Ruby - Book 1 (Daughters of the Dagger Series) (22 page)

“Linette, go to the dungeon for me and try
to get the falconer to tell you something.”

“But that’s not my place to do that,” she
said.

“Do it for me,” she begged her. “Please, you
need to get there before Nyle, or there is no telling what will
happen.”

“But I can’t leave you alone,” she said. “My
brother will have my head.”

“I’m not alone, the healer is with me,” she
said motioning to the man. “Besides, Ascilia will be back soon, so
I’ll be fine.”

“All right,” she said. “I’ll try, but I
can’t promise anything.”

“Thank you,” she said with a smile, moving
her hair to the side so the healer could see her wound.

* * *

By the time Nyle had made it to the dungeon,
he had been stopped and interrupted five times. He knew everyone
wanted to know if they were safe and things needed to be taken care
of, but he didn’t have time for this right now.

He pushed open the door to the dungeon,
nodding at the guards as he passed. Locke followed right behind
him.

“Where is the falconer?” he asked, already
heading down the passageway with cells on both sides.

“In the last cell, my lord,” called out one
of the guards.

The dungeon was dark and damp, and the air
hung heavy with the smell of death. The sound of dripping water
from overhead seemed loud as it echoed off the stone walls. A rat
ran past him, and turned back to look at him, its beady eyes
glowing in the firelight flickering from a torch stuck into the
wall. He knew that this was not a place that even he ever wanted to
visit.

He made his way to the last cell, and could
see the shape of the man huddled in the corner. He looked to be
slouched over a tray of food and a cup was in his hand.

“All right, I’ll ask you again. Who paid you
to kill my wife?” Nyle said to the falconer.

The man’s head raised slightly and his
hollowed eyes looked toward Nyle. Something about him just didn’t
seem quite right.

“Speak,” he said, but the falconer just
looked into his cup and let it slip from his hand. It clamored to
the ground, with the liquid spilling out in a puddle around his
feet.

“Go get the guard with the keys,” Nyle
instructed Locke. “Something is wrong.”

“Right away, my lord.” The sound of Locke’s
shoes against the stone echoed through the chamber as he hurried
away to do as ordered

“Bertram,” said Nyle, already getting a
twisting feeling in his gut. “Talk to me!”

The man’s eyes rolled back in his head and
his face became very pale. Then he slouched forward, and fell to
the ground, his hand settling right next to the fallen cup.

Nyle had seen this look before, and it was
on the face of his deceased wife who had been poisoned. “Nay!” he
took hold of the bars of the door and shook them violently. “Don’t
you dare die, dammit, do you hear me?”

Locke and the guards made their way back to
him, and Nyle shouted. “Hurry up and open this damn door!”

The guard twisted the key in the lock, the
iron door creaking on its hinges as he pulled it open. Nyle lunged
forward, dropping to his knees and flipping the man over, trying
one more time to desperately get the information he needed before
the secret identity of the assassin was gone forever.

“Who was it?” he shouted, shaking the man
until his teeth chattered together in his head. “Who was it, I ask
you that wants my wife dead? Tell me, dammit I have to know.”

“He’d get no answers from this man now, as
he was already departed from this world.

Locke rushed in after him and started to
pick up the cup but Nyle stopped him.

“Leave it,” he ordered. “The man was
poisoned.” He let go of the dead man and let him drop to the
ground.

“Poisoned?” Linette stood behind him with
her hand on the cell door, and she was the last person he wanted to
see at that moment.

“I thought I told you to stay with Ruby. Why
the hell can’t anyone do as ordered?”

“She’s fine,” said Linette. “The healer was
just finishing up and Ascilia is on her way to the room so Ruby
won’t be alone.”

“Who do think poisoned him?” asked
Locke.

Nyle just shook his head. Once again, a
murder had taken place right under his nose, and someone was always
one step ahead of him. He’d never felt such rage within as he did
right now.

“Who brought him the food?” he asked.

“One of the kitchen servants,” said the
guard. “A very young girl.”

“And the wine too?” He got to his feet as he
spoke.

