Cameo and the Highwayman (Trilogy of Shadows Book 2)

by McCullough-White, Dawn

  Opal glanced over at the two soldiers, then back at his hostage, fixing him with a look of surprise, ready to use his weapon if need be.

  The man at the end of the sword grabbed it suddenly, pushing it from his throat. “Take him!”

  Black Opal lunged at him, cutting through the leather glove the soldier wore, and into his hand, leaving a bloody stain on the blade before he deposited his blade in the soldier’s chest.

  Cubbingthorp grabbed him by one arm.

  Opal left his rapier in the dying man’s body as he elbowed his newest assailant in the side of the head. With his right hand, he grasped the hilt of a dagger and pierced Cubbingthorp’s tight, wool jacket.

  Blood spilled down his pants as he collapsed onto the road.

  Now Ives came at Opal, drawing his pistol.

  The highwayman rushed him and knocked the young man down. The pistol went off, loudly, reverberating off the shops. The shot went clean through an old man in the crowd, lodging in the side of a building.

  Ives let the weapon go, struggling with Opal on the ground like a couple of schoolboys in a scrap.

  The highwayman was nearly overpowered by his strength, being of slight build and older than this lad, but he was able to retrieve the hot pistol and smash the soldier in the side of the face with it, knocking him out.

  Opal leapt to his feet and bolted. He pushed his way through the crowd, near where he had last seen Kyrian and not far from that pawn shop. The lad was thrown to the side and lost in the throng of people as Opal made an escape.

  The highwayman ran east, back up Azez Road, toward the Lakestar, hoping to put some distance between himself and the bloody scene that he had just left behind. He could hear the sound of footsteps behind him, closing in; younger men he suspected, not wearing heeled boots. Possibly some people in the crowd who sympathized with the soldiers he’d just killed, or maybe young Kyrian himself. But he didn’t have time to turn around just now to check. Instead, he mounted the steps of the local tailor and raced inside.

  “Oh, Mister Black, lovely to see you again.” A jovial older man smiled as he darted past.

  Opal raced to the back of the store.

  “I have that waistcoat you were admiring, if you are still interested in a fitting.”

  “Another time!” he panted as he climbed up the back stairs, not quite certain where they led.

  The front door swung open again, and five soldiers burst into the shop.

  “Where is he?” one demanded.

  The tailor pointed to the back stairs, shocked to see them.

  “What’s up there?”

  “My home.”

  They were so close that Black Opal could hear the entire conversation. He entered the door at the top of the steps and went into the poor man’s apartment. It was a well furnished, if somewhat cluttered, residence, with bolts of fabric stacked up on one side of the room in a pile.

  There was a young woman inside making lace; she jumped to her feet when she saw a strange person in her home.

  “Don’t be frightened,” Opal panted. “I’m just passing through.”

  At that moment the door to the apartment slammed against the wall, and three of the king’s guard forced themselves inside.

  The dandy’s heart stopped for a moment.

  They saw him.

  He opened up another door and found himself in an empty bedroom. The last room, with a window as his only means of escape. Without hesitation, he picked up the first small piece of furniture he could find, a spinning wheel, and bashed out the opaque glass.

  There was a soldier coming in the door as he hauled himself out the window and attempted to climb up onto the roof.

  One grabbed hold of his foot.

  Opal struggled to pull himself up and cursed himself for the fine boots he was wearing; they weren’t going to slip off easily. He could feel the sudden weight of another man pulling him back down.

  Opal could see his breath in the wintry air, and he thought that he might be killed by the fall. That would be preferable to being tortured to death: drawn and quartered for regicide. Any death would be better than that. He thought for one moment that he might even be able to escape, maybe he could get back to Cameo, take refuge with her… crazy idea.

  The roof tiles that he had been clinging to crashed to the ground below, and the soldiers pulled him roughly back inside.

