The King Slayer Part 10

I wish I could deny it, but I can't: Every word he says is true. I told Chime, and I struck a deal with her father, and now John is to be arrested and charged and thrown in prison. And there he will stay. He will not go to war, he will not fight, he will not try to kill Blackwell, he will not be forced to give up his stigma and be killed himself. He will be safe. And he will hate me.

That was the other, unspoken part of the deal.

John and I continue to stare at each other-him in anger and betrayal, me in grief and agony-as the guard continues speaking.

"According to the laws of Harrow, possession of any one of these materials carries a mandatory punishment of a year in prison."

There's a rustle and a collective murmuring as Peter appears, pus.h.i.+ng between the tables in the tent. "Now see here!" He steps between John and the guards. "You cannot arrest my son. He's a healer. The things he had, he used them to cure, not to harm. To put him away for a year-"

"Four years," the guard corrects. "He was in possession of four poisons. Per the rules of the council, that's a term of four years."

He takes John's arm; John yanks it away. Turns back to me, fury turning his hazel eyes nearly black. It's not the same look he gave me when I lay on the table before him all those months ago, injured and bleeding, when he found out I was a witch hunter, when he made the decision whether he was going to save me or let me die. No, it's not the same.

The look he gives me now is worse.

"You cannot do this." Peter lunges for the guard and with a flick of his wrist disarms him in an instant. He points the sword into the guard's chest. "You will not take my son."

"Unless you'd like to find yourself in a cell in Hexham beside him, you'll lower your weapon," the guard says.

"It's your weapon, you idiot," Peter mutters.

"We're to escort Mr. Raleigh to Hexham prison, where he will officially receive his sentence and be given the opportunity to enter in a defense, if he wishes."

"He'll enter a defense," Peter snarls. "And I daresay you'll be needing to enter one before this is all over."

"Father." John turns to him. "Let's go. The sooner we get there, the sooner I can be back. This is all a mistake." One final glance at me. "Nothing but a mistake."

The guards reach for John again; this time he lets them. They clamp his wrists in iron bindings and escort him through the mess tent and across the field, Peter at his heels. John's friends, the girls at the end of the table, everyone in the tent, they all turn to watch them go. And when John pa.s.ses out of sight they all look back to me, some with anger, some with confusion, some with bright, greedy eyes as if the scandal unfolding before them were their dessert, sorely missing.

I grab my trencher, and John's. Step through the aisles and the people who don't give way for me, forcing me to push through them so they can push back, vaguely threatening.

At the entrance I glance over my shoulder, just once, and see her. Chime. She's surrounded by her friends, now aflutter with whispers and gasps and poorly concealed smiles. But Chime's face is unhappy, and it, unlike Bram's, is not pitying. She holds my gaze and for a moment, we are united in shared misery.

I step from the mess tent and make my way to the adjoining kitchen tent, where a group of women huddle around vats of water, was.h.i.+ng up. I drop the trenchers in the pile at their feet and make my way across the field. I don't know where I'm going, not really, but I find myself pus.h.i.+ng through the rapidly darkening sky and into the yew alley, making my way up to Rochester Hall, retracing the steps I took a week ago, following John into the solar.

I don't go there; I'm not allowed into the west wing of the house-no one is, save for council members and Fitzroy's friends, family, and, of course, John. But Fitzroy opened the east wing and a few of its many rooms up to the camp: the library, the music room, the chapel, the dance hall. The library and chapel get much use; the music room and dance hall do not.

The guard posted at one of the doors that lead inside moves to let me pa.s.s. Like the rest of Rochester, the east wing is lovely, if not a bit gaudy. Walls covered in rich yellow brocade. Black-and-white-tiled floor covered in an expansive, deep-blue-and-red carpet. Gold chandeliers, dripping with crystal, hang from arched ceilings. There are even suits of armor mounted on ledges set high upon the walls.

I pa.s.s room after room but enter none of them. Not the library with its spiraling towers of books; not the frescoed and gilded dance hall, so like the great hall at Greenwich Tower where the masque was held; not the music room, empty save for a girl and boy who stand entwined in a darkened corner. They all remind me of John.

