“Then you’d best hurry, my lord. Give me the cask.”
Rohan didn’t even open the lid, just picked it up and rose slowly.
“Give it to me and be careful.”
Susannah gave a small gasp. Rohan and Phillip saw the bright red blood from the nick in her throat.
Rohan said, “If I give it to you, what will you do?”
“I must take her with me, but I swear to you that I won’t kill her if you stay back.”
“You swear?” Phillip said. “You wretched little bastard. How can we believe you? You’re a damned criminal. You’re lower than a bloody slug.”
“I swear I will not kill her. Give me the cask or you will have a dead wife, my lord.”
Rohan handed him the cask. It was heavy. How could it be so heavy with just that old beaten-up gold goblet that held more power than any man could imagine?
“No!” Tibolt shouted. “He can’t have the Grail!”
It was Tibolt, holding a gun, taking a step toward Theodore Micah. “You can’t have it, you bastard!”
Suddenly Susannah crumpled to the floor. Micah was so startled that he let her fall. The next instant, Tibolt fired and the bullet ripped through Micah’s throat. There was a hideous gurgling sound, then Theodore Micah whispered, “I was a fool to trust a man of God. Look at you, more the devil you are.” Suddenly, his shirt was wet with blood, and he fell heavily to the floor.
“Good, the little bastard’s dead. Back into the bedchamber, all of you. I couldn’t kill you before now even though I wanted to. I imagine that any second now we will have company. Get back, damn you!”
Tibolt shoved his brother back into the room and quickly pulled the bedchamber door closed behind him. He heard a man yelling, then another. A door was yanked open.
“What’s going on here?”
Tibolt stuffed the gun in his coat pocket. “I locked the thieves in my bedchamber. They shot my friend here. Quickly, where is a magistrate?”
“Aye,” a little man with a huge sleeping cap said, his thin legs bare beneath a voluminous white sleeping gown. “I’ll fetch the feller, but chances are, he’s on his butt, his head pickled with the brandy he pours into his mouth, ye ken?”
“No, no, I’ll fetch him. Just keep those thieves in my bedchamber. Don’t take any chances!”
In the next moment, Rohan threw open the door. The four men, all in their nightshirts, two of them with caps on their heads, gawked at the man who held a gun and looked more furious than a man just cheated at cards. “Damnation,” Ro-han shouted. “He’s gone! Quickly, we’ve got to get him. He’s got the Grail!”
A man and a woman came dashing out of the bedchamber after the first man. They paid no attention to the men in their nightshirts. The guests at the inn were left standing over a man obviously very dead, all his blood flowed onto the floor.
“He’s not got but ten minutes on us,” Phillip shouted, as Rohan tossed Susannah into her saddle.
“Thank God the stable owner saw he was traveling the road east,” Susannah said, stuffing her skirts around her legs.
They were off, the bright moonlight illuminating the narrow road in front of them.
They said nothing, merely pushed and pushed the horses until Rohan pulled his horse to a halt and said, “We must let them rest for a moment. Susannah, are you all right?”
“Yes, but we must find him. We must get the Grail from him.”
“What if he’s already drunk from the Grail?” Phillip said. “If he has, then we’re lost. And why wouldn’t he? He could have drunk from it the moment he was out of the inn. He could be waiting just up ahead, waiting to smite us.”
“No,” Susannah said very quietly. “No, I just realized that he hasn’t yet drunk from the Grail. He can’t, you see.”
Both men whirled about to face her. “Why the devil not?” Phillip nearly shouted at her.
“Because,” she said very simply, “he left the holy water. I just remembered seeing the flask on the bed.”
“She’s right,” Rohan said. “My God, she’s right. And that means that he’s got to find holy water before he can drink from the goblet.”