Prisoner of the Flames (Leisure Historical Romance) (29 page)

“And what am I to fight with?” Robert snapped sarcastically. “Am I to enter into battle bare-handed?”

“Are you resigned to your fate?” the admiral queried.

“Hardly. I have, however, given my word, as you have given yours to release me after…Rouen.”

The admiral nodded. “After Rouen,” he parroted. “Once you have given me the same ‘courtesy’ you gave to Charles de Guise.”

“I killed none in that fray save his own general, and one who took me by surprise, to my knowledge. Any wounds that I inflicted otherwise were purely to defend myself.”

“Which is why I shall have you kill only holy men.” Coligny said. “I like the irony…seeing you kill your own kind after staging such a brilliant rescue of your papist uncle. It excites me.” He tore a sword from its scabbard at his side and laid it on the table. Robert stiffened, but he did not flinch as his
sgian dubh
joined it. “A token of my trust in your…Scottish loyalty,” he intoned, “and I do not fear to give it to you. We know where Montaigne has taken your betrothed, Laird Mack, and we go south to rendezvous with Condé after the victory. We must pass right by Bordeaux along the way. It would serve you well to keep that in mind if you ever want to see any of your…friends again. Now then, we form ranks an hour before dawn. I would suggest you get some sleep. It is to be a long journey, and you will want to be at your most powerful. This is one battle you can ill afford to lose.”

They reached Rouen in three days’ time, but not as a unit. Detachments set out separately. They would join forces once again in the forest outside the city for their final orders
before converging upon the seaport in a semicircular, surrounding formation at midnight on the third day. Coligny kept Robert in his company during the march, and though he rode armed at the admiral’s side, he remained under guard.

Divested of his monk’s robe and dressed as a soldier with a coarsely woven cloth traveling mask in place instead of his helm, the laird made no attempt to run. He had no qualms about defending himself in battle. He was a warrior after all. He had, however, become resigned that he would have no truck with hanging holy men. Regardless. He would bide his time—watch, and wait. Give the admiral no reason to doubt him. If only he could talk Coligny into letting him go on ahead and scout the area, then mayhap—just mayhap he might be able to warn the clerics somehow and disappear in the thick of battle. He said he would go with the Huguenot troops to Rouen and fight. He never said for which side. It was a far-fetched plan, but a plan nonetheless—one he could live with, and it sustained him until they reached the forest outside the Rouen city limits in a chilly autumn drizzle just before midnight.

Coligny had begun to order his men, when Robert interrupted him. “Let me go in ahead,” he suggested boldly, causing the admiral to give a start and face him.

“You?”
the admiral blurted. “So you can run? Are you mad, my lord, or do you think that I am? You stay in my sight. Besides, you said yourself you are unfamiliar with this land. What will it benefit me letting you blunder into strange territory, eh?”

“Scouting is what I do best,” Robert lied. “At home all the neighboring clans call upon me to venture into unfamiliar quarters—to scout, and mark the best course. I have a knack. If you want me to prove myself useful, you will have to loosen the tether and allow me.”

Coligny narrowed cold steel eyes. “You really do think I am the fool,” he snarled.

“I needn’t go alone,” Robert said. “Send another with me—no more, though. Too many strangers would look suspicious should townsfolk still be milling about.” He shrugged through the admiral’s thoughtful hesitation. “But, of course, if you’d rather not take advantage of my special skills…”

“Etienne!” the admiral barked in a hoarse whisper toward a soldier watering his horse nearby. He gave a silent command that brought the man. “Go with him,” he charged. “Do not leave his side. You will scout the area.”

“Are you familiar with the perimeter of this city?” Robert asked Etienne.

“No,” the man grunted, clearly unhappy with the order. He was young, built well enough for his height, with broad shoulders, and a sparse, short-cropped beard.

“Hah! And you criticize me,” Robert chided, casting hard eyes toward Coligny. “It shouldn’t be too difficult a task even without your impressive map, my Lord Admiral. I can see the cathedral spires from here. First we pass it by, and then the adjoining Archbishop’s Palace. We then move on past Saint-Maclou,” he continued, pointing the way on the sheepskin map Coligny had unfurled, “and finally, Saint-Ouen. We look for activity, and assess the guards at all three. Are there taverns?” he asked the admiral.

