Treason

Near dawn, Lorenzo awoke to the echo of hard, armored boots, an aggressive knock, and conversations at the door of the common hall.

Ignatius was already in the large room, conversing with the brothers in French. These were not the Hospitallers who had received them the night before.

Lorenzo sat up and kicked off the blankets.

Soon, what had begun as a calm and even exchange grew louder and more contentious. Lorenzo stepped into the hall first, mask on and staff in hand. Cedric and Edgar followed soon after. Behind them, a small and barefoot figure leaned against her door, still in her night shift, hair a mess.

”Is no one going to pull out my tooth…?”

The lead brother, a broad-shouldered man with a scar running from temple to jaw, fixed his gaze on the child.

He said something in French neither Agnes nor the doctors understood, but which made Ignatius respond.

”She is under my protection,” he answered, first in French, then in English. “As are these physicians.”

The scarred brother’s eyes narrowed, then he began to speak in heavy accented English.

”You, Ignatius, sent word that a child of uncertain nature had been found at Eatonbury. And that she has been brought here.”

”What…?” Cedric asked.

”Ignatius?” Lorenzo asked.

”I knew it!” Edgar snapped.

”A misdirection,” Ignatius stated. “An enemy deceived me. I was gravely mistaken. This child is no threat. And the men with her are no heretics. They are here on a mission from an abbess from one of the villages. Leave them be. I was foolish. I’ve wasted enough time following a false trail when the real cursed child, meanwhile, is days away and gets farther out of reach...”

Two more brothers shifted, hands moving to their own weapons.

“We don’t believe a word of this.”

Lorenzo stepped to Ignatius's left. Cedric and Edgar took positions on his right without needing to be told.

Edgar then hurried Agnes back into the side chamber.

”Stay.”

The heavy oak thudded shut.

At first, there were only voices. She could hear Cedric, as usual, trying to mediate with his sensible tone. Then a single voice rose above all others, cracked like thunder.

And beneath it came another voice; her voice inside Agnes’s mind.

“Keep away from the door, little one. No matter what.”

The iron latch slid home with a final click all on its own, and that’s when the glass of the small leaded arched window in her room cracked open, and the ivy from the outside garden crept in. Agnes watched in wonder as the sinewy greenery moved from the window, down the wall, and across the floor, in vines that formed a wild sylvan barrier around her door, just as the argument outside intensified.

Curses. Shouts.

Something heavy dragged across the floor.

And then blades began to clash among panicked voices in English and French.

Agnes clapped both hands over her ears, but the sounds still pushed through, high shrieks of metal against metal. Grunts, pounding. A heavy body hit the floor. Another one struck the wall with enough force to make the stone tremble. A cry of pain. English and French battled it out amidst questions, confusion, and something else; something scraping, creeping, creaking, tangling itself around whatever it found.

Agnes pressed her palms even harder against her ears and squeezed her eyes shut. But the violence would not cease. She heard the snap of wood, or perhaps bone. Another voice, Ignatius, shouted something in short, furious bursts. The sounds of fighting grew thicker, louder. Now she could hear gurgles and horrific wet slaps.

Agnes sank to her knees as if trying to make herself smaller. Then, gradually, the crashes slowed. One final strike. One heavy thud. Silence rushed in as suddenly as the chaos had begun.

Steps approached her door. Finally, the latch lifted, and her door opened with a heavy push that tore and broke apart the newly grown vines.

Lorenzo stood there, mask still on, dark blood running from his right leg. He seemed confused by all the greenery, and he was panting so much that Agnes could barely understand him.

”We… need… to leave.”

Behind him, the common hall was a wreck of overturned furniture, tossed weapons, and fallen bodies. Ignatius stood at the center of it, breathing hard. Blood ran from a cut high on the joint of his left arm, tracking through and down his gauntlet. More blood stained the mail at his shoulder and the knuckles of his hand. Edgar was already moving toward her.

”Cover your eyes,” he said. “Keep them covered until I say.“

Agnes pressed both hands over her eyes. Edgar took her gently by the shoulders and lifted her off the floor.

Although she did her best not to look, Agnes caught one terrible glimpse through her fingers of the aftermath. Thick vines of ivy still bound the men’s feet and had crept and tangled themselves on their fallen bodies. There was blood. So much blood. She could only make out the voices of the plague doctors and Ignatius urging one another to make haste.

”Wait. Get her habit,” Cedric said.

”There is no time,” Ignatius said.

”Eatonbury is still four days away. She’ll freeze out there,” Cedric said.

”We’ll make the trip in two. We’ll find clothes on the way. Luggage stays behind. We need to get back to the wagon and retrieve our horses.”

”Ignatius is right,” Lorenzo said, racing back to Agnes’s room and grabbing only her cloak and shoes.

”No, get the boots,” Cedric said.

“I don’t see the boots.”

”Find them,” Cedric said. “Trust me. I used to have little ones…”

Lorenzo looked at him and obeyed.

“We have to move,” Ignatius said then. “Now.”

The courtyard was empty. They could hear loud knocks and shouts at a distance coming from the depths of the dormitory wing. This is where they noticed wild vines of ivy had spread everywhere and were now around most every door, binding them shut.

”Duessa,” Ignatius and Lorenzo said in unison. They had a second to acknowledge each other by saying it, but continued to move.

All five of them slipped out through a side postern rather than the main gate and kept close to the walls. Ignatius chose the darker corridors that led them away from the temple. Then, they kept to the alleys and the edges of the narrow market lanes. Only when the old round church disappeared behind rooftops did they risk a faster pace out in the open.

Ignatius had enough presence of mind to slip his hand into one of the clothier's unattended stalls and swipe a few heavy wool garments, without checking them first.

By the time word of the violence spread through the Temple and the remaining Hospitallers had begun hacking through the vines that sealed their chamber doors shut, the five travelers were long gone.