In a Treacherous Court (25 page)

T
hey meant to kill her, quickly and privately, and her only chance was to make it slow and public.

She relaxed her body, turned herself into a dead weight, and a thrill of satisfaction overcame her fear when Fielder stumbled.

Norris tripped in reaction, and his hand slipped from over her mouth.

She screamed.

Norris deliberately dropped her headfirst onto the stone floor, but she lifted her head in time and her shoulders and back took the impact, sending shocks of pain through her body.

She lay stunned a moment, her legs still loosely held by Fielder, but Norris was already bending to haul her up again. Using her right leg against Fielder’s hip as a brace, she kicked her left hard up between his legs, arching her back to get power behind the blow.

Fielder made a tiny squeal of sound, his face white, and he dropped her, curling over his groin in a strange, slow movement.

“Pull yourself together.” Norris spoke through gritted teeth, each word ground out in frustration.

Susanna let him lift her partway up, and when she judged the angle right, she twisted in his hands, scrabbling to get her
legs under her. She ducked beneath his arms and staggered a few steps forward before she broke into a run.

“Lucifer’s bones!” Norris’s shout echoed through the passageway, his rage in every syllable. He would be vicious if he caught her.

The thought gave her an extra spurt of speed.

Norris was not far behind her, fueled by pure hatred.

Ahead Susanna could hear murmurs and the discordant clang of copper, and pushed herself even harder.

“No, no, no.” Norris was so close she could hear him panting the words, almost moaning them, as she reached the large door.

It was closed, and she wasted precious seconds pushing down the catch, pulling the heavy oak toward her.

Norris was on her. As his arm came up to strike, she threw herself forward, and though his fist connected with the back of her head, she was through. With a wild cry, arms flailing, she pitched headfirst into the room, her forehead hitting the floor with a sickening crack.

She lay panting like a wounded animal, and all about her she saw the black-slippered feet of small children dressed in long red and white robes. Then the much larger slippers and robes of a clergyman blocked her view.

“What is this?” The voice that spoke was strong and authoritative.

Susanna felt her grip on the world slipping away. Her hand lay beside her face, just next to her cheek, and it seemed to waver, even though it was pressed flat against the floor.

She closed her eyes to stop the dizziness, and was sucked into oblivion.

P
arker came upon Fielder faster than he’d anticipated. He was up ahead, his back turned, limping as if injured.

He must have heard Parker because he glanced over his shoulder, and his eyes widened with shock.

Parker was moving fast. As long as he focused on something the ground stayed where it should, and Fielder made an excellent focal point.

Fielder stumbled to a halt and turned, his hand tightening on his sword hilt.

So he wanted to fight it out? Without hesitation, Parker drew back his arm and threw the knife he’d taken off Fielder’s friend. It flew straight, and buried itself between Fielder’s heart and his shoulder, bringing him down like a stag taking a bolt.

Fielder made a keening sound and scrabbled across the floor to lean against the wall, legs spread-eagled in front of him. He looked at Parker with hopeless eyes.

“Where is she?” Parker knelt beside him and closed his hand around the knife handle. He eased the knife out a fraction.

“No,” Fielder choked, gasping and blinking away tears. “Don’t. I’ll bleed to death if you take it out.”

“I don’t care whether you live or die, Fielder, so tell me where she is.”

“Escaped.” Fielder’s hand fluttered around the knife, wanting to hit Parker’s hand away.

“And the bastard who was with you?”

“Norris went after her.”

Parker tightened his grip on the knife, ready to pull.

“No. Take mine.” Gasping like a fish, Fielder scrabbled at his belt, then held up a good knife.

“If I see you again, I’ll kill you.” Hearing the faint cry of a woman farther along the rabbits’ warren of passages, Parker broke into a run.

The Chiefe Conditions and Qualities in a Courtier:
Not to covett to presse into the Chambre or other secrete part where his Prince is withdrawen at any time.

Of the Chief Conditions and Qualityes in a Waytyng Gentylwoman:
To be wittie and foreseing, not heady and of a renning witt.

P
arker!” John Rightwise was so pleased to see him, Parker took a step back to avoid an embrace.

“There has been a strange incident.” Rightwise wrung his hands. “A woman fell into the room, and a man snatched her up and ran off. I cannot go after them; the King expects my choir to sing for him in ten minutes.”

“Snatched her up? You let him—” Parker closed his eyes to get control. When he opened them, his gaze fixed on Rightwise’s throat, and the deviser of court revels backed away, nervously.

“She leaped into the room, wild-eyed. Hit her head on the floor—”

“Not before that cove hit her on the head first,” a choirboy said in a clear, carrying pitch.

“What?” Rightwise turned. “Why didn’t you say something?”

The boy shrugged. “My da hits my ma like that all the time.”

“Was she badly injured?” Parker demanded of the boy, and he edged away, glancing left and right for support.

