The King's Daughter (17 page)

She gave a sort of whimper. Her face contorted and she twisted away from Thornleigh, her back to him and Carlos. But she made no move to leave.

Mosse lifted the keys to her ear and rattled them. “I’ll even let you unlock his irons yourself, after,” he said. “Well?”

Carlos tore his eyes from the keys to catch the almost imperceptible nod of the girl’s head.

Victorious, Mosse tossed the keys on the table. He shoved his torch into the wall bracket. He came close to the girl and tugged off her cloak. It fell in the icy mud. He grasped her shoulders and turned her to him and buried his face in her neck.

Thornleigh gasped. “No!” he cried.

The girl stood rigid, unmoving. Mosse ripped loose the lacing of her bodice. He tugged down the velvet fabric, and the thin chemise beneath, uncovering her breasts. Carlos swallowed. She had beautiful full breasts. Mosse grabbed them.

“I’ll kill you, Mosse!” Thornleigh screamed. “I’ll kill you!”

Mosse kneaded the girl’s breasts, then bent and sucked noisily at her nipple. He ignored Thornleigh’s continuing bellows of rage. But they were all the girl appeared aware of. Her eyes were tightly closed, and she held up a hand between her face and Thornleigh as if to hide behind it. All her concentration seemed focused on trying to block out her father’s ranting voice.

Mosse fumbled under her skirts and shoved his hand up between her legs. She winced. He wrenched her around to make her face the table, then pushed her over it so that she bent forward at the waist. Her head hit the table and she groaned as if she’d been punched. Mosse hiked up her skirts and threw them up over her back, baring her buttocks. Her body was in profile to Carlos, her ear on the table, her face turned away, but the torchlight above her gleamed golden on the skin of her buttocks and thighs. Carlos felt himself swell and harden.

Mosse prodded the girl’s legs apart, making her stumble for balance. He yanked his codpiece to one side, exposing his erect penis. He took hold of her hips and plowed into her. She gasped, her head jerking up. Thornleigh roared, “Merciful Jesus, no!” The girl’s head thudded back down, her other cheek on the table this time, her face toward Carlos. Her eyes were wide open now. Blazing blue eyes, all-seeing as a stark and cloudless sky.

Mosse pulled out of her and grunted in disgust, “Cunt’s dry as a nun.” He spat on his hand, then smeared the spittle between the girl’s thighs. The girl’s hand clenched the edge of the table by her face. Thornleigh howled.

Suddenly, the girl straightened and twisted around and faced Mosse, her skirts tumbling down. White-faced, with her chin trembling, she stood rigid. Then, stiffly, she lifted her skirts again, uncovering herself to Mosse. Her eyes shot pure hatred at him, but her gaze did not waver from his face. Carlos held his breath. She was forcing Mosse to look her in the eye.

Anger flickered across Mosse’s face at her defiance. He pushed her back against the table edge and prodded her legs apart, making her tilt backwards on her elbows. Still, her eyes fixed him. He shoved himself at her with a leer that said he was waiting for her to break. But she did not turn away. And Mosse’s lust was stronger than his will to outface her. Finally, about to enter her, under her unflinching gaze, he closed his eyes.

He rammed into her. Her hands shot out along the table, knocking coins to the ground, and the keys. Thornleigh strained at his chains until his wrists were bloody.

Mosse pumped and grunted. Thornleigh raged like a madman. Mosse squealed at his climax. The girl made no sound.

Then, Mosse was finished. Still inside the girl, he stood panting, wiping sweat from his forehead. Thornleigh slumped against the wall. He rolled his head back and forth along it, moaning.

Carlos’s eyes slid from the girl to the keys on the floor, then back up to the girl. He wanted the keys, but the girl had amazed him. He thought he had seen every kind of sexual contract that women dealt in, from the tears of raped virgins, sobbing at the theft, to the lewd invitations of camp whores, aggressive in a buyer’s market. And he’d had women who negotiated every arrangement between those extremes in the give-and-take of lust. But the carnal bargain this girl had made was something he had never seen: she had done it for her father’s sake. And, in a bizarre way, by forcing Mosse to avoid her eyes, she had beaten him.

Mosse pulled out of her. Carlos saw a trickle of blood darken the inside of her thigh.
She’s a virgin,
he thought.
Or was.

