Down: Trilogy Box Set (34 page)

When the stew was ready, all of them squeezed onto the benches and Emily and JoJo ate with wild abandon, stirring up laughter from the others.

“Extremely hungry,” Emily mumbled between bites. “This is so good.”

“We eat well enough,” Gertie said.

When her stomach was full, Emily was able to start asking all the questions she’d been saving. Who were they? How did they come to live together? Why were there no men in a land where men outnumbered women so dramatically?

The women left it to Gertie to answer. She explained that all of them were escapees. She had been the first one to come to these woods, escaping over a hundred years ago from the house of a nobleman from Köln. She had grown desperate from two centuries of rape and beatings and would have thrown herself from a window if that would have eased her suffering. One day she slipped her shackles because she had become that thin from starvation and managed to flee the walled estate. She foraged on her own for many years before she found Ann wandering in the woods. One became two, and then two became four when Lia the Dutch woman and Ingrid, another German found them one day. The four of them learned to make weapons to protect themselves from the band of cavemen who shared the woods, and to hunt for food. Some forty years earlier, they watched as a wagon train passing through the woods stopped to fetch water from the stream. To their amazement the cargo was nine chained women, the property of a northern German slaver on his way to King Frederick’s castle in Marksburg. Gertie’s troop attacked with arrows and spears, released the women and tied the wounded men to trees where their flesh would be eaten by wild animals. The freed women still visited their piles of bones and sinews, watering them with urine, confident they were still experiencing some kind of eternal suffering.

Over the years they had lost some of their number to illness or wounds and had placed them in a small house nearby, protected from beasts, where they could be garlanded with wildflowers and spend their eternities with a modicum of decorum and respect. As for the rest of them, they were a family, living together, hunting together, protecting one another. To Emily, what came to mind was a nunnery, a community of women, devoted to their common cause, but here there was no religion, no God. Their cause was simply survival with as much comfort and dignity as this hard world could offer.

Some of the women chimed in with their own tales of woe, how they had condemned themselves to Hell by their actions in life. Gertie had murdered another woman in a drunken fight in an inn near Leipzig in 1766. Lia killed her husband in Amsterdam in 1844. Sylvie slit her cheating boyfriend’s throat in Paris in 1901. A few women chose to stay silent, including Ann, the American. JoJo joined in, happily telling her tale of dispatching johns in Mali, each slaying garnering a toast.

It was Emily’s turn. She had wondered why they hadn’t pressed her sooner on how she had gotten there herself, and as she tried to explain about MAAC she realized they regarded her as an outsider, not because she wasn’t dead like them, but because she hadn’t done evil like them. They only perked up when she told them about her escape from Marksburg because no one had believed it was possible to escape from a fortress such as that. She told them of her desire to return to Brittania and asked for their help. Gertie would only say that she would think about it.

It was time for bed. Spontaneously, the women played a game of musical chairs, rearranging the sleeping accommodations so that Sylvie could be next to JoJo and Ann would be beside Emily.

Only then, sitting on her furs, did Ann quietly attend to her cut arm, washing away the dried blood with hot water and binding the wound with a strip of cloth. As was their custom, two of the women stayed awake to patrol the perimeter of the yurt. Inside, the torches were extinguished and the central fire was allowed to wane. Some women began to snore straight away. There was whispered French coming from the direction of JoJo and Sylvie. In the semi-darkness, Emily sensed Ann wanted to talk so she gave her the opening.

“Where in America are you from?” she asked just above a whisper.

“Chicago.”

“When?”

“I was born in 1911.”

“May I ask how you wound up here?”

“You mean here in Germania or here in Hell?”

“Both, I suppose.”

“I don’t really like to talk about it.”

“That’s okay.”

“But I will.”

“That’s okay too.”

“I killed a boy.”

Emily held her breath, saying nothing.

