Stormfire

by Christine Monson

  They took turns with gun butts until he no longer , needed to be held down. At some point his will dissolved, ground away until he was broken in body and spirit. He wanted to beg, but only a croak would emerge from his throat. Finally, they rolled him over and stood back. Enderly leaned down and thumbed back the Irishman's eyelid, then, hearing a groan, touched his mouth almost tenderly. "Tell me what I want to know. Say it, Robert, and no one will hurt you any more. Otherwise . . ." There was a silence, then the dark head nodded. "Say it."

  "Yes. Please . . ." The words were broken, like a sob of need. The green eyes looked up at him as if he were a savior, then slanted into those of a fiend. Before the guards could react, Sean wrenched at the man's hair with one hand and smashed his nose with the other. The guards went at him all at once, pounding at him with fists and boots. Then a musket butt smashed down on his skull and his grip went lax. They dragged Enderly, stilly screaming, out from under him, then went on kicking him in the head and sides.

  One of them helped Enderly to a chair. "Take him," he croaked. "Tell Worthy. I want him . . . hacked to bits!"

  The guard nodded and the four of them carried the slack body out, face down, head dangling.

  Faraway, Sean heard the four marines complaining about his weight. Like a gnat's nagging stings in the midst of livid pain, Blankface's thumbnail dug into his left Achilles tendon, keeping him conscious and aware of what awaited him in a room just beyond the opening guardroom door.

  "Hah. Looks like the viscount was in a bit of a miff," observed the chief guard, stepping back to let them in.

  "That an't half," said Blankface, dropping Sean's left foot. "Ye ought to see old Johnny's face. Nose all over it."

  He strolled over to the wall to light a cheroot from a candle. Shovel Hands dropped his leg; he saw no point holding up dead weight if everyone was bent on gossip.

  "Pick him up and let's get on with it," Raker growled. "I an't plannin' to spend the night with him. Besides, he's tricky—" The warning came too late. The battered, silent man exploded, jabbing and kicking. With a maniac's strength, he wrenched away as a guard went down screaming with a smashed knee. Shovel Hands sailed headfirst into the wall and Sean jerked the pistol from the unconscious man's crossband. Raker fired point-blank into his back. His body lurched against the wall, seeming to embrace it, then he turned, eyes blazing with hate and pain. Even as the rattled chief guard's bullet pocked stone splinters by his head, he squeezed the trigger. Raker clutched his exploding face and dropped.

  Then, with his first animation of the evening, Blankface smiled from across the room and leveled his gun.

  Lifting his drooping head with an effort, Sean waited with weary patience for the final bullet; when it came, he seemed almost grateful to his executioner. His body jerked once, then sagged. Leaving a streak of scarlet, he slipped down the stone.

  "Appears ye got him square through the heart, Corporal," observed the guard. Sheepshanks huddled, clutching his knee, his eyes squeezed shut with pain. The fourth guard lay inert by Raker.

  Blankface nudged the body in the ribs. "We'll pitch him out for the diggers."

  He was cold. So cold. Like the night his childhood had been brutally wrenched from him. Tears seeped in icy rivulets down his cheeks as he shivered naked in a surfswept crevice and watehed the glare of a blazing village, its sullen glow reflected from low-lying clouds heaped like dirty piles of sheared fleece. Beyond moonlit stones as luminous as skulls, the sea sighed in mourning, lulling whispers like a beguiling lure. The blanket he tried to draw over himself dissolved into icy powder between stiff fingers as he weakly plucked at the snow of the prison courtyard. Mother . . . please, I'm cold.

  Go back to bed, Sean. If you are going to be king, you must be brave.

  I'm lying naked in the snow. I can feel my life seeping out on the ground.

  Men don't whimper. Be a man.

