Traitors' Gate (4 page)

Chapter Seven

I don’t go back to father’s house.
I’m far too afraid that, if he gets another grip on me, he might never let me
go. I feel bad not saying goodbye to Mistress Leighton and Gordons but I can’t
take the risk. I don’t go back for belongings either. All I have are the
clothes on my back and Nicholas, and it is all I need. We leave Ravenglass
within the hour. We travel on foot, running through the dark countryside like I
did on the first night we met. We move together, fingers entwined like merry
schoolchildren.
 
We reach the town and
Nicholas books us a room at the local pub, then passage on a coach heading for
London. I am to meet Christian and Tolliver and another of Nicholas’s blood
drinking brethren, a Frenchman called Philippe.

I’m sure we are receiving a score
of disapproving looks, but I don’t notice them. Wrapped in my vampire’s arms I
am safe and oddly warm. There are many kisses, but nothing else. Nicholas
proposes to me that night and we decide to wait until we are married before we
truly share a bed. Once the Elders agree to my turning, I am to be a vampire
bride; living out the plot of a bard’s best song is fast turning out to be the
best decision I’ve ever made.

I had always thought London was a
big city, but with so many people squashed into its streets, it seems
positively tiny. We arrive early in the morning and make our way to a tavern
called the Dead Hare.

“It’s a vampire haven,” explains
Nicholas, “we’re meeting them there.”

The Dead Hare is surprisingly
luxurious, not your average rowdy tavern that smells of overcooked vegetables and
cheap ale It is populated by men who all lay protecting arms about their female
companions; there are even a few children playing in a corner. Nicholas catches
me staring at them. “We don’t drink from children, it’s forbidden. But most
still want a family. They’ll have been adopted by a vampire here.”

The children are laughing and
dressed in expensive outfits. They look chubby and happy.

“Where do they adopt them from?” I
ask.

“I’m afraid it’s from the less
fortunate people who have too many babies to feed. They sell their youngest to
anyone with a coin.”

“I can believe that. But they’re
the lucky ones, aren’t they?” I nod toward the children.

“Strangely, yes they are. They’ll
grow up and the boys will be given the opportunity to be turned. The girls will
be married, if they choose to be. Their sons will be…”

“I get it. The Elders don’t like
ladies.” I wave my arms around and realize that I kind of raised my voice.

“They will adore you.” Nicholas
hugs me and I wonder if someday I’ll be allowed to sire my own child, and what
that would feel like, to share this dark gift with another.

As we move further into the tavern,
my eyes are drawn to a familiar face, “Christian!” I yell.

I throw myself into his open arms.
I see a brief flash of fang as he tries to bite me.

Chapter Eight

The two other vampires quickly
restrain him and one throws me an angry glance.

“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry,” I say.

After a slight struggle, Christian
sits down and looks up at me, “It is I who should say sorry. I’m only here
because I said that I could control my appetite. You are just too delectable,
Lucinda Delacourt.”

“You should take him home,
Tolliver.” Nicholas pulls me behind him and stares daggers at my old friend.

Christian rolls his eyes. He’s just
as I remember him, only a little bit broader and ever so slightly undead.

“He’s simply stating the obvious,
mes
amis
.” The
third vampire sweeps me out from behind Nicholas. He kisses my hand. “
Bonjour mademoiselle, vous etes belle
.”

“
Merci beaucoup
,” I reply.

“Vous parlez francais?”

“Mais, bien sur.”

“I’m your humble
servant, Philippe.” He bows.

I’m glad the
French stops there as we are nearing my vocabulary limit on it.

“That’s enough of
that,” Nicholas says, stepping between us.

As much as I’m
enjoying the attention, Nicholas’s face is beginning to contort to anger, so I
step back and let him help me into my seat. He lays an arm across the back of
my chair and a brief round of pleasantries begin. I use this time to study the
other vampires a little further. Christian looks good. Being a vampire suits
him;
his
 
black
hair spills a little over his broad shoulders and his rich dark eyes are keen
and deep. Will being a vampire make me more becoming? Will it change me that
much? Would my father recognize me if I choose to go back home?

Philippe is
watching me. His gaze is soft and he has the effortlessly easy air that many a
Frenchman has. I instantly like him. He includes me in their conversations and
is attentive to my needs. He is the one that orders me a rich thick beef broth
that tastes like it’s been cooked by God himself. Tolliver is more serious. He
is holding Christian’s wrist beneath the table and when his eyes fall on me
they are analytical and cold, especially when he sees me dunking bread into the
broth.

We’re coming to
the end of our strange social engagement when a young boy barrels up to us.

“Message for
Nicholas Lord,” he says thrusting out a fold of parchment.

“Not a moment’s
peace,” Philippe laments.

