Elisha Rex (27 page)

In two quick steps, before he could change his mind, Elisha stood before the king. He swept into a bow, averting his eyes until he straightened again and found himself face to face with Thomas.

“What—it's you!” the king breathed, frozen.

At his side, Brigit demanded, “Who are you?”

Elisha did not respond, grateful for the hat which dipped low over one cheek, obscuring his face but for the short, pointed beard. Instead, he smiled and said, “A wedding gift.”

“Guards!” Brigit shouted.

“What's going on?” called the duke from his place behind another set of guards.

Keeping his eyes on the king, Elisha guided Alfleda before him. Thomas tensed, eyes narrowed as he glanced down—the merest flicker, assessing the danger as his hand reached for a sword he did not wear. Then, his eyes flew wide and his lips parted. He dropped to one knee, sweeping the hairnet from the girl's head. She gaped back at him, still holding Elisha's hand. With a soft cry, Thomas scooped her into his arms, his face pressed against her hair.

Over their heads, Duke Randall stared directly at Elisha. “That's him!” His finger thrust out and he, too, reached for a sword.

Elisha's belly clenched. “Long live the king,” Elisha said, then he flashed a grin at Brigit. “And God save the queen.”

“Did you hear that? He threatened me! Move, you idiots!”

The man behind drew his sword. With his daughter held tight, Thomas lurched to his feet. Tears streamed down his face, which broke into a grin that Elisha felt to his very soul.

“Out of the way, Your Majesty! Thomas, get out of the way,” Randall roared, trying to push ahead with his two guards while Brigit floundered to the side in her heavy cape and gown.

The king stood thwarting the tide. One hand cradled his daughter's head against his chest as he blinked at Elisha, his smile lighting up his brilliant blue eyes. Elisha laughed aloud as he spun and ran.

The vanguard, returning double speed, broke apart in confusion as Elisha burst through their midst.

“Has nobody got a bow?” the duke shrieked as feet pounded back down the aisle.

“Shut the doors! For God's sake, shut them,” Brigit urged.

Elisha ran as if he might launch into the sky and sprang out the huge double doors as the guards struggled to get them closed again.

Outside, rain shimmered in the air, and the crowd surged forward so it was all the soldiers could do to hold them back, expecting the king, not a madman who bounded down the stairs, whooping and laughing. Elisha's half-cape fluttered out in the breeze, his hat tumbling away to be seized up as evidence.

“Pull!” cried a new voice and bowstrings sang.

Giddy and light, Elisha flung himself into the air, spreading his awareness. Almost without thinking, he touched the rain, contact springing from drop to drop across the sky. An arrow buzzed toward him, and Elisha let his dreams run as wild as his heart. The arrows never struck home.

Around him, the crowd gasped. Some cheered and others cried out for the Virgin, and a few even shouted his name—not with the gathered fury of those behind him but with the veneration of people receiving a sign.

Heedless of faith or fury, Elisha ran through the rain, transforming it as he passed. Some part of him knew it was not over, that only his madness, only his sudden appearance and sudden flight defended him from his enemies. Elisha touched the rain and turned it bright with spring and promise. All around him fell a thousand tiny flowers, perfect in their beauty and blue as the sky, a carpet of petals, delicate as snowflakes to greet the king and his daughter as they started toward home together.

E
lisha fled into the crowds.
Turning this way, then that, he found a well-populated street between the market stalls and slowed to a walk, binding his presence once more to the dead. Alert and less tired than before, he strode onward, stopping at the nearest clothier's booth to buy a long woolen cloak with the last of his hoarded wealth. He flung up his hood and smiled his grim thanks. His own purpose might have been fulfilled, but he should do well to recall that others still searched for him. For a long time, he followed one little group of revelers then another, allowing his presence to mingle with theirs, acting the part of a drunk, dodging guards and mancers both, wishing he could find a place to curl up and rest. The guards dispersed quickly through the crowd, expecting him to bolt. The mancers, too, drifted slowly away, some of them simply winking out of existence. There was a moment when Elisha felt the murder clinging to one of them, that he was tempted to turn assassin. Instead, he watched for them, seeing the same ones who seemed to haunt the city: the pair of women, the tall man, others he began to recognize. Twenty-three mancers in all. Nearly four times as many as he'd fought before, and there still remained the stout woman from the coal mine. They would be carrying talismans that allowed them to use the Valley of the Shadow. If he tried to strike one of them, the others could converge upon him, or simply vanish. Pausing at a junction, Elisha considered what to do. Then he heard a bell strike nearby and thought of Sabetha.

Keeping well out from the city wall, where the guards would surely be given the new description of him, Elisha moved quickly out from the cluster of buildings and market stalls. He ought to shave his beard when he had the chance. He would more resemble himself, but the change might buy a little more time. Unfortunately, he could not risk seeing a barber. Any man of his former order might well recognize and report him, or simply cut his throat and claim whatever reward the duke offered.

