Elisha Rex (21 page)

He could not imagine, with what lay before him, that his life could do other than end badly, at Brigit's hands if not at Thomas's, or Randall's. He had no power against the past and the betrayals that haunted them all, but there was yet one chance to save the future. Thomas still had a child, one he believed was dead, preserved by the mancers for whatever else they might have planned. Find her, bring her home, and Thomas might begin to trust him. Find her before Brigit did.

He still had the problem of Brigit's awareness. She would be watchful, preparing for his next move, and the child they shared heightened their connection. How could he pass unseen from her knowledge? He shivered in the wind, and an answering chill rose up within him. For a moment, he resisted the near, familiar voice of death. What purpose remained in denying the truth? He opened himself to the cold.

The horse gave a whinny, bolting a few paces, then allowing itself to be gentled by his hand, the one part of him still warm. The shades of the dead sprang up around him—ancients, miners, soldiers, Scotsmen. His mount plodded steadily onward, through the mists of the dying. Each one gave Elisha that shiver of strength, and each one concealed him as he breathed it in, forging his affinity with death and denying his own life. The troubles of the flesh dwindled to nothing as the sense of purpose filled him. Moving ever southward, he stalked from death to death like a thief through shadows.

The ghosts shifted through him in brief passages of terror or gratitude. A woman prayed as disease took her, and her presence enveloped him briefly like a warm cloak. Tears pricked his eyes, and he longed to remain swathed in warmth, but he rode on. He entered another, a man who screamed his agony inside Elisha's veins, clawing at wounds that suddenly cut Elisha's own flesh. Elisha flinched, and the horse sprang away, leaving the pain behind. The next one felt young and small—a child parted from its mother.

He crossed an ancient battlefield where the dead cried out for help or hurled curses at those who struck them down. When he moved through, they fell briefly silent and still, then began again, like a eddy of leaves stirred up by winter wind. After a few days ride, he no longer sensed their dying moments. The barrage of memories and pain drifted away. He became a vessel of cold passing by day or night, shivering the evergreens. Dogs barked at his approach and howled as he departed. When he entered their presence, they made no sound.

During the day, villagers he passed would nod or look away. Once in a while, someone turned to watch as he passed, or gasped in his wake. Magi.

Somewhere outside Coventry, a man followed him, though not too near. Elisha stopped and turned, his horse pricking up its ears, so attuned were they now to each other. Elisha lifted his head and met the man's gaze. He sent a tendril of his awareness and felt an answering chill. The man straightened, blinking, and one hand tugged his bulky cloak a little tighter. A mancer, and one who wore his gruesome talisman.

Elisha glared. Death leapt up at his command, a clamoring that filled his ears.

The mancer's eyes widened, then he spun away and ran.

Almost, Elisha followed him, images of Thomas and Rosie darting across his memory, but his purpose lay elsewhere, and he turned once more to the south.

Not until he entered the deep trees of the New Forest did Elisha let his power ebb away. When the last wisps left him, he slid off his horse and collapsed to the ground, his lungs fighting for breath. The moon hung heavy overhead, veiled by clouds—must be three weeks since he'd begun his long ride. Off to the left, the ocean pounded. His frayed senses vibrated with every rustle in the leaves and mournful hoot of a distant owl. The scent of decaying leaves curled into his nostrils, then a sweeter fragrance followed. Now that he had let go of death, Brigit would once more be aware of him. She might guess where he was, but he hoped she would not guess at why he came. Let her imagine, in the smugness of her victory, that he came to the lodge to mourn his own loss. Wind creaked and groaned in the branches of the apple trees. A few crows broke the silence as well, and the scent of the earth and the orchard seeped up from the ground.

He turned the old cob loose by the riverside with an affectionate pat of its neck, but it simply stood and nuzzled him a moment before discovering the joy of early apples. Elisha faced the lodge, swallowing hard. Three weeks. What if Brigit already knew about Alfleda and had her quietly killed? He walked up to the door and found it unlocked as he had left it, as he had promised the king he would do, that his door should never again be barred against him.

Elisha braced himself to climb the narrow stairs. At their base, two men had died. At their head, a cold place marked where Anna herself was killed. A window at the end cast some light into the room, illuminating the low beds, their rope lattices bare of blankets. Chests along the wall held bedding and personal items, but Elisha moved toward the doorway at the end, opening into a narrow room piled with more chests, barrels, and sacks.

