Cameo and the Highwayman (Trilogy of Shadows Book 2) (12 page)

Kyrian had never actually seen that much gold in one place before. He was astonished that Opal was going to take it and probably spend it all on one suit of clothes and a pair of new shoes.

Opal grinned at him, “Lovely doing business with you.”

“You’re headed to the tailor now, aren’t you?” the lad muttered as Opal swept out of the little pawnshop.

“Very clever of you, young man. Did your grandfather’s ghost have anything to do with that premonition or—”

“Guard! Guards!”

Opal paled.

An angry-looking crowd passed them, dragging a man down the street. His head was in a noose, and it was obvious they were headed to the nearest tree with him in tow.

“Guard!”

“Stop calling for the guard,” someone was yelling.

Opal pushed Kyrian back up onto the sidewalk as he tried to put some distance between himself and the mob in front of him.

“Why, that’s… it’s Jules!”

The three of them made eye contact. The rabble stopped right in front of them as one of the king’s guards approached the group.

Opal’s mouth widened. He took Kyrian by the arm and began to walk quickly in the other direction. The lad nearly fell down.

“Let’s go.”

“Hey! You two!” the guard called after them.

Black Opal stopped.

“Are you part of this mob?” He took a couple steps closer.

A small unit of military men came trickling around the corner to see what all the commotion was about.

Opal half turned, “No.”

Kyrian turned around to look right at the guard, innocent, nearly smiling then looked back at the dandy who seemed rooted to the cobblestone. “What’s wrong?”

Opal shoved the purse into his hands. “You don’t know me.”

“What?”

The dandy proceeded to walk away, attempting to get around the corner and dart out of sight.

“I’ve done nothing,” Jules was saying behind him.

“He’s a member of the Association! Jules Maethelmaf. I’ve seen him on the wanted posters.”

The guard passed Kyrian, paying no heed to the din behind him anymore. “Hey, I told you to stop.”

Opal felt a hand on his shoulder, and suddenly the guard was right in front of him. His eyes were full of astonishment, followed by a moment of disbelief. “You?”

“Do I… know you?”

“I can’t believe—” he pulled his dagger suddenly.

Opal pulled his rapier.

“Cubbingthorp, Ives! Get over here!”

“What is it?”

“A ghost.”

“It’s Francois Mond.”

“Couldn’t be.”

“He’s never been found; it could be. Cubbingthorp, you’ve seen him speak dozens of times. It’s him, isn’t it?”

The older guard took a step closer.

“Sir, I assure you I am most certainly not Francois Mond. You have the wrong man—”

“Oh, that’s him. Bloodthirsty charlatan,” he spat.

Kyrian caught Opal’s eye for one moment. The lad was standing on the sidewalk, astounded, a purse dangling from one hand.

Jules felt the noose around his neck loosen as the crowd began to focus on the guards a few feet away.

“Did they say
Francois Mond
?”

“It couldn’t be.”

He brushed blood out of one eye and looked over at the rabble that was now reforming around Black Opal. Soon no one was even with him anymore. He simply slipped the noose over his head, dashed off the street, and slid between two shops.

“It
is
him! Francois had smallpox when he was a boy they say, and look, there are all those scars.”

“Francois, where have you been all this time?” someone in the crowd called out.

“I’m telling you, you’re making a mistake,” Opal said, trying to keep his tone even. “My name is Frederick Black.”

“Well, Frederick Black, we’ll just be taking you in for a little questioning then.” The original guard approached him, dagger pointed at Opal. “And then if you aren’t Francois Mond, they’ll let you go on your way.”

“Just as simple as that,” Opal smiled.

“That’s right.”

“No torture would be involved in retrieving a confession, of course.”

“No, no nothing like that. Why don’t you drop that sword you have there and come along with us?”

“Sorry lads, but I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

The guard he had been talking to reached for his rapier, but Opal cut his belt before he could reach it, and the entire thing dropped to the street with a loud
clang
.

Opal had his sword point to the man’s throat. “Your dagger, sir.”

Cubbingthorp and Ives moved forward.

