Trying not to listen, she leaned against a barrel of wine, but his mocking voice wove spells around her. He continued, “You, Lady Saura, you get a rope ladder that reaches almost to the bottom, and Bronnie to tie the knots that hold it. But do watch for rotting flesh and bones beneath your feet. We haven’t cleaned it out for months.”
She shuddered, the kind of chill that started at the base of her spine and vibrated up to the top of her skull, and he laughed. “It shouldn’t be so bad for you.” He crept up beside her and put his hands on her waist. He drew her close against him and liked the shudder that shook her again. “Unless you’d rather stay in my bed?”
She closed her eyes and sighed as if weary. “’Tis a hard choice.” Her voice creaked, and she cleared her throat. “But I must prefer the rats to the snakes.”
He shoved her away from him and she stumbled forward. Her slipper caught on the edge of the trap door. She pitched forward as Bronnie cried out. She fell; she knew the hole in the floor would gobble her, but Bronnie caught her. She landed in his arms, astride the door to the dungeon. Out loud, she thanked God for his intervention.
Before she could thank Bronnie, Nicholas ordered, “Bronnie, I don’t care how you do it, but put her down that hole and shut the door and leave her. Leave her.” He stepped closer, and she cringed away. “Leave her until she’s joined by her husband and they can die together in everlasting love.”
“You promised you wouldn’t put him in with me,” she cried.
“I promised you nothing. Nothing!” He stormed away, crossing the store room, climbing the stairs, and leaving them together.
As soon as the sound of his footsteps faded, Bronnie said fearfully, “Lady, I’ll take ye an’ hide ye.”
“Nay!” She grasped his shoulders and rolled off him. “Nay, I don’t want you to get in trouble. He’d kill you.”
She felt the tremor run through him, but he denied, “Better me than you. I’d run off an’ live in th’ forest.”
“And be hung for a poacher. Nay, Bronnie, I thank you. I must go down.”
But she didn’t move, and he asked, “Are ye sure?”
His relief leaked into his voice, and she repeated, “I must go down.”
“Bronnie!” A roar thundered down the stairs, and he rolled away.
“I’d better climb down before trouble finds you.” Still she hesitated, until he picked up her hand and placed it on one of the knots.
“See? I tied it tight.”
“Aye.” She felt down the rope until she found a step and then she felt up the other rope. She brightened. “’Tis just like a real ladder!”
“Aye, m’lady. Do ye want me t’ get ye started?”
“You’d better.”
“Then put un foot there…aye…an’ th’ other down with it. Good.” He touched her tentatively, but her fears had dissolved in a rush of resolution. She placed one foot on the unsubstantial rope step and then another. Drawing one fortifying breath, she reached out with her foot, but couldn’t find the next rung.
“’Tis a bit further, m’lady,” Bronnie said, leaning out over the sill. “I can just see it.”
Extending her leg, she found the next step, far down the rope. Sliding her hands, moving slowly, she put both her feet on it. She was inside the dungeon now, and she lifted her head to ask, “Are all the rungs so far apart?”
“They were made for a man, m’lady,” Bronnie said apologetically.
There was nothing else to say. Soon she was descending with halting regularity. As she moved deeper into the pit, the rope swayed wider with each of her steps. Her teeth clenched in agony as she felt cobwebs sweeping her face. Her hands clutched the cord. All her concentration centered on the next step. Nicholas would have thought it a fitting torture; descending endlessly, wanting only to reach the floor of her prison. At last, she groped with her foot and found nothing. She strained her toes down: nothing. Nicholas hadn’t lied; the cord was too short. She was hanging in midair, held by only a flimsy rope, and all around her was a void with no relief.
“Bronnie.” Her voice creaked, weak with terror. “Bronnie, can I jump to the bottom?”
“Don’t know, m’lady,” he called. “’Tis so dark in there, I can’t see past th’ first step.”
