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Stories from the Verse
Con Version
Chapter 56: Cooper 18
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Brown 301
Despite the difficulty of getting him up the bank and through a bit of rough country to find a road, the guards were unwilling to risk untying Cooper’s hands. He managed to avoid getting a mouthful of dirt, but he did pick up a few cuts and bruises. They, of course, had no sympathy for him.
It was well over an hour when they got back to the town and into the station. As they took him to the cell, a familiar voice called his name.
“Cooper?”
“Hans? What are you doing here?”
O.K., that was a stupid question. Still, Hans answered it.
“I was trying to rescue my father,” he said. “Where is he?”
“If you two didn’t keep trying to rescue each other, you’d probably both be home by now. He escaped, somewhere down the river.”
Hans was silent.
“I expect he’ll try to rescue us,” Cooper added. “I almost wish he wouldn’t, because he’s bound to be caught.”
“You don’t know my father.”
“Actually, I do; but Geisler is rather determined.”
One of the soldiers barked an order; it was probably Italian again.
“He wants us to be quiet,” Hans explained, and the soldier barked at him again. In German Hans answered that he had to translate for his friend, who couldn’t understand what the guard said. This elicited a grumble that was more of a growl, but after that Hans was quiet and the guard seemed satisfied.
It was a few hours later that a soldier whose uniform suggested he was more important came in and addressed Cooper in some unfamiliar language. Hans responded in the same language, and the two conversed for a moment and then the soldier left.
“He wants me to tell you,” Hans said, “that they have sent to have an inquisitor see you here. You are to be tried for heresy and witchcraft.”
“And the way the Inquisition works, they will already have decided I am guilty, so it will be up to me to prove otherwise, which is not something easy to do.” It was starting to look like an interesting end to his stay in this world.
You didn’t expect to be here forever.
No, he admitted, he didn’t; but the Inquisition was not his first choice for how to leave it.
That’s not something you get to decide, and you know it.
Yes, that was certainly true. When and how we die is in God’s hands, not ours. It seemed to be coming his way yet again.
But then, it was kind of interesting to die again.
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with eleven other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #505: Versers Advance. Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter. It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
