Page 60 of Retribution

Perrin simply shrugged and motioned to the man with them, a young knight who had just begun his service with the Executioner Knights. Sir Thad du Reims was from the powerful Earls of East Anglia family, an intelligent lad with a muscular body, who easily heaved Everald onto a broad shoulder and carried him off into the night to dispose of. But that left on the ground a puddle of bloody mud and a man whose absence would have to be explained to at least one person.

Perrin turned to Langford.

“I must go,” he said. “You have given me information to relay to the Guard of Six and the sooner they have it, the better.”

Langford nodded. “I am not entirely sure when he intends to gift the king with the Pearl, but know that it is a trap,” he said. “He’s sending the lass to the king so she can kill him.”

Perrin understood. “The question in my mind is, how does she feel about it?” he said. “The order to kill a king is something even the most seasoned knight would wrestle over, so how is one of the Seven Jewels of London feeling about it? Does she care? Is she glad to do it?”

Langford looked at the blood at his feet. “Cambridge used her father as leverage to force her to his will,” he said. “It would seem that her father is no longer a consideration.”

“But she will not know that,” Perrin reminded him. “She could think that the man has merely gone away. She will not know of his death, even when he does not return a year, two years, or ten years later. She will never know what has become of him.”

“True,” Langford said. “But she will not care. From what I could see, she did not have any affection for him. As I said, he sold her to feed his poppy habit. He did not place her above his own needs and she knows it. Whether that will make her more, or less, agreeable to Cambridge’s scheme is unknown at this time.”

“Do you think she’s capable of an assassination?”

“I do not.”

That was good enough for Perrin, but he still had to tell the Guard of Six what Langford, a man who had been the perfect mole for many years, planted by the side of a man who needed watching, had just told him. The truth was that Perrin would do anything to protect that asset, so when Everald de Beaumont began lobbing threats to expose Langford, Perrin had had no choice to silence him.

It was an action he did not regret.

Langford departed The Pox and headed back to Thornhill, but not before he stopped at a shop that sold licorice root and candied fruits. They were Cambridge’s favorite, so his excuse for leaving Thornhill would be procuring some of the things that Cambridge loved to eat. God knew, there were many things the man stuffed his face with, but sweets seemed to be his particular Achilles’ heel. Fortunately for Langford, he knew that Cambridge would never question his going into London to purchase treats, and he thanked God for the glutton. Therefore, back to Thornhill he went while Everald was thrown in the river.

Such were the perils of crossing an Executioner Knight.

Everald had had to learn that lesson the hard way.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

“Let me see if I have the facts straight,” Britt said slowly. “Now Cambridge intends to give the Pearl to Edward? As a gift?”

“As a Trojan horse,” Perrin said. “She has evidently refused to do what he wanted her to do—seduce Aidric to make her way closer to Edward—so he’s simply going to give her to the king. Of course, she has no choice in the matter if he does. As for Edward—who would refuse the gift of one of the Seven Jewels of London?”

That was a very good question, but unfortunately in this case, the answer was deadly. It was after sunset on a day that had been calm and sunny, the winds blowing in from the east, drifting over the river and finding their way through the courtyards and halls of Westminster Palace. Perrin had arrived just after the sun went down and now they found themselves back in the guard room at the gatehouse, once again listening to a report from Thornhill Manor, only this report was more concerning—and confusing—than the first one.

Trojan horse.

That was what Cambridge intended to do with the Pearl.

“But what of all of that nonsense about her getting close to Aidric so she could have access to the king?” Britt said. “Was that not the original directive?”

Perrin nodded. “It was,” he said. “But she does not want to. From what I understand, she has refused Cambridge’s demand to go from courtesan to assassin. Therefore, Cambridge will gift her to Edward. That is a more direct way to place her in the king’s presence.”

“But if she is refusing to kill him, why do it?”

“I do not think Cambridge is acknowledging that she has refused,” he said. “Mayhap he still holds out hope that she will surrender to his will.”

Britt sighed heavily, looking at Gerard standing a few feet away. Dirk, Bennet, Stefan, and Orion were also in the chamber, hearing Perrin’s report, but it was Gerard who was a little more knowledgeable about where Aidric and the Pearl were at this very moment. He knew because he’d followed Aidric earlier in the afternoon when he went to meet with the lady, just as Edward had told him to. He’d ended up in the alleyway next to Old Lloyd’s, peering in through a window in time to see Aidric escorted upstairs by a woman, probably a maid.

After Aidric disappeared into the levels above, Gerard went into the tavern and sat in a corner, his back to the wall, facing the stairs. He saw the woman who had escorted Aidric come back down again and go to the rear of the inn where servants gathered, and she never went up the stairs again. That meant Aidric was alone with the lady.

So, he’d waited.

And waited.

As the sun went down, it didn’t take a genius to figure out what was going on in the lady’s chamber. Aidric had been honest in his attraction to the Pearl, and Gerard didn’t blame him, but now, the stakes had grown even more serious. Being alone with the lady, in a bedchamber, the implication was obvious. The man had bedded her. There could be no other explanation for his not retreating from her chamber after an hour at the very most. It wouldn’t have taken him that long to ask the lady to consider turning against Cambridge in the name of the king.