“Several,” Coligny returned, “and a few stews, but they pose no threat to our raid. Those in the taverns will be cup-shotten, and the ruttish patrons of the stews will be…occupied. We’ll take the taverns just as they did ours at Vassy.”

“Give us enough time to make the rounds,” Robert said, hardly able to believe his good fortune in convincing the admiral of his prowess so easily. Scarcely breathing, he went on to the most critical part. “Do not wait for us to return, lest we be followed,” he said, his tone forceful and self-assured, for all that his heart was pounding so loud he was certain they could hear its thunder. “Such a seaport will not be left without sentries. If the guards are too many and you
need warning, we will know at the outset and return at once, otherwise we will join with you at the clock once we have disabled it.”

“No,” the admiral interrupted. “I will send another to disable the clock and climb the belfry. It will be accomplished when you reach it, with an arquebus mounted at the top. So, should you be entertaining any thoughts of escape, I would advise that you rethink them. That tower offers a
bel vieu
of the city.”

“Etienne here will see that I do not escape,” Robert assured him. “Is that not why you have chosen him?”

“You mock me?”

“I remind you.”

“You are a clever devil, my lord. Let us see if your reputation is well earned, eh? You had best pray that it is, Robert of Paxton. Now, go. This drizzle will soon become a tempest. Let us have this done beforehand. I am not fond of fighting in the rain.”

Midnight was fast approaching, and Robert set out with Etienne along the dark, winding streets. The taverns and stews they passed were the only establishments still serving patrons. The tavern doors were open, spilling light in their path from tallow candles inside, set in candle beams made of iron suspended from the ceiling. The stench of strong onions and spilt wine rushed at them, making Robert grimace. Raucous laughter filtered out with it, suggesting that it would be awhile yet before the tavern keeper employed the pulley and extinguished the candles, a less than subtle signal to the cup-shotten patrons that it was time for them to leave.

The stews were more discretely lit. Lightskirts languished inside and out, calling to them as they passed. Apple-squires could be seen flitting to and fro inside as they served the customers. They seemed like shadow puppets, backlit by softer shafts of defused light blinking from the doorways and windows,
where candlesticks of latten and brass on ornate tripods beckoned to prospective patrons among the passersby. Etienne eyed these houses of ill repute longingly. Considering what Robert was planning, he was almost sorry he couldn’t let him indulge, since he was about to meet his maker. He couldn’t warn the clergy until he’d disposed of Etienne, and while he regretted the necessity of that, he was resigned. Better that one Huguenot be sacrificed than a city full of unsuspecting clerics, as he saw it, and he led him steadily away from the hub of activity, hopefully toward the riverbank. There was no way to know for certain, being unfamiliar with Rouen, but if he were to dispose of the Huguenot’s body….

“Where do we go?” Etienne questioned. “This is not the way to the cathedral.”

Indeed it was not. The cathedral, with its majestic three-portal façade, decorated with lacey stonework and statues in gaudy profusion stood in the center of the city, not far from the clock that Robert knew by now would have been disabled. The spires of Notre Dame were clearly visible, and he was straying farther and farther away from the clergy he was committed to warn.

There was no more time. Glancing about the street, he spied an alleyway with a darkened mews behind. It was enclosed, with no outlet; not what he’d hoped for, since the body would certainly be found there, but it would have to do. The alley was deserted, and he propelled the Huguenot along it over the damp cobblestones.

“Quickly,” he whispered. “Someone comes!”

“I don’t see—”

Robert’s hand clamped over Etienne’s lips silenced him, and his
sgian dubh
, driven deep into the struggling Huguenot’s throat, made an end to the protest. Dragging the body into the shadows, Robert cleaned the dagger on the dead man’s doublet, thrust it back into his boot, and ran back toward the heart of the city.

He wasted no time bothering with the cathedral, since there would be no clergy there at that hour, but went instead to the adjoining Archbishop’s Palace, intending to wake the priests, and then do the same at the Church of Saint-Maclou behind. He would surely find unsuspecting clergy at both. What he did find, however, were guards, and they seized him before he’d scaled the Archbishop’s Palace steps.

“Please! I come to warn you!” he cried, struggling with two gendarmes in the square. “The Huguenots! They come to sack and plunder here this night. You must alert the priests!”

