Lady's Pursuit (Knight and Rogue Book 6)

by Bell, Hilari

  “Not really. How did you know that?”

  “You told me. Go to sleep.”

  The magica willow bark did its job so well that I could — despite the sound of a monster rending flesh and bone under my bed.

  I set my trap that first night. I thought ’twould take him some days to find me again, but I wasn’t prepared to bet my life on it. So I made camp as I usually did, except for the absence of Fisk and the others, trying to convince myself I didn’t miss them. I failed at that, but admitting that I missed them reminded me how important it was to keep them safe. The thought of them, all happily pursuing Mistress Meg, may have made me somewhat lonely. The thought of anything happening to them was intolerable.

  Once camp was in order — with Chant tethered at a distance that would keep him out of any fray — True and I scouted carefully around it, paying particular attention to places from which our camp could be seen. This was a task at which my human senses might easily fail — if he saw me coming, my assassin had only to hide in some dense bushes, or even up a tree, and I’d likely stroll right past him. ’Twould be much harder to conceal himself from True’s nose — so when True frisked past those likely blinds with tail a-wag, I knew no one was there.

  After the sun had set, I stepped out of the firelight and cut some leafy boughs, which I rolled up in a blanket, poking and prodding till they formed a reasonable semblance of a man. I laid the bundle in my bedroll and covered it up. I thought it looked quite like my sleeping self.

  I had no way to make a convincing dummy of True, but since he’d not been with me when the assassin attacked, the man might not know I traveled with a dog. And that might give me an advantage.

  True and I then retired to the place I’d chosen for us to hide. ’Twas well screened by the bushes, but with a reasonable view of the camp — and a passage by which I could exit those bushes without making too much noise, when our quarry was distracted by the task of killing “me.”

  I’d put several big logs on the fire to burn low and long, giving me some light until the Creature Moon rose — soon after sunset and nearly full. The Green Moon, with its slow orbit, was now rising almost at sunrise. ’Twould be less than two weeks before the night occurred when no moon rose at all.

  My father claimed that the superstitions that have arisen around Darkling Night are absurd. He said magica obeys natural laws, like all else, and cannot suddenly run wild and prey on the unwary, no matter the state of the moons. So my family treated the Darkling Nights like any other — though I know the servants did not.

  Sitting with my drawn sword beside me, watching the light flare over my “sleeping” form when a log emitted a brief tongue of flame, I wondered if I’d be willing to spend Darkling Night watching thus, or if I’d succumb to superstition and find an inn and human company. The two moons’ orbits vary so widely that they almost never go dark on the same night, and ’tis never the same day or season. The last had been, what, five years ago? Before I set out on a life of errantry, and long before I met Fisk. Had I really pursued this mad profession for four years?

  I had, and even lurking in the bushes waiting for an assassin to kill me, I found I was absurdly proud of myself.

  He didn’t come to kill me that night, and True and I emerged from the bushes next morning, stiff and weary, to break camp and set out once more.

  Since my purpose was to draw my would-be killer away from the others, I rode back along the way we’d come. I had intended to stop at the towns we passed through, and ask if a stranger had been inquiring for us, as we’d been asking after the kidnapper’s coach, but by mid-morning I was falling asleep in the saddle. I stopped at an inn in the next town to take a room, and went to sleep with all the din of the waking world in my ears.

  This set the pattern for the next few days. I found that if I slept a part of the day ’twas easy to stay awake at night. And if ’twas dull to sit and watch an empty camp, the thought of my pursuer — who must arrive eventually — kept me to the task. He would not give up, and I refused to be less resolute than he.

  ’Twas on the fourth night of my journey that he struck, and for all my watchfulness ’twas not I who saw him coming.

  I don’t know what alerted True. I’d been idly stroking his back as we waited, and I felt him stiffen before he came to his feet in a stiff-legged crouch.

