The Shadow of Albion (52 page)

impenetrable it seemed to glow with unreal colors, and Sarah had to fight off a

sudden surge of claustrophobia. It was as if she was trapped in a cave deep beneath

the earth, where she might rest forever, with no one to ever know her fate….

„Sarah,“ Meriel breathed. „I see a light.“

To Louis’s astonishment, the source of the scrabbling noise was revealed as the

Duchess of Wessex, and with the Duchess was Lady Meriel. The moment she saw

Louis, Meriel ran to his side, oblivious to what dangers might lurk here, and clutched

at his hands through the bars.

„Oh, Louis – I .thought I had lost you!“ Meriel said, beginning to weep.

Sarah closed her ears to the rest of their conversation – they had switched to

French, at any rate, a language that Sarah did not know- – and struggled with the iron

bar. Mr. Highclere might be an indifferent hunter, but his quarry had multiplied to the

point that even he could not fail to draw some covert or other. They must get Louis

out of here – but even to save the young man’s life, Sarah did not think she could

get him out along the servant’s stairway.

Sarah only hoped that Wessex had done something permanent about Geoffrey

Highclere.

Geoffrey had entered the grand salon to pour himself a drink. His saber jingled at

his side as he walked, symbol of a rank and status that would vanish like morning

mist if he failed to retain possession of both Louis and me Duchess.

It was no longer much of a salon, its furnishing consisting of a table, a sideboard,

and a chair, but there was a bottle of brandy there with which Geoffrey had an

appointment. The day was advanced enough for him not to need a candle; the cold

grey light of dawn gave the space a sickroom clarity, but Geoffrey was intent upon

the brandy, and the castle was not heated well even at the best of times. It therefore

took him some seconds to register that one of the windows had been opened to the

chill morning air.

„I have come to kill you, Mr. Highclere,“ the Duke of Wessex said pleasantly.

„Please be so good as to draw your sword.“

A dozen feet away stood His Grace of Wessex, King Henry’s noble executioner,

dressed like a French clerk and holding a dueling sword that glittered like a barber’s

razor.

„Are you challenging me to a duel?“ Geoffrey asked, playing desperately for time.

If Wessex were here he must know everything. He must have come for the Young

King. It would be a feather in Geoffrey’s cap if he could deliver Wessex – alive or

dead.

And then the inconvenient Duchess would be his to do with as he pleased….

‘ „Actually, no,“ Wessex said apologetically. „I’ve come to kill you, and a pistol

would draw inconvenient attention.“

And I have a pistol, Tour Interfering Grace – and you do not.

Geoffrey did not dare to draw attention to his hole-card, but he could feel its

weight dragging at his tunic pocket. Slowly he drew his sword with his left hand.

Most right-handed fencers were hindered against a left-handed swordsman, and so

Geoffrey had taught himself long ago to wield a blade with either hand. He held his

saber point downward, edge out, in the German style.

Wessex, he saw, favored the Italian school. His grace came en garde and

advanced quickly, the knuckles of his free hand pressed against his waist.

The swords clashed with a high rasping sound. Both men were excellent

swordsmen; each had killed. But Wessex was fighting for the lives of others, and

Geoffrey was fighting for his own skin. He pushed the Duke back again and again,

until they had traversed the length of the salon. The stamp of their boots rang loud in

the silence of the morning, but not as loud as a pistol-shot would have. Geoffrey

slashed wildly, his entire aim to keep from being cut, and to free his pistol. Though it

took only seconds for him to achieve this aim, bom men were already sweating when

he succeeded.

„And now, Wessex, it is time to resign the match.“

„Must it be this way, Highclere? There will be a scandal, I expect, but at least

your family might know that you died as a gentleman.“

„You’re mad, Your Grace. Who are you to talk of gentlemen and honor? But I

digress. The victory goes to me, I think. Throw down your sword.“

Wessex did, and Geoffrey kicked the weapon away as he closed in.

Then His Grace drew his pocketwatch and opened it, apparently oblivious to the

pistol in Geoffrey’s hand.

„It is just rising’ six, I think,“ His Grace observed, and shot Geoffrey Highclere

through the throat.

The recoil caused the pocketwatch to fly out of the Duke’s hand, smashing itself

against the wall behind his head. The sound of the shot echoed loudly, and Wessex

wrung his bruised hand- – the hideout pistol was a fearsome weapon, but at a price.

Quickly Wessex retrieved his sword and the smashed remains of the watch; it

would not do to allow the White Tower’s secrets to fall into enemy hands.

The door flew open.

„The Anglais has been shot!“ Wessex shouted into the faces of the surprised

chausseurs. „The assassin has escaped through me window! After him – quickly!

Quickly!“

The upper storeys of the old chateau were largely uninhabited, Illya Koscuisko

had found, forcing a window that let into one of the attics, but hardly empty.

Wessex had told him to create a diversion, and so he would. The chateau had

burned once: why not again?

Koscuisko spent a few minutes gathering straw ticks and ramshackle furniture

together into one of the deserted attics. The best way to start a fire was never from

the top down, but he was forced to work with the materials at hand. Having amassed

a fine pile of potential tinder, Koscuisko crossed from that attic to the servant’s

quarters, and then to the attic on the far side, where he found an object that surprised

him gready – a wicker basket nearly as high as a man, ringed with sandbags.

„Interesting,“ he murmured to himself.

