The Blackthorn Key (30 page)

“The entire city is looking for you,” he said.

“I guess it's lucky no one lives here anymore,” I said.

“More of a shame, really. Mortimer House is quite beautiful.”

My heart thumped faster. “You know it?”

Oswyn gave a slight smile. “I've been here before. Never in the garden, though.” He tilted his head. “Someone broke the lock on my office yesterday afternoon. Was that you?”

“I'm sorry, Master Colthurst. I got locked in.”

“How did you get out?”

“Prayer,” I said.

Oswyn's smile widened. “Benedict made a good choice in you.”

I didn't answer that.

“I received your message.” Oswyn held up the letter I'd sent him. “It says you have nothing to do with the Cult of the Archangel, and you're
innocent of the murders with which Richard Ashcombe has charged you.”

“I am,” I said.

“It also says you've discovered something important, and you need my help. I was surprised, to say the least. With all that's going on, I thought you'd have fled London by now.”

“I had something to take care of first.”

“I'm sure.” He straightened. “So? What did you want of me?”

My breath shuddered in my chest. I had to will myself to keep still.

“I found the Fire,” I said.

“Oh?”

“That's what Stubb and Wat were looking for in my master's shop.”

“I remember.”

“Master Benedict hid the recipe in that puzzle cube he gave me.”

“Did he.” Oswyn scratched his cheek. “And?”

“I . . . I thought you'd want to see it.”

“Why would I want that?”

“Well . . . this is what Stubb killed my master for. This is what the Cult wants.”

“What does that have to do with me?”

I blinked, and floundered for something to say.

Oswyn laughed. “You were hoping I'd jump for that recipe.”

“No, I—”

“And then what? You'd trick me into revealing it was I who wanted the Archangel's Fire all along? I suppose you'd like me to confess to Benedict's murder while I'm at it.”

I felt my face grow hot.

“Christopher.” Oswyn shook his head. “You're trying to play the game, but you don't even know how to move the pieces.”

“I—I didn't—” I began.

“If you want to win, you need to think several steps ahead. Here, let me show you.” Oswyn raised his voice, so it echoed from the walls. “Yes, I killed your master.”

I couldn't move.

“I killed Nathaniel Stubb, too,” he said. “And his apprentices, and Henry Mortimer, and Oliver Pembroke, and many, many others. Not by my own hand. But I sent the agents who did it.” His voice went back to normal. “Will that do?”

My breath caught in my throat.
No
, I thought.
It won't.

The door to the mansion banged open behind me. Lord Ashcombe burst out, flintlock pistol in hand. Four footmen clomped after him, spears at the ready, two of them the same King's Men who were always by his side.

“Hello, Richard,” Oswyn said. He smiled. “What a surprise.”

“Oswyn Colthurst, you are under arrest,” Lord Ashcombe said.

Oswyn took a step backward. “I can see that.”

That was too easy.
I looked past Oswyn, past the gate, to the brick wall of the maze beyond. “Lord Ashcombe—” I said.

“There's nowhere to run, Puritan,” Lord Ashcombe said.

Oswyn took another step back. “Why is that, Richard? If I flee into the maze, I'll . . . what? Meet the guards you hid in there to cut off my escape?”

Lord Ashcombe's eyes narrowed.

“My lord, wait—” I began, but Oswyn cut me off.

“Several steps ahead, Christopher,” he said. Then he ducked behind the mausoleum.

And from the maze poured Oswyn's army.

THERE WERE SEVEN OF THEM
on Oswyn's side. Each held a pistol. Other, more wicked weapons hung from their belts. The Elephant was there, his neck red, skin peeling. Martin was there, too, with torn cheek and missing teeth. Wat led them, his face peppered with scabs, a flintlock in each hand.

Lord Ashcombe reacted like lightning. He fired his pistol on the quick, a sharp crack and a puff of smoke. One of Oswyn's men fell back, his throat ripped open.

Oswyn's troops responded. Six bangs, like firecrackers, and lead shot flew from a dark gray cloud. A musket ball tore at my hair as it punched into the window frame behind me,
sending out a shower of splinters. Three more shots whistled past, one shattering the glass, the others chipping stone. Two found their mark. One soldier's knee blew backward, toppling him to the ground. A second man's eye became a mash of red pulp.

