The Prince of Midnight by Laura Kinsale
His breath glowed frost, curled in front of his face and drifted away. Silhouettes and dark shapes moved in and out of the torchlight, faces flashed white and then faded into the darkness as the audience jostled. How many could there be? A hundred, maybe two at most-even if everyone in the town was here. Chilton had claimed a thousand followers, but S.T. hadn’t seen them in Heavenly Sanctuary.
They began to sing a hymn he didn’t know, feminine voices rising sweetly in the night. How had he possibly gotten himself into this, chained on his knees in front of a crowd of schoolgirls? It was mortifying. They weren’t going to stone him; they didn’t even seem angry.
Chilton appeared out of the blackness beyond the torches and slowly mounted the steps, singing along with his congregation. As the last verse died away, he raised a plain porcelain cream pitcher between his hands and began to pray yet again, asking God to make his will known to Master Jamie and his flock.
S.T. twisted his hands behind his back. The praying in this place was incessant. No wonder they were all balmy.
Dove knelt a few steps below him, her eyes closed, apparently praying with all her might. Chilton’s voice began to break and quiver with emotion in another of his one-way conversations with God. The crowd rustled, catching the excitement, even though S.T. could make nothing of Chilton’s garbled phrases beyond, “Yes, yes! I understand, I understand. Happiness and peace for your followers. For those who truly love you,” and other such profundities.
It was the church service all over again, droning on and on. S.T. shivered in the freezing air. Suddenly Chilton lifted the little pitcher over his head, then lowered it and poured a few drops on the limestone step. It sizzled faintly, bubbling.
“Sweet Harmony,” he said. “Do you love your master?”
One of the girls at the foot of the steps hurried forward. “Oh, yes,” she cried.
“You have a task. Take this cup. If you truly love your master, you will drink of it. A nonbeliever would be burned. A nonbeliever would feel the fires of hell on his tongue if he drank. But if you have true faith, it shall be as water to you.”
He held out the cup. The girl called Sweet Harmony took it in trembling hands. A sound like a sigh came from the invisible crowd beyond the torches. As S.T. watched in helpless horror, she lifted it unhesitatingly to her lips.
As the vessel touched her mouth, Chilton shouted, “Abraham! Abraham!” The whisper of the crowd rose to a wail. “I am the angel of the Lord!” Chilton cried, his voice carrying into the night. “Lower the cup, my child. Do not drink. You have proven yourself, as Abraham was tested and proven.”
Sweet Harmony lowered the cup, and Chilton lifted it from her hands. Her face was radiant as she watched him.
“Dove of Peace,” he said. “Come forward and take the cup.”
S.T.’s back grew rigid. He began to breathe harder. “Your task is more difficult,” Chilton said. “You must have faith enough for two. The man you have brought among us is one of the children of rebellion. His soul is the soul of wicked men, which God has said is like the restless sea that cannot be quiet, and its waters toss up mud and refuse.”
Dove took the cup from his hands, her head bowed over it.
Chilton put his hands on her shoulders. “It is in you to save him. The faith of Sweet Harmony would have turned acid into water as it touched her lips, because she believed in the word of her master. Do you believe in my word?”
Dove nodded. S.T. wet his lips and swallowed.
“Hear me, then. You must take this cup, and pour the liquid into his left ear, so that the spirit of rebellion will issue forth from his mouth and be gone forever, and he may be at peace.”
The shock of it went through S.T. like a great jolt.
For an instant he was frozen, unbelieving. Then his lips drew back. “You bastard,” he snarled. “You unholy bastard!”
Chilton stroked Dove’s hair. “Only you can give him this gift, my child. Do not hang back from your appointed task.
Dove turned, holding the pitcher in both hands. S.T. couldn’t help himself; he shoved back away from her, as far as the shackles would allow him.
“What do you want, Chilton?” he demanded. “What’s your price?”
“The Lord saith: ‘Listen to Me, you who know righteousness, a people in whose heart is My law,’” Chilton intoned. ‘Do not fear the reproach of man, neither be dismayed at their revilings.’”
