The Prince of Midnight by Laura Kinsale
Mistral lifted his head and uttered a soft nicker. S.T. ducked to avoid the low hanging branches as they plunged down a small path through the underbrush.
Properly speaking, it wasn’t a cave at all, but an ancient, underground room built of arched stones, the entrance stairs and heavy iron door completely obscured by dirt and bushes. The area around was a mass of Roman ruins, a lonely outpost near the river. When Charity and Dove had adamantly refused to go to Hexham, S.T. had piled them together on black Sirocco with a promise that they could help him, and led them here.
Amid wails of protest, he’d left them.
He didn’t really expect them to be waiting in the dark; he’d reckoned they’d head for the nearest farmhouse, but Sirocco was still staked out where S.T. had left him. When S.T. called their names, a pathetic pair of voices floated out of the murky opening.
Harmony stirred in his arms. S.T. swung down, shoving aside a branch, and peered into the dark cavern. “Halloo! What’s become of the candles I left you?”
“I dropped ’em where’us can’t see,” said Charity in a small and trembling voice.
“We’re afraid of rats,” Dove added wretchedly.
S.T. walked back to Mistral and gave Harmony a lift by the waist. When she was on the ground, he dug a flint and taper out of his saddlebag. In the flickering light, two pale faces stared up at him out of the shadowed hole.
“Harmony?” Charity said on a waver. “Oh, Harmony!” She came scrambling up the stairs through the branches and threw her arms around the other girl. They both began to weep, Charity pulling her own cloak around Sweet Harmony’s shivering shoulders. “I didn’t never think to look on ’ee again! Yer poor dress—an’ yer hand—oh, Harmony, what ha’ they done to ’ee?”
“There was a m-man!” Harmony cried, while Charity worked to free the knotted cord around her wrists. “’Twas horrible; Master Jamie said I was to ascend, but they put a rope around my neck, and he… and he—” She broke off into a sob and turned away, chafing her wrists. “But… but now I’m safe. The Prince came—on his horse in the church, with his sword and everything! Oh—’twas the most tremendous thing. I wish you could have seen it!”
All three of them looked toward S.T. in awe.
“You’ve got me wishing I’d seen it myself,” he said, handing the taper to Charity. “I’ll build you a fire before I go.”
“You’re going to leave us again?” Dove cried, her reverence dissolving into dismay.
“There’s no time for anything else. I intend to be virtuously sipping punch and toasting my feet beside the Twice Brewed’s hearth before Luton returns.”
“Had best hurry, then,” Charity said. “I can make a fire,” she added staunchly. “Now that there be light.”
“Good girl.” He caught up Sirocco’s lead rope and guided the horse around, dragging the saddle off Mistral and tossing it onto the black. “Can you find your way to take him down to the river for water?”
“Aye, m’lord!” Charity said, eager and proud. “And I’ll give’un the nose bag ’ee brung.”
S.T. mounted. Harmony, with Charity’s cloak hugged around her, hurried forward and put her hand on his boot.
“Thank you,” she said in a soft voice. “Oh—how much I thank you!”
He reached down and slid his gloved finger under her chin. Her upturned face was very sweet, the trace of tears still glistening on her cheeks and lashes. He leaned over, tilted her chin upward, and kissed her mouth. Then he put his heels to Sirocco and sent the horse lunging up the path.
Really, he thought, it was too bad Leigh wasn’t there to see it.
Even avoiding the main road and following the wall, he made good time on a rested horse, stopping well off from the dusky lights of the Twice Brewed to remove the mask and change his black and silver gauntlets for plain open-fingered mitts. Sirocco blew restively, swinging his hindquarters in a manner that made S.T. pause and look up, squinting into the dark where the horse was looking.
He heard the sound of the hooves, and leaned over to put his hand on Sirocco’s nose, hoping to discourage any equine welcome. But the irregular thud drew nearer; he heard the rattle of stones and then saw the dark shape moving toward him in the night.
He drew his sword. “Declare yourself!”
There was no answer. The shadowy form jogged nearer, until he could make out the dim white blaze and stockings.
