Shana Abe (37 page)

Then someone was there. Someone had her under the arms, someone was kicking with powerful strokes to the safety of the beach, taking her with him.

He pulled her out of the water and dragged her onto the sand, a young man she didn’t know, who looked down at her with worried eyes and said, “Countess? Countess?”

The watch. Of course, it was the watch. Kyla reached a hand up and tried to hold his arm, tried to tell him about the danger, about the two other men, but he was laying her down softly on the beach with an intent look out at the water.

“I’ll be right back,” he said, sprinting away.

“No,” Kyla tried to say, but it came out as a cough, choking her. When she was able to look up she saw him bringing Caxton to shore. Caxton, with his arm around the watch’s shoulders, staggering up the beach.

Kyla rose to her knees, wanting to scream, able only to hear the strained cry that came from her as Caxton smiled at the young man and then stabbed him with his knife.

The watch fell, astonished, to his knees, and then onto his face in the sand. Caxton pulled the knife out of his ribs and looked over at Kyla.

She found her feet in the shifting sand and stood, swaying. Caxton began to lurch toward her.

Chapter Sixteen

K
yla fled up the sandbar that led to the tower. Behind her she heard Caxton, swearing, attempting to run after her.

Her skirts were hampering her, a soaking weight that slowed her down, cost her precious time as she heard him gaining on her, coming closer. She stumbled and her fists closed on handfuls of sand. She flung it behind her as she cried out in fear and anger and kept climbing.

At last she was at the top. The wind was even brisker up here, slamming her gown forward and then back, pulling her sideways as she looked around for a place to run to. There was only the tower, looming above her. Kyla ran around it until she found the door. The wind had pushed it open and kept it that way, and she plunged into the darkened interior.

A horse looked at her with mild eyes from the middle of the dirt floor, chewing slowly on a mouthful of hay. It must belong to the watch. In the second it took Kyla to consider untying it from the peg in the wall and riding out she saw the shadow of Caxton fall on the floor behind her.

The rest of the room was empty but for the stairs that circled in a spiral up the walls, hugging them without a railing. She raced for them without thought, slowing only to pull her sandy skirts up to her knees before running on again.

“Lady Kyla.” Caxton started laughing, a dreadful, hitching sound. “Where do you think to go now?”

The stairs were much steeper than they looked. Her lungs
were on fire, she couldn’t take a breath that was deep enough to quench the burning. And still he came behind her, a gurgling laugh chasing her higher and higher, until she was almost crawling to the top. It took all of her strength to push open the trapdoor that led to the roof of the tower.

When she did the wind caught the wood and snatched it from her hand, smashing the door back against the floor, leaving the opening gaping above her. Kyla climbed through.

The roof was an empty circle of stone, only a crenellated edging of giant gray blocks between her and the sky. Kyla struggled to lift the trapdoor again, to shut it before Caxton could come up, but the wind had not yet shifted, and she did not have the strength to make it close. From the darkened square a hand darted out, pressed against the wood as she struggled to lower it. Kyla saw his face appear, still smiling.

She let go of the door and backed up, thinking furiously, searching for any weapon at hand.

There was nothing. There was only her dagger.

She unsheathed it and held it in front of her. The wind was tearing at her hair, tossing it into her eyes and out again.

Caxton stopped.

“My dear girl,” he began.

“What do you want?” Kyla yelled, holding her dagger the way she had been taught. Caxton eyed it cautiously.

“What do you think?” he called back, good-natured despite the hostile gleam in his eye. “What else could it be, my child? I want the note, of course. The note.”

He took one step forward. Kyla took one back.

“There is no note,” she said. “It was a ruse, made up by my husband, in order to trap me.”

For the first time Caxton hesitated, looked genuinely puzzled. “Of course there is a note. Don’t think a lie will fool me, my lady.”

“There is no note!”

“There is,” he countered, coming forward again. “I signed it myself, dear girl, much as I hated to do so at the time. And now you have it, and I want it back. I need it back.”

Kyla looked around quickly. He was backing her up
against the stones. If she let him continue he would have her in no time.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” she cried over the wind. As if chastened by her voice it immediately died, leaving an echoing calm around them.

“Of course you do.” Caxton sounded perfectly composed, reasonable, as he approached her, holding his own—much larger—knife. “Your prevarication now will gain you nothing, Kyla. I have searched Rosemead, I have searched this godforsaken castle, I have searched the whole of England, I think, for the note, and the only possible place left for it to be is on your own person. You know what I want. The note your mother gave you before she died. Give it to me and I will let you live, fair Kyla.”

“My mother?” The air left her in shock. She stared at him. “My
mother?
”

Caxton saw his moment. He rushed her at once, coming toward her in great, lumbering steps and she backed up as fast as she could, slashing at him with her blade when he was upon her, crying out in a fury, twisting away from him at the last moment on pure instinct.

She had cut his hand, a deep gash, and he yelled and turned, reaching for her still with his own knife. But she had been closer to the edge of the roof than she thought, she must have been, because as she whirled out of his way he moved to follow her, but his momentum was too great. He slammed into the stone that had been behind her and it stopped him short at the knees, causing him to fall forward, to topple over the edge.

He screamed, truly screamed, and when Kyla turned around she saw one hand still grasping the edge of the stone, then the other.

She stood still, trembling, when she heard his voice.

“Lady Kyla!”

She walked over to him, still clutching her dagger.

Caxton was hanging with both hands from the lower ledge. She could see his legs flailing for purchase against the air.

Far, far below him were the inlet, the jagged rocks, the angry water.

“It was you, wasn’t it?” She leaned out through the gap in the stones next to him, out of his range. “It was you who killed my mother.”

