Elisha Barber: Book One Of The Dark Apostle (34 page)

His head jerked forward, Elisha watched from the corner of one eye as the man drew a long knife from his side. A spasm of terror swept through him. Not now! They couldn’t kill him like this, before Brigit had her chance.

But the knife reached over his neck and started to hack through the thickness of his hair. Elisha’s head swayed with the sawing of the blade, and some of his euphoria ebbed away.

Stepping back as if to view his handiwork, the man tossed down Elisha’s hair and left him.

Elisha raised his head. It had not seemed so light in years, a weight taken from his scalp. Now, the shorn waves barely touched his jaw at the front, and the back of his head cooled quickly in the rain, skin revealed to the air for the first time in at least a decade. The new short hairs quivered on end in the growing dawn.

Already, he missed the regular and comforting movement of his hair upon his back. He turned his head side to side, listening for the soft rustle. It would take years for all that hair to grow back. Of course, he had thought himself impractical, letting it get so long to begin with.

A priest seemed to materialize before him, and Elisha realized that he, too, was barefoot.

“My son, I have come for the cleansing of your soul and to perform the Lord’s last rites upon you. Do you wish to make confession?” A small, weary figure, he slumped within the robes of his office as if he had heard too many secrets not his own.

Elisha considered the offer. What would he confess freely before a god he did not quite believe in? That he had faith in Brigit? That he was a witch, who had performed magic against the laws of God and country? Elisha smiled faintly. “No, Father, I don’t think I do.”

The lines of the priest’s face deepened into canyons of disapproval. With a
dispirited gesture in the sign of the cross, he blessed Elisha anyhow, then retreated a little way to wait.

More footsteps squelched through the mud as a party of guards approached, the man in leather among them. Behind, he could see shadowy figures passing from the monastery toward the trees along the river. What did the river speak of this morning?

Someone stooped behind him, cutting through the rope at the back of the post.

When two men caught his elbows, Elisha swayed between them, stumbling as he got his feet underneath him again. Mud oozed between his toes.

Surrounded by the king’s guards, Elisha walked where they led him. He darted his glance here or there, looking for Brigit. Most of those gathering wore hoods against the rain, and he could not tell which might be hers.

He caught sight of the physician with Benedict trailing after, the second assistant at his side. With a gesture to his own throat, Lucius seemed to be explaining the effects of hanging to his companions. Benedict looked up for an instant, his face drawn, dark patches beneath his eyes. Then as quickly he looked away.

A huge oak stood alongside the river, its roots gnarling into the water, its thick branches dark against the clouded sky. The crowd backed away when the guards drew near, and he caught sight of Matthew and Henry, the surgeon’s assistants, though still no sign of Mordecai himself. Elisha frowned briefly, dredging up what he knew of the Jews’ Sabbath, which was precious little.

From beneath the corner of a blanket, Ruari gave him a bleak stare. His eyes looked hunted, as if he worried over the truth of Elisha’s crimes.

Unsure if a smile would reassure him or merely frighten him more, Elisha hesitated, and the chance was gone.

Toward the back of the small crowd stood a clump of soldiers. Madoc raised his arm, and the others followed suit, their faces sad and solemn as they saluted Elisha’s passing.

The guards brought him up alongside the tree, most of them dropping back to form a sort of perimeter. When they shifted into position, Elisha caught sight of Brigit’s face beneath a hood. She gave a swift smile, holding up something he couldn’t see, and his heart lifted.

Then the rope dropped over his head. In a civil trial, they might have hidden
his face, but here, the full weight of the penalty should be revealed for all to see.

Hands behind him snugged the knot up beside his left ear. As he swallowed, hemp pricked his skin and rubbed against the place where his pulse jumped quicker. His gaze darted again to where Brigit stood.

She was gone.

A hint of ice cooled his anticipation as he searched the crowd for her. He craned his neck, the rope shifting like a snake at his throat.