“Eh?” one grunted. “And how would you know that, citizen?”

“Because I was with them—against my will,” Robert said. “They mean to take the city and hang every priest, monk, and cleric they can lay hands on in retaliation for Vassy. You waste precious time. You must warn them, I say!”

As they danced there restraining him, the silent one removed Robert’s mask, let him go, and staggered backward, crossing himself. “Mon
Dieu!
He has
plague!”
he shrilled.

The other, meanwhile, had taken Robert’s sword, and the Scot prayed that neither would find the
sgian dubh
hidden in his boot. He was almost relieved when the skittish guard took hold of him again. His struggling hadn’t afforded them the opportunity to search his person further. He wasn’t going to make it easy for either of them, and he fought them valiantly, continuing his loud protest in a desperate attempt if nothing else, to see the clergy spared.

“I have no plague,” he trumpeted, “—no contagion. Deal with me how you will, but I implore you, sound the alarm! The clergy must be warned. The admiral’s troops have come to slaughter them!”

The words were barely out, when strident shouts and the screams of hysterical women funneled down the lane in
their direction from the outskirts of the city, filling the square with the truth of his words. A faint crimson glow bled into the black night sky from the taverns and stews he’d passed by earlier. It had begun—the slaughter. The acrid smell of smoke flared his nostrils. More fires sprang to life in a surrounding formation ringing the city. Cold chills gripped him as he recalled Nostradamus’s prophecy.

“Now
do you believe me, you nodcocks?” Robert thundered. “Sound the alarm!”

The hilt of the sword they’d taken from him crashed against the back of his head. His knees buckled with the blow, but it took a second to render him unconscious as they dragged him off toward an anonymous destination, which, in his spiral into unconsciousness, he heard them call ‘the keep.’

Robert opened his eyes to the sight of a robed cleric dangling overhead. It was the sound of the rope around the unfortunate priest’s neck creaking that nudged him toward consciousness. He lay at the base of a makeshift gallows in the center of the street. The cathedral doors were flung wide, and piles of debris—broken statues, relics, and church trappings—littered the square. It was too late. The Huguenots had taken the city.

His head ached where the gendarme had struck him with the hilt of the sword, and his vision was blurred. The last thing he remembered was talk of a keep. This was no keep. Huguenots were milling everywhere, their raucous shouts and clanging swords banging around in his brain until his head throbbed unmercifully. Nonetheless, he tried to vault upright, and fell back again. His hands were bound with rope. A length tied to a spiked iron collar around his neck tethered him to the gallows as well, and he shook his head like a dog shedding water in a desperate attempt to clear the cobwebs from it and command his vision, praying that the
gruesome sight above him was a figment of his dazed imagination. A familiar laugh close by told him otherwise.

“So, Laird Mack, this is your ‘knack,’ your ‘special skill’ is it?” said Coligny stooping over him, fists braced upon his hips. “Your ‘skill,’ I think, is murder.”

“H-how did I come here?” Robert stammered, knowing full well that the troops must have overtaken the gendarmes; they were everywhere. He shook his head again. Why wouldn’t his head clear? He needed his wits about him now. “Why am I tied?” he demanded.

“Hold your tongue! You waste your breath,” Coligny snarled. “We have found Etienne. What? Did you think you could escape from me so easily—from me, Gaspard de Chatillon, Comte de Coligny? You are more of a fool than I thought, Robert of Paxton.”

Robert’s breath hissed from his lungs. It was useless to make a pretense. He knew when circumstance dictated that he must give in, but that by no means meant he was ready to give up. Unless he missed his guess, his
sgian dubh
was still wedged in his boot. Its bulk chafed against his ankle through the hose as he lay there with his full weight upon it. Did these Frenchmen not know where a Scot carried his dagger? Evidently not, since theirs were worn on their belts in plain view. Besides, they probably didn’t give it a thought, since the gendarmes would surely have disarmed him. He swallowed dry, and licked parched lips. The deadly black knife was so close….

“What do you mean to do with me?” he said steadily.

“What? You aren’t even going to try and deny it? I’m disappointed. You like to make a fool of your betters, don’t you, my lord? You made a fool of the cardinal”—he shrugged, and waved his hand in a gesture of dismissal—“and I have no objection to that, but you shan’t make one of me.”