Melba sighed. She didn’t want to do anything to upset her father, especially when he was so sick. She snuggled up close to Turk and kissed his chest.
“Go to sleep, my little Star,” Turk whispered. Then he chuckled, wryly. “One of us had better get some rest.”
***
Fire flowed through Turk’s veins, heightening all his senses. The soft brush of Melba’s breath tickled his chest and his belly tingled where her hand curled against him. Every scent, sound, and feeling seemed magnified. He had never felt more alive than he did lying on the bed with Melba asleep beside him. But the pleasure was so intense it verged on pain.
Although he did not want to leave her side, he wasn’t sure how much longer he could stand this closeness.
He badly needed to sleep and he would get no rest on the bed. He kissed Melba softly on the forehead and slid off the side onto his feet. He emptied and cleaned out the washbowl before refilling it with the remaining fresh water from the jug. Then he washed his face again and splashed cold drips on his chest to cool himself. He settled on the chaise and closed his eyes, his mind and body humming with everything that had happened.
He must have dozed because he came to some time later with a stiff neck from the awkward position. His gaze shot straight to Melba but she was still asleep. There was no clock in the room, so rubbing his neck muscles, he went to the door and checked outside. The sun had fallen, the alley was now in shadow. In another hour, it would be dark enough for him to creep down to the docks to find a ship willing to give them passage to the mainland.
The sound of raised male voices in Madam Regina’s bedroom on the other side of the bookcase wall made him still, but the words were indistinct. With a twinge of unease, he moved closer to the wall. A shout and a door slamming somewhere in the house raised the hairs on the back of his neck. Instinct told him something was wrong. He pulled on his boots, went outside, and crept along the alley toward the front of the Red House. At the corner, he peered around to find the courtyard empty and silent. This early in the evening, he would not expect the place to be busy, but there should be some men arriving.
After a few minutes watching the area, he sidled along the front of the house. He froze when he noticed two bluejackets standing at the entrance to the courtyard. They were turning away customers who were trying to get into the brothel.
Were the bluejackets conducting a routine search of the house, or had someone seen Melba and alerted Vittorio? Whatever the reason, Turk could not take chances. It was time to wake Melba and get her out of here. Turk started sidling back the way he had come when a woman’s scream pierced the air. His heart lurched, but it was not Melba’s voice. Then another voice shouted—a voice he knew. Dante.
The guards at the gate glanced around at the sound and Turk froze, but a moment later a noisy drunk grabbed their attention. With a wary eye on the guards, Turk dashed through the shadows to the open front door. A single bluejacket stood guard just inside. His eyes widened as Turk stepped in and he fumbled with the hilt of his sword. Turk felled him with a kick to the jaw before the man could draw.
“Don’t make me hurt her again, Dante.” Vittorio’s unmistakable smooth drawl came from the reception room on the right.
“Cybal has nothing to do with this. Leave her alone,” Dante shouted.
Turk pressed his back to the wall and glanced through the partially open door. There were four bluejackets in the room along with Vittorio. One of them held Dante, who was dressed only in his trousers, with his hands tied at his back and his ankles shackled. Two other sailors held down the petite dark-haired woman across a stool. Vittorio stood at her side holding a knife. A scarlet slash along her cheekbone had just started to drip blood.
“Tell me where they are and I won’t hurt her again,” Vittorio said to Dante.
“You’re a coward, Vitto. Leave Cybal alone and deal with me.”
Vittorio wandered across to Dante and stared him in the face. “I’m angry enough with you to toss you down The Well. But you’re still my brother.” He turned abruptly and returned to the woman who whimpered, staring up at him with huge terrified eyes.
Grabbing the woman’s hair, Vittorio yanked her head back and brandished the knife in front of her face. “Tell him, Dante, please,” she whispered.
Dante jerked against his restraints and bellowed in frustration. “Once this is over I shall never speak with you again. You are no brother of mine, Vitto. Do you hear me? You are beneath contempt. Melba and Turk are somewhere in the house.”
