by Juliana Gray
And in the way of memory, I now recalled the hooded servant who had passed me the wine, on my way out of the great hall. The swift duck of his head. I had time and strength to shout something across the gallery to Silverton before my legs failed, but I don’t remember the words, or whether they made any sense at all.
The Lady cared not for the shame of her nakedness, for her heart was given over to grief. She stripped away her clothes, and when she stood bare and shivering in the cold wind, she said to her son, ‘I see your soul is as empty as that of your father, and I have nothing left to me except the joy of those hours with my Fisherman, and his babe that yet lives in my womb.’ But her words only fueled the rage of her son, who sent away the sailors in the boat, and said to her, ‘Then you shall swim to my father by your own power, and by the time you have reached him, this sin-begotten infant shall have withered in your lustful belly . . .’
THE BOOK OF TIME, A. M. HAYWOOD (1921)
Fourteen
When I came to my senses, it was twilight. I knew this because my eyes opened to a window, and the slivers of sky visible between the slats of the shutters had the indigo quality of a day on the point of death.
That was my first thought. My second thought was that my head was split open.
“Handsomely, now,” said a voice I knew I ought to recognize. “Don’t try to move.”
I wanted to say that I couldn’t move, but that wasn’t quite true. My hand went to my belly, even before I remembered the child within, and I discovered that my wrists were bound together. I found the firm roundness with my fingers and groaned with relief.
“Don’t worry,” the voice said, more gently. “Little lad seems all right.”
Silverton, I thought. What’s Silverton doing here?
I lifted my head, and a sensation of pure agony sliced right through my skull. A hand fell on my shoulder, urging me back, but not before I perceived I was lying on a bed, in a room that was somehow familiar, the walls hung with tapestries. And my feet were bound as well, around the ankles.
“Max?” I murmured.
There was a slight hesitation. “No, my love. Only me. Max remains quite some distance away. Six hundred years, to be precise.”
“Oh!” I struggled again and managed to sit up at last.
The room took shape, the world took shape. The man propped up next to me on the bed, wearing only a linen shirt and hose; a bruised, bearded face etched with dried blood. “Silverton,” I whispered. “What’s happened?”
“We have been taken prisoner, Truelove.” He held up his hands, which were tied together with a length of rope, like mine. “Our captor has been so kind as to allow us to remain in our bedchamber. I expect that’s due to your interesting condition. I have the idea he wants you to remain in one piece, at least for the time being, and has extended that privilege to me, as your husband.”
The word husband jolted me back into the world. The history of the past seven months, Hoy, the castle, the village, the hut by the sea, Magnus, Silverton.
For some reason, I had forgotten it all. I had expected a prim, comfortable, modern English bedroom. A coal fire simmering in the grate. I had some vague idea I was going to the opera tonight. Parsifal. I looked down at my hands, gathered in my lap, and saw the gold signet ring.
The feast. The children, the attic. Oh, God. The gallery.
“Our captor?” I asked.
“You’ll never guess.”
“It’s Hunter, isn’t it? I think—he was down there—”
“Yes, my dear. You’ve hit the nail bang on the head. It seems our ginger-haired friend has escaped his prison cell, exactly as you predicted.”
“How?” I whispered.
“Apparently Magnus’s guards aren’t so loyal as one might have hoped.”
The pain in my head overcame me. I lay down again, staring at the ceiling. “You should have told me. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You’re quite right. I should have told you. But I didn’t, and you kept a few things from me, and it’s nobody’s fault, Truelove. I don’t think we could have stopped any of this.” He paused. “It was Thorvar. Thorvar’s among the guardsmen. He wasn’t pleased with the events of seven months ago, and so Hunter found a ready ear for his plot. They put some kind of drug in the wine and gave it to the loyal soldiers, so there was nobody to defend the hall when the rebels attacked.”
“A coup.”
