“Get the laudanum,” Hada said. “Both his arms are dislocated. We’ve got to put them back in the sockets.”
Victoria ran again, but this time, Raul knew she was not running away. She didn’t fear the horrors she faced.
She would confront them with all the courage in her heart.
“Come on.” Danel put his hand on Raul’s shoulder.
“There’s nothing you can do here.”
Raul walked with Danel to the window and looked down at his people, gathered in groups in the courtyard, talking and furiously gesturing. “How soon can we put this revolution together?”
Chapter Forty-three
Five days into the training.
The castle was quiet. Raul’s and Danel’s warriors were in the field, learning to work together, eat together, fight together.
The children had been sent away, scattered among families deep in the forest, out of the line of fire.
Amya had begged for permission to go out and cook for the troops.
Except for Thompson, confined to bed, and the barest of staff, Victoria and Hada were alone in the castle.
They kept busy. They scrubbed out cupboards. They emptied bedrooms, hemmed curtains, mended tapestries, anything to avoid thinking about the revolution, the battles, the injuries and the deaths that would occur while they stayed safe in the castle.
Victoria stayed safe because she was an Englishwoman, untrained in the art of war.
Hada stayed safe because her body had been devastated by de Gui gnard abuse and she could not fight.
They both suffered an overwhelming and suffocating sense of dread. They knew of only one way to take their minds off the coming events— they cleaned.
When it was clear outside, they beat the rugs and the tapestries until the dust flew, and cleaned the windows with vinegar and water. When it was damp, they cleaned the upstairs rooms, rooms Victoria suspected hadn’t been cleaned for generations.
On this day, while rain sheeted the windows and all the world was gray, they found themselves in the attic, searching for exactly the right hanging to muffle the empty echo in the upstairs gallery. They worked their ways through rolls of old carpets and folds of old drapes.
Victoria had emptied a cupboard, wiped it out, and now she folded the sheets and blankets, returned them to the shelves, and talked aloud, blindly, unthinkingly. “I should leave. Raul said … Mr. Lawrence said when the revolution was ready to start, he would send me away.”
“Then you should go.” One by one, Hada sorted through the trunks that stood along the wall. She pulled out old clothes, old hats, and old shoes. Some pieces she kept out. Others she put on a rag pile.
“But I promised I would say good-bye to him before I left.” Victoria finished folding and shut the door of the cupboard.
“You could write him a letter of farewell.”
“Yes. I could.”
“I’d deliver it.”
Victoria considered Hada. “You would?” The turncoat!
“Of course. You are my lady. I live to serve you.”
“You’re sarcastic.”
“No. No, actually, I’m quite sincere.”
Their shared situation had made them friends.
But Victoria knew Hada all too well. She wanted Victoria to think about a future without Raul, to grieve, to rage, and to resign herself to staying for as long as he wanted her.
Instead, Victoria was determined to leave … as soon as she knew he had survived his blasted revolution.
The wind gusted and moaned under the eaves. Victoria and Hada brooded about the misery their comrades suffered out there in the storm, and their guilt built with each crack of thunder.
Hada took the leather handle on the next trunk and tried to drag it toward the window. It didn’t move. “This one weighs too much!” she said.
But Hada’s old injuries limited her strength, especially on damp days, when her limp was more labored, and when she thought Victoria wasn’t looking, she grimaced with pain.
The de Guignards had much to answer for.
So Victoria didn’t mind when she had to move the heaviest of items. “Let me.” Victoria grabbed the handle and yanked.
She almost fell over. She couldn’t budge it.
Hada got on the other side and tried to push while Victoria pulled.
The trunk screeched on the floor and barely moved.
“What’s in here?” Victoria asked. “Gold bars?”
The two women looked at the big lock that secured the trunk. They looked at each other.
Excitement rose in Victoria.
Gold bars? Treasure? Could it be true?
Hada jingled the big ring of keys at her waist.
“Can you open the lock?” Victoria asked.
“In the hands of a master, one of these keys will work.” Hada leaned against the lid. “I am a master.”
“Good to know.”
