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The woman gave a small shake.
‘Does. She. Know?’
‘I don’t know how she found you. I never wanted her to find you. I never wanted my child to be yours. You don’t deserve—’ She gasped for breath. Slumped. Her eyes closed. He watched her chest still for a moment before beginning again. When she opened her eyes, they were mere slits.
She couldn’t finish her words, but he understood all the same. That she didn’t want him to discover the child, that he didn’t deserve her.
How would she know he deserved no one? Who told her who his family was? Whoever it was had to die as well. ‘Who are you?’
‘Handmaiden,’ she whispered.
To the Queen. She was as high born as possible without being a ruler herself. He knew she must have some noble blood, had figured her for an unwanted bastard. But she had been more. She had been one of the influential ones and she had fallen to this?
More importantly, if she was close to the Queen, she knew his family. Knew his wealth, his power, knew everything.
He grabbed the gown of the servant, who jerked awake. Her eyes, registering his presence, widened before she fought him. ‘Cease!’ he ordered.
She clawed at his hands, kicked. Laughed. ‘Hit me, did you? You’ll pay for that.’
He dragged her to the iron railing. ‘I’ll pay for nothing.’
‘Cilla,’ the noblewoman whispered.
He grasped her hands to tie the ripped silk curtain around her wrists.
‘You’ll pay,’ Cilla sneered. ‘You’ll pay or your daughter will never be safe from—’
The slice across the servant’s neck was clean, precise. A mere splattering of her blood and it was over. His hand holding the dagger remained steady as he wiped the blood off with the servant’s gown.
The woman on the bench was silent, but Reynold felt her shocked eyes on him. Knew the child was awake and watching him as well.
‘You knew all along who I was,’ he said, sheathing the dagger and standing to his full height. His eyes stayed only on the corpse at his feet as a familiar weariness overtook him. He was so tired of killing.
‘I...’ she said. He swung his gaze to hers. They widened in fear as they should. He didn’t care what she saw in his eyes. She wouldn’t live long enough to tell.
‘I saw...you at court,’ she said, licking her lips. ‘Then in the carriage.’
No one had told her who he was...and she had told no one who he was. Even as she carried his child. While she couldn’t earn coin, while she grew sick. A hint to his family and that child, squashed between her rotting body and the mouldy bench, would have been used against him.
Everyone was alive, so he knew she had told no one of this child because she didn’t want anyone to know it was... It was—
Two steps over and he snatched the child. No cries, no sounds. Was it mute? Was it deaf? It was aware, as he was in that moment. Dim light, but enough to see what he thought he never would. Grey eyes. Black hair. A girl by all accounts. But his.
His.
An almost keening sound burst from deep in his chest. One he barely held in check. But the emotion was there and it flooded him, made his knees weak and he locked them tight. If he fell.... Below his feet was the blood of sickness and human waste.
His child wouldn’t touch any of this. Shouldn’t be touching him, but he couldn’t let her go. Now that he held her, now that he knew the truth. That hope, that longing, coiled around his blackened heart. Everything within him changed.
His.
This child...this child was vulnerable. To him, to the elements, to his family. To the sickness saturated into the air they breathed.
‘Foolish woman!’
He could kill her for risking his life, for risking his child’s. Was his reputation so horrific she thought this was better?
The answer was obvious. Of course she did—and perhaps she was right. Death was here, but it was an honest one. He hadn’t been honest since he was a babe. All softer emotions were wrenched from him. They had been replaced with survival, and tricks, and games and weapons a long time ago.
‘What is her name?’
Brows drawn in. ‘You...are different.’
Over several years, he’d threatened many, killed more than that. Relished his brother’s murder by another’s hand. Black deeds left scars visible to all.
‘You...wanted to spare her.’
The servant. ‘A ridiculous lie,’ he lied.
‘You want to keep...’ a harsh breath ‘...the name I gave her. Different. You never asked for mine. It’s Grace,’ she whispered.
For the first time, he looked at the child he held. Grey eyes absorbing him. No greed, no cruelty. Nothing of his life or her mother’s affecting her. Yet she watched him. Watched him. Grace. Yes, the name was hers.
‘I’ll send a healer,’ he said, having no intention of returning.
The woman released a defeated sound. It was as grief stricken as the sounds he heard before she knew he was here. Before she knew he’d come to take the child.
