Elisha Rex (25 page)

W
iping the soot
and tears from his face, Elisha stood. The wonder that cloaked him shimmered into the world as if he projected Biddy's dying radiance. Entranced, he smiled. He must hurry, he knew, but he felt, too, that there would be time. Three nuns stood with laundry baskets at their feet, and one slowly crossed herself, glancing at the rooftop, then back at him. The second, younger sister sprang forward, her cry of dismay breaking Elisha's silence as she flung herself down at Biddy's side.

Strength surged through Elisha's legs, driving him past a few other outbuildings on his way to the stables. The strength of Biddy's magic stayed with him, buoying him up. A witch could work miracles in that dying moment—like Rowena transforming to an angel, or Martin's quenching the fire that threatened London. The dirt and the pain scaled away with every step, leaving the moment of their flight an exhilarating journey, a daring leap through darkness and back to the light. Elisha vaulted a trough and skidded to a halt in the stable yard.

The sight that met him sapped his borrowed strength and froze the air in his lungs: Five soldiers crowded the stable, one of them clutching Alfleda to his chest as they watched the scene before them. Sister Sabetha faced off in the entrance against a sixth man, her face and fists already bloody, her nostrils flared with her fury. “Give over,” she croaked. “Would you beat a nun, a bride of Christ?”

“I already am, woman, and you can't win back what we've taken.” He chuckled and tipped his head toward the child. “She's a pretty one, though—mayhap I'll take some more, eh?”

The nun snorted and sprang forward to the brawl. Off to one side, holding Elisha's horse by its reins, stood the novice who had greeted him upon his arrival. His position behind the wall afforded a narrow view of his horse and the farthest soldiers. He rested his head against the wood and tried to gather his scattered wits. The soldiers might toy with Sabetha until their captain arrived—shortly, no doubt. Elisha had a few moments but no more. These men knew nothing about him save that he was their enemy. They did not know what he could do, but neither could he do it without contact, nor while one of them held Alfleda. Damnation. Then he thought of Biddy in the dining hall, knocking down soldiers with an old woman's guile.

Elisha sank to the ground, spreading his awareness through the soil, touching the feet of the men, finding the stamping hooves of the plow horses. He wriggled his left hand into the earth. Concentrating his awareness in his fingertips, he took a moment to understand the seeds hidden there, the richness of the manure mingled with rotting straw to warm the new growth. Sinking deep into this knowledge, Elisha listened to the catcalls of the soldiers and the scuffle beyond the wall.

“Lord be with me!” cried Sabetha, only to be caught by a fierce blow to her kidney. She tumbled, and Elisha felt her fall, the dirt cushioning her as she rolled.

Elisha reached to the secret locks of hair he carried. Alfleda's hair tingled with hope and good tidings, while Thomas's sizzled with fear and anger. Elisha twined their strength with his own and sent the power gently rolling, a wave beneath the earth.

The stable shuddered, dust shifting down from the thatch. The horses snorted and stamped as the wave burst up in a ripple of soil. Men cursed and tripped. Elisha wriggled his fingers, and they fell, smashing into each other, lurching against the walls.

“Put that away, you'll hurt someone!”

“Bloody Hell, ye sodding churl, I told you—”

“Christ, what's happening?”

“Pray!” thundered the triumphant voice of Sister Sabetha. “Pray, you sorry souls, for the Lord despises the very earth you tread!”

Transferring the rumble to his own soles, Elisha slipped free his hand, letting the dirt cling, and walked. Every footfall sent a current through the groaning earth. He rounded the corner, the only man still standing, smiling at the novice who hung upon his horse's neck, wide-eyed.

The man holding Alfleda kept his grip despite the tossing earth that pitched him to and fro. Alfleda kicked at his legs and jabbed with her skinny elbows, howling.

Imagining that he might nudge aside the dirt that supported her captor, Elisha focused his power, channeling more, creating a hole.

With a muffled cry, the man slumped backward. His hands flailed in the air and Elisha sprang forward—his footing sure—and snatched Alfleda from the ground.

She shrieked at first, her golden hair flying as she kicked, then she tipped back her head and saw his face.

“Peace,” Elisha murmured. He lifted her to his hip, holding her close as he balanced.

