"I said get up!" Grabbing a handful of her hair, tangled with leaves and twigs, Gaspar wrapped it around his fist and yanked her to her feet. She yelped as he dragged her several feet and backed her against a tree.
"She doesn't look so high and mighty now, does she, boys?" Vicq and Leone moved closer, their feral gazes trained on her. Her nostrils stung with the stench of unwashed flesh and clothes that had been lived in and slept in for years. They were hulking, hairy brutes with prominent brow ridges, both of them. They had about them the look of wild animals that one has tried with limited success to domesticate.
Gaspar pushed her snarled hair away from her face and rubbed a clump of dirt off her cheek. "She's as filthy on the outside now as she is on the inside—and that's pretty damned filthy." Looking down, she saw that her white tunic was torn and dirt-smeared.
Something hot trickled from her nose. She swiped at it automatically, and her hand came away bloody.
"Hands at your sides," Gaspar barked. "Don't move until I tell you to. And then you'll do exactly as you're told. Do you understand?"
"Roast in hell."
In a heartbeat he pressed the spike of his mallet so hard into her throat that she could scarcely draw a breath. She grabbed it and tried to pull it away, but he only pressed harder, until she feared it would crush her windpipe.
"Hands at your sides," he instructed softly.
She lowered her hands.
"That's better." He let up a bit on the mallet. She gasped for air. He smiled thinly. "I must say I was rather put off to awaken and find myself tied up in your stable. I screamed myself hoarse before that dimwitted stable boy finally came and untied me. Your husband probably would have tried to stop him, if he were still alive."
Nicki just stared at Gaspar, his dull black eyes, his predatory smile, thinking, No...
"Aye, he was dead as a stone, under that tree, with the flagon next to him, empty. I suppose, in his own pathetic way, he was trying to do you and his cousin a favor."
Milo, Milo... Nicki shut her eyes against the tears that scorched them. A favor...yes. Her husband had taken his own life in a final attempt to wrest some measure of purpose and dignity from it. He did it so that Nicki would be free to marry Alex. The gesture was all the more selfless for being such a grievous sin, and Nicki promised herself that if she survived this afternoon she would pray for Milo's soul every day of her life.
"The amusing part of it," Gaspar said, "is that de Périgeaux will never reap the benefits of this favor. I will."
"If you think you can convince me to marry you—"
"Silence!" He jammed the spike into Nicki's throat until she gagged and choked, then let up on it a bit. "When I want you to use that lovely mouth of yours—" he jabbed his thumb between her lips, eliciting a gasp from Nicki and snickers from his men "—I'll let you know. Meanwhile, you're to keep it shut."
Nicki closed her eyes.
"Look at me."
She looked at him. On either side, Vicq and Leone watched in open-mouthed fascination, clearly amazed and titillated by Gaspar's treatment of her.
"You can remarry now," Gaspar said, "and you're going to marry me. Forget about de Périgeaux. He couldn't leave you fast enough once his job was done, eh? By now, he's many miles from here, delighted to be rid of you."
"Nay," Nicki whispered under her breath. How could it all have been pretense? How could he not have loved her?
But it was true that he had left her. Alex was gone, and she was at the mercy of an enraged lunatic. Gaspar had clearly crossed over a threshold of sorts. Years of frustration and imagined slights had driven him to a kind of madness, with Nicki as its target.
"You're obviously still reluctant to be bound in wedlock to the apothecary castellan," he said. "But perhaps I can think of a way to persuade you." He slid the tip of the spike slowly downward, following its progress over her throat, the rise and fall of a breast, her belly...She swallowed a strangled cry as he nudged it between her legs. Vicq and Leone leered openly.
"For fifteen years," he said, trailing the spike back up the way it had come, "I've imagined what it would be like to have that pretty little body of yours at my disposal. And, rest assured, I do have a rather vivid imagination. I've thought of a thousand different ways to make you scream and beg. Way out here, there'd be no one to hear you, would there? And when I'm done with you, I think it would be only fair to let Vicq and Leone take their turns—fair, and possibly quite entertaining as well."
Leone's lips stretched over a sparse mouthful of tooth stubs. Vicq just stared her up and down, his small eyes glinting with lewd anticipation.