He heard the men behind him. Something thunked against the tree and rustled along its bark. The rope drew up a little tighter.

A bead of sweat trickled down his forehead. Impatiently, he shook it away, shaking back the too-short hair that hung in the edges of his vision. Was that her near the back? By Madoc’s men? The banner bearer who had saved him—then discovered him for the king’s guard—kept close beside his commander, his lip trembling as he struggled to be a man. Elisha wet his lips and kept looking.

With a smug expression, Matthew watched from the left-hand side. The smaller Henry looked away, scanning the crowd on a quest of his own.

One of the guards who had been present at the interrogation stepped forward. “This man, Elisha Barber, stands convicted of treason against king and country. May God have mercy on his soul.”

The voice rang in his ears, echoing in the hollows of his skull.

At the physician’s side, Benedict gulped, his fingers entwined down low.

Elisha’s hands began to shake, chafing against their bindings. One end of the cord itched against the burn on his palm. His fingers groped toward it and could not reach. He swallowed again, the motion catching at the rope, then sliding past. He bit his lip.

Tugging his blanket tight around his shoulders, Ruari wept. His eyes flicked up to Elisha’s face and away, then up again, blinking fiercely.

Elisha’s eyelashes trembled, he scanned the faces more rapidly, ruddy cheeks, vacant stares, gleeful gazes blurring together. He tasted blood on his lips and realized he had bitten too deep. Let go. Trust. Let go.

He dug his toes into the grass, the green blades only adding to his growing cold. The burn on his chest remained warm and angry, a fire held tight beneath his skin. A green fly buzzed past, winking in the rain like her eye.

At some signal Elisha did not notice, the guard intoned, “King’s justice be done,” and the ground fell away beneath his feet.

Elisha’s scream never had a chance.

The waiting rope snapped to its work, ripping into his throat, yanking him up into the rain.

His feet kicked, the grass still caught between his toes falling away with cakes of mud. Cold blasted the exposed skin. His fingers writhed in the air, wrists flexing and twisting against the bond, a cold trickle of blood glazing his hands. His arms shook with the effort of trying to tear free.

Somehow, his eyes still searched. What he wanted was lost in the rising tide of panic. Figures became darkness, faces flashed in and out of his wild eyes. His tongue cleaved to the roof of his mouth, dry and cold. The inescapable grip of the rope bore down all around, burning against his frozen flesh.

His mouth gaped. His eyes seemed to swell and darken, throbbing.

People cheered or screamed or prayed, the voices drowned out by a rushing in his ears—a rushing like the eager crackling of frigid flames. The rushing became a roar, pounding through his brain, blasting away both sight and sound.

Blackness gushed through him. He remembered this terror, the headlong flood of death. A wail started deep in his bowels, tearing up through his chest only to be choked off by the clawing at his throat. It burst instead from his skin, searing into the raindrops, searching for escape, for contact, for anything that might keep death at bay a moment longer.

Through the rain, Elisha screamed and pleaded and everything he touched came to nothing but cold.

C
old fingers of wind and rain
tore at him from all sides as he swung. His eyes and ears went numb, his throat still screaming what none could hear. Slowly, terror gave way to oblivion.

As abruptly as it had been ripped from him, the ground rose up and snatched Elisha from the air.

He landed hard, tumbling on his face, then fetching up against the tree in a blow that would have knocked the breath from him, if he’d had any. It jarred him back to life, and he fought the stranglehold to no avail, his back arched and body thrashing.

“Henry!” someone panted—the voice somehow clear. “Take this!” Hurrying footsteps accompanied a wheezing breath of exertion.

Agile fingers took hold of the knot. “Give,” the voice muttered. “You bastard, give!” Those fingers pulled the rope back a precious inch, slipping it from the trough it had carved.

His body convulsing with the effort, Elisha gasped for breath.

“Get me a knife.”

Then a different touch slid steel beneath the noose and cut it free.

