The Dark Knight

by Phillips, Tori

  “Go with God,” he answered.

  Before he made more of a fool of himself by crying like a child, Sandor turned away and strode across the field of daisies and cornflowers to where Baxtalo waited for him. He quickly saddled and bridled his horse. He stuffed his few personal belongings into a single sack, much like the one the tarocchi Fool carried. Sandor armed himself with a set of his spare knives, then rolled up a blanket and tied it to his saddle. After one final wave to the distant figure of his beloved grandmother, he swung himself onto Baxtalo’s back.

  “Hi-up, my friend,” he said to his horse. “We head for the north once more, this time on lighter feet. Let us go down the road! Jallin a drom!”

  Tonia tugged on her bodice, not laced as tightly as it had been only a few weeks earlier. She smoothed her skirts over the little curve of her stomach then adjusted her headdress. This was the first time she would speak to her father since her mother had told him of her pregnancy. She had no idea how Guy had taken the news. She chewed some fresh mint leaves both to sweeten her breath and to aid her continued indigestion. Mamma had promised her that the nausea would pass soon. Tonia certainly hoped so. She had not been able to keep down much food and she worried that the babe in her womb would suffer from the lack of nourishment.

  Squaring her shoulders and lifting her chin, she knocked on the door of her father’s counting room. Because of its privacy, the counting room had always been Pappa’s lair, especially when it came to serious discussions with one of the four women in his family. Tonia highly doubted that the walls of this chamber had ever heard anything like what would be said within the next few minutes.

  “Enter,” growled Guy.

  Tonia’s hand shook a little as she lifted the latch. Pappa sat behind his imposing, carved desk—not a good sign. He looked up when she entered, the pain in his blue eyes was heartrending.

  Assuming that this interview was a formal one, Tonia dropped a deep curtsy as befitted a dutiful daughter to her father. “Pappa,” she said softly.

  Would he unleash the infamous Cavendish temper? Call her a slut and a whore? Of all the men in the family, Guy was usually the most controlled, which made his rare outbursts all the more frightening.

  He rose and came around the desk. “Sweet Tonia,” he said in a low, gruff tone. He took her hand in his and raised her to a standing position. Then he enfolded her in his arms.

  “How you must have suffered,” he murmured against her cheek.

  Tonia drew in her breath. Making love to Sandor had been ecstasy, not painful. It was his continued absence that had driven a great thorn into her heart. Until Tonia understood her father’s sympathy, she would play the role of a simple maiden.

  “I am feeling much improved, Pappa,” she replied brightly. “I am able to eat more these past few days.”

  Guy led her to his padded chair and held it for her as she took her seat. “That is good news, indeed, but ’tis…ahem…I was speaking of your time at Hawksnest. I know that you would prefer to put the entire matter of your arrest and imprisonment behind you, but I must ask you to bear the pain of memory a little longer. I must bring those dogs to justice.”

  Tonia folded her hands over her stomach, very conscious of its slight rise under her gown and petticoats. “I fear that my judges are too close to the throne for punishment, Pappa. I pray you, leave them be. ’Tis past and done. I am dead in their minds, and I prefer to stay that way.”

  He dropped to one knee beside her chair. “I did not mean those men, Tonia,” he said. His eyes searched hers. “’Tis your guards that I speak of, the ones who violated your person and stole your…honor. Do you remember any of their names? Or can you describe what they looked like? Any scars or moles? I vow that they will swing in chains for your injury.”

  Tonia swallowed. She twirled the horseshoe-nail ring around her finger. He thinks I was raped! She bent her head, allowing her hair to slide over her ears and hide her face, while her brain spun like a whirligig in a high wind. If she told the truth of her marriage to Sandor, she knew that her father would not understand. He would say that a honey-tongued knave whose daily pastime was deceit had duped her. Pappa would think that she had bought her life with her body.

  And had Tonia done just that? She squeezed shut her eyes. Is that why Sandor had not followed the trail of patrin she had laid from Hawksnest to Snape Castle’s very door? She bit her lower lip until she tasted blood.

