The Grey Dawn

by Stacey DeMichael

  “It tastes no different to me,” said Mistress Murray haughtily.

  “Explains everything; no taste buds,” one of the footmen muttered under his breath.

  “That is enough talking,” Winslow growled.

  The meal finished with happy looking servants who helped Daniella clear the table perhaps in the high hopes that properly praised she would bring forth another meal of surpassing quality. Ellalee smiled to herself. Edible was a pretty low bar to vault.

  One of the footmen handed Christopher his crutch and walked with him carrying dishes the boy couldn’t manage. Simmons nodded from the doorway to Ellalee who frowned and followed.

  Ellalee noted that the hallways were white-washed and unadorned in the servants’ section as she followed Simmons through the myriad of hallways and up the servants’ stair to the main floor. Here the walls were filled with severe looking men in large portraits with elaborate carved-wood frames. Ellalee stopped and looked at one which contained an almost familiar looking man with strong cheekbones and a heavy jaw, but those weren’t the features that seemed so familiar. Perhaps it was just the severe expression. Ellalee cocked her head to one side, contemplating the portrait. Simmons stopped when he realized Ellalee was no longer following and came back to her side.

  “It is the lord’s father, Lord Vortimer. He died during the fire that injured Lord Valen. Lord Valen tried valiantly to save his father, but alas, it was not to be. Come, we must go. His lordship is not a patient man,” Simmons said.

  Ellalee continued to look at the painting for a moment before she realized it was the eyes that looked familiar. She had seen that same blazing looking in the Earl de Avium’s eyes in the courtyard this very day. She shook her head and wondered just how harsh her punishment would be and followed.

  Simmons opened the door to the lord’s study for Ellalee and held it while she entered.

  “You may leave the girl here, Simmons,” Valen said. His face was shadowed in the dim room. The valet quietly shut the door behind her.

  The only light in the room was one lamp on the lord’s desk where the low flame flickered miserably, but even in the dim light, she noticed that every wall was lined with shelving, and every shelf of every bookcase was filled with books.

  “Oh! Oh! How lucky you are to have this many books.” Ellalee was drawn to the nearest shelf and ran her fingers along the spines of the books. “The thing I missed most after missing my father were his books. It broke my heart to sell them.” She caressed the back of one book wishing she could curl up in a chair and travel the road of its pages with a stranger soon to be a friend.

  The earl cleared his throat, and Ellalee winced wishing once again that she hadn’t spoken her thoughts out loud.

  “I’m sorry. I was surprised at such a collection.”

  “You think me small-minded, hairless, and now, illiterate, perhaps?” the earl growled.

  “No, no, of course not,” Ellalee stammered and bowed her head. “Books are expensive, and this,” she turned around, her hand over her heart, “this is amazing!” She could feel her face fall at the earl’s scowl, and muttered, “I’m sorry. Too often I speak without thinking.”

  “For what exactly are you sorry? For your rudeness to me or to my staff? For your inappropriate commentary upon my belongings? For your failure to do as you’re told? For your entirely inappropriate attitude as a servant?”

  Ellalee stared at her feet and said nothing.

  “You have been spoiled badly, and it will not be tolerated. You are a servant in my home, and you will behave like one, or you will find yourself in a worse place than you are now which I am sure you can hardly imagine. But trust me, I can imagine a great deal.”

  Ellalee continued to stare at her shoes and found she was having trouble swallowing.

  “I hear that you have already had a row with Miss Murray.”

  “She ruined your supper.” Ellalee’s head snapped up. “Purposefully, I would add. There was no excuse for it.”

  The earl face cracked as one side of mouth quirked up. “Yes, that meal was memorable. I fear I haven’t heard the last of it either. Miss Murray hated being a cook and no doubt was delighted to be relieved of the duty this evening, not so much as the rest of us, I admit. Though she will have at least one more chance at vengeance in a pot.”

  “Over my dead body,” Ellalee’s began.

  “No need for anything quite that drastic,” the earl replied caustically.

