Geoffrey Condit (13 page)

    “Aye.” He licked his lips.  “That I will fer the right price.”

    “Fer the price we agreed upon, ye greedy monster,”  Agnes growled.

    “I’m not a greedy monster,” he said indignant.  “I be a merchant of information.”  He took an expansive breath.

    “Then you’ll  honor yer word.”  Agnes’ hard eyes never left the self assured child.

    “Aye, that I will, but ye canna fault a man for tryin.”  He rubbed his fingers together.

    “So how is it, Master Merchant,”  Catharine said coolly, “that you have this information none of us have been able to get?”

    He laughed, revealing yellow teeth.  “I work the docks and I ’ear things.  I work by me wits and me back, m’lady.”

    “So how is it you’re not afraid?”

    He snorted.  “If I lived on fear, m’lady, I’d be dead by now.  Caution yea, fear ney.”

    “Get on with ye then,” Agnes said.  “Ye’ll get the money when ye done yer duty.”

    They left by the postern gate, and traveled about a mile, winding through alleys, crossing busy streets until they arrived at the river near Dowgate.

    Feeling uncomfortable, Catharine glanced around.

    “Never been to the better parts of the city?”  the boy asked, but broke his bravado on Catharine’s silence.  The riverside bordellos reputation for violence and crime kept all but the most dedicated clientele away.  Mercenaries, seamen, criminals, and adventurers crowded the streets and alleys jostling each other, seeking entertainment, and engaging employment whenever they could.

    A large bearded man pushed past, knocking the boy into Catharine’s legs.  A dangling wood sign showed a pig’s ear with chipped paint lettering The Sow’s Ear.  The boy spat into the dirt and scrambled to his feet.  “I told ye I knew the place.”

    “Tell me where the girl is.”  Catharine surveyed the wiry youngster, and caught his calculating glance.

    “What if it was known that the wife of Lord Peter Trevor be sneaking around the riverside bordellos?”  He sneered.  “I could ... ”

    “If you did, you would find your business cut short,”  Catharine said.  “On the other hand, you might earn steady employment with the House of Trevor, if you proved you warranted such favor.”

    The boy blinked. “Ye mean it?”  He wiped his nose on his sleeve, and spat in the street.  “Jesus wept, m’lady.”

    Catharine couldn’t sure he wasn’t being impertinent.  “Quit swearing, and don’t call me m’lady.’”

    Agnes jerked on Catharine’s skirt.  “Down,” she whispered.  Catharine bent to her shoe, shawl covering her face.  When three men trailed past them, the boy ran after begging.  A curse, a slap, a cry, and a body landed in the street.  The boy returned, holding a bloody nose, eyes watering into the red.

    “Carnahan,”  Agnes whispered.  “He came out of the bordello.”

    “Perfect,”  Catharine breathed.

    “Ye ladies be mad.  Butcher Carnahan bain’t someone ye cross.”  The boy, voice frantic, sought their faces.

    “Look who’s crossed the man already,”  Catharine said.  “He ran rough shod over you, and you’re talking about us being mad.  I suppose you were distracting him from seeing us?”

    “True.  Ye still owe me.”  He breathed deep.  “Tis  part of me trade to take such risks.  He’s paid me before though.  Depends on his temperament.  I wasn’t lucky this time.”

    Catharine looked around, and saw a wooden yoke with water buckets attached lying against the building.  “Is there a back door to this place?”

    “M’lady, yer should know what yer walkin into.”  The boy swallowed.  “Some women go in and never come out.”

     “We have to get my niece out of there.  What’s your name?”

     “Ned, after good King Edward.”

    “Ned, we need to know what’s it’s like inside.  Can you draw a map?”

    He knelt and scratched in the dirt with a stick.  “This be the bottom floor.  The kitchens are behind the public room.  The ladies rooms are off the balcony and run around the lower story.”  He dug the stick into the ground.  “This be real stupid.”

    “Where is the door to the kitchens?”  asked Catharine.

    “Back there.” Ned pointed to a door halfway down the alley.

    “Where is the girl?”  Catharine watched to boy squirm.  “Want to double the money Agnes promised?”   Agnes uttered a protest, but Catharine silenced her with a look.  Ned squirmed.  “Take it or leave it,”  Catharine said.  “And you get to work for the House of Trevor.”