Her arms shook with nerves. Moving like a caterpillar, she undulated down the final length of support. She hooked her knees around the rung, cursing her skirts, then she inched her hands all the way down, down to the last bit of rope. Taking a breath, she loosened her feet and swung her body out and away, to hang dangling in the chill ether of the abyss.
TWENTY
Saura hung there for days, through a season, until she was old, until her arms trembled with the strain. Then she let go. She fell, she landed. The shock jarred her ankles; the ground was much closer than she’d braced for. She sat there in the dirt and rubbed her feet and laughed and cried.
Bronnie heard her and hollered, “M’lady, m’lady, are ye hurt?”
Collecting herself, she hoarsely called back, “I’m well. But Bronnie, can’t you wave a torch and tell me where the bodies are?”
“Th’ bodies?” He sounded dumbfounded, then relieved. “Nay, ’tis not all as bad as he tol’ ye, m’lady.”
She snorted. “I’m surprised.”
“This isn’t his main castle an’ he doesn’t keep any prisoners here, an’ if he did, he sure wouldn’t let them die, just like that. He’d work ’em t’ death, he would.”
Irresistibly amused by his succinct reading of Nicholas’s character, she queried, “No bodies?”
“Nay. But there’s rats, for sure, an’ ’tis coolish. I want ye t’ take me jerkin.” He tossed it down, and it fluttered onto her head. “Did ye get it?”
“Aye, thank you. Is there any more—” A dull roaring echoed down from above, and Saura winced. Even in the dungeon, she recognized Nicholas and his wrath. “Hurry up to him, Bronnie. I’ll be fine now that I know I’m alone. Except for the rats.”
“Oh, m’lady…ooo, I hate t’ leave you there. A noble lady an’ all.”
“Shoo.” She waved her arms even though he couldn’t see her. “I don’t want him having second thoughts about me.”
“Aye. Aye.” She heard him pick up the door. “Are ye sure?”
“I’m fine.”
The opening almost closed above her, and then he swung it back once more. “M’lady?”
“Go, Bronnie.” She spoke firmly, and he obeyed.
The thump of the door above her sounded so final. The jerkin clutched in her hands retained his warmth and she drew comfort from the evidence she wasn’t totally alone. Wrapping her arms around her knees, she hugged them and laid her cheek down and wondered at herself. Being shut in a dark cave shouldn’t bother her. What difference did the absence of light make? Nothing was different in this space than in any other. Until she discovered the parameters of any room, she was bewildered.
Still, it seemed the air pressed down on her head, weighted by the closed door. The ceiling, which she knew to be as high as the sky, seemed too close; she fancied she would hit her head on it if she stood up. The walls closed in; the floor seemed to tilt beneath her. The odor of mold suffocated her, and she panted. Digging her fingers into the dirt, she clenched a fistful in dispair.
How had she come to this?
Just yesterday she had approved the repair of roof thatch on the village homes of Burke. She had ridden with the steward as he called for an accounting of the tenants’ harvest, and she had recited the figures to Brother Cedric as he wrote them down. Perhaps Peter had only given her the responsibility of the autumn accounting to take her mind off William, but he’d said he would gladly let her do it, and she believed him.
Every night he’d come in from hunting, mud-spattered and jovial, presenting a hart or boar to be salted and stored for winter. Saura understood this display of manly gifts wasn’t for her. It was for his Maud, standing at Saura’s side and properly impressed with the bloody haunches he tossed
at their feet. The love between the master and the maid had blossomed into a steady fire, glowing with the constant warmth of embers and blazing with occasional displays of wrath. Peter and Maud were wrapped up in each other, and Saura felt jealous and abandoned and ashamed.
She’d lost the everlasting attentions of Maud, Peter paid her no more than absentminded attention, the boys kept busy with the duties of young warriors, and William was gone.
Only Bula had kept his vigil at her side, plopping his huge head in her lap when she sat and tangling himself under her feet when she walked. The servants joked about his devotion as they scurried to finish the work of autumn before the first freeze.
