“You’re almost as light as a girl.”
“You certainly swoon away like one,” Bel grinned.
“You try having a trained assassin hit you over the head with his pistol, dear boy,” Opal said, hungrily stabbing more food.
“A trained assassin?” Charlotte appeared again with something resembling bandages. “Is that what happened to you? Poor baby.” Her eyes went immediately to Cameo.
This time she did not respond to Charlotte as favorably as before. She certainly wasn’t going to have some barmaid report her to Wick.
“Oh wonderful, you brought us some bandages!” Bel exclaimed, trying to distract her.
“Yes, and I brought you some wine.”
“Lovely, very kind.” Opal stood up and took a shaky step as he regained his balance. “Can I have a word with you Ca—” he looked at the assassin, “my dear?”
“What about your bandages?” Charlotte said as Opal started upstairs.
“Why don’t you dress his wounds later,” Cameo hissed into her ear as she moved past.
* * * * *
Cameo took a swig from the wine bottle and gazed around the rather dreary and sparse little tavern room.
Opal was looking in his hand mirror again, tracing the gash Clovis had left him, clearly unhappy with its placement, on the other side of his pox-marked face. He reapplied the rouge on his lips while he was at it. This was somewhat tricky after taking the blow to the back of the head; he was still quite shaky.
“What can I help you with?” She asked at last.
Opal looked up at her from his seat on the foot of the bed. “Why did Wick want to kill me?”
“No idea.”
“You really don’t know? Didn’t Gail say something about my
ill-gotten gain
?”
“Gail told me that Wick asked him along on my mission to get you to tell him where you were hiding your loot.”
“
Your
mission? You were hired to kill me?”
She smiled darkly.
He searched for a weapon somewhere nearby, but found none.
“Your pistol or your rapier? You’ve left them both over here near the fireplace,” she observed, leaning against the mantle where she had planted herself as soon as the two entered the room.
“Are you still being paid to kill me?”
“I’m not going to kill you, Black Opal. I wouldn’t have helped you get back here if I wanted to kill you. And unless my master compels me to, I don’t kill my friends.”
“Isn’t your master Wick?”
“No.” Her eyes lingered on the ashes in the hearth; she had never told anyone that.
“Friends, hmm?” His voice was deep, and then the subject was abruptly changed as Cameo glanced up at him. “Yes, but if she wants to kill me and wasn’t successful, is she going to give up? I doubt it. She’s going to send someone else after me.... And besides all of that, what about you? Are you free to do as you please?”
“Once she figures out Gail is dead, I think the three of us are probably in big trouble.”
He moved to the wash basin and dunked a rag into the water, and then began to bathe his wound.
“I asked Charlotte to come up and help you with that.”
Opal stared into the bowl of water clouding over with his blood, “I see.”
She swallowed down the wine as if she was desperate to be drunk.
He sponged the wound and used the hand mirror to see if he could get a better look at it. “Where are we going after our brief stay here in Yetta?”
“We?”
“Yes, we are friends, aren’t we?”
She followed the profile of his body, the black brocade jacket and white dandy’s shirt, until he caught her doing so, then she found the vintage of the wine much more interesting. “I don’t know … south maybe … further from the Association.”
“Not much of a plan.”
She frowned, “plans are generally made for me.”
“Would you help me with this?” He glanced down at his bloody shirt.
She hesitated as their eyes met, then she set the bottle down on the mantle and strode over to him. “I have never dressed anyone’s wounds before.”
“I am very tired, and Charlotte is taking her time coming up here—”
“Oh well, I’ll just call her then—”
“Is that really necessary?” he said.
She looked down at him.
“I mean, how difficult can it be?”
The words hung there in the cold room with the two of them gazing at each other.
“All right,” Cameo knelt down on the floor in front of him. “I have no idea how we’re going to bandage your face. I think it needs to be stitched.”
He touched his cheek protectively.
She took one of the bed sheets, judged it somewhat clean, and ripped it into several pieces, then she turned her attention to the chest wound. Reluctantly, Cameo received the wet cloth from his hand and sponged the wound at his collarbone. “Gail sunk that scalpel in pretty deep.”
