The Dark Knight

Chapter Four

Though his brief words chilled her to the marrow, Tonia kept her smile fixed on her lips. “My family and friends call me Tonia.”

Amazement replaced the headsman’s grimmer look. A cynical grin curled his full lips. “You think I am a friend, my lady?” he asked in a gruff tone.

“They say that a gentle death is a good friend to be desired, and you have promised to be gentle.” Tonia prayed that he did not see how much she shook under her cape.

He stared at her for a moment, then took up Baxtalo’s reins. “The day grows older,” he muttered as he started toward the main gate.

“And more beautiful, methinks,” she replied, following him.

He didn’t look back at her but plodded through the archway. Tonia’s heart soared as she left the walls of her prison behind her. Beyond the gate, a broad, rock-strewn meadow sloped down to the stream that they had seen from the wall walk. Though the remains of last summer’s grass were brown and brittle underfoot, Tonia thought it the most splendid piece of earth she had ever seen. After watering his horse, the headsman turned the animal loose to forage. Then he looked at her.

He swept his arm in a graceful arc, like the lord of the forest that grew on the far side of the stream. “Well, my lady…er…Tonia, where pleases you?”

A hundred miles north of here at the very least. She skipped down the gentle hillside until she stood before him. Turning, she looked back up at the ruined fortress. Even in the bright sunlight, it exuded a dark, forbidding air. She certainly did not want to be buried within its looming shadow. Closer to the stream, she saw a hillock that overlooked the deep valley below them. She wondered if the dead were able to admire the beauty of their final surroundings.

“There.” She pointed to the sunlit spot.

He nodded. Without a word, he walked over to the mound, braced his legs apart for balance on the slope and struck the earth with his shovel. He muttered something under his breath. Tonia joined him.

“Still yet frozen.” He pushed the shovel down with his foot. A few clods of dark earth broke free.

Tonia concealed her glee. She sent a quick prayer of thanksgiving to Saint Michael. The executioner’s spade loosened another small clod or two. At this snail’s pace, it would take him a week to dig a grave that would be deep enough to hold her—and if the weather again turned cold, that time could stretch out even longer.

Masking her joy at this unexpected turn of events, Tonia pretended to be crestfallen. “’Tis not very promising, is it?” She prodded one of the dirt clods with the squared toe of her shoe.

The large man merely grunted as he attempted to wrest another shovelful of earth from the hillside. Gathering her cape around her, Tonia perched on a low stone that protruded from the ground. In silence, she watched him labor.

After a quarter of an hour, he had managed to scrape off the top layer of sod roughly in the contour of a grave. Though the shape did little to comfort Tonia, the frozen earth below encouraged her hope for a long reprieve. Pausing, the headsman mopped his perspiring lower face with the sleeve of his padded woolen jerkin.

Tonia took a breath. “Methinks ’twould be more comfortable for you if you removed your mask,” she suggested.

He shook his head, wiped his palms on the thighs of his brown leather breeches and then returned to his task.

Tonia pushed her windblown hair out of her face. “I give you my word of honor that I will not haunt you—afterward.”

Avoiding her gaze, he again shook his head.

Tonia rubbed her shoulders. Even though the sun shone, the wind kept the air chill. She rose and sauntered over to inspect his progress. Happily he was less than a foot down at one end.

She cocked her head. “’Twill take some time, methinks, for I wish to be buried deeply in the earth.”

He jammed the shovel’s head into the dirt until it stood upright, quivering on its own. He glared at her. “I will say when ’tis deep enough.”

Tonia refused to back away. Instead she assumed an injured expression. “Agreed, Monsieur de Mort, but I tell you truly, I had a nightmare of the wolves and wild boars feasting on my bones.” She did not need to feign her revulsion at this thought.

He looked down at the shallow hole. “I give you my word. You will rest in peace, my lady.”

She inclined her head in a small gesture of thanks. “The day is yet young and the sun still warms his rays. Come, let us walk in yon forest and allow the earth to…ah…soften a bit.” She held out her hand to him.

