Lady's Pursuit (Knight and Rogue Book 6)

by Bell, Hilari

  Seeing my distraction, my opponent tried another swift low strike. I managed a partial block, but it still sliced into the skin above my knee like a hot wire. My leg held when I leapt back, so it couldn’t be deep, but ’twas clearly time to end this.

  “Fisk,” I shouted. “No, Kathy. Grab a rock and bash this fellow. You can break into the coach later.”

  We had circled so I faced the carriage once more. My attacker twitched, but he didn’t make the mistake of turning round. If Kathy came to my aid he’d have to turn and face her — and then, either way, he’d be done for.

  He knew it too. He stepped to one side, away from the river, then took another step, his blade beginning to fall.

  “You can leave,” I told him. “Get on your horse and just ride away. Whatever they pay you, ’twill not be worth—”

  A clangor of warning rang though my body, as if all the alarm bells in the Realm pealed suddenly in my ears. I was already down, rolling away, before I realized that ’twas my warning Gift that had spoken, though I’d never felt it near this strongly.

  Yet, quickly as I moved, the crossbow bolt tore a long scratch across my ribs before it flew through the space where my body had been ... and then punched through my opponent’s side. He dropped his sword and shrieked as his blood splattered.

  I caught a flashing glimpse of a man clambering out of the riverbed, hampered by the crossbow he carried ... and even in bright sunlight, I could see the glow of magica around it.

  I shouted a warning, and launched myself in a scrabbling, diving roll under the carriage — the only thing in sight that might stop a crossbow bolt.

  I came to my feet on the other side, and was almost kicked in the face. Rupert had somehow wedged his whole upper body though the window in the carriage door. ’Twas the largest of the three windows, but ’twas still not large, and he seemed to be firmly stuck there as he struggled with someone inside.

  Since the driver was the only opponent I could reach, I resolved to take at least one villain out of the fight, and started to climb up to his bench ... only to drop back in a hurry, as he turned and aimed a kick at me.

  I had just time to realize that Fisk was no longer holding his attention on the coach’s other side, when my partner came dashing around the coach’s rear wheels.

  “There’s a man over there with a crossbow!”

  “I know. That’s why—”

  The carriage abruptly stopped rocking, and the sounds of combat ceased. Rupert slithered out, his face flushed with exertion where it wasn’t darkening with bruises, but his movements were slow and controlled.

  I looked within, since the window was no longer full of Rupert. Even in the shadowed interior I could make out the flash of a knife, held to the throat of a plump woman with wildly tumbled hair.

  But that was all I had time to note, for the driver saw his opportunity, dropped his bow and seized the reins. The man the crossbowman shot had dragged himself into the saddle and was galloping back toward town, but the driver had to pull off the road to turn the carriage, and it lurched wildly over clumps of grass and bracken. I heard a squeak from within, and hoped that Mistress Meg had only been nicked. But most of my attention was taken up by the fact that the coach’s departure left nothing between me and the man with the crossbow.

  And now that I saw him, standing still and calmly spanning his bow, I recognized my would-be assassin from the alley in Rippon.

  His clothes were streaked with river mud, revealing how he’d come upon us without being noticed, and he clearly knew what he was doing with that glowing bow. Not because he showed any special expertise in spanning it, which is not hard to do, but because he’d gotten the distance right. He was too far off for any of us to rush him before he was ready to shoot — which should have been far enough to affect his accuracy, but that didn’t seem to trouble him. Indeed, if we rushed him he could wait till we drew so near he was certain to hit his target ... and that didn’t take into account that ominous, golden glow. He might be able to kill whoever he chose, at any range, but I knew ’twas me he wanted. And that meant ’twas time to employ the final lesson I’d learned from my father’s master of arms — to run.

  “Down the bank!” I yelled at my companions.

  But instead of joining them I was already racing, not for the dubious shelter of the riverbank, but toward the bridge. I ran mayhap a dozen yards before my warning sense sounded the alarm once more, and without a backward glance hurled myself over the nearest railing.

