Suzanne Robinson (24 page)

“Aye. Why do you think I’m chasing after him at the risk of my own life? He purposes to murder the queen’s minister. This is why I must get to the meeting place before he does.”

It took all Pen’s strength to keep up the bone-pounding pace, while her thoughts seemed to slow as though dipped in chilled syrup. Tristan, a murderer. She remembered how he’d been in the Painted Chamber—all calculating sensuality, manipulation, and connivance. She had lied to herself about him. She couldn’t trust her own judgment, not about him. God help her, Tristan was going to—she didn’t even want to think the words.

They slowed a bit to rest the horses, and she came out of her misery. “You may as well tell me where we’re going, then.”

“North, mistress, north and east for more than a day’s ride. To a remote domain far from the queen’s reach, deep in the countryside. Secretary Cecil and his escort Christian de Rivers, Lord Montfort, are to arrive at a place called Beaumaris at any moment. Pray God we reach them in time to stop the priest.”

“Beaumaris,” Pen said. “I know it not.”

“The seat of Baron Rochefort—a secret and reclusive man. But that isn’t important. What is important is that Cecil will be there, and, if we are unlucky, so will the priest. Then, mistress, despite your scruples, I am going to kill him.”

Pen stole a look at St. John. His eyes frightened her. They held no compassion, no regret. Looking into them was like looking into the eyes of a stalking wolf, where no meaning dwelt, only the relentlessness of a predator. By the heavenly Father, she couldn’t let this man get to Tristan. They rode through the night—Pen, St. John, Dibbler, and her retainers. They left two of the farmers behind. Unused to riding, they both took falls and were left at a hamlet to nurse sore backsides.

Changing horses when they could, they rode late into the next afternoon. It was all Pen could do to keep her eyes open and her bottom planted in the saddle. Only her determination to stop Tristan and at the same time prevent him from being killed kept her upright.

She woke from her daze of weariness when St. John slowed his horse to a walk. They had left the main road that stretched all the way to the border hours before and took a narrow path that wound through field after field of stubble. At midday they plunged into a forest that seemed as deserted as a crypt at midnight.

The track they followed dipped into a ravine, the floor of which was covered with limbs and leaves dropped from the trees above. Now they could no longer rush their horses without risking a fall. At a point where the ravine came to its narrowest point, they pulled up at a site of slaughter. Beside the path lay the bodies of two men, blood from sword wounds drying on their chests. Not daring to take the time to stop, Pen signaled her
people and they rode by, taking care to watch the sides of the ravine for attackers.

St. John, who was riding ahead of her, turned in his saddle. “You see? He’s killed already. No doubt those men were sent by the queen’s minister to guard this path, and he found them.”

Pen said nothing. Her gorge rose, and she felt unable to take in more horror. St. John couldn’t know that Tristan killed those men. They wore no livery, so they might have been thieves, not a minister’s guards. Was she lying to herself, trying to absolve Tristan of any crime because of what she felt for him? She fell deeper into a state of tortured uncertainty.

Eventually they halted, and St. John appeared to lapse into fervid thought. Pen heard the trickle of a stream. She dismounted and led her horse off the path and through trees bare of leaves. As they’d ridden north, frost covered the ground more and more frequently. This afternoon the sun’s pallid rays had failed to burn it from the ground.

She was watching her horse drink, when she heard shouting. On the path she saw the queen’s man punch Dibbler in the jaw. As Dibbler reeled, St. John snatched his pistol from the holster on Dibbler’s saddle. He rammed his boot into Dibbler’s chest.

Dibbler hurtled from his horse’s back. St. John quickly slapped the rumps of the horses that surrounded him, causing most of them to bolt, with their inexperienced riders either falling or wrestling in the saddle as the animals fled.

Pen shouted at her men, but they were too concerned with saving their own necks to pay heed. St. John vanished down the path as she scrambled back to her horse. Turnip came bustling up to her through a screen of bushes fastening his clothing.

Only Wheedle had managed to keep hold of the reins of her horse. Pen gazed about her, wanting to cuff the ears of everyone, including herself. Instead, she mounted her horse. Calling to Wheedle to gather the rest and follow, Pen galloped after St. John.

