The Last Knight

by Candice Proctor

Her wide, solemn eyes, black as the night around them, gazed back at him. “You won't kill him?”

  Damion pursed his lips and shook his head.

  She eyed him a moment longer. Then she sucked in a deep gasp of air, as if to steady herself, and crept to the corner of the stables. Damion watched her hesitate, visibly throwing off the skulking furtiveness of a shadows-bound figure. Chin up, her shoulders back, she strode forward with an arrogant masculine strut that was such a caricature that Damion smiled softly into the night.

  “Do you think it will rain?” she asked, throwing her already husky voice low as she sauntered up to the guard.

  The guard swung about, his hand tightening on his pike as he stiffened, then visibly relaxed at the sight of Atticus's fine clothing and friendly, smiling face. “What the devil are you doing here, lad?”

  “Meeting Juliana.” Attica edged closer to the port. “You do know Juliana, don't you?” she asked, drawing the guard around to face her. Leering suggestively, she cupped her hands a good foot in front of her chest and thrust her hips back and forth in a rudely suggestive motion that made the guard chuckle and led Damion, watching her, to wonder where she got that from. “The new dairy maid with the big tits?”

  “No,” said the guard, sounding interested. “Juliana, you say?”

  Attica nodded. “She promised to meet me in the square, by the fountain.” Her smile faded suddenly, and she dropped her hands in a gesture of despair. “Except she said she wouldn't come if it was going to rain. Do you think it's going to rain?”

  The guard, his back now to Damion, squinted up at the night sky and growled, “It always rains when I'm on guard duty.”

  Damion crept forward. A swift, lethal twist of the neck or a knife blade expertly drawn from behind across the throat would have been quick and quiet. But Damion had promised. Setting his jaw, he brought the heavy jeweled pommel of his borrowed poniard down on the back of the guard's helmet with a thumping clang that echoed around the yard like a kitchen dinner gong. The guard collapsed at Damion's feet, just as someone shouted an inquiry from out of the darkness.

  “Shit,” said Damion, leaping forward to yank back the bolts on the portal. He threaded his hand through the iron grip and yanked.

  The door swung inward with a betraying shriek of grinding hinges that seemed to fill the night. Swearing again, he ducked through the doorway, one hand curling around the stone frame as he reached back for her. “Attica?”

  She hesitated, the wind whipping the hem of her surcoat and fluttering the curls at her cheek, her eyes huge in a pale face, as if she had only now realized the enormity of what she was about to do.

  Another shout went up, this one from the wall walk above. A torch flared hot and bright; running feet pounded toward them across the yard. “Attica,” he said, his gaze shifting away from her, then back again, “if you're coming with me, my love, now would be a good time.”

  She came at him in a rush. He caught her hand, and they ran together through the open portal and into the darkened city beyond.

  Her feet flying over the hard-packed ground, her heart pounding painfully in her chest, Attica clung to the strong, capable hand of the man beside her and ran.

  A wild wind whipped the hair across her face as lightning shattered the dark sky and the earth shook with the rumble of thunder. They fled through the storm-charged darkness, down a steep, curving street of tightly packed timber and stone merchants’ houses, past windows shuttered now in sleep. The patter of their running feet echoed hollowly through the deserted space, the sounds of shouting growing fainter behind them until she thought for one brief, hopeful moment that they might actually get away.

  Then a shrill clang rang out over the sleeping houses, the first deafening stroke followed by another and another as the alarm bell sent its warning to all the guards of the city. A dog somewhere up near the castle began to bark, then another and another. A man's sleepy voice called out, his words lost in the bang of a shutter being thrown open against the house wall over their heads.

  “I think,” said de Jarnac, his teeth flashing in a devil-damn-the-world smile, “that they've found your mace-felled friend.”

  “Huh.” She threw a quick glance over her shoulder, half expecting to see the dark armor and menacing pikes of the guard pouring out the castle gate in pursuit. But the jagged rooftops of the curving rows of stepped houses had already hidden the castle from her sight.

  “My compliments to your uncle,” said Jarnac softly. “His men are quick.”

