Traitors' Gate Read Online Free PDF Page B

it, and when I open them I see that
Tolliver and Christian are gone. I didn’t even get to say goodbye.
    “Should we not
re-dress your lovely lady?” Philippe asks, eyeing my breeches.
    “Actually,
probably for the best. We can put a cap on her and claim she’s a page.”
    “I am standing
right here!” I put my hands on my hips.
    “I thought you
were taught by the finest French tutors at court,” Nicholas says with a
devilish laugh. “Weren’t you taught women are sought for their beauty, not
their voices?” He chuckles as I slap his arm.
    “Court in France!
We have so much to talk about!” Philippe takes my hand and walks me to the
door, “So tell me,” he says, “are you all finished
with your French education?”
    “Not even close” I
say.

 
    Chapter Nine
     
    The Tower of
London is a formidable stack of stones splattered by the blood of both the
guilty and the innocent. Part jail and part courthouse, if walls could talk
this place would scream in horror thanks to the events it’s witnessed through
the centuries. It’s a fortress designed to both protect and imprison. You can’t
simply walk onto the Tower’s ground, not unless you work there, so we edge
along the bank of the Thames to the watery entrance reserved for the condemned.
Prisoners too high profile to walk through the front doors are ferried through
a sunken gate, as if they were crossing the River Styx.  
    Night has crept in
around us and it’s a new moon, making everything that much darker. I stand
between Nicholas and Philippe; Tolliver lingers by the water. He seems lost in
his own reflection, like Narcissus. I’ve yet to see him smile and part of me
wants to tell him a bawdy joke just to see if I can elicit one from him.   Nicholas holds my hand tightly and when I tug
at it, he looks down at me.
    “Everything is
going to be okay, darling,” he whispers, then leans down to kiss the top of my
head.
    Philippe smiles at
us as then stoops down by the water’s edge and pulls a rope that releases a
large red rowboat. “You know,” he says, “there’s a rumor that they’re going to
start calling this entrance Traitors’ Gate; put heads on spikes to decorate the
gateway.”
    “That’s gruesome,
Philippe.” Tolliver comes away from the river and shoulder bumps his French
friend.
    I’m unsure why I
laugh at them. Perhaps it just feels good to be included as part of their
group, or perhaps I’m just nervous. Soon we’re all laughing together and
Philippe begins regaling us about the logistics of the last hanging he attended
on Tower Hill. “Of course, being a vampire he didn’t die; just swung there
strangely, blushing and waiting for someone to figure it out and cut him
down!”  
    It enters my eye
line, just for a second, its oil slick feathers beating the cold English air,
its sharp beak dripping bloody gore...
    “Lucinda, watch
out!” Nicholas yells at me and pushes me back out of its trajectory.
    He of course had
seen the raven before it had begun its descent. Before I’d even realized what
was going on, Nicholas had drawn his sword and sliced it in two. An unholy
screech escapes its beak, and I can smell a foulness lifting from its exposed,
shiny innards as its two halves writhe on the ground at my feet.
    “What in the name
of God is going on here?” Philippe pokes his sword at the twitching bird
corpse, “it still looks alive…” Half of the bird judders forward and attacks
the blade. He shakes it off and completely decapitates the thing. It now looks
like black paste scraped across the path.
    “Are you okay,
Lucinda?” Nicholas asks me. He puts his arm around my shoulders and it’s only
then that I realize I’m shaking. I link my arms around his waist and pull him
to me, breathing in the smell of him. Tolliver gives me a distasteful look and
Philippe looks away and down at the twitching mess at our feet.
    He narrows his
eyes at it. “Did it come from the Tower?”
    “Must have, but
what the hell