by Kris Kennedy
The enshrouding fog muffled the wagon’s clattering as they drew up to the gate. A figure pushed off the guardhouse wall and approached.
“Oh dear,” she said softly.
Silence flowed out from beneath the makeshift bench. “What?”
“It is not Gustave. I do not know who this man is. I have never seen him before.”
“Sherwood’s man. They’ll have taken over the gates,” was all she heard, very quietly, from below the seat, before the guard who was not Gustave arrived at the wagon.
He looked her over in damp suspicion. “Gate’s not open.”
“I am aware of that,” she said brightly. “But perhaps I could get through, even so? The usual gate warden often lets me.”
“I am not the usual one.”
“Yes, I had noticed that.”
“I open the gates when it’s time to open the gates.” Fog swirled around his words. He was a blob of brown and rusting iron.
Perhaps indignation would work better. She drew herself up. “Sir, when the town’s men guard these gates, I am through them every day, often before and after the close, with nary an issue.”
“Well, there’s an issue now. No opening. That’s my orders.”
Bribery then. She lowered her voice to something more conspiratorial. “Sooth, sir, I am willing to pay any sort of surcharge for the privilege of passing through early.”
That earned an oily grin and an even oilier glance, which raked down her gown. “‘Surcharge,’ is it?” he said with a leer. “Right you are. Come inside and we’ll discuss your terms.”
Her heart sank. “Oh, no, I—”
Beneath the bench, she felt a dangerous shifting.
The guard reached up for her wrist. “Come on now, woman, don’t be shy.”
“Oh, no, you do not understand—”
She gave a little cry as he pulled her out of the wagon, and she was fairly certain she heard a sigh drift out from under the canvas, “Dia ár sábháil,” then Tadhg appeared like some shade from Beyond, throwing back the canvas covering and rising to his full height in the fog, sword out.
“Leave her be.”
The guard, shocked to find an armed man appearing out of the mists, released her and tripped backwards. Tadhg leapt down and slashed his sword twice, back, forth, as he walked forward. The guard moved out of range, stumbling back to the edge of the riverbank where he stopped, hands up, the eyes on either side of the nasal of his helm wide and scared.
“You—” he stammered, pointing with one finger of his upraised hand. “’Tis you…the, the Irishman. Christ’s mercy—”
“Stop talking, Wiley,” Tadhg interrupted, reaching forward.
The man called Wiley thrust his hands further into the air. “Don’t kill me,” he rasped.
“I’m not going to kill you.” Tadhg tore a set of keys loose off his belt. “I’m going to teach you how to swim.” He slammed the heel of his hand into the center of Wiley’s chest and pushed him backward over the edge of the riverbank.
He toppled down the steep muddy banks like a bag of rocks, too shocked to make a sound until he splashed into the river, where he got caught up in a swirling current and was whipped away, all in an instant. There was a faint cry, then silence.
Magdalena’s jaw dropped. She took a tentative step toward the bank, peering down. “Will he die?”
“We should be so lucky. He is one of Sherwood’s favorites, for all the wrong reasons.” He grabbed her hand. “There’s an outcropping of rock twenty yards down he can make use of, should he be so inclined. Someone will hear his cries. Eventually.”
He tugged her to the gate, shoved her through, then himself. All was done in silence.
“Is your pony fast?” he demanded.
She jerked her gaze over, startled. “Fast? No, of course not, she is a cart pony—”
“Does she know her way home?”
“Home, why yes—”
He gave the pony a hard smack on the rump. She retorted with a startled kick of her heels then trotted off, down the street. Magdalena stared in amazement as Tadhg yanked the gate shut behind them.
He locked it with the ring of keys he’d taken from the guard, then turned and flung them into the air, using his whole body. The keys tumbled in an iron-black arc through the misty air, then dropped out of sight. A moment later they heard the smallest of splashes as they hit the river below.
Tadhg grabbed her hand, and they started running into the grey mists of dawn.
