With One Look (14 page)

Sebastian stood in the darkened space of the basement, listening to the weak cries of people nearby, but it was so dark! "I can't see a bloody thing! And what the devil is that foul odor?"

He listened for a moment to the sounds coming from far above: running feet, muted shouts and cries, an occasional scream, attempting to see into this hellish darkness. He cursed himself for not having thought to bring a lantern.

A thud sounded from the stairs. "Mercedes!"

He walked slowly toward the sound, afraid to step into something, when suddenly, like a gift from the heavens, two men appeared at the bottom of the stairs, one holding a light. He swung back around to see the room illuminated, to see where the people were.

He heard the sound of his breath sucked into his lungs. He waited for a comprehensible thought to explain what he stared at; There were none. No human explanation.

Four people sat on the floor, side to side, back to back. Chains circled their bodies. They were naked; two men and two women, and they looked, dear God, half starved. Only two were conscious, staring back at him with fear and apprehension as if he were the devil come to torture them more. The other two were tilted, unconscious. Sores covered their bodies. The stench came from their naked flesh.

The light shifted behind him, briefly illuminating the surrounding walls, glinting off the metal of various weapons, tools, chains and shackles, and still he didn't grasp what he was seeing.

The light brightened as he stepped forward. Against the far wall was a queer chair. Two stirrups, with human feet in them, rose up in the air. He saw only her legs at first: the smooth, thin, brown legs of a woman. As the man behind him stepped forward he caught a brief glimpse of the rest of her. He almost screamed. She was mercifully quite dead, one side of her face caked in dried blood falling in black streaks down her body.

Two distinct qualities mixed to make Sebastian one of the greatest swordsmen alive: skill and speed, and it was the latter that saved his life. For as his comprehension dawned and he bent over to retch, the blood vacated his limbs, replaced by a murderous rage brighter than the ravages of the fire above. The light behind him shifted, brightening as the man behind him stepped forward, and in the instant he realized the thud had been Mercedes, that they had killed her and would now kill him.

Sebastian rose, mobilizing his strength for a death blow. He heard the man's hellish cry and felt the piercing sting of the dagger sinking to the flesh of his biceps. Had he not already been moving it would have been his back. Yet it never stopped him. The man jumped back but Sebastian anticipated the leap and moved forward, his saber piercing the man's chest. Using all his strength, Sebastian forced it through the wall of the man's chest and pulled savagely downward. The man made no sound as a broad sword fell from his hand. Sebastian pulled his saber out of the man's chest as he dropped soundlessly to the floor.

The other assailant dropped the lantern and swung around to the stairs. Sebastian showed no mercy; he couldn't. His rage demanded revenge, and certain Mercedes was dead, he did something he had never done before: he thrust his saber into the man's back and forced the sharp metal down with an agonized cry. A scream sounded, stopping as the man's life left his body.

Sebastian stood still for several moments, panting.

He made not a sound, seeming more inhuman because of it, and not looking, he wrapped his hand around the dagger in his arm and yanked. Breathing hard and deep, he waited in the uncertain light for a coherent thought.

It came with the crackling sound above.

He looked up to see the slowly widening circle of burnt wood on the ceiling, widening like a bleeding wound. He picked up the lantern. He quickly held it up to the wall, trying not to think of what these weapons were used for. On the opposite wall he found what he searched for: an ax. His hands seized it as he turned to the poor wretches on the floor...

Within a matter of minutes, Sebastian had lifted all but one of the prisoners up the stairs and through the kitchen. He lifted the last in his arms, turning toward the stairs. He looked up as he did so. The basement's blackened roof bled, bubbling like a giant angry sore. Ducking, he raced to the stairs. A furious crackle sounded and the roof collapsed. Fire burst into the basement, lighting the walls like a sudden burst of sun. His bright blue eyes widened as he saw her.

She had been lying on the floor the whole time. Not dead. A strange leap of joy gave him inhuman strength. He leaped up the stairs. He stumbled and hit the wall. Burning hot. He gasped, righting himself, and reached the top. He handed the body to a waiting man.

