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

won’t get much of anything out of him today. I administered a heavy dose of our young friend’s poppy, so he’ll be addled beyond reason. If not already asleep.”

Lord Ashcombe clomped upstairs, mud tracking from his boots. I followed, behind the physician. The apprentice was doing what he could to clean up after Dr. Kemp. Though I’d never get the blood out of those sheets.

Simon dozed on his stomach, mouth open, drooling, a heavy bandage wrapped around his chest. Crimson spotted the cloth on his back.

“Chastellain,” Lord Ashcombe said. “Vicomte.”

Simon moaned faintly.

“Did you see who attacked you?”

“Mn?”

“Your attacker. Did you see him?”

“No. Back. Something… hurt.”

“Who might have done this?”

I could think of someone. Someone very likely indeed. “Was it the Raven?” I said. I knelt beside the bed. “Simon? Was it the Raven?”

“Hm?… No.”

“You didn’t see who attacked you,” Lord Ashcombe said. “How do you know it wasn’t?”

“Because,” Simon mumbled, drifting off. “The Raven is dead.”

CHAPTER

5

I STARED AT SIMON.

The Raven—the man who’d murdered Marin Chastellain, Simon’s uncle, Master Benedict’s lifelong friend—the man who’d promised to murder me—was dead?

I couldn’t believe it. “How?” I shook Simon’s shoulder. “How do you know the Raven’s dead? Simon!”

“Here, now.” Dr. Kemp hauled me up by the crook of my arm. “You know better than that.”

“Yes. Of course. Sorry.” The poppy had left Simon in no state to speak. And anyway, he really needed to rest. Master Benedict would have been embarrassed by what I’d done, and that made me ashamed.

“Sorry,” I said again, as much to my master as anyone else. I just felt so confused. All these months, the shadow of the Raven had loomed over me. How could he just be dead?

“We’re expected at the palace,” Lord Ashcombe said, “and we won’t get any answers here today. Let’s go.”

I didn’t like leaving Simon behind, but there really was nothing else that we could do. I nodded, my mind a whirl. I was so out of it, I almost forgot the good doctor’s fee.

“I have a few coins here somewhere,” I said. Actually, I had a lot of them, but they were tucked into the mattress Simon was on, and I didn’t think it prudent to go digging for gold in front of strangers. “I’ll bring them to the Missing Finger.”

Lord Ashcombe overruled me. “Send a bill to Whitehall.”

Dr. Kemp raised his eyebrows, again giving me that bemused smile. I didn’t explain. I did, however, finally remember I hadn’t given him my name. “I’m Christopher Rowe.”

“Very well, Mr. Rowe,” he said, still smiling. “With your permission, I’ll return to care for our patient as needed.”

Lord Ashcombe checked with the King’s Men; they hadn’t been able to find any witnesses to the attack. Leaving one of the soldiers behind to stand guard in case the assassin came back to finish the job, Lord Ashcombe ordered me to take the man’s horse. I collected Bridget, then mounted.

The warhorse made me a little nervous. Tom, Sally, and I had been taught to ride while waiting to return to London, but I’d always practiced on the carriage horses, which were smaller and of calmer temperament. This beast’s power was kind of frightening.

“Problem?” Lord Ashcombe said.

I didn’t want to admit being scared. Instead, I said, “Thank you for coming to help. I just… I can’t believe the Raven’s dead.”

“Why not?”

“Well… I mean… he was so good at manipulating things. I thought he’d be too clever to get caught.”

“Every blackguard thinks he’s invincible,” Lord Ashcombe said. “Let that dagger in Simon’s back be a reminder. Peasant or noble, we all go out the same.”

I’d never been to Whitehall. The palace, home of English kings since Henry VIII, was to the west of London, round the bend of the Thames, well outside the city walls. Tom and I had set out a few times to go see it on one of our rare holidays, but it was miles from where we lived, and we’d always got distracted along the way.

Now, as I rode in with Lord Ashcombe, I saw it lived up to its reputation. The palace was a sprawling labyrinth, every part built in a different style, from the simple brick-and-stone of Scotland Yard, to the sloping roofs and gray clock tower of the Horse Guards barracks, to the Holbein Gate, which looked like a miniature keep with octagonal towers at each corner. It loomed above the main throughway, its twelve-foot-high arch wide enough to allow oversize wagons into the city.

Behind the buildings to the east were the docks on the Thames; to the west stretched the vast green expanse of Saint James’s Park. If we’d continued south, we’d have seen the grand gallery overlooking the Privy Garden, complete with marble statues and an apple orchard, and Westminster Gate beyond, following the road southwest, away from London.

At the moment, however, all traffic was stalled. The Holbein Gate was closed, causing a jam of carriages, carts, and pedestrians, all grumbling at the holdup.

From the frown on Lord Ashcombe’s face, this wasn’t normal. One of the King’s Men took the lead, carving a path through the crowd with his horse, crying, “Make way! Make way for the Marquess of Chillingham!” The rest of us followed in his wake.

The gate that led into the palace itself was off to the left. A smaller line waited here, at a semicircle of posts rising from the mud in the road. Four guards stood watch at the entrance. A fifth soldier was arguing with a pair of finely dressed men at the front of the queue.

The shorter of the pair was red-faced, near shouting. His companion, a man with a trimmed beard and gold spectacles, waited quietly, hand on his chin.

“Another English slight,” the short man said in a thick Scottish accent. “We have every right to enter. Let us pass!”

Lord Ashcombe ignored the argument. He dismounted and spoke to the guards near the entryway. “What’s going on?”

“Don’t know, General,” the sergeant at arms said. “We were told