The Dark Knight

by Phillips, Tori

  A noise awoke Tonia with a start. Angry with herself for falling to sleep again in the middle of her prayers, she blamed the lack of food for making her light-headed. Again she heard the noise that had disturbed her slumber. Someone had returned to the guards’ room. She was not alone! A sudden gladness overwhelmed her before her common sense prevailed. Whomever was bustling around out there had not come to free her, or he would have done so immediately. This unseen person was either a new jailer, perhaps one skilled in torture—or her executioner.

  Through the barred window she saw a light move toward her. Her stomach growled with a bleak anticipation of food. A man’s heavy tread echoed down the narrow corridor; his armament jingled as he walked. Then a dark form blotted out the light on the other side of the door.

  Her heart nearly jumping out of her breast in fear, Tonia pulled herself erect. She would face this stranger on her feet rather than huddling on her knees. After all, she was a Cavendish, one of England’s greatest families. She would not dishonor the Cavendish’s sterling reputation for bravery—no matter what the next few moments might bring.

  A key rattled in the door’s lock. Tonia’s teeth chattered. Clenching her jaw, she squared her shoulders. She would be bold, like the great wolf that was the Cavendish family emblem. Squealing in protest, the door swung open on its rusty hinges.

  Tonia sucked in her breath.

  The man in the doorway appeared huge. His dark cape covered his broad shoulders, making him look as if he had just furled two large black wings. He had to duck his head to enter her cell. When he lifted his lantern higher, a small cry welled up inside Tonia. The man wore a black hood over half his face—an executioner’s mask.

  Even though her knees shook with terror and weakness from hunger, Tonia dropped a small curtsy before her fate.

  “Good evening, my Lord of Death,” she said in a steady voice. “I have been expecting you.”

  The man took a step toward her then stopped and lifted his lantern higher still. Behind the slits in his mask, Tonia saw a pair of dark blue eyes glitter in the candle’s light.

  Now that the worst had happened, she felt almost giddy with relief. “Come in, sir, and close the door quickly behind you. I fear you are causing a draft, and I am chilled enough as it is.”

  He stood still like a large shadow.

  Tonia stepped more into the pool of light cast by the lantern. Giving him a smile, she hoped that her lips did not tremble. “I pray you, my lord, do not linger but close the door. My time grows shorter by the minute and I prefer not to freeze to death in the meanwhile.”

  Giving Tonia the briefest of nods, the hooded man turned and shut the door as if he were a guest in her father’s house instead of a rough minion of the crown. Then he placed the lantern on the small plank table that constituted the cell’s main piece of furniture.

  “You are Lady Gastonia Cavendish?” he asked in a low tone. Had the man not been a headsman, his voice could have belonged to a minstrel.

  She inclined her head. “I am. And who, sir, are you?”

  He shook his head, and half turned away from her. “My name is not important.”

  Judging from the sound of his voice, Tonia deduced that the man was young, perhaps near to her own age of three-and-twenty. She smiled again. “You fear that I would curse you with my last breath if I knew your identity?” When he did not reply, she suspected that she had hit the core of truth. “Have no fear, Master Death. My last words will be for God alone, I assure you.”

  The headsman strode to the fireplace and stared at the heap of cooling ashes on the hearth. “Why did they not give you more wood before they left?”

  Taken aback by his question, Tonia shrugged. “Why should they waste fuel—or food—on one who will be dead by dawn?” She hid her hands in the folds of her cloak so that he would not see them trembling. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep up her veneer of courage.

  He glanced at her over his shoulder. “You have not eaten?”

  Tonia sank down on the only stool. “Not since last evening at this time. I fear that you arrived just before my midday meal.”

  “’Tis no way to treat a lady,” he muttered, more to himself than to her.

  Tonia detected a chivalry that she had not expected from so dire a visitor. “My jailers did not consider me a lady, but only a common criminal awaiting my appointment with death.” When he said nothing in response to this, she pushed her boldness a little further. “I pray you, sir, could you fetch me a cup of clean water before we proceed to more serious matters? My throat is parched. I would bless your name, if I knew it, for such a little kindness.”