“Did I not tell you you would live?” Brigit said, her voice shaky from behind him.

“Here, what are you doing?” snapped a stentorian voice as another shouted, “I thought you checked the rope!”

Strong hands stripped off the rope and cast it away, replacing its terrible grip with their own warmth. One at the front, one at the back, they wrapped
his cold throat with a heat unlike any he had ever felt—not the sharp burn of iron, nor the delicious fire of passion; this was a steady, urgent heat.

As Elisha dragged air into his lungs, the constriction at his throat eased. Warmth radiated from those hands, forcing back the frost that had hold of him. Until that moment, he had not understood what it was to touch. The simple pressure of those hands cradled the grievous harm done to him. Somehow, they knew the searing pain at his throat, the desperate burning of his lungs, the leap of his heart; they knew how to stroke his skin to calm him into believing that he could breathe, that he could live. These hands existed for such a touch. Gratefully, he surrendered to their knowledge and let himself be comforted. As he rested under their touch, Brigit’s fingers and knife worked on his own hands, cutting through the bonds and unwinding the remnants.

“Does he live?” Ruari cried.

“Your blanket, quickly,” the man’s voice commanded. Shifting Elisha’s head to rest upon his knee, he did not take his hands away. Coarse wool draped Elisha’s heaving body as he struggled to draw enough air. “Easy, easy,” the man murmured. Then louder, “Rub his hands—be firm, the feet too.”

Someone else took up his hands, gently at first, then more strongly, rubbing the life back into them.

Overhead, guards argued and the priest prayed aloud in amazement at God’s miracle, receiving the broken rope as a sign of innocence.

“What shall I do, sir? Where do you want me?” Matthew said from on high.

“Get your irons and go home,” the voice ordered.

“What? Sir, I don’t—”

“I do not repeat myself,” the voice thundered, and Matthew made a quiet sound of protest, but spoke no more.

“But this man is a traitor,” the physician began, sounding strangely intimidated.

“Don’t make me laugh.”

Affronted, Lucius went on, “He perused and purveyed the king’s own message. We have come to see justice done upon him.”

“You idiot,” the voice answered, “he can’t even read. Did you never think to ask him that?”

“Here, Ruari, let me,” Brigit was saying.

His rescuer’s voice dropped low. “You should not be here.”

“But I—”

“She saved my life,” Elisha croaked, then coughed and forced himself to breathe again. His eyes flickered open, peered up through the tangle of his hair.

Mordecai the surgeon stared back at him, damp eyes blinking quickly, then darting aside, in the direction of Brigit. His downturned mouth pinched a little tighter.

“’Twas a blessed miracle, Elisha,” Ruari babbled. “I’ve prayed so hard for ye, and the others, too, we all did. The way the rope just parted, oh, Sweet Jesus! We thought it too late, but ye’re with us still.”

“Amen,” someone said, but Mordecai only stared, his hands enfolding Elisha’s throat in radiating warmth.

“Leave him to us for now,” the surgeon said, the careful calm returning to his voice, though sweat showed upon his forehead, his cap set askew on the gray hair.

“Yes, you’re right,” Brigit replied softly. She patted Elisha’s shoulder, then she was gone.

In her wake, Elisha whimpered.

Ruari started rubbing his feet, then worked up his trembling legs. A cloak draped over him, joined by another.

The shivering broke out suddenly twice as violently, and Mordecai shifted his grip to support Elisha’s head, smoothing away the hair. “Get him up—wrap that around.” A few men lifted him, quick hands bundling the cloaks and blankets all around him. Gently, they laid him down again.

“Ah—he’s still our prisoner,” someone said.

“Bugger off!” Ruari snapped.

“We’ll investigate what’s happened here, Sir, but he is—”

“My patient now,” the surgeon finished. He glanced up darkly. “In the infirmary, until you have orders from the king himself.”

“Sir, I don’t think you should—”