Trapped in this tiny cell, the walls so thick, the air so still, she was already walled up, lost in a prison of Hugh’s making.
“But you would not be so lucky, as young as you are, and the way you look.” He stroked her hair in that way he had, running a hand up her neck and catching the hair on the back of his hand, in his fingers, stroking free. “This hair is too fine and too lovely, your skin stays dark through the winter, like the folk from the southern lands, and who in these Lady-forsaken parts has seen such folk, or even believes in them? And your eyes. As blue as the deep fire, or did you know that? I know. I have sought since I was a boy to unlock the secrets of sorcery. There are others like me, others who struggle to learn and to master. Somehow you were born with it in your blood. I know what you are, but I will never betray your secret to anyone else. Do you believe me?”
Even trapped under him, knowing he would say anything to convince her to give him the book, to tell him everything she knew, the horror of it was she did believe him. She had a sudden premonition he had spoken those words rashly and without thinking he might be swearing himself to them.
“I believe you,” she said, but the words hurt. He knew what she was. A sorcerer makes herself, but two sorcerers must never marry. Her mother had said it once, placing a hand on Liath’s brow. Because the child of two sorcerers might inherit a wild streak of magic more dangerous than the king’s wrath. Except Liath had inherited a kind of deafness instead. Da taught her, but only so she could protect herself by having that knowledge. “You cannot use them, for you are deaf to magic.”
Or so she had always thought. But now she had burned the Rose of Healing into the wooden grain of the table.
Hugh would put no barrier in the way of her studying Da’s book, other books, as long as she shared everything she knew and learned with him.
“I will be faithful to you, Liath,” he said, cupping her face in his hands, a lover’s gesture, a lover’s sweetness, “as long as you are faithful to me.”
Ai, Lady, but it burned, this new fire. It hurt so horribly, running out like lines burned into her flesh, long since dormant. She could no longer cloak herself in lethargy. So it was, so she felt: A momentous decision was about to be made.
He shifted, rolling slightly off of her, and made a low, contented noise in his throat. “Liath,” he said, softly, gently, coaxingly, and he tightened his embrace on her.
Hanna was leaving. She herself would leave, to be alone in Firsebarg with Hugh. To go on in this fashion, always resisting him, always frozen, listless, numb. Barely able to acknowledge any human contact but his; forbidden any human contact other than with him, as he strove to isolate her.
Wouldn’t it be easier to give in? To give him what he wanted? Mistress Birta had herself said that Liath’s position was enviable. She would not be treated badly. She would probably be treated well.
She had burned the Rose of Healing into the table. Lady’s Blood, she might even learn enough to see if she truly was deaf to magic. Or if Da had truly not known, and she was born with a mage’s power. Or if Da had known all along, and lied to her.
Why would Da lie to her? Only to protect her.
Hugh ran his hands up her arms. He brushed her throat, tracing an oval there, like a jewel, and she shivered. He sucked in his breath hard and reached to unbuckle his belt. “Stop fighting me, Liath. Why should you not have pleasure? Why?”
Her skin tingled where his lips touched. Why, indeed? It had come time, at last, to choose.
“I will not be your slave,” she whispered. She would have wept, it was so hard to say, but she was too terrified to weep. She placed her hands against his chest and pushed him away, locking her elbows and holding them rigid.
He went quite still. “What did you say?”
Having said it once, she knew she must hold to it as strongly as ever she might. She twisted away from him and slipped off the bed to land bruisingly on her knees, huddled on the rug, her gaze on him the way a trapped rabbit stares at a fox. But she raised her voice above a whisper. “I will not be your slave.”
He sat up straight. “You are my slave.”
“Only by the gold you paid.”
His mouth pulled to a straight line. “Then it is back out with the pigs.” But he smiled as he said it, knowing full well that after a winter of luxury she could never face that again.
Liath thought this over: the dirty straw, Trotter’s back, the cold spring nights. “Yes,” she said slowly. “Yes. I’ll go back out with the pigs.” She climbed stiffly to her feet, walked stiffly to the door. None of her limbs worked right.
