The Dark Knight (3 page)

Again she lifted her dainty brows, and her jewel eyes widened. “You were born in a tent?”

He chuckled. “
Oui,
and my first cradle was our wagon horse’s collar.”

“Then you were like the infant Jesu?” Her voice held wonderment.

He shook his head. “
Non,
we believe it is good luck for newborns to sleep in such a bed. Horses are our life. That is the way of the Rom.” He fed another log to the fire.

She half cocked her head, then asked in English, “Pray, what is a Rom? I am not familiar with that word in either language.”

Sandor lifted the water skin off his shoulder, uncorked it and poured some of its liquid into the chipped clay cup. Why should he be afraid to tell her? After all, he was here to kill her, wasn’t he? Her opinion, one way or the other, was of no importance to him. She was only a
gadji.

He handed the cup to her. “The Rom are my people,” he said as she gulped down the water. “That is what we call ourselves.” He poured more into her cup. “You…that is…Christians have called us many different names, some of them are not fit for a lady’s ears.” He took a deep breath. Why was his heart beating so fast? “The French thought that we came over the sea from Egypt because our skin is darker, our hair is black and we speak in a strange tongue.”

“Egypt!” The
lady’s eyes shone. “A friend of my family’s is a merchant who travels over the Mediterranean Sea. Jobe has often told us wondrous tales of that ancient country. How I have longed to go there! Tell me, are there truly beasts that have large mouths full of fearsome teeth and scales so thick that arrows bounce off them?”

Sandor could not help but smile at her enthusiasm. He shrugged. “I do not know, my lady. I have never been to Egypt. Nor has any member of my clan, yet we are called Egyptians. But here in England, the Rom are known as Gypsies.”

The lady regarded him over the cup’s rim. “You are a Gypsy, then?”

He nodded, watching for her reaction. She surprised him by smiling.

“I have never met a Gypsy before, but I have heard of your people.”

“No doubt,” Sandor muttered. He could well imagine what good
gadje
parents would tell their delectable daughters about the evil Gypsies.

“When I was little, my mother taught me a poem—a silly little rhyme.” She put the half-empty cup on the table, and then recited, “‘If you enjoy having futures foretold,/Watch out for your pennies, your silver and gold.”’

Sandor gave her a rueful look, then completed the doggerel that he too had learned as a child in France. “‘These ragged tramps, full of futures to tell,/Bear little but the words of the fortunes they sell.”’

She held
out her hand, palm up. “Can you read my fortune?”

It is death.
Aloud, he replied, “Nay, my lady. My grandmother has that skill—I do not. I am a trainer of horses.”

She furrowed her brows. “Methought you were the headsman.”

Sandor looked away from her—her beautiful eyes could pierce his thin defenses. He opened his sack and took out several cloth-wrapped items. “I am that as well—for the moment.”

She gasped aloud. When he looked at her, he saw that she had turned a shade paler.

“Do not be alarmed, Lady Gastonia. I will be gentle when I…uh…take you.”

She uttered a high, brittle laugh. “You will kill me with kindness?”

He clenched his jaw before answering. “I do what I am bound to do, my lady. I bear weighty responsibilities that are not of my own choosing. Believe me when I tell you that I am no murderer. Merely a servant of the crown.”

He unwrapped strips of dry smoked meat, then paused. It went against the Rom’s strict rule of
marime
to eat with a
gadji.
Everyone knew that the non-Rom were polluted with evil. His food would be defiled if this beautiful lady even touched it. Yet she was starving. Brusquely he offered a piece to her.

With only a brief hesitation, she accepted it and gingerly tasted it. “’Tis good!” She sounded surprised—and pleased.

“My grandmother always said that food seasoned with hunger tastes the best.” He took a large bite from his piece. “I assure you, my lady, I would not poison you. ’Tis not in the death warrant.”

She swallowed
the food, then asked, “Have you my warrant with you?”

“Aye.” He regarded her out of the corner of his eye slit. “Can you read?”

She nodded. “If the penmanship is not cramped and the wording is in a language I know.”

Sandor wiped his hands on his leather breeches before he extracted the thick parchment from his shirt. The King’s official seal swung from a red ribbon at the bottom. He handed it to her. “Then read your fate, if you so desire,” he said, wishing he had that learning.

Lady Gastonia pulled the lantern closer to her, then pored over the words. Warming his backside by the fire, Sandor watched her. He liked the way the lantern’s light caught the reddish highlights in her dark hair. Her lips moved as she read, and Sandor fantasized her whispering his name while they made love. He could almost taste the honey of her kisses. He yearned to feel the satin of her milky skin against his own swarthy one. His loins began to throb.

