by Delle Jacobs
Her light slippers padded against the wooden floor as she ran to the door between the chambers and into her own room.
Rough shouts echoed in the bailey.
The demons screamed at her. Flee! The Norman comes!
She set her jaw, refusing to let panic rule her.
You are evil! You are no better than Fyren!
Be still. I have no time for your mischief.
Witch!
I am no witch.
But the Normans would believe it. When the Norman lord learned of the demons that tormented her, taunting her with her own fears, and of all the things she knew that she should not, he would have her burned.
Even before she crossed her chamber, she jerked her silk kirtle over her head. Snatching up a simpler garment of homespun earthen grey wool, she flinched at its scratchiness. But she dared not keep her light linen chemise, for the Normans would know a common girl would not possess such a garment.
Wadding her discarded clothing into a ball, she flung it all into the open chest near the window, and almost closed the lid before noticing her mother's ring on her finger. She hesitated, caressing the carved warmth of the gold band.
Nay. All must be left behind. She jerked the ring from her finger, threw it into the chest, slammed the lid shut, and turned the key.
Footsteps pounded on the bailey's hard earth.
In the far corner of her chamber, Melisande pushed aside a painted wooden panel that mimicked the yellow plastered walls, then crawled through the hole and closed the panel. Down steps hewn into bedrock, she descended in darkness toward a cavern that was as familiar to her as her own bed chamber.
One, two, three–
both hands skimmed against the roughly chiseled stone as she counted the steps. The earl was dead,– -eight, nine– and the Norman had come. The Red King, William Rufus, would win at last the land he had coveted so long.– Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen– The Norman lord would take the castle in the king's name, then look about for the bride Rufus had promised him. And with any luck,– twenty-five, twenty-six– he would not find her.
– Twenty-seven.
Standing on the gritty cavern floor, Melisande bundled her fears into a tight little knot and shoved them deep inside her, too deep for her to feel. Deliberately she stretched each finger out from the tight balls made by her fists. She squared her shoulders.
She wished she'd had more time to plan, but the word of the Normans' approach had come only the day before. And only then had she learned of the English king’s intent to wed her to the new lord. She was fortunate her hastily conceived plan had achieved as much as it had, for at his worst, the Norman could not be as terrible a lord as Fyren had been.
For herself, she had little hope. Perhaps, given more time she might have also succeeded in her own escape. But she had no place to go, so she must hide under the Norman's very nose. But at least Fyren was dead, and his evil cloak would be buried with him. The destruction of the Devil himself could not please her more.