  She swung her head back around and bit off a gasp of dismay at the sight of a coppery glow wavering over the upper stories of the houses below. A shower of sparks flickered up into the night, and she knew it came from the windblown torches held high by the hands of hurrying men.

  Glancing about wildly, she saw the black mouth of an alley yawn enticingly up ahead on their left, and knew it was too far away. Already the bobbing helmets and thrusting pikes of the first line of men-at-arms rushing up the hill in answer to the castle's alarm were visible around the bend in the street.

  “There!” One of the men drew up momentarily in surprise, his fist tightening on his pike. “See them there?” he cried, his sweat-sheened face highlighted in orange by the flaring light of a flickering torch as he charged forward again. “Seize them.”

  Attica's step faltered, her feet stumbling over the lip of the foul-smelling, stone-lined gutter that ran down the center of the street. “We're trapped.”

  “Not yet,” said de Jarnac. He caught her before she fell, yanking her arm as he dragged her into the darkness of a deep porch that turned out to be not a porch at all but an arched passage piercing the facade of the merchant's establishment beside them.

  The stone tunnel closed in around them, dark and dank and close, then emptied into a long, narrow yard flanked on one side by the long ell of the house, on the other by the high wall of its neighbor. The yard itself was a mosaic of dark, mysterious shapes that soon identified themselves as de Jarnac tripped with a clatter over the pole of an unhorsed cart and Attica catapulted, arms outflung, into a huge pyramid of empty barrels. She careered sideways, scraping her elbow, losing her footing to land on her backside with a teeth-rattling thump as the barrels wobbled precariously beside her.

  “Juste ciel. It would be a wine merchant,” she heard de Jarnac say in soft amusement, as if they didn't have a troop of armed men hard on their heels, as if the insistent peal of the alarm bell wasn't still ringing out to rouse the entire city against them.

  “I think I prefer a wine merchant over a pig farmer,” she said, pushing herself up onto wobbly legs. She heard the low huff of his laugh as she groped her way toward him. He seemed to be doing something with the barrels. She had only just grasped what he was about to do when a low, throaty growl brought her spinning around.

  Sharp canine teeth gleamed white and deadly from a large, furry shadow that crouched menacingly beside a nearby shed. “De Jarnac,” Attica whispered, just as the huge mastiff growled again and hurtled itself forward.

  “Christ,” said de Jarnac, grabbing her arm as he kicked loose a carefully positioned lever that sent a shudder through the looming pile of wine caskets. She didn't see the chain until the dog hit the end of its tether with a blessed clang of metal links and a snarling, frustrated fury that was all but lost in the thunderous roar of the barrels as the pyramid collapsed.

  Leaping forward, the great casks bounded and rattled across the courtyard, a rolling, charging cylindrical army of dark oak to the rescue. She heard a quickly cut off crude expletive and a startled yelp from two of the men-at-arms who had just burst through the passage from the street only to disappear in a confusion of upflung arms and smashing staves and burst iron bands.

  “Ha,” said de Jarnac, his laughing voice close to her ear as they ran together toward the back of the yard. “You're right: much better than a pig farmer.”

  They pelted over the uneven paving blocks, past a startled, white-headed goat and a squawki
ng, ruffle-feathered aviary, before they came upon the outside corner stair that they followed up and up, to the house's third-floor gallery. From there, it was an easy matter for Attica to follow de Jarnac's lead and swing her legs over the gallery's wooden railing for the leap to the gently sloping roof of the two-story workshop that abutted the back of the house.

  Balanced on the top of the railing, she hesitated, her head jerking toward the sound of heavy feet pounding up the steps behind them. One of the soldiers, quicker than his fellows, was closing on them fast. Glancing about in a panic, she seized one of the pots of scraggly geraniums that decorated the railing and sent it hurtling downward to shatter with a cascade of dirt on the crest of the helmet that had just appeared on the steps below her. The helmet abruptly disappeared.

  “Got him,” said Attica, pushing off the railing into de Jarnac's waiting arms.