He was off the bed in an instant. He grabbed her by the shoulders and spun her around and hit her so hard that she staggered. Hit her again. She fell back and hit her head against the wall. She stopped her fall with a hand and shoved herself back up. With a hand shielding her face, she moved to pass him, to get to the door. He struck her. Again. This time, she fell right to her knees and had to huddle there, panting. Pain flamed through her. Her ears rang. He kicked her in the side, and she gasped in pain, gagging.
“Now,” he said, his voice taut with fury, “the pigs, or my bed?”
Carefully she rose to her feet. Her balance did not quite work right, and her right eye could not focus. She took an unsteady step, caught a breath, took a second step, and rested her hand on the door latch. Lifted it.
The door opening, and the blow, occurred at the same time. She fell forward into the corridor, onto her hands and knees. Another blow, along the ribs—perhaps it was his boot. She struggled to get to her feet, but each time she rose and showed the slightest movement forward, he hit her again.
Blood hazed her right eye, but it didn’t matter, because she couldn’t really see out of that eye anyway.
She got a hand on the wall and pulled up, and then was flung hard into the other wall. Her head slammed into stone, and she dropped hard. When she tried to stand again, she could not. She lay there, whimpering, trying not to whimper, trying not to make any sound, trying to get her legs to work. His boot nudged her side.
“Now, Liath. Which will it be?”
“The pigs,” she said. The words were hard to say, because her mouth was filled with blood. Since she could not rise, she found purchase with her elbows and tried to crawl forward. This time, when he hit her— whether with hands or boot she could no longer tell—a swirl of blackness flooded her. She heard her own labored breathing. She could not see. Her vision grayed, then lightened. She saw the narrow passageway as a hazy pattern of stone and shadow, but that was enough. She heaved herself up on her elbows and drew her body along after her. Forward, toward the pigs.
She heard words, a horrified exclamation, but it was not attached to her.
She hurt everywhere, stinging bruises, sharp deep pain in her bones, a fiery stabbing at her ribs; blood trickled, salty, from her mouth, and yet her mouth was dry. She was so thirsty. She could picture the pigs perfectly in her mind. They lived outside the city of memory, in pleasant comfort: Trotter, who was her favorite, and the old sow Truffling, and the piglets Hib, Nib, Jib, Bib, Gib, Rib, and Tib, some of whom she could tell apart, but she could not now recall which ones had been slaughtered and salted and which ones kept over the winter.
He hit her again, from her blind side, and she collapsed onto the cold floor. Rough stone pressed into her face, but the tiny irritating grains helped her stay conscious; she counted the grains, each one pressing into her cheek, into the open wound, like salt. She just breathed for awhile. Breathing was hard. It hurt to inhale and exhale, but eventually she had to get out with those pigs. She would be safe with the pigs. The book would be safe with the pigs.
Pain like a hot knife stabbed through her abdomen. She screamed out of stark fear. He was going to kill her rather than let her go. Kill her! That hadn’t been the choice.
She opened her left eye to see Hugh standing more than a body’s length away from her, staring at her, his face as cold and stubborn as the stone. But he had not t
ouched her.
The pain lanced again. Warm liquid trickled down the inside of her thighs. Pain stabbed again. She tried to gasp out words, but she couldn’t make them form on her tongue. Ai, Lady! It hurt. She curled up into a ball, and fainted.
Came half conscious when Lars picked her up. Dorit was speaking. Liath caught a glimpse of Hugh and then lost him again. Her thighs were sticky with dampness. The cool afternoon air struck her to shivering as Lars carried her outside. Pain coursed through her abdomen again. She twisted, tossing her head back. Dorit was speaking to her, but Liath could not understand.
Lars’ jolting walk sent flares of pain up her legs. She fainted.
This time, when she recognized she was awake, she tried not to panic. She was lying on a hard surface. She couldn’t open her eyes. Something cold and clammy covered her eyes, like the hand of a dead, decaying corpse. …
She jerked, clawed at it, but her hands were captured and held tight in another’s strong grip.
