Biting her lip doubtfully, she showed him the narrow arched doorway in the corner of the kitchen that would take them to the gallery on the second floor. Her father had seemed so broken, so forlorn when she had seen him earlier. Silently, she prayed that he would keep himself safe until she, until they, could reach him. Lussac squeezed up the tight spiral staircase, the rough steps tilting and uneven.
The wooden gallery spanned the length of the great hall along one side, suspended on chunky joists of silvered oak. Carved wooden palings, set at intervals, formed a banister to stop people falling into the space below. The high vantage point, on a level with the hefty chandeliers hanging from the rafted ceiling, afforded a bird’s eye view of any activity below. As soon as he emerged into the space, Lussac crouched instinctively, sliding his back down against the bumpy, white-plastered wall, and, at his side, Katerina did the same.
‘I’ll see if anyone’s there,’ she whispered in Lussac’s ear. Her warm breath brushed the sweet spot beneath his earlobe, tickling his neck, her lips tantalisingly close. If he had turned his face in that instant, his mouth would have been on hers. His fingers tightened around his sword hilt as he fought the urge to catch her in his arms, to take her mouth against his own. Desire sliced through him, a cutting zig-zag, tearing through his limbs. Taking a deep steadying breath, he watched her crawl to the edge of the gallery, her movements graceful, controlled, like a cat, skirts, his cloak, slipping behind, the gathered fabric following her across the planked floor. Peeping through, Katerina saw the stone mantelpiece of the fireplace and the destroyed chairs strewn across the flagstones like broken bones, starkly visible in the pool of moonlight piercing down from the upper windows.
Carefully, she crept back to Lussac, twisting her body so that she sat on the floor next to him. ‘There’s nobody there,’ she whispered. ‘My father isn’t there...’ Her voice tilted, tipped with anxiety. ‘Where could he be, Lussac? Where is he?’
‘He’s probably tucked up in bed, fast asleep.’ Lussac reassured her. Truthfully, he didn’t care much about where her father was, after the way that man had treated his own daughter.
Another staircase spiralled up from the far end of the gallery leading to the upper floors of the tower where Philippe was imprisoned. With one shoulder braced against the central post that ran the vertical length of the stairwell, Lussac moved up slowly, sword outstretched and poised before him, the tip winking dully in the faint light from the narrow windows: open arrow-slits designed for defence. Katerina matched her pace with Lussac’s, keeping level with him.
Lussac stopped, one powerful arm flinging out in front of Katerina, stalling her neat steps. The thick sinews in his forearm tensed against the soft muscles of her stomach. ‘Katerina,’ he said, exasperated, ‘you have to stay behind me, remember. I am armed, you are not.’
She nodded, retreating down one step. ‘Sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I forgot...I’m so used to doing things on my own.’
‘We’re in this together, Katerina, but, like it or not, you must heed my command.’
We’re in this together. The words reverberated around her head and, for a moment, she forgot what they were doing and why they were both there, crowded together in delicious proximity on the shadowed stair. Her heart swelled with a delicious fulfilment, a hazy, rose-fringed chimera of her future dangling before her mind’s eye; she would cling to that vision when reality came crashing down about her. And it would come. He would leave and she would be alone again.
Unless. Unless she agreed to his proposal. She picked unconsciously with her thumbnail at the heavy gold ring on her finger.
Lussac rounded the corner, his sharp, piercing gaze touching the dusty floorboards, the vaulted, cobwebbed ceilings. The landing was deserted. No soldiers in scarlet tunics. Nobody. With quick, skilful fingers, he shot the bolts on Philippe’s door, turned the hefty key, helpfully left in the lock, and shoved the door inwards.
At the noise, Philippe staggered upwards from the chair he was sitting in, face pouchy with sleep, staring at the pair of them in consternation, as if he couldn’t work out who they were.
‘Philippe!’ Lussac strode across the room, gripped his friend in a hug.
‘Thank God!’ Philippe blustered, his eyes switching between Katerina hovering in the door and Lussac at his side. ‘Katerina found you!’
‘The other way round,’ Lussac replied, shortly. ‘I found her.’
‘Well, I’m very glad to see you, however you came to be here.’ Philippe smiled. He picked up his cloak, laid across the hard oak chair. ‘Let’s get out of this place.’
