What A Scoundrel Wants (36 page)

“Hargrave! The sand!” Robin and his second ran to the drum of sand. He signaled to a nearby pair of archers. “I want swords on those two. Make them hold still.”

He and Hargrave whipped the cover from the drum and lifted it between them, grunting. The weight pulled at the joints in his arms. They hoisted it higher still, balancing it on their shoulders. The burning woodsmen writhed and rolled among the soggy leaves, but the water only exacerbated the flames they wore. Two swords aimed at their necks hardly restrained their agonized thrashing. They screamed and begged.

Robin and Hargrave tipped the drum. Muscles strained to control the flow of sand, to keep it from spilling too quickly or chaotically. Sand poured and doused the men until the fires fizzled. Rank flesh and chemicals mingled into a repellent stench. Witnesses covered their mouths and noses, crossed themselves.

“I want medical attention for these two,” Robin said. “Save what remains of this sand. Get it covered. I want no more accidents!”

Astonished warriors edged away from the second barrel of solution.

“You have orders, men. Archers! On me!”

Robin eyed them each in turn, but terror held them firm. He had never encountered a situation where his men feared their armaments more than they feared their enemies.

Despite uneasiness droning in his ears—for he misliked Meg’s brew almost as much as his men did—Robin pulled another torch-like arrow from his quiver. He strode forward and saturated the wool, willingly shaking the hand of a dangerous ally. Dipped in the water, the arrow ignited. He stood, aimed, and fired. A flaming arc of light touched upon a distant hoarding. He repeated the process, a single archer wielding the Devil’s own brimstone.

“I will not stand for your cowardice!” His bellow shook the trees. He punched an angered fist at the castle gates. “And I will not stand for leaving those men stranded, without cover.”

Hargrave was the first to shake free of his shock, taking up his bow and nodding grimly to Robin. Another man followed. And another.

“Ready!”

“No, wait!”

Robin pulled his attention to Hargrave, who pointed toward two figures emerging from the castle gate.

“You won’t escape this place,” he shouted, smiling.

The trio of guards barreled down the stairs in advance of their liege. Will stopped and fired an arrow at the rearmost of the three, piercing him in the thigh. The man doubled forward and clutched his wound. The momentum of his descent pitched him forward, onto the backs of his cohorts. Will sidestepped the tumbling bodies.

“Cover me, John! I’ll meet you on the outside.”

He charged again, discarding his bow in favor of a sword. Meeting his opponent at the top of the stairs, he drew strength from his advantages. Ada was free of the castle. John and Robin had his back. And no way under heaven was he letting Dryden best him at swordplay a second time.

“Yield now,” he said. “You lost your prize, and I do believe she killed the sheriff.”

The nobleman flinched. “You must be disappointed.”

“Not at all. He was my second favorite villain.”

“No matter,” Dryden said, hoisting his long claymore. “Finch was expendable, just like you and Carlisle.”

“And your father? Your cousin?”

He smiled, that unassuming grin that had duped them all. “Of course.”

Dryden held the higher ground, hacking downward and catching Will’s sword. Will focused on maintaining his stance. He shifted his weight in wary dance of waiting. After another deflection, he climbed again. And again. In a matter of heartbeats, forcing aside his fear, he stood level with his opponent at the top of the stairs.

“And you wanted Meg’s emeralds to support a coup d’état?” Will asked. “Was that your intent?”

“Here.”

Will caught the palm-sized rock thrown his way, quickly defending against another onslaught of blows. He jumped onto a bench, jumped over a chopping blow, jumped back to the floor. Edging away from Dryden, he glanced at the rock.

“What’s this?”

“You wanted answers, Scarlet,” Dryden said. “My father owed Arthur more than our estate was worth. But those emeralds of Meg’s—Finch sold them for real gold.”

“That was your aim? Paying your father’s debts with counterfeits?”

Dryden grinned. “You understand why finding an alchemist like her was a priority.”

