Double Cross Read Free Page B

Condé.”
    â€œWill our deaths tomorrow be an example of the way Condé will rule France?” Aramis asked pointedly. “Does he plan to torture and kill all who don’t agree with him? Anyone who has to frighten the populace into following him isn’t a leader. He’s a despot. I would rather die for a good king than kneel to a tyrant.”
    Contingnac’s smile faded. “Condé has no need to frighten anyone,” he snarled. “My people love him.”
    â€œThey fear him,” Porthos said. “Condé is nothing but a power-hungry madman. Long live Louis! Long live the king!”
    Aramis and Athos took up the cry. Before Greg knew it, he and Catherine were shouting as well. After three days of being treated so poorly, the moment of defiance was an incredible release. Their voices echoed through the banquet hall and out into the town. And for a few brief moments, Greg felt alive and free again.
    Then the guards were on them. A fist slammed into Greg’s stomach, quieting him and doubling him over. To his side, Aramis was thrown to the floor. Another guard backhanded Catherine so hard that she fell. Athos and Porthos continued to make a stand, however, fending off the guards despite their chains. Throughout, they continued chanting. “Long live the king! Long live the king!”
    â€œSilence, you fools!” roared Contingnac. “Your precious king will not live much longer than any of you. Soon, Condé’s army will breach the walls of Paris, the prince and his betrothed will take the throne, and the glory of France will finally be restored!”
    To Greg’s surprise, these words did to Athos what all the guards couldn’t: They took the fight out of him. His defiance suddenly faded, replaced by shock and sorrow, and Contingnac’s men quickly took him down.
    Several pairs of hands grabbed Greg roughly and dragged him to his feet. The guards shoved him and the other prisoners out of the banquet hall, through the kitchen, and down another, less grand set of stairs. These wound downward into the rooms that had been chiseled directly into the mountain. Here were the granaries, armories, and storage rooms. Unlike the bright white rooms above, these rooms were dark and tomblike, filled with dripping water, bats, and rats. They were places deemed unfit for any humans to spend much time in.
    Except prisoners.
    The dungeon was down here as well. The cells weren’t really rooms so much as cramped spaces that had been dug into the rock. There were three of them, each less than four feet high. The guards unlocked the chains from their prisoners, then forced Porthos and Athos into the first cell, Catherine into the second, and Aramis and Greg into the third. Inside, the floor and walls were so rough-hewn, the space was little better than a cave. There was barely enough room for both boys—and no comfortable place to sit or lie down. There was only a thin slit in the cliff side to allow in fresh air and sunlight, and now that the sun had set, there was no light but the guards’ torches. When the thick wooden door slammed, that disappeared as well—and Greg and Aramis were plunged into darkness.
    The stone walls and door were so thick, it was almost impossible to hear anything outside—although Greg thought he could detect the faint sound of Catherine crying.
    He felt like crying himself. It wasn’t merely that death waited for him the next morning. It was the fact that even if he did miraculously escape, the chances of him ever setting things right and getting back to his own time seemed almost impossible.
    To start with, he didn’t merely need both halves of the Devil’s Stone to get home. He also needed his phone—and Milady had that. When Greg had traveled to the past, the Devil’s Stone had turned a painting of the Louvre in 1615 into a portal to that time. So to get back, he needed a photo from the twenty-first