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“You cannot deny a dying man’s last wish.” Ismal’s once-sweet voice was a cracked whisper.
Jason dragged a chair to the bedside and sat. “Maybe it’s not your time to die.”
Something like a smile contorted Ismal’s swollen lips. “Nay, I must confess. Everything.”
“You’ll save your breath, my lad. Gerald’s dead. You can’t do him any more harm, and I won’t let you destroy my family’s future. Your bullet spared my brother the gallows. Rest assured I’ll see my family spared disgrace. I’ve burned the black queen’s message, as well as the letters Risto and Mehmet carried for you.”
Another ghastly smile. “To protect your family’s honor.”
“That, yes.” Jason forced an answering smile. “But also for the sake of your immortal soul, or—if you somehow manage to live—your conscience.”
Ismal closed his eyes. “Better not to live. You’ll send me to Ali. Better to cut my throat, Red Lion. Now, or I will find a way to tell my story.”
“Bajo is already making arrangements to take you away. You can be sure we’ve seen to everything. His Majesty’s government wants nothing to do with you.”
“You made it so. You are too persuasive, Red Lion. And too clever. Yet, almost, I outwitted you.”
“Not at all. You played the game very badly. Astonishingly badly when you followed Esme from Tepelena. I couldn’t believe you could do such an idiotic thing.” Jason paused. “Until today.”
Ismal’s eyes opened slowly. The feverish light was gone, clouded by pain. “What saw you today?”
“It wasn’t what I saw, but what I remembered: how young you are.”
“Only in years.”
“A boy, all the same, infatuated for the first time.”
“You understand nothing.”
“Of course I do. I too fell in love and made stupid mistakes because I was young, arrogant, and conceited. I didn’t take rejection well, either, and nearly destroyed myself as a result.”
“It’s you who’ve destroyed me.”
“I was trying to save you. You’re not Alexander, nor is ours the world of two thousand years ago. You’re too young to build empires and far too young to cope with love and politics simultaneously.”
“Aye. I am only a foolish boy to you, and you laugh.” The foolish boy’s eyes filled with tears.
Pity and rage thickened Jason’s throat. “You’re a bloody fool, and you’ve thrown your life away. Look at you—not three and twenty, a pathetic heap of useless flesh, and likely to be a corpse before sunset. It’s not me you hear laughing, but the Devil you’ve listened to these last two years.”
“I’m not afraid to die.”
Yet he was afraid, Jason knew, and helpless for the first time in his short life. All Ismal’s cleverness could not mend his failing flesh or keep his young heart beating.
Jason could not help grieving for him, more even than he’d grieved for Gerald, who’d wasted his life in bitterness, greed, and envy, with no love, loyalty, or joy of any kind to lighten his days. At the end, if any trace of good lingered in a heart so corrupt, all it could feel was regret.
Ismal was another case. His soul was only tainted, not yet black with sin. And so Jason grieved the more, and raged as well, at the needless waste of youth and beauty and strength, but above all, of mind.
He smoothed the damp golden hair back from Ismal’s burning forehead. Shuddering, the young man turned his face away.
“There are no holy men of your faith here,” Jason said in gentler tones. “Shall I fetch an English cleric?”
“No.”
The door opened, and Bajo slipped inside. “The boat waits,” he told Jason softly. “Your countrymen want him gone.”
Ismal wouldn’t last an hour at sea. Not that he’d last much longer even if he remained where he was. “Would you rather I came with you?” Jason asked.
“You want so badly to watch me die?”
“If I were you, I’d want a friend beside me.”
“Nay. I killed your brother by accident. It was you I was aiming for.”
Jason sighed. “I wish you hadn’t. Now I’ll have to thank Edenmont for saving my life. If he hadn’t broken your hand, you’d not have missed.”
“I dislike him very much.” Ismal grimaced as he turned to face Jason. “But he is a good fighter.” He caught his breath, and his face tightened in agony.
“I think you’ve talked enough,” Jason said. “Why didn’t that fool doctor give you any laudanum?”
“I would not take it.” Another struggle for breath, another ghastly effort at a smile. “It saps the will.”
Bajo shifted impatiently. “Red Lion.”
Jason rose. “Bajo is obliged to make haste. I’ll come with you to the ship.”
“Tsk.”
From the hall beyond came the sound of hurried footsteps. Bajo moved to the door to bar the way, but Esme thrust past him.
“No!” Ismal cried. He pulled feebly at the blanket, trying to cover his face.
Ignoring the warning look Jason threw her, Esme moved to the bedside. She was shaking, yet she gazed steadily at Ismal. “You are very fortunate that my husband is the noblest of all men,” she told him. “He gives me permission to try to save you, and so I shall.”
Ruthlessly she pulled back the bedclothes. Ismal went very still and stared doggedly at the ceiling while she studied the blood-soaked bandages.
“Esme, you’re embarrassing the poor—”
“It is too bad for his pride,” she said, gesturing her father away. “Listen to me,” she told Ismal.
His gaze jerked to her.
“I shall do my best,” she said. “And so, if you live, it will be because of me—only because of me. You will remember this, Ismal.”
“And if I die?” he gasped.
“Then you shall burn in hell.”
About an hour after Esme had commenced her dubious errand of mercy, Jason entered the Bridge’s private dining parlor, where Varian was doggedly trying to eat breakfast.
Jason set his traveling bag at Varian’s feet. “Captain Nolcott gathered up the chess set while we were with Gerald. It’s all there, safe and sound.”
Varian nodded stiffly.
“I owe you an apology,” Jason said. “And thanks.”
Before Varian could respond, the innkeeper’s wife bustled in.
“Oh, whatever you like, my dear,” Jason amiably replied to her inquiry. “So long as there’s plenty of it. And bring me the biggest mug of ale you’ve got.”
When she had gone, he turned back to Varian. “You saved my life.”
“I wasn’t trying to,” Varian answered shortly. “I only wanted to kill him. I let Esme clean up the mess I’d made only because she was beside herself. She was in agonies of guilt, I believe, because she’d nearly killed him for a crime he never committed. It was no good pointing out those crimes he had done. She was certain Ismal would survive out of spite and come back for revenge—on all of us.”
“Just so. Now he can’t. His pride won’t let him.” Jason shrugged. “If he lives.”
Varian firmly pushed Ismal’s battered, bloody image from his mind. “What’s going to happen to him, if he lives?”
“He ought to be taken to Newgate and hanged, but that could create diplomatic complications. There’s also the question of whether he did the kingdom a favor in ridding it of Sir Gerald Brentmor. Fortunately, I won’t have to puzzle the courts with that intriguing problem. I started tidying up some months ago, while I was trailing Ismal,” Jason explained. “Gerald’s partner, Bridgeburton, was considerate enough to drown in Venice. The authorities already suspected him. I encouraged them to suspect no one else.”
“But Ismal?”
“They’ve left him to me. He’s going to New South Wales in the care of friends of mine.”
Their hostess arrived with Jason’s breakfast, which he set to with enthusiasm. His appetite, unlike Varian’s, appeared not at all affected by the morning’
s events. But Jason was used to violence, Varian reflected.
Jason looked up from his plate. “Gerald’s body goes on the same ship with Ismal. I’ve done enough lying for him. The hypocrisy of a funeral I will not tolerate.”
“I’m sure it’s none of my affair.”
