Chapter 25 #2
Dorotèa dimly processed being handed a torch.
One moment all was dark, and the next, she held it for them both as he pushed them into not a walk, but a jog.
Her surroundings started to come back into focus then, no longer split into doubles or seemingly far away.
She figured Oste would have a thing or two to say about head injuries, if he was still alive, and prayed that the cut the captain left her didn’t scar; she was quite enamored with them on others, but she didn’t want one on her own face, thank you very much.
“Am I to be your next red-haired corpse, Capitaine?” Dorotèa drawled as he spirited them along.
Water streamed down the old, Roman aqueduct along the narrow hallway.
She looked down at the floor and realized she’d left a droplet of blood, then another, and she set her jaw in determination.
Perhaps someone would notice her trail. When she dabbed at her brow, she encouraged blood to drip, and then fidgeted with the flowers braided into her hair. A petal fluttered off.
He tapped her in the spine with his gun again. “We’ll see.”
“They’re after you, are they?” Dorotèa had to focus intently to stop her words from slurring. Her mouth really did feel strange. “You’d not have come in through a window and stolen me if they were not. I suppose you’d have cut me up then and there on the floor.”
“I concede; you’re correct,” Tirel answered, and she was quite taken by how politely curt he suddenly sounded. “I should prefer not to have to use you as my negotiation offer, but I saw the importance of having one, and I’ll do what I must if they catch up.”
“Very well. And if we make it outside the city unmolested, you’ll kill me then?”
Tirel was silent.
“I have no incentive to go so swiftly unless you might offer me my life,” she hummed. Of course, she was certain Tirel would try to kill her no matter what he said.
“No, no, you have the right of it. I’ll let you go.”
They took a turn and ducked into a narrow archway that led, after a few paces, to an actual door.
Dorotèa tried the handle when Tirel shoved her, and it opened without trouble.
The smattering of dusty crates and barrels lining the wider passageway made her assume this was one of the passages repurposed as storage rooms and cellars for nearby businesses.
She carefully dislodged another flower.
Dorotèa jogged ahead. When she felt a wave of dizziness and slipped, Tirel’s crude whack from his musket drove her to spit a few more words right back. “Why did you do it? Kill them?”
Tirel didn’t answer.
“It would make no difference how I feel about you, but I’m a curious creature. Was it like this for Marie? Did you march her into that back corner? I will never forget the wound you left when you shot her.”
Tirel hit her again. “She had a choice.”
“I can guess,” assented Dorotèa. “You knew each other. She was supposed to trust you. What was it? Did you want something more? Did she spurn you? Did you presume she owed you for it?”
“You’re something of a cheeky bitch, aren’t you?”
“I’ve been told.” Dorotèa nodded. It sent another petal fluttering. “Did you tell her yourself that you’d shoot her if she didn’t listen? I suppose a musket is a good means to control someone—look at me now. But she resisted you anyway.”
His silence was some kind of an answer.
Tears stung her eyes. “You beast. That was it, yes? You wanted her. She said no. You threatened her. She still said no. Oh, the strength of her compared to you. Did the other girls reject you? Was that it? Have you always found our hair so pretty? Did you know them before? Is that why you—”
“No,” Tirel silenced her, yet his answer was impossibly quiet. He drew in close to her ear to utter it. “No, my dear; after I did it once, I simply found that I liked it, and could.”
Dorotèa rocked and almost fell. Her breath was stolen, and she broke stride until Tirel forced her through another doorway and then a largely dried-up, decrepit waterway.
The path was faintly lit by other torches, and she noticed a rough stairwell to the right.
This tunnel must still have some use. Her confidence faltered, and she was reminded of the ache in her head. “You liked it?”
“I enjoyed it,” he confirmed, “so I did it again.”
“Some reason to rob them of their lives.”
“What difference does the reason make? Would you prefer I had a better one?”
“Wretch. You disgust me,” Dorotèa choked out.
Her feet began to drag, and Tirel was more aggressive in his hounding her forward.
“Oh, how I grieve that they lacked your training and your tools. They’d have smeared your pathetic corpse into the dirt with the worms. They’d have beat the hell out of you. It’s what you deserve!”
Tirel whacked her with the flat of the musket, and she tripped with a surprised whimper. Now her back throbbed to match the slowly dulling blow upon her head. It only reminded her how gentle Oste always was when he got in a hit during their own spars.
“Some girls?” Tirel laughed. “Was that why you had that little game of make-believe I walked in on?”
“What a sad excuse of a constable you are,” Dorotèa snapped. “Did you not recognize the rapier possessed by the Duelist of Aix-en-Provence?”
Tirel fell silent behind her.
“Oh, yes,” she seethed. “The only legacy you’ll leave is the world’s hatred of you. But a girl is the most famed combatant in Aix. What do you make of that, Capitaine?”
“Just be quiet, woman!”
“Give me a blade. Just your dagger; that’s all I need,” Dorotèa snapped.
She resisted moving entirely now. Her heels dug in, and when Tirel tried to shove her onward, she attempted to bash him with the torch.
He swatted it with the barrel of the musket and sent it hissing and snuffed by the trickling waterway.
With her hands freed, she clawed at him, every unarmed attack she knew be damned.
Fury diminished her senses. “You can have your sword. I’ll take you on, honorably and fairly. I’ll give you the justice you deserve—”
Tirel’s muscled bulk proved too much. He threw her backwards, and Dorotèa’s fragility saw her lose her balance and fall.
The hall swayed around her, and she found it was not so easy to blink everything back into focus and leap back up to her feet this time.
The hall appeared to swell, which she assumed was because of her head. Only—no. No, it wasn’t her.
She looked around and found that they had stopped at the mouth of the hall, where it attached to a larger room with a cluster of shelves, barrels, and scaffolding to an upper walkway and more crates.
The trickle of water ran towards a spring in the middle of the room, and it split down into several tracks heading down other halls that started from that point.
It was a crossroads, she realized. The Aixois underground went beyond her expectations.
Tirel stood over her with his gun poised.
This was it, then. Down in the dark, with the rush of water the only music to spirit her up to the angels in heaven.
It sounded peaceful as it lapped up against the old stone at least. It masked so masterfully the faint echo of footsteps approaching from the way they came.