For a moment, Thomas leveled at Elisha a furious gaze that blazed with the intensity of his thousand mixed emotions. With a distracted bow, he spun on his heel and strode away, Cerberus loping after. A moment later, a door slammed. Elisha had not known him long, but he had the sense that Thomas did not often use profanity. Even the burst of his anger held a pent-up quality that struck through Elisha’s awareness. In the king’s wake, the others seemed excited, the ideas coming together as Randall and Allyson picked out the details, and Rosalynn simply sat, her outer stillness belied by the humming that emanated from her presence. Thomas, the king, would have her! She hardly expected any man to be eager for her company after Alaric’s denunciation, and now she would be queen. Elisha’s two companions could marry, to the betterment of both, and all Elisha need do was die.
A soft rap at the door made them all turn, then Mordecai the Surgeon entered, giving a bow. “I apologize for my lateness, Your Graces. Had to see to some injuries at the abbey. Something about an earthquake.” He raised his eyebrows. “How much have I missed? A good deal, I gather.”
“An understatement,” Elisha said, taking his friend’s hand in greeting.
“Perhaps I should … ?” Rosalynn stood, smiling faintly, and her father dismissed her with a nod.
Her parents watched her go, and Elisha wondered if they saw what he did, the new assurance in her stride, the subdued way she spoke, her attentive listening.
“I do believe this journey has done her good,” Duchess Allyson remarked. “In more ways than one.”
Silently, in the way of the witches, Elisha laid out the plan for Mordecai. The surgeon’s grip tightened. When he replied, he spoke aloud, “May well be right about death, Elisha. But cannot-be-killed is not the same as cannot-feel-pain.”
Elisha scowled at him. “You didn’t need to tell them that.”
“If not your friends, they are at least your patrons. They should know what they have agreed to.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” the duke mused. “I know you’re good, Elisha, but really, it’s a bit much.”
“If you have a better idea, Your Grace, I’ll be glad to hear it.”
“We may be able to arrange an escape. The key is for Prince Thomas to have you arrested for the murder. Many things can happen between arrest and execution,” Duchess Allyson pointed out. “You might well escape and remain at large, as it were.”
“Or appear to die prematurely, in prison.” Mordecai released his hand and came to stand beside him, placing a warm hand on Elisha’s shoulder, radiating calm. “Between the three of us magi, we ought to be able to find such a solution.”
“Good,” said the duke. “That’s good. Thomas will be relieved. He can go to Canterbury afterward to swear his oath, if it still seems necessary. But we must act quickly, no matter our course. We’d like the French to hear of it as soon as possible on the heels of Alaric’s death.”
“And the mancers?” Elisha asked.
“What about them? Their man is dead. Even if they have another candidate, they’ll be hard-pressed to put forward anyone with a clear claim. If we move fast to build Thomas’s support, they would be facing the strength of the barons united.”
“We’ll need to watch out for the mancers,” said Allyson. “We’ll need to know how many there are, and who and where.”
Elisha smiled grimly. “I’ll have time to look for them when I’m dead. Morag, I would recognize. The other man probably not. But they have a way of travel like nothing I’ve heard of. They can appear and disappear at will.” He described what he had experienced during Morag’s flight from the abbey, and what he had seen the night before, concluding with Morag’s delight in the horrible passage, drawing strength from the misery of the dead.
The hand went still upon his shoulder. Randall raised an eyebrow at Allyson, but she shook her head. “I wish I knew what to say. There are rumors in the old texts about witches being carried great distances by devils.”
“Might be worth some reading.” Mordecai tapped one of his own collection of books swaying on their ropes at his waist.
Before him rose the fireplace where Thomas had stood, beneath the portrait of his wife and daughter. “There’s more,” he said. “Morag has a talisman of Thomas’s wife.”
“Oh, dear God!” Allyson crossed herself.
“But how?” asked the duke. “It’s true enough Anna was murdered, but we all saw her buried. Her body was in a better state than poor Alfleda’s.”
