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WHEN DRAKE CAME out of the pits of Hell, everything was painfully familiar. Body in a fetal curl. Ropes cutting into wrists. Fingers tingling with numbness. Feet roped to hands. Baldric hadn’t lost his touch. “Welcome back from the dead, Drake!”
Smelling charred meat and scorched onions, Drake squeezed his eyes to contain the pounding in his head. A fetid stench permeated the air. When he opened his eyes, the hut gyrated in blood-red hues. Trussed up the same as Drake, Stephen lay beside him, his eyes sealed and blood slathering his sword arm.
It was a mistake for Drake to sit up. Everything spun faster. He propped himself at the juncture of two walls. Aveline gazed down on him, her eyes terrified above the biting gag. He could have kissed her. He wanted to rescue her. The prospects looked bleak for both.
“When did Stephen get back into town?” Baldric asked innocently. “Or did he never leave?” He laughed at the invective Drake threw out.
Instinctively Drake reached for his dagger. The empty scabbard at his back drew his attention to the tabletop, where two swords and two daggers lay alongside a lost blade gilded with a damascened dragon. Beside the weapons lay the journals Drake brought to exchange for Aveline’s life. Next to the journals lay two coiled ropes. His muscles cramping under the tight restraints, Drake shifted with the pain. “What ...,” he croaked. “What are you going to do with the journals?”
Baldric finished searing a slab of meat in the clay-lined fireplace. Smoke swirled to the four walls, burning eyes and obscuring scant light filtering in through the single window. Slapping the blood-running carcass on a platter, he scooped greasy onions on top and carried his supper to the table. “Sell them to the highest bidder.”
He started on a fresh flagon of wine and a loaf of barley bread. Baldric had all the time he needed to do whatever he planned to do. No one was riding to their rescue since no one knew where to find them, except possibly the sheriff, who was efficiently manacled to his sergeant inside a coffin-sized crate sealed with a dozen halfpenny nails in the undercroft of the Hogshead Tavern.
Drake’s numbed fingers searched the empty scabbard. Secreted behind an inside flap was a misericorde, honed sharp. Meant to deliver the mercy stroke to a fallen knight on the battlefield, something Drake had never been called upon to do, the weapon was needed this day to save two fallen knights. He glanced at Stephen. His face was the color of chalk and his breaths were ragged. “Now what?”
“Do away with the entrails.”
“Hang me and Stephen.”
“Or throw your carcasses in the river.” His eyes went to the window. “As soon as night falls.”
“And Aveline?”
“No choice but to take her with me.” The chortle said he had more in mind for her than a simple end to her worldly woes. Her eyes closed. She seemed to swoon. But soon her eyes opened and searched out Drake. Reading the undertone, Baldric skittered his eyesight between the two. “She’s smitten with you.”
“She hates my guts. Called me despicable this very morning. Isn’t that so?” he asked her.
She responded with a sarcastic moan, artful given the gag.
“Was that ere you poked her, or after?”
“You’re in the presence of a lady.”
“Drake, you misjudge me. I live by a code of knightly chivalry, I do. My own.” Chortling, he sliced off another piece of meat and chewed thoughtfully. “This is a sad day, truly. I counted you as a friend. Or would have, if you hadn’t been such a meddlesome whoreson.”
“And the others? Were they meddlesome whoresons as well?”
“They were no trouble at all.”
“You wanted the tribute money for yourself.”
“Payment in lieu, so to speak, while I was riding hither and yon.”
“Did Graham and the others trust you?”
“They trusted no one but were about as secretive as striped bulls on a field of snow. Made it easy for a man the likes of Baldric la Forêt to uncover their doings. And were only too glad to include me in their camp when they decried a vile manslayer.”
Drake shifted with discomfort. “Then you were the one who knocked me senseless, skewered Maynard, took my sword, put yours in my hand, and cried murder most foul.”
Again, he chortled. It was merriment and joy for the mercenary, while it was life and death for Drake and Stephen.
Noises rustled outside the window. The crackling of dry grass, a graze against shrubbery, the squish of mud, a splash of water. Drake groaned. And groaned again. Stephen joined him in the macabre chorus.
“Not my style to hack off a man’s testament to the world,” Baldric said, grease dribbling from his mouth, “but it has a certain persuasive power. They were eager to confess the sins of their lives, and I was disposed to send them to their Maker, pure of body and heart.”
Aveline’s eyes were silver-smooth ponds under a full moon, and alert to Drake’s every movement.
“But not Drogo.”
“Drogo emptied his guts before I need make the point.” Baldric spat onto the floor. A quarter of the steak had disappeared down his gullet. “Wrangled a bit of cooperation from Tilda’s protectors to set you up mighty fine, and then I dispatched them straight to perdition since dead men tell no tales.”
“And Graham?”
“Now there’s one bastard I haven’t caught up with. Slippery as a worm in a dung heap but a man about to complete what he bungled a fortnight past.” He squinted out the window. Shadows were deepening. “By killing you and your brother at full dark.”
Drake said, barely in a whisper, “And Jenna?”
“Oh aye, Jenna, pretty little thing. ’Twasn’t my doing.”
Drake twisted his bound legs to the opposite wall and caught Stephen’s heavy-lidded eyes tracking his movements. “You wanted the journals. You knew there were two.”
“I did.” Half the steak had been consumed along with half the bread.
The misericorde had cut halfway through the rope. The twine was uncurling against his wrists. “Not for yourself. You can’t read.”
“’Tis true.”