“It can’t be too bad. It was only a scalpel.”
“That’s true. Well,” she paused, bandage in hand, “did you want me to tie this over your shirt?”
“Uhh, no, I guess not.”
The fop shucked off his jacket and untied a couple of the laces of the white shirt so that it was loose enough to get under without actually taking it off. His chest was covered with smallpox scars.
Cameo felt his breath against her skin as she tied the dressing into place. “Did you have the pox?”
“Yes,” he said turning his gaze from her to the wall in front of him. “When I was a little boy. I nearly died.”
“Is that how you went blind in one eye?”
“Yes.”
She sat down next to him on the bed, bringing the basin of water with her, and dabbed the slashed cheek with bloody water.
“My family all died from the pox epidemic that was around at that time...many years ago.”
“My mother died of smallpox as well.”
“Really? You don’t look old enough to be my age.”
She managed a small smile.
“You never got sick though?”
“No. My sister and I were spared. Well, we had to fend for ourselves after my mother died,” Cameo said.
“Yes, I know what that’s like. I have been kicking around Lockenwood for a long time.... Ah, the life of a vagabond.” He flashed her a smile and he closed up his shirt hastily.
Her eyes went to his graceful hands, then back up to his face.
Cameo touched his face with the rag once more.
“You don’t have to do that,” he reached for the cloth she was using.
She handed it over.
He deposited it in the basin.
“Much better, thank you.”
The room seemed to be very cold and very quiet, and Cameo felt suddenly conscious of the fact that they were sitting on a bed together.
“Knock, knock! Black Opal?” Lorraine poked her head inside. “I thought maybe you would be interested in that bath now....”
Cameo took the basin to its spot in the corner beside the pitcher.
Lorraine’s eyes followed the assassin.
“No, I don’t think so,” Opal said.
“Did you need that bandage then?” the barmaid asked, somewhat perturbed.
“No, I don’t need that either.”
Lorraine twisted her lip visibly irritated. “Well then, if there’s nothing else, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“There’s nothing else,” Opal confirmed.
The assassin watched the door close. “Why don’t you finish up that wine, and we’ll get some sleep?”
“Uhh, yes, I think wine would do the trick.”
She piled some wood into the hearth and broke up some kindling.
“What are you doing?” Opal said.
“Building a fire. It is pretty cold in here, don’t you think?”
He pulled off one tall, black boot, revealing a striped black-and-white stocking as she took some of the blankets from the bed.
Cameo put these together before the fire and made a little nest for herself on the floor. “Goodnight, Black Opal.”
“Oh yes, yes. Pleasant dreams.” Opal drank down the wine.
* * * * *
“Well, Lady, you know it isn’t often that I take the time to sneak off to the back rooms of the palace to address the
common
people.... So what is it I can do for you?”
His attitude was less than pleasant, but—oh, it was difficult to find the duke anything but stunning in his finery, and wickedly charming to listen to. Only the nobility really ever looked that good, that clean. Heavens, his hair was a rich mahogany that looked almost soft to the touch. Wick mustered up her professional face and glanced unhappily over at the palace guards.
Avamore dismissed them.
“Wait outside, Pindray.”
“Yes, Lady,” he said, bowing deeply to the duke before he left the room.
Avamore offered her a seat.
“Thank you,” she grumbled.
“And now, what have you interrupted my day for?”
“You remember that Black Opal fellow? The highwayman? The one you wanted to pin the murder of the prince on?” Wick said.
“Yes.”
“It seems we weren’t able to eliminate him—yet, of course. It can still be arranged.”
“I thought you had your best man on that situation.” He sat down in front of her in a large, beautifully carved chair.
She wanted to smoke and reached for her pipe, but she remembered that he wouldn’t appreciate her doing that here in the palace where no one smoked. This was a secret visit, after all, and should remain so. Wick pretended she was just fastening a stray button instead.
“Cameo was on it, and Clovis DePell.... Funny, but neither of them made it back to the coach. The coachmen reported—”
He waved a hand for her to stop, “What do you think happened anyhow?”
