by Tamara Leigh
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
A loud, sharp breath, as of someone too long under water surfacing and desperate to confirm he still lived.
Realizing it was she who made the sound, El exhaled and tried to bring her chamber into focus.
Not her chamber, her sense of smell revealed. It was too earthen—of damp dirt, moldering leaves, wood. And hovering over all was the scent of the fire felt against her back.
Where was she? Why did her jaws ache? Why would her eyes not focus? She could see light, but—
Something was over her head, and through its loose weave she glimpsed a wall of wattle and daub. As she frowned over it, she realized the ache in her jaws was from a gag wet with saliva, and the pain throbbing through her broken arm was due to her wrists being bound in front of her where she lay on her side.
Fear tightening its grip, she scrabbled back through her memories and placed herself in Adderstone’s hall. She had been drinking wine before being overcome with fatigue, had been struck by realization before all had gone dark. Agatha.
Dear Lord, she sent heavenward, I am in the midst of evil. Pray, let Bayard’s people be unharmed. Keep watch over my husband and his men. Help me.
“Worry not,” a woman said low, as if from the other side of a door, “we shall take The Boursier the next time.”
Aye, Agatha. And she was surely speaking with one of those who supported her quest to avenge the Foucaults.
Whatever her companion’s response, all El could discern was that his tone was far from subservient—as if Agatha answered to him.
Be still, El counseled as she began to quake. Think.
She would no longer be within Castle Adderstone. For no good purpose, she had been delivered somewhere quiet and removed. Past the wattle and daub wall was no other wall that would indicate a sizable structure. Rather, the wintry outdoors lay beyond, for though her back was warmed by fire, the air slipping through the woven wall and past her hood nipped at her face.
“Castle Mathe,” the man’s voice came through, but the rest of what was said eluded her.
Careful of her arm lest it had suffered further injury, El bent her knees and struggled to sitting. Though constricted by something wrapped around her and an ache in her bones likely caused by her journey over the back of a horse, she made it upright.
Through the hood’s weave, she saw the fire beside her was set in a pit at the center of the hut, its smoke wending toward a hole in the roof. And over her right shoulder was the door that muffled the voices.
El raised her joined wrists. Ignoring the ache in her arm, she fumbled with the hood cinched at her neck. Blessedly, the ties were easily loosened, and she soon threw off the hood. Noting it was a blanket in which she was wrapped, she worked the gag from her mouth, then peered around the hut. It was furnished with two stools, a chest, a stack of wicker baskets alongside a straw pallet, and a crude table whose top was littered with items similar to those with which Agatha had occupied herself at Castle Kelling.
Grateful the muted conversation allowed her to monitor her captor’s whereabouts, El turned her attention to her bound wrists and was relieved to find the splints continued to hold the broken bone in place. As for the rope, it had been knotted with little care, secure as her captor had been in her being unable to resist in her drugged state.
She put the knot between her teeth and began to pry at it. She had nearly worked it free when a horse whinnied. She peered over her shoulder. Certain the muted words were ones of parting, she more viciously applied her teeth to the knot.
Shortly, there came the sound of a horse departing.
“Please,” El whispered and gasped when the bindings loosened. Before she could free herself, the door opened. Lowering her barely bound hands to her lap, she looked around.
Against a blue-black sky lit by a generous moon and striped with the trunks of barren trees, Agatha considered her. “I see you have made yourself comfortable, Lady Elianor,” she said and stepped inside and closed the door. A hand upon the long dagger at her waist, she walked wide around her captive. Confirming the rope yet bound El’s wrists, she visibly relaxed and moved a stool near the one she no longer called mistress.
She seated herself, sighed. “Only a broken arm. I hoped for more.”
Forcing down bile, El bit, “A broken neck. My death.”
Agatha harrumphed. “You think to be offended? You who deserve such a sorry end?”
Because her grandfather had broken fealty with the Foucaults. “You pretended to be my friend,” El said.