“So it seems.” Silverton shifted position, wincing, as if the bruises on his face were only the start of his troubles. His feet were likewise bound at the ankles, and the tips of the stockings hung almost comically from the ends of his toes. “And the earl’s visit was a plum dropped in their laps. Making Magnus his heir. Gathering everyone together in one place, and then drowning them in their cups—”
“Magnus! Is he—”
“Still alive. They threw him in the dungeon, along with the countess and a few of the other chaps from Thurso. At least, that was the last I saw, before they took us up here. How are you feeling?”
“My head’s pounding. My wrists hurt. I don’t believe I’m injured, however.”
“It was the wine that brought you down. I was afraid you’d hit your head when you fell, but there aren’t any marks. Tried to beat them off when they came for us, but it was no use. And then Hunter came up, like the cat—oh, God, whatever it is. Cream or canary, I can’t bloody remember—you’re laughing?”
“It’s just—you said something like that when we were on Olympia’s yacht, just after we met. And I thought you were a terrible idiot. And now—and now—”
“Ah, sweetheart, no tears. We’ll find our way out of this, never fear.”
“You and your ridiculous optimism. And I’m not crying. I just wish to God . . .”
We lay there on our backs, a foot or two apart, hearts beating into the dusk. The wind blew through the open window and chilled the air.
“At least you’re awake now,” he said. “That’s something. Although you’re a fascinating subject, while drugged and asleep. It was not a peaceful slumber. You kept going on about Parsifal.”
“I spoke? What else did I say?”
“Nothing of any import,” he told me, like the gentleman he was.
I turned carefully on my side. My brains sloshed a half beat behind. “What do we do?” I asked.
“Do? Now?”
“You have got a plan of some sort, don’t you?”
“Why on earth should I have a plan? Do I have to do all the thinking between us?”
“So you do have a plan.”
He sighed. “Just rest, Truelove. We can’t accomplish anything until your strength is back.”
“And then?”
“And then we’ll see. By the by, if your wrists pain you overmuch, you’ll find that the rope gives way if you give that loose end a bit of a tug.”
I held up my wrists. “What? But why would they make a knot that comes apart so easily?”
“They didn’t, Truelove. I did.” He maneuvered the fingers of his left hand to the loose end on his own binding, pulled gently, and the rope fell away. “I am a trained professional, after all.”
• • •
An hour later, the door opened, and Hunter entered the room, bearing a torch that he set in the sconce on the wall.
As we had agreed, I rolled on my side and closed my eyes, as if still under the effects of the drug. Silverton whipped the rope back around his wrists and sat cross-legged on the bed. I had wanted to clean his face and examine the cuts left by the guardsmen, but he shooed me away. The weaker I look, the better, he said. Always encourage your enemy to underestimate your powers.
“Damn, it’s cold in here,” Hunter said. The sudden intrusion of his voice made me shiver: that cadence, that accent unlike anyone else, as familiar as if I had last heard it yesterday. “What, isn’t she up yet? Ever
yone else is up.”
“Afraid not, old chap. She’s been out like a light. Snoring like a soldier.”
“Bulls ,” Hunter said.
He marched up behind me and jerked my shoulder toward him, so I rolled on my back. I let out a small, surprised cry—I couldn’t help it—but kept my muscles slack, my eyes closed, while he stared down at me. He reeked of wine. Good, I thought. Next to me, Silverton made a noise of outrage. I felt him coil up.
“Look here!” he exclaimed. “That’s my wife!”
“Your wife? Are you serious? I thought she was banging the duke.” He laughed. “They sure the f looked like they were banging each other, back in Thurso. Come on, b . Wakey, wakey.”
He took my shoulder and shook me, hard, and there was no point in feigning sleep any longer, not while Silverton wound himself into a ball of dangerous fury beside me. I opened my eyes blearily and made noises of confusion, to which Hunter only laughed.
“Oh, b . You were awake all the time, weren’t you? Why don’t you sit up and we can have a nice little chat. Come on. Now. Down on the floor.” He motioned with his hand, which contained a pistol much the same as the one he had threatened us with in Thurso. God only knew how he had obtained it here.