Reaching out his free hand, Elisha drew Sabetha back to her feet, his touch giving her the steady anchor she needed, although her mouth set into a hard line as she stared at him. Together, they crossed the pitching tide of soil.

“Sorry,” Elisha told the novice.

She swung herself down from his horse, inching back from him until she stood against the shaking structure, rising and falling with the heaving earth. Elisha's stomach pitched uncomfortably just watching it. Turning his back, he slipped Alfleda up to the wide withers and started to mount behind her when a hand grabbed his elbow.

“You'll not be rid of me,” Sabetha said, her fingers twitching to emphasize the point.

“I've no time, and only one horse.”

“I'll run. I'll fall behind, but you'll not take her off without me, or, so help me whoever you are, I and all the Sisters of Mercy will beg torments upon your soul.”

Scrambling onto the horse, Elisha called, “Then run!” He kicked the horse into motion, urging it down the slope among the graves, the girl clinging with both hands to the harness strap.

The ground gave a final tumult and lay still as scattered soldiers picked themselves up. To the left, by the convent wall, the captain strode toward them. Elisha cut low, aiming for the road and freedom. Alfleda's hair lashed at his face and the scrapes of his travel up the chimney, forgotten in the rush of battle, suddenly throbbed. His horse was sturdy and sound, but it was not swift. He caught a glimpse of the soldiers' mounts, tended by a few other nuns. “Run!” he shouted to the horses, plunging his own steed through their midst. The nuns sprang out of the way, their dark habits slapping the breeze.

The soldiers' horses kicked and whinnied, and were soon left behind. If he kept to the road, Elisha might outpace his pursuers, but the king's men would be searching along the road ahead. Some would be mounted, and they hunted to kill. The idea of turning off onto a forest track held little hope, for he did not know the landscape. Only Alfleda's hair had led him here. Which meant that Thomas's hair could lead him home. Elisha grinned into the breeze and broke to the left, through a copse of birches, then into a stream, chill droplets splashing to his knees.

Perched narrowly before him, Alfleda squealed. At first, he thought her injured, then recognized the thrill that sang through her. She clung to the horse's mane, her posture erect, staring ahead into what must seem a grand adventure. Despite the cold that gripped his chest, he felt lighter to share in her delight.

An arrow whistled by them, and he cut to the edge of the road, then heard a scream and a whinny. He glanced back to see a tumbled body at the wayside, and a nun galloping madly toward them, eyes wide.

“I ran down the archer, on his own bloody horse.” Sister Sabetha blew out a cloud from her nostrils. “I saw you come bursting from the chimney.” She glanced over at him as she came alongside. “Are ye the devil's spawn?”

“I was born a few miles from London,” Elisha told her. “My parents were farmers.”

“Means nothing,” she sniffed, and he felt the pulse of Alfleda's anger rising to his defense.

Glancing up at him, her expression mingling concern and pity and strength, she looked so like Thomas that Elisha's eyes stung with tears. “You know that I am a witch.”

She nodded gravely, golden hair sliding across her slim shoulders.

“Why trust me? Why come with me?”

“You wouldn't lie to me, and you will not hurt me.”

“No,” he said, “I would not.”

“Trust a liar to give such an answer,” Sabetha pointed out. “Biddy believed you, and she died for it.”

Alfleda deserved the truth. “It's possible you will, too, Your Highness,” Elisha said to her. “These men won't be the last who'll come for us. No place that you are with me will be safe.”

Again, she nodded once. “Those men, they didn't know you, did they?”

“Not until I let them know,” he said, frowning over the change in topic.

“So.” She smiled, just a little. “Mother Superior summoned them for me. To kill me, I think.” Elisha made no reply, but she filled the silence with her smile and went on, “If you had not been there, I would be dead, wouldn't I?”

Hoarsely, he answered, “I think they wanted to take you to see someone.” Brigit. Who would kill her, and, if she'd given in to the mancers' ways, likely wear her skin for a trophy, revealing it to her father at the most opportune moment to shatter the king. The tide of hatred that stole over Elisha just then turned his stomach to bile. “If it remains in my power to save you, Alfleda, I swear I will not fail you, now or ever.”

“I know. Come along, Sister.” She slipped the reins from his numb fingers.

