The King's Courtesan. Judith James

throat before he could ready his weapon. Another fumbled with a pistol only to stagger backward, ashen-faced with shock, before falling.

      Their leader hadn’t moved. A handsome man with graying hair, he stood waiting, sword at the ready, curiosity rather than fear in his eyes. “We have met before. How do I know you?”

      “Cressly,” he hissed, leaping forward, slamming him hard against the wall. He pinioned him by the throat with one arm as the longsword drove under his guard between breast and back plate and thick buff coat, cutting through leather, skin and bone. The man’s eyes showed shock and bewilderment but it wasn’t enough. He leaned into him, turning and twisting the hilt of his sword with sadistic force, not bothering to stifle the man’s shrill scream of agony.

      “’Twas Cressly in Nottinghamshire we met, Lord Stanley,” he growled against his cheek. “My name is Robert Nichols and this is how I want to be remembered. Her name was Caroline…and this,” he said as he twisted again, “is for her.” He saw it then, the startled flash of recognition. He gave one final thrust, jerking the earl’s body up and nearly off the ground before pulling out his sword and stepping back, letting the lifeless corpse slide down the wall to join the refuse that littered the blood-slick pavement. He felt strangely empty. There was no satisfaction. No thrill of righteous retribution or sense of justice done. But Stanley was just the first. There were three more yet to go. Perhaps then she’d let him be.

      He regarded his handiwork, face impassive, before turning to look at a huddled form, mewling in the corner. Off in the distance, Prince Rupert’s forces were still hard at work, fanning through the town, routing out those who had run too late, stayed too long, or hadn’t found a place deep enough to hide. The night echoed with sporadic musket fire, shrill screams, drunken laughter and desperate cries of “sauve qui peut.” The rumble of cannon fire reverberated through the city. Strange now the walls were breeched and the battle done but for the looting. He cocked his head to one side, assessing, and then he spoke. “Run!” Somewhere, impossibly far away, a young girl cried….

      Robert Nichols jerked awake, heart pounding, his body bathed in a cold sweat. Thunder growled in the distance. A steady rain tapped on the windows and pattered against the roof. He groaned. Another damned storm. They’d been rolling across the county for weeks. Soon the river would flood its banks.

      Vestiges of his dream still lingered. No surprise there. He’d had the same one over and over through the years. It clung to him like a burr. Bolton. The first massacre of the civil war and he all of seventeen years old. Over three quarters of the town murdered, perpetrated by Price Rupert and the Earl of Derby in the royalist cause. He’d witnessed atrocities aplenty on both sides since then. The Lord Protector had been a pitiless man, too.

      He rolled out of bed and pulled on his boots and a robe, his nerves frayed. The girl’s sobbing still resonated, wrapped within the wail and sigh of the wind. Caroline. She wouldn’t leave him alone. And why should she? Wasn’t this her home, too? Didn’t she have the right to demand retribution? And who to avenge her but him? Bolton had given him the opportunity to dispatch James Stanley, the first of her murderers. George Stanhope followed soon after, cut down in another bloody engagement, though he’d almost lost him to a Yorkshire pikeman during the melee.

      Chisholm had been harder. He was a superior officer, an ex-cavalier who’d switched allegiance with the bloody-minded zeal of the newly converted. Now there was just the one remaining. But she must be getting impatient. After all, she had been waiting for over ten years.

      He poured himself a tumbler of whiskey, something he’d developed a taste for while on campaign in Ireland. Sleep had deserted him and he was as wound and ready as if he’d only just stepped from the field of battle. He supposed in a way he had.

      In his youth life had been simple. He’d believed in family, king and country. He’d believed in himself. A thing was right, or it was wrong. A man honored his word, protected the weak and defended his sovereign and his homeland, but Caro’s death changed everything. When politics and religion tore his homeland in two, it gave him an outlet for the grief and fury he had no other way to express. The civil war became his private one, and he’d used the field of battle to exact his vengeance and focus his rage.

      General Walters, his commander and mentor in matters of politics and war, replaced the father who blamed him for his sister’s death, and the idea of an English Republic, with no man above the law, allowed him to pretend he fought for a greater good, easing his guilt and pain. In a strange way, the war, at first at least, had brought him peace. But ten years of fierce fighting had taught him the horrors men justified in the name of some greater good. He had witnessed unspeakable cruelties and been powerless to stop them. He had done things he had once thought unthinkable. Surrounded by cold-blooded men and ideologues, he’d realized he was neither, and the only things he could control were his own actions and his own small company of men.

      By the time he’d walked in on some of them assaulting Elizabeth Walters, he’d begun to doubt if even that were true. They’d been hot on the trail of William de Veres, a royalist cavalier who played at highwayman and spy for the exiled Stuart king. The Irish campaigns had left his precious honor so sullied that all that mattered was protecting an old friend’s daughter. He made it his duty to help her, and for a while he’d felt clean again. Those who knew him thought him cold, capable and straight as an arrow. None of them had any idea of the dark forces tearing him apart inside. He’d learned long ago to guard his secrets and keep his true thoughts to himself.

      Now the wars were over and the king restored. All was forgiven. Men no longer proclaimed themselves for crown or parliament. They were all Englishmen now. He was ready to retire at the ripe old age of thirty-five and settle down to the quiet life of a country gentleman, hoping for some semblance of a normal life and perhaps a little peace.

      Yet things were left undone, and he hadn’t earned the right. There is one who remains. Passion had deserted him but duty had not. But to find and kill a man on the field of battle or during a campaign was one thing. To find and kill a man who’d fled the country and spent the past ten years in exile was difficult indeed. He wasn’t even sure he had the stomach for it anymore.

      For Caroline you do. You must.

      He paced the halls, his footsteps echoing behind him like some damn ghost. Cressly. Once it rang with children’s laughter. He had raced her through these halls. At times he imagined he could hear her still. Her merry laughter and the patter of running feet. That was before a group of drunken cavaliers had come and woken something savage. All that chased him now were the far distant sounds of hoarse shouting, artillery fire and the stomping of booted feet; the hollow remnants of troubling dreams. Cressly was all he had left to hold on to, though, even if it was as bare and haunted as he was. I failed you then, Caroline. But I won’t fail you again. I haven’t forgotten. I promise you he’ll pay.

      He tossed back what remained of his drink, surprised to note he’d wandered all the way to the library. Flashes of lightning illuminated the room in flickers of silvery light, painting the furniture, fireplace and rows of books in hues of bluish grey and black. They jumped out in stark relief, transforming what was once familiar into a harsh and alien landscape. His image flickered before him, reflected in the window. His sandy hair looked white, his eyes bruised and hollow, like one of the unseen things his staff believed walked Cressly late at night. Christ, I even scare myself!

      Tossing a log into the fire, he kicked it with a booted foot, waiting for the coals to spark and flame before pouring another tot of whisky and settling into an overstuffed chair. The fire gave him just enough light to read by. He picked through the mail listlessly, but his gaze sharpened as he neared the bottom of the pile. There were two letters, both notable for the quality of paper and their ornate seals. One was addressed in a fine cursive script, while the other bore the king’s seal. His hand hovered a moment before picking one up. The letter was from Elizabeth Walters.

      Elizabeth. Hugh’s daughter. Many had been the time he’d watched her from afar when he’d been to visit her father. A solemn-faced, shy little girl, motherless and always alone. He had made it his mission to draw her out, engaging her in conversation and bringing her little gifts. Her father had not disapproved and it brought