Sandor shifted his position, in part to hide his growing arousal. Though the laws of the
kris
forbade it, he had made love to
gadje
women in his reckless youth, and they had moaned with pleasure at his touch. He looked down at his hands. He brushed the knotted thong of the garrote hitched in his belt.

She has bewitched me.
Turning his back to her, he stared into the crackling flames. For a moment he had forgotten his pledge to his uncle and his responsibilities toward the family who had reared him after the death of his parents. His little cousin languished in the depths of the Tower at the King’s pleasure until Sandor could bring proof of this lady’s sudden demise. The sooner he did his job, the sooner Demeo would be free. He glanced over his shoulder at Lady Gastonia.

I can
take her now, while she has her back to me. She would feel very little pain. It would be a quick death. I could be riding back to London before noon tomorrow.
He pulled the garrote from his belt and looped it around his fingers.

S
andor turned to face his victim. The knotted cord of the leather garrote bit into the flesh of his palms, just as it would bite deeply into the creamy skin of the lady’s swanlike neck. He swallowed. A burst of sweat dampened his mask. He took a step toward her. Lady Gastonia shifted on her stool and the wooden crucifix that hung from her neck thumped against her tight bodice. Sandor stared at the tiny, outstretched figure on the cross—the same cross that had damned the Rom to wander the earth forever, or so the storytellers swore.

Sandor loosened
his grip on the garrote. Even though she was a
gadji,
he knew that Lady Gastonia was a holy woman. Her plain garb and absence of jewelry proclaimed her piety. He could not kill her without allowing her the chance to make her amends to God, though he could not imagine what sin she could possibly have committed. He did not want to have her unshriven spirit haunt him the remaining years of his life.

Just then, the lady looked up at him. The expression in the depths of her azure eyes melted away his murderous intent.
Forgive me, lady.

Then she
laughed, though there was no mirth in the sound. “Did you know that my good judges have decreed that none of my blood shall be shed?”

Sandor suspected that they did not want her death to defile them any more than they already were. When he did not reply, she continued.

“When my father learns of my execution, the King and his minions can truthfully say that they did not spill my blood, yet I will be stone dead all the same.” She shook her head. “Oh, the clever wit of the lawyerly mind! They split their words thinner than a cook can slice an onion. Aye, and weep the same tears without sorrow while doing it.”

Behind his back, Sandor gripped the garrote. He said nothing since there was nothing he could tell her that would refute her clear-eyed deduction. He cleared his throat. Best to warn her to make herself ready to meet death. His hands shook.

She sipped more water from the cup then asked, “How will you do it? Kill me, that is?”

Sandor winced inwardly yet marveled at the candor of her question. He held up the knotted garrote. “With this, my lady.”

Her mouth trembled just a little before she bit her lower lip. Then she asked, “Will it hurt much?”

I have no idea.
Aloud, he spoke in the same voice he used to soothe a skittish colt. “They say ’tis quick.”

She gave him a taut smile. “Who are ‘they,’ I wonder? And how do these wise men know such a thing? Has anyone come back from the dead to tell them?”

Sandor knelt before her so that they were eye-to-eye. He longed to take her hand in his. He hated the idea that she feared him. “I could wait until you sleep, then cover your face with my cloak.”

She touched
the furred edge of his cape. “How could I fall asleep knowing that I would never wake again in this world?”

He tore his gaze from hers. “I have no answer to that, my lady. I only know what I must do. I pray that you forgive me.”

She touched the back of his hand. “Gentle Lord of Death, I have already forgiven you.”

Sandor’s skin burned under the light pressure of her fingers. A nerve throbbed at his temple.
Do the deed now and be gone for the sake of your soul!
He rose, towering over her. “Then, my lady, I must ask you to make your peace with God. I will give you a few moments alone.”

He turned on his heel, anxious to flee from her before she unmanned him completely. Quick as a cat, she fell to her knees and clutched the hem of his cloak.

“Then my first prayer will be to you,
Monsieur de Mort.
”

Sandor’s resolve shivered at the sight of the innocent beauty at his feet. He clenched his hands under the cover of his cape. “I am neither God nor the devil, my lady. Why pray to me?”

Tonia could not remember feeling so cold in her life. Her mouth had gone completely dry. Death was so close to her that she could smell the dark reaper’s breath of decay over her shoulder. Mustering the last shred of her courage, she stared up at the powerful man who stood over her. Avoiding the sight of his large, long-fingered hands, she wished she could read his expression on the face that was hidden by his black hood.

