A Knight's Pledge, page 3
He lay upon some sort of slab, he supposed, feeling the rock-hard surface biting into his shoulder blades and skull. His foot felt as though it were actively on fire, the flames penetrating to his very bones, charring them within his blazing flesh. He was so nauseated that he fancied he could feel the tip of his stomach tickling his Adam’s apple, the noxious contents within sloshing up his esophagus with each careful, shallow breath that failed to deliver enough air. He felt sticky and soaked with his own malodorous stench, a combination of sulphur and rotting meat.
He dared crack open his eyelids. The ceiling above him was black, rippled with the wild light of flames. And then there was a shadowed face blocking out the light—elfin, pale, with a blonde plait hanging down toward him.
Effie Annesley.
Not a nightmare, then. Definitely hell.
“You,” he rasped.
Then her detestable visage was gone, replaced with the concerned countenance of Gorman, the bandit he remembered from the fire at Darlyrede House—the man who had risked his own life, and his freedom, to help Padraig Boyd free the trapped occupants from the flaming hall.
“Sir Lucan,” Gorman said. “How fare thee?”
“Where am I?” Lucan demanded, his voice sounding weak and raspy, to his great dismay. Although he did suppose one wouldn’t sound exactly gay having been plunged into the bowels of hell. “What of my horse? Where is Agrios?”
“Your gallant mount is well and enjoying a hearty meal after performing such a fine service for his master,” the bandit assured him. “Rolf saw to it himself, after he was certain you were being looked after.”
Lucan felt the little knot of worry in his chest loosen. “Where am I?” Lucan repeated.
Then she was back. “The Warren,” she said. “Rolf brought you here after you fainted. You owe him a debt for it—you could have lost your foot, letting those butchers have at you.”
“Yes, let’s do blame those who tried to help me rather than the woman who shot me,” he said through gritted teeth.
Gorman eased back into Lucan’s line of sight. “Your foot should heal now. Winnie has drained it and covered it with a poultice to draw out the fever.”
“It burns like the devil,” Lucan sighed and let his eyes drift closed again. He was so tired. Too tired even to argue at finding himself in the very den of the thieves whom he should have already placed under arrest. He didn’t even care at this point if he died. He was tired of chasing criminals, tired of chasing ghosts, tired of chasing an elusive future—he just wanted to rest.
“Wake up,” she demanded.
Lucan opened his eyes to glare at her with all the anger he could muster. “Do you mind? As much as I resent admitting it, it appears as though I am quite unwell. And I’ve obviously been kidnapped. I should like to recover somewhat before you attempt to harangue me to death.”
“Trust me, it won’t be your foot next time,” Effie promised.
“Enough,” Gorman interrupted. “Sir Lucan, I am sorry to bother you when you are indeed in need of rest. But I fear that we have no time to waste. We would tell you what has happened now, so that you might formulate a plan to aid us. If you are willing, of course.”
Lucan frowned. He remembered now—Rolf coming to his chamber…the boy.
George Thomas Annesley, how do you do?
He looked to the woman, whose expression was as unmovable and enigmatic as the stones around them.
“Your son,” Lucan said.
“Our son,” Gorman corrected.
Lucan tried to conceal his surprise as the bearded man continued.
“He sneaked out of the Warren late in the day of the wedding to follow Effie when she went to survey the damage to Darlyrede. He was taken before she realized he’d followed her. We didn’t know by whom until yesterday.”
“Ransom?” Lucan ventured.
“Not quite.” Gorman turned and held out his hand towards the woman, still watching him with what appeared to be barely concealed disgust. She withdrew a crumpled sheet of parchment from her belt and handed it to Gorman, who unfurled it, but then paused, glancing at Lucan.
“Shall I? Or would you rather?”
Lucan raised his hand and motioned with his fingers. Gorman placed the page in his hand while Effie Annesley approached with both her hands now gripping a rather ornate silk cushion she’d procured from the shadows. Lucan glanced at her warily.
