Marrying the Musketeer (37 page)

When Miriame’s mouth went dry, Courtney took her place, talking about God and his wonders and exhorting the prisoners to repent of their sins, while Miriame sipped small ale from the flasks they had brought with them.

The afternoon passed more quickly than Courtney had ever thought it would.
 
Before she was even aware that several hours had passed, she heard a key turn in the lock and the guard was back at the door once more, gesturing at them to hurry up.
 
Miriame stopped her speechifying on the instant and hurried to the door.
 
Courtney gave a last farewell to a poor hopeless young man condemned to die for the theft of loaf of bread to feed his large-bellied wife and shuffled off after her.

They both heaved a sigh of relief when they were out in the streets of Paris once more and the gate of the Bastille was shut and locked firmly behind them.
 
“Day the first, and little to report,” Miriame said as they ducked into the cart that a friend of hers from the streets had waiting for them in the streets outside.

Courtney was silent for a moment as they jolted along the streets, thinking of the savagery of keeping humans locked up for such small crimes.
 
“It is inhuman to keep prisons like that.
 
I would free all the prisoners if I could.”

Miriame raised an eyebrow.
 
“Even the child killer?”

Courtney shuddered.
 
She had been hard pressed even in her role of priest to have any kind words for him.
 
She had listened to his tearful and oft repeated confession with disgust and horror.
 
Alone of them all, he deserved to be put in a dungeon until he died.
 
“All of them but him.
 
He alone deserves even worse than he had received.
 
The others are different.
 
No justice is served by keeping them imprisoned like animals.”

“We cannot free them all.
 
We will be doing well if we find your father and secure his freedom.
 
Let others worry about the rest.”

“You are right, I cannot free them all.
 
Only the King could do that, and he will not.”
 
Courtney shuddered with her dislike of the King and his parody of justice.
 
“Frenchmen will not suffer such injustice in silence forever.
 
One of these days, the Bastille itself will fall – and the King with it.”

They were at the gate of the Bastille again bright and early the next morning.
 
The same guards were posted at the door and they let the false priests in with barely a grumble.
 
The better-tempered guard led them to a different chamber that was as full of prisoners as the last had been and left them there with the promise to return at noon again.

The morning played out again as had the first day.
 
Courtney’s father was not among the prisoners.
 
She heard confessions and gave hope where she could while Miriame rambled on at large about the creation.
 
At noon, the guard fetched them at their request and locked them in with another chamber full of prisoners.
 

Once more Courtney’s father was not among them and once more she did what she could to relieve their suffering in the time she had to spend with them.
 
Her spirits were tiring with this game.
 
Her father was nowhere to be found.
 
All that she had seen were hopeless, despairing men who longed for the peace that comes with death.
 
She did not know how real priests were able to spend their entire lives with such sinners, hearing of their crimes and giving them absolution from dawn to dusk.
 
She had only been pretending for two days, and her soul was weighed down with the horror of what she had seen and heard.

The third day, the guards refused them entry.
 
“Orders are orders,” the surly, red-faced one said when Miriame complained at length in a wheezy voice at their treatment.

“What orders are these?” Courtney asked in her own attempt at a quavering old man’s voice.
 
“What has changed since yesterday that a couple of old monks may not come inside and succor the prisoners as best we may?
 
Our Abbot has the permission of the King to send us here.”

The taller guard shrugged.
 
“It would appear that the King had revoked your Abbot’s permission.
 
No monks are to be allowed into the Bastille for the next month bar those of the order of Capuchin monks from the monastery at Saint-Ely.
 
The Abbot is sending a pair of monks to Paris specially – Brother Francis and Brother Jacques.”
 
He gave an uncomfortable shrug.
 
“He always sends them when the King has a few recalcitrant prisoners he wants dealt with.
 
They are neither of them known for their mercy.
 
We shall have no peace for the screams as soon as Brother Jacques gets here.”

Courtney groaned inside.
 
The Capuchins were well-known for serving the King better than they served God, and the monastery at Saint-Ely was headed by a bastard son of the royal house who was rumored to do anything that was asked of him.
 
God help the prisoners with such priests as these ministering to them.
 
How she hoped that her own father would not fall a victim to their evil.

Though she was a woman, she was a better priest than any Capuchin she was sure.
 
She would lay a bet that the Capuchins were being sent to spread evil rumors rather than comfort, and to administer torture or secret poison rather than hope to the King’s particular enemies.
 
She kept her thoughts to herself, considering it hardly politic to share such treason.
 
“Have these monks arrived yet to help the prisoners?”

The red-faced guard licked his lips.
 
“Not yet.
 
They are expected on the morrow.”
 
It would appear that he did not dread their coming as his fellow did, but rather that he looked forward to it.
 
When the time for action came, Courtney would remember his lack of sympathy for the prisoners in his care.

