The Last Knight, page 23
We were acting too fast, not thinking things through, not planning enough. But if I stopped to think, my nerve would fail.
My employer, curse him, appeared to be enjoying himself.
We reached the end of the corridor. “Where’s your bedroom? Point to your bedroom, Lady Ceciel.”
She pointed back the way we’d come. Michael choked. I was glad he was gagged.
“Lady Ceciel, when we pass your bedroom door, point to it. Can you do that?”
“Yes, of course.”
Michael choked again. I swore.
We went back down the corridor, and Lady Ceciel stopped at a door not far from the gallery.
“This is it.” She smiled.
I went in first, checking quickly for a maid. None, thank goodness. I hustled Lady Ceciel inside, and Michael followed.
It took only seconds to take a cloak from the wardrobe and wrap it around her shoulders. I pulled the hood over her head, shadowing her silly expression. A definite improvement.
We were about to leave when the jewel box on her dressing table caught my eye. I looked at Sir Michael. He glared at me.
“Mno,” he said, as distinctly as he could.
“Look, we’re going to have to leave all our money with the donkey cart. She’d be more than recompensed.”
“Mno!”
“Not to mention all the gear we’ll have to replace. And our clothes. And weapons.” I flipped up the jewel box lid. It was empty. “Curse it.”
Michael snorted.
“That reminds me. Lady Ceciel, why did you sell the tapestries and your jewels?”
She looked confused. “Yes, of course.”
I moaned.
I extracted the story from her, bit by bit, as we went down the stairs to the entry hall.
She’d sold the tapestries for money.
She’d given the money to Lord Gerald.
Lord Gerald had agreed to let her be baron, and not have to marry anyone.
That a liege would put a multiple murderess in charge of a barony and a smallish town surprised even me. “Ruthless bastard,” I muttered.
Sir Michael was frowning.
“Yes, of course.” Lady Ceciel smiled.
I dashed into the dining hall for a sword from one of the wall displays, and we emerged from the keep a perfect picture of prisoner and captors—Sir Michael walking in front of us at sword point, and Lady Ceciel clinging to my arm.
The Creature Moon was still rising. Unbelievable as it seemed, I’d been in the keep only a few hours. A wind had come up; it ran cool fingers through my hair, and ruffled Lady Ceciel’s hood. I hoped fresh air didn’t diminish the drug’s effect. I hoped the drug didn’t affect her so strongly that she fell down the steps. I hoped Michael could manage, with his hands bound behind him.
This wasn’t going to work.
I shut the great door behind us and turned to face the guards. The guard on the parapet stared at us. There was a gate guard, and he stared at us, too, his hand on his sword hilt.
This wasn’t going to…Hang it!
“Ho, fellow.” It was my best fake noble accent. “Fetch out some horses for your mistress, myself, and this carrion. We’ve craftly business in the wood tonight.”
The guard looked dubious, as well he might. It took all my concentration to maneuver Lady Ceciel down the steep stair without skewering Michael.
When we reached the bottom, the gate guard was standing there. His sword wasn’t drawn, but you could tell he was ready to go for it. “M’lady, is—”
“Are you deaf, fellow? I asked for horses. I’ll take that big gray I saw in the stables this afternoon. The lady will take her favorite riding horse, and we’ll mount this man on the smallest horse you have—and I don’t mean my donkey. He’d slow us up too much.”
“Lady, do you want me to get the horses?”
“Yes, of course.” She smiled.
I patted her hand, and babbled about the power of sacrifice by moonlight.
The guard looked even more dubious, but he could see I didn’t have a knife at her ribs, and she was clutching my sword arm. She could certainly have hindered me long enough for him to run me through.
He called up to the parapet guard, to pass word to fetch the horses. Then he turned back to watch us…intently…with most of his attention on Lady Ceciel’s face. Not good.
“I hope you remembered to bring a sharp knife, lady. And a needle and thread for the stitches. After all, we only have to sacrifice the fellow’s fertility—pity to kill him.”
