“You’re an awful liar.”
Elisha shut his eyes, pressing the heels of his hands into them.
“It’s the killing, isn’t it. I trained all my life for it, but you …”
Silent, Elisha took a breath that caught at his throat and hitched inside his chest.
Thomas’s hand rested on his back, then moved slowly, as if stroking the breath back into him. Thomas’s sympathy returned to Elisha a thousand times the gift of his own kindness.
Chapter 15
Elisha waited until he could speak without shaking. “We should go,” he said at last, loath to break the moment’s peace.
“If you can carry her, I’ll guard your back.” Thomas rose to one knee, briefly gripping Elisha’s shoulder. “If you’re able. If not, I can take her.”
Evading his touch, Elisha gathered Rosalynn into his arms, resting her head against his chest. “You can’t come with us. It’s not safe.”
“Not safe?” Thomas gave a sharp laugh. “You’re not safe without me, given her condition, never mind yours.”
Slowly, Elisha rose, focusing on his balance. He could do this; he must. Rosalynn was his responsibility, and her father would never forgive him if anything more happened to her. He might already be unforgivable. Elisha imagined that he had hidden his own pain and weariness until he saw Thomas regarding him with eyebrows raised, his head slightly cocked, a hand resting on the hilt of his sword. He stood for all the world like a master waiting for a student to tell the truth, both knowing the student had lied.
“No,” Elisha said quietly, “you’re right. I do no service to her to deny it, even for your sake.” He turned away from that steady gaze. “If anyone sees you, Highness, anyone who knows you, they’ll kill you.”
“I am the prince,” Thomas said, “They might allow me the grace of a trial.”
“You know your brother better than I do. What orders would he give?”
Thomas’s shoulders sank. “They’ll kill me,” he agreed. “They’ve already tried once and turned my generals against me.”
“That bundle by the tree, Highness. Would you carry it for me?”
Thomas gave him a curious glance, but did as he was asked, using a bit of its wrapping to tie the talisman to his belt. At least Elisha would be free of it for a little while. Elisha started to walk, cradling the weight of the sleeping Rosalynn close to his chest. At a whistle, Cerberus went before him, head up and ready.
“Why did you go to Dunbury?” Elisha asked. “That was an awful risk.” They came back to the road, and he found Thomas had dragged the bodies off to the side to be picked apart by scavengers. A few crows were already clustered in the trees, watching.
“Well, I didn’t expect my brother to be there. I’ve not been close enough to towns to receive news of the royal progress. Dunbury has been my supporter in the past; I hoped he would be again, but I could not approach him, not in all that crowd. When I saw him embrace Alaric, there seemed little point in trying to speak to him.”
So he had come home to the forest, to find his house barred against him.
“Here’s your cloak.” Thomas retrieved it, and gave a slight smile as he looked at it. “My cloak, actually.” He made as if to drape Elisha’s shoulders, but Elisha shook his head in spite of the damp.
“That thing nearly strangled me,” he said abruptly.
Thomas stared at the garment for a moment, then draped it over his own broad shoulders, keeping his sword arm free. Elisha, for whom any bit of clothing represented a goodly investment, walked with a man who owned so many cloaks he could afford to leave them unused in chests in empty houses. Back at Dunbury, before he knew him, Elisha had admired Thomas’s beggar’s guise, and Thomas told him he’d paid a princely sum. It was a jest he only now perceived.
Their steps scrunched the stone and grass of the pathway. The big trees parted from time to time, brightening the walk and giving misty views of the heath with its burial mounds. “Actually, I’ve been to the abbey, for alms. I draped my face and wrapped my hands a bit more. They think me a leper.” Thomas started to pull ahead then paused and shortened his stride to stay abreast. “Lately I’ve felt that I am.”
Elisha stared ahead, the weight of the sleeping Rosalynn dragging at his arms. “If they kill you, Highness, Alaric will be king.”
“He’s declared himself so already, and I can’t see a damned thing I can do about it. I’m marked for a traitor, regicide, in fact, and he’s got my every ally already supporting him.”