He shook his head, chagrined. “Finch, Carlisle, me—all of us driven by greed and thinking you worked for some higher purpose.”

“Amazing what faith people place in the nobility.”

“No, people simply assume a son wouldn’t have his father murdered for a bit of coin.”

Dryden laughed and shuffled away from another strike. “Don’t be high-handed, Scarlet. You’ve found redemption but that doesn’t mean the rest of us have need of it.” He attacked again, swinging the sword.

Will formed a semicircle with his torso, bending over the arc of the blade and dropping the nugget. He twirled and brought his own sword down with a two-fisted grip. He and Dryden stood, weapons squealing, mouths mere inches apart. His thumb ached. His shoulder trembled. He grunted, pushed, spun away—and caught sight of the gold nugget.

No, two nuggets.

Laughter bubbled free, a wellspring of fatigue, rage, and glee. “Seems someone thought very little of Meg’s emeralds.”

Dryden checked his advance with a quizzical expression. “What?”

“Mad witch that she is, my new wife told me a little something about metals, rocks, and hammers.” He turned the blade of his sword to the ceiling and knelt, driving the pommel into one of the nuggets. It shattered. Golden dust floated around his face. “This is a rock.”

The nobleman looked ready to spit. His face glowed an angry red beneath his beard. Will took the advantage and leapt forward, but Dryden veered left through a corridor and out of sight.

Midway up the mound, he met the wiry Jewish lad where he crawled through tall grasses. The woman he guided was covered in blood, marred by soot, and trembling. Her eyes would not focus. For a moment, Robin thought of Will’s new wife.

“How goes? Where are the others?”

“The men trapped outside the portcullis pulled it open,” Jacob said. “Ada and I came free, and they went to join John and the others.”

“Did our men set the fires inside?”

Jacob shook his head and glanced at the woman. “I think she did.”

“And Will?”

“No notion, milord.”

He nodded, quelling his worry. “Get her to safety.”

Squinting through the rain, he waved back to the line and signaled escorts to aid the refugees. Hargrave, however, pointed to the castle roof. Robin angled his head high, looking past the walls of flame.

No!

Silhouetted against orange and the black, Will dueled with Dryden. The men shuffled steps along the topmost rampart. Flames licked at the walls supporting the platform on which they fought. Every lunge met a parry. Every retreat spawned an advance. Matching and clashing and surging anew, their swords jerked as if pulled by a puppeteer.

He tore his eyes from the scene. Ushering Jacob and Ada back to the safety of the line, his mind and heart bellowed desperate questions.

What is Will thinking? Where is John?

Why am I down here?

Robin tossed the wool-headed shafts to the sodden ground and grabbed a handful of arrows tipped with barbed steel. He climbed near the top of the mound. Sparks shot from the burning structure. Walls trembled and bowed in odd places. A few soldiers yet fought, but most abandoned the ruined castle in favor of distant trees.

Watching the duel in the sky, he was momentarily transfixed. His nephew fought like a warrior, a true and brave warrior. No hesitation dogged his steps. No fear tainted his technique. But Dryden stood taller and had not suffered Will’s injuries. The nobleman swiped and stabbed with practiced ease, never giving Will the opportunity to cast a fatal blow.

Robin could stand no more. He drew back the bowstring, aiming at the torso of their enemy. The arrow flew. Dryden swung his blade. Will teetered on one foot, his balance a casualty of his last-ditch defense, and lunged a final time. The arrow hit its mark, but too late.

Like a flutter of leaves, two bodies whirled to the ground.

Will would be well and home and whole. And Ada. She would have Ada returned to her.

Soon.

Following a stilted morning meal she could barely chew, she walked with Marian in the garden, arms linked. The rain gave way to another killing frost. Grass crunched beneath her boots. A half dozen soldiers followed at a near distance, their clattering metal weaponry and mail shaking animals from the trees. She imagined noisy ghosts haunting the paths they walked, spirits whispering the words she and Marian refused to say, to think.