‘Lussac, please let me go and find my father,’ Katerina said, as the two men walked towards her. ‘I’ll go to his bedchamber, see if he’s there.’
‘Not without me you don’t,’ Lussac said sternly.
Katerina’s father slept in a chamber on the floor below. The door stood open, leaning in crazily, the iron hinge wrenched from the splintered oak frame. Inside, the tattered curtains around the four-poster bed drooped down in loose, ripped folds, the patterned silk torn and ripped. Shards of an earthenware jug and bowl, used for washing, littered the floor in rough, jagged pieces. By the window, a chair lay on its back, one leg broken, jutting outwards at an odd angle. The window glass was cracked.
‘Is my father there? What has happened?’ Katerina hopped about behind Lussac’s broad back as he filled the doorway, blocking her view of the chamber. She pulled frantically at his shoulder, trying to sneak beneath the burly rope of his arm. ‘Let me in, Lussac, please!’ The panic rose in her voice and her eyes widened, huge discs of pewter. Lussac turned his head slowly, caught Philippe’s eye over Katerina’s head, sending a silent command. Philippe took hold of Katerina’s arm, restraining her gently. ‘It’s better if you stay here,’ he said. ‘Let Lussac go in.’
Katerina’s father sprawled across the floor on the other side of the bed, out of sight of the door. A pale yellowish colour spread across his face, his lips tinged with grey. Placing two fingers to the artery in his neck, Lussac confirmed what he already knew: the man’s heart had stopped. Katerina’s father was dead. A huge, wrought-iron candlestick rested in his lap, stained with blood.
Against the wall, jammed between an elm coffer and an unlit charcoal brazier, another man lay, chin pressed hard against his chest. The colour of his face, ghost white, suggested he was dead as well, blood seeping from a substantial gash on his hairline. The red liquid trickled down past his shuttered eyes, to the corner of his mouth, dripping slowly from his chin. Lussac hunkered down by this man, reaching forwards to feel for a pulse.
‘He’s dead, isn’t he?’ Katerina cried out, distraught, twisting herself out of Philippe’s hold with a savage wrench. She burst into the chamber. ‘Oh, my God!’ Her eyes alighted immediately on her father, collapsed by the bed.
‘Keep her out of here!’ Pivoting angrily in his crouched position, Lussac roared at Philippe, who trailed in apologetically after Katerina.
A glint of steel behind Lussac’s head caught Katerina’s eye. The glint of a blade.
‘Lussac!’ she screamed, springing towards him, her body flying almost horizontally through the air to wrap the heft of his shoulders in her lissom arms, to roll him away from the blade, the deadly point of the blade carried in her uncle’s hand. Her slight weight cannoned into Lussac, caught him by surprise, unbalancing his superior strength to knock him away. The blade, originally intended for Lussac, pierced the fabric of her cloak and gown instead, driving into the flesh beneath.
‘Oh!’ she gasped, as the knife rattled away, spinning across the floor. The breath left her uncle’s lungs for the last time, and he sagged back, lifeless. Intense pain ripped through her, tearing into the layers of muscle at her side, sapping her strength. She reeled away from Lussac sitting up, her head dipping and swaying with shock. She pressed one hand firmly to her flank, blood flowi
ng through her fingers. A horrible, sickening nausea roiled in her belly.
‘Why, in Heaven’s name, did you do that?’ Kneeling before her, Lussac stared at her, totally perplexed.
‘You were in danger,’ she replied in a clipped, tight voice. Was it her imagination, or did his voice boom very loud in her ears? She screwed up her eyes, trying to focus on his face, to quell the rage of sickness flooding her gut.
‘No, I was not,’ he countered softly. ‘But both these men are dead. I’m sorry, Katerina.’
She pointed at the man slumped against the wall, delicate fingers trembling in the half-light. ‘Not dead, Lussac,’ she declared, voice shaky. ‘That man, my uncle, is still alive.’ She watched as Philippe stepped over to him, pulled back his eyelids, checked his pulse.
‘He is most definitely dead,’ Philippe said.