Elisha's footsteps slowed as he stared ahead. The shape of the landscape looked familiar and his stomach clenched. With the gentle slope up, away from the city and the gray and white walls of Saint Bartholomew's behind, it looked like the place where Brigit's mother died upon the stake, but a large wooden building occupied the spot where the fire must have been. A few workmen moved up on the roof, binding on bundles of thatch. Tipping back his hood, Elisha watched them as he approached. The newly cut lumber still glowed pale in the subtle gleam of the setting sun, and stacks of tools and lumber surrounded the site. Something about it quickened his breathing and made his skin tingle with an unwelcome fear. The nun must wait a little longer. Frowning, Elisha stalked around the windowless place, then poked his head inside where a few masons worked by rushlight laying a stone floor. Two others leaned over a table to one side, studying a wax tablet diagram.

“Pardon me, Master,” Elisha said, giving a short bow as the two stared back.

“If it's work you're after, we're nearly done,” said the taller man, crossing his arms.

“No, I can see that. I've not been to the city for a couple of months, nor have I heard of any projects. Can you tell me what you're building?”

The two shared a look, and Elisha felt a slender shaft of cold too deep to be natural. He masked himself in confusion and country ways, borrowing from the owner of his second-hand cloak.

“It's a church.”

Elisha glanced around the square room, surmounted by a peaked roof. Something the height of a dining table, but larger, hid beneath a cloth at its center. Elisha's uneasiness grew, the brand pricking upon his chest. With a smile, he faced the men—the master builder, and the mancer. “It's like no church I've ever seen. A central altar, is it?” He gestured toward the covered object.

“'Sright,” said the builder. “A new design. She's right proud of it and won't have it changed.”

“Ah, the queen's church.” Elisha grinned even as the mancer, a hawk-nosed, gray-haired man, frowned back at him. “Come to think of it, I have heard tell. She chose this spot because her mother died here, am I right? It's a sort of memorial.” Elisha rubbed his neck as he feigned admiration, his fingers returning to the scar where Morag would have had his hide. He scratched at his short beard, then lowered his hand, hoping it looked nonchalant.

“That's right,” said the builder, smiling himself now. “See here, sir”—he pointed to the diagram—“there'll be four basins for holy water, at the corners of the altar, see?”

Elisha came nearer, keeping toward the builder's end of the table, and tucked his hands behind him as he studied the plan. Four basins. An altar just the size of a man, spread-eagled, built over a place of power for the queen herself. Bile crept up Elisha's throat.

“We've got no time for visitors,” snapped the gray-haired man.

“Bosh,” said the builder. “Should've given us more than two weeks before the dedication. Still, quick as we've worked, it'll be a right pretty church in honor of the queen's dam, 'f I do say so myself.”

“No doubt,” the mancer sniffed, his shaggy eyebrows furrowing as the cold finger of his attention prodded Elisha's defenses. Elisha stepped out the door just as a mounted party galloped by and turned down the well-trodden path toward Saint Bartholomew's. The wind of their passage cut through his cloak, and Elisha turned up his hood again, catching his breath. Mancers, at least half the ones he had counted, and a single servant in their midst borne upon the saddle of the lead rider. Most he recognized from the fair earlier. The others, no doubt, would recognize him. Dear God—and Sister Sabetha waited there for him.

Elisha set out after them, his knees feeling weak as he walked. He unfurled his senses before him, reaching toward the church and priory, skimming over the hospital where the fears of the dying crowded his attention. He strode forward, not running, not daring to waste his strength. They would find her quickly, or not, no matter how fast he ran. Besides, they wanted him: the nun was only a means to that end.

He came cautiously through the graveyard. Two men lounged against the low surrounding wall, their cloaks remarkably clean given the rake and hoe that leaned against the wall with them. His brother's grave lay a few rows up from the pair, but he kept walking, forcing his shoulders to relax. At least he felt sure he did not imagine their attention—soldiers of the duke or the king, set to guard any place where Elisha might appear. Rounding the corner, out of sight of the guards, he flattened himself against the wall. Two men stood with the horses, and they looked up. Elisha projected his absence, applying the Law of Polarity to create a deflection and hoping he'd done it soon enough that they had not already noticed him. If they did, they made no move. But would they? No, they would act as if nothing happened while alerting those inside to his presence, assuming the others did not know.

Elisha sent his awareness out through the earth, sorry now that it had stopped raining. Seeking attunement as he sought his hunters, Elisha reached up through stone and wood and into the sanctuary of Saint Bartholomew's. Eight more mancers waited inside, not grouped together but scattered singly and in pairs. He caught his breath. Brigit's presence glowed among them, bright as her hair. Only a handful of
desolati
occupied the church, and he had not known Sister Sabetha long enough to recognize her at such a distance. He squared his shoulders and walked to the door.

