Simon heard the thick door slam and the iron bolt driven into place. He
stood in a blackness darker than any night outdoors would have been, his
scimitar heavy and invisible in his hand. It was all he had against an
enemy who was also invisible. He felt death rushing upon him out of the
darkness.
Except for the occasional vibrations of a rock hitting the palace wall,
all sounds of battle were blocked out of the spice pantry. In the deep
silence, Simon's heartbeat thundered in his ears like a kettledrum.
_It was my stupidity that opened the door to him._
He had caught only a glimpse of the enemy. All in black from head to
foot, eyes shining through oval holes in his mask. Truly like a devil.
The stalker had deliberately doused the light, which must mean he could
find his victims in the dark.
Simon's body went from hot to cold. While he stood here helplessly, the
men with him could be dying. He tried to force himself to think, but his
mind was motionless as a stone.
All around Simon was confusion. He heard Grigor, the guard who had
staggered into the room just before the light went out, moaning with
pain. He heard men stumbling about. They kept bumping into him. He
lowered his scimitar to avoid stabbing someone by accident.
A crash made Simon jump. That was the lantern, smashed probably, by the
man in black, so that no one could relight it.
Next he would start killing them, one by one.
_God, if only I had some light. Just a little._
The odors of the precious spices the Monaldeschi stored in this pantry
pervaded the air--saffron, cardamom, pepper, cloves, ginger, nutmeg,
cinnamon. When Simon had first entered the spice pantry a short time ago
it had seemed a pleasant enough smell. Now it was making him sick.
Was there still a lighted candle in the cellar outside?
"The door!" he shouted. "Get the door open." Friar Mathieu repeated his
command in the Armenian tongue.
He heard a scraping, as of someone pulling on the heavy bolt that held
the door shut. Then a thud and a choking cry of pain. Then a sound like
a heavy sack being dropped.
Simon groaned inwardly. He could picture what had happened. Now the door
was held shut, not just by a bolt, but by a dead body.
He felt ice cold, but sweat trickled under his mail. The blackness was
thick, a blanket, smothering him. The smells of the spices were cloying,
dizzying. His stomach felt queasy.
"Flint and tinder!" Simon shouted, and Friar Mathieu repeated his words
for the Armenians and Tartars. Everything he said had to be translated.
The delay was maddening.
And, Simon realized, anyone who tried to strike a light would make
himself the enemy's next target.
God's blood, even by answering Friar Mathieu the Tartars would give away
their location to the stalker. The man in black must be able to find his
victims by listening for them.
So, if sound would make them visible, then the only way to thwart this
demon would be by silence. And even now men were starting to answer
Simon's call for flint.
"Silence!" he shouted. His voice sounded shrill in his ears, like a
frightened boy's.
For a moment there was no sound in the blackness.
"He finds us by the sounds we make," Simon said. "Everyone remain still,
and we will hear him when he moves."
As Friar Mathieu translated, Simon realized that either he or Friar
Mathieu could be the next victim. The stalker would want to kill the
Franciscan so Simon could not communicate with the others.
And one Armenian was badly hurt, one was probably dead outside and one
dead by the door. Left able to fight were only Simon, the Tartars, and
one Armenian guard. They had swords and bows, but the bows would just be
encumbrances in this total blackness.
In minutes the ambassadors could be dead. Simon felt terrified, drowning
in darkness, almost overcome with helplessness.
_I must make him come to me._
The thought frightened Simon even more. He did not know whether he would
have the courage to act on it.
What weapons did the stalker have? In the glimpse Simon had of him
before he put the candle out, the man in black had seemed to be
empty-handed. His weapons must be small ones that could kill, but might
not be quite so dangerous to a man in mail.
"Everyone remain still," Simon said loudly. "You will hear me moving
steadily about. If you hear someone else as well, it is the enemy."
He racked his brain to remember the size and shape of the room. Holding
his sword low, he put his hand up before his face and forced himself to
take one step, then another. An attack might come from any direction.
