Exile’s Bane (32 page)

Peg embraced me, and the clean scent of her hair encompassed me. I, too, was unnerved. I did not want to release her from my arms, did not want to lose the comfort of her presence, as I did not want to leave my home.

But both things were necessary. There was no more time.

Face lowered, she pulled away and left the room. Her servants hefted her trunks and stepped in behind her.

I raced to the watch-tower’s lofty roof, clenched the unyielding stone parapet, and watched them go. It was not as grand or drawn out as the departure for York, but massive and poignant just the same, for my face was wet with tears long before the ring of harness and the squeal of wheels faded.

It was still relatively early in the morning, the sun no more than a hands breadth above the horizon. I had to find Annie, and soon, for Peg’s words of the girl’s bruises had sent a chill up my spine that had settled in my bones. I had thought her smarter than that.

To avoid the inevitable run-in with Gorgon, where I fully expected to find Annie, I slipped out of the house and into Amilie’s tower for a quick good-bye.

My time at Tor House was at an end. The prospect of leaving did not upset me as it had in the past. I had Duncan. Excitement had actually begun to rise among my aged fears. I was ready to take a chance on the unknown.

I sat in the chair, but Amilie did not show herself. There was something amiss in the room, for the chair felt shaky as it never had before. The stones of the hearth caught my eye. They were damp and shiny, yet it had not rained for some time, had in fact remained hot and dry. The light from the roof stairway was occluded as though there were a cloud over the tower, but the sky had been clear on my entry.

She was there, for she had greeted me in her normal questing, rose-scented fashion. Her airy touches fluttered around me and swept over my face. She must have sensed my recent tears. I sat in that unstable chair in misery.

“Amilie,” I began. “I have to tell you I will not see you again.” I steeled myself, unsure how she would take my desertion. “And I must warn you that the house may be torn down. There is a threat to do this.”

A great airy sigh sounded at the hearth and beside me at the same time, underscored by a whistling whimper.

I swallowed hard and clenched my hands together, determined to see this through.

“Yes-s, the tremors have started,” she finally said, her soughing voice uneven and strained. “I did not dare believe it. Yet I knew you would come,” she murmured at my ear.

“Tremors?”

“Not of the earth, but rumblings of s-spectral boundaries, lines that rarely move.” She appeared vaguely before me then, sadness set in her ephemeral face. Her slight palm rested atop my clenched hands.

My fingers had turned white.

“Be happy, Elena. When this tower comes down, I will be free. Feel no concern for me. It is the end of my father’s curse. I will be at peace.”

“What was the curse?” A draft of air ruffled my hair.

“That my s-soul s-should remain trapped within this tower until it fell.”

“But why?”

She threw back her head and laughed, a victorious, ghostly sound that traveled the walls.

I cringed, my limbs stiff and cold. Slowly, the echoes fell away.

“In the days of my mortal life . . .” Her image bounced down on the bed beside the chair, like a playful child. “ . . . we English fought great bloody wars with the northern clans. My offense was unconscionable, for I dared love a landless Scot. But I had thought, s-since we loved one another s-so much, and I was a younger daughter—”

“No wonder you were so taken with Duncan,” I said, fascinated, my discomforts forgotten.

“My Malcolm was much like him.” She clasped her hands before her, excitement staining her cheeks red. “I can go to him soon.”

But the sweetness left her face suddenly, and she stood before me, though I had not seen her move off the bed. She was intent on something in that spectral world in which she existed. A door crashed shut, where there was no visible door, the sound of it reverberating around the room.

The hearth wailed and I jumped to my feet, my skin crawling.

“Go now, Elena. You may s-still save the girl if you hurry.”

“How . . .?” I stared at her in horror, but she did not answer, instead fading away. I clamored out of the tower.

She might have lost her ghostly imitation of her former self, but she could see the now of things, and I had been warned.

They awaited me in the great hall like two waxen statues, their regal images washed out in the sunlight that poured through the tall front windows and illuminated them where they stood before the earl’s chair.

“Where is Annie?” I asked in a strong voice. I approached them with a slow step.

