Wolfsbane

by Nathalie Gray

  Frank’s charge stopped when he pulled on the door and found that it was locked. “Bust it down.”

  “That will take too long,” Scarlet snapped as she bent closer to the opening. “I need something sharp.” Without turning her eyes away from the lock, mentally picking it, she reached back and waited until someone had found “something sharp”.

  “Here, girl, make it quick,” Frank said as he placed something in her hand. “I’ve already waited too damn long. What a fool I’ve been.”

  Scarlet sighed when she brought a finishing nail up to the lock. Better than nothing.

  With more speed than she’d ever used for picking at a lock, Scarlet twisted the thin nail into the keyhole and tried to find the lever which would spring the bolt. First try!

  The door clicked half a second before Frank crossed the doorway. “Damn, it’s dark in here.”

  A lamp came through the group and made its way to the old man’s hand. “Only you three,” he said to some men after a pointed look at Scarlet. “The rest wait here. Place a lad with good ears halfway up but he’s not to enter the master’s room until I say so. Is that clear?”

  Collective agreement was voiced.

  Passing him nimbly, Scarlet took the steps as fast as she could. The soles of her feet burned against the icy stones, but her heart hurt much more with the image of Fredrick dancing in front of her. What if he was dead? She’d never forgive herself. Neither would anyone coming up the stairs behind her.

  Scarlet was wondering how to approach the situation when a long, plaintive cry echoed around the circular staircase.

  Yelling something that could as well have been in another language, she charged up the last steps and shouldered the door.

  Then Scarlet screamed.

  Chapter Eleven

  Pain.

  In each limb, in his mouth, inside his brain. Like burning water being poured into his skull.

  He tried to think but couldn’t seem to form a coherent thought, as though parts of his brain weren’t functioning properly. He meant to talk, only his mouth wouldn’t move the way it should. Fear crept into his numb body.

  Voices. He couldn’t recognize any of them. The same word over and over. His name? Many times his name. Harsh words of which he couldn’t understand the meaning were flung at him. He could smell though. Everything and everyone. So many smells here. Bad smells. Like hurt, evil, death. One of the smells became stronger, until it filled his nostrils. Blood. His own.

  * * * * *

  Warmth touched his cheek. The other rested against something cold and hard. He tried to open his eyes but couldn’t. So he concentrated instead on sounds and smells. These were different. Friendly, somehow. And voices again, but gentler, some so soft he had to pay close attention to hear them.

  The smell of something special but forgotten floated close to his face. This one particular scent chased away every other. Fredrick didn’t mind. He liked this smell. It reminded him of summer and flowers. Someone had once mistaken it for sage.

  Lavender!

  The lavender smell came closer, filled his nostrils. He heard his voice say something but couldn’t understand his own words. What strange tongue was this?

  Then pain hit again. This time though, it came from within and wasn’t inflicted from without.

  * * * * *

  “Fredrick.”

  His name emerged from so far away it might as well have drifted in across some foggy marsh.

  At the sound of this voice, all he could get was a color. Red—the fiery golden red of copper gleaming under the sun. Then something tugged at his ankle and he groaned.

  “I’m sorry,” he heard the voice say. A woman’s voice. One he knew.

  “Scarlet?” His mouth could barely work. His teeth felt loose.

  “Hold still, Master, the girl’s almost done,” a man said.

  An older voice, a man’s. Fredrick’s heart swelled at the memories flooding his brain. Through a supreme feat of will, he opened his eyes. Two silver-haired persons stood on either side of him. He lay on the floor, with cold stone hurting his back and head. Near his feet, a redhead bent close to his aching ankle.

  And in the corner, being watched over by two very angry-looking men, a black-haired woman knelt with her hands behind her back. A nasty bruise covered her throat and part of her chin. As though someone had punched her and tried to strangle her.

  He wouldn’t mind doing both.

  “I’m almost done,” the redhead said.

  Fredrick’s mind cleared at once. “Scarlet?”