“Stand back, fellows, or observe as I dispatch your friend.”

“He’s bluffing,” this coming from the man who had the sword point touching bare skin. After all, Francois Mond was known for his oratory, not for his skill with a rapier.

Opal glanced over at the two soldiers, then back at his hostage, fixing him with a look of surprise, ready to use his weapon if need be.

The man at the end of the sword grabbed it suddenly, pushing it from his throat. “Take him!”

Black Opal lunged at him, cutting through the leather glove the soldier wore, and into his hand, leaving a bloody stain on the blade before he deposited his blade in the soldier’s chest.

Cubbingthorp grabbed him by one arm.

Opal left his rapier in the dying man’s body as he elbowed his newest assailant in the side of the head. With his right hand, he grasped the hilt of a dagger and pierced Cubbingthorp’s tight, wool jacket.

Blood spilled down his pants as he collapsed onto the road.

Now Ives came at Opal, drawing his pistol.

The highwayman rushed him and knocked the young man down. The pistol went off, loudly, reverberating off the shops. The shot went clean through an old man in the crowd, lodging in the side of a building.

Ives let the weapon go, struggling with Opal on the ground like a couple of schoolboys in a scrap.

The highwayman was nearly overpowered by his strength, being of slight build and older than this lad, but he was able to retrieve the hot pistol and smash the soldier in the side of the face with it, knocking him out.

Opal leapt to his feet and bolted. He pushed his way through the crowd, near where he had last seen Kyrian and not far from that pawn shop. The lad was thrown to the side and lost in the throng of people as Opal made an escape.

The highwayman ran east, back up Azez Road, toward the Lakestar, hoping to put some distance between himself and the bloody scene that he had just left behind. He could hear the sound of footsteps behind him, closing in; younger men he suspected, not wearing heeled boots. Possibly some people in the crowd who sympathized with the soldiers he’d just killed, or maybe young Kyrian himself. But he didn’t have time to turn around just now to check. Instead, he mounted the steps of the local tailor and raced inside.

“Oh, Mister Black, lovely to see you again.” A jovial older man smiled as he darted past.

Opal raced to the back of the store.

“I have that waistcoat you were admiring, if you are still interested in a fitting.”

“Another time!” he panted as he climbed up the back stairs, not quite certain where they led.

The front door swung open again, and five soldiers burst into the shop.

“Where is he?” one demanded.

The tailor pointed to the back stairs, shocked to see them.

“What’s up there?”

“My home.”

They were so close that Black Opal could hear the entire conversation. He entered the door at the top of the steps and went into the poor man’s apartment. It was a well furnished, if somewhat cluttered, residence, with bolts of fabric stacked up on one side of the room in a pile.

There was a young woman inside making lace; she jumped to her feet when she saw a strange person in her home.

“Don’t be frightened,” Opal panted. “I’m just passing through.”

At that moment the door to the apartment slammed against the wall, and three of the king’s guard forced themselves inside.

The dandy’s heart stopped for a moment.

They saw him.

He opened up another door and found himself in an empty bedroom. The last room, with a window as his only means of escape. Without hesitation, he picked up the first small piece of furniture he could find, a spinning wheel, and bashed out the opaque glass.

There was a soldier coming in the door as he hauled himself out the window and attempted to climb up onto the roof.

One grabbed hold of his foot.

Opal struggled to pull himself up and cursed himself for the fine boots he was wearing; they weren’t going to slip off easily. He could feel the sudden weight of another man pulling him back down.

Opal could see his breath in the wintry air, and he thought that he might be killed by the fall. That would be preferable to being tortured to death: drawn and quartered for regicide. Any death would be better than that. He thought for one moment that he might even be able to escape, maybe he could get back to Cameo, take refuge with her… crazy idea.

The roof tiles that he had been clinging to crashed to the ground below, and the soldiers pulled him roughly back inside.

There was no way he was going to face the justice awaiting him at Cammarth. He fell into the room, struggling and grasping for his pistol and his dagger.

“Take him!”

