Seize the Fire (56 page)

Sheridan closed his eyes and let his head fall back. He heard Raban speaking to the Signora. They seemed to be having an argument, but when someone touched him again, it was Raban.

Sheridan used him for the support he offered, stumbling to his feet, his head reeling and his arm in flames. He swung toward the stairs, willing to try—but no…from somewhere a pallet had appeared, and fortunately all he had to do was make it across the room. He nearly fainted when Raban jostled his arm in the process of helping him down.

He reached up with his good hand. "Raban—" he muttered. "Princess—"

The grin turned into a grimace. "Yes, I know all about her. She's a harpy after all, ain't she? Pity."

"Don't let her go…back."

"Oh, we'll have a discussion about that. I'll tell the little puffball she's not wanted. Revolution and all that. Princess—an embarrassment—completely
de trop
." He shook his head sadly. "She's an idiot."

Sheridan gripped his sleeve. "Don't let her go back," he said through clenched teeth.

"Right-ho. Count on me, old man. I've got my eye fixed on the main chance." The white grin flashed. "And you're it."

"Why are you interfering?" Olympia demanded. She paced the tiny, low-ceilinged room, holding her arms crossed tightly over the peasant costume she'd been given to wear. "What right do you have to imprison me?"

"Admiral's orders," the young count said calmly. "Do sit down. If you'd show the slightest bit of rationality, I'd be happy to kick you out at the side of the road to fend for yourself. But he seems to harbor a morbid obsession for your safety, and I expect you'd just march off to Oriens and get yourself guillotined."

She put her hand to her mouth. She was shaking all over with hate and fury. "Let me out." Her voice rose. "Let me out; let me out!"

"No."

She whirled around, grabbed the tray Mustafa had brought her and hurled it to the floor. Pottery and wood splintered with a crash. "
Let me out!
" She reached for the rough cotton curtains at the window, tore at them and suddenly found herself jerked backward. "
I have to go back!
" she screamed.

"Listen here, you little bitch—" He shook her violently. "Don't pull your silly tantrums with me! Maybe you've got that poor blighter downstairs wrapped around your finger, but I won't put up with it. Got that?" He shoved her against the wall, his dark eyes hot. "You aren't going back, not if he says you aren't."

She beat at him with her fists. "I have to stop it!" she cried, panting. "I have to go back."

"Stop what? The revolution?" He evaded her hand and caught her by the wrists. "You couldn't stop it if you tried. It's over. Done. The moderate committee's taken control, and the British moved in this morning to support them. Your throne's gone, ma'am. Oriens is a republic. You aren't a princess anymore."

She froze and stared at him. "Is that true?" she whispered.

"Why do you think you can't go back? If you were smart, you'd be running from this place like a rabbit. The last thing anybody wants in a new regime is one of the old royals hanging about collecting sympathy. You go back, and they'll be polite and hospitable and kind, and pretty soon you'll have an accident, and nobody will have to worry about that problem anymore."

Her muscles went limp. Like in a collapsing balloon, air left her. "I don't want sympathy," she said feebly.

He let go of her. She sat down in a rough wooden chair. All the anger had gone out of her. She felt sick and upset. Bewildered. She looked around the room and had a difficult time remembering how she'd gotten there. She could recall the wedding, and her announcement, and after that…

She hugged her stomach, feeling uneasy.

"Did you bring me here?" she asked.

"Of course not." The dark-eyed count looked at her with exasperation. "Didn't I just introduce myself? I'll be helping Drake get back to Constantinople—trying to make sure he doesn't die before he can write me into his will. And for the moment you seem to be an unpleasant but unavoidable part of the task."

She chewed her lip. She couldn't remember how she'd come here—all she remembered was how she'd needed to go back, to stop what she'd begun.

But it was over. This count said the revolution was over. Oriens was a republic.

It all seemed so confusing.

"You're helping Sheridan?" she asked vaguely. "Is he with the Sultan?"

The man gave a snort. "Not a bit of it. What's wrong with your head? He's downstairs—half dead, by the looks of it. He'll be lucky if he doesn't lose that arm."