  I heard the snap of the bow, and something hot and hurtful ripped across my hip. Then I was falling, snatching in a breath as cool water rushed up and swallowed me.

  I felt the tug of the current immediately. I wanted to drift far downstream before I surfaced for air, but I’d been running and fighting before I dove in and my lungs began to burn. I’m a good swimmer, and I exhaled before I surfaced, took two quick deep breaths, and pulled myself down just as something sliced into the water where I’d been.

  A man on shore may run as fast as a river flows — if he runs on a smooth dry road. But unless the current is very slow, a man moving over clumps of grass, full of hidden branches, rocks and sinkholes, over gullies and around bushes, will not keep up the river’s pace for long.

  The weight of my boots, and mayhap my purse and the knife at my belt, helped to check my tendency to float back to the surface. And except for rising into the sunlight and air to snatch a quick breath every now and then, I was able to relax and let the river carry me.

  ’Twas not safe, of course. I might have been pulled into a tangle of logs, or thrown against a rock lurking beneath the placid surface ... but all those risks struck me as being far less than the danger posed by an assassin with a magica crossbow. I stayed in my silent watery sanctuary till I was near certain my assassin could no longer be with me, and then surfaced and looked around for several long moments before swimming to the shore.

  Drifting with the current should have been restful, but by the time I reached water shallow enough to stand my legs wobbled, and I was breathing hard.

  Water streamed from my hair and clothing as I emerged from the river, and I took a moment to pour out my boots and wring my socks before I climbed the steep bank. I checked the small cuts I’d gotten during the fight and they’d already stopped bleeding — the place the crossbow bolt had skimmed my side was little more than a long scratch, and the cut on my hip not much deeper. It could have been far worse, and I began the walk back to the copse where we’d tethered the horses and True, soberly acknowledging how lucky I’d been. That walk took longer than it might have, for I took the time to stop and watch for assassins at the edge of any open space I had to cross.

  I saw no sign of the man with the crossbow — a magica crossbow, no less! — or of any other threat, but it did give me time to think. None of my conclusions were pleasant.

  Eventually I neared the road. I might have had some trouble finding the copse, approaching it from this side, was it not for the sound of furious argument in three gloriously familiar voices — two male, one female. For a moment relief made everything, even my still sodden clothing feel light.

  I had been nearly certain I was the assassin’s target — but only nearly, and that small shred of doubt had grown heavier with every moment of the long walk back.

  “We can’t go anywhere till Michael returns.” Fisk sounded like he’d said this more than once, and there was more patience in his voice than I’d have expected.

  “But their lead is getting bigger every minute we sit here!” Rupert sounded as if he’d made this point before, as well.

  “That doesn’t matter much,” Kathy said soberly. I noted that her skirt and my shirt were now daubed with mud, though she’d lost that ridiculous belly. Even Fisk’s neat garments showed a few muddy spots.

  “They’ll be watching for us now,” my sister went on. “Even if we could stop the coach again, they won’t send anyone off. If we put up another barricade they’d just turn and take anothe
r route, and we can’t—”

  ’Twas True who saw me first, for he’s a fine watchdog whatever Fisk might say. He came loping out of the trees, all wagging tail and rasping, soundless barks, and I had to stop and reassure him. But I’d not even finished stroking his silky ears when Kathy ran up and threw her arms around me — I suppose I wasn’t much more muddy than she was, though wetter.

  Fisk didn’t hug me, but his smile was the rare, warm one that held no trace of sarcasm.

  I’d seen those smiles more often since he and Kathy had plighted themselves to each other, and I made a mental note to please my sister by telling her that.

  “Excellent.” Even Rupert sounded as if he meant it, though not for the same reason. “He’s back. Can we go after Meg now?”

  “We can follow them,” I told him. “But Kathy’s right, we don’t dare try another such attack. The man I fought may be injured, but there will be six of them again, as soon as they rejoin their fellows.” And I wasn’t the one who’d injured him, though that was another problem. “We shall have to come up with a different plan before we approach them once more,” I finished firmly.

