by Barbara Kyle
“Sojers. They’re going to live with us, Mama says. They’re upstairs, too. Even in the stable!”
Isabel looked around and murmured, “The Queen’s soldiers.”
“Mama made a big pot of stew,” the child said, throwing out her hands to indicate a cauldron twice her size. “Do you want some?”
Isabel smiled and nodded.
“I’ll get it! Mama told me I must help serve tonight.” She added proudly, “Mama needs me.”
“I’m sure she does.”
Smiling, the child skipped off to the kitchen.
Isabel shivered and rubbed her hands before the fire, eyeing the soldiers anxiously. She met Carlos’s gaze. He looked down to scoop up the kerchief, bulging with coins, that he’d left on the table.
“I see your day has been a profitable one,” she said to him, and added with more weariness than rancor, “if not in the way I had hoped.”
Carlos said nothing. He tucked his winnings into his jerkin.
The child skipped back with a trencher of thick, steaming stew which Isabel accepted with thanks. She dug her spoon into the bowl, then glanced at Carlos. “I hope,” she said with a slight smile of scorn, “you will not be tempted to leave my employ now that such great wealth is yours.”
“He can’t do that, mistress,” Andrews said amiably across the table, turning in his chair to stretch out his legs. He politely introduced himself to her, then explained, “A mercenary doesn’t change sides in the middle of a campaign.”
“Really, sir?” she said. “I did not know that.” She looked at Carlos as if for corroboration of the statement. “What’s to stop them?”
“Would not be hired again,” Carlos confirmed.
“I see,” Isabel said between bites of stew. “Still,” she went on to the lieutenant, “his working for me can hardly be called a campaign.”
“Technically, it is. He is pledged to his employer until his commission is fulfilled.”
She frowned. “I see he has told you all about me, sir.”
“Not at all, dear lady,” Andrews said gallantly. “But since he is interested in joining our company, and since the job with you apparently will not last beyond—”
“Joining you?” she said in astonishment.
“Aye, to smash these poxy rebels.”
Isabel’s face hardened. She ate in stony silence. Carlos grabbed a fresh tankard of ale from the landlord’s boy going past. There was a burst of private laughter from a far table.
“Well,” the lieutenant said, stretching as he rose, “I’m done in.” He bowed to Isabel. “A pleasure, mistress. Let me know if any of my men here disturb you. ‘Night Valverde.” He glanced at Captain Ross, still talking in the corner with the chambermaid. Andrews smiled and went upstairs.
Tight-lipped, Isabel put down her trencher and came over to Carlos at the table where he now sat alone. The drone of the soldiers went on around them. She glared down at Carlos. “Is it true?” she asked in an angry whisper. “Are you joining the Queen’s forces?”
“When my job with you is done, yes.”
“That’s disgusting,” she said with a vehemence that surprised him.
“That is my work,” he said evenly.
“Your work today was to find my father! But you didn’t!”
“I looked,” he said roughly, though keeping his voice low. “The Marshalsea Prison and King’s Bench. It took all day. He was not in either of them. When I got to Newgate prison they were locking up for the night. They turned me away. But I will go back in the morning. Your father must be there. I will finish this.” He had thought it out. In the morning he would convince her that it was too dangerous for her to accompany him into Newgate, the dumping place for the most violent criminals. He would go alone, then come back and tell her that her father had died inside. It wouldn’t be much of a lie, since Thornleigh was bound to be hanged. And, despite her fantasies, there was no way anybody could get him out of Newgate. She would have to give up. She would haveto leave England and go to Antwerp, just as her father had told her to do. That was best.
And he could simply forget about Thornleigh.
“We will go in the morning,” she corrected him, and added coldly, “There’s less chance of a card game luring you away if I’m along.”
He shrugged. He would deal with her in the morning.
But she did not leave his side. She fixed him with burning eyes. “Why will you join the tyrant’s side?”
“What?”
“Why not help the liberators?”
“Because they will lose.” He drank his ale.
She stared at him openmouthed. “How can you know that?”
