Elisha Rex

by E. C. Ambrose

  “Sorry, my lord, I’m sure you know why it had to be secret.”

  “Absolutely.” Robert thrust out his hand and clasped Elisha’s. “Hate to be the last to know—but I’m certainly glad of the truth! By the Cross, that funeral was dreadful to see.”

  “If you’ve come to berate me for my death, the king’s done that a month ago.”

  “The king—that’s what I’ve come to you about.” Robert took a breath. “The king’s vanished, Elisha, and Queen Rosalynn with him. They’re gone.”

  Chapter 2

  The air left the room. Then Elisha said softly what he already felt. “I know.”

  “What? How?”

  He darted a glance at Mordecai. “I have a talisman of the king. It gives me a sense of him, though lately it gives me nothing. I thought it might be the distance, or the water.” He dropped the handful of badges on the table where they chinked together and dully gleamed.

  Robert nodded quickly, but his lips set, and his eyes looked haunted.

  Prodding the badges with his finger, Elisha steeled himself to ask the next question. “Do you have reason to think they are dead?”

  “It’s hard to say.” Robert made a motion with his hand that brought a man-at-arms to refill the mug at his elbow. He took a long swallow before he spoke again. “They were summoned by a messenger to a private meeting at a house outside the city. Their men waited by the door, but they didn’t return. There was some blood, but not much of it, and no signs of struggle. We found a concealed tunnel, but it emerges near a busy market—seems unlikely anyone could’ve been smuggled through there, but somebody’s done it. This was nine days ago.”

  Mordecai carefully closed his book, his dark, watery gaze meeting Elisha’s. If they were right, the mancers had no need for smuggling and certainly not through public places: they had another, much darker means of travel.

  “The Duchess says none of the blood is her daughter’s. But there’s plenty of ways to . . . to die.” Robert sighed, then said, “There’s more.”

  More? Nine days gone, and Elisha only now found out. When had Thomas sent his letter? He wanted a chair, but forced his legs to support him.

  “Gloucester and the mayor took things a bit far. The duke and duchess were up in Lincoln and had to race back when they heard. Meantime, Gloucester started making arrests, thinking your supporters have taken them as retribution for your execution.”

  Elisha’s fists clenched. “I’m sorry,” he whispered to no one.

  “More likely it was one of the barons with French connections, taking advantage of the recent fighting, thinking to place one of Edward Longshank’s French bastards on the throne.”

  “I think the French are massing boats.” Elisha gestured at the pile of badges, sifting out Saints Brendan and Nicholas, both protectors of sailors. “The crows have been collecting these. There’s a woman who speaks to crows; I think she sent them to warn us.”

  “Damnation.” Robert slammed down his mug, then took a deep breath, shaking his head.

  The threat from France was all Elisha could ask Robert to bear. He would not mention sorcery until he could speak with the duke and duchess, preferably behind closed doors.

  After a moment, Robert composed himself and went on, “Nobody’s asked for ransom or come to claim the throne. It’s as if whoever’s got them only wants to see the kingdom in flames. God knows London will be—if it’s not already.” Robert scrubbed a hand over his chin. “The citizens expelled Gloucester and the mayor both and barred the gates. The duke’s convinced that his daughter and the king are inside the city.” He took a gulp of air. “Buried there. He’s gone half-mad with grief, Elisha. I pray you can help him.”

  The words stung, but Elisha steeled himself to take his part. “Does he want me to arrive as a man or as a miracle?”

  “The inquisitor’s already there, Elisha. Bishop of London is playing host.”

  Elisha’s shoulders tightened at the thought of facing the church’s investigation, but his king, his friend, needed him. “Then we’ll let them sort that out.”

  Mordecai drew his book toward him—hiding behind the knowledge it represented. “Housekeeper’s getting supper. We can leave after that,” he said carefully.

  In a few steps, Elisha pulled up a stool to sit beside him. “Stay here, Mordecai. At least for now.”

  “You will need help.”

