Suzanne Robinson (18 page)

Eyes stinging from unshed tears, Pen clenched her fists and glared at him.

“No, I’m going to tell you the truth. Those documents show no sign of forgery. St. John bears no scar, so he can’t be the priest. You are. I know nothing of this Derry of whom you speak, and I’m not going to release you. You made a mistake.”

Sighing with impatience, Tristan grumbled, “What mistake?”

“You made a mistake in taking me to bed.”

“Did you not take me as well?”

She paid no heed. “You forget that I’ve seen your body in every part. Did you think me so antick that
I’d forget I’ve seen the scar. There is no path around this trap the queen’s man has laid for you.”

“Jesu Maria!” Tristan pounded the door with his fist. “Can you not listen with an unfettered mind? That man and I have the same coloring, and we’re almost the same height. He could have added the part about the scar to a legitimate commission he’d stolen.”

Pen shook her head. “I won’t be gulled a second time.”

“Be damned to you!”

“And I’ll have no more of your shrewd curses, priest.” Pen darted her head forward to scowl at him through the window once more. “Or would you have me believe that this man knows the secrets of your flesh? If this man is your enemy, how haps it that he knows about a scar that’s so near the most private portion of your body?”

She heard a succession of vivid curses and more pounding on the door.

“The devil take you, Penelope Grace Fairfax. I’m no man’s catamite. God’s breath, I wish I could get at you. You need thrashing.”

Squaring her shoulders, Pen lifted her head. “Saints, how he cavils when faced with the truth. Mayhap next time I feed you you’ll refrain from evil seductions now that you’ve learned I’ll no longer play the fool for you.”

She turned on her heel and marched to the stairs.

“Come back here, you unnatural little wretch.”

“Cease your ranting and be grateful I didn’t let Twistle feed you the rat stew she’d prepared. Good e’en to you, monsieur priest.”

They had forgotten to close the cover over the grille in the door to his cell. Tristan listened to the serenade of snores performed by Sniggs and tried to judge how many hours had passed since Pen had left. During this time, he’d forced himself to analyze his predicament with calm and logic.

A stranger, St. John, had come after him, uttering cryptic threats and hinting at knowledge of Tristan’s identity while refusing to reveal it. Then, when forced by Pen, St. John revealed that he was a royal emissary sent to capture Tristan, who was a spy-priest named Jean-Paul.

At this point in his recollection, Tristan faltered. That description had been damning. In the past hours he’d writhed with doubt, almost cringed with the fear that he was what St. John accused him of being—a murderous priest. He’d nearly climbed the walls of this black cell in an effort to escape the pain of wondering whether, in truth, he was the brutish soul described in the warrant.

The character of St. John and his actions were what saved him from hopelessness. If St. John were merely a royal agent, why would he play such games with a man he’d been ordered to capture? Why had St. John wanted to know if Tristan had told anyone about him
or Penance Isle? This queen’s man feared that Tristan had revealed his presence on the island, which seemed a wondrous strange attitude for a royal servant.

Then he’d remembered something even more peculiar, something he hadn’t noticed at the time of their privy conversation. St. John had said that Tristan had clung to him from Scotland to England and into the sea. And yet St. John was the one who was supposed to be doing the chasing. If he was Jean-Paul, why would he seek out St. John?

Tristan cursed his lack of quickness in discovering these contradictions. But then, he’d been so amazed at the things St. John had been saying, so desperate to discover his own name and past.

There was another reason far more compelling than these suspicions. This man, who after all was supposed to be a dispassionate official of the queen’s government, hated him. In that chamber with St. John, he had seen white-hot embers of cruelty in those dark eyes—cruelty savored, prolonged, relished.

Tristan wasn’t sure of many things, but he knew in his soul that this man would have burned kittens alive had not human victims satisfied his appetite far more. And so, whatever the truth about his own past, he had to find out what St. John’s real designs were. What cursed luck that the man from whom he must seek the truth was more dangerous to him than a rabid wolf.

Aye, St. John was dangerous. In his gut, Tristan believed that the man was lying about his identity, that the documents he possessed were false. St. John’s character was far more in keeping with the actions of the priest—the priest who was a spy.

