there was no disguise so rich, so stunning, so fueled by some inner blue-black fire, than the Wishmé indigo of the Western Edge. Ireland.
Rardove’s lips stretched into an insincere grin. “I haven’t the faintest notion what you’re talking about.”
Bastard.
The Wishmé dyes were truly the stuff of legend. Stunning. Rare.
Deadly.
Slowly, like climbing down a rope, Finian slid down the cords of his anger, fighting the almost overwhelming urge to smash Rardove’s face with his boot. Then slit his throat.
“Does yer King Edward know?” he asked tightly.
Rardove smiled. “At the moment, you ought to worry more about me.”
“Och, don’t worry, cruim—inside, I’m shaking like a lamb,” Finian retorted absently, his mind turning. The recklessness that would prompt Rardove to imprison an Irish nobleman on a mission of parley bespoke grave desperation. Urgency. Which wasn’t surprising, because the Wishmés were generous with their perils.
As a color, they made a true dye that could drop a king to his knees. But that wasn’t enough to make a lone English lord on the Irish marches goad his enemies with such abandon.
Weapons were. And the Wishmés could be made into a powder that would blow the roof off Dublin Abbey.
The question was, did Rardove know?
“Pretty, aren’t they?” Finian said, testing. No use in subterfuge any longer.
“I do appreciate their hue,” Rardove agreed, his tone musing. “But more, I like the way they explode.”
Jesus wept.
Finian nodded coldly. “And yet, here I am. Ye might have the Wishmés, but ye don’t know how to make the dye. Ye need the recipe. And someone who can read it.”
Rardove smiled and spread his hands. “And thus, why should we not draw together, the Irish and I?”
Possibly because the Irish had lost the Wishmé recipe hundreds of years ago. Were, in fact, on a desperate hunt for the dye manual at this very moment. But Finian saw no pressing need to inform Rardove of that.
“You don’t like the terms?” the baron inquired.
“Let’s say I don’t like ye.”
“Tsk, tsk.” Rardove shook his head. “You’ve to learn manners, O’Melaghlin, like all your kind.” He snapped his fingers at the guards. A smelly hand reached up and grabbed a lock of Finian’s hair, wrenching his head backward.
The sound of groans drifted in through chinks in the stone walls. Finian tried to turn but couldn’t. It didn’t matter. He knew who it was: O’Toole, one of his best men, whose leg had been broken in the attack.
Every member of his personal retinue knew this might turn out to be a death duty. Finian insisted each man choose it; no orders accompanied this mission except his own. But while his men may have been willing to sacrifice their lives for the good of Eire, Finian wasn’t quite ready to give them up yet.
“And if I agreed?” he said quietly. Perhaps he could feign surrender, leave with his men.
“Why, you’d be free to go.”
“And then?”
“Every day you don’t return with an agreement from your king, I’ll kill one of your men.”
Barely able to see from the torturous angle, Finian freed his head with a savage jerk. He fixed the baron in a murderous glare, pausing barely a second to wonder on the wisdom of a God who would give a man so evil the face of a saint. “My men would come with me.”
The baron shook his head in mock sadness. “You must agree I’d be a fool to release all of you, giving me no recompense were the terms of our agreement not upheld.”
“I would agree ye’re a fool.”
Another thin, unwell smile lifted the baron’s lips. “I think perhaps two a day,” he mused, peering at his fingernails. “One in the dawn and one before bed. Like prayers.”
“I’ll sign the treaty,” he said coldly. “Release my men.”
“Release them? I think not. We sign papers, get witnesses, turn over the dye manual, all that messiness, before they leave.”
Finian turned back to the wall in grim silence.
Rardove sighed. “Well, I didn’t expect much wit from an Irishman.” He turned to the guards. “Chain him to the wall and lay a few lashes against his back. We’ll see if he thinks differently then.”
They dragged him forward and shackled his hands in manacles dangling from huge metal braces bolted into the wall. A shield of dark hair fell forward as he dropped his head between his shoulders and braced his palms against the dank putrefaction, muscles contracted in readiness. He managed a brief prayer for survival, then one for vengeance, before the assault came.