“Oh, I don’t think so.” Looking thoughtful, the stranger quirked a brow. “Not at my hand.”
Unexpectedly, his eyes lifted. She realized she’d been waiting for that, for him to look at her and see her, since the moment he’d arrived. Her breath rushed out in an audible gasp.
She’d never seen such eyes. Bright as candles, they glowed with violet light, spilling lavender fire over the snow-cloaked courtyard.
“Gentle Mother,” she whispered, staring into those glowing orbs. “What are ye?”
Something flickered in his face, as though the answer that sprang to mind was not one he wished to share. Then an impish brow arched over his purple gaze. He leaned forward as though they were confidantes, as though he confessed a naughty secret.
“I’m the rebel, the rabble-rouser, the anarchist and the outcast. And for your sake, I dare say, I’m going to be in quite a bit of trouble.” His mouth curved in a wicked smile, and the sight stole her breath. “I’m Zamiel.”
She’d forgotten the fool completely until he cried out, the hoarse cry of a man who finds a cockroach swimming in his porridge. Clearly, the sight of those burning eyes had driven her attacker beyond restraint. Startled, she fell back as he stumbled toward the stranger, his hatchet raised.
Linnet screamed, her brain swimming with horrific images of the newcomer’s graceful, reed-slim body cloven by a butcher’s axe.
But the fool tripped over the body of his fallen comrade and fell to his knees in the bloody straw.
Leisurely, as though he had all of eternity to do it, the man called Zamiel bent forward. A sleek curtain of ebony hair, smooth as ink, poured over one shoulder as his head tilted. Hands clasped behind his back, scrupulous not to touch the man, he whispered in his ear.
For a breath, the fool listened. Then, violently, he pushed away, sprawling on his backside in the snow.
“Damn you, keep away!” The fool scrambled to his feet, pointed shoes sliding on the treacherous ice. “Damn you to Hell.”
The man called Zamiel observed this frantic flight with a look of polite interest. But something darker stirred in his violet gaze.
“From your lips to God’s ear, my friend,” he murmured. “I am trying.”
Babbling incoherently, the fool skidded across the courtyard, giving the crone’s huddled figure a wide berth. His footsteps echoed as he plunged into the tunnel and fled.
Silence returned to the courtyard. Slowly, Linnet’s blind terror eased its grip.
God be thanked, I may survive this day after all.
Trembling and weak-kneed, she dropped the bloodstained pitchfork with a grimace of distaste. Gripping the wagon for support before she fainted in the straw, she scrambled from the box, away from the scene of carnage. Her free hand shook as she wrestled with her farthingale, frantic to keep the heavy sweep of her skirts from the red-daubed snow.
Red snow, red gown, what difference does it make? Ye’re a murderess and a madwoman. Ye deserved to be locked up with the nuns, just where they sent ye.
Sweet Jesus, they should never have turned me loose.
Linnet drew a shuddering breath and groped after her scattered wits. That way true madness lay. She’d sworn never to think those thoughts.
Although most would have rushed forward to assist, the man named Zamiel stepped back to give her space. Indeed, he seemed as careful to avoid contact with her as he’d been with the fool.
But how he stared, his gaze rising slowly from her rich crimson skirts, pausing over the tiny jeweled Bible that hung from her girdle. Upward over her bodice, lingering there in a way that made Linnet suddenly conscious of all her flaws—her breasts too lush for a proper maid, the rest of her too slender. Tall as a beanpole, Jasper had always taunted. And skinny as a lad, forever tripping over her long legs.
Slow heat climbed into her cheeks beneath this leisurely appraisal. Self-conscious, she touched the rebellious ringlets that had sprung free again to devil her, dark tendrils curling around her face and neck. His gaze followed her movement. Nervously she twined her fingers through the loose curls and tucked them beneath her hood.
“Curls rich as mahogany, streaked with bronze and chestnut,” he said in that musical voice. The very angels must weep with envy to hear him. “Skin like new cream, like moonlight, like damask. And shy, beguiling eyes like Sumerian gold...not like a little brown bird at all, no matter what your Master Rune would say. You could pass for mortal, but for those eyes.