The girl straightened up from the table, forcing down her skirts. She tugged up her bodice to cover her breasts. She picked up her cloak from the mud and drew it tightly around her. She turned and faced Mosse, summoning up what dignity she could. But Carlos saw that she was shaking. And when she lifted a hand to push her hair back from her face, her hand merely skimmed near her hair, like someone not quite in control. “Now,” she said, “unlock his chains.” Despite the quaver in her voice, the command was firm.

Mosse was refastening his codpiece. He glanced up the stairs and smiled. Carlos thought he heard footsteps beyond the open trapdoor. “Like I said, unlock him yourself,” Mosse said with a nod to the keys on the ground.

Carlos was astonished. The
bastardo
wasn’t really keeping his bargain, was he?

The girl snatched up the keys and stumbled forward between Carlos and Thornleigh. The hem of her skirt swished over Carlos’s boot. He drew up his knees. She knelt down and reached out for Thornleigh’s wrist cuff. She fumbled through the keys. “It’s the small one, with the string on it,” Mosse said helpfully. He was busy shoving the coins on the table back inside the purse.

As Mosse spoke, the footsteps above became the heavy clomp of boots. They reached the top of the stairs. A torch flared at the open trapdoor. The girl was just unlocking Thornleigh’s cuffs when three men marched down the steps—a turnkey and two guards. The girl looked around in surprise and stood. Carlos saw that she had abandoned the keys.

“Ah,” Mosse said with great satisfaction, “right on time. I do insist that my men stick to the rules, mistress.” Looking at the turnkey, he jerked his head toward Thornleigh. “Take him.” The turnkey motioned to the two guards. The guards approached Thornleigh and finished unlocking his chains.

“No!” the girl cried. But the guards were pulling her father up from the floor. They shoved him through the room. Thornleigh lurched from their grasp and lunged murderously at Mosse. Mosse jumped back. The guards seized Thornleigh again and manhandled him toward the steps.

The girl ran after them. “No!” The guards ignored her and pushed Thornleigh on. The girl screamed at Mosse, “You promised I could set him free!”

Mosse was picking up coins that had fallen under the table. “And so you
did,”
he said. “And now he’s free to visit London town. He’s been transferred there by order of the sheriff. That’s what he gets for bashing in the brains of a lord.” He tugged tight the drawstrings of the purse and called up to Thornleigh, who was struggling between the guards on the middle of the stairs, “And you won’t find any London prison a bed of roses like my jail.”

As the guards pushed Thornleigh up the final step, Thornleigh wrenched back his head. “Get away, Isabel!” he cried. “Out of England! Take your mother and get—”

A guard kicked his leg, and the turnkey ordered, “Shut your gob.” They forced Thornleigh out of the Hole. “Go, Isabel!” Thornleigh’s muffled voice called down one last time. Their boots scuffled along the corridor. Then, there was silence.

Carlos’s eyes darted back to the keys. They were still attached to Thornleigh’s chains left on the ground. They lay so near him. He knew he could reach them. But any movement would draw Mosse’s attention. He forced himself to sit still.

The girl whirled around on Mosse. “You knew!” she said with quiet fury. “You knew it all along!”

Mosse smirked. Of course he had known.

“Where are they taking him in London?” she demanded. “Which prison?”

Mosse shrugged. “Don’t know that. But I could find out.” He stuffed the full purse inside his grease-stained doublet and sauntered closer to her. She backed away toward the table. Mosse smiled. “And I
would
find out,” he said, “if you’ll come again tomorrow.” He reached out and touched her breast.

She jerked back and banged against the table. She reached behind her and grasped a chain that lay on it. She swung it wildly at Mosse. But Mosse saw it coming and stepped back and she missed him. He laughed. She moved toward him, the aggressor now. He stepped back further, closer to Carlos. His grin had faded. “Set that down, hussy,” he commanded, “or you’ll find yourself tossed in up above with all the other whores.”

The girl swung the chain at him again, aiming at his face. Again, Mosse lurched back and she missed him. But Mosse had taken one step too many. His heel touched Thornleigh’s discarded chains. Feeling this obstacle, he twisted, and his other foot got tangled in the chain. He lost his balance. With arms windmilling in an effort to keep upright, he turned and fell onto his backside. The back of his head banged Carlos’s raised knee.