He turned a bit pale, his lips pressed together, and Elisha did not need his extra senses to feel the duke’s dread. Still, Elisha needed to know, now, while Thomas was out of earshot. “Was she skinned?”
“Good Gracious, no! But her face was …” the duke’s hand moved before his own face, indicating terrible blows.
“Morag is a gravedigger. That’s likely how he had access to get what he wanted from the princesses. He took the skin of the Frenchman—I saw that when I went down before the burial to study the man’s wounds. The killer was a magus, too, but I’m not sure who he was working for.”
Through their contact, Elisha felt Mordecai’s fleeting pain at the memory of his murdered family—followed by gratitude that they need not suffer after death. Then the talisman at Elisha’s belt grew heavy as he thought on the fate of families. He needed to take care of his nephew’s remains. Soon he would leave here, in chains, for the Tower of London. If he would do something, it must be now.
Elisha rose, sending his gratitude to Mordecai for his support. “If you have no further need of me, Your Graces, there’s something I should take care of.” He bowed to each.
“Perhaps Mordecai Surgeon will consult with me on some methods to avoid execution,” Allyson suggested, and the surgeon gave a nod.
“Elisha,” said the duke, rising, his hand extended. He clasped Elisha’s with both of his. “If I did not know Thomas would be the finest of kings …”
“I know,” Elisha answered.
“Thank you.” The duke managed a smile. “I still believe you’d have made me a fine son-in-law.”
Chapter 30
Elisha emerged into the sun and stood a moment, captured by the view. The lodge stood atop a fold of land with a spread of apple trees leading down the slope to a broad stream and a long pool at the bottom. Beyond this, patches of forest, downs, and fens rippled out in deep green, yellow, lavender, and brown. And there, at the horizon, he caught glimpses of the sea. No wonder the princesses had loved it here and that Thomas had returned to this, his last refuge. Where would Elisha go, when he escaped whatever punishment must be set for him? He had given up his home in London to his brother’s widow, and he would give up his place at Dunbury for this mad scheme to succeed. He needed to search for the mancers, to learn what they were doing; he had no doubt they would act against Thomas. Whatever it was they wanted, a just king was not high upon their list.
He turned away, crossing the path to the barn where he found a small shovel. The downs would have been a good place to conceal the talisman, even the barrow where Brigit had kept it, except he felt sure she would be looking again soon. She would be seeking the truth of Alaric’s death, and she was familiar enough with the talisman that she might discover it, even without marking it with her blood. Likewise, his own blood wouldn’t serve. He had neither time nor liberty to find the best way to hide it forever. Elisha stretched his senses through the earth, searching. He stopped too soon, when he felt Thomas’s approach. Stepping from the shadowed barn, Elisha felt too visible in the sunlight, carrying a shovel and the vessel of the child’s head.
Thomas, too, stopped, rounding the corner of the house from the back where a stone wall rose. “Lady Rosalynn is in the kitchen, presiding over supper, I believe, but it won’t be ready for some time. She is … kind. Also commanding, when she wants to be.”
“I hope she has not overstepped her place,” Elisha said.
Coming closer, Thomas shook his head. His hair and beard were damp, freshly was
hed. “I meant to consider the options dispassionately, but I did not think through what those options might be. The barons wanted me to marry after only a few months of mourning. Two years is a bit long.”
“I guessed what she had in mind. You must be pleased …” But Elisha trailed off at Thomas’s expression.
“Pleased?”
Elisha felt suddenly awkward, revealing what he had noticed, but he took a breath and said, “At the ball, when you watched us dancing … afterward, I could sense your attraction. I thought you would be pleased to know that Rosalynn returned the feeling.”
“You could sense something like that?” Thomas looked wary, accompanied by a tremor of worry and something else. Bemusement?
“I meant nothing by it, Majesty. You were disguised, I was curious. I’m sorry.” Elisha swallowed. Clearly, he had got something wrong. “You’ll need to learn to guard your feelings more closely, Your Majesty. I’m not the only magus who can sense them.”