  Don't go. Help me . . . please. Somebody. I hurt. Kit, hold me. Warm me. He tried to blink away snowflakes that froze on his lashes. High stars shone faintly through the falling snow and silently he cried out to them. Kit, I fought them. I didn't die the way you think. I'm still a man. I am . . . His head twisted in restless struggle and struck a dark shape beside him. He managed to move a hand far enough to tug at it with numb fingers. The coarse blanket came away; underneath it was a corpse, features already drawn in rigor, open eyes glassy, impervious to the gathering snow. Another corpse lay on the other side of him; and Raker's bulk, stripped of its uniform, beyond that. Hardly knowing what he did, Sean rolled over heavily, seeking warmth against the dead body. The pain of the effort shook him and he moaned against the rough blanket. Oh, God. I hurt. End it. Jehovah, God of Vengeance. You're good at killing. You've killed me over and over. When you made me Kit's brother. Up in that room. Finish it.

  Yet somehow, he could not stop huddling for warmth against that corpse, could not roll away and let the cold take him quickly. You hate me too much to let me die, don't you? Inch by inch, bitterness welled up. I lost both balls up in that room and you know it. I haven't enough courage left to die; I used the last going for that gun. Damn you! His teeth bared in a snarl. This is how the damned die. With a grimace of outrage. Like this poor bastard I'm hugging like a friend. Well, you won't get me. I'll spit in your Stone Eye.

  He pawed with new energy at the body, struggling with it until he had its filthy rags and dragged them onto himself. It took a long time but he did it with grim triumph. He rifled the other corpse for rags to tie around his feet, then clawed the ragged blanket around his shoulders like a shawl.

  Finally, he began the agonizing ordeal of getting to his feet. Leaving the snow bloody with his efforts and staggering like a drunken derelict, he wandered out of the deserted courtyard to the street. The guard normally posted at the back entrance was standing on the corner with another watch, rubbing his hands and hugging himself, bored, lonely, and chilled. Shivering in the unblocked wind of the street, Sean kept to the shadows along the wall, avoiding the light from the windows across the street. As he safely turned the corner, hë clutched at the bricks, digging his nails into the mortar grooves to keep from sliding to the ground.

  With terrible slowness he stumbled toward the harbor, keeping to the darker streets and alleys, until he collapsed. Curled up against the cold in his rags, he lost consciousness. He came to, teeth chattering, shaking violently. From then on, he crawled.

  The few people he encountered averted their eyes from his battered, filthy face and went out of their way to avoid him. A marine and his mate were more curious. As they approached, a frown of suspicion creased the corporal's forehead. "See here, what are you up to?"

  Sean stretched up a hand that shook. "Thruppence, sir?" he croaked. "Thruppence for a gin?"

  "Filthy sod," the mate remarked. The marine shook his head in disgust, and the two walked on.

  Near the harbor, a sailor actually gave him a penny to impress his sentimental doxy. They watched him drag himself into a side street. "Lumme, poor bloke. He's leavin' blood in the snow," the girl said. "Mayhap we ought to . . ." The sailor firmly pulled her away.

  At last, Culhane came to the haven he sought, an unpainted, narrow house near the harbor. Shivering uncontrollably, he leaned his head and shoulder on the back door and weakly pounded with the heel of his hand. No one came. The place was dark, neglected, the curtains drawn. If the house was empty, he would die here. He could drag himself no farther. It had taken three hours to cover the quarter-mile. He could not feel his hands and feet, only pain that exploded in his chest with each heartbeat. His face was numb, his hair filling with drifting flakes. Too weak to cover himself again, he scratched at the door, almost absently watching the slowly spreading blackness over his heart.

  Then the door drifted away and he tumbled into the house with the gently blowing snow.

  CHAPTER 21

  Lazarus

  Catherine twisted her hands about the small pistol in her muff as she waited in the office of the command
ant of Liverpool Military Prison. Since her return from Scotland the previous evening, the effort of behaving normally with the battered Enderly had nearly exhausted her control; now her nerves were strung taut. This place is a mountain of stone, she thought bleakly. A man could be buried alive here and no one would know. Scream his life away and no one would hear. Or care. Her fingers twisted, twisted.

  The door opened and a green uniform came at her. She put out her hand automatically, warding the officer off; he kissed her fingertips.

  "Countess. This is an honor. I am Colonel Deal." A short, blunt man with a ruddy face made ruddier by his powdered white periwig, his small eyes appreciatively took in the rakishly sophisticated figure in chocolate velvet with satin cloche and sable muff. "The general didn't mention your coming. I would have made some preparation . . ."