The man hated Tristan. He’d already said he wasn’t merely going to prevent a murder. He was going to kill Tristan, and he didn’t want her interfering with his blood lust. But she couldn’t let St. John hurt Tristan, no matter what he might have done. She had to stop St. John and at the same time keep Tristan from harming anyone.

Leaning over her horse’s neck, Pen strained to see a sign of the queen’s man, but the path twisted back and forth, and the forest loomed close on either side, blocking her view. Wheeling into right-angle turns, dodging low-hanging branches, she plunged down the track and hoped she stayed in the saddle.

With no warning the trail broke free of the trees. She faced an expanse of field. Across it she spotted St. John. He was heading for the gates of a great house that someone had built in the midst of this wilderness.

Pen raced after him as the sun began to drop toward the tree line behind the house. It was sinking quickly, and she could make out nothing of Beaumaris except soaring square towers turned black against the red-gold light of the dying sun. St. John suddenly veered to the side and skirted the redbrick wall that surrounded the house.

In spite of her haste, Pen noted how deserted the house appeared. She saw no servants or sentries through the gateway. When she careened around the house to the back, she saw her quarry dismount
before a door in the wall. Evidently it was barred, for after trying it, he stepped back and leapt for the wall. His hands gained purchase at its top, and he began to draw himself up.

Pen hardly waited for her mount to slow before she sprang to the ground, running. St. John had gained a foothold between the bricks at his feet and was hauling himself up the wall. Pen stopped a few yards from him and called his name. He kept climbing. She rushed to him and grabbed his leg. He cried out, looked down at her, and rammed her in the chest with his knee. Pen flew backward, hit the ground, and lay there for a moment, stunned.

She sat up to find St. John had dropped back to the ground. He drew back his fist and rushed toward her. Pen gasped, and her hand, which was planted on the ground, fastened around a palm-size stone.

As St. John hurtled toward her, she prayed for skill gained in aiming at Ponder Cutwell’s men-at-arms. She hurled the stone at his head and heard a smack. St. John plummeted to the ground at her feet.

Stooping over him, she removed Dibbler’s pistol from his belt and stuck it in her girdle. If anyone was going to prevent Tristan from murdering a royal minister now, it would be she. It was the only way she might save his life.

In the distance she heard a horse whinny. Someone was arriving. Pen gazed up at the wall. If St. John could scale it, she might. But she also might flatten herself against it.

Running back to her horse, she led the animal to stand next to the wall and mounted. Then she took a risk. She slipped her legs under her, stood on the saddle, and grasped the ledge on the top of the wall
before the horse had time to become startled. As she gripped the ledge, the animal snorted and danced out from under her.

She hung from the top for a few moments. Finding a toehold between the bricks, she lifted herself to the ledge and crouched there. Before her lay a deserted kitchen yard. Through an open shutter she could see a cook with his back to her, kneading dough at a worktable.

On a door stoop sat a scullery boy. Pen went still, knowing he would look up soon and see her. The cook shouted, and to Pen’s relief the boy jumped up and bolted inside the house.

What now? She had given little thought to her actions after this point, for she’d been too concerned with keeping her eye on St. John. The clatter of hooves on flagstones out front spurred her. Someone, possibly Cecil, was riding into the front court. As she listened, Pen scoured the lines of the house for a way inside. Her gaze traveled over a symmetrical arrangement of eight square towers and row after row of gridiron windows.

As she looked at one of the highest sets of windows, she perceived movement. Directing her gaze upward, she spied a black figure on top of the central tower at the front of the house. Tristan! Pen swung her legs over the wall and dropped. She landed hard on packed earth, jarring her entire body.

The pain failed to stop her from racing to a door beyond that of the kitchen. Trying it, she found it locked. Alarmed and frightened, she nearly lost her composure and banged on it.

Then she composed herself. The room she sought to enter was deserted. Looking around, she spied a woodpile nearby. She selected a slim piece. Swallowing
her anxiety, she went to a window, covered the end of the log with her skirt, and punched a hole in it.

Pen dropped the log. Slipping her hand inside the hole, she unfastened the latch and climbed into the chamber. It was but a moment’s work to creep across the chamber and peer through a series of doors and successive rooms until she found the great hall.

