by Kris Kennedy
For weeks now, this treacherous, murderous, cunning man had hunted him. Fury, pent-up and roiling, burned through Tadhg’s blood, hammered in his ears. But there were soldiers in the background, and an innocent merchant in the fore who could—would—be hurt, so he stilled the urge to slash and slay, and hunkered down, hoping against hope Magdalena the Tailor was better-equipped for subterfuge than she appeared.
Sherwood’s gaze skated over her disheveled state: the slipping-down, darkly golden hair; her flushed, triangular face. “I am sorry to have pulled you from your...slumber?”
She touched her hair, a self-conscious female gesture. “I was hardly abed, my lord. I was cleaning up after the mess your men made.” She gestured to the shop.
“Ah, yes, my men.” He glanced briefly at the mess, then peered into the back room, at the kitchen and fire. “I must apologize for them, Dame Thread. They overstepped.”
“It is unconscionable what they did, turning my shop upside down, insulting me,” Magdalena said sharply, and stepped back, so she stood in front of the counter where Tadhg was hiding.
“Did they insult you?” He clucked his tongue. “Again, mistress, my deepest apologies. I bid them be circumspect and unassuming.”
“They hardly looked capable of such a high plain.”
“You have no idea,” Sherwood replied drily, and his voice grew more faint as he strode into the back kitchen. Tadhg shifted to keep him in sight. “Some days, it is a stretch to get them to use full sentences. You may rest assured I will speak with them on the matter.”
“And here I’d supposed you already had.”
Veiled meaning seeped into her low-spoken words, and Sherwood turned to regard her with his full attention for the first time since entering the shop.
“Indeed,” he said slowly, as if he’d made some sort of mental notation. “I assure you, madame, I am as aggrieved as you at the mistreatment of such a fine, upstanding…law-abiding merchant.”
There was a faint but unmistakable emphasis on ‘law-abiding,’ an uplift at the end, the quirk of a question. From his low vantage point, Tadhg saw the back of Sherwood’s head turn slightly, toward the back door which was, Tadhg now realized, slightly ajar.
A cold slice of winter air moved through the kitchen, ruffling the flames of the candles that sat upon the tabletop.
Magdalena must have seen it, too, for she stepped forward, speaking loudly. “And yet you are not the law, are you, my lord?”
Sherwood turned, his eyes cold and blue. “Nay, madame. How astute of you to notice.” He smiled. “But I am friends with the law.”
“Of course you are.”
Long seconds ticked away. Magdalena’s gaze never left the baron’s, and Tadhg released another round of silent curses. She ought to be cowering. But he now suspected, in a grim, fatalistic sort of way, that docility was but a thin veneer lying atop Magdalena, clouding up the fire that comprised the true heart of her.
Her sharpness seemed to amuse Sherwood, though, for he smiled. He came out of the kitchen and wandered into the front room, where Magdalena stood. He came nearer, and nearer. Tadhg leaned slowly away from the slitted opening and held his breath.
“Unfortunately, mistress, my men seem to have disappeared.” Sherwood drew to a stop directly in front of the counter where Tadhg was crouched.
“Have they?” Magdalena replied, sounding slightly shrill.
“They have indeed. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
Seconds ticked away. Tadhg’s heart hammered in his chest.
Then Magdalena spoke, soft and thoughtful. “I doubt they could disappear entirely, my lord. They were very large.”
Sherwood gave a low chuckle and his knee bumped the linen curtain, an inch from Tadhg’s nose.
“Yes, well, it seems they disappeared some time after visiting…you.”
Silence spread like darkness. No one said a word. Slowly, unconsciously, Tadhg’s hand moved to his sword. She had spirit and defiance, aye, but she was doomed in this encounter. Sherwood had decades of experience terrifying people into compliance. She was but a merchant, treading waters far too deep. She could never—
“You have found me out, lord Sherwood.” Her low-spoken words were full of dry mockery. “I bashed your men on the head, bound and gagged them, stripped them of their clothes, and dragged them to the river.”