  "That is kind of you, Colonel, but totally unnecessary. I understand military quarters aren't designed to administer tea and scones. You have a prisoner who has been accused of my abduction. May I see him?"

  "I . . . am afraid not."

  "Why not, Colonel? I'm the sole witness. If you've made an error, an innocent man may pay for it with his life. If he's guilty, I can identify him."

  The commandant squirmed. "This is a prison, Countess; its prisoners are villainous scum. Hardly a fit place and company for a lady."

  Catherine ignored his slight inflection on the last word. "Surely I may trust to your able protection, sir."

  "I regret, my lady—"

  "Colonel, prisoners not in the military are subject to civil law. Must I display a warrant to see the prisoner? You have no right to hold a civilian incommunicado indefinitely without trial."

  The commandant's jowls began to swell against his tunic collar. "I'm sure Mr. Sexton, the magistrate, will tell you—"

  She frostily cut him off. "I've been to the chief magistrate of the Western Counties, Mr. Andrew Carton. In fact, Mr. Carton has provided just such a warrant. I wish to see the prisoner now."

  His eyes turned piggy. "I'm afraid that's impossible. The prisoner died under questioning."

  Stay with me, Kit. I keep thinking this is a dream, that in the morning . . .

  "I assume he was given medical treatment?"

  "Certainly."

  "I should like to see the doctor in charge."

  "Most irregular, my lady."

  "No more irregular than an immediate investigation of your administration here, Colonel. Well?" Inside, she was shaking, unsure how far Deal could be pushed. Flaunting her title and waving Artois's seal under the chief magistrate's impressed nose had been one thing; it would be quite different if she actually had to use ducal influence to secure a prisoner's release from a military prison. She felt like a juggler, trying to keep her lover out of reach of a rescuer as dangerous as the hunters. Yet she had to see Sean dead; she had to be sure.

  "As you wish," Deal said tightly. "Follow me."

  "Countess, this is Thatcher Marcus, our resident doctor. Doctor, Lady Catherine Enderly. My lady wishes to know—"

  "I'm capable of asking my own questions, Colonel," Catherine interrupted. "Please leave us."

  The colonel shot Marcus a warning glance, then withdrew from the small office.

  "Doctor, some weeks ago a prisoner was brought here. A black-haired, green-eyed man. The colonel tells me he was sent to you for medical attention after being questioned and that he died. Is that true?"

  "I attend a great many prisoners, my lady. I don't remember them all."

  "You would have remembered this one. He . . . rather made one think of Lucifer." Inside her muff, fingernails dug into her palms as the doctor studied her. "Doctor, I mean you no harm. They may have had the wrong man; if so, I feel responsible. I only want to know if he was given medical treatment." There must have been a note in her voice, a dry sound of crumbling.

  "May I ask your given name, my lady?"

  Oh, God, please. What a stupid question. If Sean is dead, living is stupid. Stupid. "Catherine," she muttered.

  "Are you sometimes called Kit?"

  Her heart leaped over. "Yes. Yes! He was here?"

  "Yes." His tone was so grave she wanted to scrabble at him, beg for any hope.

  "Tell me." The two words were all she could manage.

  "The prisoner was brought to me in critical condition after severe questioning. He survived." Marcus looked away from the welling hope in her eyes. "Two days ago, he was shot while trying to escape."

  With an incoherent cry, she sagged. He caught her and carried her to his battered sofa. Mute, she curled away from him, into her grief. After checking the ward outside to be sure the colonel was not lurking nearby, he let her be for a time, then touched her shoulder. "Your father will come here, my lady. Colonel Deal has probably gone to send word to him."

  "I don't care. I don't care what he does! He's a murderer. Murderer!"

  She began to scream uncontrollably and he gave her a sharp slap. "Stop'it! Would you endanger us both?"

  Eyes glittering, she pushed him away. "Where is he? What have they done with him?"

  "He was buried in a potter's field."

  She began to rock, keening in sorrow: primitive, ageless, terrible. Marcus shook her. "Listen to me! He didn't want this kind of grief from you!" She groaned, hardly conscious of him. Knowing the colonel would be back at any moment, he had to shock her into reason, even if it were born of rage. "Your father intended to serve you his manhood on a platter to test your reaction! But he was cheated because the prisoner fought to die like a man. If you're weak, that struggle was for nothing."