“No!” Caxton cried, still trying to smile at her.

“Yes!” she screamed back at him. “It was you!”

“It was an accident!” One hand, the one she had cut, slipped a little. He brought it back up frantically. “I didn’t mean to do it!”

She said nothing. Her grip was tight around the dagger. Caxton began to babble.

“She came for Elisabeth that day, she came to take Elisabeth away from me! Elisabeth was too weak, she had listened to Helaine for too long. She would have left me, even knowing that I would come after her, the silly bitch. So she took the note from my hiding place and gave it to Helaine, damn her—for ‘protection,’ she said! I finally had it in my hands, I had finally managed to steal it from Gloushire and that fool of a woman delivered it to her friend!”

“My mother,” Kyla said quietly.

“I have … to have … that note,” said Caxton through gritted teeth. “Give it to me, and I will let you live.”

Kyla leaned over the stone, examined the man hanging on to the edge of the last solid thing between him and death.

“Tell me,” she invited in a velvet-smooth voice. “This note. What did it say?”

Caxton didn’t reply, turned his head to the left and right, looking for an escape. There was none.

“It was a debt note, wasn’t it?” Kyla continued, remotely surprised at her own logic. “You owed money to Lord Gloushire.”

Sweat was dribbling down his face. The tips of his fingers had turned from pink to yellow to purple now. The cut on his hand left slippery blood to run down his wrist. He expelled his breath at last, watching the blood. “Yes, yes. Money. I owed him everything, do you understand? Everything! More than that! More than I could ever pay!” Caxton
looked up at her, desperate and chilling at once. “He was going to go to the king, he was going to tell Henry!”

“And you killed my mother for this. A piece of paper.”

“You don’t know! She was going to ruin everything. She had the note, she had Elisabeth’s ear. She was taking Elisabeth away from me, persuading her to go away to the country while the debtors tore me to pieces, destroyed me. Without the note, Gloushire had no proof I owed him anything. But Helaine was going to ruin it all, she said she would take the note to Henry herself!”

One of his hands lost its grip; Caxton let out a huff of fear.

“How did you do it?” Kyla asked.

“God’s blood, help me up, my lady!”

“Tell me how you did it, first!”

“I … I hit her! It was an accident, I swear! I hit her to get her away from Elisabeth, but she fell and hit her head. That’s what killed her. We had to do something! Elisabeth was in hysterics, she didn’t see the solution as I did. Kill Gloushire, put Helaine in his bed. Simple! Brilliant! Everything was fine! Elisabeth did as I bade her, as she was used to doing. She was mine again, she
had
to be or else she risked the king’s wrath with me. Everything was … 
fine
.…”

“No,” Kyla said. “You made the blame fall on my father. But you still didn’t have the note.”

“Helaine wouldn’t say where it was! She taunted me with it, she said I would never guess where she had put it, that it was in hands safe from me!”

The wind was returning slowly, an upward gust that cleared strands of red from Kyla’s eyes.

“And you thought
I
had it?”

“It had to be you! I know it’s you! Your father would have turned it over to the king if he had it, and you are the only other person Elisabeth said Helaine would trust!”

A belted thrust, sharper than any dagger, to remind Kyla that her mother had had such faith in her. She clenched her teeth against the pain, spoke coldly down to this man, this embodiment of selfishness and evil.

“Did you kill Elisabeth, as well?”

“No! Not her! Elisabeth took her own life, I had nothing to do with it!”

“Nothing to do with it? Nothing such as forcing her to conceal the murder of her close friend, for example, to save you? Nothing such as that?”

His fingers were slipping backward, one by one.

“My lady,” he pleaded. “Help me.”

From below them came a sound, unexpected, floating on the air. Unearthly laughter, forming into wisps of words.

Come to us.…

Caxton’s eyes grew wider. “It’s them,” he said, hoarse. “Did you hear them?”

Kyla felt dizzy suddenly, the world tilting at her feet. She leaned against the stone in front of her, put a hand over her eyes.

“Lady Kyla, you must help me,” came Caxton’s cry.

She was going to do it. Against all reason she was going to aid her mother’s murderer, simply because she could not, she
would
not be a murderer herself. She only had to make the world stop spinning and then she would—

You are ours.…

The laughter came stronger now, ghostly and heartless; there was really no mistaking it. Caxton’s breathing grew strangled. Blindly Kyla leaned forward to put her hand over his, to stay his fall.

Someone behind her stopped her, pulled back her arm. In the next second Caxton let go, silent as death, plummeting down to join the laughter.

Marla had her arms around her, Marla held her tight and wouldn’t let her look over the edge.

“It’s fine now,” she said, solid and sturdy. “You’re fine.”

The dizziness faded to nothing. Kyla stepped back, wide-eyed.

“I was gathering herbs nearby. I saw you come up the cliff and run to the tower,” Marla said, answering her unspoken question. “I saw that man chase you. He had a knife. By the
time I made it up here, he was already doomed. I heard what he said.”

“It was him.” Kyla felt a high-pitched buzzing in her head now, delayed nerves taking over. “He killed her.”

“I know.” Marla spoke softly. “And he deserved to die.”

“Those voices …”

“What?”

“Didn’t you hear them? Women’s voices, laughter?”

Marla studied her, then shook her head. “No. But I don’t doubt you did.”

The haze in Kyla’s head cleared abruptly. She moved away from Marla, turned, confused, in a circle.

“There’s a watch down below,” she said. “He’s hurt. On the beach. We must help him.”

“Your husband has already found him,” Marla said. “I saw them bring him up off the beach just now.”

“Roland? Roland is here?”

She heard him now, calling out her name. There was panic in his voice, despair.

Kyla raced to the trapdoor. “I’m here! Here!”