  And that was something of a lie. We would need a different plan, but I’d likely play no part in its making.

  We ignored Rupert’s complaints and took our time saddling up, and we let the horses walk. Even Rupert admitted that the last thing we needed was to come across that coach while they were still on the alert.

  I told them about my escape down the river, which took little time as ’twas a simple affair. They told me what had happened ashore, after my departure.

  “We ran for the bank, as you said.” Fisk sounded unwontedly serious. “I was standing right there, lowering Kathy down, when he got that second bolt loaded. He looked right at me — could easily have taken the shot — but he turned and waited for you to surface. So it is you he’s after, not any of us.”

  I had been fairly sure of that, but ’twas reassuring to have it confirmed. Or at least, it clarified things.

  Of more interest was the others’ account of the fight at the coach. While I had engaged the outrider, and Fisk kept the driver from shooting anyone, Rupert and Kathy had sought to extract Mistress Meg from the carriage.

  “’Twas hard,” Kathy said, “because the man guarding Meg could move freely within, and we had to go through the windows.”

  “Meg’s wrists were chained to one of the hand straps.” Rupert made an upward grasping gesture to demonstrate. “The chains were long enough that she could lower her hands to her lap, and not much more, but she fought like a wildcat, kicking... She bit his jaw when he leaned across to smack Kathy’s hand off the latch. I only hope...”

  “They may hobble her ankles together if she was kicking,” Fisk said briskly, “but they’re not likely to do worse. Why should they? Their goal seems to be to keep her prisoner, and they acted like professionals. It’s the enthusiastic amateurs you have to worry about,” he added. “So that should reassure you.”

  Rupert’s gloomy expression lightened a bit, until Kathy spoke.

  “Professional what? Kidnappers? Why should that reassure us?”

  “Professional bully boys,” I said. “Men who’ve some training in arms, and don’t much care where they sell their skills. Roseman had a number of such men in his employ, and it should reassure you because they’re no more brutal than they must be in order to get the job done. They regard unnecessary violence as a waste of time and energy, and they know the punishment if they get caught will be more severe. Professionals know there’s always a chance they’ll be caught, so they don’t take useless risks. Of any kind.”

  Kathy looked as if she wanted to go on arguing, until Fisk caught her eyes and glanced at Rupert, and she subsided.

  But this led me to consider my would-be assassin, because for all his skill with a crossbow, and for that matter a knife, he didn’t strike me as belonging to the same class as the professional thugs who guarded Mistress Meg. Indeed, as he calmly reloaded his bow, his deliberate style had been that of a craftsman engaged on some complex task ... or one of those amateur enthusiasts, of whom Fisk spoke with such deep reservation.

  I mentioned this, and then went on, “Whatever compels him to keep after me must be important — he appears to be quite fanatical about it.”

  “He might just have been helping his partners escape from us,” Kathy suggested.

  “If they’re working together, why doesn’t he travel with them?” Fisk asked critically. “And why is he just trying to kill Michael, and not the rest of us?”

  “Why would anyone try to kill Michael?” Kathy asked. “He’s the most harmless person I know.”

  Fisk and I exchanged glances, and decided not to tell my little sister about the list of enemies we’d accrued over these last few years. I suppose my assassin could have been one of them, though it felt like the wrong answer. And he’d given up a clear shot at Rupert, which was the only answer that did make sense.

  We stayed at an inn that night, in a town where folk said the coach had only a three-hour lead on us. Indeed, we stopped earlier than we had to, to keep from catching them.

  Rupert had finally been brought to realize that no good could come of following right on their heels, and he’d also had the sense to fill his own purse before he went galloping out of the palace. He leased separate rooms for Kathy and himself, while Fisk and I shared another — though watching Fisk’s eyes narrow as I agreed to this arrangement, I know he suspected it might not come to that. Thereafter he watched me, with a casual closeness that fooled even Kathy.