Thomas’ brows rose. He looked at Gorgon in regal surprise.

“Why would it matter?” Gorgon pandered. “She is nothing in the scheme of things.”

Something was terribly wrong, for unless I had misunderstood our arrangement, they should have left by now, Gorgon’s life measured in minutes.

“This dalliance is at an end,” Gorgon called out to me, his wet-lipped manner like that of a horse, chafing at the bit, ready to run.

I came to the center of the room, where the sun did not reach, and stopped.

Thomas nodded and strolled out to me in his old, condescending manner. The scuff of his boots across the slates put me in mind of a heavy-footed executioner.

“You should have heeded me all these weeks, Elena. Now, it is too late.”

Beware Thomas
, Peg had insisted, again and again.

“Is this part of your game?” I whispered hoarsely. “Or have you deceived us?”

“Oh, yes.” He laughed aloud, arms outstretched to enfold me. “A little trick.”

“Answer me,” I hissed through my teeth.

“You are betrayed,” he announced. Sudden anger lit up his face. “And that thieving MacGregor will soon be dead. Then, unfortunately . . .”

I whipped around and raced for the hallway, the clatter of my footsteps echoing around me. Duncan was all that mattered. I had to warn him.

Guards stepped out before me and collected me, though I bit at any hand that touched me and scratched at their faces. They delivered me back before Thomas and held me there, knowing better than to unhand me.

Gorgon’s hawk nose dipped in the distance behind Thomas, like a raptor set to strike.

“Has Gorgon then seduced you?” I asked when I could catch my breath again.

“Not that, no.” Panic surfaced in his eyes. Quickly gone, the look was replaced by one of bored lordliness.

“I thought we agreed that your life is in danger? Has this changed?”

“You lied to me, hinting at poison, hoping to turn me against him.”

“I did not lie to you.”

“I believed in you. And you turn around and sleep with that MacGregor scum,” he snarled.

“That is the real reason for this treachery, is it not?”

“Not at all,” he said in a perfectly reasonable voice. He studied his nails. “The warden and I have come to an amiable agreement.”

“As long as it suits him.”

Gorgon’s laugh boomed around the room. His large bulk stepped off the dais he so loved and approached us.

“You, my dear, belong to me, to do with as I please.” He took my face in a vise grip, his fingers bruising my cheeks. “Get away from her, Thomas. You have had your few minutes.”

I attempted to pull away as Thomas retreated, but Gorgon held me solidly captive. My neck muscles screamed in my attempt to break his hold. I settled, waiting.

“Did you know Roundhead troops are flooding into Lancashire? They have been sighted near Wigan, Bury, and south of us.” He released my face and grasped my shoulders. “Fairfax himself is due here tomorrow,” he said. He hung in my face, his fingers pressing into my shoulder joints. “Where we will make final arrangements.”

“Traitor,” I yelled at him, my worst fears realized.

“That is certainly true,” he sneered, his parted beard displaying the white scar that ran along his jaw. “It seems one of their Puritan brethren is a witch hunter. He has heard of your exploits.”

I took a frantic breath, then met his gaze. “Or you told him of me.”

“Give me control of your powers and I will protect you from the witch seekers.”

“Never.”

“As you wish,” he growled, his mad eyes wild with fury. “It is a fair trade.” He shoved me into the guards that stood behind me and strode back to his basin, where he washed his hands over and over again. “They will name me their warden here.” He whipped a dripping hand outward and gestured expansively at the walls. “The house is mine.” His voice fell to a guttural wheeze. “In return for your condemnation.” He grabbed a towel and leered at me in disdain. “Take her below.”

Guards seized me. I raked a face or two as they tried to jerk me up the stair. Finally, two of them, big, brutish men, lifted me under my arms and carried me up. I cried for mercy, but they dragged me into the watch-tower and down the old stone stair that wrapped around the underground levels of the great citadel.

Though I had never been this way before, like all children raised at Tor House, I had heard of these dread, slick steps. Not even I had ever dared them, for they led to the dungeons where fell spirits lingered.