“I
beg you for one boon—a small one—before you snuff out my life.”

He cleared his throat again. “What boon?”

She wet her lips. “I ask your generosity to allow me to live until dawn. I wish to admire the beauty of the sunrise one more time. ’Tis only a few more hours,” she added. She smiled for additional effect, though she had no idea if he was moved or not. “Besides, I do not think you intended to begin your journey back to London when the night hours are only half-spent.”

He said nothing, but looked over her head as if he sought some guidance from a ghost in the corner of her cell.

Grasping at this small hesitation, she added, “Methinks that my cold corpse would make poor company until the morning.”

Continuing to stare at the far wall in stiff silence, he clenched and unclenched his hands. Tonia found this action alarming. She tightened her grip on his cape.

He moistened his lips. “You think that I…” He paused then snapped, “Are you offering me your body for my pleasure in exchange for a few more hours of life?”

With a gasp, Tonia let go of his cloak and sat back on her heels. She hadn’t meant that at all. She shook her head, embarrassed to look at him and fearful that he might believe such a lewd thought. “I am a virgin, dedicated to our Lord. I do not know if you believe in God but…”

“I am no savage, Lady Gastonia,” he rumbled overhead. “And I do believe in the same God as you, though I worship in a different manner.”

A sliver
of relief pierced her terror. “Then you should realize that I was not offering you my chastity as payment for my boon. If you require carnal pleasure, ’tis best that you strangle me now.” She dared to look up at him to discover that he stared down at her. “Do you think that I could greet my Lord God with the sin of impurity staining my soul?”

The executioner drew in a deep breath. His chest seemed to double its width. “Nay, lady. You need have no fear of this…dirty Gypsy.” He spat out the last two words. “I have no intention to defile you.”

Tonia sighed inwardly, her mind spinning with a flicker of hope. If she could beg a few hours from him now, then she had a chance to beg a few more in the morning, and perhaps a few more after that, until she could devise some way to escape him altogether. “I fear no Gypsy, Master Death, only the devil, and I do not think you are he.”

Though he remained silent, the man’s shoulders relaxed their tense posture. Tonia took another deep breath, then continued. “What are a few hours to you? Nothing, but they are a lifetime to me. In the name of the merciful God that both you and I serve, will you grant me my request?”

He rubbed his forehead, then he flicked his cape from her grasp. He strode to the cell’s door before he answered her. “I am not made of stone, my lady, and as you pointed out, the hour is late. I am tired and need to sleep. You may spend the rest of the night at your own leisure. I will not intrude until the sun climbs over yon mountain’s crest.” He flung open the door. A wintry gust of wind whipped through the small chamber, causing the lantern’s light to flicker.

Tonia
glanced at the fat candle glowing inside its glass house. “You have forgotten your light,
Monsieur de Mort.
”

One corner of his mouth twitched. “My people believe that a burning candle in the night keeps troublesome spirits at bay. I would not have your remaining hours—nor mine—be filled with disquiet. I bid you good-night, my lady.”

Before she could thank him for this little kindness, the headsman whirled out the door, slammed and locked it behind him. Tonia sagged against the stool, weak with gratitude for her small reprieve. She cradled her head in the crook of her elbow and wept a few tears of relief. Though she tried to direct her mind toward spiritual matters, thoughts of the mysterious stranger intruded into her prayers.

Everything about the man intrigued her, beginning with his masked visage. Though she could not see most of his face, she thought that he must possess some good looks. His mouth belied his somber occupation, for his full lips looked as if they hovered perpetually on the edge of a smile. His profile, accented by the firelight, spoke of great inner strength. He moved his powerful body with the easy grace of a dancer. Yet Tonia sensed an air of isolation about him, as if he preferred to stand on the edges of a dance floor and observe the merrymaking of others. His eyes? They fascinated her. Turquoise blue behind his mask, they flashed his changing emotions like the suddenness of summer lightning. Had she detected a warmth simmering in their depths, a glimmer of compassion?

Tonia did
not intend to fall asleep, but fatigue settled over her like a thick feather bed. In the midst of her musings of the virile, enigmatic man who lay just down the hall, she closed her eyes and drifted into oblivion.

The wind off the North Sea hurled sleet against the leaded glass panes of Snape Castle’s high arched windows. Seeking greater warmth from the lashings of the spring storm, Lady Celeste Cavendish and her handsome husband, Sir Guy, had retreated to the small solar on the second floor where they played a lively game of piquant before the blazing fireplace.

