Suzanne Robinson (31 page)

“The same,” the old woman said. “He’s as weak as a dying babe, and I want no part of the blame if he dies.”

Le Brun shoved the woman aside and leaned over the bed. He grasped Blade by the shoulders and shook him.

“Fitzstephen, open your eyes, damn you.”

He shook Blade again, then slapped him. Blade’s head snapped back under the blow, and he went limp.

“He won’t get well if you beat him,” the old woman said without much interest.

Le Brun released Blade, who fell back to the mattress.

“This illness,” Le Brun said, “it must be a ruse.”

The old woman shrugged. “If he’d puked all over my boots like he did yours, I wouldn’t put a wager on it.”

“That was two days ago.”

“I’ve held his head over a chamber pot every day since then.” The old woman shook her head. “A pity. He’s a fine one, he is.”

She picked up the aforementioned chamber pot and waddled out of the room. As she went, she complained that she needed food if she was to nurse her patient through the whole night. Le Brun turned back to Blade and grabbed his face, bending close.

“You listen to me. Well or ill, you’re to kneel before the cardinal tonight. Do you hear me? Fitzstephen!”

Blade’s lashes fluttered, then lowered again.

Uttering a growl of impatience, Le Brun released his prisoner again and stomped out. A lock clicked, and Blade was alone. He slowly raised one eyelid, then both. He darted glances about the room and listened for footsteps. Hearing none, he threw back the covers and sprang out of bed with a grim smile. He enjoyed baiting Le Brun.

They had stripped him before depositing him in bed. Goose bumps rose on his skin and he shivered. He flexed muscles stiff from lying in bed all day and stole over to the latticed windows. He remembered little of how he had gotten to this place. What he did remember was being awake, and then being awake again, and sick near to death from that foul potion they kept feeding him.

During that nightmare time of helplessness and pain,
he’d wanted Oriel. Several times, when he could hardly lift his head or the blackness threatened, he cursed at his own foolhardiness. He should have admitted the truth to her once she guessed it at his town house. Now he might never again have the chance. Too late he understood how essential she was to him, and now it was most unlikely he would ever be able to tell her.

“Blade Fitzstephen, you’re a crack-brained lackwit.”

He forced his thoughts back to gaining his freedom. He was in France, so he must have been on a ship, but he only remembered waking in a place of vile smells and loud music and voices, with Le Brun bending over him. More of the potion had been forced down his throat. The next time he woke, he was tied to a horse and even sicker than before. He remembered retching with the motion of the animal.

As time passed, Le Brun seemed to realize the stupidity of feeding him too much potion, and had refrained. Once the poisonings lessened, his wits gradually roused from their stupor. When they did, he decided to disguise his recovery in hopes of allaying his captors’ watchfulness long enough to escape. He’d succeeded in part, for Le Brun now left only the old woman to nurse and guard him.

It was the puking on his boots that convinced Le Brun of Blade’s weakness. That trick had been born of desperation. He’d leaned over the bed, putting his face near the chamber pot, and taken a deep breath. The scent had produced the result he’d wanted.

His time had run out, however. The cardinal was coming tonight. Therefore he must escape or die. The old woman was stuffing her ample self with food, and from experience he knew he had almost an hour to himself. He flattened his body beside the windows and peered down at the rooftops below the tower. He was in a manor house surrounded by a forest. Not far off he could see a river and an arched stone bridge spanning it.

The rooftops below him were leaded, steep, and
broken by dormer windows. If he could lower himself the thirty feet to the next roof, he might be able to cling to the nearest dormer and then jump to the ground—or break both legs. He was looking down at the ground below the dormer when one of Le Brun’s men came out of the manor and crossed the drive in front. Blade whipped his head back and flattened himself against the wall once more, praying that the man hadn’t seen him. He waited, listening intently, but no alarm was sounded.

Sliding along the curved wall of the tower, he dropped to the floor and scrambled to the chest at the foot of the bed. His nurse had stuffed his clothes in the chest after they’d been cleaned. He would dress, make a rope from the bed sheets, and climb down the side of the building. It was almost dark, and time to leave the rough care of Alain Le Brun.

His hand was on the torn cambric shirt that lay topmost in the chest when he heard horses outside. He closed the chest and stole back to the windows. In the fading light he saw three men dismounting. One was taller than the rest and slim. He brushed the hood of his cloak back to reveal red-gold hair topped by a priest’s cap. The cardinal.

Cursing, Blade returned quickly to the bed. He summoned thoughts of nausea, dog carcasses, and refuse heaps. He closed his eyes. Boots pounded on the bare floor outside. The lock clicked again, and the boots drew near. He heard the rustle of a heavy cloak, and breathing, but nothing else.

Without warning a hand touched him. It took all his control not to start or shrink from that touch. He felt a warm palm lay against his cheek. It lifted, and the covers were pulled down to his hips, then replaced. Still the silence continued.

Suddenly his head exploded with the force of an openhanded slap. His head snapped to the side, and he moaned weakly. He was shaken and slapped again. This
time his eyes flew open, and he met the dark, amused gaze of the Cardinal of Lorraine.

“Ah,
mon fils
, you but needed encouragement to join us.”

Blade said nothing and blinked slowly at the cardinal, then closed his eyes again.

“Come, my dear boy, don’t force a man of God to strike you again.”

He opened his eyes, slowly, as if doing so took all his strength.