"What?" she whispered.

"I see that your gratitude doesn't extend to paying much attention to the condition of your faithful supporters. He took a devilish bad sword cut that's not been seen to properly—and from what they tell me, you've had him out rolling in the mud and rain half the night. It's no wonder he's nearly run through."

"He's here?" Her voice was shaky and hoarse. "He's ill?"

"Damned ill. Thanks to you."

She moistened her lips "It's my fault?"

"Of course it's your fault. He'd be eating sugarplums and having his back rubbed in Constantinople if it weren't for you, wouldn't he? I've been talking to that servant of his, and you wouldn't credit the crazy notion he had to save your neck from Claude Nicolas. Damned lucky he's not shot through the heart or locked up for hanging right now."

"It's my fault," she whispered, gripping her hands in her lap. "It's my fault."

"Right. So just behave yourself and take orders, understand?" The count moved to the door.

She looked up. "Please—" she said in a small voice. "May I see him? I won't say anything, I promise. I won't do anything."

He leaned on the door handle, frowning at her speculatively. Then he shrugged. "It might calm him, I reckon. To see that you're still here. You can come for a few minutes. But I warn you—one move to bolt and you'll be back up here before your head's stopped spinning. He can't take any agitation."

"No." She could barely speak. "No, of course not."

She let him take her arm, preceding him submissively down the narrow stair. In the farmhouse kitchen, Sheridan lay on a low cot near the fire, his hand moving restlessly from his raised knee to his bound arm and back again.

The count gave her a little shove in the direction of the cot, but Olympia stopped a yard away. Sheridan's face was pale, with bright color burning on his cheekbones. The tendons in his hand stood out as he gripped his thigh.

My fault
, she thought.
My fault, my fault, my fault
.

"Here she is, old chap," the count said cheerfully. "Right as rain. Sound as a drum."

Sheridan turned his head. "Princess," he said, so low she could hardly hear it. He coughed, and the flush left his face as he reached toward his wound, curled his fingers before he touched it and let his hand fall against his chest. "Hurts," he muttered, closing his eyes with a parody of a smile: an upward curve of his mouth that strained his whole face. He opened his eyes again and turned his head, searching.

"Move over closer—" The count gave her a poke. "Where he can see you."

She moved a step. But she could not go farther. She stood there, held to the spot, her hands locked together. Her tongue was too numb to speak.

Sheridan bit his lip. His lashes lowered and lifted. He watched her, but his eyes were dull pewter, hazy, and she couldn't tell whether he really saw.

"Is he going to die?" she whispered.

"Not if I can help it," Count Beaufontein said, peering over to examine the dressing. "Won't do me a bit of good that way. And we're going to save this arm, too—so he can write me a commendation to the Sultan…I say, ain't that correct, dear fellow?"

Sheridan's eyes drifted. He mumbled something unintelligible.

"Right-ho," the count said. "Nothing to it."

Dear Sheridan,

I have waited to write this until your fever has broken. Count Beaufontein promises me that he will make certain you receive it, but I've given Signora Verletti a gold crown from your purse to make sure he does it, as I do not entirely trust his promise
s.

Mustafa has told me what you did for me: of my uncle's plan and how you intended to stop him. I'm glad that didn't happen; I'm glad you didn't have to kill anymore for me. It's very odd, but I can't seem to remember you in the cathedral, or leaving, or how we made our way through that great crowd, but Mustafa says you brought me out of there, and I believe him.

You've brought me through so much.

I understand that my uncle and grandfather were both killed in the riots. The count says that I must go somewhere and live very quietly, so as not to disturb the new government in Oriens, and I am sure he is right, but l feel a bit lost just now. All my life I've been thinking of Oriens and what I would do here, and now everything has turned out differently than I expected.

I wish I could stay here forever and watch you sleeping. But I have been praying and praying while you've been so ill because of me, and I made a promise that if you could be all right, I would never again be the cause of hurting you or anyone else, and so I have to go away. I really didn't intend to write this letter before I left, but I wanted you to know that I'm grateful.

