“He was sorry for what he was doing?” Tonia asked, swept up in the tale and not caring if it were true or not.
Again Sandor chuckled. “Sorry? Nay, ’twas thrift that stayed his hand. The blacksmith knew the manner of a crucifixion and he thought to himself, ‘The feet require only one nail, not two, for they can be crossed one on top of the other. I will give the soldiers these three, wrapped in a cloth, and they will think ’tis four. I will be twice paid—by the soldiers, who are nothing but gadje, and I will save the iron of the fourth nail for a future use.’ As soon as the soldiers left with their nails inside the cloth, the blacksmith took down his tent, loaded his cart and drove down the road.”
Tonia bowed her head. “And so they crucified Jesus with only three nails.”
“Aye.” Sandor released a long sigh. “That night ’twas very dark, for the clouds covered the moon when the blacksmith lay down to sleep. In the middle of the night, he was awakened by a strange hissing sound and when he looked outside his tent he saw a large nail, glowing red-hot, hanging in the air before him. The man was so frightened that he struck his tent immediately and hurried off into the desert. But the fiery nail followed him. Every night it hung over him, reminding him that he had made the Son of God suffer more for the lack of the fourth nail.”
“Sweet Jesu!” Tonia whispered.
“And so that is why the Rom can never stay in one place for very long. God is angry at our greed and the Christians revile us for forging the nails in the first place.” Sandor shook his head. “At least that is what I was always told.”
She touched his cheek. “Do you believe this story?”
He shrugged. “It could be true. The Rom have always worked in metal. I myself make the shoes and nails for my horses.”
Tonia turned over his hand and caressed the hard calluses that were the hallmark of his work. “Will we too be pursued by God?”
He gave her a hug. “I know not, ’tis but no matter. You will be safe with me.” They shared a moment of thoughtful silence before Sandor spoke again. “To tell you the truth, I must be a very bad Rom, for I have always wanted to live in a house.”
Tonia relaxed and laid her head on his shoulder. “Methinks that you have repaid your own debt to God by sparing my life.”
Sandor gave himself a shake, then tilted her face up to him. “Before we speak more of our future, we must consider the present.”
“I am here with you.”
He brushed her lips with a quick kiss. “Aye, but we cannot stay here. Even now, there are powerful men in London wondering why I have not returned.”
“To report my death to them.”
His expression grew very hard. “Aye, but there is more to it that was not written in the warrant. I warn you, ’twill curdle your blood with horror. It did mine when I first heard their command.”
His voice was completely emotionless and the sound chilled her. “What more did they desire? The death of my family as well?”
Sandor closed his eyes. “Your heart,” he said in a strangled tone.
Tonia sagged against him. “But…but there was to be no bloodletting. I read the warrant myself.”
Sandor hugged her tighter. “I was ordered to take out your heart after your death and to put it in a small casket.” He barked a sharp laugh. “Ha! They even gave me the box, all bound with brass and a lock.”
Tonia clasped her cold hands together. Shudders racked her body. “You would have done this? Plunged a knife into my…my breast?”
“Nay, my best beloved,” he soothed. “How could I do that? I could not even kill you, much less desecrate your beautiful body. I knew that I could not from the first moment that I beheld you.”
Tonia moaned under her breath while Sandor continued to hold her and kiss her hair. When the first shock receded, she considered the motivation behind such a barbaric request. “Who are these bloodthirsty men?”
His eyes flashed. “I know not. The Constable of the Tower gave the box and instructions to my uncle. When Gheorghe asked the same question, he was told ’twas the King’s business and not his.”
Tonia furrowed her brow. “Methinks King Edward knows nothing of this. ’Tis one or two of his ministers. But why?” Suddenly the reason shone crystal clear in her mind. “Sweet Saint Anne! ’Tis diabolical indeed!”
Sandor stared at her; a muscle along his jaw quivered. “Do you know the man?”
“Nay, but he has the devil’s own mind. You take back that box with my heart in it—”
“Together with a lock of your hair and a piece of your gown,” Sandor added.