One of them grabbed his arm as he fired off a shot. It lodged in the thick, wooden floor. At the same time Opal stabbed that man in the shoulder with his dagger before another soldier tackled him.

Then he felt the first strike: the third soldier punched him in the face.

Black Opal kicked him in the teeth, then kicked at the next man approaching him and attempted to slip free from the other two holding him.

The man who had been kicked in the teeth came up angry, blood gushing down his chin and a blackjack in one hand.

Opal felt the club against the side of his head, then, somewhat dazed, he awoke on the floor. The soldiers were milling about. One of them said he needed medical attention for his wound.

Opal reached for the hilt of a dagger hidden inside his coat. His hand was somewhat shakier than he remembered.

“He’s going for a blade.” A large soldier kicked him hard in the stomach, and found the weapon in his coat as Opal curled into a fetal position.

“Keep him alive,” another soldier called out. “It’s Francois Mond. The King will want to be notified immediately.”

The soldiers dragged him back through the apartment, down the stairs toward a jailer’s cart, and tossed him inside.

Opal was face down in the open cart when the soldier spat on him. His body lurched as the cart suddenly moved forward. He was going back to Cammarth, the palace that he had spent his childhood in working as his father’s apprentice, teaching music lessons. The place he had sworn he would never set foot near again. He was going to be drawn and quartered, just as he had always feared.

Opal licked his bloody lip in misery.

To one side of the cart, he suddenly saw Kyrian standing, dumbstruck in an alley, just watching as they hauled Black Opal away.

* * * * *

“How did you learn to fence so well?”

Opal smirked, as she slid her hands over his naked back. He rested on one elbow over her body.

“I know I mentioned this before. My father paid for my lessons.”

“And you took fencing lessons dutifully?”

“Yes,” he laughed. “Is that really so hard to imagine?”

“It’s sweet.” She met his eyes. One hazel and one white. She was still enamored with the events that had just transpired between them. The kiss in the hallway that had led to the passionate scramble to move into her bedroom.

He lowered his eyes to her severely scarred collarbone, the only part of her torso that was not covered. “We were all better people when we were young.”

Cameo woke from her reminiscing with a jolt. There was a shadow of a man standing in front of her now. One of her dutiful thralls. It had come with a message. Within the foreboding blackness she could see Opal. He was being dragged down a flight of stairs by soldiers, and then the scene shifted and she saw the white palace clearly, and then… nothing.

The shade remained, but the vision did not.

She stood up suddenly. It was daylight, and Edel would not be awake, but she needed him to wake to give her permission to leave. To save Opal. Cameo opened the door to her room and ran over to the vampire’s chamber.

“Edel!” She pounded on the door. “Edel!” Then she tried the door. It opened. Uncertain if she was welcome or not, she wandered into the room. It was empty, except for a few old trunks and artwork leaning up against the walls.

Sunlight was streaming into the windows. “Edel?”

She felt someone behind her and turned to find Chester in the doorway. “Where is he?”

The monster just stared at her blankly.

* * * * *

Opal was roughly removed from the jailer’s cart, dragged up a flight of stairs into the palace, and pushed down onto a bench in a hallway that he remembered well. He had traversed it many times when he was a boy; it lead to the music room, the theater, and the game rooms.

He used to play with the birds in the conservatory before the princes and princesses came in for their music lessons. They were pure white birds, in a beautiful gilded cage beside the windows.

One of the soldiers cut a button off of Opal’s coat suddenly. This woke him.

The soldier didn’t say anything to him, just put the button into his pocket and looked at Opal with a sneer on his face.

He pulled the duster around him nervously.

Several guards were with him, but two others had gone on ahead, presumably to speak to someone else, and the highwayman sat, expecting the door down the hall that the two had entered would soon open up and he would be moved.

Opal ran one hand through his hair and readjusted the patch over his eye.

Just then the door burst open, and a gentleman came out with the soldiers. He was a man whom Opal had never seen before, powdered, with a gray wig and spectacles.

Before Opal realized what was happening, the guard pulled him to his feet, and he stumbled, clumsily regaining his footing and attempting to straighten his jacket.