“The floor?”
“You heard me.” He stuck the pistol in his belt, looped his arms under my shoulders, and dragged me off the edge of the bed. My feet hit the floor with a painful thump.
“By God!” exclaimed Silverton.
“Silverton, no! Just wait. I’m all right.”
“Chill out, bro. Listen to the lady.” Hunter dragged me across the floor with an ease that astonished me, propping my torso roughly against the hard stone wall opposite the door. He straightened, flexed his arms, and grinned down at me. “Pilates, right? You know they invented that s in prison? No lie.”
“If a single hair on her head—” Silverton roared from the bed.
“Just shut up, all right, bro? You I don’t trust. So I want you to swing your legs out, nice and easy, and get down on your back.”
“On my back? Are you mad?”
Hunter swung the pistol toward my head. “Do it,” he said calmly, “or I pop her. What do you think of that?”
I knew he was bluffing. He wanted me alive—needed me alive, I expected—or he would have killed us both by now. But I couldn’t say that aloud, and in any case, Silverton had undoubtedly made that calculation already. He was tilting his head, gazing speculatively at the pistol in Hunter’s hand. The light from the torch lit his beard into shimmering gold.
Make his move now, or bide a little longer?
For God’s sake, bide, I thought.
“All right, then,” Silverton said at last. “As you like.”
He swung his feet off the bed and sank gracefully to the floor. Like an earthworm, he inched on his back along the flagstones, over the rug, past the cold, unlit brazier in the middle of the room. The torch illuminated his bruised face, clenched with pain. My vision blurred as I watched his suffering, and yet I couldn’t turn away. His head reached my feet and paused, as if to rest. I gazed at his hair, mottled with blood, where it touched the hard, round knobs of my ankles, and my fingers hurt with longing to take that head in my lap, to stroke the blood and the dirt from that hair.
“Hurry up, all right? And move away from her. No touching.” Hunter laughed suddenly. “Unless I say so. Man, that would be a good show.”
Silverton edged a few inches away and continued, until his head found the wall and he turned on his side and levered himself up in a sitting position to stare defiantly at Hunter. He said not a word. I stared at his battered profile and felt the coldness of his regard. I still wonder that Hunter didn’t freeze by the force of it.
But Hunter only grinned and looked back and forth between us, until his gaze came to rest on me. He lowered the pistol. “Damn, it’s good to see you. I don’t know how the f you ended up here, but welcome to Hoy.” He flung out his arm. “Glad you stopped by.”
“May I make a small suggestion, if you don’t mind?” said Silverton, under perfect control. “Kindly cease referring to my wife in vulgar terms. She is not a dog, nor has she engaged in any manner of carnal conduct with our good friend the duke. Moreover, in consequence of our marriage last summer, she presently finds herself in a certain delicate condition for which even a blackguard like you owes her a modicum of deference.”
“A delicate condition. Yeah, I can see that. Wasn’t going to say anything in case she’s just been eating too much haggis or something. I don’t know. Is haggis a thing around here? The cr they fed me in the dungeon, I couldn’t put a name on it.”
“Not in its modern form, I believe.”
“Well, anyway. So Miss Prim and Proper got herself a little old bun in the oven. Did you put that sh up there all by yourself, bro? Nice work, my man. Respect.”
“I don’t believe you properly understand the meaning of the term, sir, or else I should actually have killed you for that.” Silverton delivered this sentence so carelessly, he might have been referring to the weather. “As it is, I feel compelled to begin your education in the matter.”
“Yeah? With what gun, bro?” Hunter held up his hand and waggled the pistol. “Because the only heat I see in this room—”
“Oh, stop!” I said. “Stop it, the two of you. For heaven’s sake. Mr. Hunter—”
“Just Hunter.”
“Hunter. Am I to understand that you traveled here to Hoy, six centuries in the past, after you paid your visit to His Grace in Thurso?”
