I heard a horse whinny before everything around me lurched, and I fell forward, unable to stop myself. My face hit a cushioned seat, causing many sharp pains to dance evilly around in my head. I did not have a chance to be afraid, too busy trying to right my body without the use of my arms or legs. Ropes were binding my legs at both my ankles and my knees.
The carriage door opened, and two hands grasped my arms, jerking me backward. My boots scraped against the floor of the carriage before falling out and hitting the ground. The hands on my arms gripped me, but not painfully, just hard enough that I would stand.
“Untie her legs,” Guinevere’s voice demanded from somewhere ahead of me and I tried to rush toward her voice but was pulled back.
The hands on my arms remained while other hands untied the ropes around my knees then my ankles. Tingles rushed through me causing me nearly to cry out as I leaned back against the broad chest of the man holding me upright.
“Bring her,” Guinevere snapped, and I was shoved forward.
I took one step and my legs wobbled, then gave out as I cried against the sharp pricks stabbing all along my legs. I would have fallen, but the strong hands were there, swooping me up. All I could do was try to fight the tears that were threatening to spill from my covered eyes. Not from fright, but from the pain. I blinked them away as I was jumbled around in his arms when he mounted some steps. I heard a door open, and I guessed we were entering a building. He took a few more steps and stopped, placing me on my feet again, but there was no pain this time.
I felt like I was in an open space with nothing surrounding me. I stomped one of my boots and heard it strike wood. The hands left my arms but were replaced by smaller ones, and I was guided three steps forward.
“Welcome, Bess, to the Holy Order.”
The cloth was pulled off my head, and I blinked twice, then again. A cry of relief escaped my lips as I started to move forward, but then I realized the significance of what was before me, and all my relief transformed into a horror that broke my heart anew.
“I have awaited this moment for a long time, Elizabeth,” said the leader of the Holy Order, the man who had for years been a friend of my family, the uncle of my dearest friend...
Chapter 20
Bess
General Harvey was the leader of the Holy Order, and I never once suspected him. He had played the role of dedicated and kind friend well…until the moment that he threw me into prison.
Then again, ‘prison’ was not precisely the correct term for the place I was being held, for the bedchamber was comfortable, and I was no longer shackled. For there was no need.
General Harvey had only spoken briefly to me, but I had been too horrified and shocked to say anything. That had been three days ago.
When the guards had placed the cloth over my head again and led me up the staircase, they had not placed me in a cell. They had led me to a lovely bedchamber with a four poster bed, and a chamber pot, but nothing else. There were two prison-like features to my chamber; the bars on the window and the lock on the door. The bed had been nailed into the floor, and nothing else could be used as a weapon. Not even the chamber pot, though I had tried the first day. I heard boots coming up the stairs and down the hall. The door was unlocked, but when I started to swing the chamber pot, it was knocked out of my hand, and three muskets were pointed at my chest.
Four guards arrived at dawn and dusk every day, and I had the procession committed to memory. Fourteen steps on the stairs, five steps down the hall, and twelve seconds before the door flew open.
In the mornings, four guards would come in, three to hold muskets on me and one to bring my morning meal of thin gruel and a quarter cup of water and empty the chamber pot. In the evenings, five guards would come, because that was when I was allowed real food and a fork. Harvey must have thought I would try something, like stabbing his guards with my fork. I could have, but that would have been foolishness. In the evening, I was given fresh water to wash, but as there were always five pairs of eyes watching me, I never did more than clean my face and hands.
I tried to speak with the guard who brought my food, but he remained silent, so I began greeting him as Silence whenever he entered the room.
On the third day, instead of the morning gruel, Silence arrived with four other men. Silence did not speak as he tied my hands behind my back and placed a black cloth over my head. I was guided into the hall and to the left. There was a hand on my shoulder, but I knew the steps. Five steps to the edge of the staircase and fourteen steps to the bottom. We turned right then walked a short distance, and I could tell when I entered a different room, for the feeling of the floor beneath my shoes changed.