Dove of Peace walked toward S.T., her face composed. She knelt beside him.
“Don’t do this,” S.T. said, breathing fast. “Dove—you don’t know what you’re doing. Think about it, for the love of God.”
She smiled, but he thought she didn’t even see him. “I can give your soul peace,” she murmured. “I’ll make you happy.”
“No!” His voice rose. “I won’t be able to hear. My other ear’s gone—oh, God. He knows it, Dove! He’s using you; what does he want? Ask him what he wants.”
“We all want you to be happy,” she said. “You’ll find peace with us when the spirit of rebellion is driven out.” She lifted the pitcher. He shook his head frantically, and then jerked his shoulder, trying to knock the pitcher from her hand.
Someone grabbed his hair, multiple hands, holding him still by force. “You must believe,” she said. “You must know I would not hurt you. Have faith.”
“Don’t do it.” His eyes watered. “He’s crazy. He’s made you all crazy.”
She shook her head and smiled, as if he were a small and frightened child. Behind her, Chilton began a prayer. She lifted the pitcher. S.T. fought the tight grip that twisted his head. “Be still,” she said. “Pray with us.”
“Please,” he whispered. “Please.” All his muscles shook with resisting the hold. “You can’t do this.” The pitcher rose and tipped in her steady hands. He squeezed his eyes shut. “You can’t; you can’t; you can’t.” He was crying, unable to comprehend it—God, to be deaf, to have the door slammed completely, to be helpless in a silent world… the burning cold liquid hit his ear and flooded it, blocking out the sound of Chilton’s praying, muddling the voices.
The silence became real. They let him go. S.T. bent his head over his knees with a sob.
Chapter Seventeen
It looked the same to Leigh as it always had, this vast and empty country. Desolate. Gray sky and bleak moor, with the backbone of the Roman wall draped across the tops of the long ridges like a serpent. Strange weather rolled over the hills: huge flakes of snow melted when they touched the black ground and thunder muttered above the clouds.
The wind whipped the chestnut’s mane as Leigh rode along a muddy track. The horse lifted its head nervously, staring around as if there were tigers liable to leap from the shadowy hollows, alternating a mincing prance with long, impetuous strides as it slogged through the deep footing.
Leigh prayed they wouldn’t come to any actual puddles they couldn’t go around. The animal’s timidity about water had been the plague of her journey, adding a fortnight to what should have been a twenty-day trip. The Seigneur had said he could take care of it, but he hadn’t lingered to prove his claim.
He’d left her, there in the dark and drizzle of the stable yard at the Mermaid. Oh, he’d not actually left physically, not at that moment. But he hadn’t spoken to her again; he hadn’t come to the room to sleep, and in the morning there was only a message. She was to stay until he returned. Her room and board was paid; she could ask for anything she wanted except cash. He took the black and the gray rogue. He left her the chestnut that wouldn’t cross a bridge.
He’d stranded her there, penniless. Waiting on him like a handmaiden.
It still made her furious, and it hadn’t stopped her for half an hour.
The chestnut, however, had slowed her down considerably. She’d tried to sell it in Rye, but they all knew the animal too well, so she’d taken her pearls and her dress to the pawn shop. The broker carried them into the back of the shop to examine the necklace, and then came out and laid
At tuppence the mile, she’d calculated it would take at least three pounds just for stagecoach fare as far as Newcastle, even riding on the outside. She’d thought she could sell the chestnut once she was out of the neighborhood, but that too had proved impossible. It had been difficult enough just to get the horse out of the neighborhood. Once she’d coaxed and tugged and beaten it over the seven water crossings between Rye and Tunbridge Wells, she found that horse copers were a sharp-eyed lot, suspicious, accustomed to sizing up anyone who brought them an animal to sell. The sight of a breech-clad “boy” on a sidesaddle made them jeer, and they recognized the chestnut’s failings almost immediately. She’d had to kick one coper in the face, when he put his hand on her thigh under pretense of adjusting her stirrup.
