The Dark Knight

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?”