by Tamara Leigh
She removed the mantle, gathered the rope, and dropped it into the breach. With one last look to assure D’Arci had not come out of the shadows, she lowered herself into the crypt. As she worked her calloused hands down the rope, she remembered how difficult a feat it had been when she had first taken refuge here. However, once she had gotten beyond the blisters and bleeding, it had become easier. It also helped that she did not weigh much.
She returned her attention to the shadow of D’Arci. Still no movement. Upon meeting the ground, she said, “Lord D’Arci?”
No response, as if his dark figure was but written in ink.
She pulled the dagger—D’Arci’s—from her boot and retrieved the splints. “How do you fare?”
If he were halfway hale, he had to have heard her. Was he dire ill? Worse?
Clutching the splints, she advanced and was grateful when her eyes adjusted to the dim beyond the breach and picked out his pale tunic. Try though she did to catch the glitter of eyes that would show him capable of responding, she could not, but at ten feet, the sword alongside his leg took form, as did bands of pale cloth that crossed his lower leg and turned around what looked to be a scabbard. Then by his sword he was splinted—
She nearly ran, but foolishness prevailed at the thought he might yet be ailing.
Or lying in wait.
“Lord D’Arci, I…”
Words, Beatrix! First think them through.
“Is there…something you require?” She almost wished he were unconscious that she might be spared the humiliation of the stumbling speech that bothered her most in his presence. Was it because his learned mind grasped the knowledge of healing that should have been hers? In the long, cool days of abbey life she would have grown and studied herbs, concocted preparations and medicinals, tended the ill and prayed for their relief. If she did not regain her facility with speech and thought, what was left to her? How she loathed the prison walls her mind could not scale!
She took another step forward, and it was then she caught the narrow gleam of D’Arci’s eyes. She dropped the splints and spun around.
“I had hoped you would draw nearer,” his voice resounded around the crypt.
Beatrix turned. “I am not the fool you…think I am.”
“This time you are not, but there shall be other times.”
Why could she not abandon him? He sounded well, and surely someone would come. Perhaps if she left the rope down the breach he could pull himself out. But with his injury, did he possess enough strength? And what if he further injured himself?
Once more berating her conscience, she stepped into the shaft of light that shone through the breach and returned the dagger to her boot.
“Why have you not fled?” he called.
She gripped the rope. “Even you, Lord D’Arci, do not…deserve to die.”
“I shall take comfort in that, Lady Beatrix.” Were his voice of barb, she would be torn asunder. “A pity you did not show my brother the same consideration.”
She pulled her denial back, for of what use was it? “A hundred times I would do again what I did,” she said, anger ordering her words such that they flowed without falter.
“That I believe.”
“You should.” Regardless of the outcome, she would guard her virtue and life as she had done with his brother, though exactly how she had defended herself she still could not recall. “Now, have you need of anything?”
“The use of my leg and a hangman’s noose.”
That dampened her anger. “The one you shall have, but not the…other. As soon as someone happens upon you, I shall be gone.”
“To Stern?”
Immediately, she rebuked herself for her surprise. Of course he knew her destination.
“Water,” D’Arci said.
Beatrix frowned.
“I am in need of water,” he snapped.
“The…well is foul. Will you take drink from the stream?” At this distance it ran cleaner than at the upper end where it passed near the village. One unaccustomed to the dross could suffer cramping and nausea as Beatrix had first done.
“’Twill suffice.”
“Toss your…wineskin that I might bring it.”
“I know not what has become of it.”
Trickery? She glanced into the shadows where she had made her bed this past month. All she possessed was there—not only the skin used to gather water but, more importantly, her psalter.
Once more pulling her dagger, she stepped toward the pallet. Though D’Arci did not move, his pale eyes amid the shadows followed her.
Holding his gaze, she bent and felt for the skin. It came to hand, as did her psalter. The latter providing comfort she had missed on the night past, she pushed it and the skin beneath her belt and hastened to the rope.
Anything to return her to the crypt, Michael mused as he watched her slide his dagger into her boot. Anything to draw the flaxen-haired witch near.
As she climbed hand over hand, he was struck by the strength required to do so. True, she was light of weight—much lighter than when she had been at Broehne Castle—but one’s upper body must still be in good form to pull along the lower.
When would she return? He glanced at the skin at his side. The wine would quench his thirst far better than the tainted water for which he had sent her. And when she delivered that, he would send her for something else if he could not tempt her near. He need only be patient. Unfortunately, he bored quickly, preferring all and everyone to move with utmost speed and resenting time wasted on waiting.
With a soft grunt, Lady Beatrix transferred her hands to the edge of the breach and levered herself out of the crypt.
Michael stared at the swaying rope that promised escape. Hearing her retreating footfalls, he began to smile. However, as he started to move from the column, she returned and reeled the rope out.
Curse her! He clenched his hands to counter the burn that shot up his leg. Though the long night had reduced the pain to a dull throb, even slight movement set him afire.