Gaspar caressed her face with the spike's sharp point. "I almost had you once, you know. But, of course, you don't. Do you remember the night you took ill after drinking the raisin wine Edith brought you?"
Nicki had a vague memory of Edith making her drink a goblet of raisin wine that night. 'Twill help you sleep, lamb. You must drink it all. "What did you put in—"
"Shh!" Gaspar pressed the spike against her lips. "Just something to make you a bit easier to handle while I sired a son on you."
Shock gripped Nicki. A memory surfaced...a man in a black mask holding a dagger to her nose. No...he didn't...he couldn't have...
"Unfortunately," Gaspar said, "de Périgeaux chose that moment to creep upstairs for his nightly poke, and I couldn't finish what I started." He smiled. "But he's not here to ruin it this time. Today I may do with you as I please. Then I'll turn you over to Vicq and Leone. If you aren't dead by the time they're done with—and you very well may be, for they do tend to get a bit carried away—I'll finish the job and bury you out here where no one will ever find you. People will just assume that you abandoned your ailing husband to run after your cousin, and that Milo consequently killed himself in despair."
Nicki began to shiver.
"That," Gaspar said, withdrawing the mallet and taking a step back, "is what will happen if you refuse to marry me. Accept me, and we'll leave now and find an agreeable priest. We could be husband and wife by tonight."
Nicki shook her head automatically, appalled by the prospect of being bound in matrimony to such a beast—but not eager to face the alternative, either. Perhaps, despite his madness, he could still be reasoned with. "Gaspar, listen to me," she said quickly. "With me dead, Peverell will go to the church. You'll have lost your chance at it."
"If you don't marry me, I won't get it, anyway, but at least I'll have my revenge, and there's something to be said for that. No more stalling. Yes or no?" He tucked the head of the mallet under her skirt and began lifting it.
"Gaspar, for God's—"
"Yes or no, bitch?"
She leaned over to push the mallet away.
Seizing her by the throat, he slammed her back against the tree. "Give me your answer!"
"I—I can't. Gaspar, listen to—"
"Is that your answer? No?"
Struggling to keep her wits—she had to talk her way out of this—she said, "Gaspar, please, let's just—"
"That's your answer. You stupid bitch." A red stain encompassed his face. He clenched his jaw, looking as if he might explode. "You stupid fucking bitch." With a sudden burst of rage, he swung the mallet, imbedding the spike in the tree right next to Nicki's legs. "You can't bear to think of marrying beneath you, can you, you spoiled little whore? All right. You've made your choice. Strip."
"Wh-what?"
"You heard me." Gaspar unbuckled his belt. "Take your clothes off—all of them."
Nicki's shivering turned to violent tremors as she looked from one man to the next, standing in a row watching her. Leone's tongue slid out to lick his lips; both he and Vicq seemed to quiver with excitement. Gaspar folded the belt in half and snapped it. "Do it!"
Something moved in the woods some distance behind them; a flash of white amid the trees.
"Now!" Gaspar screamed, shaking with fury. "Or I'll have my men do it for you."
The form in the distance took shape as a
man—white shirt, dark hair tied back in a queue. Alex! It couldn't be, and yet it was. He moved toward them with silent, measured steps, his sword drawn, his gaze intent.
"What's it to be?" Gaspar demanded.
"I..." Nicki wrested her gaze from Alex, cautioning herself not to look that way again, lest she draw attention to him. He was trying to catch them unawares—as well he might, for it was three against one—but it would be a challenge even for someone as stealthy as he, given the dried leaves underfoot. She had try to capture the attention of her tormenters, and hold it.
"I'll do it." Her hands shook so badly that she could barely control them, but she raised them to her throat and fumbled with the knot that secured the cord lacing up the front of her tunic. The attention of all three men was riveted on her.
From the edge of her vision, she saw Alex nod at her as he slowly approached. Clearly, he knew what she was doing, and he appreciated the diversion.
She swallowed dryly when the knot came undone. Drawing a shaky breath, she pulled the cord through the top set of eyelets, then the next, and the next, taking as much time over it as she felt she could get away with.
Gaspar smacked the belt against his thigh. "Faster."
