by E. M. Powell
But it was the man’s words that sent a deeper chill still through him.
‘My lord, the Irish are here.’
Theodosia squeezed Eimear’s hand as the last of the monks climbed the rope, leaving only the hefty man that had helped to speed escape.
He waved a meaty hand at Theodosia. ‘I will have you out in minutes, good ladies.’ He hurried over.
‘The brother here can lift you, Eimear,’ she said. ‘We will tie the rope around you and pull you out. But it will hurt. I am sorry.’
‘It hurts like the devil already.’ Eimear’s brow creased, but she forced a smile. ‘Can’t be much worse than that.’ She looked up at the monk. ‘Do it.’
The monk hunkered down.
Eimear’s grip tightened on Theodosia as the man got an arm under her back. ‘Sweet God.’
‘It will be over soon.’ Theodosia held fast.
The clamour of the bells in the tower stopped abruptly.
‘The Lord John!’ A panicked whisper from the high window. Another monk’s stricken face showed through it. ‘He’s on his way over here.’
The monk froze. Theodosia too.
‘Go,’ said Eimear. ‘Both of you.’
‘I am not leaving you,’ said Theodosia.
‘Nor I.’ The monk released his hold on Eimear. He stood up to grab a heavy metal candlestick.
‘Take this instead.’ Theodosia pulled the hatchet from her belt and handed it to him.
He made the door in fast strides.
‘Brother, go.’ Eimear’s words bounced off his broad back. She ground out an oath. ‘Theodosia.’ Eimear pulled her hand away. ‘Have sense. Even if you did get me out, I can’t run.’
‘No.’
A noise came at the door, of someone slamming at locks, bolts.
The monk squared his footing. Raised the hatchet.
The door burst open.
The Lord of Ireland stood there, lit torch in one hand, sword in the other. ‘Prepare for—’
The monk came at him with the hatchet even as John’s furious face changed in shock. But his sword was a blur.
‘No!’ Theodosia stifled her cry as the monk fell back, his throat carved open and the hatchet dropping from his hand.
John’s gaze went to her. ‘You?’ His scream of rage echoed to the roof of the chapel.
‘One motherless child is enough,’ gabbled Eimear, with a shove to Theodosia. ‘Go! Now!’
Theodosia scrambled to her feet as John ran at her. She made for the window, hurled herself at the rope, climbing with speed that only terror could give her.
‘You!’ He slashed at her with his blade, his torch. Missed. ‘You!’
She was on the sill, barely out of his range as he swiped again and again. She went to clamber farther from his reach. Could not. Her skirt tangled on a sharp piece of broken lead. She pulled, tugged. Still stuck. But he couldn’t get at her.
John spat an oath, backing away from the window to turn to a white-faced Eimear.
‘Theodosia, go!’ she screamed.
With a desperate wrench, Theodosia got her skirt free. But she would not turn her back on her friend at the moment of death.
John stood over Eimear, his stained sword raised. ‘You could try to beg for clemency.’
She did not flinch from his wicked blade, stared him right in the eye. ‘I am the daughter of the King of Connacht. I will beg for nothing from you. Stripling.’
‘Well, perhaps you should have.’ His voice came tight in rage. ‘The sword would have been more merciful.’ He stepped past her. Thrust his torch into the pile of manuscripts. ‘Than this.’
Theodosia screamed as the flames sprang up.
John looked up at her. Smiled. ‘I haven’t forgotten you.’
Theodosia didn’t bother with the rope. She leapt for the black, rain-drenched air.
And the ground came up to meet her.
With the driving rain hard in his face, Palmer slid down from the high wall that edged the rock, cursing his slowness. The Irish had swarmed up the ridges of the Rock, then up and over the wall, leaving him and de Lacy clambering in their wake.
Yells and screams from the darkness and the movement of shadows told him the fight had begun.
He scanned the buildings on the Rock, breathing hard, leg and arm muscles jumping. ‘What were those bells for, de Lacy? Some kind of warning?’
‘Don’t know and it doesn’t matter.’ De Lacy’s breath came short too. He pointed to one of the large stone structures, light glowing from inside. ‘The palace. The door’s round the other side.’