The best offer she got was from a knacker in Reading. Two pounds.
She’d looked at the chestnut. It had refused to approach within ten feet of the knacker; it rolled its eyes fearfully as it sidled against the post to which she’d tied it a few yards away. The bally horse was afraid of everything, she’d thought in disgust—they’d have a job just getting it into the slaughtering yard.
She walked over to the horse and it danced around, backing up frantically as soon as she untied the lead. It was trembling, too frightened even to bolt. “So, so, boy…be calm,” she murmured, the same thing she always said when the horse grew anxious. “Be calm; nothing’s wrong. Nothing will hurt you.”
As she spoke, it dawned upon her that that was a lie—the ultimate lie—a final betrayal of what little trust the horse put in her.
The animal did calm at the sound of her voice, just slightly, just enough to stop the backing and trembling. It froze next to her, neck stiff, mouth tight, obeying when she asked it to halt—a very small measure of faith in her judgment; a timid, nervous trust that what she asked it to do was safe.
She changed her mind.
The knacker’s offer went to three pounds, enough to pay for the stage, but she led the horse to a mounting block and managed to get on in spite of the jumpy shifting and prancing. At the first water crossing she regretted it, and at every water crossing since.
But they had made it to Northumberland. Whatever the chestnut’s other foibles, the horse had endless stamina, and the energy to shy and bolt even if they came to a ford at the end of a thirty-mile day of rain and muddy road. It took longer, but they’d made it.
The chestnut stopped suddenly, staring off into the lowering afternoon where the clouds drifted over the moors to the north. Leigh tensed for the shying leap at whatever bogeyman the horse had discovered now, but instead it threw up its head and whinnied shrilly.
An answer came from the distance. Leigh looked up at the gaunt silhouette of the Roman wall, blinking against the fat flakes of snow. Through a tumbled gap in the masonry, a pale horse picked its way, head down as it navigated the fallen stones. The chestnut whinnied again, and the other horse stopped and answered. Then it leaped forward and came plunging down the slope of the ridge toward them.
Leigh dismounted. She let go of the excited chestnut’s bridle. She’d ridden the beast long enough to know she couldn’t control it, mounted or on the ground—not with an unknown animal at large. The chestnut wheeled toward the approaching horse, galloping to meet it.
They came together halfway down the slope, necks arched, ears pricked.
Leigh stood there in the mud, feeling a sudden tight uneasiness in her chest. It was the gray rogue, she was certain of it: she could see the scars on its face from where she was.
So he had come. He was here. She waited, watching the two horses snort at each other, touching noses. Suddenly the rogue squealed and struck out with its forefoot, and they both took off running.
The horses pounded along the slope, circled away from her and back, and then came galloping toward her, sending mud flying amid the snowflakes. She stood her ground as they tore past, and then the gray seemed to take an interest in her, for it slowed and came prancing back.
The chestnut followed, trotting up to within a yard of Leigh. It dropped its head, snuffling for grass beneath the snow and mud. She moved up slowly and caught it, now that the first ecstasy of meeting appeared to be over. The gray rogue stopped and stared at them, nostrils wide as it drank in the snowy wind. Leigh turned the chestnut and began to walk it along the track. After a moment, she heard the even footsteps of the gray come behind them. The gray hesitated an instant, and then walked up to her, its hooves squelching in the mud.
She patted its neck, and let it rub its face against her body.
“So where is he?” she asked. “Has he managed to get himself killed yet?”
The rogue nibbled at the trailing end of her scarf. Then its ears pricked. Both horses lifted their heads as the long, lonely howl of a wolf came floating over the moors.
She thought he must be dead.
The rogue might have escaped or been set free, but Nemo would never have voluntarily left the Seigneur to wander alone.
The wolf seemed pathetically glad to see her. She remembered how S.T. had always greeted his lupine friend, and she squatted down and allowed Nemo to lick her face and put his muddy paws on her cloak. She rubbed him and shook his head between her hands, digging her fingers deep into his damp coat to the warm dryness next to his skin. He wriggled delightedly, whining and making half barks of excitement.