“Leigh!” Relief rolled through him for an instant, and then the chestnut dropped to a walk and stuck out its nose to greet Sirocco. S.T. saw the reins dangling into the murk.
He swore. He caught at the chestnut’s bit and dragged it forward, trying to see evidence of a fall. In the dark, he could find no sign that the horse had gone down, no mud nor marks on the saddle—small comfort, but a little. It was hard to be tossed from a sidesaddle, with the leaping tree to hold a rider in place, but if a horse reared and toppled backwards that same brace became a trap to entangle her beneath a half ton of flailing horseflesh.
She might be lying somewhere in the dark, crushed and unconscious. Or dead.
“Leigh,” he shouted, standing up in his stirrups. “Leigh!”
The ghostly frost of his breath disappeared into blackness. He didn’t care now if anyone heard him; he didn’t care what Luton might suspect—he’d turn out every soul at the Twice Brewed in the search. He listened, damning his bad ear, straining to control his breath and the horses’ movements so he could hear any faint response. The light, cold wind brought silence. He turned the horses toward the north.
“Leigh!” he bellowed again, and his voice came echoing back in the night.
He held his breath—and heard an unmistakable whimper. He stiffened, trying to guess the direction, but no hunt proved necessary. The horses both turned and stared, nostrils flaring, as a bobbing gray shape in the obscurity took on the solid outline of a wolf, trotting doggedly forward in spite of an awkward limp.
S.T. sheathed his sword and dismounted. Nemo passed up against his legs in a subdued vestige of the wolf’s usual leaping greeting. S.T. knelt and allowed his face to be washed, searching gently over the thick, cold fur until he felt the matted wound just above Nemo’s foreleg.
He didn’t probe it, not caring to disturb Nemo’s friendly humor. There was little he could see in the dark anyway. The wolf didn’t seem too much the worse for his injury, on his feet and able to move, but S.T. had a lump of apprehension in his throat, a nagging sense of dread.
He knelt with the wolf, stroking the deep fur, trying to grasp something that danced at the edge of his memory.
The beast… the sword… the witch…
Nemo. The colichemarde.
The witch—and the way she’d ridden out of that stable as if the furies of hell were at her back.
Like a spark struck into sawdust, he understood. Realization of what she’d done burst full-blown upon him.
“Oh, you little fool,” he breathed. “You hare-brained little fool.” He stood up and stared around him, feeling blank, feeling the full implication sink into his heart.
Chilton. She’d gone out alone to take him. And she hadn’t come back.
“Damn you, Leigh!” he yelled to the night sky. “Damn you, damn you, damn you!”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Leigh was not afraid of the dark. She loved the night; had always felt defended by the darkness when she’d walked out alone beneath the stars. Not specters nor fients nor fears of the devil’s eldritch beasties disturbed her, if she was outdoors and free.
But to be blindfolded, hurting, lying on the floor with her hands and feet bound and her ears straining to make sense of the sounds that drifted to her—that was something to fear. No creature out of hell could unnerve her more than the distant screams and shouts of Chilton’s followers. She lay where she’d come to consciousness, racked by shivering, trying to hang: on to awareness amid the swimming pain. Her head throbbed, her cheek rested against a carpet and her body on bare wood. It smelled of home: cold
She was certain she was somewhere at Silvering, in a large room, from the way the sound echoed each time her unseen warden moved. She tried to focus her hazy reason. Not the Marble Hall, for there was no carpet there; not the Kingston Room, for there the arms of Kingston were painted on the bare wood, nor either of the resonating staircase halls with their stone floors and family portraits. It might be the saloon or the great dining room or the chamber over the kitchen—or even the gallery of the private chapel: all had wooden floors and carpets and echoing space.
When that distant tumult of shouting had erupted, her guardian had stood up and moved away until she couldn’t tell where the footsteps had gone. She worked at her bindings, praying that her guard had left the room—it seemed so, for no one chastised her, but she made no headway at all on the cord that restrained her from elbows to wrists, unable even to curl her hands and find the knot.
