Page 92 of Barbarous

Daphne could still hear Calitain’s voice and assumed that it had only been the two hirelings who’d left, probably going to do something with the horses. She remained crouched in silence, listening so hard her entire body ached with the tension. She couldn’t have said how long she sat waiting for something—anything—to happen. But finally she could bear it no longer. Her shoulders and arms screamed from the punishing carriage ride and it was all she could do to remain upright. So she curled up on her side, wrapping her arms around her knees and hugging herself. At least the night was warm and she would not be forced to use the moldy-smelling blanket.

The last sound she heard before giving up the fight against exhaustion was the pounding of hooves.

Chapter Twenty-Two

It was full dark when the three men rode into the courtyard at Lessing Hall. The sound of their horses on the cobblestones brought a sleepy lad from the stables. He blinked hard at finding three men, two of them already having dismounted while the third stopped only long enough to toss his heavy saddlebag to the ground before wheeling his mount and galloping off in the direction of town.

“Give the horses a triple ration of grain—they’ve had a brutal ride. And stay awake—Martín will be back here shortly.” Hugh was already striding toward the entrance as the last words left his mouth, Kemal struggling to keep pace.

The massive front door opened before Hugh even reached the top step. There was Gates, holding a candlestick and looking normal but for the fact that he was garbed in a rather exotic red silk banyan and embroidered nightcap.

“My lord.”

“Sorry to disturb your beauty sleep, Gates.” Hugh was unable to suppress a smile at the old man’s sartorial elegance.

“Indeed, my lord. Betsy has gone to ready your chambers. Should you like something brought up to your room?”

Gratitude suffused Hugh’s tired body at the suggestion and he tossed his dusty hat and gloves onto a table in the entry hall, moving toward the stairs with Gates trailing behind.

“Enough food for three—no, make that four, and a couple of bottles of claret, something old and dusty from the cellars. Have it sent to the library rather than my chambers. Also send a message to Will Standish, telling him to join me immediately. After you’ve seen to that, you may take yourself off to bed. We shan’t need anything else tonight.”

“Very good, my lord.” Gates bowed stiffly before heading back down the stairs.

Hugh turned to Kemal, who was waiting at his side, laboring under the burden of Hugh’s bags, pistols, and enormous Hessian blade.

“I’ll take that.” Hugh relieved his servant of the sword and whetstone that hung in a small leather pouch off the hilt. “Put the rest in my chambers and join us in the library.”

Hugh could sharpen the damn thing while he waited for his men. He wouldn’t be good for much else until Martín returned with Delacroix. He entered the library and poured himself a generous brandy, invigorated by the burn that trailed down his throat. He set the half-empty glass aside and untied the leather cord that held his sword in the scabbard. The soft hiss of metal against leather filled the air as he pulled the long sword out of its protective cover. He tossed aside the scabbard and held the blade up to inspect it.

It glittered sullenly under the light of a dozen or so candles. It was not a graceful weapon, far too heavy and broad to rival the beauty of those irons used in fencing. Nor did it have the exotic grace of the Eastern blades he’d encountered during his time in the Mediterranean.

No, this sword had been forged for the sole purpose of expeditious killing. In the right hands it was certain death.

The sword had been a gift from one of the men with whom he’d escaped the sultan’s clutches; a Hessian named Wüstenfalke—the Barbary Falcon.

Like Hugh and Delacroix, Wüstenfalke had survived the torture instigated by Calitain’s betrayal. The big German was with Hugh from the beginning on the Batavia’s Ghost, fighting beside him during the earliest, and most dangerous, years. It was during a skirmish with Calitain and another corsair ship almost ten years ago that the Hessian fell. The battle had been brief but fierce and the casualties that day were heavy on both sides.

The stomach wound had not taken Wüstenfalke’s life immediately. Instead, the Hessian had lingered, growing sicker each day, until he’d become so crazed with pain he’d begged Hugh to end his agony, ordering him to do so with his own sword: Kralle, the German word for talon. When Hugh heeded his friend’s last wish, it had been one of the worst days of his life.

It was not until six months later that Hugh learned Calitain’s failure to recapture the Batavia’s Ghost that fateful day had been the last straw between the corsair captain and his capricious master, Sultan Babba Hassan. Calitain left the sultan’s service and stole a ship in the process, earning the lasting enmity of his former patron. After that, Calitain had kept to the shadows, a wanted man without any allies.

Since then, Hugh had used the blade in a manner that would have made the Hessian proud. The distinctive weapon, almost a two-handed sword for a smaller man, gained a reputation as fearsome as Hugh’s own. Hugh was not spiritual, but he could not help feeling Wüstenfalke was sometimes beside him when he wielded the sword.

He wasn’t the only one to believe such a thing. He’d heard the tales men told of him. That he was a Norse berserker reborn, a man who became so blind with rage during battle, he entered a trancelike state. Hugh stared at the weapon in his hand, wondering not for the first time if the barely legible runes beneath the sword’s guard might be Old Norse. He spoke enough German to know they were not of that language.

In any case, it was a magnificent weapon and contributed much to the lore surrounding One-Eyed Standish. It was good to have a fearsome reputation when you lived among men who respected nothing but fear.

He took out his whetstone and began to sharpen the already sharp blade, moving his hand in slow, steady strokes. He worked quietly for a time, the only sound the soft rasp of stone against metal.

His tired mind wandered to Daphne, but he wrenched it back. He could not afford to have his resolve weakened and gnawed at by pointless worry.

Instead, he fed his always hungry need for vengeance and turned his thoughts to Calitain.

He was astounded the slaver would dare set foot in Britain—a country he despised virulently. In spite of his French name, Calitain had grown up in London but he’d left at a very early age because of an incident involving the death of a peer. Calitain made no secret of his hatred of the aristocracy. Hugh had heard him claim more than once that he was the bastard get of a lord who’d raped Calitain’s servant mother. Hugh didn’t doubt that. He knew many men of his class saw their servants as nothing more than bed warmers. He’d found the same attitude in America among the men who owned slaves.

To Hugh’s way of thinking, rape was as bad as murder, and any man who forced himself on another person deserved a public shaming that ended in killing. And Hugh had no qualms about delivering such a punishment.

He tested his thumb against the edge of the blade he’d just sharpened, pleased at the small cut that resulted from his featherlight touch. He flipped the sword and started on the other side.