Celeste fanned her cards. “Oh la la,
mon cher,
I have you now.”

Guy said nothing but frowned at his hand. By his expression, his wife knew she had him by the tail. She always did whenever they played piquant.

An urgent knocking on the chamber door interrupted her gloating. Without waiting to be admitted, Master Bigelow, the family’s chamberlain, threw open the door. A pale visage had replaced his normally ruddy complexion.

“Your pardon, my lord and lady, but Lady Lucy Talbott has just arrived and she is in great distress.”

Celeste cocked her head. Lucy was one of the girls who had joined Tonia’s venture into the religious life.

Folding his cards, Guy turned to his servant. “In this weather? Does her father accompany her?”

The chamberlain shook his head. “Nay, she comes alone save for some hireling lad of York. From the looks of them both, I would venture to say that they have been in the saddle since daybreak.”

Celeste dropped her cards on the felt-topped gaming table. “
Ma foi,
Bigelow! Bring the child up here at once. She must be frozen. Take the boy to the kitchens. Mull some ale and bring a goodly bowl of pottage at once.”

Guy rose,
and his great height filled the small room. “In distress, you say?”

Halfway out the door, Bigelow paused. “Aye, my lord. Weeping and gibbering something about Lady Tonia.”

Celeste’s heart thumped within her breast. Had Scottish reivers swept down on Tonia’s little convent and attacked the covey of women there? What about the serving men, Norton and Thompson? Hadn’t they protected Tonia and her friends as they had been instructed?

“Don’t stand a-gaping, man,” Guy shouted. “Bring Lady Lucy here!”

Celeste gripped the arms of her chair, afraid to move lest she shatter into a thousand pieces. What had happened to Tonia, her beloved firstborn? Celeste closed her eyes and sent a silent, urgent prayer winging to heaven.

Guy paced the narrow confines of the chamber like a great caged bear. “This comes of folly—mine own,” he berated himself. “I should have never let her move so far from home—nor have sanctioned her religious ideas.”

Masking her growing fears, Celeste gave her husband a tiny smile. “You know that neither of us could ever deny Tonia anything. And her endeavor to retreat from this wicked world into a house dedicated to praising God was worthy.” But Celeste had never fully understood why her beautiful daughter had chosen to pursue the celibate life when so many of the shire’s bachelors had come wooing her.

Guy turned
on his heel. “Mayhap the wicked world has followed her even there.”

Celeste covered her breast with her hand to calm the rapid beating of her heart. Just then, Bigelow opened the door and ushered in Lady Lucy. The young woman, no more than seventeen years old, all but fell into Guy’s outstretched arms.

“Oh, my lord, I am so sorry!” she wailed before her tears overwhelmed her.

Guy helped her to his chair, while Celeste draped her fur lap robe around the shivering girl. Lucy continued to cry in convulsive gulps. Putting her arms around the girl’s thin shoulders, Celeste willed her strength to stem Lucy’s grief. Deep circles, almost purple in color, stained the skin under her red, swollen eyes. Her light brown hair was windblown into tangles from her journey. The news she bore must be very dire indeed if Lucy had ventured out into this foul weather without even a head covering.

One of the kitchen maids arrived, bearing a large tray filled with several steaming bowls of food and drink. Celeste took one of the cups of hot ale, blew on it to cool it then held it to Lucy’s quivering lips.

“Drink, sweetling, and take heart. You are safe with us.”

Lucy slurped the brew, heedless of its scalding heat, until the cup was nearly empty before she leaned against the chair’s back. Stroking the girl’s brow, Celeste was further alarmed to discover that Lucy was running a fever.

Guy hunkered down before their guest so that his great height would be less intimidating. Taking Lucy’s trembling hand in his, he spoke to her in gentle tones. “Now, then, Lucy, what is amiss?”

The girl’s
eyes grew larger and fresh tears appeared in their corners. “They have taken Tonia away, my lord. Methinks they are going to…to…to execute her.” She dissolved again into weeping.

Celeste felt hot and cold at the same time. A drumming hummed in her ears.
I cannot faint! Oh, my sweet Tonia!
She dug the nails of her fingers into her palms to keep from collapsing.

Though Guy’s voice remained soft, a dreadful chill crept into his azure eyes. “Tell us who threatens to do this most foul deed, Lucy.”

The girl wiped her nose on the tail of her hanging sleeve before replying, “The King’s men, Lord Cavendish. They came to our house over a week ago in the dark of the night.”