  There was no way he was going to face the justice awaiting him at Cammarth. He fell into the room, struggling and grasping for his pistol and his dagger.

  “Take him!”

  One of them grabbed his arm as he fired off a shot. It lodged in the thick, wooden floor. At the same time Opal stabbed that man in the shoulder with his dagger before another soldier tackled him.

  Then he felt the first strike: the third soldier punched him in the face.

  Black Opal kicked him in the teeth, then kicked at the next man approaching him and attempted to slip free from the other two holding him.

  The man who had been kicked in the teeth came up angry, blood gushing down his chin and a blackjack in one hand.

  Opal felt the club against the side of his head, then, somewhat dazed, he awoke on the floor. The soldiers were milling about. One of them said he needed medical attention for his wound.

  Opal reached for the hilt of a dagger hidden inside his coat. His hand was somewhat shakier than he remembered.

  “He’s going for a blade.” A large soldier kicked him hard in the stomach, and found the weapon in his coat as Opal curled into a fetal position.

  “Keep him alive,” another soldier called out. “It’s Francois Mond. The King will want to be notified immediately.”

  The soldiers dragged him back through the apartment, down the stairs toward a jailer’s cart, and tossed him inside.

  Opal was face down in the open cart when the soldier spat on him. His body lurched as the cart suddenly moved forward. He was going back to Cammarth, the palace that he had spent his childhood in working as his father’s apprentice, teaching music lessons. The place he had sworn he would never set foot near again. He was going to be drawn and quartered, just as he had always feared.

  Opal licked his bloody lip in misery.

  To one side of the cart, he suddenly saw Kyrian standing, dumbstruck in an alley, just watching as they hauled Black Opal away.

  * * * * *

  “How did you learn to fence so well?”

  Opal smirked, as she slid her hands over his naked back. He rested on one elbow over her body.

  “I know I mentioned this before. My father paid for my lessons.”

  “And you took fencing lessons dutifully?”

  “Yes,” he laughed. “Is that really so hard to imagine?”

  “It’s sweet.” She met his eyes. One hazel and one white. She was still enamored with the events that had just transpired between them. The kiss in the hallway that had led to the passionate scramble to move into her bedroom.

  He lowered his eyes to her severely scarred collarbone, the only part of her torso that was not covered. “We were all better people when we were young.”

  Cameo woke from her reminiscing with a jolt. There was a shadow of a man standing in front of her now. One of her dutiful thralls. It had come with a message. Within the foreboding blackness she could see Opal. He was being dragged down a flight of stairs by soldiers, and then the scene shifted and she saw the white palace clearly, and then… nothing.

  The shade remained, but the vision did not.

  She stood up suddenly. It was daylight, and Edel would not be awake, but she needed him to wake to give her permission to leave. To save Opal. Cameo opened the door to her room and ran over to the vampire’s chamber.

  “Edel!” She pounded on the door. “Edel!” Then she tried the door. It opened. Uncertain if she was welcome or not, she wandered into the room. It was empty, except for a few old trunks and artwork leaning up against the walls.

  Sunlight was streaming into the windows. “Edel?”

/>   She felt someone behind her and turned to find Chester in the doorway. “Where is he?”

  The monster just stared at her blankly.

  * * * * *

  Opal was roughly removed from the jailer’s cart, dragged up a flight of stairs into the palace, and pushed down onto a bench in a hallway that he remembered well. He had traversed it many times when he was a boy; it lead to the music room, the theater, and the game rooms.

  He used to play with the birds in the conservatory before the princes and princesses came in for their music lessons. They were pure white birds, in a beautiful gilded cage beside the windows.

  One of the soldiers cut a button off of Opal’s coat suddenly. This woke him.

  The soldier didn’t say anything to him, just put the button into his pocket and looked at Opal with a sneer on his face.

  He pulled the duster around him nervously.

  Several guards were with him, but two others had gone on ahead, presumably to speak to someone else, and the highwayman sat, expecting the door down the hall that the two had entered would soon open up and he would be moved.