“They have no experience as an army. No stronghold in the country. No war chest to hire outside troops. No backup from other powers.” He caught in her eye a glimmer of defiance at the last statement.
“Those things can be overcome if they have the will. All of England will join them if they have the will. And they have, because they’re in the right. They are protecting England from the onslaught of Spain, from the terrors of the Inquisition. My God, you must have seen how they torture and burn people there.”
“I have not been in Spain since I was a boy.”
“Well, it’s barbaric. And the rebels here have risen up to prevent such appalling injustices from coming here. How can you fight for injustice?”
Carlos almost smiled. She was so green. “Injustice does not end, whoever wins. Soldiers on both sides will pay with their blood, and people like you will live to see that nothing changes.”
She lifted her head high. “Thank you for the military lesson, sir. Obviously, you may fight for whomever you wish. I cannot stop you. Now, if you will excuse me, it has been a tiring day and I’m going to bed. I ask only that before you rush off to help the Queen, you remember your duty in the morning. As the lieutenant pointed out, you are pledged to me.” She turned to go.
He grabbed her wrist. “Isabel.”
She blinked at him in surprise. He’d never called her by her name. The intimacy of it caught them both off guard. Carlos hesitated. What could he say? That it was easy for her to talk of choosing sides because her class always stayed on top, whoever won, but if he chose wrong he died?
He kept hold of her wrist, not willing to let her go before he made her understand. That he had nothing, and that was how most mercenaries died—with nothing, died before they were forty, on some muddy battlefield, forgotten. He began haltingly. “This is my chance. I have seen revolts like this before. They are broken fast. The rebels are hanged and the ruler is thankful to all who helped win the victory. I could get … un indulto“—he frowned, searching for the word—"a pardon. You see? Even more, I could get a reward. Land. The Queen will give out the lands of dead traitors. I could …” He didn’t finish. There was no way to explain that this was his chance to be something. To be the equal of her class. The equal, even, of the man she planned to marry.
And certainly there was no way to tell her about the relief creeping into his heart the longer he held her. For how could he possibly explain that now, with this way out, he did not have to kill her father?
So he merely said again, inadequately, almost pleading, “Isabel.”
But she’d gone very pale. “Lands of dead traitors?” she whispered. She jerked back her hand and stepped away from him. Without another word she hurried upstairs.
Thornleigh’s head slumped back against the alcove wall, jolting him awake. The ward was plunged in sleep, but for hours he’d been fighting sleep, and alternating between sweating with fever and shivering with chills. He licked his swollen lips and tasted salt and longed for water. He knew none would be brought until the morning.
He blinked in the gloom, trying to see. His eyes burned so much that it was hard to focus. Were the children still there? He rubbed his eyes roughly. Focus! he told himself. Concentrate! Yes, they were still there, hunkered in their half ring like so many shadowy goblins. The oldest one, the hollow-eyed girl w
ho was their leader, sat on her haunches idly picking at a scab on her cheek, watching him. Watching and waiting. Thornleigh felt like a cornered rat, but at least with his back braced against the wall he could see them all. They couldn’t sneak up on his rear. He shook his head hard. Must not fall asleep!
But the shivering claimed him again. It took him like a kind of paroxysm, shaking him, and when it was over he slumped against the wall again, exhausted. Then, through the slit of his swollen eye, he saw one of the shadowy little figures creep closer. And another. Christ, they were moving in on him!
He sat bolt upright with a loud threatening growl. The children stilled. Thornleigh slumped again, panting. He had stopped them with this brief show of defiance but it was just a standoff. He needed to stay vigilant, needed to concentrate. He looked around for something, anything, to focus his mind, to keep his head above the tide of delirium.
He saw a fist-sized chunk of firewood. It was next to the wall, between him and the child at the edge of the semicircle. He went forward on all fours and snatched it, then retreated to the alcove and sat again, dizzy from the burst of exertion. With shaky hands he felt inside his boot and drew out his knife. He began to whittle the wood.