She was lashed to something solid. Her searching fingers shaped the wood, defining the corkscrew molding. Only one place in the house boasted those elaborate balusters turned in oak: the railing of the chapel gallery, where she’d spent a thousand Saturday evenings sitting between her mother and Anna, listening to her father’s mellow voice weave a rehearsal sermon through the peaceful silence.
The footsteps returned, quick and agitated. Leigh tried to go limp, feigning unconsciousness, but the cold made her shiver so hard that she could barely control her movements.
“He’s a’coomin’ from the kirk,” a male voice said, heavy with the familiar dialect of the north. “Thy hour is nigh, witch.”
Leigh could hear the shouting, a single voice now, growing louder. It was a voice she’d not heard for many months, but she knew it; would never in her life forget the spellbinding timbre of that preaching. The words said nothing. It was the sound: coaxing and commanding, a caress and then a sudden shout, telling tales of sin and redemption and the glory of God and Jamie Chilton.
It was everything she hated and feared, and it was coming for her.
God. Dear God. Once she would have been glad enough to die, if she could take Chilton with her. Now she wasn’t, now she wanted to live, and it made her mind stupid with terror.
Seigneur, she begged silently, and squeezed her eyes shut beneath the blindfold, caught between hysterical laughter and tears. Seigneur, Seigneur… now I need you.
S.T. saw the lights before he got there: up to the right, the flicker of torches through tree branches, high at the end of the street where Silvering overlooked the town. Almost, he ran—but ingrained years of stealth won out. He’d left Nemo out on the moor, bidding the injured wolf stay where he’d found it. Now he tied Sirocco and kept to the darkest side of the street, his hand on his sword hilt to silence it as he moved.
The lights seemed to coalesce and grow as he neared. By the time he came to the end of the trees, Chilton’s bellowing sounded loud and incoherent, and the whole facade of Silvering danced with the pale coral glow from a small bonfire just inside the open gate. The pediment and cornices stood out in lurid relief, the shadows swaying as if the house were alive.
A group of people clustered around the fire and on the stairs, silhouetted by the rising flames. S.T. estimated a score or more, most of them men. The women stood at the outer edge. As he watched, one of the females moved slowly backward to the limits of the firelight, and then turned and slipped away.
Good for you, chérie, he thought.
Something made a noise in the dark close by. S.T. gripped his sword, scanning the area. Just ahead of him, a lone figure stood beneath the trees, well away from the others, watching.
Luton.
S.T. unclipped his cloak and took off his hat, tucking up the cuffs of his shirt to hide the lace. Then he pulled off his cravat and turned down his collar; so as to look as unprincely as possible. He stuffed his neck cloth in his pocket, feeling the cold air on his throat, and walked up to the single figure in the shadows.
“’Evening,” he murmured, attempting cordiality with his blood pounding in his temple. “What’s ado?”
Luton jumped a foot, turning to S.T. with a wild look. “For God’s sake—Maitland! What the devil—what are you doing here?”
S.T. shrugged. “Curiosity.” He looked sideways at the other man with a faint smile. “Am I too late for the festivities?”
Luton just stared at him, scowling beneath the peaked wig.
“I meant to follow you earlier,” S.T. said, “but—ah—one of the girls detained me.”
The instant he said it, he regretted the words. Luton might have spoken of the inn to Chilton; the aristocrat might know where Dove and Harmony had come from and how they’d left Heavenly Sanctuary. From there it was but a short step of reason to connecting Mr. Bartlett and S.T. Maitland to the masked Prince of Midnight. ’Twas short enough anyway: S.T. stayed alert and on guard for any attack.
But Luton only said, “We’ve had some trouble tonight.”
“Ah? Pity.” S.T. looked up toward the small bonfire. “What the devil’s that fellow caterwauling about?”
Luton made a sharp, disgusted move with his hand. “He’s gone mad. I tried to reason with him, but he’s lost his bloody mind.”
“Sounds it, I must say.”
“We’d a visit from your highwayman.” Luton looked at S.T. again. “Did you know who it was? That cocky French dog, the one they call Seigneur du Minuit. Fair drove Chilton berserk. Fancies it a personal attack. Tried to tell him more likely it was myself—that damned Robin Hood must have got wind of things, but there was no talking sense to him.” He turned back toward Chilton as the preacher’s voice rose to a screech. “He’s positively foaming at the mouth, I tell you. Never seen a man actually do that.”