The last room I try is the chapel; I know it by the yellow cross etched into the stained gla.s.s door. I push it open. Marble floors, oak pews; a constellation of stars painted on the ceiling against a midnight-blue backdrop. A thousand candles, set in brackets along the walls, spring to life, magically alerted to my presence.

I crawl into an empty pew-they're all empty-and draw my knees to my chest, wrap my arms around myself, rest my head. I don't cry; it seems too insignificant, too selfish for what I've done. And I had to do it. But it doesn't mean I'm not sorry for it, and it doesn't make it any easier to bear.

There's a rustle then, the whisper of a door on its hinges, the soft sound of two sets of footsteps on the threshold but only one breath. I tilt my head to see Fifer standing there, Schuyler behind her.

She slides in beside me, saying nothing. She doesn't have to. Because after a moment, she moves closer, reaches for my hand, then drops her head on my shoulder, sighing deeply. Schuyler sits on my other side. He cups the back of my head, just briefly, before leaning forward, head bowed, his forearms resting on the seat back in front of him.

We sit together, a silent trio of misery, until the last of the candles burns out and there's nothing left but darkness.

"WE'VE COME TO SEE JOHN RALEIGH."

Fifer and I stand before the entrance of Hexham. She tells me it was once a stable before being converted into a prison: long and low and built from stone, inset with squared windows and rounded doors. The only sign there are criminals inside is the high wall that surrounds it. Even so, it's not like Fleet: not meant for torture, or a place for holding until a death sentence is carried out. I winced when I saw a platform in the yard, but Fifer a.s.sured me it wasn't for executions but a holdover from auctions, selling off animals to merchants. There's no one dangerous here. Most of the prisoners are debtors, the occasional petty thief or miscreant, a drunk or two.

And a healer who did nothing except make the terrible mistake of getting involved with a witch hunter.

The guard, armed and dressed in black, that red-and-orange Reformist badge emblazoned on his chest, glances between us.

"I can only permit one visitor at a time."

"You go," Fifer tells me. "I'll wait for you here."

My stomach squirms with dread. The guard checks me for weapons; I have none. Then he unearths a key and unlocks the gate, the creaking hinges echoing across the courtyard. He leads me inside, into the wide, empty corridor, light spilling in through unbarred windows. But for all that it is unlike Fleet, it still smells the same: mold and moisture, anger and abandonment.

We wind up a flight of stairs then down another hall. There's no sound of death here, no bodies bruised and battered and dying in the corner. But it is cold, several of the windows open wide to the frigid winter air. And, as most prisoners in Hexham serve short sentences for their relatively minor crimes, Fifer says it's entirely empty.

Not entirely.

The guard leads me past cell after cell until we reach one at the end, the barred door closed and firmly locked. Inside, on a cot pushed against the wall, is John.

He's sitting with his back to the wall, his boot heels on the edge of the mattress, arms draped over his knees, head down. He's dressed in gray trousers and a long gray cloak, the hood pulled over his head to keep away the chill.

He heard us coming, he must have; it's deathly quiet and there's no one around but for us. Still, he doesn't even look up. Not even when the guard clears his throat: Once, twice. Finally, the guard speaks.

"You have a visitor."

John looks up then. But not at me, at the guard. He still says nothing.

The guard clears his throat again. "You have twenty minutes."

John mutters something under his breath I don't hear. The guard walks away, back down the hall and the stairs, the same way we came, leaving us alone.

"How are you?" I say, awkward.

A scoff. That's his only reply.

"I wanted to see you," I continue. "Talk to you. And to bring you these." I open the bag slung across my shoulder, pull out a pair of books: Physika Kai Mystika and Monas Hieroglyphica. Both alchemy texts I borrowed from the vast library at Rochester Hall.

"I don't want to see you, and I don't want to talk to you. You had me arrested," John says. "Don't bother telling me you didn't. You went through my stores in my bedroom and you saw them, and you turned me in. It was you."

"Yes," I confess. "I did have you arrested. But I did it to help you. I know you don't see that now. I only want to help you."

He fires off one obscenity, then another.

