Without another minute to lose, Orlando went to the palace basement where Bulbati was being held in the highly secured cells.
He got through the staunch Royal Guardsmen by explaining that, as Bulbati’s direct superior in the Ministry of Finance, he had every right to question the man about his activities, and so what if it was midnight? The Royal Guardsmen hesitated; he employed his usual blend of charm, manipulation, and arrogance.
Perhaps they saw a bit of his father in him, he thought in bitter amusement as they finally stepped out of his path and admitted him.
The air was dank but cooler under the palace, in the bowels of the earth. Torchlight flickered on the rough stone walls of the curving stairwell. Orlando slid off the leather strap tying back his queue and let his long black hair fall free to his shoulders as he slowly descended to the cell below where Bulbati was being held.
“Is someone there?” the count called. “You can’t leave me to starve here! I demand some proper victuals!”
Orlando’s broad shadow loomed large as he crept silently along the wall down the short aisle. All the cells were empty, save one.
“Prince Rafael? S-sire, is that you?” Bulbati stammered, seeing the shadow approaching.
Orlando saw the count’s pale, plump hands wrap around the iron bars down the way.
“Oh, God,” the count whispered as he came into the man’s view.
Orlando smiled serenely at him.
Bulbati began backing away. “I didn’t tell them anything! I didn’t, my lord!”
“Did you give them my name?” he asked gently as he took a key out of his breast pocket and twirled it in his fingers in silent threat.
It wasn’t the key to Bulbati’s cell, of course, but Bulbati didn’t know that.
“No!” the fat man choked out in horror, cowering in the corner of his cell. “I told them nothing!”
“For some reason, I don’t believe you, Bulbati.” He slid his knife out of its sheath.
“I didn’t, I didn’t, I didn’t, oh, please, please, please, my lord,” Bulbati whispered as Orlando lifted the key toward the lock, then glanced at him.
With a wide-eyed, panic-stricken expression, Bulbati’s jaw was working noiselessly. Sweat poured down his face. He clutched his chest, gasping as though he couldn’t get breath.
“Did you give them my name, you filth?” Orlando asked again. “Tell me now before I lose my patience.”
“Help me!” Bulbati gasped out. Suddenly he fell onto the floor, his face tomato-red.
Orlando lifted a brow and stared at him curiously, then shook himself. “Did you tell them, Bulbati?” he demanded once more, unamused by this display.
But Bulbati didn’t answer, merely gurgled, his bulk lolling on the floor, twitching violently.
“Bulbati!”
Scowling, Orlando crouched down and peered through the bars at him.
The twitching stopped. Bulbati’s body went rigid and stiff. Strange small choking sounds came from his throat; his wide eyes stared blindly. Orlando waited but Bulbati did not move again. Orlando reached through the bars and poked him: no response. Not so much as a blink.
Suddenly Bulbati’s body disgorged its contents from both ends.
Wincing in disgust, Orlando swept to his feet. Well, the count wouldn’t be telling any secrets now. He stared at Bulbati, then suddenly laughed. He had never scared anyone to death before.
Marching back up the torchlit corridor, he stifled his laughter and assumed an angry expression. “Guards!” he bellowed, pointing down the aisle as they came running. “What the hell is going on here? Bulbati is dead!”
“My lord?” the first asked in astonishment.
“Go see for yourselves! The man is lying dead in his cell. I demand an explanation!”
He watched them scramble to survey the situation, heartened by this unexpected boon. Perhaps his charade could continue a little while longer. His spirits lifted, eager for the night’s work. Finally it was time to throw the net around golden, laughing Rafael, who was, without even knowing it, the sun and center of King Lazar’s cosmos.
Time to make a new use of the young chef Cristoforo.
Orlando left the guards in chaos behind him, bounding lightly up the circling stone stairs with a leering grin, leaping them two at a time.
CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
Orlando located Cristoforo, the young underchef, in the same brothel where he had found him before. Once more, he plucked the skinny lad out of pretty Carmen’s bed, then tossed him into his black carriage, binding his wrists and ankles with ropes to avoid any mishaps, and was presently driving, hell-for-leather, to the prime minister’s elegant palazzo in the west end of Belfort.
The drive was not long, but Orlando’s urgency made him impatient. At last, the black coach rolled to a halt before Don Arturo’s sprawling home, which he had visited many times, cultivating the prime minister. Having lost his precious nephew Giorgio in that duel years ago, the old man had taken Orlando under his wing like the son he’d never had.
Not that his true father had any suspicion of whose son he really was, he thought in a bitter pulsation of hate. He jumped down from the driver’s seat and walked back to open the carriage door. Barring Cristoforo’s exit, he studied his human instrument of deception with a hard warning stare.
“You know your lines, I trust?”
“Yes, Your Grace,” Cristoforo gulped, then gingerly added, “Is it not too late to call on him, sir? It’s p-past midnight.”
He smiled blandly. “Don Arturo would not wish me to delay in bringing such shocking and terrible news to him as you have to tell, my dear boy.”
The tall, lanky lad shuddered and looked away, staring out the window, his thin shoulders hunched.
“Don’t do anything foolish, Cristoforo. I will be back directly to fetch you.” With that, Orlando checked his ropes one more time, then locked the carriage door from the outside and proceeded up to the house.
As he walked toward the graceful entrance, he meditated on his pretense and felt himself changing, chameleonlike. By the time he banged on the prime minister’s door, his expression was one of anger and frantic dread. He paced back and forth across the small front patio in feigned agitation until the old butler, in nightcap and dressing gown, opened the door and held up a candle.
“Good heavens, Your Grace! Is aught amiss?”
“Wake the prime minister,” Orlando ordered at once.
“Sir?”
“For the good of Ascencion, get him, man! We are in a state of emergency!”
Staring at him as Orlando shoved the door open and strode into the foyer, the butler paled. “Right away, sir.”
When the butler had scurried off to wake Don Arturo, Orlando went back outside and ordered Cristoforo out of the coach. Holding him roughly by the arm, Orlando propelled the youth into the palazzo and shoved him into Don Arturo’s reception room.
“Wait here until I come for you. Do not fail me,” he murmured in warning, then locked him in.
He returned to the foyer with just enough time to glance into the mirror, reassembling his countenance into a look of angry discomposure before the venerable Don Arturo came shuffling into the foyer in his dressing gown.
“Orlando, what are you doing here at this hour? What has happened?”
“Don Arturo!” He strode to him. “We must speak privately, sir, right away.”
The older man frowned, his single bushy eyebrow moving up and down like a black bar across his forehead. “Very well. Calm down, boy. Step into my study.”
“I have news pertaining to the king’s illness. Dire, most terrible news,” he said in a struggling tone the moment the door had closed behind them.
“What is it?” the prime minister asked, pausing behind his desk rather than sitting down. Above the fireplace mantel was a portrait of the nephew who had died in the duel.
Orlando rubbed his forehead as he shook his head. “Sir, I barely know how to say it.” He
lowered his hand and met Don Arturo’s anxious stare. “I have evidence that the king’s illness is not stomach cancer but may actually be the result of…poisoning.”
“What?” Eyes widening, Don Arturo slowly sank into his desk chair.
“I found a young chef of the royal kitchens who claims that someone of our mutual acquaintance bribed him to administer poison in His Majesty’s viands. He says the poisoning began over eight months ago!”
“Whom does he name?”
“He can tell you himself, sir, for he is here.”
“In my house?” he exclaimed.
“Yes, I will bring him in. Then you can judge for yourself whether or not you believe him, for I know not what to think. He is waiting in your reception room.”
“Orlando, wait! I need a moment to absorb it all. My God. My poor, dear king. A poisoner?” Don Arturo looked up at him shrewdly. “How did you find this vile creature and what on earth convinced him to confess to you?”