Moving with painful precision, Hada lowered herself to the floor. Kneeling before the trunk, she tried one key after another. Twice she stopped and worked the key in the lock, shook her head, and moved on.
With the seventh key, a click sounded.
The lock slid open.
Hada looked up with a triumphant grin.
Together, they lifted the lid and looked inside. At the top were writing supplies— a pen, a knife, ink, and paper stored on a portable desk.
Victoria lifted them out and set them aside.
Beneath that was a neatly folded man’s shirt and trousers, a coat, and a polished pair of well-made black boots.
They were all in the current style, of the finest material and workmanship … and Victoria felt a chill of premonition.
Hada removed the clothes and beneath … even in the dim light, the gold dazzled their eyes.
Coins. Hundreds of coins.
Victoria picked one up. “French. Forty francs.” She swallowed. “Perhaps this is an old, lost stash.”
“No.” Hada shook her head decisively. “The lid is clean. The ink is wet. The clothes are fashionable.”
Victoria looked closely at the coin. “And the coin is newly minted. Whose is this?”
From the doorway, they heard the click of a pistol, and a man’s voice said, “Mine.”
Chapter Forty-four
The rain had fallen for the last twenty-four hours, an endless deluge of wet that made drill a misery.
This noon meal found the men of Danel’s unit huddled around one small fire, drinking coffee and eating a watery stew, and Danel stomping up and down, splashing mud with each placement of his big black boot. “Damn that Zakerie. If he went and got himself killed by the de Guignards , I’ll chase him clear to hell and make him beg the devil to rescue him from me.”
“What if he got himself captured by the de Guignards?” Raul asked.
“Then they’ll make him sorry,” Danel said grimly.
That was the rebels’ greatest fear: that one of their people would fall into de Gui gnard hands, suffer torture, and confess everything they knew.
They’d been lucky so far. With this rain, the de Guignard mercenaries and guards were huddled in Tonagra, leaving Raul’s men and women alone to practice warfare.
And practice they did.
They divided up into three sections, one under Raul’s command, one under Prospero’s command, one under Zakerie’s command.
Zakerie’s group, the women sharpshooters, practiced in the depths of the woods to hide the sound of their gunfire.
The other two groups mixed and moved according to Danel’s orders, learning one another’s jobs (“If one of you goes down, the next has to take his place!”), learning hand-to-hand combat from Danel, the dirtiest fighter Raul had ever had the privilege to meet, and learning how to use anything as a weapon. As Danel told them,
“In the right circumstances, this mud can be a weapon.
Make it your weapon.”
Danel didn’t subscribe to Raul’s kinder policy of training the women in firearm
s only. “They’re good with rifles and with knives, but if they’re captured, they need to know where to hit a man and kill him.” Danel grinned evilly. “When a guy’s got his dick in his hand and rape on his mind, I guarantee he’s distracted. A smart woman will hit him in the windpipe and crush it, or smash his nose with the flat of her hand and drive the bone into his brain. Most of these mercenaries don’t need a brain, but attack does slow them down.”
For the decisive battle, Danel intended to create a distraction and draw de Gui gnard mercenaries out of the palace and through the narrow pass that led into the city, and slaughter them there. But he had worked out other plans, too, auxiliary plans in case something went wrong.
Raul found himself in awe of Danel’s mind. Every possibility and every possible response and Raul’s occasional advice based on classical fighting was accepted or batted away according to nothing but merit.
Unfortunately, neither one of them had foreseen this occurrence:Three of the women Zakerie had been training had come in to report that Zakerie had disappeared.
To lose one of their commanders now, a man who was deep in their council … this was disaster.
Danel sat down to question the women in Zakerie’s unit. “When did he disappear?”
After an exchange of glances, the women elected Esti as their spokeswoman. “He was gone this morning out of his tent,” she said.
“Did he tell anyone where he was going?”
“No. We thought he was out doing his business.” Esti pointed her thumb toward the woods. “Then we wondered if he’d run into a bear. We searched, but found no trace of him. Then we realized his horse was gone… .”