The man's eyes widened as he took in the naked beaten Negro body. Sebastian had already turned to get Mercedes. "Monsieur! No, no! The stairs are collapsing! Look, the fire!"

Yet it was too late. Sebastian had Mercedes in his arms and was headed back up the stairs, choking on the smoke. No air remained in the narrow staircase. He took a step and the wall on his side collapsed. Flames leaped over the stairway ahead of him, blocking the only exit from hell.

Flames leaped onto Mercedes's skirts. Sebastian closed his eyes and with an anguished cry, he pushed into the burning flames. The step collapsed with his weight but somehow he was on the next one and then the next, emerging at last at the top of the stairs. He couldn't breathe. He was drawing smoke hard and fast into his lungs, choking violently. The kitchen was in flames, the other man many seconds gone.

Sebastian emerged into the driving rain.

He dropped to the ground, dowsing Mercedes's smoldering clothing in a puddle of water filling the street. He sat there, holding the still-unconscious beauty in his arms, drawing fresh wet air into his scourged lungs, telling himself over and over she was unharmed. She was mercifully unharmed. Then he looked at the sky as the rain washed his hot body in stinging cold drops.

Victor rode up to Charmane's house and drew his mount up hard, coming to quick stop. With a furious clamor, twenty of his men behind him also managed to stop. The horse leaped up, splashing down in the three inches of water flooding the street. Victor, a number of his men too, had pistols out and aimed at the woman who stood on the scorched and smoldering porch. A crumbling house of flames leaped and smoked behind her.

Sebastian stood on a farmer's cart before a crowd of maybe two hundred people, their torches dancing, flickering in the rain and illuminating their frightened faces. He held the girl Mercedes in his arms. The women and servants of the house huddled tightly together, clasping

hands and terrified, uncertain of their fate. Sebastian's shirt hung in burnt tatters from his frame; ash smudges and burns and cuts marked his bare skin. The people in the front could see the blood dripping unnoticed from his arm. Wrapped in blankets, crying and moaning, four Negroes lay in the cart behind him. Rain fell unnoticed on Sebastian's person as his voice thundered louder than the driving rain. "I accuse'... !" His voice roared as a man, behind him, lifted up one of the beaten Negroes to show the crowd the swollen belly of starvation, the gruesomely protruding ribs and stick-thin legs, the skin marked by months of hideous torment. "I accuse this woman ...!"

A volatile situation. Victor tensed and held his mount steady as the potential for violence grew with each of Sebastian's accusations. The horrible indictment slowly sank into the disbelieving consciousness of the witnesses, his own as well. The crowd was made up of perfectly ordinary men and women: housewives and servants, bakers, tailors, a shoemaker, one of the town's blacksmiths, innkeepers, a restaurateur and bar owners, the graveyard watch keeper, the proprietor of the flower shop on the corner, longshoremen, free Negroes, and slaves, even drunkards. Yet Sebastian united everyone with the fury in his voice. "I accuse... !"

The crowd became one animal who began to understand there was a festering wound on their body, one that must be rooted out and destroyed. A savage low grumble sounded from the people as they turned from the poor beaten wretch to the once-proud woman standing on her porch, her growing terror horribly illuminated as the fire smoked and struggled in the entrance hall behind Sebastian's relentless thrust: "I accuse... !"

"No!" Charmane cried out. "No! They are just slaves! I bought them, they belong to me—" "I accuse you"—he pointed, like an angry preacher damning the damned, each slowly

pronounced word emerging from his burnt throat to sound God's own outrage—"of leaving them to burn in your cellar as you tried to save your silverware! I accuse ... !"

Madame Jened reached into the pool of water at her feet and picked up the first stone.

Shouting with rage, she threw it hard. Another and another followed. Charmane cried as the rocks hit her. Victor contemplated the mercy of shooting her dead where she stood. He kicked his mount closer.

Girod and four of his men were pushing through the crowd, shouting in French to disband. People began lifting things from her huge pile of treasures to throw at her. A chair was broken into sticks, hands came over cups, vases, her neat pile of banking ledgers and finally a open box of silverware. As the Madame sheltered her head from the stones and knives pelting her body, she

caught sight of Girod. "Girod! Make them stop! Tell them! Tell them that I do nothing wrong, that

—"

Girod stopped in the very center of the crowd. He began to deny knowing the woman in rapid French. The Madame's stature lifted with fury as she pointed a finger at Girod and screamed, "God damn you to hell! I always paid you, your miserly protection tax, and you knew full well how I kept the slaves in the basement." She shouted, "You never cared a whit when they were screaming for your mercy!"

