Chapter Two of Gathering Lead

After being incapacitated by the queen Father Camden plots his escape and formulates a plan to capture the fleeing child.

Chapter Two

Father Camden snapped awake startled by the sound of his own snoring. He lay on his side with his knees pulled up to his chest and his arms tied painfully behind his back. Blood had congealed in his nostrils damming the flow of oxygen.

Marsiai b***h must have broken my nose.

He thought as the hot iron taste of blood filled his mouth and trickled slowly down his throat. As he continued to assess his predicament he felt at the tight restraints around his wrists, the queen had obviously never bound a prisoner before and she had maken a simple mistake. When tying captives the trick is to use a relatively loose constrictor knot rather than a tight static knot. The static knot may feel nice and secure but if the prisoner flexes or holds their hands in the right way the knot may be wriggled out of. Constrictor knots are designed to tighten when pulled against so even if the victim uses all techniques which would be perfect for a static knot they would just wind up bound all the tighter. The Queen had used a static knot and even though the father had been unconscious while he was being tied up he did still know one trick to free himself from the confines of the rope.

He then attempted to open his eyes but they were well swollen shut. Father Camden may have been taken by surprise by the Queen. But he was not a fool nor was he a stranger to captivity. During the Crusade of Roses he had been captured by Amelimi priests or imam khatib as they called themselves in their filthy language. One of the lessons he had learned from his captivity was to take stock of everything before taking action.

So he bent his senses to give him a clear picture of what was happening around him. With his arms tied so securely he knew that stretching them would be a futile undertaking. So he used his knees to push himself onto his back and press his fingers tight against the ground. He felt heavily packed dirt and leaves beneath him. He was quite possibly still in the queens balcony gardens. Although last he remembered he was on the paved courtyard closer to the center of the gardens. So he must have been moved. Bound and moved, but not moved far, possibly to keep him away from prying eyes. Meaning the Queen may not have told anyone about what had happened. He heard the melodic sound of wind blowing through the fischios, a small tree from Marsia with oddly shaped leaves which formed in funnels to hold water. Those funnel like leaves would whistle when the wind caught them at the perfect angle. The queen had planted the fischios in each of the four corners of her garden but the way that the balcony was protected from the wind by the rest of the castle meant that he was most likely in the northern section of garden, in the eastern corner. That meant that even if he did start screaming there was a good possibility that the wind and the trees would drown him out. His sense of touch and hearing had served him well but he was still very much handicapped by his lack of vision and the bloody dam that had formed in his broken nose.

What had the queen had planted in the northern garden? Jaries? No, Neubois.

An alchemical breed of bright blue flowers with multicolored stems from Chalusse which smelled of vanilla and honey. The scent of honey and vanilla would confirm everything he had extrapolated about his location.

He attempted to clear the thick elixir of blood and mucus from his nostrils by closing his mouth tight and blowing through his nose. A hot flash of pain exploded through his head as the bloody plugs slowly pushed out of his nose and then shot outward. He felt a new wave of blood begin to gush down his chin. Before the blood was given the time to coagulate he took a quick sniff. There was the strong metallic scent of blood as he inhaled deeply with a hint of honey and vanilla. A small laugh escaped his lips.

“Buongiorno, Padre”

The Father froze as he heard the Marsiai greeting silently cursing the senses he had recently thought so highly of.

“Queen Mariella, how nice of you to stop by, the garden smells lovely this time of year.”

“They smell lovely the year round figlio di puttana.” calmly retorted the Queen.

“I’m afraid I’m not quite familiar with that particular turn of phrase. Cosa significa?”

“It means w****s son” obliged Mariella.

“Ah” replied the priest.

An uncomfortable silence grew between the two would be killers. The father strained to open his eyes again, this time with more luck. The Queen stood above him in the same clothes she had been wearing earlier in the day a blue silken gown, that was all the current rage of the country now that alchemical silk was readily available thanks to the alchemists amended mandate allowing their guild members to join secondary guilds to further the crafts in those areas. Although the queen's dress was obviously nothing so mundane as common alchemical silk. Hers was probably silk from the Tiger Spiders of Shangping, or from the scorpion worms of Raipanga. She held his ceremonial dagger loosely in her hands as she watched him. The sun behind her bordered the horizon and from this he deduced that several hours had passed as he lay unconscious in the gardens.