  The Gift of animal handling works more easily with beasts you know. I reached out to True, bidding silence and stillness. His obedience was grudging but he stayed, even as his hackles rose under my palm.

  The Creature Moon was low in the sky, now only a few hours before dawn, and the dark figure creeping into the camp was hooded and cloaked like some malign fate. But there could be no doubt of his identity — the crossbow he carried glowed in the dark, almost as bright as the distant moon.

  True twitched under my hand, and I sent another wave of calm and control toward him.

  The assassin had already spanned his bow, but he had either the sense or the training not to walk about with a bolt on the string, for he stopped several feet from my bed to knock the quarrel.

  Indeed, there was no reason for absolute silence — had I suddenly awakened, I’d be too fogged by sleep to do anything before he made his shot.

  But of course the form in the blankets didn’t stir. He took another step to bring himself even closer, aimed, and sent a bolt into the blankets right where my heart should have been.

  At that distance, the bolt would have passed though most of my torso, and mayhap out the other side — the branches stopped it not at all.

  I started to move as soon as he shot, but True was even faster off the mark. The assassin barely had time to hear that his bolt had not struck flesh before True’s teeth clamped on his ankle ... and didn’t let go.

  Sheer astonishment slowed me for several seconds — True, who loved everyone, pulled at the man’s ankle, trying to drag him down for a more lethal bite.

  The assassin staggered and drew his knife — which was enough to shake me free from my frozen surprise — and that hesitation on my part might have proved fatal for my good and loyal friend.

  But absurdly, having drawn his blade, the assassin looked down at True, still worrying the thick leather of his boot, and did not strike.

  The distraction True provided gave me a perfect opening. I tossed my sword to my left hand and struck with my right fist, a clean blow to the point of the chin that hurt my fist, but snapped his head back like a puppet’s.

  He toppled, stirred a bit, and then subsided. I knelt and bound his hands behind his back before turning to True, who finally removed his teeth from the man’s boot and gave me a tentative wag.

  “Yes, ’tis over,” I told him. “You’re a good dog, and a splendid watchdog, and the next time we see Fisk we’ll tell him all about it.”

  My assassin began to move as I bound his feet. I took a moment to put a folded blanket beneath his head before turning to shake the rustling branches out of my bedroll.

  The crossbow bolt had buried itself fletching deep in the earth, and after wiggling it and finding it stuck fast, I decide to leave it there. I thought about packing up my bedroll, but since we wouldn’t be leaving till morning and I had no use for it, I laid the blankets out and rolled him onto them. His eyelids fluttered, but it was still several minutes before sense returned to his gaze. He looked around and saw me sitting across the fire.

  His expression, as he realized his captivity, was an odd mix of fury and resignation.

  “You’re going to have a hard time holding me prisoner,” he said. “It’s not like you can turn me over to the local sheriff. Or even complain.”

  He knew full well that I was unredeemed, that he could kill me with no consequence to himself. Still...

  “Just because you can do so with impunity is a poor reason to kill a man,” I said. “Or to stalk him for weeks. Why are you doing this?”

  His shoulders twitched in the slightest of shrugs. “You’ll have to sleep sometime. And keeping some
one tied up isn’t as easy as you might think. I’ve tried.”

  The thought of anyone as this man’s prisoner chilled me. And why would he say this to me, of all folk?

  “You’re not afraid I’ll kill you, to spare myself the bother? You’ve tried to kill me three times, so I can hardly let you go. And as you said, I can’t go to the law.”

  This time his shrug was visible, but he said nothing.

  “What does that mean?” I was a bit nettled by his insouciance, truth be told. “You can’t be indifferent to the thought of your own death. No man is.”

  “Not indifferent,” he said. “But sooner or later I’m going to get killed doing this. I accepted that a long time ago.”

  He seemed quite sincere about this, which I found almost as horrifying as his attempts to kill me.

  “Doing this...?” I asked, with genuine curiosity.

  But this time he turned away. After some time had passed, he actually went to sleep. On my blankets.

