Bones for Bread (The Scarlet Plumiere) (11 page)

Blair and Stanley listened and waited, but no new villains emerged. After a quick peek behind the still-closed door, Stanley went in first. Blair glanced back over her shoulder as she stepped inside.

Ash was no longer occupied. His gaze slid over her, then to the cabinet. His eyes were different, as if they belonged to another man. He seemed not to see her at all. Perhaps the dim lighting made her part of the shadows.

“Come,” Harcourt said to Ash, then hurried to join her.

On the far side of the cabinet, they stepped onto stone once again. Stanley was waiting at the top of a staircase. Beside him lay the trail of blood, the drops were wider, thicker, as if the bleeder had moved much slower here than he had in the hallway.

The five of them stood in a circle and took a quick inventory of each other. They shared a smile—a silent celebration over the fact they were all still standing. No one appeared injured, though they were all covered in blood. Her mind staggered at the reality—all that blood had been coursing through bodies only five minutes ago.

Harcourt put his arm around her waist and gave her a squeeze.

“Steady, lass,” he whispered.

She took a deep breath and nodded, then straightened away from him. They could not think of her as weak. They should not be thinking of her at all.

Ash’s friends were watching him strangely. Were they worried about him? Why? Hadn’t he proven himself the most capable among them?

“There must be something important down there,” Everhardt said, “to guard it so fiercely with so many men.”

The comment served to wash away her thoughts of blood and ghosts, guilt and innocence. She moved next to Stanley, her mind suddenly consumed by the prospect of finding Martin. Anxious for just that, she forged on.

“Wait!” Stanley called, but she ignored him.

With her blades to hand, she picked her way down the steps, entirely aware of the trail of blood showing her the way. Everhardt soon caught up with her and took the lead. She tried not to see him as an impediment to reaching Martin, but she was hardly reasonable at the moment. Her insides shook with a mixture of excitement and dread, but her hands were steady. No one looking at her would imagine the emotion raging in her chest.

The stairway bent back on itself and the lower portion had twice the steps of the upper. The distance between the walls was substantial enough to accommodate swordplay, but there were no takers. Following Everhardt’s lead, she took three or four steps, paused, then took three more. And still no one came. Had they all rallied in the corridor without leaving any behind?

The stairs were partially lit by oil torches that sent a black ribbons of smoke heavenward. The bottom step ended with dirt. The same trail of blood they’d followed down the steps were no longer visible. Somewhere near they would find a wounded, unpredictable man, but it was the possibility of finding Martin that kept her from hesitating.

Ash suddenly moved past her, out into the shadowy room beyond. She supposed he was suffering from the same excitement she was—the possible reunion at hand. She imagined he was as compelled to shout Northwick’s name as she was to shout for Martin.

She listened to the men move around her, tried to keep track of where they were, and realized Ash had disappeared.

No one moved. Stanley stood to her left. Harcourt to her right. Everhardt disappeared up the stairs for a moment, then returned with a lit torch. The ring of light grew to include Ash, who stood over a man who had curled into a ball against the wall.

“Dead,” Ash said, though his voice was course, like a shovel sliding beneath a pile of coals.

The light moved away, then grew as Everhardt moved about lighting torches. The body at Ash’s feet, besides a bloody sleeve, had the now familiar slash across its throat. Ash moved away toward the countless iron bars that were now visible along the far wall.

A woman screamed, then whimpered. Blair moved left with the rest, following the noise.

Small cells lined the wall that most likely ran the same length as the keep’s large hall. A cold fire pit sat at the end farthest to the right, but Blair was certain any heat from it was never intended to reach the cells or their occupants. The wide space before those cells held no new villains, but there was movement on the other side as a dozen tattered creatures came forward to peek through the bars. None of them were women.

The whimper repeated. Farther to the left.

They hurried to the last cell. A woman was kneeling next to a pallet upon which lay the thin body of a man. The light failed to reach more than his hand, but it was enough. Blair had held Martin’s hand enough to know it.

She forced herself to breathe deeply, to hold her tongue until she heard what the woman would say. There was no sign, besides her weeping, to say the boy was dead.

“Please, don’t hurt us,” the woman begged in English through a thick French accent. “My boy and I. We have done nothing wrong,
messieurs
.”

“Don’t believe a word!” shouted another captive. “She’s one of them!”

“Non!”
She pressed her hands together and turned toward the now-open cell door, walking on her knees, casting a pleading glance at each of them in turn. “They only hate me because I would not bed with them. You must save me from this hell. And save my son!”

Blair pushed her way past Ash, who was blocking the opening and faced the woman.

“He is alive?” she asked the woman.

“Oui.”

Blair’s heart soared. Martin was alive. He was here. And if this lying woman were just out of the way, she could get to him!

“What do you think, Stan?” Harcourt asked. “Do we believe her?”

Blair stepped around the woman, then picked up Martin’s hand. It was warm! And his breathing was steady! He was unconscious, but he was alive! No matter how much tending it would take, she would have her brother back!

She schooled her features as she turned, leaving Martin safely behind her as she and Wolfkiller faced the rest.

“Believe her if you wish,” she said. “But I tell ye this man is
my brother
, and our mother’s been dead these long eight years.” She looked down at the woman whose face was already twisting with hatred. “And even when she was alive, she wasna French.”

The woman screeched as she pulled back a blade from the lace at her wrist, Blair’s weapon began its descent toward the woman’s shoulder, above her heart.

The black form of Ash loomed forward. The blur of his arm left no doubt he’d been the one to dispatch Blair’s first opponent of the day. He’d been the black cloud of death, as he intended to be again. But Blair had already set Wolfkiller in motion.

