Timeline - Michael Crichton [140]
“My Lord Abbot, Edwardus gave me no message.”
“Perhaps in code? Some trivial or mistaken turn of phrase?”
“I am sorry,” Marek said.
“Not so sorry as I. And now he is in La Roque?”
“He is, my Lord Abbot.”
“Sooth, I would not have it so,” the Abbot said. “For I think La Roque cannot be taken.”
“Yet if there is a secret passage to the inside . . .,” Marek said.
“Oh, the passage, the passage,” the Abbot said, giving a wave of his hand. “It will be my undoing. It is all that I hear spoken. Every man wishes to know the passage—and Arnaut more than any of them. The Magister was assisting me, searching the old documents of Marcellus. Are you certain he said nothing to you?”
“He said we were to seek Brother Marcel.”
The Abbot snorted. “Certes, this secret passage was the work of Laon’s assistant and scribe, who was Brother Marcel. But for the last years, old Marcel was not well in spirit. That is why we let him live in the mill. All through the day, he muttered and mumbled to himself, and then of a sudden he would cry out that he saw demons and spirits, and his eyes rolled in his head, and his limbs thrashed wildly, until the visions passed.” The Abbot shook his head. “The other monks venerated him, seeing his visions as proof of piety, and not of disorder, which in truth it was. But why did the Magister tell you to seek him out?”
“The Magister said Marcel had a key.”
“A key?” the Abbot said. “A key?” He sounded very annoyed. “Of course he had a key, he had many keys, and they are all to be found in the mill, but we cannot—” He stumbled forward, then stared with a shocked expression at Marek.
All around the courtyard, men were shouting, pointing upward.
Marek said, “My Lord Abbot—”
The Abbot spat blood and collapsed into Marek’s arms. Marek eased him to the ground. He felt the arrow in the Abbot’s back even before he saw it. More arrows whistled down and thunked, quivering, in the grass beside them.
Marek looked up and saw maroon figures in the bell tower of the church, firing rapidly. An arrow ripped Marek’s hat from his head; another tore through the sleeve of his tunic. Another arrow stuck deep in the Abbot’s shoulder.
The next arrow struck Marek in the thigh. He felt searing red-hot pain streak down his leg, and he lost his balance, falling back on the ground. He tried to get up, but he was dizzy and his balance had deserted him. He fell back again as arrows whistled down all around him.
:
On the opposite side of the courtyard, Chris and Kate ran for cover through the rain of arrows. Kate yelled and stumbled, fell to the ground, an arrow sticking in her back. Then she scrambled up, and Chris saw it had torn through her tunic beneath her armpit but had not struck her. An arrow skinned his leg, tearing his hose. And then they reached the covered passageway, where they collapsed behind one of the arches, catching their breath. Arrows clattered off the stone walls and struck the stone arches all around them. Chris said, “You okay?”
She nodded, panting. “Where’s Marek?”
Chris got to his feet, peered cautiously around the pillar. “Oh no,” he said. And he started to run down the corridor.
:
Marek staggered to his feet, saw that the Abbot was still alive. “Forgive me,” Marek said as he lifted the Abbot onto his shoulder and carried him away to the corner. The soldiers in the courtyard loosed answering volleys at the bell tower. Fewer arrows were coming down at them now.
Marek took the Abbot behind the arches of the covered passageway and placed him on his side on the ground. The Abbot pulled the arrow out of his own shoulder and threw it aside. The effort left him gasping. “My back . . . back . . .”
Marek turned him over gently. The shaft in his back pulsed with each heartbeat. “My Lord, do you wish me to pull it?”
“No.” The Abbot flung a desperate arm over Marek’s neck, pulling him close. “Not yet . . . A priest . . . priest . . .” His eyes rolled. A priest was running toward them.
“He comes now, my Lord Abbot.”
The Abbot appeared