Vittorio shouted to his guards, but Turk didn’t wait to hear anymore. He belted out the front door, around the house, and down the alley at the side. Now Vittorio knew they were here, he would not stop searching until he found them.
Melba raised her head from the pillow as he dashed through the door. “Get dressed,” he whispered, putting a finger to his lips.
Without a word, she jumped off the bed and picked up the shirt she had pulled off earlier. Before Turk could don his own shirt the door from the alley crashed open and three bluejackets barged into the room. Melba squealed and held the shirt in front of her while Turk pivoted and kicked out. He downed one man straight away, but the other two had drawn swords and he backed up to avoid being slashed.
Vittorio strode through the door scowling. He took one look at Melba in her underwear and pulled his own sword from its scabbard. He advanced on Turk with murder on his face. “I should flay you alive for abducting the princess and raping her—”
“That ain’t what happened and you know it,” Melba shouted. “He rescued me fr—”
“Shut up, you whore.” Vittorio swung his blade around and pointed it at Melba. Even though the bed was between them and he couldn’t reach her, she jumped back.
The two bluejackets still standing glanced at Vittorio as he turned on Melba. Turk took his opportunity to fell another with a kick to the chin and down the last with two body blows. As he reached for one of the bluejacket’s swords, four more of Vittorio’s men charged in the door. Desperation surged through Turk. If Vittorio took Melba back, he would waste no time in marrying her. Turk felled another sailor with a kick while they drew their weapons. But he was not a trained swordsman and, after a short scuffle, the remaining three men backed him into a corner with their blades pointing at his chest.
Vittorio snagged the cutoff trousers from the floor with the point of his sword and tossed them at Melba. “Get dressed.” He sheathed his sword and swung around, glaring at Turk. “You are the architect of all my problems, foreign scum.” He strode forward and punched Turk in the belly.
Turk’s lungs burned as he jackknifed over and gasped to suck air through the agony. Two of the soldiers grabbed his arms and dragged him upright. Through the haze of pain, he raised his head to see Melba hurriedly pulling on her trousers.
“Don’t look at my betrothed.” Vittorio punched him in the face and his head snapped to the side. Shafts of burning pain seared through his head and his nose felt as if it had exploded.
“Leave him be,” Melba shouted.
“Hold her back,” Vittorio commanded one of the guards. Turk tried to speak but Vittorio hit him in the face again and the world seemed to tilt. The guards holding his arms let go and he sank to his knees. Then another blow knocked him back against the wall and everything went dark.
***
Turk came to with a thumping headache. One of his eyes was swollen shut, while his nose throbbed and his lips were sore and caked with dried blood. Two guards half carried, half dragged him between them. The sound of water and the smell of salt, fish, and ale told him he was on the docks.
Melba! Was she all right? For a few seconds, he continued to hang in the guards’ grip, almost paralyzed with fear for her. Then he realized Vittorio would not hurt her until after they were married, so she would be safe for the moment. Although he had no idea how he would rescue her. From the pounding of boots, he judged there were six or eight bluejackets. In his present state, he had no chan
ce of fighting his way free. He wasn’t even sure he could walk.
He gulped air and pain exploded through his chest. A gasp burst from him as he scrabbled his feet to take his own weight. “He’s conscious, your honor,” the sailor on his right shouted.
They all stopped. Turk raised his head and cracked open his good eye. Vittorio halted in front of him and held up a lantern. “Just in time. I wouldn’t want you to miss what I have planned for you.”
He walked away and they moved off again. As Turk got his bearings, he realized they had nearly reached the Royal Victualler’s office at the northern end of the harbor. Royal barges filled the berths to his left while a few dockworkers still unloaded goods and carried out maintenance.
They stopped when they reached Vittorio’s office and the guards pushed Turk along an alley beside the warehouse next door. A door was unlocked and the bluejackets shoved him in front of them down slippery stone steps. They must be taking him to the dungeon underneath the Royal Victualler’s office where Vittorio kept men condemned to die in The Well.