Nicholas takes the
parchment and gives the boy a coin. He unfolds the message and begins to read.
I notice his lips moving as he does. If we had been alone I’d have kissed him.

When he’s
finished, he hands the letter to Tolliver who struggles to read it with just
the one free hand.

“
Mon ami?”

“The Elders need
us. There’s a problem at the Tower.”

“The Tower of
London?” I ask.

“Yes, something
about the boy princes,” Nicholas says, seeming distant.

“When are we
needed?” Philippe asks.

“Now, we should
leave now.” Nicholas gets up and holds a hand out to me.

“You can’t take Lucinda
with you,” Christian says.

“Well, I’m not
leaving her here with you. And besides, I want to talk to the Elders about her
anyway. Now is a good time, when they actually need help.”

“I’ll take
Christian back to the house and meet you at the Tower,” Tolliver declares.

A wind flaps my
hair and cloak. I close my eyes against it, and when I open them I see that
Tolliver and Christian are gone. I didn’t even get to say goodbye.

“Should we not
re-dress your lovely lady?” Philippe asks, eyeing my breeches.

“Actually,
probably for the best. We can put a cap on her and claim she’s a page.”

“I am standing
right here!” I put my hands on my hips.

“I thought you
were taught by the finest French tutors at court,” Nicholas says with a
devilish laugh. “Weren’t you taught women are sought for their beauty, not
their voices?” He chuckles as I slap his arm.

“Court in France!
We have so much to talk about!” Philippe takes my hand and walks me to the
door, “So tell me,”
he
says, “are you all finished
with your French education?”

“Not even close” I
say.

Chapter Nine

The Tower of
London is a formidable stack of stones splattered by the blood of both the
guilty and the innocent. Part jail and part courthouse, if walls could talk
this place would scream in horror thanks to the events it’s witnessed through
the centuries. It’s a fortress designed to both protect and imprison. You can’t
simply walk onto the Tower’s ground, not unless you work there, so we edge
along the bank of the Thames to the watery entrance reserved for the condemned.
Prisoners too high profile to walk through the front doors are ferried through
a sunken gate, as if they were crossing the River Styx.
 

Night has crept in
around us and it’s a new moon, making everything that much darker. I stand
between Nicholas and Philippe; Tolliver lingers by the water. He seems lost in
his own reflection, like Narcissus. I’ve yet to see him smile and part of me
wants to tell him a bawdy joke just to see if I can elicit one from him.
 
Nicholas holds my hand tightly and when I tug
at it, he looks down at me.

“Everything is
going to be okay, darling,” he whispers, then leans down to kiss the top of my
head.

Philippe smiles at
us as then stoops down by the water’s edge and pulls a rope that releases a
large red rowboat. “You know,” he says, “there’s a rumor that they’re going to
start calling this entrance Traitors’ Gate; put heads on spikes to decorate the
gateway.”

“That’s gruesome,
Philippe.” Tolliver comes away from the river and shoulder bumps his French
friend.

I’m unsure why I
laugh at them. Perhaps it just feels good to be included as part of their
group, or perhaps I’m just nervous. Soon we’re all laughing together and
Philippe begins regaling us about the logistics of the last hanging he attended
on Tower Hill. “Of course, being a vampire he didn’t die; just swung there
strangely, blushing and waiting for someone to figure it out and cut him
down!”
 

It enters my eye
line, just for a second, its oil slick feathers beating the cold English air,
its sharp beak dripping bloody gore...

“Lucinda, watch
out!” Nicholas yells at me and pushes me back out of its trajectory.

He of course had
seen the raven before it had begun its descent. Before I’d even realized what
was going on, Nicholas had drawn his sword and sliced it in two. An unholy
screech escapes its beak, and I can smell a foulness lifting from its exposed,
shiny innards as its two halves writhe on the ground at my feet.

“What in the name
of God is going on here?” Philippe pokes his sword at the twitching bird
corpse, “it still looks alive…” Half of the bird judders forward and attacks
the blade. He shakes it off and completely decapitates the thing. It now looks
like black paste scraped across the path.

“Are you okay,
Lucinda?” Nicholas asks me. He puts his arm around my shoulders and it’s only
then that I realize I’m shaking. I link my arms around his waist and pull him
to me, breathing in the smell of him. Tolliver gives me a distasteful look and
Philippe looks away and down at the twitching mess at our feet.

He narrows his
eyes at it. “Did it come from the Tower?”

“Must have, but
what the hell happened to it?” Tolliver asks.

A strong wind
whips at my fur cloak and suddenly there is another man in front of me. He is
dressed in a Tower Guard’s uniform and has long golden hair to his shoulders
and the small ghost of a beard. His eyes are frightfully dark and fixed
completely on me. When I do not look away from him, he grins, showing me
scarlet stained teeth. There are wet bloodstains creeping over the uniform. I
cower a little into Nicholas.