Elisha opened the first sack and peered inside. An item of Alfleda's clothing might do, but a toy would be better, something she had cared about which might still provide a connection. Without that, he had no way to search for her, never mind to be sure when he found her. After more than two years, would anything here carry enough of her presence to be of use?

Uncut fabric, along with needles and thread. Elisha closed the sack and put it aside, opening the chest underneath to reveal some musty leather, half-finished embroideries, a pair of books, a bundle of things to be mended, silver goblets, and a few carved plates. Sometimes, as he lifted an item into view, Elisha felt the strong, distinctive touch of Thomas's presence. A woolen hood still captured a few dark hairs in its hemline, and Elisha stroked them, sensing the warmth of the past, almost as if Thomas drew nearer as Elisha sat among his things.

“Hallo? Who's there?”

Elisha jerked, clutching the hood to his chest, his heart pounding beneath his scars. He was magic indeed if his touch could summon the man.

Light flared in the outside room and Elisha froze.

“Good God,” Thomas breathed.

S
lowly, Elisha put down
the hood, but he dreaded the sight of Thomas's face, twisted as it must be with his fear and hatred. “Thomas,” he said, “I did not know you were here.”

“What are doing in my house, you filthy—Sweet Lord, if I had my bow!” Thomas advanced across the creaking floor.

Elisha flinched and faced him. “Thomas, please listen.”

“To what, more lies?” He took a step back, lifting the candle. His eyes blazed from dark shadows, his face seemed more skull than flesh. “She said you were far away, that you couldn't touch me.” Thomas's eyes narrowed. “How did you get here?”

“A long, terrible journey.” Elisha put out his hands. “I am not your enemy, Thomas, far from it.”

The king growled, and the candle flickered in his grasp. He reached toward his belt, slipping back his cloak from one shoulder to reveal the hilt of a sword.

Elisha scrambled to his feet in the doorway, his hands still low and empty. “What if I am innocent? You are the thinker, not me—think about this. What if I'm telling the truth, and the enemy is the woman who claimed your rescue? What if she and her friends discredited me and broke you to get her on the throne?”

“I am not broken,” said Thomas evenly. He switched the candle to his left hand and drew the sword, its blade sending shards of candlelight bouncing around the rafters. “Far from it,” he echoed.

The illness churned anew in Elisha's gut. “She's using you for your power, can't you see that?”

“So what?” Thomas set the candle into a stand by the stair rail. “In a week, I shall marry her, and at least have an heir of my brother's blood. If she wants power, why should I not give it to her? Why should I not give her whatever she asks?”

Elisha met Thomas's fevered stare. “If you don't know the answer to that, then you must betray me. If you believe in her, then I have to die.”

The king stared back, the sword held between them, but he did not advance.

In spite of the pounding of his heart, Elisha smiled.

Thomas took a step forward, raising the sword. “What do you have to smile about?”

“Because every moment you doubt her means that there is hope for me.”

“No,” said Thomas. “I don't think so.”

Elisha laughed, light and foolish, and Thomas, just for a moment, returned to himself, one corner of his mouth quirking up. “Once you trusted me to shave your chin—do you remember? I who had killed two kings, and you trusted me.”

The suggestion of a smile vanished. “You had not yet killed a queen.”

“I still have not.” He prayed he never would, but Brigit's cold, triumphant stare burned in his memory.

“I was there. I heard everything.”

“Even you admitted that you might be deceived. The archbishop borrowed my presence to betray Rosie. He used a talisman made of my hair and my blood. You were blindfolded, so you couldn't look too closely—you could only hear what Rosie was saying. Even she only believed it was me because of the contact he forced on her. And because she might have hoped for my coming.” He swallowed. “I was miles away in the Tower.”

“Save that you frequently sent out all of your attendants—I asked.”

Hope flared again, but Elisha muted it. “You asked because you know I would not betray you, Thomas, not you, and not Rosalynn.”

“Then why did you call for them to cut me?” Thomas studied him. “If it had not been for that . . .”