For now, at least, he was in good hands. He let himself drowse as they rode, absently drawing up the shades of the dead to cover their ride. He could not conceal Sabetha and her stolen mount, but neither would anyone be looking for her, certainly not with magic.

 • • • 

Over the next few days, they followed an arcing path around the New Forest, hoping to dodge the searchers there and still reach London in time to stop the wedding. But Elisha felt the persistent ache in his stomach, the pain of his ill-healed wound, overlaid with the sense of Brigit's seeking. He wrapped himself more tightly in death, pushing her away, refusing the connection with his own child that formed the link between them, and he groaned.

“Do you suffer the torments of the damned?” Alfleda whispered. “Because you are a witch?”

“It feels that way.”

“Then I will pray for you. I know how to pray in Latin, so that Holy Mary will be sure to listen.”

Alfleda murmured, her touch translating her hesitant words
“. . .
yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, for thou art with me.”

The valley of the shadow of death. He thought of that terrible void through which the mancers travelled, the one that carried him to their stronghold to rescue Thomas. Perhaps in that place, the dying left behind their fear and pain and sorrow. He did not know if he believed in Heaven, but Biddy's death had shown him another way of dying, and reminded him of Martin's final, floating laughter. Thomas strayed too long in that valley, living too deep among the shadows. It was high time that the king came home.

T
ents and caravans
spread out around London, colorful against a steely sky with their snapping banners and the liveried servants scurrying to and fro. Elisha sold the horses to a dealer on the outskirts of town and learned the wedding would be that afternoon, at Nones. It didn't leave them much time. The three went ahead on foot, picking their way among market stalls and crowds of visitors eager for a glimpse of the royal couple. Guardsmen, too, roamed the streets, craning their necks and peering down the makeshift alleyways. Elisha purchased a hat of nondescript wool and a cloak for Sabetha, who grudgingly concealed her nun's habit. He slouched into his rough cloak and kept hold of Alfleda's hand. He looked gaunt and ragged enough that his casual acquaintances would pass him by, but there were too many people who had seen him buried—or crowned. He unfurled his awareness like a net around them, reaching out three or four people beyond. All too often, he found the echoes of his own presence, as if the crowd anticipated his arrival. Certainly the guardsmen did, the way they stared at every man of his general height and build. Elisha projected poverty, stupidity. He buried deep his knowledge of death, and felt it cooling near his heart.

Alfleda gazed around herself in wonder, stumbling occasionally as she gawked at a juggler or a booth full of sweets.

“Watch your feet, girl, we can't afford an accident today,” Sister Sabetha muttered.

“I'm sorry, I know,” Alfleda whispered, instantly lowering her eyes, only to have them drift slowly back up again.

Elisha wished that he could share her excitement. He could still send Sabetha to bring the girl to the tower and introduce her. They might be safer without him, and he could quietly retire to some distant croft. After all, Brigit might be satisfied with being queen. Surely she would serve the magi better than they had been served before, and she might wreak no further vengeance on the king than to know she had snared him, along with his throne. But the mancers would not have bargained with her unless she offered something in exchange, and he did not yet know what that might be.

Then his out-spread senses caught the chill of a mancer walking by. He turned his trio at an angle, forcing himself to move slow. A few streets on, to the left, another well of cold emanated from a scribe's table, and there ahead were two women wreathed in that subtle stench he knew too well. Alfleda pulled nearer to him as they made a quick change of direction and stopped by the heat of a smithy as the mancers passed by.

With a gentle tug on his hand, she said, “What's wrong?”

“There are people searching for me. For you, too, if they know you're here.”

“How d'ye know that, then? More sorcery?” Sabetha glowered into the street.

“I wish you'd not say such things aloud. These people are very sensitive. If they brush against you, they can feel your thoughts; if they just touch you, they can kill you.”

“And you know who they are?” She raised an eyebrow at him.

“Some, I can feel. But if I'm hidden from them, chances are some of them are hidden from me.” The smithy fire warmed his side but not enough to cover the new chill as another mancer passed by. How many were there? How many could there possibly be?

“Have ye got another plan, then?”

Elisha tipped back his hat to study her face. “I could send her on with you, straight to the Earl's. I'm not even sure if he'll help me, but a nun and a child—”

“I don't want to let you go,” Alfleda said, pressing close to him.

