Chapter 10

Leonardo heard the echo behind the heavy wooden door when he knocked on it, and wondered exactly how bleak things must be behind it.

He wondered it again a few minutes later, when it finally creaked open and Donatello looked out, his eyes dark with exhaustion. "Leo? Is everything okay?" He paused, and seemed to reconsider his own question for a heartbeat. "I mean - has anything changed?"

"The mercenaries came to the gate this morning to parley," Leonardo admitted slowly. He wondered if he was making a serious mistake - Don had locked himself away in the wing of the monastery that had once housed the 'sisters' of the order, along with the children and the monks who had fallen ill with the plague. And it appeared that things were not going well for Don, in his self-imposed isolation ward. Maybe it's not right to burden him with this, too? Leo wondered.

"So was it what you expected?" Don squinted past Leo, taking in the empty courtyard and the weak winter sunlight.

"It was," Leo confirmed with a sigh. "They say they'll spare everyone if we hand over all the gold and gems, and the royal bastard. And all the stored food."

"Ah," Don nodded. "And that was the sticking point, of course. It doesn't do any good if we give them what they want and they go away, leaving us all to starve to death."

Leonardo shook his head. "Even more than that - I don't believe them. I don't think they actually would 'go away'. It's nothing I can put my finger on, but...I just didn't trust them. Even if we gave them everything they wanted, I still feel like they'd turn on us in a heartbeat, and slaughter everyone here."

"You gotta trust your instincts, Leo," Don said around a yawn. "You read people well."

Do I? Aloud, Leo finally asked the question that had been preying on him since his brother had volunteered to take on the task of tending to the sick. "Don - are you okay?"

Donatello looked away. "It's...fine, Leo. It's just harder than I thought it would be." His eyes flicked up to meet Leonardo's for just a second before he went back to studying the doorframe. "I'm still the best person for this job, Leo - I'm the only person we can be sure has already been exposed, and has immunity. I can't take that chance with anyone else here. Not even you," he said with some force.

"I know," Leo agreed, with some sadness. It was an argument he'd already lost, when Don made his decision the morning after their arrival, and he wasn't really interested in hashing it out again. In truth, he felt like he would be more effective outside anyway, where he could help with the defenses and the strategy for the monastery. "I just meant...Donnie, you look terrible. Are things okay in there?"

Don grimaced. "It was a bad night," he admitted quietly. "I lost three of them, one right after the other."

Leonardo sucked in a breath. "Damn," he breathed it back out again. "Who?"

"Christopher, Stassi, and Wulf," Don admitted. His eyes were distant as he recited the names of the dead - one monk and two children. "Give me a little while, and I'll have the bodies ready to move to the crypt."

Leo nodded. There wasn't anything else to say to that, so he stood back and let Don close the door, leaving him outside and away from the dying.

Abbot Alexius waited for him just a few feet away, frowning. "More deaths? Brother Christopher is a grave loss to me, and to this monastery. He was one of the few here who took holy orders as a youth, and he was a devoted servant of the Lord. And the children..." he cut himself off with a sigh. "I have run out of things to say over the bodies of dead children," he admitted, his mouth twisting.

"With those deaths, there are still three monks and two children ill," Leonardo calculated out loud. "And with only five healthy monks and another five healthy children, we don't have enough coverage for the battlements, not if this goes on much longer."

"At least there are three fewer mouths to feed," Alexius admitted to his own calculations. "Our stored food may last until the emperor can send help."

If he ever does, Leonardo thought sourly. After a week imprisoned in the monastery, watching monks and children die of the plague, and still clueless as to Renet's whereabouts, his cynicism on that point was high.

Raphael helped two monks carry the bodies down into the crypt in the afternoon, and emerged with his face dark from the effort not to breathe the foul air underneath the statue of Mary. He glanced at Abbot Alexius and the monks who were performing a funeral service, shook his head, and walked out of the jeweled church into the sunlight. Leonardo followed him outside and put a hand on his shoulder. "You okay?"

"Yeah," Raph breathed deep, tilting his head up and closing his eyes to the weak winter sun. "Just gotta get that smell outta my nose."

"You didn't have to do that," Leo pointed out.

"Yeah, I did," Raph shook him off. "This place sucks enough for all of us, without having Mike go down there." He frowned, his expression even more obviously grim without the red mask. "What are we gonna do, Leo?"

"What we've been doing - keep watch on the mercenaries, keep looking for a way out, and wait for Renet to come back. What else can we do?" it was almost impossible to keep the bitter tone out of his voice.

"We could just go," Raphael looked at him seriously. "Leo - you know it, too. We could climb down over the wall. We can get out of here in the middle of the night and be miles away before anyone knows we're gone. We don't know this is what we're supposed to be doin' for that dizzy blonde! What if we're making a mistake?"

It hit too close to his own thoughts for comfort. "We're not abandoning these people, Raph!" Leo said with more heat than he meant to use.

"These people are all dead!" Raph hissed, stepping in close. "In our time, they're all long gone, and no one even remembers them! Why are we killin' ourselves to protect them?"

"Are you planning to take Mari with us, when we leave?" Leonardo got himself under control enough to ask in his driest voice, going for his brother's weak spot.

