The Burning Road Read online

  PRAISE FOR

  THE BURNING ROAD

  “BOLDLY CONCEIVED … aims to please historical romance readers as well as futuristic thrill-seekers … Benson’s medieval tale and its colorful characters are … intriguingly drawn.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “ENGAGING … With the same ingenuity and skillful plot development she used in The Plague Tales, Benson takes us back to 14th-century Europe.”

  —The Tampa Tribune

  “Those who love richly textured historicals, edgy speculative fiction and suspenseful medical thrillers will enjoy Benson’s books.”

  —Sunday Herald

  “GRIPPING … Appealing on many levels, this exciting and complex tale will please sci-fi and historical fiction fans as well as readers interested in millennial themes.”

  —Booklist

  “What every reader dreams of—intrigue, suspense, romance, and drama. A definite must.”

  —Rendezvous

  PRAISE FOR

  THE PLAGUE TALES

  “A hard-to-put-down thriller steeped in historical fiction and bio-tech sci-fi thrilling … a rich, tightly rendered tale … the enticing hold of parallel historical and futuristic stories—with a virulent epidemic as the ultimate common enemy—is a grip that is hard to resist.”

  —Middlesex News (Mass.)

  “Benson reveals a formidable talent as she blends historical fiction with a near-future bio-thriller.… [Her] debut is assured and accomplished in both the past and the present.… [She]renders both eras and their character in vivid detail.”

  —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  “INTRIGUING … Benson neatly alternates between two attention-grabbing stories.”

  —Booklist

  “Harrowing … will give readers both nightmares and thrills … a carefully woven page-turner from which … Robin Cook and Michael Crichton could learn … the two plotlines dovetail neatly and boil to a twisted, satisfying conclusion. Readers of books like Richard Preston’s The Hot Zone will devour this fictional equivalent.”

  —Library Journal

  Also by Ann Benson

  THE PLAGUE TALES

  Published by

  Dell Publishing

  a division of

  Random House, Inc.

  1540 Broadway

  New York, New York 10036

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1999 by Ann Benson

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. For information address: Delacorte Press, New York, N.Y.

  Dell® is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 98-27783

  eISBN: 978-0-307-77810-9

  Reprinted by arrangement with Delacorte Press

  v3.1

  The author cherishes her memories of

  Al Prives and Linda Cohen Horn

  and dedicates this book to them.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Meryl Glassman did thorough and excellent background research in French, work that enabled me to bring the fourteenth century characters alive more fully and accurately. The wonderful people at Delacorte Press, especially my precious editor Jackie Cantor, made this sometimes difficult project feel easy. Jennifer Robinson, Peter Miller, and DeLin Cormeny of PMA Literary and Film Management made it all possible in the first place. The support of friends and family contributed immeasurably to my joy in the entire process. My thanks to everyone who helped along the way.

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  1

  1358

  When had Alejandro Canches last read the language on the papyrus before him? It would not come clear to his sleepy mind. In Spain, he thought; no, France, when I was first here.

  Ah, yes, he remembered, it was in England. The letter from my father, left behind when we fled.

  He struggled to reach back into the memory of that time, to push aside the veil of the years, for nestled dormant beneath the bitter wisdom of manhood was the sweet eagerness of the boy he had once been, the one who had studied these letters by candlelight under the careful scrutiny of his family. He had found pleasure in the task, while other boys his age complained. Of what use is all this studying? they would say. Soon we shall all be forced to speak Spanish anyway.

  If we are not killed before then, he recalled thinking at the time.

  The first page was done, its symbols unlocked, the words finally revealed. He felt the pride of that small boy, and the hunger for praise that never died. He ached to the depths of his immortal soul to do more, but his mortal body seemed determined to forbid him that joy. Would he awaken later in a cold pool of his own spittle, with the letters smeared to ruin beneath his cheek? Or would the candle burn down while he snored with his chin on his chest, and spread its wax upon the leaves? He could not allow either.

  He carefully turned back the papyrus pages and read to himself again what he had translated. The symbols, applied with aching precision in the purest gold, ran right to left on the page.

  ABRAHAM THE JEW, PRINCE, PRIEST, LEVITE, ASTROLOGER, AND PHILOSOPHER, TO THE NATION OF THE JEWS, BY THE WRATH OF GOD DISPERSED AMONG THE GAULS, SENDETH HEALTH.