Gathering Alfleda into his arms, her face now pressed against his shoulder, Elisha led them back into the streets until the great gate loomed up before them, nobles streaming through on horseback and in carriages, on their way to the cathedral. “Do you remember the turns I described?”

Sabetha nodded again. “I've got 'em. Trust me, eh?” Removing her cloak, she plunged through the crowd toward the gates, easily ducking the gazes of the dozen soldiers standing at the ready.

“Godspeed,” Elisha wished her, then turned resolutely from the gate, heading for the public house where they would meet again. He dodged a wagon and stepped off the road.

“Daughter sick, is she?”

Elisha jerked and turned as one of the harmless presences around him advanced upon them. Alfleda whimpered as his arms tightened. “What do you want?” Elisha snapped, then cursed himself and forced a smile. “Sorry, yes.”

“Mmm.” The fellow nodded, and lifted something from a tray he carried by a strap over his shoulders. “Here, then, you'll be wanting one of these.”

“I don't think so, thanks,” Elisha said, but the girl lifted her head and shook back her hair.

“What's that?” she asked, her voice still small.

Holding aloft his offering, the vendor grinned his snaggle-teeth at her, then at her “father” and said, “These're the finest you'll get, sir, and no mistaking. Carved them myself, I did, not those flimsy castings that won't ward off a sniffle.”

Alfleda held out her palm and the vendor dropped the charm into it. Crudely carved of bone, the thing was pointed at one end, jagged at the other, with a pair of small holes bored out in between and another at the jagged end, obviously a loop for hanging. Elisha realized he was seeing it upside down, and the shapes became suddenly familiar: a pair of shears surmounted by a crown.

“'Tis the badge of Saint Elisha,” the vendor said proudly. “Proof against wounds and sickness, blessed by the earth of his martyrdom.”

“Elisha's not a saint, he's a prophet,” Alfleda said, pushing it back at him.

“Convent school.” Elisha forced a smile. “We've got to go.”

The vendor thrust out his charm. “No, sir, you must've heard the stories—Saint Barber, some call him. He was one of us, he was buried to fight the Devil at the crossroads, then risen again to take the throne. You've heard that much, at least.”

Alfleda's hair swished against his face as she tipped her head back to look at him, blue eyes wide.

“I'm sorry. We have to go.” Elisha gathered her closer and started to push past, his heart pounding. A familiar touch trembled along the edge of his awareness, and Elisha turned sharply away, but the vendor pounced once more in his path.

“Come on, then, sir! For your daughter! Here, wait, I've got a witness right here.” He waved his arm to the side. “Adam, come over here and tell your tale.”

A young man clad in a penitent's brown robes emerged from the crowd, carrying a staff covered over with charms for the barber, some carved, some cast, some beaten of what might be gold. A shock of brown hair covered his face, and he impatiently shoved it aside. “You've not heard of Saint Barber, then?” His eyes met Elisha's and his mouth dropped open.

Elisha froze, the youth's familiar presence shocking him into immobility. Though he did not recognize the name, he knew that face. The last time he saw it, tears and blood and premature aging marked the cheeks before he healed the lad, before a mancer set Elisha on the throne.

“No, they don't know the miracles. Tell 'em yours, go on.” The vendor prodded the young man, grinning and wiggling his eyebrows.

Adam crossed himself and started to sink to his knees. He brushed away the other man's beseeching hand. “Don't you know who this is? Did you not see him when we held the city, or the day that he was buried for our sake?”

Snatching at him too late, Elisha nearly overbalanced and Alfleda gripped tighter. “Get up, please—for my sake, Adam, get up.”

“But we thought you were taken! Bodily! To heaven! When the archbishop died, weren't you—?”

“Shut up,” Elisha hissed. He lurched away, crashing into a woman who'd stopped to gawk.

“No, wait, please, your holiness!” Adam's hands flailed in the air.

Over the heads of their little audience, Elisha saw three guardsmen moving fast. He clutched Alfleda against him and burst free, running like a madman. To the right, a blast of cold nearly knocked him down. Alfleda shrieked. Elisha cut through the crowd, death howling in his skull. He spied an opening in the booths across the road and made for it, plunging into the gloom.