It was hard work. His hands were unsteady, his palms were slippery with sweat, and his focus wavered as the fever enervated him. But every glance up at the hollow-eyed girl, implacably waiting, reinforced his perseverance. He must not fall asleep.
* * *
He stalked through the room, the barrel of his pistol glinting. He lifted it and pointed it at her mother’s face and laughed. A fiery detonation … her mother exploded into smoke and blood …
Isabel bolted up in bed, screaming. She tore off the blanket and threw her legs over the side of the bed and lunged for her mother to catch her from falling … but she was so far away! And she was slipping on the blood … her mother’s blood … falling. On all fours she crawled across the floor to her … too slow! … if she could only catch her mother!
Someone grabbed her. Someone was stopping her … holding her back. She yanked her arms free and beat him with her fists. “Let go, Father!” she cried. “I have to catch her! Let me go!”
But her father did not let go. He gripped her wrists to stop her blows. And though she squirmed and tried with all her might to fight him, he pinned her arms tightly to her sides. The pain of the struggle punctured the nightmare, fracturing the images of pistol, smoke, blood, her mother falling…. Everything splintered and re-formed into a pattern that made no sense … Martin slipping in blood … her father grabbing her wrists to keep her from the mob while the Spanish lords fell from their horses … the Spaniard lowering himself on top of her in the prison … protecting her with his body … blood from his shoulder dripping onto her …
“It is me!” he said … and she realized he’d been saying it over and over … “It is me—Carlos!”
The splintered nightmare vanished.
She realized she was on her knees in the middle of her room. He was on his knees before her, his hands clamped on her wrists. They knelt face to face in the shadows. A shaft of moonlight silvered the room. “You screamed,” he said.
The pain of his grip brought stinging tears to her eyes. He saw that he was hurting her and he let go. “Better?” he asked more quietly.
Better? How could it be! She had not reached her mother in time. Had not stopped her from falling … would never be able to …
She felt dizzy, as if she were falling herself. She clutched fistfuls of his shirt and held on tightly. Then something in her gave way. She fell against him. And the tears that had sprung in pain now flowed in grief. She would never catch her mother … who would fall in her dreams forever, beyond her reach … just beyond her outstretched arms …
In desolation she threw her arms around his neck and wept. It had been five days since the pistol shot, the sulfurous smoke, the blood, the chaos … and finally she wept.
He said nothing. He held her with her face against his neck as she wept.
And then her tears were spent. But she did not leave his embrace. She could not find the will to do so. His arms held her so firmly, even though her body shuddered with breaths that came in gulps. The heat of his body enveloped her. It was like a haven.
It was more. It was a surging, living heat, and the pressure of his arms was a pulsing strength. She was aware of the hardness of his body … of the leather scent that infused his shirt … of the musky smell of his skin. Aware of her own lips, wet with tears, against his warm neck. She wore only a thin chemise, and the sensation of being nearly naked in his arms made her almost dizzy again. Her quickened pulse thrummed through her veins. She drew back a fraction from him, and her tightened nipples grazed his chest. A jolt of heat flashed from her nipples down to her belly.
Dazzled by the sensation, she pulled back shakily. His hold slackened but his arms did not release her. He was looking straight into her eyes but his breathing was ragged, as if he was forcing his eyes to remain on hers though his mind ranged all over her body.
One of her tears glistened on his chin. It looked so odd—a tear on that rough skin—and she started to wipe it away. He sucked a sharp breath in surprise. Her hand strayed to his open mouth … her fingertips brushed his lips.
He snatched her hand to stop her. “I am only human,” he said, his voice a rough plea.
Hot blood swept her face. What was she doing! Ashamed, she jerked away from him. She half turned, still on her knees. But the overwhelming power of his presence snared her, as if his arms still held her fast. She could not imagine breaking away from him … could only imagine sinking back, yielding to his strength.
Suddenly he was close behind her. Still kneeling, he did not touch her, but she felt the heat of his body over every inch of her back. She heard his breathing, harsh with want. But he was utterly still, as though waiting to gauge her response. She made no move to reject him. A faint voice in her head whispered that she must, but the rush of her blood deafened her to it.
