One of the woodland bandits rushed past him in an attempt to escape, but Padraig seized him and swung him toward a pair of the king’s soldiers who were holding a clutch of the invaders at sword’s point. Padraig looked around again, ready, wanting someone else to fight.
But it was over. The king’s seasoned men had secured the hall in moments, leaving the dead where they lay and holding the prisoners, including the red-bearded leader. Only a single, masked villain remained standing in the center of the aisle, his bow yet in his hand but the quiver on his back empty, a trio of the king’s soldiers circling him at sword’s point.
And then Padraig realized the ruse that had been thrust upon them all in the wood—the distraction. Gorman, the bearded man from the wood, was not the leader of the gang of criminals at all; it was this smaller, trim man with the quiet, raspy voice. The man who had shot Lucan. A man who was perhaps forced to wear a mask because otherwise he would be recognized.
Padraig would know who he was.
He stepped upon the nearest bench, to the tabletop, then down the other bench to the floor, his gaze fixed on the masked radical. The king’s soldier stepped aside, allowing Padraig to pass.
“Drop the bow,” Padraig commanded the man. “Now.”
After only an instant’s hesitation, the leather-clad arm tossed the weapon aside with a motion of surrender. It skittered to the stones some distance away.
Padraig sheathed his sword and strode forward again until he was standing before the man, who was even smaller than Padraig had guessed from afar. Surely this could be no mere adolescent who had caused such chaos? He reached out and grabbed the top of the leather mask at the crown and yanked.
“Ow!” A gloved hand shot up to rub at where Padraig had grasped the disguise, and as the mask was swept away a long, blond plait unfurled like a tolling rope. Accusing blue eyes Padraig recognized burned into his own. Only these eyes were no longer flat, despondent, defeated. These eyes snapped with life, crinkles at the corners brought on by age, the lashes longer, thicker.
“My God,” Padraig breathed.
“Ah. Just who I was looking for,” the woman said with a wry smile. “A moment, though, if you please.” She turned nonchalantly on one bootheel to face the lord’s dais.
Vaughn Hargrave’s face went the color of curdled cream and Caris gave a choked cry.
“Hello, Uncle Vaughn,” Euphemia Hargrave said lightly. “Or should I say Grandfather?”
* * * *
Searrach slid off the horse before it had come to a halt, and the beast, perhaps sensing the madness of the woman who had commanded it, reared and turned at once, speeding off into the muffled darkness as the snow fell as fast and thick as down from a burst cushion.
She didn’t care that it left her; she would no longer require the use of it.
Two guards lay tangled together in the moat to the left of the entry, but Searrach paid them no heed as she pulled the door open and slipped inside. They were the lucky ones. She crossed the entry, hearing the shouting commotion coming from the direction of the hall. It sounded as though everyone at Darlyrede was gathered inside.
Good.
She quickly found the corridor that led to the east wing, and then the doorway that spilled her out into the dark courtyard. The snow had driven even the basest servant to shelter and there was naught to be seen in the open space of cottages and workshops within the wall. Only the white blanket of accumulating snow, set to a golden glow by the single torch outside the quiet soldiers’ quarters at the far end of the bailey. Searrach was drawn to the source of that light as surely as any moth—there would be no interference from the king’s men. She wrestled the torch free of its holder and ducked inside the barracks.
The cots, the blankets, the clothes all made easy fuel. As she backed out of the doorway, the single shuttered window and doorway showed an almost cozy glow within, and Searrach stopped and watched it. But even its lovely warmth brought no smile to her blank expression. She turned around and walked toward the chapel, the torch in her hand sizzling through the delicate crust of snow as she carried it along, held down by her calf.
No aid either, from their imaginary god.
Moments later, the smell of smoke followed her from that holy structure and into the curtain wall corridor in the west wing, up the slight incline toward the hall. She heard the maids in the kitchen exclaiming to each other as she passed, but their panic did not trouble Searrach. They would investigate where she had already been, and by then it would be too late.
She passed a tapestry hanging on the stone wall and touched her torch to a bottom corner of it on a whim. The ancient threads curled with flame at once. Searrach walked on, while behind her, shouts of alarm were like musical whispers in the back of her mind.
The far end of the passage to the hall was blocked by a king’s man, and so she carried on to the entry. She put the torch on the marble floor while she strained to push the heavy settle against the main double doors of the hall. As she turned to retrieve her weapon, she caught sight of the portraits soaring up to the ceiling. Beautiful likenesses of a beautiful, old, noble family that at its heart was as rotten as the insect-infested core of a dead tree. Traitors and liars and murderers and torturers.
A sob caught in her chest, interrupting her numbness for the briefest moment. They were all as
