Almost Innocent

by Jane Feather

  But when the child was fed and comfortable once more, Charles d’Auriac went again to the door. “Take her down.”

  The two men-at-arms entered the room.

  “No … please … I cannot …” She heard her plea, would have given anything not to have made it, but could not help herself.

  Her cousin touched his cheek, touched the raw striations made by her nails, and said nothing.

  They took her back, down and down, and they locked her again in the impenetrable timeless darkness.

  Ten miles outside Orleans lay the decomposing body of the courier who’d been sent to discover and bring report to Carcassonne upon the outcome of the combat between Edmund de Bresse and Guy de Gervais. The body lay tumbled in the ditch where the band of thieves had left it, its news locked forever in the whitening skull.

  Guy de Gervais, Edmund de Bresse, and Courtney Durand met in the shadow of the fortress, their forces melding without ceremony or insignia, offering no apparent threat to the watchmen of Carcassonne, who saw only the brigand army so recently in the fee of the de Beauregards.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The ache in her legs mercifully passed, a deep numbness taking its place. Long before then, she had lost all sensation in her feet, finally deadened by the icy water in which she stood. No longer able to feel anything, she could only imagine what was crawling around her ankles, clinging to her skirts. But this time even terror had its limits, and finally she drifted into an almost trancelike state, retreating from hell by removing herself from her body, physically aware only of her fingers curled around the steel ring, holding her upright. When they lifted the trap door, she could not move, and they had to reach down and prise her cramped fingers loose before hauling her up into the light.

  Her legs would not hold her, and she crumpled in the passage, uncaring. One of the men-at-arms picked her up without comment and she lay limply in his hold, her mind and spirit still somehow floating above her inert bodily shape.

  It was full daylight, and she closed her eyes tightly against a brightness that yesterday she had found dim and gloomy. She heard Zoe’s cries before they reached the chamber, and abruptly mind and body became one again. With the fusion came the resurgence of fear and the dread knowledge that she could not preserve her reason through another such period of incarceration. Following instinct, she gave no indication of her return to full awareness and stayed limp and unresponsive in her bearer’s arms. When he carried her into the chamber, she remained inert.

  Sister Therese was holding Zoe, rocking her back and forth in a futile effort to still the frantic screams, so piercing they seemed to go straight through one’s head. No one else was in the room.

  The trooper set Magdalen on her feet, and deliberately she crumpled to the ground again.

  “Put her on the bed,” the nun said. “She has to feed the child.”

  They picked her up and put her on the bed, where she lay unmoving. Sister Therese put the screaming Zoe into her lap and hastily pulled up the pillows behind her. “Sit up, now,” the nun said with anxious impatience. “Your child is hungry.”

  With a supreme effort of will, Magdalen made no attempt to soothe Zoe, but lay as if she still inhabited the trancelike world of her imprisonment, her eyes closed.

  The troopers left the chamber, and the nun stood looking down at the immobile woman and the screeching baby. Then with an almost imperceptible shrug, as if to say she had done all she could, she turned and left the chamber.

  Magdalen heard the heavy wooden bar fall into place with a dull thud. She lay still for a further minute, then caught the child to her breast. Zoe was not impressed with her mother’s desperate kisses and nuzzled frantically. Magdalen unfastened her bodice, the screams died on a gulping sob, and a deep quiet entered the dim chamber.

  Magdalen found that her mind had a bell-like clarity. As the blood returned to her feet, the pain was excruciating. The muscles in her legs cramped violently with the renewal of sensation, but the pain served to concentrate her mind. If, apart from feeding Zoe, she preserved the appearance of one physically and spiritually broken by the oubliette, then surely nothing would be gained by returning her there. The last two periods had been punitive as well as coercive, she was in no doubt, but if her cousin saw her in this broken state, he would surely feel adequately avenged for the raking marks of her nails. And for as long as she remained apparently physically incapable of anything but feeding the child, the matter of her compliance would have to be postponed.

  She would not be able to convince them for long, but it would buy her some time, and at the moment, she could only think ahead an hour or two at a time. She was abruptly overtaken by an invincible weariness, like a great black blanket dropping over her. Her eyes closed while she still held the child at her breast.

  Sister Therese, coming in an hour later, found the woman still asleep and the baby lying placidly at her side. She had brought a tray of food and bent to wake the sleeping woman, who she knew had not eaten since the previous midmorning.

  Magdalen woke but turned her head from the food. She refused to speak, but staggered off the bed to wash and change Zoe, put the child in her cradle, and drag herself to the latrine behind the garderobe. She exaggerated the pain and effort of her movements, and finally tumbled back on the bed, closing her eyes. Uneasy, but uncertain what else she should do, the nun left her.

  Alone again, Magdalen ate a little of the venison pasty on the tray and drank some of the wine. She was feeling much stronger, although she dared not let her mind return to the timeless terror of her imprisonment. She knew only that she could not endure more of it. Curiously, she did not entertain the obvious means of avoiding further coercion. She would not yield.

  She slept fitfully throughout the day, closing her eyes tightly whenever she heard the door open as it did several times. The visitor did not come into the room, however, merely checked on its occupant and left again. She looked after Zoe but deliberately left herself unwashed and uncombed.