“So the amusement’s called off, is it?”
“Oh, ’tis off. All off.” Luton curled his lip. “But I’ve something left to do here.”
S.T. was silent a moment. Chilton’s crazy voice echoed in the street. As the two of them stood there, another girl stole away, hurrying past them with her cowl pulled around her face. S.T. looked back at Luton, and found the man watching him narrowly.
He brazened it out. “What’s he doing up there?”
“God only knows.” Luton grunted. “Keeps roaring on about burning the witch, but there’s some of them don’t seem to have the stomach for it.”
“Witch?” S.T. controlled his voice, keeping it steady, not too loud. “They’ve caught a witch?”
“So Chilton seems to think.”
“Where is she?” S.T. asked casually.
Luton shrugged. “In the house, perhaps.” He pulled at his lip. “What are game for, Maitland? Why’d you follow me here?”
S.T. smiled. “Sport.”
Luton fingered his sword hilt. “I can give you sport. I mean to silence that raving maggot before he talks too much abroad.”
“He does grate somewhat on the sensitive ear.”
“I’ll not chance his preaching my name wherever he might please. He could ruin me, and others besides.” Luton drew his sword. “I wouldn’t put anything past him now, him and this lot. They’re maniacs. Dangerous. All of ’em. Do you see they’ve got pikes? ’Tis only the most fanatical left now. The others have all bolted.”
S.T. moved his hand toward his sword hilt. Luton glanced down, following the motion.
The basket hilt of the broadsword gleamed in swirling bars of metal: unique and memorable, its uncommon beauty obvious even in the dancing light.
Luton’s face froze in recognition.
“Bastard!” He stared up at S.T. “You lying bastard—you’re him!”
S.T. jerked the sword free, just in time to swing it up into a desperate parry against Luton’s instant attack. The metal clashed. Luton disengaged and came back furiously. S.T. could barely see his opponent’s rapier in the dim light, but the broadsword was l
Luton was fast and angry, closing and closing again in spite of the broadsword’s advantage of length. “I’ll kill you, you lying snake! Interfere, will you?” he panted. “I’ll kill you for it—you and that madman both!”
S.T. countered the attack silently, pulling his stiletto from beneath his coat to use in his left hand. He lunged and parried, saw an opening in Luton’s overbalanced stance, and made a thrust that pinked his ribs. Luton flinched and sucked in his breath, renewing his onslaught with an angry grunt.
With a rapier and a little more light, S.T. could have disabled the man in three strokes. Luton was an adequate swordsman, no better than average and breathing heavily already, but S.T. could not see the other blade. He had to fight by instinct, by watching the pale bob of Luton’s cuff and extrapolating the motion into a thirty-inch sword. It caught him once, a blaze of pain as the point sank into his upper thigh.
He stepped into the bur, the way he’d learned a thousand years ago in a hot and dusty yard in Florence: facing the best with unprotected blades, under a master who had no patience with weakness. A yelp and a disengagement had earned a beating then; now it would earn destruction. S.T. caught Luton’s rapier on his hilt and drove it upward with all his strength, attacking when retreat was expected, throwing Luton’s arm in the air with the force. As Luton lunged forward to regain his position, S.T. met the whizzing rapier with the cutting edge of the broadsword, both weapons colliding with the full violence of their momentum.
The jar went through his hand to his shoulder. The rapier snapped like bone against the heavier sword.
Luton gave a howl of fury. He flung the broken weapon aside. S.T. heard it clatter on the street, but he wasn’t concerned with Luton any longer.
Something had happened at the mansion. People ran out the front door, carrying torches and throwing them on the bonfire. As S.T. stared, a flaming glow rose at two of the windows—inside—and Chilton appeared at the open door, holding two flaring torches in his hands. He was bellowing of persecution, backlit by interior flames. Smoke began to creep in dark blurry fingers above him, out of the top of the door, crawling up the luminous facade.