Even more interesting was the fact that the rest of the mechanism was also

present, carefully packed in wooden crates. Koscuisko went over to me window and

looked out. The roof canted steeply, and the walls were a sheer drop to the moat

below, but to his left, the roof flattened out where it met the top of the old stone

tower that formed the oldest section of the chateau.

Now the next question was, could he transport the contraption from here to there?

Whistling softly to himself, Koscuisko set to work.

The underground complex was a maze. Once they got as far as the wine cellar,

where the sounds of chaos were audible: screaming servants and swearing soldiers,

all shouting at each other. There would be no escape through the kitchen. And so

Meriel, Sarah, and Louis turned back, trying to find the route that Geoffrey had taken

to bring Louis down into the cellar, but only succeeded in retiring to the dungeon

cells again.

„It is no good,“ Louis groaned. „There is no escape that is not guarded by

Talleyrand’s jackals. You must return the way you came, and leave me behind.“

„No!“ Meriel cried.

„I mink there is another way,“ Sarah said. „Give me your candle, Meriel – and

you, Louis, bring me some of that damp straw.“

Before Sarah Cunningham had ever become entangled in the affairs of alien

nations, she had been taught to survive with little more than her bare hands to aid

her. The other two watched uncomprehendingly as the thin thread of smoke from the

tiny fire spiraled upward toward the roof.

„Forgive me, Madame la Duchesse“ Louis said, „but what good can this do? A

fire will not help us.“

„A fire will show us the way out,“ Sarah corrected. And true to her word, the top

of the smoke-thread streamed sideways, in the direction of the exit.

Three times Sarah stopped and kindled a tiny fire from the relit candle and a few

wisps of dank straw. Each time the smoke followed the direction of the circulating

air, pointing their way to freedom. She had safely explored caves near her home with

this method, which could nearly always point the way to some exit from beneath the

earth.

And once again – in an artificial labyrinth far from home – the trick worked its

simple magic. They reached a door that none of them had seen before. The panel

stood at the top of a long, free-standing stone staircase, and light shone beneath the

door.

„Another dead end,“ Meriel said somberly. „Locked… or guarded.“

„We don’t know that,“ Louis said hopefully. He looked to Sarah.

„I don’t think it is,“ she said slowly. She’d been doing her best to keep a map of

the chateau in her head, and it seemed to her that they were at the opposite end of

the great building from the narrow staircase along which she and Meriel had

descended into the dungeons in the first place. That ought to put them beneath the

old tower in which Sarah and Louis had been held captive.

„I don’t believe there’s anyone here,“ Sarah amplified. „I think every one is

looking for us at the other end of the cellars – not here.“

„And even if they are closer, we are rapidly running out of choices, are we not?“

Louis said. He put an arm around Meriel's shoulders. „We cannot stay down here

forever.“

„No,“ Sarah agreed. She took a deep breath and started up the stairs.

The door will be locked, she told herself hopefully. If it were, she would at least

not have to choose whether or not it was safe to open. There was a small grille set

into the door; through its lattice, Sarah saw that the light came from a narrow

arrow-slit in the left-hand wall of the tower. The sun had risen; it was morning.

She pulled on the handle. The door didn’t move. But it ratded, and Sarah saw that

it was secured by a tiny latch on this side of the door, not the other. Carefully she

eased back the small bolt. Now all that was left was to open the door and see what

lay beyond. Mustering all her reserves of courage, Sarah opened the door.

The half-circle room that lay beyond the doorway was empty. She pushed the

door open and beckoned to the others.

„This way. Hurry!“

The Duke of Wessex was a busy man this morning. His ruse had worked about

as long as he’d thought it would – three minutes – but that gave him a three-minute

lead, and His Grace used the time to good advantage. With Talleyrand absent, and

the over-busy Mr. Highclere now among the angels, the soldiers and servants had no

one to give them orders – leading to an amount of confusion that could only work to

England’s benefit.

That confusion did not mean, however, that Wessex would not be shot on sight.

He managed to deprive one soldier of rifle and ammunition bag, and thus armed,

held off his pursuers while allowing them to drive him backward through the chateau.

He’d wanted to make for the dungeons, but was balked in this – however, from

Sarah’s information and his own early reconnaissance, Wessex had a good idea of

where he wanted to go, and what he meant to do when he got there.

Wessex gained the top of a staircase and flung himself into cover. The

cartridge-bag hit the floor beside him with a dull mud, and he swung the weapon

down into position.

A well-drilled infantryman could deliver three shots a minute under field

conditions. Wessex lacked that peak of training, but he could manage two. The first

shot exploded the wall in a shower of splinters and plaster, filling the stairway with a

thick veil of acrid white smoke. He reloaded and fired again, and then, while his

pursuers waited, expecting another shot, Wessex ran.

As he’d hoped, the tower was separated from the newer building by thick,

inward-opening doors. He slammed the door behind him, jamming a piece of a

broken chair through the iron staples meant to hold the wooden bar. The barrier

would not keep his pursuers at bay forever – he would have to find something

stronger.

And then he heard movement on the stairs below him, and realized that perhaps

his plan would not serve after all.

„Who’s there?“ Meriel called out nervously, before Sarah could shush her.

Desperately, Sarah wished for a weapon – any weapon, even a knife.

There was a clatter of boots upon the stair.

„Sarah?“ Wessex demanded.

His face was blackened with gunpowder, and Sarah’s heart gave a treacherous

leap of joy to see him alive and whole. And then she grabbed for the weapon he

held. Relief washed over her as she took the familiar weight in her hands – whatever

else had altered when she had been wrenched from her own world, the light