“BRINGING YOU with me was supposed to make things easier,” he complained as they ran through the wet straggly grasses bordering the single track that approached Saleté de Mer.
“Bringing me?” Magdalena said, flinging hair off her face. They ran crouched over, staying as low as possible, running as fast as possible. “You have abducted me.”
“I just rescued you,” he pointed out. “Again.”
She would have gaped at him had there been breath in her body. “Rescued me?” she panted as they ran. “You rescued me?”
“Exactly.”
She felt like slamming her body into his and toppling him over the cliff they were now hugging. Down below the river rambled, deep and cold. “The only reason I needed to be ‘rescued,’” she panted, “was because I was in grave danger, which you put me in, thus requiring rescuing.”
“You see my point.”
“I swear to you, Tadhg, I will stab you in the heart,” she gasped as she tripped on a downed tree, “once I…catch my breath.”
He helped her over the tree trunk, ever watchful, then suddenly turned and dragged her straight into the forest, putting them on a hidden path no one would ever have known was there, unless they were a wild, woodland creature. Or an outlaw.
Dark and protected, filled with freebooters and wild boars and wolves, the forest was both blessing and curse. All her excursions for flowers ended strictly at its borders. She’d never gone inside. Now, her hand clasped in an outlaw’s, she was running full tilt straight into one of the deepest of all.
She ran for as long as she could, and then a little longer, till they were deep inside. Shadows darkened and moss grew thick, hanging off the branches and furring up the huge tree trunks in all manner of strange and alien shades of green. Overhead, clouds built. Finally, she slowed.
“A moment,” she gasped, holding up a hand as she staggered to a halt and collapsed on a fallen log. “Please.”
He sat down too, hard, beside her. For minutes they did nothing but breathe. Wildlife came back to life around them, birds and the occasional scuffle of some woodland creature. Overhead, the clouds moved in thickly. It was growing colder.
“I cannot run all the way to St. Malo, Tadhg,” she said.
“You can if you must.”
Arrogant, overweening, accursed…. She glared at his profile. His hair was windblown and there was a pale sheen of sweat on his forehead, but that was the extent of any signs of exertion. Otherwise, he seemed barely winded.
She looked away and stared down at a pinecone under her foot, slowly recapturing her breath.
“If there is a closer town, we will try there,” he allowed quietly.
“Cîté de Rosé is less than half a day’s walk,” she breathed.
He gave a curt nod, then turned to her. “Don’t you know the least thing about discouraging men from unwanted advances?” he demanded, sounding almost angry.
She looked over in surprise. “Well, I—”
His eyes were dark and angry. “Stomp on their foot, poke them in the eye, snap their little finger, do something.” He shook his head in disgust that she hadn’t thought of any of these strategies on her own.
She shifted around to face him on the damp log. “Something small, is it? However small, I should do something?”
His mouth was a tight line. “Precisely.”
“Well, you may rest assured, sirrah, I shall be trying each and every one of your suggestions later this day, on you.”
This only made
him laugh, though, and seemed to return him to his easy-going temper—how he could remain easy-tempered in the midst of such peril and mischief was beyond her. He rested his palms behind him on the wide, decaying, mossy green-brown log and looked up at the tree limbs.
“As well you should, Maggie,” he agreed. “I’ve earned it, and more.”
And why that should make her heart feel warmer, she had no notion. Tadhg had indeed earned those things, and more. He’d abducted her, yes, only after molesting her, lying to her, using her, exposing her to grave, grave danger. And taking her against a wall.
Notwithstanding that she’d begged him to.
In the cold winter air, her face flushed hot.
Why all this warmth? It was unconscionable.
Perhaps it was the way Maggie rolled off his tongue, as if purred. Savored. As if he enjoyed saying it, enjoyed that she was the one receiving it. She, herself. Magdalena the unacceptable. Magdalena of the odd notions and overweening passions.
She’d never been a ‘Maggie.’ Barring the most brief passage of time in her youth, she’d been naught but proper merchant-wife, then proper merchant widow. Mistress Thread, above and yet not good enough for…everything.
