“Three?” Lukas asked. He was happy that Gwendolyn was speaking to him. “You mean you, your father, and your mother?”
“No, my mother died a long time ago. I mean my father, Jussi, and me.”
“Jussi?” Lukas blinked.
“My younger brother. He’s a hunchback, and he’s not quite right in the head. The other boys always attack him, especially now that Father’s dead and I have to leave him alone so often.” She paused, biting her lip. “He cries a lot. He’s probably terrified right now because I’m not with him.”
“You were with your brother this morning, weren’t you?” Lukas asked cautiously. “Why didn’t you say so?”
Gwendolyn shook her head. “No one can know about him. The guards will throw him in a madhouse, or beat him to death like a rabid cur. I promised Father I would look after Jussi!”
“But you can trust us,” Lukas said.
“Trust you?” Gwendolyn laughed. “The way you all trust me? Forget it! You won’t tell me what’s going on with all this witchcraft around here, either.”
She turned away again, and for a time, the only sound was the buzzing of some flies that had wandered into the cellar. “So why are you down here?” Gwendolyn asked after a while, breaking the silence. “Did you get in a fight with your friends?”
“You could say that,” Lukas sighed. “I’m down here because I’m the book thief.” He summarized what had happened and explained why he had stolen the Grimorium.
Gwendolyn listened attentively. “A real magic book, then,” she said when he finished, nodding in admiration. “I’ve heard the stories about Taliesin the bard, the one who wrote it. He’s from Wales, where my family is from. It’s a mountainous, inhospitable region with its own language. No one has ever conquered us. In Wales, we still believe in magicians, elves, pixies, and spirits. Speaking of magicians, though . . . you can do magic, too, can’t you?” She winked at Lukas. “You used it to heal me. Why don’t you just cast a spell to get us out of here?”
“I don’t know if I can,” Lukas replied. “Doing magic has only worked for me three times. I don’t think I’m as good at it as my sister yet.”
“But you don’t need a book to do it. Plus, you’re a good fighter. I like good fighters. Magical fighters, mages, like the legendary Manawydan from our beautiful Wales.” Gwendolyn stood up and came over to him, smiling. “Lukas the Mage. Doesn’t sound half bad.”
She ran a hand over his head. Lukas blushed, and desperately hoped that she wouldn’t notice in the dim light.
“I say we wait until things quiet down up there,” Gwendolyn suggested softly. “Then you try to conjure us out of here. All right?”
Lukas nodded silently, tongue-tied. He didn’t dare dash her hopes, for fear of disappointing her.
The sun had set, and night had fallen. Loud voices rang out upstairs for a moment, followed by footsteps. Finally, the tavern door slammed shut and everything was still again.
“Your supposed friends are off looking for the imperial sword now, getting their noses bloodied in the process,” Gwendolyn said with a smirk. “Go on, work your magic,” she said, gesturing to the cellar door.
“I’ll . . . try.” Hesitantly, Lukas went up to the oaken door, which was locked from the other side with a heavy latch. What was he supposed to do? Put his hand on the knob? Mumble something? He didn’t have the first idea how to go about it. The other times, the power had simply flowed out of him. Maybe that would work this time, too.
He pressed his hands against the door, closed his eyes, and concentrated.
Open! he thought.
Nothing happened.
“What’s wrong?” Gwendolyn asked. “Don’t you have to say some magic words or something? That’s how the marketplace magicians always do it. You have to mumble something like ‘abracadabra’ or ‘simsalabim.’ Something Latin.”
“I’ve never been that good at Latin,” Lukas stammered, frantically searching his mind for the words for “open” and “door.” It had been years since his last Latin lessons with Castle Lohenfels’s then chaplain, and he’d always hated the subject.
Finally, he remembered the words.
“PORTA PATEFIAS!” he cried, trying to give his voice a dark, threatening tone. When nothing happened, he repeated the phrase, waving his hands around in the air. “PORTA PATEFIAS! PORTA PATEFIAS, damn it!”