  Charles d’Auriac came in at the end of the afternoon. He had planned to leave her alone all day, alone to recover her strength and to allow herself to feel that her ordeal was finished. The shock of being taken down again, to spend the hours of the night in the oubliette, would be so much the greater after the day’s respite that he had every expectation of achieving her submission by first light on the morrow.

  He was not prepared for what he found, however. She lay on the bed exactly as she had been brought up that morning, the filth of the dungeon on her clothes, her hair matted, her face streaked. Her eyes looked blankly at him, almost through him.

  “Sweet Jesus! Why have you not cleaned yourself?”

  She made no response, not even a flicker of an eyelid. He crossed to the bed and took her chin between thumb and forefinger, staring down into her face. The blankness of her eyes did not alter. Had he miscalculated? Believed her stronger than she was? There came a point, he knew, when physical coercion ceased to be fruitful, a point when the victim withdrew from the pain into a private world of illusion and thus from the power of the interrogator. But it could not have happened so soon. He went to the door and bellowed for Sister Therese.

  “How long has she been like this?”

  “Since they brought her back this morning. She has fed the child, but little else.”

  “Has she spoken?”

  “No, my lord.”

  He turned back to the bed. It was as if she did not know they were talking about her … as if she did not know they were in the room. “Get her cleaned up,” he said. “I will return later.”

  Magdalen offered neither resistance nor assistance as the nun and a serving wench took off her filth-encrusted clothes. She let them wash her, comb out the matted tangles of her hair, dress her in a linen shift and a loose robe. She gave no indication of her relief at being thus rid of the reek and mire of the dungeon. They encouraged her into a chair beside the empty hearth, brought her the baby, offered her broth and wine. Passively
, silently, she submitted.

  It was dark when her cousin returned. She was still sitting in the chair, her hands clasped loosely in her lap, the candles unlit upon the table. It was as if she were unaware of the darkness.

  He struck flint, and light flared from the candles. She did not look toward the light or acknowledge his presence in the slightest way.

  “So, cousin,” he said, approaching her, holding the candle high so that its light fell upon her face, as desirable in its pale stillness as ever it was in the glowing vibrancy of health and happiness. “I wonder how you will respond to my kiss tonight.” He held her face with one hand and brought his lips to hers. She endured, still and cold as a marble effigy. Abruptly, he released her and went to the door.

  “Take her down!”

  Scalding terror filled her. She had failed. But she somehow remained immobile, her eyes fixed on a dip in the flagstones at her feet. Her neck ached unbearably with the strain.

  He looked at her closely for some sign that his instruction to the two troopers had pierced her absorption. He could detect no change in posture or expression. As the two men moved toward her, he gestured to them to stop. If it was genuine, her present state of mind bordered on madness, and if he had her confined again so soon, she might well slip over the edge. She would be no good to them then, and he could not afford to risk all by being overzealous.

  “Get out.”

  The men left, and he put the candle on the table again. “In the morning I will have your submission, cousin, and you will give your allegiance to Bertrand. If I do not have it, you will rot in the oubliette, and your child with you.” She gave no indication that she had heard him, and with a wash of frustration he caught her under the arms and pulled her to her feet. “Do you hear me, cousin? You and the child.”

  She must not respond. She would not respond. Over and over in her head she said the words until the internal chant obscured all else. She fell back in the chair as he pushed her away from him, and she let herself fall and lie as limp as any doll.

  The door banged on his departure and she began to shake, but she had won herself a night’s respite.

  Guy de Gervais looked up at the sky. It was heavy and overcast, the air sultry, as if a summer storm were brewing over the Pyrenees. But the lack of moon or starshine couldn’t be better for their purpose.

  “Do you think she is asleep?” Edmund’s voice came softly through the darkness. “Do you think they have harmed her?”

  Guy turned, making out the dark bulk of the other man. Like himself, Edmund wore chainmail and carried his great sword and shield. Their suits of full plate armor would not be needed until the fighting began. First they would parley. “Do not think about Magdalen,” he counseled, as he had counseled himself countless times during the weeks of their pursuit. “You cannot serve her by worrying over her.”

  “But she has such fear of her cousin.”

  “Fear will not kill her,” Guy said shortly. “She has courage and nimble wits.” But the thought of her alone and afraid at times tormented him beyond endurance.

  “All is ready.” Courtney Durand loomed out of the shadows. “The town watchtower has been taken, and there’ll be none to sound the tocsin.” There was no intensity in his voice or expression. He had no interest beyond amusement and coin in the present enterprise. Any interest he might have had in the Lady Magdalen was surpassed by too many men, he realized, for it to be worth pursuing. “We will leave the fires and torches burning in the camp so all looks undisturbed, and we will be in position by first light.”

  Through the dark, shadowed, sleeping town, forty lancers moved almost soundlessly, horses’ hooves muffled with sacking on the cobbles, only an occasional jingle of a bridle to betray them. Behind them came pikers and archers, troopers bearing great bundles of faggots and the long siege ladders. Those townsmen who heard them cowered behind their shuttered windows. In the absence of the tocsin, the only sensible course was to mind one’s own business and be thankful that the armed men showed no interest in the town or its inhabitants.