“Oh no,” said the guard. “That was brought
by the old woman.”

“Old woman?” He looked over to the guard.
“Which old woman?”

“I don’t know her name,” said the guard,
“but she is the one that came to the castle with your sister.”

“Ascilia!” both Linette and Nyle said at the
same time.

“Did you just say she was going to Ruby’s
room?” asked Nyle.

“Oh my God,” said Linette. “I had no idea,
or I never would have left to come question the falconer by Ruby’s
request.”

“Damn, that girl,” he said, not having had
her upset him this much since the day she ripped his cape and threw
it in the mud. “Let’s go,” he said, rushing out the door. “And I
only hope we are not too late this time.”

Ruby was asleep, having taken an herbal
concoction from the healer before he left. He said it would help
her relax and heal and she knew it was working. She’d tasted the
chamomile in the elixir and it always made her sleepy.

The door to the room squeaked open, and the
next thing she knew, there was a hand on her shoulder shaking her.
Pain shot through her shoulder and she bolted upright.

“Oh, Ascilia,” she said, relieved to see the
handmaiden and not another assassin. “I was sleeping, why did you
wake me?”

“Because I just saw the healer in the
corridor and he told me you need to drink the rest of the potion in
order for it to work.”

Ascilia seemed to be swirling the contents
in the cup before she handed it to her.

“Thank you,” said Ruby, sitting up and
taking the cup in her hand. She brought it to her mouth but stopped
when she saw the eyes of the handmaiden watching her intently.

“Sit on the bed and talk to me,” said Ruby.
When the woman didn’t do it, Ruby put the cup on the bedside table
and held out her hand. “Please,” she said. “I feel I need to talk
to you.”

The woman reached out slowly, taking Ruby’s
hand and settling herself upon the bed.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“I just wanted to say that I noticed the way
you looked at the baby the other day when I handed it to you.”

“It meant nothing.” She jumped up and
grasped the bedpost.

“Have you ever been in love?” she asked the
woman.

“Why do you want to know?”

“Because I see such a loneliness in your
eyes that it makes me want to cry. I think you have once loved and
lost that love and that is why you are sad.”

“Nay, that’s not true.”

“Isn’t it?”

The woman didn’t answer at first, but then
she spoke in a soft voice. “I did love someone once, but it was
long ago. And I didn’t really know it until it was too late.”

“What happened to him?” Ruby asked.

“I made a mistake or two and before I knew
it, he wanted naught to do with me.”

“I know the feeling. That sounds just like
Nyle and myself lately. Was your lover anything like Nyle?” she
asked. “Was he as handsome as my wonderful husband?”

The woman’s face clouded over and Ruby
thought she saw a tear in her eye. She just stared into the air and
slowly nodded.

“Why didn’t you try to get him back?”

“He wouldn’t want me, so it doesn’t really
matter.”

“How would you know that?” she asked.

“Because I was once beautiful, but one day I
fell into the fire and my face was so burned that I was no longer
recognizable.”

“But if this man truly loved you, then he
would see past that and to your inner beauty. Kind of like the way
Nyle sees past my rough and unpolished exterior to the love I hold
in my heart. I know little about being a lady nor about being his
wife, though I am learning. I think that is why he tolerates
me.”

“I have no inner beauty,” she said. “I am
ugly both inside and out and I hate myself so much every day that I
no longer want to live.”

“Don’t say that,” said Ruby. “Life is a
precious thing and to be cherished, not to be thrown away. Nyle was
married three times before me and those innocent women all lost
their lives by the hand of a crazed killer.”

“Mayhap they deserved it.” Her voice took on
a hard edge that Ruby did not understand.

“No one deserves to die,” she told her. “Not
even that falconer who only tried to kill me because he cared so
much for his family that he would do anything at all to help his
wife and children.”

“Nay! How can you say that?” the handmaid
shouted. “He tried to kill you.”