They walked and waited. Anxiety built inside her joints, lacing through muscles and tendons. She hitched her cloak more securely around her shoulders, but bandages caught and tugged against the brooch.

“Saints be!”

She shrugged from Marian’s arm and tossed the cloak to the ground. With teeth, with her patience in shreds, she tore off the bandages of one hand. Marian caught the other hand and helped strip the linen, baring damaged flesh to the chilly air. Both of them laughed like madwomen.

Marian pulled the cloak over Meg’s shoulders and fastened the brooch. “We’ll rebind them when we return to the manor. A little freedom will do no harm.”

“Gramercy.” The bracing cold spread a tingle over her skin. She flexed her hands, slightly, feeling the painful pull of scabs and blisters.

Marian placed a hand on her upper arm to resume their walk. “The differences between you and Will are rather incredible.”

She swallowed a gasp. They could not talk about Will, not if she wanted to hold back a wave of tears. But Marian’s words made her curious. “How so?”

“Please regard this as a compliment, Meg: You have a face for gambling. Between your eyes and your expression, you hardly give away a thought.”

“And Will?”

“In a crowd of men he stands apart, always holding something in reserve. His expressions say more than he does. That you’ve been able to communicate at all impresses me.”

Cultured and precise, her words also held a warmth of affection. Meg almost envied their long association, but she appreciated Marian’s candor.

She swept short strands of hair away with the backs of her forearms. “Perhaps that explains the rough time we’ve had in coming to an understanding. I needed to find a different way inside him.”

“I wager you’ve found pieces of him no one else thought to discover.”

And he of me.

She stopped. She heard it more clearly then, the fast approach of distant hoof beats. “Who comes?”

“I cannot tell.”

“Milady,” said a guard. “Let us return to the manor, if you please.”

With the men-at-arms flanking them in a circle of fretful metal, they came to the manor gates. The sound and feel of yielding, frostbitten earth beneath her boots gave way to stone, then marble. Another guard ran into the foyer from a rear doorway. “Milady, a Jew requests entry to the stables. Says his name be Jacob.”

Meg said his name on an exhale. News. At last.

Marian tensed only briefly, a quick flex of fingers on Meg’s arm. “Grant him admittance. Show him to the main hall.”

The man hesitated.

“
Immediately
, I say.”

Minutes later, a bustle of noise and footsteps overran the manor. Servants and guards moved with equal haste in a flurry that set Meg’s head to turn. When at last she sat on a padded bench, she dug nails into the brocade. Pain lanced her palms. She dug harder.

“Meg!”

She found Jacob’s voice, if not his face. “What news, Jacob? Tell me true.”

“I brought someone for you.”

“Meg? There you are!”

“Ada!”

The sisters dove into each other’s arms, Meg sitting and Ada kneeling. Relief sluiced through her body, dissolving the hard armor she had worn since Will’s departure. She touched and touched again, reassuring her mind of the truth. Ada was free, safe.

“Are you well, Ada? Tell me how you fare.”

“I am…I am well.” She laughed with the uncertainty of a person waking from a dream. Smoke and blood wafted from her clothes and hair, a sharp, nauseating pang. “I set a dozen fires. Thought you would be proud of that.”

“Ada?”

“’Tis true. I set Bainbridge alight. And then I killed the sheriff.” She sounded unlike herself, a warped imitation of her sister.

An unnamed fear spun in her veins. “You killed Sheriff Finch?”

“Yes, with no regrets,” Ada said. “But saints be, I couldn’t get that ramskit Scarlet.”

Marian gasped. Meg flinched, her body drawn taut.

“She took a dagger to Will,” Jacob said, pulling Ada to her feet. “I stopped her and brought her on ahead, hoping tempers would cool.”

“Tell us, please.” The tone of Marian’s voice was soft enough to tame wolves. “Do you know what fates befell the others?”

“No, milady. My apologies.”

“Come then. Let me see to your care.”

They departed, leaving the great hall barren save the sisters. Meg stood, her knees shaking. “Now you can tell me, Ada. What exactly did you do?”