  The town streets lapped the fortress walls, and the men had moved from the shadows of the former and under the overhang of the latter without venturing into the open. The watchmen at the fortress towers looked outward to the distant horizon for threat. They saw the dark huddle of the brigand encampment, the usual nighttime flares glowing in the dark, just as they had done for the last several days, since the brigand chieftain had delivered his captive to the fortress. They did not look immediately beneath them because they had no reason to do so. If the town had been threatened, the tocsin would have sounded. So they did not see the stealthy, creeping menace moving into position, preparing to bridge the moat and assail the fortress walls with their bombards, obscuring fires, and siege ladders.

  But as the first faint lightening appeared over the mountains, the air was rent with the insolence of a dozen bugles, like so many barnyard cockerels throwing their challenge to the day. The pennons of the knights banneret were raised at the moment that the standards of Bresse, Gervais, and Lancaster lifted to a gust of dawn wind from the mountains. The heralds blew their note again.

  Within the fortress, there was utter confusion. Men ran to the battlements, staring down at the armed force massed at the walls. Bertrand de Beauregard was hauled from sleep by a white-faced squire—white-faced because of how his lord would react to what must have been someone’s incompetence.

  The knight commander of the garrison followed hard on the heels of the squire and, as Bertrand was strapped into his armor, told him whose standards flew in challenge at their gates.

  “God’s nails. You say the standard of Bresse flies?” Bertrand cursed his squire as he struggled with the steel greaves of his armor. “Fetch d’Auriac!”

  Charles was already there, pale but resolute, as yet unarmored. “My lord.”

  “You guaranteed his death!” his uncle spat.

  “I still guarantee it,” Charles said steadily. “This time by my own hand.”

  Bertrand looked at him, then shook his head impatiently. “The man has more lives than a cat!” He strode past his nephew into the outer ward of the fortress, and up to the battlements. “Call for identification and for the purpose of this challenge.” As if he didn’t know it!

  The herald blew his note, and they watched as a herald from the opposing side rode up to the lifted drawbridge. His voice rose clear in the dawn: “The Lord de Bresse is come for his wife, the Lady Magdalen. The Lord de Gervais is come, as representative of John, Duke of Lancaster, for Lancaster’s daughter, the Lady Magdalen.”

  Bertrand took the jeweled cup of wine proffered by his page and drained the contents before replying. “Tell them we will have an answer for them in an hour.”

  The herald relayed the message, and Bertrand left the battlements. His sons and his nephew were gathered in the outer ward. “Come,” he instructed curtly. “We must take counsel.” They followed him to the bastion room, where the early sun showed fingers of dust on the scarred table. Pages scurried with jugs of wine but were curtly dismissed.

  “Well?” Bertrand said. “I await an explanation.”

  All eyes turned to Charles d’Auriac. He was still a little pale but otherwise seemed unmoved. “It seems I was in error,” he said slowly.

  “The woman was right, you mean,” Bertrand said. “If you had had the sense to do the job yourself … if your cousin had had the sense to do the job himself …” Here he glared at Gerard, who had been feeling a certain satisfaction that his cousin had also failed in his set task.

  “This time I will,” Charles said again.

  “Of course, you want the woman for yourself,” Marc said with a sly smile. “That is a powerful incentive, cousin.”

  “So is pride,” Charles snapped back. “I do not fail.”

  “So what do you suggest?” Bertrand sounded suddenly genial, as if this squabbling pleased him. He poured wine. “We have an army laying siege at our gates over a woman and a baby.
”

  “Durand is with them,” Philippe remarked. “The mind of the mercenary is most curious.”

  “Hardly curious,” Bertrand said. “He has a nose to sniff out coin and cares not who pays or for what.”

  “But can we withstand such a siege?” asked Gerard. “It is the devil’s own luck that we should all be gathered here together. There is none outside to bring reinforcements.”

  “They are well equipped for assault,” Bertrand said. “And Durand has no difficulty in raising fresh troops whenever he needs them. We will be outnumbered soon enough, however heavy the losses we may inflict upon them.”

  “There is no need to withstand a siege.” It was Charles who spoke. Absently, he poured himself wine and spoke directly to his uncle. “We will use the woman. It will be her first task for her family.” He smiled. “She will bring her husband and her lover to their deaths.”

  “You have broken her?” Bertrand frowned. “You believe she will obey you in this so soon? You believe you can compel her to betray de Gervais and de Bresse?” He shook his head. “You are overly optimistic, my friend. It is a fault of yours.”

  But Charles continued to smile. “You forget the child. If the child’s life is in danger, she will betray anyone.” He stroked his chin. “I do not know why I did not think of it before.”

  “But we want the child, too,” Marc said. “She will grow to be a de Beauregard more completely than the mother ever will be.”

  “True enough, which is why I didn’t consider it before,” Charles agreed. “But in this instance, I believe the sacrifice will be worthwhile … not that I think for one minute we shall be obliged to make the sacrifice.”