Chapter Eighteen #2
With that in mind, one of those fools should soon drop a sack down the hole they had made through the thick rock wall of the Chapter House then down into the crypt, and he still had yet to make the day’s final pick.
He narrowed his choice to either a gold plate encircled with rubies and emeralds or a sleek dirk.
Picking up the blade, he held it in his hand.
It was short and light with an ornate hilt, encrusted by a rainbow of small gems. He shoved the dirk into his satchel, deciding to keep it rather than hide it away to be bartered when they found a willing merchant.
Clasping the plate, he looked up at the hole, and from the corner of his eye caught a flash of black soar through the air.
He whirled around just as two masked figures landed on the stone floor.
Richard dropped the bejeweled plate and screamed, covering his head with his hands while he scurried to the far corner.
Alex froze. Her mouth agape, she stared at Richard Ash—or at least what she could see of him—through the eyeholes in her mask. He crouched against the wall, mewling and blubbering for mercy, shielding his face and head with his arms as if he were being pummeled by large fists.
“P...p...please, don’t hurt me. Take it.
Take all of it. Just...just don’t hurt me,” he wailed.
Then he howled and rolled around on the ground, knocking into a large bowl with a gold plate for a lid.
The plate slid to one side and the contents sloshed on the floor, releasing a horrific stench.
Clearly, Richard had just disturbed his week-old chamber pot.
She gagged and covered her mouth with her hand, but Rory grabbed her arm and motioned for her to fill one of her large satchels.
Taking shallow breaths through her mouth, she filled her first bag.
Rory tossed it, along with the one he had filled, onto the platform above where Paul and David waited, both wearing hooded masks.
Alex carried on filling another sack, every now and then glancing at Richard’s pathetic figure still pleading and blubbering and now steeped in his own waste.
She certainly did not need the small sword strapped to her back or the length of rope tied loosely around her waist to restrain him if he had decided to challenge them.
His fear and cowardice were restraint enough.
She shook her head, still astounded by his total surrender of control, while she grabbed three large, gold platters and several bags of coin and put them into another bag.
Because they were too heavy to toss, Rory tied one end of the rope to the bag and tossed the other end up to Paul or David, she could not tell, and together, the men pulled the heavy bag up to the landing.
She wondered if Nick could hear Richard’s desperate pleas at the top of the stairwell.
She had one last satchel to fill. She hurried to a pile of coin and began stuffing it into the bag.
Richard’s blubbering had grown to convulsing sobs as he pleaded with the Almighty for his unworthy life to be spared.
Not far from where he lay, she spotted a gold plate with enormous jewels.
Carefully stepping around the excrement-smeared floor, she leaned down to pick it up the instant before Richard lunged and seized her mask, ripping it off.
“What kind of fool do you take me for?” he spat, pressing the tip of a dirk to her throat.
She sucked in a sharp breath; she knew his face!
A glint suddenly lit his puffy eyes. “Lady Alexandria MacKenzie—I can’t believe it’s you.” He grinned, showing rotted, black teeth.
Rory whirled around, his ears ringing with the sound of Richard’s voice speaking Alex’s name.
Fury seized him when he saw her face unmasked and a knife to her throat.
He grabbed a goblet from the ground and launched it at the man’s head.
An instant later, Richard’s eyes rolled behind his lids, and he crumpled to the ground, unconscious.
“What the hell is going on?” David shouted.
Rory ignored David and rushed to Alex’s side. “Are ye all right? Did he hurt ye?”
“He knew yer name,” David shouted. “How is that possible?”
“Shut up,” Rory snapped.
Alex gripped the sides of her head and her breathing became ragged. “He came through my village last spring, peddling his goods. He tried to cheat my people, so I ran him off.”
“Damnation,” Rory cursed.
“Get him. Bind his feet,” David urged. “We’ll pull him up.”
Rory nodded, then looked back at Alex. “It will be all right. I promise ye.”
She took a deep breath and nodded. He could see the initial shock leave her eyes and her mettle return. She untied the rope around her waist and handed it to Rory. “I’ll hold his feet.”
After binding Richard’s feet, Rory dragged their putrid captive toward the platform. Tossing the other end of the rope to David, Rory warned, “He’s a foul one.”
Once they pulled Richard out of the crypt, David dropped the rope back down.
Alex seized it and Paul whisked her up to the landing.
She tossed the end down to Rory and a moment later all four agents began to carry the sacks of treasure up the stairs to where Nick waited, keeping guard at the sacristy door.
Then Rory and David returned to grab Richard.
“What are ye doing?” Nick growled when they came up the stairs, dragging Richard behind them, his head knocking against the stone steps.
“The plan was to leave him in the bleeding crypt,” Nick cried.
Rory whirled around and snapped. “He saw Alex’s face.”
Nick threw his hands up. “She was supposed to be masked.”
“Enough,” Rory snapped. “’Tis too late to change what happened. We are running out of time.”
They hauled the treasure and Richard farther around the cloisters, away from the dormitory and the slumbering monk, and out into the courtyard to the stables and filled a wagon.
Everyone climbed onto the back of the wagon, while Rory finished hitching the horses. Then he took the reins and urged the beasts forward. Cutting back through the cemetery, he passed through the gate to the palace grounds, coming face to face with two monks returning to the abbey.
The holy men’s eyes widened with fear at the sight of the masked rebels. Then they turned on their heels and started to run toward the palace doors, but Nick leapt from the wagon, tackling them both to the ground.
“Do not kill them,” Rory cried as he, too, jumped to the ground.
Nick squatted above the monks, holding their faces in a fierce grip. “Remember yer vows,” he hissed. Then he released them and started backing up toward the wagon. “Go to the chapel and beg God for forgiveness.”
The monks lay on the ground, frozen with fear.
“Now,” Nick growled.
They scrambled to their feet, then tripped on their robes in their haste and stumbled to the ground. They shot a look back at the wagon.
Nick unsheathed his sword. The sight forced whimpers from their lips as they once more found their footing and raced toward the abbey, disappearing through the gate.
Rory had no doubt they were headed to the chapel to pray.
“Hurry,” he called to Nick from the wagon.
As soon as Nick jumped back on, Rory snapped the reins.
They surged forward. He circled around the palace outer wall to the King’s Bridge and down to the Thames.
They moved the treasure, splitting the weight between two riverboats.
Then Paul and Nick dragged Richard into their boat and took up their paddles, heading downriver with Rory, Alex, and David following behind in the second boat.
Alex dug her paddle deep into the water, then pulled the wood free from the current, only to plunge it back in an instant later.
Again and again, she strained to gain as much speed as possible.
They needed to clear the city limits to the wooded bank, where Alec awaited with more wagons and horses.
Her mind raced. She still could not believe it.
She had been seen. Not only seen—she had been recognized, and in connection with the robbery of the King’s palace.
Her worst fear had come true. Surely, King Edward’s wrath would rain down upon the whole MacKenzie clan.