“Don’t worry,” she grumbled as she stuffed it behind his head. “I’ll not smother you before you’ve read it.”
Lucan shook out the page and turned it toward the light of the torch anchored somewhere behind his cot. The sheet was marred by a ragged hole in the center and Gorman obviously knew the question on Lucan’s tongue before he could ask it.
“We found it nailed to a tree yesterday, near where George’s footprints disappeared.”
We have the boy. He will be delivered to the king. Have mercy on yourself.
VP
“VP?” Lucan asked as he looked up from the page. “Vivienne Paget? She is the only one I know of with those initials living in the vicinity of Darlyrede.”
Gorman’s face was grim. “I’d wager my life on it. But she wasn’t alone, and she was not the mastermind behind this plan.”
“Because it says ‘we?’” Lucan was unconvinced. “Perhaps it means we, my servants and I. Or the royal we.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, it’s Caris Hargrave,” Effie Annesley snapped. Lucan turned his head to regard the woman as she explained herself. “Vivienne Paget doesn’t have the physical strength to lift more than a kerchief to her disgusting mouth. She’d retreated to Elsmire Castle after her scum of a husband was killed.”
“Caris Hargrave is dead.” As much as Lucan despised Effie Annesley, he would not allow her to hold such morbid fantasies, especially if the welfare of a child hung in the balance. “Padraig Boyd left her, dead of an attack of asthma, in the dungeon of Darlyrede House when he rescued my sister. The manor collapsed in flames around her.”
But Effie was already shaking her blonde head. “She’s not dead.” Her words were little more than a strangled whisper. She rushed forward and jerked the page from Lucan’s grip, pointing at the last line. “Have mercy on yourself.” She tossed the page back to him. “She must have said those exact words to me a thousand times. I can feel her. Crawling like a leech under my skin, still. She’s not dead. And she has George.”
Lucan was prevented from perhaps saying something foolish by the entrance of a pair of figures, each bearing a tray. One was the berobed friar from the hunt, the dubious patron of the supposed children’s charity, and the other was tall, broad shouldered in the woolen kirtle and lace trimmed underdress. Golden curls peeked out from the hood of a short cape, hiding the visitor’s visage even as they and the friar jostled each other to reach Lucan’s bedside first.
“Why, good day to you, Sir Lucan,” the friar said, the fiery light of triumph in his eyes as he elbowed his statuesque partner aside. The man was still sans eyebrows, his oddly cropped dark hair swishing across his forehead. He gave a shallow bow. “I thank God that we have met again, this time in more pleasant circumstances.”
“I don’t know that I share your gratitude for the situation,” Lucan muttered.
“As we had no time for formalities when last we met, I am Gilboe,” the friar went on, ignoring Lucan’s sarcasm. “And I have brought you a repast from God’s bounty, prepared with my own hands.” He bowed again as he offered forth his tray, laden with what indeed looked to be a delightful selection of delicacies, had Lucan possessed any appetite whatsoever.
But the monk was shunted aside rather forcefully as the blonde pushed forward. “What good Sir Lucan better wants,” a sultry, lisping voice scolded, “is a good, hot, satisfying drink.” The face hidden in the golden curls turned toward him, and Lucan almost yelped at what was possibly the shadow of beard beneath the pale, soft-looking skin.
“A stiff one,” the tray bearer added with a wink. “Dana, at your complete service, lord. Mead?”
“Will you go or not?” Effie Annesley’s demanding query dragged Lucan’s already fuzzled attention from the peculiar attendants.
“Go where?” He was confused, a feeling foreign to him, and it was causing an even more unfamiliar sensation of panic in his chest.
“Didn’t you read the—argh!” Effie growled and grasped at the sides of her head, turning away from him.
Lucan’s muddled brains chose just that inopportune moment to note that she was once more wearing trousers, of all things.
Gorman swept into his line of sight, blocking out the unsettling view of the hint of the curve of Effie Annesley’s backside beneath the flared hem of her tunic.
