The Traitor's Blade, Kevin Sands [fiction novels to read txt] 📗

“Fire! Fire!” someone shouted, and a chorus took up the echo.

“Water!” Lord Ashcombe commanded his men, and they ran to help the residents.

Niall Ramsay’s house was gone. The entire face was blown away, chunks of pink brick littering the street. The back wall and part of the left side were still standing. Everything else was rubble.

The neighboring houses had taken the brunt of the blast. On the east, the whole side of the home next door had crumbled. The house to the west was pockmarked where the brick had peppered it, the roof starting to burn at the edge. Across the way looked the same, all the windows shattered.

Tom began tearing at the rubble, looking for injured, hoping to find survivors. I helped, grabbing the smaller bricks, while neighbors poured water over the flames, then ran back into their homes to refill their buckets from whatever stores they had. Others sprinted toward the closest wells, the King’s Men alongside to assist.

An old woman staggered from the house on the right, dazed and bleeding from her temple. Tom hurried to help, leaving the wreckage behind. I would have followed, but a croaking voice stopped me.

“Christopher.”

A man crawled through the rubble. He was burned so badly that he barely looked human. I ran to him, hoping I could help, and in the chaos and confusion, it took me a moment to realize he’d called me by name.

He looked up at me, one eye stuck shut.

“Christopher,” he said again.

This time, I made out the Scottish accent. And I realized who it was.

Domhnall Ardrey, Baron of Oxton. Covenanter.

Traitor.

I turned to call for Lord Ashcombe.

“Wait,” Ardrey croaked. “I am not… your enemy.”

The tone in his voice—desperate—stopped me.

I crouched beside him. “You tried to murder the king.”

“No. Not… us. I am… a friend.”

What was that supposed to mean? “You’re a Covenanter.” I paused. “Aren’t you?”

He tried to answer but fell into a coughing fit. Finally, he just shook his head.

I frowned. If he wasn’t a Covenanter… “Who are you?”

He looked me in the eye. “You have… a coin.”

It took a moment for me to realize what he meant.

Then my stomach fell.

“You’re a Templar,” I whispered.

He nodded.

I knelt beside him. He was so terribly burned. “What happened here?”

He gasped for breath. “Knocked out… tied up. All… my brothers.”

He motioned weakly behind him. There I saw a charred, knotted rope. It had burned enough to let the man free.

“This was… our chapter house,” Ardrey said. “Brothers… gone. Templars… in London… finished. Betrayed.”

Someone had betrayed the Templars. They’d tied them up and left them here to die in the explosion. It was a miracle Ardrey had even survived.

I was more confused than ever. “I found a letter,” I said. “It claimed you were part of the plot to kill the king.”

“Not… real. Lies.”

“Then you helped save His Majesty,” I said quietly. “I worked out your final puzzle.”

He looked at me oddly. “What… puzzle?”

“In the Templar letters. The four you sent me.”

He shook his head. “Not… us. We sent you… nothing.”

I sat there, stunned, as the world spun around me.

The Templars… hadn’t sent the letters?

But then… who…?

All the blood drained from my face.

Because I knew who had sent the letters. I knew.

I’d been tricked right from the start.

A charred hand grabbed my wrist. “Your… enemy. You must… find… the priest.”

“What priest?” I said. “Do you mean Father Bernard? He left Paris before we did. I don’t know where he’s gone.”

“Find… the priest!” the man gasped.

Then Domhnall Ardrey, last of the London Knights Templar, died in my arms.

CHAPTER

52

BOOTS CRUNCHED THROUGH THE RUBBLE, approaching from behind.

“So,” Lord Ashcombe said. “You found the traitor.”

“He wasn’t a traitor,” I said quietly.

Lord Ashcombe frowned. “Explain.”

“Ardrey told me so.”

“The easiest thing in the world, to claim innocence.”

Lord Ashcombe turned to go. I had to keep the Templars’ secret; I knew that. But I couldn’t let this man take the blame for treason.

“Look at his wrists.”

Lord Ashcombe regarded me a moment. Then he bent down to examine the body.

“Ardrey was caught in the explosion,” I said. “He’s completely burned—except for one spot: his wrists. They weren’t burned, because they were protected. By that.”

I pointed to the charred, frayed rope farther back among the stones. Lord Ashcombe picked it up, brought it over. When he laid it against Ardrey’s wrists, it matched the unburned parts perfectly.

He peered closer now, examining the skin. There was still an imprint of the rope in the flesh.

“He was bound when it happened,” Lord Ashcombe said.

“That’s what he told me,” I said. “He was knocked out and brought here—he didn’t know by whom—and left to die. The letter I found, in his quarters, at Whitehall… I was meant to find it. It was a fake. Everything was a fake.”

My despair was overwhelming. I just wanted to lie down somewhere and never wake up again.

“It was all so clever,” I said. “The letter pins the blame on Domhnall Ardrey and Niall Ramsay. They die here, with God knows how many others lost under the rubble. The letter also names a man in black—and of course that’s supposed to be you; who else could it be? You were to die, too, alongside His Majesty, in the ambush at Barnham Wood. All of you then blamed as traitors. All of you dead, unable to speak in your own defense.”

“And the real traitor goes free,” Lord Ashcombe said.

I nodded. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

For everything. “The man in black. The letter. I’m sorry I ever thought it was you.”

Lord Ashcombe waved my apology away. He stood and called two of the King’s Men.

“Take the body to Whitehall. This, too.” He dropped the frayed rope on Ardrey’s chest. “No one touches anything until I return.”

They began to carry the corpse. “Come,” Lord Ashcombe said to me. “There’s still work to be done.”

I sat there for a moment, just a moment longer.

Then I pushed myself to my feet and followed the King’s Warden into the fire.

MARCH 6–7, 1666

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