I dived to the grass and covered my head, as if my hands could stop screaming lead. Lord Ashcombe ducked as well, but too late. Wat fired his second pistol. The King's Warden jerked back with a grunt. He dropped his flintlock and grabbed his right arm, just above the elbow. Blood oozed through his fingers.

Oswyn's men threw their pistols away, ammunition spent. Then they rushed in. I scrambled out of the way, but they weren't charging at me.

With two of Lord Ashcombe's troops down, the King's Men were badly outnumbered. One of them caught one of Oswyn's thugs in the chest with his spear before falling under a hail of swords. The other soldier was immediately overwhelmed, never managing a strike before taking a club to the skull. He swayed. A second blow to the crown felled him for good.

Even wounded, Lord Ashcombe was a lion. Left-handed, he threw a knife from his belt that caught one of Oswyn's men in the neck. He picked up a spear from the ground and
hurled it, piercing another man through the chest. Martin advanced on him, sword high. Lord Ashcombe grabbed a second spear from one of his fallen men-at-arms, and with a feint and a thrust, he drove the weapon home. Martin collapsed, eyes wide, the spearhead deep in his gut.

The boy's fall twisted the spear from Lord Ashcombe's hands. Lord Ashcombe grasped at the sword in his belt, but his fingers, slick with his own blood, slipped on the hilt.

And then Wat was on him.

Wat's ax swung. The first blow, low and diagonal, was at Lord Ashcombe's sword hand. Two of his fingers fell to the ground with the cracked hilt. The second blow hacked downward. It took Lord Ashcombe in the cheek. The King's Warden crumpled to the grass, his hand pressed against his face.

Wat straddled him, grinning. With both hands, he lifted his ax.

“Hold!”

Oswyn ran from behind the mausoleum, toward us. Wat's grin faltered.

“Hold, curse you!” Oswyn said. “Don't kill him!” Oswyn pulled Wat away. “Not yet.”

Wat shook his arm free from Oswyn's grasp. The soldier who'd lost his knee to a musket ball was crawling toward
the back door of the manor, a smear of blood glistening in the grass behind him. Wat stormed over and smashed the ax into the man's back. The soldier stopped moving.

It was over in seconds. I sat there, on the grass, motionless. A fallen sword lay two feet away from me, glinting in the sunlight.

Oswyn walked over, his eyes on me. Casually, he slipped his foot under the blade and kicked it away. It tumbled end over end, landing in an overgrown bush, far enough away to be useless. “Don't want you getting any ideas,” he said.

Lord Ashcombe's breath rattled in his throat. His left eye was gone. His scarred cheek had been slashed open enough to see his teeth underneath, stained crimson. Still, he remained a lion. “Traitor,” he spat.

“Me?” Oswyn laughed humorlessly. “That wretch you call a king drinks away the days on his throne, and
I'm
the traitor? The people of England fall into lechery and corruption, and
I'm
the traitor?
You
are the traitor, Richard. You, and every other man who follows him. And you will be judged for your transgressions.”

“Then send me to God. I'll wait for you, tell you what He says.”

Oswyn leaned over. “Oh, I intend to, Richard. But not
before you see the death of your king. And me enshrined as the new Lord Protector.”

“I'll never kneel before you,” Lord Ashcombe said.

“You will.” Oswyn smoothed the front of his waistcoat. “Even if I have to cut off your feet to make you do it.”

The Elephant knelt beside Martin. The boy had pulled out the spear. Now he held his hands against his stomach, trying to keep his guts in. He was crying. “Help me. Please help me.”

Oswyn looked to the Elephant, who pulled Martin's hands back to inspect the wound. The Elephant shook his head. Oswyn nodded, and the giant slipped his knife behind Martin's ear. The apprentice stiffened, then became silent, tears tracking from sightless eyes.

Then Oswyn nodded toward me.

The Elephant stood.

I scrambled backward, fingers clawing at the grass. My head banged against the wall of the manor.

“Calm yourself,” Oswyn said. “He's only going to search you.”

The Elephant threw his knife so its point stuck in the dirt, quivering. Then he bent over and pawed at me. I was too scared to even try to resist.

