Daughters of the Dagger 03 - Amber (17 page)

They arrived in Canterbury early that morning, way ahead of schedule because of the way Amber was riding. Lucas quickly took his hands from
around Sir Romney’s waist and jumped from the horse when they rode into a crowd of people. He hoped to hell no one had noticed, as he was very embarrassed.

The bells of the cathedral were ringing
, and noble men and women, servants, villeins, and even beggars flocked through the iron gates making their way to mass.

“This is beautiful,” gasped Amber, dismounting. Mirabelle followed. “I’ve never seen such a wonderful house of worship.
”

Lucas
looked up to the cathedral that was at least three times the size of any of the churches he’d ever seen. Several tall steeples rose up to the sky, leading to a very high bell tower just above the main stairs. There were many windows all around the building, all of them in colorful shards of stained glass, depicting the life of Christ, as well as many of the saints. There were many arches lining the cloistered walkway all around the church. And in the stone of the walls were carved various angels, saints and designs of many kinds. It was breathtaking indeed.

“This is Canterbury Cathedral which also houses
the shrine of St. Thomas Becket,” Lucas pointed out. “There is a lot of wealth here, and it shows.” He thought of all the money and items Father Armand had collected in greed back at St. Ermengild’s. They looked like naught more than pittance compared to the ornate décor and display of grandeur of this cathedral and the grounds surrounding it as well.

The crowd was growing
and Lucas walked over and grabbed the reins of the horse from Amber. He didn’t like the fact there were so many people here. How was he supposed to steal the ruby and not get caught with all these eyes upon him?

“
What the hell is going on around here to draw this kind of crowd?” asked Lucas.

“Lucas, please refrain from cursing while in the presence of such a holy place.” Amber blessed herself, all the while staring in awe at the terrific site.

“It looks to me like the archbishop is here and saying mass today,” stated Sir Romney. “We’re in luck.”

“Aye. Such luck,” Lucas grumbled
, feeling his luck suddenly changing. Could it possibly get any worse?

“I’d like to meet the archbishop after services,” said Amber in awe.

“I’m sure that’ll be impossible with all these people,” said Lucas, not wanting to get anywhere near the man. Not when he was about to steal the most coveted icon in the whole country.

“Not so,” Sir Romney said, dismounting his horse. “I can get us
in to see the archbishop personally, as he is my uncle.”

“Your uncle?” Lucas just shook his head. Yes, it could get worse. Now when the jewel is reported stolen, the archbishop himself will have seen the robber’s face
, being able to identify Lucas and have him beheaded.

“I’m going inside,” said Amber anxiously, picking up her skirts and hurrying across the road.

“Me too,” said Mirabelle, following after her.

“What just happened here?” asked Sir Romney, watching the whore race toward the cathedral as
if it were a ship of lust-filled men returning from war. “Is she really planning on going into the church?”

“Well, if the walls cave in when she enters, you’ll know she wasn’t jesting.”

“Give me the horses,” said Sir Romney. “I’ll find someone we can pay to watch them while we’re inside.”

“Nay, I’ll do it. You go find the girls and keep them out of trouble.” Lucas took the reins of the horses
while Sir Romney headed toward the church. Then once more Lucas looked up to the towering cathedral.

The site was intoxicating
, and the sound of the clanging bell echoed in his brain. He thought of the reason he was here and his stomach twisted in a knot. If the walls of the place were going to cave in, he knew it would be when he entered, not Mirabelle.

He almost changed his
mind about the whole damned mission, until he glanced the other way and saw Canterbury Castle rising up and taunting him in the distance. The sun reflected off the turrets in the morning sun, and he realized it was the largest, most grandeur castle he’d ever seen, besides the castle of the king himself.

This could
all be his, and soon. All he had to do was steal one little ruby, and then he’d be Lord Canterbury and ruler of the castle, a fief and probably several pieces of land as well. Mayhap he’d even own a whole forest as a part of this sweet deal. He was so close to attaining everything he ever wanted in life that the anticipation was driving him mad.

He wanted it so desperately that
he could almost taste it. But the Code of Conduct kept pushing its way into his head, almost like a little voice warning him he shouldn’t do it.

“Hell with t
he Code of Conduct and living like a pauper,” he spoke to himself. In just a few short hours, he would have the key to unlock all the treasures and titles he’d always wanted in life. And if there was one last thing he had to do before he died, this was it.

He headed away with the horses, wondering how the hell he was going to explain all this to Amber if she ever found out. Then, he decided, he wouldn’t tell her
, and just deny it if he had to. Otherwise, it would only give her one more reason to hate him. He wanted her to give up being a nun and stay at Canterbury Castle with him. He’d be saving her from a life she didn’t really want anyway. Aye, he thought, though she would never understand, he was actually doing this for her just as much as for himself.

*

Amber entered the cathedral, pushing past the crowds of people, straining her neck to see the shrine of St. Thomas Becket off to the side of the main dais and altar.

“There are too many people,” she said, wishing now she still had her habit. Dressed like a nun would get her to the front of this crowd, she was sure.

“Why do you want to see the tomb of a dead man anyway?” asked Mirabelle coming up behind her.

“Bec
ause Thomas Becket was archbishop of Canterbury several decades ago, and also a martyr,” she explained. “He was very rich and a threat to King Henry II. They did not see eye to eye and Thomas refused to do the king’s bidding. Therefore, the king sent four knights to kill him. His brains were scattered from his head right here in this cathedral. And people who have touched any of his relics since then have claimed to have been healed.”