  “You have a talent with blunt objects.” He laughed as he caught her. But then the laughter faded from his face to be replaced by a strange intensity she'd never seen there before as he held her close to him. “This is getting dangerous, Attica. I'd rather you'd left me in that prison room to die than that something happen to you because of me.”

  She watched, her head thrown back, as the wind ruffled the sweat-dampened hair at his temples. Against the darkness of the storm-driven night sky, his face shone pale, the flaring bones of his cheeks, the strong line of nose and chin striking her as both achingly beautiful and oddly vulnerable. She looked at him and felt deep within her the heavy beat of her heart as it seemed to slow and then stop for one momentous, unforgettable instant of revelation.

  I love him, she thought with quiet, piercing wonder. That is why I am here, running through this storm-filled night, my heart light with a wild excitement that can find a source for laughter even in the face of death. Because I love him, and I cannot bear to let him leave without me.

  She reached up to touch his cheek, her hand trembling. “Whatever the outcome,” she said softly, “I could never regret what I did.”

  Unexpectedly, his smile flashed, wide and cocky and stealing her heart all over again. “The outcome is still ours to make.” He seized her hand in his sinewy grip. “Come, my mace- and flower-pot-wielding lordling; the sky at least is open before us.”

  Hand in hand they ran, across the slippery, slanting slate roofs of the houses that descended the hill of Laval Castle like a series of giant, ragged steps so tightly wedged together that the short distances between them could be leapt, the differences in height not so great she couldn't scramble up them with the aid of jutting gargoyles and de Jarnac's strong, helping hand.

  Their progress was not quiet. Ever conscious of the pounding feet and hoarse shouts of their pursuers, they moved with no thought to stealth but seized whatever could be enlisted in their defense: loose tiles snatched and thrown on the fly, unripe plums plucked from a big old overhanging tree, yesterday's washing, carelessly left drying across some upper gallery, now cut free to whip through the air and momentarily blind and trip the men who slogged determinedly after them.

  Stumbling and cursing, the men-at-arms plowed on through the wind-whipped, lightning-charged night, only to blunder into the clutches of outraged townspeople awakened by the ruckus. To the missiles of the fugitives, the good citizens of Laval unwittingly added their own impediments as they took their fury out on those nearest at hand. Renouf 's faithful soldiers found themselves splashed with the contents of slop buckets and dodging flying boots as they fended off broom-wielding middle-aged matrons in flowing white shifts and night caps whose shrieks redoubled in intensity when the cloud-filled skies above parted and the rain came pouring down.

  The rain fell in big, hard drops that filled the air with the sharp scent of wet earth and stone. The slates and tiles underfoot, already dangerous, now became wet and deadly. The wind sent the rain driving into Attica's face, blinding her. She fell to her hands and knees, creeping along slowly, her heart in her throat. And then the long, curving row of houses they followed ended abruptly at a triangular plaza cobbled in gleaming, rain-washed gray stones toward which the wall of the last house dropped a straight three stories. There was no way down.

  They stood together at the edge of the tiles, Attica's breath coming so hard and fast, her chest ached. Rain ran down her face, dripped off her hair, soaked her torn, filthy clothes. She felt as if she were drowning in failure and despair.

  “I can try to lower you over the edge,” said de Jarnac, his own breath ragged. “Or we can jump together.”

  Through the driving, roaring rain, she looked up into his strained face and thought for one tormented moment that he must have decided to choose death on the cobbles below over inevitable capture. But then his hand tightened in hers, and he was dragging her along the wet slates, and she saw what he had already noticed: a lean-to barn built in a shadowy corner against the house wall.

  She stared down at the barn's thatched roof, some fifteen feet below, then glanced over her shoulder at the men rushing across the roof toward them through a swirling blaze of torches. An arrow whizzed through the night, so close she felt the wind of its passing. She met de Jarnac's questioning gaze and said, “Jump.”

  They jumped hand in hand, the thatch absorbing much of their momentum before giving way to spill them through rough-hewn rafters into the straw-strewn bed of a very startled cow.