In a sudden, savage motion, Carlos lifted his arm and whipped his own chain around Mosse’s neck. Mosse gasped and clutched at the stranglehold. His heels slid in the mud. He swiped behind his head at Carlos’s arm, and his nails clawed channels in the back of Carlos’s hand, drawing blood. Carlos wrenched the chain in a vicious twist. Mosse’s neck snapped. In a final convulsion his foot jerked out, kicking the keys away. Then he lay still.

Carlos looked up at the girl. She was gaping at the dead jailer’s head twisted askew. She looked at Carlos in shock and backed away to the table. Her legs seemed to give way. She slipped down to the ground and sat there, panting. She and Carlos stared at one another across the murky room.

Carlos uncoiled his chain from Mosse’s neck, letting the body slump to the floor, and then he lunged for the key ring. But Mosse, in his death throe, had kicked it beyond his reach. Carlos tried to stretch for it with his foot. But it was still too far away. He looked back at the girl. “Get me the keys,” he said.

She flinched at his harsh voice. She was struggling to her feet. Once up, she held herself steady by the edge of the table, eyeing both Carlos and the dead jailer with revulsion. Carlos saw that he had terrified her with his brutal act. With his wild appearance too—the gash scabbing his eyebrow, the ten days’ beard, the dirt, the blood on the back of his hand. And with his desperate need. “Unlock me,” he said. “You are the only one who can.”

She hesitated. Then she shook her head vehemently. She began stiffly walking toward the stairs. As she passed Carlos she pulled her cloak tightly around her as if to avoid contamination. In a moment she would be gone—his last chance to escape the gallows. “Stop!” he said. She flinched in fright and hurried on. She started up the stairs.

“You owe me!” he called. “I saved your father’s life!”

She stopped.

“Last night,” Carlos went on quickly, “someone tried to murder him.
Asesinato.
I saw.”

She turned. “What?”

“I was near. The assassin, he used special words to get your father’s trust. I heard. Then, later, I saw him attack. I called to your father to warn him. There was a fight. Your father was knocked down, and I … I fought off the assassin. Others fought, too. When it was over, the jailer put your father and me here.”

The girl blinked. “An assassin?” she asked skeptically. She looked around. “Where is he now?”

“Gone. I think … let out by his …
patrón
… leader?”

“You mean, his employer?”

“Yes. Set free. That is what I think.”

The girl appeared to consider the story. She looked hard at Carlos. “What were the words he used?”

“What?”

“You said the assassin used special words. What were they?”

Carlos hesitated. But he had come this far. And the girl was his last chance.

He said the words. “Speedwell blue.”

Her mouth fell open. Carlos knew he had struck cleanly.

“Did my father make an answer?”

“He said, ‘Speedwell true.'”

The girl felt for the stair under her and sat as if stunned.

Carlos wondered if he had miscalculated after all. But the only course now was to plow on. “So your father is in much danger. Someone wants him dead. I do not know who.”

“I do,” the girl whispered in dismay. “The Grenvilles.” Then, even more quietly, “My God, if they know those passwords … they know
everything
.” She stood. There was determination in her face. “I must save him,” she said. Carlos cursed himself. He had inadvertently prodded her to action. She was going to leave. But in the next moment the expression on her face was that of a frightened child. “But what …” she said in desperation, “what am I to do?”

Carlos saw her helplessness. And, suddenly, he saw his way out. A way to stay alive, to get back his freedom, and more—London and the Blue Boar Tavern at Candlemas. He saw it all clearly. Find Thornleigh. Kill him. Collect the reward. Get out of England.

“Listen to me,” he said. “The sheriff will soon be after you.”

“The sheriff? Good God, why?”

“About this,” he said, jerking his chin toward the dead jailer. “People saw you come in. People will see you go. If I am left chained here, who will they think did this? And you cannot go on the main road to follow your father. If you do, the sheriff will come after you and stop you. You must take other roads. That will be slow. The guards will have Thorn-leigh in prison in London before you reach the city. But you do not know which one. And what will you do when you get there—a lady, all alone, with no
protección
?”

He waited, allowing the hopelessness of her situation to sink in. Her stricken face told him she understood. He said, “You want to find your father and rescue him, yes?”

“Yes,” she said, her voice a whisper.

“Then you need help.” With his foot he prodded Mosse’s body and added pointedly, “Expert help.” He leveled his gaze on the girl. “I am a soldier.”