The Charnel Prince - J. Gregory Keyes [87]
Ospero was shouting, and Neil cursed himself again for not knowing Vitellian.
He pointed Hurricane at the man with the spear and charged.
To his credit, the fellow seemed to know what to do. He knelt and braced the butt of the pole arm against the cobbles and aimed the point at the spot beneath Hurricane’s breastbone.
Neil’s breath was coming cool now, slow, in and out. He saw the men’s faces, their scars, whether they had shaved or not.
At the last possible moment, he turned Hurricane to the side, avoiding the spear altogether. Using the cut known as reaper, he sent one of his attackers down to the street, where the stone drank blood from his headless corpse. Hurricane reared savagely and kicked down at another. Neil felt a blow to his leg, but then he was free of them, clattering down the darkening streets.
He felt down to his leg, but the armor had turned away the blow. Hurricane seemed unhurt, and so he kept the pace, watching pedestrians scatter, listening to their unintelligible remonstrations, and beginning to hate the whole adventure. The novelty of foreign places was definitely wearing off.
She should have given me a token, he thought angrily. Something to convince Anne she really had sent me.
His anger at the queen was a shock followed by shame. Who was he to question her?
He urged Hurricane on, hoping he still had time.
Anne had recovered from her pangs of conscience by the time they reached the docks. When she saw the ships, she finally understood that she was really going home. Home, where she didn’t scrub clothes or make cheese or get invited to become a whore.
In the back of her mind, she still knew it was going to hurt, too, to enter the castle and find that her father and sisters were really gone, but that moment was still far away. For now, she could cling to the good part.
“But why are we leaving Sir Neil?” Austra whispered near her ear. Cazio had found her washing the dirty plates at a carachio near the great square. Anne had worked there before, her mouth watering at the smell of the lamb roasted with fennel and garlic. Austra smelled like that now.
“Cazio didn’t explain?”
“Yes, but Cazio does not know Sir Neil,” Austra said.
“I can’t believe it,” Anne said. “You’re questioning Cazio’s judgment?”
Austra flushed a bit. “He knows more about Vitellio than we do,” she said. “And he is very clever. But how can he know Sir Neil’s heart? It seems wrong. He always seemed very honest to me.”
“Austra, we don’t know Sir Neil. For all we know, he killed my sisters and now he’s come after me.”
“He wasn’t with the knights who attacked the coven.”
“How do you know? We didn’t see them all.” She took Austra’s hand. “The point is, we can’t know. And if I’m wrong—why, he’ll be fine. He made it to Vitellia, he’ll make it back.”
Austra frowned doubtfully.
“Not to interrupt,” Cazio said, “but there’s our ship just ahead.”
Z’Acatto, who had been entirely silent since he had joined Anne in the alley behind their building, suddenly grunted. “I know that standard,” he said. “Had you told me, I would never have agreed to this.”
“Hush, old man,” Cazio said in a low voice. “I did what I had to.”
“You don’t surprise me very often, boy,” the fencing master muttered. “But today you’ve managed it.”
“What’s he talking about?” Anne asked.
“Nothing,” Cazio replied quickly.
She turned to z’Acatto and saw that his eyes were very strange, as if he were angry, even furious. And then she realized his sword was already in his hand, its tip just clearing the scabbard. She wasn’t afraid yet, just very curious as to why the old man was going to kill her. But she could feel the fear arriving as he grabbed her.
Z’Acatto pushed, and she stumbled to the cobbles, one knee striking the stone. She gasped at the pain and looked up, trying to understand what was happening.
A man—a man she did not know—was staring at z’Acatto’s blade, which vanished somehow into the fellow’s throat.
Cazio shouted then and drew