by Carrie Lofty
The lead guard exchanged an uncertain glance with his second but did not lower his sword. "No matter her patron, the woman has been charged with defaulting on numerous debts, breaking a contract of sale, and inciting a riot. She will stand trial for her crimes and be punished accordingly."
Ada's eyes darted to Gavriel's with the speed of a rabbit. The opium. The debts. The slaver who had lost his lovely stock. Her past had caught up to her, and her pale, stretched expression admitted to every fault and flaw. No matter her command of languages, she could not have spoken about shame as eloquently as did her face.
"Comprendo," she whispered. "I'll go with you. But please, do not hurt these people."
Her fingers loosened and she stepped away from Gavriel. "Ada, don't," he said.
"I can do this. I'll see this right, and then we can start again."
He wanted to drag her back to his side and envelop her, tightly, as a shield against her fate. But the lead guard nodded and lowered his weapon, taking her into his custody. There was no resignation in her posture, only the stiff, proud acceptance of her responsibility.
"Where are you taking her?" he asked.
The lead guard ignored him. "Are you wearing any weapons, senorita?"
Ada silently knelt and retrieved the sheathed dagger from her boot, tossing it behind her. The metal skittered to a stop at Blanca's feet. "That is all."
Circling ropes around Ada's wrists, the lead guard tossed a negligent look over the small band. "She'll be tried on the morrow at the Court of Justice."
Gavriel's voice died in his throat. Words sat there, unsaid, as he watched the cadre disperse into the city, Ada with them. She never looked back. He watched until nothing of her remained—no hint of brown cloth from her gown, no shimmer of her unbound hair. His heart marred by bruises, he fought every impulse urging him to pursue and strip those guards of their precious prisoner. But influence, not violence, would be the tool to free Ada.
Gavriel had none.
He had to come to an accord with the only of their number who did. Not that the task would be an easy one.
Jacob stood toe to toe with Gavriel. "Is this how you keep her safe?"
"Safe?" Worry gathered in his chest like floodwater as he snatched the crossbow off Jacob's shoulder. He flung it across the mossy cobblestones. "Safe?" With another quick motion, fingers steady, he stripped him the curving blades. Jacob stumbled backward, dazed, his eyes wide. Gavriel towered over him, wanting to release every drop of frustration on the young Jew. "As I recall, you left her in my care."
Jacob rubbed one wrist, his eyes never far from the crossbow. "I did, before I inquired among Dona Valdedrona's informants and learned who you are, hiding like a coward in a religious order. Such is why I traveled Ucles earlier than I planned."
Gavriel loosened his stance. The fresh promise of combat raised the hairs on his forearms. "She would be with you—safe, as you say—had you been stronger in the face of her craving."
"I did what I thought best!"
Blanca pushed between them. "Please, stop this! We're tired, all of us. Have you any notion of how few allies we have? And you want to pound on each other like barbarians?" She nodded to Gavriel's fists before turning her pleas to Jacob. "He would kill you."
"He can try," Jacob said harshly.
She knelt and retrieved Gavriel's sword and one of Jacob's knives before returning to the square of neutral ground between them. "He would kill you, Jacob, and Ada would be sorry for it. Don't make me be the one to tell her you've each done murder."
She raised her arms, offering both the weapons and a caustic look.
Gavriel eyed the hilt of his sword, then Jacob, seeing the young man do the same. "I cannot harm you," he said. "Ada would never forgive me. She thinks well of you."
"Do you agree with her?"
"When you behave beyond your years." Gavriel put his sword away and crossed his arms. "Now what can we do?"
Jacob took his weapon. He glanced once more between Gavriel and the blade, its metal made dull gray by the evening light, and sheathed it.
"Dona Valdedrona has returned to Toledo," he said. "We shall speak with her."