How I wish there were a better word than that! You taught me what courage and loyalty really are. You're the best friend I ever had, or ever will have
.

Mustafa tells me you are doing very well at the Sultan's court, and I wish you all the honors you deserve. Please do everything the doctor says about your arm, as he is a very good doctor. We were afraid you would die. And please be generous to this nonsensical count, even if he seems like a terrible rascal, because he really has taken care of all of us, and he found the doctor, and he's made all the arrangements for me to travel safely. He's hoping you will have him made into a pasha. He talks often of the dancing girls he looks forward to keeping in his hareem.

I will not forget you, Sheridan. I wish I could change the mistakes that I made, all the stupid mistakes that hurt you and other people. I wish I could have helped you when you needed help, but I don't seem to be very good at that. I wanted to. I wanted to so badly. I just didn't know how.

I don't want to kiss you now, because I don't want you to wake. Think of Vienna, and a grand staircase and music, and remember me when you go there. That was the best time. That is my kiss goodbye.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry I failed at everything.

Olympia

Sheridan folded the letter carefully once again, staring into the campfire. Around them, the trunks of tall trees seemed to tremble and shudder in the light of the leaping flames. The tin implements their Tatar guide had hung out to frighten demons clattered tunelessly under a gypsy servant's tireless hand.

Raban gave him a dry look. "Haven't got it by heart yet?"

Sheridan stretched his right arm, testing and exercising it against the soreness. "Be damned to you," he said with abstracted venom. He couldn't summon much resentment for Raban's gibes. It required too much concentration, and against his better judgment, he'd actually developed a certain degree of attachment to the rogue.

"A fool in love." Raban tossed a twig into the fire. "Poor devil."

Sheridan watched the flames. Was that it? Was he just another miserable sod dumped by a woman? He remembered a carpenter on one of his ships—one face among hundreds at the first mail call in months—stricken, stunned; bullied and stuck in the ribs by the others. "Come along, Chips, cheer up like a man. You'll never see her again; square yards and don't let a petticoat make a fool of you."

But it shook everyone; they all depended on one an-other—it was bad for morale if the fellow took it too hard, so he was hounded for his weakness with unfeeling cruelty. There wasn't room for sympathy. Sympathy was poison; it reminded everyone they were out there watching their lives slip away in hardship and boredom and battle while the world went on unheeding.

Not me
, Sheridan had always thought.
You'll never catch me with that look on my face.

But it stung. It upset him that she'd left him while he could not think.

He had nightmares every night now, woke up in a whimpering sweat that had nothing to do with the fever he'd contracted in the mountain drizzle. He felt as if he were riding deeper into the bad dreams; that with every step his mount took on the road back to Stamboul, he went a little farther toward destruction, stretched the barrier that protected him from crisis a little thinner.

He was going the wrong way.

He knew it. He did not know where she'd gone, but whatever direction it was, it wasn't this one.

But he was afraid to turn back. He'd made a choice. The nightmares were bad, life hurt: the things life made him do. The anger hurt. The fear and defiance and survival cunning—all of it. But that was his choice. That was what he was going back to. Deliberately, the way he'd always chosen to go back to the navy, even though he despised and feared it. Because he knew how to live in that world; he trusted nothing, and felt safe; he knew how to numb and isolate himself there—while he was adrift and exposed in hers, and that vulnerability was more terrifying than the worst of the dreams.

And yet he remembered her eyes: glazed…frightened and angry, her face wild in the mountain rain—and God, how he knew what it felt like inside that look.

How could he leave her alone with that?

The most precious thing in his whole existence; and he was deserting her. He was running away.

He moved a stone with the toe of his boot, looking down, watching shadows lick it haphazardly in the firelight. "Raban," he said suddenly, "do you know what courage is?"

There was a little silence. The young count looked up from a chip of wood he'd been whittling idly. "Are you going to tell me?"

"I'm asking."

"What courage is." Raban held up the wood and turned it in his hand. "As Socrates so succinctly put it: 'That's certainly not a thing that every pig would know.'"

Sheridan pushed one stone next to another. "I don't suppose he said anything more to the point than that?"