Lords of Conquest Boxed Set

by Patricia Ryan

  He tore aside the leather curtain and inspected the bedchamber, empty and preternaturally neat—no clothes tossed over chair backs, as was her habit; no comb and brush on the washstand.

  No Corliss.

  He went back into the main hall and looked around, ignoring the two scholars as they fetched the ale and laid dinner out on the table. Her desk was unnaturally tidy, too. Approaching it, he saw her Biblia Pauperum, and on top of it, a sheet of parchment covered with scribbled drawings. A closer look revealed writing in the middle—he recognized her elegantly simple hand—enclosed within a procession of tiny lions.

  He smiled as he lifted the sheet, grinning when he read the words My love. But his grin faded as he read on.

  Rainulf felt the blood drain from his face.

  “Magister?”

  “What’s wrong?”

  A great emptiness engulfed him; he felt dizzy.

  “Sit down, Magister.”

  Someone eased him into the chair, Corliss’s chair. He held on to the edge of her desk and read the note again... By the time you read this, I will be far from Oxford, and I doubt that I shall ever return.

  He muttered an oath and dropped his head into his hands. Someone picked up the sheet of parchment and read it. The two young men passed it wordlessly between each other.

  A cup was thrust into his hand. “Drink.”

  It looked like brandy. He drank. Its heat stung his eyes, but he couldn’t taste it.

  He felt a hand on his shoulder. “Magister, I’m—”

  “Don’t.” He shrugged off the hand. Thomas and Brad retreated to the table. They picked at their food and sipped their ale in pensive silence.

  The note lay on the desk, and he picked it up. Corliss had pointed out to him once that parchment felt soft on what had once been the sheep’s fur side, smooth on the flesh side; and if you closed your eyes and really concentrated, you could feel the very ink on the page. Running his fingers lightly over the sheet in his hand, he found that this was true. He closed his eyes and brought it to his nose, inhaling the traces of an enigmatic scent which lingered there—her scent.

  A knock came from downstairs. Someone went down to answer it. He heard a murmured conversation. Two sets of footsteps ascended the stairs, and then came Peter’s voice behind him. “Rainulf?”

  “Peter.”

  “I came here to say good-bye. I’m leaving for Blackburn.”

  Rainulf nodded without turning around.

  Peter pulled a chair up next to the desk and sat down. He had the brandy jug in his hand, and he refilled Rainulf’s cup. “They told me about Corliss. Will you be all right?”

  Rainulf caressed the dried trails on the note: tears mixed with ink. “As soon as I find her.”

  Peter looked at the note; he looked at Rainulf’s face. “Are you sure you should?”

  “How can you ask that?”

  The knight hesitated, as if trying to find the proper words. “She left for a reason, Rainulf—a good reason. She left for you. And, although ‘twas clearly hard for her, she wanted to break things off cleanly. Wouldn’t it be better to let her do that than to go after her and—”

  “God, this has all gotten so... Rainulf shook his head helplessly and swallowed the contents of his cup. “You don’t understand. Neither did she. I must find her. I will find her. She probably went to London. She could illuminate books there.”

  Peter sighed heavily, then took the note from Rainulf and examined it. “How long has she been gone?”

  “I’m not sure. It could be a few minutes or a few hours. She could be miles away by now, on one of several different roads.”

  Peter nodded. “If you set out for London in the morning, you can be there by—”

  “Nay—I’m leaving now.” He started to rise, but Peter grabbed his arm and lowered him to his seat.

  “That’s pointless,” Peter said. “You said yourself you have no idea what road she might have taken. ‘Twill be easier to find her once she gets to London than en route. You can go to the quarter where the books are made and see if she’s asked for work.” Peter tilted the jug over Rainulf’s cup again. “Wait till the morning to leave for London.”

  * * *

  “Let me go, Will.”

  Will smiled as he slowly walked toward her. “Let you go? After all the trouble I went through to get you?” He chuckled and shook his head. “I hardly think that’s likely, do you?”

  Corliss eyed the largest of the knives laid out on the little table. If she could get to it before he could...