  Guy rubbed her shoulder. “Tonia?” he whispered. “It cuts me to the quick to see your distress. ’Twill be soon over and done. We will find a good family to take the babe and—”

  “Nay,” she cried, opening her eyes. “The child is mine. I will keep it.” Sandor might never reappear in her life, but Tonia would never give up the child that their love had formed. The baby would be the lasting reminder of the only man Tonia would ever love.

  Sitting back on his heels, Guy stared at her, completely baffled. “I applaud your maternal instincts, sweetling, but in this case there is no need. The child will only be a reminder of a time best forgotten.”

  But I want to remember every detail about my baby’s father. Aloud, Tonia replied, “Pappa, I thank you for your love and your concern for me, but I assure you that I am of sound mind when I say I want to keep the babe. It is mine—as well as your grandchild. He is a Cavendish, no matter who his father is, just as I am. And as you are. My child deserves the best we can give him in this life, and I intend to see to it.”

  Guy stood, then crossed around to the far side of his desk, putting a distance between them. Tonia clasped her hands tightly in her lap. She had not realized until this very moment how much this child meant to her. Five more months and a bit, she calculated, before she could hold him in her arms.

  Guy drummed his fingers on the smooth-polished surface of his desk while he immersed himself in thought. Tonia found that she felt more tranquil now than she had been a quarter hour earlier. She knew what she would do with her future, even if her father didn’t. Mamma, with her notorious love of any baby, be it human or animal, would certainly agree with Tonia’s point of view.

  Guy cleared his throat. “Methinks ’tis best if you left here before you begin to show your condition. ’Twould be easier traveling now than later.”

  Tonia gaped at him. “You are sending me away when I sorely need you and Mamma? Have I disgraced you so much that you would turn your back on me?”

  Guy’s face softened, and he returned to her side. “You mistake my meaning, sweetling,” he said, holding her cold hand. “Forgive me, for I can be abrupt upon occasion. My concern is that your whereabouts and identity must remain a secret for your safety’s sake—and that of the child.” He gave her a lopsided grin. “I imagine that I must sound like the father of the Virgin Mary when he was faced with somewhat the same situation.”

  Tonia relaxed against him and kissed his cheek. “’Tis good to know that there is precedence.”

  Guy nodded. “Ideally, we should find you a complacent husband.”

  Tonia frowned. “Nay, Pappa. I want no husband.” Except the one that I have lost.

  “Methought you would say something like that. Therefore, I propose that we take you to your sister’s home in Scotland. There you may live openly and freely, without constraint, while you await the babe’s birth. You know that Gillian and her husband will surround you with love and cater to your every whim. Indeed, you will become quite spoiled, methinks. What month is the child due?”

  “December or early January.”

  Guy smiled again. “Better and better. We have just received word that Gillian is also expecting about that same time. You two will have much to talk about while you wait. When your joint times draw near, no one at Snape will be surprised when Celeste and I leave to attend Gillie’s laying-in. That way, we will be at your side when your time comes.”

  “Oh, Pappa!” Tonia slid out of her chair and wrapped her arms around her father’s neck. “’Tis a most excellent plan! When will we leave?” />
  Guy hugged her close to his chest. “As soon as possible. You will travel disguised as Mamma’s serving maid, at least until we are well clear of Northumberland, where you are known. If the good weather holds, the trip will take us no more than three or four days to reach Bannock.”

  “I have known you to make the journey in two.” Guy tapped her on the chin. “Aye, but not in the company of an expectant mother.”

  Four-and-a-half days after he had left London, Sandor rode up the rocky trail to Hawksnest. The land had changed greatly since the snowy day when he had left his beloved wife alone in this stone fortress. Bare trees were now clothed in thick green foliage. Birds that had been silent during the colder months sang and called to each other across the mountainsides. As he drew nearer to Hawksnest’s crumbling walls, Sandor admired the lush greenery of the once-brown meadow before the castle. Lavender springs vied for space with meadow grass that had grown so tall and thick, Sandor almost missed the spot where he had dug Tonia’s grave. When he spied it, he reined his horse to a sudden halt. Startled, Baxtalo reared on his hind legs.