“Liath, it’s Hanna. Stop that. Stop it. Trust me.”
Hanna. She could trust Hanna. She clung to Hanna’s hands. What had happened? She was naked from the waist down, legs propped up, lying flat on her back, awash in pain.
Another voice intruded. “Can you sit, Liath? You ought to, if you can.”
“Here,” said Hanna in that wonderful practical voice she had. “I’ll put my arms under you and hold you. Just lean on me, Liath.”
Rising up, even to a half sit, made her head throb. The pain in her abdomen came and went in waves. The clammy hand dropped away from her face, but it was only a cold rag. Through her good eye she saw Mistress Birta and, in the background, Dorit. Mistress Birta straightened up from her crouch at Liath’s feet. Her hands were blood red.
Dizziness swept Liath. “I have to lie down,” she gasped. Even as Hanna lowered her, she fell completely out of consciousness.
Came up again, still lying on the hard surface. Mistress Birta was speaking.
“We’ll move her upstairs. I’ve done all I can.”
“I’ve seen him hit her a few times, now and again,” said a new voice which Liath vaguely identified as Dorit’s, “but with that temper she has, and her his bonded slave, I’ve never blamed him. But this.” There was a heavy silence, followed by the clucking of tongues. “It’s a sin against Our Lady, it is. I couldn’t let her lie there, bleeding, when I saw she was losing a child.”
Hanna and Birta carried her upstairs. It took that long for Dorit’s words to sink in.
Losing a child.
They laid her on Hanna’s bed and padded her with moss to absorb the blood still flowing from her. Birta pulled a shift down over her hips, so she might rest modestly.
She choked out the words. “Is it true? Was I pregnant?”
“Well, surely, lass. Do you suppose you can bed with a man all winter and not become pregnant? Hadn’t you noticed that your courses had stopped?”
Liath just lay there. She felt Hanna’s warm hand come to rest on her hair. So comforting. Dear Hanna. “I’m so tired,” she said.
“You sleep, child,” said Mistress Birta. “Hanna will sit with you for a while.”
“Why did I never think of that?” Liath whispered. “Hugh’s child. I could not bear to have Hugh’s child.”
“Hush, Liath,” said Hanna. “I think you ought to sleep now. Lady and Lord, but he beat you. You’re all bruises. He must have gone mad.”
“I won’t be his slave,” whispered Liath.
When she woke again, much later, she felt a pleasant lassitude. The little attic room was dim, but some light leaked through the shutters. The old blanket draped over her was scratchy but warm. She was exhausted, but she was at least alone; Hugh was not here.
That counted for something.
Then she heard the pound of footsteps on the back stairs accompanied by raised voices.
“I will not let you wake her, Frater!”
“Let me by, Mistress, and this time I will ignore your impertinence.”
“Frater Hugh, it may not be my place to speak so to you, but I will, so help me God, send my husband with a message to the biscop at Freelas about this incident, if you do not listen to me now.”
“I am sure, Mistress, that the biscop has greater concerns than my taking a concubine.”
“I am sure she does,” replied Mistress Birta with astonishing curtness, “but I do not think she will look so mildly on your taking a concubine and then beating the young lass so brutally that she miscarries the child conceived of this illegal union.”
“It was no child. It had not yet quickened.”
“Nevertheless it would have become one—if the Lady willed—had you not beaten her.”
“I remind you that she is my slave, to do with as I please. You forget, or likely you do not know, Mistress, that the biscop of Freelas, though a noblewoman of good character, does not have powerful kin. But I do. Now stand aside.”
“But she is still a child of Our Lady and Lord, Frater Hugh. It is Her Will, and not yours, that chooses whether a child be lost before its time. For we women are the chosen vessel of Our Lady, and it is by Her Will that we have been granted the gift of giving birth, a gift accompanied by pain, for how else shall we know the truth of darkness in the world and the promise of the Chamber of Light? I have midwifed many a woman in these parts, and I have seen many a woman miscarry from illness or hunger or by the chance lifting of Her Hand, and I have watched women and their babes die in childbed. But I have never seen a woman beaten so badly that she lost her child, not until now. And I will testify so, before the biscop, if I must.”