“Your eyes make it a certainty. I shouldn’t have intervened.” He sighed. “Metatron will have my head for this. Let’s hope he won’t prove too tiresome.”
What have my eyes to do with anything? Are ye daft, man?
But that, of course, she would never say. Nor would she reproach him for mocking her odd looks as others had done. He’d just saved her life, when any other nobleman would have kept walking.
She offered a shaky smile. “Some might say ye ought to have minded yer own business, a man of yer rank. But I’m that thankful ye didn’t, my lord. If ye hadn’t come along, and stopped when ye heard the ruckus, I don’t think I’d be home to supper.”
“Once I’d seen you, I could hardly turn away.” His violet eyes glimmered. “So fierce and brave and burning with determination, clinging tight to that precious gift called life. It wasn’t your time to die, daughter of kings. Trust me to know.”
“Kings?” she blurted, so surprised she nearly laughed. Linnet the bastard. “Oh, but I’m not—”
“Who knows?” He made a playful moue. “I get away with murder on a daily basis, after all—and that, my dear, is tiresome. I do believe I’m searching for a reason to make Him punish me.”
Uncomprehending, she shook her head, though the careless way he’d uttered the word murder made her scalp prickle. “Who’d punish ye for saving a lass’s life? Ye don’t look as though ye’d want a financial reward, though it’s yers if ye do. I may not look the part, all disheveled and tossed about, but I’m a countess.”
“A mortal title.” He shrugged, unimpressed as though she’d proudly proclaimed herself a ragpicker’s daughter. “Tell me your name, my tawny-eyed beauty, so I can craft a song to worship you. I’ll claim that for my prize.”
“A song?” Fighting for her life, she hadn’t noticed the elegant pouch slung across his back. Now, by its shape, she guessed it held a musical instrument of some kind, probably a lute. A childish excitement fluttered in her belly, the familiar thrill at the prospect of a new tale.
“Are ye a minstrel then? A spinner of dreams and tales?”
“In a way,” he said cautiously. “I sing the Lord’s praises, though it’s not really what I’m known for. Tell me your name, sweet.”
Now she was blushing, heat warming her cheeks and setting her foolish maid’s heart aflutter. Surely he meant no malice by this graceful flattery, baseless though it was. Minstrel or master, it made no difference to her, not when a man did her such courtesy. She mustn’t let herself grow flustered by these casual endearments.
Summoning her manners, she spread her skirts and sank into a low curtsey. “I’m Linnet. That is, Lady Linnet Norwood, the Countess of Glencross. And ye, my lord?”
She was looking for a title, because of course he was no mere minstrel. He wore pride and nobility as carelessly as he sported his silk-and-velvet cloak or that fortune in jewels, blazing like a comet on his brooch.
“Just Zamiel.” Still he kept his distance, though any other lord would have made an elegant leg and bent over her hand. “In this realm.”
Perversely determined to untangle the mystery he presented, she took a bold step toward him. Quick as a cat, he stepped back, wariness flickering in his indigo eyes.
She gazed into his perfect face—flawless as a courtesan’s. High-bridged nose delicate as a woman’s, jaw smooth as silk, winged black brows expressive as poetry swooping against his white skin.
Surely he could be no more than twenty. Younger than she, untouched even lightly by the hand of time. Y
et what of the brooding bitterness that lingered in his gaze, leavened by those sudden flashes of mischief and the utter stillness of his bearing? Beneath night-black hose and high boots, his lithe frame was supple with a mature man’s strength.
Her curious gaze paused on the medallion nestled in the hollow of his throat, Hebrew runes stamped in silver. Scholar though she was, she hadn’t studied enough of that tongue to decipher it.
Whatever else he was, the man was an imp, saint and sorcerer mixed together. The conundrum of his appearance drew her like a will o’ the wisp, like the forbidden glimmer of Faerie magick.
Unable to resist his allure, she drifted toward him step by step. His eyes widened, dark pupils dilating. With eyes alone, she held him as he shifted, poised on the edge of flight.