“What did you do with Ashcombe's soldiers hiding in the maze?” Oswyn asked Wat.

Wat wiped the blade of his ax on a King's Man's tabard. “Killed them.”

“And the bodies?”

“Still in the maze. No one saw us.”

The Elephant's hands found my master's sash underneath my shirt. He tore it from my waist and threw it to Oswyn. “Just this.”

Oswyn examined it, curious. “You have practically the whole pharmacopoeia in here.” Suddenly, he looked down at me, surprised. “Oil of vitriol. On the lock. That's how you escaped my office.”

Escape was exactly what I was thinking about, but there was nowhere left to crawl. “How did you know about Lord Ashcombe?” My voice was shaking. “How did you know he'd be waiting for you?”

“Oh, I've had a spy in his employ for months,” Oswyn said. “Not everyone who wears the king's colors serves the man. Some support a higher ideal. Although a great deal of gold has its charms, too.”

Oswyn turned to Lord Ashcombe for a response, but the King's Warden said nothing. Oswyn shrugged.

“As Richard here left the Tower with his men,” Oswyn said, “my spy sent a runner to tell me you'd delivered a letter to Lord Ashcombe, suggesting a plan to trap the leader of the Cult of the Archangel. By the time I received your message at the Hall, I already knew why you wanted me to come here, and I knew Lord Ashcombe's men would be hiding in the maze. It was easy enough to set a counter to your trap, and turn the tables on you both.

“In fact, you've rather helped me. I've wanted to get rid of the King's Warden for some time. You've given me the perfect opportunity to do it. Two birds with one stone, as they say.” Oswyn smiled. “You see what I mean, Christopher? Several steps ahead.”

Oswyn traced his fingers over the vials in the sash. “A better question is, how did
you
know? When you fled the Hall on Sunday morning, after I'd told you to wait, I thought you'd found me out. But you returned that afternoon, so you obviously didn't realize I was behind the murders until some time after that. What gave me away?”

“Wat did,” I said. Oswyn looked sharply at the brutish boy, who spread his hands as if trying to deflect blame. “You told me you'd tested every apprentice in the Guild. You said you'd never heard of Wat. But then he showed up at the Hall.”

Inside, I kicked myself. I'd figured it out a day too late. “When I arrived that morning,” I said, “the doorman wasn't going to let me in, even when he found out I was an apprentice. He would never have let Wat in on a Sunday, either, unless he had a right to be there. So Wat
had
to be part of the Guild. But you'd claimed he wasn't. There was only one reason to lie about it.

“He wasn't Stubb's apprentice,” I said. “He was
yours
.”

I thought Oswyn would be angry. Instead, he looked delighted. “I'd planned to have you killed that morning,” he said to me, “just like I'd decided to get rid of Stubb. The man was working for me, as you've no doubt guessed by now, but he'd become too much of a liability. Stubb's gold was useful to our cause—it paid off our spy, among other things—but he was starting to get too pushy with his demands, and him letting you overhear him in your master's shop was unforgivable. He had to be eliminated.

“As for you,” Oswyn said, “when you ran away from the Hall, I was furious. Now I'm pleased.”

And although I'd known this moment was coming, although I'd tried to prepare for it, I started to shake. “Why?”

“Because, Christopher, I rather like you. More important, you have something I need.” He crouched beside me. “And this time, I intend to get it.”

“I DON'T HAVE ANYTHING,” I
stammered. “I just said I did to get you to come here.”

Oswyn looked disappointed. “I won't insult you by pretending you're stupid. Please extend me the same courtesy. Give me the recipe for the Archangel's Fire.”

“Master Benedict never told me anything about it.”

“That, I believe. He wouldn't have put you in danger unless it was absolutely necessary.”

“There was never any recipe in the puzzle cube.” I tried to stop my voice from shaking. “I just said that to get you to confess.”

“Oh, I know that.”

“Then you know I don't really have—”

Oswyn interrupted me. “You left the Hall. On Sunday, after I'd warned you not to speak to anyone, after I'd warned you Stubb might come, after I'd
ordered
you to wait for me, still you left. If you weren't running from me, only one other thing could have made you go. Benedict must have given you something before he died. If not the recipe for the Fire itself, then some trail to follow to find it. A letter. A message. A map.