"The books, I think they will help you, too," I go on. "To remember your magic, the magic you were born with. Gifted with." I use Nicholas's words not to manipulate him, but to remind him. "You're not yourself right now. I know you don't see that, either, but we do. Your father. Fifer. Schuyler. Even Chime." He frowns a little at the mention of her name. "This isn't the John I know."

"You don't know who I am," he says. "You don't know me at all."

"That's not true." I lean forward, touch my forehead to the bars. "I do know you. At least, I did."

I think of the stack of notes he wrote me. Every last one I have with me, tucked carefully into my bag. Notes I've read and reread a hundred times, for the comfort I needed when he was no longer there to give it to me, and to prove to myself that what we had wasn't just something I imagined.

"Blackwell's magic. The stigma. It's part of you now." I tell him what Nicholas told me. "It will take you over, if you let it. It is taking over." I squeeze the bars to steady myself. "But I want you to fight it. I want you to use the time in here to try to remember who you are."

John charges across the cell then, so fast I don't have time to react. He reaches through the bars and s.n.a.t.c.hes my wrists, gripping them hard.

"Do you know what you've done?" He gives me a little shake. "Do you have any idea?"

"Yes!" I try to pull away but his grasp is too strong. "I know exactly what I've done. I've kept you from harm. I've kept you from harming others. I've kept people from learning your secret, and from discovering mine. I've saved your life, again, only you're too far gone to see it."

"It's not your right to do that," he shouts back. "Don't you get it? You aren't my mother. You aren't my sister. And you sure as h.e.l.l aren't my friend." His eyes narrow into cruel, hard slits. "You don't get to say what happens to me."

I close my eyes, just for a moment. Try to remember his breath on my cheek, his lips on mine, the warmth and the love he once felt for me. But even those memories are slipping away now, insubstantial as a ghost.

"You aren't who I thought you were," he continues. "The girl I thought I knew, she would have been pleased for me. She would have helped me to fight. Not shut me away in a cage as if I were an animal she was trying to tame."

That's not what I did, I want to say. Only I don't, because it is exactly what I did.

"I did it because I care about you," I say instead. It's more than that, so much more. But the words that should be said in private, in whispers and in love, don't belong here.

"Funny things happen to the people you claim to care about," he says, the words cruel and sharp and cutting deep. "You cared about Caleb, yet you killed him. I suppose I got off easy, didn't I?"

I jerk away from him, flinching as if he'd struck me. He doesn't try to hold me back.

"How dare you throw Caleb in my face," I say, my shock turning quickly to anger. "You know what happened that night. You were there. You know I didn't mean to kill him."

John shrugs, utterly careless. "You had me thrown in jail for no reason. You've lost the right to be indignant. And now, I want you out. The sooner you leave the sooner I can put this behind me. Whatever the h.e.l.l it was." He lunges for the door again, and again, I flinch. But he only bangs the heel of his hand against the bars.

"Guard!"

The man arrives quickly, too quickly. No doubt he's been lingering at the top of the stairs, listening to every word we've said.

"Get her out of here. And make sure she never comes back." He turns his back on me.

"John," I start. But then I stop. I won't plead for him. I won't make him take back the words he said to me. I won't make him turn back and tell me he didn't mean them. I love you, I say. Only it comes out as "Good-bye."

Fifer waits for me at the entrance. She's pacing back and forth, gnawing a fingernail. At the clank of the key in the door she stops midstride and rushes over.

"How did it go?" She tosses the guard a nasty look before taking my arm and pulling me across Hexham's empty courtyard, toward the gate.

"He told me to leave," I say. "He said he never wanted to see me again." My voice cracks as his words, the reality and the finality of them, sink in.

"Elizabeth-"

"Don't," I say. "Don't tell me he's not himself. He is. This is who he is now."

"That is what I was going to say," Fifer replies. "But better this way and alive than any other way and dead."

We step through the prison's open gate and onto the narrow dirt road that leads north to Gallion's Reach, past Whetstone, and, beyond that, Rochester. It's desolate here, nothing but frozen fields decorated by clumps of barren trees, fences, and the occasional lone farmhouse, their chimneys sending up fat, erratic plumes of smoke as if they were distress signals.