In the back of Turk’s mind he had expected this to be his fate, but the reality stole the last of his strength. He would not be able to protect Melba from Vittorio. He tripped and his bare shoulder crashed into the stone wall. He barely had time to catch his balance before the bluejackets shoved him again. He fell to his knees and crawled down the last few steps to land in a heap at the bottom.
A boot kicked his hip. “Get up!” Rough hands yanked him up beneath his arms and propelled him along a dank corridor.
For a few seconds, he must have lost consciousness from the pain because the next thing he knew he was slapped around the face. He opened his good eye to find Vittorio holding up a lantern, lighting an open cell doorway. “In there,” he commanded. The guards dragged Turk inside and pushed his back against a cold, wet wall. His arms were lifted and the bite of manacles snapped around his wrists. “Give me the key and get out,” Vittorio commanded his men.
The hollow footfalls of the sailors’ boots receded and a thick eerie silence fell. Turk hurt so badly, he couldn’t imagine what else Vittorio could do to him. He dragged in a breath of putrid air through his clogged swollen nose. Behind the harsh sound of his breathing, he heard the scrabbling of rats and the dripping of water.
Vittorio hung the lamp on a hook and stepped up to Turk. “Not so cocky now are you, foreign scum. Your reputation as a spymaster is overblown. You were an easy catch.”
Turk closed his eyes and let his head flop forward, but Vittorio gripped his chin and pushed his head up so he had to face him. “Melba will not want you now your pretty face is damaged.”
She’s not that shallow. But Turk kept his thoughts to himself. Hearing Melba’s name on Vittorio’s lips stripped away the last of his strength. She had depended on him and he had let her down badly. Yet whatever his fate, he knew Melba would fight Vittorio. She was bright and determined and full of spirit. He wondered what had happened to Dante but the thought flitted away as his own plight returned to his mind. “The Primate will come for me,” he said, his voice gruff and distorted by his bruised mouth.
Vittorio laughed in his face. “Gregorio doesn’t care about you. The last time I spoke with him he was willing to sacrifice you to keep his little monastic kingdom.”
Turk said nothing, but he knew Vittorio lied. Gregorio had warned him to leave Malverne Isle, and helped him.
“The old man isn’t worthy of your respect and admiration, you know. He can’t even keep his most basic vow of chastity.” Vittorio grabbed Turk’s chin again and stared into his eyes. “Of course, you’re pledged to him so you already know that. But I bet he didn’t tell you about me. My mother was his betrothed. She should have been queen. If Gregorio hadn’t abdicated, I would be first in line for the throne.”
Turk’s battered body tensed, his aches and pains temporarily forgotten as the shocking meaning of Vittorio’s words sank in. “No.” This despicable man could not be his master’s son.
“Don’t believe me?” Vittorio leaned a shoulder against the wall and levered off one of his boots and stockings. Then he lowered the lantern so Turk could see his bare foot. Six toes.
A chill like an icy north wind rushed through Turk. He stared at Vittorio in horror, and acknowledged that the man’s eyes were like Gregorio’s, although he must have acquired most of his looks from his mother. Then another burst of cold shot through him. That meant Dante was also Gregorio’s son. How had his master stood back and done nothing while Vittorio became a monster who poisoned the king and Dante lived on the trash barges?
“My existence was an embarrassment to the old man,” Vittorio said. “He never acknowledged me as his own. I think he only pledged a trash tyke like you to salve his conscience.”
Turk’s head dropped forward and he closed his eyes. He did not know the man behind the primate’s mask who was capable of such behavior. “Does Dante know?”
“Of course he does.” Vittorio grabbed Turk’s hair and jerked his head up. “I found Dante on a royal barge, working in the hold. I raised him. If not for me, he might be long dead and tossed in the sea to rot like so much trash. The Primate of the Shining Brotherhood does not care for anyone but himself.” He spat the last words in Turk’s face, and all Turk’s beliefs collapsed like a heap of rotten boxes.
He had been so certain the Primate was good, right, and fair, a man to look up to and follow, while Vittorio was simply evil. Now he wasn’t so sure.