“No!” I fought the harder, knowing where we were bound.

“Cool yourself in the filthy bowels of this place,” came Gorgon’s voice from the landing above. “For the stake awaits you, witch. You will burn,” he shrieked.

His words rebounded from wall to wall, distorted and insistent around me, down the stone sides of the deep well.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Manx guards forced me down the steps that wound around the walls deep into the earth to a shiny stone floor slick with moisture. There, they chose a door, forced it open with a loud, grating screech, and threw me into ancient, fetid darkness. The only light, and that a mere suggestion, was a small grate in the door.

“Let me out.” I banged on the door. “I demand release,” I cried. And then, a last agonized attempt. “Don’t leave me, not here. Let me out!”

The clang of the bolt across the door confirmed my pleas had fallen on deaf ears. I was locked in this blind hole that stunk of rancid age. Footsteps echoed back up the long, winding stair and some moments later, the crash of the upper door left me in hideous silence.

With a hard swallow, I gulped air to calm myself and ran shaky fingers through tangled hair. I broke out in a cold sweat. When I reached for the closest wall, my fingers brushed over the thick, sticky residue of a spider web. I shuddered and wiped fouled hands on my underskirt.

I sat with my back to the door, afraid to move. Something, surely a rat, skittered over my foot. I shrieked, my body stiff with terror. Finally, I brought my knees up and held my arms tightly around them.

I thought of Annie, but had no way to help her now. My only hope, and perhaps Annie’s, was Duncan, yet I feared Gorgon’s intentions. They might never know I was here, and soon enough a stake would be prepared. Death by fire. I shuddered at the thought of flames at my feet, smoke choking me. How would I stand the pain of burning flesh?

Amilie came to mind, and I wondered that these dungeons didn’t harbor ghosts of those cruelly left in these cells to die. But I could feel no ghostly presence, just the dripping, rotten stench, and ghastly feel of centuries-old, ignominious death.

Eventually my hands stopped trembling, and a hopeless, listless melancholy overtook me. What seemed hours and hours later, something jumped at my legs. More than one. Were they rats trying to eat me alive? I pulled myself to my feet to be able to defend myself, sobbed, and leaned back against the door where a sound, rat-ta-tat, ran within the walls. Many feet were coming down the stair—fast.

With shuddering hands, I pulled at my dress and ran fingers through my lengthy hair. If these were Fairfax’s witch hunters and the stake awaited me, terrified as I was of it, I would rather the fire devoured me than filthy, scurrying vermin taking me piece by agonizing piece. But the shadows beyond the grate seemed to be searching. What if they were not Fairfax’s men?

I banged on the door. Footsteps scraped over stone, the bang of the bolt thrown aside, and the door squealed open to a crowd of men. I rushed out and Wallace stepped forward, his tanned face tight with anxiety. I clutched him to me and held onto him with all my strength for fear I would fall back into that dark abyss.

“Duncan?” I asked, finally letting the captain go. “Where is he? And Annie? Have you seen her? They are both in terrible danger.” I took a breath to go on.

“Well we know, my lady.” Wallace patted me on the back. With an outstretched arm, he pushed our party toward the damp stair. “Duncan did not trust Thomas and so we expected attack out at the cottar’s hut. But it never came. Instead it was Thomas who came, alone. He told us you were in danger, which is surely true, but he said you were in the library and that Duncan and I must save you.”

“The library?” I said, taken aback. I began the long climb up, anxious hands close about me.

“We asked the same question.” He smiled and wagged a forefinger at me, for I had stopped on the stair. “We knew it for a ruse, for that room is a perfect spot to trap someone, what with the slit windows and one easily guarded entry. We accompanied Thomas, but Duncan had his own plan.”

“Did it work?” I continued my ascent. “Where is he?”

“He went on to the library to find you, prepared for ambush. I slipped away to raise the guard to support him.”

“He went alone?”

“He seemed confident that he could deal with any eventuality.”

“Gorgon is dangerous and not given to doing things one would expect.”