Raul and Danel exchanged glances.
So did the three women.
Danel’s voice grew sharper. “He was no different last night than usual?”
“He worked us hard yesterday, making sure we knew how to keep our powder dry, telling us to fight the de Gui gnard mercenaries because we’d be better off dead than to fall into their hands. Thanks to Zakerie, I can shoot the eye out of a squirrel at two hundred paces.” Esti shook her head. “I know what you’re thinking, sir, but if he’s a traitor, why would he train us so well?”
“Someone’s coming,” the camp lookout said. Then,
“Zakerie’s coming.”
“In my tent,” Danel told the women. “Don’t come out. Don’t make a sound.”
They ducked low to get inside.
Danel, ever the sarcastic ass, bowed to Raul. “You’re the negotiator, my king. Take center stage.”
But Raul could handle this. He knew he could. So he bowed back and waited to assess the situation.
Zakerie rode in, waving an arm and calling, “It’s awful. I have a message for Saber. It’s a tragedy!”
“I’m here!” Raul stepped forward and caught the reins of Zakerie’s mare, bringing her to an abrupt halt.
“What is it?”
“She ran away again,” Zakerie said.
“Who did?” Raul closed his eyes and listened to the tones in Zakerie’s voice.
“Miss Victoria Cardiff. She ran away again.”
Raul’s eyes sprang open and he stood, barely breathing, staring up at his cousin. He didn’t need to listen to Zakerie’s voice. His soul screamed, Liar!
Zakerie continued. “I went after her, but Jean-Pierre caught her. Captured her. My God, he’ll rape her, torture her, kill her. Saber, you must go rescue her!”
Raul looked at Danel.
Danel must have read murderous rage in Raul’s expression, for he rushed forward. In a tone both jovial and concerned, he said, “For God’s sake, Zakerie, get out of the saddle; you’re cold and wet.”
“I can’t stay!” The mare pranced as Zakerie tried to turn her head back in the direction he’d come. “I left my troops to bring you the news, but they’re not doing well at all and they need me to drill them.”
Liar! Raul’s soul screamed again, but he bit down on his anger and fear.
“I insist!” Danel said. “We need the details, where and when you saw Miss Cardiff captured, not to mention the fact that you’ll catch your death if you ride back in this downpour.” He glanced up at the sky. “In an hour it will clear, and you can return then. I command you, get down!”
All too obviously, Zakerie desperately wanted to ride away, to avoid giving them the details. “My mount needs tending more than I do. I’ve got a shelter for her in my camp. I’ll come back on foot.” Under his direction, the mare tried to rear, tried to lift Raul off the ground.
Raul held on, keeping the horse under control. Keeping Zakerie under control.
Zakerie tried again. The mare was getting frantic.
Danel abandoned subtlety and drew his pistol. “I said … get … down. ”
Zakerie stared at the gun, stared at Danel’s grim visage, turned to Raul, blank faced and waiting, and said,
“Saber, every minute Miss Cardiff is in Jean-Pierre’s hands is one less minute she’ll have to live.”
“Shoot him,” Raul said.
Danel cocked his pistol.
Zakerie froze. “All right. I’ll get down. Let me get my saddlebag.” He reached behind him, grabbed the leather satchel that hung there, and, as he turned, Danel shot.
Raul released the reins.
The mare reared.
Zakerie grabbed his arm, tumbled backward off the horse and into the mud.
The pistol he’d been retrieving flew into the air.
He’d been planning to shoot Danel. Or Raul.
Danel caught the pistol by the butt and tucked it into his belt. He looked, as he always did, like a brigand and a pirate.
Danel and Raul watched as the mare pranced, her big hooves splashing the mud into the air, and Zakerie scrambled to get out of the way.
When the horse had calmed, one of Danel’s men ran to grab the reins.
Zakerie got to his feet, still clutching his arm, and in an imitation of bewilderment, he asked, “What’s the problem? What are you accusing me of?” Then, as the three women filed out of Danel’s tent, he began to understand. “You can’t believe them,” he said. “They’re women.”