As she watched the room, a man crossed it, a tall man with silken locks that were at once dark and yet streaked with luxurious silver. He walked with the gait of a man used to exercise, while his skin had been tinted by the sun. He was heading for the front court.

There was no time to waste. As he left, Pen raced across the hall to a marble stair, went up a flight, and found another door. Praying that she’d guessed correctly, she flung it open to find another stair leading up to the central tower. She clutched her skirt and churned up the stairs.

Halfway up she stumbled and clutched at the sill of one of the tower windows. As she regained her balance, she glanced outside to see the silver-haired man walking toward a party of men dismounting in the court below. One of the guests was slight and balding, the other much taller and younger. This younger man glanced in her direction. Pistol in hand, she saw his startled expression as he beheld her and the weapon. Then he suddenly bolted for the house.

Lungs aching, Pen raced on. Through the clatter of her own footsteps she heard others ahead of her. Who else was on the stair? She charged up two more flights and through a narrow doorway that stood open.

She burst out onto the roof of the tower to find herself unexpectedly on the heels of her quarry. What was he doing on the stair? Tristan raced across the roof toward a cloaked figure. This was the person she’d seen
from below. Tristan stopped suddenly. Her gaze fixed only on him, Pen shoved aside all concerns except stopping him.

Knowing what she was being forced to do, Pen began to tremble. Tears threatened to obscure her vision. Her fear turned to horror when she saw his arm cock back and glimpsed a dagger. St. John had been right. He was there to kill.

Hands quivering so that she could hardly hold the weapon, she lifted her pistol and aimed. “Tristan, no!”

His head jerked around, and he met her tortured gaze. His own face was devoid of expression. Turning from her, he threw the dagger as Pen screamed and fired. Over her own scream, she heard another, and it wasn’t Tristan.

“God’s mercy, no, no, no,” she cried as she rushed toward Tristan’s fallen body. “I beg you, Lord, no.”

Pen had vaguely realized that the third person on the roof had been wounded, but at the moment she cared only about Tristan. Dropping to her knees beside him, she touched his bleeding shoulder as he struggled to rise. She clutched his good arm, but he shoved her away while trying to draw his sword, his gaze fixed upon the dark figure at the edge of the roof.

Satisfied that she hadn’t killed Tristan, Pen finally looked at the stranger. Shrouded in a dark cloak, masked, it had dropped a crossbow and was pulling the dagger from its arm. The mask slipped, and Pen beheld the golden eyes and curls of a young woman.

Swaying slightly, the woman faced Tristan while she wiped blood from the dagger and gripped the blade in order to throw it. “
Mon Dieu
, what a curse you are,
Anglais
. Greet the devil for me, will you?”

The woman with the golden hair wiped the blood from the dagger. Then she gripped the clean blade. Pen shrieked and tried to shove Tristan aside, but he lunged at her, throwing his body over hers. Pen fell beneath him. As she landed, he arched up, his gaze shooting past her in the direction of the tower door.

“Christian, duck!” Tristan shouted as he covered Pen, and a shadow knifed across them both.

Pen felt his weight crush her for a moment. Then he was up and lurching to his feet. He reached down and jerked her upright. Pen landed beside him to see the man called Christian bending over the prone body of the woman. She lay with a knife protruding from her shoulder. She cursed at Christian like a bawd from the London stews, before going limp.

Beside Pen, Tristan weaved on his feet. She clutched his arm, and Christian rushed to them. Putting his shoulder under Tristan’s good arm, he supported the wounded man and glanced at Pen.

“My vanished raven. How fortunate for you that I saw this maid through the tower window. I thought you drowned, you black-haired little pestilence.”

“Near drowned, near stabbed, a multitude of near deaths,” Tristan said.

Pen hovered in front of them, confused and grieved,
tears now flowing freely. Both men seemed to have forgotten her, and she hesitated in a frenzy of bewilderment.

Christian glanced at the wound in Morgan’s shoulder before nodding in the direction of the assassin. “What a direful spectacle you’ve made of yourself. And who is that murderous wench? Shall I let her bleed to death?”