The Traitor's Blade by Kevin Sands (fiction books to read .TXT) 📕

her fingers scarred with the pricks of thorns. The deep winter had taken its toll on her. If she weighed three-quarters as much as Sally, I’d have been surprised.

“How much?” I said.

She brightened. “A farthing a bunch. Picked them fresh myself, honest.”

“No, sorry, I meant how much for the lot?”

Her eyes went wide. “All of them?” She cast a quick glance over her baskets. “Sixpence?”

I reached into the coin purse Lord Ashcombe had given me and handed her six pennies. She stared, like she couldn’t quite tell if she was dreaming. “Thank you, my lord, thank you.”

The girl and I began to load the flowers into Tom’s arms, until I could barely see his face.

He sneezed. “Why do I have to carry these?”

“Because you wouldn’t let me use the fireworks,” I said.

I stuffed the final bunch under Tom’s collar. The flower seller tugged on my sleeve. “I’m here every day, my lord. Or,” she said desperately, “if you like, I can bring flowers fresh to your home? New flowers every morn, wouldn’t that be lovely?”

I didn’t really have any need for flowers. But I felt terrible for the girl. Here she was, scrounging every freezing morning in the meadows, hoping to earn a farthing, when I’d just got a pension from the king. And all because Master Benedict had taken me in, three and a half years ago.

“You think Sally would like some flowers?” I asked Tom.

He nudged the petals aside with his chin and grinned. “I bet she would.”

“You’re just going to keep saying that, aren’t you?”

“For the rest of my life.” He sneezed. “Which, at this rate, may not be all that long.”

I handed the girl a half crown—worth two shillings and sixpence, or the equivalent of thirty pennies. “Bring flowers for a week,” I said, “to Berkshire House, on Saint James’s Park. Say they’re for Sally Deschamps.”

She pinched the silver, barely able to believe it was real. Then she hid it away safe in her dress. “Every day, my lord. I promise, no matter what, you’ll see. I’ll bring the best for your sweetheart.”

Tom made a strangled noise.

I flushed. “She’s not my sweetheart.”

The girl gave me a knowing smile. “As you like, my lord.”

Tom couldn’t hold it in any longer. He laughed. Then he sneezed. Then he laughed again.

Everyone’s against me.

At least Tom was in a better mood.

“So what are we going to do with all these—atchoo!” Back in the church, people paused to watch the sniffling giant carrying flowers through the nave. “Give them to the pilgrims and sneeze them to death?”

“I don’t think that’s a verb,” I said. “Well… it is a verb, but I don’t think you can use it that way.”

“I don’t need a grammar lesson. I need a handkerchief.”

“We’ll be rid of them in a second. Pardon me, sir.”

We’d reached the pilgrims praying at Saint Erkenwald’s tomb. They parted, allowing the two of us through to the rail. I began placing the flowers all over the vault.

“In memory of our mother,” I said to a woman looking puzzled. “Let me just make some space.”

I pushed the offerings farther toward the center of the tomb. As the flowers piled up, they blocked everyone’s view of what was already on the stone. Tom, finally realizing what I was doing, stood in front of the pilgrims to help cover me. When no one could see, I reached into the primroses and palmed the note, slipping it into my doublet.

We stepped back through the crowd. Tom blew his nose, a honk that echoed in the rafters. “That was clever,” he said.

I was feeling somewhat proud myself. I pulled the note from my pocket and began to unfold it when suddenly a cry came from behind us.

“Hey! What are you doing? Stop!”

Tom and I whirled. The man who’d shouted was a priest in a cassock, standing near the chapel to Saint Dunstan. I covered my doublet where I’d stuffed the note, feeling—and no doubt looking—absurdly guilty.

But the priest wasn’t shouting at us. He’d stretched out his hand to someone else nearby. This man was dressed in a tight doublet and coat, with a cape and a wide-brimmed hat. His lower face was black, and for one ridiculous moment, I thought he was sporting an absurdly large beard.

Then I realized he was wearing a scarf. The man had pulled it up, covering his nose, concealing everything but his eyes.

And in his hand he held a long, slim dagger.

CHAPTER

29

I STARED AT THE DAGGER, stunned.

But… this is a church, I thought stupidly.

The man stared back. His eyes were cold and empty, the soul of a killer. Still I didn’t understand.

Why?

I had no more time to think. Tom grabbed my collar and yanked me backward—this time, not quite so gently. He literally threw me behind him, sending me tumbling through the pilgrims to sprawl on the floor. The back of my skull hit the railing around Saint Erkenwald’s tomb. The iron—and my head—rang like a bell.

I barely felt it. As the pilgrims scattered, I had a clear line of sight to the assassin. He advanced toward me.

Then Tom stepped in the way.

He reached over his shoulder and pulled the cloth from his sword, his right hand on Eternity’s hilt. He drew the weapon upward, but barely, just an inch, so the forte of the blade glinted, gold letters pressed into shining steel. He held his left hand out toward the assassin, in imitation of the priest, but this gesture was a threat. Don’t come any closer.

I didn’t understand why Tom hadn’t drawn his blade. Then I realized it was for the same reason my own brain had taken so long to work in the first place. This is a church.

The assassin sidestepped, left and right, trying to catch sight of me again. Tom shifted with him, keeping his body between us.

Finally, the assassin cursed. He flung the dagger low, trying to hit me by flinging it past Tom’s feet. But the blade wasn’t meant