He bent his head and studied his work. “I have promises to keep,” he muttered.

Tonia swallowed, knowing exactly what he meant. “Aye, ’tis true, but you have also given me a promise—to plant my body deeply in this earth. Yet the ground is not ready for such a great hole. Let us walk awhile and enjoy the day while the sun does its task.”

She held her breath. A walk would give her more time to win the man’s trust. If she intended to escape on his horse, he had to permit her more freedom of movement.

The executioner wiped the dirt from his hands, then nodded. He looked across the rickety bridge that spanned the stream in front of the fortress. “What do we do on this walk?” he asked in an odd, husky tone.

A spiral of fear shot through Tonia. She hoped that he didn’t intend to ravish her within the hidden recesses of the trees. After all, he had told her he wouldn’t last night. But that was last night. She lifted her chin. “My grave will be a lonely one. I long to find some pieces of wood to fashion a cross to place at my head. ’Tis a simple thing.”

His lips twitched. “Everything is a simple request with you, and yet, you have complicated my life. Very well, come, but mind the bridge. Some of the wood is rotten.”

Tonia lifted her skirts and tripped down the hillside toward the stream. “You are afraid that I will drown, and so cheat you out of the King’s shilling? Methinks not, good executioner, for the water does not look very deep.”

He gave her a sidelong glance. “’Tis cold as iron, my… ’Twould chill you.”

She laughed lightly to herself at the absurdity of the situation. Then she asked, “What about your horse? Will he follow us?” Crossing her fingers under her cape for good luck, she prayed that the animal would.

The tall man shook his head. “Baxtalo will stay in the field where he has the most hope of finding some good fodder to eat. He knows not to wander away.”

Tonia lifted one eyebrow. “Truly? He must be well trained.”

The headsman chuckled. “Aye, by myself,” he said with a note of pride.

The air grew cooler when they stepped among the trees. Dry leaves from the previous autumn carpeted the ground, while twigs and small branches snapped underfoot with sharp cracks that echoed off the surrounding hillsides. Tonia’s escort took the opportunity to gather some windfall kindling. Every so often he held out a stick to her with a silent question in his eyes. Each time, she shook her head. She was in no hurry to find the materials for her cross.

Her foot slipped on a damp, moss-covered rock. The headsman caught her hand before she fell. The shock of that physical encounter ran through her like wildfire. His skin was warm and, though hard calluses had roughed the pads of his fingers and palms, his touch was oddly soft—almost caressing. Startled, she looked up at him. His steady gaze bore into her as he tightened his hold on her. A tremor shook her and she was glad of his support. A strange aching took hold of her limbs.

I must be coming down with a fever or am faint from lack of food.

“Methinks breaking your leg is not in the warrant, Tonia,” he murmured. A sudden twinkle lit his eyes before he looked away. He squeezed her hand briefly before he released it. Tonia’s breath caught in her throat. Her name on his lips gave her an unexpected rush of warm pleasure. She coughed to cover her momentary confusion.

“I agree,” she replied. He started to turn back toward the meadow. “Sir!” she called to stop him. She didn’t want him to return to his gruesome chore. When he looked over his shoulder, she continued in a more controlled voice. “Sir, since we will be together a little longer, will you not please tell me your name? Surely you must be weary of hearing yourself called Master Death.”

Sandor heartily agreed. He enjoyed saying Tonia’s name. It had a pleasing roll on his tongue. But the inherent caution that marked all the Roms’ interaction with outsiders held him back from sharing his identity with her, though he had a strong desire to hear her say his name. He pulled his gaze away from her pleading eyes. He found it harder and harder to resist the lady when he looked into those bewitching blue orbs.

“I could give you one name today, another tomorrow and a third the day after that,” he replied.

Tonia drew closer to his side. Her cape brushed the back of his hand, sending a shiver of awareness rippling through him. The temptation to slip his arm around her waist and pull her against him grew harder to resist. She is a dead woman who merely breathes for a time. She is nothing to me but a cold corpse. Even as he thought it, he did not believe a word of it.