And then his hands were on her. Grabbing her shoulders. Sliding up her neck, his fingers raking her hair. Plunging down to her hips, around to her belly, rumpling the chemise, ranging up over her breasts. Her nipples were hard against his palms. His mouth was hot on the back of her neck. He pressed her against his body and she felt the swell of his erection rock-hard against her buttock. Her head lolled on his shoulder.
He groaned and pulled her backward. She sank, unresisting, her every muscle yielding. A universe apart from her defilement by Mosse. She was on the floor on her back and Carlos was over her. They lay in darkness below the shaft of moonlight, and now there was nothing but the sound of his breathing and the feel of him and the yearning of her body. He rested his weight on one arm bent by her head. His mouth covered hers. His hand urgently roamed over her breasts and belly as if he could not get enough of her. Her mouth opened under his. He shoved her chemise up above her breasts, baring all of her. She clutched his shoulders, themuscles hard. His hand slid between her legs, parting them—so easily—moving to the place of her heat, slick with her desire. At the insistent motions of his fingers she gasped, for it seemed that if he continued something inside her would explode, but she arched to meet his hand, for it seemed that if he stopped she would die.
With a groan, he groped to unfasten the ties of his codpiece.
A fist banged the door. “Mistress Thornleigh?” The landlady’s anxious voice. “All right in there? I heard you cry out a few moments ago.”
Isabel could not catch her breath. His tongue was on her neck, her breast….
“Mistress? Shall I come in?”
“No! I’m … fine. Just a … bad dream. It’s nothing!”
“Oh. A dream. Well, I won’t bother you then.” The landlady padded away. “Goodnight.”
His weight was coming down on her … the furnace of his body pressing …
“No!” she whispered fiercely. He froze. But she felt his heart throughout his body pounding with hi
s need. She tried to push him off. It was like pushing at a boulder.
He lifted his head. The dull glint in his eyes showed how far want had overpowered thought. All his strength was channeled into claiming her, and she knew she was asking almost the impossible in asking him to stop. But the landlady’s interruption had brought the real world crashing in on her. Martin. Her betrothal vows to Martin. Her promises. Promises are all we have.… She must not let this happen!
“Please, oh, please let me go,” she whispered.
He rolled onto his back with a thud, breathing hard. He stared at the ceiling. She quickly covered herself. He lurched up stiffly, sitting, and retied his codpiece. He said nothing, only cast her a glance as he got to his feet. But the glance was eloquent with anger, desire, and bewilderment.
He left her room.
* * *
Thornleigh knew he was hallucinating. Ahead, a small shape quivered like a becalmed ship on a summer horizon, a ship blurred by a blazing sun and shimmering in a haze of heat.
He swallowed, parched with thirst. The whittling knife slipped in his sweaty palm and he almost dropped it. He was soaked in sweat. He stared at the small, shimmering shape ahead and fought to let reason surface through the miasma of his fever. It was no ship, he told himself, it was the boy. Some time ago—was it hours or days?—his attention had been caught by this child hunkered nearest the girl-leader, because this one—a boy no more than five, the smallest among the death watch—had begun to shiver uncontrollably. Fevered, just like me, Thornleigh had realized. An odd affinity with the child had grown in him as he continued to whittle, and the little boy and he had gone on shivering together, both afflicted—the hunter and the prey.
Thornleigh forced himself to look down at his whittling. The boat carving was almost finished. But he felt his strength ebbing.
He knew he was going to die.
A wave of fever swamped him and his knife clattered to the floor. He had not been concentrating. The sound rattled him. He hunched over on his knees and groped in the straw, trying to find the knife. The blade sliced the skin between his fingers and he pitched forward onto his elbow at the pain, but his other hand still held up the carved boat as if to keep it safe. But he had not strength enough to stay in this position, and he thudded down on the floor. Lying on his side, he saw the girl, the leader, lift her hand. He knew it was a signal.