  ’Twas not as if I was using them, but seeing him so heedless of any threat I might pose was irritating.

  However, I had no intention of threatening him, not in the way he was so obviously prepared to fight. All those long nights watching an empty camp had given me plenty of time to work out a solution to the dilemma of holding a man prisoner ... even without assistance from the law.

  I awoke with a brilliant idea. And maybe it was because I still had a bit of a headache that I spilled it without thinking first.

  “We don’t have to go after them anymore.”

  Kathy had risen from the small table where breakfast was spread when I opened my eyes, and started toward me, but now she stopped. Heedless of this clear warning, I babbled on.

  “I don’t think I told you last night.” My memory of that time was hazy. “But I talked to Meg, and she bit the man who oversaw her kidnapping. Hard enough to draw blood, so he’ll bear marks. All we have to do is go back to court and find a slim nobleman with a bitten hand — or figure out who’s not there, and should be — and go looking for him. Once we find him we’ll know who, and probably why, and can break this thing wide open without ... ah...”

  Without Katherine ever being in danger. But Katherine now stood halfway across the room, looking at me like I was a cockroach who’d died in her porridge.

  I realized that I had made several mistakes.

  A worried whine from under my bed confirmed this, even before she spoke.

  “Will you ever stop thinking about money?”

  “You talked to Meg?” said Rupert. “When? How was she? Is she hurt? Of course she’s frightened, but is she... How is she!”

  “She is frightened,” I admitted, tackling the easier problem first. “But it’d take more than a kidnapping to break that woman’s nerve. If I wasn’t already...”

  I looked from Rupert’s frightened eager face to Kathy’s stern one, and revised my comment.

  “Your Mistress Margaret is pretty impressive. We didn’t get away, but that was bad luck, not any failure on her part.”

  Kathy still looked angry and ... disappointed? My heart flinched, even as Rupert said, “Get away? How did you get close enough to talk to her? Is the child all right?”

  I sighed and rubbed my head, which really did ache, but even that didn’t thaw my beloved. So I told them the whole tale of last night’s thwarted escape — or most of the tale. I excused my failure to return by stressing the need to reach Meg’s room while most of her guards were still at dinner ... and I’d been right about the heroic thing. By the time I finished Kathy was perched on the foot of my bed, the eyes behind her spectacles bright with interest.

  “I couldn’t tell about the child,” I finished. “She’s not showing yet, and I’m not a midwife. But aside from a few bruises she seemed fine. She’s too smart not to be scared, but it’s not stopping her.”

  “And yet,” said Kathy, “you’re willing to leave her in their hands, while you go back to the city and claim your reward?”

  I was annoyed enough to sit up, ignoring the twinge of pain it cost me.

  “It’s our reward, so we can get married. But it might be the smartest way to tackle this thing. He wouldn’t be taking such pains to conceal his face, if his identity wouldn’t reveal something. Once we know who’s behind this, and why, the Liege can bring the hammer down and force them to order their thugs to let Meg go. Which would be safer for her and the child, as well as us!”

  It wasn’t even a lie, but as I said it my conscience pricked. We also might not be able to find the man Meg had bitten. If I’d been in their hands, I’d have taken more comfort from the knowledge that friends were right behind me, scheming for my escape, than from them going back to Crown City. Even if that was the best way to get to the bottom of this. But it was the best way, curse it.

  “Rupert has to go back,” I finished with husbandly firmness. “Because he’s got the best chance of convincing his father. And you should go with him, because you know the court — you might be able to see who isn’t there. I can follow Meg, keep track of the coach, and keep trying to figure out a way to free her.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” said Rupert. “It sounds like you came close to succeeding. You might have if we’d been with you, as we agreed. No, I’m not blaming you. There would have been more guards later, and it made sense to try when most of them were eating. But if you came that close alone, together we’re bound to find a way!”

