Suzanne Robinson (23 page)

The door opened, and Erbut stuck his head inside, then retreated and stood with his pike pointed at the prisoner.

“It was your doing,” Pen said as she squeezed out the door. “You’re a foul player of parts, and this one is your most evil invention yet. In faith, I marvel that you haven’t grown horns and a tail with all the evil you’ve done. Do you sit at the right hand of the prince of hell at night?”

Before she could close the door, he was there, scowling and rigid with fury, yet his tone was light.

“God’s breath, chuck. What monstrous tales you spin. If you wanted me not, you wouldn’t have burst into feverish panting when you came upon me just now. I did nothing but lie in a half doze, and yet the sight of my body inflamed you. Verily, I wonder that you didn’t leap upon me as you were wont to do not a few days past.”

“A pox on you!” She slammed the door in his face.

She heard him shout through the oak that separated them.

“Come back. I’m willing to submit myself to your intemperate cravings.”

Pen fled before she could hear more. Running downstairs, she tried to think of epithets foul enough for him.

“Cloven-hoofed devil’s spawn. Hagseed. Even the rack is too gentle a fate for such as you.”

Late that night Morgan listened at the door to his prison. In his hand was the knife that was the prize he’d obtained by baiting Mistress Fairfax. As he had planned, she’d grown too agitated by his lustful manner and taunts to endure his presence and had fled, forgetting the tray and the knife. Neither she nor her servants had ever made good men-at-arms.

By filing the knife against a stone on the ledge outside his window, he’d shaped it to be inserted in the lock. At the moment he was listening to Erbut’s shuffling feet as the lad marched up and down the landing.

He’d suffered a little regret at offending Mistress Fairfax, but not enough to keep him from his plans. After all, she didn’t believe in his innocence, and she was interfering in the fate of England. His other choice had been to hold her hostage for his release. Lackwitted as they were, he didn’t wish to face all the castle folk and try to drag Pen past them and risk causing her or them a dire hurt.

The chamber was dark, for he wanted Erbut to assume he was asleep. Working the slim blade inside the lock, Morgan listened for Erbut’s footsteps—and heard them where they shouldn’t be, behind him. Someone was in the room with him, someone who had apparently slipped in through the window. Never
had he been so grateful of his training at Christian de Rivers’s hands.

He remained as he was. Straining his senses, he heard a footfall, closer this time. He was kneeling. He swiveled around without standing, shot out a leg, and rammed it into something directly behind him.

A knife hit the door and embedded itself there, quivering. At the same time, a light body buckled under the impact of his foot. Instead of falling, it cartwheeled over him, turned, and delivered a blow to the side of Morgan’s head with the hilt of another dagger. Stunned, Morgan fell into a pool of moonlight.

He expected an attack, and knocked aside the dagger that aimed for his heart. A backhanded blow caught him on the side of the head, but he gripped on the dagger arm of his attacker. The man was sitting on him. Morgan had little time to give thanks that his opponent was so light. Through pain and dizziness, he felt his opponent’s blade pierce his doublet and shirt.

The man pushed the dagger, using his whole weight, and Morgan moved back. He stopped the blade, and he heard his enemy grunt with effort. Bleeding from the wound to his temple, and furious, Morgan turned his head and blinked to clear his vision. All he could see was a figure wrapped in a dark cloak and hood. There was no face within the hood. It was shrouded in a long black kerchief except for gaps at the eyes and mouth.

The man heaved with his entire body. The dagger jabbed Morgan hard enough to prick his skin, but not hard enough to kill. He heard a laugh, then the hiss of breath being drawn in as his attacker moved so that he no longer blocked the moonlight, and it illuminated Morgan.

He heard the man suck in his breath. Then, abruptly, he reversed the direction of his force, pulling instead of pushing the dagger. The blade withdrew from Morgan’s breast and touched his throat. Again Morgan’s strength halted the blade easily, and he realized with some surprise that his enemy was already tiring.

Without warning, his attacker bent down and placed his lips upon Morgan’s. Morgan froze, feeling the edge of the blade at his throat and a hot mouth and tongue ravaging him. At the same time, the blade began to slice into the skin at his neck. All at once his sense returned and he realized that a man was kissing him.