  Sandor slid off his back and raced through the grass to the site. Instead of the rain-filled hole that he had expected, he saw that the grave had been filled in and was gently mounded. Ice ran through his veins instead of warm blood. He sank to his knees and threw himself across the grave. His tears flowed without shame.

  “Is this your idea of a jest, Duvvel?” he cried up to God. “Why have you plucked away my happiness the instant I had found it?” He dug his fingers into the mound of earth as if he sought to touch Tonia’s cold hand.

  Those King’s men he had misdirected must have found a better guide. Seven of them against a single woman! Though Tonia had the heart of a lioness, she could not have withstood such odds.

  “I am truly fortune’s fool,” he sobbed. “I should have taken you with me. You would have been safer in London with my grandmother than here. Forgive me, sukar luludi. I am the world’s worst husband.”

  Sandor hoped that the men had killed her quickly. He could not bear the thought of the soldiers torturing her or, worse, using her sweet body for their amusement. “Is this the death your tarocchi foretold, Grandmother?” he called to the sky. “You should have warned me. You should have…” His grief choked off further words.

  As the summer’s lingering sun began to slant westward, Sandor collected himself and pondered what course he should take now. Since Uncle Gheorghe had banished him, he would not be welcome in any Rom camp. News of this nature spread like wildfire throughout the Gypsy community, no matter where the Rom were. Nor did Sandor really want to return to a wandering way of life. In truth, he did not want to live at all, but instead remain on this hillside, lying forever beside his love. Yet, his zest for living overrode this macabre idea. Sandor did not possess the temperament to stab himself in the heart.

  While he thought, he occupied his hands with cleaning the gravesite—pulling up irreverent weeds that had dared to sprout from Tonia’s body. He would fashion the cross she had once told him that she wanted to stand at her head. He cleared the ground around that spot. Sandor was so intent upon his sad duty that he nearly overlooked an arrangement of brown leaves held down by two stones, one on top of the other.

  A patrin? Blood thudded against Sandor’s temples so that he felt momentarily giddy. Half in awe, half in disbelief, he touched the rocks. He had taught Tonia this exact signal. Kneeling, he whispered a pleading prayer to the deity he had just shouted at. “Forgive me, Duvvel. You know what a fool I am. Tell me that she lives. Let me find a second sign, I beg you. Is one life too much to ask? May she live awhile longer upon this earth before you call her to heaven? Saint Sara, help me and I will light a hundred candles in your honor!”

  Having said all that he could think of, Sandor closed with a whispered “Ajaw.” Then he pulled himself to his feet and studied the terrain, searching for the logical spot that Tonia would have laid a second marker. What a clever woman she was to have thought to leave a mark by her grave! She knew he would see it first.

  While Baxtalo cropped the lush mountainside grass, Sandor wove back and forth through the meadow up to the turning of the trail that led across the ramshackle drawbridge. On the right side of the path he found what he had hoped to see—a second patrin that clearly pointed down the hillside, away from Hawksnest.

  Sandor touched his fingers to his lips and blew a kiss heavenward. “Parika tut, Black Sara!” he shouted with a joy-filled voice that echoed around the steep ravine below. “Thank you! A hundred candles, I swear it!”

  As he turned, he looked again upon the mute grave. Mayhap one of the guards was buried under the lavender. Sandor shrugged. The unknown dead was no matter to him now that he knew Tonia still lived.

  “Jel ‘sa Duvvel,” he muttered under his breath as he picked up his cap from the ground beside the mound. “Go with God, whomever you are.”

  Sandor scanned the bowl of the sky. Purple-shadowed dusk had already filled the mountain clefts and distant valleys. The last of the sun’s golden rays kissed only the tall peak across the ravine from Hawksnest. Sandor decided to bed down in the ruin. Tonia’s signs had lasted this long. What was one more night?

  I am coming, my beloved. I will hold you in my arms and kiss away this loathsome separation. Never will we be parted again, I swear it!