“We’re on our way there now. As you can see, your guard stands armed and ready around you.”

“So quickly?” In the dank dimness lit by a single torch, I looked around at six men, all of whom I recognized. We moved up the stairs, everyone’s breath rasping loudly, creating echoes that ran the walls. We finally topped the stair and gathered on the landing. The door into the hallway opened, and the remainder of the guard appeared in various degrees of readiness.

“I had an arrangement with Lieutenant Penrod, here,” Wallace said, indicating the shorter man who stepped up to us.

The lieutenant bowed to me.

“The guard was to be ready at need,” Wallace went on. “We have lost not one man. The lieutenant also learned your location from a braggart Manx guard.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant.”

His protruding eyes shone in the dim tower hallway.

“And Annie?” I asked.

“Have not seen or heard of her.” Penrod shook his head.

“She could easily be about,” Wallace said with a grimace. “We have been careful not to attract attention. As it is, we must get to the library quickly. There is no telling what Duncan has encountered. He does not want you near there, and so—”

“I am going to the library,” I insisted with a determined stare. “I must stop at my room for my sword.” My jointure deed was there as well and I wanted it on my person, not knowing what was going to happen. “It is on the way.”

“As you wish, my lady.”

Night had fallen in my absence. From window to window, the eerie light of the full moon followed us along the south corridor. Our group had split, and the larger group had gone down the south stair to approach the library straight on. The second group was to take the private tower stair in a flanking action. Wallace quietly confirmed with each man that they could not emerge from the stair until the first group was engaged with the Manx guards, should they be assembled there.

I sent Wallace on with his men and pushed my door open to a dim room and a foul smell. Dark spots on the stone floor led to or away from the bed. In the flooding moonlight, a hint of yellow flashed within the gaping bed hangings. I pushed the drapes back.

Annie’s battered body lay spread-eagled across the bed, a huge circle of dark blood under her lower torso and her spread thighs. The dress was torn and thrown in a heap beside her. She had been pummeled so hard her face had swollen, though I detected bite marks along her breasts and stomach.

“Holy Mother.” My hands flew to cover my mouth. A raw spot expanded in my stomach. Nausea threatened.

Her many-colored eyes were open, but dull and sunken. With a gentle, shaking hand, I closed them. It was too dark to see the side of her neck, but I had no doubt there was a bite mark there.

Her body and what I could see of her poor bruised face were a dull, pasty white. She was cold to the touch, and so had been dead for some time, at least as long as I had been in the dungeon.

Had this fiend’s appetite no limit?

I should have left Gorgon and Thomas to their games and searched her out, though it may have been too late even then. For long moments, I sobbed for the girl.

Finally, with a sniffle and a driving need for vengeance, I grabbed my sword, stuffed my jointure back into my deep dress pocket, and ran to catch up with Wallace and his men. They had already entered the private tower stair. I followed and ran into them on the tight, dark steps, waiting for their comrades to arrive on the lower floor at the library entrance, for Gorgon’s guards held the door.

A moment later the clash began, and we funneled out the stairway into chaos. Swords clanged and men grunted. A man caught my blow on his shield, then gawked at me, dropping his guard. I dispatched him with a thrust through the heart for his lack of respect. A twinge of guilt accosted me, but it had been done easily. Necessity overruled my guilt.

I worked my way around the encounter to the library door, where a line of Manx guards remained in position. I swung at them, and the door opened suddenly on a stunned Thomas. He stepped neatly between two guards, grasped my bodice, wrenched me nearly off my feet, and into the library. He slammed the door against the melee, but not before lanky Wallace stepped through behind us. With a huge effort, Thomas threw the bolt into its brackets, locking out any further assistance.

“I can re-open that door at your command, my lady,” Wallace muttered in his crisp baritone, still beside me, his bloodied sword at his side.

We turned into glaring light. Every torch was lit, casting grotesque shadows across the room.