He’d been utterly relaxed in the teeth of danger, yet he seemed to find her approach unsettling. Any swift move on her part, and he’d startle like a wild thing. The oddest premonition seized her that if he fled, she’d never find him again.
“Zamiel the rebel,” she said, on a scrap of breath. “I have to know. ’Tis a debt of honor between us, aye? Ye’ve saved my life. Who are ye?”
Now she’d drawn almost close enough to touch him. The rich smoky darkness of his scent seeped into her. The heady fragrance rising from his garments reminded her of the weed the Queen’s explorers had started bringing back from the New World, the one the sailors smoked in their pipes. Perhaps he was an explorer himself, with that hint of accent she couldn’t place.
Slowly, irresistibly, her hand lifted, drawn toward the proud line of his cheek. She repeated her question, like a spell.
“Who are ye?”
In another breath, she’d be touching him. He blinked, that dark fringe of lashes sweeping down. Quick as a sparrow, his gauntleted hand swept up to catch hers. The warm black leather of his glove engulfed her.
“I am death,” he whispered, the sweet smoke of his fragrance filling her head. “It’s death to touch me. Fly back to your mountain aerie, Linnet Norwood, and forget you ever saw me.”
His scent was making her dizzy. The snow swirling through the air was thickening, whiting out the world around her, until she saw and felt nothing but the tensile heat of his hand gripping hers.
She shook her head to clear it, but the movement made it worse. She tried to say something, blurt out a question, but the words blurred together in her mouth.
Oh, this was powerful magick. She was no stranger to enchantment, fiercely though she sought for sanity’s sake to deny it, to dismiss her fever-dreams as the delusions of a lost child wandering through the wilderness. This was sorcery, and she was powerless in its grip.
She was floating...drifting...falling through a sea of fog.
Nay, she was flying. With the last flicker of conscious thought, she heard the swift flutter of wings.
Chapter Two
The tavern in the Southwark stews was crude even by mortal standards, dark and smoke-filled as the proverbial abyss. Worse, the place reeked with a truly astonishing miasma—dead fish from the nearby Thames, raw sewage from the gutter, mixed with the burn of cheap rum and the musk of paid sex from the appalling rooms upstairs.
But Zamiel had smelled worse. Prince or peasant, men pissed on the floor. He ought to know. His tedious duty brought him into palaces and hovels alike with odious frequency.
Though he seemed to recall there were few serfs in England anymore, the poor wretches appeared no better off as freemen, from his perspective. They sweated and strove and suffered through their astonishingly brief lives, then finally died—usually terrified of what came next and desperate to prolong their wretched existence. Alas for them, their dying pleas fell on deaf ears.
They called him the Severity of God for excellent reasons.
It was death Zamiel smelled now, its familiar perfume a tendril of scent he alone could detect. He’d followed it through the streets of London across the bridge to this tavern, all the way from the derelict inn on Gracechurch Street where he’d first seen the fool in motley named Rune.
The selfsame fool who was now drowning the nameless fears stirred by today’s odd encounter in rum and a crooked game of cards.
Lounging at a knife-scarred table in a cloud of fragrant tobacco, savoring the pipe he’d picked up from the New World as his latest vice, Zamiel waited. He’d predicted the hour of the poor devil’s death—the very words that set the doomed soul fleeing—and a little while remained before the clock of his time wound down. All of which meant Zamiel needed to give some thought to his appearance.
Early on, he’d learned to keep his head down when his business took him out in public. He claimed no credit for it, since his looks were none of his doing. But his face was like to fascinate any mortal who gazed upon him.
Damned bloody nuisance, it was.
This was what came of having history’s most famous seducer for a father.
A rare tingle of excitement crept through him. He too had committed an unpardonable sin, intervening to prevent the lady’s carefully choreographed murder. Even now, he’d no clue why he’d done it.
Lady Linnet Norwood.
She wasn’t supposed to die, of course. He’d known that instantly, with the same infallible instinct that drove his frequent rendezvous with those poor damned souls whose time had come. One could say she hadn’t been in his cards.