  Scrambling up, winded but unbroken, they erupted out the barn door into the empty plaza, straw plastered to their wet clothes, the cow interested, ambling behind as they considered the rain-washed darkness before them.

  Three streets, two wider than the other, opened off the small plaza. They chose the narrow lane that wound around the base of the hill toward the river, and set off again at a run.

  But they had lost the freedom of movement they'd found on the rooftops, and Renouf Blissot's men had had more than enough time to spread out over the twisted network of streets and alleyways around the castle. Within twenty-five paces, the reddish glow of torchlight gleaming through the rain up ahead showed them the dim silhouette of armed men, blocking the lane.

  Too late, now, to turn back, for a stream of curses and pounding feet announced the imminent if limping arrival of their caprioling companions of the rooftops. Damion spun round in the narrow, muddy rue, searching for a way out, but this was an old street and a poor one, with ancient houses leaning drunkenly against one another and no friendly dark archways to welcome them into hidden courtyards.

  Swearing, Damion began to throw himself first against one door, then the next, pounding on the locked, metal-studded panels until, to his surprise, one gave way before him, and he found himself stumbling down a shallow flight of stone steps, with Attica yanked in behind him.

  A swirl of soapy steam enveloped them in warm wisps that floated away between row after row of stone columns and drifted up in a golden, lamp-lit mist to hover beneath round arched stone vaults that reminded him vaguely of the ancient ruins he had seen half-buried in the hot shifting sands of eastern deserts.

  The baths were old, very old, and once, doubtless, respectable. They were not respectable now. Perhaps by day the poorer citizens of Laval still came here to wash away the dirt of their honest labors. But by night the place was obviously given over to the kind of activities that had made bagnios and stews bywords for brothels all across Europe.

  A second look showed him that paint darkened both the lush lips and the pertly bared nipples of the woman who had opened the door to them and now stood gape-mouthed with surprise, staring at them. Beyond her, the whirls of steam floating over the lapping surface of the large central pool parted to reveal the brawny back and thrusting naked buttocks of a man who coupled openly with a white-limbed woman he held pinned to the marble steps descending languidly into the waters.

  “What is this place?” Attica whispered, her eyes wide and round.

  “Don't look,” Damion told her. He grabbed her hand and ran with her around the foggy edge of the pool, just as the first
man-at-arms burst through the open doorway.

  Unprepared for the stairs, the soldier somersaulted down the ancient steps to crash into the Lady of the Painted Breasts, who recovered her voice and her wits at the same time and fled screaming.

  “Shit,” said Damion, ducking between a row of secluded alcoves. It was here that those too modest to expose themselves in the public pool bathed instead, in wooden troughs set upon raised stone platforms and curtained with heavy silks and brocades rather the worse for age and long exposure to damp air and careless frolicking.

  The sound of boots pounding across the tiles behind them echoed through arching stone vaults already ringing with the panicked splashes of bathers and staccato bursts of sodden female shrieks. “I do not think,” said Attica, as Damion yanked down a moldy blue velvet curtain to throw into the path of their nearest pursuer, “I do not think these gentlemen came here simply to bathe.”

  “I told you not to look,” said Damion, whirling to confront a slim, dark-haired soldier whose sword was already singing free of its scabbard to flash naked and sharp through the misty air.

  Leaping out of the way, Damion caught the still swinging sword with a looped towel plucked from the waist of an indignant bather. The bather fled, pink bottom waddling, as Damion jerked the towel-wrapped blade and sent it arcing through the air to land with a ringing crash on the tiles. Grim-lipped, the soldier reached for his poniard, just as Attica hit him from behind with a three-legged stool.

  “I wondered where you were,” said Damion, breathing heavily.

  She was better with flower pots and maces than with stools. The soldier only staggered, grabbing for support at the splashing edge of the recently vacated trough. With a splintering rip, the old wood gave beneath his weight. Eyes widening, he pitched over backward, still clutching the side of the trough, which tore loose in his grip.

  Like a steaming miniature tidal wave, the hot, soapy water poured forth, washing over the tiled floor to knock the next soldier off his feet and send another skidding across the slippery tiles to crack his forehead against a column.