Her mind sprang back to Bula’s extraordinary behavior on the path. Stupid, she chastised herself. Stupid, stupid wench. So wrapped in your own desolation you didn’t realize what the dog was trying to tell you. If she’d paid attention to the dog, she’d be home at Burke right now, hugging the fire and not a jerkin that jumped with fleas.
Home, smiling about Maud and Peter; home, waiting for William to return.
Home, waiting for Bula to bound in and bestow on her his devoted affection. Scolding him for being underfoot. Laughing as she rubbed his ribs and his foot thumped in ecstasy.
If she’d paid attention to the dog, he’d be alive today, not worm bait in the forest. She wanted to cry for him, but the tears wouldn’t come. Her guilt was too deep, her pain too fresh. Her dilemma required reason, not emotion. She’d already betrayed Bula once; she wouldn’t betray him again by failing to escape and avenge his death.
Restlessly, she shook her head. Nicholas wanted her to become an ineffective weakling. He wanted her to die down here, afraid and begging for release, and she wasn’t giving him anything he desired. Not anything.
’Twasn’t dripping wet down here; the dirt was loose powder that sifted through her fingers. Chalk, probably, for the castle sat high above the ocean and this section of England was famed for its white cliffs. Even if they threw William in, he’d probably be uninjured.
Please God, Nicholas would let him come down the ladder. Please God, Nicholas would send William down any way possible.
Even if William were hurt when he arrived in her prison, at least she’d know he wasn’t dead. Even if he were injured in the fall, he’d still be William, mighty enough to vanquish all their enemies.
In those appalling moments when Nicholas was choking her and she’d thought her life was over, she’d realized William could save her. While her breath had threatened to explode her chest, she’d decided that together, she and William could destroy this demon.
If only Nicholas would just take the bait and bring William to her. Begging him not to put William in the prison with her was a feeble device, but the best she could think of in her frazzled state. She’d complained William expected too much of her, and in that argument resided just enough truth for Nicholas to believe her. If only he didn’t think too deeply on it. If only he believed himself to be in such an invulnerable position that he dared unite them.
Nicholas was just dreadful enough. She laughed at herself. How she skidded around the truth. Nicholas was crazed. Everything about him shouted it. How could she have been unsuspecting? It was as if two people lived in his mind, both diabolically clever. The child in him sought love, the parent protected the child.
Was he crazed enough to put William and Saura together? Perhaps. Crazed enough to kill them and expect to get away with it? No doubt. That was what frightened her, that was what raised her from her despair. To escape from this trap, she and William would have to combine their strengths and become as powerful as the storms that swept the sea. Now as she sat on the floor of her prison, an illogical hope burgeoned in her bosom.
She had found in herself a great desire to live, to prosper, to find a resolution to the problem she faced with William. When William arrived, he’d be calm, commanding, decisive. He’d know just what to do and they’d do it. He’d not find a quivering wreck of a woman who prayed for a man to rescue her. He’d find Saura, his calm, quick-thinking, thorough wife.
What should she do first? Explore. Find weapons. Find some way to construct a ladder. Prepare herself to help William and be gratified with his amazement at her capabilities.
Nodding, she stood and brushed the dust from her skirt.
The door above slammed back with a kind of triumph. She woke from her half-sleep and knew William had arrived. Just by the crack of sound, she knew that Nicholas had seized him, that Nicholas was happy, and that Nicholas was putting them together. She shut her eyes thankfully, but they sprang open at William’s words.
“I won’t go down there.”
Huddled on the ground where she’d spent the night, her skirt tucked about her legs for warmth, she pulled Bronnie’s jerkin closer. The vigor of William’s speaking voice was heightened by some element she couldn’t understand. Cocking her head, she listened, trying to identify it.
“You won’t go?” Nicholas mocked. “Very well. We’ll leave your wife down there alone.”
“Saura’s down there? Why, you filthy—”
“She feels safe down there,” Nicholas protested with genteel satisfaction. “Safe, away from the nasty man who offered her his heart.”
