"How do I know what they'd do? But they're professional killers, and they're after you, Drake—and Claude Nicolas has them on his leash. If you go to the wedding and do this little favor, he'll take care of 'em for you."
The room grew quiet. Sheridan pressed his forefinger against the cut on his thumb, making it sting with his own salt. "Why should I believe that?" he asked softly. "The sthaga don't answer to anyone."
"These do. Look." The man produced a primrose scarf from beneath his robe, held up an Indian rupee, blessed it in the sthaga's secret language and looped it swiftly in a knot at the end of the scarf. "Is that proof enough? Where else would I have learned it but from his tame thugs? After they lost you in Madeira, they reckoned the next place you'd pop up was Oriens—seeing as you were so cozy with the princess and all. But Oriens isn't a very big place. They couldn't lurk around there for long before Claude Nicolas sniffed 'em out. Now he has 'em on a string—their sect's wiped out in India and they blame that on you. And he knows where you are. They don't." He tossed the scarf in Sheridan's lap. "So far they don't."
Sheridan lifted it. "You know how to kill someone with this?"
"Not I. I'm just a messenger."
Toying with the silk, Sheridan smiled at his companion. "I do."
The other shifted uneasily. "Well, no need to look at me that way. I'm trying to do you a service."
"For a price."
"Very small. Very easy. Risk-free. Just ask the Sultan for leave to attend the wedding of a dear friend. Two months and you'll be back here getting yourself tickled in all the right places." He looked around the rich chamber. "You're no fool, Drake—that's clear enough. I wouldn't have bothered to bring you this offer if I hadn't thought there was enough in it to be worth your while."
"Your consideration is heartwarming."
He shrugged and grinned. Sheridan saw a flash of the roguish charm that he knew would be this fellow's stock-in-trade. The visitor said, "I reckon we don't think so differently. You've a pretty position here, and I'd really hate for you to turn up floating in the Bosporus one morning. I was hoping that when you got back, you'd remember me kindly."
Sheridan held the dagger, one finger pressing it lightly at each end. He wasn't afraid of the sthaga. He felt a certain black fondness for them. There was appeal in the idea of sudden and silent death that came upon him out of the darkness. He leaned on his crossed legs.
"I see," he said.
"Good." The other man nodded amiably. He smiled. "Besides, I've never liked the idea of that pretty little chit being shot in the back at her wedding by her own damned uncle's brutes. I try not to be squeamish, but that seems a bit too beastly to me." He rubbed his chin. "I've only seen her once. She seemed like a nice tidbit, but I don't know—maybe she's a harpy or something. You'd know better than I."
Sheridan kept his voice level. "I thought he wanted to marry her himself."
"Not anymore. She's too much of a handful—all this running off around the world with unwholesome chaps like you." Again that charming grin. "And me. Perhaps I'll be waiting in the wings to comfort her when she gets booed off the stage, sthaga? That a good notion?"
Sheridan turned the knife in his hands, over and over. "Maybe," he said.
The other man waited a moment, and then he stood up. "The date's set for a month from today, Drake. Will you do it?"
The dagger caught the afternoon sun, gleaming red on silver. Sheridan locked his hands around the handle, holding the blade pointed straight up. "Yes," he said, staring at the killing edge. "I'll do it."
Twenty-Seven
* * *
In the very last row, in a cathedral that seemed half as large as Oriens itself, Sheridan sat in the seat next to the center aisle. He had a small pistol in his pocket and cold purpose in his soul. He might not walk out of this church alive—he doubted it—but his princess would.
The glittering congregation was subdued, their murmurs and rustlings overwhelmed by the uneasy grumble of the mammoth crowd outside. Sheridan hadn't counted on that—it appeared that every able-bodied citizen in the country was gathered in the streets. They were watching for their exiled princess, waiting for this wedding. They'd never seen her, but she'd become a symbol to them: her name consolidated feuding factions, her invisible presence stimulated conservative merchants to subversion, the romance of this wedding brought peasant women from their villages with garlands of flowers and laurel.