Too late. There was no pulling back.

Time slowed.

Sounds and sensations collided.

The whisper of Ash’s blade sliding through flesh was interrupted by the uglier sound of Blair’s gruesome weapon puncturing a shoulder, then crunching bone—

Then the ring of a bell as Spanish steel struck Viking substance. The jolt in her arms, her body. The hilt tearing from her hands as the force knocked her away. The complaint of the steel as it surrendered and snapped.

The whistle of the blade flying free.

Orange flames licked the dying woman’s face as rage smoothed away into nothingness. And, as it did so, the orange face was painted into Blair’s memory. This one, she would not forget.

When the woman tipped to the side and became a puddle, Blair turned to find her avenging angel pulling the wayward end of his blade from the back of his forearm. Stanley and Harcourt were already at his side. One with a torch, the other pulling his cravat from his neck.

“Damn me,” Stanley said as he ripped away Ash’s sleeve, “but I didn’t think you bled old sock.”

Ash cleared his throat. “Only when I shave, to prove I can.”

Blair was relieved to hear Ash’s voice returned to normal, relieved his friends could care for him so she could finally turn her attention to Martin.

Harcourt laughed. “You do realize, it took
you
to wound you.”

“Don’t forget the Viking,” Ash replied, nodding at her and not her weapon.

Everyone laughed at that. So, with a smile on her face, she knelt beside her brother. He hadn’t roused. His breathing was smooth, as was his brow. Everhardt knelt beside her and looked her brother over, then he opened the sleeping man’s mouth and sniffed.

Did he think her brother was drunk?

He looked over his shoulder at the others. “Laudanum.” To her he said, “He’ll be right as rain in a day or two. Once we get him outside, we’ll discover why he needs it.”

“I’m surprised they would give him something for his pain,” she thought aloud.

“I hate to interrupt, my dear,” said Stanley. “But we cannot dally.” He pushed a rather clean Wolfkiller into her hand. “Everhardt, can you bring him?”

The man nodded. “Go on, my lady. I’ve got him.”

She nodded her thanks, took a final glance at Martin before following Stanley out of the chamber. Harcourt held the torch while Ash unlocked the other cells. At each lock, he called out.

“North?”

But there was no answer.

As each prisoner was released, he’d praise and thank Ash, then gather with the rest at the bottom of the stairway. None of them dared go up.

As Ash opened the last cell, only to find it empty, he roared and slammed the bars shut.

His friend was not there. Her heart broke for him, knowing how she’d have felt had they not found Martin.

“My lord.”

Two men stood with arms locked around each other’s shoulders, shoring up their thin and battered fellow. Neither looked fit enough to stand on his own.

“My lord,” one of them growled, no doubt his voice was dry from lack of water. “Lord Northwick. In the hole. Four days ago.” He raised a shaking arm and pointed to a spot beneath the stairs. Ash and his friends rushed to the spot where a stone lay on the ground for no apparent reason. Together, they moved it to the side. As soon as the hole below was uncovered, another parched voice called out. “Here! Ici! Je suis ici!”
I am here!
“Aidez moi!”
Help me!

“North!” Ash roared. “North! Good God, man. We’ve come!” He looked up at Stanley. “We need rope.” Then he looked around until his eyes found Blair. The tears in his eyes said all that wanted saying. He shook his head once, as if to say he could not find the words. She answered him likewise.

The smell of death emanating from the hole told the tale. It was likely Lord Northwick was the only man to be removed from it. Alive or dead.

Long minutes later, a filthy, shaking man was removed. As he was wearing nothing but a pair of pants, Ash removed his own shirt and put it on his friend, then he pulled his coat back over his own bare shoulders.

Blair tried not to watch. Of course she could not help herself.

Ash pulled a small flask from his pocket.

“It is only water,” he told the man. “Can you stand? Can you lift a blade? Would you care to kill a few of your captors?”

“Gladly,” said the other, and handed back the flask.

Harcourt offered North a blade and together he and Ash helped the poor man stand. Harcourt then positioned himself beneath Northwick’s left shoulder.

“I can fight well enough with my left,” he said cheerfully.

Blair had to admire them for never once wrinkling their noses, even a wee bit. She was determined try to keep her expression composed, but it was almost as difficult as keeping her eyes off Ash’s bare chest. Of course, the memory of that chest helped distract her from the poor man’s smell.

“They’re gathering,” said Everhardt, nodding up the stairs.

Blair imagined another pack of villains coming down the steps. The idea that some of them might realize the danger and slip away raised a wicked heat in her breast. She wished someone could follow behind them, herd them like cattle past their fallen comrades and into the talented blades of the English nobles.

Then she thought of a way to do it.

She ran back to the woman’s body in the cell where they’d found Martin. Without hesitation, she pressed a hand to the woman’s bloody neck. Next, she wiped it across her own. Then once more. Her skirts were already covered with the stuff from slipping and falling in the blood-covered corridor. It would have to be enough. There was no time for more.

“Someone protect my brother,” she said as she ran toward the stairs and disappeared up the dimly lit steps before anyone could stop her.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

She’s mad!

To run alone toward an enemy of untold numbers, when she could have stood with allies? Why?

Ash tried to postpone the thought, to keep his mind from even considering it, but the words pushed to the fore—
she might yet be the enemy
.

If she was not the enemy, the blackhearts would be cutting her down the moment they saw her. If she was not the enemy, following her, dividing their ranks, might mean death for them all.

At the moment, it would be better for her if she
were
the enemy.

Either way, it was time. Even if he had no other reason to fight his way out of the keep, Ash refused to allow that oubliette to become his grave.