“What is the
meaning of this?” he asks, staring a hole through Nicholas.

“I wanted the
Elders to meet my fiancée, Lucinda Delacourte,” he replies.

I let go of
Nicholas and curtsey as best I can in breeches.

“You wish to make
a female vampire?”

“I do, I think
that Lucinda has the right temperament and…”

The strange man’s
grin widens. “She is comely, and I do like a woman in man’s clothes.
Scandalous.” He holds out a hand to me and I hesitate to take it. Something
tells me he is not like the others, or as we used to say at school, the hat and
boots don’t quite match. I decide to smile and edge backward behind Nicholas
and Philippe.

“She’s smart too.
I like her. But you still cannot make a female vampire.”

“But, Elder
please…” A soft begging tone is creeping into Nicholas’s words.

“Might I have a
brief word?” Philippe says. He maneuvers the Elder away from us and I cannot
hear what they are saying, but I’m assuming Nicholas does.

“What’s going on?”
I whisper to him.

“Philippe is
telling the Elder that I need you, that without you I would have ended my own
life.”

“Will that work?”

“I often find that
the truth is always best the tactic.”

A sudden thought
grips me. If the Elders don’t agree to me being turned, Nicholas might try to
do something silly again. As a human I will inevitably die, so will he kill
himself right along with me? I look up at him and am about to ask when Philippe
re-joins us.

“The Elder has
agreed to Lucinda being turned on one condition,” he says.

“Name it,”
Nicholas replied.

“She must go into
the Tower with us.”

“I’ve never been
in the Tower of London. It might be fun,” I say.

“You should
probably ask what’s going on here first, before agreeing.” Tolliver kicks a
piece of raven over to my foot. He makes a good point, albeit a disgusting one.

The Elder swiftly
moves to stand before us. “My brothers and I have just returned from the battle
of Camporto. Our enemies there have been vanquished, but one had already been
captured by the English knights and taken here to be interrogated. He is being
kept here in the Tower.”

“You want us to go
in and get to him?” Nicholas asks.

“Not exactly. He’s
not the one we wish you to recover. The two young princes, Edward and Richard,
are being kept in the Tower.”

“What has happened
here?” Tolliver asks, “Why are the princes in danger?”

“The new prisoner
is an enchanter by the name of St. John Swan.”

“An enchanter?” I
ask before I can keep my question to myself.

“A warlock,”
Philippe replies.

I shiver again,
stroking the fur of my cloak.

Nicholas suddenly
pulls me behind him and launches himself at the Elder, who simply moves out of
his way with little effort.

Tolliver grabs
Nicholas and holds him back. “You would send in a human girl against an
enchanter!” Nicholas yells.

“She must prove
herself, brother,” Tolliver whispers.

“We will all go
into the Tower, we’ll find the princes, and our job will be done.” Philippe
slips his hand in mine as he says it.

“Perhaps not as
easy as you think.” The Elder stares at the diced Raven on the ground.

“Has St. John cast
a spell on the Tower?” I ask.

“It would seem
that he has infected the prisoners within the Tower with the Reverent
affliction. If the princes are still alive, they are to be brought to me.” The
Elder then throws me an oddly bored expression and disappears into the night.

The thought of
those two little boys surrounded by monsters is almost too much to bear. Even
without vampire companions, I’d have still ventured in to find them. “Let’s get
started!” I say and turn to get on the boat that will take us into the Tower’s
grounds.

Nicholas shakes
his head. “I’m not letting you go in there.”

“I can deal with
warlocks and revenants,” I say.

“Do you even know
what revenants are?”

“Zombies, the
living dead,” Tolliver adds.

“Well, I’ve
managed to survive vampires, Lord Hands McGrabby and my father, so this should
be a ball. Let’s go and get it over with.”

“If this St. John
has just turned prisoners, then they should still all be locked up. One would
presume that the human guards have all been spirited away to safety by the
other Elders.” Philippe’s reasoning softens the look on Nicholas’s face.

“I’ll be okay.” I
reach up and caress Nicholas’s cheek. I see in his eyes that he hasn’t quite
decided my true fate yet, and in honesty, the decision belongs only to him.

“We will take care
of her, brother,” Tolliver says.

“All right, but we
get the boys, and we get out. The Elders can clean up their own damn zombie
mess. The deal was that she was to go in, nothing else.” Nicholas quickly
catches my lips with his. They are cold and soft and feel wonderful. A surge of
bravery rises in me and I break our kiss to whisper in his ear, “I will be
strong, fast and deadly.”

He pulls me into a
hard embrace and I feel his hands beneath my cloak caressing the skin of my
back.

“He’ll make her
regardless of the Elders, won’t he?” Tolliver asks Philippe.

“And we will stand
by them both regardless.”