Gwendolyn eyed him skeptically. “You don’t have any idea how to open it, do you?”
Lukas shook his head in defeat. “The other times, the magic just came out of me somehow. I heard the voice of my dead mother, and then it happened. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.”
“Well, Mister Would-Be Magician, then we’ll just stay imprisoned here until your friends come let us out. If they ever come back, that is,” she added gloomily. “They might also get torn to pieces by spirits and ogres, and then we’ll be left sitting in here until we rot.” She withdrew to a dark corner of the cellar, where she curled up and sulked.
Too ashamed and embarrassed to reply, Lukas went to a different corner and sat down. A while passed without either of them saying a word.
Lukas bit his lip. He’d wanted to impress Gwendolyn so badly, and now he’d ruined everything. He brooded silently, wondering what he’d done wrong. Once again, he shut his eyes and tried to call his mother’s voice to mind, but he couldn’t do it. And there was nobody he could ask for advice! Not even Senno, who had once told him so much about magic.
Lukas still couldn’t understand what had happened to the astrologer on that magical journey from Castle Lohenfels to Prague. Maybe he really was stranded somewhere across the sea, trying desperately to reach them. Or was he dead? At the bottom of the ocean, perhaps, or twenty feet underground?
The mysterious messenger . . .
Lukas blinked. A realization hit him. What if Senno was right here in Prague? What if all of this was just some sort of great test, serving some higher purpose? Could Senno be the stranger sending them the letters? It certainly sounded like the sly sort of thing he would do, even if Lukas couldn’t imagine why.
A soft melody jerked him out of his thoughts. It was Gwendolyn, singing a song in a foreign language—probably Welsh, Lukas thought. The song sounded both cheerful and sad, and it gave Lukas renewed courage.
“Paham mae dicter, o Myfanwy . . .”
When the song ended, Lukas turned to Gwendolyn. “That was lovely,” he said. “What was that you were singing?”
“A song my father once taught me. It’s about the beautiful queen Myfanwy, who shuns all of her suitors. I sing it to Jussi a lot when he can’t sleep.” She sighed. “I hope he’s all right. I promised the old peddler half a guilder if he’d take good care of him. If I could only get out of here!” Furiously, she pounded the barrel she was leaning against. Then she stood up, went over to the door, and kicked it. “This is so unfair. I haven’t done anything wrong, and I still have to waste away down here with a puny little charlatan.”
“Don’t call me puny.” Now anger was bubbling up within Lukas as well. “Charlatan, fine, but not puny!”
“Puny, puny, puny!” Gwendolyn kicked the door with every word. “Hah, I can do better magic than you! Listen. Abracadabra, farting bear, open up, door, see if I care! It’s Gwendolyn, the redheaded Welsh witch!”
Smirking, Gwendolyn turned to look at Lukas—but her expression changed instantly when she saw that Lukas was staring at her with his mouth hanging open. “Th-the door,” he stammered.
The latch slid aside, and the cellar door creaked open.
Giovanni, Paulus, and Jerome were standing on the other side. Their robes were torn and dirty, their faces blood-streaked. The right sleeve of Giovanni’s shirt was soaked with blood as well. Lukas didn’t think he’d ever seen so much terror on his friends’ faces.
“What happened?” he asked apprehensively.
“All is lost!” Giovanni gasped. “You were right, Lukas. Your sister, she . . . she really is a monster.”
XVIII
In the light of the single torch in Jerome’s hand, the three friends’ faces appeared chalk white, ghostly. Now Lukas noticed the blood on the blades of their weapons as well.
“What happened?” he asked again. “What about Elsa? Tell me!”
“We were on our way to the third hiding place,” Paulus replied, breathless. “But the whole thing was a trap! Someone had tattled on us to the city guards. They were waiting for us just beyond the Vltava Bridge. Must have been at least two dozen!”
“I have my suspicions about who the traitor was,” Lukas remarked grimly. “But go on, what happened?”
“It was a unit of Red Archers,” Jerome went on. “Old, battle-hardened warhorses who knew every trick in the book. Giovanni took an arrow and . . . and . . .”