  “I hope that your sister is a credit to the castle, and as much as hope does spring eternal, in honesty, she could hardly be worse. But that is not why you are here. As a servant, you are expected to be obedient. If this is not something you feel you can accomplish, I will simply return you to the Baron de Bressott, and he can pick up where he left off. ”

  Ellalee swallowed hard remembering the cruel fingers prying her mouth open, and she shivered. “I have done everything that you have asked, have I not? Even when you have attempted to skewer me at the tip of your sword, twice,” Ellalee replied.

  “You could frustrate a saint, you know this? Do you sharpen your tongue on both sides and then attack the unarmed and unwitted?”

  “I daresay, you’re not speaking of yourself,” Ellalee stammered, feeling suddenly angry.

  “No, I am not. I am speaking of my staff. You will have no further arguments with any of my servants and most certainly not with Miss Murry. You will do what you are told, and you will not offer additional commentary outside of yes, ma’am or no, sir. Are we understood?”

  There was a long pause before Ellalee was sure her voice would not crack, and then she seethed into the silence, “Yes, sir.”

  His eyes widened, daring her to utter just one more word. He waited several more seconds which felt like a small eternity; then he smiled.

  “To this new agreement, we will toast. I have poured for you.” Ellalee noted that the earl’s hand gestured to two glasses of port wine that had been pre-poured prior to her arrival in his study.

  “I do not…,” Ellalee began.

  “Ut!” The earl said lifting one finger. “Obedience.”

  Ellalee had to swallow the word “stupidity” before it sprung from her lips and swallow hard. Her eyes blazed. She lifted her glass and stared miserably into the contents. The earl clinked his glass against hers and swallowed the entire contents of his glass and then stared pointedly at her.

  She frowned and took a tiny sip, trying to keep any wine from entering her lips and lowered the glass.

  “All of it,” the earl hissed.

  She frowned furiously at him, and then threw the entire contents to the back of her mouth, swallowed, and gagged.

  He stared at her, his gaze hardening, expecting.

  At first, she stared back just as fiercely, but then his nose drifted away. His face blurred into the bookcases. Something had gone terribly wrong with the earl’s features. Suddenly, all she could see was the ceiling. It seemed like maybe something had hit her head, but she wasn’t sure.

  The earl’s face hovered above her, in and out of focus. He reached for her, gently touching her face. His hand disappeared and reappeared in her vision, but she could feel his tentative touch. She could hear the door open.

  Then there was another face, an older woman, grey hair pulled back. Ellalee could barely focus, but she heard the earl say to the old woman, “Was it enough? Will she be okay?”

  “She will sleep until noon tomorrow. You needn’t worry; she’ll be right as rain tomorrow afternoon.”

  Somewhere in the shambles of her mind, she knew that she had been drugged and was determined to fight the effects. She heard the door open, and the earl greeted Winslow. Ellalee’s eyes fluttered, and she saw Winslow’s face swimming in and out of focus above her. She tried to ask him for help, but the words wouldn’t come. She was feeling distinctly nauseous and closed her eyes, but she could still hear what went on around her.

  “Is she ill?” Winslow asked dryly.

  “This o
ne could try the patience of a saint,” Valen said rubbing his fist. “I struck her somewhat harder than I intended. Send for her sister to come and tend Miss Ellalee and hopefully remedy this one of her foul disposition. Otherwise, they shall both be back in the pillory come tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Of course.”

  “Go now. I will take the girl to her room.”

  Ellalee felt a jostling, and then she felt the earl scoop her into his arms. Her ear was against his chest, and she could hear the drum beat of his heart. She tried to open her eyes once more, but the flutter of her eyelids just made her nauseous. She closed her eyes and felt the motion of being carried. Several times, her mind rallied to consciousness only to drift away again to blackness. Then next thing that she knew, she felt herself on cool blankets and sensed her shoes being removed, tenderly from her still-injured ankle. Her sister arrived moments later, and was offered a glass of water. Ellalee tried valiantly to warn Daniella not to drink it, but drifted back to darkness without uttering a sound.