Hunter looked back to me and sat down on the edge of the bed with the gun in his lap. His hair had grown long and greasy, hanging to his shoulders without any kind of binding, and his eyes were quite blue, a detail I hadn’t noticed before. The mattress bent beneath his weight.
“You understand correct,” he said.
“Correctly,” said Silverton. “Grammar makes the man.”
“For heaven’s sake, Silverton, be quiet.” I narrowed my eyes at Hunter. “Do you mean you survived that plunge into the sea? We thought you were killed.”
“Nope. I just dove, that’s all. Dove and swam to shore.”
“Dove? Swam? But—my God, it must have been forty or fifty feet!”
“Something like that. Don’t worry, I can handle it. My mum taught me to swim when I was about six months old. She dove in the Olympics, you know that? Won bronze in the platform.”
“In the Olympic Games?” asked Silverton. “A woman?”
“Man, you are some Neanderthal. Sexist a hole. This was the ’84 Olympics. Los Angeles? She met my dad there. Long story. Anyway, diving’s in my blood. I’m like a f ing porpoise. That ledge in the castle? Not much higher than a ten-meter platform. Like a knife through butter, you know?” He made a slicing motion with his hand, the one with the gun.
“And then somehow you found your way here,” I said. “Three years ago, just as Silverton did. Or was it more?”
“I guess it was about three years. But I didn’t know he was going to turn up in the same spot. That kind of threw me at first. But then the sh made sense. I mean, he sent that dude there”—he pointed to Silverton—“because he knew that’s where I was going to be. Kind of like chess.”
“I assume we’re talking about Max?” Silverton asked.
“Yes, bro. Yes, we are. I got to give that dude some credit. He is one bad motherf er. Every time you think you got him cornered, he comes right back at you. I mean, I thought I was a goner. I thought the jig was up, man. Sitting there in that damn dungeon. No way out. Biding my time, learning the local lingo. Ticktock. And then, boom! The duke makes a mistake at last.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“You. He sent you here. What a dumbass move that was. I mean, in chess, you keep an eye on your queen, right, bro? You keep her safe?”
“In
fact, the king’s the chap you want to protect. The queen’s the most powerful piece on the board,” said Silverton. “Bro.”
“Whatever. King, queen. Only a dumbass takes them out of the game.”
“Actually, it was my idea.”
“Well, you’re a f ing idiot, pardon me. You were in there with the duke. I mean, I saw it, b . He was all over you. He was right up in your attic. And then, boom! You’re stuck here in this sh show, married to this loser.”
“I say,” began Silverton.
“Sorry, man. The truth hurts. Never mind, though. It’s all good. Miss Prim and Proper starts the whole ball rolling. Turns up one day and gets the menfolk hot and bothered, the natives get restless, that’s where I come in. Easy peasy, like Mum would say.”
“Well done,” I said. “So what do you intend to do with us? Now that you’ve got what you wanted.”
“Got what I wanted?”
“Yes. You’ve overthrown Magnus. You’ve turned the tables, you’ve got your revenge. You’re lord of the castle, aren’t you? By right of arms.”
“Lord of the castle? Hell, no. You think I want to be lord of some castle in the middle of nowhere? Like some f ing Viking?”
“They’re not Vikings. They’re Norse.”
“Whatever. This? This is not the plan. This is the means to the end.”
“Then what the devil is the end?” asked Silverton. “What do you really want?”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Hunter said. “Hold on a sec. You really don’t know? You don’t have a clue? All this time?”
“My dear fellow, of course not. There’s no point trying to understand a madman.”
Hunter clutched his heart. “That hurts. Not really.”
“Look,” I said, “do you mean to illuminate this vast mystery or not? Because I’m afraid I shall shortly require a moment of privacy. As is natural to my condition.”
His gaze slid downward to my abdomen. “Oh, snap. Didn’t think of that. You know what, bro? She’s all yours. Pregnant ladies are not my cuppa.” He stretched and rose to his feet. “See you two jailbirds in the morning, okay? Sweet, sexy dreams.”