Nicki's fingers grappled numbly with the cord until it slid free and dropped to the ground. Her tunic fell open all the way to her waist. She was grateful for her concealing undershift—until Gaspar clutched it and ripped it open, revealing a band of bare flesh down the middle of her chest.
Alex started sprinting; they would hear him for sure! "Nay!" she cried, grabbing Gaspar's wrists as he began to part the torn fabric. She risked a quick glance in Alex's direction, begging him silently to slow down; he did, thank God.
"I'll do it myself," she told Gaspar. "I will, just give me a moment."
"The more impatient I grow," he warned, stroking the belt, "the worse it will go for you."
Time... She needed time, Alex needed it. Her hands hovered near her throat.
"Show yourself," Gaspar said. "Do it."
She tucked her fingertips beneath the ragged edges of her shift and slowly skimmed them downward, parting the fabric just barely—enough to make all three men stare, mesmerized. The bile rose in her throat when she saw Vicq's hand—the one that wasn't gripping the club—crawl toward his crotch.
Alex was almost upon them. What would happen when he made his presence known? Despite his skill with the sword, she doubted he could take on three men at once, and Gaspar had that damned mallet of his.
An idea occurred to her. Lowering her trembling hands to the embroidered sash draped over her hips, she untied it.
"What are you doing?" Gaspar asked. "I told you to—"
"I need to get this off before I can take the tunic off." She slid the sash free and gripped it tightly with both hands, her body coiled in readiness.
Whether Alex knew what she was planning or not, he chose that moment to make his move, leaping forward, sword outstretched. All three men heard him and spun around. Gaspar swore and turned to yank his mallet out of the tree.
Nicki acted fast, whipping the sash around Gaspar's throat as he bent over the mallet. She pulled it tight, praying for the strength to hold him just long enough for Alex to dispatch at least one of the others. Gaspar made a strangled sound of outrage, clawing at the sash. She kicked his legs out from under him and knelt on his back. His astonishment alone should immobilize him for a few seconds.
Leone drew his dagger as Vicq swung his club. Alex rolled beneath the club and came up behind Vicq, who wheeled around to face him. As the two men squared off, Leone darted behind Alex with his dagger. Nicki screamed a warning. Alex turned, but not before Leone sank the blade into his upper arm, yanking it out again and backing quickly away.
Vicq swung again. Slamming his sword against the club, Alex halted its progress. In a blur, he swept the huge blade across Vicq's throat; blood sprayed as he fell backward. He twitched convulsively for a moment and then went slack.
Gaspar thrashed as Nicki struggled to squeeze the sash tight, her arms shuddering with the effort. She knew she couldn't hold him much longer.
Alex whirled on Leone, who, seeing his companion's blood pumping from his throat, dropped his dagger and ran, disappearing into the woods. With a roar of effort, Gaspar hurled Nicki off of him, slamming her to the ground. He stood and wrenched the mallet out of the tree. Nicki rolled swiftly away and scrambled to her feet.
Gaspar and Alex faced each other warily, brandishing their weapons. Alex's gaze darted to Nicki. "Are you all right, Nicki?"
"I'm unharmed," she said, knowing how she looked—with her bloody nose, snarled hair and filthy, ripped clothes—and wanting to reassure him. "Alex, your arm..." Blood blossomed slowly on his right shirtsleeve, and the arm quivered slightly.
"It's nothing," he said, probably for Gaspar's benefit, but Nicki knew better than to believe it. That was his sword arm. He was in trouble.
Gaspar swung the mallet; Alex blocked the blow, but just barely. The problem, Nicki saw, wasn't just that Alex was hurt. Gaspar was bigger and deranged with fury, and he wielded that mallet of his with savage skill. Moreover, his reach, Nicki saw, was longer than Alex's, keeping Alex on the defensive. The two men circled each other warily, their fierce gazes locked.
"I thought you were on your way to the Channel," Gaspar said.
"I changed my mind." Alex glanced toward Nicki. "Run back to the road, Nicki. I left Atlantes there. Take him and—"
"And leave you here, alone against this monster? No!"
"You can't help me, Nicki!"
"I daresay he's right there," Gaspar said as he struck again; Alex jumped aside and countered with a lunge, which Gaspar blocked easily. "So you turned back," Gaspar said conversationally, swinging the mallet to and fro, "and came across our horses on the road. And, of course, you couldn't help trying to play the hero. But I hardly need remind you what happened the last time you tried to take me on."