  In these pages, the apothecary had claimed, there were great secrets. And it was only because he was in desperate straits, the rogue had further said, that he would consider parting with such a treasure. So the young woman who called Alejandro Canches her père had reached into the pocket of her skirt on a trip to the apothecary shop and extracted the gold coin he insisted she always carry, should they somehow be separated, and boldly exchanged the coin for the book. Alejandro had sent her out for herbs, and she had returned with leaves of a different sort. She had known what it would mean to him.

  He glanced across the small dark cottage in which they made their home of the moment, and smiled at her sleeping form. “I have taught you well, then,” he said quietly.

  Straw crinkled as the young woman shifted. Her soft voice drifted through the darkness, affectionate but chiding.

  “Père? Are you still awake?”

  “Aye, child,” he
said, “your book will not let me go.”

  “I am no longer a child, Père. You must call me by my name, or ‘daughter,’ if that pleases you. But not ‘child.’ And it is your book, but I begin to regret buying it for you. Now you must go to bed and give your eyes some peace.”

  “My eyes do not lack peace. They have far too much peace. They are hungry for the words on these pages. And you must never regret this acquisition.”

  She rose up on one elbow and rubbed the sleep from her face. “I shall if you will not heed your own warning that too much use will ruin the eyes.”

  He peered through the semidarkness at the young woman who had grown up so fine and lovely under his care, so straight and strong and fair. Only the barest hints of child-flesh remained on her face and fingers, and soon, he knew, that too would melt away, along with her innocence. But the rosy blush of girlhood still lingered on her cheeks, and Alejandro wished silently that it would remain just a little longer.

  She has become a woman, he admitted to himself. This notion was accompanied by a familiar twinge that he had yet to define to his own satisfaction, though he often thought “helpless joy” to be as close a description of it as he would ever find. It had lurked in his heart since the day, a decade before, when he’d suddenly found himself with this child to raise, and had grown as he discovered that despite his considerable learning, he was no better prepared than an unlettered man for the task. Although some men seemed to know just what to do and when to do it, he himself was not a man who did the work of mothering with natural grace. He thought it God’s cruel trick that the Black Death had claimed so many mothers—it was they who had labored alongside the physicians to bring comfort to their dying husbands and children, and then because of their proximity had died themselves in terrible numbers. And though he abhorred the dearth of mothers and physicians, Alejandro wished that more priests had been taken. Those who had survived were the ones who had locked themselves away for the sake of self-preservation while their brothers perished in service. He considered them a thoroughly scurrilous lot.

  He had done his solitary best for the girl, without a wife, for he would not sully the memory of the woman he had loved in England by marrying for mere convenience. And Kate had never complained of her lack of mothering. She had reached the threshold of womanhood with unusual grace and now stood ready to cross it. As the motherless ward of a renegade Jew, she had, through some unfathomable miracle, become a creature worthy of awe.

  The lovely creature spoke. “Please, Père, I beg you to heed your own wisdom. Go to sleep. Otherwise I shall have to do your reading for you when you are an old man.”

  This brought a smile to his lips. “May God in His wisdom grant that I shall live long enough to know such a worry. And that you shall still be with me when I do.” He closed the manuscript carefully. “But you are right. I should go to sleep. Suddenly the straw seems terribly inviting.”

  He moved the tome aside so it would not be splattered with wax, then placed one hand behind the candle flame and drew in a breath to blow it out.

  There was a knock on the door.

  Their heads turned in tandem toward the unfamiliar sound, and Kate’s voice came through the darkness in a frightened whisper. “Père? Who—?”

  “Shhh, child … be silent,” he whispered back. He sat frozen in the chair, the light of the candle still flickering before him.

  The knock came again, then a man’s firm, strong voice. “I beg you, I am in need of a healer … the apothecary sent me.”

  Alejandro shot an alarmed glance at Kate, who sat trembling on her straw bed with the wool cover pulled up protectively around her neck. He leaned closer and said in an urgent whisper, “How does he know I am a healer?”

  “He … he thinks that I am the healer!”

  “What? What nonsense is this?”

  “I had to tell the apothecary something, Père!” she whispered back, her voice almost desperate. “The man was inordinately curious and would not let the inquiry go! And it is not nonsense. You yourself have trained me in the healing arts. And so to satisfy him I told him that I—”

  “Midwife!” the urgent plea came from beyond the door. “Please! I implore you to open up! Your help is sorely needed!”

  Alejandro wanted simply to shoot a look of fatherly consternation at her, to shake a scolding finger in her face, to tell her she must never behave so foolishly again, and be done with it. But there was a stranger at the door. “Why did you not tell me this before?” he asked.

  She hastened to explain. “It did not seem necessary, Père—when the apothecary asked why I wanted such herbs as you sent me for, I told him that I was learning the healing arts! That was why he showed me the book. I swear, I said nothing of you.”

