The Prince of Midnight (45 page)

But to be blindfolded, hurting, lying on the floor with her hands and feet
bound and her ears straining to make sense of the sounds that drifted to
her—that was something to fear. No creature out of hell could unnerve her more
than the distant screams and shouts of Chilton's followers.

She lay where she'd come to consciousness, racked by shivering, trying to
hang on to awareness amid the swimming pain. Her head throbbed, her cheek rested
against a carpet and her body on bare wood. It smelled of home: cold and
disused, but still a trace lingered of her father's snuff, of mint and the
licorice scent of fennel that the housemaids had often used to rub the floors.

She was certain she was somewhere at Silvering, in a large room, from the way
the sound echoed each time her unseen warden moved. She tried to focus her hazy
reason. Not the Marble Hall, for there was no carpet there; not the Kingston
Room, for there the arms of Kingston were painted on the bare wood, nor either
of the resonating staircase halls with their stone floors and family portraits.
It might be the saloon or the great dining room or the chamber over the
kitchen—or even the gallery of the private chapel: all had wooden floors and
carpets and echoing space.

When that distant tumult of shouting had erupted, her guardian had stood up
and moved away until she couldn't tell where the footsteps had gone. She worked
at her bindings, praying that her guard had left the room—it seemed so, for no
one chastised her, but she made no headway at all on the cord that restrained
her from elbows to wrists, unable even to curl her hands and find the knot.

She was lashed to something solid. Her searching fingers shaped the wood,
defining the corkscrew molding. Only one place in the house boasted those
elaborate balusters turned in oak: the railing of the chapel gallery, where
she'd spent a thousand Saturday evenings sitting between her mother and Anna,
listening to her father's mellow voice weave a rehearsal sermon through the
peaceful silence.

The footsteps returned, quick and agitated. Leigh tried to go limp, feigning
unconsciousness, but the cold made her shiver so hard that she could barely
control her movements.

"He's a'coomin' from the kirk," a male voice said, heavy with the familiar
dialect of the north. "Thy hour is nigh, witch."

Leigh could hear the shouting, a single voice now, growing louder. It was a
voice she'd not heard for many months, but she knew it; would never in her life
forget the spellbinding timbre of that preaching. The words said nothing. It was
the sound: coaxing and commanding, a caress and then a sudden shout, telling
tales of sin and redemption and the glory of God and Jamie Chilton.

It was everything she hated and feared, and it was coming for her.

God. Dear God. Once she would have been glad enough to die, if she could take
Chilton with her. Now she wasn't, now she wanted to live, and it made her mind
stupid with terror.

Seigneur,
she begged silently, and squeezed her eyes shut beneath
the blindfold, caught between hysterical laughter and tears.
Seigneur,
Seigneur . . . now I need you.

S.T. saw the lights before he got there: up to the right, the flicker of
torches through tree branches, high at the end of the street where Silvering
overlooked the town. Almost, he ran—but ingrained years of stealth won out. He'd
left Nemo out on the moor, bidding the injured wolf stay where he'd found it.
Now he tied Sirocco and kept to the darkest side of the street, his hand on his
sword hilt to silence it as he moved.

The lights seemed to coalesce and grow as he neared. By the time he came to
the end of the trees, Chilton's bellowing sounded loud and incoherent, and the
whole facade of Silvering danced with the pale coral glow from a small bonfire
just inside the open gate. The pediment and cornices stood out in lurid relief,
the shadows swaying as if the house were alive.

A group of people clustered around the fire and on the stairs, silhouetted by
the rising flames. S.T. estimated a score or more, most of them men. The women
stood at the outer edge. As he watched, one of the females moved slowly backward
to the limits of the firelight, and then turned and slipped away.

Good for you, cherie
, he thought.

Something made a noise in the dark close by. S.T. gripped his sword, scanning
the area. Just ahead of him, a lone figure stood beneath the trees, well away
from the others, watching.

Luton.

S.T. unclipped his cloak and took off his hat, tucking up the cuffs of his
shirt to hide the lace. Then he pulled off his cravat and turned down his
collar, so as to look as unprincely as possible. He stuffed his neckcloth in his
pocket, feeling the cold air on his throat, and walked up to the single figure
in the shadows.