‘Let’s go.’ Palmer set off at a run, sword in hand, de Lacy matching him. A few more strides and he would face John. He couldn’t wait. He’d end this.
As he rounded the side of the building, Palmer looked for the chapel where Gerald had said Theodosia had gone. His heart stuttered in his chest.
The glow of fire. The billow of smoke into the sheets of rain. ‘De Lacy!’
‘I’m here.’
Palmer took off towards it, de Lacy with him.
He could hear female screams from inside as he made the closed entrance of the burning building. This couldn’t be. He’d already almost lost Theodosia to the agony of flames once. It couldn’t be her fate now.
He belted the stout planks of the high door with his sword as de Lacy struck at the handle.
It held firm to more screams from inside.
‘Again,’ shouted de Lacy. ‘Harder!’
Nothing.
‘And again.’
One plank split.
Another scream. ‘Somebody! Please!’
‘This is too slow.’ Palmer yanked at de Lacy’s arm. ‘With me. Now.’
De Lacy nodded his understanding.
They ran a couple of yards back. Then turned, charged at the door with the full weight of their swords, their bodies, their panicked strength.
The split plank gave, opening a panel through which smoke and heat and sparks roiled out.
Palmer flung an arm up to shield his face. ‘Theodosia!’ He kicked out another panel.
‘Palmer!’ It wasn’t her.
‘Eimear?’ De Lacy booted out another panel.
‘Theodosia’s gone! John’s after her!’
God alive. His terror at her words gave Palmer extra strength. He finished off the half of the door with another kick.
De Lacy looked at him as the heat pounded out. ‘Go for Theodosia.’
Another scream.
Palmer couldn’t. He shook his head. ‘Not yet.’
With a nod, de Lacy yelled in through the ruined entrance. ‘Eimear, the door’s open! Just run through. If the flames catch, it’ll only be for seconds.’
‘We’ll put them out,’ shouted Palmer. ‘Run!’
‘I can’t!’
‘Eimear, you must try.’ De Lacy leaned in closer, put a hand up to shield his own flesh, his scars looking new again in the roar and crackle of the flames. ‘Think of our son.’
‘I can’t.’ Her voice came clear, calm. ‘My knee’s broken, Hugh.’ Steady. ‘Throw me a knife or a sword. I’d rather go that way.’
De Lacy took a step over the remains of the door.
And Palmer knew what the man was doing. ‘De Lacy! No!’ He went to grab him back. Missed.
De Lacy flung himself into the flames.
Theodosia fled back around the corner of the chapel, not daring to take a second to look back. John would be mere strides away, armed with a sword.
Terrible shouts, bellows, screams filled the night. She did not know from whom. Horrifying images of the monks, the Archbishop meeting the sharpest of blades in the darkness swam before her. As she might too.
She had to find somewhere – anywhere – to hide. But where?
Pounding steps behind her told her John was almost on her.
Her toes stubbed hard on the slab that covered an old burial, and she stumbled, half-fell with a cry. She ducked behind a gravestone. But the ground under her
right foot gave way, wrenching her hip to one side in a stab of pain as her leg slipped into a freshly dug grave. She clawed at the loose earth at its edge, pulling herself from the black pit as the sodden soil crumbled in her panicked grasps.
‘I’ve got you now!’
He’d heard her struggles.
She wrenched a hand up, grabbed for the cold, wet headstone, uncaring of her palms ripping as she hauled herself free.
She took off again, ran faster. But he gained so easily. She could not outpace him. He was so much younger. And the lust for blood drove him.
The cathedral. Her only hope now. She prayed that the door she’d seen was not locked. A door that could keep John out. Keep that blade from slicing through her skin.
Her chest threatened to fail as she gulped in wet air, forcing her legs on. She’d made it. She grasped for the metal clasp so hard her thumbnail snapped off.
Locked.
‘Oh, what a shame!’ John was mere strides away.
She wrenched the handle with both wounded hands. One way, then another, her breath in gasping sobs.
It turned.