If Sheridan were to do what Claude Nicolas hoped, they'd tear him apart.
Behind him, stationed on either side of the door, he felt the presence of the two sthaga. Claude Nicolas had them rigged out in scarlet uniforms as part of an honor guard of Bengal lancers. Sheridan would have laughed at the idea, until he saw them. They looked at him and never moved, but he knew the faces—as they knew his.
They were Prince Claude Nicolas's reserve plan. He'd do nothing so clumsy as have Olympia shot in the church. Sheridan had been briefed, on the details. If his public denouncement somehow didn't work, if the wedding went forth, he wasn't to be concerned that Claude Nicolas would go back on his promise. The sthaga would go with the coach as it headed for the honeymoon castle in the mountains. Neither Olympia nor her new husband would come back. The thugs knew how to conceal bodies. And Claude Nicolas knew how to dispose of thugs.
Sheridan stared at the gold braid on the cuffs of his dress uniform. The man was thorough, there was no denying that. He had everything anticipated, all the rational contingencies covered.
Except Sheridan wasn't rational, not by Claude Nicolas's sane standards. His life and the sthaga meant nothing. He wasn't going to stand up and speak out. The wedding ceremony was going to be celebrated. The music would fill the church and the party would pass him—first Olympia and her husband, then the bridesmaids, then the groomsmen, and then Prince Claude Nicolas would follow them down the aisle.
And Sheridan would kill him.
He had an escape plan, and Mustafa supposedly waiting with horses at the vestry door, but the crowd jamming the streets outside made an already unlikely prospect into mere futility.
He didn't care. He'd seen this end coming upon him for a long, long time.
If he could only make her safe from her enemies. Protect her, and through her, all the best things in the world, the good things, the simple, beautiful, guileless things. That was all he asked now. That was worth his life. He owed it to her, and to all the men who'd died when he hadn't.
Why them? he'd always asked; why them and not me?
He had an answer now. He wanted this to be the answer.
Olympia heard the organ begin, and the rising cheers from the crowd outside. Ladies-in-waiting fluttered around her, plucking here, arranging there, nervous fingers and high, giddy voices that pierced through the rumble and music. They'd all been smuggled into the church, one by one—to prevent a riot, her uncle said—and Olympia believed him.
She'd found Prince Claude Nicolas unexpectedly kind. He was tall and thin and gentle with her grandfather's querulous complaints. He wore spectacles, and peered around like a shy schoolboy at the ministers who attended the court. He'd spent many patient hours explaining the political situation in Oriens and never chided her for running away.
A year ago, she would have been astonished and relieved and taken him for what he seemed. Now she just listened, and watched, and drew her own conclusions.
There were lies everywhere—people who seemed made entirely of falsehoods. Julia smiled, Claude Nicolas smiled, Prince Harold and the British diplomats smiled; everyone was all joy except her irritable old grandfather, who looked at her sideways from underneath his brows and complained of his digestion. He was the only one she trusted.
Olympia herself was a lie, dressed in a maiden's wedding white, and they all knew it. She'd told them, but they pretended not to hear. This marriage would take place; nothing could be allowed to stop it. Prince Harold would swallow his pride and accept what had belonged to another man, or the country would explode. And s
till he smiled, but in his eyes she saw that he would make her pay.
She held the bouquet over her stomach, pressing her fingers to the sick distress that hovered there. It was only nerves—she'd prayed and prayed it would be more, that she carried part of Sheridan with her, but two months had passed, and the hope grew dim as the signs failed her.
It was hard to think of him. She wanted to, and didn't. In a queer way, she felt he was still with her—that it had been some stranger who'd said those things and left that night, and she would turn and find him here, watching over her with silent tenderness.
To think so gave her courage. She remembered the cliff on the island, the way he'd only looked at her, not tried to encourage or bully or cajole her into going down. He'd simply expected her to do what she had to, and believe that he would not let her fall.