Sherwood burst out laughing.
Tadhg funneled a hot breath of relief between his lips.
“Indeed, madame, it does sound outlandish, does it not?” His voice was warm, admiring. Interested. Tadhg cursed silently. The only thing worse than Sherwood suspicious was Sherwood interested. “And yet, missing they seem to be, some time after visiting you.”
“Visiting me?” Tadhg heard a rustle, and her voice came from further away. “I will tell you this, my lord, your men seemed in perfect health whilst they were here destroying my shop. Perhaps the exertion was too much for them? After all, they did topple my wardrobe.” Her voice grew quieter, as if she was walking away. “And here, my chest of threads, hacked open and dumped.” Her voice drew further off as she pointed out various areas of wreckage, “…and my shelves…,” leading Sherwood ever away from the front of the shop where Tadhg was crouched.
He tipped to the side and peered again through the narrow slit.
She had stopped by the huge oak pillar that separated the front room from the back, her bright tunic gathered in one hand, her thick hair tumbling over her shoulders, her chin up as she looked Sherwood in the eye.
“If your men have truly disappeared, my lord, I do not grieve. But I will offer this piece of advice: there are five taverns within a stone’s throw of this shop. When a man goes a’missing, I have found taverns a fine place to start.”
Her voice was level, her gaze unwavering.
“What excellent advice, madame,” Sherwood said quietly. “Tell me, did they happen to mention anything while they were here?”
“Anything about what?”
“Oh, anything, anything at all. Their task…where they were going…who they were looking for….”
A pause. “They were looking for someone?” Magdalena asked in her low, throaty voice.
Tadhg’s fingers flexed around his hilt impotently. Hiding here, beneath this counter…never again.
Low firelight threw shadows across the room, turning Sherwood’s cheeks and eyes into hollows of darkness.
“They were indeed, madame. An outlaw. I have been tracking him for weeks now. He keeps slipping away. Very clever. Very cunning. Very dangerous.”
“How frightening.”
He smiled faintly. “You do not appear frightened.”
“Perhaps that is because I am trying to decide what damage a lone outlaw could do, compared to that done by your pack of wolves.”
Sherwood’s head went back slightly, then he glanced at the debris field of her shop. “Of course. And yet, I’m sure a clever woman such as yourself would know better than to get involved with criminals. They can be so unpredictable.”
“I have not found them to be so.”
Sherwood swung his gaze back. “No?”
Magdalena shook her head, and for a moment, the baron seemed distracted by the tousled, multi-hued nature of her hair. “No. I have found criminals to be ever criminal in nature. But law-abiding folk can be far more changeable. One never knows what they will do, does one?”
A pregnant silence followed.
Under the counter, Tadhg stiffened. Why did he have to pick a woman with fire?
Sherwood stared at her, a faint smile on his lips. Now he was not only amused, he was intrigued.
Intriguing Sherwood was even worse than angering him.
“You are very astute, madame,” he agreed. “Men abide the law; they do not abide the law.” He wavered his palm back and forth in the air. “One never knows which way they will turn. How clever of you to see it.”
“Yes, people are always remarking on my cleverness.”
“I find it reassuring.”
“A beautiful, smart woman like yourself, finding the predictable ‘reassuring’?” He clucked his tongue softly. “I doubt that. In fact,” his voice was almost a drawl now, “I would venture to say that you are the sort of woman who might be longing for a taste of the unpredictable. Something untoward, perhaps, something…exciting?”
Silence rolled through the room. All Tadhg could see was Magdalena’s back, the curve of her hip, the long tangle of her hair. The edges of her were lit by fire. Then Sherwood strode past her, so close he almost brushed her shoulder, and glanced up the narrow stairway that led to her bedchamber. “You are alone here, Dame Thread?”
