be Brandon, wrapped in the enveloping monk’s robe and hood, so that his drugged followers would believe in his brother’s guilt. “Though I suppose you released that tiresome woman. I would have thought you’d had your fill of her by now.”
For an opening salvo it was a weak one. “I don’t think that’s possible,” he said evenly, determined not to let the man bait him. “But you wouldn’t understand that, would you?”
“The sentimentality of love?” The Grand Master’s voice was mocking. “I have been spared that particular embarrassment. I would have thought you would be, too, brother. You could always take her back to the banquet hall. Feed her some wine and she’ll do anything you tell her to. By the time you come back this will be over and done with, and you won’t even be a witness.”
He didn’t turn around. He had the sudden, unbearable suspicion that Melisande had managed to escape his makeshift bonds, but he couldn’t afford to waste his time considering it. “We found Brandon in that hellhole you left him. These idiots might think you’re my brother but I know better.”
“Yes, but you see, they can’t hear so well. They’re in an altered state, thanks to the drugs I administered to their wine and the advanced practice of mind control. When they awake they will only remember what they think they saw. Which is your crippled brother slashing the throat of an innocent girl and splashing them all with her blood.”
He heard a strangled noise behind him, but he kept focused. Damn the woman. “But I’m not drugged. And I know who you are.”
He was rewarded with a familiar giggle over the maddening chant. “Of course you do, old man. I wouldn’t expect anything less.”
“I have people coming, you know. You can’t really expect to get away with this. Let her go. If you left now you could get to the continent and no one would come after you.”
“Why should I do that, when I’m about to have everything I want?” his old friend said smoothly. “You won’t turn me in. Too many reputations are a stake. None of these impossibly highborn people want to admit that they were part of anything so shameful, but if you’re the one to betray them then I’m sure they will all testify that your brother killed this young girl. As for your so-called reinforcements, you don’t have any. Most of the people you call friends are already here. Accept it, Rohan. I’ve won. And I’m only beginning.”
He raised the knife high over his head, and his cowl fell back just far enough for Benedick to see Harry Merton’s smiling face.
“No!” Benedick shouted, leaping forward and vaulting the altar, but not all the monks were as mindless as they appeared to be. Harry sidestepped him adroitly as two cowled figures came up behind Benedick, pinning his arms behind him. He didn’t bother to struggle—he kicked at the man on his left, hard behind the knee, and the man went down in a yelp of pain, leaving only the second man to face Benedick’s fury. He smashed a fist beneath the enveloping hood, directly into the man’s face, and he felt the crunch and splinter of bone, the spurt of hot blood, the skin split on his own hand as the second man let out a howl, pushing back the hood. It was Pennington, shrieking in fury as he fell back, and then it was only Harry Merton, watching him from a short distance away, calm, a cheerful light in his eyes, the ornamental knife in his hand.
He was closer to the body than Benedick was, and he doubted he could move quickly enough to stop him. “Come on, Rohan, old friend,” Harry crooned. “You’ve taken out my two best men. Surely you aren’t going to give up now. Or do you realize I’ll have this child gutted before you even move, and that will signal a bacchanalia that not even you can stop. You’ll be pulled down beneath my followers, washed in her blood, and I can promise you, someone will slip a knife between your ribs before you have any idea what’s happened.”
“I’ll take you with me, you bastard,” he said, leaping for him, ready to rip his throat out. He heard her scream from a distance—Melisande—but he didn’t stop, simply kept moving when the world exploded.
36
Melisande screamed, unable to keep still any longer. It sounded like the wrath of God or the end of the world,