“Exactly so!” Tonia grew angrier with each breath. “For true proof of my death. And this double-dyed villain will send it north again to my parents at Snape Castle. Oh, my poor mother! ’Twill kill her to see such a sight!”
Sandor whistled through his teeth. “To what purpose?”
“I was tried for treason because I wanted to practice my religion in the old-fashioned way. For the past few years, the laws of this land have grown very harsh toward any form of Catholic worship.” Unable to contain the energy that her rage had unleashed, Tonia rose and began to pace up and down.
“In the churches, altars are smashed and replaced with common tables. Prayers are recited in English instead of Latin. Statues of the saints and holy candles have been outlawed. King Edward wishes to replace our beliefs with the so-called ‘New Learning.’ His half sister, the Princess Mary, has refused and she remains a steadfast Catholic. Should the King die, she is next in line for the throne, and Edward is very ill, I hear. His ministers must be quaking in their boots!”
“But what are kings and queens to you? Is your family royal?”
Tonia paused before the fire. The family’s motto flashed across her mind: Neither Collar nor Crown. “Nay, but the Cavendishes are the most influential family in the north—and we are Catholic. Howsoever we lead, the good people of the fells and moors will follow. Aye, Sandor, we are cause for fear among those who crave power. By proving my death to my parents in such a gruesome way, these vile men demonstrate their might and so keep the Cavendishes at home should the common people rise up in revolt against the government.”
Sandor struck his thigh with his fist. “And I was to be their black hand.”
“Aye.” Tonia sighed. Her fury waned and was replaced by a heavy fatigue. “I was to be executed in secret. No one to know of the deed till it was long past done. None of my blood spilled in the execution so that no one’s tender conscience would be stained. My parents probably do not even realize that I was in such dire danger. By the time they should see my heart, I would be cold in the ground in an unknown grave. ’Tis too wicked to contemplate!”
Rising, Sandor took her in his arms. Hugging him, she wept fresh tears of relief. How close her family had come to perdition and sorrow!
“I will avenge your honor, for ’tis my honor now,” he said, rubbing the nape of her neck.
Tonia gripped his arms. His muscles tensed under her fingers. “Revenge, aye! But not yourself alone. We must go to my father and—”
Sandor shook his head. “Nay! Remember, you are dead, and for both our sakes, as well as my family’s, you must stay dead to the world’s eyes. Even now my little cousin Demeo lies in the Tower’s dungeons as surety for my swift return with the proof of the deed.”
Tonia gasped. “In my happiness, I had forgotten him! You have tarried here too long.”
He sighed. “Aye, ’tis why I must be gone tomorrow. When I went to tend Baxtalo, I saw that the snow had stopped some hours ago. The wind has turned, bringing warm air from the south. Methinks, ’twill melt tomorrow if the sun shines. Tonight, we must devise our plans with care.”
Tonia stiffened.
“How, now?” He looked around as if he expected someone to burst in upon them.
She gave him a wry look, then pointed to the hob. “Methinks our supper is burning.”
Chapter Fourteen
Overshadowed by the separation
that they knew lay ahead, Sandor and Tonia shared their supper of the salvaged hare pie in a silence filled with poignant tenderness. Tonia feasted her eyes on her new husband, trying to imprint his features in her heart. He, in turn, held her in his steady gaze while he ate. Afterward he took her in his arms and pillowed her against his chest while they spoke long into the night.
“You will be safe enough here, sukar,” he reassured her. “I will leave you all the food, and the woodpile is still high. Your guards must have done nothing but chop dead trees to fill up their time while they were here.”
She traced the furrows and ridges of his hands with her fingertip. “Indeed, they left me alone in my cell save for pushing food and scanty fuel through the hatch. At night, methinks they overimbibed their ale, for their voices were loud and raucous like a flock of ravens.”
He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it. “’Tis fortunate for their future health that they did not harm you.”
Tonia said nothing but snuggled deeper in his embrace. It would serve no purpose to tell Sandor that she had feared the rough men who had brought her to Hawksnest. Daily, she had expected ravishment, despite the fact that the soldiers had been ordered not to touch her. Who would have known what they had done? The victim was already condemned. One terrifying night she had even heard them debating the matter. Only the cooler head of the sergeant in charge had stopped the others. At least one man among them had been honorable.
