Of course.
How could they risk dragging an insentient priest through the gates, past porters and armed soldiers? Much better to head for the quay, where the only people watching were people whose eyesight could go blind for the right amount of coin.
They were headed for the docks.
Jamie must have known.
Holding her body stiffly, her chin tilted just so, she rose and walked across the room toward the counter, fumbling for the purse under her cape, for her knife in case of need, for a reason to explain why her eyes were burning.
Fury. That was it. Sheer fury, that Jamie would think he could outfox her.
He did not know her well at all.
Five
Jamie stood in yet another alley, midpoint between the tavern and the top of the hill that led down to the waterfront, shifting his gaze between the door of the tavern and the docks. Hard darts of rain slanted down, shoving stinging prickles into collars and loose boots. A dull, chilled breeze lurched up from the river through the city streets.
The docks were coming alive; the ebb tide was nigh. Men were climbing aboard little boats. Ropes flew from ship to shore, men shouted, dogs barked, cats stalked. It might be midday on a Saturday down at the quay.
And halfway down the line, amid the scramble of sailors, soaking wet in the rain, were the five squint-eyes.
I am using the waif’s terms, he thought dimly.
Two of them supported the priest between them so he looked like a drunken companion. The other three stood in a protective semicircle, dressed in thick capes that were dark with rain.
All five, plus a deckhand.
Jamie yanked his hood up and looked back to the tavern impatiently, blinking through the rain. Where the hell was the accursed captain?
Why, there he was, walking out of the tavern right now. With the gray-eyed waif at his side. He felt an oddly commingled urge: to grin in admiration and to throttle her slim, wet neck.
The captain put out a weather-roughened, almost protective hand, directing her through the door, then kicked it shut behind them. It squealed and slammed with a hollow, damp thud. Eva’s pale face was tilted up as she spoke in low tones and passed him a small, bulky pouch of what looked like coin. Jamie’s coin.
He drew a long breath, calming himself. Impatience had never been his weakness. It would not become so now. He was accustomed to switchbacks on a route. His entire life had been about readjusting course. Eva was an unexpected curve, a steeper climb, nothing more. He would simply crush her on the way by.
“. . . as your daughter.” She was murmuring some plan or instruction to the captain.
“That’ll only get you so far, bairn,” he replied in a gruff voice, gray bushy eyebrows furrowed over hard eyes that were scanning the streets ahead. “You’ll be needing more of a plan than that. Especially if there’s a rogue knight out here like you’re saying—”
Jamie stepped out of the alley, directly in front of them, sword out.
“What a coincidence,” he said, looking at Eva. “I was just thinking of you too.”
Eva gasped and looked at the captain, but he was wisely keeping his gaze on Jamie. Or rather, Jamie’s sword.
“I realize now I ought ne’er have left you with all that coin,” Jamie went on in a scolding, affectionate tone. “What have you spent it on?”
“Jamie.” The rain spit down on Eva’s shocked face, making her pale cheeks gleam.
The grizzled seaman looked between them.
“My wife,” Jamie explained kindly, then indicated the pouch of money with the tip of his sword. The captain thrust it out on his upturned palm, presenting it like a platter of food, muttering out of the side of his mouth, “You made no mention of a husband.”
“That is because he is a very bad husband,” Eva snapped. Her hood, tugged up for the rain, revealed a white face, her dark brows running in a stern line above her angry eyes. “And that is not his money. His money is down here.” She touched her belt.
The captain glanced down briefly before putting his gaze squarely back on the tip of Jamie’s sword.
Jamie smiled. “I rarely give her the coin. She spends it so recklessly. Bolts of fabric, spices, ship captains.” He nodded to the pouch still squatting damply on the man’s flattened palm. “I am happy to allow you that, sir, and a good deal more, if you aid me but a piece. ’Twill take but a moment of your time.”
The captain brought the sack of coins back to his chest.
Eva seemed to regard this as a discouraging development. She took a small, evasive step to the side, and Jamie snapped his hand out and closed it around her neck before she could put her foot back down. He kept looking at the captain, but he felt Eva swallow under his thumb.
The captain looked at Eva—or rather, at Jamie’s hand around her throat—and cleared his own. “What were ye needing, sir?”
“Those men are abducting a priest.”
“That’s what the lass said.”
“Did she? I wish to stop them.”
“So does she.”
Jamie smiled. “Then our interests are aligned.”
“What do ye need me to do?”
A sudden shout at the end of the road made them all turn. There, at the top of the hill, stood three of the kidnappers, looking wet and angry. “God’s bones, Cap’n, the tide’s ripping out. What the ’ell is holding you—”
They stopped short at the sight of their captain with a pouch of money in his hand and Jamie blocking his way, a sword in one hand, Eva’s throat in the other.
For a moment, they gaped.
It was the sort of long, stationary moment that allowed shock to translate into action. Jamie was fairly certain what the action would be. Four against one, if he put the captain in the squint-eyes’ camp. He felt Eva swallow again. Make that five against one.
“Jamie,” she whispered.
His mind was hurtling through options.
“I can help,” she breathed.