He swore, bucked, and thrust with his arms. The man flew up and back, hit a wall. His hood fell back, and Morgan caught a glimpse of long golden curls. Wiping blood from the corner of his eye, he rose unsteadily. “A woman? You’re the assassin!”

Her arm moved, but Morgan easily dropped to his knees again as a knife flew at him. It jabbed into a painting. The assassin flew to the window. He saw the straight line of the rope she’d used to enter the room. She must have stolen onto the tower roof, tied the rope around one of the merlons, and then climbed down. Poised on the ledge holding a climbing rope, she chuckled while he struggled to his feet.

“It’s my ill luck. You should have been asleep like everyone else, and you should have been neither so skilled nor so tempting. You may call me Danseur,
mon corbeau
. A weakness of mine, to allow the prettier of my victims to die upon a kiss. It’s my misfortune that for once I was distracted more by the kiss than the killing. We will meet again for the experience,
non
?
Adieu
.”

Morgan lunged at her. She vanished as he moved, and the door slammed open. Erbut charged in, waving his pike at Morgan, who was forced to dodge its sharp tip before it sliced his ear off.

Cursing, he grabbed the pike and banged Erbut on the head with the staff. The lad dropped to the floor. Morgan rushed to the window, but he was too late. All he saw was a rope dangling down the length of the tower to end a few feet from the rocks that abutted the foundation of the castle.

Morgan returned to Erbut, relieved him of his sword, and donned his own cloak. Without another glance at Erbut’s prone body, he lowered himself over the window ledge after the assassin called Danseur.

Pen marched upstairs to the Painted Chamber with another tray in her hands, the final one. After the previous evening’s confrontation, she was looking forward to avenging herself by having Tristan hauled aboard the supply ship. He would doubtless try another of his manipulations upon her. However, he would find her no more easy to deceive than she had been the previous night.

The little sleep she’d managed to get had come at the expense of hours of remembering Tristan’s removed and yet derisive demeanor, his sad pity for her. His remoteness had frightened her. Not a few hours before, he’d shouted at her about their love.

Now he’d evidently given up the pretense, and she found that she preferred the former lie. To have him confront her with his indifference, that had been like wading through the fiery lakes of hell. And his pity had washed over her like burning oil.

It was the thought of his condescension that provoked her rage, and she welcomed it. Pen marched up the last steps to the landing and paused as she beheld the half-open door to the Painted Chamber. With a clatter she set the tray down on the floor and rushed inside. Erbut lay on the floor, his head cradled on his arms, snoring.

“Erbut!”

The lad snorted and snuffled himself awake. He sat up, wincing, and cradled his head in his hands.

Pen stood over him with her hands on her hips. “Erbut, what have you done?”

“He hit me, mistress.”

“But why did you enter the room? I told you not to come near him.”

“I heard noise, mistress. Like fighting. I seen someone at the window with his lordship—er—the priest. But he hit me. I woke up, but I was so woozy. Right befuddled, and me head ached, and then I fell asleep.”

“Oh, Erbut, how could—what is this?” Pen rushed to the window and gazed over the ledge at the length of rope. “The supply ship! Hurry, Erbut.”

Pen lifted her skirts and flew upstairs and out onto the top of the tower. She ran to the space between two merlons and gazed out to the southeast. Almost to the horizon, a speck in the midst of the pearl of dawn, she discerned the outline of the supply ship.

An inarticulate cry of fury burst from her. Erbut gaped at the retreating ship, his jaw nearly at rest on top of a merlon to which was fastened a rope. Pen swept back and forth across the roof and cast enraged glances at the rope and the ship while she berated herself for not setting more men to guard Tristan.

“I never should have waited for him to regain his wits. How did he get a rope?”

“From the devil,” Erbut said. “I saw one of his imps crouched in the window.”

“Oh, Erbut, no fantasies now. You sound like Sniggs.” Pen smacked her fist into her palm as she walked back and forth. “I must think of a way to catch him.”

Across the castle, on top of the gatehouse, Dibbler shouted and signaled to her. Pen ignored him and increased the speed of her pacing.

“I know. Ponder’s carrack. It’s much faster than the supply ship. Aye, the carrack. Ponder will just have to forgo his smuggling for a while.”