“Queen Mariella,” entreated the father. “Your son is maledictus, he is cursed, you have to see that.”

The queen's hand tightened around the dagger handle as he spoke.

“He is not cursed” She seathed. “He is my boy and on the word of some fat old Apostles you would have killed him, for his gift?”

The father's face contorted at this. Calling the maledictionem a gift was akin to calling sewage a feast. Even the thought of it was repugnant.

“Gift!” Shouted the father in disgust. “Was it a gift when I was held captive by the imam khatib and tortured day in and day out for months? Was it a gift when they finally sent me back to my brothers after infecting me with their filthy plague?” The father's voice had shriveled from the shout to a diminutive whisper as he spoke.

“Was it a gift that let me watch as the boils melted my skin and killed my friends?” He spit at the queen. “F**k your gifts!”  

The queen stared at the bound man in horror.

“But he’s only a child.” she petitioned. “He could never do anything like that.”

“Bah” exclaimed the Preacher “Of course he could! Just as the sins of our fathers are passed to us. The Magis taint is passed down through their corrupt bloodline. The sin insidias, it is the power that taints. And if I spared your son I would have been responsible for the people he would inevitably slaughter.”

Doubt had crept into the queen's face. She obviously didn’t believe it but she knew that the father did, and maybe that was enough. He made a show of attempting to sit up and crushed his hand into the hard dirt, he cried out in agony as he felt the thumb on his left hand broke. Mariella jumped as if to help the man then stopped when the futility of her actions dawned on her. Why worry about the comfort of your murder victim?

“Father, I’m sorry for what I must do” said the queen. “I have to keep william safe.”

Father Camden looked up at the queen with resignation.

“I understand”

The dagger flashed in the light of dusk as Mariella raised it high preparing to plunge it deep into the priest's chest.

As the knife hurtled down toward him the Father's right hand darted out from behind his back and he caught the queens wrist. The queen screamed in horror and dropped the dagger as her captive took her wrist in his hand and rolled backwards kicking his feet into her stomach in a throw he had learned during his time in the crusades. The move was intended to be performed from a standing position and could throw attackers dozens of meters behind the defender. But the priest didn't need meters he just needed to kick the woman over the small parapet.

There was a long scream before the gut wrenching thud of flesh on cobbled stone. Then the last dying scream of the queen was echoed in the throats of the spectators who had seen the monarch fall,

Father Camden listened to the screams in the courtyard down below as he formulated a quick plan.

He snatched up the dagger and slashed at his robes ripping a sizeable length of cloth free from his sleeve, He then lay the knife across his left forearm and after a moment's hesitation carved a deep gash into his flesh. He allowed himself to cry out in agony as the sharp burn of the dagger exposed the sanguine medium of his hasty idea. He quickly dipped the torn sleeve into the welling blood of his arm and began to paint. A slash of crimson up, one down, left, right, and down again. He dabbed at the thick welling of blood on his arm and finished the grotesque sigil by connecting each of the points in a large encompassing circle.

The pentagram was the sign of the Sorcière; A Chaulassi sect of witches from a region near the Moreland border. The pentagram would guarantee both that the mage hunters of the church would be summoned and lend credence to his claims that the Chaulassi servant had planned on sacrificing the child in some nefarious ritual.

The father knew his ruse while convincing was not impenetrable. So he intended to follow the advice of one of the Amelimi captives he had been imprisoned with.

He couldn't remember the exact words of the phrase the Ameli had used but roughly translated it meant. A lie sealed in blood is a lie that will be believed.

“Help me Lord.” He whispered in a silent prayer to Kadalisayan God of purity, He transferred the knife bleeding left arm. He allowed himself the luxury of one final deep breath plunged the dagger deep into the muscle of his shoulder. This time the pain was too much and he succumbed to the burning agony of unconsciousness once again.