  He muttered something that sounded like an oath under his breath, but Tonia did not recognize the language. Then he turned on his heel. Without a word to her or a backward glance, he flung open the door, strode through it and banged it shut behind him. At least he had left his lantern. Tonia stretched out her fingers to its flickering heat while she wondered what would happen next.

  Once he had rounded the corner of the hall, Sandor ripped off his hood and mopped his sweating face with his sleeve. Why hadn’t one of those gadje guards warned him that his intended victim was young and exceedingly beautiful, instead of the old crone he had expected? He pressed his burning forehead against the rough stone wall to cool his skin, though nothing could temper the flame that had ignited him the moment his lantern’s light had fallen upon Lady Gastonia.

  Tall and slim like a willow in a summer meadow; her every movement like a dance. Bright blue eyes like precious sapphires set against the white silk of her skin. And her hair! Sandor groaned to himself. A man would be in paradise if he could lose himself within that raven cascade; her disheveled appearance from her captivity only made her more enticing. And what unexpected courage lodged in her heart! She had curtsied to him as if he were the finest lord of the land even though she had recognized him for what he was—the instrument of her death.

  Sandor clenched his large hands. This beautiful gadji had been sent to tempt his soul. Pushing that thought, and more lusty ones, to the back of his mind, Sandor replaced the hood over his head. Then he lifted the water skin from the peg on the guardroom wall and threw its strap over his shoulder. Loading one arm with a stack of split logs and kindling, he swept up his travel pack and an abandoned cup with his free hand. Taking a deep breath for fortification, he returned to the lady’s cell. Before pushing open the door, he peered through the little window.

  Lady Gastonia still sat on the stool, though she had drawn his lantern closer to her. Its golden glow lit up her face. Jaj! She was even more beautiful than he had first thought. What madness had possessed the ministers of the King to seek the death of such a flower as this one? He pushed open the door, causing her to look up at him. She smiled, not like a woman knowledgeable of the world, but like an innocent child—and yet no child had such lush lips so full of delightful promise. He kicked the door shut behind him.

  Her finely arched brows drew up. “You come better provisioned than I had hoped, sir.”

  Her voice was silver, rippling like the music of a lover’s lute. He swallowed the knot in his throat. “I have traveled three nights and four days in the saddle since London, my lady,” he said as he dumped the firewood on the hearth stone. “I am cold, tired and hungry.” Hungry for her, as well as the bread and cheese that he had in his sack.

  She folded her hands in her lap. “I fear this place does not offer many comforts.”

  You are here and that is a comfort. Sandor shook off this dangerous thought. The lady was marked for death, not life. He hunkered down before the fireplace and arranged the logs and brush. Then he thrust a twig into the lantern’s flame. When it ignited, he touched it to the dry kindling. Flames leapt at his command. Sandor was aware that the bewitching gadji moved her stool a little closer to the fire. He could feel the heat of her body behind him even through the fur-lined cloak that he wore.

  “My grateful thanks to you, Monsieur de Mort,” she
murmured. She lifted the skirts of her simple gray gown so that the fire could warm her feet and ankles.

  Sandor dared to look at her again, though her beauty made his tongue stick to the roof of his mouth. “You speak French?” he blurted out.

  “Oui,” she replied, then continued in that language. “My mother was born in the Loire Valley. From birth, my sisters and I learned both French and English.”

  He wet his dry lips. “I was born in a field outside of Paris one winter’s morn when my family camped there for the season,” he replied in French.

  Again she lifted her dainty brows, and her jewel eyes widened. “You were born in a tent?”

  He chuckled. “Oui, and my first cradle was our wagon horse’s collar.”

  “Then you were like the infant Jesu?” Her voice held wonderment.

  He shook his head. “Non, we believe it is good luck for newborns to sleep in such a bed. Horses are our life. That is the way of the Rom.” He fed another log to the fire.