Wide awake, Ada stared at the walls of her cell as the sun changed the night from black to deep blue, then lighter still. The stench of rats and excrement had long since muddled her senses, until even the meager ale tasted foul. Or perhaps it was foul, having spoiled in that hellish place. Somewhere beyond her confines, a steady drip, drip wore away her patience, just as that water must wear away the stone. Although a tick stuffed with relatively fresh straw lay along one wall, she had not slept. Sleep would mean dreams—dreams even more terrifying than her wakeful nightmare.
Gavriel. He would be there at sunrise. Of course he would be.
But the darkness played tricks with all she believed. What if he was not? She considered the possibility that Jacob's warning held merit. Or perhaps Gavriel would decide that their erratic history together was not worth his trouble. He would finally be rid of her.
She stood and stretched muscles weary from worry and a lack of sleep, shaking free of those ominous thoughts. No matter whether he appeared at the Court of Justice, she would stand for herself.
But how she wanted him to be there.
She yearned for it because, for the first time in a year, she had discovered a reason to keep opium at bay. Gavriel, the man who had wanted her with unexpected fire and tenderness. Gavriel, the man who broke impossible vows, scarred himself, and hid everything but his concern for her well-being. And despite Jacob's suspicions, Gavriel was no longer the brutal man he once was.
She hoped.
Hunger bit at her insides. Thirst shriveled her tongue. The old need for a false escape only intensified as the sun promised its slow ascent.
She stepped to the sliver of a window and peered through with one eye. Below the fortifications of the Court of Justice, the hangman had prepared nooses for those found guilty of the most heinous crimes. Two ropes dangled, the harsh angle of the sun casting shadows like snakes across the courtyard. Already, merchants and peasants who had started their day— the merchants with carts full of goods bound for market, and the peasants with empty baskets and sacks—began to gather around the platform.
Ada shuddered. Morning had not yet banished the chill of night, and contemplating her fate in that courtyard did nothing to assuage her shivers.
I brought this on myself.
She shook free of that old accusation. Yes, she had. But she would get herself out as well.
The lock rattled at her back. She turned to face the guard who entered her cell. Anonymous behind his helmet and uniform, the man held out a rope just as Ada offered her wrists. She would not struggle, not now. She would not cower. The decision to face the ordeal with as much dignity as she possessed helped outweigh her humiliation. She had cried and begged long enough.
She followed the guard through the darkened halls. The metal adornments on his uniform caught bright chinks of sun as they passed regular intervals of narrow windows. He walked with precision, the metal of his armor clanking an even cadence. Ada swallowed her hunger and buried it alongside her fear, but her knees did not stop shaking.
As they traversed the long corridor, other guards brought prisoners out of their cells and tied them to Ada like links in a chain. Soon they numbered seven, and she wondered which two faced hanging. For her crimes, she would likely face trial by fire. She would be forced to walk nine paces while holding a red-hot rod of iron. Her skin would peel away, as skin tended to do, and her guilt would be decided three days later when the wound festered. Only divine intervention—a pair of palms miraculously healed—would proclaim her innocence.
But she was not innocent She glanced down and flexed her fingers. The verdict would not matter when the burning rod warped and ruined her hands.
She tripped. The guard roughly yanked her up, barking a command. She puzzled at the unfamiliar words, her understanding of Castilian suddenly as exhausted
as her courage.
Chapter 28
Gavriel paced the small, stark room they had let for the night Sunlight slowly spread across the tattered rushes beneath his feet. He felt caged. Helpless. Blanca sat on a mattress jammed along the outer wall. She could have been furniture for all the attention Gavriel paid her. And Fernan—he had simply disappeared.
Had Ada been able to sleep? No, not confined once again, probably surrounded by darkness and her old fears. His arms shook. Reassuring her and pulling her through each moment of weakness had become his only reprieve, slowly working to make him a better man. The thought of losing her ripped a hole in his plans for the future. That he kept those plans so near to his heart only proved what a fool he had become. For her.
When Jacob returned at daybreak, Gavriel finally stopped his restless pacing. "Did you speak with Dona Valdedrona?" he asked.
Jacob nodded. "Last night, she wrote a missive that clears Ada's debts. Ada will work as her translator for a year, but she will be free of the charges."