He loosed his fingers and pushed her backward into the alley, then stepped in behind her. The men thundered down the road. The captain ducked in after them, backed up to the wall on the far side. Jamie bent his elbows out, holding his sword hilt before his chest in both hands, the blade trembling so close it almost touched his nose, ready to be swung up and to the side, the backswing to a mortal blow. He put his spine against the wall.
“There were three of them,” she whispered.
“I noted that.”
His heart hammered, his hands opened and closed around the hilt, minute readjustments to perfect his hold, every sinew in his body screaming for release. Fight, maim, slice, destroy. It was what he was built to do.
He kept his gaze on the empty corner. “How are you with that little blade of yours, Eva?”
“Sticking, beyond middling,” she said promptly. “But I made a promise not to kill anyone today.”
He absorbed this in silence. The sound of running boots came closer.
“A most solemn vow,” she assured him.
“Eva, you should have something else exceedingly helpful planned, or you should run. Now.”
The bootsteps reached the alley. Eva crouched low as the first man rounded the corner, sword out. Jamie pushed off the wall and Eva . . . launched herself forward.
Curled in tight, she crashed into the first man’s knees like a boulder. He was bowled backward and smashed into the soldier close on his heels. It knocked the two of them to the ground in a sprawling, boot-kicking mess. Jamie leapt into the fray.
It was a silent, swift fight. With deft swipes, he sliced through the chest armor of the third man as he rounded the corner and tripped over his fallen companions. Spinning, Jamie kicked him in the head just as he was clambering back to his feet. This time he went down like a rock and stayed there.
Eva fought like a mad thing, kicking her hard-soled shoes and scraping her nails and hands past hair and ears and the gripping reach of men, until she found one man’s neck and pinched, just so
, closing off something important. He slumped to the side, unconscious.
With similar, if more violent, efficiency, Jamie took down the last one and, before the soldier’s eyes had fully rolled back in his head, was dragging the load of iron, leather, and stunned flesh over the muddy, hay-strewn cobbles, back into the alley, out of sight.
The captain stood in a forward crouch, his long dagger out but unused. He looked at the bodies strewn about, swords scattered, Eva lying entangled with the unconscious men. Jamie reached into the mess for her hand.
The captain looked at him. “Been married long?”
“Newly wed,” Jamie replied curtly as he yanked Eva free. “There is a great deal more coin in this for you, Captain, if you but delay the launch until I come down.”
“Agreed,” he said firmly. “But if these ones awaken”—he gestured to the downed men—“and come pelting down that hill after you, a delay will not assist you. Nor me.”
“They will not be a problem,” Jamie assured him.
The captain walked off, while Jamie dragged the other two back beside the first one. Eva followed, and they stood side by side, staring down.
“You knocked him clean out,” Jamie observed between breaths.
She nodded, breathing heavily, and brushed a lick of dark hair pasted across her cheek away with the back of her wrist. “I have this effect on many men. They see me and go completely without sense.”
He dropped to a knee and began searching the soldiers’ bodies, searching for any clue of who they might be, of who else was hunting for the priest.
“Why did you not run?” he asked as he rooted through their pockets and pouches.
“Why did you not strangle me?”
He shook his head. “I suppose, deep inside, I suspected you might curl yourself up like an iron cat, roll into their ankles, and knock them down like ninepins.”
“Ah. Not many men see this in their future.”
“Not many men have you in their future,” he said grimly, straightening. The unconscious bodies revealed nothing except that these men did not know how to fight. “Come. Help me with their pants.”
She crouched down at once and started untying the laces that bound hose to braies, remarking, “I would not have suspected this of you, Jamie.”
He grunted, yanking at boots. “What?”
“This, with the hose. I would have thought you the sort to make pretty women swoon, not undress insentient men in alleyways.”
He paused in his work and looked over, his palm on his thigh. “Should the need arise, Eva, I can make a pretty woman swoon. And undress.”
What happened next was worth the brief pause his reply had cost: she blushed, high on her cheekbones and across her forehead. On her delicate features, pale and practically glistening from the rain, it was like a pink flower turning toward the sun.
That, he thought sternly, is ridiculous.
The rain began falling harder. It fell in wind-gusted waves, soaking the hay-strewn streets and slick buildings and crouching humans undressing insentient men in alleys.
“And what do you want we should do with these terrible things?” Eva asked, holding a pile of hose, leather straps, and boots as far from her body as she could.
He got to his feet. “There are orphans here, as in every other town.”
And indeed, even now, behind them, were the swift shiftings that heralded small heads and skinny bodies lurking in the distance.
“Look, urchin,” he called out quietly. “Here.” He tossed the expensive boots over. They rolled with flat, dull thunks over the packed earth and cobbles.
She did the same. “Attendez, pretty urchin,” she called in a whisper. A head poked out, then disappeared. “Ici. Bonne chance.”
“In France, the boots alone would earn enough for the entire warren to eat for weeks.” She turned, tucking loose strands of hair back inside her hood. Slick, knotted, and in utter disarray, it was like black gold disappearing into the billowing dark tunnel of her hood.
He looked away.