“I was twenty. I was at a party and got really drunk. I had an argument with my boyfriend and I took the keys to his car and drove away. God, I was so drunk. I didn’t see the kid until it was too late but I kept going because I was scared. Afterwards I read in the paper he was twelve, a paperboy. He had a sweet face. The police were looking for me. I pawned some jewelry, scraped together some cash and went to New York. From there I got the first steamer to Hamburg. I wanted to die but I didn’t want to be caught. I was too weak-willed to kill myself but I wanted to be punished and I found that punishment working in a brothel in Hamburg where the sailors went for pleasure. I got pregnant and died in childbirth. I got what I deserved.”

“You poor thing.”

“No, you’re the poor thing. You’re the one who shouldn’t be here.”

Emily went quiet.

“I hope you get home,” Ann said, reaching her arm out.

Emily touched her fingers and soon they were both asleep.

The forest was quiet early in the morning. Emily stripped naked and washed herself beside a trough of water, splashing herself wide-awake with a bucket. Breakfast was some kind of gruel, the grain stolen during a raid at a village some distance away.

JoJo sat on a log near Sylvie, continuing their non-stop banter in French. Though JoJo was tall and statuesque and Sylvie was a pint-sized fireplug, they seemed to share a wicked sense of humor, tearing each other up with jokes and wisecracks.

Gertie sat beside Emily and ate her porridge in silence for a time before saying, “I have decided to help you.”

Emily felt like crying. “Thank you.”

“I cannot risk everyone. Lia and I will take you to the coast. She knows the lowlands. I do not know how you will manage to sneak onto a ship across the channel. That will be up to you.”

“When?”

“We will leave at dusk. The others will accompany us a short distance, just to make sure the cavemen will not attack. They will only roam so far. Then we will travel by night and sleep during the day. At night we only need to fear the rovers.”

Emily listened in horror as Gertie told her about these ghouls.

She spent the day wandering around the camp, watching the women perform their routine. Some made arrows, some left for a hunt and returned with small game, some cleaned utensils and prepared for the evening meal. They ate together in the late afternoon and when evening came, the entire troop of women set off into the woods to see Gertie, Lia and Emily off to the coast. Soon the wind picked up and the trees began to rustle and creak.

JoJo separated from Sylvie to walk beside Emily.

“Hello, stranger,” Emily said.

JoJo laughed. “Sorry about that. I’ve got a new best friend, I guess.”

“I’m glad for you.”

They walked for a while before JoJo asked, “Do you think you’ll make it?”

“I don’t know but I have to try.”

“I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll miss you too. Will you be all right?”

JoJo smiled. “I think I’ll be good with them.”

“I think so too.”

“If it wasn’t for you I’d be a plaything for some German fucks.”

“We made a good team.”

Gertie halted the column and insisted everyone be silent. Emily could see she was cupping her ear. After several minutes, she started moving again, declaring a false alarm. Only the wind, she said.

They emerged from the forest onto a narrow path, perhaps, Emily thought, the same one they’d travelled on with the ox cart the day before. Gertie passed the word that they’d keep to the path until they were past the cavemen’s hunting range. The Neanderthals tended to avoid the path, unless they were in hot pursuit of a kill.

It was almost dark, the forest on each side of the path solidifying into black, solid masses. The wind heaved wildly. Emily clutched her new skin jacket, given to her as a collective gift from the women, and began closing it with its hooks.

Ann was sandwiched between her and JoJo now, three-abreast on the path. She touched the jacket. “Do you like it?” she asked Emily.

“I do. It cheats the wind nicely.”

“I made it, you know. I’m a terrible hunter, I can’t cook very well but I can make clothes.”

“Well, you’re very good at it.”

“It’s been fun speaking English with you, a treat. I hope you get back to your people.”

Emily was concentrating on the last hook when she heard them.

Horse hooves, coming fast.

Everyone heard them, but because of the noisy dance between the wind and the trees, they heard them too late.

A gunshot rang out, followed immediately by a masculine shout in German to ceasefire.

The bulk of the women scattered in terror into the woods on either side of the trail, but Emily and JoJo were slower to react, paralyzed by the sight of Ann lying face down in front of them, the back of her head a mass of blood.

