Part 19 (1/2)
Below, Sophia finally dismounted from her horse. With an instinctive urge to stay near her, he lowered himself from the thick bough and dropped to earth, striding over to her.
Wanting to hear her side of the story in private, he dismissed the two men guarding her and sent them off to join the others in the search for evidence. Then he asked Sophia to recount the exact order of events that night, as best she could remember them.
She did so, describing the a.s.sault on the carriage-which side the attackers had tried to come in, what they looked and sounded like, how she had fought them off, and Lady Alexa's hysterical screaming. Then she explained how Leon had brought her the bay gelding and sent her on her way. She pointed to the stone wall and meadow visible through the narrow patch of woods on the north side of the road and told him she had leapt the wall on horseback in making her escape. Gabriel nodded, easily envisioning the chaos of that night.
”Shall we go and have a look in the field?” Sophia suggested with an admirable show of bravery despite the shadows in her eyes from reliving all the details of that night.
”No.”
She looked at him in question.
The men had told him that the hottest fighting had taken place in that field after she had gone galloping away. The villains had tried to chase her, but under the wounded Leon's direction, the guards had at least rallied enough to hold the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds off so she could escape.
Sophia furrowed her brow. ”Don't you think we might find something useful...” she started, but her words trailed off as she read his regretful expression. ”I see. That's where Leon fell?”
He nodded and reached out to give her arm a comforting stroke.
”I want to see the place.”
”Sophia, you've already been through enough,” he said with gentle finality. There was no need for her to see the stained patch of tall gra.s.ses and bloodied turf where someone dear to her had lost his life.
She looked away but did not argue. Though her cheeks were rosy with the brisk October afternoon, her face was a stark, emotionless mask. As she wrapped her dark cloak a bit more tightly around her slender frame, Gabriel shook his head in self-directed anger.
”I shouldn't have brought you here.”
”I need you to protect me from a.s.sa.s.sins, Colonel, not from the truth.” She stared off into the field where Leon had fallen. ”He didn't deserve this.”
Gabriel said nothing, standing with her in wooden silence. He could feel her pain as if it was his own and longed to take her into his arms. It seemed inhuman not to, but even aside from the need to maintain a professional distance, he could just imagine the sort of reaction it might get from her Greek guards.
”Colonel!” Over by the stone wall, the men beckoned to them all of a sudden. ”Your Highness, we've found something!”
As they both hurried over, Timo pointed into the brambles at the foot of the stone fence. ”It looks like one of them might have dropped a weapon here! We haven't touched it yet, so you could see its exact position where it fell.” Timo moved back to give them room and Gabriel leaned closer, narrowing his eyes.
A gleaming dagger with a black handle lay partly concealed inside the leaf-strewn clump of weeds.
Beside him, Sophia stared at the weapon, then she reached gingerly into the bramble-bush without waiting for their advice, and picked it up.
Turning to her to ask for it, Gabriel saw the cold anger that filled her face as she gripped the knife. She cursed under her breath in her native tongue, then swept them all with a glance. ”To your horses, quickly!”
”Your Highness?” Gabriel murmured.
”I knew it,” she said fiercely. ”d.a.m.n him!”
”d.a.m.n who?”
”Ali Pasha!”
An angry murmur moved among her fellow Greeks at this name.
”I knew it was him all along!”
”What makes you so sure?” Gabriel asked in a low tone.
”Look!” Ashen-faced, Sophia held up the slightly curved dagger and pointed to the engravings on the black steel hilt. ”You see these symbols? This is Arabic!”
”I know what it is,” he replied. Thanks to his boyhood friends.h.i.+p in India with a local nizam's princely sons, he was quite familiar with the customs of Islam and was well aware it was a common practice amongst Mohammedan warriors to engrave one's favorite weapons with verses from the Koran. ”May I see the blade?”
She handed the weapon over with a wary look. As Gabriel studied it, he noticed some strange markings on it in addition to the Koranic verses.
”Come!” she ordered, whirling away from them and striding back toward her horse.
”Where are we going?” the bulky Niko cried, hastening to follow her.
”Back to the castle!” she ordered in a tone that brooked no argument. ”It's time I had a chat with the Turkish amba.s.sador.”
Gabriel wasn't so sure. He eyed her Greek guards warily. A more sinister explanation began taking shape in his mind.
How easy would it have been for one of her men to have planted the weapon there just now and only pretended to have found it? Indeed, how else might her enemies have known just where and when to find her on the road?
His heart darkened at the possibility of a traitor in their midst. Mounting up, he noted that it was Timo who had first spotted the knife and called them over to see it.
The man seemed loyal to Sophia, but that could be naught but a mask.
Gabriel stayed close to Sophia and kept his concerns to himself for the moment as they all rode back to the castle, on for miles and miles through the descending twilight.
Full night had fallen by the time they arrived. Cantering past the gatehouse, they continued up the long, winding drive.
Ahead, the castle's dark medieval hulk loomed against the stars, dim orange lights glowing in the windows. They rode over the bridge, under the portcullis, and into the central courtyard.
In short order, their princess was striding ahead of them down the stone corridors of the castle, her face flushed with the cold, her midnight curls wild from the hard gallop back. She had taken off her hat but still gripped her riding crop in her angry zeal to confront the Turkish amba.s.sador.
Gabriel was beginning to worry a bit about what exactly she intended to do. She ordered Yannis to find out if the Ottoman representative had arrived; the answer came back quickly. Yes, he had, and he was in a meeting now with Lord Griffith in the Map Room.
Sophia nodded and headed for that unusual chamber.
Gabriel jolted into motion. ”Your Highness,” he clipped out, keeping pace with her brisk march.
”Yes, Colonel?” She stared straight ahead.
”What do you plan on doing in there?”
She glanced over her shoulder, apparently surprised that she was being asked to explain herself. ”I'm going to show the Turkish amba.s.sador what we found.”
”And?” he challenged.
”See what he has to say for his master about it.”
”Wait.” Gabriel captured her forearm in a gentle but unyielding grip, halting her advance. She flicked an indignant glance down to his hand on her arm. ”You can't go in there making accusations,” he warned in a soft but steely tone. ”Remember, we discussed the danger of offending the Ottoman Empire?”
”I know what I'm doing.”