But for Tadhg, she had been exactly what he needed, every time.
The unconscionable warmth spread. Helpless to resist it, she pushed the hair back from her face and leaned her palms on the log as Tadhg was doing. Together they looked up into the webbing of glossy black branches overhead.
“The little finger, you say?” she mused.
He gave another low laugh. “Aye, the smallest one. It’ll snap right off if you need.” He leaned forward to demonstrate.
Her gaze tracked down to his hands, then lifted to his. This complicated, confusing, alluring, hard man, who knew how to break fingers, yet hold her so gently it felt as though her heart itself would break.
“Why do you need to know such things, Tadhg?” she asked softly.
His face washed hard, and his reply was cold as the air around them.
“Everyone needs to know such things, Maggie. The world is full to the throat of badness, choking on it, even among the great. Especially among the great,” he added in a voice so full of bitterness she knew at once this was not a philosophic attitude, but a very personal knowledge. The sort that came from deep affection, and deep betrayal.
Unless Sherwood had done something that had once spawned affection in Tadhg, which she sincerely doubted, that meant someone else in his life had once been great. Then failed him terribly.
He pushed to his feet. “Time to go.”
She tried to push up too, but her body rebelled. Her muscles did not want to obey. She might have whimpered. His hand curled under her elbow and lifted her to her feet, then slid down until his fingers twined around hers.
“I will help,” he promised.
BACK AT THE GATES of Saleté de Mer, a bleak sun rose on Baron Sherwood, who watched in mounting fury as his men, sans Wiley, who sat under a blanket, shivering blue and dripping wet, turned the small gatehouse barracks upside down. Now, defeated in their search, they stood in front of him in a line, empty-handed and shame-faced.
“Couldn’t find them anywhere, my lord,” muttered one of them, eyes averted. On the bench, Wiley groaned softly.
Sherwood’s jaw worked, then he spun away and kicked a water bucket as he bellowed, “Someone find me or make me a set of goddamned gate keys!”
Chapter Fifteen
MAGGIE’S PRESENCE DID EXACTLY as Tadhg had intended it to: got them through the gates of the little port town of Cîté de Rosé without attracting any attention.
There were the usual questions by the porter, but when Tadhg indicated they were visiting family, and Maggie supplied a name—“Edwin Needleman,” she informed the gateman, meeting Tadhg’s gaze over the man’s shoulder with a faint shrug; he’d replied with a faint smile—and after paying the pittance of a toll, they passed through the gates with nary a look, other than the scorching one the porter sent down Maggie’s body.
“Head down,” Tadhg murmured, tamping on the unprecedented and powerful jealousy that rose up inside him.
Beside him, Maggie bent her head and followed in his wake.
Unfortunately, while her presence may have got them through the gates, it could not get them on a ship. Nothing, not even a writ from God on high, would have done that today. Not here. For this quay was all but shut down, just as it had been in Saleté de Mer, but not by an order from Sherwood. By an army.
Soldiers were everywhere, climbing ladders on and off ships and into portage boats, while servants and underlings and dockhands and ship’s crewmembers rushed to and fro along the waterfront, carrying loads of well-wrapped canvas bundles, pushing carts filled with heavy chests, and attempting to lead spooked, balky horses into the belly of great ships set at anchor, further out in the bay.
Tadhg stared, his blood turning cold as it pumped through his veins in thick pulses.
At his side, Magdalena whispered, “Good God.”
Tadhg backed them into the shadows, gripping her hand tight, ready to flee onward again.
Her soft hand on his arm stopped him. “I know someone here in this little town.”
He snapped his gaze down. “What sort of someone?”
“The sort who can help us. Help you. It would take but a moment.”
“I do not have a moment, Maggie. We must go.”
“Please, Tadhg.” Her soft words made him pause. “May we not speak with him?” She folded her fingers over the leather gauntlet laced around his forearm. The cuir bouilli was sturdy enough to block cutting blows from swords and shield, but he could feel Maggie’s light touch through it. It stopped him in his tracks.