“We believe George has been taken to London,” he said calmly, clearly. “As you have been employed by the king for some time, and are rumored to now have evidence to the Hargraves’s crimes, we need your help.”
“The king will most likely have me arrested as a failure,” Lucan said. “And”—he waved his hand about, encompassing all present with the motion—“he should certainly have the lot of you done, as well.”
Dana drew back with a gasp. “I beg your pardon.”
Gilboe raised his face to the shadowed ceiling with his eyes closed. “Forgive him, Lord.”
Lucan ignored the melodramatics. “It’s likely nothing more than a trap to lure you to London to give yourselves up. Caris Hargrave is dead, I tell you.”
Effie spun around and charged toward the cot, but Gorman held a warding arm to his side, protecting Lucan from her wrath.
“Even if she is dead,” Gorman allowed, “and even if this is only a snare to apprehend us, the fact remains that someone has taken our son. Our George,” he added and the pain on his face was just as palpable to Lucan as the pain in his own foot.
“No matter the cost, we must make sure that he is safe. Sir Lucan, you are the only one of us with any hope of getting near the palace outside of shackles. Will you help us?” The man’s brown eyes were intense, sincere, and Lucan couldn’t help but feel a recognition there. “Please,” Gorman said softly.
“I need time…” Lucan began.
Effie pushed Gorman’s arm out of the way. “We don’t have time!”
“I have to think.”
“You can think on the way there,” she challenged.
“I doubt I could sit a horse.”
Dana piped up brightly. “We have the corpse wagon!”
“Oh, right,” Gilboe responded with dawning enthusiasm. “He could lie in the back!”
“That’s actually quite good,” Gorman admitted.
Lucan found he was frowning. “I don’t think I like the sound of a corpse wagon. My horse—”
“I’ll ride your horse,” Effie volunteered.
“The hell you will.”
Gorman shook his head. “No, we’ll tether him to the back; he’ll be more likely to follow willingly if he can see his master.”
“You can rest along the way,” Dana cooed.
“And ask God’s guidance for what you might do,” Gilboe suggested.
“Or,” Effie’s eyes were neither sympathetic nor enthusiastic, “you can say no. In which case, we shall blindfold you and leave you in the deepest part of the forest. So you shan’t be able to lead others to the Warren.”
“I do doubt I would find it so difficult,” Lucan jeered.
“It’s eluded you for fifteen years.”
He felt his ears burn, but tried to hide his consternation. “You realize you’ve kidnapped a knight of the realm.”
“How dare you accuse Rolf of such a thing,” Dana huffed. Lucan thought for a moment that he glimpsed an Adam’s apple, but then it disappeared beneath a rather square jaw dropped in disappointment. “Hasn’t our Winnie healed you?”
“That remains to be seen.”
“You’ll be a hero,” Gilboe encouraged. “A warrior for the Lord.”
“You’re certainly free to crawl back to Steadport Hall and wrap yourself in your wounded pride and rot beneath the weight of your ego. Until the king sends for you himself,” Effie added pointedly. “We leave within the hour, with or without you.”
Lucan felt all four pairs of eyes watching him. He knew he wasn’t yet thinking clearly, but he was being pressed into making a choice. If he refused to accompany the party of bandits, they would leave him in the woods to find his way back to Steadport Hall. His condition may worsen unaided.
If he agreed to go with them…well, it was only hastening the inevitable, was it not? And if he improved en route and changed his mind, he could always abandon the mission.
“Alright,” Lucan said at last.
“Huzzah!” Dana squealed and gave a short burst of applause.
Gilboe turned with a swirl of brown robes, one of his stubby fingers pointing heavenward. “I’ll ready the corpse wagon.”
“Gilboe, alert my father as well,” Gorman called after the friar.
“Oh, Rolf is already with the horses,” Dana advised and then glanced at Lucan with a proud smirk. “So conscientious. Like father, like son, no?”
Lucan felt his eyes widen. So that’s where he recognized Gorman’s gaze. “Rolf is your father? Why didn’t he tell me?”