  Opal ran one hand through his hair and readjusted the patch over his eye.

  Just then the door burst open, and a gentleman came out with the soldiers. He was a man whom Opal had never seen before, powdered, with a gray wig and spectacles.

  Before Opal realized what was happening, the guard pulled him to his feet, and he stumbled, clumsily regaining his footing and attempting to straighten his jacket.

  The man examined Opal’s face for a moment.

  “Are you certain it’s him?”

  “The soldier who identified him was murdered.”

  “By… this man?”

  “Yes, Mister Lantillette.”

  He cocked his head to one side, “Mond was supposed to be an orator. I’ve never heard he was much of a duelist.”

  “I’m not Mond.”

  “Silence, prisoner.” One of the soldiers shook him.

  Lantillette looked at the man before him doubtfully. “Well, the king will know the revolutionary on sight, as I understand it. He remembers him from childhood. Wait here.” He turned abruptly and reentered the room he had just left.

  Opal and the soldiers seemed to utter a collective sigh at the tedious nature of this situation. They tossed him back down onto the bench that he had been plucked from moments earlier.

  The highwayman glanced back down the hallway at the exit. He wondered if it was possible to simply charge his way past the guard. Of course that would incriminate him even if Avamore didn’t recognize him. If he could evade them, it would only be a short distance to reach Cameo, who was just at the other end of the palace.

  One of the guards placed himself directly in the archway that Opal was staring at. This was about the time that Opal realized he had been staring in that direction. Not terribly subtle. Still, the guard who had placed himself there wasn’t much more than a boy and could probably be knocked to one side if he really did make an attempt at escaping.

  The door down the hall creaked open, and a soldier exited, motioning to the others to bring the prisoner in.

  Wild with terror at the thought of being discovered by Avamore, Opal leapt to his feet and threw that young soldier, the one who had been standing in the archway, to the dark wood floor. He bolted back down the hall that he had just been dragged through. Light was streaming in the frosty windows, and freedom was just within reach, when he felt someone grab his duster and yank him back. Opal tried to drop out of his coat, but another hand had one arm, forcing him to spin around and face them.

  It was the young soldier.

  He continued to walk backward now, attempting to shake free.

  Several other soldiers knocked him to the ground. One had a blunderbuss pointed at his chest.

  “And you aren’t Francois Mond, hmm?” A guard sneered.

  * * * * *

  Opal was marched into the music room with a pistol to his head.

  King Avamore, a tall, dark-haired man, had been standing with his back to the door, conversing with Lantillette but glanced over his shoulder as the group entered.

  “Sit him there,” Avamore motioned toward a rather exquisite gilt chair that seemed to have been moved to the center of the room for just this purpose.

  Opal had been in the music room once since his father had died, and that was after the mob had ransacked it during the rebellion. How beautifully it had been restored; it was nearly the same as when he was a child. He tried not to marvel at it. He needed to be able to lie well, and not seem the least bit knowledgeable about this palace, let alone nostalgic.

  “So,” Avamore began in his silky smooth voice, “you’re accused of being Francois Mond as I understand it. Are you the revolutionary Francois Mond?”

  “No, sire.” Opal kept his eye on the floor.

  Avamore smirked. “Lantillette, have one of the soldier’s remove that awful eye patch.”

  The older man motioned for a soldier to do as the king had asked.

  “Francois had one white eye, if I remember correctly. He and his entire family contracted smallpox when he was a lad, and it left him rather disfigured.”

  “I’m not, I’m not Francois,” Opal was saying as they pulled the patch from his face.

  Avamore’s eyes widened. “Your eye is white.”