‘No,’ she said, one hand raised to stop him. ‘Take me.’
A rustling and she pushed the blankets covering her to the floor.
He was accosted by the sight, by the smell. This was the decay, not the house or the chamber pot or the bloody coughs. The decay was her flesh decomposing while she still lived.
She wanted him to kill her. Before he could check himself, he glanced at the servant.
Her eyes widened as she took in his hesitancy. ‘You...can’t?’
Of course he could. He needed to. It was...the child. He didn’t want to kill in front of her.
‘You’d let me suffer?’
Legs, shredded. Mere holes to her bones. She was no more than a corpse still alive. And she was in so much pain. Why was he caring?
‘No one,’ she repeated, ‘can save me.’
No. No, they couldn’t.
‘I need you to kill me. What will you tell her? That you let me die...in agony?’
For the first time in years, Reynold’s heart sped in indecision. For once, he felt torn between what he should do and what he wanted to do.
He had hesitated killing the servant. He didn’t want to kill this child’s mother. Both were necessary if he wanted to truly protect himself and Grace from his family’s revenge.
‘You have Grace. Now do what—’ a wheezing breath ‘—you came to do.’
Keeping a child wasn’t what he came to do. Cleverly constructed life, carefully planned so his game could be played out.
‘I came to kill you, the servant and the babe.’ He said the words, but there was no heat in them.
‘You won’t kill her,’ she wheezed again. ‘You know...her name. Kill me.’
Grace. The name fit, just as the child fit in his arms. His child. Setting her on a broken chair, away from the rags, far from the spilled refuse. As far away from the stench of decay, from the heap of a crumpled corpse, from the death of her mother.
A child. So young. And though they’d just met, he hadn’t protected her from the darkest parts of his life, from the stench of avarice, greed, fear.
Grace had watched it with her grey eyes. Absorbed it as she would his final act of the night. The act of taking her away from the mother who loved her.
That soft expression, that comforting hand on her bared head and the sobbing from before when she thought her child gone forever. This woman loved her child enough to protect her against him.
He straightened and took the few steps to the bench. Loomed over her as Death with a scythe. This woman, this stranger, laid still. No flinching to flee, no cries of mercy or coughing because her battered soul and body knew their suffering was about to end.
There were no more words to say. There were no answers and the longer the child was in this house, the more chance for her to fall ill. For him as well.
He held the blade up so the glint of the waning moonlight through the windows played with it; so she’d know his purpose. She kept her eyes on him, bent her neck to give him access. To make the blade cut cleaner, more swiftly. This way, if he chose, he could make it painless.
His hand trembled.
The woman’s eyes flashed with alarm, hatred. ‘Do it!’
He adjusted his grip.
‘I intended to keep her from you,’ she panted. ‘Denied forever. Your child. Denied her. Grace.’
His body changed. He had the child, vulnerable, exposed to his family, to the elements. To this woman who couldn’t care for her. But for a greedy servant, he’d never have known she existed. A child. His. A family he wanted and she had meant to keep from him. Hatred coursed and burned in his veins. Familiar. Needed. His hand steadied. Seething rage. Unfettered malevolence and he let this noblewoman see it all.
‘You monster.’ She spat blood. Her head lolled to the side. Her eyes full of anger, of relief, closed. She’d asked for mercy and he gave her death.
‘Yes, yes, I am.’ He raised the knife and held.
The woman before him was already dead.
Chapter Four (#u72a54595-01f8-5158-94d4-7601fb1ba97c)
One stroll through the marketplace and it was all too easy to discover the baker whose loaves were stolen. Gabriel picked his place well if he wanted to escape with four loaves. It was in the busiest part of the market and one of the more luxurious stalls with actual shelves carved like animals. The loaves of bread left were golden, baked from the finest of flours and artfully displayed. The baker’s design was clear though the morning light was dim.
She’d walked past this particular stall many times to smell the honey used in each loaf. Never, ever would she had thought to be in possession of them or how the loaves must have smelled to a starving child.
Why hadn’t Gabriel taken from one of the smaller venders where she stood a chance to negotiate? There would be no negotiating here.
Not with the crowd forming or with the owner waving the loaves. Not with his words describing Gabriel to the watch guards, who even now pointed in different directions.