She touched his arm. “But none of those fine names would be your own true one, would it?”

His body burned. “The Rom consider a person’s name to be the most intimate thing we possess. Knowing your name gives someone power over you.”

She smiled up at him. He could barely breathe. “You know my name. Does that give you power over me?”

How I wish it were true! He cleared his throat. “The Rom never reveal their private lives to gadje. ’Tis our way to protect ourselves.”

She furrowed her brow. “What is a gadje?”

A smile trembled on his lips. “You, your family, the king who desires your death, his ministers and churchmen, everyone in England who is not a Rom.”

While Tonia considered this piece of information, he admired the beauty of her face. She reminded him of the saints that were painted on the stained glass windows of the Christian churches he had visited in France.

She laughed, a sound like dainty silver bells on the wristlets of dancers. “You say the word gadje as if it were coated in mud.”

You cannot guess how close to the mark you have hit. How could he tell this beautiful, pure, holy lady that his family would consider her worse than the dung in the streets? That her mere touch, her nearby presence defiled him? Yet Sandor craved her smiles, the brush of her fingertips—and more. ’Tis nothing but wanton lust that tortures my loins. Yet he had known lust with others—even gadji. With Tonia his feelings were much different, even different from those he had experienced with his dead wife. Nothing in his twenty-five years of living helped him to understand why the power of Tonia’s attraction shook him to his core.

Sandor shifted the weight of his armload of wood. “’Tis for protection that the Rom do not mix with the gadje except to do business. Did you know that in England there is a harsh law against the Gypsies? In truth, I am a felon.”

Tonia’s eyes widened, though she did not draw away from him. “What is this law?”

“Twenty years ago, when the English saw so many Rom come into their land, they grew sore afraid. We were called lewd people and outlanders. King Henry VIII decreed that we were to be banished forever from his kingdom. Just three years ago, King Edward signed a law that said any Rom found in England would be branded and made a slave for two years.”

Halting, Tonia stared at him. “Are you so marked?”

Should he show her his livid scar or should he lie? Why did her opinion matter to him anyway? She was to die by his hand in the very near future. Sandor put down his load of sticks, untied his jerkin’s laces, then the laces of his shirt. He pulled back the cloth so that she could see the wine-colored “V” seared on his chest.

Her body stiffened; she could not smother her gasp of shock at the sight. “’Tis a cruel mark,” she whispered, her eyes wide. “It must have hurt you beyond imagining.”

“Aye,” he replied, closing up his shirt and retying his jerkin. “Fortunately I fainted afore they were done.”

“What does the ‘V’ mean?”

Sandor curled his lips with disgust. “Vagrants. Yet we have always worked for our bread.”

Worked to dupe the dull-witted gadje, but Sandor decided against revealing the details of his clan’s many shady professions. He, at least, had always been fair in his horse trading with the English, even though Uncle Gheorghe had often called him prosto, a fool, for doing so.

“Why did you stay in England after…that?”

Sandor picked up the firewood. “One trip across the Channel was enough for me. Life is good in England. The weather is kinder than in Flanders or the German kingdoms. The land is fat, full of fruit that falls from the trees and chickens that wander far from home.” He gave her a sidelong grin.

Tonia pursed her lips. “You mean you steal chickens from honest farmers.”

Sandor shrugged. “’Tis not so bad. A Gypsy may convey a hen or two to feed his family, but we would never steal the whole henhouse. That would deprive the farmer of his livelihood.”

“But ’tis wrong to steal. ’Tis a sin.”

He shook his head at her innocence. “Methinks that God looks at your sins and mine with a different eye, Tonia. The Lord Jesus knew hunger when he was a man upon the earth. Tell me, noble lady, have you ever been hungry?”

“Not until I came to this place,” she answered with distaste.

Sandor decided to change the subject. This talk of laws and sins with such a holy woman as Tonia made him very uncomfortable. “Well, I am hungry now. What say you to a fine dinner of fresh fish?”