"Evening," he murmured, attempting cordiality with his blood pounding in his
temple. "What's ado?"

Luton jumped a foot, turning to S.T. with a wild look.

"For God's sake—Maitland! What the devil—what are you doing here?"

S.T. shrugged. "Curiosity." He looked sideways at the other man with a faint
smile. "Am I too late for the festivities?"

Luton just stared at him, scowling beneath the peaked wig.

"I meant to follow you earlier," S.T. said, "but—ah— one of the girls
detained me."

The instant he said it, he regretted the words. Luton might have spoken of
the inn to Chilton; the aristocrat might know where Dove and Harmony had come
from and how they'd left Heavenly Sanctuary. From there it was but a short step
of reason to connecting Mr. Bartlett and S.T. Maitland to the masked Prince of
Midnight. 'Twas short enough anyway: S.T. stayed alert and on guard for any
attack.

But Luton only said, "We've had some trouble tonight."

"Ah? Pity." S.T. looked up toward the small bonfire. "What the devil's that
fellow caterwauling about?" .

Luton made a sharp, disgusted move with his hand. "He's gone mad. I tried to
reason with him, but he's lost his bloody mind."

"Sounds it, I must say."

"We'd a visit from your highwayman." Luton looked at S.T. again. "Did you
know who it was? That cocky French dog, the one they call Seigneur du Minuit.
Fair drove Chilton beserk. Fancies it a personal attack. Tried to tell him more
likely it was myself—that damned Robin Hood must have got wind of things, but
there was no talking sense to him." He turned back toward Chilton as the
preacher's voice rose to a screech. "He's positively foaming at the mouth, I
tell you. Never seen a man actually do that."

"So the amusement's called off, is it?"

"Oh, 'tis off. All off." Luton curled his lip. "But I've something left to do
here."

S.T. was silent a moment. Chilton's crazy voice echoed in the street. As the
two of them stood there, another girl stole away, hurrying past them with her
cowl pulled around her face. S.T. looked back at Luton, and found the man
watching him narrowly.

He brazoned it out. "What's he doing up there?"

"God only knows." Luton grunted. "Keeps roaring on about burning the witch,
but there's some of them don't seem to have the stomach for it."

"Witch?" S.T. controlled his voice, keeping it steady, not too loud. "They've
caught a witch?"

"So Chilton seems to think."

"Where is she?" S.T. asked casually.

Luton shrugged. "In the house, perhaps." He pulled at his lip. "What are game
for, Maitland? Why'd you follow me here?"

S.T. smiled. "Sport."

Luton fingered his sword hilt. "I can give you sport. I mean to silence that
raving maggot before he talks too much abroad."

"He does grate somewhat on the sensitive ear."

"I'll not chance his preaching my name wherever he might please. He could
ruin me, and others besides." Luton drew his sword. "I wouldn't put anything
past him now, him and this lot. They're maniacs. Dangerous. All of 'em. Do you
see they've got pikes? 'Tis only the most fanatical left now. The others have
all bolted."

S.T. moved his hand toward his sword hilt. Luton glanced down, following the
motion.

The basket hilt of the broadsword gleamed in swirling bars of metal: unique
and memorable, its uncommon beauty obvious even in the dancing light.

Luton's face froze in recognition.

"Bastard!" He stared up at S.T. "You lying bastard— you're
him
!"

S.T. jerked the sword free, just in time to swing it up into a desperate
parry against Luton's instant attack. The metal clashed. Luton disengaged and
came back furiously. S.T. could barely see his opponent's rapier in the dim
light, but the broadsword was like a ribbon of red and silver. He kept it close
to guard his throat, not daring to open his defense by swinging wide to make a
cut.

Luton was fast and angry, closing and closing again in spite of the
broadsword's advantage of length. "I'll kill you, you lying snake! Interfere,
will you?" he panted. "I'll kill you for it—you and that madman both!"

S.T. countered the attack silently, pulling his stiletto from beneath his
coat to use in his left hand. He lunged and parried, saw an opening in Luton's
overbalanced stance, and made a thrust that pinked his ribs. Luton flinched and
sucked in his breath, renewing his onslaught with an angry grunt.