  She half cocked her head, then asked in English, “Pray, what is a Rom? I am not familiar with that word in either language.”

  Sandor lifted the water skin off his shoulder, uncorked it and poured some of its liquid into the chipped clay cup. Why should he be afraid to tell her? After all, he was here to kill her, wasn’t he? Her opinion, one way or the other, was of no importance to him. She was only a gadji.

  He handed the cup to her. “The Rom are my people,” he said as she gulped down the water. “That is what we call ourselves.” He poured more into her cup. “You…that is…Christians have called us many different names, some of them are not fit for a lady’s ears.” He took a deep breath. Why was his heart beating so fast? “The French thought that we came over the sea from Egypt because our skin is darker, our hair is black and we speak in a strange tongue.”

  “Egypt!” The lady’s eyes shone. “A friend of my family’s is a merchant who travels over the Mediterranean Sea. Jobe has often told us wondrous tales of that ancient country. How I have longed to go there! Tell me, are there truly beasts that have large mouths full of fearsome teeth and scales so thick that arrows bounce off them?”

  Sandor could not help but smile at her enthusiasm. He shrugged. “I do not know, my lady. I have never been to Egypt. Nor has any member of my clan, yet we are called Egyptians. But here in England, the Rom are known as Gypsies.”

  The lady regarded him over the cup’s rim. “You are a Gypsy, then?”

  He nodded, watching for her reaction. She surprised him by smiling.

  “I have never met a Gypsy before, but I have heard of your people.”

  “No doubt,” Sandor muttered. He could well imagine what good gadje parents would tell their delectable daughters about the evil Gypsies.

  “When I was little, my mother taught me a poem—a silly little rhyme.” She put the half-empty cup on the table, and then recited, “‘If you enjoy having futures foretold,/Watch out for your pennies, your silver and gold.”’

  Sandor gave her a rueful look, then completed the doggerel that he too had learned as a child in France. “‘These ragged tramps, full of futures to tell,/Bear little but the words of the fortunes they sell.”’

  She held out her hand, palm up. “Can you read my fortune?”

  It is death. Aloud, he replied, “Nay, my lady. My grandmother has that skill—I do not. I am a trainer of horses.”

  She furrowed her brows. “Methought you were the headsman.”

  Sandor looked away from her—her beautiful eyes could pierce his thin defenses. He opened his sack and took out several cloth-wrapped items. “I am that as well—for the moment.”

  She gasped aloud. When he looked at her, he saw that she had turned a shade paler.

  “Do not be alarmed, Lady Gastonia. I will be gentle when I…uh…take you.”

  She uttered a high, brittle laugh. “You will kill me with kindness?”

  He clenched his jaw before answering. “I do what I am bound to do, my lady. I bear weighty responsibilities that are not of my own choosing. Believe me when I tell you that I am no murderer. Merely a servant of the crown.”

  He unwrapped strips of dry smoked meat, then paused. It went against the Rom’s strict rule of marime to eat with a gadji. Everyone knew that the non-Rom were polluted with evil. His food would be defiled if this beautiful lady even touched it. Yet she was starving. Brusquely he offered a piece to her.

  With only a brief hesitation, she accepted it and gingerly tasted it. “’Tis good!” She sounded surprised—and pleased.

  “My grandmother always said that food seasoned with hunger tastes the best.” He took a large bite from his piece. “I assure you, my lady, I would not poison you. ’Tis not in the death warrant.”

  She swallowed the food, then asked, “Have you my warrant with you?”

  “Aye.” He regarded her out of the corner of his eye slit. “Can you read?”

  She nodded. “If the penmanship is not cramped and the wording is in a language I know.”

  Sandor wiped his hands on his leather breeches before he extracted the thick parchment from his shirt. The King’s official seal swung from a red ribbon at the bottom. He handed it to her. “Then read your fate, if you so desire,” he said, wishing he had that learning.