She quirked a half smile. “I would say you were a wonder-worker. Can you truly conjure up a fish?”

He laughed, pleased by her amazement. “Not conjure them, but entice them, if luck is with me and yon stream is well supplied. Come.”

Together they went back to the place where the bridge crossed the clear running water. Sandor set down his bundle of sticks, then searched along the bank for a spot in deep shade so that the wily fish could not see his shadow. Finding a place that satisfied him, he hunkered down beside the water. Gathering her cape under her, Tonia seated herself beside him.

Sandor put his finger to his lips signaling her to remain still. She nodded. Whispering a charm for luck, his slipped his hand into the icy water and rested it on the shallow bottom. Within a few minutes the cold had numbed his fingers, but Sandor did not move. He had promised Tonia a fish; his pride demanded that he procure one. After a long while, a large, fat trout swam upstream with lazy undulations. Sandor waved his fingers in the stream’s current as if they were an underwater plant. He wet his lips with anticipation but otherwise did not move. The trout edged nearer, as if drawn by the swaying fingers. Tonia craned her neck to see better.

The trout swam closer until it hovered over Sandor’s fingers. When the trout nosed him, looking for something to eat, Sandor gently brushed against the fish’s silvery flank. It shivered but did not dart away. Sandor smiled to himself. This fat one liked to be tickled. He brushed it again. The fish sank a little lower, closer to Sandor’s open palm. He touched its other flank. He could almost imagine the fish sighing with pleasure. After another drawn-out minute of tickling his quarry, Sandor’s hand closed around it. Before the lulled trout could react, it was flopping on the bank, practically in Tonia’s lap.

Sandor sat back on his heels and grinned at her. Giving up its useless struggle, the trout lay on the brown grass, gasping for breath. Sandor rubbed some warmth back into his hand and flexed his stiff fingers.

“’Tis a goodly fish but methinks two would be better. I pray your patience a little longer, Tonia. In the meantime do not let this fine fellow slither back into the water or he will swim away and warn his friends.”

Her gaze fixed on the fish, Tonia bobbed her head. With another charm on his tongue, Sandor again put his hand in the water. The wait seemed longer, only because his fingers were so cold. Soon enough a second trout, not as large as the first but rounder in the middle, swam up the stream. Sandor’s fingers waved in the current. Unlike the first fish, this one was more cautious, touching several of Sandor’s fingers with its mouth as if trying to taste him. His shoulders ached from holding his uncomfortable posture, but he could not pull back now—not with Tonia watching him so intently. He willed the fish to swim over his hand just as the first one had.

Instead, the perverse creature swam upstream. Sandor didn’t move. Years of tickling fish had taught him the necessary patience required. Sure enough, the trout’s curiosity overcame its prudence. It turned round and drifted back toward Sandor’s hand. This time it swam closer to his fingers. Sandor lightly brushed it. The fish wiggled away. Sandor didn’t flinch but continued to wave his fingers. Once again the fish edged closer and brushed itself against him. Sandor almost chuckled aloud. The trout drifted over his palm, He touched its underside with his thumb. The fish rubbed against his other fingers. Sandor decided to seize his chance now before his skittish quarry grew tired of the game. He flipped his quivering prey out of the water and tossed it on the ground on the far side of the first catch.

Tonia clapped her approval. “Well done! ’Tis the most wondrous sight that I have ever seen. My cousin Kitt would be very envious of your skill, Master Fisherman.”

Sandor dried his hand on his thigh while he basked in her praise. His heart swelled as she continued to smile at him and compliment his prowess. He much preferred that Tonia call him a fisherman rather than an executioner. He hooked his fingers through the gills of his two prizes, then helped her rise with his free hand.

“We will cross the bridge,” he told her as he scooped up most of their gathered sticks. “Then we will eat. Do you know how to clean a fish?” he asked, suspecting that such a fine lady would not.