  She pushed away from the door, but he grabbed her by her tunic and shoved her against it, hard. “Save your energy, my dear. You’ll need all your reserves to get through what I’ve got in store for you.”

  “It was you all along—not Rad. You’re Pigot.”

  He backhanded her swiftly across the face, catching her before she could fall. “My name,” he said in a menacing whisper as his fingers dug into her shoulders, “is William Geary. The name Pigot is an insult, and if you call me that again, I’ll kill you.”

  He leaned in close until he was nose-to-nose with her, his breath hot on her face. She’d never noticed how colorless his eyes were, like frozen lakes. In truth, it was hard to see beyond all those freckles, so dark and numerous that it almost looked as if he’d been splattered with red ink—or blood.

  “Does my face disgust you?” he asked quietly.

  She couldn’t stop quaking, but she strove to keep her voice steady. “Nay.”

  “Liar!” He shook her; her head rattled against the door. “Just wait till I get you strapped down.” Corliss followed his gaze to the big table—and the orderly array of surgical instruments next to it.

  Scream. Sucking in a great lungful of air, Corliss shrieked, “Help! Somebody help me!”

  Will smiled indulgently. “Go ahead. But all you’ll earn for your efforts is a sore throat.” He cocked his head toward the boarded-up front window, through which could be heard the sounds of celebration, including a great many voices raised in a ribald drinking song. “No one will hear you. I can do anything I want to you—anything—and no one will come to your aid.”

  Was it possible he could be reasoned with? “Will... think about it. I’ve done nothing to hurt you. Why would you want to—”

  “Because you’re a lying whore!” he screamed in her face. Abruptly he calmed, his voice lowering in a murmur. “I know how to punish lying whores. And your punishments shall be especially... exquisite, given the merry chase you’ve led me. You laughed at me, you and—”

  “No, I didn’t. I didn’t even know you were Pi—” She swallowed hard. “I... I had no idea you were Sir Roger’s...” His what? Was there a name for a creature like him? “I thought you were just his surgeon.”

  “I’m both. Since I travel a great deal, I found I was in a good position to locate runaways—for a price, of course. And, too, I have a natural aptitude for the work. No one ever suspects me—until it’s too late.”

  She certainly hadn’t; and neither had Rainulf. “You even came to us, to warn us. You told us Sir Roger had sent someone after me.”

  He smiled sardonically. “I thought that was particularly clever. I wanted to find out from Fairfax himself whether you were his mistress. He denied it, of course, the lying mongrel.”

  “But I wasn’t—”

  “No more lies!” He closed his eyes; when they opened, he was eerily serene again. “I also wanted to light a fire under him, scare him a little. When people feel threatened, they often get clumsy and give themselves away. It didn’t work, of course. But at least he didn’t see through me. I take it he suspected that simple-minded freak of a peddler. I should thank the drooling idiot for hounding you the way he did. Quite the perfect distraction.”

  “Rad was trying to protect me.”

  He snorted. “Yes, I’m quite aware of that. He saw me today, you know. I was so excited to find you alone at last that I got sloppy and trailed you too openly. Your Guardian Ped
dler, witless though he is, appeared to have caught on that I was after you. He tried to get to you first, but he’s slow and clumsy. I, on the other hand, strike like a snake. And once I’ve got my prey, I never let go.” His frigid gaze crawled over her, assessing her with unnatural interest. “Although I do rather enjoy toying with my kill.”

  “You’re mad.”

  “Absolutely. So you’d best tread carefully with me. I suggest you stop fighting me and accept whatever punishments I see fit to mete out.” He moved closer. She felt his erection beneath the leather apron, and flinched.

  “Nay!” She tried to push him away, but he lowered his hands to her upper arms, pinioning them to her sides. In desperation, she whipped one leg up, knee bent, but he was standing too close, and his apron provided a sort of armor against that kind of attack.

  “Typical whore’s trick,” he growled.

  She lifted her leg again, this time bringing her heel down sharply on his instep. He howled, his hands loosening from around her arms. She tried to flee, but he grabbed her. He seized her head and slammed it against the door. Pain reverberated in her skull. White light obliterated her vision and then dissolved, leaving a numbing nothingness...