A realization struck him, and Elisha sighed, suddenly more weary than ever. “If they find us together, they’ll believe I was your agent in the killing. Damn it all! I’m sorry.”
“For befriending me? By the Cross, Elisha, don’t apologize for that, of all things. When you first arrived, I thought the Lord brought you to me to kill, to win justice for my father. But you seemed bent on healing me—one of His little ironies. Then you shared your supper with me and offered to let me back into my home.”
Elisha remembered his own sense of wonder at earning the gift of Thomas’s trust and gratitude.
“Before my fall, I had servants for my every whim. Since then, I have been alone as never before in my life, Elisha. I’ve had nothing.” They walked a moment in silence, then Thomas glanced at him and whispered a few lines in Latin. He paused and spoke again, reverently, “ ‘For I hungered, and you gave me meat; I thirsted, and you gave me drink; I was a stranger and you took me in.’ ” His voice rose in strength. “ ‘I was sick and you visited me; I was in prison, and you came to me.’ It’s from the Gospel of our Lord.”
Thomas crossed himself with such grace that Elisha murmured, “I’m not a devout man, Your Highness.”
“Even a goat can be an instrument of God.”
Yet the Devil was often depicted with a goat’s hooves and horns, Elisha thought. Thomas found him a symbol of faith, a reason to hope. Thomas had not witnessed the full scene upon the road. He had not seen what Elisha could become, and he did not know that terrible twist that transformed Elisha’s medical precision into a murderous stroke.
“That woman, at the lodge, who was she?” Thomas asked.
Heaven and Hell or Brigit. Elisha did not know which topic was the worse for him.
“I’m sure I’ve seen her before,” the prince continued, his strides again taking him ahead, “but never at court.”
“I doubt she’s welcome there. Lady Brigit is the image of her mother, who died on the stake when I was a boy.”
Thomas’s steps faltered. “Saints preserve us, I should have known. Seeing her, it sent a shock straight through my soul.”
“Mine, too, Highness, the first time I saw her.”
“You were there at the execution? I couldn’t watch.” Thomas gave himself a shake that sent water shivering off his hair, as if he cast off more than rain. “If we shall be executed together, you might at least call me by my name.”
They walked on together, mostly silent, with Elisha focused on each step so as not to fall. Before long, stone walls appeared to either side and tended fields replaced the heath and woodland, where every step increased the danger of being seen. Beaulieu Abbey must be just ahead. Elisha’s steps slowed. “You have to leave us, Thomas,” he said, the first time he had spoken the prince’s name. “You have to live.”
Thomas examined the dirty toes of his bare feet. “I’ve got little enough to live for.”
“If you can’t find hope for yourself,” Elisha shot back, “then do it for her.” He turned, facing Thomas, still cradling Rosalynn’s still form. “So that she, and all of us, don’t suffer another tyrant on the throne.”
Thomas’s gaze fell to the woman, then rose to linger at Elisha’s throat, and finally back to his face. “I don’t know that it is in my power.”
“I don’t know either, but it’s no reason not to try.”
A flight of crows burst from the nearby wall and flew cawing into the rain. Voices rose in a murmur, approaching from the abb
ey road, and Thomas’s eyes flared. Then he tipped his head to Elisha, acquiescing with the grace of majesty. “Then I leave it, and you, in God’s hands.”
Elisha watched him hurry back to the forest, his cloak flaring out around him, rain glinting silver on the darkness of his hair. Fitted with a fine cloak and a sheathed sword, he had begun to leave the beggar behind, and, for a moment, Elisha glimpsed the king he could be. Cerberus gave a little whine and a wave of his tail, then trotted gamely after his master. The voices grew louder at his back, then someone called out, and the footsteps broke into a run as Thomas disappeared into the forest just as those from the abbey spotted Elisha on the road.
Saints and Martyrs: Thomas still carried the talisman at his belt! Elisha drew breath to call out to him, then a voice from behind shouted, “My God, what’s happened?”
Elisha bit off his words, turning to find a pair of men in the duke’s livery sprinting to halt before him.
