Dark Triumph

Is it possible I have been given a chance to right those wrongs?

Not that it matters, for getting Beast to Rennes alive and whole and without being found by d’Albret’s scouts is not any easier simply because he is Alyse’s brother.

It is, however, that much more vital that I do so, for more than the kingdom’s future hangs in the balance—my one small chance at redemption does as well.

When I run out of chores to keep me outside, it is time to return to the kitchen. There is much to be done—new poultices to be prepared, bandages to be cut, fires to be tended. Those tasks do not care one whit for the newfound shyness I feel toward Beast. Will he bring up the subject of his sister when he awakens? And if he does, how can I keep all the questions I have from spilling out?

Inside, I see that Beast’s eyes are open and he is staring at the ceiling above him. “You are still alive,” I say. “That is more than I dared hope for.”

He turns his head to me. “I told you I was hard to kill.”

“You did warn me, yes.” I can feel his eyes on me as I busy myself with putting more water on to boil. Does he even remember that he spoke of Alyse? And what would a simple assassin wish to know of that connection? Nothing, most likely. “Is that why you were not slain on the battlefield?” I ask. “Some gift of Saint Camulos? Or was it because d’Albret had other plans for you?”

“Saint Camulos does not protect us from death.” Beast’s voice is dry. “Nor did the men realize whom they had unhorsed. However, once d’Albret saw who I was, let us just say he is not one to let such an opportunity go to waste.” He is quiet for a moment, then speaks again. “Do you know what they had planned for me?”

Unable to help myself, I look up and meet his gaze. “I do.”

He nods. “Then you understand the debt I owe you.”

Uncomfortable with the gratitude I see in his eyes, I look back to the pot of water. “Do not be so very grateful. If I had not been able to get your lumbering carcass up those stairs, I would have killed you myself and saved d’Albret the trouble.”

“Then I would have owed you an even greater debt, for not everyone recognizes the mercy in a quick, clean death.” He pauses then, studying me. “How would you have done it?”

His question surprises me. “You mean how would I have killed you?”

“Yes. Do you have a favorite method for such things?”

Since he knows I am an assassin, there is no need to be coy. “I prefer a garrote. I like the intimacy it allows me when I whisper reminders of vengeance in their ears as they die. But in your case, I had sharpened my favorite knife especially for the occasion.”

His brows quirk up. “Why no garrote for me?”

I look pointedly at his thick neck, bulging with muscle and sinew. “I do not have one big enough,” I mutter. “Besides, yours was to be a merciful death. A knife is quicker and less painful.” If I thought my confession would shock him into putting some distance between us, I was sorely mistaken, for the great lummox laughs.

Frustrated by this kindness—one I do not deserve—I set the new poultice on his thigh, and his laughter quickly turns to grunts of pain.

Shortly after that, I gently nudge the gargoyle awake, for if I do not get some rest soon, I fear I will grab Beast by his shoulders and force him to answer all the questions crowding their way onto my tongue. It would not take him long to figure out my connection to d’Albret if I were to do that.

The jailor springs nimbly to his feet, checks once on his prisoner—now his patient—then goes to sit by the door. I stretch out by the fire and pray I will not dream of Alyse. Indeed, I do not wish to dream at all.

I come awake with a start, surprised that I have slept. It is nearly dark outside, and the ashes are cold in the hearth. I have slept almost all day. As I sit up, it occurs to me that it is too quiet. Is that what woke me? And then I hear it. The faint jingle of a harness and the soft whinny of a horse.

Panic surges in my breast and I leap to my feet. The gargoyle lurks in the doorway, peering out into the yard. With one hand he holds up three fingers, and in the other he holds his slingshot and a fat round rock the size of a quail’s egg.

There is a rustle as Beast stirs. I hurry over to him, desperate to keep him quiet. He opens his eyes, but when he sees me put my fingers to my lips, he gives a curt nod, then motions me closer. “Give me a weapon,” he whispers hoarsely.

“You are too sick to fight,” I whisper back.