When the cloth was pulled away, I was standing in a large dining parlor. Seated at the table were twelve people staring at me. Harvey sat at the head of the table with Guinevere at his left. The seat at his right was empty. The rest were men that I did not know.
“Brothers and sister, as you can see, I have gathered you here for a meeting of significance. I give you Raven, one of the Phantoms who so plagued our guard’s mission while in Philadelphia.”
Disgusted and eager looks were cast at me. Knowing my fate was about to be decided, I was not afraid. I had been branded by a branch of their secret society, and they had stolen Levi from my family. They did not frighten me.
“What is it to be, Harvey, water, branding, or starvation?”
“Silence!” barked a disagreeable looking man with a wrinkled forehead. He looked like a pug dog. “You do not speak to his supreme highness.”
A laugh burst from me as I looked at Harvey, who was smiling in return.
Harvey addressed me. “You are here today, because we have come to a unanimous ruling.” He was leaning back in his chair. His gray hair was combed back, his beard covering his chin and the scar that covered the left side of his face appearing more mangled than I had ever remembered.
“Raven, former leader of the Phantoms of Philadelphia, daughter of the first Loutaire, deputy of the Charleston Phantoms, this court finds you guilty of treason of the highest order; acts against the good of which the Holy Order represents. It is the order of this court that all spies for the enemy be sentenced without trial. I, supreme highness of the Holy Order, do sentence you, Raven, to be hanged by the neck until dead.”
A moment of surprise touched me, but it was only a moment. I had faced worse horrors than Harvey and his followers. A particular smuggler captain that I had faced was the model of sinister...
Guinevere’s gaze became wide and startled as it flew from me to Harvey. “But—”
“You astonish me, Harvey,” I said, cutting in on whatever Guinevere was going to say. “I did not believe you had the spine for such work. No doubt one of your puppets will fulfill the order. Perhaps Levi. He is such a puppet that will dance to any piping.”
“You refer to Guinevere’s pet. No, he is away on a special mission.”
“Indeed, and does he fill that empty seat?”
General Harvey smiled. “This seat on my right is for the next in line to my throne.” His smile vanished as easily as it had come. “Your sentence shall be carried out in three days’ time.”
My eyes had rested on Guinevere for a moment before the cloth was placed over my head again. A painful grip on my arm forced me from the room. The hand did not belong to Silence, for he was never rough.
When my foot hit the bottom stair, I tripped and fell forward. The hand on my arm jerked me up. He half pulled, half pushed me up the stairs. In my chamber, he tossed me on the bed. I felt him lean over me as he removed the cloth from my head. I found myself looking into a pair of dark eyes that were full of malice. He grinned, but it appeared more of a sneer. His teeth were green, crooked, and one of the front teeth was missing completely. Harvey had poor taste in lackeys.
“Ye don’t look so hard-bitten to me, I bet ye be soft all over.”
He pressed his body against me, and rage filled me so quickly that I was reacting b
efore I realized. I shifted my right leg out from beneath his and brought it up between his legs with enough force to keep him from ever producing offspring. He shouted, and spittle and the smell of garlic landed on my face. He raised his clenched fist, and I stiffened my body for the coming blow. It never came.
His fist was captured, and he was pulled off me by Silence, who threw the man out the door and into the hall. Silence and two others were still in the room when Silence slammed the door. He turned to me with a look of contemptuous resignation on his face. He was not handsome, but he was not sinister either. His long, stringy, blond hair was falling out of the tie at his neck, and his wide eyes were full of annoyance.
“You should not have done that,” he spoke for the first time. His voice sounded resigned.
He helped me to sit up and untied my hands while the other two pointed the barrels of their muskets at me.
“I should have done more,” I retorted as he straightened from untying my hands.
“Angering him will only encourage him to try something else.”