  Consciousness returned as a twist of discomfort around her left wrist. Something tightened around it, biting into her skin. She heard the snap of leather being buckled.

  No... no! She opened her eyes, then squeezed them shut against the light of the overhead lantern. She lay on her back. When she tried to sit up, she discovered that her feet and left hand were bound to the corners of the table.

  Will stood to the side. She fisted her right hand and aimed for his face. He seized her wrist, his grip painfully tight. With a gentle tsk, he stretched this arm above her head and swiftly encircled it with a leather strap. She tried to resist him, but he was strong, and snickered at her feeble efforts. The restraint pinched. He buckled it, then gave it a tug as if to test it.

  Seemingly satisfied, he turned to the smaller table and pondered the assortment of knives. With a malevolent smile, he chose the little curved one and held it up; his icy eyes reflected its gleam.

  Panic flooded her like a dam breaking. She thrashed violently, yanking at the bindings. He ignored her completely, running his thumb slowly along the edge of the rounded blade.

  Don’t panic. Don’t panic. She forced herself to lie still, although her heart thundered in her ears and she couldn’t seem to get enough air. A thought occurred to her. “I have money—lots of it. I’ll give it to you if you let me go.”

  He leaned over her, his face blocking out the harsh lantern light. “I’ll take it anyway. And you don’t seem to understand, my dear. I have no intention of letting you go. You’ve led me a merry chase all summer, and I deserve a better reward than mere money now that it’s over. I deserve to avenge myself on that pretty face of yours.”

  “I can’t think that will make Sir Roger happy.”

  “Nay, but he’ll pay me the rest of what he owes me anyway. He always does, the fat, spineless swine. And then—after I’ve got the other pound—I’ll arrange a conveniently plausible death for you. Perhaps a suicide, like Hildreth’s.”

  Corliss remembered the fragile girl who’d drowned herself—or had she?—rather than go through life mutilated beyond recognition. “You killed Hildreth?”

  He shrugged casually. “She could have identified me.”

  “Without her tongue?”

  “She could read and write—not well, but well enough.” He tapped the curved knife against her forehead. “So can you—in three different languages, if I’m not mistaken. Rest assured, you will die. But not” —he trailed the edge of the blade delicately down her nose, over her lips, and along her throat— “until I’ve taken my own particular form of pleasure with you.”

  So that’s how it’s to be. She was condemned to death—but only after unspeakable tortures. Swiftly assessing her predicament, she came to a grim but pragmatic conclusion: If death was inevitable, she’d rather it came before this maniac had done his worst to her than after. But bound as she was, there was nothing she could do to hasten her own death—or was there?

  Closing her eyes briefly, she transmitted a silent prayer of forgiveness for her act of de facto suicide. And then she swallowed hard and said, “You’re a vicious, murdering bastard, Pigot.”

  His face darkened with fury. “Don’t call me—”

  “What? Pigot? Because it reminds you what an ugly son of a bitch you are?”

  He grimaced, pressing the curved blade against her throat. “You’re trying my—”

  “Pigot—that’s what we called this grotesque little dog we had when I was a child. You should have seen it—speckled all over, just like you. People would laugh every time they saw—” She sucked in a gasp as the blade cut through her skin. She felt blood trickle down her neck, onto the table.

  He was hoarse with rage. “I told you I’d kill you if you called me that.”

  Steeling herself, she said, “Do it, then. What’s the matter, Pigot? Don’t have the nerve to finish what you start?”

  He stood there frozen for a moment, the blade just piercing her throat, and then he began to chuckle.

  Oh, no...

  “You’re good,” he said, grinning as he backed off. He wiped the bloody knife on his apron. “Damned good. Most of them are blubbering and begging by this point, but you’re still trying to control the situation, trying to get your own way, trying to trick me. You’re really quite spirited, aren’t you?”

