Elisha Rex

by E. C. Ambrose

  “Your accession was rather unusual—instigated first by the citizens, then by the church. It might do a great deal of good if you were to assume a more traditional approach to your reign. You must woo them, Your Majesty, in the way of kings.”

  “I don’t even know what that means.”

  “Largess. Give them gifts, answer their petitions, take them hunting.” Randall leaned forward. “That last might be a good choice. The New Forest has been closed to hunting since the princesses’ deaths. It’s been two years, the deer must be ready for harvest.”

  Elisha almost laughed. “You do know that for me, given my birth, to hunt in the New Forest would have been a death sentence a week ago.”

  With the first smile he’d given in a long time, Randall nodded. “It would thus be a fine symbolic gesture as well—you would not only claim your power, but also share your bounty.”

  “It would be better if I had any notion of how to hunt.”

  “How are you with a bow?”

  “Hopeless.” Elisha shook his head. “As a barber, I’ve been exempted from mandatory practice.”

  “Hmm. A problem, but not insurmountable. As I recall, you are good with hounds.”

  “Will they help me win the barons’ hearts?”

  “Well, Your Majesty, if they don’t, they can always bite them instead! I shall issue the invitations—a small party, I think—and you issue the orders. A privileged gathering for a few days in advance of the parliament. It should suit your needs well, Your Majesty.”

  It would suit him better to find out who had killed those people and what became of their stolen scars, or at least to travel to Chelmsford to soothe Sundrop’s temper, but Elisha set aside those concerns when he entered the kennels and found himself surrounded by eager hounds, and the most eager among them: Thomas’s great dog, Cerberus, who pressed his huge head into Elisha’s chest with such affection that it almost relieved the ache of the dog’s absent master.

  The last thing Elisha did before leaving was to take the great seal from Ufford’s keeping and stamp the hot wax on his new writ about thievery, although in his own heart, he acted in Thomas’s name.

  Chapter 14

  Elisha’s part in the hunt consisted of picnicking on roast pheasant with Randall’s selected half-dozen lords and barons, while teams of beaters pushed the game toward an agreed location then blew a horn, at which point the lords all mounted up and took arms to form a half-circle, waiting for a good shot. The beaters loosed the hounds to drive the deer straight into them. A less sporting event Elisha could hardly imagine. Kent, Gloucester, and Mortimer, Elisha’s greatest critics on the council, formed the heart of the group, along with Randall himself, Elisha’s ally the earl of Blackmere, and the young Bishop of Exeter whose noble background and apparent openness to Elisha’s coronation gave him a balanced view between Elisha’s supporters and his detractors. Each man brought along a servant or two to attend him, plus the beaters, huntsmen, foresters, and scullions to manage the hunt itself and the feasting to follow. Rather than ride a great distance to one of the larger royal lodges, Randall deemed it a better choice, and more festive, to erect pavilions in the field not far from Beaulieu Abbey to serve as their temporary home—a home with fine carpets, richly carved furnishings, and body servants.

  Mortimer’s ally, Farus, lurked in the background, dodging Elisha’s interest, if not avoiding him completely. His chill, metallic presence tingled at the edge of Elisha’s awareness. Farus, the indivisi who drew all his magic from iron, had never liked him and had tried, at least once, to kill him. Elisha kept alert, his awareness spread open to any hint of danger, but doing so left him open to the memories as well. Here, he and Thomas fought bandits together, and there, he had killed a king and nearly died himself in fighting Morag. In a lodge not far away, Thomas’s wife and daughter were slain. And yet, here, too, Rosalynn thrilled to her part in the secret events of Thomas’s return to his birthright. And here, she had fallen in love with the displaced prince, conceiving of the plan to marry him. Where were they now?

  The horn’s blast interrupted his thoughts and grooms brought their horses around, each already fitted with a quiver of arrows or a sling for a spear.

  “What fun, Your Majesty!” Blackmere cried as he mounted his own horse and turned about, grinning. “We should go hawking next. Have you met the falcons?”