“Let him. All I need is one free hand, and I could rid the world of a plague.”
Silence rose to his full height which was the same as mine. “I shall see to it that he is placed outside the house. You have nothing to fear.”
“Usually when people say you have nothing to fear, what they mean is that something to fear is imminent,” I replied, sitting on the bed and straightening the only pillow.
“Fear is a useless emotion,” he stopped at the door, looking over his shoulder, “unless you know how to make it an advantage.” He left the room with the others following him out.
I stayed awake for a long time to analyze what he could have meant. I would not delude myself by thinking he meant to help me. He worked for the Holy Order.
Thinking about Harvey’s order that I would be hung did not fill me with the fear that I was sure he wanted. A great part of me did not believe that my dearest friend’s uncle would truly harm me. More likely, he wanted to frighten me, and then when he bartered with Jack and Sam, probably for the artifacts, he would set me free. It would not surprise me if I were set free on the morrow.
Lying against the pillow, I had barely closed my eyes when the door opened softly. Opening my eyes, it was Guinevere, and she was leaning against the door, her brows slanting as she looked at me. As I sat up, she hurried over to the bed gripping a poster.
“Come to gloat?” I asked, but inside I was a ball of hope.
“Do not be a fool, Bess. I have come to set you free.”
“Why?” I demanded, feeling skeptical. “Why help me when you delivered me to them? What game are you playing?”
She sighed, her shoulders sagging. “He promised that they did not mean you harm, they were to exchange you for the artifacts.”
Being correct in my assumption offered me no satisfaction, because her tone caused a knot to form in my stomach. Guinevere was truly concerned, scared even. They meant to do it. They meant to kill me. Swallowing the burning in my throat and trying to appear disdainful, I scoffed at her, “And you believed that twaddle?”
Her shoulders squared, her jaw set in a hard line, and she became the Guinevere that I knew. “Do you want my help or do you not?”
When I nodded, Guinevere moved silently to the door. She paused at the door, her ear pressing against the wood.
“You have five minutes only. Take the back stairs.” She reached down and turned the door knob, but did not open the door. She met my eyes. “No one knows that I am here, so if you are captured and blame me, no one will believe you.”
“Get me out of this house, and no one will capture me.”
There were no lights in the hall as we stepped into it. She pointed to the right, toward a narrow staircase, nodded, and moved quietly toward the front of the house. I did not have a weapon or a plan, but I knew Guinevere well enough to know that she meant what she said. The guards would be distracted for five minutes.
There were many doors along the hall, but I passed them without a single glance, my focus on the stairs at the end of the hall. The staircase was dark as I gripped the banister and made my descent. With each step, I tensed. The third step creaked, and I winced but kept going. Four more steps had creaked before I reached the bottom that ended at a wooden door. I turned the knob and gently eased it open.
A small white hall unadorned of portraits assured me that I was in the servants’ area of the house. There were three doors before me. The two on the left had the locks like bedroom doors, but the one on the right had the key in it, so it locked from the hall, which meant that it should be a door to the outside. It led onto a large porch, the boards and columns all painted white. As I stepped out into the crisp, evening air, I glanced around. The sun had set, but it was not so dark that I could not see my way.
Moving soundlessly across the porch and down three steps, I nearly laughed in astonishment as I looked around, but there was no time. When the house was behind me, I entered a long line of trees and moved through them, but did not step into the open field that was beyond the trees. I knew the field could be seen from the house. I made it a good twenty feet before I heard the first shouts from the house.
My heart and stomach lurched. Pushing harder and running as swift as possible, branches slapped my face, pulled at my hair. With the trees about to end, I had to make a choice; run into the open field or between rows of cabins. I chose the cabins.
There were at least twenty, and all made of dark brick and the same uniform size, rectangular and each with a single chimney. They also looked deserted, which was not reassuring. They would find me if I tried to hide in one of the cabins, so I ran along the back of them. There was a gap between each cabin that made my progress slow, due to having to halt and make sure I was not seen. There was movement up at the house, but they had not seen me. I forced my breaths in and out in slow, even rhythm.