It worked, too. Raphael's mouth opened once, soundlessly, and then closed again. "That's what I thought," Leo said, and turned away. He wanted to get something to eat before taking his shift on the battlements.

Leonardo liked to take the evening shift. By the end of the day, everyone was tired, including the invading army. The setting sun cast long, dramatic shadows up the hill from the mercenary camp, and showed him their preparations for their evening meal - and exposed some of their weaknesses.

"Look over to the south," Leonardo said to Abbot Alexius. "Don't point! Don't let them know you're looking. Just...glance over there, and then look away. What do you see?"

The abbot did as instructed. "The tents over there are shabby and isolated from the rest. What is it?"

"I'm not sure," Leonardo stepped back from the wall. "But from what I've seen today, I think that's where they're keeping all of their people who are sick with the plague."

"Really?" Alexius' eyebrows rose. He restrained himself with an effort from looking over the weak spot again.

"Yes - and if I'm right, that means their numbers are dwindling, too. They might have too much on their hands to be concerned about us for much longer."

"Wonderful," the abbot breathed. "I do not wish harm on them, of course, but if they are to be struck down by the hand of God as we are, it will not grieve me."

Sounds on the narrow stone staircase interrupted Leonardo's reply, and he turned to see who was coming to join them. Mari scrambled into sight, holding up the long hem of another new gown - this one in a rich burgundy. She frowned as she came into view.

Alexius, on the other hand, smiled at her with what seemed like genuine cheer. "Princess Mari," he said, bowing to her like a courtier. "How lovely you look in your royal robes!"

Glancing over the child before turning back to his duties, Leo had to admit that she did look much better than the four other surviving children, and that the color of the new gown - made for her from fabric that Alexius had produced from somewhere in the monastery's storehouses - was quite striking in the light from the setting sun.

Mari was no more interested in conversation with the abbot than she was in talking to anyone else, and bore his attentions with an air of resignation. Leonardo was amused to hear the abbot go so far as to offer her the chance to wear his wide silver necklace and jeweled cross, just to try to get her approval. That must have been successful because the next thing Leo knew, the abbot was standing at the battlement again with Mari on his shoulder, pointing out things on the horizon.

"...and on the other side of those mountains, many days journey from here, is Rome, the lost empire," he told her. "Once, we and the Romans were all one people, but they fell into barbarism and depravity, and now Constantinople is the center of the civilized world." He sighed, and went on in a tone that seemed like he was talking more to himself than to the girl. "And it is a civilization, and it will be great again."

Mari wasn't impressed. Leonardo said, "Abbot, if you would please stand back from the edge? I know that they can't hit us, firing from the camp, but you're right out in the open where they can all see you."

"Oh, yes, of course," the abbot turned in a slow circle before stepping away and letting Mari slide off his shoulder. He bowed, and went down the stone steps.

The girl stayed where she was, frowning after him. Her fingers played restlessly over the elaborately decorated cross that the man had left with her.

Michaelangelo relieved him at midnight. "It's been quiet," Leonardo caught him up. "I saw some movement over by the south side of the camp - I think they're dumping their dead into the river in the dark, when they think we won't notice."

"At least it's flowing away from us," Mike pointed out. He clapped his brother on the shoulder. "Get some sleep, big bro - I'll see you in the morning."

A few hours later, Leonardo rubbed sleep out of his eyes and stretched as he made his way from his blankets to the isolation ward to check on Donatello again. He waved at Michaelangelo, who was on his way to the kitchen to take a turn at feeding the monastery's inhabitants after his hours on watch - all of the survivors found themselves working hard at multiple jobs while under siege.

Leonardo turned the corner to the isolation ward...and found the heavy wooden door wide open.

A chill went down his neck. "Donnie?" he called, breaking into a sprint to the door. "Donatello!" He heard a shout, and footsteps behind him, but didn't heed them as he ran into the ward for the first time.

The air inside stank. Not just unwashed sheets and the peculiar reek that was part of the plague, but the smell of dead bodies and burning - the mingled scents reached out and slapped Leonardo as soon as he'd cleared the doorway.

The five wrapped bundles next to the doorway told him everything he needed to know. He glanced over the bodies, then dismissed them from consideration. "Don?"

"Is he okay?" Michaelangelo skidded into view. "Holy ~!" His eyes went wide, first at the smell, then at the wrapped corpses. He swallowed convulsively.

"Go get the Abbot," Leo ordered, mostly to get Mike moving and out of the stench. "Tell him we have to move them to the crypt. Now, Mike!"

He waited just long enough to see Michaelangelo run off, then resumed his original search.

The sisters' dormitory was a series of dark, narrow rooms that opened off a windowed hallway - all of the windows had been heavily shuttered before the plague began, and were still closed to keep out the cold. Narrow cracks of sunlight filtered through some of the heavy shutters, giving Leo enough light to see into each cell-like room as he passed it. All of them were empty.

At the end of the hall, it widened out into a common room with a massive hearth. Leo sagged a little bit in relief, as his straining eyes landed on the figure of his brother, kneeling next to the fire. "Don?"