He grabs my arm, his eyes burning with determination. “I will not go back there alive.” A moment of complete understanding passes between us. I nod, then retrieve one of the knives strapped to my ankle and hand it to him. When he takes it, his hand wraps briefly around mine and gives it a firm squeeze. “How many?” he asks.

“Three,” I tell him. “With horses.”

His eyes light up and he smiles. “Horses?”

I hurry back to the door and peer out. The men have reached the courtyard and I can hear their voices. “I still say we should just make for Nantes. We’ll be there shortly after dark.”

“Empty-handed,” another one points out. “And I don’t relish being the one to tell d’Albret that they got clean away and we’ve nothing to report.”

The little jailor sends me a sly look.

“Hell, we don’t even know what we’re searching for. The girl? The prisoner? How far could either one of them have gotten?”

“I say we should just keep riding and not return,” one of them mutters darkly. “Who knows where his wrath will fall.”

As the men dismount, I chafe at the convent’s theology. It is not nearly well enough suited to the real world for my liking. I am allowed to kill in self-defense, but is the danger these men present enough to qualify as self-defense? For all that I have decided I no longer care what the convent or Mortain thinks, their teachings are not as easy to discard as an old gown.

But these are d’Albret’s men, not innocents. And if I do not kill them, Beast will not reach Rennes. Which means their deaths are necessary for me to follow the convent’s most recent orders. If Mortain does not like it, He can take it up with the abbess herself.

“See to the horses,” the leader says, taking his saddlebags from his mount. “I’ll go start a fire.”

“Don’t drink all the wine!”

The leader’s grin flashes white in the gloaming. The others dismount and head for the stables. The gargoyle and I exchange a glance. Our presence will be known once they see the mules and cart. A minute later, a shout goes up, and one of the men sticks his head out of the stable door. The captain pauses.

“Someone’s here,” he calls out.

The captain nods. “We will tell them we need lodgings for the night.” His hand goes to his sword hilt. “And we will discourage them from arguing the point.”

I catch the gargoyle’s eye and hold up my garrote, letting him know that I will take the captain. He nods his understanding and points to the stable. He will take the first one to come out. The third one is up for grabs—whoever gets to him first. My knife would be quicker, but in the dusk I cannot be certain of a kill strike, and I do not want to risk his calling out a warning.

I wrap the ends of the garrote firmly around my hands and wait. The captain approaches, calling out a greeting. “Hello? You in there. We have need of your hospitality.”

When there is no answer, his hand drifts away from his sword. As he draws closer, a still calm descends over me. When he is within arm’s length, I step quickly from the shadows, wrap the wire around his neck, jam my knee into his kidneys, and pray for strength. My movements are so quick and sure there is not even a whisper or a gurgle. But the man is strong and he flails against me, trying to grab his sword. I lean my body weight into him and jam his hand against the stone wall of the lodge.

The second man emerges from the stable. His eyes widen as he sees his captain and I locked in our deadly embrace. Before he can reach for his sword, there is a soft thwack as the gargoyle’s stone splits his forehead.

But the third guard must have heard something for he comes out of the stable with his crossbow cocked and loaded. I maneuver the struggling captain around so his body can shield mine, then brace myself for the violent bite of the crossbow bolt. There is a faint whisper of sound instead, as if a swift bird has just darted by, then a knife—my own knife—is jutting from the man’s throat.

I look over to find Beast hanging out the window. He is pale as milk and leaning heavily against the sill, but he sends me a grin. “I’ll take the chestnut gelding,” he says, just before his eyes roll up and he crashes to the floor.

Merde. I hope he has not ripped out the stitches.

Once we are back inside, the jailor starts to scuttle over to the fallen Beast. I tell him to leave him be, then grab a blanket from the trestle bed and cover the passed-out giant. Except for the paleness of his face, he looks as if he is sleeping peacefully. I cannot decide if I want to kick him or thank him. It will be impossible to keep him alive if he does not have a care for his wounded body.