God’s blood, he had to find the truth, and there was no one to help him. In the darkness Tristan tried
to control the pained fury that assaulted him at the thought of how Pen had chosen to believe St. John instead of him. She had lost faith in him, betrayed him.

He had to escape. Pen wouldn’t listen to him, so he would have to risk hurting someone. But he couldn’t wait much longer. Pen was going to try to take him to England, leaving behind the only man Tristan knew to possess knowledge of his past.

That he couldn’t allow. Not only for his own sake, but because if St. John were an impostor, some foul plot was afoot that threatened three kingdoms—England, Scotland, and France. Tristan was going to find out what it was if he had to flay the skin from St. John’s back to do it.

But he couldn’t pursue the truth with Pen harassing him. He needed his freedom. After he’d questioned St. John, he would leave Penance. Where he went depended on what he discovered. Since he’d heard Erbut tell Sniggs the supply ship had arrived at sunset, he had to go now. The ship was anchored in a cove near the castle. He planned to borrow some of Pen’s coin and bribe the ship’s master to take him when he sailed.

He felt better now that he’d settled on a stratagem. Yet he was again assailed with disquiet, for he couldn’t help feeling that St. John had wanted to hurt him by telling him of the death of the one called Derry. When his memory returned, grief might await him. Nevertheless, he couldn’t let such concerns interfere with his plans.

Tristan slithered over to the opening in the cell door and peered out. Sniggs had slumped down on the floor beside the cell with his back to the wall. His pike was cradled in his arms. Tristan contemplated the possibility
that his ruse wouldn’t fool the man, but discarded the idea. Sniggs worried about fairies and imps; he would believe Tristan’s performance. If he woke.

Tristan picked up an empty wooden trencher from the tray Pen had brought, turned it on end, and slid it through the bars of the window. He shoved it, and the plate sailed into Sniggs’s bare head. The trencher hit with a thud, causing Sniggs to bolt upright and yelp. Tristan quickly upended the tray, spilling its contents about the cell. He moaned loudly and dropped to the floor. Curling into a ball, he moaned louder as Sniggs’s dirty face appeared at the door.

“What betides?”

“P-poison. Ohhhhh.”

“By the rood!” Sniggs’s greasy head bobbed up and down as he tried to see Tristan in the dark cell.

“Help me, ohhhhh—”

Tristan ended his moan with a gurgling choke and collapsed. Beneath his lashes he watched Sniggs.

“Here, knave, what ails you? Priest? Curse you. If you’re dead, the mistress will blame me.”

He heard Sniggs remove the bar from the door and enter. His arm was grabbed, and he was turned on his back. He waited until he felt Sniggs’s hand on his chest. Then he grabbed an arm, pulled hard, and raised his feet. They landed on Sniggs’s chest, and he tossed the man over his head. Sniggs crashed into the opposite wall head first and bounced off it. He landed on the floor on his face and didn’t get up. Tristan examined him, but he appeared to be unharmed except for the knot on his head.

He closed and barred the cell door again. Finding his sword in a corner, in but a few moments he’d crept upstairs and into the well room. For the first time he found himself grateful for the haphazard nature of the
castle guard and resolved to think better of Dibbler in the future.

Shadowlike, he slid across the well room and into the hall. Snores greeted him from servants sleeping on pallets. He tiptoed around these, through the alcove behind the dais. Soon he was climbing a stair in a little-used tower. Pen had mentioned that she called the top chamber her treasury.

The door to the so-called treasury wasn’t locked, but the casket containing Pen’s coins was. He had little trouble in snapping it from the wood with the serpent dagger, which had remained in his boot, forgotten by his inexperienced jailers. Taking one of the small bags of coins that lay within, he stuffed it inside his doublet and left the keep.

Dibbler’s laxity prevailed outside as well as inside. Of the few sentries posted, only Erbut remained awake to walk his post. Tristan stuffed the bag of coins under a rock at the base of the castle wall, where it would be safe until he needed it.

As he slinked into the shadows near the stables, the boy marched past overhead, his attention fastened where it never should have been—upon the stars overhead. Tristan watched Erbut’s retreating back, then slipped into the stable.