She gave a bark of laughter. “Hardly. But I will admit to misleading you—not that you minded being yanked about on my ratty leash.”
It was true, the price of reprieve from the worst of Murdoch’s cruelty being blind trust. “What of the others you drugged at Adderstone,” El asked. “Did you harm them?”
“Of course not. They were in my way only insofar that they might interfere with acquiring you and—I had hoped—The Boursier. By now, only those who made gluttons of themselves by imbibing too much yet suffer the draught’s effects.”
Seeing no reason why she would lie, El took comfort in that and swept her gaze around the hut. “I do not understand why you removed me from Adderstone—why you have not rectified your failed attempt to murder me.”
“Certes, I would have been done with you, but ’tis believed you know things, and I must discover what they are.”
“I do not understand.”
“What did Lady Maeve reveal before her…” She smiled darkly. “…convenient death?”
El stared, and when understanding dawned, gasped. “’Twas not her heart. You killed her.”
She shook her head. “I did not.”
Her accomplice, then.
“But in one thing you are right. Her heart was not her undoing. It was a pillow.”
If not for the need to maintain the appearance of being bound, El would have hugged her arms to herself.
“Thus, what I need from you, Elianor, is an accounting of what Lady Maeve revealed.”
El increased her frowned. “I know not of what you speak.”
Agatha leaned forward, wagged a finger. “I think it possible you lie.”
It was then El noticed the other hand upon the woman’s knee—the one she had broken to free it from the manacle. Thickly bandaged, the ends of the splints just visible, it offered hope beyond the loose rope about El’s own wrists. Nearly as broken as her captive, Agatha of Mawbry was vulnerable.
“What did Lady Maeve tell of me when you and The Boursier assisted her to her chamber after the Christmas feast?”
Either her accomplice had been present in the hall, or talk of Lady Maeve’s near collapse had reached the one with whom Agatha conspired. “Naught. We put her to bed, and that is all.”
Agatha searched her face so long, El feared she would find the lie there. Finally, the woman sat back and fondled the dagger’s hilt. “Then I might as well be done with you.”
It almost sounded as if El’s fate might be different were she forthcoming, but regardless of whether she sealed up the truth or spilled it, her life was forfeit—unless she could catch Agatha unawares.
“What do you fear Lady Maeve revealed?” El asked, as much to understand the woman’s motives as to delay her.
Agatha pulled the dagger from its sheath, and as she slid her gaze down its silvery length, murmured, “Things hidden in the dark far too long.”
“What things?”
The woman lowered the dagger toward a finger at the end of her bandaged wrist, a moment later, showed El the drop of blood suspended from the blade’s point.
El moistened her chapped lips. “Why did you aid me with Murdoch?”
“And The Boursier,” Agatha reminded and smiled. “Your uncle sent me to serve you. Thus, I earned not only his gratitude and trust, but yours.” She smiled wider. “’Twas me you turned to for help in imprisoning The Boursier.”
So she had, placing trust in Agatha ahead of trust
in Magnus who would never have allowed his niece to do so foolish and ill a thing.
“Too,” Agatha said, “there was great satisfaction in seeing Murdoch succumb to my powders, for he was easy to hate—so much I sometimes felt for all you suffered at his hands.”
“Then…” El fit hope upon her face, the crushing of which would surely appeal to whatever twisted thing pulsed inside the woman. “…you also aided me because you had a care for me.”
Agatha laughed. “You think much of yourself—you, the granddaughter of a man whose only success was had by way of another’s generosity.”
Foucault, though El could not say it, for it was Lady Maeve who had revealed the woman’s motivations.
“Nay,” Agatha said, “I have only ever had a care for my loved ones, Elianor. And, alas, you are not one of them.”
El was stunned by her choice of words—that she had loved ones at all. Meaning the ill she worked on the three families was personal? Might she be a Foucault?
Of a sudden, Agatha stood.