  “You know what’ll happen if the inquisition hears about a sorcerous abduction and finds you.” A shock of fear escaped the surgeon’s controlled presence, and Elisha touched his shoulder, solidifying the connection they already shared. “There will be a time for your help.”

  After a moment, Mordecai gave a nod. “I’ll stay. For now.”

  The housekeeper entered, followed by the other servants carrying bowls, bread, and a steaming pot. The meal was brief and mostly silent, Elisha impatient to return across the water. Thomas and Rosalynn might be held by French agents, to be sure, or their skins might already be dangling in shreds from a mancer’s belt. Elisha shoved his bowl away, anger and need swelling through him.

  “Your things—?” Robert suggested.

  “I have nothing but what Thomas has given me.”

  They rose and moved toward the door, the men-at-arms going ahead to see to the horses. Robert paused beside Elisha, dropping his voice to a whisper. “Do you know about Rosie?” he asked.

  “The baby?” Elisha nodded. “I had a letter from Thomas today.”

  “He must have written it just before. . . Holy Rood, Elisha, what a damnable mess.”

  “We’ll find them, one way or another.”

  “The duke’d want you to go for Rosie, but we need you in London, even if she’s not there. He thinks the peasants’ll listen to you. If the siege of London lasts, it’ll be civil war, on top of the French fleet’s arrival. The king and queen will have nothing to return to.”

  • • •

  They rode hard through the night over the hump of the island to wake a captain whose boat carried them across the Solent. The next day, they kept their pace across the New Forest and out toward the city.

  From a few miles outside London, they spotted smoke curling into the wind. Robert and Elisha shared a look, their horses dancing against the sudden tightening of the reins. Tents clustered on the outskirts of the city, and a column of smoke darkened the dull sky. “Good God,” Elisha growled, “Do they mean to burn the city down?”

  “Let’s hope not!” Robert led the way down another side road and up to the crenelated grandeur of the Inns of Court, normally occupied by ranks of barristers. Today men in the colors of Dunbury stood to stiff attention at his approach. Both men slid down from their mounts and left them to the guards at the door as they went inside. Their eyes followed Elisha, the awareness of their interest shivering along his extended senses.

  “—must be some way. We need those bombards, for intimidation at least, even if they’re never fired.”

  “Yes, Your Grace, but—”

  “I don’t need another of your excuses, man, get the damned work done, would you?”

  Elisha froze in the low corridor, listening to the thunder of Duke Randall’s voice. It rang with grief and fear. Once before, this duke had gone to battle for his daughter, when she was spurned by the king’s son, but he had done it with resignation and honor, never fury, and for that he had earned Elisha’s loyalty. Robert had described him as half-mad—what might it take to push him the rest of the way?

  “Your Grace.” Robert’s heels set together as he gave a brief bow.

  “Robert.” The duke, shorter by a head, clapped Robert’s shoulder. “You’ve brought him, then? Tell me you’ve got him, or we’re truly lost.”

  These words stabbed at Elisha. If the cause were so desperate as to depend on him, they were already lost.

  “Yes, Your Grace, but he’s also bro
ught confirmation the French are massing.”

  “Saints preserve us,” the duke sighed as he turned, then his round face flushed with relief. “Thank God, Elisha, thank God. Come in! You,”—this to the mail-clad fellow who lurked by the windows—“be off and about your business.”

  “Yes, Your Grace.” He bobbed a slight bow, shutting the door as he went.

  “Elisha,” said the duke, “take a seat. Can we get you ale or wine?”

  Shaking his head, Elisha said, “It’s not a visit, Your Grace. Tell me what’s happened—where are the fires?”

  Losing his tremulous smile, Duke Randall regarded him from sunken eyes, rubbing his palm over the bald patch that topped his head like a monk’s tonsure. “At least four parishes are in flames. We’ve got a man up the church tower. As far north as All Hallow’s, East to Saint Andrews and West to Saint Mary’s. South, it’s nearly to Thames Street, Dyer’s Hall.”