She stared at the trout, bit her lip and then shook her head. “I must plead ignorance. My lady mother taught me how to distill medicines from plants and how to make wine and beer, but not how to cook.”

Sandor shook his head with a rueful smile. “Among my people, even little girls know how to bake bread.”

She gave him an injured look, though her eyes sparkled with a glint of mischief. “I suppose they also know how to roast stolen chickens.”

Sandor chuckled. “Wandering hens are the most toothsome.”

They picked their way over the bridge’s treacherous planking and walked up the hillside to the spot Tonia had chosen for her gravesite. The sun now stood at its zenith in the azure sky. Sandor dropped the firewood onto the bare earth of the grave. Building a fire here would warm the dirt, making it easier to dig, though his heart grew heavy at the thought. Delighting in the pleasure of their stroll, he had almost forgotten his primary duty. Cousin Demeo had already been in the Tower for nearly a week. Sandor must complete his grim task by this evening so that he could leave by the morrow’s first light. He glanced at Tonia. She had seemed so happy while they were in the woods, but the sight of her grave had banished her laughter. When she caught him looking at her, she gave him a little smile then pointed to the bundle of windfall sticks.

“Methinks you will never get a fire started with that lot. The wood is damp,” she remarked. “There are dry logs inside the fortress at the guards’ hearth. We should go there to cook our dinner.” She averted her eyes from the scored earth.

Sandor didn’t blame her, but he needed to make quick work of the digging. Assuming a levity that he did not feel, he replied, “A true Gypsy can start a fire in a rainstorm.”

He busied himself with breaking up the sticks and arranging them in an orderly pile in the middle of the turned earth. Then he drew out his tinderbox from the ditty bag that hung on his belt. The spark from his flint ignited the kindling. He blew on it to encourage the fire’s life. As he predicted to Tonia, the flames responded. Soon a cheerful fire crackled in the depression, chasing the remnants of the morning’s chill.

While the wood burned down to hot coals, Sandor gutted and cleaned the fish on one of the nearby stones. Tonia watched him with a studied interest.

“Your hands are quick and sure with your knife,” she remarked with a light bitterness. “I am relieved that the warrant forbids you to shed my blood.”

Sandor didn’t look at her. He could never reveal the macabre duty he was instructed to perform after she was dead. He skewered the larger fish on a green wood twig and set it over the bed of coals. May the dogs eat the heart of the gadjo who had desired such a final indignity against so beautiful and gentle a woman.

One day, I vow I will avenge your death, sweet Tonia.

Chapter Five

The afternoon passed pleasantly enough for Tonia, as long as she didn’t think too much about the hole that her companion was digging. In the warmth generated by the sun and the man’s exertions, he had shed his jerkin and forearm dagger, and rolled his long, loose sleeves to his elbow. Sitting on her rock, Tonia couldn’t help but admire the play of his muscles that strained the unbleached muslin of his shirt and bulged against the leather breeches that molded around his legs like a second skin.

When he paused in his work, which was often, he sent her smiles that made her heart beat faster. What a difference between this man and the lordlings that had come a-wooing her—and her father’s fortune—at Snape Castle! Not one of her suitors had exuded half as much virility as this intriguing Gypsy—a man sent to kill her in the name of the King. Tonia had to keep reminding herself of that sobering fact, lest she fall completely under his spell.

Standing up, she shook out her skirts. It was a little late in the game for her to admire the comeliness of any man when she was within hours of meeting her Maker. Her thoughts should be centered on the promised delights of heaven, not the pleasures of the flesh on earth. Years ago, Tonia had forsworn men and marriage in search of the greater good—and because she had never found anyone in Northumberland with whom she could imagine making love. Her cheeks warmed at that candid admission. She shot a quick glance at the Gypsy, but he was bent over, prying yet another rock out of the hole. His position only served to emphasize the force of his thighs and the slimness of his hips. Her flush deepened and she quickly turned away lest he notice her change in color.

Tonia prayed that he would uncover a boulder too large to dislodge. Then he would have to start on another hole—and buy her more time.