“How did you know I had them?”
“You’ve seen Tilda. I gave her little choice but to tell me. You’re a sneaky one, Drake, sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong.”
“Tilda didn’t know about Yacob ben Yosel’s ledger. She didn’t know―”
“Enough Drake! You’re making my head ache.”
The only sounds to break the silence were the lick of the hearth fire and the breaths of four people standing at the precipice of Hell.
“I’ll soon be carrion. At least send me to my grave knowing why.”
Baldric used his eating knife to pick gristle from between his teeth. “Doesn’t matter why. When you and Stephen are gone to your Maker, and Graham left to take the blame, the villainy will be laid bare. The sheriff can go about his affairs, and all will come to an end once and for all, no more questions hanging off folk’s lips.”
Drake squirmed into a different position, groaning to cover the reason for his movement.
“Stop shifting about, Drake. You’re making me jumpy.”
“This wasn’t your idea, to get the journals and hang us.”
Silence.
“Someone’s paying you.”
More silence.
“Maybe you haven’t heard: Gervase is presently a guest in the Winchester Gaol.”
“Gervase who?”
Time passed. No one spoke. Three-quarters of the steak had disappeared down the giant’s gullet, along with half the wine and most of the bread. The setting sun plunged the hovel into leaden shadows that intertwined with the smoke of the pit. Reflecting Drake’s own exhaustion, Stephen stirred and moaned. Aveline strained for freedom. A whimper—a last appeal for mercy—purred at the back of her throat.
“Worry not, lass, ’twill all be over soon.”
Time ran out. Baldric wiped his mouth with a sleeve and scraped back his chair. The firelight unveiled a demonic mask as he stood over Drake. “See you in Hell, Drake. For you will get there afore me.”
He cut the hemp binding his legs, grabbed ahold of the tunic, and dragged him to his feet one-handed. Baldric was never to know that this single action drove the misericorde through the last remaining strand of rope.
A fiend from Hell screamed. Drake swung his arm up and plunged the misericorde beneath the giant’s breastbone. The blade found its mark with a single thrust. “Say halloo to the Devil, and tell him I’ll be there ere long!”
Stunned by the cruel twist of fate, Baldric stared blankly at his killer. Drake withdrew the misericorde. Blood spurted from the big man’s belly like wine from a full barrel. The cheeks of his swollen face drained of all color. His eyes popped open in disbelief. In a rictus of gut-wrenching pain, he tightened his fist on Drake’s tunic and slowly raised his arm.
Pulled up off the floor, Drake hanged from the makeshift hangman’s noose, his feet dangling inches from solid ground. Breath cut off, he wheezed, pawed, spun, flailed, and twirled like a corpse blowing in the wind. His eyesight turning into a field of snow drenched in scarlet blood. All that remained were two men locked in a death grip with no escape for either.
With a final spurt of desperation, Drake reeled himself against Baldric, lifted his arm, and stabbed the man in the back, applying a torque, a twist, a frantic plunge, and a raking motion that caused the blade to rake past bone and sink deep into muscle and sinew. There the misericorde remained, stuck like a hook.
Baldric’s head shot back from this last assault. Foul breath whistled past his mouth. His teeth clamped around his lower lip, splitting it in two. The cords of his neck knotted. He coughed once and twice until a thunderous growl ascended from his loins. His eyes rounded with shock. Fury followed. Realization dawned. The bulging snake of his tongue extruded past bulbous lips. Globules of thick red blood gushed from the depths of his torment and spilled down his neck and chest. His grip on Drake’s tunic relaxed.
Toes touched ground. The tiniest bit of air wheezed past Drake’s throat, cold but invigorating. Still held fast in the knight’s balled fist, he lurched slightly away but no farther.
The giant shook his head, denying his mortality and refusing to go gladly into the night of endless sleep. The wounds, the loss of blood, and the shock finally took their toll. His legs gave out. He crumpled like a rusty hinge and fell forward.
The hut shook as both men crashed to the floor, Baldric on top and Drake beneath. Drake squirmed to get out from under the crushing weight. His lithe limbs became entangled with Baldric’s meatier arms and heftier legs. The giant scowled. His eyes bulged out, his lips protruded, his jowls fluttered, and his face turned into a ghastly mask of death, sculpted by pain, realization, and most of all, revenge. His strength became unbreakable even as he descended into that great unknown.
Drake sensed a disconcerting lurch. The wooden planks at his back gave way. His upper body plummeted into a hollow filled with foul-tasting river water. He held his breath instinctively before the waters closed over his head. He struggled in his captivity, only to meet immovable resistance. Baldric wrapped his arms about Drake in a lovers’ embrace and squeezed. His mouth curled into a sort of smile, teeth bared and lips twisting. If these were the last moments of his worthless life, he was determined to take Drake with him.
Another section of flooring gave way. Together they sank deeper into the watery grave. After a brief underwater struggle, fight fled, breath gave out, air bubbles escaped, and water poured into lungs.
A lightness of being enveloped Drake. A lifting of earthly woes released him from the bonds of the fat man. He floated weightless in the encompassing dark, arms and limbs detaching, and soul taking flight. A profound peacefulness swept over him. His last thoughts were of Jenna. She appeared above him, floating like an angel, her arms flung out, her gown swirling about her in wispy breezes, and her lips silently forming his name. He raced toward her with open arms, but before he could reach her, blackness enveloped him and pushed him down, down, down, through the mouths of Hell, and out the other end, until a tidal wave pulled him under and everything went away.