“If Gregorio is so virtuous and upstanding, why has the king not spoken with him for decades?” Vittorio asked. Turk’s mind blanked, unable to think anymore. He had chosen not to broach that subject with his master.
“Santo is a good man,” Vittorio said softly. “He’s the victim of his brother’s misdeeds.”
Turk might be confused, but he wasn’t that confused. “Gregorio did not make you poison the king,” he said.
“It’s his fault that I was forced to.” Vittorio backed up and dug something out of his pocket. “You’re the old man’s accomplice, and you dared steal my betrothed. I’ve looked forward to punishing you.”
As Vittorio stepped closer to the lantern, Turk got a look at what he held in his hand. His heart kicked and raced at the sight of a small icy metal box. “Don’t do this.”
“A challenge for you, spymaster Turk. Your reputation on the street suggests you are almost invincible. Raise an Earth Jinn to protect yourself.”
Turk barely had the strength to hold up his head, let alone raise and control an Earth Jinn. “I’m not trained to use Jinns in conflict.”
“Well, you had better learn fast.” Vittorio prized the lid off the box and a small dark twister rose into the air. “This little chap will entertain you tonight while you wait for first light.”
Turk blinked, ignoring his sore eye and concentrated on watching the random path of the Foul Jinn. It hadn’t sensed him yet. He must remain calm. If the Jinn felt his fear, it would home in on him like a gull to scraps.
“Don’t you want to know what happens at first light?” Vittorio asked.
Turk was too busy concentrating to answer.
“That is the time set for your execution in The Well.”
Fear cold and hard as a blade slashed through Turk. The random wanderings of the Foul Jinn ceased and it headed straight toward him.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Imagine everything works out well and it will.
—Master Maddox
Vittorio had trussed Melba up like a Great Earth Day goose and shut her in a sedan chair to transport her from the brothel. When they arrived at the Palace, he locked her in her suite. She paced back and forth across her sitting room, her insides churning with fear and frustration. Her mind continually replayed the way Vittorio had beaten Turk. She hated Vittorio, hated him with every scrap of her being. She would not spit on him if he was on fire.
Vittorio had gloated over his plan to execute Turk in The Well at first light. That meant Turk must be in th
e cells beneath the Royal Victualler’s office at the harbor.
She gripped Turk’s silver medallion in her fist. He had left the pendant in the brothel but she had managed to slip it in her pocket without Vittorio noticing. She sensed the Silver Serpent inside the metal but although she entreated the Jinn to come out and help her, it wouldn’t.
Her continual pacing wasted energy so she went to her bedroom and fetched her starlight stone from her dressing table. She flopped down on a chair and curled her fingers around the stone. With her eyes closed, she concentrated as hard as she could on thoughts of Turk so he would hear her. “I love you, Turk. I shall rescue you. I swear on me life, I shall.” She tried not to think that he might already be dead.
Her breath came in painful little gulps and she dashed away her tears with her fists. She refused to let Vittorio beat her. She returned her precious starlight stone to its drawer and stared out of the sitting room window, racking her brain for a way to get out of the room. Full dark had fallen and the city spread below her twinkling with points of light. The Palace’s secure location on top of the hill meant nobody could enter via the skyways. It also meant she had no chance of escaping that way. She stared miserably down the sheer drop from her window to the rocky outcrops below.
The sound of the key turning in the lock interrupted her thoughts and she hurried across the room to put a solid sofa between herself and the door. Vittorio came in, locked the door behind him, and pocketed the key. He smiled. “Melba, I hope you have recovered from your ordeal.”
His fake courtesy as if he wasn’t the cause of her ‘ordeal’ got on her nerves. “You stinking sack ’o dung. You knocked the Earthlights out of Turk. I hate you.”
Something dark and dangerous slid through Vittorio’s eyes. “Never speak to me in that tone again. Tomorrow you’ll become my wife. If you ever mention the spymaster monk’s name again I’ll punish you.”
“I ain’t never marrying you.”
“You need elocution lessons, ma’am. You sound like scum.”
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