Prince of Darkness (32 page)

He took care now to steer clear of the common graves, for they were open, too. Christ’s poor were interred in these deep ditches, laid to rest on top of others who’d gone to God, and then covered with only a foot or two of dirt. When the grave was filled to capacity, their skeletons were dug up and carted off to the charnel house, and it was not unusual to stumble over stray skulls or forgotten bones on a stroll through the cemetery. But such grisly evidence of man’s mortality was not as troubling in the full light of day. After dark, it was all too easy to conjure up phantom fears and to shy at shadows, and whatever his other faults, no one had ever accused John of lacking imagination.

Raising his lantern, John saw no corresponding gleam of light. In the past, he’d met the Breton by the oldest charnel house and he started in that direction. It was slow going for not all the graves had markers or wooden crosses. He’d covered half the distance when he caught movement from the corner of his eye. He spun around as figures began to emerge from the darkness.

There were three of them, spreading out as they approached him, cutting off his avenues of escape. Swearing under his breath, John unfastened the money pouch from his belt, and flung it onto the ground. “Have it and be damned,” he said, for he was not foolish enough to take on three opponents. They were close enough now for him to see they were armed, one with a sword, the other two with knives and a nasty-looking club. John made an effort to convince himself that this was just foul luck, but he knew better; why would it profit outlaws to be lurking around Holy Innocents now that the cemetery was closed at night?

He felt no surprise when they ignored the money pouch, continuing to advance. That could be picked up afterward, once they’d done what they had been paid to do. With chilling certainty, John realized he was facing men hired to kill him. He’d already drawn his sword. Now he unfastened his mantle, dropped his lantern, and shouted, “Garnier, to me!”

The man in the lead smirked. “I’d not count on his help,” he said, as a fourth shadow took shape, this man coming from the direction of the rue de la Ferronnerie. At the same time, there was a loud pounding, curses, and Garnier yelled that the gate had been barred from the inside. His heart thudding, John began to back up slowly. Eventually his men-at-arms would either break through the gate or scale the wall. But he was not sure they’d be in time. He’d seen knaves like these before, scarred and battered by life, with only one marketable skill, at which they excelled—killing.

Like wolves stalking a deer, they were herding him toward the charnel house gallery, where he’d have little room to maneuver. Knowing he had to break free of this deadly circle, John feinted at the man with the sword and then pivoted upon the one with the club, such a high-risk gambit that it often worked. It almost did. His target yelped as his sword found flesh, and recoiled, but the wound was not lethal, nor even incapacitating. John may have drawn first blood, but he was still outnumbered, four to one.

It was then that another man materialized from the darkness, swinging a cudgel. He took the assassins by surprise, had struck one down before they even knew he was there. John took advantage of the confusion to impale the closest of his attackers. The man screamed, and when John jerked his blade free, both of them were sprayed with blood. His new ally was grappling with the club-wielder. A sudden splintering sound, followed by cries of jubilation, signaled that the tide was turning in John’s favor and the third killer whirled and fled. The outlaw with the club broke free and brought his weapon down upon the head of the Good Samaritan, who staggered and fell to the ground. Leaping over his body, the man disappeared into the darkness just as Garnier and John’s men came panting upon the scene.

When his lantern illuminated the blood smearing John’s face and hair, Garnier gasped. “My lord! Where are you hurt?”

“Go after them!” At that moment, John wanted nothing so much as to see his assailants suffer, preferably through all eternity. “Each one of those whoresons is worth twenty silver sous!” His men found that to be powerful motivation and gave chase, yelling as if they were on the hunting field. Raising his lantern, Garnier gasped again at what its light revealed: three crumpled bodies and a veritable sea of blood.

Ignoring two of them, John crossed to the third. “This one saved my life,” he told Garnier. “If not for him, you’d have stumbled over my body.”

“Who is he, my lord?”

“I have no earthly idea,” John said, although when the lantern’s glow fell upon the man’s face, he did look familiar. Feeling for a pulse, he said, “At least he still breathes. We’ll need a litter to get him back to the house—”

“Lord John!” The wind carried the cries to them before the ground began to quiver under the impact of horses being ridden at full gallop. Torches flared in the dark as riders burst through the shattered gate and into the cemetery. Durand and Justin slid from their saddles even as they reined in, hastily drawing their swords at the sight of the bodies and blood. Justin got his breath back first. “You were lured into a trap, my lord. The man you know as the Breton wanted you dead!”

“You really think so?” John’s sarcasm was all the more savage because he knew just how close he’d come to dying here in the cemetery of the Holy Innocents. “Good of you to warn me, de Quincy, but you’re just a bit late!”

Some of Justin and Durand’s men had dismounted; the others were spurring their horses toward the sounds of pursuit. John stalked over to the man he’d run through, grasped his hair, and jerked him into a sitting position. He groaned, eyelids fluttering, and then cried out when John shook him roughly.

“Hurts, does it? You tell me what I want to know and you’ll die quick. If you do not, I swear by every saint that you’ll be begging to die! Who hired you?”

“Never knew... name.” A bubble of blood had formed in the corner of his mouth. “Paid us goodly sum to kill...”

“To kill who?”

“Some rich fop who’d be alone in graveyard... easy money, he—” He gave a muted scream as John slammed him back onto the ground, then began to choke.

John got to his feet, stood staring down at the convulsing man. “Murder is one thing,” he said coolly, “but calling me a ‘fop’ is quite unmerited. That’s an insult I’ll not be forgiving.”

Neither Justin nor Durand was fooled by the flippancy. They could see he’d been badly shaken by this attempt on his life. So were they, for they could imagine nothing worse than having to face their queen and tell her that her son had died in their care. They did not blame themselves, though, for being slow to suspect the Breton’s treachery. It still seemed incredible that he’d have dared to kill a would-be king. But the evidence of his demented audacity was all around them.