“Someone’s coming,” the lookout called again. Then:
“It’s Hada.”
Zakerie’s face kindled with fear. He turned to run.
Danel rammed his boot into the back of Zakerie’s knee, knocking him flat, and, drawing his sword, he planted himself over him. “I think we should discover why he doesn’t want to see her,” Danel said.
“I think so.” Raul’s teeth ached from clenching his jaw.
“Hada’s hurt!” The lookout jumped out of the tree and rushed toward the horse.
Hada fell into his arms. “King Saber. I have to talk to the king!” Her gaze fell on Raul and she was speaking even before he reached her side. “It’s Zakerie! He has French gold. We found it, Miss Cardiff and I, and he found us. He knocked me out and when I came to— ”
She took Raul’s hand and tears rolled from her eyes.
“My king, I beg your pardon; I have failed you. Victoria is gone!”
Raul pressed her fingers. “You could not have saved her.”
With her damaged body and the lump on her forehead— a gruesome purple and red— Hada looked like a broken doll. But when Danel picked Zakerie out of the water and shook him like a rat, her eyes caught fire and she struggled to get down. “You! Tell me what you did with her!”
Zakerie fought Danel’s hold. “Bitch!”
Raul released his rage.
Where was Victoria?
What had Zakerie done to her?
Advancing on him with murderous intent, Raul seized Zakerie by the back of his neck and slammed his face back into the wide, deep mud puddle. He held his cousin down while he struggled, while the muscles in his back strained and bubbles rose to the surface of the water and popped. Pulling Zakerie’s head out of the black water, he shouted, “Where is Victoria Cardiff?”
“She’s run away.” Zaker
ie gasped.
“Liar!” Hada limped closer. “Liar!”
Raul dunked him again, leaned against him with the strength of a man possessed by the need for vengeance.
Then he brought him up and again demanded, “Where is Miss Cardiff?”
Zakerie gagged and choked. “She’s run away.”
Raul dunked him again. Let him up again. “Where is Miss Cardiff?”
Zakerie couldn’t open his eyes. He spurted mud out his nose.“She ran away,” he screamed.“She’s a runaway.”
“No, she didn’t.” Raul held the back of Zakerie’s neck tight in his grip. “Tell me the truth.”
One of the women from Zakerie’s unit went back in Danel’s tent and came out with a blanket and wrapped it around Hada’s shoulders. She tried to urge her to go in out of the rain, but Hada shook her head. “No. I want Zakerie to tell us where Miss Cardiff is. Then I want to kill him.”
Danel sat on a rock, watching the proceedings with fascination. “Tell me, Saber, how do you know your woman didn’t run away?”
Raul looked up at his cousin, lowered Zakerie into the mud puddle, and held him there while he thrashed around. “Because she promised me that when she left, she would tell me good-bye.”
“You believe her?” Danel asked.
“Yes,” Raul said simply.
Danel nodded, then pointed at the hand Raul used to hold Zakerie underwater. “Better pull him out, or he’ll be of no use to any of us.”
Raul dragged Zakerie out of the mud puddle, pushed on his chest until his eyes rolled open. Leaning down, Raul shouted in his ear, “Where’s Miss Cardiff?”
Zakerie gagged and threw up muddy water, but at last he said in a gasp, “I sold her to Jean-Pierre.”
It was the answer Raul expected.
It was the answer Raul dreaded.
“Take this piece of garbage.” Raul threw him toward Danel. “I have to get ready to ride.”
While Raul checked to make sure his powder was dry, that he carried weapons enough to kill every one of the palace guards, Danel pulled his second pistol, pointed it at Zakerie, and said, “Tell us everything.”
Zakerie sat there, covered with mud and blood, snarling like a dog that had been kicked one too many times.
“I’ll tell you. What difference does it make? De Guignard’s mercenaries are coming for you now. The French are waiting on the border. When the fighting is almost over and the Moricadian armies are depleted, the French are going to march in and declare that the de Guignards have lost control and take over the country. Because it’s a principality, their principality. They want Moricadia for the casinos and spas and the money it makes.”
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