  She turned to him a bruised face and a bloodied nose, but smiling eyes as well. He heard his sigh of relief even if his ears buzzed painfully. “What happened to you?” Then it came back to him. “Where’s Lothar?” he snarled, meaning to raise his head.

  “He’s gone, the sneaky bastard,” an old woman said. “Now, you need to lie still and wait ‘til she’s done, Master.”

  “Ute, it’s been so long. And Frank…” Words caught in his throat. So much time had been stolen from him. Anger welled up in his chest.

  That bitch kneeling in the corner—it was all her doing.

  A faint click broke the dark chain of his thoughts. He looked down at a beaming Scarlet as she brandished an empty manacle and wide-open lock.

  For the first time in a long time, Fredrick could move his foot without the painful ache caused by the chain. With the help of Ute and Frank, he sat up.

  Utter mayhem surrounded him. His tunic hung in tatters and barely covered him. Two men lay on the floor, one looking dead, the other even more so. Their blood had followed the grout between stones and coursed right out of the doorway. He’d have this room walled in as soon as he could.

  His gaze settled onto Scarlet again and a tentative smile found her lips. Reaching out with a shaking hand, he motioned for her to come closer.

  “Come,” Frank said, getting to his feet with an assortment of joint creaks, “we have this to take care of.”

  The “this” in question smiled viciously when the men guarding her each grabbed hold of an arm and pulled.

  “Do not think you have the last word, Fredrick,” Katrina said, her voice strangely calm. “Lothar is already out of your reach, and soon, I will be.”

  “Stay your tongue before I cut it out,” Ute snapped. She leveled her index finger at the lady and shook it. “Tricked us into helping you, kept the master chained like a beast in his own tower. There’s a special Hell for the likes of you.”

  As everyone but Scarlet trooped out of the room, Frank having told his men to remove the “deadwood”, Scarlet sat on her heels by Fredrick’s side.

  “You sure do look bad.”

  “You look like an angel to me.”

  Scarlet seemed ill at ease. “Don’t say that, Master. I’m no angel. Can you move?”

  Master? The word stung.

  Then he realized she could probably remember the last time she’d been in this room, with Katrina at one end of the table and Lothar at the other. As though Scarlet knew he was thinking about it, she blushed violently.

  “They drugged you. I’ve been through it enough times to know there’s nothing you could’ve done.” His voice sounded raw. His throat hurt.

  She avoided his gaze while she fiddled with the blood-encrusted lock. “I could’ve fought a little harder, used my brain a little sooner.”

  He shook his head. “They tricked me, Scarlet, when I’m thrice their age. Do you want to know how?” He cupped her chin and angled her face toward his. “Because they’re both beautiful and charming and conniving backbiters. I let Katrina use her guiles on me, just as she did on everyone else. She knew I spent most of my time here alone and played to that, convinced me to visit with them in the city. She’s always been devilishly good at chess and positioned her pieces very well. I didn’t realize she was poisoning me until it was too late.”

  Anger flashed in Scarlet’s dark gaze. God help those who ever crossed her. “They poisoned you before…this?�
��

  He nodded. “Despite my better judgment, I invited them for a week, and one night, I wasn’t feeling well. Luckily, Lothar was a physician and gave me something for the headache.” Fredrick laughed in derision.

  “I woke up here, chained to the wall. We always suspect the ones who are different, or sinister. We never see it coming from those who look like those two.”

  Scarlet snorted. “I should’ve seen it coming, even from good-looking folk.”

  “You’re being too hard on yourself.”

  Reaching out, he let his hand rest over her forearm and marveled at the heat that transferred to him. He already felt better. Before he could put into words every crazy thought swirling into his head, a soft knock came to the door.

  Frank poked his head in. “How ‘bout we get you out of here and into your own rooms, Master. Ute’s already after the staff to rip every piece of fabric out of your chambers…so it’s clean for you. Had to talk the woman out of asking for a priest to perform an exorcism.” A sparkle of smile danced in his eyes when he looked at Scarlet then back at Fredrick.