Desperate to widen the gap between death and herself, El said, “Why did you lie about Bayard beating my aunt?”
“Because I could. Because I found it amusing. Because those false tales roused Serle de Arell to save his beloved. More, because it served my purpose.”
“What purpose?”
She moved her gaze from El to the table on the other side of the hut. “To make the lives of those deserving of my hatred miserable, and to ensure their hatred for one another continued to burn.”
El tensed in readiness to throw off the rope, but when Agatha moved, it was around the fire pit. The table was her destination, and peering at the woman across her shoulder, El saw her dip the dagger into a pot. When she withdrew it, amber coated its tip. Honey.
As El eased her hands from the rope, Agatha lifted the blade before her. “As often as I dared, I drugged The Boursier to keep him from your aunt’s bed, encouraged her love for another man, and when everything came together—when I delivered Serle de Arell into his beloved’s chamber at Adderstone—it turned out better than expected. Rather than merely discover his wife had fled him, The Boursier returned and witnessed the act of being made a cuckold.” She sighed. “I would have liked to see that, but I had departed.” She licked the honey, turned the blade, licked again.
El knew she needed a weapon, but the only thing close at hand was wood that fed the fire. Fortunately, having recently been set amidst the flames, only the uppermost portion of the piece nearest her was alight. Still, that which she would take hold of would be very warm, possibly hot.
El returned her gaze to Agatha, and finding the woman watched her, asked the only thing she could think of, and to which she genuinely wished to know the answer, “Who are you?”
Agatha raised her eyebrows. “The better question is: What am I?”
Her rewording made El shudder. “Very well. What?”
Outside, an owl hooted, and Agatha glanced at the door. Then she shrugged, once more dipped her dagger in the honey, and began to hum.
Thinking the tune the only one she had ever heard from the woman, El looked sidelong at the piece of wood that would serve as her weapon.
“What am I?” Agatha raised the blade again. “To Boursier, Verdun, and De Arell, I am plague, pestilence, and righter of wrongs.” A distant look in eyes that were no longer upon El, she drew a finger through the honey, sucked it. “I am eater of light, darkest of night, lover of the fallen, mother of the risen.”
Was she, perhaps, more mad than evil?
It did not matter. Regardless of the state of Agatha’s mind, she meant to kill.
El kicked off the blanket wrapped around her legs and lunged. Blessedly, the wood was only very warm. Unexpectedly, it was heavy.
She leapt to her feet, and raising the weapon between her and the advancing woman, almost laughed. Given the opportunity, she would knock her makeshift torch upside Agatha’s head the same as the woman had done her in the inner walls.
“Come no nearer!” She swept the flaming wood before her, wished her injured arm could share its heft.
Wielding her dagger, Agatha halted four feet distant. “Well played, Lady Elianor. Once more you prove you are more of a survivor than I believed.”
“I have much to live for.”
“Ah, you think yourself in love with The Boursier.” Her mouth curved, causing her expression to turn almost friendly. “That pleases me, for the more you have to lose, the better I like it.” She charged.
El swept her weapon high. The impact with the dagger loosened her hold, but she tightened her grip in time to counter Agatha’s next swipe and to move nearer the door.
She deflected two more assaults, one that almost caught her in the side, but the next time she swung, her grip failed and the piece of wood flew toward Agatha.
The woman jumped aside, causing El’s weapon to hit the wall and drop to the straw pallet in concert with Agatha’s tumble to the earthen floor.
El turned and wrenched open the door. As she went through it, out of the corner of her eye she saw the pallet catch flame.
Agatha’s screech followed her as she pressed her injured arm against her waist and ran into a chill night she did not recognize—one surely much removed from Adderstone. Fortunately, the light of the moon enabled her to find a path among the dense, barren trees. But it also benefitted the one who came after her, who called to her, who shouted warnings that she went the wrong way.
Meaning it must be the right way.