They strode swiftly back around the corner, out of the alley, back to the hill. Jamie peered down at the quay. The captain was pointing back up the hill with an angry gesture, whether feigned or real, Jamie didn’t know. Nor did it matter. The two squints exchanged a suspicious glance, then one stepped forward and gave the captain a violent shove backward.
He shouted, his arms windmilling through the air, then he toppled backward into the dangerous, dark river.
The other man began climbing aboard, dragging the priest behind him, just as a head popped up from belowdecks, then another, and two deckhands came rushing up, shouting, wielding hooks and a mallet.
Jamie gave Eva one grim look. “This time, upon your life, stay here.”
Then he stepped out into the road and strode down the hill to the quay.
TO Eva, it felt as though the world slowed down. Jamie moved with utter purpose, and the men at the boat turned to him, one by one.
He drew closer, never slowing, no hitch in his focused, relentless charge. One of the deckhands stepped forward but Jamie blew past him like the wind. One of the kidnappers fumbled at his belt and unhooked a small hatchet, but Jamie simply unsheathed his sword, still on the move, and, gripping it with two hands, smashed it flat-sided against the man’s skull. It knocked him into the dark waters, where he splashed in beside the captain.
Jamie turned to stand in front of Father Peter, not only preventing anyone from grabbing him but protecting him from assault, and lifted his sword.
Loud shouts and cries exploded from everywhere along the long quay, bouncing off the stone and wet wood of the buildings fronting the river. As if from the sewers, men started pouring forth, some clamoring, some silent, all with eager, mean faces and all bearing weapons.
Jamie would be slaughtered.
Eva started running down the hill. Then she started yelling.
Slowly, as if in a dream, everyone turned to her. Then, still in that languid, otherworldly state, everyone turned back to Jamie.
She reached into her skirts for the pouch of Jamie’s money and started throwing coins, wild arcs of them, all over the wet streets.
Six
Locked in mortal combat, Jamie heard her coming. Dead men could have heard her coming. She’d surely awakened the priest, who was now standing of his own volition behind Jamie, shaking his head, stumbling clumsily.
“’Ware the water, curé,” Jamie said.
Most of the thugs who’d been coming turned like a flock of birds at the sight of coin, and chaos descended with wings. Shouting, hollering, cudgels and fists, coin and cold steel, it was mayhem on cobblestones. Jamie sliced through it, his attention narrowed and lethal. He knew the moment someone stepped up behind him.
“What took you so long?” he snapped without turning.
“My apologies, Jamie.” The man he’d spoken to swung his sword, making an onrusher howl in pain and drop back. “It took me a moment to comprehend the man I saw going into a tavern half an hour back was you, seeing as we had not spoken about you stopping for a drink. Why are we in battle? I was certain we were about a job this evening.”
“This is the job.”
“Did you not vow to me we were done with sword fights in the streets?”
Jamie spun, sweeping his sword before him. A cutthroat about to launch at Jamie’s back went flying and slammed into a few others. They rolled into a third group, and a new miniature riot broke out to their left.
“There are a great many rank, villainous men interested in you tonight,” Jamie’s friend muttered as they swung their way through the crowd, backs together. “More than is usual. Is there some cause for that?”
“Aye. They asked where you lived and I wouldn’t tell them. Have you seen the priest?” Jamie demanded, kicking someone out of his way. The buildings on either side hemmed the fight in, ensuring it wouldn’t lessen in intensity anytime soon. They made their way to the far edge of the circle of fighting.
J
amie swept his gaze over the riot. “Where the devil is he?”
Ah, there. With Eva, at the other end of the block. Her cape rippled in the gusts of wind, her hair swept out in dark, ribbony streamers. She caught a handful and trapped it against her temple, staring across the sea of fighting until she caught sight of him.
She dipped her head forward, her eyebrows raised in silent query. Are all your limbs still attached?
He nodded. She smiled, which felt surprisingly warm, considering how far apart they were. Then she gave a small wave and mouthed something. It looked like, Bonne nuit.
Good night.
Then she disappeared around the corner and took the blessed damned priest with her.
Seven
Have you coin?” Father Peter asked as they hurried through the city streets.
Eva shifted her arm to support him a little more as they hurried over the slick cobbles. “A bit.”
“Enough to get through the gates?”
“One can hope.”
“Do not flash it about.”
“You should not know such things as how to bribe gate porters,” she scolded. “You, a man of God.”
“If I were a proper man of God, Eva, you would not be alive.”
She glanced over. “Did they bash your head in?” she asked in concern.
“They tried.”
She patted his arm and said briskly, “I should not worry much; it is terribly hard.”
“Not so hard as yours. Why are you here in England? I do not want you here.”
“In this way, we are alike, padre. Being in this cold, wet land is not something I enjoy like wine. It is much more like ale.”
“You should not be drinking ale, Eva,” he scolded in the familiar affectionate tone that would have brought tears to her eyes if she had not vowed never to allow tears to befoul her eyes again. But it was astonishing how one fell back into the old ways with an old friend.
Father Peter’s brown robe swirled against his ankles as they hurried toward the town gates. “Now answer me, Eva: why have you come to England?”
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