“Bandits,” Elisha said shortly. “We fought them off. She’s not hurt, but she’ll need rest.” He stumbled, placing her into the arms of one of the soldiers, the long night settling heavily into his bones. He wanted to turn immediately and go after Thomas, but his knees trembled with weariness, and he had yet to see his patient truly safe behind the abbey walls. He must trust that Thomas could hide a while longer. The talisman would have to wait—but Elisha’s heart rose a little to know that they must meet again, if only so that he could retrieve it. He hurried to keep up as the duke’s men finished the last of the journey. The men called out for aid, and a party of nuns and lay servants quickly enveloped them, with Rosalynn’s maid cutting through the crowd, crying out for her lady.
Elisha kept his feet all the way to the well where he slumped onto a bench to wash the blood from his face and hands and drink until his lips and throat, still aching, no longer felt parched. He was no good to anyone in this condition. His own Master Barber would have ordered him to bed. Stifling a yawn, Elisha found his way to the guests’ dormitory, where he collapsed onto one of a line of pallets and let himself sleep.
Some hours later, his stomach was growling as he woke to the sound of a baby’s cry. But any thought of hunger left him immediately, along with his exhaustion. Thomas did not know what he carried on Elisha’s behalf, but when Elisha had used it on their assailants, he had perceived someone else—several someones’—interest in the use of it, their extended awarenesses quickening at the sense of magic like weary travelers at the sight of a cathedral’s lantern-tower. Was it the talisman or himself that drew their interest? Brigit’s care in hiding it had told him it might be sought by magical means, but he had ignored this vital clue. Could the searchers find it when it wasn’t in use? What might they do to Thomas if they found it and realized he was not its master? Or if—Heaven forbid—they knew Thomas for who he was? It was not he, Elisha, who needed God’s hand, it was the prince himself, and Elisha had set him up. Idiot!
He rolled out of bed, wiping off a few bits of straw, but he hadn’t the first idea how to look for Thomas. He wasn’t the one who hunted these woods all his life. He did not know his way nor less where a prince might hide—but he knew someone who would, if she were awake and feeling talkative.
A lay servant bustled down the aisle between the pallets, and Elisha stopped him with an outstretched palm. “Lady Rosalynn of Dunbury. Do you know where she is?”
The man’s gaze arrested at the sight of Elisha’s throat, and he stammered, “We’ve had a cottage made up for her, my lord.” He recovered himself to ask, “Are you Elisha, her companion? She’s asked for you.” The man turned on his heel, rope belt swinging, and bustled back the way he came. “Come along then!”
Stepping lively, Elisha caught him up and passed between the tall, gray buildings to a little house on the grounds apart from the church and cloister. The man knocked and showed him inside, but Rosalynn’s maid rose up from her stitching and glared.
“You were to keep her safe, Barber. First you ran off with her in the darkness, and now this. It’s to God alone that she’s not badly hurt or worse!” Her sharp face grew sharper in the shouting.
Elisha spread his hands, wincing at the protest of his sprained wrist. “I hardly need to be reminded of that, mistress.”
“It’s what we get for trusting a commoner. One of the duke’s soldiers has already ridden off to let him know she’s missing, and now another to let him know she’s found, and in what state—”
“Please, Mary, is that Elisha?” called Rosalynn from beyond the passage. “I can’t imagine who else you would berate in such a fashion while I’m at my rest. Bring him through, if you please.”
Mary’s eyes narrowed even further, her lip twisting, but she bobbed a tiny, fierce curtsey and lead the way through the passage and up the stairs.
Rosalynn lay propped in a wide bed, snuggled about with blankets, her hair combed out around her, a fur robe drawn up to her chest. A fire crackled in the grate, with a jug set nearby. “More cider, Mary. And for Elisha.”
The maid poured two mugs from the waiting jug. She snatched a poker from the flames and jabbed it into each in turn, until they steamed, then slammed the poker onto its hook and thrust a mug at Elisha.
“Thank you, mistress.” The scent of cinnamon warmed his face, and he drew it in. In spite of Mary’s ill will, his gratitude was unfeigned.