“Hardly,” she retorted, sounding sharp and slightly breathless. “I have my apprentice. And a very large blacksmith who visits every night.”
Sherwood turned. “Every night?”
“Every one.”
The baron paused, then nodded and moved toward the door. “Well, madame, I will disturb you no longer. Should you have any troubles with outlaws….”
“I shall not.”
“But if you do…?”
“Yours will be the first name on my lips.”
His gaze dropped to hers at the mention. “Mistress,” he said slowly, “I know how hard times are. Should your…blacksmith not visit this eve, I am staying at the inn by the mayor’s.”
A fist of anger struck Tadhg in the stomach. As he’d said, fools would pass her by, but Sherwood was no fool. He was cunning, with an incisive, ripping-open sort of mind, and he saw at once what Tadhg saw: Magdalena was magnificent.
“You are a beautiful woman,” Sherwood went on, “and I am not in the habit of asking people to give away that which is their greatest strength.” He paused again. “I pay extremely well.”
Tadhg’s gaze was pinned on Magdalena, her long hair, the profile of her face, the way her hands were clenched into fists at her side—surely she could use Sherwood’s money—then her delicate, square chin lifted slightly in the air.
“Beauty is not my greatest strength, my lord. But I will recall your words to mind.”
“Do,” he urged, and shut the door behind him.
Chapter Nine
MAGDALENA HURRIED forward and locked the door, then bent her wobbly knees and sunk to the floor, still holding the lock. Fear, pent up inside her, came out in soft gasps.
It was the outlaw’s hand that lifted her to her feet, drew her back into the dim, protected space behind the counter, to sit on one of the holding crates. She realized she was trembling.
She touched the knuckles of her hand to her mouth. “He will be back,” she whispered.
“Not before morning.”
She nodded. “I do not like him.”
He blew out a soft breath through his nostrils. “Och, lass, we could populate a kingdom with men who feel as you do.”
Silence enfolded in the little shop and the space behind the counter. They sat, side by side, on crates in the dark. The only light was pale silvery moonlight visible through and around the edges of the shutters, and a faint glow from the fire in the kitchen. Deep orange and warm, it spilled out in a pulsating glow, as if trying to reach them.
“You were magnificent,” he said in a voice pitched low.
Warmth flowed through her chest. Ridiculous, to be so affected by praise from an outlaw. Still, there it was, glow due the praise of an outlaw. “I was terrified,” she admitted.
“Wise of you. He is the worst you shall encounter, and you bested him.”
A small, bright flame alit inside her.
She had done it. Again.
Outside they heard voices and doors being hammered on, other denizens of the town being roused on a cold January night to be asked questions they could not possibly answer. The voices grew more distant as the search moved down the street.
Beside her, he slid off the crate, stretched his mail-clad arm in front of her nose, and reached into the basket of greens and holly that sat, somehow undisturbed where she’d laid it, on the floor beside the counter.
He shifted his hand amid the fragrant greens, releasing their fair, sharp scent, then pulled back. She saw a flash of something silver and the dark glint of red, then it was gone again, hidden within the wool and leather and pouches covering him. He slid back onto the crate, tipped his head to the wall, and closed his eyes.
For a long minute, there was nothing more.
“Where is your family?”
She jumped at the low query and looked over, but he still sat, head to wall, eyes closed.
She cleared her throat. “My apprentice…she is at the miracle play. At the abbey.”
His eyes opened. “She is all you have?”
“All I have.” The words came lightly, as if there was no power behind them.
“Is there no blacksmith?”
She looked over, startled. “Blacksmith?”
“Aye. Visits every night, big burly sort?”
She laughed softly. Firelight from the dying kitchen fire was barely visible, just a pale russet light shifting against the walls. “No. No, there is no one.” Baselard had not visited in years, at her request. It was no good pretending there was fire when there was not.
But oh, how she’d once wished for fire.
“Sisters, brothers, parents…children?”