  “I have not.” Elisha found a smile for the earl. The barons’ enjoyment of the hunt filled their presence with a martial delight, as if they went to battle, but a battle in which only the enemy would die, and the result would be venison for supper. Even Randall looked relaxed as he argued a point of forest law with Kent. On this, the second afternoon of their hunt, the mad idea looked to be a great success.

  Gloucester rode by to his position, tugging on his gloves while his tall chestnut horse lifted her feet like a lady at a dance, his slightest movement translating into her direction; an ideal partnership.

  “She’s a fine horse, my lord Gloucester,” Elisha said, and the rider looked up, his sharp beard making it hard to judge his expression.

  “Thank you, Your Majesty,” Gloucester answered stiffly. “I was not aware you had an interest in horses.”

  “I assume you are the breeder?” This earned him a cool nod. “Anything a man puts his heart into achieving is worthy of interest.”

  “And what shall you, Your Majesty? What do you put your heart into achieving?”

  Elisha thought of Thomas’s letter, saying that his land needed healers and he had exiled his best. “Right now, I am working to save the heart of England, my lord. I hope you will join me in succeeding.”

  Gloucester flicked his gaze away and took up the reins to cross to the far side.

  Blackmere leaned over and murmured, “On the battlefield at Dunbury, you once said you couldn’t speak fair.”

  “I did not think you heard that, my lord.” Elisha patted his own horse’s neck.

  “I was too injured to hear it the first time, but Lord Robert’s repeated the tale a dozen times since then—half, at least, since your coronation, and it’s been barely a week.” The earl gave a tip of his head, adding a little salute that brushed his woolen cap. In deference to the hunt, he wore a tunic with closely fitted sleeves and an over-tunic with longer, dangling sleeves that hung well back from his elbows. A peacock, the king had once described him, his plumage barely dulled for a day in the forest.

  The trees ahead of them rustled, vines trembling at the trunks of the huge oaks. A pair of deer bounded forward, the hounds and huntsman holding back, to give the lords their chance. A great, red-hued stag darted right, then swung about when Kent launched his spear. It grazed the stag’s side, sending the animal on a wild course toward the middle of the circle.

  Blackmere’s horse startled, stamping backward and nearly tumbling him. He held his bow, but his false sleeve tangled the quiver of arrows, spilling them to the ground as he got the horse back under control. “Damn! Your Majesty, may I borrow an arrow?”

  Elisha grabbed him a few and held them out, his own mount snorting and stamping at the excitement as the stag went down to Mortimer’s spear on the far side. The barons cheered and whooped, then turned their attention immediately back to the killing ground.

  Something tingled his hand, as if the arrows, too, longed for death and excitement as much as the men. Never before had he such a sense from a thing neither living, nor dead. Could it be a spell for hunting? Elisha started to withdraw, but Blackmere plucked an arrow from Elisha’s fist, taking aim as another, smaller stag wheeled through. The arrow sang, a shrill, sharp note through Elisha’s awareness, but it arched high, Blackmere frowning after it. “Surely my aim’s not—”

  At the further end, Gloucester’s horse turned aside, and the man cried out, a shaft feathering into his side. He managed to keep mounted, clutching the reins as he slumped back, cursing, blood coursing from the
wound.

  In an instant, Elisha nudged his horse and galloped behind the other hunters even as the bishop and Mortimer slid the wounded man from his horse. Cries of anger and fear took the place of cheering.

  “Stay back! Get a surgeon,” the bishop shouted, dropping to his knees by the fallen man.

  “I am a surgeon,” Elisha said, swinging down from his horse.

  “Your Majesty,” Randall began, but this was not a thing to be delegated, not when the chill thrust of death already struck the air.

  “Don’t touch me!” Gloucester shouted. “’Tis a royal arrow.” He gulped for breath, trying to twist away from Elisha’s approach but pinned by Mortimer’s hands.

  “I was the archer,” Blackmere called. “My God, man, I am so sorry. My horse bucked at that last stag, and I—”

  “No man makes such a shot by accident,” Kent said, leaning over them.

  The arrow stuck from Gloucester’s chest. Bands of purple ink decorated the shaft to identify it, but the blood seeping around the wound quickly stained them dark. Elisha heard the struggle of his breath and felt the chill that rose with every moment. “My lord, I can save your life. Please let me try.”