After saddling Pen’s mare, he walked the animal out of the stable, across the outer bailey, and to the gatehouse. He left the mare tethered behind a hay wagon. Inside the gatehouse he encountered the erstwhile captain of the guard. Dibbler was slumped across a table, an empty flagon of ale at his feet. Tristan recognized the man’s stupor, brushed past him, and cranked up the drawbridge.

He winced at the noise, but Dibbler was oblivious. Still, Tristan worked quickly to raise the portcullis. As
he left the gatehouse, he could see Erbut’s dim figure far away on the wall walk. The boy had his back to the drawbridge and was gazing at the moon.

Shaking his head, Tristan mounted and rode through the gatehouse, over the drawbridge, and out of Highcliffe unhindered. Once free, he pulled up and glanced back at the castle. A feeling of loss came over him without warning. It wasn’t right, this stealing away in secret, and he hated it.

He wanted his new life back. He wanted Pen. He wanted her to smile at him defiantly while she described some new torment she was planning for Cutwell. He wanted to sit in the hall and listen to Dibbler’s tunes even though they made his head ache. He wanted Pen, the Pen who believed in him.

Turning his back on Highcliffe, Tristan kicked the mare into motion. Until that moment, he hadn’t understood how important Pen and her mischief makers were to him. But now that he knew, he supposed the only sensible thing to do was come back. And when he did, he’d make Mistress Fairfax beg his forgiveness for not believing in him. He would take pleasure in seeing to it that she atoned for her failing, great pleasure indeed.

A little over an hour later, Tristan lowered himself by a rope into the first courtyard of Much Cutwell. He’d encountered only three men-at-arms. Apparently all of them followed the Dibbler school of guardianship. They were asleep.

Much Cutwell’s hundreds of leaded glass windows were dark. He’d scouted the entire grounds and found only one lighted chamber, the topmost one in the central tower of the first courtyard. He dropped to the ground and gazed across an expanse of lawn that must
have comprised several acres. In front and behind him marched the red tile and brick of chimney after chimney, and he faced the creamy facade of the west front with its symmetrical towers and three stories of windows.

He glanced up at the lighted chamber in the tower over the arched entryway. A beacon in the darkness, it called out to him. He would find out who was awake, and then search for St. John. He wanted to steal upon the man in his sleep, force him out of the house and into the forest, where he could be questioned without risk.

Hugging the north wall, he slinked closer and closer to the light. When he reached the west front, he heard snores. A sentry slept standing up against the threshold of the entryway.

Tristan walked quietly past him, found a stair, and ascended three floors without meeting another guard. When he reached the landing of the third floor, he opened a window and climbed outside. It was a short climb to the roof.

Stealing silently across the flat expanse, he plastered himself next to the lighted window. It was ajar. He dropped to his knees and inched his head up until he could see inside. There was no one present at the moment.

The chamber appeared to be the workroom of an alchemist. It was lined with shelves cluttered with scrolls, books, ink pots, and quills. Three worktables creaked under the weight of mortars, pestles, weight scales, caskets, and bottles. On the central table a brazier held a fire, and over it was suspended a glass bottle with a round bottom. Inside the vessel bubbled a golden liquid.

Tristan smelled a sweet scent and realized that
the candelabra strewn about the room held beeswax candles. He was studying a table overburdened with cracked pots filled with herbs, when a shadow fell across it. He ducked.

St. John entered the room humming. He wore a long robe of scarlet damask, and a heavy gold chain draped over his shoulders. From it hung a cross of strange design. Tristan’s eyes widened as he recognized a pattern of gold serpents on a ruby-red enamel background. His hand strayed to his boot, where the matching dagger still rested. He hadn’t used it at Highcliffe for fear of injuring some addled incompetent.

In the chamber St. John had gone to the bubbling glass bottle. He grasped the cross at his chest, reversed it, and slid back a panel. He held the cross over the bottle. A fine white powder spilled into the golden liquid. The mixture frothed and then began spewing clouds of white vapor. St. John studied the churning liquid while Tristan studied him. Suddenly St. John’s gaze lifted, and he looked through the white mist straight at Tristan.

“Enter. I’ve been waiting for you.”

“I think not,” Tristan said. “Especially if you’ve been waiting for me.”