  “Good idea,” Fredrick replied, meaning to stand up.

  His gesture must have triggered something in both Frank and Scarlet for each gasped and reached out to stop him. Affection for his people—and love for Scarlet—swelled his chest. If this sensation could be with him forever, he wouldn’t mind living another hundred and twenty years.

  “Now just you wait a moment, Master, Scarlet and I’ll help you down now that you’re…back.”

  A shadow passed over Scarlet’s eyes. Fredrick tried to ignore the jab of pain this caused. She’d seen him change. It was his only clear memory of this night, before he became the beast. She’d been kneeling on the table, with Lothar holding her still, while Fredrick changed into…a monster. She’d discovered in the worst possible manner something for which he would’ve spent years preparing her. No one should be exposed to such horrible experience without warning.

  And Fredrick discovered he hated Katrina the most because of this—she’d stolen his chance to explain to Scarlet what he was, to slowly disclose his darker side so as not to scare her away. As it was now, he was surprised to see her still there and willing to be near. He closed his eyes.

  “Is everything all right, Master Fredrick?” Scarlet asked.

  How to tell her? How to share what was burning a path right through his heart when she’d seen what sort of beast he could become? His newfound elation burst like a fragile soap bubble. But at least she was safe now, if forever out of his reach.

  “I’m tired, that’s all,” he replied, forcing his expression to remain stoic when he looked at her, at the way candlelight created fiery gold sparkles in her hair.

  As he drew near, Frank’s face seemed to sag. Wise old man.

  “Let’s get out of this place,” the old driver said as he snaked an arm under Fredrick’s.

  With Scarlet holding him on one side and Frank the other, Fredrick got to his feet. Everything spun for a few crazy seconds then got back to normal. He’d be healed within the day. Still, the first few hours were always the worst.

  “Nice and steady,” Frank muttered as they maneuvered their three bodies in the doorway then down the uneven steps.

  Surprisingly, no one was waiting for them when they reached the main floor, for which Fredrick was very happy. No use allowing everyone to see a bleeding and barefoot master in a tattered tunic. They only met a couple of obviously relieved servants on their way to his chambers and when he spotted the door with the carving he’d commissioned so long ago, a lump squeezed his throat. He was home.

  “I want to walk.”

  Tentatively, with Scarlet and Frank hovering like two vigilant birds of prey, Fredrick opened the double doors to smells of freshly stewed lavender flowers and a very large opened window. He went to it first, slowly, then gaining momentum as the first few rays of dawn poked in between the pulled curtains. He roughly pushed them back at arm’s length. A sliver of sun crested over mountains to the south. Tears rolled down his cheeks.

  A faint click indicated the doors had been closed. Hoping she’d still be there, he turned. His fresh-smelling chambers, just now vented and cleaned, with crisp linen embroidered from his grandmother’s own hands and lush cushions he’d acquired on his travels east, felt as empty and cold as the stone cell in which he’d been forced to spend the last two years.

  Scarlet was gone.

  * * * * *

  Guilt was gnawing at her heart with the unrelenting energy of a rat. Scarlet would’ve gone to her room and hid there the rest of her life if it hadn’t been for Frank’s orders that she follow him to the kitchen “right this instant”.

  With her heart in her throat, she followed him there and had to suffer through a crowd of people asking questions, demanding answers or just venting their impotent rage. All of which they had a right. Her guilt flared.

  After Frank shooed everyone away, he poured two cups of steaming broth and sat by her on the bench.

  “They’re just very sad, my girl, it’s not your fault.”

  “Yes, it is,” she snapped back, surprised at the anger in her voice. She stubbornly looked into her mug and didn’t meet the old man’s gaze.

  “We were all lied to—”

  She shook her head. “It took me a month to do something. And I was right there… I could see.”

  Fredrick in chains, being savagely beaten, blood everywhere, and her too damn afraid to do anything.

  “It took me two years,” he replied gently.