  She rallied once more without knowing how much time had passed and heard, “It will buy us time to see to the boy.”

  The night was a haze of dreams, nightmares, and random consciousness that drifted into other dreams. In one dream there had been a man in her room, hovering over the bed, in another a beast, and in yet another, a keening that turned into someone screaming, then screaming her name, and no matter how hard she tried to rise, she could not battle her way to full consciousness. See to the boy, see to the boy, see to the boy kept repeating in her drugged mind as haunting as a siren’s call, but unlike the stories of old, disaster hung in the balance of not obeying the call.

  Ellalee worked at ungluing her eye lids as the grey dawn broke. Once successful, she realized she could barely focus. She pinched herself very hard, and found that pain cleared her mind a bit. She struggled to a sitting position, her head feeling like lead weight. Nothing would have felt better than lying back down, but something nagged at her. There was something she needed to do. She lurched to her feet, stumbled on her stiff right ankle, caught her balance on the wardrobe, and found a pitcher of water on the side table. Pouring water into the basin, she splashed it onto her face. The water was frigid and helped bring her around. See to the boy. The words floated back into her mind. See to the boy. More cursed luck. Ruined goods.

  Christopher.

  Ellalee shouted at Daniella to wake up, shaking her back and forth to no avail. She realized sickly that saving Christopher would be up to her. She remembered the keening from her dream, the screaming of her name. She broke out into a sweat as a feeling of dread swept over her. Somewhere in her mind, a place she didn’t want to acknowledge, she wondered if she wasn’t already too late.

  Without donning her shoes, she rushed out the door. This part of the manor was unfamiliar to her and so she ran in a rough uneven gate coming down as lightly as she could on her ankle down the corridor until she came to a staircase which she took in hops. After a couple of wrong turns, she picked up the scent of burning bread and followed it to the kitchen where Mistress Murray was proceeding to ruin breakfast with much panache.

  “Where is my brother?” Ellalee voice cracked. “Where is he? Have you seen him?”

  “Your brother? Why I believe he is the dungeon with his lordship,” Mistress Murray replied sweetly and then her voice changed to what Ellalee was beginning to realize was her normal indignant tone. “Get to scrubbing those pans. You should have been here an hour ago. I will be recommending a sound thrashing for both you and your lazy sister. It seems his lordship is already taking care of your brother.”

  “Where is the dungeon?” Ellalee’s voice choked on rage.

  Mistress Murry’s face turned red at Ellalee’s flagrant disobedience. “Dishes. Now!”

  Ellalee grabbed the largest knife on the chopping block just as Simmons strode into the kitchen.

  “Simmons, you will take me to the dungeon or I swear I will carve out your heart. If anything has happened to Christopher...”

  Simmons blanched. “Now miss, you wouldn’t want his lordship to beat you again. He beat you unconscious just last night.”

  “My brother, Simmons, where is my brother...,” Ellalee raised the knife and took two steps towards Simmons as Mistress Murray gasped in the background.

  “You’re in a heap o’ trouble, miss, but I’ll take you to him, but don’t say that I didn’t warn you,” Simmons replied and turned on heal.

  Ellalee followed closely through a dimly lit hallway and down a stone staircase lit by wall scones. The smell of decay was overwhelming, and she gagged, nearly vomiting her tumultuous stomach. Whatever she had ingested last night in that glass of port was sitting poorly. They came to another long corridor even more dimly lit. It smelled of damp and mildew and something…more horrible.

  Suddenly she heard the earl yelling from down the hallway, “If he is not whole, he is not worth the food he eats.”

  Panic set in. She shoved Simmons into the wall, and raced around him, turning one corner and then another until she saw the butler, Winslow, guarding a thick reinforced door. She gave a primordial cry and ran pell-mell right at the butler brandishing the knife before her. To her relief, he stood aside and let her shove open the door with her shoulder. The sight that greeted her eyes nearly took her breath away.