Gabriel had stolen the fresh loaves while they were being unloaded from cart to stall when it was dark. But it had taken too long to travel from the bridge and now the day was dawning. Early patrons were there and they adored a spectacle as much as fresh bread. Gabriel could never scamper through the market again and they had months to go before the worst of the weather changed.
If caught, he wouldn’t survive again. He’d already lost an ear and, though it was unusual, his hearing in that ear as well. To lose another and possibly never hear anything? She couldn’t suffer it.
It was up to her to make amends. Once she was out of the shadows, the baker would notice his loaves and so would the guards. If they didn’t accept her apology and offer of free work, she’d be sent to gaol, to the gallows, could lose her ear or hand. Any of those scenarios were unacceptable. She had three people depending on her now. She made a promise to return.
However, if she didn’t return the loaves they’d search for Gabriel. He couldn’t hide forever. With one ear missing, he was unmistakable. And since he was a known thief his punishment would be worse.
A child’s future or hers?
There wasn’t a question.
She stepped out of the building’s shadows.
A few hours to return to the house and for Reynold to notify the most loyal of mercenaries of what must be done with the bodies.
By the time morning arrived Reynold was back to staring out of the window at the top of the building. Everything was as it had been before the servant approached him. Everything except the child who slept in his arms. Both of them needed washing. But not yet. Much time had gone by since he left in the late evening and nothing now could be left to chance.
He had to think. To plan, to add another factor to his games. Perhaps the most important one and he was already pressed for time. Time was his only true enemy. Not because of his death. That was a certainty since he’d been born to a father who had killed his brother. Since his own brothers intended to kill him.
Time was his enemy because his plan depended on it. Assignations. Manipulations. Hiding, concealing, enquiring after legends. All these matters required time, a schedule, which was why he hid in one home after another. Always hiding while he played his games. He was close to securing victory over his family this last year when an Englishman bungled the capture of the treasure, the Jewel of Kings, a legend much like Excalibur. Except the gem was real and his family wanted it very much.
He thought the Englishman a clever foe, but he was only a fool. A dead fool when he was found by his family. And so he remained ahead in the game, for only he knew the legend’s true worth. Only he kept track of all the players in the game so he kept his advantage.
Until then the child, Grace, could not exist. This child was his, he did not want to let her go, yet he could not claim her. To claim her would spell her death. At least outside the walls of his home, he needed an alternative to him. Dark hair, grey eyes. Every feature of a Warstone and some that were his own.
Had he been this quiet at her age? He couldn’t remember. She hadn’t clung to her mother, to Cilla. She hadn’t cried out. Just kept those eyes open, absorbing everything. Depending on no one, observing all.
‘You like the shadows, too, my girl? You like to watch. So do I.’ How many times had he stood in darkened hallways and around shadowed corners? As a boy for protection, to wait and see if the room was clear and safe, and later to listen to private conversations.
But she was only a child. His child. A liability. A gift. His greatest weakness. His mind never found problems, but for once he could think of no solutions.
A commotion in the marketplace caught his eye. The baker, Ido, was making a fuss again. The man thought his loaves of bread were sanctified by God. They were good, but not divine. He knew of one baker in a village south-east of Paris, where the loaves were superior.
A large crowd was forming. This was more than Ido being cross over an opinion of his bread, much more than being shortchanged coin. A brute of a watch guard clenched the arm of a thin black-haired woman. In front of them, Ido was brandishing two loaves at her as if they were weapons. The woman was pulling, trying to get away. A theft.
Commonplace, barely worth his notice. But he knew immediately, incredibly, what it was: a solution.
With rapid strides, he swung the door to his room open and gave the guards outside precise instructions and his bag of coin.
‘Let me go!’ Aliette yanked her arm to ease the manacled grip of the guard who held it. After her feeble attempts he tightened it. She’d been concerned with bruises, now she was terrified he’d tear her arm away.
It had been years since she’d been caught. It had hurt then, too. But when she left the shadows and approached the stall, her attention had been on the baker. The guard had caught her by surprise. A deadly mistake.
‘I’ve returned the loaves,’ she said.
‘Ruined!’ The baker hoisted the loaves over his head and made a slow turn. It was a gesture for the growing crowd. ‘I can’t feed these to pigs now!’
