The Blackthorn Key

With two of Lord Ashcombe’s troops down, the King’s Men were badly outnumbered. One of them caught one of Oswyn’s thugs in the chest with his spear before falling under a hail of swords. The other soldier was immediately overwhelmed, never managing a strike before taking a club to the skull. He swayed. A second blow to the crown felled him for good.

Even wounded, Lord Ashcombe was a lion. Left-handed, he threw a knife from his belt that caught one of Oswyn’s men in the neck. He picked up a spear from the ground and hurled it, piercing another man through the chest. Martin advanced on him, sword high. Lord Ashcombe grabbed a second spear from one of his fallen men-at-arms, and with a feint and a thrust, he drove the weapon home. Martin collapsed, eyes wide, the spearhead deep in his gut.

The boy’s fall twisted the spear from Lord Ashcombe’s hands. Lord Ashcombe grasped at the sword in his belt, but his fingers, slick with his own blood, slipped on the hilt.

And then Wat was on him.

Wat’s ax swung. The first blow, low and diagonal, was at Lord Ashcombe’s sword hand. Two of his fingers fell to the ground with the cracked hilt. The second blow hacked downward. It took Lord Ashcombe in the cheek. The King’s Warden crumpled to the grass, his hand pressed against his face.

Wat straddled him, grinning. With both hands, he lifted his ax.

“Hold!”

Oswyn ran from behind the mausoleum, toward us. Wat’s grin faltered.

“Hold, curse you!” Oswyn said. “Don’t kill him!” Oswyn pulled Wat away. “Not yet.”

Wat shook his arm free from Oswyn’s grasp. The soldier who’d lost his knee to a musket ball was crawling toward the back door of the manor, a smear of blood glistening in the grass behind him. Wat stormed over and smashed the ax into the man’s back. The soldier stopped moving.

It was over in seconds. I sat there, on the grass, motionless. A fallen sword lay two feet away from me, glinting in the sunlight.

Oswyn walked over, his eyes on me. Casually, he slipped his foot under the blade and kicked it away. It tumbled end over end, landing in an overgrown bush, far enough away to be useless. “Don’t want you getting any ideas,” he said.

Lord Ashcombe’s breath rattled in his throat. His left eye was gone. His scarred cheek had been slashed open enough to see his teeth underneath, stained crimson. Still, he remained a lion. “Traitor,” he spat.

“Me?” Oswyn laughed humorlessly. “That wretch you call a king drinks away the days on his throne, and I’m the traitor? The people of England fall into lechery and corruption, and I’m the traitor? You are the traitor, Richard. You, and every other man who follows him. And you will be judged for your transgressions.”

“Then send me to God. I’ll wait for you, tell you what He says.”

Oswyn leaned over. “Oh, I intend to, Richard. But not before you see the death of your king. And me enshrined as the new Lord Protector.”

“I’ll never kneel before you,” Lord Ashcombe said.

“You will.” Oswyn smoothed the front of his waistcoat. “Even if I have to cut off your feet to make you do it.”

The Elephant knelt beside Martin. The boy had pulled out the spear. Now he held his hands against his stomach, trying to keep his guts in. He was crying. “Help me. Please help me.”

Oswyn looked to the Elephant, who pulled Martin’s hands back to inspect the wound. The Elephant shook his head. Oswyn nodded, and the giant slipped his knife behind Martin’s ear. The apprentice stiffened, then became silent, tears tracking from sightless eyes.

Then Oswyn nodded toward me.

The Elephant stood.

I scrambled backward, fingers clawing at the grass. My head banged against the wall of the manor.

“Calm yourself,” Oswyn said. “He’s only going to search you.”

The Elephant threw his knife so its point stuck in the dirt, quivering. Then he bent over and pawed at me. I was too scared to even try to resist.

“What did you do with Ashcombe’s soldiers hiding in the maze?” Oswyn asked Wat.

Wat wiped the blade of his ax on a King’s Man’s tabard. “Killed them.”

“And the bodies?”

“Still in the maze. No one saw us.”