“And then what?” Lukas prompted him, sensing that his friends hadn’t gotten to the worst part yet.
“Elsa cast a spell,” Paulus replied darkly. “She brought that damned book out and mumbled a few words, and then the nightmare began. All of a sudden, the guards were being attacked by some invisible thing that only they could see. It must have been terrifying. They were crying and screaming and . . .” He broke off, shaking his head.
“And then something just tore the guards to pieces,” Giovanni finished. “Shredded them like paper. I’ll never forget the sound as long as I live. Only a few of them managed to flee. We ran from it, too, as fast as our legs could carry us.” His face was deathly pale. “We lost sight of Zoltan and the others. We had no idea where they were, or if they made it out alive, so we came back here.”
“I warned you all about my sister,” Lukas murmured tonelessly. “Now, I fear it may be too late.” Deep down, he sensed that Elsa had gotten away from him. The Grimorium had taken control of her.
“You have to stop your sister, Lukas,” Giovanni ordered. “Who knows what she’ll do next? She seems to be capable of anything! No doubt the guards who managed to escape have alerted every available unit in Prague. If you don’t stop Elsa, the entire city will be a bloodbath!”
“She won’t listen to me,” Lukas replied in a glum voice. “I’m the one who stole the Grimorium from her, remember? To her, I’m a traitor and a thief.”
“But you’re still her brother. Doesn’t that count for anything?” Gwendolyn was standing behind him. She’d crept up like a cat. “Believe me, I know how strong the bond between siblings is,” she said. “We have to try, at least.”
“We?” Lukas turned to stare at her in amazement. “You’re free, Gwendolyn. There’s no reason for you to help us. You can go your own way.”
“That would suit you all just fine, wouldn’t it?” She folded her arms defiantly. “You’re forgetting that I want my share. I brought you to the imperial crown, and your commander owes me a pile of gold for it. I wonder how tall the pile will be if I return your sister to him?” She paused, furrowing her brow. “Assuming Zoltan is still alive, of course. But that’s a risk I’ll have to take.”
“And perhaps they’re together out there,” Giovanni replied. “All I know is that we need to leave here as quickly as possible—if someone told the Red Archers where we were going tonight, they probably know where we’re staying as well.”
“Damn it, you’re right,” Lukas cried, starting for the stairs. “Let’s get out of here! Hopefully it’s not too late to . . .”
All at once, the sounds of loud voices and thundering footfalls came from the other side of the tavern door.
“Merde, they’re here already,” Jerome said in a low voice. “Hurry, we’ll take the back exit.”
They ran to the kitchen, where another door led out into a rear courtyard. Lukas glanced back and realized that Gwendolyn hadn’t followed. She was still standing in the kitchen, looking around as though searching for something. “What are you doing?” he whispered. “We need to go!”
“I’m not going anywhere without my bow,” she replied curtly. She began rummaging through different boxes and chests, even as the guards outside began kicking the front door down with their boots. Now it would be only a matter of seconds before they were inside the tavern.
“Ah, listen, we’ll get you another bow.” Lukas tugged at her sleeve. “We really don’t have time for this—”
“I’m Welsh,” Gwendolyn broke in. “Our bows are like children to us. Here! Here it is!” She drew her oddly curved bow out of the chest in the very back corner, along with her quiver. “Now we can go,” she said.
When Lukas and Gwendolyn went out to join the others in the courtyard, they saw that it was already too late. Several of the guards had rounded the tavern and were blocking their escape route. More soldiers in Red Archer uniforms were emerging from the tavern and approaching from that direction. The courtyard was too narrow for them to use their longbows, so they drew their swords resolutely.
“In the name of the Kaiser!” called one of the guards, likely the captain. “You are under arrest for theft, heresy, and—”
That was as far as the man got before Paulus rammed the grip of his schiavona into his stomach. Jerome and Giovanni moved toward the other soldiers with their rapiers drawn. There were at least three Red Archers for each of them. Lukas threw himself into the middle of the fray, thrusting and jabbing his rapier in every direction as he searched desperately for a way out. The back courtyard had only one narrow exit, and the guards were blocking it. Even if they managed to defeat the ones they were fighting now, they’d never make it through the cramped passage. And they didn’t have time to climb up onto the roof.