She turned at the sound of many footsteps. Coming toward her across the wall walk were Dibbler and his motley castle guard. Dibbler waved a pistol, his acquisition from their raid of Cutwell’s house. Between the erstwhile captain and Sniggs strode the queen’s man. Trailing behind came Turnip, Wheedle, and several farmers.

He came to a halt in front of her, stuck out a bandaged arm, and snapped, “I have come for an explanation, Mistress Fairfax. I should arrest you along with the priest. I’ve got myself nearly scorched to death and succumbed to the perilous humors of smoke. You have interfered with her majesty’s sworn emissary. Deliver the priest Jean-Paul unto me at once.”

He glanced aside at Dibbler. “And that knave has my best pistol. Return it to me before he kills someone.”

“Beshrew the pistol. You’re too late, Lord St. John.”

St. John smirked at her. “What has happened? Is he dead? Have you killed him?”

“No. The priest has fled.” Pen pointed to the supply ship as it vanished over the horizon.

St. John gazed at it, then burst into curses. Pen stared at him as his face turned the color of a ruby.

“I should have attended to this matter myself!” he shouted.

“What?”

He glared at her, then looked away. “Never mind. Now I must pursue him all over again. By the cross, you had better pray I kill him before he reaches England.”

St. John turned and tried to leave. Pen signaled to Dibbler, and the queen’s man found himself in the midst of a circle of pikes and pitchforks. He rounded on Pen.

“What mean you by this?”

“You said you were going to kill him.”

As though speaking to an inhabitant of Bedlam, he said, “You have left me no choice, mistress.”

“I cannot allow you to kill him,” Pen said.

“Allow? Allow? God’s testicles!”

“Cease these foul ravings, my lord, or I’ll have you clapped in a cell.”

Turnip poked the man’s backside with his pitchfork. St. John clamped his mouth shut and glared at her.

“As I said, I cannot allow you to kill him, but I will help you capture him again.”

“I need no assistance from a foolhardy such as yourself. You may chase him all you like, but only I know where he’s bound.”

Pen contemplated her triumphant opponent for a moment, then sighed with mock regret. “If you won’t help me catch him, then I’ll go without you. Alas, then I shall be forced to put you in a cell until I return.”

St. John eyed the pikes and pitchforks again. “What do you propose, mistress?”

“You and I shall take Ponder’s swift carrack and hunt down the priest,” Pen said.

“I shall gather my men.”

“Nay, my lord. You’d be too tempted to o’rthrow me. My men will suffice. Prithee, make haste, for I wish to sail at once.”

St. John made a sweeping bow. “I am at your command, mistress, although when we catch the priest, I vow you’ll regret ever setting foot off this God-cursed island.”

Her preparations for a voyage were already complete. Pen visited her treasury, which consisted of an ancient worm-eaten casket stuck in a dusty room below the Painted Chamber. It was during this search for travel funds that Pen realized she’d been robbed and by whom. The pitted and rusted lock on the casket had been breached, and nearly a third of her store of coins was missing. Gathering up the rest while she cursed, Pen set off with her retainers and St. John.

They rode to the Cutwell dock on the other side of the island with St. John scoffing at the idea of her stealing a ship. Pen paid him no heed. Dismounting from her horse, she marched down the dock to the ship’s master with her men right behind her. She handed the master a bag of coin, spent a few minutes in intense discussion, then boarded the ship with a chastened St. John at her heels. She’d used most of her meager store of winter coin. But her need was dire.

The voyage to England took little over a day, most of which she spent at the prow of the ship straining to catch sight of the supply vessel. She never did. They anchored in a secluded inlet on the coast of Cornwall the following night and were rowed ashore. At the master’s instructions, she found lodging in a village nearby and was up before dawn the next morning.
They hired horses and set forth on a road that led north according to St. John’s guidance.

As they rode, Pen came out of her grim silence and cast a glance at the queen’s man. “Why did you dose Tristan with that evil potion?”

He shouted over the thunder of their horses’ hooves. “Think you that I wanted to waste time in prizing from him his foul secrets?”

“So this tale of an attempt upon Cecil is true.”

Turning his head to look at her quickly, he didn’t answer at once. He kicked his horse into a faster gallop.