A mile or so on I catch sight of a group of a half-dozen men standing a few hundred feet off the road. They're members of the Watch; I recognize their gray cloaks, that aggressive orange triangle on the lapel. I can't see who they are, though, not from this distance. But I can see they're having trouble with what looks like prisoners they've captured.

Two men in gray hold up a third man in black. By the way his head hangs limp and his feet drag along the ground, he looks to be unconscious, possibly dead. Two more men in gray are wrestling with yet another man in black. He's not unconscious, but he's well on his way-he stumbles, falls to his knees, gets up, stumbles again. Their grunts and expletives cut through the still, frigid air.

Fifer and I exchange a rapid glance.

"More of Blackwell's men," Fifer says. "And look. Is that Peter?" She points to a dark, curly-haired man in gray, dragging the still-conscious captive across the field.

"Yes." I step off the path into the gra.s.s, making my way toward them.

"Wait." Fifer s.n.a.t.c.hes at my sleeve. "I don't think we should go over there. It could be dangerous."

I shake her off and don't reply. I'm too busy watching the man Peter is holding. He's got manacles clamped around his wrists and ankles, and he's been beaten, badly. His movements are jerky, erratic, and as he falls to his knees once again, he groans and coughs out a mouthful of blood.

He's one of Blackwell's men, that much is clear. I know by his familiar black cloak and the emblem on the front-that d.a.m.ned red rose, strangled by its stem and pierced with a green-hilted blade. But there's something else that's familiar, too. The way he moves, the sound of his voice, the way his dark hair falls across his forehead. Something stirs in my chest then: dread and a dawning recognition.

Peter shoves the man to the ground; he hits the dirt with a groan. Peter then reaches for his sword, the sing of the blade against the scabbard echoing across the barren field. As if in response, a flock of birds takes flight nearby, screaming their retreat into the dull gray sky.

I break away from Fifer. Move across the frozen gra.s.s, picking up speed as I go. Peter grabs a fistful of the man's hair and yanks him to his knees, the other men of the Watch urging their approval. Peter grips his sword in two hands, swinging it high above his head. The man before him tries to hold himself steady. But even from here I can see him trembling, his body swaying like a stalk of wheat in the wind.

It's Malcolm. The king-former king-of Anglia.

"Peter." His name comes out a choked whisper. I try again, louder, my footsteps pounding to the beat of my heart as I run across the field. "Peter, stop!"

But Peter doesn't hear me. He's too entrenched in the violence of what he's about to do, too caught up in bloodl.u.s.t, too caught up in the justice he's about to mete out. I scream his name again.

"Elizabeth, stay back." Peter lifts one hand from his sword, holds it out in warning. The other men see me sprinting across the field, Fifer on my heels. Some of them draw their own weapons, unsure of me, of what I'm going to do.

"Don't!" I shriek. But my plea is ignored as Peter turns from me, places both hands on his sword again, and turns back to Malcolm.

Malcolm shuts his eyes.

Peter raises the blade.

And he swings.

I LEAP IN FRONT OF PETER, pus.h.i.+ng Malcolm out of the way. Malcolm's not expecting it; he lets out a grunt and we both hit the frozen ground with a m.u.f.fled thud. I feel the blade swish the air above my head, the hair on my neck p.r.i.c.kling at the near miss.

Somewhere behind me, Fifer shrieks.

Malcolm utters something then; I can't make it out. But the sound of his breathless voice brings back a thousand memories and they all come flooding in along with a thousand other sensations: the feel of him beside me, lean and strong. The smell of him, a curious mixture of soap and fir trees, now mingled with the sharp metallic tang of blood. The sight of his dark, rumpled hair, his hands, his neck, and his unshaven face fills me with repulsion, just as it's always done. But just as I've always done, I push the feeling away, and I stay by his side. I'm afraid of what will happen if I don't.

"By G.o.d and his mother!" Peter bellows. "What the devil are you doing?"

"You can't kill him." I disentangle myself from Malcolm and climb to my feet. "He's not who you think he is." I look around at them, at the men advancing on me. At Peter looming before me, his cutla.s.s poised like an ax, ready to strike.

Malcolm turns his head toward me: slowly, as if he's afraid to call attention to the fact that it's still attached to his body. Finally, he sees me. At once his eyes go wide, pale gray and bloodshot and wild.