He reached for the nearest pack, removed the box of flint and tinder, and opened it to find only a half dozen pieces of tinder. Hoping fuel was to be had somewhere in the pit, as smoke might bring his or Baron Lavonne’s men sooner, he removed the flint. On the first strike, the tinder caught and jumped light around the walls.
“God’s eyes!” He clenched his hands into fists. Stone was everywhere, most conspicuously the open stairway that had long ago granted passage to this hidden room. As the steps had collapsed and broken away from the wall, there was a distance of at least eight feet from the top of the debris to the door set in the ceiling. Even if he dragged his broken leg up the strewn stairway and made it upright, his reach would fall short of the door.
The last of the tinder’s flame nearing his fingertips, he continued to peer around the crypt, taking in the pallet from which the lady had retrieved the skin, next the discarded splints. The latter would not provide enough wood to sustain a flame for long.
He blew out the tinder, drew the wine skin from his belt, and took a long swallow. It was time to return his sword to hand.
He eased forward, each jolt to the leg causing him to gnash his teeth, but at last he reached the splints. Careful to keep his leg positioned so it would not require resetting, he made the exchange.
Sword once more honorable, he considered the pallet—that woman’s sorry bed this past month that evidenced she was reduced to the squalor of the meanest villein. Still, she possessed determination, meaning no matter how blue her eyes, no matter how they illuminated her face, he must not forget it.
Deciding that even if the pallet proved infested, it was preferable to reclining against the column, he rolled onto his uninjured knee, pressed his palms to the stone floor, and slowly straightened despite his leg’s vehement protest.
Curse Lady Beatrix for this laming! Curse her for the lie—aye, most of all the lie told of Simon!
With each halting step, he swore against her until he
finally reached the dimly lit pallet. He put a foot to it, turned his back to the wall, and eased himself down the rough-hewn stone.
A scent struck him. Woodruff and…fennel? He drew another breath. Aye, and other scents so faint their names could not be called to remembrance. Though Lady Beatrix made her bed in a crumbling crypt, it seemed she was not reduced to squalor—at least, not entirely.
Michael pressed a hand to the woolen blanket that encased the stuff of her pallet. The sweet scent wafted stronger, though not in any way offensive. He nearly smiled.
Wondering what, besides a skin and psalter, the lady kept, he lifted a corner of the pallet and searched a hand beneath. A purse clattered its contents as he drew it forth—his purse—then came a coil of rope.
He looked to the packs he had left near the column. When she returned, he would ask her to deliver them to him. And perhaps this time she would draw too near.
“You wish to know of your family?”
Arresting her retreat, Beatrix stared at the rope she had come down a minute earlier.
“’Twas for tidings of them that you risked Broehne Castle, was it not?”
She looked over her shoulder at where he sat on her pallet. It bothered her that he had claimed that which she had every night lain upon. Then there was the matter of the wooden splints that had returned his sword to him.
“Was it not?” he pressed.
Not what? She looked to where she had tossed the skin of water alongside his uninjured leg. Of what did he—? Ah, her family.
“I l-learned all I must needs know.” A lie, but surely he would demand a price for the telling of whatever he knew—if he knew anything.
“What did you learn?”
She started toward the rope.
“You know the reason they have not come for you, do you not?”
She swung back around. “What do you know of it?” She was but ten feet distant from him when she realized she advanced on him, just as he wished her to do. She hastened to the rope.
“I am in need of my packs,” he snapped.
Heart bumping against her ribs, she looked from D’Arci on her pallet to the packs. If she retrieved them, it would put her distant from the rope, but would it give him enough time to come between her and escape? He had gotten himself across the crypt.
If not for the dagger, she would have refused him. She pulled it and, holding him with her gaze, hurried to the column. D’Arci did not move when she stepped toward him and tossed the packs at his feet. Keeping the dagger before her, she backed away.
“Too, I am in need of sustenance.”
“There are…foodstuffs in your pack.”
“No more.”
She did not care for this game. “I do not believe you.”
“Come near and I shall show you.”
She shook her head. “At the noo—” The remainder of the word slipped away, and she felt her lids flutter as she struggled to recapture it.
“The nooning hour?” D’Arci supplied, derision in his tone.
Grasping anger to right her words, Beatrix said, “At middle day, I shall bring you f-fish.” Lord, if only I could harness my anger better!
“Then my jailer intends to cook for me?”
“I do not. When your belly aches to pain, Lord D—” Gone again!
“D’Arci.”
Frustration stung her eyes. Why did she persist in conversing with him?
“When it aches to pain, what?” he pressed.
Thankfully, his condescension caused her anger to course. “Then you shall eat it as I do. Uncooked.”
That quieted him long enough for her to make it to the rope where she was struck by a feeling she would never be free of Michael D’Arci. Wherever she went, he would follow, and one day she would fall to him. Aching to clasp the psalter she had left aboveground, she climbed the rope.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Three days in this stinking pit. Three days waiting to catch her unawares. But she never came near enough. This day would be different.