  His smile vaporized. “I hate that in a woman. Luckily, I’ve discovered that spirit, like any poisonous lump, can be excised.” He drew the tip of the knife around each of her eye sockets, just lightly enough so that he didn’t break the skin. She shivered all over. “One simply has to know where to cut.” He circled her nose, and then each of her ears in turn, with the razor-sharp blade. “Often it’s a matter of trial and error. It can take quite a while. But I’m a patient man. What about you? Are you patient?”

  She drew in a deep, steadying breath. “Bugger yourself!”

  He clucked softly and touched the blade to her lips. “That’s quite a tongue you’ve got there. I shall have to do something about that tongue of yours.”

  Will began to slip the blade between her lips. She wrestled her head to the side. He grabbed her by the hair and yanked it back. She pressed her lips closed, clenched her teeth. The blade slid into her mouth. He twisted his wrist and it pried her teeth open, flirted with her tongue. She tasted steel, and couldn’t stifle the whimper that rose from her.

  A crash of splintering wood made both of them start. Will withdrew the blade and turned toward the sound. The shutters covering the alley window were shattered, and a large rock lay on the floor. As they watched, a cowled head appeared.

  Rad. He’d followed them, after all! He punched through the remaining slats of wood and scrambled through the window with surprising agility. His horrified gaze took in the big table, the restraints. He met her eyes, his expression grim.

  Will laid down the curved blade and picked up the big knife. “You’ve made a very grave mistake, peddler.”

  He had, Corliss realized; Will could kill Rad as easily as he would butcher a sheep. “Leave, Rad,” she implored. “Find Rainulf. Tell him Pigot’s got me—”

  “Shut up!” Will cracked her across the forehead with the handle of the knife. Through the burst of red-hot pain, she heard Rad’s roar of anger, and the sounds of a scuffle.

  It was over quickly. When she refocused her gaze, Rad was stumbling backward, the knife in his gut.

  “No!” She yanked ineffectually at the bindings.

  Facing Rad, Will grabbed him by his cowl and pulled out the knife; Rad winced and sank to his knees in the debris from the shutter. Holding the blade to Rad’s throat, Will said, “I told you you’d made a grave mistake.”

  “Stop it!” Corliss screamed. “Don’t!”

  Will spun around. “You shut up!”

  Behi
nd him, Rad grabbed the rock, hefting it in both hands. As Will turned toward him, he slammed it into the surgeon’s midsection.

  Will fell, whacking his head on the table and hitting the floor with a grunt. Rad doubled over, clutching his bleeding stomach. Shaking his head, Will groped in the sawdust for his knife. Corliss knew Rad didn’t have a chance. No match for Will to begin with, he was further weakened by his injury.

  “Leave, Rad!” she screamed. “Go!”

  Rad nodded as he struggled to stand up. “I’ll g-get—”

  “Just go!”

  He clambered out the window, leaving it smeared with blood. Will, one hand cradling his head, the other clutching the knife, rose unsteadily to his feet. “Damn.” He lurched to the window and peered out. Rad’s retreating footfalls were soon absorbed by the boisterous street noise.

  Will, his breathing labored, stood with his back to her for a few moments. “Can’t stay here now,” he muttered. “Got to get you to Cuxham. Damn! I hate to do this in broad daylight.”

  He hurled the knife across the shop. It stuck in one of the coffins. Crossing the room, he yanked it out, then ran his hand thoughtfully over the wooden box. To her surprise, he began to chuckle. “But I’ve got just the way to get you there without drawing attention.”

  * * *

  “No more,” said Rainulf as Thomas tried to pour him another brandy. “I’ve no desire to end up drunk.”

  A sound came from downstairs—a thump against the front door.

  “No more visitors,” Rainulf muttered.

  “I’ll send him away,” offered Brad, sprinting downstairs. Rainulf heard the door open, then a startled exclamation in English. “Magister!” Brad called up the stairs. “I think you should come down here!”

  Thomas followed Rainulf down the narrow staircase to the street. At first he thought the tattered mass on the ground was a bundle of rags—but then he noticed the blood, and a cowled head. Kneeling, he pulled back the cowl and saw the familiar, hideously pockmarked face. “Rad?”