“The rope at your throat was bound with my hair. The circle prevented me from reaching you. God forgive me, Thomas, blood seemed the easiest way to break it.” He kept his hands low, open, pleading. “They already doubted me. They wouldn't have simply cut the rope.”

“Your Majesty,” called a man's voice from below.

Elisha caught his breath, and Thomas stiffened, the sword wavering.

Elisha's hands came together, a gesture of prayer.

“Your Majesty? Where've you gone?”

“I'm here,” Thomas answered. “Upstairs.”

Elisha stepped back through the doorway into the storage area. He ducked to the side and stood trembling.

“The men're tending the horses and preparing to bed down in the barn. I've got a few here to stay with us.” Someone mounted the stairs, a heavier tread that brought the voice nearer: Duke Randall, his one-time patron, Rosie's father.

Elisha swallowed, but his throat stayed dry. His heartbeat echoed through the brand that scarred his chest, and he could not imagine how they did not hear.

“Thanks, Randall. You don't know how much I've depended on you.” Thomas sighed. “This has been an awful time for you, as well.”

The tread stopped on the creaking floor at the head of the stairs. The haunted floor. “For both of us, Your Majesty. Why've you drawn your sword?”

“I still fear my own shadow.”

“You have every reason to fear. He's a danger to you, and to Brigit. It behooves us all to be on edge if it means we are prepared to meet him.”

“I am not sure I will be.” Footsteps drew near and a shadow blocked the candlelight that fell through the door. Thomas's voice asked, “What if we are wrong?”

Elisha held his breath, his spine and palms pressed to the wall. He shut his eyes against the darkness and dared to pray.

“Wrong? Wrong about what?”

“You heard what that soldier said, about the archbishop—”

“Whom the barber also slew.”

“What if the archbishop had a way to trick us both, with Brigit's help?” Thomas overrode the duke, his voice gaining strength. “If Elisha had been responsible for our abduction, why should he want me to witness Rosie's death? Even then, I did not see what happened, I only heard—”

“You don't believe that, Thomas! Please tell me you're not so far under his sway. The man's a fiend and a murderer. I rue the day I stayed his death, for all the grief he's caused us.”

“I'm the king,” Thomas shot back. “If it behooves me to be cautious, then, too, I must consider the chance that I've been misled.”

“There is no chance.” The duke pounded across the floor. “If you don't believe your own ears, for God's sake, Thomas, my wife can show you. Lay your hand on my daughter's skin—all that we have left of her—and you can feel every hideous thing he did to her, every way he tortured her before he tore her open.”

Had Allyson really shared that horror with her husband? To lose a child must already have broken their hearts, but to know exactly how—Elisha recalled all too well his own encounter with Rosie's skin and how it nearly left him mad, willing to cut his own throat for the crimes she believed he had committed.

“Randall—” Thomas's voice shuddered, and Elisha clenched his fists. “God forgive me, if there's a chance. We are flying into danger if we're wrong. You cared for him, too, once. You even suggested they should marry.”

“The more fool I.” The duke stomped toward the stairs. “Allyson!” he bawled. “Bring up the casket. The king's no longer sure what manner of devil he faces.”

Thomas's cloak swished, brushing against the doorway. “She's suffered enough, Randall. Don't ask it of her.”

“Do you know what happened while you were gone? He sent my wife to be struck by lightning by one of his allies at Chelmsford. Only luck preserved her. I imagined, I hoped, he hadn't intended that, but after Rosie—” Randall's voice broke. “If you've already forgotten what he is capable of—what part of Hell gave birth to him, then you'll see it for yourself. You'll have no room for doubt alongside the need for vengeance! Allyson.”

“I am here, Your Grace,” said a weary voice that echoed up the stairs.

“Have you brought her?”

“Only to bury her, love.”

“Thomas needs to see, to understand through his wife's own self, what was done to her. Can you show him?”

“If you feel I must, Your Grace, then I can.” Slow steps began, a woman burdened.

Even without spreading his senses, Elisha felt chilled. The hairs stood up along his arms and he drew breath but shallowly. The memory of Rosie's pain clamped hold of his stomach.

“If you must weigh the truth, Your Majesty, then at least you should have the full truth at hand. Allyson, let me.” Randall crossed the room, and the ropes of one bed squeaked as something was set down upon it. “Come, Thomas. Touch her ruined hand and know the truth of what he's done.”