“Come with me. Trust me,” she urged softly, her eyes dark and sincere, and he did, following her deeper into the town busy town streets.
“Who is this person?” he demanded as they turned up a wide, cobbled avenue. Expensive shops lined the streets, and other people milled in and out. Still, Tadhg felt exposed.
“I have already mentioned his name, at the gates. Edwin Needleman.”
“I thought the name a ruse.”
“I do not have ‘ruses’,” she replied placidly. “Yes, here is Tailor’s Row.”
“A tailor? A tailor can help us?”
“Yes, and here is his shop.” She emitted a little satisfied sound.
“Maggie—”
“Ah, and there is he.” She sounded faintly joyous.
He, apparently, was the little figure in the distance, a small, fat figure coming down the block. He squinted at them, stopped short, then gave a little wave.
Maggie waved back. He started hurrying toward them.
Tension rose along the line between Tadhg’s shoulders. It took everything in him not to turn and run. “Maggie, truth, unless he stitches ships in that shop of his, we do not have time for tailors.”
“We are settling a debt.”
“A debt?” Eyes narrowed, he watched the pudgy merchant hurrying down the street toward them, waving excitedly, linen cap flapping in the breeze, his substantial belly bouncing merrily.
“Yes, he is my regrator. My broker. He often sends me commissions, for there are some who will simply not do business with a woman. Can you imagine?”
He made a noncommittal sound.
“But Edwin has no such compunctions. He cares only for coin. Indeed too much; he is a reprobate of the most terrible sort.” Maggie gave another little wave as the babbling merchant came nearer, calling out her name in an ever-increasing volume. “He pays only if and when he must. He is indebted to me for several past due bills, at midsummer, and also last Epiphany.”
“And how can a fat, thieving merchant help us?” he asked, eyeing the bubble of a man grimly.
“You shall see.”
“I give you one moment to shut him up.” He stepped back and allowed her take the fore. “Or I will.”
She patted his chest in an absent manner. �
��Yes, of course. Now, just follow my lead.”
The fat merchant arrived in front of them, full of self-important bluster and an extremely loud voice.
Chapter Twenty-Six
MAGDALENA SMILED as the wealthy and well-connected Edwin Needleman arrived before them.
He took both her hands in his. “Mistress Magdalena, what a magnificent surprise. Magnificent. What brings you to our fair town?”
“That is complicated business.”
He beamed at her. “Business, is it? Not surprised, not surprised. I’ve long said your husband, and then you of course, following his demise, were the most accomplished tailors in all of Cîté de Rosé, and you are not even in Cîté de Rosé.” Edwin laughed heartily at his own jest, then patted his belly. “But then, everyone knows the hosen of Saleté de Mer are far and away the best, bar none. None of my other people can do the work as you do, of course, but especially the hosen.” He sighed at the thought of poorly-stitched hosen. “Uneven stitches, the material will not move as it must…” He clucked his tongue sadly. “No, only the stitches of Mistress Magdalena of Saleté de Mer will do—”
Tadhg bent his head and said softly, “Shut him up.”
Magdalena smiled brightly and began walking off, forcing Edwin to turn and keep pace with her.
“It is interesting that you mention the hosen, sir. Might we step into your shop? For I, too, have a matter of business to discuss with you.”
He beamed at her. “Excellent, excellent.”
“In your shop?” she prompted.
“Oh, yes, yes. It is here.” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder, pointing to a door a few paces behind them.
Tadhg stepped forward. “Excellent, tailor. Let us go inside.”
His words were polite, but the undertone of menace brought Edwin’s gaze sweeping over. His smile faltered.
Magdalena smiled. “He is with me.”
“Ah, yes. Of course.” He glanced at Tadhg warily, then pushed his door open and bustled them inside and went about his shop, lighting candles and oil lamps. He threw open the shutters and Tadhg immediately stepped back, out of the spill of white winter light. Edwin turned back, clapped his hands together and smiled at Magdalena.