The Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp (Alfred Kropp #1)(31)

Her crying went on for a long time. I had cried for my mom when she died, but not the way Miriam was crying for Windimar. It was while I listened to her cry that I realized what I did went beyond Uncle Farrell, Mr. Samson and the knights, Bennacio and Windimar. What I did was slamming people I didn’t even know about, like Miriam, the shock waves of my boneheadedness spreading out in ever widening circles, like a boulder the size of Montana landing in the ocean or that huge asteroid that hit the earth millions of years ago, wiping out the dinosaurs.

I finally fell asleep and dreamed I was scrambling up this rocky slope, not exactly a mountain, more like a slag heap of broken rock and tiny glittering shards of quartz or maybe those crystals you see growing inside of caves, sparkling like big wet teeth in the moonlight. I kept slipping and sliding as I tried to reach the top. The palms of my hands and my knees were all cut up and bleeding. Every time I gained a couple feet, I lost one, but it seemed very important I get to the top. I caught ahold of a big boulder near the summit and pulled myself up.

I rested awhile, looking at the shimmering shards littering the hill beneath me, feeling kind of proud of myself that I made it at least this far.

Finally I stood up, turned, and jumped the rest of the way. The top was perfectly flat and covered with long grasses whose tips reached up and caressed my aching legs as I walked toward this yew tree.

Under the tree sat a lady wearing a white robe, and her hair was long and dark, and her face almost as pale as her dress.

I don’t know why, but she seemed familiar to me, and when I got close she lifted her head and smiled.

She looked at me with her sad, dark eyes, as if she knew me, and something I had done or failed to do had disappointed her. Then she asked me a question and I woke up.

“You have been dreaming,” a voice said.

I scooted up in the bed and saw Bennacio sitting in the rocker by the fireplace.

I brought my hand to my face and it came away wet. I’d been crying.

“There was this . . . lady,” I said. I cleared my throat. “All in white, with dark hair.”

“Did she speak to you?”

“Yes.”

“What did she say?”

“She asked me a question.” I didn’t want to talk about it. Bennacio had a bemused expression on his face, as if he knew what I’d been dreaming.

“What was the question?” he asked.

“She asked me . . . she asked me where the master of the Sword was.”

“And what was your answer?”

“I didn’t have an answer.”

“Hmmm.” He was smiling at me. Not a big, wide smile, but a secret little smile, like he knew what my answer should have been and that maybe I knew it too, and all that was holding me back was my reluctance to think things through.

“Who was she, Bennacio?”

“That is not for me to say.”

“How come?”

“She came to your dream, Alfred.”

I remembered him talking about angels as if they were real and wondered if the Lady in White was one. But why would an angel talk to me?

“I never believed in angels and saints or even God, much,” I told Bennacio.

“That hardly matters,” he said. “Fortunately for us, the angels do not require our consent in order to exist.”

Everything about this Bennacio guy reminded me of my own insignificance. I didn’t think he was trying to put me down, though. He had stepped up to a different level long before he met me. It wasn’t his fault I was still scrubbing around at the bottom of the slag heap.

“I never really gave much thought to stuff like that,” I said. “I guess one of my biggest problems is I don’t take the time to think things through. If I did, the Sword would still be under Mr. Samson’s desk and Uncle Farrell would be alive. Everybody would be alive and Miriam wouldn’t be crying but maybe sewing on a tapestry. Did she make that? It must have taken her a very long time. What happened to Windimar, Bennacio?”

“I have told you. He fell near Bayonne.”

“No, I mean, what happened to him?”

“Do you really wish to know?” He studied me for a minute, and I wondered why he had come in here while I slept. It was like he knew I would be waking up and he wanted to be there when I did.

“Very well. He was traveling by rail to Barcelona, the rendezvous point for our assault upon Mogart in Játiva, when he was set upon by seven of the Dragon’s thralls. He might have escaped, but he chose to fight.

“He was the youngest of our Order, impetuous, idealistic—and vain. He never believed that our cause might fail. His pride undid him, Alfred. For though he fought well and bravely, besting five before he was overcome, in the end the two that remained mutilated him while he still drew breath.”

His voice had dropped to a whisper. He wasn’t looking at me anymore, but at some point over my head.

“He was found with no eyes, Alfred. They killed him, and then they cut out his eyes.”

His gray eyes turned to me then, and they were hard. “The enemy has been gathering such men to himself for two years now, Alfred, since Samson expelled him from our Order. You have not lived very long, but surely you have heard of such men. Alas, the world is full of them. Men without conscience, their hearts corrupted by greed and the lust for power, their minds twisted past all human recognition. They have forgotten love, pity, remorse, honor, dignity, grace. They have fallen, mere shadows of men, their humanity a distant memory. Mogart has promised them riches beyond human imagining, and in their lust they have descended to barbarity beyond divine imagining. Remember that before you judge me for what I did in Edinburg. Remember Játiva. Remember Windimar’s eyes, and then you may judge me.”