Czytaj książkę: «The Dark Knight»

Chapter One

Hawksnest Castle in the Pennine Mountains

Tonia Cavendish huddled as close to the dying embers of her cell’s meager fire as she dared. The feeble heat barely warmed her fingers numbed by the icy wind whistling through the tiny arrow slit high in one wall, her only source of daylight. At home in Northumberland, her father would be overseeing the spring planting on the family’s estate. Did Sir Guy Cavendish have any inkling that his eldest daughter was not safely in the little house of prayer she had established near the Scottish border? Instead, Tonia shivered inside a dark prison, high in the mountains that ran like a bony spine down England’s length.

Was it a week ago that she had been brought to this ruined ancient fortress, or ten days? Time seemed to have stood still since the moment she and her band of pious young women had been torn from their prayers, taken by night to York, and tried for the crime of treason against the crown. Tonia would have considered the charges to be ludicrous except for the fact that her stern judges had sentenced her to death.

She had been given no chance to defend herself, or to call upon her family for aid. Within the hour of her sentencing, she had been driven through the streets of York, bound and gagged inside a dark coach. After a day and night of nonstop travel, she found herself here at the end of the earth. Her four guards, rough, swearing men, told her nothing, and they begrudged her the crusts of bread and sticks for her fire. If she was to die, why didn’t they just leave her to starve or freeze to death and be done with it? They said she must wait. So she spent her days and most of her nights in prayer—waiting and shivering.

At the end of the hall, beyond the stone-cold room that was her cell, the men kept a cheerful fire going in the guardroom. Tonia could smell the oak and hickory smoke and see the light of the high flames dance on the wall opposite the barred window in her door. Other savory smells taunted her: meat roasting on the spit and hot chestnuts popping on the hearth just out of sight of her little icy hell.

Tonia tried to forgive her captors as she knew she should, but sometimes the hunger that gnawed her empty stomach sent all her good Christian thoughts flying like the snowflakes that occasionally fluttered through her pathetic window. Huddling deeper in the woolen cloak that the guards had allowed her to keep, she prayed to her patron, Saint Michael, for deliverance.

Tonia shook herself awake; she had dozed off frequently during the past few days. She feared that if she slept, she would freeze to death. Outside, the pewter-gray sky had changed to a darker hue. Then she noticed that the voices in the guardroom spoke in louder and more animated tones. Flexing her aching joints, Tonia rose from her hearthside pallet and crept to the door. Pressing her cheek against the rough wood, she peered through the bars but could see nothing except the stone wall opposite, the turn of the corridor and dim shadows beyond. The voices told her that two, possibly three of her guards were conversing with someone new.

The stranger’s voice, deeper than the others and lower in tone, spoke with a foreign accent, though Tonia could not make out the words he said to the men. A sudden trembling overtook her. She remembered the story she had heard as a child that the late King Henry VIII had sent to France for a special headsman when he had executed his second wife, Anne Boleyn. Had Tonia’s own headsman finally arrived? She pressed her chapped knuckles against her lips to keep her fear from crying out. She would not give those louts at the end of the hall the pleasure of witnessing her distress.

The conversation ceased abruptly with a clatter and several bawdy jests. Then Tonia heard their footsteps recede. The silence that followed frightened her far more than the lewd suggestions and taunts her captors had thrown at her during her captivity. The suffocating stillness engulfed her. Her ears tingled with the strain to hear something—anything. The light of the guards’ fire that mocked her chilled body slowly burned down, leaving the end of the hall in near-darkness for the first time since her arrival.

While there was still a lone spark in her own hearth, Tonia picked her way across the uneven flag-stone floor to her pallet. “Good Saint Michael,” she prayed aloud, not caring if any unfriendly mortal also heard her, “send me your strength for I am very weak and sore afraid.”

The last ember winked out in a thin plume of curling smoke. Tonia pulled her cloak tighter around her. A new thought knifed through her. Suppose the guards had abandoned her! They may have received word to return from whence they came, and to leave Tonia to her fate in the bowels of this isolated mountain fastness. She choked back a sob. She must be strong to the end—and a bitter cold end it was likely to be.