    “She’s in a room off the kitchen.”

    Catharine grabbed the yoke, and swung it over her shoulders.  “Where is the water well?”

    “Pay me first.  If you goin in, ye won’t come out.”  His voice lowered to an urgent whisper.  “M’lady, ye must not do this.”

    “Where is the well?”

    Ned led her to a niche between the two houses.  He helped her fill the buckets.  “Now, where are the water barrels?”

    “To the right.  By the door as ye go in.”  He stood defiant.  “Pay me first.  I kept me part of the bargain.”

    “So you did.”  Catharine paid him double the amount. His hand shook as he accepted the half royals.

    Bowed under the weight of the yoke.  Catharine went back to Agnes.  “Open the door.”

     “I donna like it.  We should have told Lord Peter.”

    “Yer husband and master donna know yer ’here?”  Ned shook his head.

    “The door.”

    Agnes pushed open the door.  Catharine edged sideways through into a hubbub of scurrying people.  The moment she entered the cook swore at her.  “Idiot!  Where ’ave ye been..hey. Yer not Ellen.  What’s yer doin ’ere?

    “Ellen’s ill, good master.  I’m to take ’re place fetchin water.”  Catharine emptied the buckets in the barrel.

    “Jesus wept.  Yer filthy.”

    Catharine spat, getting satisfaction from her defiance.  She’s smeared her face with dirt and tangled her hair at the well.  She knew how bad she looked.   “I donna need the likes of ye to tell ... ”

    “Puttin on airs, are we?”  The bearded cook shook an iron ladle at her.

    “Ha!  Fat Pig!”  Catharine said,  “’is place be well named.  Ye must be the boar.   I bet the ladies think so.”  Her raucous laughter rang through the large room.  She ducked when the ladle sailed toward her head and slammed into the door fame.  “Poor aim, Master Cook.”

    “Fill the barrel and leave, ye nasty slut.”  he turned back to his cooking.

    Catharine took in the details of the room.  The door to Bess’s chamber stood exactly where Ned said it would be.  She returned with three more loads of water, passing the anxious glances of Agnes, and scowls of Ned.  Emptying the third load, she set the yoke down, and tried the latch on the door.  The door opened to show her the gagged and bound figure of her niece.  She entered.  Bess’s frantic eyes went from Catharine to a dim figure in the back of the room.  A chill ran through Catharine, and the hair stood on the nap of her neck.  A blond man with a drawn sword stepped into the light of the door.

    “Welcome, Lady Trobridge,”  he said.  “We’ve been expecting you.  Might I introduce myself?  I’m Allan Carnahan, architect of your husband’s pretty face.  Shortly, I’ll be the architect of a pain so intense he’ll beg for death if he can.”

    “He would defeat you in a duel,” Catharine said, trying to think.  Carnahan grabbed her by the wrist, dragging her inside and slamming the door.

    He pulled her close, his course unshaven skin on his face brushing hers.  When she cringed, he laughed, and flung her so she stumbled and landed back against the wall. 

    “I’m not talking about a duel.”  He ran his heavy tongue over thick lips.  “I’m talking about dishonoring both of his women.  About leaving them without reputation.  No more would you find him touching you in the way I’m sure you delight.  You seem to have gotten past his scarred face.  I congratulate you.  It takes a strong stomach I’m sure.”  He sheathed his sword.

    She stared, sickened and trembling, at the leering coarse face.  I won’t give him the satisfaction of seeing my fear.  She stood, and raised her head, her eyes hard and cold.

    “Did he tell you how he screamed when I cut his face?”  Carnahan asked.  “This heir of the House of Trevor.  But no one came.  I took a very long time.”  His voice lowered, almost prayer like. “I was preparing to cut the other side when I was interrupted.” 

    “You’re a monster,”  Catharine said in horror.

    “I am a creature of my time, Lady Trobridge.  Born to pain.  I was birthed during the sack of Evingston.  I learned my trade from the cradle.”

    “Why?  Why would you do such a thing?”

    “Because it was done to me.  Look carefully.”  Carnahan raised his shirt and turned.  His back, a mass of rutted scar tissue showed unnaturally white in the dim light.  “Pain is the one certain thing in life.”  He lowered his shirt.