One day.
 
They still had one day in which to find her father.
 
She addressed herself to the tall guard, ignoring the surly, red-faced one.
 
“Let us in for today then, for the last time.
 
Let us comfort the prisoners before the Capuchins are set loose upon them.”

The red-faced guard shook his head, but the tall one reached for his keys.
 
“Just one more day.
 
That is all I can give you.
 
Even then, if the other priests come before their time, I shall have to fetch you out again at a moment’s notice.”

They followed him down the corridor to yet another chamber.
 
He unlocked the door and was about to leave them alone with the men inside when Courtney had a sudden thought.
 
“Seeing as this is our last day here, let us comfort as many prisoners as we can,” she begged.
 
“Come with us on our rounds as we hear their sins and give them absolution.
 
That way we shall do the most good we can in the short time we have left to us.”

The guard hesitated, compassion warring with the fear of being found out.
 

“Just for one day,” Courtney pleaded.
 
“The Lord will thank you for it.”

Compassion won.
 
“I will take you to as many prisoners as I can---”
 

Courtney beamed under her cowl.
 
Thanks to the tall guard, she still had a chance of finding her father.

“---but only until noon.
 
Then you must leave. If the new priests turn up early they will have me garroted for letting you in at all.”

She did not think he was exaggerating.
 
“God bless you, son, for your kindness.”

The guard turned to leave.
 
“I’ll come back for you as soon as I can,” he said and he locked the door behind them.
 

Her father was not among this sorry lot of prisoners either.
 
Courtney heard a few confessions with half an ear and gave a couple of absolutions.
 
Miriame made shift to do the same.

Her mind was not on helping other prisoners today.
 
She was well aware that her disguise had only one day left to run before she was forced to think of another plan.
 
If only the guard would hurry and return.

She heard steps in the distance on the stone floor.
 
She hurriedly finished giving absolution and stood up as the guard entered once more.
 
“God go with you,” she said in a grave voice to the chamber full of prisoners as she and Miriame followed the guard out into the corridor again.

He unlocked another chamber.
 
“Just a couple in here,” he said.
 
“Do you want to stop here or shall we go on to a fuller chamber?”

Courtney could not answer.
 
She was staring in hope and horror at the two men in the room.
 

Miriame took one look at Courtney’s face.
 
“We’ll stop here for a time,” she said piously.
 
“All souls are worthy of being saved.
 
We shall not pass these poor men by in their wretchedness.”

The guard gave a grunt of assent, locked the door behind them and hurried away, his footsteps echoing along the corridor.

For a moment Courtney stood still, staring from one to the other.
 
Her long-lost father sat still in one corner of the room, her dead lover in another, both of them in heavy iron manacles that kept them tied by their wrists to their own corner of hell.

She was seeing ghosts.
 
She knew she was seeing ghosts.
 
She had left Pierre for dead, fighting a company of men that outnumbered him by twenty to one.
 
She had never considered that he might still be alive, but here he was, alive and in chains.
 
Pierre was alive.

Miriame was equally surprised.
 
“I had thought you were dead,” she said to him.

He shook his head.
 
“Wounded.
 
Not dead.
 
Who are you that you would care?”

Courtney did not answer him.
 
Instead, she stumbled over towards the older man chained by the wrists in the far corner.
 
“Father,” she said softly, letting her hood fall back off her face.
 
“You are alive.”

Her father did not move.
 
“Go away and let me be.”
 
His voice was aged and ancient, not like he had used to sound.

Pierre, however, started at the sound of her voice and whirled around as best he could to see her.
 
“William?”

She need not hide any longer.
 
She had avenged her honor.
 
“Not William.
 
I never have been William.
 
I have always been Courtney.”

Her father finally raised his gray head to look at her.
 
His eyes were dull with pain and despair, but they lightened when they saw her.
 
“Courtney?
 
Is that really Courtney?”
 
He shook his head again.
 
“You cannot be my daughter.
 
This dungeon is playing tricks with my head and showing me what I desire to see even though it be but a mirage.
 
I know you are not really Courtney, but you look so much like her that it gladdens my heart just to see you.”

She was weeping in earnest now.
 
“I am Courtney, papa.
 
I am your daughter.
 
I have come to rescue you.”

He looked at her with incomprehension.
 
“I am in the Bastille.
 
Nobody escapes from the Bastille.
 
Everyone knows that.”

Miriame drew a couple of files from under her robe.
 
“Then you shall be the first.”

Courtney shot a glance at Pierre.
 
He looked even more stunned than her father did.
 
She did not know what to think herself.
 
Pierre was still alive.
 
Luc’s father was still alive.
 
In prison, but alive.

She bent her head to her father’s wrists.
 
She and Miriame set to work on his manacles, cutting through them as fast as they could.