The low clouds and winter brought a gloomy evening in mid-afternoon. She led her little band along the wall until the rampart disappeared, broken down over centuries to a level with the earth. She knew this country with all the familiarity of an adventurous child, knew Thorney Doors and Bloody Gap and Bogle Hole, knew better than to stop and ask for shelter at the lonely house called Burn Deviot where sheep stealers took resort.
Nemo ranged ahead, but not far, returning frequently to press up against her and lick any part of her hands or face he could reach. The wind blew hard at their backs. Leigh trudged along in the mud until she found a fallen stone to use as a mounting block.
Beyond Caw Gap the wall rose again, and from the height of Winshields she could peer through the fat snowflakes at the long basaltic ridges of Peel Crag and High Shield, their slopes rising to black cliffs that faced north, sullen and silent, like the shades of Roman sentries.
What if he was dead?
Anger and apprehension warred in her. Stupid man, stupid man! Foolish beyond permission, beyond logic, beyond any sane sense of jeopardy. As if it were a game.
What if he was dead? What if?
Leigh thought of Chilton—what he’d done; what he could do. She put her arms around the chestnut’s neck and pressed her face into its mane. The warm, thick smell of horse filled her nose. The heavy scent enveloped her, made her think of the Seigneur’s voice, quiet and steady, telling her to touch the battered face of the gray rogue.
Suddenly her mount’s head came up, bumping her hard in the nose. She sat back, blinking against the snowflakes and the blur in her eyes. Beside her, the rogue gave a little snort and trotted forward, ears pricked. Leigh squinted along the spine of the wall.
Across a defile, where the stone fortification curved over the next hill, a mounted black horse stood facing them. She couldn’t make out the rider. The gray reached the bottom of the cut and broke into a canter, mounting the ridge. Nemo made a curvet of excitement. He looked back at her, his tongue lolling.
Leigh’s heart squeezed with sudden premonition. She allowed th
She thought it was surely the Seigneur who gazed down at her from beneath a moisture-darkened tricorne, though he made no sign of recognition. The rogue scrambled up the opposite hill, stopped, and touched noses with the black. Nemo hung back with Leigh, trying to test the adverse wind, his tail lowered in uncertainty. The horses sidled, and the other rider controlled his mount as the gray danced and blew clouds of steamy breath.
The black sidestepped, silhouetted in profile against the dull sky, and Leigh suddenly realized that it carried two people. She reined in, hesitating at the base of the hill, her heart beating hard.
The foremost rider swung a leg over the black’s mane and dismounted, leaving the other a huddled, featureless shape in the saddle. Nemo suddenly loped forward, springing from stone to stone up the steepest side of the defile. At the top, the wolf leaped to greet the man, and then Leigh was sure.
She sat frozen in joy and fury, feeling absurdly defenseless. As if the slightest touch would break her.
The Seigneur held Nemo on his arms, allowing his face to be washed before he pushed the ecstatic animal away. The big flakes of snow tumbled and floated between them on the wind. He stood still, looking down the slope at Leigh.
Alive. Quite alive.
And no doubt as impossible and pleased with himself as ever he’d been. The winter air rasped in her throat and burned her eyes. She clamped her teeth together.
The chestnut carried her up the ridge with lunging steps. When she came abreast of him, he held the black’s rein and gazed at her, not speaking.
“Good afternoon,” she said coldly. “How very pleasant to meet you again.”
His face seemed still. No teasing smile, no cocky lift of those wicked eyebrows. “Sunshine,” he said in a strange, flat voice.
The dead sounds of it made her fingers tighten on the chestnut’s reins. “What’s amiss?”
He stared at her, and then lowered his eyes. “I should have reckoned you’d make it somehow.” He swung away from her questioning frown. For a moment he rested his fist on the black horse’s shoulder, and then leaned his forehead against it, as if he didn’t want to face her.