    “So you pass on the hell that was given to you.  Where does it end?”  Revulsion seized her stomach, she kept disgust in her voice.

    “It doesn’t.  That is the nature of man.”

    “But why Lord Trobridge?”   She fought unsteady fear.

    “He refused me in my pain.  Your husband was a passenger on a galley where I rowed.  I was tied to the mast and whipped as an example to the other slaves.  I cried out, seeking release from the awful pain in death.  When the captain offered Trobridge his knife, he refused, and was sick over the side.  Gutless wonder.  Astonishing, considering what he’s reputed to have done at Tewkesbury the next year.”

     “He would have been only fifteen.”

    Carnahan’s words came tight and pointed.  “At fifteen I killed my friends who were too badly injured on the battlefield.  It is a courtesy of life.  He refused me.”

    “Right out of a nightmare,” she said.   “And you want to continue it?”

    “I swore an oath,” he said.  “I hunted until I found him.”

    “Damn your oath,”  Catharine shouted.  “You swear an oath.  He swears an oath.  They ruin everything.”

    Carnahan grinned.  “The best way to keep pain focused is with an oath.  Smart man, Lord Trobridge.  With both of us swearing the other’s death, how can we miss?”

    Ned entered, shoving a struggling  Agnes ahead of him.  She landed next to Catharine.  He walked warily to Carnahan and whispered in his ear.

    “My son says your husband knows nothing of your being here.  Lady Trobridge, you are surpassed.”

    “Ned is your son?”

    “Aye.  One of my many accidents.  Good lad, Ned.  Clever, wasn’t he?  Suddenly your servant had the information impossible to get.  Too good to be true.  Too good to pass up.”  Carnahan laughed.  “It says something when you can inspire such fear no criminal in the city will talk.”  Ned shuffled his feet.  “Good touch bouncing the boy off the ground.”  He smiled.  “The lad’s a learner.”  He spun a silver penny in the air to Ned who caught it with grace.  “The lad warned you several times.”

    “What happens now?”

    “I’m about to give your husband back the pain he gave me by killing my son, Castor.”  He moved toward Catharine hand out stretched, and pulled it back stung, red spurting.  “Damn.”

    Fear clutched Catharine’s stomach.  He can’t touch me.  I can’t let him dishonor Bess or me.  The idea of Carnahan touching her sickened. She tightened her grip on the knife, holding it in front of her.  He feigned to one side, and grabbed the knife twisting it out of her hand.  Her wrist stung.

    “You think a toothpick will stop me?”  Grabbing her with his good hand, he pulled her close, face bent to hers.  She could smell the garlic and stale wine on his breath.  Her heart raced.  Panic began to take over.  The terror of knowing his intent, and the touch of his hands made her skin crawl.  She lashed out with her feet, but he held her at arm’s length so she could not touch him, and laughed.  The door opened and a male voice said, “His Grace wants you on the double, Carnahan.”

    Carnahan shoved Catharine against the wall.  “I’ll finish with you later.”  He turned to the man behind him.  “They are not to be touched until I’m done with them.”  He tore the sleeve from her blouse to bind his bleeding hand.  “I’ll see if I can repay you for your thoughtless prank.”

    “I hope you infect and die of proud flesh,”  Catharine said.

    “It won’t happen.”  He grinned.  “I’ve recovered from more wounds than you can imagine.  But for your thoughtless act you will work the public room for two nights before I return you to your husband.”  He pushed Ned ahead of him, and slammed the door.  The key grated in the lock.

    She hurried to tear off Bess’s gag, and untie her hands and feet.  “Have they hurt you?”

    “No,” Bess said.  “This is the first time I’ve seen Carnahan.  The boy and the cook have seen to my needs.”

    “I don’t see any way out of here, my girl,” Agnes said, and scowled.  “You should’ve listened to me.”

    Catharine stared up at the high window, seven feet from the floor. Three iron bars covered the opening.  No way out there.  She laughed, pleased her voice didn’t  sound shaky as she felt. “Don’t be so negative, Agnes.  Where is that mischievous woman who challenges, scolds, and drive me to distraction?”  She eyed her servant.  “I need that now.  There must be a way out of here.”  She heard Bess give short hollow laugh, and sensed the strain the last three days had worked on the girl.  There had to be a way out.