Michael spun to face me with a startled squeak. I lifted the sword with a flourish, really glad he was gagged.
“Oh yes,” said Lady Ceciel vaguely.
The guard decided he didn’t want to know more and retreated to the gate, leaving me to babble about the Green Moon drawing the fertility up into the leaves and other such nonsense. Lady Ceciel nodded, and Michael stared at us in frozen silence.
Chanticleer’s neigh sent Michael spinning around, but Chant’s neigh was loud enough to turn heads over half the barony. The big gray was prancing with excitement.
“He hasn’t had much exercise lately,” the rumpled-looking groom apologized. “Are you sure you want him, sir?”
“He’ll do well enough.” I took the reins and hauled his head away from Sir Michael, whom he was sniffing with great enthusiasm. Michael ignored him, but a sheen of tears brightened his eyes. I was very glad he was gagged.
The guards threw Michael up on Tipple, who was, as I knew from my earlier wanderings, the smallest horse in the stable. They tied Tipple’s lead rope to Chanticleer’s saddle, then they tied Michael’s feet to the stirrups.
The lady’s favorite riding horse was a sprightly bay mare. I stepped forward to help her to the saddle, but the gate guard intervened.
“I’ll take care of it, sir.” As he hefted her onto the mare’s back, out of reach of my sword, I heard him ask, “Lady, do you want some of us to go with you? Is everything all right?”
“Yes, of course,” said Lady Ceciel, but she sounded confused.
The guard looked confused, too.
“What she means, fellow, is that the mysteries of the craft are not for the eyes of the uninitiated, and she requires no escort but her humble instructor.” I sheathed my sword and sneered at him. My heart thumped sickly. “Isn’t that right, m’lady?”
“Oh, yes.”
The guard stood back. He was still suspicious, but there wasn’t much he could do about it…I hoped.
I swung into Chanticleer’s saddle and he pranced restively, wondering, no doubt, why his master was riding Tipple.
“Let’s be gone, shall we, Lady Ceciel?”
She smiled.
“Open the gate, fellow.” I turned away, chatting with Lady Ceciel as if I was certain of his obedience.
Those creaking hinges were the sweetest sound I ever heard. We clattered out of the keep and onto the road, accompanied by a stream of nervous babble from me, with Lady Ceciel smiling and nodding.
The road wandered down the hill in front of us, open as the sky. No one shouted for us to stop, and if they did we could run for it. We were free. It had worked. I didn’t believe it.
“I don’t believe it,” I muttered.
“Yes, of course,” said Lady Ceciel.
Michael choked on a laugh.
We were free.
CHAPTER 18
Michael
I rode down the hill from the keep with my hands bound behind me, my feet bound to the stirrups, Tipple’s lead rope bound to Chant’s saddle—expecting an arrow in the back at any moment!—and my heart sang with freedom.
Fisk was still lecturing on imaginary herbalism—nervous reflex, I suppose, for we were out of earshot of the guards. How did he make his face look so thin? With that pale hair, and those mincing mannerisms, I wouldn’t have recognized him if I’d met him on the street! Not to mention that awful accent.
He was undoubtedly a brilliant con man. And though he might deny it, he had proved a better squire. I remembered the hurt in his eyes when he saw that I’d lost faith in him. I’d spent a lot of time worrying about gaining Fisk’s trust, but I’d given no thought to offering him mine—and until I did, was I worthy of his trust? The truth was that, in my doubt and fear, I had failed him. Mayhap this was something we both had to earn. But could trust grow under obligation, or in captivity?
Shortly after we reached the bottom of the hill Fisk turned the horses into the trees, bidding Lady Ceciel to follow, which—“Yes, of course”—she did. Amazing stuff, that aquilas. But much as I disliked her, I found my stomach turning at the mindlessly pliant expression on her face. Or mayhap my nausea was the last of my reaction to her potion—gods curse her!