“Bon
,” the cardinal said. “The English nightingale is with us. Ah, you’re startled. I do remember you,
mon seigneur
, though I didn’t at first. I remember the lovely Claude gave a masque last year, and at this masque—this quite dreary masque—you sang. Your voice suffused the night with the brightness of the sun.”

The cardinal motioned to Le Brun, who stood behind him, and Le Brun brought a chair. Seating himself and arranging the folds of his cloak, he placed his hands on the arms of the chair and regarded Blade as though inspecting a novice.

“You have caused me great inconvenience, boy. I like it not, nor being made to appear the fool. You may thank God that I admire your cunning, or you’d be worm’s meat by now. You’re a marvel, you know. You speak French as well as I. You’ll speak a lot of it, and to me, in the coming days.”

Blade whispered, taking care to slur his words slightly. “I’ll tell you nothing.”

He hated lying here, helpless, while the man toyed with him as if he were some amusing lapdog. The cardinal’s soft laughter alarmed him as Le Brun’s brutality could not.

“Make no vows, for I warrant you, I have yet to fail when I set myself to turn a man to my purpose. But perchance I am hasty. Would you like to submit now and save yourself much travail? Tell me how you knew
about the old man Sir Thomas Richmond, and the names of your fellow intelligencers.”

Blade stared at his captor and said nothing. The cardinal sighed.

“Infortuné, mon fils
,” he said. He made a steeple of his fingers and gazed at Blade over them. “You see, I have a suspicion that the secrets in that pretty head are worth far more than those of that damnable Thomas Richmond. Tell me, Nicholas Fitzstephen, Sieur de Racine, what know you of the affairs of Her Majesty, the Queen of England?”

“Naught.”

Charles de Guise gave him an amused, even affectionate smile. He lowered his hands and began to stroke the miniver that lined his cloak. “I have an apothecary named Cosimo. Italians are so versed in the lore of herbs and potions. Cosimo studied for a while under Nostradamus. He amazes me with his philters, infusions, and decoctions, and he has created for me a most useful tincture. I believe he combined lavender, rue, and mandrake root, and other such herbs.”

The cardinal leaned on the bed. “Mayhap you know the lore of the mandrake. It grows under the gallows of murderers and it is death to dig up the root. If one tries, it utters shrieks and groans so terrifying that none may hear them and live. Thus one must use dogs to dig it up.”

“I shall take care not to dig for it at all,” Blade murmured.

“It is a funeral herb, an herb of magic and of visions—one of great potency.”

As he spoke, the cardinal drew a gold chain from beneath his leather jerkin. Suspended from it was a vial of transparent crystal filled with a black liquid. He held the chain over Blade’s head, and the vial began to spin. Blade watched it, but the whirling of the crystal caught the light of the candles by the bed. His vision blurred, and he turned his head aside.

“I have given this tincture to certain condemned heretics,” the cardinal said. “Unfortunately I was too generous with it at first, and several of them died before they could be burned for their crimes. I’ve mastered the art of administering it though. It seems that Cosimo’s tincture reduces a man to a willing slave within hours.”

“I don’t believe you.” Blade tensed as the cardinal lowered the vial and caught it in one hand.

“It matters not.” The cardinal glanced at the vial. “Enough chatter. You have a choice, my boy. You may walk down to your horse with Le Brun’s help, or I can give you a taste of Cosimo’s tincture now. I would prefer to wait a day or two until you are stronger, but if you force me, I will begin your schooling now.”

“Where are you taking me?”

“Why, to the royal chateau. I vow it’s really as much fortress as chateau, which is fortunate, for I’ve a mind to keep you in the dungeons of Amboise, my dear Anglo-French spy. For there, no one will hear you scream.”

Blade’s fingers twitched as he sought to prevent himself from leaping upon the cardinal. He understood how the man had gained so much power, for he worked subtly and slowly, teasing apart the fabric of his victim’s defenses until the quarry found himself exposed.

“Come, your answer,” the cardinal said. “I would advise obedience, for in the end you will be transformed into a meek and biddable slave. Comply, and I will deal with you gently.”

Blade watched his enemy rise and loom over him. The cardinal took his hand, and he allowed the man to help him rise. He glanced about the chamber to find himself outnumbered by Le Brun and five guards. Even he couldn’t fight seven men. It was best to feign submission and hope for a chance to escape along the road to Amboise. If he was fortunate, they wouldn’t bother to tie his feet to the stirrups when he was mounted.

He was dressed and propelled down the winding tower stair and out to the court where the horses
waited. A guard bound his hands in front of him. The cardinal snapped an order, and someone threw a heavy cloak over him. Its folds were wrapped about his body. He hung between two guards while a third steadied his mount. They shoved him into the saddle, where he took care to slump a bit.

The cardinal rode over and surveyed his captive. “Watch him closely. If he falters, throw him over the saddle and tie him down. I don’t want him falling and breaking his neck.”

He’d succeeded. They thought him too ill to do anything but acquiesce to their commands. A guard took the reins of his horse. At the cardinal’s signal the party set off. Blade huddled in his saddle and took in a deep breath of icy night air.

Excitement set fire to his body. He was outnumbered and unarmed, but at least he was out of his prison. The next hour would see him free or it would see him dead. Either way, he would rob the Cardinal of Lorraine of the chance to threaten the life of his queen.

At the edge of the forest near the manor of Alain Le Brun, Oriel put her hand on Derry’s shoulder and stood on tiptoe to gaze at the house. In the darkness eight figures strode about by torchlight and readied horses.