Stormfire (71 page)

His eyes turned piggy. "I'm afraid that's impossible. The prisoner died under questioning."

Stay with me, Kit. I keep thinking this is a dream, that in the morning . . .

"I assume he was given medical treatment?"

"Certainly."

"I should like to see the doctor in charge."

"Most irregular, my lady."

"No more irregular than an immediate investigation of your administration here, Colonel. Well?" Inside, she was shaking, unsure how far Deal could be pushed. Flaunting her title and waving Artois's seal under the chief magistrate's impressed nose had been one thing; it would be quite different if she actually had to use ducal influence to secure a prisoner's release from a military prison. She felt like a juggler, trying to keep her lover out of reach of a rescuer as dangerous as the hunters. Yet she had to see Sean dead; she had to be sure.

"As you wish," Deal said tightly. "Follow me."

"Countess, this is Thatcher Marcus, our resident doctor. Doctor, Lady Catherine Enderly. My lady wishes to know—"

"I'm capable of asking my own questions, Colonel," Catherine interrupted. "Please leave us."

The colonel shot Marcus a warning glance, then withdrew from the small
office.

"Doctor, some weeks ago a prisoner was brought here. A black-haired, green-eyed man. The colonel tells me he was sent to you for medical attention after being questioned and that he died. Is that true?"

"I attend a great many prisoners, my lady. I don't remember them all."

"You would have remembered this one. He . . . rather made one think of Lucifer." Inside her muff, fingernails dug into her palms as the doctor studied her. "Doctor, I mean you no harm. They may have had the wrong man; if so, I feel responsible. I only want to know if he was given medical treatment." There must have been a note in her voice, a dry sound of crumbling.

"May I ask your given name, my lady?"

Oh, God, please. What a stupid question. If Sean is dead, living is stupid. Stupid. "Catherine," she muttered.

"Are you sometimes called Kit?"

Her heart leaped over. "Yes. Yes! He was here?"

"Yes." His tone was so grave she wanted to scrabble at him, beg for any hope.

"Tell me." The two words were all she could manage.

"The prisoner was brought to me in critical condition after severe questioning. He survived." Marcus looked away from the welling hope in her eyes. "Two days ago, he was shot while trying to escape."

With an incoherent cry, she sagged. He caught her and carried her to his battered sofa. Mute, she curled away from him, into her grief. After checking the ward outside to be sure the colonel was not lurking nearby, he let her be for a time, then touched her shoulder. "Your father will come here, my lady. Colonel Deal has probably gone to send word to him."

"I don't care. I don't care what he does! He's a murderer. Murderer!"

She began to scream uncontrollably and he gave her a sharp slap. "Stop'it! Would you endanger us both?"

Eyes glittering, she pushed him away. "Where is he? What have they done with him?"

"He was buried in a potter's field."

She began to rock, keening in sorrow: primitive, ageless, terrible. Marcus shook her. "Listen to me! He didn't want this kind of grief from you!" She groaned, hardly conscious of him. Knowing the colonel would be back at any moment, he had to shock her into reason, even if it were born of rage. "Your father intended to serve you his manhood on a platter to test your reaction! But he was cheated because the prisoner fought to die like a man. If you're weak, that struggle was for nothing."

White-faced, the young countess fell silent. After a moment, she murmured, "I must see his grave. I cannot accept his death. It's as if he were calling me. As if he were a child begging for warmth."

Marcus helped her clean up her disheveled appearance and, leading her away from the commandant's office, took her to the rear gate. "You can walk from here. It's not far to the field." He gave her directions.

The potter's field was a barren, windswept heath' lumped with carelessly scattered dirt mounds; there were no markers, no signs of remembrance. Three scraggling trees clustered in stubborn resistance to an icy wind that lifted snow into flurries, scoured the frozen dirt clods bare, then covered them again. She walked toward two men digging at the far end of the field.

Golgotha. The Place of Skulls. I cannot leave him here. I must take him home to Ireland. To the sea.

The men were lowering a dirty gray bundle into a grave hardly deep enough to discourage scavenging dogs. They looked up, peering askance at her expensive clothes and still, white face.

"Is a special section reserved for prison dead?"

One man leaned on his shovel. "No, mum, they're all piled in together."

"Do you . . . remember where you put the prisoners who died two nights ago?"

"The ones pitched out in the court? Well, let's see. There was three. Stiff as boards, they was." He squinted and rubbed his hands. "Cold work, burying in this kind of weather. Ground's like iron."

She gave them each a sovereign. They hastily pocketed the money. "Was a young, black-haired man among them?"

The thinner man shook his head. "Nah. Two was dun-thatched, not all that young, either. And one was Sergeant Raker. Big ox. Took near three hours to get 'im under."

"She must want the other one, Lean," the small digger said. "The one that took off. Must have hated Raker's guts so bad 'e couldn't stand to be in the same boneyard with 'im. Got up and walked away, just like Lazarus."

Catherine dropped to her knees and grabbed his sleeve. "What did you say?"