She ignored the last mention. “I have no sisters or brothers and my parents are long dead, and in any event, they were from the countryside, not town.”
He turned his head toward her. “How did you find your way here, then, to this muddy little town?”
She gave a laugh. “A husband. Business. Errors in judgment.”
“Ah.”
“But how an Irishman found his way here,” she added softly, “now that is a question.”
He gave a shrug. “A woman. Business. Errors in judgment.”
She smiled. “You lie.”
He put a hand to his chest. “Not about the last, lass. Not about the last.”
They shared another smile then turned forward again. Outside the voices had died away, and there was nothing but the sound of the fire slowly dying. “I must make the fire up,” she whispered.
“I will do it.” Moving so smoothly that he made no sound on the plank floors, he glided into the kitchen and crouched before the fire, laid new wood and stirred it up. Then he shut and barred the back door and returned to the front room, as if by some unspoken agreement they must sit together, close in the shadows, and wait for whatever came next.
“What is it?” she asked softly, staring ahead.
“What is what?” he said, also not looking over.
“This thing you carry.”
He was quiet so long she thought he would not answer. Then finally, softly, he said, “Death.”
It was chilling, not so much the word, but the toneless, flat way he said it, as if the thing inside him that carried the word out, had also died. As if his voice were its pallbearer.
She stared at the underside of the counter. Little bits of yellowish wax stuck there, from the wax she used to thread her needles. Outside, a loud crowd of minstrels walked down the street, singing and playing tambourines. Soon it would be Epiphany, Twelfth Night, and even in mucky little Saleté de Mer, a town named for sea dirt, the revelries pressed on unabated.
“Do you know what I think?” she said, keeping her gaze aimed forward. “I think you are on return from the Holy Land.”
Silence.
“Most have already returned. But not all.”
More silence.
“Not even the English king, Richard the Lionheart.”
A very decided silence.
“I suppose he could be dead…”
“He is not dead.” Grim and icy, his words were filled with dreadful certainty.
“I see,” she said softly.
His eyes reflected gleams of low firelight as he turned to her. “No, lass. You do not.”
&n
bsp; She broke gaze, turned away from the stern, terrible truth in his eyes. She made an impatient gesture. “Oh, why do such things matter anyhow? The whole thing reeks: your business, that man hunting you, the things people will do to one another, given half a chance. The whole world.” Having gone so wide, she focused her disgust down more narrowly. “This city.”
He absorbed her little tirade in silence. “Do not judge Saleté de Mer too harshly, lass. I’ve smelled far worse cities than yours.”
She closed her eyes and laughed softly at the subtle, certain change in conversation. He was right. Why argue under the counter about how rotten the world could be?
“Have you?” she asked, settling back against the wall beside him, a surprisingly comfortable position. She’d never sat on one of her crates before.
He nodded. “Venezia. Now there is a stinking city, when the tide is low. The canals,” he said, and shook his head.
“Venice,” she whispered, entranced. “You have been to Venice.”
“Sicily smelled of basil and oranges. Until we arrived. Then it smelled of blood and screams.”
She swallowed.
“Acre was the worst.”
“You were at Acre?” Acre, the city that had fallen to the brave crusaders, the triumph of the West.
His face seemed to shut down. A ripple went across his jaw, and all the energetic…joie of him, seemed to vacate his body. He became again the granite he’d been when attacking the soldiers. “Jesus God, what an awful stench we made.” Her jaw dropped at the blasphemy but he paid it no mind. “A hundred thousand warring men and about six laundresses for every thousand.”
“Why so few?”
“The Pope, being so wise, discouraged women on crusade, even laundresses.” He looked woeful. “’Twas an awful thing he did.”
She smiled faintly. “Perhaps that was because they did not do much laundry?”
“They surely did mine,” he replied with feeling.
She tipped her head back and laughed. Criminal or no, he was the devil. And she liked it. Liked him.