A slight chill caught Elisha's attention, and he glanced down to find a smear of blood on the threshold. He slid his booted foot over it, frowning. The blood belonged to no one he knew—a great relief—but it resonated inside the church on most of those cold forms lurking within. He smiled grimly and stepped over, carrying a bit of the blood with him in the stitching of his sole.

His footfalls echoed in the dark church, his shadow growing strong, then fading as he neared and passed each candelabra. As he walked, he let the projections fall away. Death gathered to him, seeping up from the graves outside and from the tombs of the rich patrons lining the walls. Heads turned. The mancers smiled, but let him pass. This one nodded a formal greeting, that one curtsied. Elisha ignored them all and moved steadily toward the bench at the side, where two women sat, their faces revealed in the glow of candlelight.

“But can it be that you didn't know?” Brigit asked. “It must be hard for a man to conceal such evils, and you being a woman of God. No doubt you are more sensitive to such things.”

“I came with him for the safety of the child, my lady. Seemed to me he wanted what's best for her, at any rate.”

“Then you saw no reason to distrust him.”

Sister Sabetha did not answer but looked away into the dim recesses beyond the altar. “You say he killed the last queen.”

“Yes, and the prince, and our own archbishop—to attack a man of the cloth! Well, even those inclined to trust him before could hardly doubt after that.” Her back to Elisha and the aisle, Brigit radiated concern as she leaned toward the nun. “Good Sister, I know, more than anyone, that he seems so worthy of trust. And more than any, I know how he betrays it. I don't blame you for believing.”

Elisha cleared his throat, and Sabetha jumped, her hand flying to her cheek, but Brigit merely lifted her head. “Come and sit by me, Elisha Barber. We have so much to talk about.”

Sister Sabetha lowered her hands and tried to master her expression. “Is it true, what she said?” She opened her clasped hands to reveal a medallion of Saint Elisha, and he sighed.

“I killed the archbishop, after a fashion, but he's the one who killed the queen. And the prince—Prince Alaric that was, this lady's betrothed—killed Alfleda's mother, had Alfleda brought to the convent, and would have killed King Thomas, given the chance. I took the chance away from him.” Elisha softened nothing: if he offended the nun, she might up and go, taking herself out of harm's way.

Instead, Sabetha simmered with wrath of her own. “Have you lied to bring us here? And what've you done with the girl?”

“Exactly what I said I would—I brought her to her father.”

“And ruined the royal wedding, one might add, though I did receive both crown and ring,” Brigit remarked, slipping a strand of hair behind her ear, the gold ring flashing on her finger. She wore simple traveling clothes, warm and serviceable.

“Which makes me wonder why you're not there enjoying the feast.”

Brigit leaned back. “The wedding was hours ago, Elisha. What crimes have you committed since then?”

“Let her go,” Elisha said, softly.

“Nobody is holding her, Elisha, love.” She bit off the word, her pretty face flushed with pink. “She has been waiting for you, for a long time. I simply came by to pray for my baby, and I offered to keep her company.”

“You've been sitting here pouring acid into her ear, trying to find out what she knows about me.”

“Now just you wait,” Sabetha snapped, heaving herself to her feet. “Plain enough there's some history between you, no reason to make me a party to it.”

“Between us? Oh, no, Sister.” Brigit reached out and caught the nun's arm. “I once thought there was, you understand.” She managed a teardrop that gleamed upon her cheek. “Only to find out later the truth about him.” She shot Elisha a look that pierced his awareness, and he suddenly realized the mounting pressure of her presence, a force pushing against him. “But you're not a bugger, not really, are you, Elisha Barber?” She thrust a finger toward him. “You still want me, just like your precious Thomas wants me, like he's longing to come back up to our bed.”

The revulsion overwhelmed any attraction he had for her, and Elisha shook his head. “You ground him down until he had no choice but to trust you. He'll never love you.”

“He'll never love you, either, Elisha Barber.” She flung her hands in the air as if it all meant nothing to her. “He cringes at the sound of your name.” Taking up her skirt in two fists, Brigit came closer, lifting her face to look into his, so close that her breath burned across his lips as she hissed, “I come to him at night and whisper your name, just to hear him whimper.”

Elisha backed away until his calves scraped against the next bench. Brigit came on, her chin forward, her eyes glittering by the light of dancing flames. “Oh, yes, Elisha, I lie there beside him, night after night,” her voice sank away completely, yet still her words insinuated themselves in his mind.
“Sometimes I cry out, ‘Stop, Elisha, please, no! Elisha, stop!' Every night he wakes up crying and crawls into my arms.”

Elisha surged forward, and Brigit fell to the side, snatching for Sabetha's support and wailing. “Stop him, please! My baby!”

Looming over her, Elisha froze. “You vicious bitch.”

Two mancers leapt to defend her as she huddled in the nun's arms, and Sabetha glared back at him. “Holy Mother Mary, you are mad.”