Kathryn Le Veque (13 page)

Roane’s gray eyes twinkled. “You
do not mind that your daughter and I will be sinners, living and loving
together without the benefit of God’s blessing?”

Edward shrugged. “Living and
loving together is no worse than a sham marriage to a man who would only
humiliate and beat her.
 
I cannot imagine
God punishing you for loving a woman enough to save her from what the Devil has
brought about.”

“You make a good argument.”

“I make no sense at all.”

They laughed after a moment,
softly.
 
Edward sobered. “Where do you
plan to take her when all of this is finished? The two of you cannot stay in
England.”

Roane shrugged. “My family has
holdings in France. Upon my return from the Holy Land, I passed through many
beautiful places in Italy.
 
I could build
her a house in the warmth of the sun somewhere.
 
It does not really matter so long as we are together.”

Edward knew he had made the right
decision in risking his life for this man.
 
Anyone who loved his daughter that much couldn’t be the demon everyone
said he was.
 
But time was wasting as
they dreamed of the future.
 
Edward
helped Roane to the rope just as it was yanked from his grasp.

The men in the pit stared,
startled and confused, at the trap door above.
 
There were figures milling about and Edward immediately sank into
despair.

“My God,” he gasped. “We have
been discovered!”

Roane, too, felt his hope dash.
But he would not show an ounce of outward fear.
 
He stood under the trap door, gazing steadily into the murky gloom above
until a face finally came into focus.
 

“Roane,” Albert shook his head
sadly.
 
“Do you realize what you’ve done,
man?”

Roane was steady. “It is a
prisoner’s right to attempt escape, Albert. One can only try.
 
I did force this man to help me,
however.
 
He had no choice and is
completely innocent of wrongdoing. If you would be so good as to help him out
of the pit, I would be grateful.”

Albert was truly sorrowful. “I
cannot do that, Roane. He is as guilty as you are now.”

“He is not. Lift him out
immediately, my friend.”

“I cannot,” Albert hissed. “The
guards are drugged and
bound,
the lock to the door is
destroyed.
 
It was only a matter of time
before someone happed upon your scheme. Did you truly think you could escape?”

“I can if you help me, too.”

Albert paled.
 
“Don’t ask me that, Roane. You know that I.…”

He didn’t finish his sentence
before he was being roughly shoved out of the way, and Roane recognized one of
the knights who had sat upon the panel that had convicted him of sorcery.
 
He was a thin-faced, nasty looking man and
immediately, Roane knew the situation was bleaker than he could have ever
imagined.

“So I see you have used your
sorcery on this poor servant to manipulate him into aiding you,” the knight
snarled. “So be it. He has chosen his path to follow you and therefore he shall
follow you in death as well!”

The trapdoor slammed before Roane
could say another word. In the corner of the vault, Edward hung his head and
cried.

***

Alisanne had been churning butter
for the better part of the morning. It was practically the only thing she could
do that didn’t require an inordinate amount of sight.
 
Surprisingly, the Hospitallers had been very
good at allowing her to work. Mayhap they felt sorry for her, as if God had
burdened her with blindness and they, being messengers of God, were obliged to
help her.
 
She had been terrified at
first that the men who had come to Kinlet would recognize her, but a week later
that had yet to happen.
 
So she sat quietly,
though somewhat restlessly, in the warm and steamy kitchen, churning butter and
helping wash off vegetables while her father tried to ease his way into service
in the vault.

It had not been as easy for
Edward to gain access to the Hospitallers’ compound as it had been Alisanne.
  
Edward wasn’t crippled, after all, and they
didn’t need any more help.
 
But Edward
would not let Alisanne enter the compound without him and finally the priests
relented, though Edward suspected their reluctance was more due to having the
girl’s father chaperone her in the midst of men who were supposedly
celibate.
  
Edward and Alisanne had
immediately volunteered for kitchen duties, thinking that would mayhap be the
best way to find their way into the vault. After all, even prisoners needed to
be fed.
 
Fortunately, their hopes had
come to fruition.

Edward had hoped to free Roane very
soon. He’d not yet seen him, for they were keeping Roane in an inverted bottle
vault, a hole, and it was difficult to talk to the man.
  
The last she saw of her father, he had
somehow wormed his way into the gang of servants that fed the prisoners and
those brothers who were living in solitude, and Edward had loaded himself with
baskets of bread to be distributed.
 
He
had a plan, though he’d not told his daughter much about it.
 

He’d kept his head down, doing as
he was told, but his gaze sought out his daughter just before he’d disappeared
from the kitchens although she couldn’t see much of his facial
expressions.
 
She couldn’t see the silent
farewell or the hopeful countenance he tried very hard to keep concealed, but
she knew he had glanced in her direction simply by the way his head was turned.
 
Alisanne had been very aware when he had left
the room, her heart racing as she prayed for her father’s success.
 
Everything depended upon it.

From that point on, it was a
waiting game. She continued to churn the butter, turning cream into the soft
white paste for the priests’ tables. Because of her red and crusty eyes, no one
paid much attention to her but the truth was that today, oddly
enough,
her vision seemed to be better.
 
She was seeing details, for example; the
features of someone’s face when they drew close to her or the details of the
kitchen surrounding her.
 