  “You didn’t know how it was,” Scarlet countered, not about to let someone else shoulder the blame for her. For the first time in her life, someone had needed her and she’d done nothing for too long. Doing something too late was as bad as doing nothing at all.

  “I could’ve gone there and demand to see him. But I didn’t want to take the chance I’d make the master sick. My blood wasn’t good enough, according to them.” Frank looked so much older right then, and worn to the bones.

  She knew the feeling. Scarlet felt worn, weary, guilty. She felt dirty.

  “For what it’s worth, I’ve known the master all my life, and I’ve never seen him looking so…happy—and so damn sad at the same time.”

  Scarlet chanced a peek at the old man.

  “He’s not a monster, he’s just different,” Frank offered gently, his liver-spotted hand reaching out and covering hers.

  Tears welled up her eyes. The man didn’t understand!

  “Don’t you think I’d like nothing better than stay here and be around him, even if I just get to change his chamber pot—” she raised a hand to silence Frank when he seemed about to voice an argument. “I love him. I’ve never loved anyone, not even myself!” The words flowed out of her in a torrent—a dam had been breached and couldn’t be repaired. “I know he’s just different. He didn’t choose to be what he is now. He’s not a monster. I am. I chose to lie and to steal and be a whore to men who didn’t deserve my spit—”

  Scarlet clamped her mouth shut. She’d said too much. Frank may have been nodding in understanding but she’d seen the difference when she’d said the last few words. She was a liar, a thief and a whore.

  And now she’d be a coward as well.

  For Scarlet would run away again, run from what she couldn’t deal with, as she’d done all her life. She’d run away because she didn’t know if she could stay around Fredrick and take the chance he’d grow tired of her, or feel as though his debt of gratitude were repaid. He wouldn’t cast her aside, she knew his heart too much. But he’d become distant, polite. And while she grew old and wrinkled, he’d remain fit and firm and would find another woman to please his eyes. She couldn’t even contain the thought.

  Scarlet was standing in her room by the time she realized she’d moved. Tears stopped flowing from her eyes. With her sleeve, she rubbed her face. She needed to wash the stench of Lothar off her before she got sick.

  As she scrubbed new life into her
battered body, her head began to clear as well. A thought filtered in her mind, threaded itself into a string of neat images, clearer than she’d had in several weeks. She’d been so focused before coming to Innsbruck Castle. Everything had been simple. Steal for Werner. Stay one step ahead of him. Survive. For a while, it’d all become muddled, confused by emotions she didn’t know how to handle, and people she couldn’t bear hurting. Scarlet closed her eyes.

  It was becoming clear once again. She knew what had to be done.

  Then she could leave in peace, knowing she’d left behind something good.

  Chapter Twelve

  Scarlet clutched the overcoat around her shivering frame. Night owned the drafty castle. Her nipples were hard and aching against the thick fabric. Her nudity under the overcoat made her twitchy, nervous. But she was resolute.

  She padded along corridors, darkness her ally and protector once again. A thin ray of bluish light drifted in through the high-cut window. A cloudless sky tonight, with a moon nearly full.

  Smoothing her wet, freshly washed hair away from her face, she rounded the corner and stopped in front of the thick double doors. Even in the gloom, the wolf’s head grinned at her. She grinned back.

  Putting her ear to the panel, she waited a long time to make sure Fredrick was asleep. She couldn’t hear a thing. With a thin strip of metal she’d scrounged from the farrier early in the evening, Scarlet noiselessly picked the lock. It only took her a moment for this one was obviously for show rather than security. Scarlet opened the door and slipped inside.

  The curtains had been pulled all the way back to reveal a wide window through which the moon spilled its blue light onto lush carpets of faraway places. She liked the room much better now that its genuine owner was back.

  A faint whimper caught her ears.

  Fredrick, facing away from her, tossed in the bed before flopping onto his back. One of his arms rested over his eyes, as if he were trying to fend off something that meant him harm. His foot stuck out from underneath the sheets. Scarlet’s heart broke. Probably some remnants of having spent the last two years chained by the ankle.