“I think I do,” Malden said, softly.
“But that very quality I love makes her vulnerable. Men can be schemers. They can take advantage of woman’s gentler nature, and women aren’t always wise enough to resist their charms.”
Not for the first time Malden remembered that Croy had never spent much time around women. Malden, who had been raised by harlots, thought he might know the female mind a little better. He also knew just how well women could resist men’s charms—when they chose to. He decided not to share this knowledge, just then.
“Someone else, someone with a less noble heart than yours, Malden, might have taken advantage of that situation. They might have asked for more than a kiss. If she were in a situation where she had to compromise herself, she might question the promise she made to me.”
“Put these thoughts from your mind! Croy, you have enough to worry about!”
Croy shook his head. “I need to ask your aid, Malden, and please, don’t refuse this. I need you to watch her. Make sure she stays safe. And … and pure. I—” Croy let out a little gasp. His fists were clenched before him. “I would die, my soul would shrivel, if I ever learned she did not love me any longer. It would pain me more than arrows through my vitals, Malden!”
“I swear this, Croy,” he said. “No new lover will come near her. I won’t so much as let her be alone with any man but me.”
There were tears in Croy’s eyes when he grasped Malden in a crushing embrace. “You are my friend, after all. I doubted it sometimes—but you are my true friend.”
“Put all your trust in me,” Malden told him. And for the first time in his life, he felt the pangs of conscience for deceiving someone. But he knew he would feel pangs of another sort—the sort one feels with two feet of steel shoved through one’s belly—should Croy ever learn the truth.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
He made a point of saying no more until they reached the churchyard.
It was a gloomy place for men to sleep, even thieves. Yet the conscripts would have been disconsolate even if they’d been billeted in the courtly homes of the inner bailey. To a man they looked beaten and exhausted. While Malden had been brought to his audience with the king, these men had spent the day training. Shouting serjeants had put them through endless paces, teaching them the basics of how to use a bill hook as a weapon or how to march and even run in heavy leather harness. The reward for all that hard work was that now they were chained together in groups of six so they could not run away, given a bowl of thin pottage each to eat, and then utterly ignored by their captors.
Malden supposed it was better than being hanged in a public square. He wondered how many of the groaning men would agree. Well, at least for one of them the future held a little more promise. He scanned the crowd among the graves until he found Velmont, his friend from his own previous confinement.
“That one,” he told Croy.
They approached the chained men and Velmont looked up with half a smile when he saw Malden. Then he glanced down at the sword on Malden’s belt and his face fell. Malden realized he must be wondering if the man he’d spoken to while chained up in the banquet hall had in fact been an informer for the kingsmen. He had to admit to himself that if their positions were reversed he would have a hard time of trusting Velmont. “Just keep quiet, and this will go well for you,” he whispered.
“You had me good, didn’t you?” Velmont asked, ignoring what Malden had said. “All that talk o’ being brothers in the trade.”
“Be of good cheer, Velmont,” Malden told the man. “I’m not here to do you any harm.”
“You’re no thief, are you?” Velmont asked. He spat into the weeds between two graves. “What is it you want now, more o’ our secrets?”
“These others with you—are they part of your crew?” Malden asked.
“You want me to start giving up names? You’ll have to beat ’em out of me.”
“Listen to my proposal before you reject it,” Malden told him. He put his hand on the iron collar fastened around Velmont’s neck, but the thief jerked away from him. “I’m going to free you, you fool!”
“Oh, aye, free me from me mortal station, I’d reckon. With all I told ye … I gave out plenty enough to end up swingin’ from a rope.”
Croy bent to study the chains holding Velmont, and drew his belt knife to break the lock. Malden looked up and saw they’d been observed. The guards set to watch the conscripts had been huddled around a fire near the church, but now a serjeant in a rusted kettle hat came running toward them. He had a green and yellow ribbon wound around the brim of his helmet, and a thick truncheon in his hand.
“Saving your grace, sir knight,” the man said, addressing Croy, “but may I ask exactly what you think you’re doing here?”
Malden’s hand dropped toward the hilt of Acidtongue, but Croy stepped in front of him and leaned close to the serjeant’s face. “The king’s work,” he said. His voice was hard—harder than Malden had ever heard it before. “I’ve been sent on this fool’s errand by Sir Hew himself, the Captain of the Guard. I want it done quickly so I can get back to more important things. Now, release these men.”
“But—they’re criminals!” the serjeant protested.