Blanca clapped her hands. Relief flooded Gavriel. The air smelled sweeter, not the stench of that rotting room. Sunlight shone brighter. Jacob's successful return assuaged the helplessness Gavriel had felt, himself unable to offer a plea on her behalf.
"What will you do now?" Gavriel asked.
"These must be delivered to His Majesty," Jacob said, pulling the scrolls from Ada's satchel. "King Alfonso moved court to Dona Valdedrona's palace, and he brings members of the Leonese delegation. I must warn him that he dines with traitors."
Blanca offered Jacob a plain canvas sack to carry the documents. "Do you think that's wise?" she asked. "They may think to kill the messenger, so to speak."
"I trust discussing the matter with Her Excellency," Jacob said. "She will proceed with King Alfonso as she sees fit."
Gavriel frowned. "You're leaving Ada?"
Jacob yanked his crossbow over his shoulder. The quick, keen sparkle in his eyes had dimmed entirely. Grim lines pinched the skin around his mouth. Where once had been a young fighter eager to risk his life for the woman he loved, a much older man stood. "She needs you there, not me," he said.
Panic mingled with a sensation akin to victory, thrilling and hot Jacob loved Ada. That much he had known from the first. But Ada's feelings toward her young guardian had always seemed ambivalent. She never displayed toward Jacob the same fiery range of emotions Gavriel had experienced. Her anger. Her teasing. Her passion.
Although Blanca stood near at hand, watching the exchange in silence, she may have missed the deadly promise in Jacob's eyes.
But Gavriel saw it.
If you hurt her, I will kill you.
Gavriel merely collected his weapons and nodded in answer. If I hurt her, I'll have no reason left to live.
* * *
Judge Herman Natalez looked up as a distinguished Jacobean entered his chambers. Wrapped in white robes that matched his silver hair, the older man paid no heed to Natalez's frown. No one entered his chambers before the morning's trials, not even his mincing little clerk. No one dared. Except this stranger.
"You mislike my being here, I can see," the man said.
Without preamble or introduction. The gall.
Natalez set his grooming comb aside and stared with all the weight inherent in his position as judge. "An imbecile could see that. Who are you and how dare you behave with such disrespect?"
"I am Gonzalo Pacheco, brother of the Order of Santiago and servant of His Excellency, Lord Joaquin de Silva." His black eyes glittered like those of a crow at feast. "You are detaining a prisoner of interest to Lord de Silva, a prisoner whose sentence he would like to, shall we say, influence."
Natalez snorted. "Influence. Dictate, you mean. But that is out of the questions. My verdicts are not for sale."
"And I respect that." Pacheco smiled, deadly as any beast but with none of the wild impulse. Every movement spoke of control, intelligence, and the firm expectation that he would be obeyed. With the notorious exile de Silva as his employer, that might be the case. But not that morning.
Natalez stood from his writing table and turned his back, deliberately dismissing the wiry old Jacobean. He stretched his robes across his bulky body, but Pacheco did not leave.
The patience Natalez had held to like a greased rope slipped away. He turned, his voice a boom of thunder. "Why are you still here?"
Pacheco did not flinch. His smile had evaporated. In each hand he held an item: a lumpy leather pouch in his left and short sword in his right.
"How did you get that sword past my guards?"
The glitter in Pacheco's eyes turned to fire, a man who had abandoned civility. "My men outnumber yours, especially now that two of yours lie dead."
Natalez felt his authority drip through his feet and into floor. "This is an outrage!"
"You are a judge, senor" said Pacheco. "Weighing the relative merits of the evidence is your responsibility. So let me present the evidence to you as I see it—and the way I see it is the only option. Do you understand?"
He dropped the leather pouch laden with coins. It landed on the writing table with a metallic thump, settling crookedly like a decaying orange. That left the intruder free to wield his short sword within those tight confines, unfettered by his other, more attractive offering.
Natalez glanced at the shadow behind the door Pacheco had left ajar. His own sword waited there, but it was sheathed. And the silver-haired man stood in the way.