I look up to find the little gargoyle watching me, his head cocked as if he is puzzling something out. “Go fetch your master some new clothes from the fallen men,” I tell him. “And weapons. Collect all the weapons they carry. We will have need of them soon enough.”

The little man’s face lights up and he heads outside. “And check their saddlebags for any provisions!” I call after him. I packed only enough for two, and for only three days. I fear we will need twice that much to reach Rennes now. If Ismae were here, she would say that Blessed Mortain had delivered a solution into our waiting hands, but I say I have just grown adept at snatching providence from the jaws of disaster.

I return to the hearth to stoke the fire back to life so that I may prepare yet another batch of poultices. As much as they pain Beast, they are no fun for me, either. My hands are red and raw from the heat and the mud. At least they will not look like a noblewoman’s much longer.

The little man returns carrying a pile of clothing, and I sort through the pickings, looking for the ones that will come the closest to fitting Beast. The soldier that took the knife in the throat is the biggest by far, but now there are bloodstains on his jerkin. Even so, we use the bulk of his clothes, and I remove a jerkin from the next largest soldier. The rest I will use for bandages.

“We will take their horses with us when we leave,” I tell the gargoyle. “Then we can change out the pulling team on the cart, which should allow us to make better time.”

“I will not be hauled around like a bushel of turnips to market.” Beast’s deep voice rumbles from behind us. “I will ride one of the horses.”

Slowly, I turn around. “You’re awake.”

“Aye.”

All my questions about Alyse crowd their way to my tongue and nearly leap out of my mouth. Instead, I ask, “How do you plan to stay in the saddle when you cannot even look out the window without fainting? It is a full twenty leagues between here and Rennes.”

“I did not faint. And being carried in that cart is like being bumped along the road in a sack full of rocks. I will arrive in Rennes with my bones ground to dust. Lash me onto one of the horses instead. That way, even if I lose consciousness, I will not fall off.”

And that is when I finally see a faint resemblance between him and his sister: in the stubborn set of his jaw. “You are not even well enough to sit up, much less ride a horse for the next several days.”

“I am better,” he says obstinately, this time reminding me far too much of my sister Louise when she had lung fever and did not want to miss the Christmas festivities. “See?” He moves his injured arm more freely than before. I kneel next to him—to inspect his wounds more closely, I tell myself. But even as I put the back of my hand to his forehead, my eyes search his, looking for echoes of Alyse. Her lashes were not so dark or thick, but her eyes were very nearly as light a blue. “You still have a fever,” I tell him.

“But it does not burn as hot.”

“True.” Next, I inspect his arm. The redness and infection have gone down by half. “But your other injuries. Your ribs—”

“You will bind my ribs tightly so they will not move. I can ride with only one hand on the reins.”

I look up into his cold blue eyes that are not cold at all. “And what of your lance wound?” I reach for the blanket so I may look at it.

The wound is still red, the flesh angry and swollen and oozing. “It will hurt like the very devil,” he concedes, “but the pain will help keep me alert.”

The man is truly mad, possessed by battle fever even when there is no battle. “Everything I know of blood poisoning says the patient must rest in order to be strong enough to fight off the infection.”

“Put another sack of mud on it,” he says, as if that will make this scheme more reasonable.

“I plan to,” I say, annoyed that the person I risked so much to rescue is now ordering me around as if I were a serving wench.

He leans closer, pressing his case. “You know I am right. We will move at a slug’s pace in a cart and be an easy target for any pursuers. Or random bandits and outlaws, for that matter.”

And of course, he is right. I glance behind me at the door to the courtyard, where the three men-at-arms lay dead, a chill moving across my shoulders at how very close d’Albret came to discovering us. “Very well,” I concede. D’Albret has cast his net, and if we do not get moving, he will find us.

We spend the next hour making our plans. We will sleep one more night here, then leave as soon as it is light enough to see. I make another small fire in the hearth and set the mud and herbs for another poultice to boiling. When the mixture is nearly hot enough to blister skin, I fill a linen square with the mud and herbs, wrapping it as quickly as possible so the heat does not escape, nearly burning my fingers in the process.