  “Yes, I had smallpox, but I’m certainly not that bloody charlatan. No, I’m Frederick Black—just a vagabond, a gambler. I’ve spent most of my life living out of taverns in Lockenwood.” He smiled, “I know a lady who could vouch for me if you would only ask her here. Well, more than one really—”

  “Spectacles, Francois. You used to wear spectacles after you got smallpox and one of the lenses was dark so no one would have to look at that hideous orb you have there. I thought them quite ridiculous, but the patch is far more so. Those things get rather dirty after a while.”

  “I’m not—”

  “Guard, bring me that item you found in his pocket.”

  Opal touched his pockets, they were empty. The soldiers must’ve gone through his clothes back at the tailor’s shop when he was unconscious.

  One soldier brought forth Cameo’s brooch and handed it to the King of Shandow.

  “A cameo.” Avamore examined it, “A bit damaged.”

  “That’s mine.” Opal stood, then hesitated as he realized that he was threatening the king and now had every pistol pointed at him. “This is all a mistake. You have me confused with someone else—”

  “Enough! I know who you are. Don’t you understand that? I remember you from my visits to Cammarth when I was a boy! Your father gave music lessons and my cousins played the spinet, and you assisted him. You held music, you carried instruments, and sometimes you helped my cousins with their lessons.” Avamore tossed away the brooch. “And not so long after that, you killed them. You killed my cousins. You and your revolution. You are Francois Mond.”

  Opal shook his head.

  “Soldiers, take him to that spinet. Let’s hear you play us a little tune, Francois, something from the past?”

  “I can’t. I can’t read music.”

  “Take him outside. Take him to the pillory.”

  “Sire!”

  “Then why don’t you spend some time with your beloved people, Francois? Let’s see how much they love you now?”

  Opal fought with the guards as they hauled him away.

  “How long, sire?”

  Avamore fell into an arm chair, exasperated. “Ask me again in a few hours.”

  “He could die out there in that temperature, you realize?”

  Avamore met his eyes coldly. “Well, don’t let that happen.”

  “The mob could kill him.”

  “Yes. I know. Now, leave me be. I wish to rejoin to my party. I am in the middle of a game.”

  * * * * *

  It was evening by the time the military brought Opal back into the center of town. The pillory was exactly as Opal remembered it: a si
mple pole, darkened with age, standing in the town square.

  Several people stopped as the jailer’s cart rolled up, staring at him as they tied a wooden plaque around his neck that read:

  Francois Mond—murderer

  Soldiers bound his hands together and tied them to rings at the top of the pole, and one of the men read his wanted poster aloud and nailed it to a wooden trash bucket that was nearby.

  “Francois Mond?!” someone exclaimed. “Look over there!”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Just read that wanted poster.”

  “It’s true,” the soldier said as several people began to crowd around him. “This man is the revolutionary, the tyrant, Francois Mond. The man who ordered the deaths of our beloved royal family!” Then he mounted his horse.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m leaving him here to your mercy. Good day to you.”

  The crowd watched as the royal militia that had just marched Francois down to the pillory was now marching away, confident that no one would free him.

  Opal tested the cord that his hands had been tied with. His arms were stretched to the top of the pole. Freeing himself would pose some problem. Thank heavens he had a coat, boots, and gloves, even if they were a little light for this weather.

  The crowd was made up of local shopkeepers, sailors, servants to the royal house, artisans, and the poorest of the poor, those barefoot living in the streets. They neared him slowly, apprehensively and perhaps with a bit of awe.

  A middle-aged man approached him, taking off his hat as he did so. “Are you really the Francois Mond? The architect of the rebellion?”

  Opal surveyed the crowd. The expectant looks on their faces. The reverence. Then he glanced down at the man who was kneeling nearby him. “Yes,” he whispered.

  The man was stunned at the admission. He drew out a small knife and moved in closer.

  “Please free me.”

  The man looked into Opal’s eyes, still in awe, and before Opal realized what the man was doing, he walked away with the sign that the soldiers had put around his neck.

  “Wait!”

  “It’s him!” the man nodded at the people who clamored around him now, and the prize that he had just acquired.