It gave her little comfort to think that she would die a martyr for daring to open a Catholic nunnery within the boundaries of her Protestant homeland, currently racked with religious dissension in the name of the sickly young King Edward VI. Her father had warned her of her folly, but Tonia thought that by living so far from London, she and her followers would be safe from the stern laws against popery. And what of the others who had been arrested with Tonia? Had Lucy, Agatha, Margaret and little Nan suffered the same fate as she? Were their deaths on her soul? “Pray forgive me, sisters,” she whispered into the darkness.

A noise awoke Tonia with a start. Angry with herself for falling to sleep again in the middle of her prayers, she blamed the lack of food for making her light-headed. Again she heard the noise that had disturbed her slumber. Someone had returned to the guards’ room. She was not alone! A sudden gladness overwhelmed her before her common sense prevailed. Whomever was bustling around out there had not come to free her, or he would have done so immediately. This unseen person was either a new jailer, perhaps one skilled in torture—or her executioner.

Through the barred window she saw a light move toward her. Her stomach growled with a bleak anticipation of food. A man’s heavy tread echoed down the narrow corridor; his armament jingled as he walked. Then a dark form blotted out the light on the other side of the door.

Her heart nearly jumping out of her breast in fear, Tonia pulled herself erect. She would face this stranger on her feet rather than huddling on her knees. After all, she was a Cavendish, one of England’s greatest families. She would not dishonor the Cavendish’s sterling reputation for bravery—no matter what the next few moments might bring.

A key rattled in the door’s lock. Tonia’s teeth chattered. Clenching her jaw, she squared her shoulders. She would be bold, like the great wolf that was the Cavendish family emblem. Squealing in protest, the door swung open on its rusty hinges.

Tonia sucked in her breath.

The man in the doorway appeared huge. His dark cape covered his broad shoulders, making him look as if he had just furled two large black wings. He had to duck his head to enter her cell. When he lifted his lantern higher, a small cry welled up inside Tonia. The man wore a black hood over half his face—an executioner’s mask.

Even though her knees shook with terror and weakness from hunger, Tonia dropped a small curtsy before her fate.

“Good evening, my Lord of Death,” she said in a steady voice. “I have been expecting you.”

The man took a step toward her then stopped and lifted his lantern higher still. Behind the slits in his mask, Tonia saw a pair of dark blue eyes glitter in the candle’s light.

Now that the worst had happened, she felt almost giddy with relief. “Come in, sir, and close the door quickly behind you. I fear you are causing a draft, and I am chilled enough as it is.”

He stood still like a large shadow.

Tonia stepped more into the pool of light cast by the lantern. Giving him a smile, she hoped that her lips did not tremble. “I pray you, my lord, do not linger but close the door. My time grows shorter by the minute and I prefer not to freeze to death in the meanwhile.”

Giving Tonia the briefest of nods, the hooded man turned and shut the door as if he were a guest in her father’s house instead of a rough minion of the crown. Then he placed the lantern on the small plank table that constituted the cell’s main piece of furniture.

“You are Lady Gastonia Cavendish?” he asked in a low tone. Had the man not been a headsman, his voice could have belonged to a minstrel.

She inclined her head. “I am. And who, sir, are you?”

He shook his head, and half turned away from her. “My name is not important.”

Judging from the sound of his voice, Tonia deduced that the man was young, perhaps near to her own age of three-and-twenty. She smiled again. “You fear that I would curse you with my last breath if I knew your identity?” When he did not reply, she suspected that she had hit the core of truth. “Have no fear, Master Death. My last words will be for God alone, I assure you.”

The headsman strode to the fireplace and stared at the heap of cooling ashes on the hearth. “Why did they not give you more wood before they left?”

Taken aback by his question, Tonia shrugged. “Why should they waste fuel—or food—on one who will be dead by dawn?” She hid her hands in the folds of her cloak so that he would not see them trembling. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep up her veneer of courage.

He glanced at her over his shoulder. “You have not eaten?”

Tonia sank down on the only stool. “Not since last evening at this time. I fear that you arrived just before my midday meal.”

“’Tis no way to treat a lady,” he muttered, more to himself than to her.

Tonia detected a chivalry that she had not expected from so dire a visitor. “My jailers did not consider me a lady, but only a common criminal awaiting my appointment with death.” When he said nothing in response to this, she pushed her boldness a little further. “I pray you, sir, could you fetch me a cup of clean water before we proceed to more serious matters? My throat is parched. I would bless your name, if I knew it, for such a little kindness.”