  I must confess, I had thought of simply slipping off, leaving them a letter to explain. But Fisk was my partner, and he’d earned the right to be involved in such decisions. Besides which, given the choice between letting me ride into danger without him, or seeing Kathy do the same, I knew what his decision would be.

  And if knowing this made my heart ache a bit, my joy for them was greater than any small pain on my own behalf.

  I made no effort to conceal my departure from the taproom “to seek my bed,” and Fisk followed me into our room before I’d even had time to sort part of our common purse into my own.

  “Did I succeed in fooling them?” I asked, before he could speak. It stopped him for a full beat, because he’d been about to accuse me of trying to befool him.

  “Yes. In fact, Kathy went up to her room soon after you left. Rupert’s still drinking,” he added. “But he probably needs it, if he’s going to get any sleep. Michael, this is crazy. Which shouldn’t surprise me, but I thought you were getting more sensible lately.”

  “What other choice is there?” I heard the calm in my own voice with some gratification, for in truth I wasn’t at all happy about this. “That man is hunting me. As long as I travel with you, he endangers you all, and Mistress Meg as well! We might have won her free today, had he not intervened. Suppose next time he decides that my companions are too much in his way, and he should remove you? Or suppose ’tis Katherine standing behind me when he misses his next shot?”

  I saw Fisk flinch at this idea, and went on to clinch the matter.

  “I place my trust in you, partner, to keep everyone safe and see this matter through, while I deal with ... this other matter.”

  A familiar sarcasm swept some of the concern from Fisk’s expression.

  “Do you really think I’m going to fall for that ‘I trust you’ line? I’ll do whatever I think best, whether I live up to your crazy trust or not!”

  “Which is why I can trust you.” I couldn’t help but smile at his puzzled scowl. “Because you’ll do what you think best, and you have no more desire to see Kathy hurt than I do. She and Rupert would go on without us if they had to. You know that.”

  “We could rent our own coach,” Fisk said. “And chain them up inside it. The Liege didn’t say his son had to return voluntarily. In fact, I think he’d like it better that way.”

  “But if you did that to Kathy, there’d be no point in
getting the reward.” Having no plan to stay I’d not unpacked, and I now picked up my saddlebags. “’Tis too dangerous for this man to be stalking me while we’re engaged on another perilous quest. I’ll return as soon as I’ve dealt with him.”

  “Dealt with him how?” Trust Fisk to put his finger on the one question to which I had no answer. He must have known it, for he went on, “You know, I could rent a carriage and chain you up inside. And when your stalker turns up, Rupert, Kathy and I take care of him.”

  “Rupert and Kathy? You might as well recruit the bunnies in the field — or True! They’ve no more experience dealing with assassins.”

  “You’re not exactly noted for the size of your body count,” Fisk pointed out.

  “Neither are you. I don’t know what I’m going to do,” I admitted. “I shall have to learn what he wants and why he’s doing this. I’m taking True as well as Chant,” I added. “Mayhap he’ll be of some use.”

  “Oh, you’re definitely taking the dog,” Fisk said. “Though when it comes to being useful...”

  There was no more to be said so I departed, leaving Fisk in a state of even more worry than usual. I was sorry for that but we had no choice, and I trusted him to see to Mistress Meg’s affair until I could rejoin them.

  With that happy thought in mind, I rode to another inn in the same town and got myself a room. The full Creature Moon was trying to make up for the waning Green Moon, but Chant has a weak leg and I don’t risk riding him at night unless I have to.

  The next morning I made my way back to the bridge where we’d ambushed the coach. Someone had dragged our log aside, opening the road once more. I had some notion of setting True on the assassin’s trail. He can track a sausage for several hundred yards, but sausages proved to be more important in his scheme of things than assassins.

  I had once, in a moment of desperate need, sent Chant a surge of magical energy that had let him overleap an impossible gap.

  I now tried to give True a magical Gift of tracking, but to no avail. I also tried, somewhat vaguely, to use magic to find the trail myself — but since there’s no Gift I know of to let a man follow another’s trail, ’twas no surprise that the lid over the seething well of my magic stayed firmly shut.