Not everyone caught this. As the shouts and screams of the crowd reached a feverish pitch, Girod heard a man near him call for his blood. He called for his men but the call was aborted as a fist swung into his stomach, then another and another. He dropped into the rising water of the street, laying facedown, with no consciousness to make him lift from the watery death. Yet no one noticed as the

crowd turned back to the Madame, surging toward her with shouts and screams. The people seized anything they

could get their hands on to throw. Victor's horse reared up, nearly unseating him. Madame Charmane took a deadly step back into the house to save herself. A collective gasp sounded as her scream sounded in the burning flames

Sebastian dropped to his knees. He tilted his face to the heavens. Over the rooftops, dawn stretched dim gray arms through the dark rain....

Victor studied the still-sleeping girl. The dark hair spread against the bedclothes. One arm was lifted above her head, the bed sheet barely covering the lift of her breast. Impossibly, she looked more beautiful in the afternoon light, and as he stood there staring he felt a flood of desire—

He turned away.

Victor pulled open the drapes, flooding his bedchamber with bright sunshine from the hot afternoon, and stepped out onto the shaded balcony. There he stood staring at the lush beauty of the acre or so of land, his land, a vast stretch of exotic landscape purposely patterned after the mysterious dark secrets of the Oriental gardens he loved. Thirty-foot-high bamboo enclosed the garden and obliterated the sight of houses nearby. The colors dazzled. The cherry orchards blossomed pink alongside scarlet gum trees, and towering maple and cypress trees created a dense green canopy over the far corner. Flower beds, artistically arranged around ferns, created a riot of color: especially the red and orange marigolds. Dark green ivy grew up over trunks and covered the

garden walls, competing with sweet scented jasmine, a bright pink-flowering vine and the bamboo. Chirping birds surrounded the stone rim of the cistern, filling the air with their sounds. The breathtaking beauty of the garden made him think of Jade and her blindness, the tragedy that had stolen such a precious thing from her....

As it always did, his gaze came to rest on the sculpture garden. Beneath the white-and-pink blossoms of an apple tree sat a large Buddha, smiling with profound amusement. This was one of the few times Victor did not smile back.

Dr. Murray had spent the morning mending and patching Sebastian's wounds, though his scorched lungs would just have to heal on their own. "Two days at most," was the good doctor's guess. Mercedes still lay unconscious, but appeared remarkably unscathed from the ordeal. One could only wonder at the mental scars that would remain forever. As Victor related what he'd learned of Mercedes's history to Sebastian, Sebastian had fallen quite still and quiet, overwhelmed by all that she had been through. Then he had gathered her into his arms....

Victor knew the feeling....

The Ursuline nuns themselves tended to the poor beaten and battered Negroes in the infirmary. The governor and the mayor were holding meetings on the subject of city corruption, as the incident brought numerous people forward to report many more of the late constable's abuses of his position.

Carl was busy answering the endless streams of inquiries concerning Jade Terese and Sebastian. The entire first floor looked like a flower shop. Sebastian was the hero, his name uttered by every mouth in the city as the fantastic story was discussed and repeated, over and over again.

"I accuse ..."

The trouble was, the woman's richly deserved death had destroyed any hope of discovering who had taken Jade to her house. Was it one man or two? Why had they sent Jade Terese to that house in the first place?

Voices rose from the garden below. His father and Mother Francesca stepped out onto the lawn and Victor watched as they strolled, deep in private communion. The Reverend Mother had seemed so unusually quiet, frightened and confused, when she'd listened to the lengthy explanation of what had happened to Jade Terese, repeating, "Merciful heavens... Merciful heavens..." to herself in a distracted manner. He kept waiting for the accusation to enter the good woman's eyes as it had with his father—whom he had long ago learned to ignore—but this had never happened. As if the