“I was protected by my angels,” she finally said. Tonia believed it was true.
“Then I pray that your angels have not abandoned you now,” Sandor rumbled deep in his throat. “Tomorrow, I must make all speed to London. ’Twill be a hard journey for Baxtalo, but he has a great heart.” His jaw tensed. “I wish to God that I did not have to leave you here alone.”
She agreed, but for both their sakes, she assumed the veneer of courage that she had used when Sandor had first arrived. “We have already chewed that subject to shreds, my love,” she soothed, though she trembled inside.
“If I took refuge at one of the inns in Harewold, the whole village would know of it within the hour. If anyone came looking for a young woman of my description, ’twould be child’s play to find me there. And my home is too far to the north for you to take me there first.” Regret tinged her sigh. “You would lose valuable time.”
He sighed. “When I return, I will take you to your parents, though we will have to travel under the cover of night. No one must see us.”
Tonia nodded. “You will come back soon?” she asked, although she had already asked this question twice before.
Sandor kissed her ear. “As soon as I have delivered the box to the Constable and made sure of Demeo’s release. ’Twill be a week if the roads are good. Ten days at the most. How could I stay away when you have my heart?”
She shuddered at the mention of hearts. She had almost gagged when Sandor had shown her the pig’s that he had purchased from a butcher. Now it lay in the King’s infernal box, along with a swatch of her gown and a curl of hair from the nape of her neck. She wrapped herself around him. “Speak to me of love, not of hearts.”
“Aye, I will show you once again the depth of my love soon, but first there are a few more things you must know,” he replied. He pulled out a dagger from his boot and laid it in her hand. The metal chilled her skin. “Could you use this to defend yourself? Could you kill a man if needs be?”
Tonia gripped the leather-wrapped haft. In her soul, she knew that she possessed neither the physical strength nor the bloodlust to do such a vile deed, but she could not tell Sandor. His worries for his family already weighed him down. “Am I not the daughter of the best swordsman in England?” she sidestepped her answer.
He chuckled. “Aye, so you have said, but this is a chiv, not a sword. Jaj, I wish I had the time to teach you how to throw it.”
“Is it very hard to learn?”
“It takes many hours of practice.”
Sandor gently untwined her from his side, then he rose from their cot. He plucked a bit of charcoal from the edge of the fire and drew the outline of a man on the wooden door. He marked the spot where the human heart lodged, and set the lantern so that it cast its light on the target. Then he stepped back to the far end of the room. He drew out his hidden arsenal of knives: one from his belt, a second from his other boot and one from the sheath that Tonia knew was strapped to his forearm. He pulled the final blade from the casing that hung down his back.
She attempted a jest to soften the set expression in his face. “By my troth, Sandor, I never realized that I had married a hedgehog full of prickly bristles.”
He flashed her a grin that showed a great deal of white teeth. “English law forbids Gypsies to carry arms, even a bow and arrow. ’Tis why I call these my eating knives. Now watch.”
He had barely finished speaking before he threw the first one at the door. The others followed in a flashing blur. Tonia gasped. Three out of the four impaled the charcoal heart. The fourth lodged in the figure’s left arm at the shoulder.
“’Tis a marvelous wonder!” Tonia breathed. “Not even my father could do such a feat as that,” she added truthfully, staring at the four quivering daggers.
Sandor lifted his chin a notch as he worked to free his blades from the wood. “You think so? Pah! I missed one. ’Twas the poor light.” But he looked pleased with himself despite his protestations.
After he returned his weapons to their hidden recesses, he sat down next to her again. “Practice,” he reiterated. He opened his arms to her.
Tonia curled against him once more. “I will be watchful,” she assured him. “Besides, no one has passed by save yourself since I was first brought here.”
Sandor furrowed his brow. “Praise the Lord God for that. But if you are forced to leave Hawksnest before my return, I want you to lay a trail of patrin so that I can follow where you have gone.”