Pacheco did not look behind him, but his smile returned. "When was the last you took up arms, senor? Many years I should think, judging by your girth. Now let us cease these games and come to an accord."
Instead of returning to the weapon that may as well have been in Rome for all its usefulness, Natalez let his eyes travel between Pacheco's bright black stare, the short sword, and the fat bag of coins. He slumped into his chair. "What accord?"
"There is a woman who will be tried this morning, an Englishwoman named Ada."
"Si," he said, rifling through a scant trio of documents he had been examining. "I have word that she is under the protection of Dona Valdedrona."
"That Sicilian whore?"
"The Englishwoman's debts have been paid, her contracts settled. She will be released."
Pacheco stepped forward once, twice, and pressed the tip of the sword into the roll of fat beneath Natalez's chin. "Unfortunately for you, my dear judge, that is not the verdict I seek."
Sunlight burned her eyes, eyes accustomed to the darkness of her confinement. Voices swirled like an unearthly wind. Sound and scent melded together. Ada used to love the moment when the world fell away, washed clean by opium. But stumbling again, tripping into the square as the gathering crowd jeered, that riot of sensation—overlapping, freeing her from language and thought—only heightened her terror.
She could not afford to lose her wits. But she barely managed to keep her feet, focusing on the metal-clad heels of the guard holding the rope.
She was first in line; the wait to know her verdict would not be long. As the judge settled his hulking body onto his stool, the bailiff read a proclamation of the court's authority according to the charter of the Prelate of Toledo, sanctioned by the King of Castile, Alfonso XIII. His deep voice blended the legal terminology of the edict into an indistinct drone. Fatigue threatened to pull Ada's eyelids closed no matter the rushing pulse of her blood.
"Bring the first prisoner forward!"
She jerked upright and caught sight of the bailiff motioning her toward the judge. The foremost guard untied the ropes that bound her to the other prisoners and pushed her up three steps, his sword at her back. Knees like clouds and her thighs trembling, she climbed.
Her mind flashed to the slave auction. She had ascended those few steps without feeling her feet, high above the dingy brothel, insensate to the bargain she had made for a single bottle. She had not thought to want a rescue, but Jacob and Gavriel had saved her nonetheless. The urge to look across the hostile crowd a
nd find them nearly got the better of her, although she needed every drop of concentration to keep her wayward, nauseated body moving.
Judge Natalez was a grotesque man, full of face and body, his nose a map of red veins. Open at the neck, his robes revealed an expensive, ornate tunic woven through with gold and embroidered with seed pearls. Greased black hair clung to his forehead in an ornate pattern of stringy strands designed to cover his bald spot. His coarse beard needed a trim.
A strange cross between vanity and careless indulgence, he sat on the stool one step higher than Ada, looking down at her. All around their central platform, the citizens of Toledo watched the open-air court, awaiting each bloody verdict.
"State your name," Natalez said, his voice loud and theatrical for the awaiting crowd
She cleared her throat and raised her chin, meeting his small, deeply set eyes. "Ada of Keyworth."
"And where is Keyworth?"
"Inglaterra."
The crowd murmured its interest in her answer, seeming to press closer to the judgment platform.
Natalez only raised an eyebrow, sweat gathering at his temples. He glanced over a piece of parchment and said, "This woman, Ada of Keyworth, stands accused of the following crimes: failure to pay debts to Senor Alvarez in the amount of eight morabetins, failure to pay debts to Senor Calavaras in the amount of nine morabetins, both Christians of Toledo. She is also accused of breaking a contract of sale with Salamo Fayat, a Jew residing in Toledo, originally from Cordoba, and inciting a riot in his place of business."
Each additional charge brought back unpleasant memories, the desperation she had felt while trapped in those moments. Her tongue went dry.
"Will anyone stand for this woman against her accusers?" Natalez asked with that theatrical voice.
"I will:'
Hundreds of eyes bounced from face to face, searching for the man who had volunteered. Ada only closed hers, savoring the blissful sound of Gavriel's voice. And then he was beside her, holding her hand.