"As I recall," Alex said, "I swore an oath to slice you open if you ever aimed that thing at me again." He spared another glance at Nicki as she pried Vicq's club out of his lifeless hand. "Nicki, I mean it—you can't help me. Get away from here. Ride back to Peverell and—"
"No, Alex." Nicki knew that Alex had not forgotten his disastrous encounter with Gaspar in the athletic field. And this time, the odds against him were even worse; his sword arm shook badly, and the sleeve covering it was crimson from shoulder to wrist. His facing down Gaspar this way was an attempt to buy her the time to get away; in all likelihood he expected to die.
The irony was that it was the very magnitude of Alex's sacrifice that made it impossible for Nicki to abandon him. Perhaps she could help him, perhaps not. But they were a part of each other now. This fight was her fight, too. If he fell, she would be empty, lost; she wouldn't want to go on without him.
"Damn it, Nicki, go!"
"Speaking of oaths," Gaspar said, "what of the oath you swore to Milo? You were supposed to leave for good once you'd done what you came here for. Aren't you the tediously honor-bound young knight who never breaks his oaths?"
"That oath was to God, not Milo. And I've never broken one until today. But I gave it a great deal of thought during my journey this morning, and decided I didn't have any choice." Alex's gaze connected with Nicki's for a brief, intimate moment. "And that God would just have to forgive me."
"How very touching." Gaspar whipped the mallet through the air, catching on Alex's shirtsleeve. Alex grimaced as the spike tore a fresh gash in his injured arm, but he countered swiftly, with a two-handed circular sweep that sliced Gaspar's tunic open. Blood seeped through, but Gaspar grinned. "It's just a scratch. But it looks as if I've done some real damage to your sword arm. Face it, de Périgeaux. You're done for. Give up now and I'll finish you off quick."
"Nicki, for God's sake, get out of here!" Alex yelled. "Go back to Peverell and have Milo send some of the men—"
"Milo is dead, Alex," Nicki said.
Alex
fell silent for a moment, sorrow darkening his eyes. He whispered something under his breath—it might have been a curse or a prayer—and said, "Go back, anyway. The men respect you, Nicki. They'll follow your orders. Tell them to hunt Gaspar down and—"
"I'm not leaving you." She retrieved Leone's dagger from where he had dropped it. Could she use it if she had to? She thought about Gaspar's raw malevolence, and his determination to kill Alex, and decided she could. If the opportunity arose, she would shove it up to its hilt in the bastard's back and not feel a twinge of remorse. The trick, of course, lay in getting close enough to Gaspar to hurt him without falling victim to that mallet.
"Go!" Alex shouted. "Damn it, Nicki—"
"I'd rather she stayed," Gaspar said. "She's distracting you, just as she did that other time. You're easy pickings when your attention wanders in a fight." As if to prove his point, he rammed the mallet down hard on Alex's wounded arm. Alex's hand opened; the sword fell.
No! Please, God, no!
Alex crouched and reached for the sword, but Gaspar kicked it away.
"Run, Nicki!" Alex screamed as Gaspar lifted the mallet high over his head.
"Alex!" Nicki threw the dagger, which fell at Alex's feet. He grabbed it and rose, thrusting it into Gaspar's belly and wrenching it sharply upward.
The mallet fell from Gaspar's hands. Alex seized him by the front of his tunic and jammed the blade in harder.
"What the..." Gaspar looked down, blinking, for a few long seconds. "Shit. Oh, fuck. You fucking...You've killed me, you bastard."
"I should bloody well hope so." Alex yanked out the dagger; blood spattered.
Gaspar sank to his knees. He met Alex's gaze with an expression of virulent loathing, but when he opened his mouth to speak, nothing came out. Presently his eyes lost their focus, and then he sighed and fell forward, landing heavily in the leaves.
Alex closed his eyes and swayed on his feet. For the first time, Nicki noticed how pale he was. His sleeve was saturated with blood; it dripped off his hand, forming a puddle in the leaves.
"Alex." She went to him, gathered him in her arms. "Alex, lie down."
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