“I see.” Then Thomas gave a little smile. “I’m sure Lady Rosalynn will make an excellent wife and queen. Don’t be concerned on that account.” He spread his hands, still wrapped in their bandages.
“May I, Your Majesty?” Elisha gestured toward his hands, and Thomas held out the left to be unwrapped and inspected.
“I’d almost forgotten your more ordinary talents,” Thomas murmured, the two of them looking at the brand, healing on his palm.
The warmth of Thomas’s proximity jarred against his regal speech, as if he were putting back on the raiment of kingship. “I should have healed them last night, Your Majesty.” Elisha glanced up. “I still could.”
Thomas shook his head. “You need your strength. I’m not the only one who lost blood last night.”
“They’re healing well, Majesty. You may wish to keep them covered a few days longer.” Elisha released him.
“I gave you the right to my name, Elisha. I wish you would accept it.”
“It’s hard for me to know how to act. On the great chain of being, a barber is the lowest link, a king …” he shrugged.
“It is difficult, but we shall make the best of it. Were you looking for something?” He stepped back, indicating the shovel.
With a sigh, Elisha told him the truth. “A graveyard.” He carried the jar cradled in the crook of his elbow.
Thomas touched his arm. “In a few hours we must be enemies before the world. Until then, would you please let me be your friend?”
Beyond them, away from the sparkling sea, rose a thick stand of forest right up to the back of the barn, tangled with vines, the trees raised to be straight and tall, towering above. “If you knew the truth, you would not ask my friendship.”
“Elisha, I know what’s in the jar—the necromancers told me. What could you say to explain it that would be worse than anything I might imagine?”
The forest seemed to sway with memories and sadness, oak trees shaking their leaves in the shadows. “My brother’s child was stillborn, or would have been. The midwife kept it secret for reasons of her own.” He took a deep breath. “Nathaniel and I had quarreled, years before, so they did not ask for my help until she was in labor, and it was going badly. The only way to save the mother was to—” His jaw ached, and he forced himself to relax. “—to cut the baby. I don’t know what madness was on me, but I thought I might bring it back to life, so I kept the head.”
Thomas wore fine leather boots now, that was good. A king should not go unshod.
“There’s more,” Thomas prompted, but gently, his voice drifting over Elisha’s bowed head.
Elisha’s fist tightened on the shovel. “My brother thought his wife and child had both died.” He came to the part of the story he had never told, the part that some suspected, but he never dared confirm. In a whisper, he said, “He killed himself. I took the blame for his murder, rather than have him buried outside the church. It’s why I was sent to battle, expected to die.” The hard weight of the jar pressed close to his chest. By the front door, the guards were talking. In the kitchen, Rosalynn’s voice rose over whoever followed her bidding. Birds chattered in the trees and rushed from limb to limb upon the wind.
“Come with me.” Thomas lightly touched Elisha’s arm and walked toward the woods. Numbly, Elisha followed. He could sense the drift of Thomas’s compassion, but he pushed it away, drawing back his awareness as they walked a narrow path behind the walled structure at the back of the lodge. Grapevines trailed over the top of the wall, snagging at his shirt. They continued past the wall and a short distance into the forest. The trees opened suddenly to a tiny church of stone, its peak barely the height of the wall they had left behind, smaller even than the barrow where he and Thomas hid from the soldiers. Even Elisha must stoop to enter the open arch. Alongside the chapel, two stones lay flat on the earth, carved with words and numbers.
“Alfleda was my second child.” Thomas’s voice was low, but even. “The first was stillborn. The two younger boys were carried off by a fever when Alfleda was four. She alone survived.”
Elisha shut his eyes against the magnitude of such grief. His king carried the deaths of four children, and the wife who had borne them.
“It was deemed better to bury them here than to take them to London and risk spreading the sickness.” Thomas paused, and there was a shift of weight and mood. “I did not bring you here for your pity, Elisha. It is consecrated ground. Will it serve?”
