The old palace seemed stable enough. Downward they went on stone stairs rubbed smooth by the passage of many feet, down into chambers cut out of bedrock. As they descended, the air cleared, becoming free of the clinging dust that abraded their lungs. They stumbled into the guards’ room. Everyone had fled, leaving a scarred bench and a table with dice and stones scattered heedlessly over the top. A wooden platter bore a half-eaten loaf of bread and a crumb of cheese. Two mugs had overturned, spilling ale over the tabletop, slowly drying up. A single helm molded of leather lay on the floor.
But not everyone could flee. Echoing down the two tunnels that cut deeper into the rock, where cells were hewn to house the prisoners, rose cries for help, prayers, and even one poor soul’s maniacal laughter.
“This way,” said Fortunatus, hurrying down one of the tunnels.
“What about the other prisoners?” asked Jehan. He and Jerome scuttled along like nervous dogs, shoulders hunched.
“Heretics, malefici, and worse,” called Fortunatus. “We dare not let any of them go.”
“I pray you, guardsman! Let me out!”
“Is the world coming to an end?”
“Have mercy! Have mercy!”
“There is no God but Fire!”
The cries resonated. Although muffled by the thick stone walls, the pleas pierced her heart. Would these captive souls be left to die?
She bent to pick up the helm. A rat scurried out of it, running over her fingers, and she shrieked and jumped back, cursing, and slammed into the wall. For an instant, sucking in air that would not come, she thought she would asphyxiate. The walls closed around her, dizzying in the feeble glow of the lamp she still gripped. The air smelled sour. Another tremor might cause the entire palace to fall in on top of them.
They would be buried alive.
“Get hold of yourself!” She kicked over the helm and cautiously picked it up, shook it. No rats. She set it on the table before venturing three steps into the low tunnel that ran opposite the one down which Fortunatus had vanished. She heard, behind her, the scrape of a bar being lifted off a door, heard close by the scritch of hands, or claws, on the walls, a madman’s chitter, all singsong. The flame wavered in an eddy of air.
Voices.
“—deserting your post!”
“Nay, Sergeant! What does it matter if God chooses them to die? I can’t bear to remain down there where it’s all dark. The walls will cave in. I’m afraid, Sergeant. Don’t make me go! Don’t make me go!”
She ran back into the guardroom. The guards had fled with their weapons. Grabbing the helm, she fastened it over her head, then tested the weight of the bench. If a humble bench could serve as a weapon one time, then it would surely serve again. Mercifully, this was a lighter bench than the long bench she and Rufus had hoisted in St. Asella’s. She hoped Rufus and the other Eagles were all out of the city on the king’s business. She prayed the king was safe.
Up the stairs, the shimmer of a lamp chased away the darkness. She slipped into shadow by the arched opening, the bench braced against her knees, upright. Her arms burned at the weight. Her heart raced.
Distantly, as through a fog, she heard Fortunatus’ voice. “Come, Sister Rosvita. We are here to rescue you.”
“Brother Fortunatus?” So changed was that voice, more like a frog’s croak than a woman’s speech, that Hanna would never have recognized it. But it was not without strength. She sounded weak but not weak-minded, frail but not beaten.
How could anyone survive for two years in such a pit? You might as well be flung into the Abyss.
“I’ll whip you forward if I must!” cried the sergeant. “What are we to say to the skopos if—”
Shadows spilled onto the floor before her feet. She heaved up the bench. The two soldiers lurched into view just as Jehan and Jerome appeared at the mouth of the tunnel with a body carried between them and Fortunatus bringing up the rear.
She brought the bench down hard on the soldiers’ heads before they had time to utter a word. The sergeant went down hard, caught by the full weight of the bench. The soldier staggered forward two steps before his knees buckled under him, but even so he caught himself on his hands and, on hands and knees, retched. No mercy.
She slammed the bench down on him again, and he fell flat. Blood pooled from his nose. Hanna set down the bench and stripped them of their weapons and belts: a stout spear, a short sword, and two knives.
“No time to get their armor. We’ve got to lock them up.”
The soldier still wasn’t knocked out, but he could only whimper and struggle weakly as she rolled him into the open cell where Rosvita had been confined.