“Oh, he was murdered,” said
Mirabelle making a face. “I’m feeling a little uneasy about all this now, so I think I’ll wait for you outside.”

“Nay,” she said holding on to the girl’s hand. “If you want to impress Sir Romney, you should stay for mass.”

“Who said I was trying to impress him?” she asked. “I don’t even know if I’m allowed to stay.”

“As long as you don’t take communion, it won’t matter,” she said. “Now come and let’s take a seat, as I believe the service is about to start.”

*

Lucas entered the cathedral just as the mass started. He stood in the vestibule of the church, almost running into the processional as
taper bearers and altar servers, as well as the archbishop himself passed right by him.

The archbishop wore an alb, or long white robe representing purity, with his shoulders covered with a stole. It was purple and had a hole for his head and was circular
shaped. He had strips of cloth with embroidered scenes of the last supper around the sleeves at his wrists, and had a cincture, or cord with a tassel around his waist. He had a long strip of cloth that hung around his neck as well as a small cape.

O
n his head was a skullcap, and atop that a miter, a tall, ornate pointed hat with a cleft in the center. He had a large gold ring with a diamond on his right hand and in his left hand he held a crosier, or tall staff carved of ivory with a curved shepherds hook at the top. He also wore a pectoral large gold cross on a chain around his neck.

He
was busy blessing people as he walked and didn’t notice a small child crawling on the floor and stopping directly in his path. He turned to take a step, and Lucas rushed forward and grabbed the man by the elbow.

“Your Excellency
,” he cried out, and the man jerked backward. There were several soldiers standing around who rushed forward with their hands on the hilts of their weapons, thinking he meant to harm the man and being ready to protect him.

Lucas quickly let go of the holy man and raised his hands in the air to show them he meant no harm. Then he stooped over and scooped up the child from the floor. The baby’s mother rush
ed over and took him from Lucas.

“Thank you, my son, as that would have been disastrous if I should have tripp
ed on the child. Bless you,” said the archbishop, making the sign of the cross.

“Anyo
ne would have done the same,” Lucas said, feeling as if he didn’t want or deserve the blessing.

Then the archbishop smiled and said, “God will reward you, my son,” and headed on his way down the aisle with music from the gallery bein
g played on flutes and harps as the monks chanted out their haunting tune from the choir.

“That was noble of you,” whispered Sir Romney, coming up behin
d him. “Just like a true knight. You should feel proud of what you’ve done.”

Lucas couldn’t take all this prais
e and being revered and honored. Especially coming from the archbishop - one of the holiest men in the world who held almost as much, or perhaps more power than the king himself.

“What are you doing out here?” Lucas grumbled. “I thought you were going to find the girls.”

“They are saving seats for us on the bench and I came out to find you at Amber’s request. She wanted to experience this mass together with you.”

“How wonderful,” he said, letting out a slow frustrated breath. He had planned on scoping out the surroundings during
the mass and hopefully sneaking back into the sacristy to figure out a way to come back and steal the ruby after the mass was over and the crowd cleared out. Now he would have to sit there and listen to Amber pray the entire time which was only going to make this whole thing harder on him. He felt a sense of doom overwhelm him and he just knew this was not going to end well.

Lucas sat through the mass with his traveling party, not able to concentrate on a word, since his mind was elsewhere.
He had his eyes fastened to the ornate casket of Thomas Becket that was raised up on a dais and surrounded by an iron fence. Right next to it was a wall of homage with a large iron cross attached to it. And all around it were rosaries and pieces of cloth and ornate trinkets that pilgrims had attached to the wall and left in honor of their martyr saint. And high above the casket was a tall iron holder displaying the prized and honored Regale ruby.

He was going to have a hell of a time just getting close to it.

He looked over and Sir Romney was dozing off, and Mirabelle, who he knew could not understand a word of the mass since it was in Latin, was biting her nails and fixing the bodice of her dress to expose more cleavage, obviously getting ready to solicit a few of the wealthy noblemen as soon as she stepped foot outside the church.

Amber, instead of sitting on the bench like most people, decided to kneel on the
stone floor for the entire mass, obviously in some form of self-inflicted penance for the night she’d spent with him.

His toe tapped nervously on the ground and Amber gently reached out and touched his foot to still it. What was he doing? he wondered. What were any of them doing here right now?

He surveyed his party next to him and felt like they were some of the most mismatched people to have entered the cathedral today. One fallen knight who didn’t really live by the rules expected of him, one bold whore who probably never followed a rule in her life if it didn’t involve men and money, and one very confused nun who couldn’t decide from one day to the next if she was a nun or a strumpet.

So where
did that leave him? He was the worst of the whole lot. He was a man who once lived by the strict rules of a monk, then lived by his own rules of being a mercenary, neither of them satisfying him in the least. And now he struggled and flipped back and forth between following the rules of the knights or the rules of greed and deceit laid down by a man who had fathered him and raised him as his surrogate father.

He’d admired
Father Armand his entire life, respecting him like the fourth rule of the Code of Conduct instructed. But now, he basically despised the man, as he was asking Lucas to do something that no real parent would ever ask their child to do.

The mass finally ended and Lucas was thankful. He had work to do and he needed to get up to the front of the church and survey this ruby he was supposed to steal.

“Let’s make our way up to the front of the church,” said Amber. “I want to meet the archbishop.”

“He won’t be
here long,” said Sir Romney. “Instead, follow me, and I’ll bring you around the back and we’ll be able to stop him before he leaves.”