Donatello glanced over his shoulder. "Stay there, Leo - I'm almost finished." He turned back to his task - using the hearth to burn what Leo eventually recognized as the mattresses that the dead had lain on.

The dry straw and shabby cloth burned quickly, with a massive spray of red sparks across the stone floor. Judging by the amount of ash - not to mention the smell - Donatello had been at work for a while. Leonardo glanced back down the corridor to watch the monks come to collect the shrouded dead, then walked over to put his hand on Don's shoulder. "Come on," he said, as gently as he could. "You've done enough - let's get you out of here."

"I didn't do enough, Leo," Don's face was still. He poked at the smoldering fire with a stick of kindling. "They all died, no matter what I did. There just...the resources aren't available, Leo. There wasn't anything I could do except keep them alive slightly longer. It would've been quicker and kinder if I'd just slit their throats that first night." His voice was flat and expressionless as he tossed the stick into the fire. "Some of them thought I was a demon, come to take them to hell," he said to the flames. "I don't think I did anything for them at all."

"You kept the threat contained," Leonardo pointed out. He remembered his own despair the night he first came into the village, and his indecision over Stassi's baby brother, and reached for anything that might help. "It hasn't spread to the rest of the humans here, because of you. Remember that." He squeezed his brother's shoulder. "Come on. Let's go."

Donatello insisted on opening all of the shutters, letting cold air and light into the empty rooms all along the dormitory. By the time Leo steered him out into the weak winter sunlight of the courtyard, the bodies were already gone.

Abbot Alexius usually joined Leonardo for a few minutes every evening on the battlements, to review the enemy's camp and discuss any new concerns. But the night that the last of the plague victims were carried into the catacombs, he didn't appear. Leonardo could hear the sounds of men's voices raised in somber songs, coming through the open doors of the church.

That night, Donatello perched on the inner wall instead, listening to the funeral service while he listlessly picked at a hunk of bread and some cheese that Michaelangelo had forced on him. "It's very strange," he said, frowning thoughtfully. "What is it that Renet does to us that we always understand the language wherever and whenever she sends us? I'm guessing it's the Time Scepter that has some sort of effect on sound perception, but I can't figure out how that applies to our vocalizations, and I really don't understand how it could work if it isn't anywhere nearby. And whatever it does, it never lingers once she's finished with us - I still don't understand Mandarin, or Portuguese, or anything else I don't already speak, once we get home from these little adventures."

Leonardo smiled without looking around at his brother. "You must be feeling better, if these are the things that are rolling around in your head now."

"I feel fine," Don assured him. From the muffled sound, he was talking around a mouthful of food. After a few seconds, he said more clearly, "I was thinking - Leo, why don't we just get out of here? We could find a way out on the blind side of the monastery, get down to the river, and be gone in the night."

"Not you, too," Leo groaned. "Look, I already had this talk with Raph - we're not abandoning these people - "

"Who said anything about abandoning them?" Don interrupted. "Leo, I'm talking about getting all of us out of here! There's only ten humans left, and most of them are healthy enough to travel - we could take all the supplies with us, at least as much as we need to get them to another town or city where they'll be safe. Leave this place to the bandits, and get out here before they starve us out!"

Leonardo swiveled around to look at his brother, who went on munching his bread while he studied the opposite wall of the monastery.

"That's a sheer cliff down to the river," Don said musingly, pointing at the far wall. "But there must be access over there somewhere. For one thing, the well in the kitchen never runs dry because it's dug deep enough to hit the water table. And for another thing, the catacombs were dug into the rock underneath the church. So I wonder..." he fell silent, head tilted slightly while he thought.

Leo turned back to his watch, breathing slowly to tamp down the rising sense of hope. Leave? Take all of their human charges to safety somewhere else, instead of this slow death by siege? It was something he hadn't dared think about.

"The catacombs..." Don said musingly. "I wonder...have you been down there?"

"No," Leo admitted with a twist of distaste on his mouth. "Raph has, though."

"Really?" Don hopped off of his perch and dusted his hands. "I need to talk to him, then." And he was gone.

A few hours later, Michaelangelo surprised him by showing up early for his shift. "Go to our rooms, bro," he insisted, tugging Leo back from his post on the wall. "Go - you really wanna go, I promise you." He jittered with barely-suppressed excitement over something.

Leo studied him for a moment, but Mike just smiled at him and said nothing else.

The same excitement met him when he stepped into their borrowed rooms, and found Raphael and Donatello both still awake, and leaning over a rough sketch on the table. "We can do it, Leo," Don said, his eyes shining. "This is a map of the catacombs - the monks use it to keep track of the burials. And look!" His finger stabbed at something on the bottom of the page.

Leo bent to see it better in the flickering firelight. "Is that...a river access?"

"It is!" Don confirmed. "The monks have access to the river via the catacombs. There's a door down at the riverside, actually underwater for most of the year. They haven't used it in years, but Alexius says that the abbot before him used to take in supplies from merchants who delivered from their boats on the river, during the dry season when the river is low. They haven't used it in twenty years, but - "

"But it's still there," Raph said. He looked up at Leonardo, a gleam of satisfaction in his eyes. "And it means we got a way out of here."