At the same time, he threw off his projection and let death fill him up and spill over him, wrapping himself and the child he carried. As he had done on that long, terrible ride to the lodge, Elisha sucked down death and walked in the shadows. Ghosts rose up before him, enacting their awful, silent battles. Elisha burst through them, still running, praying the mancers could not see him.

“We're dead, we're dead, we're dead,” he chanted as the fear in Alfleda's tears stung his throat.

The two women he'd noticed earlier stood before them, solid and smiling, spirits hovered at their backs, the strange doubling of the dead—their personal hauntings. One of them pointed.

Elisha spun away and ran down the back alley to a second row of booths more shaky than the first. Shouts rang out behind him, but the soldiers worried him less than the mancers, their murders touching him now on all sides as they converged.

Dodging a guard, turning again, Elisha ran along another alley, one that reeked of raw meat and slaughter. It should have sickened him, but the power of the place streamed through his open awareness.

Elisha stopped short and ducked under a row of sausages along the back of a stall. Holding his breath, he edged in among the swinging corpses of ducks and chickens, trying to shield Alfleda from the worst of the gore. She never raised her head, but trembled against him, and her prayers seeped through his skin.

Elisha slipped behind the outspread ribcage of a massive hog and pressed his back to the wall. Barely daring to breathe, he tucked his chin over Alfleda's head, staring down the narrow gap between the dangling animals and the rough wood.

Pale light filtered through on the street, cut by shadows as people walked by. In the street outside, a shady figure tumbled from a window only to vanish and tumble again a moment later. A pair of soldiers ran through the shade, spears waving. Four others followed more slowly, glancing into stalls and shouting questions.

The butcher emerged from someplace, wiping his hands, talking over his shoulder. “I've seen nobody, but I'm workin' at the back—they might'a gone by.”

“Keep your eyes out.”

“On butcher's row, m'lord? We've got plenty of eyes out!” he called after them, earning a groan from the guard, but a few chuckles from the other butchers.

The soldiers moved on, and the shopkeepers watched them go. A tall man stalked down from the other direction, his head swinging side to side, his nose wrinkled. Elisha felt the probing touch and repeated his silent chant, “We're dead, we're dead.” His heart beat so loudly in his own ears, and Alfleda felt so hot against him, that he nearly collapsed in relief when the man stalked onward.

The two women came up from their way, one of them taking the tall man's arm then letting him go. The group of mancers exchanged the nod of strangers who suddenly recognize each other. Elisha dared not reach out his senses, even to know what they might say. Any change, he felt sure, would give him away.

One of the women, a fair, well-dressed lady, approached the shop, craning her neck this way and that, as if inspecting the wares.

“Help ye, m'lady?” the butcher offered.

“No, sorry.” But she stared a moment longer into the darkness. Elisha shut his eyes and let his own prayers merge with Alfleda's. A hand of cold riffled through the meat. For a moment, the squealing of pigs and the honk of geese filled the air as if their spirits responded to the call.

“Here, what're ye doing?” The butcher sprang out into the street, then turned a slow circle, for the women and their compatriot had vanished.

After a long while, Elisha lowered some of his defenses, bit by bit. The shades around him faded into nothing, and he breathed deeply, despite the rancid air, until his lungs no longer burned and his heartbeat drew back from a gallop. He tipped his head this way and that, easing the ache in his neck, and realized how heavily the girl weighed in his arms.

“Am I dead?” Alfleda whispered.

“No, love, I don't think so.”

Cautiously, she raised her head and blinked up at him, then her gaze shifted to the bulky hanging pig that concealed them. “I don't know that I shall ever eat pork again.”

Elisha chuckled, very softly. “We owe much to that pig.”

“Then I hope my father buys it and eats it and it's the finest roast he's ever had.”

“Shh,” he urged her, but he caught her tiny smile, and he did not silence her too sharply. Keeping his shoulders against the wall, he edged out again, glancing both ways and extending his creeping senses before they finally emerged into the street.

“Hello? Can I help you?” Disturbed by some stealthy noise, the butcher came up and frowned out at them.

Elisha grinned at him, feeling giddy, hoping the feeling would fade quickly and not consume him with idiocy. “You have some fine pork, there, sir.”