She released a bit of a grumble, “There were two shots fired.”
He raised an eyebrow and gave her a sarcastic look. “Seems awfully simple, doesn’t it?”
“It’s possible those two dandies got the better of two trained assassins, although not probable. Cameo always had some disdain for Gail—”
“Gail?”
“Clovis. It was his pet name,” she said.
“Ah, I see. You make pets of your assassins, Wick? That’s very motherly of you.”
“Heh! Yes, I’m too good to that lot.”
“Well, then,” he said as he stood back up. “Perhaps they are all responsible for Leon’s unfortunate demise. I’m sure we could get the common people to raise a rather large reward for the two most infamous killers in Lockenwood, don’t you agree?”
She grinned at him with her broken smile. “Whatever you want, my Lord, I can do.”
“Yes, indeed....” He met her gaze with a look of disgust. “Well then, I look forward to seeing the likes of them in the tower. And then, who knows...at the end of a rope, I think.”
She got to her feet as he swept out the door.
Pindray moved back into the room and gave her his arm. “Tall isn’t he?”
“Oh, yes. Quite a man.”
As the guards escorted them out, Wick considered the current list of assassins she had on hand for the removal of Cameo and Gail.
* * * * *
Cameo called to the barmaid for another ale as she inspected the hand of cards she had been dealt. Opal, Bellamy, and Charlotte all had their lips pursed and their eyes squinted as they looked over their own hands, then Opal lowered his chin and threw a small bet on the table.
“Whose money are you playing with?” Bellamy asked, cocking his hat to one side.
Opal grinned and plucked a clay tavern pipe from a jar.
“Not really fair to watch you bet away my gold,” Bel said, and then turned to Cameo. “I trust you have the cash you’re betting.”
She met his gaze, “Don’t worry. I’ve got it.”
“Yes. Well, Charlotte?”
Cameo lifted her eyes and briefly saw the face of Wick, which faded into a shade that now stood across from her—the shade that Cameo had placed to follow Wick ages ago. She felt a price had just been set on her head.
“Oh no,” she muttered.
“Bad hand, my dear?” Opal said.
“I fold.” She set the cards on the table, paid for her drink, threw on her woolen cape, and swept out the door of the tavern.
Opal met Bel’s eyes, then dashed out the door after her.
Bellamy glanced over at Charlotte, not really certain what had just happened, but she appeared just as bewildered. Unaffected, he peeked at Opal’s overturned cards.
* * * * *
Cameo had moved fast down the road out of Yetta. She pulled her cape around her body, but her hair looked like something alive as it twirled and pulled tight in the strong wind.
Opal called to her, but the wind caught his words and sent them somewhere far behind him. He broke into a sprint.
“My dear, wait!”
The assassin stopped suddenly, already out of the little hamlet. She turned to face him, almost as if she knew when he was directly behind her.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“I’m leaving. I have to go, now.”
He glanced back at the inn in the distance and tried to catch his breath. “How did you move that fast?”
She smiled at him as if he were a child.
He noticed that she had removed the brooch from her collar. “Why did you decide to go so suddenly? I thought we were all going.”
“Well, Wick knows. I’m not safe here anymore.”
“How do you know that?” He glanced around as if he expected to see a messenger running back to Lockenwood. “Did you receive a missive?”
“I just know.”
Opal adjusted his jacket, which had fallen half off of him as he ran to catch up with her, and then straightened his white shirt. He appeared somewhat annoyed that he was so disheveled.
He looked into her eyes, and then he touched the patch on his left eye, and drew himself up to his full height, as tall as Cameo, and said, “I can’t believe you were just going to leave me behind.”
She cracked a smile, “Yes, how could I do that?”
“After all, we are friends, aren’t we?”
“You can follow me if you want.” She turned around and started to walk away.
“Wait! I don’t have my
things
, and Bellamy. We don’t have Bel.”
She ran her fingers through her hair and looked back at him somewhat annoyed. “Maybe you should just meet me up ahead.”
“I will never be able to find you.”
“Well, why don’t you have a horse? You are the only highwayman I’ve ever seen who doesn’t own a horse.”