“Here, Elisha, come by me.” Rosalynn gave a roll of her hand to summon him close, gesturing toward a small chair set at her bedside. “The infirmarian has been here, and many other people besides. It was a wonder I got any rest at all. If I did, it was due to you.” She raised her own mug to him, her cheeks pleasantly pink once more.
“I’m glad to see you looking so well. I wish,” Elisha shook his head, “I know there’s nothing I can do to make amends for this.”
“As if it were your fault.” She studied him, and her round face grew serious. “Elisha, you have done what you must, first to save that other woman—Chanterelle, did you call her?—then to come for me. It was not you who put me in those places, but I myself for my stubbornness.” She shot a look at her maid. “I shall atone for that later in the church. But I should like to give my thanks to your friend as well.” Rosalynn nibbled on her lip, then shrugged. “He seemed familiar somehow, but I cannot place him. Perhaps you’ve had him to my father’s keep?”
“It’s about him that I’ve come, my lady—”
“Do call me ‘Rosie,’ please.”
Mary huffed, and Elisha bowed his head. Twice today, he had been given the name of someone so far beyond his birth that not two months prior he should have been beaten just for speaking it. He used Thomas’s name, and only once, to try to convince him of what must be.
“You may return to your stitching, Mary. I shall ring the bell if I have need of you.”
“But my lady, to leave you with him! Of all people!”
“He has seen me at my worst, Mary—at least, I trust the Lord that was as bad as it shall ever be. You may go.”
Mary went, scowling and muttering, shutting the door with the merest curtsey to her lady. “She is a good maid, truly, but she’s been all upset over my disappearance, and for me to return again in such a fashion. You can imagine what it’s done to her. Like you, she believes she is responsible.”
“My friend,” Elisha began, “I need to find him, but he knows his way around these parts, and I don’t. I hoped you would have some ideas where a man might stay who did not wish to be seen.”
“Is he a criminal? I hope not! He ought to come here for sanctuary. Wait—he’s a deserter, isn’t he? Such skilled swordsmanship, he’s no mere footman if I’m not mistaken. He—”
If she kept talking, Elisha realized, she might well talk her way around to the truth. “Please, my lady, there may not be much time.”
“Is he another spy then?”
Elisha shook his head. “Another spy?”
“Like the woman in the dirt. I may not be of the magi, but I have been raised by
one. My mother’s been worried about rumors of dark magic.” Rosalynn crossed herself with a shiver. “Even so, it took me this little while to understand that that woman in the dirt was one of your spies. The magi, I mean.”
For a moment, Elisha sat breathless with astonishment. He travelled with her for days, groaning inwardly as she talked of minor things, and it never occurred to him that she might know anything he needed. That, in fact, it might pay to listen to her. “Tell me about the necromancers, lady.”
She hesitated, pinching her lips together. “It’s not really a proper topic, is it? I suppose it can’t be helped. They are like magi, aren’t they, but they use only, well, murder,”—another cross over her breast—“and their victims, or parts of them. They can create fear, nightmares, and so forth, but they can’t make spells beyond what they know, and all they know is killing.”
No wonder he was accused of being one of them. The chill of Death never quite left him, not since the king. And even his brief use of the talisman this morning had given him a rush of power, threatening to overwhelm whatever faith, love, or reason kept a man from killing.
“It’s why a lot of magi don’t believe necromancers exist,” she went on. “For one thing, why would you limit yourself that way? There are the indivisi, of course, but they’re mad. For another thing, necromancers are the whole reason why people like me are afraid of people like you and the other magi.”
“What about the indivisi?” Elisha prompted.
“They have made themselves indivisible from their talismans. They know all there is to know about it and they can even define its mysteries—so much so that they take on its aspects. They’re not quite … people anymore. Your woman in the bog, she could just go into the dirt, and she abhorred the touch of clothing, that was plain. It’s not quite normal, is it?” Suddenly her eyes flew wider. “Oh, dear. You’re not thinking of becoming indivisi, are you? Only I don’t actually know all that much about you. Perhaps if I did not do all the talking.” She trailed off, plucking the edge of the fur with her fingers.
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