The shadow passed from before the door.

“Here,” said the duke, “help me with the lid.”

Elisha's hands trembled. For a moment, he let his head back against the wall, then he heard Thomas's cloak settle to the floor and Elisha's breath stopped in his wounded lung. Elisha lurched around the door. “No, Thomas! Don't do it. As you value your soul, don't touch her.”

Thomas knelt there, half-turned, his cloak pooled around him like a garment of shadows.

“Guards!” Randall staggered to his feet, the bed and casket separating him from Thomas. The duke snapped out his sword. His glance slid along its length, then back to the king. “Did you know this? Have you been hiding him?” He shook with rage.

Thomas remained where he was, hunched, fully clothed now, but the image of the last time they'd met face to face, when he crouched in despair, torn between the threat of the mancers, and his terror of Elisha himself.

If they forced him to touch the skin . . . “I hid myself, Your Grace. Let Thomas be. He needs no more grief, surely not from you.”

“Who is it dares speak to me so, but the man who killed my daughter, the king's bride!” Randall swept his own wife behind him with one arm as he surged forward.

“I loved her, too,” Elisha said, backing away, drawing the man further from his king. “That's why it hurt her so much when they stole my touch to kill her.”

“Of course it hurt when you betrayed her!” Randall howled.

“No, Your Grace. I would have saved her if—”

“What, give up the throne to look for those who should rightfully hold it?”

Elisha's fear collapsed beneath a fury that darkened his vision, and he stood his ground. “How did I even have time to do what you say? You were there for my reign, Your Grace. You supported the man who gave it to me. Ask Pernel who found the maps how often we searched for them, for Thomas and Rosie both. All I've ever wanted was to see Thomas crowned as he should be.”

“Can't you hear his perversions, Your Majesty? How he uses you to excuse his atrocities?” Randall's teeth glinted. “Even had you not killed her, nor slaughtered a man of God, even then, Barber, you would deserve the worst.”

“Randall, be careful,” cried Allyson, her hands clasped together. “Don't touch him!”

Elisha met the eyes once so kind, and his anger subsided. Booted feet shook the stairs, and Lord Robert appeared, tall and well-armed, with a few more men at his back. “Here, Your Grace! By the Cross, you've found him!”

“I'll take him,” said Randall softly, and he lunged.

Elisha leapt aside, but his head knocked loudly against the beam, and he nearly fell as he ducked. The sword bit into his thigh, but not too deep. As he slipped back from the blow, he scrambled to master his thoughts. The cloth talisman he carried inside his sleeve burst to sudden heat. His thigh, muscle, skin—he knitted them in place in his mind, sealing the wound as he searched for reason.

Elisha called, “Duchess Allyson, Your Grace, the archbishop was a sensitive. He used a projection to make her believe—”

“A sensitive, you claim. Like you!” With a roar, the duke cut behind him.

Elisha turned left, only to feel the blade tear across his back. He fell forward, screaming, then got to his knees, deflecting the next blow though it smacked hard across his arm. Heal, heal, he urged the flesh. He saw an opening and dove low past the duke's legs. But the duke's men formed a wall before the stairs, blocking the other side of the room. They stood with swords to hand, but made no move to join the battle. Nor was there need.

Elisha reeled back from them and the sword caught his hip this time, deeper, harder. He staggered, losing his focus for a moment in this new pain. He gulped for breath, he must defend himself. But to harm the duke?

Blood pulsed from his wounds. Oh, God! Heal, heal. He gulped for breath and faced his attacker.

Randall waved his sword, blood flicking from the blade. “Come on, you devil! Where's your courage now? Or can you fight only unarmed women?”

“I don't want to hurt you.” Elisha's breath burned. The duke's image parted into two, and he forced them back together.

“Me? No, it's the king you're after, since you murdered his wife. Barber, it's time you were trimmed.” The duke danced forward again. Half mad after Rosie's disappearance, terrified at the thought he could have lost his wife as well when Sundrop aimed a lightning bolt at her, then to have his daughter returned to him in tatters and blood: it had utterly undone him. Randall was older than Elisha by half, his balding pate glinted with sweat, but he was trained for this and bolstered by his grief.