She knew what she must do now. The tide had carried her far enough. She made her shaky limbs obey her and walked with her bridesmaids to the vestibule of the cathedral, took her waiting uncle's arm and faced the huge, arched doors as they opened to a cascade of triumphal notes.
The congregation filled the church in a blur of color—aristocrats, royalists—her uncle's friends and supporters. They all rose as Olympia and Claude Nicolas passed amid the deafening music and noise from outside. She looked from side to side, but the mass of faces seemed to dim before her eyes; everything focused into the magnificent sweep of stained glass and stone, upward and upward above the tiny figures at the altar to the glorious wheel of color in the rose window, where dyed sunlight streamed through shadow to hurt her eyes.
She was still gazing at it when she felt Claude Nicolas release her arm. She focused again, and found the altar in front of her and Prince Harold at her side. The great organ fell silent, and so did the crowd outside.
The Protestant ceremony was in French, but she barely heard it. She was waiting for the moment. She'd planned this for weeks: they had her trapped from all sides, they could marry her off by proxy if she managed to run away, but no one could stop the public announcement she was about to make.
The church was quiet, but the sound of her heart filled her ears. Through it, she saw rather than heard Prince Harold's lips move in his vows. Like a faint whistle through a loud wind, the clergyman's voice came to her, asking if she, Olympia Francesca Marie Antonia Elizabeth, took this man…
"No!" She raised her voice. "I will not!" Then she realized that in her excitement she'd spoken English. She tore her hand from Prince Harold's and faced the crowd. "Non! Nein—Ich will es nicht!" she exclaimed in French and German and then in Italian, too, covering all the languages of her people. She gathered her dress and threw down the bouquet, tossed the huge train back as she started down the stairs, still making the statement, louder and louder with every step, until she was proclaiming at the top of her voice into the stunned silence. "I'll lead my people if they want democracy," she cried, "and I won't marry to uphold a throne."
Let them try to conceal that vow, the way they'd covered up everything else. If the people of Oriens wanted revolution, if they wanted her, then she was here. Let it start now.
She heard movement behind her and began walking faster. In front of her, the elegant congregation stared, frozen, as her trembling voice echoed in the church and repeated her declaration all down the aisle.
Behind, the sound of footsteps on stone made her pick up her skirt in haste. People began to lean forward as she passed, turning toward her. Hands reached out to catch her. She could see her goal—the great doors to the vestibule. Her uncle's voice shouted something, close behind her, a sharp order that vibrated through the church. Next to the doors, the scarlet coats of lancers began to converge on her escape. She felt her lungs laboring with the weight of the train, and panic began to rise in her throat.
She wasn't going to make it. The lancers were going to stop her. The congregation in the pews was still not quite believing, catching at her but not holding, but the lancers—
"Princess." The familiar voice cut into the blur of fright. She did not stop; she could not tell if it was real; she tried to sweep the crowd through the growing frenzy, but there were so many people—so many—there—one man standing, stepping out to catch her arm, not to hold her but to pull her with him another way, a figure of blue and gold shimmering so that she could not see his face…but she heard his voice above the others, steady and beloved, felt his white-gloved hand grip her arm with familiar strength, and she went with him—in blind panic and faith while everything around seemed to erupt and collapse in on her in a blaze of noise and light.
They burst out of the vestry door on the side of the cathedral. Sheridan saw Mustafa on one of the horses, riding it, trailing the other like a boat on a sea of humanity. The crowd shrieked as they recognized their princess—a sound that blossomed into a roar through the narrow street. Her train caught in the door; Sheridan shoved it closed in their pursuers' faces and pushed her down the steps. He saw the fabric rip, though he couldn't hear the sound above the thunder of the crowd.
The mob surged toward them. The door exploded open behind. Sthaga lancers charged out, swords unsheathed. Sheridan tried to hold onto Olympia, but the crowd was pulling at her, dragging her down among them. She clutched at him; he saw her mouth open in a scream he couldn't hear. Something struck heavily on his arm, a sting and then numbness, and there was blood on a lancer's sword before the crowd closed them off, roaring with fury.
