. “She was on her way to be used for sport in the south of France, I believe, when I purchased her.”
Isra didn't know whether she was horrified or amazed. “You do not fear her? Down here, all alone?”
Brother Wynn rocked back on his sandals, as if considering her question. “The day I am afraid of her is the day she shall kill me. So, no, lady, I am not afraid. That is the way with tigers. You must always face them. Always command them. The moment you allow yourself to believe the tiger cares for you, the tiger is your friend, you have
tamed
the tiger, that is when the tiger loses all respect for you. They kill animals they feel are lesser than them, weaker than them. Sometimes, too, they eat those animals.” The monk sniffed.
“How do you come to know so much about the creatures?” Isra asked, slightly unnerved at the man's outlining of the bloodthirstiness of the animal lounging not thirty feet from them.
Wynn glanced at her, a frown creasing his forehead over invisible eyebrows. “God has given me this knowledge. It is my holy mission. Why else would I be here?”
“Thank you for allowing me to see her,” Isra said, dropping her eyes to the stones for a moment. When she raised her face it was to find Roman's eyes again. “I would prefer to return to my cell now, if it will not disturb Brother Wynn's charges.”
“Not at all,” Wynn said, already sliding his whip from his cincture. “She needs to exercise her limbs, any matter. She lies about enough.” The monk moved away from them and around the fountain toward the tiger, who watched the albino over one shoulder and flashed her teeth. Wynn cracked his whip and raised both arms in response. “Hie now, you great sloth. Come! Up with you!”