He found the king watching him, frowning slightly, and Elisha found his voice. “It will. Thank you.”
Thomas waited while Elisha dug a little hole, not too near the princes. He wasn’t sure how much magic could linger once he had gone, but he worked a deflection on the jar, then sent his senses into the earth. The princes were longer dead, their presences muted, but noticeable. His nephew was in the best of company. Elisha covered over the jar, giving the little grave a scatter of old leaves.
In a clear voice over his head, Thomas recited, “Pater Noster qui est in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum. Adveniat regnum tuum. Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra. Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie, et dimitte nobis debita nostra, sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris. Et ne nos inducas in tentationem, sed libera nos a malo. Amen.”
“Amen,” Elisha echoed.
The forest and the church as well echoed the holy words, and Elisha wondered if the Lord might deign to listen to the prayers of a king, even on behalf of a sinner like himself.
After a moment, Thomas said, “If we buried you alive, would you survive?”
Elisha wiped the dirt from his hands, considering. “I think so. I know a woman who can survive beneath the earth. I’ve witnessed her doing it. But it’s an uncommon punishment.”
“You’d prefer to be drawn and quartered?”
“Duchess Allyson thinks we can arrange for my escape before the execution.”
“I pray to God you can, Elisha, but if something were to go wrong, I’d hate to know it too late.”
Elisha nearly laughed. “Me, too.”
“It’s hard to say what influence I’ll have on the trial, but I’ll do what I can.” Thomas shifted his weight, glancing at Elisha sidelong. “I was looking for you, when you came out of the barn. They weren’t sure where you’d gone.”
Taking the shovel, Elisha rose. “What’s your will?”
Thomas ran a hand over his unruly beard. “I find myself in need of a barber.” He reached in the front of his jerkin and took out a pair of shears and a folded razor, but his sharp eyes searched Elisha’s face uncertainly.
Elisha shivered, studying the familiar objects.
“I need to be a king tomorrow,” Thomas said, “and you’re the best barber for miles around.”
“And likely the only one,” Elisha muttered. He had not held a razor since his brother had used one as the instrument of his death. He had known two kings and killed them both. A strong argument in its own right. Elisha shook his head. “I don’t know, Thomas.”
“Yo
u’re afraid of killing me, yet I’m the one who will be killing you. You trusted me with the truth, Elisha. Now let me prove my trust in you.”
Curiously, the determination in Thomas’s sharp gaze made him more like his father than Elisha had ever noticed before. If King Hugh’s iron will had been harnessed for justice rather than arbitrary judgment, Elisha might not have had to kill him. As for killing Alaric, he would not have given up his ambitions so easily. Rather, those events would have passed without Elisha’s knowledge: A king would die, his elder son accused of the crime, the younger prince taking command, and on the streets where Elisha lived and worked, he would have been none the wiser. The succession would have been a matter for gossip and hope—likely vain—that taxes wouldn’t rise with the new king’s accession. The rise of one prince instead of another would not be a cause for personal investment certainly not for sacrifice. Was Elisha better off before he knew the affairs of kings?
“I’ll need a basin,” he said, taking the tools into his hand, “a comb, and better light or I’m liable to cut your ear off.”
Thomas brightened, lifting the shovel from Elisha’s grip. “Have you seen the garden? This way.”
At the back of the lodge, Thomas pointed Elisha toward an arch into the stone enclosure he had noticed earlier. “Won’t be a moment.”
Elisha ducked the arch and stepped through.
Inside, the place was a festival of color. A thousand flowers danced in the breeze, and on the cherry trees lining the back wall. The flowers took all shapes, long stems of open cups and delicate sprays of whiteness. Trailing vines of tiny purple blooms obscured the pathways while climbing roses scented the breeze. It looked as if this place alone, of all the house, thrived, even in its owners’ absence. Owners who had so cared for it that it continued to blossom, sending forth flowers few had ever seen.
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