  “It’s the same that happened to William Rufus two hundred years ago, Your Majesty, but his killer had the good sense to flee.” Kent glared at Blackmere, who blanched.

  “My lord of Gloucester, do you wish to make confession?” the bishop asked.

  “Stop talking as if he’s already dead!” Mortimer shouted. Gloucester reached up to grip his hand.

  The bishop edged back, hands pressed together, murmuring in Latin.

  Elisha snatched the wool hat from Blackmere’s head and wiped away the blood by the arrow’s shaft then caught the shaft low down with the other hand. “My lord, do you want to live?”

  Lips trembling, face pale, Gloucester stared back at him, eyes already glazing with the pain that surged in his flesh. Beneath his tunic, close to his skin, Elisha wore a few talismans, including the bit of cloth given him by Martin Draper which he once used to tend the wounded earl of Blackmere. He called upon this now, focusing his being on Gloucester’s injury. The radiant warmth of Martin’s affection sprang at his call. He pictured the shaft of the arrow, sending his awareness down deep along it, finding the piercing of the chest, the slice that impinged upon the baron’s heart. When he worked over Blackmere, Elisha did not yet know how to use his secret skills to heal. Today, he used them all—the anatomical knowledge of his medical training, the probing of his magic, and the power of his talisman. He bound the strands together and drew the arrow forth.

  “No!” Mortimer reached for his hand, trying to stop him. “That arrow is the only thing keeping him alive!”

  Elisha ignored him, letting his intensity burn upon his skin so that Mortimer snapped back his hand as if singed. As he drew up the arrow, Elisha wrought his spell from the Law of Opposites: as the arrow had pierced, so now it sealed each layer, drawing them closed as it withdrew. Elisha held the image of the heart, healed, the muscle joining together and the vessels patched and whole. Letting out his breath, Elisha sat back on his heels, the arrow in his hand, still stained with Gloucester’s blood. The patient blinked at him, then fumbled at his chest, shoving aside Elisha’s hand and the woolen cap he used to clean the blood. Beneath his pierced clothing, a bit of knobbed flesh showed where the arrow had struck.

  “It’s a miracle,” the bishop cried, holding up his clasped hands to the heavens.

  “You allowed your friend to shoot me,” Gloucester muttered. “You made this happen, just so you could heal me.” He sucked in a breath, still pale. “That is no miracle, Your Majesty, that is sorcery.” Shoving away from the ground, with Mortimer’s help, the baron rose to his feet and lurched back. “I think we shall be going.” For a moment he swayed there, lips compressed, then gave a short bow and walked away.

  “Your Majesty?” Randall spread his hands.

  “Go with them. See if there’s anything to be done to mend this.”

  The duke bowed and hurried away.

  Elisha snatched the arrow in both hands to break it over his knee. By God, he had saved the man’s life—would it have been better to have let him die? But then Blackmere would carry the blame. A hunting accident that could be no accident, and yet, it had been. And it wasn’t Blackmere meant to use those arrows. Raising the arrow in his hands, Elisha bent his awareness to it. The purple ink, smeared now with Gloucester’s blood, carried a subtle flavor of its own: the blood of another, some stranger, mingled with the paint. Sorcery, indeed, marked Gloucester for death, but it was not Elisha’s doing. The man must have been marked as well, wearing something stained by the same stranger’s blood. Whoever had placed the blood could then control the arrow, sending it to the heart, which was the sense of excitement and blood-lust Elisha noticed.

  “Your Majesty,” Blackmere began.

  “Where are the rest of my arrows?” Elisha rose, the earl coming with him, as the confused huntsmen and beaters rounded up the dogs and fallen spears. One of them took charge of Mortimer’s kill, pulling out a knife to begin the slaughter.

  Two grooms handled the loose horses, Elisha’s among them, but the arrows remaining in his quiver felt perfectly ordinary. “Did anyone touch these arrows?” The nearest groom shook his head, but the other piped up, “Someone might’ve done. The horses made for the field, Your Majesty, and a few from the encampment helped us to get them back.”