There was a silence. Liath measured with her eyes the distance from the bed to the shutters, but she knew she hadn’t the strength to get there, to open them, to throw herself out in order to escape from him; and anyway, even now, she did not want to die. Light bled into the room and from the yard she heard the cock crow. It must be early morning. The silence made her skin crawl. She waited, shuddering, for the latch to lift.
Finally, Hugh spoke. His voice was stiff with controlled fury. Ai, Lady, she knew him so well, now, that she could see his expression in her mind’s eye. “You will return her to me when she can walk. We are leaving for Firsebarg in ten days.”
“I will return her to you when she has recovered.”
He was furious. She heard it in his voice. “How dare you presume to dictate to me?”
“She may yet die, Frater. Though she is not my kinswoman, I have a certain fondness for her. And she is a woman, and like myself and all women, under the special care of the Lady. For is it not written in the Holy Verses: ‘My Hearth, where burns the fire of wisdom, I grant to women to tend’? You may threaten me if you like. I do not doubt you could easily ruin me, for we all know your mother is a great noblewoman, but I will see Liath well before I let her travel such a difficult road.”
“Very well,” he said curtly. Then he laughed. “By Our Lord, but you’ve courage, Mistress. But I will see her before I go today.”
Liath shut her eyes and hoped against hope that Mistress Birta would send him away.
“That is your right,” said Birta finally, reluctantly. The door opened.
“Alone,” said Hugh.
Liath kept her eyes shut.
“I will wait outside,” said Birta. “Right out here.”
Hugh shut the door behind him and latched it. She heard the sounds he made, the slip of his boots on the plank flooring, his intake of breath, the creak of a loose plank under his weight, the door closing, tugged shut, the snick of the latch, sealing them in together. She did not open her eyes. He said nothing. She was so alive to him that she knew exactly how close he stood to her, how a bare turn would brush his robes against her blanket, how near his hands hovered by her face.
But she knew very well he would not go away just because she kept her eyes shut. Da always said you must face what you feared or otherwise become its victim. Of course, Da had always said it with a derisive smile, since he
had been running ever since her mother died.
She tightened her grip on the blanket, took in a deep breath, and looked up at Hugh. He studied her with a curious, intent expression. She stared back at him, suddenly so overwhelmingly tired that fear could take no grip on her.
“Why didn’t you just kill me?” she whispered.
Hugh chuckled, smiling. “You are far too precious a treasure to cast away so carelessly.” Then his expression changed, so fast, like a black storm rushing in from the sea. “But you must not cross me, Liath. Not ever, not like that, again.”
She looked away from him to the coarse wooden slats of the wall. A few stray pieces of straw poked through from the loft beyond.
He settled down comfortably beside her. “You will need some kind of servant while we travel, and I am sure you would feel more comfortable settling in, in Firsebarg, if you had someone you knew with you. There was some talk of the Mistress’ daughter marrying one of the freeholders, and also some talk that she was unwilling to. I think it might be well if the girl came with us. Then you would have company, and someone to do the work and perhaps, even, if she proves herself clever, to become chatelaine of our household. That would be a fair opportunity for someone of her birth. If you would like that, then I will speak with Mistress Birta now.”
Our household.
No matter what she did, not matter how strong her will to resist him, no matter how angry he became with her, how cold she remained to him, no matter how well she had locked away her heart or how well she had hidden Da’s book and knowledge, Hugh’s sheer stubborn persistence would eventually wear her away to nothing. He was utterly determined to possess her. And if she ran away, where would she run to? To death, most likely, or to a life far far worse in degradation and hunger and filth. If she even could run away. No matter how great a head start she gained, Hugh would catch up to her. He always knew where she was and what she was doing. As long as he owned her, as patient as he was, she was helpless against him.