Drumming his fingers on the flint box, Michael looked to his lower leg. It was too soon to know how he would pass the remainder of his life, as a cripple or with two legs firm beneath him, but the pain had lessened and the spasming was nearing its end. Of course, what he intended might jeopardize—
Curse the leg! If it needed to be set again, so be it. He glanced at the collapsed stairway that was of no use to him. However, the coil of rope found beneath Beatrix Wulfrith’s pallet was of certain use.
Where was she? It was past the nooning hour and she had not appeared. Had she gone for more fish? He grimaced at the ripening scent that transcended the other foul odors marking his stay in the crypt. On the day past, she had come with fish wrapped in cloth and tossed it to him. He had tried to coax her nearer, but to no avail. Thus, he had asked her to refill the skin, the water of which he had emptied on the stone floor. It was late afternoon before she returned, and then again she had not spoken a word, even when she saw the fish was untouched.
Twinged with regret at having shown contempt for her faltering speech, Michael frowned. For this—the shame that had shown upon her face—she held her words that might otherwise have brought her within reach. But his regret went deeper. It made him feel cruel to seek her unease by such means. Though impatience had made him speak for her, anger at his situation set the tone with which he had done so. Aye, cruel.
He stopped on that. As she surely did not war over the cruelty dealt his brother, why did he? The woman had bled out Simon’s life then told he had ravished her!
Struck by memories of the boy left behind seven years past, Michael closed his eyes. Twice, sometimes thrice a year, he had returned to the barony given over to their eldest brother, Joseph. Each time, the impetuous Simon had begged at Michael’s heels, seeking attention no others provided.
Michael had given what he could, training his half brother at arms, challenging him at chess, talking with him late into the night—excepting the last time that Michael had returned before joining Duke Henry’s army. Simon had been absent, belatedly sent to the north to begin his squire’s training. Though it was needed for him to transition from boy to man, Michael had missed the brash youth, as had Simon’s fragile mother. She had wept on Michael’s shoulder at having lost the argument with Joseph to keep her only child with her.
Not until Duke Henry gained the throne of England years later had Michael seen Simon again. When Christian Lavonne had awarded Castle Soaring to Michael—not only out of gratitude for Michael saving his arm from amputation, but out of need for a physician for his infirm father—Michael had sent for his brother. Eager as ever, Simon had appeared within a fortnight. Though Michael had intended to enlist him as a household knight, Aldous Lavonne encouraged his son to take him into his own household. Grudgingly, Michael agreed, knowing it would provide better opportunities for Simon, never guessing it would mean his death when he was sent to fetch the baron’s unwilling bride.
Michael drew a breath of dank air. Cruel mockery was the least Beatrix Wulfrith deserved. Where was she?
Would they never come? They searched for D’Arci, that she knew from talk of the villagers she had slipped amongst this morn, but none found their way to Purley.
Leave. Someone will come.
Beatrix sighed and once more swept her gaze over the ruins. All appeared as it had when she had left. The rope alongside the breach was barely visible, coiled as it was beneath dirt and leaves, and the only movement was of birds and a trio of squirrels scurrying among the ruins.
She stepped from behind the tree and grimaced as her boots sucked mud up over the toes. Not that they were any worse than the rest of her, the journey to the village having flecked her toe to hip. Mayhap this afternoon she would bathe in the chill stream.
As she started across the nave, she dropped the hood of the mantle and pushed the garment off her shoulders so it hung down her back. It was not so much a warm day that made her seek relief from the heat, but exertion f
rom having run all the way to the abbey.
She lowered to her haunches before the true crypt and touched the pouch at her belt. Berries of deepest pink, the name of which fled her, swelled the cloth and seeped their juice through the loose weave. Outside the village, she had paused to indulge in the sweet, slightly sour fruits. Though she told herself D’Arci would reject them as he had the fish, she had nothing else to offer. Was it poisoning he feared? If so, why did he drink the water? Or did he?
She leaned forward. The high sun shone through the breach, and when she peered nearer, she saw D’Arci was on her pallet. Watching and waiting.
She let the rope down and began her descent. When her feet met the floor, she stepped forward and only then realized she had not removed the mantle. As it was gotten by ill means, she was loath to wear it in D’Arci’s presence, but there was nothing for it now.
Her eyes adjusted as she neared him and nose twitched at the ripening scent made worse by fish turning foul. Though she could not help but resent the waste of food that would have eased the ache of her own belly, she removed the pouch from her belt. Twelve feet distant from D’Arci, she halted.
“’Twas the red that revealed you.” He jutted his chin. “My mantle.”
So he had glimpsed the crimson when she had passed him at the castle—that bit of color her undoing. For the fool her tongue made of her, she resisted his attempt to converse and tossed the pouch to him. He caught it but granted it no more than a glance.
“Stay,” he called as she retreated. “I would speak with you.”
Nay, he would taunt her.
“You do not wish to know about your family? The reason they have not come for you?”
She struggled against snapping at the bait. And failed. “The reason?”
His hand tested the weight of the pouch. “Surely it must pain you to know they have left you at the mercy of Baron Lavonne.”