A sob of panic rose in her chest. Why wouldn’t they believe her? ‘He tried to stab you, Lussac,’ she explained. Her head felt like it was slowly detaching from her body; her fingertips were numb. The lean contours of Lussac’s face receded, his features becoming indistinct as the dark, frilling edges of unconsciousness threatened to claim her. She clung to the turquoise radiance of his eyes, willing herself to remain upright, to focus. ‘I saw the blade,’ she stuttered out. Lussac was looking at her as if she had gone mad. Head swimming, she searched the floor for the knife, spotted its feral gleam. ‘There! Look, there!’
Philippe picked it up, handed it to Lussac.
‘This knife has blood on it, Katerina,’ Lussac said, puzzled. ‘And he never touched me.’ He stared at her. In the gloom of the room, her face seemed very, very white, unnaturally white, her eyes huge, burning orbs of mineral darkness. A slick of perspiration sparkled on her forehead.
‘What’s the matter with you?’ he said slowly, suddenly noticing her awkward stance, the hand clamped to her side. His heart lurched, then plummeted. ‘Christ in Heaven, Katerina, please tell me you didn’t do what I think you did!’ He scrambled over to her, gently pulling her hand away from her side to see the dark, tell-tale stain of blood. ‘No, you stupid, stupid girl! You took the blade instead of me!’
‘I couldn’t let him kill you,’ she muttered, her whole body beginning to shake. She reached out through the misty haze, trying to touch his blurred features, to bring him back into focus. The last thing she saw was the stricken look on his face as she collapsed forwards into his arms.
* * *
‘Philippe...fetch a light! Now!’ Terror surged through him, a sour, metallic taste in his mouth. Bundling Katerina’s limp form up against his chest, he carried her swiftly down the spiral steps, his shoulders and elbows knocking painfully against the rough stone walls in his haste to reach the ground floor. In his arms, she groaned fitfully, head lolling on his shoulder, the silken rust of her hair soft, tickling his neck; against his hand clamped around her waist, beneath his cloak, her blood pumped steadily, seeping through his fingers.
‘Drag that table near the fireplace!’ he bellowed at Philippe who puffed up behind him. Adjusting Katerina’s weight so he could support her with one arm, he swept the table of useless detritus: a jumble of forgotten pewter plates, a dirty wooden spoon, a stained, ripped tablecloth—all went crashing to the flagstones in noisy cacophony, a jangling crash reverberating around the huge shadowy hall. He laid Katerina down carefully, supporting her head, shock flicking through him at the waxen gleam of her complexion, keeping one large hand pressed firmly against the wound. He refused to entertain the thought that she would die. She would not, could not die. He pushed the vile thoughts away, stamped on them, clenching his fists as if ready to fight.
‘Light! Philippe, come on!’ Urgency laced his voice, splitting his control. ‘Stop fiddling about with that fire!’
Philippe, noticing a small gleam in the ashes of the fireplace, had blown the glowing sparks to life, and now fed the rising flames with the pieces of splintered furniture strewn around the hearth. Hunkered down, he thrust a torch into the flames, setting it alight. ‘I need the fire, Lussac, in order to light the torch,’ he explained patiently, coming over to the table, holding the burning, spitting brand aloft. Light flooded over Katerina’s prone form, her gown twisted around her legs, one hand hanging limply off the edge of the table. The edges of the cloak fell away, either side of her. ‘You need to calm down, Lussac, otherwise you’ll be no use to her.’
Ignoring him, Lussac tore at the side of Katerina’s underdress, her chemise, ripping open the seams to expose her pale, silken flesh.
‘She won’t thank you for that.’ Philippe stared at the trailing threads in dismay. ‘It will be a devil to mend.’
‘What do you suggest I do?’ Lussac bellowed at him. ‘Undress her properly? It’s too slow! I need to stop this bleeding now!’
Picking up the discarded tablecloth from the floor, Philippe shook it out, then passed it to Lussac. ‘Here, this will help pad the wound.’
Lussac glanced at the stained tablecloth, scowling. ‘No, too dirty,’ he muttered, yanking his tunic, then his chainmail hauberk over his head, swiftly followed by his shirt. He rolled the fabric into a makeshift pad to press against the gash in Katerina’s side. By alternately pressing and dabbing, he managed to soak up a significant amount of blood; to his relief, the constant flow seemed to be abating.
‘Hold the light higher, Philippe, I can’t see properly.’