  He saw fright in her eyes, and understood that she was frightened of him. It was a woeful realization, one that filled him with shame. She had been trying to protect him from discovery and please him with the gift of the book. His anger melted. “All right. What’s done is done,” he said. “Now I must think how to answer.”

  Kate tossed the cover aside and rose up from her pallet, shivering in her thin shift. She found her shawl in the darkness and wrapped it tightly about her shoulders. “Why do anything at all?” she whispered. “Why not just ignore him—the door is strong enough. Eventually he will give up and move on.”

  Another knock came, more insistent. They huddled closer together.

  “There is nowhere else for him to go, if he is being pursued.”

  “Then we must open the door and turn him away!” she answered, her words barely audible.

  “He may not be so easily repelled.”

  “I will tell him I cannot help. Surely he will not insist!”

  The knock was louder this time, the voice pleadingly urgent. “Midwife—I beg you, open the door! I mean you no harm … I have brought an injured man!”

  “A moment, sir!” Kate called back. And with her words, all possibilities of hiding were eliminated.

  She ignored the astonished look on Alejandro’s face. “He has the speech of an educated man. He cannot be a ruffian.”

  “That is no guarantee that he will not harm us. Or betray us. A peasant is not likely to know that we are sought. An educated man might.”

  Their words were rushed and panicky. “But why a ruse—why not just capture us and be done with it?”

  An injury—work for his hands. All his physician’s healing instincts rose up, overwhelming his better judgment. Often of late his hands seemed to tremble in need of the work of healing. And it was entirely possible that the man had come solely because he was in need of help.

  Alejandro’s heart almost sang with the thought.

  He nodded his head toward the door and whispered, “God grant that we shall not regret doing this.”

  There came more pounding, then pleading. “Midwife!”

  “Lie down on your pallet, Père,” she whispered urgently, “and do not show yourself just yet. Let me speak for us.”

  “I cannot allow you to face this man alone—”

  “Be calm, I beseech you! A midwife is expected, and that is what we shall present. Pretend to be infirm—if I need your help or advice, I will say that I need to tend to you. If I kneel beside you we can whisper to each other without his hearing what is said.”

  “Aye, ” he answered quietly. “When did you become so brave and clever?” He hugged her to him for a few moments, cherishing the warmth she gave, missing terribly the small child she had once been. “May God protect us,” he said, and reluctantly he went to his bed.

  Staring back at her through the flickering light of the upheld candle was not the devil she had expected, but the frightened, uncertain face of a man she had not seen before, either in the nearby village of Meaux or in their recent travels north of Paris. Kate felt certain she would have remembered a man of such distinctive appearance—but he was not familiar.

  The silhouette of her unwanted caller nearly filled the doorway and s
he could feel his need to enter, but she stood her ground and barred the path through some miracle of courage. One glance in the candlelight told her that the man was younger than Père but older than herself, with intelligent, quick eyes and a high brow. And though his clothing did not speak of poverty, it was disheveled and dirty, as was his hair. He appeared to have been involved in a skirmish.

  She returned his hard look with one equally firm. “Sir, the apothecary has made too much of my skills, and I do not—”

  But he would not be refused, and pushed her aside. On the travois he dragged over the threshold were two forms—a heavy burden for even the strongest man.

  “Help me with these wounded!” he ordered.

  She ignored his demand and kept her eyes fixed steadily on him as he bent to his companions, one of whom began to groan and writhe. “Karle …” the fallen soldier called out in his pain. “Help me, Karle … I am run through, I fear.”

  The stranger beckoned urgently with his hand. “Bring the light—I cannot see him!”

  Kate held up her candle with one hand as the stranger pulled aside the blanket covering both men, and when the horror of what lay beneath it met her eyes she gasped out a quick and desperate prayer. Both men wore torn, filthy woolen garments that were soaked through with blood. On first glance she could not tell if both were bleeding or, if it was only one, from whom the blood originated.

  “Dear God in heaven,” she cried, “has there been a battle?” And then, with deeper fear in her voice, she looked with dismay at the man who had been called Karle and asked, “Are there English nearby?”

  The stranger gave her a suspicious look and said, “Midwife, though I would swear you are far too young to bear that title, it was not the dogs of England who did this to these good men, but the forces of Charles of Navarre, their own countryman!”

  As relief washed through her, she heard her own name called low from Alejandro’s straw pallet. The stranger Karle quickly turned his head in the direction of the sound. His hand went straight to a knife strapped to his belt.