In the darkness, the magica plants and trees glowed as if lit from within. I could see them hundreds of feet away. To be able to sense magic with touch was not uncommon—the one truly magical Gift granted to men—but no one I’d ever heard of could see it. The knowledge that her potion had changed me, even if, as I prayed, ’twas only temporary, dampened my elation. ’Twas hard to forgive, but I couldn’t forget her fury at my suggestion that she’d harmed the simple ones. She hadn’t been half as insulted when I accused her of killing her husband…and now I thought I knew why.
As soon as we were out of sight of the keep, Fisk cut me loose. My first act of freedom was to throw my arms around Chant’s neck and apologize for not having greeted him properly. As I did so, I realized that Fisk must have known our horses were in the stable, and he hadn’t told me. Ah well, mayhap he forgot it in the press of events. Mayhap not. I was in no position to upbraid anyone for lack of trust.
Fisk swiftly transferred Lady Ceciel from the mare to Tipple, binding her hands to the saddle pommel. He held up the crumpled strip of cloth he’d pulled from my mouth and glanced at me in question, but I shook my head—why gag her? We’d be long gone before the drug wore off.
Fisk mounted her mare and we rode into the forest. The moons gave enough light for us to pick our way through the trees at a nearly normal pace. This was too slow for Fisk, who kept looking over his shoulder, but I had no real fear of pursuit until the boy who brought my breakfast found Hackle in my place. By that time we’d have so great a start, they’d never catch us.
At first I was content to take in the beauty of the night, the crisp rustle of leaves beneath the horse’s hooves, and the wheeling wonder of moons and stars. But as Fisk slowly relaxed, I persuaded him to give me an account of his activities over the last few weeks.
’Twas shaming to learn how faithfully he had striven for me.
In an attempt to repay that loyalty, I told him something of what had happened to me, but ’twas difficult to discuss and emerged as more of a patchy summation than a true account. Fisk did not press for details, and I was grateful. As I listened to his account, and gave my own, questions arose to plague me. Some were things I had asked myself from the start, and some were new, but all were linked, like the chain that had bound my ankle during those weary, frightened days. As I considered them, the anchor post that held the chain became clear. The question of what to do about it had me riding in silence for a long time.
At sunrise I found a clearing and drew Chant to a stop. Fisk pulled the mare up beside me.
“Get her off Tipple, Fisk. We need to talk.”
He did as I asked. The tree trunks cast long shadows in the slanting light, and birds chirped. Now that we’d stopped riding I was cold, but the sun would warm us soon enough.
Lady Ceciel looked cold as she stood there, eyeing me with a hostility that made it clear the drug had worn off. Strands of dark hair had pulled loose from the knot at the back of her head, and her skirt was rumpled and stained from the flood of potions over the herbarium floor.
That was something else I owed Fisk. The destruction of that accursed place had cleansed my heart in a way that even the woman’s death could not have done. Mayhap it hurt her worse, too. She stood defiantly, head lifted, and spoke first.
“You can take me to trial, but they won’t convict. I am baron now, in my own right, and I can’t be tried without the presence of my liege. In a few weeks I’ll be home again, restoring my herbarium. This gains you nothing. You might as well—” She stopped, color flooding her cheeks.
I smiled grimly. “Might as well let you go? That argument didn’t weigh with you, when you held me prisoner.”
Her eyes flashed. “You were unredeemed! I had a legal right to do what I did. I—”
“Legal, yes, but right?”
It silenced her only a moment. “I paid for the right to rule that keep—to do my research in peace. I won’t give it up. Take me to trial and do your worst! I’ll still win.”
“Yes,” I said softly. “And no. I’ve decided to let you go, Lady Ceciel.”
“What!”
I think Fisk’s shriek was the louder of the two. ’Twas he who went on, “Are you out of your mind? She’s killed dozens of simple ones, her own husband, tried to turn you into some sort of malformed, magic thing…and you’re letting her go?”
“Yes. You’re wrong, Fisk—not about me, but the rest of it. We should have seen it earlier—the clues were all there.”
“Like dozens of graves full of mutilated bodies! Like—”
“Fisk, how long do simple ones live?”