She shoved the door open, flung herself inside and slammed it hard, one hand on the handle as she fumbled for the bolt, the metal slipping in her wet, bloodied grasp.
‘Still got you, sister.’
The handle moved, John’s strength more than hers.
Theodosia threw all her weight against it as she tried to ram the bolt home.
The door began to give.
‘Get away from me!’ She kneed it hard, bashing the hard metal of the bolt with the heel of her hand, uncaring of the pain.
The thud of a brutal kick blew the door right open, sending her falling on her back to the floor.
John was in.
‘No!’ She screamed again, rolled and scrambled from his reach along the cold stone floor. The blood from her damaged hands made livid smears on its blank surface. She staggered upright, making for the altar as if that would somehow save her.
A boot to her back sent her sprawling to the hard floor again with a stinging blow to her jaw.
‘Look at me. I want to see your face when I do this.’
She turned over, her stomach heaving in terror and pain.
John’s eyes so like her own. ‘Finally.’ His sword an inch from her face, the shiny metal dulled with the lifeblood of two of the monks of Cashel. ‘You have cost me so very dearly. Now you will pay.’
‘Please, I beg you. Do not.’ She raised a hand as if that could somehow stop it, stop the cruel metal that would plunge into her body, rip her life from her.
‘There could be no reason why I should not. And a thousand why I should.’ He readjusted his grip.
‘Because I am your sister!’ Her scream echoed up to the vaulted ceiling.
John gaped at her. Then burst out laughing. ‘That is the best reason you could think of?’
‘I’ve got a better one.’
The deep voice came from the darkness of the nave.
‘Because I’ll have your head.’ Benedict stepped forward, sword raised and ready. ‘John.’
Chapter Thirty
Palmer advanced on the altar with a deliberate tread.
‘You here as well?’ John’s astonished, furious gaze met his. ‘God’s eyes.’
At the side of his vision, Palmer saw Theodosia inch away from the sword tip. But not far enough.
‘Yes, I’m here,’ he said. ‘Here to arrest you in the name of King Henry. The Lord of Meath is with me.’
John snorted. A sudden thrust had his sword at Theodosia’s throat, and she choked back a scream.
Palmer held in his own. Took another step.
John’s weapon stayed steady. ‘If you’re so loyal to the King, then why do you not care or even look surprised that this woman, this spy, is claiming to have his blood?’ He frowned. ‘Or do you know something more?’
Terrified gasps came from Theodosia.
But Palmer couldn’t take his eyes from John now. He took another small step.
‘If I were facing the point of a sword like she is,’ said Palmer, ‘I’d say anything too. She is no spy.’
‘She is responsible for all my defeats!’ John’s voice rose in a shrill yell. ‘She knew all my plans, brought them to the enemy.’
‘No, John, she didn’t.’ Step.
‘Of course she did!’ John back-heeled Theodosia hard, and she cried out in pain. ‘Didn’t you?’ He kept his eyes on Palmer.
‘No, my lord,’ she panted, ‘no, I swear to you. No.’
Palmer’s self-control balanced on an edge sharper than John’s sword. He had to hold on. He kept his tone even. ‘I know why your plans failed, my lord.’
‘I do not want to hear—’
‘Your own father told me why they would.’ Halt.
‘My father sent me to this infernal country because he knew I would deal with it.’ John’s face reddened. ‘It’s an important part of his realm.’
‘As important as the Holy Land?’
John’s high colour darkened even more. ‘Yes, it is. More so. In fact.’
Palmer almost had him. But John still had his sword at Theodosia’s throat. ‘Do you want to know why Henry didn’t send you to Jerusalem? The real reason?’
‘Gossip, more like.’
‘Because, Henry said, the Saracens would have strewn your bones across the desert by Christmas.’
‘That’s not true.’ John’s mouth puckered.
Almost had him. But not quite.
‘Because, Henry said, you’ve been too coddled.’
‘What?’ John’s yell had his sword pointed at Palmer now.
Almost there.
‘And because, Henry said’ – Palmer made his own grip as firm as he could – ‘you are not a naturally gifted warrior.’ He braced himself. ‘Not like your brother, Richard.’