Fear was trying to snake its way in my mind, but I kept reminding myself that I feared nothing—that I rendered fear in others. At the last cabin, there was a barn a short distance away, but it required running in the open. It was that or risk going back and trying to make it across the field.
Watching the house until all the guards were gone from my view, I sucked in a deep breath, then rounded the cabin and ran. No one stopped me. No one came into view, and the barn door was open.
Inside the large, darkened barn, there were two rows of horse stalls, but only half of them were occupied. Choosing a horse, there was a saddle nearby. Speaking in soothing whispers, it did not take long to saddle the horse. It stamped a few times but did not fight me. Grabbing the reins, I started to back the horse out of the stall.
A click echoed through the dark barn as steel was pressed against the back of my neck. My hand gripped the leather of the reins, my body straightening, readying for a fight.
“Do not try it, Elizabeth, I would hate to have to make you unconscious.”
My mind and body wanted a fight, but I did not move.
“A skilled attempt, my dear, but one you should not have made,” Harvey said.
“I would not be a Phantom if I did not find a means of escape and take it.”
There was a pause then Harvey said, “I will fire this weapon if you make a move not to my liking. You are scheduled to die in three days. What is a few days early?”
He was capable of leading the Holy Order, of eluding us, deceiving us for years, so I knew he meant what he said. I released the reins and stepped away from the horse.
The walk to the house was silent but when we reached the bedchamber, Harvey’s voice was deceptively soft over my shoulder when he asked, “Who aided your escape?”
Giving Guinevere up would do me no good. If Harvey did not know she had helped me, she might try again. For the moment, Guinevere was my only ally.
“I do not require assistance escaping your pathetic excuse for a prison. Do not think me a fool that I do not realize what you are doing by holding me here. Your plans
are as transparent as you are.”
Harvey laughed, the sound full, coming from deep within him. “And yet you never once suspected me. All of this could have been avoided if your brother had heeded my warning about young Madison’s character.”
Danger or no, I turned to stare at Harvey, keeping my face blank.
He shook his head slightly. “I had thought I succeeded when I convinced Madison that you were a fortune hunter, but it turned out to be the opposite. Why else would he have returned, begging like a dog for you to take him back?”
As my mind accepted his words, there was no reply that I could make strong enough to make plain my feelings.
“When Henry stole Sfære af lys, he did me a great service, for I saw my way clear. Not only did he offer me a way to remove young Madison from you, but offered me a way to draw both you and your brother to me.”
My arms and hands were shaking while my vision blurred with sudden stinging tears. How could we have not seen it? My own father had claimed him as a friend. From what Jack had said, our father had asked Harvey to watch over us, and Harvey had betrayed us all. It was a branch of Harvey’s secret society who had murdered my father, making Harvey responsible even if it was not by his own hand that the deed was carried out. He was wicked, cruel, and deserved to receive a horrendous fate.
He motioned with his gun toward the bed. I hesitated, trying to determine if I could wrest the gun away from him without being shot.
Harvey smiled, as if daring me to try. An inhuman coldness that surrounded him made me not try to fight him.
Silence and three other guards appeared at the door looking harassed. On Harvey’s order, they held their weapons on me while Harvey left the room, only to return a minute later with a coil of rope. When he told me to lay down I flatly refused. The chorus of clicking hammers on the muskets is what made me sit on the bed then slowly lean back, resting my head against the pillow. Harvey tied my hands first, each one to a poster, using intricate knots to secure my wrists. I tried to pull on the ropes, but I knew I could not pull free. Harvey appeared to be a master at knots. When he had done the same to my ankles, I laid there, watching Harvey and fighting back the dark panic climbing my spine and trying to overtake my mind.
The Charleston Chase (Phantom Knights Book 2) Page 21