He frowned. “Not long. The ones who have magic, never past adolescence. But—”
“How old were the simple ones you saw among the servants?”
“Adolescents,” he admitted. “Or older children. But—”
“So they probably died of natural causes, just as she told me. You said yourself, if she had anything to hide she’d have tried to conceal their graves. And I have a hard time believing that Mistress Agnes, who must have known what her sister was doing, would continue to send her victims. Or that her servants, or even Hackle, would permit her to kill them. Such villains are possible, I fear, but not dozens in one place. ’Tis simply not credible. ’Tis also incredible that Lord Gerald would give her the barony if she’d done such a thing.”
“But she did dose them! Against their will!”
“Sometimes,” I agreed. “But she also took them in, and saved them from starvation and abuse. Their lives may have been better and longer in her keeping than they’d have been in the world. She did dose them, but I don’t believe she killed them, Fisk, any more than she’d have killed us. She could have, since we’re both indebted. All she had to do was send her guards into Cory Port to slay us, instead of cudgel-crewers. But she didn’t. I believe her.”
Lady Ceciel smiled nastily.
Fisk scowled. “I’d be more inclined to believe it if she hadn’t killed her husband.”
“But she didn’t. That was the final clue. That’s what makes it all fit!”
“Then who did poison him? With magica. In repeated doses.”
“He killed himself.”
“That’s an awfully expensive method to commit suicide…Mike.” Fisk’s voice was so sarcastic I had to smile. “Not to mention drawn out, painful, and chancy. People who kill themselves slit their wrists, or jump off bridges, or—”
“He wasn’t trying to kill himself, he was trying to cure his infertility. Isn’t that right, Lady Ceciel?”
She stood in silence for a moment, staring not at me, but into the past. “That was our marriage bargain.”
“Sir Herbert told you he was infertile,” I continued, when she said nothing more. “So he didn’t care that you weren’t Gifted. But if his infertility became known, he’d have been scorned and pitied. Lord Gerald might have appointed an heir to share in governing the barony. So you agreed to say that you were infertile; in exchange, you gained wealth, rank—”
“I gained the freedom to pursue my research,” she broke in. “To find a way to Gift the Giftless! To give magic to normal men. You won’t stop me, Sir Michael. I kept my part of the bargain. All those years, his brother telling him to put me aside, the neighbors snickering…No one else ever guessed. How did you? I never told you anything about Herbert and me.”
“But you did. When I asked you why you didn’t take the potions, you said it contained an ingredient that no woman who might bear children should take. That puzzled me, but it wasn’t until I saw the potion bottle in the herbarium, with another’s writing on the label, that I understood. I know the effects of some of those ingredients. You kept it to analyze?”
A whisper of sadness passed over her face. “I was curious,” she admitted. “It shouldn’t have killed him. And Herbert…Well, I owed him something.”
“Yes. You kept your bargain with Sir Herbert, despite the risk of being sentenced for his murder. Would you have kept your silence to the end, Lady Ceciel?”
“Gods no! I’m not that foolish. If it had come to a trial, I’d have told the judicars the whole story. It can be proved, you know. Herbert went to every herbalist for leagues around, trying to find a cure. The faker that poisoned him fled, but the rest would testify. Lord Gerald checked it out very carefully before granting me the barony—in spite of the ‘tax’ I paid for passage of the title.” Her voice grated on the last words, but she went on almost cheerfully. “No, I liked Herbert, and we respected each other. Enough that I sent his body home for burial without explaining how he died. I’d hoped to let him keep his secret to the end. But I wouldn’t have died for him. He wouldn’t expect me to. And as it happened, I didn’t have to confess…I was rescued.”
Her lips twitched at the memory.
Fisk swore, but I began to see the humor of it.
“You’re really going to let me go?” she asked.
“Yes and no,” I replied. “I know you believe what you’re doing is beneficial, but you’ve no right to test your theories on others without their consent. And you’ve no right to use the simple ones as your victims whether they consent or not. Man must look after man, for we have no gods to watch over us.”