  Chapter Twenty

  The next morning dawned cloudy with rain on the horizon. Sandor took little notice of the weather. After a hasty breakfast for himself and Baxtalo, he rode down the mountain, marveling how well Tonia had laid the patrin considering that her trail was now several months old. By late afternoon, it was obvious that she and the large party who traveled with her had headed north, bypassing York.

  She must have gone back to her home. Though he was glad that Tonia appeared to be in safe hands, Sandor’s heart grew uneasier as he rode farther into the wild Northumberland countryside. If his beloved had indeed returned to her family, Sandor knew he would have to do a great deal of explaining to her gadje relatives, who no doubt would frown upon their union. In particular, he would have to win Tonia’s formidable father to his suit. While he rode across the moorlands, Sandor half considered the option of kidnapping Tonia, then afterward explaining himself.

  Sandor followed the signs until the last bit of the gray daylight dissolved into dusk. He and Baxtalo spent the night on the side of the road, as they had done so often in the past. Though he had been in the saddle all day, Sandor could not sleep. He knew without the aid of map or guide that he was near Snape Castle. The emotional pull to Tonia had grown very strong over the last five miles.

  As soon as the predawn light streaked the eastern sky, Sandor saddled his faithful horse. The aroma of smoke from many cooking fires wafted on the morning’s fresh breeze. “’Tis Snape,” Sandor told Baxtalo. “I know it.”

  A mile or two later, he saw the old castle crowning a low rise with a swath of forest on one side and a good-sized village nestled around the base. Tonia had told him that her home had originally been built as a fortress against the plunder-seeking Vikings, as well as the reivers from Scotland. Since Lord Cavendish had acquired the castle some twenty-five years earlier, he had made a number of modern improvements, including glass in all the windows of the domestic wings, chimneys constructed of fanciful brickwork and an improved drainage system.

  Deciding that prudence and caution were the best courses of action, Sandor skirted around the village and entered the wood. He left Baxtalo cropping amid the underbrush while he reconnoitered the castle on foot. Though the hour was still very early, the entire place was alive with many flaming torches and a bustle of activity. Sandor crept nearer, though he dared not attempt to blend in with the castle’s population. His southern features, darker skin and gold earring would mark him instantly as a stranger.

  Sandor climbed a stout oak tree at the near edge of the forest. Nearing the top, he found a thick branch from where he could see into the castle’s courtyard. Box
es and canvas bags were being loaded onto the rear of a closed carriage and into a baggage cart. From the look of the preparations, a lengthy journey was about to commence.

  Just as Sandor had deduced this fact, he saw several women come out of the castle’s front doors. Attended by two very tall men, they descended the stairs and walked toward the carriage. Even though the distance was too great to discern facial features, Sandor’s heart leaped for joy. The second woman, dressed as a maid, moved with a most familiar manner. He knew beyond a shade of doubt that he looked upon his beloved wife. “Tonia!” he whispered under his breath. “I am here.”

  As if she had heard his voice, the maid paused and looked around, almost as if she were searching for him. Even with her midnight tresses gathered primly under her servant’s cap, Tonia’s fine-chiseled beauty could not be hidden. Sandor’s excitement was so great that he nearly fell from his precarious perch. As soon as she had stepped inside the coach, Sandor scrambled down to the ground. A plan quickly formed in his mind. He would follow the travelers at a distance. He knew that, with ladies among the party, the progress would be slow, with a number of pauses along the way. He would attract Tonia’s attention at one of these rest stops. What happened after that would be in God’s hands.

  The first pause in the journey came just after the carriage had passed through the village. With a flurry of skirts, Tonia alighted and stepped to the side of the road. At first, it appeared that she was ill. Sandor controlled his initial impulse to dash from his hiding place to comfort her. Then he grinned. The sly minx laid yet another patrin on the verge of the road while she shielded her actions with her body. As soon as she had completed the trail marker, she hurried back into the carriage. The two noblemen riding beside the vehicle, as well as the coterie of men-at-arms accompanying them, took no notice of Tonia’s actions. In fact, they all modestly looked away.