“That is preposterous,” Isra scoffed.
“Only the very bravest!” Asa insisted.
Carmichael shot to his feet. “Here, sir; here is your brave lady!”
Asa smiled at her and held out his hand. “Would you indulge me, my lady?”
“Very well.” Isra sighed and stood, drawing applause from the crowd. Carmichael courteously helped her alight from the raised platform and delivered her into Asa’s hand with a bow.
“Make sure she is returned to me,” the young man cautioned Asa with a grin.
Asa returned Carmichael’s smile with a wink as he squeezed Isra’s fingers. “I can make no promises, my lord.” Then he looked to Isra as he led her to the golden draped cage. “Would you happen to be Egyptian? The rumor is Turkish.”
Asa drew open the curtains on both sides of the frame so that the entire crowd could see that it was empty before he helped Isra step inside and then turned immediately from her, his hands held high above his head.
“Ladies and lords, I do hope you shan’t be overly distressed at what you are about to witness! In a spirit of precaution, I beg you to be seated if at all possible. Brace yourselves, at the very least.”
Gunar winked at her before he whisked the curtain closed. Isra felt a whoosh of air behind her as well. She turned quickly and looked for the seam.
* * *
A quarter of an hour—and much aggrandizing from Asa van Groen—later, the cage was turned on its side and collapsed down to its frame, seemingly still empty of the lady who had disappeared, despite the menagerie leader’s best attempts to retrieve her. The man’s assistants picked up the enchanted container under their arms and carried it from the shocked chamber and the Turkish princess was never seen at Henry’s court again.
The assistants slid the frame into the back of a wood-sided wagon and then pounded on the bed, signaling to the large blond man in the driver’s seat, who was accompanied by a falcon on a perch.
Roman flicked the reins and the wagon rolled away.
Chapter 20
The child’s laughter was bubbly, like the water in a woodland spring, trickling giggles erupting suddenly into a fountain of mirth, and it stirred Constantine from his slumber with all the abruptness of being dropped from a great height.
“Pa-pa,” the voice called in a singsong.
“Christian?” Constantine looked around the small bedchamber of the cottage, but he was alone.
“Pa-pa!” More giggles.
The call sounded as though it was coming from outside, and he ran to the shuttered window in the front room, pushed the wooden closures wide.
And in the center of the dirt road of Benningsgate village stood Glayer Felsteppe, with his leather hauberk and heeled boots, his wooly orange-red hair and hooked nose, turning in circles with a small blond boy at the end of his outstretched arms.
“Faster, Papa!” Christian laughed.
“No,” Constantine shouted from the window. “Christian, I’m your father! I’m right here!”
Christian only giggled as Felsteppe swung him faster and faster, his little shoeless feet rising higher and higher above the dirt.
Constantine left the window and leaped to the cottage door, flinging it wide and charging forward, but he ran into long, wrought bars of the very sort that had held him prisoner in Saladin’s dungeon. He grasped them with his fists and shook them with a roar.
“Christian!”
He ran back to the window, only to find that iron cylinders had grown there, too, imprisoning him in the cottage, and he was helpless to do anything other than watch the horror unfolding on the path before his eyes.
Felsteppe suddenly let go of Christian’s hands and Constantine’s son was flung out of sight in the direction of the ruin, his high-pitched scream ripping at Constantine’s heart. Felsteppe laughed and began strolling in that direction.
“No, Papa!” Christian pleaded faintly, and although Constantine pressed the side of his face to the bars, he could see neither his boy nor Felsteppe.
But he heard the muffled wails, the sound of blows upon flesh, like the whip that had scourged Constantine’s own back. He saw the red glow of flames reflected on the cottage walls across the narrow road, could feel the heat of the fire.