  White-faced, the young countess fell silent. After a moment, she murmured, "I must see his grave. I cannot accept his death. It's as if he were calling me. As if he were a child begging for warmth."

  Marcus helped her clean up her disheveled appearance and, leading her away from the commandant's office, took her to the rear gate. "You can walk from here. It's not far to the field." He gave her directions.

  The potter's field was a barren, windswept heath' lumped with carelessly scattered dirt mounds; there were no markers, no signs of remembrance. Three scraggling trees clustered in stubborn resistance to an icy wind that lifted snow into flurries, scoured the frozen dirt clods bare, then covered them again. She walked toward two men digging at the far end of the field.

  Golgotha. The Place of Skulls. I cannot leave him here. I must take him home to Ireland. To the sea.

  The men were lowering a dirty gray bundle into a grave hardly deep enough to discourage scavenging dogs. They looked up, peering askance at her expensive clothes and still, white face.

  "Is a special section reserved for prison dead?"

  One man leaned on his shovel. "No, mum, they're all piled in together."

  "Do you . . . remember where you put the prisoners who died two nights ago?"

  "The ones pitched out in the court? Well, let's see. There was three. Stiff as boards, they was." He squinted and rubbed his hands. "Cold work, burying in this kind of weather. Ground's like iron."

  She gave them each a sovereign. They hastily pocketed the money. "Was a young, black-haired man among them?"

  The thinner man shook his head. "Nah. Two was dun-thatched, not all that young, either. And one was Sergeant Raker. Big ox. Took near three hours to get 'im under."

  "She must want the other one, Lean," the small digger said. "The one that took off. Must have hated Raker's guts so bad 'e couldn't stand to be in the same boneyard with 'im. Got up and walked away, just like Lazarus."

  Catherine dropped to her knees and grabbed his sleeve. "What did you say?"

  "I say 'e walked. Filched rags off the others and hauled 'is carcass away. Left blood all over the snow. Guess the drifts covered it up before the mornin' watch come around. We figured no sense in lookin'. Too cold for 'im to do anythin' but freeze. 'E an't showed up yet, though."

  Great roses began to bloom in Catherine's cheeks. "You didn't report him missing?"

  They looked at her
with some hostility.

  "No, of course you didn't!" She hugged the first dirty digger around the neck. "Oh, you lovely, lazy old crocks! You wonderful, beautiful angels! Here! Take a holiday! Take ten!" She flung a handful of sovereigns at them and ran across the mounds of snow.

  Finding the house was not difficult. According to Mignon, it was Sean's only possible refuge. The place was forbidding even by daylight, its paint weathered in the salt air until only fragments clung to the wood. Sagging shutters once a trim green framed dirty windows; the ground- floor shutters were closed. Heart pounding, Catherine knocked on the front door. Receiving no answer, she tried again more loudly, then stepped back and scanned the upper-story windows. Finally, she went to the rear; it, too, seemed deserted, but while new-fallen snow had obliterated any clues in the yard, it had not completely covered the shéltered back stoop and lower door, which were blood smeared, Thinking it locked, Catherine wrenched at the door, then nearly pitched into an unfurnished room festooned with cobwebs. The other gloomy rooms were empty except for a few pieces of heavy furniture and piles of debris, but a trail of dark blotches led to the kitchen's cellar door. Finding a discarded flint among the litter, she lit a rusty lantern which hung on a nearby nail, and opened the door. A stairway descended into darkness. Slowly, she crept down narrow, rickety steps, then held the lantern high.

  Face to the wall, a body partly covered by a ragged blanket lay on the dirt floor. Her heart leaped wildly. "Sean?" The head moved almost imperceptibly and her knees went weak. "Sean, it's Catherine."

  As if the effort was terrible, a man slowly turned his head. It's not him! she thought frantically. It cannot be! The bloody face was battered out of recognition. In growing terror, she stumbled forward and knelt, staring at the swollen, twisted nose, the closed, blackened left eye. A wicked gash split the brow and another raked across his bruised cheek. But the good eye, pain-clouded and barely aware, was the green of the sea. She placed the lantern on a rickety stool.