“Who? Oh, you.” William sounded so patently uninterested Nicholas sputtered. William listened to the madman’s complaints and said, “Well really, my friend, you didn’t expect her to lust after you when she’s had me, did you?”
Like a worm that eats at the core of a good apple, Nicholas sneered, “She’s none too happy with you, either, my friend. She specifically asked I keep you away from her. Aye, that surprises you, doesn’t it? That your intense goodness is something to be avoided. That not every woman wants to share herself, body and soul, with you.”
“You bastard.”
“Oh, I know all about the rot in your marriage. Your wife’s quite loquacious after she’s been crying.”
Saura heard him lunge, and Nicholas laughed in a high tone, marred with ripples of frenzy. “You’re tied, William. You’re a captive. You walked into my castle alone, armed only with your pride. Struggle all you want, those bindings on your arms will never come free.”
“Why was she crying?”
“Crying in the woods. Weeping buckets of water. What could I do? I took her under my wing and brought her here. For safekeeping.”
Saura could imagine how Nicholas smirked, and she cringed at this twisting of events.
William said nothing for a very long moment, and then burst out, “If my wife doesn’t want me to join her in prison, if she’d rather have the rats for company, then I don’t want to go down.”
She knew he’d comprehended her ploy. She knew by the sham conviction in his voice; it rang so clear she worried that Nicholas would hear it. Even more than that, she worried about the note of dread. What was wrong with William?
“You don’t want to go down. She doesn’t want you with her,” Nicholas purred. “What more could I ask? And what more could you ask, but a chance to iron out your marital problems before you die.”
“She’s probably not even down there.” William stalled, scuffling with the men holding him. “She hasn’t said a word.”
Saura stood and walked directly below the hole. “Nicholas, you promised me.”
Nicholas laughed, and William roared, “Move!”
A thumping and scraping ensued and she scrambled back just in time. He fell like a wounded eagle at her feet. Dirt flew, she leaped for him. He wheezed, gagged, and she knelt, coughing, at his side. “Are you well? William? Answer me!” She groped over him and tugged at the cord that bound his wrists in front of him.
“One moment…woman.” He sucked in a big breath of air mixed with dust and coughed like a man bleeding from the lungs.
“Will he live?” Nicholas called.
“My eating knife,” William said in a low voice.
Her hands flew to his belt and flipped open the sheath. “He let you keep it?” she w
hispered back.
“He thinks it’s no weapon.” He held his arms up for her as she sawed through the binding. “He underestimates me.”
“Will he live?” Nicholas demanded loudly.
“Aye, I’ll live.” William’s voice strengthened as he spoke, and he jerked his hands free and rubbed his wrists. “No thanks to you or your henchmen.”
“Good. No matter how satisfying that was, I’d hate to deprive myself of the privilege of killing you properly.”
The door began to creak shut, and William struggled up on one elbow “Wait, Nicholas!” His burst of noise brought on another fit of coughing and he boosted Saura to her feet with a hand on her behind.
“Wait, Nicholas,” she summoned obediently, and paused, unsure what William had wanted. But she knew what she wanted. “I’m hungry. I’ve been in here overnight with nary a crumb nor a drop.”
Smooth as cream, Nicholas answered, “I’ll send my personal servants down for your requirements, my lady.”
William regained his breath and called, “Drop a torch down here and let me see Saura. I want to see what you’ve done to her.”
“Nothing.” Nicholas leaned into the hole. “I barely touched her.”
She touched her tender throat and grimaced.
“I’ll come for you soon,” Nicholas assured them. “When you’ve been properly subdued.”
He pulled away and as the door creaked again Saura shouted, “I’m thirsty! You can’t starve us to death, you know.” The door banged shut, and she said to the ceiling, “Although I don’t know why not.” Kneeling beside William, she groped for his body and found him trembling. “You’re hurt,” she breathed. More strongly, she said, “You’re hurt.”