Dear Lord, pray let me be—
The pound of hooves. Of many horses. Of Agatha’s allies. Ahead.
El turned hard right. Registering the slap of a low-hanging branch across her cheek, she plunged between skeletal trees, over hard ground, through soft ground that smelled of rotting leaves, toward a shaft of brilliant light.
She wrenched to a halt and, teetering on the edge of a low bank, stared at the opaque, glass-like surface across which moonlight shone. A frozen lake. But how frozen? Enough to bear her weight?
She glanced over her shoulder. To her right, the hut burned, flames beginning to eat through the wattle. Behind, Agatha came for her. Beyond, those who rode to the woman’s aid would soon appear.
The frozen lake, then. Though Agatha might venture out upon it, the riders would not risk themselves and their horses.
Heavenly Father, El prayed, let the ice hold that I might find my way back to Bayard. She drew a breath, descended the bank, and set foot on the hard, slick surface. Nothing, not even a crackle to warn her off.
“Elianor!” Agatha cried, revealing she was much too near.
El ran. And slipped and dropped to one knee. Biting her lip to keep from voicing her pain, she thrust upright and advanced more cautiously, assuring herself that anyone who followed would have to do the same.
When Agatha called again, El looked around. The woman stood at the edge of the lake, a moment later descended the bank, dropped to her knees, and began driving her dagger into the ice—attempting to crack it open and send El into the icy water. And past Agatha, visible between the trees, came the riders. As many as a dozen.
Shivering, as much from fear as the biting cold, El looked forward again. Though the opposite side of the lake was distant, it was her only hope. As she resumed her trek, the pound of hooves drew nearer, a shriek split the air, and there came the terrifying, thunderous crack of ice.
Feeling the tremor of fissures travelling toward her, El peered over her shoulder. Agatha was on her feet, stumbling as she moved toward El on the very ice she had weakened—braving it as if it was her only hope as well. Was it possible she fled the riders? That they were not allies?
It matters not! El told herself. Move, else the question is moot.
She had advanced a half dozen more steps, all the while praying for God’s aid as the ice popped and cracked and reached its spidery fissures toward her, when a man shouted her name. Making of it four notes.
CHAPTER FORTY
El caught her breath. As if God had dropped Bayard in this unknown wood, her husband was here.
She whipped around. Past Agatha, who drew near and whose blade flashed moonlight, were the shadowy figures of those who dismounted near the shore. “Bayard!” she cried.
“Down!” he shouted. “Lie flat! I am—”
Whatever else he said was trampled beneath a sound that tore across the air and caused black gashes to open in the ice and race toward her and Agatha.
“Get down!” Bayard bellowed.
El jumped to the side away from the fissures, lowered to her knees, and spread herself upon the ice.
Still Agatha came, so near there was no mistaking the ferocity in eyes that revealed her one objective—to sink her dagger not into ice, but flesh.
She was three strides distant when she jerked to a halt, still holding aloft her dagger when the ice shattered around her and the piece upon which she stood tilted, opening the water wider as if to spoon Agatha of Mawbry into that gaping black mouth.
The woman shrieked and flung herself toward El. Though the lower half of her body went into the water, she drove the dagger into the ice upon which El lay and, clinging to the hilt, struggled to keep her upper half from going under.
It was then El saw the feathered shaft protruding from the woman’s shoulder. Bayard or one of his men had made his mark.
Convulsing, teeth chattering, Agatha reached her useless, broken hand toward El. “Help me!”
Strangely, El longed to pull her to safety, but more than fear for what might befall her should she draw near to Agatha, reasoning prevailed. Not only did El also have only one hand with which to defend herself, but the ice continued to break, and one crack was inching toward her—that most recently opened up by Agatha’s blade.
El scooted back, away from the entreating hand.
Scrabbling against the ice’s edge, Agatha tried again to drag herself up onto it. “Help me, Elianor!”
Continuing her retreat, El muffled a sob, shook her head. “I am sorry.”