“Cristoforo came to me of his own free will and told me everything, confessing his part in the crime because he sought my protection. With His Majesty having left Ascencion, the lad is no longer needed. Now the one who hired Cristoforo is trying to kill him in order to conceal the plot.”
Don Arturo leaned forward, his voice dropping to a tremulous whisper. “Whom does he name, Orlando?”
Orlando gave him a distraught look. “Who has the most to gain by the king’s demise, my lord? It pains me to say it, sir. I think you realize of whom I am speaking.”
“Rafael,” he answered, as though he barely dared breathe the name.
Orlando closed his eyes and nodded.
Don Arturo covered his mouth with his hand and sat back, stunned into silence.
Orlando gave him a hard look, inwardly rejoicing at the man’s look of instant credulity. “I will be right back with the chef.”
Don Arturo gave no reaction, staring at nothing with a stricken look on his lined face.
Orlando exited the study without another word and walked down the hall to retrieve Cristoforo, exulting with private glee. Unlocking the door of the reception room, he opened it and stuck his head in.
“It’s time,” he grunted, but as he scanned the room, he saw no Cristoforo…only an open window.
He cursed and ran into the room, crossing to the window. He caught only a glimpse of Cristoforo running full speed before the lad disappeared around the corner down the block. The little whore from the brothel was with him! They were fleeing, hand in hand. Carmen must have followed them from the brothel and helped him escape.
Snarling, Orlando leaped over the windowsill and dropped effortlessly to the soft ground below. He slid his knife out of its sheath and raced after them with long swift strides.
The boy dodged the nightwatchmen rather than seeking their protection. He must have realized that the guardsmen would merely hand him over to Orlando. The young lovers left the main thoroughfare, ducking into a maze of dark, narrow alleys. Orlando plunged into the squalid backstreets after them.
The only sound was their pounding footsteps reverberating off the close, high walls, and the roaring of his pulse in his ears, the quick, hot want of blood. He needed the boy more or less alive, but he knew what he wanted to do to the girl.
Ahead, they separated, Cris darting to the right, Carmen to the left where the alley split. Hot on their heels, Orlando veered to the right, going after Cris.
He was a bit out of breath from the chase, but he laughed in spite of himself to see that Cris had just flung himself into a dead-end alley.
The lad stood staring at the brick wall straight ahead, then whirled around to face Orlando.
Orlando bent over, resting briefly with his hands on his thighs, then he straightened up, his chest still heaving, and stalked slowly toward the chef. Cristoforo backed away. He cast panicked glances about him at the garbage piled along the sides of the alley, no doubt seeking a weapon of some kind.
“Time to go back, Cris,” Orlando panted.
“No! I won’t do it!” he shrieked. “I don’t want to!”
“But you shall. You will tell Don Arturo everything, just as we discussed.”
“Shall I tell him you’re the one who wanted the king dead, you evil bastard?” he shouted, starting to cry.
“Poor little boy,” Orlando said, snickering.
“I never wanted to hurt anyone. You forced me!”
“We made a deal, Cris. A simple business transaction. You sold me your soul, don’t you remember?”
“The deal is off. I won’t do it. It’s bad enough what you made me do to the king. I won’t send his son to the hangman!”
“Rafael is a fool. He deserves to die.”
“Well, he’s not evil and mad! He’s not you!” Cristoforo screamed out. “Why are you doing this to them?” Weeping copiously, he backed away into a garbage heap.
Orlando was staring at him with dark, gathering anger as he realized that, with the boy’s escape attempt and his hysterics, Cristoforo really could not be trusted any further. He had driven the boy to the breaking point, beyond his own ability to control him. If he brought Cris back to tell his tale to Don Arturo in this state, he might well blurt out the real truth.
He knows too much.
Orlando was suddenly furious with the wasted effort. He loathed inefficiency. He took another slow step toward the lad, tightening his grip on the knife’s hilt. Cris stared at the knife, mesmerized. His unmanly bawling stopped abruptly.
“You disappoint me, Cris. You really do.”
“No. Please. I am unarmed,” he whispered.