“She was senseless when he took her.” Rightwise straightened his robes.

Parker watched him readying himself for his performance incredulously. “For your sake, I hope she’s still alive, or I’ll interrupt your entertainment by coming in to strike you down.” He turned to the boys. “Which way did they go?”

“Left out the door,” a boy called out.

Parker touched his forehead in thanks, and grabbed one of the candles from a choirboy’s hand as he strode back into the passageway. He was sick with fear; it threatened to overwhelm him.

A new wave of dizziness hit him and he was forced to lean back against the wall and lower his head toward his knees.

The world was a jumble of colored lights and shifting perspective, and he made a sound in his throat, almost animal, as he tried to overcome the confusion. The place above his ear where he had been struck throbbed as if it were the size of his fist.

A searing pain scored his hand, and Parker’s focus snapped back in place. He looked down and saw that wax from the candle was dripping onto his knuckles.

He needed strength and clarity. Susanna was dead if he couldn’t find them within himself. If she wasn’t dead already.

He straightened and broke into a shambling run, his hand trailing the wall again for support. To his left, a servants’ staircase wound up to the floors above and he hesitated a moment at the foot of them, but the sound of voices around the next corner drew him forward.

He turned and stopped short. The far end of the passageway was a thoroughfare between the hall and the kitchens. Servants ran one way with empty trays, while others walked the opposite way with trays loaded high with food. A man sat watching him from a bench halfway down the corridor.

Parker went to him. “Did a man carrying a woman pass here?”

The man nodded. “He didn’t pass. He turned the corner, saw the crowds, and went back the way he’d come.” He frowned. “But he should have passed you, then.”

Parker frowned. Where could Norris have gone? Then it came to him.

The stairs.

N
orris was tiring. He began gasping for breath and stopped more frequently on the stairs. Susanna wondered how high he intended to go.

Her left arm was so painful, she had to bite her bottom lip to stop herself from screaming with every lurching step Norris
took. It was caught between her body and his shoulder in an agony of pins and needles.

She should be grateful. The pain of it had brought her back to herself, along with the blade of Parker’s knife as it scraped more skin off her inner arm with every jolt. But gratitude was the last of her feelings.

Instead, she felt a primal urge to lift her body, betray her wakefulness to Norris, just to get the blade out. This must be how prisoners felt in a torture chamber. Vulnerable and helpless against the pain.

Whenever Norris stumbled or lurched, the tip of the blade pierced her skin, and she could feel the terrible tickle of blood moving down her arm, pooling in her armpit.

Norris paused on a landing, swaying and gasping. “I’m finished.”

It was all the warning she had. Before she could prepare, Norris canted to one side and she slid off his shoulder. She struck the wooden floorboards and rolled onto her side, facing away from him. The shadows were deep and she used them to ease Parker’s knife from her sleeve. The relief was excruciating.

Norris was muttering, so low she could not make out his words. She heard the rustle of his clothes as if he were searching for something.

The squeak of a board from the stairs below made him still immediately. Susanna’s heart lurched, then set off at a gallop. This might be her only chance.

“Help!” As she called out, she rolled away from Norris until her hip struck the stairs on the other side of the landing.
But Norris was on her before she could even get to her knees, hauling her up by the back of her dress. She heard a rip, felt the fabric give as it took her full weight.

The sound on the stairs was no longer furtive. Someone was making no secret that they were running up, and Norris was panic-stricken, his movements wild and jerky as he half-flung her ahead of him to the head of the stairs.

“I hope this kills you,” he shouted as he grabbed her under the arms.

She scrabbled for purchase, terrified. He was going to pick her up and throw her at whoever was running up to them, she realized. She got a better grip on the knife clutched in her sweat-slicked right fist, lifted her elbow, and scored down hard. The feel of the knife tip biting into flesh made her shudder.

Norris screamed, his hand dropping to cover his side, releasing her right arm. Susanna pushed against him, trying to unbalance him as she pivoted to find a little room for herself at the top of the landing, but he pushed right back.

“Oh no, you don’t.” He spoke through gritted teeth, then shoved her as hard as he could.

There were no handholds.

Susanna pitched down the steep, narrow stairs, her scream tearing at her throat, Parker’s knife flying from her grasp.

But instead of the hard edges of the stairs, she slammed into warm, living flesh.

She heard a grunt as Parker took the hit, felt him stagger back and fall with her in his arms.

They landed, sprawled and tangled together, on the landing below.

“I wish you both to the devil.” Norris had his sword out, and he ran down the stairs, menacing and focused. As he reached the last stair, he lifted the sword.

Parker pushed her off him, scrabbling for a weapon, but there was no time, no chance. …

Despair paralyzed her. To end this way—

Norris stopped, his sword still raised, a dark bloom of blood spreading across his doublet. And she saw the knife buried in his chest.