Duncan hung by his bound wrists between two of the windows from a manacle embedded in a ceiling beam, his feet inches from the floor. The short chain of the manacle had been extended by a woven length of leather strapped to the manacle itself on the upper end and splinted into the stout jute rope that encircled his wrists on the lower end. His feet were similarly bound. Damp russet hair hung in his face. Eyes closed, mouth open, his strong chest rose and fell heavily as though recovering from a blow. A huge tear had rent his shirt, baring the red-gold nest that resided on his chest.

“Holy Mother of God.” My heart clawed at its cage deep within me. I rushed to him, knowing only that I must help him.

But Gorgon grasped my sword arm as I approached, his face livid with contempt.

“Oh God.” Duncan opened his eyes and frowned down his nose at me. “What are you doing here?” he asked in a throaty voice. “Wallace, I told you—”

“She would have none of it, Colonel.”

“So it was you who released her,” Gorgon said to Wallace, his face vivid with fury.

“It was. And your guard is being decimated beyond that door.”

Gorgon leered at Wallace and his drawn, bloodied sword. “Threaten me and Comrie dies horribly.” He shoved Wallace away.

“I stand and fall with you,” I said, looking up into Duncan’s battered face.

He set his jaw then, with a curt nod. My presence lent him strength, just as being near him made me strong, no matter the circumstances. We were one.

“How sweet. And fall you both shall.” Gorgon pushed me away, as he had Wallace, then glanced up at Duncan and slapped the flat edge of a dirk against the palm of his opposing hand. “Actually, Elena, you have arrived just in time.” He studied me, at a distance now, raw hatred burning in his face. “You can help me decide where to cut.” He motioned at Thomas with a jerk of his hand. “She can be quite dangerous with that sword. Take it away from her.”

“Found that out, did you?” Duncan said in a hoarse voice, looking down on us with a pained smile.

“Wallace’s, as well,” Gorgon said, though he had turned away.

Beside me, Wallace refused to give up his sword. Thomas was hardly prepared to fight for it. He considered the bloodied sword hanging from Wallace’s hand and shrugged.

My childhood friend pulled the sword from my lax hand with a quiet, “sorry,” and stood the weapon beside the door, as though he would rearm me when I left. Did he not realize that matters had progressed far beyond everyday manners?

Wallace’s hand tightened around his sword hilt and he swung it forward, but it was too late, Duncan’s life at risk. I caught Wallace’s eye and shook my head solemnly.

I should have gone for the monster the moment I entered the room. As it was, I looked around at the fire-shadowed, wrecked library. The book shelf was pushed over, books thrown everywhere, the chairs broken into pieces. Clearly, Duncan had fought. I considered abstractly how many men it had taken to bring him down.

Gorgon’s doublet was nearly ripped apart. His graying brown hair shone with perspiration. Wet curls hung in his face. The dirk in his hands, he stood before his captive in an attitude of introspection.

Duncan’s bag of gold, that gift from Prince Rupert, sat on the document table that had been moved off to the left of the strung up prisoner, like a work table, the shorter record cabinet extending it.

The latent brutality in the room was so far removed from my memory that it stunned me. Was this the same library? But it was, just wrenched apart, and put to a mindless, evil purpose. The reek of extreme male exertion overlaid by disturbed dust cut at my breath.

Duncan’s clothing was torn, his big riding boots had been removed from his feet and thrown to the floor beside the table. His pistol, his sword, and a knife lay in a clumsy pile beside the top-heavy boots.

Stark anger at Gorgon’s viciousness, coupled with my memory of Annie’s silent, thrashed body, roared through my veins, pounded at my temples, and enervated my limbs. I strode back to Gorgon and slapped his face so hard the sound shot around the room. Then, again on his other cheek, so hard my palms stung.

The dirk tucked away, Gorgon’s hands came up and pulled mine down by the wrists.

“For Annie, may you be damned to hell,” I cried, beating at his chest.

“What about Annie?” Duncan asked in a shrill rasp.

“I just found her. He has raped her brutally and murdered her in the process.”

I kicked Gorgon’s shins and he threw me to the floor.

Duncan cried out, a haunting, heart-rending cry. He jerked at his bonds. His face reddened in helpless anger.