  Lady Gastonia pulled the lantern closer to her, then pored over the words. Warming his backside by the fire, Sandor watched her. He liked the way the lantern’s light caught the reddish highlights in her dark hair. Her lips moved as she read, and Sandor fantasized her whispering his name while they made love. He could almost taste the honey of her kisses. He yearned to feel the satin of her milky skin against his own swarthy one. His loins began to throb.

  Sandor shifted his position, in part to hide his growing arousal. Though the laws of the kris forbade it, he had made love to gadje women in his reckless youth, and they had moaned with pleasure at his touch. He looked down at his hands. He brushed the knotted thong of the garrote hitched in his belt.

  She has bewitched me. Turning his back to her, he stared into the crackling flames. For a moment he had forgotten his pledge to his uncle and his responsibilities toward the family who had reared him after the death of his parents. His little cousin languished in the depths of the Tower at the King’s pleasure until Sandor could bring proof of this lady’s sudden demise. The sooner he did his job, the sooner Demeo would be free. He glanced over his shoulder at Lady Gastonia.

  I can take her now, while she has her back to me. She would feel very little pain. It would be a quick death. I could be riding back to London before noon tomorrow. He pulled the garrote from his belt and looped it around his fingers.

  Chapter Two

  Sandor turned to face his victim. The knotted cord of the leather garrote bit into the flesh of his palms, just as it would bite deeply into the creamy skin of the lady’s swanlike neck. He swallowed. A burst of sweat dampened his mask. He took a step toward her. Lady Gastonia shifted on her stool and the wooden crucifix that hung from her neck thumped against her tight bodice. Sandor stared at the tiny, outstretched figure on the cross—the same cross that had damned the Rom to wander the earth forever, or so the storytellers swore.

  Sandor loosened his grip on the garrote. Even though she was a gadji, he knew that Lady Gastonia was a holy woman. Her plain garb and absence of jewelry proclaimed her piety. He could not kill her without allowing her the chance to make her amends to God, though he could not imagine what sin she could possibly have committed. He did not want to have her unshriven spirit haunt him the remaining years of his life.

  Just then, the lady looked up at him. The expression in the depths of her azure eyes melted away his murderous intent. Forgive me, lady.

  Then she laughed, though there was no mirth in the sound. “Did you know that my good judges have decreed that none of my blood shall be shed?”

  Sandor suspected that they did not want her death to defile them any more than they already were. When he did not reply, she continued.

/>   “When my father learns of my execution, the King and his minions can truthfully say that they did not spill my blood, yet I will be stone dead all the same.” She shook her head. “Oh, the clever wit of the lawyerly mind! They split their words thinner than a cook can slice an onion. Aye, and weep the same tears without sorrow while doing it.”

  Behind his back, Sandor gripped the garrote. He said nothing since there was nothing he could tell her that would refute her clear-eyed deduction. He cleared his throat. Best to warn her to make herself ready to meet death. His hands shook.

  She sipped more water from the cup then asked, “How will you do it? Kill me, that is?”

  Sandor winced inwardly yet marveled at the candor of her question. He held up the knotted garrote. “With this, my lady.”

  Her mouth trembled just a little before she bit her lower lip. Then she asked, “Will it hurt much?”

  I have no idea. Aloud, he spoke in the same voice he used to soothe a skittish colt. “They say ’tis quick.”

  She gave him a taut smile. “Who are ‘they,’ I wonder? And how do these wise men know such a thing? Has anyone come back from the dead to tell them?”

  Sandor knelt before her so that they were eye-to-eye. He longed to take her hand in his. He hated the idea that she feared him. “I could wait until you sleep, then cover your face with my cloak.”

  She touched the furred edge of his cape. “How could I fall asleep knowing that I would never wake again in this world?”

  He tore his gaze from hers. “I have no answer to that, my lady. I only know what I must do. I pray that you forgive me.”

  She touched the back of his hand. “Gentle Lord of Death, I have already forgiven you.”