We’ll have to try, at least, he thought. Otherwise Elsa’s lost, and maybe the entire city with her!
Just then, Lukas heard a buzzing sound, followed by horrified shrieks coming from the guards. It was Gwendolyn, hailing down arrows on the men. Lukas thought back to how she’d shot at him in the marketplace alley just a few days before, and marveled once again at her ability to use the bow with such unbelievable speed, even in these tight spaces.
Bows were normally only used for distance fighting, but Gwendolyn loosed her arrows equally well in close combat—and it took her only seconds between one shot and the next, though she was continuously changing position. Now Lukas realized that she wasn’t even readying one arrow at a time, but often held several arrows in her hand at once. She whirled through the courtyard, aimed, fired, scooped up arrows in a single, fluid motion, causing chaos among the guards, who began throwing themselves on the ground or hiding behind barrels, thinking they were facing an entire army of archers.
“Damn it, they’ve gotten reinforcements!” the captain shouted, looking around for the invisible enemy fighters. “Take cover, men!”
“Now!” Gwendolyn whispered to the boys. “Let’s go!”
They ran out of the courtyard and into the alley before the watchmen could figure out what had actually happened. They didn’t stop until they were several streets away and the Red Archers’ shouts had faded into the distance.
“That was amazing!” Lukas panted, gesturing to Gwendolyn’s bow. “Where did you learn to shoot like that?”
She shrugged. “My father taught me. We Welsh often ambushed the infernal Normans up in the mountains.” She grinned. “By the time they’d drawn their longbows, they had at least five holes in their chests.”
“Unfortunately,” Giovanni said, “Gwendolyn’s archery skills won’t help us find Elsa.” He gritted his teeth and gripped his upper arm. The arrow wound he’d gotten when the Red Archers attacked the group in the city earlier seemed to be causing him tremendous pain.
“If Zoltan and the others are still with her, I’m sure they’re looking for the imperial sword,” Lukas pointed out. “You all know where that is, right? So all we have to do . . . is . . .” Lukas trailed off, realizing that all three of his friends were looking down at the ground abashedly. “Wait, you don’t know?” he cried in horror.
“Ah, non.” Jerome toyed with his rapier in embarrassment. “Zoltan only told us that we were head
ed someplace inside Prague’s Jewish quarter. He said this time we were going into the lion’s den, and that he’d tell us the rest when we needed to know.” He shrugged. “I suppose he was suspicious that there was a traitor in our midst.”
“Jurek!” Lukas hissed. “Jurek is the traitor. Think about it! He was the reason we nearly didn’t make it into the marquis’s palace, and I’m sure he was the one who stole the book about Polonius from the cloister library.”
“We can worry about Jurek later,” Giovanni said. “Right now, the most important thing is to find Elsa, so let’s go to the Jewish quarter. Maybe someone there has seen your sister and the others.”
“Provided that the entire quarter hasn’t already gone up in flames,” Paulus added, scowling. “When Elsa has that book in her hands, I wouldn’t put anything past her.”
With only patchy moonlight illuminating their path, the friends crept silently through the alleys of Prague until they reached the Vltava Bridge again. Innumerable torches flickered on the other side of the river around the gatehouse. Shouts occasionally rang out.
“Damn, might have guessed that,” Paulus growled. “All hell’s still loose over there. We’ll never get across the bridge.”
“Let’s find another way over, then,” Giovanni replied, already running down to the river, where several fishing boats were bobbing in the protective safety of a stone jetty. At this time of night, the quay was deserted. “The chaos gives us one advantage, at least,” he said quietly to Lukas.
They jumped into one of the boats and untied the mooring. Soon they were drifting along the Vltava. Paulus took the oars and rowed with powerful strokes to the other bank, where the river lapped at a slippery quay wall.