He muttered something that sounded like an oath under his breath, but Tonia did not recognize the language. Then he turned on his heel. Without a word to her or a backward glance, he flung open the door, strode through it and banged it shut behind him. At least he had left his lantern. Tonia stretched out her fingers to its flickering heat while she wondered what would happen next.

Once he had rounded the corner of the hall, Sandor ripped off his hood and mopped his sweating face with his sleeve. Why hadn’t one of those gadje guards warned him that his intended victim was young and exceedingly beautiful, instead of the old crone he had expected? He pressed his burning forehead against the rough stone wall to cool his skin, though nothing could temper the flame that had ignited him the moment his lantern’s light had fallen upon Lady Gastonia.

Tall and slim like a willow in a summer meadow; her every movement like a dance. Bright blue eyes like precious sapphires set against the white silk of her skin. And her hair! Sandor groaned to himself. A man would be in paradise if he could lose himself within that raven cascade; her disheveled appearance from her captivity only made her more enticing. And what unexpected courage lodged in her heart! She had curtsied to him as if he were the finest lord of the land even though she had recognized him for what he was—the instrument of her death.

Sandor clenched his large hands. This beautiful gadji had been sent to tempt his soul. Pushing that thought, and more lusty ones, to the back of his mind, Sandor replaced the hood over his head. Then he lifted the water skin from the peg on the guardroom wall and threw its strap over his shoulder. Loading one arm with a stack of split logs and kindling, he swept up his travel pack and an abandoned cup with his free hand. Taking a deep breath for fortification, he returned to the lady’s cell. Before pushing open the door, he peered through the little window.

Lady Gastonia still sat on the stool, though she had drawn his lantern closer to her. Its golden glow lit up her face. Jaj! She was even more beautiful than he had first thought. What madness had possessed the ministers of the King to seek the death of such a flower as this one? He pushed open the door, causing her to look up at him. She smiled, not like a woman knowledgeable of the world, but like an innocent child—and yet no child had such lush lips so full of delightful promise. He kicked the door shut behind him.

Her finely arched brows drew up. “You come better provisioned than I had hoped, sir.”

Her voice was silver, rippling like the music of a lover’s lute. He swallowed the knot in his throat. “I have traveled three nights and four days in the saddle since London, my lady,” he said as he dumped the firewood on the hearth stone. “I am cold, tired and hungry.” Hungry for her, as well as the bread and cheese that he had in his sack.

She folded her hands in her lap. “I fear this place does not offer many comforts.”

You are here and that is a comfort. Sandor shook off this dangerous thought. The lady was marked for death, not life. He hunkered down before the fireplace and arranged the logs and brush. Then he thrust a twig into the lantern’s flame. When it ignited, he touched it to the dry kindling. Flames leapt at his command. Sandor was aware that the bewitching gadji moved her stool a little closer to the fire. He could feel the heat of her body behind him even through the fur-lined cloak that he wore.

“My grateful thanks to you, Monsieur de Mort,” she murmured. She lifted the skirts of her simple gray gown so that the fire could warm her feet and ankles.

Sandor dared to look at her again, though her beauty made his tongue stick to the roof of his mouth. “You speak French?” he blurted out.

“Oui,” she replied, then continued in that language. “My mother was born in the Loire Valley. From birth, my sisters and I learned both French and English.”

He wet his dry lips. “I was born in a field outside of Paris one winter’s morn when my family camped there for the season,” he replied in French.

Again she lifted her dainty brows, and her jewel eyes widened. “You were born in a tent?”

He chuckled. “Oui, and my first cradle was our wagon horse’s collar.”

“Then you were like the infant Jesu?” Her voice held wonderment.

He shook his head. “Non, we believe it is good luck for newborns to sleep in such a bed. Horses are our life. That is the way of the Rom.” He fed another log to the fire.

She half cocked her head, then asked in English, “Pray, what is a Rom? I am not familiar with that word in either language.”

Sandor lifted the water skin off his shoulder, uncorked it and poured some of its liquid into the chipped clay cup. Why should he be afraid to tell her? After all, he was here to kill her, wasn’t he? Her opinion, one way or the other, was of no importance to him. She was only a gadji.

He handed the cup to her. “The Rom are my people,” he said as she gulped down the water. “That is what we call ourselves.” He poured more into her cup. “You…that is…Christians have called us many different names, some of them are not fit for a lady’s ears.” He took a deep breath. Why was his heart beating so fast? “The French thought that we came over the sea from Egypt because our skin is darker, our hair is black and we speak in a strange tongue.”