Someone went down next to him in the push. He felt his fingers slipping from Olympia's arm and shouted in panic and rage. He could barely see her, white amid the swift and press of faces and arms just ahead. Fear drove him through; they would kill her—he caught at the flash of white and lost it, and then suddenly she was above him, swept on up the shoulders of the howling mob.
Sheridan plunged forward. He could see Mustafa working for them, striking with his whip to clear a path, and somehow the crowd was helping, pushing Olympia and the horses together—while behind, at the cathedral door, everything was struggling chaos. Hands rose above the mass, shoving her onto the horse, and she clung, reaching back toward him, her face white and frightened. She was crying something—his name, he thought, but he couldn't reach her. The crowd surged backward, sucking him like a wave as the tumult rose to a new shrill. He saw her look up, beyond him, toward the door, and amid the turmoil her eyes seemed to fix on the scene—her lips parted and something terrible came into her expression. He turned, trying to see what she saw, but at his level there was only the uncontrolled crush and shove of people.
He turned again, and she was farther away, the crowd and Mustafa carrying her along the street. Her face appalled him—she'd seen something; he knew that ghastly look and what it took to bring it. He lunged forward, thrusting with his shoulders and knees and wounded arm, using all his strength and balance to keep upright and moving in the surging crowd.
He had to stay with her. She would need him. When the shock evaporated and the specter of whatever she'd witnessed was still there, she'd need someone by her who knew that kind of nightmare.
"I don't want it!" Olympia's voice was sharp, irritated. Before Sheridan could move with his unwounded arm to stop her, she swept her hand at the chocolate, and the cup went clattering off the table.
Mustafa caught it with a quick duck before it hit the floor. Dark liquid splashed his loose trousers, but he only bowed and murmured, "Emiriyyiti," in a passive voice.
Sheridan glanced at the neatly dressed woman who'd given them shelter from the coming night and the icy mountain drizzle at her farmhouse-inn. He wanted to apologize, but she didn't speak French and explanations in Italian or German or whatever language prevailed here were beyond him—he'd only managed to convey their need for food and rest with a show of his purse. The woman had been kind—she'd taken one look at Olympia, bedraggled and blank-faced, and waved the gold aside, insisting they come inside instantly.
From this elevation, they could still see smoke from the fires in the main city on the
far side of the pass. God knew what their hostess thought. While binding up the sword cut on his arm, she'd asked Sheridan a few anxious questions, but he had no idea if his mimed explanations reached her. Then other refugees had begun to straggle by, and Sheridan caught the important news. "Claude Nicolas!" came the excited word. "Morto! Morto, signora!"
Dead. He relaxed back into his chair. Pursuit would not be very hot in that case.
The Signora, with the natural canniness of a border innkeeper, kept Sheridan's party out of sight of these passersby. He had a notion that what was left of Olympia's rich gown and his dress uniform told its own story. It was probable that the proprietress had guessed the identity of the princess—which was a danger, but one that could hardly be avoided. He listened to the way she dealt with the other travelers, the natural chatter she used to draw information from them and pass it on in sign and drawings to Sheridan, the Gallic shrugs with which she shook her head and sent the others on their way instead of filling her rooms—and he knew they'd been lucky and found a friend.
Olympia sat at the table, her hands twisting in her lap. Her face still held that dull glassiness, and when he could get her to speak at all, it was only in angry, childlike responses—refusing food, refusing dry clothes, refusing to be touched at all.
He wanted to hold her. He looked at her pinched and bloodless face and wanted to cradle her and rock her and soothe her until the pain went away. But he did not try, not yet. Best to get through to safety while she was still in this stunned and defensive state.
"Olympia," he said, kneeling beside her chair, "I want you to eat something and change out of that dress. You have to rest."
She frowned at him. He'd already exchanged his own uniform for a nondescript coat and breeches.
"Where are we?" she asked in that biting, half-frantic voice.
"We're on the way home."
"No. I have to go back."
He took her hand. She pulled it away.