Double Cross Read Free Page A

from—would be irrevocably altered. Greg had no idea how to prevent any of that from happening, but he had to try. And the first step was figuring out how to escape. There was no chance that anyone was coming to help them; no one even knew where they were. If the Musketeers were going to get out of Les Baux, they’d have to do it themselves.
    Keep your eyes open, Greg thought. Don’t let anything escape your attention. Somehow, somewhere, there is a way out of here.
    He lifted his head as high as he could with the chains hanging from his neck and tried to ignore the taunts and blows of the townsfolk and concentrate on his surroundings.
    They were heading uphill toward the castle, which loomed above the center of town and, among other things, housed the dungeon where they would spend the night. Although he loathed the place, Greg had to admit the castle was rather amazing. Some of the lower floors inside were belowground—carved directly into the mountain itself. Entire rooms and stairwells hadn’t been built so much as sculpted. The upper floors had been made with the excavated stone, so that the castle appeared to be an extension of the rock it sat on. It perched at the very edge of the mesa, its southern wall flush with the cliff below.
    The castle was much newer and far better constructed than the Louvre palace, with tall turrets and ramparts and large windows. Every facet was bright and clean. It was almost a relief to pass from the dirty, noisy outside tumult into the clean, quiet entry chamber. And the entry paled in comparison to what came next: the banquet hall.
    As they made their way into the hall, Greg noticed that it was designed to impress guests, to signal that the lord of Les Baux was a man of great standing. It was built on the southern side of the castle, so that its large windows offered impressive views of the lord’s lands. Anyone standing before them had a commanding view of the surrounding countryside for thirty miles—although there was a vertiginous drop to the swamp at the bottom of the cliff. The room was huge, with a banquet table large enough to seat fifty people, flanked at either end by huge fireplaces big enough to roast entire cattle in. A vaulted ceiling soared four stories above, and a grand stone staircase swept around the northern edge of the room to a wide interior mezzanine on the east.
    Most impressive of all, however, was the chandelier. It was the largest Greg had ever seen, a huge wheel of wood suspended by a long, thick rope that threaded through an iron ring in the center of the ceiling and then wound around a winch on the main floor. Nearly a thousand candles sat on the wheel, and when lit, they were spectacular. In 1615, once the sun went down, most rooms—even those in the Louvre—were generally dim and full of shadows. But with all the candles lit, the banquet hall was as bright as day.
    The chandelier, t hought Greg. As he stared up at it, an idea began to form in his mind. . . .
    â€œAh, hello, my dear prisoners!”
    Greg shifted his gaze to the mezzanine, where Lord Contingnac, ruler of Les Baux, now looked down on them. He was a rotund man with a big black beard and a wide belly, who always seemed to take great joy in making others suffer.
    â€œIt looks like your hangings are going to be quite the event tomorrow!” Contingnac crowed smugly. “The whole town is very excited to see them!”
    Athos glared at the lord. “It should be your neck that hangs tomorrow for treason, not ours,” he said.
    Contingnac laughed. “Oh, that’s good. Say something like that tomorrow on the gallows. The people will then love it even more when you die!” He paraded down the grand staircase, his eyes fixed on the prisoners. “It is your king and all his followers who have committed treason,” he said. “Louis is not the rightful ruler of France. Rather than take the throne, he should have abdicated to