With the torch held close, both men bent over Katerina, trying to gauge the extent of the damage. She stirred once or twice, head moving restlessly from side to side. Mouth set in a grim line, Lussac held on to her shoulder, stopping her falling from the table. From the torn seams of her garments, Katerina’s wound gleamed, now reduced to a gaping, blood-filled line about the length of a man’s thumb.
‘What do you think?’ Lussac murmured.
‘Lussac?’ Katerina whispered through cracked, dry lips. She shifted her head, resting her gaze on the two men at her side.
In that single, ecstatic moment, Lussac closed his eyes, savouring the tide of relief that flooded his limbs. For the very first time in his life, his knees weakened. He leaned over her, the rippling musculature of his bare chest glowing in the torchlight, absorbing the wonderful sight of her silver eyes, the fragile tilt of her smile.
‘You’re alive!’ he said, stupidly. His hand cupped her cheek, thumb gently caressing.
Katerina smiled faintly, wincing with pain. Her side ached; she tried to lever herself up into a sitting position, but he held her down easily, palm spread across her chest. She flushed at the close contact, his fingers hard up against the curve of her breast.
‘No, stay down for a bit. I need to bind the wound, otherwise it might start bleeding again.’ His voice was gruff, but his heart soared with joy.
‘What happened, Lussac? My father, is he...is he...?’ The sentence choked off in her throat, her speech truncated. Dizziness swept through her, threatened to take her down into the depths of unconsciousness once more. Gritting her teeth, she clutched the table edge for support, willing herself to remain awake, alert.
‘Do you remember what happened?’
‘Aye, I do. The knife in my uncle’s hands. I saw the knife.’
‘And I didn’t believe you. I thought the man was dead.’ He shook his head at his own foolishness. ‘It was a stupid mistake; I should have checked.’
‘At least he didn’t harm you,’ she said.
‘No, but he harmed you! You took the blade that was meant for me! It was such a dangerous, risky thing to do! I can look after myself but you—’ his voice was raw, bleak ‘—you could have been killed.’ He pushed one hand through his hair, twisting the silken strands chaotically. ‘Why, Katerina, what on earth made you do it?’
Because I love you. Because I love you and I couldn’t bear to see you hurt. She chewed on her lip. ‘It was instinctive,’ she mu
ttered. ‘I would have done the same if it had been Philippe.’ She lifted her arm and crooked it over her eyes, blocking out the searching intensity of Lussac’s gaze. Her head swam, befuddling logic. She found it impossible to marshal her thoughts into any sense of order; in her present, debilitated state, her mind was untrustworthy, floating on a cushion of unstable air. It would be better to remain silent rather than blurt out something she would later come to regret.
Reaching for one of the strips of white linen that Philippe had ripped into bandages, Lussac opened his mouth as if to disagree. Philippe frowned at him sharply, shaking his head. Partially hidden by her upraised arm, Katerina’s face was chalk-white. Tresses of amber hair, dislodged from their braids, spilled out across the pale-grey planks. ‘Not now,’ Philippe said. ‘You need to bind her up, not interrogate her. There’ll be time enough, later on.’
Lussac nodded. His friend was right. With deft, practised movements he began to bind up Katerina’s wound, lifting her gently. Philippe helped him, guiding the linen strips around her waist, beneath the loose folds of her gown. In silence, together, the two men worked over her, as they had worked over injured soldiers in their many battles before this time. Katerina lay back, sweat prickling her brow as her body tensed with pain. Lussac knotted the final strip into the smooth hollow of her waist, folding the splayed edges of the cloak together across the ripped devastation of her gown.
‘We can’t stay here,’ she heard Lussac announce through her haze of exhaustion. Philippe muttered something in response, which she failed to catch. ‘No, the village; she has friends there.’
* * *
At first, Katerina wasn’t certain where she was. Opening her eyes, she encountered solid blackness, the atmosphere thick and close with the breath of many sleeping bodies. Above her head, she could just make out rough-hewn roof supports stretched into an apex. Margrete’s cottage... Of course! She lay on the sleeping platform, a heaped mound of straw cushioning her back and hips, the fragrant smell of dried grass scenting the air. Her right flank throbbed incessantly, painfully, and an arid dryness scratched her throat; she needed a drink. Lifting her fingers, she moved them experimentally to her side, discovering the tight bindings around her waist, recalling the horrific events of the previous evening: her father, collapsed against the bed; her uncle, making one last stab for victory and...Lussac.
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