  “Damn it.” Where the warehouses backed up to the river hung a sign with a cloak upon it—the symbol of St. Martin, the namesake of his friend. “Where’s Martin Draper?”

  Already shrunken in his coat of mail, the duke sagged further. “Still inside the walls.”

  At that, Elisha dropped into the chair, thinking of Martin, who once gave him a strip of cloth that saved his life. “What can we do?”

  The duke turned away and stood before the fire. “It’s all gone so terribly wrong. From the moment that thrice-cursed Alaric denounced my Rosie, I’ve felt as if I entered the gates of Hell.”

  Elisha considered the duke as a frightened father, trying to hold a kingdom together, not knowing if his daughter lived or died. “I can search for them, Your Grace.”

  Randall’s head fell, his voice rough. “Even if you find them, Elisha, it would be too late. The French army will sweep in and find us at the ruins of a burned-out city.”

  “I won’t countenance that sort of talk, Your Grace,” said Robert, slicing the air with his hand. “If anyone can put this to rights, it’ll be the two of you.”

  Dropping heavily back into his chair, Duke Randall began, “We need to get inside the walls, preferably without damaging them. With luck and the Lord’s blessing, we can re-take the city before the French supporters can muster for their cause. We don’t know if Thomas and Rosie are in there, and we’ve tried everything we could to find out—you don’t want to see how exhausted Allyson’s become with her searching.”

  Elisha wanted the chance to make a search of his own, but in the triage of these dread events, the fire was more urgent.

  The duke drew a deep breath, and pressed his hands between his knees. “Ludgate’s held by a group calling themselves the Brothers of Saint Barber. They’ve released the prisoners held there, and barred the gate itself. When they know who you are, Elisha, they’ll let you through.”

  Elisha might have laughed if it weren’t so deadly serious. “They think I’m dead, executed by the king; that’s what set this all in motion.”

  “That’s where the lies come in.” He held up his palms to forestall argument. “I know you’re not in favor of twisting the truth, but I’ll wager my castle those people won’t believe the truth, and we’d rather the barons didn’t hear it, either. The king’s cozy with the man who killed his father? No, besides, we want to lift the taint of sorcery as much as possible, or they’ll likely deny you, as well.”

  Elisha held his tongue. The city was burning, maybe Martin along with it. Thomas was gone—it wasn’t a time to stand on principles.

  “Good,” said the duke, shifting in his seat. “The story is this: that I, who benefited from the death of King Hugh, took exception to Thomas’s justice against you and smuggled you out of the grave, hoping the new king would believe you dead. Now, wanting to placate the peasants, I produce you from hiding as a sign that I’m willing to do whatever it takes to appease them, but that canonizing you would be premature.”

  “But your daughter is married to the king. I’d think that changes your motives.”

  Randall smiled grimly. “So my family gains a royal wedding without actually giving you up. It’s the kind of duplicity they expect from nobility, isn’t it?”

  “Aye, there is that,” Elisha had to admit. “It could work, if they trust me.”

  “They want you for a saint, of course they trust you. Sending my best man to fetch you, plus the secrecy surrounding your arrival, will lend the proper intrigue. It should be enough to get you through the gates and find out if they’ve got the king. He is still God’s Anointed. I don’t know that they would dare to hurt him. And if they had killed him, they’d want us to know it.”

  Elisha breathed in the mingle of emotions along with the wood smoke. “You don’t believe they have the king, do you?”

  “To be true? Not anymore. For the same reason, that they would want us to know it, they’d demand a ransom or make some threats. The king is a lot more valuable than that blasted city, and they know it.” The duke straightened. “I’ll give you men to protect you in case the citizens get rowdy.”

  “If they think you’re coercing me, they will get rowdy. No, I think. . .” His mind flashed back to the tents on the outskirts and the banners that flew among them. “There’s a band of mercenaries who fight under a man called Madoc. Give me a few of them, if they’ll come.”

  “As you will.” Robert gave a short bow and headed for the door.

  When he returned, Elisha went out to meet his guard. Poor and ragged, six men stood in the street outside, warily eying the duke’s guards in their fine, matching tabards. A young man, much taller than Elisha recalled, gawked at him. “It’s you! You’re alive!”