“They’re wanted at the keep for a special detail. We need laborers to oil and clean every piece of iron in the armory before morning. Of course, if you’d prefer, I can take you and your men instead.”
Malden’s jaw dropped. He’d never heard Croy talk to anyone with such an air of command—or threat. Nor had he ever heard Croy lie. He would have thought the knight incapable of dissembling. It seemed the knight had hidden depths.
The serjeant shook his head hurriedly. “No, no sir. I’ll fetch the keys.”
In short order Velmont and the five men he’d been chained with were free. The serjeant offered to bind their hands. “I don’t think that’s necessary,” Croy told him. “The two of us are armed well enough to control a half dozen dogs like this.”
“As you’d have it, sir,” the serjeant said. When he was dismissed he went gratefully back to his fire, glad to have escaped Croy’s attention. There would be no more trouble from that quarter.
Malden and Croy led the six conscripts down an alley and around a corner before they spoke again. Croy clasped Malden’s hands and said, “It’s done. I’ll make sure Cythera is waiting for you at the inn, with full packs and some food. Malden, if the war goes poorly, or I am killed—”
“We’ll meet again,” Malden told him. “Get back before Sir Hew wonders where you’ve been.”
Croy nodded. “Lady speed you on your path,” he said, and hurried off into the night. Malden watched him go for a moment, then turned around to face the conscripts.
Before he could say a word to Velmont, however, a hand reached across his front and slipped the buckle of his belt. Acidtongue fell to the cobbles and Malden, too surprised to think clearly, bent to retrieve it.
A stone came down on the back of his head, hard enough to send his brains spinning.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Cythera stood by the window in their room at the inn, watching the street through a narrow gap in the shutters. It was near midnight, but the fortress city still rumbled with activity, and a fair amount of traffic still moved through the narrow lanes. Groups of men—soldiers, or simply men who had gathered together for security—hurried this way and that on errands, their heads down, their voices low, showing few lights. All of Helstrow was terrified of what was coming.
Coruth had tried to warn her of this, she was sure. Of the coming invasion and the war that would follow. Cythera tried to remember the words the boy had spoken in the alley, words sent across a hundred miles. Surely this was what Coruth had meant. The swords coming together, men brought low or carried to high station. What else could it mean?
A knock at the door startled her. She hurried across the room and reached for the latch, but hesitated before opening. Croy had been quite clear in his instructions, and for once she’d agreed with him. They could not be too careful now. The king was unwilling to let anyone leave Helstrow, whether or not they could fight. If his agents found out that Cythera planned to escape they would try to stop her. She did not call out to ask who was at the door, only waited a moment, her nerves jangling.
A second knock came after a short pause. And then a third right away. That was the signal.
She opened the door and saw Croy there. He pushed past her into the room without speaking. He held a pair of heavy packs which he set down on the bed. “It’s done,” he whispered. “I can’t stay long.”
She nodded, understanding. The less said the better. No one in Helstrow was sleeping now, and it was impossible to know who might hear them.
Croy lifted one hand as if he might touch her cheek. Instead his fingers moved to her lips. She blinked, unsure of what he was trying to communicate. “I’ll come to Ness as soon as I can,” he whispered. “If I can.”
Cythera closed her eyes. If he lived through the invasion, he meant.
Cythera didn’t know if she’d ever truly loved Croy. When he’d asked for her hand in marriage it had seemed like a way to escape her father. Later it had sounded like a grand adventure. Now she knew she could never be happy as his wife, that only Malden could give her life she wanted.
Yet she had never doubted Croy’s love, or his kindness. He had been so good to her and her mother—she owed him far more than she could repay. And here she was, betraying him. She opened her mouth, absolutely convinced she had to tell him the truth. She would tell him everything about Malden. She would beg his forgiveness. It was the right thing to do.
“Don’t speak,” he told her. “Just listen. When we meet again we’ll get married, right away. I won’t worry about the banns, or about all the formalities and niceties. I’ll take you to the Ladychapel in whatever clothes we’re wearing, day or night. If we must we’ll wake the priests and force them to perform the ceremony. I’ll kneel with you before the altar there and take your hand and it will be done. It will be forever.”
She had to tell him. It was unthinkable cruelty not to.
“I can see it in my mind’s eye, even now. The candles. The golden cornucopia above the altar. I can smell the incense. Yes,” he said, and he leaned forward to rest his forehead against hers. “Yes. That image is going to get me through anything that’s to come. I don’t care about the bloodshed. I don’t care about the danger. I will see only your face as you give yourself to me. As I give myself to you.”