“Egypt!” The lady’s eyes shone. “A friend of my family’s is a merchant who travels over the Mediterranean Sea. Jobe has often told us wondrous tales of that ancient country. How I have longed to go there! Tell me, are there truly beasts that have large mouths full of fearsome teeth and scales so thick that arrows bounce off them?”

Sandor could not help but smile at her enthusiasm. He shrugged. “I do not know, my lady. I have never been to Egypt. Nor has any member of my clan, yet we are called Egyptians. But here in England, the Rom are known as Gypsies.”

The lady regarded him over the cup’s rim. “You are a Gypsy, then?”

He nodded, watching for her reaction. She surprised him by smiling.

“I have never met a Gypsy before, but I have heard of your people.”

“No doubt,” Sandor muttered. He could well imagine what good gadje parents would tell their delectable daughters about the evil Gypsies.

“When I was little, my mother taught me a poem—a silly little rhyme.” She put the half-empty cup on the table, and then recited, “‘If you enjoy having futures foretold,/Watch out for your pennies, your silver and gold.”’

Sandor gave her a rueful look, then completed the doggerel that he too had learned as a child in France. “‘These ragged tramps, full of futures to tell,/Bear little but the words of the fortunes they sell.”’

She held out her hand, palm up. “Can you read my fortune?”

It is death. Aloud, he replied, “Nay, my lady. My grandmother has that skill—I do not. I am a trainer of horses.”

She furrowed her brows. “Methought you were the headsman.”

Sandor looked away from her—her beautiful eyes could pierce his thin defenses. He opened his sack and took out several cloth-wrapped items. “I am that as well—for the moment.”

She gasped aloud. When he looked at her, he saw that she had turned a shade paler.

“Do not be alarmed, Lady Gastonia. I will be gentle when I…uh…take you.”

She uttered a high, brittle laugh. “You will kill me with kindness?”

He clenched his jaw before answering. “I do what I am bound to do, my lady. I bear weighty responsibilities that are not of my own choosing. Believe me when I tell you that I am no murderer. Merely a servant of the crown.”

He unwrapped strips of dry smoked meat, then paused. It went against the Rom’s strict rule of marime to eat with a gadji. Everyone knew that the non-Rom were polluted with evil. His food would be defiled if this beautiful lady even touched it. Yet she was starving. Brusquely he offered a piece to her.

With only a brief hesitation, she accepted it and gingerly tasted it. “’Tis good!” She sounded surprised—and pleased.

“My grandmother always said that food seasoned with hunger tastes the best.” He took a large bite from his piece. “I assure you, my lady, I would not poison you. ’Tis not in the death warrant.”

She swallowed the food, then asked, “Have you my warrant with you?”

“Aye.” He regarded her out of the corner of his eye slit. “Can you read?”

She nodded. “If the penmanship is not cramped and the wording is in a language I know.”

Sandor wiped his hands on his leather breeches before he extracted the thick parchment from his shirt. The King’s official seal swung from a red ribbon at the bottom. He handed it to her. “Then read your fate, if you so desire,” he said, wishing he had that learning.

Lady Gastonia pulled the lantern closer to her, then pored over the words. Warming his backside by the fire, Sandor watched her. He liked the way the lantern’s light caught the reddish highlights in her dark hair. Her lips moved as she read, and Sandor fantasized her whispering his name while they made love. He could almost taste the honey of her kisses. He yearned to feel the satin of her milky skin against his own swarthy one. His loins began to throb.

Sandor shifted his position, in part to hide his growing arousal. Though the laws of the kris forbade it, he had made love to gadje women in his reckless youth, and they had moaned with pleasure at his touch. He looked down at his hands. He brushed the knotted thong of the garrote hitched in his belt.

She has bewitched me. Turning his back to her, he stared into the crackling flames. For a moment he had forgotten his pledge to his uncle and his responsibilities toward the family who had reared him after the death of his parents. His little cousin languished in the depths of the Tower at the King’s pleasure until Sandor could bring proof of this lady’s sudden demise. The sooner he did his job, the sooner Demeo would be free. He glanced over his shoulder at Lady Gastonia.

I can take her now, while she has her back to me. She would feel very little pain. It would be a quick death. I could be riding back to London before noon tomorrow. He pulled the garrote from his belt and looped it around his fingers.