"I say 'e walked. Filched rags off the others and hauled 'is carcass away. Left blood all over the snow. Guess the drifts covered it up before the mornin' watch come around. We figured no sense in lookin'. Too cold for 'im to do anythin' but freeze. 'E an't showed up yet, though."

Great roses began to bloom in Catherine's cheeks. "You didn't report him missing?"

They looked at her with some hostility.

"No, of course you didn't!" She hugged the first dirty digger around the neck. "Oh, you lovely, lazy old crocks! You wonderful, beautiful angels! Here! Take a holiday! Take ten!" She flung a handful of sovereigns at them and ran across the mounds of snow.

Finding the house was not difficult. According to
Mignon,
it was Sean's only possible refuge. The place was forbidding even by daylight, its paint weathered in the salt air until only fragments clung to the wood. Sagging shutters once a trim green framed dirty windows; the ground- floor shutters were closed. Heart pounding, Catherine knocked on the front door. Receiving no answer, she tried again more loudly, then stepped back and scanned the upper-story windows. Finally, she went to the rear; it, too, seemed deserted, but while new-fallen snow had obliterated any clues in the yard, it had not completely covered the
shéltered
back stoop and lower door, which were blood smeared, Thinking it locked, Catherine wrenched at the door, then nearly pitched into an unfurnished room festooned with cobwebs. The other gloomy rooms were empty except for a few pieces of heavy furniture and piles of debris, but a trail of dark blotches led to the kitchen's cellar door. Finding a discarded flint among the litter, she lit a rusty lantern which hung on a nearby nail, and opened the door. A stairway descended into darkness. Slowly, she crept down narrow, rickety steps, then held the lantern high.

Face to the wall, a body partly covered by a ragged blanket lay on the dirt floor. Her heart leaped wildly. "Sean?" The head moved almost imperceptibly and her knees went weak. "Sean, it's Catherine."

As if the effort was terrible, a man slowly turned his head. It's not him! she thought frantically. It cannot be! The bloody face was battered out of recognition. In growing terror, she stumbled forward and knelt, staring at the swollen, twisted nose, the closed, blackened left eye. A wicked gash split the brow and another raked across his bruised cheek. But the good eye, pain-clouded and barely aware, was the green of the sea. She placed the lantern on a rickety stool.

"Kit?" he asked in a ragged whisper.

She touched his broken lips. "Yes, my darling."

"You're . . . real." The relief in his eyes was so intense she fought back tears.

"It's all right now," she whispered. "I'm going to take care of you."

He seemed to relax, then tensed and strained to lift his head. "No! You mustn't stay here!" Gently, she pressed him back, but he resisted with growing desperation. His face twisted in pain and her hands trembled as she started to draw back the blanket.
"No."
He caught her hand tightly, trying to stay conscious. "Kit, get out of here . . . I'm dying."

"I'll bring a doctor."

"No! No doctor. I'd be turned in." A lost look came into his eyes. "I'll not go back there."

"Don't think of it. You're safe now. Try to rest." She kissed his hand, lulling him. "No one's going to hurt you anymore."

"Kitten, go away, please . . ." His whisper died away to quick, shallow breathing. She pulled the covers away. The prison rags were blood soaked from neck to groin.

Waiting not an instant longer, Catherine went out to buy candles, bedding, and food. Shortly, surrounded by supplies and a pan of hot water, she rolled up her sleeves. Then she began to cut away the rags, tears streaking her face. Sean's right arm was broken near the wrist and several ribs were caved in. The bullet wound in his chest was ugly and mounded. She eased him onto his side, and in his back, now a mass of livid scars and reopened cuts, found a bullet hole just missing the spine. His skin was so encrusted with blood and dirt that despite the lantern and candles, she gave up trying to see any more. After slipping clean towels under him, she spent the better part of an hour bathing him. Clean, his body showed the full extent of its brutal abuse. Then she saw how they had mutilated him.

Her head dropped beside his cheek. Unimaginable hatred filled her until at last she knew fully why Sean had devoted his life to vengeance. Their lives were not payment enough. Nothing would be enough.

After she had bandaged him, changed the linen, and finally pulled warm blankets over him, she. rested her head in her hands, trying to fight off black despair. Sean very possibly
was
dying. Without surgery, he
would
die.

Clad in shabby clothing found in an old bureau, Catherine huddled in the deep doorway of a house near the prison on the way to the potter's field. As dusk fell, the two gravediggers came along, their empty cart rattling on the cobbles. She slipped out of the shadows and fell in beside them. "Would you like to make another ten sovereigns, angels?"

They squinted. "Lumme, it's the rich lydy. Come down a bit, an't ye, mum?"

"Not a whit. I can pay you well. I need a favor. Are you interested?"

Lean cackled to Short, "We'll have gold-plyted wings afore long. What's up?"

When she told them, they became markedly less enthusiastic.

"Fifty upon completion. You'll never dig another grave in winter."

Ten minutes later, in full sight of the marine guard, Lean took a whopping fall on the ice just outside the rear of the prison and set up a groaning like a sea cow in labor. "Gor, 'is crown's cracked!" wailed Short. "Get a doctor!"

The guard frowned dubiously. "Doctor an't goin' to come down for no lousy digger."