  “Well said.” Kathy rose off the foot of the bed. “I’m going to take the dog out, and then we can go back to that inn and see if they’re still there. Though I wish you’d had time to come get us.”

  So much for husbandly firmness. Maybe I wasn’t doing it right — lack of practice, no doubt — but there was a note of reserve in her voice that told me she hadn’t entirely bought my excuses.

  Once again, I wondered why I’d chosen to fall for a smart woman.

  “We need help,” Rupert said. “Curse it, we need the law! If they’re still there I’ll go to the sheriff, writ or no writ, no matter what it does to Father’s negotiations. When I’m Liege they can have their stupid mineral rights!”

  I let this pass, because I knew the kidnappers would be long gone. I had no appetite for the simple breakfast of biscuits, sausage and cheese, though I did drink another cup of magica willow-bark tea. Soon after that I managed to rise and dress, without too much pain.

  Getting the dog out from under the bed was impossible — or at least, more trouble than it was worth, and he started to growl again. We finally left the door open, and the window as well — there was a covered porch below, and from its roof the strange mutt could probably reach the ground.

  I was curious to see the beast by day — darkness and concussion must have warped my vision, because no dog could look like the picture in my memory. But that deep growl trumped curiosity.

  “And the Addled Cock is even less friendly,” I told Kathy, as she put on her straw hat and plain blouse and skirt — the closest her wardrobe came to slum ware. “Not a proper place for a lady, at all.”

  “Meg was there.” She sounded a bit critical, I thought.

  “And I tried to get her away, too,” I said. “She’ll be long gone by now. So there’s no reason for you to—”

  “Because it’s not proper? I hate to tell you this, love, but marrying you is no proper pursuit for a lady. Do you want that to stop me?”

  I didn’t ... and I was pretty sure the kidnappers really had moved on, so I led my friends back to the Addled Cock and into the alley behind it. When we looked over the fence, the coach wasn’t there.

  Even Rupert could see that following so closely that they became aware of us would result in a tighter guard on Meg, so we returned to our inn to spend a day letting me get over my headache.

  When we got back there was nothing but dust under the bed, and since we didn’t hear any hysterical maids, the dog must have sneaked away.

  Rupert, at loose ends, went out to learn which road th
e coach had taken out of town, but Kathy stayed behind. Visiting the site of my heroic stand had softened her suspicions so much that she was prepared to take advantage of Rupert’s absence, at least for a kiss and a cuddle...

  Unfortunately, I really did have a headache.

  I was also a bit irritated by her refusal to do the sensible thing and return to court — which really was the best way to resolve this, and I was foolish enough to say so. Again.

  After a second quarrel, which made my headache even worse, she said she was going to look for the dog and flounced out.

  I paced the floor and argued with the Kathy in my head, who proved much easier to debate than Kathy in person. But eventually my nerves settled enough for my hands to steady, and I began the delicate — and highly illegal — process of forging a High Liege writ, demanding all due assistance from any of his liegemen to the bearer.

  Forgery was one of many things Jack didn’t have the patience for, but when he saw that I did, he’d hunted up a tutor for me. And old Calfor may or may not have been lying when he said all forgers had their pupils use the Liege’s signature as their practice piece. It was a signature you were never supposed to use, because the consequences would be so severe, which he claimed made it perfect. Now that signature came to me as easily as my own — maybe easier, since I seldom signed anything. I could still hear Calfor’s voice telling me to put more pressure on the down strokes, and loosen my grip on the quill so the letters wouldn’t look so tight. A forger’s goal isn’t to make a perfect copy of someone’s signature, because no one signs their name exactly the same every time. The trick is to make it look like something your mark might have produced. I filled a scrap of cheap paper with practice signatures till my writing loosened up, then started drafting the warrant. Thanks to my father I write a fine hand — that was what had drawn Jack’s attention — and a writ might have been written by any number of clerks. The problem there was to strike the proper balance between legal formality and menace, and I went through a couple of drafts.