  Madoc, a stocky man with a full, black beard, stomped forward, sniffing at the air. At the battle of Dunbury, it was he who ordered Elisha to pretend death in order to stay back and help the wounded. Now the mercenary narrowed his eyes. “It’s some new witchery, eh? That man was buried alive—some of us turned out to watch.”

  “No witchery, Madoc,” Elisha said, striving for a reassuring tone, but Madoc put up his hands in a boxing stance, and Elisha hesitated.

  “It is him,” the youth insisted again, carrying a pike now instead of the banner he had guarded on the battlefield of Dunbury. “I’d know him, I tell you. And that man’s the one that tried to kill him at Dunbury, when the duke’s men tried a sortie. If I hadn’t’ve guided the king’s men to find him, for sure yon Robert would’ve had his head off! Praise God the bombardelle missed him.”

  “We were trying to save his neck from that charge of treason, you little fool,” Robert burst in. “If you hadn’t brought the soldiers, they’d never have had him hanged, would they?”

  The youth went a little pale and ducked his head.

  “Robert,” Elisha said. “Let me handle this.”

  Grumbling, Robert backed away, but he did not leave the street, and Elisha sighed. Taking a few steps forward, despite Madoc’s gestures against evil, Elisha set his hand on the young man’s arm. The banner-bearer’s eyes widened, but he stayed his ground as Elisha said, “You saved my life when the bombards fired, who else would know that but us?”

  “Aye,” the lad whispered.

  “That’s why I remembered you now, all of you,” he added, turning toward Madoc.

  “If it is you, Barber, by God, how’d you live through?”

  “The Duke of Dunbury is in my debt as well, for my saving his friend, the Earl of Blackmere; for his castle; and for his own life. He arranged for my escape.”

  Crossing his arms, Madoc growled, “It was a mad execution with lightning and thunder. More sorcery, I figure.”

  “Figure what you like, but I am Elisha Barber, and I need your help. I’m to convince the people holding the wall to let me in and hear me out before they burn down the city, right? The Duke thinks they might listen to me, since I’m the one who started all of this.”

 
; “You’re not a saint.”

  “I’d have to be dead for that, Madoc.”

  “Whatever’s become of the latest king—did you do it?”

  Elisha met the black eyes. “I swear by every saint ever martyred I had no part in it.”

  Something softened in the man’s stance. “Had to ask, didn’t I? After all, he put you in a box.”

  Elisha’s jaw clenched. “He had no choice.”

  “Naw, I suppose not, given what happened to his Da.”

  “And from what I hear, he’s been a good king. Lifted the poll tax, right? And he didn’t take the excuse of the riots to kill everyone who came to my funeral.” Elisha wet his lips. “I might even rather like him, if I got to know him.”

  “’e’s not bad so far, I’ll grant you.” Madoc tucked his thumbs into his thick belt, and gave that sudden grin like a spark into dry-brush. “We’ll come along. After all, whatever else you may do, Elisha Barber, you do put on a good show.”

  The little party passed along Fleetstreet toward Ludgate, crossing the dank and reeking gully of the River Fleet. Shuttered court buildings and the barricades before the Whitefriar’s and Blackfriar’s monasteries revealed the terror of their inhabitants in spite of their strong walls. When they came in view of the gate, one of the figures atop the wall shouted down, “I’d be stopping there if I was you.”

  Obediently, Elisha froze, and his bodyguard shuffled to a halt around him. He took one more step to stand out from his guardians and peered up at the distant figures. A dozen arrow tips aimed at him from the rampart, ready to shoot him down. “My name’s Elisha Barber, and I need to talk to whoever’s in command.”

  “There ain’t no Elisha Barber. Bloody King Thomas’s had him buried to die!”

  Elisha forced himself to relax. From here on, Thomas was the enemy, in spite of every instinct of his heart. “He tried,” Elisha called back, “but he’s failed, ’cause here I am.”