  “What’s happened here, Your Majesty?” Blackmere whispered.

  Elisha rested his head against the horse’s neck. The casting, on top of the strain of entertaining the barons, settled into his bones. “Someone’s trying to ruin me, to break whatever alliances we might make. The arrow was marked to fly to him, no matter who shot it. I’m sorry it had to be you, my lord.” He thought of the murders in London, carried out by villains who seemed to be on Elisha’s side, killing those who angered him. If the barons caught word of that, their suspicions would be confirmed.

  “Your Majesty.” Randall walked up, his weariness returning. “We shall see them at parliament, but likely nowhere else. They seem convinced this whole occasion has been a setting for you to show off your powers. And so it was intended, but not that power.” He shook his head. “If the barons won’t come around to your support, Your Majesty, the parliament may work against us. It gives your detractors a chance to convince the rest. I don’t know what might happen.”

  “Can we muster enough men to guard against the French, Your Grace?”

  Randall and Blackmere exchanged a look. “A full-scale invasion, Your Majesty? Doubtful,” said the duke. “Unless we know where and when to expect them.”

  “Can we make a good guess?”

  “They’ll be looking to land where they already have an ally, Your Majesty, somebody to cover their presence until they’re ready to march inland, but we don’t know who might be working with them.”

  Kent, who argued for the return of royal blood, even from France? Too obvious. Then Elisha thought of Mortimer, who covered up the assassination of a French magus who had come seeking safety outside Elisha’s door. Mortimer claimed it was an attempt on Elisha, but he lied. What if it truly were as the victim had feared, a part of the French king’s campaign against his own magi, with Mortimer’s help? “Mortimer,” Elisha said. “He may not be the only one, but he’s one.”

  “He’s one of the marcher lords, from Wales. He hardly has strong ties with France.” Randall’s fingers rubbed over his bald spot. “Of course, that means he might be amenable to bribery with French lands in trade. What makes you name him?”

  “He’s been hiding things, even from Alaric. If he’s got access to a good port on the east or south coast, look there.”

  Nodding, Randall said, “I’ll have the rolls searched. We may come up with something. In the meantime, I’ll order the men to strike camp. We mi
ght as well return to the Tower and be ready for whatever we can.”

  In a few hours, Elisha rode for London, the air of celebration overtaken by a miasma of worry, the barons dividing into factions rather than ride together as they had on the way to the New Forest. Gloucester wore fresh clothing, and Elisha’s inquiry about the ruined tunic was met with dismay and a gesture against evil, so there would be no touching the garment to confirm the taint. No matter, the damage was done. Whether the earl had lived or died, Elisha’s enemies won that moment. What else were they planning?

  On the road outside of London, they met Lord Robert, flanked by a pair of soldiers, and riding hard. He reined in sharply when he saw them, his horse circling at his tightened reins. Randall and Elisha spurred on to meet him, and he bowed his head, water running from his dark hair and dripping from his clothes in spite of the sunny day. “Your Majesty, Your Grace—it’s the duchess.”

  “What? What about her?” Randall’s face drained of color, his face slick with sweat.

  “Peace, Your Grace, she lives, she’s only shaken.” Staving off panic with one hand, Robert said, “We rode out to Chelmsford, to the rains, and she insisted on riding into the water. She said that’s how she must carry her message.” His dark eyes sought Elisha for confirmation. “Seemed like the clouds gathered up over her, like the rains could see her or care she’d come. She bowed her head, like praying, and, well, the sky opened. We saw a flash so bright for a moment, I could hardly see, and when I could, I saw her on the ground. The lightning still hovered in my eye.” He held his hand before him as if he could see it still. “I rode in for her and got her on my horse, Your Grace, and she stirred. It did not hit her, but you could see the mark on the ground, black as anything, and little bits of glass. Her horse bolted at the strike. Likely that’s what felled her. I brought her back to the Tower to recover.”

  Robert’s broad shoulders hunched a little. “She bid me keep quiet, Your Grace, but, well, I knew you’d hear of it, and I thought it best be from a friend.”