Gertie and Lia held their ground, nocking arrows and letting them fly.

The horses kept coming.

Gertie yelled at Emily and JoJo to run for it.

JoJo was able to move but Emily could not; her feet were rooted to the path in fear. A huge horse was coming at her so fast that all rational thought evaporated. She looked down at Ann then up at the horse. She heard Gertie and JoJo screaming at her, but they seemed very far away. It was dreamlike but the horse seemed to approach in slow motion, then sped up and was suddenly upon her.

An arm reached out and scooped her into the air and onto a saddle, her belly thrust painfully on the pommel. The horse reared but the rider held on tightly.

The rider, a powerfully built German soldier, turned the horse.

Emily lifted her head and saw JoJo running back from the woods toward them.

“No, go back!” Emily screamed.

“No …”

“Go back. Please! Stay free!”

The horse was already galloping toward the direction it came from and Emily became aware, as she shifted her body, trying to get the pommel out of her gut, that she was amidst a pack of horses and riders. In fear and pain she threw up her supper, coating the rider’s right leg in vomit. He cursed at her and gave her a hard slap on the rump as if she were a disobedient child.

They rode swiftly for at least two miles before the reins were tugged and the horse slowed to a trot. There were bright lights, the same lights she had seen before on another dark night, and there, sitting in the back seat of the boxy steam car was the odious little man in wire-rimmed glasses.

Another soldier pulled her down, feet first. She wiped the vomit from her lips with her forearm.

“I am delighted to see you again, Doktor Loughty,” Himmler said. “Come, join me. You will be more comfortable on your journey back to Marksburg.”

“How did you find me?”

“Rainald van Dassel told me how you escaped. He said he wouldn’t talk but he did. They always do. It was a simple matter of following the farmer’s route back to Dusseldorf and being a little patient. And here you are. Would you like to see Rainald? I understand the two of you became fast friends.”

“He’s here?”

Himmler reached for something by his feet. At first the headlights blinded her to what it was but when she raised her hand to block the glare she saw it was Rainald’s bloody head, his lips twitching, his moist eyes staring at her.

They were the most sorrowful eyes she had ever seen.

The steam car chugged along a coastal road and John and his companions crossed into Italia without encountering further trouble. Any people they met along their final stretch fled in panic at the unaccustomed sight and sound of their powerful machine. On the outskirts of Genoa, Luca had John drive toward a small hamlet, populated, he said with supporters of their master and there, a toothless old man opened a barn door and beckoned them to drive inside. The horses in the stalls strained at their ropes but settled down when Simon turned off the boiler.

Luca shook hands with the man and in Italian, asked for some food and drink.

“We will go the rest of the way by horse,” Luca told John. “If we enter Milano by motorcar we will quickly find ourselves in a world of shit.”

They were provided with hooded cloaks and once again, John had to suffer the undignified precaution of having his cloak rolled through manure to mask his scent. Once they were fed, the four men rode north, and at dusk they were at the outskirts of Milan. From there, Luca led the way at a slow trot so as not to draw attention to themselves. Peering through his hood, John took in the cityscape. The streets were narrow, the buildings low and simple. It was much like the other cities he’d seen, monochromatic, utilitarian, without any soaring architecture. There were no spires to lift the soul, no edifices with a loftier purpose than basic habitation. There were few people about and those that were stuck to the shadows like rodents. The smoke of a thousand hearths filled the air. In the fading light, at the end of a lane, John saw an open square with a massive structure, a castle, likely. It was squat and sprawling behind a high, crenellated wall.

“Is that where we’re going?” he asked.

Antonio was the closest rider. “No, that is the one place we are not going unless we suffer a catastrophe, for once inside, we shall never return. King Borgia dwells there.”

They kept to the small streets, giving the palace square a wide berth. They passed a shuttered inn but John could smell the ale and hear the muffled voices inside. He thought a pint or two would go down nicely about now but they rode on. Luca pulled up at a blackened, fire-ravaged wreck of a building and told the others to wait for him. In twenty minutes he returned and told them that the coast was clear.