Gorman turned back to look at Lucan, a nonplussed expression on his face, but it was Effie Annesley who replied.
“Poor, naïve Sir Lucan,” she sneered. “Believe me, that’s the very least of what you don’t know.”
Chapter 3
They indeed set out within the hour, the morning sun turning to steam the icy crust that had encased the light blanket of snow overnight. The bright yellow rays burst through the tree trunks like silent weapons, causing squinting eyes, shielding forearms, ducking faces. Breath rose over the small party like a cloud of heavenly witnesses, but they, too, were silent as horses and riders, and, at the very rear, the narrow corpse wagon with the dignified Agrios tethered to the board, rolled and rocked up the hill toward the more defined road at least a mile away from the Warren.
Lucan Montague had already been fast asleep when Effie returned to the chamber to help bring him out of the Warren and load him into the cart. He’d been dazed and startled upon his awakening, disoriented to the point that he’d forgotten to scowl and snap at her, and Effie had noticed the fatigue around his eyes. Eyes that had aged a great deal since either she or Lucan had been the noble children of Northumberland. Lines had crept from the corners of both their eyes, like roots crawling across the surface of rocky ground seeking vain purchase, creases bracketed their mouths as if the years of smiles, frowns—tears, perhaps—were nothing more than asides to the lives they’d led. He was older and ill, and confused as to why the party of strangers was moving him so quickly through a dank cave and into the bed of a rough cart in the shattering light of dawn.
She glanced over her shoulder yet again at the cart as they crested the top of a hill. He was weak now, and she was the strong one.
Effie shook herself and faced forward as they began the descent down the other side of the peak, putting him from her mind and warning herself not to let Lucan Montague’s enfeebled state soften her disgust of him.
“Alright?” Gorman asked at her side.
Effie nodded. She wasn’t alright, and Gorman knew it. But she was going on. They all were, because they must. Wasn’t that what each one of the band had learned to do?
Only a small party of the family were making the long journey to London. Effie and Gorman; Rolf, to give his lordship someone familiar to journey with; Winnie, to care for the invalid. Also Gilboe, whose friar’s robes almost always proved useful on a prolonged expedition. And—
A racket from the rear caused Effie and Gorman to slow their mounts and look behind them again. The procession was stopped, and a lanky figure was tethering another horse to the board of the corpse wagon and then climbing inside the bed with the unawares knight.
Chumley.
Effie huffed a quiet laugh before starting forward again. He had been much put out with them for rousing him so soon after dawn, having drank himself to sleep in the smallest of hours, as usual. The day was too new for Chumley to sit a horse, and so noble Sir Lucan would have a companion to keep him warm on this first part of the journey and not even know it. At least he’d tried. Chumley knew better than most that they’d be unlikely to encounter any brigands on the road at this hour and wouldn’t need him until his prime of early evening. Just as well that he rest now.
Seven misfits, on their way to London. Any one of them liable never to return. And all for George.
Hang on, my babe, Effie sent up in silent prayer. Your family is coming for you.
* * * *
Lucan smelled strong wine before he even opened his eyes. Strong, sour wine, but only in short, warm bursts interspersed with cold, fresh air. And there was brightness beyond his eyelids that seemed unwarranted.
The chambermaid must have pulled back the drapes of his bed. Hag. But right away he noticed the absence of the sick throbbing of his foot, and he felt the muscles of his face relax for an instant.
Good lord, what was that rancid wine smell?
He opened his eyes to the bright blue sky above him, the wispy white clouds rocking with the motion of his bed.
The corpse wagon. The Warren. Effie Annesley.
At the sound of a drawn-out grunt, Lucan turned his head to the left and gave a startled cry.
A gaunt, bewhiskered face lay on Lucan’s shoulder, his cheek hollowed with each breath from his gaping mouth, emitting the foul grape smell that had stirred Lucan from his rest. The man—whoever he was—was asleep, and snuggled up to Lucan’s side like a lamb.