With a rapier and a little more light, S.T. could have disabled the man in
three strokes. Luton was an adequate swordsman, no better than average and
breathing heavily already, but S.T. could not see the other blade. He had to
fight by instinct, by watching the pale bob of Luton's cuff and extrapolating
the motion into a thirty-inch sword. It caught him once, a blaze of pain as the
point sank into his upper thigh.

He stepped into the burn, the way he'd learned a thousand years ago in a hot
and dusty yard in Florence: facing the best with unprotected blades, under a
master who had no patience with weakness. A yelp and a disengagement had earned
a beating then; now it would earn destruction. S.T. caught Luton's rapier on his
hilt and drove it upward with all his strength, attacking when retreat was
expected, throwing Luton's arm in the air with the force. As Luton lunged
forward to regain his position, S.T. met the whizzing rapier with the cutting
edge of the broadsword, both weapons colliding with the full violence of their
momentum.

The jar went through his hand to his shoulder. The rapier snapped like bone
against the heavier sword.

Luton gave a howl of fury. He flung the broken weapon aside. S.T. heard it
clatter on the street, but he wasn't concerned with Luton any longer.

Something had happened at the mansion. People ran out the front door,
carrying torches and throwing them on the bonfire. As S.T. stared, a flaming
glow rose at two of the windows—
inside—
and Chilton appeared at the
open door, holding two flaring torches in his hands. He was bellowing of
persecution, backlit by interior flames. Smoke began to creep in dark blurry
fingers above him, out of the top of the door, crawling up the luminous facade.

S.T. ran. He mounted the steps three at a time, tripping on his sluggish leg.
Someone came running down, as if to push him back, but S.T. brandished the sword
and struck the man's pike aside.

"Is she in there?"
He hurled himself at Chilton, the broadsword
still in his hand.

Something cracked in his ear.

Chilton looked at him, a sudden stillness, his mouth open silently and a
blossum of red against his white collar. Then he wasn't standing; he was nothing
but a sprawled heap in the doorway. As he dropped, a new chorus of screams broke
out. S.T. stood above him, staring down in astonishment, and then twisted around
to look over his shoulder.

Above the bonfire and the shocked faces of Chilton's crowd stood Luton,
balanced on one of the stone pedestals by the gate, his arm around a bar,
working frantically to reload his pistol and aim again.

S.T. turned back, springing over Chilton's body and diving into the smoke.

A choking black pall hung at the ceiling, billowing over the cold spread of
marble floor. The grand hall danced in firelight. Dark smoke poured from the
upholstered seats of a pair of elegant chairs thrown together and set alight at
the center, flowing upward into obscurity. His eyes watered; he dragged his arm
across them and squinted. Through all the open double doors—before him, left and
right—S.T. could see draperies burning in the rooms beyond.

His injured leg wouldn't obey him, trying to buckle under his weight. He
staggered and stood straight, tossing down his sword and sheathing the stiletto.
The sound of the fire came to his good ear like a single bellowing wind, a
furnace, a dragon roaring at his left ear, swinging with him wherever he turned.

"
Leigh
!" he shouted. "
Are you here
?"

And then doubled over in a fit of coughing.

He shouted again, plunging forward past the double doors into the saloon,
where flaming curtains lit the portraits and the paneling, licking in bright
greed up the pale green drapes, dropping small blazing banners of fringe that
hissed on the floorboard and smoldered in the carpet. He spread his neckcloth
over his nose and tied it, coughing, ducking below the hanging smoke.

He heard her voice, he was certain of it. He was sure he heard her over the
sound of the fire—but he could not tell from where.

All the sound came to him from the left. From his good ear. An open door led
out from every side of the saloon. He stood in the middle of the burning room
and didn't know which way to go.

He snatched up a rug from the hearth, beating it against the flames that rose
up the curtains next to the door on the left wall. Smoke and heat engulfed him;
he staggered back, his eyes tearing, and pulled the rug over his head to make a
dash through. On the other side was another hell: the flaming curtains cast a
bloody red glow on the scarlet wallpaper.