In fact, she would never be in his cards. She might claim a mortal title—Countess of Glencross, was it? He’d even sensed royal blood in her veins. She might surround herself with the trappings of mortality and play at being a courtier. But Linnet Norwood was more than mortal, like the new Tudor Queen herself.
Which meant that she lay beyond his jurisdiction, so to speak. For those like her, what happened when they died was someone else’s problem.
Yet he’d been pleased—undeniably pleased—not to detect that subtle fragrance of death about her. Something about her had captured his fancy, no doubt about it.
Was it the fascinating contrast between her decorous gown and the lush siren’s body beneath? Was it the alluring contradiction between her demure hood and the fire-streaked curls tumbling in rebellion from its confines? Or was it the quiet intelligence that shimmered in her level amber gaze when she took his measure?
For certain he’d been enchanted by the spirit that blazed from her exquisite face, framed by the high ruff as she wielded that broken pitchfork so savagely in her defense. Aye, she was a creature of contrast and surprises. Jaded as he was, it took a rare woman—or man, for that matter—to pique his interest.
Of course, no matter how oddly captivating he found her, when he intervened on her behalf Zamiel had broken the rules.
Again.
He’d intervened to save her life. And he’d misbehaved when she questioned him, clouding her mind with dreams—one of his lesser gifts—and bundling her sleeping form into a hired cart that would return her safely to court.
This time, surely, the man upstairs would have to bestir Himself from His self-absorption and the adoration of His precious favorites. He’d have to hear the deafening chorus of grief and suffering rising from the mortal world. For once, He’d have to act—which was what Zamiel wanted, after all.
Even if it meant his own little peccadilloes would finally be punished.
Ah, so that was the source of this intoxicating tingle. He would finally force the Exalted One to act! Next to that, the tiresome details of Zamiel’s punishment seemed trivial. They’d still have to trot him out for the soul-crushing tedium of significant and complicated deaths, when a soul hovering in the balance required divine guidance, either to ascend to Heaven or descend to Hell. He knew damn well that bastard Metatron, his nominal superior in the business of divine judgment, couldn’t do it all himself.
And they’d have to keep him for the singing, because no other voice in Heaven could begin to match his. He wouldn’t let himself fear they’d take that away—the Music of the Spheres that was his only joy. Protectively, his hand
dropped to the lute tucked beneath his chair.
At the next table, the ragged words of a drinking song erupted. Lowering his pipe, he glanced up to see Rune, son of Rudyard, cast down his cards and rake up a handful of coins. From his fellow players rose a buzz of angry mutters.
Cursing them roundly, the fool pocketed his winnings and thrust to his feet, somewhat the worse for drink. Twisting to avoid the beefy hand that shot out to detain him, he wove through the heavy crowd toward the door—directly into Zamiel’s path.
Zamiel permitted himself a small, bitter smile. He didn’t bother rising as the fool staggered toward him, though his foot nudged his lute farther from harm.
A red-faced drover with shoulders like an ox pushed to his feet and bulled through the crowd after the heedless fool. When the drover unsheathed a dagger, Zamiel swallowed a sigh and stripped off his gauntlet.
As the fool reeled past, Zamiel touched the man, fingers grazing the back of his hand lightly as a goose feather.
Clearly sensing the Divine Presence, as the dying often did, the son of Rudyard glanced toward him through rum-blurred eyes. Mismatched, they were, one brown and the other blue. He’d probably had no choice at all in his destiny, the poor wretch.
Behind the fog of alcohol, the fool furrowed his brow as recognition stirred.
“Forgive me.” Politely Zamiel inclined his head. “Although my presence on this occasion was not required, I wished to lend my personal attention to your death. Call it a courtesy on the lady’s behalf.”
A heartbeat later the big drover plowed into Rune, son of Rudyard, and buried the dagger in his back. The fool screamed and arched backward, clawing for the protruding hilt.
Deftly Zamiel slid his chair back to avoid the ensuing blood. He customarily killed with detachment—not to mention dead tedium these last few eons. Hell’s Bells, how the entire grim business of death and dying bored him!
This time, a distinct surge of satisfaction rolled through him.
Laura Navarre - [The Magick Trilogy 02] Page 3