“My lord!” Their men were coming back, triumphantly dragging a bedraggled prisoner. “One got away, but we caught this gutter rat going over the wall!” Shoving the man to his knees before John, they crowded around expectantly. Now that the hunt was over, they wanted to be in on the kill.

The man’s face resembled a slab of raw meat, both eyes swollen to slits, bloodied gaps where teeth had been. All the fight had been beaten out of him. He answered their questions numbly, confirming what they’d got from his dying partner. They’d been offered a vast sum of money to murder a man in the cemetery. They neither knew nor cared who they’d be killing. It was enough that they’d be well paid for their deed, and had been promised, too, that they could keep whatever valuables their victim had on him.

“Lord John!” Garnier pushed his way through to John’s side. “The man who came to your aid—he needs a doctor straightaway. His eyes are rolling back in his head.”

John nodded, suddenly realizing how much he wanted to get out of the cemetery himself. Looking toward the cowering outlaw, he said tersely, “Take care of him, Durand,” and turned away to retrieve his money pouch.

“As your lordship commands,” Durand said, and with almost casual violence, drove his sword up under the man’s ribs, deftly stepping back in time to avoid being splashed with blood. Justin was the only one startled by such summary justice. He stood for a moment gazing down at the body, but he could not summon up any pity for the dead man. Hoping that he was not learning to value life as cheaply as the queen’s son did, he hastened after John.

“Are you sure you were not hurt, my lord?” he asked, his eyes flicking to those profuse bloodstains. “Thank God you had a man with you in the cemetery! We feared you’d go in alone.”

“I did.” John paused in the act of mounting. “He is not one of mine, is one of yours. I do not know his name, but I recognized him after, assumed you’d sent him to follow me.”

“No,” Justin said, “we did not.” His eyes met Durand’s, but the knight seemed just as baffled. Looking no less perplexed now, John led them over to the wounded man. As the torch flames fell upon that ashen, familiar face, Justin caught his breath. “My God, it is Morgan!”

Morgan had probably never got so much attention and coddling in his life. Unfortunately, he was in no condition to enjoy it. Petronilla provided a private bedchamber for the injured man, and she and Claudine hovered around his bed like benevolent butterflies as they waited for the doctor to arrive. Women were expected to have some knowledge of the healing arts, but Justin was touched by their solicitude, for it seemed genuine. He was not surprised when Emma showed no inclination to visit the sickroom, for it took more imagination than he possessed to envision her nursing the poor, the maimed, the halt, and the blind. Nor was he surprised by Ursula’s indifference; she did not even appear all that troubled by John’s close brush with death.

Justin was very surprised, though, by John’s obvious concern, for gratitude had never been one of his more conspicuous virtues. But he’d sent at once for the French king’s own physician and insisted upon seeing for himself that Morgan was comfortably settled. Only then had he gone to clean off a dead man’s blood.

As soon as he’d bathed and changed, John had summoned Durand and Justin and banished a pouting Ursula from his bedchamber. Servants had brought wine and a fire burned in the hearth but that richly furnished room was still as cold and forbidding as a crypt.

“Tell me,” John had commanded, and they did, taking turns as they laid out their reasons for believing the Breton was Arzhela’s killer. John listened without interruption, but they were not expecting his response. “No,” he said, “I think not.”

“So, by purest chance, those hired killers just happened to be lurking in the graveyard instead of the man you were to meet?”

“No, Durand, I do not believe that. I am not a fool, as you’d do well to remember.”

“What, then, are you saying?” Justin interposed. “Why would the Breton have tried to murder you if he’d not slain the Lady Arzhela?”

“I am saying I do not think he killed Arzhela to keep her quiet. You do not cut off your toe to treat a blister.”

Seeing that they did not understand, John said impatiently, “The Breton was not guilty of a personal betrayal. All know his services are available to the highest bidder. Would I have been wroth to find out he’d offered his skills to Constance? Of course. Would I have done whatever I could to make him regret it? You could safely say that. But I would not have declared a blood feud against the man and he was shrewd enough to know that. I might even have made use of his talents again should the need arise. Killing Arzhela would have changed all the rules of the game.”

“You do not believe he killed her, then?”

“Do not fret, de Quincy. I am not finding fault with your logic or your conclusions. I do think the Breton killed Arzhela, for nothing else explains his mad attack upon me tonight. But there is a piece missing from the puzzle, his real motive for the murder.”

At that moment, there was a knock on the door and Claudine popped her head inside. “My lord John, the doctor wants to talk to you about Morgan.”

Justin would have liked to accompany him, but John offered no invitation, and he sank back in his seat. While John was gone, he and Durand speculated about his reasoning. They still thought the need to silence Arzhela was a sufficient motive for murder, but they conceded that John knew the Breton better than they did. John returned before they could pursue this subject at length, and the news he brought was not good.

“The doctor cannot say if he’ll recover, claiming it is too early to tell. If you ask me, physicians have found the perfect way to fleece their flock. The patient will live or die. No way they can be wrong, is there? Rather like a soothsayer telling a woman with child that she’ll give birth to either a boy or a girl.” John flung himself down upon his bed. “ ‘Wounds to the head are difficult to heal,’ ” he mimicked. “Fool doctors. We do not need them for the injuries that are easy to heal.”

“What does he say we should do for Morgan?”

“He promises to be back on the morrow with more potions and herbs. But for all his fine talk, I’d say Morgan’s best chances rest with the Almighty.” Reaching for his wine cup, John drank, frowned, and drank again. “So if neither of you sent Morgan to the cemetery, why was he there? Why would he have followed me?”