The trembling of his hands and knees made his mail jingle faintly.
The mailed glove dangling from his wrist rattled as his bare hand
encountered a man's face. The man gasped and pulled away.
"C'est moi," said Simon, just to let the man hear his voice, knowing it
did not matter what language he spoke. He was not afraid of calling
attention to himself. He wanted the stalker to come for him. And he
wanted those on his side to know where he was so they would not attack
him by mistake.
The face he felt was hot, sweaty, with a bushy mustache--one of the
Armenians. The killer had been masked. Simon patted the man on the
shoulder and moved on. He doubted that he could find the man in black
this way. If the stalker were as skilled at moving about in the dark as
he seemed to be, he could easily evade Simon.
The Tartars seemed to have understood the peril they were in; they had
been silent now for a long time.
The thought struck him like ice between his shoulder blades: What if the
killer had already gotten to them, and they were silent because they
were dead? He wanted to call out to them, or to Friar Mathieu, to be
sure they were all right. He suppressed the urge and reached out for
another face.
This time he felt a beard. It was long and full. Friar Mathieu.
"C'est moi," Simon said again, and a hand reached up and squeezed his
reassuringly.
The next face was hard, bony. There was a mustache that his fingers
followed long below the mouth. The beard was thin, sprouting from the
chin only. One of the Tartars. Simon felt the face move under his touch.
Thank God, the man was alive.
He reached beyond the Tartar and felt a shoulder. This must be the other
Tartar. But no--the shoulder was high, as high as the Tartar's head.
Just as he was about to jump back he felt something brush over his hair.
A cord was around his neck.
It jerked tight with such force that Simon's breath was instantly cut
off. Pain circled his neck like a band of fire.
His scream forced its way through his throat as a drawn-out grunt as the
cord tightened still more. He could feel the blood in his head pressing
out against his temples and eyeballs. He felt as if nails were being
driven into his head.
He had his scimitar. He raised it and drove it back over his right
shoulder. It went through empty air. The killer had felt it coming and
ducked out of the way. But for a moment the cord cutting into Simon's
throat let up just a bit.
He heard voices all around him. The others knew what was happening. They
stumbled about, but they could not see to reach him. He felt himself
being dragged backward, pulled away from his comrades. The cord was
digging into his windpipe harder and harder. In a moment his mind would
go black. He would not even know when he died. He fought his terror,
knowing that if he yielded to it, he would surely die.
He _would_ live. He _would_ see Sophia again.
He tried to lean forward, to bend his knees, to find some purchase on
the stone for his iron-shod feet. Still, the attacker pulled him. Simon
felt he had only a child's strength compared to the man in black.
Dizzily Simon remembered tug-of-war games when he had been a page at the
royal palace.
_When one side lets go, everyone on the other side falls down._
With his last bit of consciousness, Simon squeezed his whole body into a
crouch, then sprang up and backward, like a bow released.
His mail-clad weight and the attacker's momentum threw them both
backward. They crashed together against shelving, and Simon heard
porcelain shatter. Clouds of ground spices enveloped them, and they fell
sideways to the floor, Simon on top of his attacker.
He heard a gasp as the man's breath was knocked out of him. And now _he_
could breathe. He choked on air saturated with cinnamon and curry, but
the cord was loose.
The fall had knocked his scimitar out of his hand. Anguished, he felt
for it, but it was as if it had fallen into a well.
"Simon! Where are you?" Friar Mathieu shouted.
"Ah! Ah!" Simon let his breath out and sucked it in, gasping. He wanted
to cry for help, but he could not use his voice. His body shook with
terror.
And he felt the body under him moving with swift and terrible power. The
cord snapped tight again.
But not before Simon got his right hand under it. The killer gave a
vicious jerk on the thin cord, and it felt as if it might slice through
his fingers. But Simon pushed against it with all the strength in his
right arm, and loosened the cord enough to be able to pull air into his
throat. He worked his other hand under it.