Prisoner of the Flames (Leisure Historical Romance) by Dawn MacTavish Page B

will also permit the eyes of Coligny’s troops—not to mention the cardinal, who has the eyes of a ferret.” He beckoned, and waited while Violette helped Robert up. “Come,” he said, “we go below.”
    Robert stared bewildered at the gaping hole, and Nostradamus smiled. Producing a beeswax candle and tinderbox from the folds of his gown, he lit the candle.
    “All old castles have their secret rooms,” he said. “They were designed to protect women and children in times of siege. I found this one quite by accident some years ago. Old ruins fascinate me. There is a similar mechanism for opening it from below as well.”
    Holding the candle high, he led them below to a spacious chamber gouged into the very bowels of the foundation. A long straw pallet lay in the corner. Spared the dampness of the upper level, it was actually fresher than the one Robert had vacated above, and hadn’t been visited by rats. It wasn’t the soft mattress he had dreamed of, but he sank gratefully into it nonetheless.
    “No one will sight the candle down here,” the healer told him. “This sanctuary is most cleverly designed. Many of the dovetail joints in these walls have been altered to form vents that let in the air when needed, but in such a way that no telltale light will leak through. It was intended to shelter many indefinitely. There are other chambers also—a maze of them, but enough of pre-Crusade architecture. Let’s have a look at that wound. Violette…,” he said, taking her hand, “let me lead you, child. I shall need you to assist me.”
    Saying no more, the aging physician drew a sack of herbsand powders, and a skin of fresh water from the folds of his gown, which seemed to serve as his traveling apothecary. And, while Violette held the candle with his guiding, he proceeded to cleanse, purify, and cauterize Robert’s wound, reviving him afterward with a medicinal cordial brewed of herbs.
    “He will recover, no?” Violette begged.
    “Most certainly, little flower,” Nostradamus assured her, blatantly astonished at the question. “He will mend quickly with rest and tending.”
    “I will leave you a draught made from the poppy for pain that will allow him the sleep he needs, and another to bathe the wound for now. It needs a poultice of bread and cheese mold. I will bring some when I return. You must dress it morning and night after a thorough cleansing. Here are clean binding strips,” he said, putting them in her hand.
    “No…!” Robert moaned from his drug-induced consciousness, “she…cannot stay here. I was going to leave her in Montaigne’s keeping. That is not possible now. The cardinal and Coligny’s men are at the château seeking me. That’s why we came here. They seek her also. The gendarmes, Jean-Claude and Henri, seek her. That is why she took refuge among the Huguenots. I am to blame for it. They would have liked to bury me in that filthy jail. But for her, I would be there still, or dead. For that, she will suffer if left unprotected.”
    “What is to be done with her, then?” asked Nostradamus.
    “Have I no say?” Violette interrupted. “My lord, you need not trouble over me. I will make my own way, just as I have always done.”
    “How?” Robert challenged, “—blind, alone, and sought by the authorities? How, lass, the way you did with Louis de Brach? Things are different now. You can no longer ‘do as you have always done.’”
    “I am not your responsibility.”
    “I must leave France now, while they think me dead. But first I must know that you are safe and cared for. Doctor Nostradamus…can you shelter her?”
    “No, young ram, I cannot, more’s the pity. I had hoped to be on my way home to Salon by now, but the king has suffered a relapse. He is consumptive you know, in the early stages of the disease. The foolish child took an outing yesterday in the autumn air without my sanction or anyone’s knowledge. It has set him back apace, I fear.”
    “God’s teeth!”