Orlando moved closer. Suddenly something hit him in the side of his face, stunning him momentarily. He jerked away from the hard blow as the broken bit of brick bounced off him to the ground and rolled. He knew without looking that the girl had thrown it at him, but instantly Cris bolted.
Orlando ignored the pain and leaped after him, blood running into his left eye from the gash on the side of his forehead. He reached out and grasped the back of Cris’s coat and put his foot out, tripping him from behind. Cris fell with a sob.
Orlando bent over him and cut his throat, then leaped over his still-convulsing body to chase after the girl.
Because he had been preoccupied with Cris, she had a head start, and on her own, Carmen moved faster and more covertly. Orlando chased her down a series of blind alleys until he realized he no longer heard her footsteps ahead of him.
The streetwise little whore was obviously used to fending for herself, he thought. But he’d get her. She didn’t have a prayer.
A flicker of motion above made him look up to see her hastily climbing an old rickety peristyle, from which she jumped onto an outer balcony and scrambled onto the roof. He leaped up onto the peristyle, beginning to climb it, but the wood snapped under his greater weight and he tumbled down to the alley again with a vicious curse as Carmen scampered away into the darkness.
He sprang to his feet on the ground with a large splinter in his fisted hand and looked up the side of the building where she had gone. Just before she dashed out of sight, eluding him over the rooftops, Orlando hurled his knife at her by the hilt with a mighty heave of his arm.
The blow missed. The knife bit into the clay stucco of the house and stuck there, vibrating with the impact. “You little bitch!” he roared. “You can’t escape me! I’ll find you! I’ll drink your blood!” His deep scream reverberated off the alley maze like a demon’s curse.
Glaring, his eyes nearly red with rage, he looked up at his knife sticking out of the side of the house up by the eaves. He did not attempt to retrieve it.
It was a murder weapon, after all.
Raking a hand through his hair, his body shaking with exertion and fury, he turned around and began walking back slowly the way he had come. He hated that little whore and when he caught her, she would not have an easy death, he vowed.
He tried to assure himself that Carmen would be too petrified to go to the authorities,
for who would believe a whore against a duke of the royal blood? But just in case, he decided to make the Royal Guardsmen and the city police aware of her and the lies they could expect from her if she tried to contact them. For his part, he knew he had to go back to the prime minister’s house and tell him something. He had left the man standing there in his dressing gown when he had gone tearing off after Cristoforo.
He searched his mind for what to say as he trudged through the waking city back toward the west end. He had to proceed carefully, for above all, he needed Don Arturo behind him in order to gain power. How could he account for his vanished witness?
But he’ll believe of his own accord because you’re giving him what he wants most in the whole world, he mused after a moment’s consideration: the head of Prince Charming on a silver platter. Yes, he thought with an icy smile. The prime minister was all too willing to believe.
Dani was having the most splendid, wicked dream. It seemed as though the door had clicked and a wedge of light had angled in. Another click as it closed, and she sank back into deeper layers of sleep, only to feel the mattress bow under a new, graceful weight, as though someone large and strong were sliding into her bed with her; then the dream changed. Her breathing deepened. She felt large, warm, gentle hands slide up under her scoop-necked night rail and begin moving slowly over her body as she lay on her stomach, one arm tucked beneath her pillow.
Rafael.
Her body softened; pleasure washed in a warm wave down the length of her. She felt kisses down her spine, a clean-shaved face brushing against the rising curve of her backside. Then the warm, tickling delight of his fine mouth, dusting more kisses down the backs of her legs, which seemed to part with a will of their own at the teasing sweetness of his play, but she came fully awake only when he gently spread her bottom cheeks with his deft, warm hands and plunged his tongue into her, stroking her with a kiss.
Thrills of shocked bliss zoomed and spiraled through her body. She sucked in her breath and arched up onto all fours. Without pausing, he curled his hand around the front of her thigh and caressed her ultra-sensitive jewel with his fingertips while he explored her sex with his tongue.
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