Tonia rubbed the side of her nose. “Patrin?” she repeated.
“’Tis a sign made of grasses bent a certain way, or a twig broken just so that will point your direction. ’Tis how the Rom find each other in unknown countryside.”
“Oh!”
Using her fingers and his, Sandor taught her the various patrin common to his people. Tonia sucked on her lower lip. She was not sure she could remember all the patterns. “I will be here when you return,” she promised him. “Just hurry!”
He kissed her on the tip of her nose. “Use these signs. But if you cannot, I will still find you, even if I must travel to the ends of the earth.”
Tonia returned his kiss. “They say that the earth is round.” He tasted of honey and hare pie.
“Ha! How do you know this? You have never traveled anywhere. ’Tis flat, and filled with a great many mud holes in the middle of poor roads.” Sandor unlaced her bodice. “Let us put away this dull talk of knives and pigs’ hearts. ’Tis our wedding night and I wish to lie with my bride to make sure that she will remember me.”
His warm hands cupped her breasts. With a deep sigh of pleasure, Tonia lay down on the fleece. She would worry about tomorrow when tomorrow came. For tonight, she wanted only Sandor’s love.
Jaj! Now I am starting to think like a Gypsy!
Guy paced the narrow confines of the inn’s main bedchamber that he shared with his son and nephew. Though darkness still cloaked the moor beyond his dirt-speckled window, a thin sliver of pale gray light sliced the horizon, signaling the approach of a new day. Guy pressed his face against the bottle-thick glass of the panes and watched the rose-hued dawn arrive. Knotting his hands into fists, he dug his fingernails into his palms.
Tonia was dead. In his heart he knew it. By now, she had been imprisoned too long to have escaped the King’s unjust sentence. All he could hope for was to locate her body and return it home for a proper burial under Snape’s chapel floor. ’Twould give his wife cold comfort, but perhaps it would ease her grief a little to know that their eldest child lay within their walls. After that,
Guy would ride to London and ferret out the villains responsible for this heinous crime against the most innocent maiden in England.
“How now, Father?” Francis sat up in the trundle bed he shared with Kitt. “What’s amiss?”
Guy gave his only son a brief smile. “The morning comes apace.”
Francis jabbed his elbow into the side of his sleeping cousin. “Up, Kitt!”
The youngest Cavendish rolled out of the low bed onto the floor. He rose to his knees bleary-eyed but alert. “What ho! Are we attacked?” He fumbled for his sword.
Guy shook his head. “’Tis time we were away. I am a-weary of this lice palace.” He rapped on the windowpane with his knuckle. “It grows more light. Today will be fair.”
Francis struggled into his tight-fitting doublet. “We shall find Tonia today, Father.”
Guy did not meet his son’s eyes. “I fear that you speak the truth,” he replied in a low voice.
Sandor found his leave-taking to be more painful than he had anticipated. He fought the urge to pull Tonia up behind him and ride away with her to Scotland, instead of returning to London by himself. Holding Baxtalo’s bridle while he saddled his steed, Tonia gave Sandor brave smiles but he saw the sheen of concern in her jewel eyes.
“One kiss more,” he said in a husky tone, after he had tightened the girth. “Kiss me until I cannot breathe.”
She flew into his arms and hugged him as an ivy vine clung to an ancient oak. “I love you, Sandor,” she whispered between their kisses. “Hurry back soon.”
“I will,” he promised. With a final, bruising embrace that left him on fire and short of breath, he swung into the saddle. “Jel ‘sa Duvvel,” he blessed her. “Go with God.”
“And with you,” she whispered. She swallowed back her tears. There would be time enough for them later.
Sandor wanted to kiss away her sorrow, but the sun had already sent his rays over the crest of the mountain. Not trusting himself to say anything else, he turned Baxtalo toward the front gate and kneed him into a trot. Once they were on the post road, he would push his faithful mount to eat the miles to London. Sandor looked back over his shoulder just before Baxtalo crossed over the moat’s bridge. Tonia waved and flashed him a brave smile. Gritting his teeth, Sandor turned away to face the journey at hand.
The Dark Knight Page 15