‘You lying bastard!’ John ran at him, sword swinging hard, fast, incensed. ‘I am better than him. Than all of them!’
Palmer parried, landed a blow of his own on John’s weapon as Theodosia fled to the side of the altar.
‘I’ll kill you, Palmer! And then that bitch of a spy! You’re a liar, a liar, a liar.’ John drove even harder at Palmer, his towering rage giving him strength, skill.
Palmer went back at a wild swipe, his shoulder striking a pillar and sending him off balance.
John’s blade was coming at him. Right at his face.
Forcurse it: he’d been bested.
Then the King’s son collapsed with a grunt on the floor of the cathedral, his sword clattering from his unconscious grasp.
Theodosia stood there, holding some sort of engraved bronze weapon in her grasp, breathing as hard as he did.
‘My love.’ He couldn’t help a grin, even as his breath, his pulse raced. ‘Where did you find a mace in a cathedral?’
‘This is no mace.’ Theodosia gave him a shaky smile in return. ‘My love.’ She held it aloft, still clutched in her double-handed, bloodied grip. Designed to represent an arm, it ended in a closed fist. ‘This is Saint Lachtin’s Arm. One of the sacred reliquaries of the Archbishop of Cashel.’ She looked down at John, then back at Palmer. ‘I just hope Saint Lachtin hasn’t murdered the Lord of Ireland.’
‘Benedict, you cannot kill John.’ Theodosia saw her words bounce off her furious husband like arrows off a metal shield.
‘And why not?’ He paced the floor of the hall of the Archbishop’s Palace, the pale early sun at the window lighting his exhausted features.
‘Because we have all told you why.’ She swept a hand to the others who sat with her: the Archbishop, de Lacy, Gerald.
‘Telling does not always change hearts, my lady,’ said the Archbishop.
‘Indeed,’ said Gerald.
Both men knew their whole story now. She and Benedict had had to share it with them in the aftermath of the dreadful events that had taken place.
Benedict shook his head at their responses and challenged de Lacy w
ith his stare. ‘I’m right, aren’t I?’
‘It’s an act that would make me happy too.’ De Lacy shrugged, his long cloak bearing the scorch and holes of flame. ‘But it would be an unwise move.’
Benedict pulled his hands through his hair with an exasperated snort. ‘If only you’d hit him a bit harder, Theodosia.’
She gave him her best warning look.
He responded with his most innocent one.
‘John is still my brother,’ she said. ‘I was not trying to kill him. Only to stop him.’ She cast a grateful look at those present. ‘Which we have done.’
‘If I may.’ The Archbishop peered at Benedict. ‘Sir knight, if the King’s son were to lose his life here, Henry would exact terrible vengeance on the whole of Ireland. He knows how and is accustomed to make martyrs. I fear to the depths of my soul that Ireland will have its martyrs, just as other countries.’ His sad smile was kind. ‘But please, do not be the one to hasten that day.’
Theodosia saw the shift in Benedict at the Archbishop’s gentle words. She knew the man she loved would do anything to change the role he had played in the martyrdom at Canterbury.
‘I bow to your wisdom, my lord.’ He matched his words with his actions, then came to Theodosia, his warm, strong hand on her shoulder. ‘Then we will have to take a different approach.’
His explanation was met with full agreement.
Once Benedict had finished, de Lacy rose to his feet. ‘Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to see how Eimear is.’
As Hugh de Lacy walked into the quiet solar in the Archbishop’s Palace, his heart almost stopped.
Eimear lay so still on the bed, her eyes closed, one knee swathed in linen bandages.
The elderly monk with her beckoned to him. ‘Enter, my lord. Your wife has been sorely injured and has breathed much foul smoke and air. But she will be fine, if God is good.’
Her lids lifted at the sound of voices. ‘I feel far from fine.’ The effort of speaking made her cough and cough.
‘My lady has the strength to argue, which always bodes well.’ The monk gave a nod of satisfaction. ‘As you are here, my lord, I will go and fetch some supplies, if I may.’