  It was more than a dungeon with barred cells; it was a torture chamber, and Christopher was strapped to a rack. The ankle of his crippled leg was tied with ropes that pulled his leg taught. His torso was strapped with a leather belt that kept his lower body stretched fully.

  The old woman from last night stood on the far side of Christopher, and the loathsome earl stood between herself and her brother. Christopher had reached his hand out to plead, grasping the earl’s left hand with his fingertips. In the earl’s right hand was an object which stripped the breath from her body. The earl gripped an iron bar as though he was ready to wield it against her brother’s crippled leg. As she burst through the door between one breath and the next, the earl threw away Christopher’s pleading hand and whirled around to face her. His ruined face looking more monstrous in the firelight from the iron braziers which cast grim unholy shadows in the dungeon.

  “If you hurt him, I will kill you,” Ellalee’s voice was far lower and more controlled than her pounding heart. In her soul, she knew that she could do it. Murder. She frightened herself with this dark conviction that she would do anything to protect her brother from this heathen devil.

  “Says the liar, thief, now would-be murderer,” the earl responded drolly.

  Just then, Ellalee felt her left arm twisted up behind her so hard that she mewed and came up onto her tip toes to stop the pain.

  “Drop the knife,” Winslow hissed in her ear. When she didn’t, he twisted her arm up higher until she screamed.

  She dropped the knife and began sobbing. “Please, please don’t hurt him.”

  “Don’t break it, Winslow. She’s hardly been worth her keep with her ankle, a twist break may never heal properly. Take her back to her room. Lock her in there. We will see to her punishment shortly.”

  “Wouldn’t you rather that I lock her in a cell so she can watch? It seems like that would be a good start,” Winslow replied dryly.

  “Go. I will deal with her shortly.”

  Winslow kept a tight hold on her arm, twisting it high behind her back, and with Simmons, frog marched her back through the kitchen to the great glee of Mistress Murray who waved a wooden spoon her direction and said, “You’ll see how things work here soon, missy, and you won’t be glad for it.”

  When they got to Ellalee’s room, Winslow threw her inside and followed her in, locking the door behind him as Simmons slunk off. Winslow sneered at her sister in unfeigned disgust as she slept away in the bed next to Ellalee’s.

  “So. It is true that she got into his lordship’s port last night. A weakness for spirits will not serve her here,” Winslow said with repugnance.

  “Don’t
be daft. She is not drunk. She has never touched spirits in her life. She is closest person to God’s own love, I have ever known,” Ellalee spat.

  Winslow closed the distance, leaning over her, baring his yellow teeth as Ellalee scrambled backwards.

  “You should know that there is no God here. This land is cursed, and all of us are cursed as well,” Winslow hissed.

  Ellalee leaned back against the wall and slid away. “Is this not part of God’s own creation? How can He not be here? And if it is so cursed, why are you here?”

  “I am here because I was born here. My father was the butler before me. I grew up with his lordship’s father, and I will die here. Even if I should desire to leave, where would I go? Who would hire someone from this cursed household?”

  Ellalee remembered the man in the gibbet. The townspeople were terrified of this place, and of anyone who might draw the attention of the cursed earl.

  “What happened here? I don’t understand.”

  “It would help you to know the history of this evil place because the sooner you realize there is no way out, the better for us all. These antics of yours must end.

  “His lordship’s father, Lord Vortimer, first fell in love with a peasant girl though it was not to be, and they both knew it. But what Lord Vortimer did not know was that this peasant girl was not as innocent as she seemed. In fact, she was a witch. When his lordship’s grandfather banished the lass and forbade the girl from entering the kingdom again, she cursed the earl, his son, the land, and all who serve here. At first, most believed her to be merely a woman scorned. Lord Vortimer went on to court and marry Lady Brunella de Linwell with his father’s blessing, and all celebrated with the young couple. One still born child after the next was born to the couple, and with each one, despair grew. Lord Vortimer’s father withered with palsy and died, and Lord Vortimer’s mood grew black with desolation and then wrath. Alas after nearly a decade, they say the lady died of a broken heart not being able to conceive an heir, but there are those that say otherwise.