It was extremely
encouraging and she felt a good deal of joy over it. Still, she couldn’t see
anything at any length and everything seemed to have a fog or halo around it,
but it certainly was an improvement. She felt better than she had in weeks.

But Alisanne didn’t let on that
her vision had improved, fearful that they might kick her out of the kitchens
to do more difficult labor.
  
Therefore,
she kept her head down, working endlessly over the butter churn until her hands
were numb and her arms
 
felt as if they
were about to fall off.
  
Eventually, the
morning passed into the afternoon and the kitchens grew busy as the cooks
prepared for the evening meal which would take place after Matins, the sunset
service.
  
Alisanne kept to her corner as
servants shuffled around her and, eventually, she finished with her buttery
task so they put her on kneading bread.

The kitchens were hot and not
very well ventilated, but every time someone came in or out, she could see the
kitchen yard beyond and smell the animals and hay.
 
She could also see what time of day it was,
or at least how bright the sun was, and she was acutely aware when the sun
began to set and still her father had not returned.
 
It was a struggle not to become frightened.

Night fell.
 
The meal had been served to the priests and
knights, the battle-hardened men who served the priests and protected the
facility, and Alisanne could hear their conversation and laughter in the great
hall that was adjacent to the kitchen.
 
When she had finished with a loaf of bread in an endless line of bread
loafs, one of the cooks gave her a tiny bowl of vegetable stew with some kind
of grain in it and a small hunk of bread.
 

She was ravenous, shoving the
bread and stew into her mouth and hardly able to chew because her mouth was so
stuffed.
 
Sitting on a stool next to the
hearth, she was quite warm and cozy as she ate her bread and stew.
 
With every new voice or every movement near
the kitchen door, she kept looking for her father to appear and her anxiety was
on the rise.
 
She was no longer able to
keep it entirely at bay and when the cook finally dismissed her for the
evening, she wandered out into the kitchen yard with fear clutching her
heart.
 
She didn’t want to entertain the
prospect that something had happened, but it was becoming increasingly evident
that something had.

Alisanne and her father had
commandeered a small corner in the storage area near the stables as their
temporary home. They shared it with a few other servants; a pair of red-haired
sisters and an older woman with one bad eye who snored like the devil. The
shelter smelled strongly of horses but it was dry and warm. Alisanne could see
the stables, vaguely, as her gaze perused the wide yard area but it was
difficult to see much in the moonlight.
 
She had difficulty seeing in dim light, anyway.
 
She thought mayhap that she should simply
return to the storage area to wait for news from her father but the ringing of
bells from the church caught her attention.
 

Turning in the direction of the
low, squatly built church with the three-story tower, she could just see the
tip of the tower over the roofline of the great hall. Silhouetted against the
night sky, she could see flickers of light in the tower, torches that the bell
ringers carried in order to accomplish their task.
 
It began to occur to her that she should like
to pray for her father’s safe return and for Roane’s release.
 
Mayhap God would hear her prayers and for
once allow the winds of fortune to blow in her direction.
 
The truth was that she was too nervous to
return to the storage area just yet; she felt as if she needed to do something
more. She had to ask God for help.

Pulling her cloak tightly around
her body and pulling the hood up to provide her with some warmth against the
cool night air, she made her way out of the kitchen yard and out of the
complex, heading towards the church.
 
Other
people were wandering towards the structure as the bells rang out, echoing cold
and shrill against the dark sky, calling the faithful to worship.
 

Alisanne followed the masses,
losing herself in the crowd as it filtered into the church.
 
Once inside, however, she was too fearful to
venture deeply into the dimly-lit room.
 
She remained back by the doors, lingering with uncertainty.

The church was as cold and dark
as a tomb, smelling of unwashed bodies and cheap tallow candles. The priest, a
hairy man with pig-like features, had begun to drone in Latin and the
congregation bowed their heads and crossed themselves.
 
As the service began, Alisanne removed her
hood, her damaged eyes peering into the darkness and having great difficulty
seeing in the soft candlelight.
  
As she
followed the Mass, she didn’t notice a big knight standing near the entry to
the church.
 

He was watching her intently.

***

Albert had followed Alisanne
inside the church.
 
He had seen her
emerge from the kitchen yard, a woman in a dark woolen cloak with the face of
an angel, and he thought he recognized the face. In fact, he was sure of it.
He’d only seen it once but it had been enough to impress him.
 
He knew who she was.

Putting aside thoughts of the
warm meal that was waiting for him, he followed the woman into the church and
stood back by the entry as she lingered several feet away.
 
She was praying, following the priest as he
recited the liturgy, but the knight wasn’t following the priest at all.
 
He was following the lady.
 
When there was a break in the service as the
priests switched out duties and a new one began to sing the mass, the knight
slipped up behind the lady and grasped her by the arm.

“Not a sound,” he hissed at her.
“Come with me.”

Terrified, Alisanne’s natural
reaction was to turn to the source of the muttered threat and her eyes beheld a
face that was vaguely familiar. Like a faint dream or a memory that was too
distant to be plucked, she couldn’t quite place the big man with the black
beard but when he tugged on her arm, she had no choice but to follow.
 
He was bigger and stronger than she was, and
she knew he meant business.
 
As he
dragged her out of the church, she was stiff with terror.