Elisha Rex by E.C. Ambrose Read Free Book Online Page B

breath. “I mean, wished . . .” Her voice fell away.
    Tucking his cold hands under his arms, Elisha said, “I am sorry for your loss.” After they walked a few steps, he added, “And for mine.”
    â€œDo not say too much,” she began softly, “But say, if you can, that your carrying him home,” she took a breath, “that his being there somehow put out the fires?”
    Quietly he answered, “It did.”
    â€œWas it a miracle, then? That’s what some o’ them would have us think.” Madoc gave a bob of his head back over his shoulder.
    â€œIt was what was needed to save this city,” Elisha said. “More than that doesn’t matter.”
    â€œYou’ve earned enough veneration today to elevate you forever in the eyes of these people,” Ysabeau observed, and Madoc grunted agreement.
    Clutching the letter, Elisha tried to ignore the babble of the crowd that tracked their steps. “I punished them all, and I was tempted to do worse. That’s more the sinner than the saint.”
    â€œI think it was your restraint that bought their adoration,” said Ysabeau.
    â€œI don’t have time for adoration.” He put on a burst of speed as they neared the gate and shouted up to the guards, “Open! For God’s sake, open the gate!”
    â€œWe don’t answer to you, even if you have returned from the grave!” one man called back.
    â€œOpen the gate before I use your head for a battering ram!” Elisha replied.
    â€œDo it!” cried a voice behind him.
    â€œAye, bring them in!”
    â€œListen to the barber!”
    Then, with a maelstrom of shouting, the crowd broke around them, still avoiding Elisha himself, and a hundred hands were laid upon the bars and latches, a hundred more upon the chains that would draw open the gates. Madoc pushed by, shouting for attention, then counting off: “One! Two! Three! Heave!”
    The gates groaned open to a subdued cheer. Along the road some distance, the duke’s soldiers started up, running back to their camp with the news. The crowd lingered just inside the open space, perhaps unwilling to hand over the city they had taken, at least, not so easily.
    â€œWhere are the killers?” Ysabeau faced the crowd.
    â€œAye, where?” Others took up the cry and the search, catching hold of their neighbors to thrust them forward. Two dozen souls huddled before the angry crowd, and Ysabeau stalked forward. Three or four others came with her, widows and sons.
    â€œGet out!” She pointed toward the road. “Get out, or God shall scourge the earth of you.”
    A party of mounted men came down the road in procession, the duke among them, with a man in the gold and miter of the archbishop at his side. The wretches forced to flee the city parted to either side and hurried off.
    A few more cowering figures were dragged from the crowd, mostly men, a few women, and youths. One of these latter struggled free, sprinting toward Elisha. Two sturdy men got hold of him, but he broke away. “I would have saved him! Please, Barber!” He held out a hand stained dark as if still dripping with blood. Snarling, the larger man tripped him, but Elisha shoved the note into his belt and stepped up.
    â€œLet him up.”
    â€œHe’s one o’ them—you can see the marks,” the man protested.
    â€œHe claims that he’s not, now let him up.”
    The young man scrambled to his knees and crawled forward, holding out his hands like a supplicant. “I’d have saved him, sir—I tried to get him, before they strung him up, I did.”
    â€œI tell you, lad, I’m in no mood to be lied to. If you’re lying and looking for mercy, it won’t be just me you’re facing, but all of them.” Elisha gestured to the citizens, who watched with grim and angry faces, eager now to prove their fealty by following his