“He did. But I forgive him. And I am only
happy that I did not die from my own foolishness, as I love my
husband as well as that baby so much, that I am sure my death would
have affected them both in horrible ways that I don’t even want to
imagine.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

Ruby smiled and sat up straighter, picking
up the goblet with her medicine as she spoke. “If Nyle doesn’t have
a wife he can’t have little Tibbar. And between you and me, I think
that baby is really his, don’t you? After all they look so much
alike and he loves it so much. Even if it wasn’t his, I am sure he
would love it and raise it as his own. He would take better care of
that child than he would of himself.”

“Do you really think so?” she asked
softly.

“I know so,” she said. “Nyle is a wonderful
father and would treat any child he had like a king.” She raised
the cup to her mouth to drink, but the handmaid jumped forward and
knocked it from her hand. The contents dumped onto the front of
Ruby’s gown and she had a sharp intake of breath. “Why did you do
that?” she said, feeling angry with the woman.

“Because you would treat that baby like a
king too, I can see that now. And you love Nyle, and I know by the
look in his eyes he loves you too. And you, my dear, are right
about everything you said. I knocked that cup from your hands
because you don’t deserve to die either.”

“What do mean?” Ruby gasped, suddenly
realizing that the words coming from Ascilia’s mouth sounded as if
she’d meant to kill her. She noticed an odd smell in the spilled
liquid and the realization hit her that it must be poison. “You
were trying to kill me,” she said, scooting back on the bed hoping
to make distance between them. “And you were the one to kill all
those other people as well, weren’t you?”

“I wish I could deny it, but I can’t,” said
Ascilia. “And for what I’ve done, I am the one who doesn’t deserve
to live.”

The door to the solar burst open just then
and Nyle ran in with his sword drawn. Locke and Sir Godin were
right behind them with their weapons at the ready as well. Linette
followed behind them.

“Get away from my wife,” Nyle ground out,
taking a step forward, the tip of his sword just under Ascilia’s
throat. Nyle was relieved he had gotten there in time and that Ruby
was still alive. “Don’t drink anything, Ruby. This murderous bitch
has just poisoned the falconer.”

“Nay!” she said. “That man said he had a
family and many children.”

“Who are you, really? Nyle backed the woman
toward the window with the tip of his sword. “And why are you
trying to kill my wife?”

The handmaid stumbled and caught herself,
grasping onto the table that held the basin of water. When she
righted herself, Nyle noticed something he’d not noticed before
this day. Her sleeve rode up and revealed a strawberry birthmark on
her inner right arm. The only birthmark he’d ever seen like this,
belonged to one woman. It couldn’t be. He lowered the tip of his
sword slightly, and cocked his head.

“Jocelyn?” he asked, feeling the name of his
ex-lover lodging in his throat.

“Jocelyn? Your lover?” he heard Ruby ask in
shock from the bed.

“Nay,” said the handmaid, shaking her head
and backing around from him toward the window. “Nay, it’s not.”

“Then let’s just see who the hell you really
are under all that, shall we?” Nyle threw down his sword and
reached out and pulled her toward him. He ripped the wimple from
her head and with it came a crop of fake black hair that looked
like horse tail. Under it was hair of golden silk. He shook his
head, not wanting to believe it was her. He grabbed a hold of her
hair in one hand and dunked her face in the basin of water, pulling
it upward to reveal that the wrinkles and signs of old age had
washed off.

Her face was unrecognizable, burned and
scarred as if she had been in a fire. But her eyes gave her away
and he wondered why he hadn’t realized it the first day he saw her
arrive with his sister. Her bright blue eyes, so much like little
Tibbar’s bore into him and brought back with it all the memory and
all the pain of the past.

“Nay!” he said, shaking his head and still
not wanting to believe it. “Jocelyn, what happened to you?”

“I was burned in a fire and am hideous,” she
said, holding up her hand and turning her head to shield her face
from him. “I am hideous both inside and out now, as you know I am
the one behind all the murders.”

“But why?” he asked her. “Why the hell would
you do such a thing?”

“I did it for family,” she said, for some
reason looking over to Ruby when she said it. “I did it because I
wanted my baby to have a good life. A life I could never give him.
I knew the king could give him that life, and that’s why your wives
had to die, in order to keep the king from handing over the baby to
you.”